CHAPTER I

.

Summary of the political state of affairs—Lord Wellesley resigns—Mr. Perceval killed—New administration—Story of the war resumed—Wellington’s precautionary measures described—He relinquishes the design of invading Andalusia and resolves to operate in the north—Reasons why—Surprize of Almaraz by general Hill—False alarm given by sir William Erskine prevents Hill from taking the fort of Mirabete—Wellington’s discontent—Difficult moral position of English generals Page 1

CHAP. II.

Progress of the war in different parts of Spain—State of Gallicia-French precautions and successes against the Partidas of the north—Marmont’s arrangements in Castile—Maritime expedition suggested by sir Howard Douglas—He stimulates the activity of the northern Partidas—The curate Merino defeats some French near Aranda de Duero—His cruelty to the prisoners—Mina’s activity—Harasses the enemy in Arragon—Is surprized at Robres by general Pannetier—Escapes with difficulty—Re-appears in the Rioja—Gains the defiles of Navas Tolosa—Captures two great convoys—Is chased by general Abbé and nearly crushed, whereby the Partidas in the north are discouraged—Those in other parts become more enterprising—The course of the Ebro from Tudela to Tortoza so infested by them that the army of the Ebro is formed by drafts from Sachet’s forces and placed under general Reille to repress them—Operations of Palombini against the Partidas—He moves towards Madrid—Returns to the Ebro—Is ordered to join the king’s army—Operations in Arragon and Catalonia—The Catalonians are cut off from the coast line—Eroles raises a new division in Talarn—Advances into Arragon—Defeats general Bourke at Rhoda—Is driven into Catalonia by Severoli—Decaen defeats Sarzfield and goes to Lerida—Lacy concentrates in the mountains of Olot—Descends upon Mattaro—Flies from thence disgracefully—Lamarque defeats Sarzfield—Lacy’s bad conduct—Miserable state of Catalonia 23

CHAP. III.

Operations in Valencia and Murcia—Sachet’s able government of Valencia—O’Donel organizes a new army in Murcia—Origin of the Sicilian expedition to Spain—Secret intrigues against Napoleon in Italy and other parts—Lord William Bentinck proposes to invade Italy—Lord Wellington opposes it—The Russian admiral Tchtchagoff projects a descent upon Italy—Vacillating conduct of the English ministers productive of great mischief—Lord William Bentinck sweeps the money-markets to the injury of lord Wellington’s operations—Sir John Moore’s plan for Sicily rejected—His ability and foresight proved by the ultimate result—Evil effects of bad government shewn by examples 45

CHAP. IV.

Operations in Andalusia and Estremadura—Advantage of lord Wellington’s position shewn—Soult’s plans vast but well-considered—He designs to besiege Tarifa, Alicant, and Carthagena, and march upon Lisbon—Restores the French interest at the court of Morocco—English embassy to the Moorish emperor fails—Soult bombards Cadiz, and menaces a serious attack—Ballesteros, his rash conduct—He is defeated at Bornos—Effect of his defeat upon the allies in Estremadura—Foy succours the fort of Mirabete—Hill is reinforced—Drouet falls back to Azagua—Followed by Hill—General Slade defeated by Lallemande in a cavalry combat at Macquilla—Exploit of cornet Strenowitz—General Barrois marches to reinforce Drouet by the road of St. Ollala—Hill falls back to Albuera—His disinterested conduct 56

CHAP. V.

Political situation of France—Secret policy of the European courts—Causes of the Russian war—Napoleon’s grandeur and power—Scene on the Niemen—Design attributed to Napoleon of concentrating the French armies behind the Ebro—No traces of such an intention to be discovered—His proposals for peace considered—Political state of England—Effects of the continental system—Extravagance, harshness, and improvident conduct of the English ministers—Dispute with America—Political state of Spain—Intrigues of Carlotta—New scheme of mediation with the colonies—Mr. Sydenham’s opinion of it—New constitution adopted—Succession to the crown fixed—Abolition of the Inquisition agitated—Discontent of the clergy and absolute-monarchy-men—Neglect of the military affairs—Dangerous state of the country—Plot to deliver up Ceuta—Foreign policy of Spain—Negociations of Bardaxi at Stockholm—Fresh English subsidy—Plan of enlisting Spanish soldiers in British regiments fails—The councillor of state Sobral offers to carry off Ferdinand from Valençay but Ferdinand rejects his offer—Joseph talks of assembling a cortes at Madrid, but secretly negociates with that in the Isla 65

CHAP. VI.

Political state of Portugal—Internal condition not improved—Government weak—Lord Strangford’s conduct condemned—Lord Wellesley resolves to recall him and send lord Louvaine to Rio Janeiro—Reasons why this did not take place—Lord Strangford’s career checked by the fear of being removed—Lord Wellington obtains full powers from the Brazils—Lord Castlereagh’s vigorous interference—Death of Linhares at Rio Janeiro—Domingo Souza succeeds him as chief minister but remains in London—Lord Wellington’s moderation towards the Portuguese regency—His embarrassing situation described—His opinion of the Spanish and Portuguese public men—His great diligence and foresight aided by the industry and vigour of Mr. Stuart supports the war—His administrative views and plans described—Opposed by the regency—He desires the prince regent’s return to Portugal without his wife—Carlotta prepares to come without the prince—Is stopped—Mr. Stuart proposes a military government but lord Wellington will not consent—Great desertion from the Portuguese army in consequence of their distressed state from the negligence of the government—Severe examples do not check it—The character of the Portuguese troops declines—Difficulty of procuring specie—Wellington’s resources impaired by the shameful cupidity of English merchants at Lisbon and Oporto—Proposal for a Portuguese bank made by Domingo Souza, Mr. Vansittart, and Mr. Villiers—Lord Wellington ridicules it—He permits a contraband trade to be carried on with Lisbon by Soult for the sake of the resources it furnishes 83

## BOOK XVIII.

CHAP. I.

Numbers of the French in the Peninsula shewn—Joseph commander-in-chief—His dissentions with the French generals—His plans—Opposed by Soult, who recommends different operations and refuses to obey the king—Lord Wellington’s plans described—His numbers—Colonel Sturgeon skilfully repairs the bridge of Alcantara—The advantage of this measure—The navigation of the Tagus and the Douro improved and extended—Rash conduct of a commissary on the Douro—Remarkable letter of lord Wellington to lord Liverpool—Arrangements for securing the allies’ flanks and operating against the enemy’s flanks described—Marmont’s plans—His military character—He restores discipline to the army of Portugal—His measures for that purpose and the state of the French army described and compared with the state of the British army and Wellington’s measures 100

CHAP. II.

Campaign of 1812—Wellington advances to the Tormes—Marmont retires—The allies besiege the forts of Salamanca—General aspect of affairs changes and becomes gloomy—The king concentrates the army of the centre—Marmont returns to the Tormes and cannonades the allies on the position of San Christoval—Various skirmishes—Adventure of Mr. Mackay—Marmont retires to Monte Rubia—Crosses the Tormes with a part of his army—Fine conduct of general Bock’s German cavalry—Graham crosses the Tormes and Marmont retires again to Monte Rubia—Observations on this movement—Assault on San Vincente fails—Heroic death of general Bowes—Siege suspended for want of ammunition—It is renewed—Cajetano is stormed—San Vincente being on fire surrenders—Marmont retires to the Duero followed by Wellington—The French rear-guard suffers some loss between Rueda and Tordesillas—Positions of the armies described—State of affairs in other parts described—Procrastination of the Gallician army—General Bonet abandons the Asturias—Coincidence of Wellington’s and Napoleon’s views upon that subject—Sir Home Popham arrives with his squadron on the coast of Biscay—His operations—Powerful effect of them upon the campaign—Wellington and Marmont alike cautious of bringing on a battle—Extreme difficulty and distress of Wellington’s situation 122

CHAP. III.

Bonet arrives in the French camp—Marmont passes the Duero—Combat of Castrejon—Allies retire across the Guarena—Combat on that river—Observations on the movements—Marmont turns Wellington’s flank—Retreat to San Christoval—Marmont passes the Tormes—Battle of Salamanca—Anecdote of Mrs. Dalbiac 147

CHAP. IV.

Clauzel passes the Tormes at Alba—Cavalry combat at La Serna—Chauvel’s cavalry joins the French army—The king reaches Blasco Sancho—Retires to Espinar on hearing of the battle—Receives letters from Clauzel which induce him to march on Segovia—Wellington drives Clauzel across the Duero—Takes Valladolid—Brings Santocildes over the Duero—Marches upon Cuellar—The king abandons Segovia and recrosses the Guadarama—State of affairs in other parts of Spain—General Long defeats Lallemand in Estremadura—Caffarelli is drawn to the coast by Popham’s expedition—Wellington leaves Clinton at Cuellar and passes the Guadarama—Cavalry combat at Majadahonda—The king unites his army at Valdemoro—Miserable state of the French convoy—Joseph passes the Tagus; hears of the arrival of the Sicilian expedition at Alicant—Retreats upon Valencia instead of Andalusia—Maupoint’s brigade succours the garrison of Cuenca, is beaten at Utiel by Villa Campa—Wellington enters Madrid—The Retiro surrenders—Empecinado takes Guadalaxara—Extraordinary journey of colonel Fabvier—Napoleon hears of Marmont’s defeat—His generous conduct towards that marshal—Receives the king’s report against Soult—His magnanimity—Observations 182

## BOOK XIX.

CHAP. I.

State of the war—Eastern operations—Lacy’s bad conduct—French army of the Ebro dissolved—Lacy’s secret agents blow up the magazines in Lerida—He is afraid to storm the place—Calumniates Sarzfield—Suchet comes to Reus—The hermitage of St. Dimas surrendered to Decaen by colonel Green—The French general burns the convent of Montserrat and marches to Lerida—General Maitland with the Anglo-Sicilian army appears off Palamos—Sails for Alicant—Reflections on this event—Operations in Murcia—O’Donel defeated at Castalla—Maitland lands at Alicant—Suchet concentrates his forces at Xativa—Entrenches a camp there—Maitland advances to Alcoy—His difficulties—Returns to Alicant—The king’s army arrives at Almanza—The remnant of Maupoint’s brigade arrives from Cuenca—Suchet re-occupies Alcoy—O’Donel comes up to Yecla—Maitland is reinforced from Sicily and entrenches a camp under the walls of Alicant 213

CHAP. II.

Operations in Andalusia—The king orders Soult to abandon that province—Soult urges the king to join him with the other armies—Joseph reiterates the order to abandon Andalusia—Soult sends a letter to the minister of war expressing his suspicions that Joseph was about to make a separate peace with the allies—The king intercepts this letter, and sends colonel Desprez to Moscow, to represent Soult’s conduct to the emperor—Napoleon’s magnanimity—Wellington anxiously watches Soult’s movements—Orders Hill to fight Drouet, and directs general Cooke to attack the French lines in front of the Isla de Leon—Ballesteros, pursued by Leval and Villate, skirmishes at Coin—Enters Malaga—Soult’s preparations to abandon Andalusia—Lines before the Isla de Leon abandoned—Soult marches towards Grenada—Colonel Skerrit and Cruz Murgeon land at Huelva—Attack the French rear-guard at Seville—Drouet marches upon Huescar—Soult moving by the mountains reaches Hellin, and effects his junction with the king and Suchet—Maitland desires to return to Sicily—Wellington prevents him—Wellington’s general plans considered—State of affairs in Castile—Clauzel comes down to Valladolid with the French army—Santo Cildes retires to Torrelobaton, and Clinton falls back to Arevalo—Foy marches to carry off the French garrisons in Leon—Astorga surrenders before his arrival—He marches to Zamora and drives Sylveira into Portugal—Menaces Salamanca—Is recalled by Clauzel—The Partidas get possession of the French posts on the Biscay coast—Take the city of Bilbao—Reille abandons several posts in Arragon—The northern provinces become ripe for insurrection 234

CHAP. III.

Wellington’s combinations described—Foolish arrangements of the English ministers relative to the Spanish clothing—Want of money—Political persecution in Madrid—Miserable state of that city—Character of the Madrilenos—Wellington marches against Clauzel—Device of the Portuguese regency to avoid supplying their troops—Wellington enters Valladolid—Waits for Castaños—His opinion of the Spaniards—Clauzel retreats to Burgos—His able generalship—The allies enter Burgos, which is in danger of destruction from the Partidas—Reflections upon the movements of the two armies—Siege of the castle of Burgos 254

CHAP. IV.

State of the war in various parts of Spain—Joseph’s distress for money—Massena declines the command of the army of Portugal—Caffarelli joins that army—Reinforcements come from France—Mischief occasioned by the English newspapers—Souham takes the command—Operations of the Partidas—Hill reaches Toledo—Souham advances to relieve the castle of Burgos—Skirmish at Monasterio—Wellington takes a position of battle in front of Burgos—Second skirmish—Wellington weak in artillery—Negligence of the British government on that head—The relative situation of the belligerents—Wellington offered the chief command of the Spanish armies—His reasons for accepting it—Contumacious conduct of Ballesteros—He is arrested and sent to Ceuta—Suchet and Jourdan refuse the command of the army of the south—Soult reduces Chinchilla—The king communicates with Souham—Hill communicates with Wellington—Retreat from Burgos—Combat of Venta de Pozo—Drunkenness at Torquemada—Combat on the Carion—Wellington retires behind the Pisuerga—Disorders in the rear of the army—Souham skirmishes at the bridge of Cabeçon—Wellington orders Hill to retreat from the Tagus to the Adaja—Souham fails to force the bridges of Valladolid and Simancas—The French captain Guingret swims the Duero and surprizes the bridge of Tordesillas—Wellington retires behind the Duero—Makes a rapid movement to gain a position in front of the bridge of Tordesillas and destroys the bridges of Toro and Zamora, which arrests the march of the French 280

CHAP. V.

The king and Soult advance from Valencia to the Tagus—General Hill takes a position of battle—The French pass the Tagus—Skirmish at the Puente Largo—Hill blows up the Retiro and abandons Madrid—Riot in that city—Attachment of the Madrilenos towards the British troops—The hostile armies pass the Guadarama—Souham restores the bridge of Toro—Wellington retreats towards Salamanca and orders Hill to retreat upon Alba de Tormes—The allies take a position of battle behind the Tormes—The Spaniards at Salamanca display a hatred of the British—Instances of their ferocity—Soult cannonades the castle of Alba—The king reorganizes the French armies—Soult and Jourdan propose different plans—Soult’s plan adopted—French pass the Tormes—Wellington by a remarkable movement gains the Valmusa river and retreats—Misconduct of the troops—Sir Edward Paget taken prisoner—Combat on the Huebra—Anecdote—Retreat from thence to Ciudad Rodrigo—The armies on both sides take winter cantonments 308

CHAP. VI.

Continuation of the Partizan warfare—General Lameth made governor of Santona—Reille takes the command of the army of Portugal—Drouet, count D’Erlon, commands that of the centre—Works of Astorga destroyed by the Spaniards—Mina’s operations in Arragon—Villa Campa’s operations—Empecinado and others enter Madrid—The duke Del Parque enters La Mancha—Elio and Bassecour march to Albacete and communicate with the Anglo-Sicilian army—The king enters Madrid—Soult’s cavalry scour La Mancha—Suchet’s operations—General Donkin menaces Denia—General W. Clinton takes the command of the Anglo-Sicilian army—Suchet intrenches a camp at Xativa—The Anglo-Sicilian army falls into disrepute—General Campbell takes the command—Inactivity of the army—The Frayle surprises a convoy of French artillery—Operations in Catalonia—Dissensions in that province—Eroles and Codrington menace Taragona—Eroles surprises a French detachment at Arbeça—Lacy threatens Mataro and Hostalrich returns to Vich—Manso defeats a French detachment near Molino del Rey—Decaen defeats the united Catalonian army and penetrates to Vich—The Spanish divisions separate—Colonel Villamil attempts to surprise San Felippe de Balaguer—Attacks it a second time in concert with Codrington—The place succoured by the garrison of Tortoza—Lacy suffers a French convoy to reach Barcelona, is accused of treachery and displaced—The regular warfare in Catalonia ceases—The Partizan warfare continues—England the real support of the war 341

CHAP. VII.

General observations—Wellington reproaches the army—His censures indiscriminate—Analysis of his campaign—Criticisms of Jomini and others examined—Errors of execution—The French operations analyzed—Sir John Moore’s retreat compared with lord Wellington’s 357

## BOOK XX.

CHAP. I.

Political affairs—Their influence on the war—Napoleon’s invasion of Russia—Its influence on the contest in the Peninsula—State of feeling in England—Lord Wellesley charges the ministers and especially Mr. Perceval with imbecility—His proofs thereof—Ability and zeal of lord Wellington and Mr. Stuart shewn—Absurd plans of the count of Funchal—Mr. Villiers and Mr. Vansittart—The English ministers propose to sell the Portuguese crown and church lands—The folly and injustice of these, and other schemes, exposed by lord Wellington—He goes to Cadiz—His reception there—New organization of the Spanish armies—Wellington goes to Lisbon where he is enthusiastically received—His departure from Cadiz the signal for renewed dissensions—Carlotta’s intrigues—Decree to abolish the Inquisition opposed by the clergy—The regency aid the clergy—Are displaced by the Cortez—New regency appointed—The American party in the Cortez adopt Carlotta’s cause—Fail from fear of the people—Many bishops and church dignitaries are arrested and others fly into Portugal—The pope’s nuncio Gravina opposes the cortez—His benefices sequestered—He flies to Portugal—His intrigues there—Secret overtures made to Joseph by some of the Spanish armies 379

CHAP. II.

Political state of Portugal—Wellington’s difficulties—Improper conduct of some English ships of war—Piratical violence of a Scotch merchantman—Disorders in the military system—Irritation of the people—Misconduct of the magistrates—Wellington and Stuart grapple with the disorders of the administration—The latter calls for the interference of the British government—Wellington writes a remarkable letter to the prince regent and requests him to return to Portugal—Partial amendment—The efficiency of the army restored, but the country remains in an unsettled state—The prince unable to quit the Brazils—Carlotta prepares to come alone—Is stopped by the interference of the British government—An auxiliary Russian force is offered to lord Wellington by admiral Greig—The Russian ambassador in London disavows the offer—The emperor Alexander proposes to mediate between England and America—The emperor of Austria offers to mediate for a general peace—Both offers are refused 409

CHAP. III.

Napoleon’s embarrassed position—His wonderful activity—His designs explained—The war in Spain becomes secondary—Many thousand old soldiers withdrawn from the armies—The Partidas become more disciplined and dangerous—New bands are raised in Biscay and Guipuscoa and the insurrection of the northern provinces creeps on—Napoleon orders the king to fix his quarters at Valladolid, to menace Portugal, and to reinforce the army of the north—Joseph complains of his generals, and especially of Soult—Napoleon’s magnanimity—Joseph’s complaints not altogether without foundation 430

CHAP. IV.

Operations south of the Tagus—Eroles and Codrington seek to entrap the governor of Taragona—They fail—Sarzfield and Villa Campa unite but disperse at the approach of Pannetier and Severoli—Suchet’s position—Great force of the allies in his front—The younger Soult engages the Spanish cavalry in La Mancha—General Daricau marches with a column towards Valencia—Receives a large convoy and returns to La Mancha—Absurd rumours about the English army rife in the French camp—Some of lord Wellington’s spies detected—Soult is recalled—Gazan assumes the command of the army of the south—Suchet’s position described—Sir John Murray takes the command of the Anglo-Sicilian troops at Alicant—Attacks the French post at Alcoy—His want of vigour—He projects a maritime attack on the city of Valencia, but drops the design because lord William Bentinck recals some of his troops—Remarks upon his proceedings—Suchet surprises a Spanish division at Yecla, and then advances against Murray—Takes a thousand Spanish prisoners in Villena—Murray takes a position at Castalla—His advanced guard driven from Biar—Second battle of Castalla—Remarks 446

CHAP. V.

