Robert Southey

“ The French, gay and alert as usual, were drumming and trumpeting all day long; the more thoughtful English enjoying the season and the country, looking down with delight upon the sea and the enemy’s territory, and Bayonne in the distance, and sketching in the leisure which their duties might allow the beautiful scenery of the Pyrenees. The right of the allied army was at Roncesvalles, the sacred ground of romance, where in the seventeenth century a spot was shown as still reddened with the blood of the Paladins ”

“ In the prosecution of the war, a hero has raised another stupendous pillar of strength to support our monarchy, ... our military pre-eminence. It is now that we may boast not only of superiority at sea, but on shore; the same energy and heroism exist in both the arms of Great Britain: they are rivals in strength, but inseparable in glory. Out of the calamities of war has arisen a principle of safety, that superior to all attacks, shall survive through ages, and to which our posterity shall look forward. ”

“ By the retreat of the French from Andalusia, a large and populous, and most productive province reverted to the legitimate government: but, though its resources were thus increased, there was little ground for hoping that they would be directed with more ability than in the early part of the struggle. There was the same generous and devoted sense of duty to their country in individuals; the same strong spirit of nationality in the great body of the people ”

“ It has presented a most encouraging and impressive example to Europe of what a people excited by oppression were capable of achieving. It has changed the whole character of the war, by making it a war of the people. But a still farther advantage has arisen out of this policy. A most atrocious calumny had become current in Europe, that the government of this country was always ready to distribute its subsidies with a view to embroil the nations of the continent, while it kept its own people aloof from the contest. No such impression can ever again prevail in Europe. ”

“ The prisoners who were taken in Blake’s defeat before Murviedro, and the still greater number who surrendered with him at Valencia, had been marched through the streets of Zaragoza, in the depth of winter, and in a condition which would have moved any soldiers to compassion except those of Buonaparte and of the generals whom he employed in Spain: without shoes and stockings, foot-sore, half naked, half famished, they were driven and outraged and insulted by an enemy who seemed, together with the observances of civilized war, to have renounced the feelings of humanity. ”

“ I must, with heartfelt delight, congratulate my country, that, groaning as she has done at former periods under the heavy pressure of adverse war, still ‘peace was despaired of, for who could think of submission?’ Her strength, her endurance have been tried and proved by every mode of assault that the most refined system of hostility could invent, not only by open military attacks, but by low attempts to destroy her commercial prosperity: the experiment has been made, the experiment has failed ”

“ He instantly raised the siege, and filed his whole army in the night of the 21st under the walls of the castle and over the bridge, which was closely enfiladed by its artillery; a bold and unprecedented manœuvre, which military men adduce as a proof that the march of troops cannot be stopped by the fire of artillery in the night. The allies moved in silence and good order; but a party of Guerrillas, regardless of discipline, then, as at all times, put their horses to their speed, and the clatter which they made alarmed the garrison. ”

“ In his mind, the only legitimate object was, the expulsion of the French armies from Spain; and the war had been carried on in a way totally inadequate to the production of that result. The plan which of all others all mankind must reprobate, was that of employing our resources with a view rather to what might be spared in expense, than to what might be effected by exertion: thus exposing the sinews of our strength to hourly danger, and bearing hard upon our finances, yet effecting neither economy nor success, but falling dead as it were between both. ”

“ I am proud that you are the first who have set an example to France. Every thing tends to assure us that our misfortunes are about to terminate, and that national rivalry will cease with them. It seems to have been decreed by Providence that the great commander, who so well deserves to be entitled the Liberator of Nations, should attach his glorious name to this glorious epoch, this memorable consummation of all my wishes. ”

“ I abhor and detest despotism: the intelligence and cultivation of the nations of Europe do not suffer it now; neither in Spain have its Kings ever been despots, nor have its good laws and constitution authorized it, though by misfortune there may have been from time to time there, as every where, and in every thing human, abuses which no possible constitution can entirely preclude ”

“ His object was to extinguish patriotism, and to confound allegiance; to darken as well as to enslave; to roll back the tide of civilization; to barbarize as well as to desolate mankind. Then let America turn from these scenes of bloodshed and horror, and compare with them the effect of British interference! She will see that wherever this country has exerted herself, it has been to raise the fallen and to support the falling; to raise, not to degrade the national character ”

“ But about two there was a stir in the enemy’s lines; they were seen cutting gaps in the fences for the passage of artillery; presently they attacked in great force, along the Bayonne road, driving in the piquets, and the hill in front of Barouillet again became the scene of contest. The soldiers who had gone in front to cut fuel ran hastily back when they heard the cry of “to arms,” that they might get themselves armed and accoutred; and the French, seeing them run toward the rear, thought they had taken panic, and set up loud cheers, as if they had now only to pursue their favourable fortune. ”

