Chapter VI: Book XX: Chap. I (2)

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._