The Despatches and Correspondence of the Marquess Wellesley, K. G.: During His Lordship's Mission to Spain as Ambassador Extraordianry to the Supreme Junta in 1809 |
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Common terms and phrases
allies appear army in Spain arrangement assignats August Badajoz battle of Talavera Beresford Brissot British army British troops Cadiz campaign cause cavalry circumstances Ciudad Rodrigo co-operation command Commissary Commissioners compelled consequence considered Convention copy corps Cuesta declared decree defence desire despatch Don Martin Duque del Parque effect Eguia enclose Enclosure endeavour enemy Estremadura Excellency Excellency's favour forage force France French Frere honour immediately instant Jacobin Club Jaraicejo letter liberty LORD magazines Majesty Majesty's Marquess Wellesley Martin de Garay means of transport ment military movement necessary object officers opinion persons Placentia Portuguese position present principles proposed provinces provinces of Spain provisions Puerto de Baños received Republic require respect Revolutionary Government sentiments Seville Sir Arthur Wellesley Spanish army Spanish Government Spanish nation Spanish troops spirit subsistence supplies Supreme Central Junta Supreme Junta Tagus Talavera tion Tribunal Truxillo Wellesley's whole
Popular passages
Page 62 - Viewing, however, so nearly the painful consequences of your immediate retreat into Portugal, I have deemed it to be my duty to submit to your consideration the possibility of adopting an intermediate plan, which might combine some of the advantages of your return into Portugal without occasioning alarm in Spain, and without endangering the foundations of the alliance between this country and Great Britain.
Page 62 - fully sensible not only of the indelicacy, but of the inutility of attempting to offer to you any opinion of mine in a situation where your own judgment must be your best guide." —
Page xlvii - One witness said he told the people to get guns and pikes, and have them ready over their chimney-pieces. When the grand attack was to be made, they were to go to the factories with a dagger in one hand and a torch in the other.
Page 41 - France to any good purpose, the labor and services of every man and of every beast in the country should be employed in the support of the armies ; and these should be so classed and arranged as not only to secure obedience to the orders of the Government, but regularity and efficiency in the performance of the services required from them. Magazines might then with ease be formed and transported wherever circumstances might require that armies should be stationed. ' But as we are now situated, 50,000...
Page lxvii - We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement ; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us : for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves...
Page 23 - But a starving army is actually worse than none. The soldiers lose their discipline and their spirit. They plunder even in the presence of their officers. The officers are discontented, and are almost as bad as the men ; and with the army which a fortnight ago beat double their numbers, I should now hesitate to meet a French corps of half their strength.
Page lxix - Robespierre, whose practice of piety is the murder of his own sovereign, who exhorts all mankind to embrace the same faith, and to assassinate their kings for the honour of God; — to the friendship of Barrere, who avows in the face of all Europe that the fundamental article of the Revolutionary government of France is the ruin and annihilation of the British empire ; — or, finally, to whatever may be the accidental caprice of any new band of malefactors, who, in the last convulsions of their...
Page vii - Again, is it not to this system of anarchy, and of robbery, that we are indebted for the revolutionary power, which has so justly aggravated the hatred of the Belgians against France ? What did enlightened republicans think before the 10th of August, men who wished for liberty, not only for their own country, but for all Europe ? They believed that they could generally establish it by exciting the governed against the governors, in letting the people see the facility and the advantages of such insurrections.
Page lxviii - Diplomaticks ; or of Thomas Paine, the author of the Rights of Man? Is it any profession, assurance, or act of the revolutionary government of France ? You all know it is not. The confidence of a wise people could never be rested on such weak and unsubstantial foundations. The real cause of our present sense of security is to be found in our own exertions combined with those of our allies. By those exertions we were enabled to...
Page 178 - British army, suffered great distress from want, while within the Spanish frontier. Till the evils of which I think I have reason to complain are remedied, till I shall see magazines established for the supply of the armies, and a regular system adopted for keeping them filled, and an army upon whose exertions I can depend, commanded by officers capable and willing to carry into execution the operations which may have been planned by mutual agreement, I cannot enter upon any system of cooperation...