flank. We had nothing left for it but to raise the siege and retire, and form a junction with Sir Rowland Hill's corps, which we effected. We were in hopes that we should have been enabled to have held the line of the river Tormes, which nothing could have prevented us from doing; but, unfortunately, the river fell, and became fordable for both cavalry and infantry: we then had nothing for it but to retire; and though I am persuaded that Lord Wellington would have given the enemy battle at the Arapiles, if they attacked, yet the enemy had profited by the error of Marmont. Their object was not to fight, but to manœuvre at some distance from us and turn our flank, which they accomplished. Upon the whole I am happy that the enemy did not attack, as he was so vastly superior in point of numbers, but particularly in cavalry. We had most dreadful weather during our retreat, from which our army has suffered a good deal; but I trust we shall soon be in order again, as the troops have now gone into winter quarters.' (Vol. vii. p. 486.)

In truth, the campaign of 1812 fell far short of Wellington's expectations, because the Government at home was unable to direct the resources of the empire, and to strike with vigour at the proper moment. The main strength of Napoleon's forces being on the Vistula or the Niemen, this was obviously the time to carry on the Peninsular war with redoubled energy, and at least to take care that Wellington's means should be adequate to accomplish his projects. Yet the reinforcements and supplies he had expected for his own army and those of the allies were insufficient or arrived too late; he was left after the battle of Salamanca in a dangerous position without support; and, above all, the diversion in the East, on which he had been induced to rely, was so retarded that it was utterly ineffectual. And yet, from a paper written by Lord Wellesley, we know that at this moment the Government had the means, not only of securing the attainment of the objects which Wellington had originally contemplated, but, after the extraordinary success at Salamanca, of striking a mortal blow at the invasion. After showing that, in 1812, our regular army exceeded 218,000 men, and our militia and volunteers 350,000, independently of 140,000 seamen, Lord Wellesley thus sums up his conclu

sions:

1st. You have 57,000 regular soldiers distributed into depôts, sixteen regiments of cavalry, and forty-five battalions of infantry; the Foot Guards at home alone amounting to upwards of 4,000 men.

2nd. You have a recruiting service which produced in England, in 1812, about 7,000 men a quarter, subject to casualties "at home." '3rd. You had the Cape of Good Hope and other foreign stations which might have been reduced with great safety, at this particular crisis, to a standard below the ordinary strength.

And 4th. You had an armed force of militia and volunteers of

350,000 men, besides marines, artillery, garrison, and veteran battalions, for your home defence, in addition to your powerful navy, employing upwards of 140,000 seamen, at a time when France was engaged with Russia and Spain, and the navies of your enemies were afraid to appear on the ocean.

'I ask whether, under all these circumstances, it was an impracticable effort for Ministers to send those reinforcements in April, which they afterwards sent in September, or to have added a few thousand men to those reinforcements, and thus, before the battle of Salamanca, have sent 15,000 men to Lord Wellington, which would not only have replaced his casualties (not 5,000 men), but have given him an effectual augmentation of 10,000 men, which augmentation alone, even with the failure of the Sicilian expedition and the imperfect state of the Spanish and Portuguese armies, would have decided the fate of the campaign.' (Vol. viii. p. 13.)

Lord Liverpool seems to have thought it sufficient to answer charges of this character by showing that the efforts of Government were equal to those which England had made against France in the war of the Succession. The following reply, we should say, was hardly necessary :—

'But Lord Liverpool compares the effort of this day to that made in the time of King William. To this Sterling says: "The force "employed by the Ministers of the present day might have fully accomplished our national purposes in the time of King William; but "had the armies of Louis XIV. amounted to half the numbers brought "into the field by Buonaparte, the exertions made by England in the "beginning of the eighteenth century would have been recorded as "ridiculous, inadequate, and contemptible. Godolphin would have "been handed down to posterity as the weakest minister, and Marl"borough himself as the least successful officer that ever mistook the "proportion between his means and his objects." In order to give also any force to his allusion, Lord Liverpool ought to prove the equality between the population and resources of England in those days, and her faculties of the same nature at the present era. He ought also to prove that the necessity for extreme exertion was then equal to what it now appears, and that the success of our efforts at the present day does not fall short of its amount at the former period. According to every true principle of reasoning, the magnitude of the means employed, if they be not employed with wisdom, constitutes the guilt, not the merit of Ministers; and if these means have not been followed by success, they may be designated as the weakness, rather than the power of the empire.' (Vol. viii. p. 15.)

In the next year the liberation of the Peninsula was effected by the battle of Vittoria. The events of 1812-13 had again reduced the French armies in Spain; and, though still a formidable force, they were much isolated and disheartened. On the other hand, considerable efforts had been made to strengthen Wellington's army; he had been appointed Commander-in-chief

by the Cortes; and he had obtained the guidance of the numerous insurrections which were breaking out with renewed intensity. With 200,000 men under his orders, although composed of the troops of three nations, with a large guerilla force supporting him, and with two British fleets co-operating on the northern and eastern coasts of Spain, he was now, for the first time, stronger than the French, and felt confident that in the approaching campaign he would bid a long farewell to Portu'gal.' Directing Murray with Elio and the fleet to operate against the eastern seaboard, and hold in check the forces of Suchet, he marched the mass of his veteran army upon the line of the French communications, and by a series of remarkable manœuvres having dislodged Joseph from the positions which might have been taken on the tributaries of the Douro, he forced him to fight under great disadvantages, and without his full strength, in the basin of Vittoria. Three-fourths of the beaten army were driven through the Pyrenees to the French frontier, while another fourth escaped to Saragossa; the standards of Wellington crowned the Pyrenees; Pampeluna and San Sebastian were invested; and the base of Portugal being abandoned, a new base was formed on the coast of Biscay.

