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III.

1808.

basis for future operations. In this opinion Lord Castle- CHAP. reagh entirely concurred, though, in order to satisfy the public mind, and gain an opportunity of making the grounds of it generally known, he acquiesced in the propriety of having a Court of Inquiry.

34.

Sir John

This sitting of the Court of Inquiry in London, in which they all, of course, required to be examined at Advance of length, of necessity excluded all the three generals who Moore had in such rapid succession been intrusted with the into Spain. command of the army in Portugal from any share in the first operations in Spain, which were intrusted by Lord Castlereagh to Sir John Moore. Sir Arthur, in private correspondence with him, chafed at the delay which took place in commencing the forward movement. On the 1st September he said, that if he were Commander-in-chief in Sir Hew Dalrymple's place, he would have 20,000 men in Madrid in a month; and about the same time he wrote to Lord Castlereagh that things were not prospering, and that he felt an earnest desire to quit the army, though he would do whatever the Government wished.* The generals in command in Portugal used the utmost efforts to get the preparations for the march into Spain completed as rapidly as possible; but so miserably scanty were the means of transport, that a very long time elapsed before they could be put in motion. At length, however, they set out, converging towards the Dec. 11. point of junction on the plains of Leon from three quar

"The army has halted in its position, with the only difference that we have a corps in Torres Vedras, instead of three miles from that town. In short, in ten days after the action of the 21st, we are not farther advanced, or indeed, as I believe, so far advanced as we should and ought to have been on the night of the 21st. I assure you, my dear Lord, matters are not prospering here; and I feel an earnest desire to quit the army. I have been too successful with this army ever to serve with it in a subordinate situation with satisfaction to the person who shall command it, and, of course, not to myself. However, I shall do whatever the Government may wish."-SIR ARTHUR WELLESLEY to LORD CASTLEREAGH, August 30, 1808; GURWOOD, iv. 118.

"I do not know what Sir Hew Dalrymple proposes to do, or is instructed to do; but if I were in his situation, I would have 20,000 men at Madrid in less than a month from this time."-SIR ARTHUR WELLESLEY to the HONOURABLE CHARLES STEWART, September 1, 1808; GURWOOD, iv. 121.

CHAP.

III.

1808.

ters Sir John Moore himself, with the infantry and cavalry, coming up from Abrantes and Salamanca; Sir John Hope, with the artillery, from Madrid, which he had reached by the circuitous route of Badajoz, rendered necessary to avoid the direct road by Ciudad Rodrigo, which had become almost impassable for carriages; and Sir David Baird, with a fresh expedition who had landed at Corunna, from Ireland. They were concentrated on the 20th December at Mayorga in Leon, and Sir John Moore, who had less than 25,000 effective British Campaign troops under his command, advanced against Marshal Soult, who lay in unsuspecting security with 16,000 in the valley of the Carrion.'

1 Lond. i. 217-233; Moore's

in Spain, 187-194.

35.

Great ef

J. Moore's

advance against Soult.

It belongs to another part of our biography to give some military details of the short but memorable camfects of Sir paign which followed, in which the Honourable Colonel Charles Stewart, Lord Castlereagh's brother, bore a distinguished part. Suffice it to say, that the advance of Sir John Moore, though not expressly enjoined by Lord Castlereagh, was fully approved by him, and coincided exactly with the military policy, at once bold and prudent, which he always adopted. The advantages of the step were obvious. It verified the saying of Napoleon six months before, that a victory by the Allies on the plains of Leon would paralyse every French army in the Peninsula. It at once stopped the advance in La Mancha, Valencia, and Aragon, and caused Napoleon himself, with his Guards and Cuirassiers, and 50,000 chosen troops, to remeasure his steps in the depth of winter over the Guadarama snows. Without doubt the English army was exposed to hazard, and in the end sustained serious losses, by this gallant movement. But its effects were immense; and, not less than Wellington's subsequent stand at Torres Vedras, it was a turning-point in the Peninsular It prolonged the contest which the success over Massena determined. But for it the struggle would have been over, Andalusia overrun, and Portugal con

war.

quered, before three months were over. And this was effected by Moore with 25,000 men against the French Emperor, who had 250,000 men effective and present with the eagles in the Peninsula.* Such was the effect of the skilful direction of a small force to the vital point of the enemy's communications, and of the skilful use made by Castlereagh of the immense advantage which an insular power, itself secure from attack, possesses in being able at pleasure to direct its forces to that quarter.

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36.

reagh dis

the aban

But although cordially approving the advance to the Carrion, and acquiescing in the necessity of the subse- Lord Castlequent retreat into the fastnesses of Galicia, when Napo- approves of leon directed 70,000 men against the British force, not a donment of third part of the amount, Lord Castlereagh was far from Spain by sharing the desponding views of Moore as to the hopeless- army. ness of any further struggle in the Peninsula. On the contrary, he had adopted, and was prepared resolutely to act on, the often expressed opinion of Sir Arthur Wellesley,

the British

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-Imperial Muster Rolls, in NAPIER, i., Appendix 28.

