abandoning Naples by the firmness of his queen, and the energy of Sallicetti, the minister of police. We have seen that it was the wish of the ministers to have the troops in Sicily, employed in the south of Spain, but yielding to the representations of sir John Stuart, they permitted him to make this display of military foolery; yet it is not with the bad or good success of these expeditions that this history has to deal, but with that direful ministerial incapacity, which suffered two men, notoriously unfitted for war, to dissipate the military strength of England on secondary objects, while a renowned commander, placed at the most important point, was left without an adequate force.

For the first time since the commencement of the peninsular war, sixty thousand Spanish troops, well armed and clothed, had been collected in a mass, and in the right place, communicating with a British force; for the first time since Napoleon swayed the destiny of France, the principal army of that country had met with an important check; the great conqueror's fortune seemed to waver, and the moment had arrived when the British government was called to display all its wisdom and energy. The duke of York had performed his duty. He had placed above ninety thousand superb soldiers, all disposable for offensive operations, in the hands of the ministers; but the latter knew not their value, and, instead of concentrating them upon one, scattered them upon many points. Sir Arthur Wellesley might have had above eighty thousand British troops on the frontier of Portugal, and he was a general capable of wielding them. Yet he commenced a campaign, upon which the fate of the Peninsula, a quick triumph or a long-protracted agony of twelve millions of people depended, with only twenty-two thousand; while sixty thousand fighting men, and ships numerous enough to darken all the coasts of Spain, were waiting, in Sicily and England, for orders which doomed the one part to mockery, the other to an inglorious and miserable death. Shall the deliverance of the Peninsula, then, be attributed to the firmness and long-sighted policy of ministers who gave these glaring proofs of improvidence, or shall the glory of that great exploit lighten round the head of him who so manfully maintained the fierce struggle, under all the burden of their folly?

BOOK VIII.

CHAPTER I.

Campaign of Talavera-Choice of operations-Sir Arthur Wellesley moves into SpainJoseph marches against Venegas-Orders Victor to return to Talavera-Cuesta arrives at Almaraz-Sir Arthur reaches Placencia-Interview with Cuesta-Plan of operation arranged Sir Arthur, embarrassed by the want of provisions, detaches sir Robert Wilson up the Vera de Placencia, passes the Tietar, and unites with Cuesta at Oropesa-Skirmish at Talavera-Bad conduct of the Spanish troops-Victor takes post behind the Alberche-Cuesta's absurdity-Victor retires from the Alberche-Sir Arthur, in want of provisions, refuses to pass that river-Intrigues of Mr. Frere-The junta secretly orders Venegas not to execute his part of the operation.

CAMPAIGN OF TALAVERA.

In the foregoing chapters the real state of affairs in the Peninsula has been described; but it appeared with a somewhat different aspect to the English general, because false informations, egregious boasts, and hollow promises, such as had been employed to mislead sir John Moore, were renewed at this period; and the allied nations were influenced by a riotous rather than a reasonable confidence of victory. The English newspapers teemed with letters describing the enemy's misery and fears; nor was the camp free from these inflated feelings. Marshal Beresford was so credulous of French weakness as publicly to announce, to the junta of Badajoz, that Soult's force, wandering and harassed by continual attacks, was reduced to eight or ten thousand distressed soldiers. Nay sir Arthur Wellesley himself, swayed by the pertinacity of the talemakers, the unhesitating assurances of the junta, perhaps also, a little excited by a sense of his own great talents, was not free from the impression that the hour of complete triumph was come.

The Spanish government and the Spanish generals were importunate for offensive movements, and lavish in their promises of support; and the English general was cager enough to fight; for he was at the head of gallant troops, his foot was on the path of victory, and he felt that if the

duke of Belluno was not quickly disabled, the British army threatened on both flanks would, as in the case of sir John Cradock, be obliged to remain in some defensive position near Lisbon, until it became an object of suspicion and hatred to the Spanish and Portuguese people. There were three lines of offensive operations open :

1o. To cross the Tagus, join Cuesta's army, and, making Elvas and Badajoz the base of movements, attack Victor in front. This line was circuitous, Estramadura could not supply provisions and forage. The march of the British would have been too rapid for convoys coming from the base of movement; the enemy could cover himself by the Tagus, and the operations of the allies would have been cramped by the Sierra de Guadalupe on one side, and the mountains lying between Albuquerque and Alcantara on the other. Strong detachments must have been left to cover the roads to Lisbon, on the right bank of the Tagus, and finally, the communication between the duke of Belluno and Soult being free, Beresford's corps would have been endangered.

2o. To adopt Almeida and Ciudad Rodrigo as the base of movements, and to operate in conjunction with Beresford, the duke del Parque, and Romana, by the line of Salamanca, while Cuesta and Venegas occupied the attention of the first and fourth corps on the Tagus. The objections to this line were, that it separated the British troops from the most efficient and most numerous, and obliged them to act with the weakest and most irregular of the Spanish armies; that it abandoned Cuesta to the ruin which his headstrong humour would certainly provoke; and as the loss of Seville, or of Lisbon, would inevitably follow, the instructions of the English ministers, which enjoined the defence of the latter city, as paramount to every object, save the military possession of Cadiz, would have been neglected.

