disqualify Colonel Napier for writing history. He is exceedingly dissatisfied that the folly of the British cabinet' was not rebuked -he laments the supposed want of power in the people to administer such a rebuke-and yet he reproaches the people with being wholly unqualified for that office, being at once factious and frivolous, absorbed by party politics, and destitute of patriotism in their feelings and in their opinions. In the page following, he proceeds to condemn the parliament as he has already condemned the people.

It is true that the misfortunes of the campaign were by many orators, in both houses of parliament, treated with great warmth, but the discussions were chiefly remarkable as examples of astute eloquence without any knowledge of facts.'-p. 2.

It will occur, we suspect, to some of the readers of Colonel Napier's work, that orators in both houses of parliament' are not the only cultivators of astute eloquence unaccompanied by an accurate knowledge of facts.

Having given vent to his dissatisfaction with the ministers, with the people, and with the parliament, Colonel Napier proceeds next to make us aware that the allies of Britain were also very little suited to his taste.

While the dearest interests of the nation were thus treated in parliament, the ardour of the English people was somewhat abated; yet the Spanish cause, so rightful in itself, was still popular, and a treaty was concluded with the supreme junta by which the contracting powers bound themselves to make common cause against France, and to agree to no peace except by common consent. But the ministers, although professing unbounded confidence in the result of the struggle, already looked upon the Peninsula as a secondary object; for the warlike preparations of Austria, and the reputation of the archduke Charles, whose talents were foolishly said to exceed Napoleon's, had awakened the dormant spirit of coalitions; and it was more agreeable to the aristocratic feelings of the English cabinet, that the French should be defeated by a monarch in Germany, than by a plebeian insurrection in Spain. The obscure intrigues of the Princess of Tour and Taxis, and the secret societies on the continent, emanating as they did from patrician sources, excited the sympathy of the ministers, engaged their attention, and nourished those distempered feelings which made them see only weakness and disaffection in France, when throughout that mighty empire few desired and none dared to oppose the emperor's wishes; when even secret discontent was confined to some royalist chiefs and splenetic republicans, whose influence was never felt until after Napoleon had suffered the direst reverses.'-p. 3.

If the British ministers had unbounded confidence, as Colonel Napier states, in the success of the struggle in Spain, that very confidence, if well founded, would have fully justified their mak

ing the struggle which was about to commence in Germany their primary object. But how can Colonel Napier pretend that ministers made the cause of the Peninsula a secondary object,' when he has just told us that they had signed a treaty not to accept peace but by joint consent? Such a stipulation is the highest of all guarantees, and proves that the Spanish cause was not made a secondary object,' but was identified, as far as it could be identified, with the cause of Britain.

The most effectual aid, as we shall find Colonel Napier himself presently acknowledging, was afforded to Spain by the preparations of Austria, whilst, at the same time, England continued to send troops, stores, and equipments into the Peninsula, and the sentiments of the English people concurred most fully with the policy of the ministers in thus closely connecting them with a cause so rightful in itself. But Colonel Napier would have us believe that it was not to sustain a rightful cause in Spain that the English cabinet saw with satisfaction the warlike preparations of Austria,—it was, according to our author, because their aristocratic feelings' led them to desire that the French should be defeated by a monarch in Germany' rather than by a plebeian insurrection in Spain!' And this aristocratic feeling, generating such absurdities, is made a charge by Colonel Napier against a cabinet which he has before represented as being too much dazzled, in common with the whole British nation, by the efforts of the Spanish people; and as having forgot, or felt disinclined to analyse, the real causes of this apparently magnanimous exertion.'-(Vol. i. p. 37.)

To have awakened the dormant spirit of coalitions' is another of the crimes which the British ministers are charged with in the passage above quoted; as if it would have been a proof of wisdom to have abstained from forming a combination of those states of Europe, which still retained some degree of independence and magnanimity, to resist the ambition of a conqueror who had already effected a coalition of the French empire, the kingdom of Italy, the confederation of the Rhine, the Swiss cantons, the duchy of Warsaw, the dependent states of Holland and Naples, and who forced the populations of all these countries into the field through the medium of the CONSCRIPTION.'-(Col. Napier, vol. i. p. 5.)

Where was Colonel Napier's sympathy for the plebeian insurrection-where his antipathy to coalitions-when Napoleon was leaguing himself with the autocrat of Russia, that he might be undisturbed in his endeavours to crush the insurgent Spaniards 'to atoms'—and when the English ministers were blamed by our author himself for not being duped into the coalition of these two

despots ?

despots? But the climax of our author's inconsistencies is that -whilst blaming the English cabinet for not placing all its reliance upon the plebeian insurrection in Spain-he is enamoured of the system of government then existing in France, where there could be seen no weakness, because' none dared to oppose the emperor's wishes,' and secret discontent was confined to royalist chiefs and splenetic republicans.'*

Before our author ridiculed the folly of placing any reliance upon the reputation of the Archduke Charles, the most successful general who had yet appeared at the head of the Austrian armies, he would have done well to recollect that only six years afterwards the genius of Napoleon was baffled, and his power overthrown, by a general who had at this period but just begun to appear as a candidate for fame in European warfare.

The following is the description which Colonel Napier gives of the state of Spain in the month of January, 1809 :—

The cause of Spain, at this moment, was in truth lost, if any cause, depending upon war, which is but a succession of violent changes, can be called so; for the armies were dispersed, the government bewildered, the people dismayed, the cry of resistance hushed, and the stern voice of Napoleon, answered by the tread of three hundred thousand French veterans, was heard throughout the land. But the hostility of Austria arrested the conqueror's career, and the Spanish energy revived at the abrupt cessation of his terrific warfare.'-p. 5.

