NAPIER'S PENINSPLAR war.

LIE Fifth Voltime of this European work brings down the his- tory of the War to the middle of 1s13, when NAPOLEON, after the disastrou a retreat front Moscow. was struggling in Germany against the Allied Powers, and WELLING-1-os, in the language of

his historian, "stood on the summit of the Pyrennees a rccoonized

conqueror." Its leading subjects are the battles of Salamanca. and Vitoria ; the entry into Nladrid ; the siege of the Castle of But gos, and the celebrated retreat to Portugal ; the Partida. warfare ; a masterly examination of the respective conduct of the French and English armies; a view of the European politics of the time; and a most searching; exposure of the incompetency and follies of the English Tory Ministry, iu their conduct, or rather misconduct of the war. In the execution, the style of the author 3COM a little more subdued than in some of the former volumes : there is the same effect with less strainiag to produce it. In that calmness, perhaps that coldness, which belongs to the philosophic historian, N AP1ER is still rather deficient or at least he occasion- ally clotl.es his ideas in language so closely touching upon hyper- bole, that it has the appearance of personal heat. Ile is still, too, so daz:''ts1 by the greatness of N.tooLtioN's military' genius, the miracukais variety, activity, and penetration of his mind, and the gigantic character of his plans, as to seem unable to discern his despotic nature, the vanity and selfishness of Ilia ambition, his total disregard of human happiness and human life in the pursuit of his objects, and that want of e&arged wisdom which prevented his perceiving the baseless nature of his own power or the founda- tion on which be might have built it. Had BONAPARTE headed the new people, instead of being the mere head of a new dynasty, it was not " the winter coming only four days sooner than he ex- pected," or even the direful retreat from Moscow, that would have overthrown him.

" The chief has fallen, but not by you, Vanquishers of Waterloo.

When the soldier citizen

Sway'd not o'er his fellow men, Save in deeds that tel them on Where arty smiled on Freedom's son, Who of all the despots banded,

With that youthful chief competed ? Who could boast o'er France defeated

Till lone tyranny commanded ? Till, goaded by 'ambition's sting, The hero sunk into a king? Then he fell—"

Of the various subjects we have enumerated as forming the

principal matter of the volume, though many are superior in stirring interest and striking effect, none come so home to the business of Englishmen at the present time as Colonel NAPIER'S account of Tory incapacity. The whole of the fitstchapter of the twentieth book should be carefully perused by the politician who would form a due estimate of the ignorance, wilfulness, stupidity, and profusion of the men, who, contemporary with the rigours of the elements and a spontaneous movement of the masses to throw off a tyrant, have dinned the world with boasts of the glory they gained for England ! For an extract descriptive of their financial projects we can find room, and it may serve as a specimen of the rest. Be P. borne ill mind, that at a time when WELLINGTON was left without specie to pay his troops, anti driven to commercial speculations in grain and rice to feed them, the Ministry were raising and spending one hundred millions within the year.

The subsidy granted to Portugal was paid by the commercial speculation of Lord Wellington and Mr. Stuatt ; speculations which also fed the army, saved the whole population of Portugal from famine, and prevented the war from stopping in 1811; and yet so little were the Ministers capable even if under- standing, much less of making such arrangements, th it they now rebuked their general for having adopted them, and after their own imbecile manner. insisted

upon a new mode of providing supplies. Every movement they made proved their incapacity. They had permitted Lord William Bentinek to engage in the scheme of invading Italy when additioual troops were wanted in Portugal ; and they suffered him to bid, in the money-market, against Lord Wellington ; and thus sweep away two millions of dollars At an exorbitant _premium, for a chimera, when the war in the Peninsular was upon the point of stopping altogether, in default of that very money which Wellington could have otherwise procured— nay, bad actually been promised at a reasonable cost. Nor was this the full measure of their folly.

