ceived the attack with firmness; and the fourth regiment, being thrown back en potence, met the enemy with a well-directed fire. The order was at length given to charge; and the forty-second and fiftieth regiments advanced to regain the village of Elvina. The ground around

the village was so intersected by walls and enclosures as to prevent any general collision. A severe but irregular fight ensued, which terminated in the French being driven back with great loss. The fiftieth regiment, led by Major Napier, rushed into Elvina, and with great gallantry drove out the enemy with the bayonet, and pursued them for some distance beyond it.

"In the meanwhile, from some misapprehension, the forty-second had retired; and the enemy being reinforced, took advantage of that circumstance to renew the conflict. Elvina became again the scene of struggle; the forty-second, after a brief but animating address from the General, returned to the attack; and the Guards being brought up to their support, the enemy gave way.

"It was at this period of the action that Sir John Moore received his death wound. He was engaged in watching the result of the contest about Elvina, when a cannon shot struck him on the breast and beat him to the ground. He raised himself immediately to a sitting posture, and continued with a calm gaze to regard the regiments engaged in his front. Cap. tain Hardinge threw himself from his horse, and took him by the hand; then, observing his anxiety, he told him the forty-second were advancing, and on this intelligence his countenance was observed to brighten.

"His friend Colonel Graham now dismounted, and from the composure of his features, entertained hopes that he was not even wounded; but observing the horrid laceration and effusion of blood, he rode off for surgical assistance.

"Sir John Moore was removed from the field by a party of the forty-second. As the soldiers placed him in a blanket, his sword became entangled, and the hilt entered the wound. Captain Hardinge attempted to take it off, but he stopped him, saying, 'It is as well as it is, I had rather it should go out of the field with me.' Sir David Baird had previously been disabled by a severe wound; and the command of the army now devolved on General Hope.

"In the meanwhile, all went prosperously in the field. The reserve pushed on to the right, and, driving back the enemy, continued advancing on their flank, overthrowing every thing before them.

The enemy, perceiving their left wing to be exposed, drew it entirely back.

"An attack made on the British centre, was successfully resisted by the brigades of Generals Manningham and Leith. The ground in that quarter being more elevated and favourable for artillery, the guns were of great service.

"On the left, the enemy had taken possession of the village of Palavio on the road to Betanzos. From this a fire was still kept up by their troops, till Colonel Nichols, at the head of some companies of the fourteenth, attacked it and beat them out.

"Day was now fast closing; and the enemy had lost ground in all parts of the field. The firing, however, still continued, and night alone brought the contest to a close.

"Thus ended the battle of Corunna. Let no man say that it was fought in vain, because it was attended with no result of immediate benefit to the victorious army. It gave a glorious termination to an inglorious retreat. It vindicated, in the eyes of Europe, the character of the army. It embalmed the memory of their commander in the hearts of his countrymen. It erased a dark stain from the military blazon of England. It gave to the world an imperishable proof, that, after a retreat of unexampled suffering and privation, the firmness of British troops remained unshaken. The courage of her sons was assayed by the ordeal of fire, and it is, and will be, the pride of England, that it came forth pure gold from the furnace.

"While Sir John Moore was removing from the field, the expression of his countenance remained unchanged, and he gave utterance to no expression of pain. From this circumstance, Captain Hardinge gathered temporary hope that the wound might not be mortal, and expressed it to the dying General. Hearing this, he turned his head for a moment, and looking steadfastly at the wound, said, No, Hardinge, I feel that to be impossible.' Several times he caused his attendants to stop and turn him round, that he might gaze on the field of battle, and when the firing indicated the advance of the British, he signified his satisfaction, and permitted the bearers to proceed.

"On examination by the surgeons, the wound of Sir John Moore was at once pronounced to be mortal, and from increasing pain he could speak but with difficulty. Observing his friend Colonel Anderson by his bed, he asked if the French were beaten, and then said, 'You know, Anderson, I have always wished to die this way. You will see my friends as soon as you can. Tell them every thing. Say to my mother'

-Here his voice failed from agitation, and he did not again venture to name her. When his strength was fast waning, and little more than a glimmering of life remained, he said to Colonel Anderson, 'I hope the people of England will be satisfied! I hope my country will do me justice.' After a while, he pressed the hand of Colonel Anderson to his body; and in a few minutes died without a struggle.

