Under England's flag

by Charles Boothby

Colonel Graham came up and told him (the firing had almost ceased) that the enemy still possessed a village which was thought too near to us, and asked if it should be taken. General Hope desired that some companies of the 15th might take it, and soon after an officer came up and announced the capture. The firing had totally ceased. General Hope rode round the position, and then went to Corunna to make such arrangements as might be required. We got to the town about eight o’clock. I rode to Sir John Moore’s quarters, and going upstairs met Colonel Graham. He told me Sir John was lying on his mattress dying, that he heard him groan. Perhaps had I gone in, pressed his hand, and got a kind word from him, it would have been a source of pleasure to me now, but then I had no stomach for it. His shoulder and part of his left side were carried away by cannon shot. His great good spirit left his body at nine o’clock.

General Hope’s letter[25] is as accurate and chastely true as it is simple, elevated, and beautiful; so great a degree of accuracy one would scarcely have expected, or thought compatible with the elegance of the language, the smoothness and entireness of the narrative. I advise you, if you have forgotten it, or did not know that it was something more than a beautiful piece of writing, to read it again.

Our obstinate battle, the coming in of our wounded, and the melancholy death of our chief had a very great effect upon the feelings of the people of Corunna. “This is for us! this is for us! Poor English, they bleed for us!”

This sort of thing soon worked itself into a transport of generous enthusiasm, which was both beneficial and satisfactory to us.

At about four o’clock on the morning of the 17th, when my companions and I got up, we found that nearly all the army was embarked. The wind was beginning to blow very hard, which made the embarkation very difficult, but, thank God, it blew the right way. On the 16th Sir John Moore had desired Fletcher, chief engineer, to name the number of men he thought necessary to occupy the town line, and to furnish a minute distribution of them upon the different works.

This Fletcher did, and I went round with him and General Beresford (who was entrusted with the forlorn hope), that Fletcher might explain the distribution to him.

Had the French not been so severely cowed and beaten as they were, and had come on to the attack at dawn, Beresford with 1500 men would have held that line while the embarkation was completing, and probably at night have withdrawn to the citadel, protecting that and his own embarkation with a small portion of his force. Then these last would have rushed to the boats in waiting, jumped in, and trusted to the gates and ditches to keep out the enemy until they had shoved off from the shore.

But the impressive lesson the French had received rendered these operations unnecessary; and had not General Hope determined by doing things with the leisure he could command, to do them completely, the whole fleet might have been out at sea on the 17th before a Frenchman had ventured to show his nose.

But it was resolved to embark the sick and wounded, to bury General Moore, and therefore to keep the 1500 men upon the line until evening.

I went with Squire (a friend of mine in the Engineers) walking about the line, and at about seven o’clock we fell in with General Hope, and accompanied him all over the peninsula behind the walls of Corunna. He spoke with much satisfaction of the result of the battle. The troops, he said, had been withdrawn without the knowledge or suspicion of the enemy, deceived by their remaining fires.