THREE:Soult hurried southward, collecting fresh forces to repel the conquering invader, and issued a proclamation, telling the French soldiers that they had at length taught the English to fight, and they must show them that they were still their superiors. Whilst Wellington was superintending the sieges of San Sebastian and Pampeluna, Soult advanced, having gathered an army of nearly seventy thousand men, and, on the 25th of July, he suddenly attacked our outposts simultaneously in the passes of Roncesvalles and of Maya. Both these passes converged into one leading to Pampeluna, where Soult hoped to raise the siege. He himself led on thirty thousand fresh men up the Roncesvalles pass against Generals Cole and Picton, who had about ten thousand to oppose him. He compelled them to retreat to some greater elevations, but with considerable loss, and he hoped there to have them joined by General D'Erlon, who had ascended the Maya pass, with thirteen thousand men, against General Stewart, who had only four or five thousand men to oppose him. The conflict there had been terrible; the British fighting and giving way only step by step against the superior force. The awful struggle went on, five thousand feet above the plains of France, amid clouds and fogs. Stewart did not fall back till he had sixteen hundred of his small force killed and wounded, and the defiles were actually blocked up with the slain.Whilst showing this firmness towards others, Clive found it necessary to maintain it in himself. In face of the orders of the Company which he had been enforcing, that the British officials should receive no more presents, the Rajah of Benares offered him two diamonds of large size, and the Nabob-vizier, Sujah Dowlah, on the conclusion of his treaty, a rich casket of jewels, and a large sum of money. Clive declared that he could thus have added half a million to his fortune; and our historians have been loud in his praises for his abstinence on this occasion. Lord Mahon observes:"All this time the conduct of Clive was giving a lofty example of disregard of lucre. He did not spare his personal resources, and was able, some years after, to boast in the House of Commons that this his second Indian command had left him poorer than it found him." Ill-health compelled him to return to England in January, 1767.