At this juncture Wellington, however, became exposed to a sea of troubles. The operations in the East had failed; and it seemed probable that Suchet and Clausel would be free to menace his flank through Aragon, while Soult, lately appointed to this command, would attack him in front with Joseph's army. The regency at Lisbon, who had always chafed beneath his ascendancy and that of England, and were angry that the profits of the war had been finally withdrawn from Portugal, began to complain that their troops in Spain were being employed in operations in which their country had no interest. And, at the same time, the factions in the Cortes, having never been really cordial with England, gave numberless proofs of jealousy of Wellington, deprived Castanos and Giron of their commands, and threatened to close the ports of Spain against the troops the British army. Had this notable expedient been tried, it is probable that the English general could not have established a base in Spain and must have fallen back to Portugal; and, as it was, he actually resigned the command he held of the Spanish forces, and advised his Government that it was not impossible that war with Spain would be the consequence. From a very interesting paper in these volumes, addressed to the Duke by Don A. A. de la Vega, we quote this account of the menacing state of Spanish opinion at this critical moment:

'Among the Serviles, my Lord, they make converts under the pre

tence of religion and the English constitution, which, as it limits in their opinion too much the authority of a king, they assure them is not compatible with the authority of a monarch, for whom this class of people are panting, but which, they added, is opposed by the English. The Liberales, on the contrary, they endeavour to persuade that the constitution of your country is defective, and that it gives too much latitude to the regal authority; and that the English, sensible of the defects of which ours has been purged, will set about reforming theirs if they find that ours lasts any length of time, and that there is a large party formed in its favour; that this not being agreeable to the Cabinet of St. James, nor the different ranks of people that enjoy the influence in the state and compose the Parliament, the British Government is determined to prevent our constitution from establishing itself solidly. All the actions of the English are consequently represented in this light. Those who merely wish for independence are told that you resist it because you do not assist and forward our expeditions to America, to encourage the European party in that country who desire the dependence of America and the monopoly of trade. You are represented as the fosterers and supporters of the ultramarine insurrection, because you do not unite your means with ours to extinguish these commotions by force of arms. And, finally, they talk to the patriots their language, by saying that in not reinforcing your armies, you give a death-blow to the national independence; that this is done in order to prolong the struggle, which will terminate only with the extermination of ourselves and our national independence. If you send troops to us, it is for the purpose of subjugating us and depriving us of our freedom. If the opening of the campaign is delayed, as it should be, they say it is for the purpose of giving time to the French to lay waste the country. If successful actions are fought, it is for giving us the law. If you neglect our armies, it is for the purpose of exposing them to be beat by the enemy. If you discipline them and provide for them, it is to alienate their affections from the nation and making us dependent on England, and thus we shall have been fighting to change masters.' (Vol. viii. p. 183.)

Nor, even in this, the hour of victory, did the Government at home do their general justice, or rise above their wonted incapacity. Although the enthusiasm of the country had reached such a pitch of excitement that, as was remarked, a conscrip'tion was possible,' and 20,000 men could have been sent in six weeks to Wellington's standards, the reinforcements he received were small, and so badly equipped and supplied, that desertions among them became frequent. The battering train for the siege of San Sebastian was delayed nearly three weeks on its passage, the fault, as we see from the following letter, being laid upon the Ordnance Department:

'Believe me, my dear Lord, that nothing connected with the executive government of the country requires reform more than this

Ordnance Department. It is, as now constituted, the greatest clog about the state. It is a mélange of jealousy, intrigue, and stupid prejudice; and to nothing but the neglect of the board is the failure in your supplies to be attributed. There are two powers in the Ordnance Department, always acting in opposition and in contradiction to each other; the one is that of the Master-General himself and his secretary, and the other is the Board and their secretary. They are jealous of each other; and although the former is generally as efficient as the latter is the contrary, yet the Board, upon the subject of supply in particular, possess an independence at variance with the prompt control the chief ought to exercise. The constitution of the whole thing is radically bad.' (Vol. viii. p. 198.)

In addition to this the stores for the army were not seldom intercepted by French and American privateers; the aid of even a part of the fleet for the siege of San Sebastian was refused; and at a time when the English cruisers could have sealed up every mile of the coast, the communications between that fortress and Bayonne were left open, and considerable supplies for the garrison and the main French army were allowed to be smuggled along the seaboard. It was in vain that Wellington repeatedly remonstrated; the only answers Lord Melville vouchsafed were in this style of stolid impertinence:

'There are some matters, however, which depend merely on naval opinions, and on which it is indispensably necessary that you should be apprised of our sentiments and intentions. I will take your opinion in preference to any other person's as to the most effectual mode of beating a French army, but I have no confidence in your seamanship or nautical skill. Neither will I defer to the opinions on such matters of the gentlemen under your command who are employed in the siege of St. Sebastian, and which happen to be at variance with those of every naval officer in His Majesty's service.

'In the first place, then, you are not to expect any effectual assistance in that operation from line-of-battle ships; because, from the situation of the place and the nature of the coast, they cannot anchor without extreme risk, and are exposed to almost certain destruction in a gale of wind, when, from the direction in which it blows, they can neither haul off nor run for shelter into any port. If you will ensure them a continuance of easterly wind, they may remain with you, but not otherwise. In the next place, all the small craft in the British navy could not prevent the occasional entrance of small boats at night into St. Sebastian, though it may be rendered difficult and very uncertain. The same observation applies to the communication along the coast between Bordeaux and Bayonne, where also the nature of that coast renders a perfect and complete interruption to the communication, at all times and in all weathers, scarcely practicable. In the third place, without at all entering into the question of whether your convoys have been as frequent and as securely protected as the nature of the service would admit, I wish you distinctly