And for

were their small armies beaten by the Spaniards. their daring and resource a single fact recorded by Wellington will suffice. They captured more than one strong place in Spain without any provision of bullets save those fired at them by their enemies, having trusted to that chance when they formed the siege! Before the British troops they fell; but how terrible was the struggle, how many defeats they recovered from, how many brave men they slew; what changes and interpositions of fortune occurred before they could be rolled back upon their own frontiers! And this is the glory of England, that her soldiers and hers only were capable of overthrowing them in equal battle. I seek not to defraud the Portuguese of his well-earned fame, nor to deny the Spaniard the merit of his constancy; but what battle except Baylen did the Peninsulars win? What fortress did they take by siege? What place defend? Sir Arthur Wellesley twice delivered Portugal. Sir John Moore's march to Sahagun saved Andalusia and Lisbon from invasion at a critical moment. Sir Arthur's march to Talavera delivered Gallicia. Graham saved Cadiz. Smith saved Tariffa. Wellington recaptured Ciudad and Badajos, rescued Andalusia from Soult, and Valencia from Suchet; the Anglo-Sicilian army preserved Alicant, and finally recovered Taragona and Barcelona under the influence of the northern operations, which at the same time reduced Pampeluna and St. Sebastian. England indeed could not alone have triumphed in the struggle, but for her share let this brief summary speak.

She expended more than one hundred millions sterling on her own operations, she subsidised both Spain and Portugal, and with her supplies of clothing, arms, and ammunition maintained the armies of each even to the guerillas. From thirty up to seventy thousand British troops were employed by her; and while her naval squadrons harassed the French with descents upon the coasts, and supplied the Spaniards with arms and stores and money after every defeat, her land forces fought and won nineteen pitched battles and innumerable combats, made or sustained ten sieges, took four great fortresses, twice expelled the French from Portugal, preserved Alicant, Carthagena, Tarifa, Cadiz, Lisbon; they killed, wounded and took two hundred thousand enemies, and the bones of forty thousand British soldiers lie scattered on the plains and mountains of the Peninsula. For Portugal she re-organised a native army and supplied officers who led it to victory; and to the whole Peninsula she gave a general whose like has seldom gone forth

And all this and more was necessary to redeem

to conquer.
that land from France!

Wellington's campaigns furnish lessons for generals of all nations, but they must always be especial models for British commanders in future continental wars; because he modified and reconciled the great principles of art with the peculiar difficulties which attend generals controlled by politicians who prefer parliamentary intrigue to national interests. An English commander must not trust his fortune. He dare not risk much, however conscious he may be of personal resources, when one disaster will be his ruin at home; his measures must be subordinate to this primary consideration. Wellington's caution, springing from that source, has led friends and foes alike into wrong conclusions as to his system of war; the French call it want of enterprise, timidity; the English have denominated it the Fabian system. These are mere phrases. His system was the same as that of all great generals. He held his army in hand, keeping it with unmitigated labour always in a fit state to march or to fight, and acted indifferently as occasion offered on the offensive or defensive, displaying in both a complete mastery of his art. Sometimes he was indebted to fortune, sometimes to his natural genius, always to his untiring industry, for he was emphatically a painstaking man.

That he was less vast in his designs, less daring in execution, neither so rapid nor so original a commander as Napoleon, must be admitted; and being later in the field of glory it is to be presumed he learned something of the art from that greatest of all masters. Yet something besides the difference of genius must be allowed for the difference of situation; Napoleon was never, even in his first campaign of Italy, so harassed by the French as Wellington was by the English, Spanish and Portuguese governments: their systems of war were however alike in principle, their operations being only modified by their different political positions. Great bodily exertion, unceasing watchfulness, exact combinations to protect their flanks and communications without scattering their forces; these were common to both; in defence firm, cool, enduring, in attack fierce and obstinate; daring when daring was politic, yet always operating by the flanks in preference to the front; in these things they were alike; in following up a victory the English general fell short of the French emperor. The battle of Wellington was the stroke of a batteringram, down went the wall in ruins; the battle of Napoleon was the swell and dash of a mighty wave before which the barrier yielded and the roaring flood poured onwards covering all.

112. ENGLISH FEELING TOWARD NAPOLEON AFTER WATERLOO

(1815).

An editorial from the Times is chosen to reflect English feeling towards Napoleon after he had lost his throne, because it represents the opinion of the country's leading newspaper. The article speaks for itself, and no further introduction is needed than the remark that Captain Maitland was just bringing the Bellerophon into Torbay.

SOURCE.-The Times. July 25, 1815.

