CHAP. LV. 1809. 69. It was public not of the incapacity of its generals, but of the long-established, and, till the Peninsular war opened, discreditable timidity in military transactions of its government. Accustomed only to land on the Continent for transient expeditions, and to look always, not to their guns and bayonets, but to their ships, as their ultimate refuge, the whole English nation were ignorant of the incalculable effects of tenacity of purpose upon public undertakings. They regarded the strength of the state as consisting chiefly in its naval power, when in reality it possessed a military force capable of contending, with fair chances of success, even against the conqueror of Continental Europe. Like the bulk of mankind in all ages, they judged of the future by the past, and were unaware of those important modifications of the lessons of experience which the rapid whirl of events in which they were placed was every hour bringing into action. In Sir John Moore's case, this universal, and perhaps unavoidable error, was greatly enhanced by his intimacy with some members of the Opposition party, by whom the military strength of England had been always underrated, the system of Continental operations uniformly decried, and the power and capacity of the French Emperor, great as they were, unworthily magnified.* Almost all his despatches, in the later stages of the *This has been vehemently denied by Col. Napier.-Penin. War, vi. Just. Notes, 2.-It is sufficient to say, therefore, that Moore's correspondence affords decisive evidence of its truth. On 16th August 1795, he wrote to his brother, "I have written to the Duke of Hamilton, and I make no doubt but in case of a dissolution he will bring me into parliament if he can;" and on the 27th March 1806, when the Whigs were in power, he wrote to his mother, "I have lately turned my thoughts to India, as the greatest and most important command that could fall to a British officer. The Duke of York has communicated my wishes to ministers, and the principal objection which has been made is flattering-that they do not wish me to go so far from this country. Lord Lauderdale's appointment has been an additional inducement for me to wish to go to India. It is needless to say that Sir John Moore was a man of too much honour to endeavour to get into parliament under the auspices of the leading Whig nobleman in Scotland, or to India under those of a Whig governor-general, if his political principles had been at variance with those of these noblemen. -See MOORE's Life, 307, 392. But it is of little consequence to history whether a gallant officer like Sir John Moore was a Whig or a Tory; for the annals of England can boast of many illustrious commanders who belonged to both parties in politics, beginning with Marlborough on the one side, and Wellington on the other. It is more material to observe that Sir John's correspondence, when in command of the army, both official and private, demonstrates that he was so deeply imbued with those desponding views which the Opposition for fifteen years had been incessantly promulgating, as to the impossibility of the English resisting the power of France on the Continent of Europe, that he regarded the contest, not only in Spain, but in Portugal, as utterly desperate, and strongly recommended government to abandon the latter country as well as the former, as soon as it CHAP. 1809. 70. Moore's de campaign, evince in the clearest colours the influence of this depressing feeling, to which the false exaggerations and real disasters of the Spaniards afforded at the time too much confirmation. Instead, therefore, of casting a shade on the memory of any of the gallant officers in- sponding trusted with the direction of the campaign, let us regard regard to the its calamitous issue as the forfeit paid by the nation for contest. the undue circumspection of former years, which had become so universal as to have penetrated the breast and chilled the hopes even of its most intrepid defenders, and 66 could be done with safety to the British troops in it. To Lord William Bentinck he wrote in private, on 14th November 1808, from Salamanca, before the campaign commenced:-"I differ with you in one point,-when you say the chief and great object and resistance to the French will be afforded by the English army; if that be so, Spain is lost. The English army, I hope, will do all which can be expected from its numbers; but the safety of Spain depends upon the union of its inhabitants, their enthusiasm in the cause, and their firm determination to die rather than submit to the French. Nothing short of this will enable them to resist the formidable attack about to be made upon them. If they will adhere, our aid can be of the greatest use to them; but if not, we shall soon be outnumbered were our forces quadrupled. I am, therefore, much more anxious to see exertion and energy in the government, and enthusiasm in their armies, than to have my force augmented. The moment is a critical one-my own situation is peculiarly so I have never seen it otherwise; but I have pushed into Spain at all hazards. This was the order of my government, and it was the will of the people of England. I shall endeavour to do my best, hoping that all the bad that may happen will not happen, but that with a share of bad, we shall also have a portion of good fortune." Every effort," he says, writing to Lord Castlereagh on the 24th of November, "shall be exerted on my part, and that of the officers with me, to unite the army; but your lordship must be prepared to hear that we have failed; for, situated as we are, success cannot be commanded by any efforts we can make if the enemy are prepared to oppose us." To add to all his other grounds of despondency, he considered Portugal as utterly indefensible by any force England could send thither. "If the French succeed in Spain, it will be in vain," he says in another letter to Lord Castlereagh, "to attempt to resist them in Portugal. The Portuguese are without a military force, and, from the experience of their conduct under Sir Arthur Wellesley, no dependence is to be placed on any aid they can give. The British must, in that event, I conceive, immediately take steps to evacuate the country. Lisbon is the only port, and therefore the only place whence the army with its stores can embark. Elvas and Almeida are the only fortresses on the frontiers. The first is, I am told, a respectable work. Almeida is defective, and could not hold out beyond ten days against a regular attack. I have ordered a depot of provisions for a short consumption to be formed there in case this army should be obliged to fall back; perhaps the same should be done at Elvas. In this case we might retard the progress of the enemy while the stores were embarking, and arrangements were made for taking off the army. Beyond this, the defence of Lisbon or of Portugal should not be thought of."