"Thus fell Sir John Moore. Kind in feeling, generous in spirit, dauntless in heart,-no man was more beloved; none more lamented. Other leaders have been more fortunate in life; none were ever more glorious in death. Whatever may have been the military errors of such a man, however little the cast and temper of his mind may have fitted him for the task he was called on to discharge, at a crisis of peculiar difficulty, what is there in this, what is there in any failing which even malice has ventured to charge on Sir John Moore, that England should quench her pride in so noble a son? Columns may rise to others, and temples and triumphal arches may consecrate a nation's gratitude in the memory of posterity to warriors of prouder fame and more brilliant achievement; but the name of Moore will not die. It will be loved and honoured in all after generations, and his memory will stand undimmed by time, κτημα εις δει.

"The night succeeding the action was passed in the embarkation of the troops, At ten o'clock they moved off the field by brigades, and marched down to Corunna, Major-General Beresford was posted with the rear-guard, on the lines fronting Corunna, to watch the motions of the enemy. Major-General Hill, with his brigade, was stationed on an eminence behind the town, ready to afford support to Beresford, if necessary. The embarkation proceeded rapidly during the night, and no attempt was made to molest the covering brigades. On the following morning, however, the enemy pushed forward a corps of light troops to the heights of St Lucia, which commanded the harbour, and, planting a few cannon, fired at the transports. At three o'clock General Hill's brigade was withdrawn, and at night the rear-guard embarked without molestation from the enemy.

and

"At twelve o'clock, on the night of the sixteenth, the remains of Sir John Moore were removed to the citadel of Corunna. He had often said, that, if killed in battle, he wished to be buried where he fell; it was determined that the body should be interred on the rampart of the citadel. A grave was dug by a party of the ninth regiment, the Aides-de-camp attending by

turns. No coffin could be procured; and the body, without being undressed, was wrapt by the officers of his staff in a military cloak and blankets. The interment was hastened, for, about eight in the morning, the sound of firing was heard, and they feared that, in the event of a serious attack, they might be prevented from paying the last duties to their General.

"The body was borne to the grave by the officers of his family; the funeral service was read by the chaplain; the corpse was covered with earth; and Sir John Moore' was left alone with his glory.'

"During the retreat to Corunna, his country sustained a severe loss in the death of Major-General Anstruther. No man had more honourably distinguished himself by zeal, gallantry, and talent. He died of inflammation of the lungs, brought on by exposure to the extreme inclemency of the weather. His devotion to the service induced him to neglect the precautions and remedies his situation required; and he continued to perform his duty till approaching dissolution rendered farther exertion impossible. When no longer able to mount his horse, he was placed in a carriage, and conveyed to Corunna. There he expired, amid the universal regret of his fellow-soldiers; and his remains were deposited in a grave on the ramparts, near that of his commander.

"The campaign of Sir John Moore has perhaps given rise to greater differences of opinion than any other portion of the Spa. nish war. Almost every operation by which its progress was marked has been made to furnish matter for vehement and angry discussion. By one party, the combinations of the General have been indiscriminately lauded as a masterpiece of strategy; by another, the misfortunes of the army are considered to have solely originated in the vacillation and timidity of its leader. Friends have praised, enemies have abused, and both have at last rested in conclusions from which more unbiassed reasoners will probably feel inclined to dissent. The indiscriminating defenders of Sir John Moore are actuated by motives, generous though mistaken; his opponents, by somewhat more of personal and political prejudice, than can be made to comport with the character of disinterested and impartial enquirers after abstract truth.

"But, thank Heaven! party spirit is not eternal, though truth is. Twenty years have passed since the retreat to Corunna, and the time has at length come, when it is possible to write with strict justice and impartiality of Sir John Moore. In doing so, there is no fear of derogating from his just and well-earned reputation.

The fame of Moore is not, as the injudicious eulogies of his friends would leave us to believe, a sickly and infirm bantling, which requires to be nursed and cockered into life by praise and puffery. The column of his honour rests, not on any single achievement of extraordinary genius, but on the broad pedestal of a life actively, zealously, and successfully devoted to his country's service,-of a character marked by a singular combination of high and noble qualities, and of a death worthy of such a character and such a life."

The man who writes thus of Sir John Moore, will assuredly write with perfect impartiality of the conduct of the campaign, at the close of which he poured forth his life. To use his own language, "influenced neither by the zeal of a partisan, nor the hostile vehemence of a declared opponent," " he will nought exten uate, nor set down aught in malice," regarding the "fame of the name" of one of Britain's most illustrious warriors. This fact, at least, is undoubted; he declares, that in the very outset of the campaign, Sir John Moore was placed by his government in a situation of difficulty to which no general should be deliberately exposed. He was sent into Spain without any concerted scheme of operation, or the possibility of forming one, and entirely in the dark with regard to the plans of the Spanish government. This was senseless conduct in our Ministry; and none but the base or bigoted can overlook it, on forming an estimate of Moore's merits. From the first moment he was appointed Commander-in-chief, he was put into a situation in which no human wisdom could enable him to act with success. It is all very well to fix upon some subsequent point, and to try to nail him down there; but justice demands that we see how he became enveloped and entangled in a net of circumstances not of his own creating, and into which he was driven or decoyed by his very appointment to that command.