Operations north of the Tagus—Position of the French armies—Palombini marches from Madrid to join the army of the north—Various combats take place with the Partidas—Foy fails to surprise the British post at Bejar—Caffarelli demands reinforcements—Joseph misconceives the emperor’s plans—Wellington’s plans vindicated against French writers—Soult advises Joseph to hold Madrid and the mountains of Avila—Indecision of the king—He goes to Valladolid—Concentrates the French armies in Old Castile—A division under Leval remains at Madrid—Reille sends reinforcements to the army of the north—Various skirmishes with the Partidas—Leval deceived by false rumours at Madrid—Joseph wishes to abandon that capital—Northern insurrection—Operations of Caffarelli, Palombini, Mendizabel, Longa, and Mina—Napoleon recals Caffarelli—Clauzel takes the command of the army of the north—Assaults Castro but fails—Palombini skirmishes with Mendizabel—Introduces a convoy into Santona—Marches to succour Bilbao—His operations in Guipuscoa—The insurrection gains strength—Clauzel marches into Navarre—Defeats Mina in the valley of Roncal and pursues him into Arragon—Foy acts on the coast—Takes Castro—Returns to Bilbao—Defeats the Biscayen volunteers under Mugartegui at Villaro, and those of Guipuscoa under Artola at Lequitio—The insurrectional junta flies—Bermeo and Isaro are taken—Operations of the Partidas on the great line of communication 470

CHAP. VI.

Wellington restores the discipline of the allied army—Relative strength of the belligerent forces—Wellington’s plans described—Lord W. Bentinck again proposes to invade Italy—Wellington opposes it—The opening of the campaign delayed by the weather—State of the French army—Its movements previous to the opening of the campaign 503

CHAP. VII.

Dangerous discontent of the Portuguese army—Allayed by Wellington—Noble conduct of the soldiers—The left wing of the allies under general Graham marches through the Tras os Montes to the Esla—The right wing under Wellington advances against Salamanca—Combat there—The allies pass the Tormes—Wellington goes in person to the Esla—Passage of that river—Cavalry combat at Morales—The two wings of the allied army unite at Toro on the Duero—Remarks on that event—Wellington marches in advance—Previous movements of the French described—They pass the Carion and Pisuerga in retreat—The allies pass the Carion in pursuit—Joseph takes post in front of Burgos—Wellington turns the Pisuerga with his left wing and attacks the enemy with his right wing—Combat on the Hormaza—The French retreat behind Pancorbo and blow up the castle of Burgos—Wellington crosses the Upper Ebro and turns the French line of defence—Santander is adopted as a dépôt station and the military establishments in Portugal are broken up—Joseph changes his dispositions of defence—The allies advance—Combat of Osma—Combat of St. Millan—Combat of Subijana Morillas—The French armies concentrate in the basin of Vittoria behind the Zadora 520

CHAP. VIII.

Confused state of the French in the basin of Vittoria—Two convoys are sent to the rear—The king takes up a new order of battle—The Gallicians march to seize Orduña but are recalled—Graham marches across the hills to Murguia—Relative strength and position of the hostile armies—Battle of Vittoria—Joseph retreats by Salvatierra—Wellington pursues him up the Borundia and Araquil valleys—Sends Longa and Giron into Guipuscoa—Joseph halts at Yrursun—Detaches the army of Portugal to the Bidassoa—Retreats with the army of the centre and the army of the south to Pampeluna—Wellington detaches Graham through the mountains by the pass of St. Adrian into Guipuscoa and marches himself to Pampeluna—Combat with the French rear-guard—Joseph retreats up the valley of Roncevalles—General Foy rallies the French troops in Guipuscoa and fights the Spaniards at Montdragon—Retreats to Bergara and Villa Franca—Graham enters Guipuscoa—Combat on the Orio river—Foy retires to Tolosa—Combat there—The French posts on the sea-coast abandoned with exception of Santona and St. Sebastian—Foy retires behind the Bidassoa—Clauzel advances towards Vittoria—Retires to Logroño—Wellington endeavours to surround him—He makes a forced march to Tudela—Is in great danger—Escapes to Zaragoza—Halts there—Is deceived by Mina and finally marches to Jacca—Gazan re-enters Spain and occupies the valley of Bastan—O’Donel reduces the forts of Pancorbo—Hill drives Gazan from the valley of Bastan—Observations 548

LIST OF APPENDIX.

No. I.

Extracts of letters relating to the battle of Salamanca 585

No. II.

Copies of two despatches from the emperor Napoleon to the minister at war relative to the duke of Ragusa 587

No. III.

Letter from the duke of Dalmatia to king Joseph, August 12, 1812 588

No. IV.

Letter from the duke of Dalmatia to the minister at war 590

No. V.

Letter from colonel Desprez to king Joseph, Paris, Sept. 22, 1812 593

No. VI. A.

Confidential letter from the duc de Feltre to king Joseph, Paris, Nov. 10, 1812 595

No. VI. B.

Letter from colonel Desprez to king Joseph, Paris, Jan, 3, 1813 596

No. VII.

Letter from Napoleon to the duc de Feltre, Ghiart, Sept. 2, 1812 600

No. VIII. A.

Extract. General Souham’s despatch to the minister at war 602

No. VIII. B.

Extracts. Two letters from the duc de Feltre to king Joseph 602

No. IX.

Extract. Letter from marshal Jourdan to colonel Napier 603

No. X.

Letter from the duc de Feltre to king Joseph, Jan. 29, 1813 605

No. XI.

Ditto ditto 606

No. XII.

Ditto ditto, Feb. 12, 1813 608

No. XIII.

Ditto ditto, Feb. 12, 1813 609

No. XIV.

Two ditto ditto, March 12 and 18, 1813 611

No. XV.

Letter from Joseph O’Donnel to general Donkin 614

No. XVI.

Letter from the marquis of Wellington to major-general Campbell 616

No. XVII.

Extract. Letter from the marquis of Wellington to lieutenant-general sir John Murray, April 6, 1813 617

No. XVIII.

General states of the French army, April 15, May 15, 1812, and March 15, 1813 618

No. XIX.

Especial state of the army of Portugal, June 15, 1812; loss of ditto 619

No. XX.

Strength of the Anglo-Portuguese army, July, 1812 620

No. XXI.

Losses of the allies, July 18, 1812 621

No. XXII.

Strength of the allies at Vittoria 622

LIST OF THE PLATES,

_To be placed together at Page 582_

No. 1. Explanatory Sketch of the Surprise of Almaraz, 1812.

2. Explanatory Sketch of the Sieges of the Forts and Operations round Salamanca, 1812.

3. Battle of Salamanca, with a Sketch of Operations before and after the Action.

4. Explanatory Sketch of the Siege of Burgos, 1812.

5. Sketch of the Retreat from Madrid and Burgos, 1812.

6. Explanatory Sketch of the Position of the Partidas and of lord Wellington’s March from the Agueda to the Pyrenees, 1813.

7. Battle of Castalla and Operations before the Action.

8. Battle of Vittoria, with Operations before and after the

## Action.

NOTICE

1º. In the present volume will be found a plan of the Peninsula on a very small scale, yet sufficient to indicate the general range of operations. A large map would be enormously expensive without any correspondent advantages to the reader; and it would only be a repetition of errors, because there are no materials for an accurate plan. The small one now furnished, together with the sketches which I have drawn and published with each volume, and which are more accurate than might be supposed, will give a clear general notion of the operations. Those who desire to have more detailed information will find it in Lieutenant Godwyn’s fine atlas of the battles in the Peninsula—a work undertaken by that officer with the sole view of forming a record of the glorious actions of the British army.

2º. Most of the manuscript authorities consulted for former volumes have been also consulted for this volume, and in addition the official correspondence of Lord William Bentinck; some notes by Lord Hill; the journal and correspondence of sir Rufane Donkin; a journal of Colonel Oglander, twenty-sixth regiment; a memoir by sir George Gipps, royal engineers; and a variety of communications by other officers. Lastly, authenticated copies of the official journals and correspondence of most of the marshals and generals who commanded armies in Spain. These were at my request supplied by the French War-office with a prompt liberality indicative of that military frankness and just pride which ought and does characterize the officers of Napoleon’s army. The publication of this volume also enables me with convenience to produce additional authorities for former statements, while answering, as I now do, the attacks upon my work which have appeared in the “Life of Sir Thomas Picton,” and in the “Quarterly Review.”

“Many there are that trouble me and persecute me; yet do I not swerve from the testimonies,”—PSALM CXIX.

[Sidenote: Life of Picton, page 31.]

[Sidenote: Page 325.]

_Robinson’s Life of Picton._—This writer of an English general’s life, is so entirely unacquainted with English military customs, that he quotes a common order of the day, accrediting a new staff officer to the army, as a remarkable testimony to that staff officer’s talents. And he is so unacquainted with French military customs, that, treating of the battle of Busaco, he places a French marshal, Marmont, who by the way was not then even in Spain, at the head of a _division_ of Ney’s corps. He dogmatises upon military movements freely, and is yet so incapable of forming a right judgment upon the materials within his reach, as to say, that sir John Moore should not have retreated, because as he was able to beat the French at Coruña, he could also have beaten them in the heart of Spain. Thus setting aside the facts that at Coruña Moore had fifteen thousand men to fight twenty thousand, and in the heart of Spain he had only twenty-three thousand to fight more than three hundred thousand!

And lest this display of incompetency should not be sufficient, he affirms, that the same sir John Moore had, comparatively, greater means at Sahagun to beat the enemy than Lord Wellington had in the lines of Torres Vedras. Now those lines, which Wellington had been fortifying for more than a year, offered three nearly impregnable positions, defended by a hundred thousand men. There was a fortress, that of St. Julian’s, and a fleet, close at hand as a final resource, and only sixty thousand French commanded by Massena were in front. But sir John Moore having only twenty-three thousand men at Sahagun, had no lines, no fortifications for defence, and no time to form them, he was nearly three hundred miles from his fleet, and Napoleon in person had turned one hundred thousand men against him, while two hundred thousand more remained in reserve!

Any lengthened argument in opposition to a writer so totally unqualified to treat of warlike affairs, would be a sinful waste of words; but Mr. Robinson has been at pains to question the accuracy of certain passages of my work, and with what justice the reader shall now learn.[1]

1º. _Combat on the Coa._—The substance of Mr. Robinson’s complaint on this subject is, that I have imputed to general Picton, the odious crime of refusing, from personal animosity, to support general Craufurd;—that such a serious accusation should not be made without ample proof;—that I cannot say whether Picton’s instructions did not forbid him to aid Craufurd;—that the roads were so bad, the distance so great, and the time so short, Picton could not have aided him;—that my account of the action differs from general Craufurd’s;—that I was only a lieutenant of the forty-third, and consequently could know nothing of the matter;—that I have not praised Picton—that he was a Roman hero and so forth. Finally it is denied that Picton ever quarrelled with Craufurd at all; and that, so far from having an altercation with him on the day of the action he did not on that day even quit his own quarters at Pinhel. Something also there is about general Cole’s refusing to quit Guarda.

To all this I reply that I never did accuse general Picton of acting from personal animosity, and neither the letter nor the spirit of my statement will bear out such a meaning, which is a pure hallucination of this author. That the light division was not supported is notorious. The propriety of supporting it I have endeavoured to shew, the cause why it was not so supported I have not attempted to divine; yet it was neither the distance, nor the badness of the roads, nor the want of time; for the action, which took place in July, lasted from day-break until late in the evening, the roads, and there were several, were good at that season, and the distance not more than eight miles.

It is quite true, as Mr. Robinson observes, that I cannot affirm of my own knowledge whether the duke of Wellington forbade Picton to succour Craufurd, but I can certainly affirm that he ordered him to support him because it is so set down in his grace’s despatches, volume 5th, pages 535 and 547; and it is not probable that this order should have been rescinded and one of a contrary tendency substituted, to meet an event, namely the action on the Coa, which Craufurd had been forbidden to fight. Picton acted no doubt upon the dictates of his judgment, but all men are not bound to approve of that judgment; and as to the charge of faintly praising his military talents, a point was forced by me in his favour, when I compared him to general Craufurd of whose ability there was no question; more could not be done in conscience, even under Mr. Robinson’s assurance that he was a Roman hero.

The exact object of Mr. Robinson’s reasoning upon the subject of general Cole’s refusal to quit Guarda it is difficult to discover; but the passage to which it relates, is the simple enunciation of a fact, which is now repeated, namely, that general Cole being requested by general Craufurd to come down with his whole division to the Coa, refused, and that lord Wellington approved of that refusal, though he ordered Cole to support Craufurd under certain circumstances. Such however is Mr. Robinson’s desire to monopolize all correctness, that he will not permit me to know any thing about the action, though I was present, because, as he says, being only a lieutenant, I could not know any thing about it. He is yet abundantly satisfied with the accuracy of his own knowledge, although he was not present, and was neither a captain nor lieutenant. I happened to be a captain of seven years standing, but surely, though we should admit all subalterns to be blind, like young puppies, and that rank in the one case, as age in the other, is absolutely necessary to open their eyes, it might still be asked, why I should not have been able, after having obtained a rank which gave me the right of seeing, to gather information from others as well as Mr. Robinson? Let us to the proof.

In support of his views, he has produced, the rather vague testimony of an anonymous officer, on general Picton’s staff, which he deems conclusive as to the fact, that Picton never quarrelled with Craufurd, that he did not even quit Pinhel on the day of the action, and consequently could not have had any altercation with him on the Coa. But the following letters from officers on Craufurd’s staff, not anonymous, shew that Picton did all these things. In fine that Mr. Robinson has undertaken a task for which he is not qualified.

_Testimony of lieutenant-colonel Shaw Kennedy, who was on general Craufurd’s staff at the action of the Coa, July 24, 1810._

“_Manchester, 7th November, 1835._

“I have received your letter in which you mention ‘_Robinson’s Life of Picton_;’ that work I have not seen. It surprises me that any one should doubt that Picton and Craufurd met on the day the French army invested Almeida in 1810. I was wounded previously, and did not therefore witness their interview; but I consider it certain that Picton and Craufurd did meet on the 24th July, 1810, on the high ground on the left bank of the Coa during the progress of the action, and that a brisk altercation took place between them. They were primed and ready for such an altercation, as angry communications had passed between them previously regarding the disposal of some sick of the light division. I have heard Craufurd mention in joke his and Picton’s testiness with each other, and I considered that he alluded both to the quarrel as to the sick; and to that which occurred when they met during the action at Almeida.

“J. S. KENNEDY.”

“_Colonel Napier, &c. &c. &c._”

_Testimony of colonel William Campbell, who was on general Craufurd’s staff at the action on the Coa, July 24, 1810._

“_Esplanade, Dover, 13th Nov. 1835._

“Your letter from Freshford has not been many minutes in my hands; I hasten to reply. General Picton _did_ come out of Pinhel on the day of the Coa combat as you term it. It was in the afternoon of that day when all the regiments were in retreat, and general Craufurd was with his staff and others on the heights above, that, I think, on notice being given of general Picton’s approach, general Craufurd turned and moved to meet him. Slight was the converse, short the interview, for upon Craufurd’s asking enquiringly, whether general Picton did not consider it advisable to move out something from Pinhel in demonstration of support, or to cover the light division, in terms not bland, the general made it understood that ‘he should do no such thing.’ This as you may suppose put an end to the meeting, further than some violent rejoinder on the part of my much-loved friend, and fiery looks returned! We went our several ways, general Picton, I think, proceeding onwards a hundred yards to take a peep at the bridge. This is my testimony.

“Yours truly, “WILLIAM CAMPBELL.”

“COLONEL NAPIER, &C. &C. &C.”

2º. _Battle of Busaco._—Mr. Robinson upon the authority of one of general Picton’s letters, has endeavoured to show that my description of this battle is a mass of errors; but it shall be proved that his criticism is so, and that general Picton’s letter is very bad authority.

In my work it is said that the allies resisted vigorously, yet the French gained the summit of the ridge, and while the leading battalions established themselves on the crowning rocks, others wheeled to their right, intending to sweep the summit of the Sierra, but were driven down again in a desperate charge made by the left of the third division.

Picton’s letter says, that the head of the enemy’s column got possession of a rocky point on the crest of the position, and that they were followed by the remainder of a large column which was driven down in a desperate charge made by the left of the third division.

So far we are agreed. But Picton gives the merit of the charge to the light companies of the seventy-fourth and eighty-eighth regiments, and a wing of the forty-fifth aided by _the eighth Portuguese regiment, under major Birmingham_, whereas, in the History the whole merit is given to the eighty-eighth and forty-fifth regiments. Lord Wellington’s despatch gives the merit to the forty-fifth, and eighty-eighth, aided by the eighth Portuguese regiment, _under colonel Douglas_. The “_Reminiscences of a Subaltern_,” written by an officer of the eighty-eighth regiment, and published in the United Service Journal, in like manner, gives the merit to the eighty-eighth and forty-fifth British regiments, and the _eighth Portuguese_.

It will presently be seen why I took no notice of the share the eighth Portuguese are said to have had in this brilliant achievement. Meanwhile the reader will observe that Picton’s letter indicates the _centre_ of his division as being forced by the French, and he affirms that he drove them down again with his _left_ wing without aid from the fifth division. But my statement makes both the _right_ and _centre_ of his division to be forced, and gives the fifth division, and especially colonel Cameron and the ninth British regiment, a very large share in the glory, moreover I say that the _eighth Portuguese was broken to pieces_. Mr. Robinson argues that this must be wrong, for, says he, the eighth Portuguese _were not broken_, and if the right of the third division had been forced, the French would have encountered the fifth division. To this he adds, with a confidence singularly rash, his scanty knowledge of facts considered, that colonel Cameron and the ninth regiment would doubtless have made as good a charge as I have described, “_only they were not there_.”

In reply, it is now affirmed distinctly and positively, that the French did break the eighth Portuguese regiment, did gain the rocks on the summit of the position, and on the _right_ of the third division; did ensconce themselves in those rocks, and were going to sweep the summit of the Sierra when the fifth division under general Leith attacked them; and the ninth regiment led by colonel Cameron did form under fire, as described, did charge, and did beat the enemy out of those rocks; and if they had not done so, the third division, then engaged with other troops, would have been in a very critical situation. Not only is all this re-affirmed, but it shall be proved by the most irrefragable testimony. It will then follow that the History is accurate, that general Picton’s letter is inaccurate, and the writer of his life incompetent to censure others.

Mr. Robinson may notwithstanding choose to abide by the authority of general Picton’s letter, which he “fortunately found amongst that general’s manuscripts,” but which others less fortunate had found in _print_ many years before; and he is the more likely to do so, because he has asserted that if general Picton’s letters are false, they are wilfully so, an assertion which it is impossible to assent to. It would be hard indeed if a man’s veracity was to be called in question because his letters, written in the hurry of service gave inaccurate details of a battle. General Picton wrote what he believed to be the fact, but to give any historical weight to his letter on this occasion, in opposition to the testimony which shall now be adduced against its accuracy, would be weakness. And with the more reason it is rejected, because Mr. Robinson himself admits that another letter, written by general Picton on this occasion to the duke of Queensbury, was so inaccurate as to give general offence to the army; and because his letters on two other occasions are as incorrect as on this of Busaco.

Thus writing of the assault of Ciudad Rodrigo, Picton says, “about this time, namely, when the third division carried the main breach, the light division which was rather late in their attack, also succeeded in getting possession of the breach they were ordered to attack.” Now it has been proved to demonstration, that the light division carried the small breach, and were actually attacking the flank of the French troops defending the great breach, when the third division carried that point. This indeed is so certain, that Mr. Uniack of the ninety-fifth, and others of the light division, were destroyed on the ramparts close to the great breach by that very explosion which was said to have killed general M’Kinnon; and some have gone so far as to assert that it is doubtful if the great breach would have been carried at all but for the flank attack of the light division.

