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officer who thus kept them open. The Marquis of Romana was moving from Leon, through Gallicia, into Tras os Montes, on the right bank of the Douro; and the corps of Sir Robert Wilson did not extend even to the left bank of that river, so that it was impossible for a much more considerable force than that under Sir Robert Wilson to influence in the slightest degree the operations in Tras os Montes. There was, however, at the same time, a much larger force on the right bank of the Duero, which has somewhat singularly escaped the observation of the gallant author. General Silveira, at the head of a considerable Portugueze army, did actually keep open the gates of retreat for Romana; and, besides observing Soult, retake Chaves, and make its garrison prisoners. Sir Robert Wilson cannot surely ascribe these services to his co-operation.

Again, he prevented the union of General Lapisse from Castille with Marshal Soult at Oporto.' Sir R. Wilson's corps, as we have stated, did not amount to so many as 800 men. General Lapisse had from 4000 to 5000, and Marshal Soult about 22,000. Are we reading the campaign of Cortez among the naked Mexicans? or what tribute of admiration can be too great for that generalship which, without any superiority either of arms or discipline, could thus render numbers not only comparatively but absolutely unimportant! But can Sir R. Wilson have forgotten what actually took place when General Lapisse advanced towards Portugal? Can it have escaped his memory that after a skirmish at the strong pass of Barba del Puerco, he very properly and judiciously threw himself into Ciudad Rodrigo; and, instead of being able to protect these fortresses,' sought protection for himself and his corps within the walls of one of them—or, with all the activity which so eminently belongs to Sir R. Wilson, or even with the ubiquity which is implied in this statement, will he say that, while locked up in Ciudad Rodrigo, he was the cause of Almeida being saved?-or that, while thus situated, he could impede any junction or paralyze any operation which Generals Lapisse and Soult might have judged expedient? But, at least,' it will doubtless be contended, he saved the town within whose walls he found a shelter.' We have no wish to deprive him of any possible merit of this kind: but the degree of such merit must depend on the extent of the danger to which the place was exposed; and we have good reason to believe that General Lapisse had neither the means nor the inclination to attack it. His object was a junction with Marshal Victor. That object he effected without molestation, and it was only in passing that he tried the effect of a summons on Ciudad Rodrigo.

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But what shall we say to the gallant general's next assertion, that he suspended the evacuation of Lisbon until the arrival of Sir A. Wellesley with fresh troops from England? That all dates should

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here, as elsewhere, be omitted, is no fresh cause of wonder:* but it is really something singular that, during the only period to which, as we conceive, he can refer, there were never less than 12,000 or 15,000 British troops in Portugal, while the new organization of the Portugueze army was already in its progress. Whether there were any persons (excepting always the English opposition) who, under such circumstances, contemplated the evacuation of Lisbon, we cannot say but certain it is that the British army, instead of making any preparations for such a measure, were, at the moment of Sir Arthur Wellesley's arrival, already advanced about eighty miles, from Lisbon towards Oporto, to Leiria and Thomar. And it is also somewhat singular that the same person in authority at a distance,' (which may be Englished by saying the commander of the forces,) should have, at one moment, esteemed Sir Robert Wilson's corps so nugatory as to desire its commander 'to quit and consult his own safety; and at the next, should derive from its existence, at the distance of three hundred miles, a degree of confidence with which he was not inspired by a strong British force under his command, and the honour of the British name under his guardianship. Above all, however, Sir Robert Wilson has strangely forgotten, that, when, at last, Sir Arthur Wellesley came, he absolutely brought no troops with him that he was immediately followed by no more than a single regiment of cavalry, and that the glorious passage of the Douro, and the expulsion of Marshal Soult with 22,000 French from Oporto, were effected with that very army which, but for the magical effect of Sir Robert Wilson's manœuvres, would have fled from Portugal without striking a blow!