Sir John Moore not only was without any organized channel of communication with the chiefs of the Spanish armies, but the fundamental assumption on which he had been directed to rely, was soon proved to be fallacious-namely, that it would be possible to concentrate his forces under the protection of the Spanish

armies on the Ebro. These were in succession overthrown; indeed, at the time Moore was appointed to the command, 6th of October, the Spaniards were weak and divided-the head of the grand French army-as Napier tells us was already in the passes of the Pyrenees-and the English were forty marches from the scene of action. Before Moore could effect a junction with the divisions of Baird and Hope, he found himself exposed to an enemy who might at any moment take advantage of his situation and force him to retreat.

But here the author of the "Annals" avows his belief that part of these difficulties must be attributed to Sir John Moore's own arrangements. For, deceived by an imperfect survey of the roads in Portugal, he sent his infantry by Almeida, and his cavalry and artillery by Merida and Traxillo

and thus, so difficult was it to collect his army, that he was compelled to remain above a month inactive at Salamanca.

Colonel Napier, however, holds that the division of his forces could not have been prevented; and that we must judge of the capacity or incapacity of a general by the energy he displays, the comprehensive view he takes of affairs, and the rapidity with which he accommodates his measures to the events that the original view of his appointment will not permit him to control. Now, the first separation of the English army, Napier rightly says, was the work of the ministers who sent Baird to Corunna. The after separation of the artillery was Sir John Moore's own act. But although a brigade of light six-pounders did accompany the troops to Almeida, the road was not practicable; for the guns were in some places let down the rocks by ropes, and in others carried over the difficult passes-a practicable affair with one brigade; but how could the great train of guns and ammunitionwaggons that accompanied Sir John Hope have passed such places without a loss of time, that would have proved more injurious to the operations than the separation of the artillery?

Napier observes farther, that the advance of the army was guided by three contingent cases, any one of which arising would have considerably influenced the operations.

First, Blake on the left, or Castanos and Palafox on the right, might have beaten the French, and advanced to the Pyrenees. If they had done so, then there was no risk in marching by divisions towards Burgos, which was the point of concentration given by the British and Spanish ministers. Secondly, they might have maintained their position on the Ebro, in which case the British army could safely unite at Valladolid. Thirdly, the arrival of reinforcements from France might have forced the Spaniards to fall back upon the upper Douro on one side, and on the mountains of Guadalaxara on the other. In this third case, Napier shews how the concentration of the whole British army, notwithstanding its being in divisions, might have been secured at Salamanca. He concludes, therefore, that in the three anticipated cases, the separation of the artillery was prudent, and promised to be advantageous. A fourth case, indeed, there was, says Napier. All the Spanish armies were dispersed in an instant-utterly effaced! But how could Sir John Moore have divined that catastrophe while his ears were ringing with the universal clamour about the numbers and enthusiasm of the patriots? And if he had foreseen even a part of such disasters, he would never have advanced from Portugal.

Ought, then, Moore to have kept to his first resolution of retiring on Portugal? Had he done so, the author of the "Annals" says that, in a mere military point of view, he would not have been held liable to censure. The relative conditions of the hostile parties, which had formed the very basis of his advance into Spain, had undergone a sudden revolution. But Sir John Moore was willing to dare something-nay, much-for the sake of the Spanish cause; and who will blame him now for not having retired upon Portugal? Surely, not those who, with Mr Frere and Colonel Charmilly, were for his advancing upon Madrid.

If it be asked, then, why did Moore advance to Sahagun, Napier's energetic reply seems conclusive, because Napoleon having directed the mass of his forces against the capital, the British army was enabled to concentrate, because Madrid shut her

gates, because Mr Frere and the Spanish authorities deceived Moore by false information, because the solemn declaration of the Junta of Toledo, that they would bury themselves under the ruins of their town, rather than surrender, joined to the fact, that Saragoza, in fighting heroically, seemed to guarantee the constancy and vigour of that patriotic spirit which was apparently once more excited, because the question had become once more political, and it was necessary to satisfy the English people, that nothing was left undone, to aid a cause which they had so much at heart,-and, finally, because the peculiar situation of the French army at the moment, afforded the means of creating a powerful diversion in favour of the southern provinces. "These," says Napier, are unanswerable reasons for the advance towards Sahagun."