Lord Wellesley affirmed, and they were unable to deny the fact, that dollars might have been obtained from South America to any amount, if the Govern- ment would have consented to pay the market- price fur them they would not do it ; and yet afterwards sought to purchase the same dollars at a higher rate in the European mat kets. lie told them, anal they could not deny it, that they had empowered five different agents to purchase dollars for five different services, without any controlling head — that these independent agents were bidding against each other in every motley- market, and the restrictions as to price were

exactly in the inverse proportion to the importance of the service; the agent for the troops in Malta was permitted to offer the highest price, Lord Wellington was restricted to the lowest. And besides this folly, 'Lord Wellesley showed that they had, under their licensing system, permitted French vessels to bring French gooda, silks, and gloves, to England, and to carry bullion away in re- turn. Napoleon thus paid his army in Spain with the very coin which should have subsisted the English troops. Incapable, however, as the Ministers were of making the simplest arrange- ments—neglecting, as they did, the most obvious means of supplying the wants of the army—incapable even, as we have seem of sending out a few bales of clothing and arms for the Spaniards without producing the utmost confusion, they were heedless of the counsels of their general, prompt to listen to every in- triguing adviser, and ready to plunge into the most absurd and complicated mea- sures to relieve that distress which their own want of ability had produced. When the war with the United States broke out—a war provoked by them- selves—they suffered the Admiralty, contrary to the wishes it 31r. Stuart, to reduce the naval force at Lisbon, awl to neglect Wellington's express recom- mendation as to the stationing of altipa for the protection of the merchantmen bringing flour and stores to Portugal. Thus the American privateets, being unmolested, run down the coast of Africa, intercepted the provision-trade frmu the Brazils, which was one of the principal resources of the army, and then, emboldened by impunitv, infested the coast of Portugal, captured fourteen slaps loaded nide flour off the Douro, and a large vessel in the very mouth of the Tagus.

The general failure of the harvest, and the war with America, would have prevented the English General, and the Resident, Mr. STUART, from succeeding in any more speculations, even if they had been permitted to engage in them. And the Ministry suggested several ridiculous schemes. One was to sell the Crown and Church lands in Portugal, forcing the Pope's Nuncio, who was in their power, to consent to the latter project, since it was vain to expect the acquiescence of his Holiness. To which WF.LLINGTON re- plied, in substance, that no one would buy lands, when the issue of a battle in any part of Europe would subject the district to in- vasion and the purchase to confiscation. The Ministers then got up the plan of a Portuguese Bank,—apparently fancying that their " Bank Restriction Act" was capable of indefinite exten- sion; they next suggested. mutatis mutandis, a depreciation of coin ; and these, and such as these, being successively demolished, they fell down to that system of forced requisitions, about the atrocity of which when pursued by the French they had been and still are declaiming. Its nature may be gathered by the answers of their agents; that of WELLINGTON also conveying a distinct idea of what the real character of the French requisitions was.

Mr. Stuart, firm in opposition, shortly observed that it was by avoiding and reprobating such a system, although pursued alike by the natives anti by the enemy, that the British character and credit had been established SO firmly as to be of the greatest use in the operations of the war. Wellington entered more deeply into the subject.

Nothing, he said, could be procured from the country in the mode proposed by the Ministers' memoir, unless resort was also had to the French mode of en- forcing their requisitions. The proceedings of the French armies were misun- derstood. It was not true, as supposed in the memoir, that the French never paid for supplies. They levied contributions where money was to be lad, and with this paid for provisions i other parts ; anti when requisitions for money or clothing were made, they were taken on account of the regular contributions due to the government. They were indeed heavier than even an usurping go- vernment was entitled to demand ; still it was a regular government account, and it was obvious the British army could not have recourse to a similar plan, without depriving its allies of their own legitimate resources.

The requisitions were enforced by a system of terror. A magistrate was or- dered to provida for the troops, and was told that the latter would, in caw of failure, take the provisions and punish the village or district in a variety of ways. Now were it expedient to follow this mode of requisition, there must be two armies, one to fight the enemy and one to enforce the requisitions,—for the Spaniards would never submit to such proceedings without the use of force. The conscription gave the French armies a more unwal description of soldims ; but even if this second army was provided, the British troops could not be trusted to inflict an exact measure of punishment on a disobedient village, they would plunder it as well as the others, readily enough; but their principal ob.- lect would be to get at and drink as much liquor as they could, and then to de- stroy as much valuable property as should fall in their way ; meanwhile, the objects of their mission, the bringing of supplies to the army and the infliction of an exact measure of punishment on the magistrates or district, would not be accomplished at all. Moreover, the holders of supplies in Spain being unused to :counnercial habits, would regard payment for these requisitions by bills of any description to be rather worse than the mode of contribution followed by the French, anti would resist it as forcibly. And upon such a nice point did the war hang, that if they accepted the bills anti were once to discover the mode of procuring cash for them by discounting high, it would be the most fatal blow possible to the credit and resources of the British army in the Peninsular. The war would then soon cease.

