hill, they erected a battery, which commanded the outer line of the works, connecting the fortress with the town. This line was escaladed at two points by a British and Portugueze detachment; the Portugueze, however, failed in their attempt, and the British had advanced so far, that it was not without some difficulty they were drawn off. The French after this did not remain altogether on the defensive; they made successively two sorties against the works of the besiegers, which, however, were not attended with very important consequences. The loss of Major Collier, the field officer, in the trenches, who fell while rallying the troops during the second of these sorties, was deeply regretted by Lord Wellington and the whole army.

The besiegers, in spite of all the efforts of the garrison, still continued to make rapid progress; they esta blished themselves within 100 yards of the enemy's interior line; they effected a breach in another part of the same line; accomplished a lodgement, and carried on their mines under ground with the utmost celerity. On the 11th of October, a mine was successfully sprung; the breaches were instantly stormed, and the lines escaladed, and part of the British troops actually entered the works; but the fire from the garrison was so heavy, that they were unable to sustain themselves, and retired after suffering some loss. The recollection, however, of what had been done at Ciudad. Rodrigo and Badajoz; the astonishing progress which had already been made even before Burgos, and the universal confidence reposed in the intrepidity of the troops, and the fortunes of their commander, filled the British nation with the most sanguine hopes that this place was destined very soon to follow the fall of the other strong

holds, which had already been wrested from the enemy. But a series of accidents occurred, to prevent the fulfilment of these expectations.

The defeat of the Spaniards under O'Donnell, and the consequent inactivity of the expedition which had been sent to Alicant, have already been mentioned, and these unfortunate circumstances were of themselves sufficient to have deranged the whole plan of the campaign. But other misfortunes, neither less serious nor unexpected, happened about this time to embarrass the British general, and to deprive him of all chance of reaping the full advantages of his late achievements. When Lord Wellington advanced to the north, he expected to have received the support of the Gallician army; an army which was said to consist of 30,000 disciplined troops, in the highest state of order and equipment, and commanded by officers of talent and experience. These magnificent promises, however, were sadly belied by the result; and Lord Wellington had the mortification to find, that this Spanish army consisted of 10,000 instead of $0,000 men, without discipline, without equipments of any kind, and commanded by men who had yet to learn the rudiments of their profession. Severe, indeed, must this disappointment have been to the British chief, and disgraceful to the Spaniards were the misrepresentations by which they had deceived their generous allies. Deeper mortifications, however, yet awaited Lord Wellington; and the Spaniards were, in the person of one of their most popular leaders, to give a striking example of that melancholy infatuation which so long retarded the deliverance of their country.

General Ballasteros, one of the most successful of the Spanish chieftains, commanded an army of his countrymen in the south, where he had already

signalized himself by gallantry rather than by skill; by perseverance and devotion, rather than by any systema tic exertions, which alone can lead to great consequences. He had at first been a chief of Guerillas, and want ed not the qualities which fitted him for such a station. The character of his mind, originally narrow and vulgar, seems to have been confirmed by the habits of the predatory warfare in which he was engaged; and although he had often been successful in detached enterprises against the enemy, where an irregular valour alone was required, yet had he made but little progress towards the liberation of his country. In his conduct as commander of the army before Gibraltar he had given no indication of the higher qualities which are required in the chief of a large army; and although, when Soult retreated towards the Valencian frontier, the Spaniards under Ballasteros had at first followed him with seeming activity, and had even gained some advantages over his rear-guard, yet he no sooner entered Granada than they resigned themselves to utter inactivity. Ballasteros was at this time meditating the ambitious project of seizing on the chief command of the Spanish armies, which the cortes had so wisely conferred on Lord Wellington; and, wholly absorbed by this idle dream, he forgot the duty which he owed to his country. He was ordered by Lord Wellington to advance, and fall upon the flanks of the French army; but he answered these commands by an appeal to the Spanish army and nation against the cortes, to whose voice the British general owed his elevation to the chief command. He developed all his ambition and imbecillity; he assumed a peevish and insolent tone towards his superiors; and his appeal was heard with the indifference which it merited. Neither the

nation nor the army sympathized with his follies, and he was without opposition superseded, arrested, and exiled to Ceuta.