"Every effort," said Sir John Moore, in writing to Lord Castlereagh, "shall be exerted on my part, and that of the officers under me, to unite the army; but your Lordship must be prepared to hear that we have failed, for, situated as we are, success cannot be commanded by any efforts we can make if the enemy are prepared to oppose us. If the French succeed in Spain, it will be in vain to attempt to resist them in Portugal. The Portuguese are without a military force, and from the experience of their conduct under Sir Arthur Wellesley, no dependence is to be placed on any aid that they can give. The British must, in that event, I conceive, immediately take steps to evacuate the country. Lisbon is the only port, and therefore the only place whence the army can embark with its stores. Elvas and Almeida are the only fortresses on the frontiers. The first is, I am told, a respectable work. Almeida is defective, and could not hold out beyond ten days against a regular attack. I have ordered a depôt of provisions, for a short consumption, to be formed there, in case this army should be obliged to fall back; perhaps the same should be done at Elvas. In this case we might retard the progress of the enemy while the stores are embarking, and arrangements were made for taking off the army. Beyond this the defence of Lisbon or Portugal should not be thought of."-SIR JOHN MOORE to LORD CASTLEREAGH, November 24 and 30, 1808; MS. Castlereagh Papers, and CHAMBERS's Scottish Biography, iv. 32, 33, where the letters are quoted.

VOL. I.

R

CHAP.

III.

1808.

1 Sir A.
Wellesley
to Lord
Castlereagh,

wood, vi. 6.

"1

that “Portugal might be successfully defended against any force the enemy could bring against it, and that the maintenance of that position by the British would be the greatest support to the common cause in Spain." Acting on this principle, Lord Castlereagh had prepared April 2, the most powerful succours to enable the British to 1810; Gur maintain their ground in Galicia or Portugal, or both, even after the disastrous retreat to Corunna had reduced the army under Moore to two-thirds of its former amount. Thirteen thousand men were embarked or in course of embarkation when the despatches from Sir J. Moore and Sir D. Baird caused the embarkation to be stopped, and the transports sent out empty to bring away the troops. Mr Canning, who had fully gone into Lord Castlereagh's bold views on this subject, afterwards said, in his place as Foreign Minister in Parliament, that the sending out these empty transports instead of the reinforcements, cost him a greater pang than he had ever experienced in the whole course of his political life.*

Sir John Moore and Sir David Baird, as might well be supposed, were most anxious for definite instructions how to dispose of an army when it had become evident, from the magnitude of the French force, consisting in all of 60,000 men, directed against it, that it was impossible to keep their footing longer in the north of Spain.† Un

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"The troops which had been embarked on board the transports in England," said Mr Secretary Canning, were disembarked in consequence of a distinct requisition that he wanted a certain number of transports, and the transports from which these troops had been disembarked were sent out pursuant to that requisition. It was an afflicting circumstance that it had become necessary to retard these troops, and send out their transports for the purpose of bringing away the British army, which had been fitted out for the purposes of reinforcement and assault. But at this distance from the scene of action, Ministers could not venture to refuse to send out those transports. The sending them out empty cost Government a severe pang. No resolution ever gave me more pain. Every dictate of the head, every feeling of the heart, was tortured by it. But Ministers had no alternative, and they were compelled to submit to the hard necessity. The troops so embarked, and in course of embarkation, were 13,000 men."-Parliamentary Debates, xii. 1089.

"As Sir David Baird so pressingly demands instructions, it appeared to the Cabinet advisable to direct him in the only case in which it is possible to give

III.

37.

1808. Lord Castleit. reagh's in

I

structions to

Baird for

Moore and The the disposal

of the army,

treated to

able, during the pressure of the retreat, to give a full CHAP. description of the state of the army, he sent General Charles Stewart "as the officer best qualified to give you every information you can want, both with respect to our actual situation and the events which have led to Had I followed my own opinion as a military man, should have retired with the army from Salamanca. Spanish armies were then beaten. I was sensible, how- which reever, that had the British been withdrawn, the loss of the Corunna cause would have been imputed to their retreat. It was for this reason that I made the march to Sahagun. As a diversion it succeeded. I brought the whole disposable force of the French against this army, and it has been allowed to follow it without a single movement being made to favour my retreat. The people of the Galicias, though armed, made no attempt to stop the passage of the French through their mountains. They abandoned their dwellings at our approach, and drove away their carts, oxen, and everything that could be of the smallest aid to the army. The consequence has been that our sick have been left behind; and when our horses and mules failed, which, on such marches and through such a country, was the case to a great extent, baggage, ammunition, stores, and even money, were necessarily destroyed or abandoned."1 General Stewart fully confirmed these 1 Sir J. disastrous details; and the result was, that although they Lord Castlehad previously determined to send the army round from Corunna, Corunna to Lisbon or Cadiz, so as to take up a new de- 1809; fensive line resting on one or other of these places, the Castlereagh Cabinet, at Lord Castlereagh's suggestion, sent out dis- vii. 26, 27. cretionary power to Sir John Moore to bring the army home or take it round to Lisbon, as he might deem it expedient. The instructions arrived after Sir John

him from hence any instructions, to go with his army to Portugal, and not, in the event of his being obliged to re-embark, to bring it immediately home." LORD CASTLEREAGH to the EARL of Chatham, November 25, 1808; Castlereagh Correspondence, vii. 15.

Moore to

reagh,

Jan. 13,

Corresp.

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