The

Our paper of this day will satisfy the sceptics, for such there were beginning to be, as to the capture of that bloody miscreant, who has so long tortured Europe, NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. Savages are always found to unite the greatest degree of cunning to the ferocious part of their nature. cruelty of this person is written in characters of blood in almost every country in Europe, and in the contiguous angles of Africa and Asia which he visited; and nothing can more strongly evince the universal conviction of his low, perfidious craft, than the opinion, which was beginning to get abroad, that, even after his capture had been officially announced both in France and England, he might yet have found means to escape.

However all doubts upon this point are at an end, by his arrival off the British coast, and, if he be not now placed beyond the possibility of again outraging the peace of Europe, England will certainly never again deserve to have heroes such as those who have fought, and bled at Waterloo, for this his present overthrow. The lives of the brave men who fell on that memorable day will have been absolutely thrown away by a thoughtless country, the grand object obtained by their valour will have been frustrated, and we shall do little less than insult over their remains, almost before they have ceased to bleed. But Fortune, seconding their undaunted efforts, has put it in our power to do far otherwise.

Captain Sartorius of the Slaney frigate, arrived yesterday with despatches from Captain Maitland of the Bellerophon, confirming all the antecedent accounts of Buonaparte's surrender, with various other details, and closing them by their natural catastrophe-his safe conveyance to England. He is, therefore, what we may call, here. Captain Sartorius delivered his

despatches to Lord Melville, at Wimbledon, by whom their contents were communicated to Lord Liverpool, at his seat at Coombe Wood; summonses were immediately issued for a Cabinet Council to meet at 12 o'clock; what passed there was, of course, not suffered to transpire; our narrative must therefore revert to the Slaney frigate, and the accounts brought by her. She had been sent forward by Captain Maitland, to Plymouth, with the despatches announcing that Buonaparte was on board the Bellerophon, with a numerous suite. But it was the intention of Captain Maitland himself, to proceed to Torbay, and not land his prisoners until he had received orders from Government.

Buonaparte's suite, as it is called, consists of upwards of forty persons, among whom are Bertrand, Savary, Lallemand, Grogau1 and several women. He has been allowed to take on board carriages and horses, but admission was denied to about fifty calvary, for whom he had the impudence to require accommodation. This wretch has really lived in the commission of every crime, so long, that he has lost all sight and knowledge of the difference that exists between good and evil, and hardly knows when he is doing wrong, except he be taught by proper chastisement. A creature who ought to be greeted with a gallows as soon as he lands-to think of an attendance of fifty horsemen! He had at first wanted to make conditions with Captain Maitland, as to his treatment, but the British officer very properly declared that he must refer him upon this subject to his Government.

When he had been some time on board, he asked the Captain what chance two large frigates, well manned, would have with a seventy-four. The answer, we understand, which he received to this inquiry, did not give him any cause to regret that he had not risked his fortune in a naval combat, with the relative forces in question. By the way, we should not have been surprised if he had come into an action with the two frigates, and then endeavoured to escape in his own, and leave the other to her fate. It has been the constant trick of this villain, whenever he has got his companions into a scrape, to leave them in it and seek his own safety by flight. In Egypt, in the Moscow expedition, and at Waterloo, such was his conduct.

The first procedure, we trust, will be a special Commission, or the appointment of a Court Martial to try him for the

1 Gourgaud.

murder of Captain Wright.1 It is nonsense to say, as some have, that Courts Martial are instituted only to try offences committed by soldiers of the country to which they belong: it was an American Court Martial that tried and shot Major André as a spy; and Buonaparte himself appointed commissions of all kinds, and in all countries, to try offences committed against himself.

113. "THE PETERLOO MASSACRE" (1819).

The French Revolution is responsible for having postponed in England many reforms which had been rendered necessary by rapid industrial progress. Radicalism was associated in the public mind with a French origin, and that killed it politically. After Waterloo the tide turned and agitators gained a hearing. The landed interest wished to maintain the late war prices, and the artisan population desired cheap bread. Hence discontent, oratory, and riots which resulted in loss of life. The most celebrated disturbance of these years is the "Peterloo Massacre" of 1819. On August 16th a mass meeting was arranged by the Manchester radicals to hear Henry Hunt, a speaker who advocated annual parliaments, universal suffrage and the ballot. A crowd gathered in St. Peter's Fields, and trouble arose between it and the Lancashire yeomanry who were present on the plea of preserving order. The troops charged and killed several persons, to the intense indignation of radical sympathisers in every part of the island. The Annual Register contains an impartial story of the affair.

SOURCE.-Annual Register. London, 1819. P. 105.

The adjournment of the preceding meeting, the considerable interval of preparation which had been allowed; a vague feeling perhaps, that such assemblages would not much longer be permitted,—all conspired to render the concourse great beyond all former example. A little before noon on the 16th of August,

1An English naval officer who by shipwreck fell into French hands, and was taken to Paris at the time of Pichegru's conspiracy against Napoleon, 1804. He was examined during Cadoudal's trial, and afterwards killed himself or was murdered in prison at the Temple.