“It is not, however, the grandeur of military success which has alone fixed our admiration, or commanded our applause; it has been that generous and lofty spirit which inspired your troops with unbounded confidence, and taught them to know that the day of battle was always a day of victory; that moral courage and enduring fortitude which, in perilous times, when gloom and doubt had beset ordinary minds, stood nevertheless unshaken; and that ascendency of character which, uniting the energies of jealous and rival nations, enabled you to wield at will the fates and fortunes of mighty empires.
“For the repeated thanks and grants bestowed upon you by this House, in gratitude for your many and eminent services, you have thought fit this day to offer us your acknowledgments: but this nation well knows that it is still largely your debtor; it owes to you the proud satisfaction, that amidst the constellation of great and illustrious warriors who have recently visited our country, we could present to them a leader of our own, to whom all, by common acclamation, conceded the pre-eminence. And when the will of Heaven, and the common destinies of our nature, shall have swept away the present generation, you will have left your great name and example as an imperishable monument, exciting others to like deeds of glory, and serving at once to adorn, defend, and perpetuate the existence of this country amongst the ruling nations of the earth.”
With these honours was the Duke of Wellington received, and such honours were never more fully deserved. Since the peace of Utrecht, in which the interests of Europe were sacrificed by that party-spirit which is the reproach of England, our military reputation had declined. The American war contributed to lower us in the estimation of our neighbours; for though the courage of our men was never found wanting in the day of trial, the circumstances of that contest were such that, after the first season for vigorous measures was gone by, success became morally impossible. This was not taken into the account. The war ended to our loss; and the disgrace which should exclusively have attached to our councils affected our arms also. When the Duke of York was made commander-in-chief, our military establishments were in a wretched state; boys held commissions literally before they were out of leading-strings; there was not a single institution in Great Britain wherein tactics were taught; and it was in France that young Arthur Wellesley learned the elements of war! The Duke of York soon began a silent and efficient reform; abuse after abuse was removed, defect after defect supplied; but these improvements were known only to persons connected with the army; and its military character suffered materially in the revolutionary war from causes which are neither imputable to the commander, nor to the soldiers under him: for then also, as in the American war, they were placed in circumstances which rendered success impossible. The evil, however, was done. The enemy insulted us; the continental nations were persuaded that we were not a military people; and we, contenting ourselves with our acknowledged maritime supremacy, were but too ready to assent to an opinion which in its consequences must have operated as a death-sentence upon national honour, national power, and national independence. It is not too much to say that our army would have sunk into contempt, if the expedition to Egypt had not thrown some splendour over the close of a most ill-fated and ill-conducted war. But the effect which that expedition produced upon public feeling soon passed away; and the French convinced themselves that our success had been owing to the incapacity of their commander, the disputes among their generals, and the universal desire of their troops to escape from Egypt, ... any cause rather than the true one. A second war broke out; and while the enemy obtained the most signal victories, we had only the solitary battle of Maida to boast, which was upon so small a scale, and so nugatory in its consequences, that the continent never heard of it, though our disgrace at Buenos Ayres was known everywhere.
Meantime the French had persuaded Europe as well as themselves that Buonaparte was the greatest military genius of ancient or of modern times; that his generals were all consummate masters in the art of war; and that his troops were, in every respect, the best in the world. This opinion was more than ever prevalent when Sir Arthur Wellesley took the command in Portugal in 1809, and began a career which, when all circumstances are considered, may truly be said to be unparalleled in military history. He entered upon that career at a time when the military reputation and the military power of France were at their greatest height; when a belief that it was impossible to resist the commanding genius and inexhaustible resources of Buonaparte had been inculcated in this country with pestilent activity, and had deeply tainted the public mind. Daily and weekly, monthly and quarterly, this poison was administered with the most mischievous perseverance in newspapers, magazines, and reviews. Never was there an opinion more injurious, more fatal to the honour, interest, safety, independence, and existence of the country; yet was it propagated by writers who were then held in the highest estimation, and they enforced it with a zeal which arrayed their passions, and seemed to array their wishes, as well as their intellect, on the enemy’s side; and with a confidence which boldly affirmed that nothing but folly or madness could presume to doubt their predictions. Suicidal as the belief was, it was the creed of that party in the state to which these writers had attached themselves; and no effort was omitted on their part for deadening the hopes, thwarting the exertions, disgusting the allies, and encouraging the enemies of their country. Our government was not influenced by such advisers; but it was long before its exertions were commensurate with the occasion; and during four years Lord Wellington was crippled by the inadequacy of his means. Yet, even when thus crippled, he contended successfully against the undivided power of France. Every operation of the British army under his command tended to give the troops and the nation fresh confidence in their general, and to impress upon the enemy a proper sense of the British character. Wherever he met the French he defeated them; whenever he found it necessary to retire for want of numbers, or of food, or of co-operation in the Spaniards, it was in such order, and so leisurely, as neither to raise the hopes of the enemy, nor abate those of his army, or of his allies. After the battle of Talavera, and the series of provoking misconduct by which the effects of that victory were frustrated, he distinctly perceived the course which the enemy would pursue, and, anticipating all their temporary advantages (which yet he omitted no occasion of opposing and impeding), he saw and determined how and where the vital struggle must be made. The foresight of a general was never more admirably displayed; and if there be one place in the Peninsula more appropriate than another for a monument to that leader whose trophies are found throughout the whole, it is in the lines of Torres Vedras that a monument to Lord Wellington should be erected. When he took his stand there, Lisbon was not the only stake of that awful contest: the fate of Europe was in suspense; and they who, like Homer, could see the balance in the hand of Jupiter, might then have perceived that the fortunes of France were found wanting in the scale. There the spell which bound the nations was broken; the plans of the tyrant were baffled, his utmost exertions when he had no other foe and no other object were defied; his armies were beaten; and Europe, taking heart when she beheld the deliverance of Portugal, began to make a movement for her own, ... for that spirit by which alone her deliverance could be effected was excited. Foresight and enterprise, meantime, with our commander went hand in hand; he never advanced, but so as to be sure of his retreat; and never retreated, but in such an attitude as to impose upon a superior enemy. He never gave an opportunity, and never lost one. His movements were so rapid as to deceive and astonish the French, who prided themselves upon their own celerity. He foiled general after general, defeated army after army, captured fortress after fortress; and, raising the military character of Great Britain to its old standard in the days of Marlborough, made the superiority of the British soldier over the Frenchman as incontestable as that of the British seaman.