Again, general Picton writing of the battle of Fuentes Onoro, says “the light division under general Craufurd was rather _roughly handled by the enemy’s cavalry_, and had that arm of the French army been as daring and active upon this occasion, as they were when following us to the lines of Torres Vedras, they would doubtless have cut off the light division to a man.”

Nevertheless as an eye-witness, and, being then a field-officer on the staff, by Mr. Robinson’s rule entitled to see, I declare most solemnly that the French cavalry, though they often menaced to charge, never came within sure shot distance of the light division. The latter, with the exception of the ninety-fifth rifles, who were skirmishing in the wood of Pozo Velho, was formed by regiments in three squares, flanking and protecting each other, they retired over the plain leisurely without the loss of a man, without a sabre-wound being received, without giving or receiving fire; they moved in the most majestic manner secure in their discipline and strength, which was such as would have defied all the cavalry that ever charged under Tamerlane or Genghis.

But it is time to give the proofs relative to Busaco, the reader being requested to compare them with the description of that battle in my History.

_Extracts from major-general sir John Cameron’s letters to colonel Napier._

“_Government House, Devonport, Aug. 9th_, 1834.

“—I am sorry to perceive in the recent publication of lord Beresford, his ‘_Refutation of your justification of your third volume_,’ some remarks on the battle of Busaco which disfigure, not intentionally I should hope, the operations of the British brigade in major-general Leith’s corps on that occasion, of which I, as commanding officer of one of the regiments composing it, may perhaps be permitted to know something. I shall however content myself at present with giving you a detail of the operations of the British brigade in major-general Leith’s _own words_, extracted from a document in my possession, every syllable of which can be verified by many distinguished officers now living, some of them actors in, all of them eye-witnesses to the affair.

“‘The ground where the British brigade was now moving, was behind a chain of rocky eminences where it had appeared clearly, the enemy was successfully pushing to establish himself and precluded major-general Leith from seeing at that moment the progress the enemy was making, but by the information of staff officers stationed on purpose who communicated his direction and progress. Major-general Leith moved the British brigade so as to endeavour to meet and check the enemy when he had gained the ascendancy. At this time a heavy fire of musketry was kept upon the height, the smoke of which prevented a clear view of the state of things. When however the rock forming the high part of the Sierra became visible, the enemy appeared in full possession of it, and a French officer was in the act of cheering with his hat off, while a continual fire was kept up from thence and along the whole face of the Sierra, in a diagonal direction towards the bottom, by the enemy ascending rapidly from the successive columns formed for the attack, on a mass of soldiers from the eighth and ninth Portuguese regiments, who having been severely pressed had given way and were rapidly retiring in complete confusion and disorder. Major-general Leith on that occasion spoke to Major Birmingham (who was on foot, having had his horse killed), who stated that the fugitives were of the ninth Portuguese as well as the eighth regiment, and that he had ineffectually tried to check their retreat. Major-general Leith addressed and succeeded in stopping them, and they cheered when he ordered them to be collected and formed in the rear. They were passing as they retired diagonally to the right of the ninth British regiment. The face of affairs in this quarter now bore a different aspect, for the enemy who had been the assailant having dispersed or driven every thing opposed to him was in possession of the rocky eminence of the Sierra at this part of major-general Picton’s position without a shot then being fired at him. Not a moment was to be lost. Major-general Leith resolved instantly to attack the enemy with the bayonet. He therefore ordered the ninth British regiment, which had hitherto been moving rapidly by its left in column in order to gain the most advantageous ground for checking the enemy, to form the line, which they did with the greatest promptitude, accuracy, and coolness, under the fire of the enemy, who had just appeared formed on that part of the rocky eminence which overlooks the back of the ridge, and who had then for the first time perceived the British brigade under him. Major-general Leith had intended that the thirty-eighth regiment should have moved on in rear of, and to the left of, the ninth British regiment, to have turned the enemy beyond the rocky eminence which was quite inaccessible towards the rear of the Sierra, while the ninth should have gained the ridge on the right of the rocky height; the royal Scots to have been posted (as they were) in reserve. But the enemy having driven every thing before him in that quarter afforded him the advantage of gaining the top of the rocky ridge, which is accessible in front, before it was possible for the British brigade to have reached that position, although not a moment had been lost in marching to support the point attacked, and for that purpose it had made a rapid movement of more than two miles without halting and frequently in double-quick time. The thirty-eighth regiment was therefore directed to form also and support when major-general Leith led the ninth regiment to attack the enemy on the rocky ridge, which they did without filing a shot. That part which looks behind the Sierra (as already stated) was inaccessible and afforded the enemy the advantage of outflanking the ninth on the left as they advanced, but the order, celerity, and coolness with which they attacked panic-struck the enemy, who immediately gave way on being charged with the bayonet, and the whole was driven down the face of the Sierra in confusion and with immense loss, from a destructive fire which the ninth regiment opened upon him as he fled with precipitation after the charge.’

“I shall merely add two observations on what has been asserted in the ‘_Refutation_.’

“First with regard to the confusion and retreat of a portion of the Portuguese troops, I certainly did not know at the moment what Portuguese corps the fugitives were of, but after the action I understood they were belonging to the eighth Portuguese; a very considerable number of them were crossing the front of the British column dispersed in sixes and sevens over the field just before I wheeled the ninth regiment into line for the attack. I pushed on a few yards to entreat them to keep out of our way, which they understood and called out ‘_viva los Ingleses, valerosos Portugueses_.’

“As regards any support which the Portuguese afforded the British brigade in the pursuit, I beg to say that during the charge, while leading the regiment in front of the centre, my horse was killed under me, which for a moment retarded my own personal advance, and on extricating myself from under him, I turned round and saw the thirty-eighth regiment close up with us and the royal Scots appearing over the ridge in support; but did not see any Portuguese join in the pursuit, indeed it would have been imprudent in them to attempt such a thing, for at the time a brisk cannonade was opened upon us from the opposite side of the ravine.

“This, my dear colonel, is, on my honour, an account of the operations of the British brigade in major-general Leith’s corps at Busaco. It will be satisfactory to you to know that the information you received has been correct. The anonymous officer of the ninth regiment I do not know. There were several very capable of furnishing you with good information on the transactions of that day, not only as regarded their own immediate corps, but those around them. Colonel Waller I should consider excellent authority; that gallant officer must have been an eye-witness to all that passed in the divisions of Picton and Leith. I remember on our approach to the scene of confusion he delivered me a message from general Picton, intended for general Leith, at the time reconnoitring, to hasten our advance.”

“_Government House, Devonport, Aug. 21, 1834._

“——The fact really is that both the eighth and ninth Portuguese regiments gave way that morning, and I am positive that I am not far wrong in saying, that there were not of Portuguese troops within my view, at the moment I wheeled the ninth regiment into line, one hundred men prepared either for attack or defence. Sir James Douglas

## partly admits that his wing was broken when he says that ‘if we were

at any time _broken_ it was from the too ardent wish of a corps of boy recruits to close.’ Now it is perfectly clear that the wing of the regiment under Major Birmingham fled, from what that officer said to general Leith. Sir James Douglas states also that ‘no candid man will deny that he supported the royals and ninth regiment, though before that he says, that ‘by an oblique movement he joined in the charge.’ I might safely declare on oath that the Portuguese never shewed themselves beyond the ridge of the Sierra that morning.

“Very faithfully yours, “JOHN CAMERON.”

As these letters from general Cameron refer to some of marshal Beresford’s errors, as well as Mr. Robinson’s, an extract from a letter of colonel Thorne’s upon the same subject will not be misplaced here.

_Colonel Thorne to colonel Napier._

“_Harborne Lodge, 28th Aug. 1834._

Extract.—“Viscount Beresford in the ‘_Refutation of your Justification of your third volume_,’ has doubted the accuracy of the strength of the third dragoon guards and fourth dragoons on the 20th March 1811, as extracted by you from the journal which I lent to you. As I felt confident I had not inserted any thing therein, which I did not obtain from _official documents_, that were in my possession at the time it was written, I have, since the perusal of the ‘Refutation,’ looked over some of my Peninsula papers, and I am happy to say I have succeeded in finding amongst them, the monthly returns of quarters of the division of cavalry commanded by brigadier-general Long, dated Los Santos, April 20th, 1811, which was then sent to me by the deputy assistant quarter-master general of that division, and which I beg to enclose for your perusal, in order that you may see the statement I have made of the strength of that force in my journal _is to be relied upon, although his lordship insinuates to the contrary_, and that it contains _something more than_ ‘_the depositary of the rumours of a camp_.’”

_Extract from memorandum of the battle of Busaco, by colonel Waller, assistant quarter-master-general to the second division._

“—The attack commenced on the right wing, consisting of Picton’s division, by the enemy opening a fire of artillery upon the right of the British which did but little injury, the range being too great to prove effective. At this moment were seen the heads of the several attacking columns, THREE, I THINK, in number, and deploying into line with the most beautiful precision, celerity, and gallantry.

“As they formed on the plateau they were cannonaded from our position, and the regiment of Portuguese, either the eighth or the _16th Infantry_, which were formed in advance in _front_ of the _74th regiment_, threw in some volleys of musketry into the enemy’s columns in a flank direction, but the regiment was quickly driven into the position.

“More _undaunted_ courage never was displayed by _French_ troops than on _this_ occasion: it could not have been surpassed, for their columns advanced in despite of a tremendous fire of grape and musketry from our troops in position in the rocks, and overcoming all opposition, although repeatedly charged by Lightburne’s brigade, or rather by the whole of Picton’s division, they advanced, and fairly drove the BRITISH RIGHT wing from the rocky part of the position.

“_Being an eye-witness_ of this critical moment, and seeing that unless the ground was quickly recovered _the right flank_ of the army would _infallibly_ be turned, and the _great road_ to Coimbra _unmasked_, seeing also that heavy columns of the enemy were descending into the valley to operate by the _road_, and to support the attack of the Sierra, and to cut off lord Wellington’s communication with Coimbra, I instantly galloped off to the rear to bring up general Hill’s corps to Picton’s support. Having proceeded about _two_ miles along the upper edge and reverse side of the Sierra, I fell in with the head of general Leith’s column moving _left in front_, at the head of which was colonel Cameron’s brigade, led by the ninth regiment. I immediately rode up to colonel Cameron, and addressed him in an anxious tone as follows.

“‘Pray, sir, who commands this brigade?’ ‘I do,’ replied the colonel, ‘I am colonel Cameron.’

“‘Then for God’s sake, sir, move off instantly at _double-quick_ with your brigade to Picton’s support; not _one moment_ is to be lost, the enemy in great force are already in possession of the _right of the position_ on the Sierra and have driven Picton’s troops out of it. Move on, and when the rear of your brigade has passed the Coimbra road wheel into line, and you will embrace the point of attack.’ Colonel Cameron did not hesitate _or balance_ an INSTANT, but giving the word ‘double-quick’ to his brigade nobly led them to battle and to victory.

“The brave colonel attacked the enemy with such a gallant and irresistible impetuosity, that after some time fighting he recovered the ground which Picton had lost, inflicting _heavy slaughter_ on the elite of the enemy’s troops. The ninth regiment behaved on this occasion with conspicuous gallantry, as _indeed_ did ALL the REGIMENTS engaged. Great numbers of the enemy had descended low down in the rear of the position towards the Coimbra road, and were killed; the whole position was thickly strewed with their killed and wounded; amongst which _were many of our own troops_. The French were the finest men I ever saw. I spoke to several of the wounded men, light infantry and grenadiers, who were bewailing their unhappy fate on being defeated, assuring me they were the heroes of Austerlitz who had never before met with defeat!

“ROBERT WALLER, _Lieut.-colonel_.”

_Extract of a letter from colonel Taylor, ninth regiment, to colonel Napier._

“_Fernhill, near Evesham, 26th April, 1832._

“DEAR SIR,

“I have just received a letter from colonel Shaw, in which he quotes a passage from one of yours to him, expressive of your wish, if necessary, to print a passage from a statement which I made respecting the conduct of the ninth regiment at Busaco, and in reference to which, I have alluded to the discomfiture of the eighth Portuguese upon the same occasion. I do not exactly recollect the terms I made use of to colonel Shaw (nor indeed the shape which my communication wore) but, my object was to bring to light the distinguished conduct of the ninth without any wish to, unnecessarily, obscure laurels, which others wore, even at their expense!

“To account for the affair in question, I could not however well omit to state, that it was in consequence of the overthrow of the eighth Portuguese, that sir James Leith’s British brigade was called upon, and it is remarkable, that at the time, there was a considerable force of Portuguese (I think it was the old Lusitanian Legion which had just been modelled into two battalions) _between_ Leith’s British and where the eighth were being engaged, Leith pushed on his brigade double-quick, column of sections left in front, past these Portuguese, nor did he halt until he came in contact with the enemy who had _crowned the heights_ and were firing from behind the rocks, the ninth wheeled up into line, fired and charged, and all of the eighth Portuguese that was to be seen, at least by me, a company officer at the time, was some ten or a dozen men at _the outside_, with their commanding officer, but he and they were amongst the very foremost in the ranks of the ninth British. As an officer in the ranks of course I could not see much of what was going on generally, neither could I well have been mistaken as to what I did see, coming almost within my very contact! Colonel Waller, now, I believe on the Liverpool staff, was the officer who came to sir James Leith for assistance, I presume from Picton.

“Yours, &c. “J. TAYLOR.”

_Second communication from major-general sir John Cameron to colonel Napier._

_Stoke Devonport, Nov. 21st, 1835._

“MY DEAR COLONEL,

“Some months ago I took the liberty of pointing out to you certain mis-statements contained in a publication of lord Beresford regarding the operations of the British brigade in major-general Leith’s corps at the battle of Busaco, and as those mis-statements are again brought before the public in Robinson’s Life of sir Thomas Picton I am induced to trouble you with some remarks upon what is therein advanced. A paragraph in major-general Picton’s letter to lord Wellington, dated 10th November, 1810, which I first discovered some years ago in the Appendix No. 12 of Jones’s War in Spain, &c. &c. would appear to be the document upon which Mr. Robinson grounds his contradiction of your statement of the conduct of the ninth regiment at Busaco, but _that_ paragraph, which runs as follows, I am bound to say is _not_ the truth. ‘Major-general Leith’s brigade in consequence marched on, and arrived in time to _join_ the five companies of the forty-fifth regiment under the honourable lieutenant-colonel Meade and the eighth Portuguese regiment under lieutenant-colonel Douglas in repulsing the enemy.’ This assertion of major-general Picton is, I repeat, _not true_, for, in the first place I did not see the forty-fifth regiment on that day, nor was I at any period during the action near them or any other British regiment to my left. In the second, as regards the eighth Portuguese regiment, the ninth British did not most assuredly join _that_ corps in its retrograde movement. That major-general Picton left his right flank exposed, there can be no question, and had not assistance, and _British_ assistance too, come up to his aid as it did I am inclined to believe that sir Thomas would have cut a very different figure in the despatch to what he did!! Having already given you a detail of the defeat of the enemy’s column which was permitted to gain the ascendency in considerable force on the right of the third division, I beg leave to refer you to the gallant officers I mentioned in a former letter, who were not only eye-witnesses to the charge made by the ninth regiment but actually distinguished themselves in front of the regiment at the side of their brave accomplished general during that charge. I believe the whole of sir Rowland Hill’s division from a bend in the Sierra could see the ninth in their pursuit of the enemy, and though last not the least in importance, as a party concerned, I may mention the present major-general sir James T. Barns, who commanded the British brigade under major-general Leith, (I omitted this gallant officer’s name in my former letter) as the major-general took the entire command and from him alone I received all orders during the action.

“I have now done with Mr. Robinson and his work which was perhaps hardly worth my notice.

“I am, my dear Colonel, “Very sincerely yours, “J. CAMERON.”

Having now sufficiently exposed the weakness of Mr. Robinson’s attack upon me, it would be well perhaps to say with sir J. Cameron “I have done with his work,” but I am tempted to notice two points more.

Treating of the storming of Badajos, Mr. Robinson says,

“Near the appointed time while the men were waiting with increased anxiety Picton with his staff came up. The troops fell in, all were in a moment silent until the general in his calm and impressive manner addressed a few words to each regiment. The signal was not yet given, but the enemy by means of lighted carcasses discovered the position of Picton’s soldiers; to delay longer would only have been to expose his men unnecessarily; he therefore gave the word to march.”——“Picton’s soldiers set up a loud shout and rushed forward up the steep _to the ditch at the foot of the castle walls_.—General Kempt who had thus far been with Picton at the head of the division was here badly wounded and carried to the rear. Picton was therefore left alone to conduct the assault.”

Now strange to say Picton was not present when the signal was given, and consequently could neither address his men in his “usual calm impressive manner,” nor give them the word to march. There was no ditch at the foot of the castle walls to rush up to, and, as the following letter proves, general Kempt alone led the division to the attack.

_Extract of a letter from lieutenant-general sir James Kempt, K. C. B., master-general of the Ordnance, &c. &c._

_Pall Mall, 10th May, 1833._

“According to the first arrangement made by lord Wellington, my brigade only of the third division was destined to attack the castle by escalade. The two other brigades were to have attacked the bastion adjoining the castle, and to open a communication with it. _On the day, however, before the assault_ took place, this arrangement was changed by lord Wellington, a French deserter from the castle (a serjeant of sappers) gave information that no communication could be established between the castle and the adjoining bastion, there being (he stated) only one communication between the castle and the town, and upon learning this, the whole of the third division were ordered by lord Wellington to attack the castle. But as my brigade only was originally destined for the service, and was to lead the attack, the arrangements for the escalade were in a great measure confided to me by general Picton.

“The division had to _file_ across a very narrow bridge to the attack under a fire from the castle and the troops in the covered way. It was ordered to commence at ten o’clock, but by means of fire-balls the formation of our troops at the head of the trench was discovered by the French, who opened a heavy fire on them, and the attack was commenced _from necessity_ nearly half an hour before the time ordered. I was severely wounded in the foot on the glacis after passing the Rivillas almost at the commencement of the attack _in the trenches_, and met Picton coming to the front on my being carried to the rear. If the attack had not commenced till the hour ordered, he, I have no doubt, would have been on the spot to direct in person the commencement of the operations. I have no _personal_ knowledge of what took place afterwards, but I was informed that after surmounting the most formidable difficulties, the escalade was effected by means of _two_ ladders only in the first instance in the middle of the night, and there can be no question that Picton was present in the assault. In giving an account of this operation, pray bear in mind that _he_ commanded the division, and to _him_ and the enthusiastic valour and determination of the troops ought its success alone to be attributed.

“Yours, &c. “JAMES KEMPT.”

“_Colonel Napier, &c._”

The other point to which I would allude is the battle of Salamanca. Mr. Robinson, with his baton of military criticism, belabours the unfortunate Marmont unmercifully, and with an unhappy minuteness of detail, first places general Foy’s troops on the _left_ of the French army and then destroys them by the bayonets of the third division, although the poor man and his unlucky soldiers were all the time on the _right_ of the French army, and were never engaged with the third division at all. This is however but a slight blemish for Mr. Robinson’s book, and his competence to criticise Marmont’s movements is no whit impaired thereby. I wish however to assure him that the expression put into the mouth of the late sir Edward Pakenham is “_né vero né ben trovato_.” Vulgar swaggering was no part of that amiable man’s character, which was composed of as much gentleness, as much generosity, as much frankness, and as much spirit as ever commingled in a noble mind. Alas! that he should have fallen so soon and so sadly!! His answer to lord Wellington, when the latter ordered him to attack, was not, “I will, my lord, by God!” With the bearing of a gallant gentleman who had resolved to win or perish, he replied, “Yes, if you will give me one grasp of that conquering right hand.” But these finer lines do not suit Mr. Robinson’s carving of a hero; his manner is more after the coarse menacing idols of the South-Sea Islands, than the delicate gracious forms of Greece.