That the fate of Ballasteros excited little compassion is not wonderful; for although he was indisputably a brave man, yet was his ambition of a very selfish and unreasonable character. The feeling of rivalry which he seems to have entertained toward Lord Wellington was at once ridiculous and ungenerous; it was ridiculous, because of the great distance betwixt them, and ungenerous, on account of the numerous services which the British general had already rendered to Spain. The pride of the Spaniards might well be mortified, indeed, when the decision of the cortes announced to the world, that none of them were qualified to lead the armies to battle, or to take a conspicuous part in the liberation of their common country; but this feeling of mortification would have infused into more generous and elevated minds, nothing but greater zeal to acquire the qualifications by which this reproach might have been removed, and ought never to have generated the envious malice by which Ballasteros must have been inAuenced. But even if his personal or national pride could have palliated his refusal to obey the chief, whom the government of his country had placed over him, such an excuse certainly can never be offered for his inactivity, at a moment when the fate of Spain was to be decided. If he did not obey Lord Wellington,-if he hesitated as to the prudence of his measures, or question. ed his authority, he ought at all events to have served his country, by the most vigorous direction of the resour ces entrusted to him, towards the destruction of the enemy. Those who recollect, that a considerable Spanish army was at this critical season ren

dered useless, by the peevish and obstinate folly of a Spanish general; that the plans of the campaign were thus deranged by his frowardness; that time was afforded to the French to rally, and come down on the allies in numbers, which rendered success for the present wholly unattainable, will think, perhaps, that the punishment of Ballasteros did not equal his offence; and how much soever they may commiserate his folly, they cannot surely regret his fate.

In consequence of these untoward accidents, the inaction of the AngloSicilian expedition, the inefficiency of the Spanish army of Gallicia, and the insanity of General Ballasteros, Lord Wellington found his situation very different from what he had been led to expect. The French army of Portugal, greatly reinforced, was advancing under Souham, who had now taken the command, with the view of either raising the siege of Burgos, or forcing the British to fight at disadvantage. On the 15th of October they attacked the British outposts, but were repulsed with great spirit; and on the 19th, their whole force had approached the vicinity of Burgos. The movements of Souham and Soult were nearly simultaneous, and formed part of the same plan which the latter general had adopted for recovering Madrid. On the 21st, Lord Wellington received information that the whole French forces under Soult, Suchet, and Joseph Buonaparte, amounting to 70,000 men, to 70,000 men, were fast approaching the passes, and threatened General Hill, who had no adequate force to oppose to them. This intelligence determined Lord Wellington to raise the siege of Burgos, and to march to the support of the allied army in Madrid; and he accordingly retired towards the Douro, closely followed by the French under Souham. On the 23d, the British

approached Valladolid, and a sharp affair occurred at Torquenada, which ended in the repulse of the enemy.

It would be difficult to describe the feelings of the British people when they were first informed of these eventswhen they learned that the Spanish capital was again in possession of the enemy, and that the siege of Burgos had been raised by an army which had so lately been broken and dispersed by the besiegers. The most violent indignation was expressed; reproaches were cast on the ministry, and even upon Lord Wellington himself. A few profligate persons treated with derision all the hopes which had been raised as to the ultimate issue of the contest, while good men of all parties felt the deepest regret at the unexpected turn which affairs had taken, and which threatened to deprive the allies of the fruits of so many great achievements. The ministers were loudly censured for "starving the war in Spain," (to use the very classical form of expres sion which was current at this time,) for sending out reinforcements in numbers so small, and at seasons so unsuitable, that they were of no real service to the cause of Spain. It was forgotten that England was not the principal in the Spanish war, and that her whole resources could not, with any regard to prudence, have been hastily directed to this object alone. Those who disliked Lord Wellington, because his victories had thwarted their narrow views, cast many reflections on his rashness in advancing so far into Spain, without providing for the security of his previous acquisitions, and the safety of his retreat; they predicted the most disastrous consequences to the Spanish cause from the dejection into which the minds of the people would be suddenly precipitated from that height of confidence to which they had been raised, and they pro phesied the ruin of the army from a

retreat, which is always so repugnant to the feelings of British soldiers, and so destructive of their discipline. They forgot the unexpected disappointments which Lord Wellington had suffered, and described that conduct as the offspring of a wild temerity, which in other circumstances would have been applauded as a master-piece of wise and prudent daring.--Lord Wellington was also censured for remaining inactive at Madrid by those who thought not of the fatigues which the army had already undergone, or the necessity of ascertaining the real extent of the co-operation which was to be received from the Spaniards, before the ulterior movements were determined upon. He was charged also with having undertaken the siege of Burgos, when his means were wholly inadequate to such an enterprise, and with trusting too much to the bravery of his troops, at the hazard of sacrificing many valuable lives. Yet was it ma nifest to any person capable of a moment's reflection, that without the reduction of this fortress, nothing farther could have been done in the campaign; that the ultimate success of the siege would have been assured, if circumstances, beyond the control of the British general, had proved favourable; and that, as in the cases of Badajoz and Ciudad Rodrigo, an immediate sacrifice of the soldiers to a certain extent, becomes, in truth, a sacrifice to humanity, and saves the lives of thousands who must perish in the course of protracted operations. It may seem unfeeling in military men thus to make the lives of their fellow creatures an affair of dry calculation it must be remembered, however, that war cannot be conducted at all without such sacrifices, and that when a government and people resolve on hostilities, the military leader to whom they entrust the execution of their counsels, cannot be charged with in