3o. To march upon Placencia and Almaraz, form a junction with Cuesta, and advance against Madrid, while Venegas operated in the same view by the line of La Mancha. The obstacles in the way of this plan were-1o. That it exposed Cuesta to be defeated by Victor before the junction; and after the junction the combinations would still be dependent upon the accuracy of Venegas's movements. 2°. That sir Arthur Wellesley's march would, with reference to Soult's corps, be a flank march; an unsafe operation at all times, but on this occasion, when the troops must move through the long and narrow valley of the Tagus, peculiarly dangerous. Nevertheless, this line was adopted, nor were the reasons in favour of it devoid of force. The number of French immediately protecting Madrid was estimated at fifty thousand; aud confidential officers, sent to the headquarters of Cuesta and Venegas, had ascertained that their respective armies were not overstated at thirty-eight thousand for the first, and twenty-five thousand for the second. They were well armed and equipped, and the last certainly

the best and most efficient army the Spaniards had yet brought into the field. Colonel Roche, the military agent, warned sir Arthur Wellesley indeed, that however well Cuesta's men looked, they were not to be trusted, but sir Arthur disregarded his admonition. Now the English force in Portugal amounted to thirty thousand men, exclusive of the sick, twenty-two thousand being under arms on the frontier, and eight thousand at Lisbon. Thus it appeared that a mass of ninety thousand regular troops could be brought to bear on fifty thousand; besides which there were sir Robert Wilson's legion, about a thousand strong, and the Spanish partidas of the Guadalupe and the Sierra de Bejar.

The ridge of mountains which separate the valley of the Tagus from Castille and Leon being, as has been already related, impracticable for artillery, except at the passes of Baños and Perales, it was supposed that the twenty thousand men under Beresford, and the duke del Parque, would be sufficient to block those lines of march, and that Romana, moving by the Tras os Montes, might join the duke del Parque; thus thirty thousand men, supported by two fortresses, would be ready to protect the flank of the British army in its march from Placencia towards Madrid. But this was a vain calculation, for Romana remained ostentatiously idle at Coruña, and sir Arthur Wellesley, never having seen the Spanish troops in action, thought too well of them; and having had no experience of Spanish promises he trusted them too far, and at the same time, made a false judgment of the force and position of his adversaries. The arrival of the sixth corps at Astorga and of the fifth at Valladolid were unknown to him; the strength of the second corps, and, perhaps, the activity of its chief, were also underrated. Instead of fifteen or twenty thousand harassed French troops, without artillery, there were seventy thousand fighting men well equipped behind the mountains!

On the 27th of June, the English army, breaking up from the camp of Abrantes, and, being organized in the following manner, marched into Spain :

Besides this force, the 40th regiment, so long detained at Seville by Mr. Frere, had arrived in Lisbon, and the other troops, on their march from that city, being somewhat less than eight thousand bayonets, were organized in three brigades, commanded by major-general Lightfoot, and brigadier-generals Robert, and Catlin Craufurd. But the leading brigade, under Robert Craufurd, only quitted Lisbon on the 28th of June. The army moved by both banks of the Tagus; one column proceeding through Sobreira Formosa, the other by Villa Velha, where a boat-bridge was established. The 1st of July the headquarters were at Castello Branco, and from thence the troops continued their route, in one column, by Moralejo and Coria; a flanking brigade, under general Donkin, being directed through Ceclaven and Torijoncillos, to explore the country between Zarza Mayor and the Tagus. The 8th, the headquarters were established at Placencia. The 10th, the army arrived at that place, and was, soon after, joined by a regiment of cavalry and two battalions of infantry from Lisbon.

At this period Cuesta was at Almaraz, and Victor, of whose intermediate movements it is time to take notice, was at Talavera de la Reyna. When that marshal had retired from Torremocha, the valley of the Tagus was exhausted by the long sojourn of the fourth and fifth corps; but the valley of Placencia was extremely fertile, and untouched, and the duke of Belluno, whose troops, weakened by the tertian sickness, required good nourishment, resolved to take post there, keeping a bridge at Bazagona, on the Tietar, by which he could, in two marches, fall upon Cuesta, if he ventured to pass the Tagus at Almaraz. At Placencia, also, he could open a communication with the second and fifth corps, and observe closely the movements of the English army on the frontier of Portugal. The bridge at Bazagona had been finished on the 21st of June, and the French light troops were scouring the country towards Placencia, when the king, who had already withdrawn a division of infantry and a large part of the cavalry of the first corps to re-enforce the fourth, ordered the duke of Belluno to retire instantly to Talavera leaving rearguards on the Tietar and at Almaraz. This order, which arrived the 22d of June, was the result of that indecision which none but truly great men, or fools, are free from; the first because they can see their way clearly through the thousand difficulties that encumber and bewilder the mind in war, the last because they see nothing.

On the present occasion, Sebastiani had reported that Venegas was re-enforced, and ready to penetrate by La Mancha; and the king, swayed by this false information, disturbed by the march of Cuesta, and still more by Blake's advance against Zaragoza, the result of which was then unknown, became so alarmed that he commanded St. Cyr to move into

Semele's Journal of the first corps' Operations, MS.