Advice to authors is generally thrown away, yet Mr. Robinson would do well to rewrite his book with fewer inaccuracies, and fewer military disquisitions, avoiding to swell its bulk with such long extracts from my work, and remembering also that English commissaries are not “_feræ naturæ_” to be hanged, or otherwise destroyed at the pleasure of divisional generals. This will save him the trouble of attributing to sir Thomas Picton all the standard jokes and smart sayings, for the scaring of those gentry, which have been current ever since the American war, and which have probably come down to us from the Greeks. The reduction of bulk, which an attention to these matters will produce, may be compensated by giving us more information of Picton’s real services, towards which I contribute the following information. Picton in his youth served as a marine, troops being then used in that capacity, and it is believed he was in one of the great naval victories. Mr. Robinson has not mentioned this, and it would be well also, if he were to learn and set forth some of the general’s generous actions towards the widows of officers who fell under his command: they are to be discovered, and would do more honour to his memory than a thousand blustering anecdotes. With these changes and improvements, the life of sir Thomas Picton may perhaps, in future, escape the equivocal compliment of the newspaper puffers, namely, that it is “a military romance.”

_Quarterly Review._—This is but a sorry attack to repel. “_Le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle_,” but “rats and mice and such small deer have been Tom’s food for many a year.”

The reviewer does not like my work, and he invokes the vinous vagaries of Mr. Coleridge in aid of his own spleen. I do not like his work, or Mr. Coleridge either, and I console myself with a maxim of the late eccentric general Meadows, who being displeased to see his officers wear their cocked hats awry, issued an order beginning thus:—“All men have fancy, few have taste.” Let that pass. I am ready to acknowledge real errors, and to give my authorities for disputed facts.

1º. I admit that the road which leads over the Pyrennees to Pampeluna does not _unite_ at that town with the royal causeway; yet the error was _ty_pographical, not _to_pographical, because the course of the royal causeway was shewn, just before, to be through towns very distant from Pampeluna. The true reading should be “_united with the first by a branch road commencing at Pampeluna_.”

2º. The reviewer says, the mountains round Madrid do not touch the Tagus at both ends within the frontier of Spain, that river is not the chord of their arc; neither are the heights of Palmela and Almada near Lisbon one and the same. This is very true, although not very important. I should have written the heights of Palmela _and_ Almada, instead of the heights of Palmela _or_ Almada. But though the mountains round Madrid do not to the westward, actually touch the Tagus within the Spanish frontier, their shoots are scarcely three miles from that river near Talavera, and my description was general, being intended merely to shew that Madrid could not be approached from the eastward or northward, except over one of the mountain ranges, a fact not to be disputed.

3º. It is hinted by the reviewer that lord Melville’s degrading observation, namely, that “the worst men made the best soldiers,” was picked by me out of general Foy’s historical fragment. Now, that passage in my history was written many months before general Foy’s work was published; and my authority was a very clear recollection of lord Melville’s speech, as reported in the papers of the day. The time was just before his impeachment for malversation.

General Foy’s work seems a favourite authority with the reviewer, and he treats general Thiebault’s work with disdain; yet both were Frenchmen of eminence, and the ennobling patriotism of vituperation might have been impartially exercised, the weakness of discrimination avoided. However general Thiebault’s work, with some apparent inaccuracies as to numbers, is written with great ability and elegance, and is genuine, whereas general Foy’s history is not even general Foy’s writing; colonel D’Esmenard in his recent translation of the Prince of Peace’s memoirs has the following conclusive passage upon that head.

“_The illustrious general Foy undertook a history of the war in Spain, his premature death prevented him from revising and purifying his first sketch, he did me the honour to speak of it several times, and even attached some value to my observations; the imperfect manuscripts of this brilliant orator have been re-handled and re-made by other hands. In this posthumous history, he has been gratuitously provided with inaccurate and malignant assertions._”

[Sidenote: See Memoirs of Manuel Godoy, translated by Colonel D’Esmenard.]

[Sidenote: See also London & Westminster Review No 1.]

While upon this subject, it is right to do justice to Manuel Godoy, Prince of the Peace. A sensual and corrupt man he was generally said to be, and I called him so, without sufficient consideration of the extreme exaggerations which the Spaniards always display in their hatred. The prince has now defended himself; colonel D’Esmenard and other persons well acquainted with the dissolute manners of the Spanish capital, and having personal experience of Godoy’s character and disposition, have testified that his social demeanour was decent and reserved, and his disposition generous; wherefore I express my regret at having ignorantly and unintentionally calumniated him.

To return to the reviewer. He is continually observing that he does not know my authority for such and such a fact, and therefore he insinuates, that no such fact had place, thus making his ignorance the measure of my accuracy. This logic seems to be akin to that of the wild-beast showman, who declares that “the little negro boys tie the ostrich bird’s leg to a tree, which fully accounts for the milk in the cocoa-nuts.” I might reply generally as the late alderman Coombe did to a certain baronet, who, in a dispute, was constantly exclaiming, “I don’t know that, Mr. Alderman! I don’t know that!” “Ah, sir George! all that you _don’t know_ would make a large book!” However it will be less witty, but more conclusive to furnish at least some of my authorities.

1º. In opposition to the supposititious general Foy’s account of Solano’s murder, and in support of my own history, I give the authority of sir Hew Dalrymple, from whom the information was obtained; a much better authority than Foy, because he was in close correspondence with the insurgents of Seville at the time, and had an

## active intelligent agent there.

2º. Against the supposititious Foy’s authority as to the numbers of the French army in June 1808, the authority of Napoleon’s imperial returns is pleaded. From these returns my estimate of the French forces in Spain during May 1808 was taken, and it is so stated in my Appendix. The inconsistency of the reviewer himself may also be noticed, for he marks my number as _exclusive_ of Junot’s army, and yet _includes_ that army in what he calls Foy’s estimate! But Junot’s army was more than 29,000 and not 24,000 as the supposititious Foy has it, and that number taken from 116,000 which, though wrong, is Foy’s estimate of the whole leaves less than 87,000. I said 80,000. The difference is not great, yet my authority is the best, and the reviewer feels that it is so, or he would also have adopted general Foy’s numbers of the French at the combat of Roliça. In Foy’s history they are set down as less than 2,500, in mine they are called 5,000. He may be right, but it would not suit the reviewer to adopt a _truth_ from a French writer.

3º. On the negative proofs afforded 1º. by the absence of any quoted voucher in my work, 2º. by the absence of any acknowledgement of such a fact in general Anstruther’s manuscript journal, which journal may or may not be garbled, the reviewer asserts that the English ministers never contemplated the appointing of a military governor for Cadiz. Against this, let the duke of Wellington’s authority be pleaded, for in my note-book of conversations held with his grace upon the subject of my history, the following passage occurs:—

“The ministers were always wishing to occupy Cadiz, lord Wellington thinks this a folly, Cadiz was rather a burthen to him, but either general Spencer or general Anstruther was intended to command there, thinks it was Anstruther, he came out with his appointment.”

Now it is possible that as Acland’s arrival was also the subject of conversation, his name was mentioned instead of Anstruther’s; and it is also possible, as the note shows, that Spencer was the man, but the main fact relative to the government could not have been mistaken. To balance this, however, there undoubtedly is an error as to the situation of general Anstruther’s brigade at the battle of Vimiero. It appears by an extract from his journal, that it was disposed, not, as the reviewer says, on the right of Fane’s brigade, but at various places, part being on the right of Fane, part upon his left, part held in reserve. The forty-third were on the left of Fane, the fifty-second and ninety-seventh on his right, the ninth in reserve, the error is therefore very trivial, being simply the describing two regiments as of Fane’s brigade, when they were of Anstruther’s without altering their position. What does the public care whether it was a general called Fane, or a general called Anstruther, who was on the right hand if the important points of the

## action are correctly described? The fighting of the fifty-second and

ninety-seventh has indeed been but slightly noticed, in my history, under the denomination of Fane’s right, whereas those regiments make a good figure, and justly so, in Anstruther’s journal, because it is the story of the brigade; but general history ought not to enter into the details of regimental fighting, save where the effects are decisive on the general result, as in the case of the fiftieth and forty-third on this occasion. The whole loss of the ninety-seventh and fifty-second together did not exceed sixty killed and wounded, whereas the fiftieth alone lost ninety, and the forty-third one hundred and eighteen.

While on the subject of Anstruther’s brigade, it is right also to admit another error, one of place; that is if it be true, as the reviewer says, that Anstruther landed at Paymayo bay, and not at Maceira bay. The distance between those places may be about five miles, and the fact had no influence whatever on the operations; nevertheless the error was not drawn from Mr. Southey’s history, though I readily acknowledge I could not go to a more copious source of error. With respect to the imputed mistake as to time, viz. the day of Anstruther’s landing, it is set down in my first edition as the 19th, wherefore the 18th in the third edition is simply a mistake of the press! Alas! poor reviewer!

But there are graver charges. I have maligned the worthy bishop of Oporto; and ill-used the patriotic Gallician junta! Reader, the bishop of Oporto and the patriarch of Lisbon are one and the same person! Examine then my history and especially its appendix and judge for yourself, whether the reviewer may not justly be addressed as the pope was by Richard I. when he sent him the bishop of Beauvais’ bloody suit of mail. “See now if this be thy son’s coat.” But the junta! Why it is true that I said they glossed over the battle of Rio Seco after the Spanish manner; that their policy was but a desire to obtain money, and to avoid personal inconvenience; that they gave sir Arthur Wellesley incorrect statements of the number of the Portuguese and Spaniards at Oporto, and a more inaccurate estimate of the French army under Junot. All this is true. It is true that I have said it, true that they did it. The reviewer _says_ my statement is a “gratuitous misrepresentation.” I will _prove_ that the reviewer’s remark is a gratuitous impertinence.

1º. The junta informed sir Arthur Wellesley, that Bessieres had twenty thousand men in the battle, whereas he had but fifteen thousand.

2º. That Cuesta lost only two guns, whereas he lost eighteen.

3º. That Bessieres lost seven thousand men and six guns, whereas he lost only three hundred and fifty men, and no guns.

4º. That the Spanish army had retired to Benevente as if it still preserved its consistence, whereas Blake and Cuesta had quarrelled and separated, all the magazines of the latter had been captured and the whole country was at the mercy of the French. This was glossing it over in the Spanish manner.

Again the junta pretended that they desired the deliverance of Portugal to enable them to unite with the southern provinces in a general effort; but Mr. Stuart’s letters prove that they would never unite at all with any other province, and that their aim was to separate from Spain altogether and join Portugal. Their wish to avoid personal inconvenience was notorious, it was the cause of their refusal to let sir David Baird’s troops disembark, it was apparent to all who had to deal with them, and it belongs to the national character. Then their eagerness to obtain money, and their unpatriotic use of it when obtained, has been so amply set forth in various parts of my history that I need not do more than refer to that, and to my quoted authorities, especially in the second chapters of the 3d and 14th Books. Moreover the reviewer’s quotations belie his comments, and like the slow-worm defined by Johnson “a blind worm, a large viper, _venomous_, _not mortal_,” he is at once dull and malignant.

The junta told sir Arthur Wellesley that ten thousand Portuguese troops were at Oporto, and that two thousand Spaniards, who had marched the 15th, would be there on the 25th of July; yet when sir Arthur arrived at Oporto, on the 25th, he found only fifteen hundred Portuguese and three hundred Spaniards; the two thousand men said to be in march had never moved and were not expected. Here then instead of twelve thousand men, there were only eighteen hundred! At Coimbra indeed eighty miles from Oporto, there were five thousand militia and regulars, one-third of which were unarmed, and according to colonel Browne’s letter, as given in the folio edition of the inquiry upon the Cintra convention, there were also twelve hundred armed peasants which the reviewer has magnified into twelve thousand. Thus without dwelling on the difference of place, the difference between the true numbers and the statements of the Gallician junta, was four thousand; nor will it mend the matter if we admit the armed peasants to be twelve thousand, for that would make a greater difference on the other side.

The junta estimated the French at fifteen thousand men, but the embarkation returns of the number shipped after the convention gave twenty-five thousand seven hundred and sixty, making a difference of more than ten thousand men, exclusive of those who had fallen or been captured in the battles of Vimiero and Roliça, and of those who had died in hospital! Have I not a right to treat these as inaccurate statements; and the reviewer’s remark as an impertinence?

The reviewer speaking of the battle of Baylen scoffs at the inconsistency of calling it an insignificant event and yet attributing to it immense results. But my expression was, an insignificant _action in itself_, which at once reconciles the seeming contradiction, and this the writer who has no honest healthy criticism, suppresses. My allusion to the disciplined battalions of Valley Forge, as being the saviours of American independence, also excites his morbid spleen, and assuming what is not true, namely, that I selected that period as the time of the greatest improvement in American discipline, he says, their soldiers there were few, as if that bore at all upon the question.

[Sidenote: See Stedman’s History, 4to. p. 285.]

But my expression is _at_ Valley Forge not “_of_ Valley Forge.” The allusion was used figuratively to shew that an armed peasantry cannot resist regular troops, and Washington’s correspondence is one continued enforcement of the principle, yet the expression may be also taken literally. It was with the battalions _of_ Valley Forge that Washington drew Howe to the Delawarre, and twice crossing that river in winter, surprised the Germans at Trenton and beat the British at Prince Town. It was with those battalions he made his attacks at German’s-town; with those battalions he prevented Howe from sending assistance to Burgoyne’s army, which was in consequence captured. In fine, to use his own expression, “The British eagle’s wings were spread, and with those battalions he clipped them.” The American general, however, at one time occupied, close to Valley Forge, a camp in the Jerseys, bearing the odd name of _Quibble_-town, on which probably the reviewer’s eye was fixed.

But notwithstanding Quibble-town, enthusiasm will not avail in the long run against discipline. Is authority wanted? We have had Napoleon’s and Washington’s, and now we have Wellington’s, for in the fifth volume of his Despatches, p. 215, as compiled by colonel Gurwood, will be found the following passage upon the arming of the Spanish and Portuguese people.

“Reflection and above all experience have shown me the exact extent of this advantage in a military point of view, and I only beg that those who have to contend with the French, will not be diverted from the business of raising, arming, equipping, and training regular bodies by any notion that the people when armed and arrayed, will be of, I will not say any, but of much, use to them. The subject is too large for discussion in a paper of this description, but I can show hundreds of instances to prove the truth of as many reasons why exertions of this description ought not to be relied on. At all events no officer can calculate upon an operation to be performed against the French by persons of this description, and I believe that no officer will enter upon an operation against the French without calculating his means most anxiously.”

[Sidenote: See his evidence, Court of Inquiry on the Convention of Cintra.]

It is said that some officers of rank have furnished the reviewer’s military criticisms, I can understand why, if the fact be true, but it is difficult to believe that any officer would even for the gratification of a contemptible jealousy, have lent himself to the assertion that sir Arthur Wellesley could not have made a _forced or a secret march_ from Vimiero to Mafra, because he was encumbered with four hundred bullock-carts. Sir Arthur did certainly intend to make that march, and he would as certainly not have attempted such a flank movement _openly and deliberately_ while thus encumbered and moving at the rate of two miles an hour, within a short distance of a general having a more experienced army and an overwhelming cavalry. The sneer is therefore directed more against sir Arthur Wellesley than against me.

This supposed officer of rank says that because the enemy had a shorter road to move in retreat, his line of march could not even be menaced, still less intercepted by his opponent moving on the longer route! How then did Cæsar intercept Afranius and Petreius, Pompey’s lieutenants, on the Sicoris? How Pompey himself at Dyrrachium? How did Napoleon pass Beaulieu on the Po and gain Lodi? How did Massena dislodge Wellington from Busaco? How did Marmont turn him on the Guarena in 1812? How did Wellington himself turn the French on the Douro and on the Ebro in 1813? And above all how did he propose to turn Torres Vedras by the very march in question, seeing that from Torres Vedras to Mafra is only twelve miles and from Vimiero to Mafra is nineteen miles, the roads leading besides over a river and through narrow ways and defiles? But who ever commended such dangerous movements, if they were not masked or their success insured by some peculiar circumstances, or by some stratagem? And what is my speculation but a suggestion of this nature? “Under certain circumstances,” said sir Arthur Wellesley at the enquiry, “an army might have gained three hours’ start in such a march.” The argument of the supposititious officer of rank is therefore a foolish sophism; nor is that relative to sir John Moore’s moving upon Santarem, nor the assertion that my plan was at variance with all sir Arthur Wellesley’s objects, more respectable.

My plan, as it is invidiously and falsely called, was simply a reasoning upon the advantages of sir Arthur Wellesley’s plan, and the calculation of days by the reviewer is mere mysticism. Sir Arthur wished sir John Moore to go to Santarem, and if sir Arthur’s recommendation had been followed, sir John Moore, who, instead of taking five days as this writer would have him do, actually disembarked the greatest part of his troops in the Mondego in half a day, that is before one o’clock on the 22d, might have been at Santarem the 27th even according to the reviewer’s scale of march, ten miles a day! Was he to remain idle there, if the enemy did not abandon Lisbon and the strong positions covering that city? If he could stop Junot’s retreat either at Santarem or in the Alemtejo, a cavalry country, he could surely as safely operate towards Saccavem, a strong country. What was sir A. Wellesley’s observation on that head? “If the march to Mafra had been made as I had ordered it on the 21st of August in the morning, the position of Torres Vedras would have been turned, and there was no position in the enemy’s possession, excepting that in our front at Cabeça de Montechique and those in rear of it. And I must observe to the court that if sir John Moore’s corps had gone to Santarem as proposed as soon as it disembarked in the Mondego, there would have been no great safety in those positions, if it was, as it turned out to be, in our power to beat the French.” Lo! then, my plan is not at variance with sir Arthur Wellesley’s object. But the whole of the reviewer’s sophistry is directed, both as to this march and that to Mafra, not against me, but through me against the duke of Wellington whom the writer dare not attack openly; witness his cunning defence of that “_wet-blanket_” counsel which stopped sir Arthur Wellesley’s pursuit of Junot from the field of Vimiero. Officer of rank! Aye, it sounds grandly! but it was a shrewd thing of Agesilaus when any one was strongly recommended to him to ask “who will vouch for the voucher?”

Passing now from the officer of rank, I affirm, notwithstanding Mr. Southey’s “magnificent chapters” and sir Charles Vaughan’s “brief and elegant work,” that the statement about Palafox and Zaragoza is correct. My authority is well known to sir Charles Vaughan, and is such as he is not likely to dispute; that gentleman will not, I feel well assured, now guarantee the accuracy of the tales he was told at Zaragoza. But my real offence is not the disparagement of Palafox, it is the having spoiled some magnificent romances, present or to come; for I remembered the Roman saying about the “Lying Greek fable,” and endeavoured so to record the glorious feats of my countrymen, that even our enemies should admit the facts. And they have hitherto done so, with a magnanimity becoming brave men who are conscious of merit in misfortune, thus putting to shame the grovelling spirit that would make calumny and vituperation the test of patriotism.

