Note 260 — PASSAGE OF THE ADOUR.

During the short term of inaction which the inclemency of the weather had occasioned, one of those periods of conventional civility which not unfrequently occurred during the Peninsular campaigns, took place between the French and allied outposts. “A disposition,” says Quartermaster Surtees, “had for some time been gaining ground with both armies, to mitigate the miseries of warfare, as much as was consistent with each doing their duty to their country; and it had by this time proceeded to such an extent, as to allow us to place that confidence in them that they would not molest us, even if we passed their outposts.”

Lord Wellington, however, discountenanced those friendly relations, where the arrangements were so perfectly amicable, that the parties not only took charge of love letters, but even “plundered in perfect harmony.”

“Before this order was issued, the most unbounded confidence subsisted between us, and which it was a pity to put a stop to, except for such weighty reasons. They used to get us such things as we wanted from Bayonne, particularly brandy, which was cheap and plentiful; and we in return gave them occasionally a little tea, of which some of them had learned to be fond. Some of them also, who had been prisoners of war in England, sent letters through our army-post to their sweethearts in England, our people receiving the letters and forwarding them.”

“The next day, there being no firing between us and those in our front, three French officers, seemingly anxious to prove how far politeness and good breeding could be carried between the two nations, when war did not compel them to be unfriendly, took a table and some chairs out of a house which was immediately in our front, and one which we had lately occupied as a barrack; and bringing them down into the middle of the field which separated the advance of the two armies, sat down within a hundred yards of our picket, and drank wine, holding up their glasses, as much as to say, ‘Your health,’ every time they drank. Of course we did not molest them, but allowed them to have their frolic out.

“During the day, also, we saw soldiers of the three nations, viz. English, Portuguese, and French, all plundering at the same time in one unfortunate house, where our pie, our pig, and wine had been left. It stood about 150 or 200 yards below the church, on a sort of neutral ground between the two armies; hence the assemblage at the same moment of such a group of these motley marauders. They plundered in perfect harmony, no one disturbing the other on account of his nation or colour.”