In later years Sir John Colborne related what took place in the following words:[58]—"Colonel Mainwaring, of the 51st, was placed in a position [Battle of Fuentes de Oñoro] in which he thought he was sure to be surrounded by the French. So he called his officers and said, 'we are sure of being taken or killed; therefore we'll burn the colours.' Accordingly, they brought the colours and burnt them with all funeral pomp, and buried the ashes, or kept them, I believe. It so happened that the French never came near them. Lord Wellington was exceedingly angry when he heard of it, as he knew well enough where he had placed the regiment. So he ordered Mainwaring under arrest and tried him by court-martial. An old colonel, who undertook his defence, said, 'I believe it was something to do with religious principles.' 'Oh,' said Lord Wellington, 'if it was a matter of religious principles, I have nothing more to do with it. You may take him out of arrest; but send him to Lisbon.' So he went to Lisbon, and was never allowed to command his regiment again; he was sent home."
Such is the story, and there is little doubt that when Sam Rice wrote, on the 16th June, that he was in temporary command, as Mainwaring was sick, he knew perfectly well that his commanding officer, although he certainly had been invalided to Lisbon, had been virtually relieved of his command. But the authorities, evidently unwilling to be too severe on an officer who had performed good services for his country, but who had erred through excess of zeal, so arranged matters that, on the 13th June 1811, Lieut.-Colonel Mainwaring exchanged to the half-pay of the 26th Foot (with Lieut.-Colonel Mitchell) and was appointed commandant of Hilsea Barracks in England. The matter, of course, had to be referred home, and so took some time, and in the meanwhile Colonel Mainwaring had taken his regiment to the camp before Badajoz, and had been hurt in the trenches.
Now, as a matter of fact, Sir John Colborne was wrong in saying that "the French never came near them," for it is perfectly certain that the 7th Division was posted in a most perilous position, and was very seriously attacked, although certainly the 51st was not so desperately engaged as were some of the other regiments. The division, numbering some four thousand infantry (of whom the 51st and 85th were the only British regiments), and supported by fourteen hundred cavalry, was detached two miles from the main position, on practically open ground, and every one in the division knew that since Wellington's left flank was impregnable, Massena would, of necessity, direct his attack on the right flank. Wellington himself was well aware of this, but either he did not anticipate so vast a turning movement as his adversary eventually launched, or he had intended that the 7th Division should only hold the outlying position assigned to it long enough to induce Massena to develop his attack against it. Be that as it may, the fact remains that, at one time, the 7th Division was threatened by twenty thousand of Massena's infantry and nearly the whole of his masses of cavalry, and for a while was in imminent danger of being cut off and annihilated. Wellington, of course, set matters right as soon as he realised that the situation was becoming critical, but there were some who imagined that he was intensely annoyed at having made faulty dispositions in the first instance, and that he endeavoured to justify himself in the eyes of the 7th Division by venting his wrath on the colonel of the 51st. At the same time the burning of the colours was an extraordinary procedure on the part of the colonel, and it is not easy to understand how it was that the other senior officers of the regiment acquiesced in it, if, indeed, they did so. When the circumstances became known to Wellington, he was bound to take notice of what had occurred; but apparently the officers of the 51st considered that he was unduly severe in treating their colonel's action as anything more than an error of judgment, for which a reprimand might have been sufficient. As it was, they always maintained that the commander-in-chief had been harsh and unjust, because it had been represented to him that Colonel Mainwaring had doubted the wisdom of his dispositions.
Years afterwards his nephew, Frederick Mainwaring,[59] who, when only fourteen years of age, fought as an ensign of the 51st at Fuentes d'Onor and elsewhere, wrote very strongly on the subject, and referred to the incident of the burning of the colours, though without actually mentioning what had occurred, in the following words:—
"An action, in which this officer took the greatest responsibility upon himself, and which ought to have reflected credit upon him rather than annoyance, was misrepresented to the great Duke, who, with all his bright qualities, is said (if report does not greatly belie him) never to alter an opinion or a resolution once formed."[60]
Colonel Mainwaring was not the only commanding officer in the Peninsula who was troubled by the presence of his regimental colours in the field, for there were occasions upon which the colours hampered the movements of a regiment very considerably. In action they could never be neglected, since they were held to contain, as it were, the soul of the regiment. Originally used as the rallying-point, they had gradually come to be regarded as what nowadays would be termed the mascot of the regiment, so that their loss in battle was thought likely to lead to the most dire consequences. The officers who carried them knew that they were in honour bound to defend them to the last, and when a whole regiment was ordered to skirmish to the front, it was often necessary to leave a company behind to guard the colours. As the war in the Peninsula went on, light infantry regiments realised that their colours were an encumbrance, and observing that rifle regiments were not provided with colours, some of them got permission to place theirs in store. But this was exceptional, and most regiments continued to carry their colours into action. At Waterloo they were everywhere conspicuous, and even in modern times their defence in the field has led to fierce fighting and the performance of signal acts of gallantry. Now, however, the extended battlefield has made their presence an impossibility, and they are no longer taken on active service. Perhaps, in this way, the sentiment attached to the "flag that bore the battle and the breeze" has been rudely crushed; yet the colours of to-day, emblazoned with numerous battle honours, are useful in reminding the young soldiers of a regiment of the victories won by their ancestors.
Whether, as a result of this trouble over the 51st colours at Fuentes d'Onor, Rice suffered to any great extent by being passed over for the command of the regiment is questionable. He certainly did not succeed to the command for another six years; but, if nothing had occurred, Colonel Mainwaring could have continued to hold it for that length of time, or for even longer. The fact of another officer having been brought in over his head did not reflect on Rice's character as an officer, for it always has been well known to every one in the service that an outside officer must take the place of a commanding officer relieved of his command; and it will readily be understood that such an arrangement is a necessity. As we shall see, the authorities made it up to Rice in more ways than one, and he eventually received as many decorations and honours as he would have received if he had succeeded Colonel Mainwaring[61] in the command of the 51st.
Having failed to reduce Badajoz, Wellington decided to invest Ciudad Rodrigo, and towards that place his troops were now moving. The 51st marched from Campo Mayor to Sabugal, and thence proceeded to Alfayates and Villa Mayor, at which latter place the regiment remained throughout the greater part of August and September, as will be seen from the two following letters from Major Rice, who during this time was in temporary command of the regiment:—