LV. CHAP. the arm hanging by a film of skin, the breast and lungs almost laid open. Soon after, when the soldiers had 1809. placed him on a blanket to carry him from the field, the hilt of his sword was driven into the wound-an officer destined to celebrity in future times, CAPTAIN HARDINGE, attempted to take it off, but the dying hero exclaimed, "It is as well as it is; I had rather it should go off the field with me." He was carried by the soldiers towards the town, but though the pain of the wound soon became excessive, such was the serenity of his countenance, that those around him expressed a hope of his recovery. recovery. "No," said he, "I feel that is impossible." When approaching the ramparts, he several times desired his attendants to stop, and turn him round that he might again see the field of battle; and when the advance of the firing indiNarrative, cated that the British were successful, he expressed his 354, 371. Nap. i. 499. satisfaction, and a smile overspread the features that were relaxing in death.1 1 Moore's 58. 66 The examination of his wound at his lodgings speedily His death. cut off all hope of recovery; but he never for an instant lost his serenity of mind, and repeatedly expressed his satisfaction when he heard that the enemy were beaten. "You know," said he to his old friend Colonel Anderson, 'that I always wished to die this way." He continued to converse in a calm and even cheerful voice, on the events of the day, inquiring after the safety of his friends and staff, and recommended several for promotion on account of their services during the retreat. "Stanhope," said he, observing Captain Stanhope, "remember me to your sister."* Once only his voice faltered, as he spoke of 1876 men, which afterwards did good service, both at Oporto and Talavera. Six three-pounders which never were horsed were thrown over the rocks near Villa-Franca: the guns used at Corunna, twelve in number, were spiked and buried in the sand, but afterwards discovered by the enemy. Not one, from first to last, was taken in fight.-See the General Returns quoted in NAPIER, i. App. No. 26. The celebrated Lady Hester Stanhope, to whom he was engaged-the partner of Mr Pitt's counsels for many years, and since so well known for her romantic adventures in the East. CHAP. LV. 1809. of his mother. Life was ebbing fast, and his strength was all but extinct, when he exclaimed, in words which will for ever thrill in every British heart,-" I hope the people of England will be satisfied: I hope my country will do me justice." Released in a few minutes after from his sufferings, he was wrapped by his attendants in his military cloak, and laid in a grave hastily formed on the ramparts of Corunna, where a monument was soon after erected over his uncoffined remains by the generosity of Marshal Ney. Not a word was spoken as the melancholy interment by torchlight took place; 'Narrative, silently they laid him in his grave, while the distant 354, 371." cannon of the battle fired the funeral honours to his 499, 500. memory. 1 * 1 Moore's Nap. i. and venera which it is regarded in This tomb, originally erected by the French, since 59. enlarged by the British, bears a simple but touching His grave, inscription,+ worthy of the hero over whose remains it tion with is placed. Few spots in Europe will ever be more the object of general interest. His very misfortunes were Spain. the means which procured him immortal fame-his disastrous retreat, bloody death, and finally his tomb on a foreign strand, far from kin and friends. 66 There is scarcely a Spaniard," it has been eloquently said, "but * This touching scene will live for ever in the British heart, embalmed in the exquisite words of the poet :"Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note, As his corse to the rampart we hurried; Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot O'er the grave where our hero we buried. We buried him darkly at dead of night, The sods with our bayonets turning; No useless coffin enclosed his breast, Nor in sheet nor in shroud we wound But he lay like a warrior taking his rest, Few and short were the prayers we said, But we steadfastlygazed on the face that was dead, We thought, as we hollow'd his narrow bed, And we far away on the billow. Slowly and sadly we laid him down, From the field of his fame fresh and gory; +"JOHN MOORE, LEADER OF THE ENGLISH ARMIES, LV. 1809. CHAP. has heard of this tomb, and speaks of it with a strange kind of awe. Immense treasures are said to have been buried with the heretic general, though for what purpose no one pretends to guess. The demon of the clouds, if we may trust the Gallegans, followed the English in their flight, and assailed them with water-spouts as they toiled up the steep winding paths of Fuencebadon; whilst legends the most wild are related of the manner in which the stout soldier fell. Yes, even in Spain immortality has already crowned the head of Moore;-Spain, the land of oblivion, where the Guadalete flows." 1 1 Borrow's Bible in Spain, i. 271. 60. tion of the their return Jan. 17. On the fall of Sir John Moore, and the wound of Embarka- Sir David Baird, the command devolved upon General troops, and Hope, who conducted the remaining arrangements with to England, that decision and judgment which afterwards became so conspicuous in the Peninsular war, and whose eloquent despatch announcing the battle of Corunna and the death of Sir John Moore, agitated so profoundly the heart of his country.