* * * * *

Since writing the above a second article has appeared in the same review, to which the only reply necessary, is the giving of more proofs, that the passages of my history, contradicted by the reviewer, are strictly accurate. And to begin, it is necessary to inform him, that a man may be perfectly disciplined and a superb soldier, and yet be a raw soldier as to real service; and further, that staff officers may have been a long time in the English service, and yet be quite inexperienced. Even a quarter-master-general of an army has been known to commit all kinds of errors, and discover negligence and ignorance of his duty, in his first campaigns, who yet by dint of long practice became a very good officer in his line, though perhaps not so great a general as he would pass himself off for; for it was no ill saying of a Scotchman, that “some men, if bought at the world’s price, might be profitably sold at their own.” Now requesting the reader to observe that in the following quotations the impugned passages of my history are first given, and are followed by the authority, though not all the authority which might be adduced in support of each fact, I shall proceed to expose the reviewer’s fallacies.

1º. History. “_Napoleon, accompanied by the dukes of Dalmatia and Montebello, quitted Bayonne the morning of the 8th, and reached Vittoria in the evening._”

The reviewer contradicts this on the authority of Savary’s Memoirs, quoting twice the pages and volume, namely vol. iv. pages 12, 40, and 41. Now Savary is a writer so careless about dates, and small facts, as to have made errors of a month as to time in affairs which he conducted himself. Thus he says king Joseph abandoned Madrid on the 3d of July 1808, whereas it was on the 3d of August. He also says the landing of sir Arthur Wellesley in Portugal was made known to him, before the council of war relative to the evacuation of Madrid was held at that capital; but the council was held the 29th of July, and sir Arthur did not land until the 1st of August! Savary is therefore no authority on such points. But there is no such passage as the reviewer quotes, in Savary’s work. The reader will look for it in vain in pages 12, 40, and 41. It is neither in the fourth volume nor in any other volume. However at page 8 of the second volume, second part, he will find the following passage. “L’Empereur prit la route d’Espagne avec toute son armée. Il arriva à Bayonne avec la rapidité d’un trait, de même que de Bayonne à Vittoria. Il fit ce dernier trajet à cheval _en deux courses_, de la première il alla à Tolosa et de la seconde à Vittoria.” The words “deux courses” the reviewer with his usual candour translates, “_the first day to Tolosa, the second day to Vittoria_.” But notwithstanding this I repeat, that the emperor made his journey in one day. My authority is the assurance of a French officer of the general staff who was present, and if the value of the fact were worth the pains, I could show that it was very easy for Napoleon to do so, inasmuch as a private gentleman, the correspondent of one of the newspapers, has recently performed the same journey in fourteen hours. But my only object in noticing it at all is to show the flagrant falseness of the reviewer.

2º. History. “_Sir John Moore had to organize an army of raw soldiers, and in a poor unsettled country just relieved from the pressure of a harsh and griping enemy, he had to procure the transport necessary for his stores, ammunition, and even for the conveyance of the officers’ baggage. Every branch of the administration civil and military was composed of men zealous and willing indeed, yet new to a service where no energy can prevent the effects of inexperience being severely felt._”

Authorities. Extracts from sir John Moore’s Journal and Letters.

“I am equipping the troops here and moving them towards the frontier, but I found the army without the least preparation, without any precise information with respect to roads, and no arrangement for feeding the troops upon their march.” “The army is without equipments of any kind, either for the carriage of the light baggage of regiments, artillery stores, commissariat stores, or any other appendage to an army, and not a magazine is formed on any of the routes.”—“The commissariat has at its head Mr. Erskine, a gentleman of great integrity and honour, and of considerable ability, but neither he nor any of his officers have any experience of what an army of this magnitude requires to put it in motion.”—“Every thing is however going on with zeal; there is no want of that in an English army, and though the difficulties are considerable, and we have to move through a very impracticable country, I expect to be past the frontier early in November.”

Extract from a memoir by sir John Colborne, military secretary to sir John Moore.

“The heads of departments were all zeal, but they had but little experience, and their means for supplying the wants of the army about to enter on an active campaign were in many respects limited.”

3º. History. “_One Sataro, the same person who has been already mentioned as an agent of Junot’s in the negociations engaged to supply the army, but dishonestly failing in his contract so embarrassed the operations,” &c. &c._

Authority. Extract from sir John Colborne’s Memoir quoted above.

“Sataro, a contractor at Lisbon, had agreed to supply the divisions on the march through Portugal. He failed in his contract, and daily complaints were transmitted to head-quarters of want of provisions on this account. The divisions of generals Fraser and Beresford were halted, and had it not been for the exertions of these generals and of the Portuguese magistrates the army would have been long delayed.”

4º. History. “_General Anstruther had unadvisedly halted the leading columns in Almeida._”

Authority. Extract from sir John Moore’s Journal.

“Br.-general Anstruther, who took possession of Almeida from the French, and who has been there ever since, and to whom I had written to make preparations for the passage of the troops on this route and Coimbra, has stopt them within the Portuguese frontier instead of making them proceed as I had directed to Ciudad Rodrigo and Salamanca.”

5º. History. “_Sir John Moore did not hear of the total defeat and dispersion of Belvedere’s Estremaduran army until a week after it happened, and then only through one official channel._” That channel was Mr. Stuart. Sir John had heard indeed that the Estremadurans had been forced from Burgos, but nothing of their utter defeat and ruin: the difference is cunningly overlooked by the reviewer.

Authority. Extract of a letter from sir John Moore to Mr. Frere, Nov. 16th, 1808.

“I had last night the honour to receive your letter of the 13th, together with letters of the 14th from Mr. Stuart and lord William Bentinck.” “I did not know until I received Mr. Stuart’s letter that the defeat of the Estremaduran army had been so complete.”

Now that army was destroyed on the morning of the 10th, and here we see that the intelligence of it did not reach sir John Moore till the night of the 15th, which if not absolutely a whole week is near enough to justify the expression.

6º. History. “_Thousands of arms were stored up in the great towns._”

Authority. Extract from sir John Moore’s letter to Mr. Stuart.

1st December, 1808. “At Zamora there are _three or four thousand_ stand of arms, in other places _there may be more_. If they remain collected in towns they will be taken by the enemy.”

7º. History. “_Sir John Hope’s division was ordered to pass the Duero at Tordesillas._”

Authority. Extract of a letter from sir John Moore to sir David Baird, 12th Dec. 1808.

“Lord Paget is at Toro, to which place I have sent the reserve and general Beresford’s brigade, the rest of the troops from thence are moving to the Duero, my quarters to-morrow will be at Alaejos, _Hope’s at Tordesillas_.”

Now it is true that on the 14th sir John Moore, writing from Alaejos to sir David Baird, says that he had _then_ resolved to change his direction, and instead of going to Valladolid should be at Toro on the 15th with all the troops; but as Hope was to have been at Tordesillas the same day that Moore was at Alaejos, namely on the 13th, he must have marched from thence to Toro; and where was the danger? The cavalry of his division under general C. Stewart had already surprized the French at Rueda, higher up the Duero, and it was well known no infantry were nearer than the Carion.

8º. History. “_Sir John Moore was not put in communication with any person with whom he could communicate at all._”

Authority. Extracts from sir John Moore’s letters and Journal, 19th and 28th November.

“I am not in communication with any of the Spanish generals, and neither know their plans nor those of their government. No channel of information has been opened to me, and I have no knowledge of the force or situation of the enemy, but what as a stranger I picked up.”—“I am in communication with no one Spanish army, nor am I acquainted with the intentions of the Spanish government or any of its generals. Castaños with whom I was put in correspondence is deprived of his command at the moment I might have expected to hear from him, and La Romana, with whom I suppose I am now to correspond, (for it has not been officially communicated to me,) is absent, God knows where.”

9º. History. “_Sir John’s first intention was to move upon Valladolid, but at Alaejos an intercepted despatch of the prince of Neufchatel was brought to head-quarters, and the contents were important enough to change the direction of the march. Valderas was given as the point of union with Baird._”

Authority. Extract from sir John Moore’s Journal.

“I marched on the 13th from Salamanca; head-quarters, Alaejos; _there_ I saw an intercepted letter from Berthier, prince of Neufchatel, to marshal Soult, duke of Dalmatia, which determined me to unite the army without loss of time. I therefore moved on the 15th to Toro instead of Valladolid. At _Valderas_ I was joined by sir David Baird with two brigades.”

10º. History. “_No assistance could be expected from Romana._”—“_He did not destroy the bridge of Mansilla._”—“_Contrary to his promise he pre-occupied Astorga, and when there proposed offensive plans of an absurd nature_.”

Authorities. 1º. Sir John Moore to Mr. Frere, Dec. 12th, 1808.

“I have heard nothing from the marquis de la Romana in answer to the letters I wrote to him on the 6th and 8th instants. _I am thus disappointed of his co-operation or of knowing what plan he proposes._”

2º. Colonel Symes to sir David Baird, 14th Dec.

“In the morning I waited on the marquis and pressed him as far as I could with propriety on the subject of joining sir John Moore, to which he evaded giving any more than general assurances.”

3º. Extract from sir John Moore’s Journal.

“At two I received a letter from Romana, brought to me by his aide-de-camp, stating that he had twenty-two thousand, (he only brought up six thousand,) and would be happy to co-operate with me.” “At Castro Nuevo sir D. Baird sent me a letter he had addressed to him of rather a later date, stating that he was retiring into the Gallicias. I sent his aide-de-camp back to him with a letter requesting to know if such was his intention, but without expressing either approbation or disapprobation. _In truth I placed no dependance on him or his army._”

4º. Sir John Moore to lord Castlereagh, Astorga, 31st December.

“I arrived here yesterday, when _contrary to his promise_ and to my expectations I find the marquis de la Romana with a great part of his troops.”—“He said to me in direct terms that had he known how things were, he neither would have accepted the command nor have returned to Spain. With all this, however, he talks of attacks and movements which are _quite absurd_, and then returns to the helpless state of his army.” “_He could not be persuaded to destroy the bridge at Mansillas_, he posted some troops at it which were forced and taken prisoners by the French on their march from Mayorga.”

The reviewer must now be content to swallow his disgust at finding Napoleon’s genius admired, Soult’s authority accepted, and Romana’s military talents contemned in my History; these proofs of my accuracy are more than enough, and instead of adding to them, an apology is necessary for having taken so much notice of two articles only remarkable for malevolent imbecility and systematic violation of truth. But if the reader wishes to have a good standard of value, let him throw away this silly fellow’s carpings, and look at the duke of Wellington’s despatches as compiled by colonel Gurwood, 5th and 6th volumes. He will there find that my opinions are generally corroborated, never invalidated by the duke’s letters, and that while no fact of consequence is left out by me, new light has been thrown upon many events, the true bearings of which were unknown at the time to the English general. Thus at page 337 of the despatches, lord Wellington speaks in doubt about some obscure negociations of marshal Victor, which I have shewn, book vii. chap. iii. to be a secret intrigue for the treacherous surrender of Badajos. The proceedings in Joseph’s council of war, related by me, and I am the first writer who was ever informed of them, shew the real causes of the various attacks made by the French at the battle of Talavera. I have shewn also, and I am the first English writer who has shewn it, that the French had in Spain one hundred thousand more men than the English general knew of, that Soult brought down to the valley of the Tagus after the fight of Talavera, a force which was stronger by more than twenty thousand men than sir Arthur Wellesley estimated it to be; and without this knowledge the imminence of the danger, which the English army escaped by crossing the bridge of Arzobispo, cannot be understood.

[Sidenote: See Wellington’s Despatches, vol. v. p. 488, et passim.]

Again, the means of correcting the error which Wellington fell into in 1810 relative to Soult, who he supposed to have been at the head of the second corps in Placentia when he was really at Seville, has been furnished by me, insomuch as I have shewn that it was Mermet who was at the head of that corps, and that Wellington was deceived by the name of the younger Soult who commanded Mermet’s cavalry.

Two facts only have been misstated in my history.

1º. Treating of the conspiracy in Soult’s camp at Oporto, I said that D’Argenton, to save his life, readily told all he knew of the British, but _with respect to his accomplices, was immoveable_.

2º. Treating of Cuesta’s conduct in the Talavera campaign I have enumerated amongst his reasons for not fighting that it was Sunday.

Now the duke of Wellington says D’Argenton did betray his accomplices, and yet my information was drawn from authority only second to the duke’s, viz. major-general sir James Douglas, who conducted the interviews with D’Argenton, and was the suggester and attendant of his journey to the British head-quarters. He was probably deceived by that conspirator, but the following extract from his narrative proves that the fact was not lightly stated in my History.

“D’Argenton was willing enough to save his life by revealing every thing he knew about the English, and among other things assured Soult it would be nineteen days before any serious attack could be made upon Oporto; and there can be little doubt that Soult, giving credit to this information, lost his formidable barrier of the Douro by surprise. _As no threats on the part of the marshal could induce D’Argenton to reveal the name of his accomplices_, he was twice brought out to be shot and remanded in the expectation that between hope and intimidation he might be led to a full confession. On the morning of the attack he was hurried out of prison by the gens-d’armes, and, no other conveyance for him being at hand, he was placed upon a horse of his own, and that one the very best he had. The gens-d’armes in their hurry did not perceive what he very soon found out himself, that he was the best mounted man of the party, and watching his opportunity he sprung his horse over a wall into the fields, and made his escape to the English, who were following close.”

For the second error so good a plea cannot be offered, and yet there was authority for that also. The story was circulated, and generally believed at the time, as being quite consonant with the temper of the Spanish general; and it has since been repeated in a narrative of the campaign of 1809, published by lord Munster. Nevertheless it appears from colonel Gurwood’s compilation, 5th vol. page 343, that it is not true.

* * * * *

Having thus disposed of the Quarterly Review I request the reader’s attention to the following corrections of errors, as to facts, which having lately reached me, are inserted here in preference to waiting for a new edition of the volumes to which they refer.

1º. _The storming of Badajos._

“General Viellande, and Phillipon who was wounded, seeing all ruined, passed the bridge with a few hundred soldiers, and entered San Cristoval, where they all surrendered the next morning to lord Fitzroy Somerset.”

_Correction by colonel Warre, assented to by lord Fitzroy Somerset._

“Lieut.-colonel Warre was the senior officer present at the surrender, having joined lord Fitzroy Somerset (who was in search of the governor and the missing part of the garrison) just as he was collecting a few men wherewith to summon in his capacity of aide-de-camp to the commander-in-chief, the tête-du-pont of San Christoval.”

2º. _Assault of Tarifa._ “The Spaniards and the forty-seventh British regiment guarded the breach.”

_Correction by sir Hugh Gough._

“The only part of the forty-seventh engaged during _the assault_ were two companies under captain Livelesly, stationed on the east bastion one hundred and fifty paces from the breach, and the Spaniards were no where to be seen, except behind a pallisade in the street, a considerable way from the breach. _The eighty-seventh, and the eighty-seventh alone, defended the breach._ The two companies of the forty-seventh, I before mentioned, and the two companies of the rifles, which latter were stationed on my left but all under my orders, did all that disciplined and brave troops could do in support, and the two six-pounders, under lieut.-colonel Mitchel of the artillery, most effectively did their duty while their fire could tell, the immediate front of the breach from the great dip of the ground not being under their range.”

This correction renders it proper that I should give my authority for saying the Spaniards were at the breach.

Extract from a letter of sir Charles Smith, the engineer who defended Tarifa, to colonel Napier.

“The next great measure of opposition was to assign to the Spaniards the defence of the breach. This would have been insupportable: the able advocacy of lord Proby proved that it would be a positive insult to the Spanish nation to deprive its troops of the honour, and all my solemn remonstrances could produce, was to split the difference, and take upon myself to determine which half of the breach should be entrusted to our ally.”

The discrepancy between sir Charles Smith’s and sir Hugh Gough’s statement is however easily reconciled, being more apparent than real. The Spaniards were _ordered_ to defend half the breach, but in _fact_ did not appear there.

To the above it is proper here to add a fact made known to me since my fourth volume was published, and very honourable to major Henry King, of the eighty-second regiment. Being commandant of the town of Tarifa, a command distinct from the island, he was called to a council of war on the 29th of December, and when most of those present were for abandoning the place he gave in the following note,

“I am decidedly of opinion that the defence of Tarifa will afford the British garrison an opportunity of gaining eternal honour, and it ought to be defended to the last extremity.

“I. H. S. KING, “_Commandant of Tarifa_.”

3º. _Battle of Barosa._ “The Spanish Walloon guards, the regiment of Ciudad Real, and some guerilla cavalry, turned indeed without orders coming up just as the action ceased, and it was expected that colonel Whittingham, an Englishman, commanding a powerful body of horse, would have done as much, but no stroke in aid of the British was struck by a Spanish sabre that day, although the French cavalry did not exceed two hundred and fifty men, and it is evident that the eight hundred under Whittingham might, by sweeping round the left of Ruffin’s division have rendered the defeat ruinous.”—History, vol. iii. p. 448.

Extract of a letter from sir Samford Whittingham.

“I am free to confess that the statement of the historian of the Peninsular War, as regards my conduct on the day of the battle of Barosa, is just and correct; but I owe it to myself, to declare that my conduct was the result of obedience to the repeated orders of the general commanding in chief under whose command I acted. In the given strength of the Spanish cavalry under my command on that day, there is an error. The total number of the Spanish cavalry, at the commencement of the expedition, is correctly stated; but so many detachments had taken place by orders from head-quarters that I had only one squadron of Spanish cavalry under my command on that day.”

COUNTER-REMARKS

TO

MR. DUDLEY MONTAGU PERCEVAL’S

REMARKS

UPON SOME PASSAGES IN COLONEL NAPIER’S FOURTH VOLUME OF HIS HISTORY OF THE PENINSULAR WAR.

“The evil, that men do, lives after them.”

COUNTER-REMARKS,

_&c. &c._

In the fourth volume of my history of the Peninsular War I assailed the public character of the late Mr. Perceval, his son has published a defence of it, after having vainly endeavoured, in a private correspondence, to convince me that my attack was unfounded. The younger Mr. Perceval’s motive is to be respected, and had he confined himself to argument and authority, it was my intention to have relied on our correspondence, and left the subject matter in dispute to the judgment of the public. But Mr. Perceval used expressions which obliged me to seek a personal explanation, when I learned that he, unable to see any difference between invective directed against the public acts of a minister, and terms of insult addressed to a private person, thinks he is entitled to use such expressions; and while he emphatically “disavows all meaning or purpose of offence or insult,” does yet offer most grievous insult, denying at the same time my right of redress after the customary mode, and explicitly declining, he says from principle, an appeal to any other weapon than the pen.

It is not for me to impugn this principle in any case, still less in that of a son defending the memory of his father; but it gives me the right which I now assert, to disregard any verbal insult which Mr. Perceval, intentionally or unintentionally, has offered to me or may offer to me in future. When a gentleman relieves himself from personal responsibility by the adoption of this principle, his language can no longer convey insult to those who do not reject such responsibility; and it would be as unmanly to use insulting terms towards him in return as it would be to submit to them from a person not so shielded. Henceforth therefore I hold Mr. Perceval’s language to be innocuous, but for the support of my own accuracy, veracity, and justice, as an historian, I offer these my “_Counter-Remarks_.” They must of necessity lacerate Mr. Perceval’s feelings, but they are, I believe, scrupulously cleared of any personal incivility, and if any passage having that tendency has escaped me I thus apologize before-hand.

Mr. Perceval’s pamphlet is copious in declamatory expressions of his own feelings; and it is also duly besprinkled with animadversions on Napoleon’s vileness, the horrors of jacobinism, the wickedness of democrats, the propriety of coercing the Irish, and such sour dogmas of melancholy ultra-toryism. Of these I reck not. Assuredly I did not write with any expectation of pleasing men of Mr. Perceval’s political opinions and hence I shall let his general strictures pass, without affixing my mark to them, and the more readily as I can comprehend the necessity of ekeing out a scanty subject. But where he has adduced specific argument and authority for his own peculiar cause,—weak argument indeed, for it is his own, but strong authority, for it is the duke of Wellington’s,—I will not decline discussion. Let the most honoured come first.

