After this we went into cantonments for a few weeks, but owing to the unsettled state of the French army who had attacked our left, and then, having failed, had proceeded against our right which was commanded by Sir Rowland Hill, Lord Wellington ordered the Sixth and our division to reinforce the right. We only arrived there, however, just in time to hear that the action was all over, the defeat of the enemy and their enforced retreat still further into their own country having been accomplished without our assistance.
Advance to Orthes -- Lawrence moralizes again on the vicissitudes of war -- Losses of his own regiment during the campaign -- Proclamation by Lord Wellington against plunder -- Passage of the Adour -- Battle of Toulouse -- Casualties in Lawrence's company -- Sad death of a Frenchman in sight of his home -- The French evacuate Toulouse -- News arrives of the fall of Napoleon -- Lawrence on ambition -- The army ordered to Bordeaux to ship for England.
After remaining inactive for the most part during the rest of 1813 and until the February of the next year, we again made an attack on the French, who were lying near a village of which I do not remember the name, and drove them behind a river. There they took up a fresh position, but retained it only two or three days, again shifting and opening a way for us to proceed on our way to Orthes.
And so after nearly six years of deadly fighting, we had got clear out of Spain and Portugal and carried the war into our enemy's very kingdom. Portugal and Spain had long had to contain the deadly destroyers, but now the tide was changed, and it was the inhabitants of the south of France who were for a time to be subjected to the hateful inconveniences of war. They had little expected this turn in their fortunes: Napoleon had even at one time had the ambitious idea of driving us out of the Peninsula, but he now found us forcing his own army into its own country: he had at one time thought that he would subdue Europe, but had while labouring under that error been subdued himself.
And all this was very much to our gratification, for we had long been looking forward to this result, being entirely sick of Spain. As for those places which had become so famous through us, we could not help thinking and referring back to the many comrades we had left there in their cold graves. Since our regiment had left for Ireland on this expedition nine hundred strong, fifty-one hundred men had joined us from our depôt, but at the time of our march to Orthes we did not in spite of this number more than seven hundred. I do not mean to say that we lost all these in battle, though I can safely say we did the greater part, either killed or badly wounded: but of course many must be reckoned who fell by disease, or as some did from their own drunkenness or gluttony, assisted by the inclemency of the climate; nor must those skulkers, of whom there must have been so many through the whole campaign, be forgotten.