But these are not the only, we may say, these are not the greatest merits laid claim to by Sir Robert Wilson's corps. ، The discipline,' he says, and the organization which had been commenced in my legion were successfully introduced into the whole army by Marshal Beresford.'—p. 9.

We are sorry to observe, that this is not the first attempt which has been made to deprive that officer, to whom Portugal owes her military character, of the merits which are exclusively his own; and we are, therefore, the more anxious to remind Sir Robert that so far was that officer from building on his foundation, or adopting on a larger scale the system of organization previously applied to his legion, that the first act of General Beresford was to change it altogether, and, in fact, to break up the corps whose claims we are now

* We really must be excused for expressing a hope that, if Sir R. Wilson should be pleased to favour the public with any further communications on the merits of his services, he would condescend to specify the time, the place, the duration, and the result of each affair, respectively, and not compel us to explore our way through such an indistinct and dateless narrative, as (with one exception) it has here been our duty to review.

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discussing. And we are further compelled to observe, that the discipline and conduct of that corps were such as to make its final dissolution a matter of notorious justice and expediency.

On the merit of Sir Robert Wilson's services in Spain, under Sir Arthur Wellesley, during the year 1809, there can be no dissentient voice. He executed, with very distinguished zeal and activity, the orders which he received; but we beg leave to remind him that some portion at least of the praise of those movements (the importance of which is allowed in the French dispatches, and by himself so much dwelt on) must belong to him who directed as well as to him who executed them. At all events, it is rather too much for the chief of a single detached corps to ascribe the great results of the campaign to himself and to the limited means which were at his disposal.

It is in this temper that he tells us, (p. 14.) that the movements of his corps, after the battle of Talavera, threw back Victor about thirty miles, kept that officer in ignorance of Soult's advance till the 5th of August, and prevented the reunion of the French armies till the 7th, affording thus sufficient time for Sir A. Wellesley to extricate himself from his unpleasant situation.

Now, Sir Robert Wilson cannot, surely, have read Marshal Jourdan's dispatch, by which it appears that Victor had reported the advance of the enemy, or combined army; for when he (Jourdan) finds that the report of Victor did not 'announce the march of the combined army, but only of Wilson,' from that moment he seems to have thought nothing more of him, except to say, that 'he is surrounded, and that 1500 men will make him prisoner.' And by what process does Sir Robert Wilson suppose that he prevented the junction of the French armies? He commanded a corps of about 4000 men considerably on their right flank; Sir Arthur Wellesley, with the victorious army of Talavera, was directly between them; and even the least military of Sir Robert Wilson's constituents are qualified to judge which was the most likely cause of their communications being intercepted.

We have now, however, arrived at a period when Sir Robert Wilson, instead of acting under the guidance and superior authority of Sir Arthur Wellesley, was become, to a great extent, a free agent; and the first happy effect which resulted from this situation, was his suffering himself to be totally surrounded. This fact is clear from his own narrative; and this he further confirms by quoting an intercepted letter from Marshal Soult to the governor of Seville. We believe the fact; but Sir Robert is unfortunate in the choice of his corroborative document, since Seville was not occupied by the French for several months afterwards, and since, at the time of which he is speaking, there was not a single Frenchman in Andalusia.

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To return, however, to the main fact of Sir Robert Wilson's being surrounded. This might, beyond a doubt, have been unavoidable, and to be classed among the usual incidents of war; but, not content with suffering us to pass on it this construction, he himself informs us that he foresaw the danger, and knowingly permitted the net to be drawn around him. Thus, he tells us, (for we will give his own expressions,) Fortunately, in anticipation of a disaster, I had sent off my guns, when I commenced my retreat, with orders to gain the Bridge of Arzobispo by all possible efforts.' -p. 15. Now guns, (even the ladies of Southwark must be sensible,) guns have in themselves no further property of defence or offence than so many carts or waggons; and it follows, that Sir R. Wilson, in sending off his guns without an escort, must have conceived the route which he destined for them to be not exceedingly hazardous. Why then, if he believed his guns could effect their passage, did he not take the opportunity of withdrawing the corps under his orders, which, as composed of cavalry and light infantry, might, surely, have passed through the same 'gate of retreat,' through which unprotected guns were drawn-off in safety? We have heard, however, a somewhat different account of the whole transaction; and, in the case of most officers similarly situated, we should, we confess, have rather supposed that their guns had been separated from them by the unexpected advance of the enemy, than that, having the power to send them away, they should not have taken the same opportunity to save their army.