The Duke of Wellington, replying to a letter from Mr. Perceval, in which the point at issue is most earnestly and movingly begged by the latter, writes as follows:—

_London, June 6, 1835._

DEAR SIR,

I received last night your letter of the 5th. Notwithstanding my great respect for Colonel Napier and his work, I have never read a line of it; because I wished to avoid being led into a literary controversy, which I should probably find more troublesome than the operations which it is the design of the Colonel’s work to describe and record.

I have no knowledge therefore of what he has written of your father, Mr. Spencer Perceval. Of this I am certain, that I never, whether in public or in private, said one word of the ministers, or of any minister who was employed in the conduct of the affairs of the public during the war, excepting in praise of them;—that I have repeatedly declared in public my obligations to them for the cordial support and encouragement which I received from them; and I should have been ungrateful and unjust indeed, if I had excepted Mr. Perceval, than whom a more honest, zealous, and able minister never served the king.

It is true that the army was in want of money, that is to say, _specie_, during the war. Bank-notes could not be used abroad; and we were obliged to pay for every thing in the currency of the country which was the seat of the operations. It must not be forgotten, however, that at that period the Bank was restricted from making its payments in _specie_. That commodity became therefore exceedingly scarce in England; and very frequently was not to be procured at all. I believe, that from the commencement of the war in Spain up to the period of the lamented death of Mr. Perceval, the difficulty in procuring _specie_ was much greater than it was found to be from the year 1812, to the end of the war; because at the former period all intercourse with the Continent was suspended: in the latter, as soon as the war in Russia commenced, the communication with the continent was in some degree restored; and it became less difficult to procure specie.

But it is obvious that, from some cause or other, there was a want of money in the army, as the pay of the troops was six months in arrear; a circumstance which had never been heard of in a British army in Europe: and large sums were due in different parts of the country for supplies, means of transport, &c. &c.

Upon other points referred to in your letter, I have really no recollection of having made complaints. I am convinced that there was no real ground for them; as I must repeat, that throughout the war, I received from the king’s servants every encouragement and support that they had in their power to give.

Believe me, dear Sir, Ever yours most faithfully, WELLINGTON.

_Dudley Montagu Perceval, Esq._

This letter imports, if I rightly understand it, that any complaints, by whomsoever preferred, against the ministers, and especially against Mr. Perceval, during the war in the Peninsula, had no real foundation. Nevertheless his Grace and others did make many, and very bitter complaints, as the following extracts will prove.

No. 1.

_Lord Wellington to Mr. Stuart, Minister Plenipotentiary at Lisbon._

“_Viseu, February 10th, 1810._

“I apprized Government more than two months ago of our probable want of money, and of the necessity that we should be supplied, not only with a large sum but with a regular sum monthly, equal in amount to the increase of expense occasioned by the increased subsidy to the Portuguese, and by the increase of our own army. _They have not attended to either of these demands_, and I must write again. But I wish you would mention the subject in your letter to lord Wellesley.”

No. 2.

“_February 23d, 1810._

“It is obvious that the sums will fall short of those which _His Majesty’s Government have engaged to supply_ to the Portuguese government, but that _is the fault of His Majesty’s Government in England, and they have been repeatedly informed that it was necessary that they should send out money_. The funds for the expenses of the British army are insufficient in the same proportion, and all that I can do is to divide the deficiency in its due proportions between the two bodies which are to be supported by the funds at our disposal.”

No. 3.

“_March 1st, 1810._

“In respect to the 15,000 men in addition to those which Government did propose to maintain in this country, I have only to say, that I don’t care how many men they send here, _provided they will supply us with proportionate means to feed and pay them_; but I suspect they will fall short rather than exceed the thirty thousand men.”

No. 4.

“_March 5th, 1810._

Mr. Stuart, speaking of the Portuguese emigrating, says,

“_If the determination of ministers at home or events here bring matters to that extremity._”

No. 5.

_Lord Wellington to Mr. Stuart, in reference to Cadiz._

“_30th March, 1810._

“I don’t understand the arrangement which Government have made of the command of the troops there. I have hitherto considered them as a part of the army, and from the arrangement which I made with the Spanish government they cost us nothing but their pay, and all the money procured by bills was applicable to the service in this country. _The instructions to general Graham alter this entirely, and they have even gone so far as to desire him to take measures to supply the Spaniards with provisions from the Mediterranean, whereas I had insisted that the Spaniards should feed our troops. The first consequence of this arrangement will be that we shall have no more money from Cadiz._ I had considered the troops at Cadiz so much a part of my army that I had written to my brother to desire his opinion whether, if the French withdrew from Cadiz, when they should attack Portugal, he thought I might bring into Portugal, at least the troops, which I had sent there. But I consider this now to be at an end.”

No. 6.

_Lord Wellington to Mr. Stuart._

“_1st April, 1810._

“I agree with you respecting the disposition of the people of Lisbon. In fact all they wish for is to be saved from the French, and they were riotous last winter _because they imagined, with some reason, that we intended to abandon them_.”——“_The arrangement made by Government for the command at Cadiz will totally ruin us in the way of money._”

No. 7.

_Lord Wellington to Mr. Stuart._

“_April 20th, 1810._

“_The state of opinions in England is very unfavourable to the Peninsula. The ministers are as much alarmed as the public or as the opposition pretend to be, and they appear to be of opinion that I am inclined to fight a desperate battle, which is to answer no purpose. Their private letters are in some degree at variance with their public instructions, and I have called for an explanation of the former, which when it arrives will shew me more clearly what they intend. The instructions are clear enough, and I am willing to act under them, although they throw upon me the whole responsibility for bringing away the army in safety, after staying in the Peninsula till it will be necessary to evacuate it. But it will not answer in these times to receive private hints and opinions from ministers, which, if attended to, would lead to an act directly contrary to the spirit, and even to the letter of the public instructions; at the same time that, if not attended to, the danger of the responsibility imposed by the public instructions is increased tenfold._”

No. 8.

_Ditto to Ditto._

“_May, 1810._

“It is impossible for Portugal to aid in feeding Cadiz. We have neither money, nor provisions in this country, and the measures which they are adopting to feed the people there will positively oblige us to evacuate this country for want of money to support the army, and to perform the king’s engagements, unless the Government in England should enable us to remain by sending out large and regular supplies of specie. I have written fully to Government upon this subject.”

No. 9.

_General Graham to Mr. Stuart._

“_Isla, 22d May, 1810._

In reference to his command at Cadiz, says, “lord Liverpool has decided the doubt by declaring this a part of lord Wellington’s army, and saying it is the wish of Government that though I am second in command to him I should be left here for the present.” “_This is odd enough; I mean that it should not have been left to his judgement to decide where I was to be employed; one would think he could judge fully better according to circumstances than people in England._”

No. 10.

_Lord Wellington to Mr. Stuart._

“_June 5, 1810._

“_This letter will shew you the difficulties under which we labour for want of provisions and of money to buy them._” “_I am really ashamed of writing to the government_ (Portuguese) upon this subject (of the militia), feeling as I do that we owe them so much money which we are unable to pay. According to my account the military chest is now indebted to the chest of the aids nearly £400,000. At the same time I have no money to pay the army, which is approaching the end of the second month in arrears, and which ought to be paid in advance. The bât and forage to the officers for March is still due, and we are in debt every where.” “_The miserable and pitiful want of money prevents me from doing many things which might and ought to be done for the safety of the country._” “The corps ought to be assembled and placed in their stations. But want of provisions and money obliges me to leave them in winter-quarters till the last moment. _Yet if any thing fails, I shall not be forgiven._”

No. 11.

_Mr. Stuart to Lord Wellington._

“_June 9, 1810._

“I have received two letters from Government, the one relative to licenses, the other containing a letter from Mr. Harrison of the Treasury, addressed to colonel Bunbury, in which, after referring to the different estimates both for the British and Portuguese, and stating the sums at their disposal, _they not only conclude that we have more than is absolutely necessary, but state specie to be so scarce in England that we must not rely on further supplies from home, and must content ourselves with such sums as come from Gibraltar and Cadiz_,” &c. &c.

“From hand to mouth we may perhaps make shift, taking care to pay the Portuguese in kind and not in money, until the supplies, which the Treasury say in three or four months will be ready, are forthcoming. Government desire me to report to them any explanation which either your lordship or myself may be able to communicate on the subject of Mr. Harrison’s letter. As it principally relates to army finance, I do not feel myself quite competent to risk an opinion in opposition to what that gentleman has laid down. _I have, however, so often and so strongly written to them the embarrassment we all labour under, both respecting corn and money_, that there must be some misconception, or some inaccuracy has taken place in calculations which are so far invalidated by the fact, without obliging us to go into the detail necessary to find out what part of the statement is erroneous.”

No. 12.

_Wellington to Stuart._

“_June, 1810._

“I received from the Secretary of State a copy of Mr. Hamilton’s letter to colonel Bunbury, and we have completely refuted him. He took an estimate made for September, October, and November, as the rate of expense for eight months, without adverting to the alteration of circumstances occasioned by change of position, increase of price, of numbers, &c., _and then concluded upon his own statement, that we ought to have money in hand, (having included in it by the bye some sums which we had not received,) notwithstanding that our distress had been complained of by every post, and I had particularly desired, in December, that £200,000 might be sent out, and a sum monthly equal in amount to the increased Portuguese subsidy_.”

No. 13.

_Ditto to Ditto._

“_June, 1810._

“All our militia in these provinces [_Tras os Montes and Entre Minho y Douro_] are disposable, and we might throw them upon the enemy’s flank in advance in these quarters [_Leon_] and increase our means of defence here and to the north of the Tagus very much indeed. _But we cannot collect them as an army, nor move them without money and magazines, and I am upon my last legs in regard to both._”

No. 14.

_Wellington to Stuart._

“_November, 1810._

“_I have repeatedly written to government respecting the pecuniary wants of Portugal, but hitherto without effect._”

No. 15.

_Ditto to Ditto._

“_December 22._

“It is useless to expect more money from England, as the desire of economy has overcome even the fears of the Ministers, _and they have gone so far as to desire me to send home the transports in order to save money_!”

No. 16.

_Ditto to Ditto._

“_28th January, 1811._

“I think the Portuguese are still looking to assistance from England, and I have written to the king’s Government strongly upon the subject in their favour. But I _should deceive myself if I believed we shall get any thing, and them if I were to tell them we should; they must, therefore, look to their own resources_.”

No. 17.

_Ditto to Ditto._

_In reference to the Portuguese intrigue against him._

“_18th February, 1811._

“I think also that they will be supported in the Brazils, and _I have no reason to believe that I shall be supported in England_.”

No. 18.

_Ditto to Ditto._

“_13th April, 1811._

“_If the Government choose to undertake large services and not supply us with sufficient pecuniary means, and leave to me the distribution of the means with which they do supply us, I must exercise my own judgement upon the distribution for which I am to be responsible._”

No. 19.

_Lord Wellington to Mr. Stuart._

“_4th July, 1811._

“The pay of the British troops is now nearly two months in arrears, instead of being paid one month in advance, according to his majesty’s regulations. The muleteers, upon whose services the army depends almost as much as upon those of the soldiers, are six months in arrears; _there are now bills to a large amount drawn by the commissioners in the country on the commissary at Lisbon still remaining unpaid, by which delay the credit of the British army and government is much impaired_, and you are aware of the pressing demands of the Portuguese government for specie. There is but little money in hand to be applied to the several services; _there is no prospect that any will be sent from England, and the supplies derived from the negociation of bills upon the treasury at Cadiz and Lisbon have been gradually decreasing_.”

No. 20.

_Lord Wellington to Lord Wellesley._

“_26th July, 1811._

“Although there are, I understand, provisions in Lisbon, in sufficient quantities to last the inhabitants and army for a year, about 12 or 14,000 Portuguese troops which I have on the right bank of the Tagus are literally starving; even those in the cantonments on the Tagus cannot get bread, because the government have not money to pay for means of transport. _The soldiers in the hospitals die because the government have not money to pay for the hospital necessaries for them; and it is really disgusting to reflect upon the detail of the distresses occasioned by the lamentable want of funds to support the machine which we have put in motion._”

“Either Great Britain is interested in maintaining the war in the Peninsula, or she is not. If she is, there can be no doubt of the expediency of making an effort to put in motion against the enemy the largest force which the Peninsula can produce. The Spaniards would not allow, I believe, of that active interference by us in their affairs which might affect and ameliorate their circumstances, _but that cannot be a reason for doing nothing_. Subsidies given without stipulating for the performance of specific services would, in my opinion, answer no purpose.”

No. 21.

_Mr. Sydenham to Mr. Stuart._

“_27th September, 1811._

“I take great shame to myself for having neglected so long writing to you, &c. but in truth I did not wish to write to you until I could give you some notion of the result of my mission and the measures which our government would have adopted in consequence of the information and opinion which I brought with me from Portugal, but _God knows how long I am to wait if I do not write to you until I could give you the information which you must naturally be so anxious to receive_. _From week to week I have anxiously expected that something would be concluded, and I as regularly deferred writing; however I am now so much in your debt that I am afraid you will attribute my silence to inattention rather than to the uncertainty and indecision of our further proceedings._ During the ten days agreeable voyage in the Armide I arranged all the papers of information which I had procured in Portugal, and I made out a paper on which I expressed in plain and strong terms all I thought regarding the state of affairs both in Portugal and Spain. These papers, together with the notes which I procured from lord Wellington and yourself, appeared to me to comprehend every thing which the ministers could possibly require, both to form a deliberate opinion upon every part of the subject and to shape their future measures. The letters which I had written to lord Wellesley during my absence from England, and which had been regularly submitted to the prince, had prepared them for most of the opinions which I had to enforce on my arrival. _Lord Wellesley perfectly coincided in all the leading points_, and a short paper of proposals was prepared for the consideration of the cabinet, supported by the most interesting papers which I brought from Portugal.”

Then followed an abstract of the proposals, after which Mr. Sydenham continues thus:—

“I really conceived that all this would have been concluded in a week, _but a month has elapsed, and nothing has yet been done_.” “Campbell will be able to tell you that I have done every thing in my power _to get people here to attend to their real interests in Portugal_, and I have clamoured for money, money, money in every office to which I have had access. To all my clamour and all my arguments I have invariably received the same answer ‘that the thing is impossible.’ The prince himself certainly appears to be _à la hauteur des circonstances_, and has expressed his determination to make every exertion to promote the good cause in the Peninsula. _Lord Wellesley has a perfect comprehension of the subject in its fullest extent, and is fully aware of the several measures which Great Britain ought and could adopt. But such is the state of parties and such the condition of the present government that I really despair of witnessing any decided and adequate effort on our part to save the Peninsula. The present feeling appears to be that we have done mighty things, and all that is in our power; that the rest must be left to all-bounteous Providence, and that if we do not succeed we must console ourselves by the reflection that Providence has not been so propitious as we deserved. This feeling you will allow is wonderfully moral and Christian-like, but still nothing will be done until we have a more vigorous military system, and a ministry capable of directing the resources of the nation to something nobler than a war of descents and embarkations._” “Nothing can be more satisfactory than the state of affairs in the north; all that I am afraid of is that we have not a ministry capable of taking advantage of so fine a prospect.”

Mr. Sydenham’s statement of the opinions of Lord Wellesley at the time of the negociations which ended in that lord’s retirement in February, is as follows:—

“1st. That Lord Wellesley was the only man in power who had a just view of affairs in the Peninsula, or a military thought amongst them.”

“2nd. That he did not agree with Perceval that they were to shut the door against the Catholics, neither did he agree with Grenville that they were to be conciliated by emancipation without securities.”

“3rd. That with respect to the Peninsula, he rejected the notion that we were to withdraw from the Peninsula to husband our resources at home, _but he thought a great deal more both in men and money could be done than the Percevals admitted, and he could no longer act under Perceval with credit, or comfort, or use to the country_.”

No. 22.

_Extract of a letter from Mr. Hamilton, Under-Secretary of State._

“_April 9th, 1810._

“I hope by next mail will be sent something more satisfactory and useful than we have yet done by way of instructions, _but I am afraid the late_ O. P. _riots have occupied all the thoughts of our great men here, so as to make them, or at least some of them, forget more distant but not less interesting concerns_. With respect to the evils you allude to as arising from the inefficiency of the Portuguese government, the people here are by no means so satisfied of their existence (to a great degree) as you who are on the spot. _Here we judge only of the results, the details we read over, but being unable to remedy, forget them the next day._”

No. 23.

_Lord Wellington to Mr. Stuart._

“_6th May, 1812._

“In regard to money for the Portuguese government, I begged Mr. Bisset to suggest to you, that if you were not satisfied with the sum he was enabled to supply, you should make your complaint on the subject to the king’s government. I am not the minister of finance, nor is the commissary-general. _It is the duty of the king’s ministers to provide supplies for the service, and not to undertake a service for which they cannot provide adequate supplies of money and every other requisite. They have thrown upon me a very unpleasant task, in leaving to me to decide what proportion of the money which comes into the hands of the commissary-general, shall be applied to the service of the British army; and what shall be paid to the king’s minister, in order to enable him to make good the king’s engagements to the Portuguese government; and at the same time that they have laid upon me this task, and have left me to carry on the war as I could, they have by their orders cut off some of the resources which I had._”

“_The British army have not been paid for nearly three months. We owe nearly a year’s hire to the muleteers of the army. We are in debt for supplies in all parts of the country; and we are on the point of failing in our payments for some supplies essentially necessary to both armies, which cannot be procured excepting with ready money._”

No. 24.

[Sidenote: Vol. iv. p. 178.]

The following extracts are of a late date, but being retrospective, and to the point, are proper to be inserted here. In 1813 lord Castlereagh complained of some proceedings described in my history, as having been adopted by lord Wellington and Mr. Stuart, to feed the army in 1810 and 1811, and his censure elicited the letters from which these extracts are given.

No. 25.

_Lord Wellington to Mr. Stuart._

“_3d May, 1813._

“I have read your letter, No. 2, 28th April, in which you have enclosed some papers transmitted by lord Castlereagh, including a letter from the Board of Trade in regard to the purchases of corn made by your authority in concert with me, in Brazil, America, and Egypt. When I see a letter from the Board of Trade, I am convinced that the latter complaint originates with the jobbing British merchants at Lisbon; and although _I am delighted to see the Government turn their attention to the subject, as it will eventually save me a great deal of trouble, I am quite convinced that if we had not adopted, nearly three years ago, the system of measures now disapproved of, not only would Lisbon and the army and this part of the Peninsula have been starved; but if we had, according to the suggestions of the commander-in-chief, and the Treasury, and the Board of Trade, carried on transactions of a similar nature through the sharks at Lisbon, above referred to, calling themselves British merchants, the expense of the army crippled in its operations, and depending upon those who, I verily believe, are the worst subjects that his Majesty has; and enormous as that expense is, it would have been very much increased._”

“In regard to the particular subject under consideration, it is obvious to me that the authorities in England have taken a very confined view of the question.”

