THE history of the war in the Peninsula and the South of France, from the year 1807 to the year 1814, possesses an undying interest to alĺ the friends of freedom, and especially to the people by whose surpassing heroism that war was brought, through a series of hard-won conquests, to a glorious close.

From

the beginning to the end, that war was just; and therefore, throughout the whole sanguinary struggle, which was distinguished by many alternations of good and bad fortune, the heart of Britain never fainted, but was confident of the tyrant's final overthrow. With us, whatever may have been the case with the Spaniards, it was a great national contest. We, as a military nation, were pitched against the French. At sea we had ever been victorious, and had at last annihilated their navy"Had swept the deep from Denmark to

the Nile."

But on land, France was deemed invincible-not only so deemed by herself, but, it may be truly said, by all the nations of Europe. The Peninsula, then, was the field on which it was to be decided, foot to foot, whether there was not one nation left able to cope with them who vaunted themselves to be the conquerors of the world.

How stood the French power in the Peninsula? The extent and population of the French empire, including the kingdom of Italy, the Confederation of the Rhine, the Swiss Cantons, the duchy of Warsaw, and the dependent States of Holland and Naples, had enabled Bonaparte, through the medium of the conscription, to array an army in number nearly equal to the great host that followed of old the Persian against Greece; like that multitude also, his troops were gathered from many nations, but they were trained in a Roman discipline, and ruled by a Carthaginian genius. The organization of

Napoleon's army was simple, the administration vigorous, the manipu lations well contrived. The French officers, accustomed to success, were bold, enterprising, of great reputation, and feared accordingly. By a combination of discipline and moral excitement, admirably adapted to the mixed nature of his troops, the Emperor had created a power that appeared to be resistless.† Some unexpected reverses, and above all, the shameful surrender of Dupont's army at Baylen, had indeed shown that even the French armies were not always superior to defeat; and Joseph's abandonment of Madrid had left a breathing-time to the Spanish people, who at this period of the war deserved the name of Patriots. But Portugal was entirely in the possession of the French-and to drive them out of that kingdom (as she had, indeed, formerly done out of Egypt,) was a design worthy of the nation, who, having for many years strenuously exerted one sinew of war-gold-it may be said nearly in vain-for the salvation of Europenow resolved to try the other sinew

iron,-iron in the hands not of mercenaries, who might be bought and sold, but of her own incorrup tible and unconquerable sons.

And how stood the power of Eng land? Formidable as the French army undoubtedly was, from numbers, discipline, skill, and bravery, the British army was inferior to it in none of those points save the first, and in discipline it was superior, because a national army will always bear a sterner code than a mixed force will suffer. True that the ill-success of the expeditions in 1794 and 1799 seemed to justify the ignorant contempt with which the British nation had foolishly and ungratefully regarded the British army; but had those failures been traced to the true cause, that ignorant contempt would have been extinguished in

just admiration. From the time of those disasters, down to that when the first British armament sailed for the Peninsula, the Duke of York had perfected the discipline of the army; so that, in 1808, England was scorned both at home and abroad, as a military power, when, says Colonel Napier, she possessed, without a frontier to swallow up large armies in extensive fortresses, at least two hundred thousand of the best equipped and best disciplined soldiers in the universe, together with an immense recruiting establishment, and through the medium of the militia, the power of drawing upon the population with out limit. Her military force consisted of thirty thousand cavalry, six thousand foot-guards, a hundred and seventy thousand infantry of the line, and fourteen thousand artillery; of which between fifty and sixty thousand were employed in the colonies and in India. The remainder might be said to have been disposable; for from eighty to one hundred thousand militia, differing from the regular troops in nothing but the name, (such is the character given them by Colonel Napier,) were sufficient for the home duties. If to this force we add thirty thousand marines, the military power of England must be considered as prodigious-greater than that with which Napoleon won the battle of Austerlitz, and double that with which he conquered Italy.

But though Britain, as a military power, was thus able to cope with France in Spain, as the event gloriously proved, the spell of invincibility that had so long hung, in imagination, over the French armies, was strong and appalling; and the Whigs, cowards ever, declared that an expedition to the Peninsula would be madness. What! oppose Bonaparte and his Marshals? In a few months, the French would spread over the Peninsula, like fire along stubble; any army that might be sent from our shores to stop the conflagration, would soon be itself consumed; blood and treasure would be lavished in vain, for a thankless people, and a hopeless cause; and defeat and disaster would hasten the day of the decline and fall of our own empire. Counsels, nobler and wiser, prevailed; and their spirit being worthy of our national character, redeem

ed the many errors which were afterwards committed, both at home and abroad; and, in spite of them all, brought this great contest to a conclusion, that changed, for ages to come, the destinies of all the civilized kingdoms of the earth.

The history of all those glorious campaigns has been writ aright by many pens; and, as is fitting, by pens in the same hands that wielded the sword. Some of the French officers have given us their narratives; but we are justified in saying, that in them it would be absurd to look for the truth. They carried on a war of unjust aggression. The conflict between the hardy veterans of Bonaparte, and the bloody vindictive race he insulted, assumed, says Colonel Napier, in a work, as many think, too favourable to the French, a character of unmitigated ferocity, disgraceful to human nature; for the Spaniards did not fail to defend their just cause with hereditary cruelty; and the French army struck a terrible balance of barbarous actions. In recording the events of such a war, the French officers, therefore, had much to conceal, to deny, or gloss over; but the British army fought, from beginning to end, as liberators; and therefore, its officers needed not to recoil from the narration of the inevitable horrors of war. Excesses there must be in all wars, at which humanity shudders; but here there were no enormities to record, except such as must ever be perpetrated in those tragedies which go sweepingly over the bloody stage, when a whole land is the theatre for the acting of a succession of dreadful dramas. Besides, we hesitate not to say, that, generally speaking, the whole system of French bulletins has ever been one of falsehood; and that of English Gazettes one of truth. National prejudices and partialities will prevail among every people; but who will dare to deny, that one and all of the narratives by British officers of the Peninsular campaigns, are free from the open-eyed and resolute lies, which disfigure and disgrace all those that have been given to the world by the most distinguished officers in the French service? Colonel Napier himself not unfrequently denounces the falsehood and ferocity of our enemies, while he bears testimony to their