The author of the "Annals" holds a very different opinion from Colonel Napier on this point, and that our readers may have both views, we quote the following able statement:

Sir

Alaejos, with the intention of concentra"Sir John Moore had proceeded to ting his forces in the neighbourhood of Valladolid, when the information derived from an intercepted dispatch, induced him to change his plans, and advance against Soult at Saldanha, in hope of bringing him to action before the arrival of reinforcements. Never, surely, was an offensive operation undertaken on the chance of a more improbable contingency. John Moore could scarcely calculate on the blunders of an opponent so skilful and experienced in the game of war. Yet, by some gross and inconceivable blunder alone, could Marshal Soult have suffered himself, in the circumstances of his army, to be drawn into a battle. Soult's policy manifestly was to retreat, not to fight; to induce his enemy to advance, and thereby give time for the coming up of forces already on the march, by which his retreat would be cut off. On the advance of the British, Soult, as a matter of course, would have fallen back on Burgos, where his corps would have effected a junction with that of Junot. Nothing, therefore, could be more visionary than the prospect of defeating Soult, while nothing could be more imminent than the danger which the British were certain to incur in the

attempt of bringing him to action. Indeed, it was to the Spanish general alone that the British army was indebted for

General's arrangement, was the er

ror.

danha could be productive of no beneficial result. Why, then, was it undertaken ? Why was a gallant army thus ingloriously perilled, and subsequently compelled to seek safety in one of the most calamitous retreats of which history bears record? Not with the hope of animating and invigorating the spirit of the Spanish nation, because that spirit was believed by Sir John Moore to have been utterly broken and subdued, but because it was considered necessary to risk the army, to convince the people of England, as well as the rest of Europe, that the Spaniards had neither the power nor the inclination to make any effort for themselves!""

But to return for a moment to the subject of the separation of the artillery, Napier clearly proves, that whatever road the artillery had taken, the British army could not have averted the ruin of the Spaniards. For, on the 10th November, Napoleon struck the first blow, by beating Belvidere and seizing Burgos. Baird marched from Corunna on the 12th, and did not bring up the whole of his troops to Astorga before the 4th of December. Suppose, then, the British army concentrated at Salamanca, even on the 13th of November, they must have advanced either to Valladolid, or to Madrid. Ifto Valladolid, the Emperor was at Burgos with the Imperial Guards, ten or twelve thousand cavalry, and a hundred pieces of artillery. The first corps was within a day's march, the second and fourth corps within three marches, and the sixth corps within two marches. Above 100,000 French soldiers, therefore, would, according to Napier, have been concentrated in three days; and Sir John Moore never had 25,000 in the field. Suppose Moore had gone to Madrid. In that case, Napier shews that the separation of the artillery was a decided advantage; and the separation of Baird's corps, which was not the

VOL. XXVII. NO. CLXIV.,

to which the enemy had not yet penetrated. There it was that he was most dreaded by Napoleon. This plan is not approved of by Napier. He says, that to retreat over the Tagus, was to adopt the southern provinces for a new base of operations, and might have been useful if the Spaniards would have rallied round him with enthusiasm and courage; but would they have done so when the Emperor was advancing with his enormous force? The author of the "Annals" replies, that this may be so -and Sir John Moore was professedly a nullifidian in Spanish energy and patriotism; but the true question is, would not the army have been better employed, have afforded a greater quantity of protection to our allies, with a smaller quantum of risk than was incurred by the advance to Sahagun, consequent on the concentration of the army? We confess ourselves unable to come to a decision on this point. We know what the evils of the retreat were; we do not know what might have been the result of a retreat over the Tagus. But we confess we do not see how it could have been so disastrous as the flight to Corunna.

Colonel Napier, however,—a high authority certainly-before discussing the retreat from Astorga, undertakes to shew that the line of Portugal, although the natural one for the British army to retire upon, was not at that period either safe or useful, and that greater evils than those incurred through Gallicia, would probably have attended a retrograde march on Lisbon. For, the rugged frontier of Portugal lying between the Douro and the Tagus, is, he affirms, vulnerable in many points to an invading army of superior force. It may be penetrated between the Douro and Pinhel; and between Pinhel and Guarda, lie roads leading into the valleys of the Zezere and the Mondego; between the Sierra de As

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