“ Undoubtedly such events are calculated to warm the heart of every individual who feels not only for the natural rights of man, but for the independence of nations; but those with whom I have been in the habit of confidential communication know my deliberate opinion, that the existence of such a confederation as has now been formed, of itself irresistibly calls upon Great Britain to employ all her energies, and devote all her exertions to the success of a common and a glorious cause. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Even the Portugueze and Spaniards, whom it might have been thought almost impossible to restrain from giving way to that desire of vengeance which had been so wantonly, cruelly, and insolently provoked, obeyed the injunction of the great commander who had beaten their invaders out of Portugal and Spain, and demeaned themselves with such good order and humanity, that the French often said their own armies were the foes whom they dreaded. ”

“ Peruse our history; inform yourself of all that the Spaniards have done for you, and never forget that to the Spanish people you owe everything. Never forget that450 you are come to be the chief of a nation, the monarch of subjects who have abolished the vestiges of despotism! It is the law which orders; ... the King is the executive magistrate.... But, that such a day of jubilee may arrive, King Ferdinand must return absolutely free, neither influenced by the tyrant of France, nor by Spaniards who are ignorant of the state of Spain, or who regard our institutions with dislike. ”

“ And the good will not pass away with the generation upon whom the evil fell. There is no more illustrious example of public virtue in ancient or modern history than this of Zaragoza. Such examples are not lost upon posterity; and such virtue, as it affords full proof that the Spanish character retains its primitive strength, affords also the best ground for hope, not only that Spain may resume its rank in Christendom as a great and powerful kingdom, but also that the Spaniards may become, religiously and politically, a free and enlightened nation ”

“ 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. ”

“ He was addressing men who had been beaten at Vimeiro, beaten at Talavera, beaten at Busaco, beaten at Fuentes d’Onoro, routed at Salamanca, and scattered like sheep at Vittoria. They had been driven from Lisbon into France; and yet the general who had so often been baffled addressed this language to the very troops who had been so often and so signally defeated! “The present situation of the army,” he pursued, “is imputable to others: let the merit of repairing it be yours. ”

“ The French suffered at this time nothing for want of magazines or means of transport, because they took what they wanted, and preyed upon the country. The British Government would not, even in an enemy’s territories, carry on war upon so inhuman and iniquitous a system; but it exposed its army to privations, and its general to perplexities and difficulties which might have paralysed any weaker mind than Lord Wellington’s, by the parsimony with which it apportioned his means. ”

“ 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. ”

“ By this treaty, Austria, Russia, Prussia, and Great Britain, formed a league offensive and defensive for twenty years, each binding itself not to treat separately with the enemy, and each to keep on foot an army of 150,000 men, exclusive of garrisons, England reserving an option to subsidize other troops in place of her own, and agreeing to supply five millions sterling, to be divided among the other powers for maintaining the war. Each of these contracting powers was fully supported in this energetic policy by the spirit of its people. ”

“ Well was it for the Anglo-Sicilian army that, notwithstanding the credit it had lost by Sir John Murray’s precipitate retreat, and the recent loss which it had sustained at Ordal, it had yet impressed Marshal Suchet with a most respectable opinion of its ability in the field; skilful as he was, nothing but that opinion withheld him from acting vigorously against it when he had it so greatly at advantage. His disposable force at this time was not short of 25,000 men, with a large body of cavalry; better troops he could not desire ”

“ The French, indeed, as soon as they apprehended that their own country must soon become the seat of war, spoke with horror of what might be expected from the Portugueze and Spaniards, remembering then with uneasiness, if not with shame and remorse, the atrocities which they themselves had committed. Their hope was that the peasantry would rise, and carry on that kind of war which within the Peninsula had been found so destructive to the invaders ”

“ Peace is safe now, because it is not dictated; peace is safe now, for it is the fruit of exertion, the child of victory; peace is safe now, because it will not be purchased at the expense of the interest and of the honour of the empire: it is not the ransom to buy off danger, but the fruit of the mighty means which we have employed to drive danger from our shores. ”

“ In the war of the French revolution this city would not have been tenable against a single division of an enemy’s army: the war of the intrusion made it immediately a place of great importance, as a depôt for the French; and therefore it was well fortified, to secure it against a sudden attack from the English, before the possibility of any more serious danger had been contemplated. It stands at the junction of the Nive with the Adour; the latter a great river, and the former not fordable for several miles up: the city is on the left of the Adour, the citadel on the other side. ”

“ A stronger position as to all natural advantages can hardly be imagined than that which the allies were to attack, after they should have crossed the Bidassoa; the French had strengthened it by redoubts, by abattis, and intrenchments at every knoll; the paths were hardly practicable; it was laborious work even for an unarmed man to reach points which were now to be assailed in the face of an enemy perfectly prepared. But it was necessary to advance from a country where the nature of the ground rendered it difficult to support the troops ”