The spirit of the country rose with its successes. England once more felt her strength, and remembered the part which she had borne, and the rank which she had asserted in the days of her Edwards and her Henrys. Buonaparte had bestowed upon France the name of the Sacred Territory, boasting, as one of the benefits conferred upon her by his government, that France alone remained inviolable when every other part of the continent was visited by the calamities of war. That boast was no longer to hold good! Our victories in the Peninsula prepared the deliverance of Europe, and Lord Wellington led the way into France. A large portion of his army consisted of Portugueze and Spaniards, who had every imaginable reason to hate the people among whom they went as conquerors; they had seen the most infernal cruelties perpetrated in their own country by the French soldiers; and it might have been supposed, prone as their national character was to revenge, that they would eagerly seize the opportunity for vengeance. But such was Lord Wellington’s influence over the men whom he conducted to victory, that not an outrage, not an excess, not an insult was committed; and the French, who had made war like savages in every country which they had invaded, experienced all the courtesies and humanities of generous warfare when they were invaded themselves. In Gascony, as well as in Portugal and Spain, the Duke of Wellington’s name was blessed by the people. Seldom indeed has it fallen to any conqueror to look back upon his career with such feelings! The marshal’s staff, the dukedom, the honours and rewards which his Prince and his country so munificently and properly bestowed, were neither the only nor the most valuable recompense of his labours. There was something more precious than these, more to be desired than the high and enduring fame which he had secured by his military achievements, ... the satisfaction of thinking to what end those achievements had been directed; ... that they were for the deliverance of two most injured and grievously oppressed nations; ... for the safety, honour, and welfare of his own country; ... and for the general interests of Europe and of the civilized world. His campaigns were sanctified by the cause; ... they were sullied by no cruelties, no crimes; the chariot-wheels of his triumphs have been followed by no curses; ... his laurels are entwined with the amaranths of righteousness, and upon his death-bed he might remember his victories among his good works.
This is the great and inappreciable glory of England in this portion of its history, that its war in the Peninsula was in as strict conformity with the highest principles of justice as with sound state policy. No views of aggrandizement were entertained either at its commencement or during its course, or at its termination; conquests were not looked for, commercial privileges were not required. It was a defensive, a necessary, a retributive war; engaged in as the best means of obtaining security for ourselves, but having also for its immediate object “to loose the bands of wickedness,” and to break the yoke of oppression, and “to let the oppressed go free.” And this great deliverance was brought about by England, with God’s blessing on a righteous cause. If France has not since that happy event continued to rest under a mild and constitutional monarchy, ... if Spain has relapsed into the abuses of an absolute one, ... if the Portugueze have not supported that character which they recovered during the contest, ... it has been because in all these instances there were national errors which retained their old possession, and national sins which were not repented of. But the fruits of this war will not be lost upon posterity: for in its course it has been seen that the most formidable military power which ever existed in the civilized world was overthrown by resolute perseverance in a just cause; it has been seen also that national independence depends upon national spirit, but that even that spirit in its highest and heroic degree may fail ... if wisdom to direct it be wanting. It has been seen what guilt and infamy men, who might otherwise have left an honourable name, entailed upon themselves, because, hoping to effect a just end by iniquitous means, they consented to a wicked usurpation, and upheld it by a system of merciless tyranny, sinning against their country and their own souls: this was seen in the Spanish ministers of the Intruder; and the Spanish reformers, more lamentably for Spain, but more excusably for themselves, have shown the danger of attempting to carry crude theories of government into practice; and hurrying on precipitate changes, from the consequences of which men too surely look to despotism for protection or for deliverance. These lessons have never been more memorably exemplified than in the Peninsular War; and for her own peculiar lesson, England, it may be hoped, has learnt to have ever from thenceforth a just reliance, under Providence, upon her resources and her strength; ... under Providence, I say, for if that support be disregarded, all other will be found to fail.
* * * * *
My task is ended here: and if in the course of this long and faithful history, it should seem that I have any where ceased to bear the ways of Providence in mind, or to have admitted a feeling, or given utterance to a thought inconsistent with glory to God in the highest, and good-will towards men, let the benevolent reader impute it to that inadvertence or inaccuracy of expression from which no diligence, however watchful, can always be secure; and as such let him forgive what, if I were conscious of it, I should not easily forgive in myself.
Keswick, 26th March, 1832.
Laus Deo.