[37] June 14. Se sabe de oficio que ha muerto el 26 de Mayo el Rey de Inglaterra; y que su sucessor ha mudado todo el ministerio eligiendo sugetos decididos por la paz.
[38] M. Nellerto (Llorente) kills him twice. Once on the flight of the Intruder from Madrid, preliminarily, (t. i. p. 143); and secondly and definitively on this occasion. T. i. p. 159.
[39] This part of the bulletin was officially transmitted by Lord Castlereagh to Sir John Moore, with the following instructions:—“His Majesty cannot overlook this account, descriptive, according to the obvious sense of it, of the murder of some unresisting stragglers of his army, although his Majesty is disposed to disbelieve a transaction, however sufficiently recorded, which is so utterly repugnant to the usual laws of war, and to every principle of humanity. His Majesty therefore desires that you will take the earliest means of ascertaining the truth of the fact so recorded, and the circumstances under which it was perpetrated, if perpetrated at all. If it shall upon investigation appear to be founded, I am to desire you will cause a protest to be made by you to the nearest head-quarters of the French army, and that you will take such measures as shall appear to you most expedient for the protection of the troops under your orders against conduct so barbarous and so disgraceful.”—No such measures were taken, in consequence of Sir John Moore’s retreat. This instruction, however, exculpates the British government from any charge of indifference upon the subject.
[40] The French historian of Marshal Soult’s Campaigns in 1808–9, affirms that Sir John Moore had 37,000 effective men, and Romana had from 25,000 to 30,000; their united force amounting thus to more than 60,000!
[41] He was shot through the heart, and died so instantaneously, that the smile with which he was regarding the conduct of his men was fixed upon his cheek. They buried him at the entrance of the bivouac which he had occupied the preceding night; and as his brother leant forward to look upon the body for the last time, a rifle-shot passed through his cloak, and struck his side; its force was broken by the folds of the cloak, otherwise the blow must have been fatal, and he would have fallen into the grave upon his brother’s corpse.
[42] The historian of Marshal Soult’s campaigns in 1809 states the loss of the French at 150 killed and 500 wounded. They were successful on all points, he says; the victory was decided, and if the action had begun earlier, and if the ground had permitted the cavalry to charge, c’en était fait de cette armée Anglaise. These are modest mis-statements in an author who asserts that, in the hope of impeding the French in their pursuit, the English conceived the horrible intention of blowing up the town of Betanzos, where the inhabitants had received them as allies; and that for this purpose they deposited six thousand weight of powder on the ground floor of the town-house and set fire to the four quarters of the town!!
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; two unbalanced quotation marks were remedied.
Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained; occurrences of inconsistent hyphenation have not been changed.