From the hazard, however, which he thus strangely chose to incur, his good fortune was sufficient to extricate him. Nor can any one read without interest the description of his miraculous escape along a mountain path, till then esteemed impracticable and only traversed by shepherds, through peaceful vallies, which now first started at the sound of the bugle. Yet, that even of this track the difficulties were not so great as to prevent its being passed by cavalry, we conclude, since at Baños Sir Robert Wilson was not deprived of this latter description of force, and since, if these had found a better road, Sir Robert Wilson would not have preferred a worse for his infantry. By this road, however, he drew off his men, and took up a strong position in the pass of Baños, where he was shortly after attacked by the enemy.

This is the occasion on which we erroneously stated, in a former Number, that Sir Robert Wilson claimed a victory. On this particular we have already acknowledged our error, and we again beg leave (as a matter of common justice) to express our concern, and apologize for our unintentional mistatement. But, while we fully acquit him of any thing like express or intentional falsehood, it really appears to us, on his own shewing, that the report which he sent to head-quarters was of a character singularly over-charged,

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and what we call almost poetical. To a victory, indeed, he did not lay claim; but it may be observed, that if a small corps resists for many hours a vastly superior force-occasioning great loss to the assailants, and itself receiving little injury-impeding the enemy's movements, and effecting its own retreat in good order, so as to be applicable to other purposes-such an action, though modestly not termed a victory, must have, in no small degree, the character and consequences of one.

Now we would ask any unprejudiced person whether Sir Robert Wilson's public report is not calculated to produce such an impression? and whether any plain man who reads it would guess that the result of an action so described had been the total dispersion of the corps?-a rout so total that the general 'owed his safety to the swiftness of his horse'!

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Thus we are told in the dispatch, that the enemy will only have to boast that he has achieved his passage.' But, will Sir Robert Wilson have the goodness to tell us what more an enemy could boast of than the utter dispersion of the corps opposed to him? We ask whether the most decisive battle on record, whether even that of Waterloo itself, had, in a military point of view, any greater results than these? What is it, indeed, which Sir Arthur Wellesley says in those extracts of his letter which Sir Robert Wilson has published? -'that he cannot comprehend the matter; that he does not understand how troops could behave so well as Sir Robert had stated in his public dispatch, and be so utterly routed as he had described them in his private letter; that he had sent the dispatch home to speak for itself, and that he would have sent it back for revision, if the delay might not have been injurious to Sir Robert Wilson.'-p. 23. We do not know that the English language affords terms more expressive of a discrepancy between the public and private letter, the varnished and unvarnished tale, and we beg Sir Robert to consider whether, in this apparent discrepancy, he may not trace the foundation of those injurious reports which have been circulated to his disadvantage, and which have to this hour remained unquestioned (as far as we know) even by those who were least inclined to detract from his reputation.

But what, after all, is the plain truth respecting the action at Baños? The advanced guard, (we believe under Colonel Grant,) consisting of about 400 men, occupied Aldea Nueva, Sir Robert Wilson remaining, with the rest of the corps, in the position and pass of Baños. The former party skirmished, during the greatest part of the day, with the enemy's piquets, and, being at last driven in, retired upon the position of the main body. The flight and dispersion of the whole corps immediately followed: and here ended the battle of Baños! Sir Robert Wilson, indeed, speaks of a nine hours' resistance; of artillery and musketry; of such a fire

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