-CHAMBERS' Scottish Biography, iv. 32, 33. Contrast this with the memorandum of Wellington a few months after, on 9th March 1809, in which he expressed a decided opinion, that " Portugal might be successfully defended even against any force the French could bring against it, and that the maintenance of that position by the British would be the greatest support to the common cause in Spain;" and observe the difference between an able, but not original, mind, which receives its impressions from the current doctrines of the day; and those great intellects, which taking counsel only of their own inspiration, at once break off from general opinion, and for good or for evil determine the fate of nations.-See WELLINGTON's Memorandum on the defence of Portugal, 9th March 1809; GURWOOD, iv. 261; quoted infra, vii. 762; and his Despatches to LORD Castlereagh, 2d April 1810; GURWOOD, vi. 5. views with LV. 1809. CHAP. inspired them with that disquietude for their country's safety which they would never have felt for their own. Nations, like individuals, never yet withdrew from the ways of error, but by the path of suffering; the sins of the fathers are still visited upon the children. The retreat of Sir John Moore was the transition from the paralysed timidity which refused succours to the Russians after Eylau, to the invincible tenacity which gave durable success to Wellington's campaigns. Happy the nation which can purchase absolution for past errors by so trivial a sacrifice-which can span the gulf from disaster to victory with no greater losses than those sustained in the Corunna retreat and to whom the path of the necessary suffering, commencing by the gift of a momentous benefit, is terminated by a ray of imperishable glory! 71. on the cha The peculiar character of the British and French troops had already clearly manifested itself in the course Reflections of this brief but active campaign. In every regular racter of the engagement from first to last, the English had proved British and successful; they had triumphed equally over the conscripts of Junot and the Imperial Guards of Bessières ; Superiority the heroes of Austerlitz and Friedland had quailed and in fighting. sunk beneath the British steel. Considering how in French armies. of the former experienced almost all the English regiments were, and that most of the troops engaged at Roliça, Vimeira, and Corunna, there saw a shot fired for the first time in anger, these successes were extremely remarkable, achieved, as they were, sometimes over veteran troops of the enemy, always over those who had the discipline and experience gained by fifteen years of victory to direct their organisation and animate their spirits. They point evidently to what subsequent experience so clearly verified, a greater degree of courage at the decisive moment, arising either from some inherent peculiarity of race, or the animating influence of a free constitution and a long course of historic glory. But in other respects the superiority of the enemy was manifest, and all the good effects of achieved victory were liable to be lost on th English army, by the want of due discipline and docility in the troops, or of remissness and inexperience on the part of the officers. Place them in a fair field in front of the enemy, and both would CHAP. LV. 1809. 72. And of the other duties honourably discharge their duty: but expose them to the fatigues of a campaign; subject them to the frozen snow or the dripping bivouac; require them to recede before the enemy, and bear the galling reproaches of a pursuer or ally in expectation of the time when the proper season French as for action should arrive, and it was evident that they had yet in the still much to learn in the military art. Above all, intoxi- of a campaign. cation, the inherent national vice, too often loosened the bonds of discipline, and exposed the army to the most serious disasters. These disorders explain the calamities of Sir John Moore's retreat, and go far to excuse his gloomy presentiments as to the ultimate issue of the campaign. In sobriety, durable activity, perseverance under fatigue, care of their horses, versatility of talent, and cheerfulness in disaster, the French were evidently and painfully the superiors of their undaunted rivals; the British army could never, in the same time and with the same order, have made Napoleon's march from Madrid to Astorga. Such were the different excellencies of the two armies who were destined, in six successive campaigns, to emulate each other's virtues, and shun each other's defects; and such the aspect of the war when Great Britain, throwing off the unworthy timidity of former years, first descended as a principal into the fight, and Wellington, alternately the Fabius and Marcellus of the contest, prepared, in the fields rendered illustrious by a former Scipio, the triumphs of a second Zama. CHAPTER LVI. CHAP. 1808. 1. CAMPAIGN OF ABENSBERG, LANDSHUT, AND ECHMUHL. As the history of Europe, during the eventful years which succeeded the French Revolution, contains, in the domestic transactions of every state possessing the shadow even of free institutions, a perpetual recurrence of the strife between the aristocratic and democratic principles; so the military annals of the same period illustrate the effect of these opposite powers on the principles on course of external events, and the issue of warlike ing parties in operations. In the results of military operations, not Europe. less than the consequences of social convulsion, we Influence of the aristocratic and democratic the contend perceive the influence of the same antagonist principles the long-continued successes of the one, not less than the persevering firmness of the other, illustrate the action of those great contending powers which in every age have divided between them the government of mankind. France, buoyant with the energy, and radiant with the enthusiasm of a revolution, was for long triumphant; but the fever of passion is transient, the suggestions of interest permanent in their effects ; and in the vehement exertions which the democratic principle there made, externally and internally, to achieve success, the foundation was necessarily laid for disappointment and change within, exhaustion and ultimate disaster without. Austria, less powerfully agitated in the outset, was directed by principles calculated to be more uniform in their operation, and more effective in the end. Recurring to the aid of popular enthusiasm only when driven to it by necessity, and |