“It appears to me to be extraordinary that when lord Castlereagh read the statement that the commissary-general had in his stores a supply of corn and flour to last 100,000 men for nine months, he should not have adverted to the fact, that the greatest part of the Portuguese subsidy, indeed all in the last year, but £600,000, was paid in kind, and principally in corn, and that he should not have seen that a supply for 100,000 men for nine months was not exorbitant under these circumstances. Then the Government appears to me to have forgotten all that passed on the particular subject of your purchases. _The advantage derived from them in saving a starving people during the scarcity of 1810-1811; in bringing large sums into the military chest which otherwise would not have found their way there; and in positive profit of money._”——“If all this be true, which I believe you have it in your power to prove, I cannot understand why Government find fault with these transactions, unless it is that they are betrayed into disapprobation of them by merchants who are interested in their being discontinued. _I admit that your time and mine would be much better employed than in speculation of corn, &c. But when it is necessary to carry on an extensive system of war with one-sixth of the money in specie which would be necessary to carry it on, we must consider questions and adopt measures of this sort, and we ought to have the confidence and support of the Government in adopting them._ It is only the other day that I recommended to my brother something of the same kind to assist in paying the Spanish subsidy; and I have adopted measures in respect to corn and other articles in Gallicia, with a view to get a little money for the army in that quarter. _If these measures were not adopted, not only would it be impossible to perform the king’s engagement, but even to support our own army._”

_Mr. Stuart to Mr. Hamilton._

“_8th May._

“Though I thank you for the letter from the Admiralty contained in yours of the 21st April, I propose rather to refer Government to the communication of lord Wellington and the admiral, by whose desire I originally adverted to the subject, than to continue my representations of the consequences to be expected from a state of things the navy department are not disposed to remedy. My private letter to lord Castlereagh, enclosing lord Wellington’s observations on the letter from the Treasury, will, I think, satisfy his lordship that the arrangements which had been adopted for the supply of the army and population of this country are of more importance than is generally imagined. _I am indeed convinced that if they had been left to private merchants, and that I had not taken the measures which are condemned, the army must have embarked, and a famine must have taken place._”

Now if these complaints thus made in the duke’s letters, written at the time, were unfounded, his Grace’s present letter is, for so much, a defence of Mr. Perceval; if they were not unfounded his present letter is worth nothing, unless as a proof, that with him, the memory of good is longer-lived than the memory of ill. But in either supposition the complaints are of historical interest, as shewing the difficulties, real or supposed, under which the general laboured. They are also sound vouchers for my historical assertions, because no man but the duke could have contradicted them; no man could have doubted their accuracy on less authority than his own declaration; and no man could have been so hardy as to put to him the direct question of their correctness.

Mr. Perceval objects to my quoting lord Wellesley’s manifesto, because that nobleman expressed sorrow at its appearance, and denied that he had composed it. But the very passage of lord Wellesley’s speech on which Mr. Perceval relies, proves, that the sentiments and opinions of the manifesto were really entertained by lord Wellesley, who repudiates the style only, and regrets, not that the statement appeared, but that it should have appeared at the moment when Mr. Perceval had been killed. The expression of this very natural feeling he, however, took care to guard from any mistake, by reasserting his contempt for Mr. Perceval’s political character. Thus he identified his opinions with those contained in the manifesto. And this view of the matter is confirmed by those extracts which I have given from the correspondence of Mr. Sydenham, no mean authority, for he was a man of high honour and great capacity; and he was the confidential agent employed by lord Wellesley, to ascertain and report upon the feelings and views of lord Wellington, with respect to the war; and also upon those obstacles to his success, which were daily arising, either from the conduct of the ministers at home, or from the intrigues of their diplomatists abroad.

[Sidenote: See Extract. No. 15]

[Sidenote: Do. No. 7.]

[Sidenote: Do. No. 10.]

[Sidenote: Do. No. 17.]

Thus it appears that if lord Wellington’s complaints, as exhibited in these extracts, were unfounded, they were at least so plausible as to mislead Mr. Sydenham on the spot, and lord Wellesley at a distance, and I may well be excused if they also deceived me. But was I deceived? Am I to be condemned as an historian, because lord Wellington, in the evening of his life, and in the ease and fulness of his glory, generously forgets the crosses, and remembers only the benefits of by-gone years? It may be said indeed, that his difficulties were real, and yet the government not to blame, seeing that it could not relieve them. To this I can oppose the ordering away of the transports, on which, in case of failure, the safety of the army depended! To this I can oppose the discrepancy between the public and private instructions of the ministers! To this I can oppose those most bitter passages, “_If any thing fails I shall not be forgiven_,” and “_I have no reason to believe that I shall be supported in England_.”

I say I can oppose these passages from the duke’s letters, but I need them not. Lord Wellesley, a man of acknowledged talent, practised in governing, well acquainted with the resources of England, and actually a member of the administration at the time, was placed in a better position, to make a sound judgement than lord Wellington; lord Wellesley, an ambitious man, delighting in power, and naturally anxious to direct the political measures, while his brother wielded the military strength of the state; lord Wellesley, tempted to keep office by natural inclination, by actual possession, by every motive that could stir ambition and soothe the whisperings of conscience, actually quitted the cabinet

_Because he could not prevail on Mr. Perceval to support the war as it ought to be supported, and he could therefore no longer act under him with credit, or comfort, or use to the country;_

_Because the war could be maintained on a far greater scale than Mr. Perceval maintained it, and it was dishonest to the allies and unsafe not to do it;_

_Because the cabinet, and he particularized Mr. Perceval as of a mean capacity, had neither ability and knowledge to devise a good plan, nor temper and discretion to adopt another’s plan._

Do I depend even upon this authority? No! In lord Wellington’s letter, stress is laid upon the word _specie_, the want of which, it is implied, was the only distress, because bank notes would not pass on the continent; but several extracts speak of corn and hospital stores, and the transport vessels ordered home were chiefly paid in paper. Notes certainly would not pass on the continent, nor in England neither, for their nominal value, and why? Because they were not money; they were the signs of debt; the signs that the labour, and property, and happiness, of unborn millions, were recklessly forestalled, by bad ministers, to meet the exigency of the moment. Now admitting, which I do not, that this exigency was real and unavoidable; admitting, which I do not, that one generation has a right to mortgage the labour and prosperity of another and unborn generation, it still remains a question, whether a minister, only empowered by a corrupt oligarchy, has such a right. And there can be no excuse for a man who, while protesting that the country was unable to support the war, as it ought to be supported, continued that war, and thus proceeded to sink the nation in hopeless debt, and risk the loss of her armies, and her honour, at the same time; there is no excuse for that man who, while denying the ability of the country, to support her troops abroad, did yet uphold all manner of corruption and extravagance at home.

There was no specie, because the fictitious ruinous incontrovertible paper money system had driven it away, and who more forward than Mr. Perceval to maintain and extend that system—the bane of the happiness and morals of the country; a system which then gave power and riches to evil men, but has since plunged thousands upon thousands into ruin and misery; a system which, swinging like a pendulum between high taxes and low prices, at every oscillation strikes down the laborious part of the community, spreading desolation far and wide and threatening to break up the very foundations of society. And why did Mr. Perceval thus nourish the accursed thing? Was it that one bad king might be placed on the throne of France; another on the throne of Spain; a third on the throne of Naples? That Italy might be the prey of the barbarian, or, last, not least, that the hateful power of the English oligarchy, which he called social order and legitimate rights, might be confirmed? But lo! his narrow capacity! what has been the result? In the former countries insurrection, civil war, and hostile invasion, followed by the free use of the axe and the cord, the torture and the secret dungeon; and in England it would have been the same, if her people, more powerful and enlightened in their generation, had not torn the baleful oppression down, to be in due time trampled to dust as it deserves.

_Mr. Perceval was pre-eminently an “honest, zealous, and able servant of the king!”_

[Sidenote: See Extract, No. 23.]

To be the servant of the monarch is not then to be the servant of the people. For if the country could not afford to support the war, as it ought to be supported, without detriment to greater interests, the war should have been given up; or the minister, who felt oppressed by the difficulty, should have resigned his place to those who thought differently. “_It is the duty of the king’s ministers to provide supplies for the service, and not to undertake a service for which they cannot provide adequate supplies of money and every other requisite!_” These are the words of Wellington, and wise words they are. Did Mr. Perceval act on this maxim? No! he suffered the war to starve on “_one-sixth of the money necessary to keep it up_,” and would neither withdraw from the contest, nor resign the conduct of it to lord Wellesley, who, with a full knowledge of the subject, declared himself able and willing to support it efficiently. Nay, Mr. Perceval, while professing his inability to furnish Wellington efficiently for one war in the Peninsula, was by his orders in council, those complicated specimens of political insolence, folly, and fraud, provoking a new and unjust war with America, which was sure to render the supply of that in the Peninsula more difficult than ever.

[Sidenote: See Extract No. 20]

But how could the real resources of the country for supplying the war be known, until all possible economy was used in the expenditure upon objects of less importance? Was there any economy used by Mr. Perceval? Was not that the blooming period of places, pensions, sinecures, and jobbing contracts? Did not the government and all belonging thereto, then shout and revel in their extravagance? Did not corruption the most extensive and the most sordid overspread the land? Was not that the palmy state of the system which the indignant nation has since risen in its moral strength to reform? Why did not Mr. Perceval reduce the home and the colonial expenses, admit the necessity of honest retrenchment, and then manfully call upon the people of England to bear the real burthen of the war, because it was necessary, and because their money was fairly expended to sustain their honour and their true interests? This would have been the conduct of an able, zealous, and faithful servant of the country; and am I to be silenced by a phrase, when I charge with a narrow, factious, and contemptible policy and a desire to keep himself in power, the man, who supported and extended this system of corruption at home, clinging to it as a child clings to its nurse, while the armies of his country were languishing abroad for that assistance which his pitiful genius could not perceive the means of providing, and which, if he had been capable of seeing it, his more pitiful system of administration would not have suffered him to furnish. Profuseness and corruption marked Mr. Perceval’s government at home, but the army withered for want abroad; the loan-contractors got fat in London, but the soldiers in hospital died because there was no money to provide for their necessities. The funds of the country could not supply both, and so he directed his economy against the troops, and reserved his extravagance to nourish the foul abuses at home, and this is to be a pre-eminently “_honest, zealous, and able servant of the king_!”

[Sidenote: See further on, Second Extracts, No. 4.]

[Sidenote: Ditto, No. 6]

[Sidenote: See further on, Second Extracts, No. 7.]

This was the man who projected to establish fortresses to awe London and other great towns. This was the man who could not support the war in Spain, but who did support the tithe war in Ireland, and who persecuted the press of England with a ferocity that at last defeated its own object. This was the man who called down vindictive punishment on the head of the poor tinman, Hamlyn of Plymouth, because, in his ignorant simplicity, he openly offered money to a minister for a place; and this also was the man who sheltered himself from investigation, under the vote of an unreformed House of Commons, when Mr. Maddocks solemnly offered to prove at the bar, that he, Mr. Perceval, had been privy to, and connived at a transaction, more corrupt and far more mischievous and illegal in its aim than that of the poor tinman. This is the Mr. Perceval who, after asserting, with a view to obtain heavier punishment on Hamlyn, the distinguished purity of the public men of his day, called for that heavy punishment on Hamlyn for the sake of public justice, and yet took shelter himself from that public justice under a vote of an unreformed house, and suffered Mr. Ponsonby to defend that vote by the plea that such foul transactions were as “_glaring as the sun at noon-day_.” And this man is not to be called factious!

Mr. Perceval the younger in his first letter to me says, “_the good name of my father is the only inheritance he left to his children_.” A melancholy inheritance indeed if it be so, and that he refers to his public reputation. But I find that during his life the minister Perceval had salaries to the amount of about eight thousand a-year, and the reversion of a place worth twelve thousand a-year, then enjoyed by his brother, lord Arden. And also I find that after his death, his family received a grant of fifty thousand pounds, and three thousand a-year from the public money. Nay, Mr. Perceval the son, forgetting his former observation, partly founds his father’s claim to reputation upon this large amount of money so given to his family. Money and praise he says were profusely bestowed, money to the family, praise to the father, wherefore Mr. Perceval must have been an admirable minister! Admirable proof!

[Sidenote: Ditto, No. 5]

But was he praised and regretted by an admiring grateful people? No! the people rejoiced at his death. Bonfires and illuminations signalized their joy in the country, and in London many would have rescued his murderer; a multitude even blessed him on the scaffold. No! He was not praised by the English people, for they had felt his heavy griping hand; nor by the people of Ireland, for they had groaned under his harsh, his unmitigated bigotry. Who then praised him? Why his coadjutors in evil, his colleagues in misrule; the majority of a corrupt House of Commons, the nominees of the borough faction in England, of the Orange faction in Ireland; those factions by which he ruled and had his political being, by whose support, and for whose corrupt interests he run his public “career of unmixed evil,” unmixed, unless the extreme narrowness of his capacity, which led him to push his horrid system forward too fast for its stability, may be called a good.

[Sidenote: See further on, Second Extracts, No. 7.]

By the nominees of such factions, by men placed in the situation, but without the conscience of Mr. Quentin Dick, Mr. Perceval was praised, and the grant of money to his family was carried; but there were many to oppose the grant even in that house of corruption. The grant was a ministerial measure, and carried, as such, by the same means, and by the same men, which, and who, had so long baffled the desire of the nation for catholic emancipation and parliamentary reform. And yet the people! emphatically, the people! have since wrung those measures from the factions; aye! and the same people loathe the very memory of the minister who would have denied both for ever, if it had been in his power.

“_Mr. Perceval’s bigotry taught him to oppress Ireland, but his religion did not deter him from passing a law to prevent the introduction of medicines into France during a pestilence._”

This passage is, by the younger Mr. Perceval, pronounced to be utterly untrue, because bark is only _one medicine_, and not _medicines_; because there was no raging deadly general pestilence in France at the time; and because the measure was only retaliation for Napoleon’s Milan and Berlin decrees, a sort of war which even Quakers might wink at. What the extent of a Quaker’s conscience on such occasions may be I know not, since I have heard of one, who, while professing his hatred of blood-shedding, told the mate of his ship that if he did not port his helm, he would not run down his enemy’s boat. But this I do know, that Napoleon’s decrees were retaliation for our paper blockades; that both sides gave licenses for a traffic in objects which were convenient to them, while they denied to unoffending neutrals their natural rights of commerce; that to war against hospitals is inhuman, unchristianlike, and uncivilized, and that the avowal of the principle is more abhorrent than even the act. The avowed principle in this case was to distress the enemy. It was known that the French were in great want of bark, therefore it was resolved they should not have it, unless Napoleon gave up his great scheme of policy called the continental system. Now men do not want Jesuit’s bark unless to cure disease, and to prevent them from getting it, was literally to war against hospitals. It was no metaphor of Mr. Whitbread’s, it was a plain truth.

Oh! exclaims Mr. Perceval, there was no deadly raging general pestilence! What then? Is not the principle the same? Must millions suffer, must the earth be cumbered with carcasses, before the christian statesman will deviate from his barbarous policy? Is a momentary expediency to set aside the principle in such a case? Oh! no! by no means! exclaims the pious minister Perceval. My policy is just, and humane; fixed on immutable truths emanating directly from true religion, and quite consonant to the christian dispensation; the sick people shall have bark, I am far from wishing to prevent them from getting bark. God forbid! I am not so inhuman. Yes, they shall have bark, but their ruler must first submit to me. “Port thy helm,” quoth the Quaker, “or thee wilt miss her, friend!” War against hospitals! Oh! No! “I do not war against the hospital, I see the black flag waving over it and I respect it; to be sure: I throw my shells on to it continually, but that is not to hurt the sick, it is only to make the governor capitulate.” And this is the pious sophistry by which the christian Mr. Perceval is to be defended!

But Mr. Cobbett was in favour of this measure! Listen to him! By all means! Let us hear Mr. Cobbett; let us hear his “vigorous sentences,” his opinions, his proofs, his arguments, the overflowings of his “true English spirit and feeling” upon the subject of Mr. Perceval’s administration. Yes! yes! I will listen to Mr. Cobbett, and what is more, I will yield implicit belief to Mr. Cobbett, where I cannot, with any feeling of truth, refute his arguments and assertions.

Mr. Cobbett defended the Jesuit’s bark bill upon the avowed ground that it was to assert our sovereignty of the seas, not our actual power on that element, but our right to rule there as we listed. That is to say, that the other people of the world were not to dare traffic, not to dare move upon that high road of nations, not to presume to push their commercial intercourse with each other, nay, not even to communicate save under the controul and with the license of England. Now, if we are endowed by Heaven with such a right, in the name of all that is patriotic and English, let it be maintained. Yet it seems a strange plea in justification of the christian Mr. Perceval—it seems strange that he should be applauded for prohibiting the use of bark to the sick people of Portugal and Spain, and France, Holland, Flanders, Italy, and the Ionian islands, for to all these countries the prohibition extended, on the ground of our right to domineer on the wide sea; and that he should also be applauded for declaiming against the cruelty, the ambition, the domineering spirit of Napoleon. I suppose we were appointed by heaven to rule on the ocean according to our caprice, and Napoleon had only the devil to sanction his power over the continent. We were christians, “truly British christians,” as the Tory phrase goes; and he was an infidel, a Corsican infidel. Nevertheless we joined together, each under our different dispensations, yes, we joined together, we agreed to trample upon the rest of the world; and that trade, which we would not allow to neutrals, we, by mutual licenses, carried on ourselves, until it was discovered that the sick wanted bark, sorely wanted it; then we, the truly British christians, prohibited that article. We deprived the sick people of the succour of bark; and without any imputation on our christianity, no doubt because the tenets of our faith permit us to be merciless to our enemies, provided a quaker winks at the act! Truly the logic, the justice, and the christianity of this position, seem to be on a par.

All sufferings lead to sickness, but we must make our enemies suffer, if we wish to get the better of them, let them give up the contest and their sufferings will cease: wherefore there is nothing in this stopping of medicine. This is Mr. Cobbett’s argument, and Mr. Cobbett’s words are adopted by Mr. Perceval’s son. To inflict suffering on the enemy was then the object of the measure, and of course the wider the suffering spread the more desirable the measure. Now suffering of mind as well as of body must be here meant, because the dead and dying are not those who can of themselves oblige the government of a great nation to give up a war; it must be the dread of such sufferings increasing, that disposes the great body of the people to stop the career of their rulers. Let us then torture our prisoners; let us destroy towns with all their inhabitants; burn ships at sea with all their crews; carry off children and women, and torment them until their friends offer peace to save them. Why do we not? Is it because we dread retaliation? or because it is abhorrent to the usages of christian nations? The former undoubtedly, if the younger Mr. Perceval’s argument adopted from Cobbett is just; the latter if there is such a thing as christian principle. That principle once sacrificed to expediency, there is nothing to limit the extent of cruelty in war.

So much for Mr. Cobbett upon the Jesuit’s bark bill, but one swallow does not make a summer; his “true English spirit and feeling” breaks out on other occasions regarding Mr. Perceval’s policy, and there, being quite unable to find any weakness in him, I am content to take him as a guide. Something more, however, there is, to advance on the subject of the Jesuit’s bark bill, ere I yield to the temptation of enlivening my pages with Cobbett’s “vigorous sentences.”

[Sidenote: Hansard’s Debates.]

Mr. Wilberforce, no small name amongst religious men and no very rigorous opponent of ministers, described this measure in the house, as a bill “_which might add to the ferocity and unfeeling character of the contest, but could not possibly put an end to the contest_.”

Mr. Grattan said, “_we might refuse our Jesuit’s bark to the French soldiers; we might inflict pains and penalties, by the acrimony of our statutes, upon those who were saved from the severity of war; but the calculation was contemptible_.”

Mr. Whitbread characterized the bill as “_a most abominable measure calculated to hold the country up to universal execration_. _It united in itself detestable cruelty with absurd policy._”

Lord Holland combatted the principle of the bill, which he said “_would distress the women and children of Spain and Portugal more than the enemy_.”

Lord Grenville “_cautioned the house to look well at the consideration they were to receive as the price of the honour, justice, and humanity of the country_.”

Then alluding to the speech of Lord Mulgrave (who, repudiating the flimsy veil of the bill being merely a commercial regulation, boldly avowed that it was an exercise of our right to resort to whatever mode of warfare was adopted against us) Lord Grenville, I say, observed, that such a doctrine did not a little surprise him. “_If_,” said he, “_we are at war with the Red Indians, are we to scalp our enemies because the Indians scalp our men? When Lyons was attacked by Robespierre he directed his cannon more especially against the hospital of that city than against any other part, the destruction of it gave delight to his sanguinary inhuman disposition. In adopting the present measure we endeavour to assimilate ourselves to that monster of inhumanity, for what else is the bill but a cannon directed against the hospitals on the continent._”

[Sidenote: Hansard’s Debates.]