Here we have an acknowledgment of the vital importance to Spain of the Austrian war, although only two pages before the English cabinet has been condemned for nourishing their distempered feelings' by combining the efforts of a German monarch in favour of national independence, with those of the British and the Spanish people.

But although our author, under the misguidance of his blind prejudices, and headlong passions, becomes frequently entangled in such inconsistencies, he has still sight enough to urge his erratic way towards certain prominent objects. One of these is the exclusive exaltation of the abilities of Napoleon, to which, even Colonel Napier's general admiration for whatever is French, is Occasionally sacrificed. Thus in the following passage the marshals, the army, even the monarch so recently selected by the emperor to go into Spain with the Bayonne constitution in his hand, for the purpose of effecting a regeneration, so blindly rejected by the Spanish nation, are all sacrificed to the attainment

*It is not uninstructive to observe, that although, with the multitude, ultrademocracy may often originate in the love of true liberty, it has its source, almost always, in those who seek to be leaders of the multitude, merely in an insatiable thirst for power, which is generally followed by the abuse of it when acquired.

of

of the above object, and to save the Emperor from the imputation of having ever committed a mistake.

The iron grasp, that had compressed the pride and the ambitious jealousy of the marshals, being thus relaxed, the passions which had ruined the patriots began to work among their enemies, producing indeed less fatal effects, because their scope was more circumscribed, but sufficiently pernicious to stop the course of conquest. The French army, no longer a compact body, terrible alike from its massive strength and its flexible activity, became a collection of independent bands, each formidable in itself, but, from the disunion of the generals, slow to combine for any great object; and plainly discovering, by irregularities and insubordination, that they knew when a warrior and when a voluptuous monarch was at their head. These evils were however only felt at a later period, and the distribution of the troops, when Napoleon quitted Valladolid, still bore the impress of his genius.'-p. 6.

Poor Joseph has thus, in Colonel Napier's estimation, already become, even in the first year of his elevation to the throne of Spain, as little fit to be a regenerator of the monarchy as though he had descended from a long race of kings. Another of the favourite objects which Colonel Napier never loses sight of, which is, to deprive the Spaniards, at whatever cost, of all claim to any participation in the honour of having averted the conquest of their country, also shows itself in the above passage. It is never the efforts or the perseverance of the Spaniards, but only the faults of the French, in the absence of their Emperor, which impede the accomplishment of the plans that bear" the impress of his genius.'

After stating what the distribution of the French armies was which still bore the impress of Napoleon's genius, Colonel Napier proceeds :

'Thus, Madrid being still the centre of operations, the French were so distributed, that by a concentric movement on that capital, they could crush every insurrection within the circle of their positions; and the great masses, being kept upon the principal roads diverging from Madrid to the extremities of the Peninsula, intercepted all communication between the Provinces: while the second corps, thrust out, as it were, beyond the circumference, and destined, as the fourth corps had been, to sweep round from point to point, was sure of finding a supporting army, and a good line of retreat, at every great route leading from Madrid to the yet unsubdued provinces of the Peninsula. The communication with France was, at the same time, secured by the fortresses of Burgos, Pampeluna, and St. Sebastian, and by the divisions posted at St. Ander, Burgos, Bilboa, and Vittoria; it was also supported by a reserve at Bayonne.'-pp. 7, 8.

Here a great plan is shadowed out, certainly; but Colonel Napier forgets, or rather, we fear, seeks to conceal from his

readers,

readers, what the French were daily experiencing; namely, that the Spaniards were anything but subdued, and that the concentration of the French force to crush insurrection in one quarter, afforded immediately an opportunity for it to raise its head in another. We shall see hereafter how the second corps " thrust out to sweep round from point to point" performed its part, and to what degree it was sure of finding a supporting army and a good line of retreat. In the mean time we may remark, that the very arrangements which the French found it necessary to make in order to protect their lines of communication, prove, in the clearest manner, what a formidable people the Spaniards were, and how much Napoleon had miscalculated the efforts of which they were capable. The impress of genius, and of courage, also, is more truly exhibited in effecting great things with small means, than in employing enormous means without success.

All the lines of correspondence, not only from France but between the different corps, were maintained by fortified posts, having greater or lesser garrisons, according to their importance. Between Bayonne and Burgos there were eleven military stations. Between Burgos and Madrid, by the road of Aranda and Somosierra, there were eight; and eleven others protected the more circuitous route to the capital, by Valladolid, Segovia, and the Guadarama. Between Valladolid and Zaragoza the line was secured by fifteen intermediate posts. The communication between Valladolid and St. Ander contained eight posts; and nine others connected the former town with Villa Franca del Bierzo, by the route of Benevente and Astorga; finally, two were established between Benevente and Leon. At this period the force of the army, exclusive of Joseph's French guards, was three hundred and twentyfour thousand four hundred and eleven men, about thirty-nine thousand being cavalry.'-pp. 8, 9.

Notwithstanding that this enormous force was pressing upon the now unaided Spanish people with all its weight, and acting against them with its utmost energy, it proved wholly unable to put down resistance. Yet our author would have it supposed that the Spaniards contributed very little to the success of the war. It has been said of history, that it is philosophy teaching by examples; but unless the examples produced have truth for their foundation, and unless philosophy has cast off all companionship with partiality, prejudice, and irritability, before she undertakes the office of instructress, her pupils will have been grievously imposed upon.

Colonel Napier proceeds—

'More than two hundred and forty thousand men were in the field; while the great line of communication with France (the military reader will do well to mark this, the key-stone of Napoleon's system) was protected

VOL. LVII. NO. CXIV.

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