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difference to human suffering when he uses his best efforts to execute their designs. It was for such reasons that Lord Wellington carried Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz by storm ; and, influenced by the same motives, he commenced the siege of Burgos, and would have brought it to a conclusion no less fortunate, had he not been called by other events to change for a season the whole plan of his operations.

The British army, threatened as it now was by the united forces of the enemy, began its retreat. Lord Wellington knew well what a scene an army presents on such an occasion, and how much the talents of a consummate officer are required to maintain discipline and subordination. Arduous and delicate in the highest degree, therefore, was the task which he had to perform; and nothing could have ani. mated him in the execution of it but the hope that he might again be able to turn upon the enemy, and, profiting by their errors, give full scope to the bravery of his soldiers. The late Sir John Moore, who had experienced all the difficulties of a situation similar in some respects to that in which Lord Wellington was now placed, had remarked of his army, that he had nothing to say in its praise, unless when a chance of meeting the enemy presented itself; and the great secret, therefore, in conducting the retreat, was to profit by such chances as might occur, and to encourage in the minds of the soldiers the hope that they were retiring only to fight at greater advantage. During the whole retreat, the British army displayed, under its illustrious leader, its wonted steadiness and bravery; and, although closely pressed at different points by very superior numbers, retired in the finest order. On one occasion, indeed, the French overtook a part of the retreat. ing army with so very superior a force, that they compelled it to change its

route, which was accomplished with. out loss or confusion.-On the 27th of October the allies were posted on the left of the Pisuerga. The French crossed the river on the same day, and formed on the heights opposite to the British position. The next day the enemy attempted to gain possession of the bridges, and came down in such force that it was deemed expedient to blow up one of them; to abandon the Pisuerga and cross the Douro, a movement which was effected without loss.-The French, how. ever, still continued to press hard on the retreating army; they dislodged a German regiment which was posted on the ruins of the bridge of Tordesillas, and advanced with their whole force upon the city. No time was to be lost; and it became necessary that Lord Wellington should either secure for himself a position, in which he could give battle to the enemy, or hasten his retreat. He of course preferred the first of these alternatives, and resolved to occupy some heights between Rueda and Tordesillas, opposite the ruins of the bridge. While these movements were executed by that part of the army under the immediate command of their great leader, orders were dispatched to General Hill to break up from his position on the Jacuma, and to reach the Aduga by the 3d or 4th of November. These orders were strictly obeyed, and by the 3d of that month the whole British army was once more united.-The French under Soult and Souham had also an opportunity of joining. Soult had already abandoned Madrid with a determination to employ the whole French forces in driving the British back to Portugal. The enemy endeavoured to turn the flanks of the retiring army; their main body advanced to Toro and Zamora to threaten its left, and Soult marched on Avila, in hopes of turning the right. Lord

Wellington immediately put his whole forces in motion, and retired on Salamanca, where he hoped to be able to establish himself, and to maintain the heights of St Chrystoval in front of the city. But the united forces of the enemy were too numerous and powerful, and he was obliged to evacuate this city, and continue his retreat.

As he did not, however, despair of finding a favourable opportunity for bringing the French to action, he carefully watched all their movements. They had taken post at Alba; and he believed for a moment that here he should at last be enabled to inflict that chastisement which he had so long meditated. He reconnoitred their position with great care, but he found it so strong both by nature and art, that it would have indicated the greatest temerity to attack it. The French, in the meantime, had moved their cavalry forward in such a direction as to threaten the British communications with the fortress of Ciudad Rodrigo. Lord Wellington, however, disconcerted their plans, and effected his own retreat without material loss, if we except one singular casualty which heppened about this period. Sir Edward Paget, a brave and able officer, commanded the centre columns during the movement which has just been described; the roads had become so bad by the heavy and incessant rains, that an interval occurred betwixt the fifth and seventh divisions of infantry, and Sir Edward rode alone to the rear to discover the cause why the latter division had not come up. He missed his way, and fell into the hands of the enemy. The accident was somewhat singular, but was of no other importance than as it deprived the service for a time of the aid of a distinguished soldier, and gave the French an oppor tunity of boasting that they had made prisoner a British officer of such rank and consequence. The allies, in the