But all this, says Mr. Perceval the younger, is but “declamatory invective, the answered and refuted fallacies of a minister’s opponents in debate.” And yet Mr. Perceval, who thus assumes that all the opposition speeches were fallacies, does very complacently quote lord Bathurst’s speech in defence of the measure, and thus, in a most compendious manner, decides the question. Bellarmin says yes! exclaimed an obscure Scotch preacher to his congregation, Bellarmin says yes! but I say no! and Bellarmin being thus confuted, we’ll proceed. Even so Mr. Perceval. But I am not to be confuted so concisely as Bellarmin. Lord Erskine, after hearing lord Bathurst’s explanation, maintained that “_the bill was contrary to the dictates of religion and the principles of humanity_,” and this, he said, he felt so strongly, that he was “resolved _to embody his opinion in the shape of a protest that it might go down in a record to posterity_.” It is also a fact not to be disregarded in this case, that the bishops, who were constant in voting for all other ministerial measures, wisely and religiously abstained from attending the discussions of this bill. Lord Erskine was as good as his word, eleven other lords joined him, and their protests contained the following deliberate and solemn testimony against the bill.

“Because _the Jesuit’s bark, the exportation of which is prohibited by this bill_, has been found, by long experience, to be a specific for many dangerous diseases which war has a tendency to spread and exasperate; _and because to employ as an engine of war the privation of the only remedy for some of the greatest sufferings which war is capable of inflicting, is manifestly repugnant to the principles of the Christian religion, contrary to humanity, and not to be justified by any practice of civilised nations_.

“Because _the means to which recourse has been hitherto had in war, have no analogy to the barbarous enactments of this bill, inasmuch as it is not even contended that the privations to be created by it, have any tendency whatever to self-defence, or to compel the enemy to a restoration of peace, the only legitimate object by which the infliction of the calamities of war can in any manner be justified_.”

Such was the religious, moral, and political character, given to this bill of Mr. Perceval’s, by our own statesmen. Let us now hear the yet more solemnly recorded opinion of the statesmen of another nation upon Mr. Perceval’s orders in council, of which this formed a part. In the American president’s message to Congress, the following passages occur.

“The government of Great Britain had already introduced into her commerce during war, a system _which at once violating the rights of other nations, and resting on a mass of perjury and forgery, unknown to other times, was making an unfortunate progress, in undermining those principles of morality and religion, which are the best foundations of national happiness_.”

One more testimony. Napoleon, whose authority, whatever Mr. Perceval and men of his stamp may think, will always have a wonderful influence; Napoleon, at St. Helena, declared, “that posterity would more bitterly reproach Mr. Pitt for the hideous school he left behind him, than for any of his own acts; _a school marked by its insolent machiavelism, its profound immorality, its cold egotism, its contempt for the well-being of men and the justice of things_.” Mr. Perceval was an eminent champion of this hideous school, which we thus find the leading men of England, France, and America, uniting to condemn. And shall a musty Latin proverb protect such a politician from the avenging page of history? The human mind is not to be so fettered. Already the work of retribution is in progress.

Mr. Perceval the younger, with something of fatuity, hath called up Mr. Cobbett to testify to his father’s political merit. Commending that rugged monitor of evil statesmen for his “_vigorous sentences_,” for his “_real English spirit and feeling_,” he cannot now demur to his authority; let him then read and reflect deeply on the following passages from that eminent writer’s works, and he may perhaps discover, that to defend his father’s political reputation with success will prove a difficult and complicate task. If the passages are painful to Mr. Perceval, if the lesson is severe, I am not to blame. It is not I but himself who has called up the mighty seer, and if the stern grim spirit, thus invoked, will not cease to speak until all be told, it is not my fault.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: History of George IV.]

EXTRACTS FROM MR. COBBETT’S WRITINGS.

_Extract 1.—Of Mr. Perceval’s harshness._

“But there now came a man amongst them who soon surpassed all the rest in power, as well as in impudence and insolence towards the people. This was that Spencer Perceval of whose signal death we shall have to speak by and bye. This man, a sharp lawyer, inured, from his first days at the bar, to the carrying on of state prosecutions; a sort of understrapper, in London, to the attorneys-general in London, and frequently their deputy in the counties; a short, spare, pale faced, hard, keen, sour-looking man, with a voice well suited to the rest, with words in abundance at his command, with the industry of a laborious attorney, with no knowledge of the great interest of the nation, foreign or domestic, but with a thorough knowledge of those means by which power is obtained and preserved in England, and with no troublesome scruples as to the employment of those means. He had been Solicitor General under Pitt up to 1801, and Attorney General under Addington and Pitt up to February, 1806. This man became the _adviser of the Princess_, during the period of the investigation and correspondence of which we have just seen the history; and, as we are now about to see, the power he obtained, by the means of that office, _made him the Prime Minister of England to the day of his death_, though no more fit for that office than any other barrister in London, taken by tossing up or by ballot.”

_Extract 2.—Of Perceval’s illiberal, factious, and crooked policy._

“We have seen that the King was told that the _publication_” (the publication of the Princess of Wales’s justification) “would take place on _the Monday_. That Monday was _the 9th of March_. In this difficulty what was to be done? The whig ministry, with their eyes fixed on the _probable speedy succession of the Prince_, or at least, _his accession to power_, the King having recently been in a very shakey state; the whig ministry, with their eyes fixed on this expected event, and not perceiving, as Perceval did, the power that the _unpublished book_ (for ‘The Book’ it is now called) _would give them with the Prince_ as well as with the King, the whig ministry would not consent to the terms of the Princess, thinking, too, that in spite of her anger and her threats, she would not throw away the scabbard as towards the King.

“In the meanwhile, however, Perceval, wholly unknown to the Whigs, had got the book actually _printed_, and bound up _ready for publication_, and it is clear that it was intended to be published on the Monday named in the Princess’s letter; namely, on the _9th of March_, unless prevented by the King’s _yielding to the wishes of Perceval_. He did yield, that is to say, he resolved _to change his ministers_! A _ground_ for doing this was however a difficulty to be got over. To allege and promulgate the _true_ ground would never do; for then the public would have cried aloud for the publication, which contained matter so deeply scandalous to the King and all the Royal family. Therefore _another ground_ was alleged; and herein we are going to behold another and another important consequence, and other national calamities proceeding from this dispute between the Prince and his wife. This other ground that was chosen was the Catholic Bill. The Whigs stood pledged to grant a bill for the further relief of the Catholics. They had in September, 1806, _dissolved the parliament_, though it was only _four years_ old, for the purpose of securing a majority in the House of Commons; and into this new house, which had met on the 19th of December, 1806, they had introduced the Catholic Bill, by the hands of Mr. Grey (now become Lord Howick,) with the _great and general approbation of the House_, and with a clear understanding, that, notwithstanding all the cant and hypocrisy that the foes of the Catholics had, at different times, played off about the _conscientious scruples_ of the King, the King had now explicitly and cheerfully _given his consent_ to the bringing in of this bill.

“The new ministry had nominally at its head _the late Duke of Portland_; but Perceval, who was _Chancellor of the Exchequer_, was, in fact, the master of the whole affair, co-operating, however, cordially with Eldon, who now again became Chancellor. The moment the dismission of the Whigs was resolved on, the other party set up the cry of “No Popery.” The walls and houses, not only of London, but of the country towns and villages, were covered with these words, sometimes in chalk and sometimes in print; the clergy and corporations were all in motion, even the cottages on the skirts of the commons, and the forests heard fervent _blessings_ poured out on the head of the _good old King_ for preserving the nation from a rekindling of the “_fires in Smithfield_!” Never was delusion equal to this! Never a people so deceived; never public credulity so great; never hypocrisy so profound and so detestably malignant as that of the deceivers! The mind shrinks back at the thought of an eternity of suffering, even as the lot of the deliberate murderer; but if the thought were to be endured, it would be as applicable to that awful sentence awarded to hypocrisy like this.”

_Extract 3._

“The great and interesting question was, not whether the act (Regency Act) were agreeable to the laws and constitution of the country or not; not whether it was right or wrong thus to defer the full exercise of the Royal authority for a year; _but whether limited as the powers were, the Prince upon being invested with them, would take his old friends and companions, the Whigs, to be his ministers_.”—“Men in general unacquainted with the hidden motives that were at work no more expected that Perceval and Eldon would continue for one moment to be ministers under the Regent than they expected the end of the world.”

“But a very solid reason for not turning out PERCEVAL was found in the power which he had with regard to the PRINCESS and the BOOK. He had, as has been before observed, the power of bringing her forward, and making her the triumphant rival of her husband. This power he had completely in his hands, backed as he was by the indignant feelings of an enterprizing, brave, and injured woman. But, it was necessary for him to do something to keep this great and terrific power in his own hands. If he lost the princess he lost his only prop; and, even without losing her, if he lost the book, or rather, if the secrets of the book escaped and became public, he then lost his power. It was therefore of the greatest importance to him that nobody should possess a copy of this book but _himself_!

“The reader will now please to turn back to paragraph 73, which he will find in chap. 11. He will there find that Perceval ousted the Whigs by the means of the book, and not by the means of the catholic question, as the hoodwinked nation were taught to believe. The book had been purchased by Perceval himself; it had been printed, in a considerable edition, by Mr. Edwards, printer, in the Strand; the whole edition had been put into the hands of a bookseller; the day of publication was named, that being the 9th of March, 1807; but on the 7th of March, or thereabouts, the king determined upon turning out the Whigs and taking in Perceval. Instantly PERCEVAL suppressed THE BOOK; took the edition out of the hands of the booksellers, thinking that he had every copy in his own possession. The story has been in print about his having burned the books in the court yard of his country house; but be this as it may, he certainly appears to have thought that no one but himself had a copy of THE BOOK. In this however he was deceived; for several copies of this book, as many as four or five, at least, were in the hands of private individuals.”—“To get at these copies advertisements appeared in all the public papers, as soon as the Prince had determined to keep Perceval as his minister. These advertisements plainly enough described the contents of the book, and contained offers of high prices for the book to such persons as might have a copy to dispose of. In this manner the copies were bought up: one was sold for £300, one or two for £500 each, one for £1000, and the last for £1500.”

_Extract 4.—Of Mr. Perceval’s harshness and illiberality._

—— ——“Thus Perceval really ruled the country in precisely what manner he pleased. Whole troops of victims to the libel law were crammed into jails, the corrupt part of the press was more audacious than ever, and the other part of it (never very considerable) was reduced nearly to silence. But human enjoyments of every description are of uncertain duration: political power, when founded on force, is of a nature still more mutable than human enjoyments in general; of which observations this haughty and insolent Perceval was destined, in the spring of 1812, to afford to the world a striking, a memorable, and a most awful example. He had got possession of the highest office in the state; by _his secret_, relative to the Princess and her BOOK, had secured his influence with the Prince Regent for their joint lives; he had bent the proud necks of the landlords to fine, imprisonment, and transportation, if they attempted to make inroads on his system to support the all-corrupting paper-money; the press he had extinguished or had rendered the tool of his absolute will; the most eminent amongst the writers who opposed him, Cobbett (the author of this history,) Leigh and John Hunt, Finnerty, Drakard, Lovel, together with many more, were closely shut up in jail, for long terms, with heavy fines on their heads, and long bail at the termination of their imprisonment. Not content with all this, he meditated the complete subjugation of London to the control and command of a military force. Not only did he meditate this, but had the audacity to propose it to the parliament; and if his life had not been taken in the evening of the 11th of May, 1812, he, that very evening, was going to propose, in due form, a resolution for the establishment of a permanent army to be stationed in Marybonne-park, for the openly avowed purpose of _keeping the metropolis in awe_.”

_Extract 5.—Of Mr. Perceval’s unpopularity._

“Upon the news of the death of Perceval arriving at Nottingham, at Leicester, at Truro, and indeed all over the country, demonstrations of joy were shown by the ringing of bells, the making of bonfires, and the like; and at Nottingham particularly, soldiers were called out to disperse the people upon the occasion.”——“At the place of execution, the prisoner (Bellingham) thanked God for having enabled him to meet his fate with so much fortitude and resignation. At the moment when the hangman was making the usual preparations; at the moment that he was going out of the world, at the moment when he was expecting every breath to be his last, his ears were saluted with—_God bless you, God bless you, God Almighty bless you, God Almighty bless you_! issuing from the lips of many thousands of persons.”——“With regard to the fact of the offender going out of the world amidst the blessings of the people, I, the author of this history, can vouch for its truth, having been an eye and ear witness of the awful and most memorable scene, standing, as I did, at the window of that prison out of which he went to be executed, and into which I had been put in consequence of a prosecution ordered by this very Perceval, and the result of which prosecution was a sentence to be imprisoned _two years_ amongst felons in Newgate, to pay _a thousand pounds_ to the Prince Regent at the end of the two years, and to be held in bonds for _seven years_ afterwards; all which was executed upon me to the very letter, except that I rescued myself from the society of the felons by a cost of twenty guineas a week, for the _hundred and four weeks_; and all this I had to suffer for having published a paragraph, in which I expressed my indignation at the flogging of English local militiamen, at the town of Ely, in England, _under a guard of Hanoverian bayonets_. From this cause, I was placed in a situation to witness the execution of this unfortunate man. The crowd was assembled in the open space just under the window at which I stood. I saw the anxious looks, I saw the half horrified countenances; I saw the mournful tears run down; and I heard the unanimous blessings.”

“The nation was grown heartily tired of the war; it despaired of seeing an end to it without utter ruin to the country; the expenditure was arrived at an amount that frightened even loan-mongers and stock-jobbers; and the shock given to people’s confidence by Perceval’s recent acts, which had proclaimed to the whole world the fact of the depreciation of the paper-money; these things made even the pretended exclusively loyal secretly rejoice at his death, which they could not help hoping would lead to some very material change in the managing of the affairs of the country.”

_Extract 6.—Of Mr. Hamlyn, the Tinman._

[Sidenote: Cobbett’s Register.]

“I shall now address you, though it need not be much at length, upon the subject of lord Castlereagh’s conduct. The business was brought forward by lord Archibald Hamilton, who concluded his speech with moving the following resolutions: ‘1º. That it appears to the House, from the evidence on the table, that lord viscount Castlereagh, in the year 1805, shortly after he had quitted the situation of President of the Board of Control, and being a Privy Councillor and Secretary of State, did place at the disposal of lord Clancarty, a member of the same board, the nomination to a writership, in order to facilitate his procuring a seat in Parliament. 2º. That it was owing to a disagreement among the subordinate parties, that this transaction did not take effect; and 3º., that by this conduct lord Castlereagh had been guilty of a gross violation of his duty as a servant of the Crown; an abuse of his patronage as President of the Board of Control; and an attack upon the purity of that House.’”

“Well, but what did the House agree to? Why, to this: ‘Resolved, that it is the duty of this House to maintain a _jealous guard_ over the _purity of election_; but considering that the attempt of lord viscount Castlereagh to interfere in the election of a member _had not been successful_, this House does not consider it necessary to enter into any criminal proceedings against him.’”

“Now, then, let us see what was done in the case of Philip Hamlyn, the tinman of Plymouth, who offered a bribe to Mr. Addington, when the latter was minister. The case was this: in the year 1802, Philip Hamlyn, a tinman of Plymouth, wrote a letter to Mr. Henry Addington, the first Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer, offering him the sum of £2000 to give him, Hamlyn, the place of Land Surveyor of Customs at Plymouth. In consequence of this, a criminal information was filed against the said Hamlyn, by _Mr. Spencer Perceval_, who was then the King’s Attorney General, and who, in pleading against the offender, asserted _the distinguished purity of persons in power in the present day_. The tinman was found guilty; he was sentenced to pay a fine of £100 to the King, and to be imprisoned for three months. His business was ruined, and he himself died, in a few months after his release from prison.”

“Hamlyn confessed his guilt; he stated, in his affidavit, that he sincerely repented of his crime; that he was forty years of age; that his business was the sole means of supporting himself and family; that a severe judgment might be the total ruin of himself and that family; and that, therefore, he threw himself upon, and implored, the mercy of his prosecutors and the Court. In reference to this, Mr. Perceval, _the present Chancellor of the Exchequer_, observe, said: ‘The circumstances which the defendant discloses, respecting his own situation in life and of his family are all of them topics, very well adapted to affect the private feelings of individuals, and as far as that consideration goes, nothing further need be said; but, there would have been no prosecution at all, in this case, upon the ground of personal feeling; it was set on foot upon grounds of a public nature, and the spirit in which the prosecution originated, still remains; it is, therefore, submitted to your lordships, not on a point of individual feeling, but of PUBLIC JUSTICE, in which case your lordships will consider how far the affidavits ought to operate in mitigation of punishment.’—“For lord Archibald Hamilton’s motion, the speakers were, lord A. Hamilton, Mr. C. W. Wynn, lord Milton, Mr. W. Smith, Mr. Grattan, Mr. Ponsonby, sir Francis Burdett, Mr. Whitbread, and Mr. Tierney. _Against it_, lord Castlereagh himself, lord Binning, Mr. Croker, Mr. PERCEVAL, (who prosecuted Hamlyn,) Mr. Banks, Mr. G. Johnstone, Mr. H. Lascelles, Mr. Windham, and Mr. Canning.”

_Extract 7.—Of Mr. Quentin Dick._

(On the 11th of May, 1809, Mr. Maddocks made a charge against Mr. Perceval and lord Castlereagh, relative to the selling of a seat in Parliament to Mr. Quentin Dick, and to the influence exercised with Mr. Dick, as to his voting upon the recent important question.) Mr. Maddocks in the course of his speech said:—“I affirm, then, that Mr. Dick _purchased a seat in the House of Commons_ for the borough of Cashel, through the agency of the Hon. Henry Wellesley, who acted for, and on behalf of, the Treasury; that upon a _recent question_ of the last importance, when Mr. Dick had determined to vote according to his conscience, the noble lord, Castlereagh, did intimate to that gentleman the necessity of either his _voting with the government, or resigning his seat in that house_: and that Mr. Dick, sooner than vote against principle, did make choice of the latter alternative, and vacate his seat accordingly. To this transaction I charge the right honourable gentleman, _Mr. Perceval, as being privy and having connived at it_. This I will ENGAGE TO PROVE BY WITNESSES AT YOUR BAR, if the House will give me leave to call them.” Mr. Perceval argued against receiving the charge at all, putting it to the House, “_whether_ AT SUCH A TIME _it would be wise to warrant such species of charges as merely introductory to the agitation of the great question of reform, he left it to the House to determine_: but as far as he might be allowed to judge, he rather thought that it would be more consistent with what was due from him to the House and to the public, _if he_ FOR THE PRESENT _declined putting in the plea_ (he could so conscientiously put in) _until that House had come to a determination on the propriety of entertaining that charge or not_.”

The House voted _not_ to entertain the charge, and Mr. Ponsonby and others declared, in the course of the debate, that such transactions ought not to be inquired into, because they “were notorious,” and had become “as glaring as the noon-day sun.”

Now let the younger Mr. Perceval grapple with this historian and public writer, whose opinions he has invoked, whose “_true English spirit and feeling_” he has eulogised. Let him grapple with these extracts from his works, which, however, are but a tithe of the charges Mr. Cobbett has brought against his father. For my part, I have given my proofs, and reasons, and authorities, and am entitled to assert, that my public character of Mr. Perceval, the minister, is, historically, “_fair, just, and true_.”

HISTORY

OF THE

WAR IN THE PENINSULA.

HISTORY

OF THE

PENINSULAR WAR.

## BOOK XVII.

##