["Dans ce pays-ci il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres."—Candide, xxii.]
[51] [{39}] [On August 21, 1808, Sir Harry Burrard (1755-1813) superseded in command Sir Arthur Wellesley, who had, on the same day, repulsed Junot at Vimiera. No sooner had he assumed his position as commander-in-chief, than he countermanded Wellesley's order to give pursuit and make good the victory. The next day (August 22) Sir Hew Dalrymple in turn superseded Burrard, and on the 23rd, General Kellerman approached the English with certain proposals from Junot, which a week later were formulated by the so-called Convention of Cintra, to which Kellerman and Wellesley affixed their names. When the news reached England that Napoleon's forces had been repulsed with loss, and yet the French had been granted a safe exit from Portugal, the generals were assailed with loud and indiscriminate censure. Burrard's interference with Wellesley's plans was no doubt ill-judged and ill-timed; but the opportunity of pursuit having been let slip, the acceptance of Junot's terms was at once politic and inevitable. A court of inquiry, which was held in London in January, 1809, upheld both the armistice of August 22 and the Convention; but neither Dalrymple nor Burrard ever obtained a second command, and it was not until Talavera (July 28, 1809) had effaced the memories of Cintra that Wellesley was reinstated in popular favour.]
[bj] [{41}] ——at the mention sweat.—[MS. D.]
[bk] [{42}] More restless than the falcon as he flies.—[MS. erased.]
[52] [With reference to this passage, while yet in MS., an early reader (?Dallas) inquires, "What does this mean?" And a second (?Hobhouse) rejoins, "What does the question mean? It is one of the finest stanzas I ever read.">[
[53] [Byron and Hobhouse sailed from Falmouth, July 2, 1809; reached Lisbon on the 6th or 7th; and on the 17th started from Aldea Galbega ("the first stage from Lisbon, which is only accessible by water") on horseback for Seville. "The horses are excellent—we rode seventy miles a day" (see letters of August 6 to F. Hodgson, and August 11, 1809, to Mrs. Byron; Letters, 1898, i. 234, 236).]
[bl] ——long foreign to his soul.—[MS. erased.]
[bm] ——the strumpet and the bowl.—[MS. D]
[bn] [{43}] And countries more remote his hopes engage.—[MS. erased.]