* The boats being all in readiness, the embarkation commenced at ten at night; the troops were silently filed down to the beach, put on board with admirable order, and the whole, except the rearguard, reached the transports in safety before day. GENERAL BERESFORD, at the head of the rearguard, two thousand strong, and GENERAL HILL, who was stationed on the promontory behind the town, both destined to celebrity in future times, were the last to be withdrawn; the latter did not embark till three o'clock in the afternoon of the following day. The French gave them no annoyance, so strongly had the bloody repulse of the preceding day inspired them with respect for British valour. With a courage and generosity worthy of the highest * "I need not expatiate on the loss which the army and his country have sustained by the death of Sir John Moore. His fall has deprived me of a valuable friend, to whom long experience of his worth had sincerely attached me. But it is chiefly on public grounds that I must lament the blow. It will be the conversation of every one who loved or respected his manly character, that after conducting the army through an arduous retreat with consummate firmness, he has terminated a career of distinguished honour by a death that LV. 1809. admiration, the Spaniards manned the ramparts when CHAP. the last of the English forces were withdrawn, and prolonged the defence for several days, so as to allow the whole sick, wounded, artillery, stores, and even prisoners, to be brought away. A few guns placed by the French on the heights of San Lucia, without the walls, which could not be maintained, alone occasioned, by the fire which they opened upon the vessels in the bay, great confusion among the transports, but without doing any serious damage. At length the last of the long files of baggage and stragglers were got on board, and the English fleet amidst the tears of the inhabitants, stood to the northward, and was lost to the sight amidst the cold expanse of the watery main. Then, and not till then, the inhabitants of Corunna, feeling it in vain to prolong a defence which such a host had resigned in despair, and having honourably discharged every duty to their discomfited allies, capitulated to Marshal Soult, who, a few days afterwards, obtained possession, after a trifling resist- i. 289, 291. ance, of the important fortress of Ferrol, with seven sail 530,531, of the line, and very extensive naval stores.1 1 Tor. ii. 203, 205. Nap. i. 498, 499. Lond. South. ii. gloom which the British No words can convey an adequate idea of the gloom 61. and despondency which prevailed in the British isles Extreme when intelligence of these events was received. In pro- these events portion to the warm and enthusiastic hopes which had produce in been formed of a successful issue to the patriotic cause, isles. had been the anxiety and interest which was felt when the crisis approached. In particular, when Napoleon, at the head of three hundred thousand chosen troops, burst through the Pyrenees, and the brave but undisciplined Spanish levies were brought in contact with his experienced veterans, the public anxiety became almost unbearable. has given the enemy additional reason to respect the name of a British soldier. Like the immortal Wolfe, he is snatched from his country at an early period of a life spent in her service; like Wolfe, his last moments were gilded by the prospect of success, and cheered by the acclamation of victory; like Wolfe, also, his memory will for ever remain sacred in that country which he sincerely loved, and which he had so faithfully served."-SIR JOHN HOPE to SIR DAVID BAIRD, Jan. 18, 1809; Ann. Reg. 1809; App. to Chron, 375. LV. 1809. CHAP. The rout of Espinosa, the overthrow at Burgos, the defeat of Tudela, succeeding each other in rapid succession, were felt the more keenly, that the British nation had been led, by the exaggerations of the public journals, to form a most erroneous idea, both with regard to the strength of the Spanish and the force of the French armies. Most of all, they were misled by the pleasing illusion, which the experience of every age has proved to be fallacious, but which is probably destined to the end of the world to deceive the enthusiastic portion of mankind, that a certain degree of popular excitement can supply the want of discipline and experience, and that general ardour and popular volunteers are more to be relied on than organisation and conduct. 62. Despair which seized the public mind. When, therefore, the Spanish levies, flushed with the triumphs of Baylen and Saragossa, were dissipated with more ease than the regular armies of Austria and Muscovy-when the Somo-sierra pass was stormed by a charge of Lancers, and Madrid fell within three weeks after the campaign had been opened by Napoleon-a sort of despair seized the public mind, and nothing seemed now capable of withstanding a power which beat down with equal ease the regular forces of northern, and the enthusiastic levies of southern Europe. A transient gleam shot across the gloom when Sir John Moore advanced to Sahagun, and the English journals confidently announced that seventy thousand English and Spaniards were rapidly interposing between the Emperor and the French frontier, and would possibly make him prisoner in the capital he had won. Proportionally deeper was the gloom when this hope also proved fallacious, when Romana's forty thousand men dwindled into a few thousand starving wanderers, and the British army, instead of making Napoleon prisoner in the heart of Spain, was expelled, after a disastrous retreat, with the loss of its general, from the shores of the Peninsula. The English had hitherto only known war in its holi |