This is all very well, but apparently the Queen made no effort to undo her harsh misrepresentations of him to the English Government.
Early in 1808 Moore reached England, and then he had his last holiday. Four months of rest were granted to the hard-worked warrior, who during thirty years had held himself utterly at his country’s service, fighting for her in all parts of the world almost without intermission, and being at least four times wounded. At this date he was looked upon by competent judges as the foremost man in the whole British Army—as the one to whom above all others England, in her hour of need, would turn.[2]
The chief part of his holiday was spent at the quiet Surrey home of his brother, with his mother and sister, and one is glad to know that he had that peaceful break before the end.
It was towards the close of the four months that Roy Baron reached the Bryces’ London house, after his adventurous escape from Bitche; and so soon as the first excitement of his arrival was over, his thoughts turned in the old direction—towards the Army.
Those were not days of competitive examinations or of lengthy preparation. Boys were taken straight from school, commissions were given to them, they were put into uniforms and drilled—sharply drilled too, if they happened to be anywhere within touch of Moore’s influence—and in the majority of cases Nature was expected to do the rest. On the whole, Nature did not perform her task badly, with such material as she had to work upon in these plucky English lads.
Mr. Bryce took upon himself to act as he knew that the Colonel would have acted if able, and a very brief space of time saw Roy being transformed into a smart young subaltern, in the same regiment of infantry where Jack had lately obtained command of a company.
Meanwhile, at the close of Sir John Moore’s holiday, he was sent off on another expedition, this time to Sweden, then an ally of England. He had over eleven thousand men under his command, all as eager as himself to help the Swedes. But the expedition was rendered abortive by the extraordinary conduct of the King of Sweden, who already began to show signs of the madness, for which he was afterwards deposed.
On the arrival of the English fleet, he flatly refused permission to Sir John to land any of the troops, unless they were placed entirely under his own control, to be used how and where he chose. This, of course, Moore at once refused, and for two months, while he waited for directions from the home Government, the eleven thousand soldiers had to remain cooped up on board the vessels. Then came an attempt on the part of the crazy king to arrest Moore himself when on shore. Moore evaded the attempt, and at once set sail with his whole force for England. He wrote to his mother, “This campaign in Sweden has proved the most painful to me I ever served. It is, however, now nearly over.”
Many criticisms were passed on his conduct by those who did not know the ins and outs of the whole affair. But the Duke of York expressed hearty approval, congratulating himself and the country on having sent a chief who could be firm to resist such unreasonable demands as those of the Swedish King.
In the autumn of 1807, when Italy, Holland, Prussia, Austria and Russia were one and all either conquered, or at the least humiliated and helpless, Portugal next fell a victim to the rapacious conqueror, and was made a stepping-stone to the conquest of Spain. In the quaint language of one of Moore’s brothers, “being wont to eke out his martial feats with wily stratagems,” Napoleon plotted himself into a position of power there. Before the end of May, 1808, the French Army entered Madrid, declaring the whole country subject to the Emperor of the French, and proclaiming Joseph Buonaparte king.