Note 264 — PASSAGE OF THE ADOUR.

“During this period of mutual repose, the French officers and ours soon became intimate: we used to meet at a narrow part of the river, and talk over the campaign. They would never believe (or pretended not to believe) the reverse of Napoleon in Germany; and when we received the news of the Orange Boven affair in Holland, they said that it was impossible to convince them. One of our officers took The Star newspaper, rolled a stone up in it, and attempted to throw it across the river; unfortunately the stone went through it, and it fell into the water: the French officer very quietly said, in tolerably good English, “Your good news is very soon damped!“—Batty.

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“During the campaign, we had often experienced the most gentlemanlike conduct from the French officers. A day or two before the battle, when we were upon our alarm-post, at break of day, a fine hare was seen playing in a corn-field between the outposts; a brace of greyhounds were very soon unslipped, when, after an excellent course, poor puss was killed within the French lines. The officer to whom the dogs belonged, bowing to the French officer, called off the dogs, but the Frenchman politely sent the hare, with a message and his compliments, saying, that we required it more than they did.”

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“A daring fellow, an Irishman, named Tom Patten, performed a singular feat. At the barrier there was a rivulet, along which our lines of sentries were posted. To the right was a thick, low wood, and during the cessation of hostilities our officers had again become intimate with those of the French, and the soldiers had actually established a traffic in tobacco and brandy in the following ingenious manner. A large stone was placed in that part of the rivulet screened by the wood, opposite to the French sentry, on which our people used to put a canteen with a quarter-dollar, for which it was very soon filled with brandy. One afternoon about dusk, Patten had put down his canteen with the usual money in it, and retired, but, though he returned several times, no canteen was there. He waited till the moon rose, but still he found nothing on the stone. When it was near morning, Tom thought he saw the same sentry who was there when he put his canteen down; so he sprang across the stream, seized the unfortunate Frenchman, wrested his firelock from him, and actually shaking him out of his accoutrements, recrossed, vowing he would keep them until he got his canteen of brandy, and brought them to the picket-house. Two or three hours afterwards, just as we were about to fall in, an hour before daybreak, the sergeant came to say that a flag of truce was at the barrier: I instantly went down, when I found the officer of the French picket in a state of great alarm, saying, that a most extraordinary circumstance had occurred (relating the adventure), and stating, that if the sentry’s arms and accoutrements were not given back, his own commission would be forfeited, as well as the life of the poor sentry. A sergeant was instantly sent to see if they were in the picket-house; when Patten came up scratching his head, saying “He had them in pawn for a canteen of brandy and a quarter-dollar and told us the story in his way; whereupon the things were immediately given over to the French captain, who, stepping behind, put two five-franc pieces into Patten’s hand. Tom, however, was not to be bribed by an enemy, but generously handed the money to his officer, requesting that he would insist on the French captain taking the money back.

“The Frenchman was delighted to get the firelock and accoutrements back, and the joy of the poor fellow who was stripped of them may be conceived, as, if it had been reported, he would certainly have been shot, by sentence of court-martial, in less than forty-eight hours.”—Cadell.