The memoir asserted that Sir John Moore had been well furnished with money, and that, nevertheless, the Spaniards would net give him provisions; and this fact was urged as an argument for enforcing requisitions. But the assertion that Moore was furnished with money, which was itself the index to the Ministers' incapacity, Wellington told diem was not true. "Moore," he said, "had been even worse furnished than himself; that general had burrowed a little, a very little money at Salamanca, but he hail no regular supply for the military chest until the army had nearly reached Coruna ; and the Spaniards were not very wrong in their reluctance to meet his wants, for the debts of his army were still unpaid in the latter end of ladia" Another point of temporory interest is the military character of CLAUSEL; which is just now shaded, from a concurrence of ad- verse circumstances, but which appears in the pages of NAPIER as displaying consummate courage, capacity, and skill. At Sala- manca, when three general officers had fallen in succession, he found, on succeeding to the command, the divisions disjointed, the troops in confusion, and the Allied army pressing forward to an assured victory ; yet he "made a surprising effort, beyond all men s expectations, to restore the battle; •' and, " not content with bringing the separated parts of his army together, and in a condition to effect a retreat, be attempted to stem the tide of vic- tory in the very fulness of its strength and roughness." This,

however, was tend his means ; but he effected his retreat, and . . continued w considerable ability ; and when WattiNcaTox, after leaving Madrid, advanced to Burgos, he again found a worthy opponent.

The Gallicians came not ; and the French retreated slowly up the beautiful Pisuerga and Arlanzan vallies, which, in denial of the stories about French devastation, were carefully cultivated and filled to repletion with corn, wine, and oil.

Nor were they deficient in military strength. Off the high-road, on both sides, ditches and rivulets itnpelled the troops, while cross. ridges continually furnished strong parallel positions flanked by the lofty hills on either side. In these amities Clausel baffled his great adversary in the most surprising manner. Each day lie offered battle, but on ground which Wellington watt unwilling tu. aasall in front, partly because be momentarily expected the Gallicians up, but chiefly because of the declining state of his own army from sickness, which, combined with the hope of ulterior operations in the South, made him unwilling to lose men. By flank movements he dislodged the enemy ; yet each day datk-

netts fell ere they were c plettal, anti the morning's arm always saw Clausel again in position. At Cigdes and Duenas, in the Pisuerga valley ; at Magoz, Torquemada, Cordobilla, ltevihla, Vallejera, and Pampliega in the valley of the Ad:team, the French General thus offered battle, and finally covered Burgos on the 16th, by taking the strong position of Celleda del Camino.

But eleven thousand Spanish infantry, three hundred cavalry, and eight guns, had now joined the :allies, and Wellington would have attached frankly on the 17th, had not Clausel, alike wary anti skilful, observed the increased timbers, and retired in the night to Flatidovinez ; his rear.guard was, however, next day pushed sharply lack to the heights of Burgos, and in the following night he passed through that town, leaving behind him large stores of grain.

Before taking leave of such a volume as this, even in a notice so slight and discursive as our plans prescribe, we ought to select a few isolated extracts descriptive of what is the m.tre im- mediate suhject of the hook—warfare and its concomi!ants. It is superfluous to point attention to the vigour, breadth, and pic- torial character of this narrative of the last of Salamanca. Some- thing, perhaps, of quaintness and effort might be objected to by a rigid purist ; but these very qualities serve to impress the scene more distinctly on the mind's eye. The main body of the French are retiring, FOY'S and MsucuNE's divisions being " skilfully used by CLAUSEL to protect the retreat "— Foy, throwing out a cloud of :skirmishers, retired slowly by wings, turning and firing heavily frotn every the of ground upon the light division, which marched steadily forward without returning a shot, save by its skirmishers; for three miles the march was under this musketry, which was occasionally thickened by a cannonade, and yet very few men were lost, because the French aitn was battled, partly by the twilight, partly by the even order and rapid gliding of the lines. lint the French General, Desgraviers, was killed, and the flanking brigades from the lburth division having now penetrated between alaucuste and Foy, it seemed difficult for the latter to extricate his troops fronui the action ; nevertheless he did it, and with great dexterity. For, having in- creased his skianishers on the last defensible ridge, along the foot of which run a marshy stream, he redoubled his fire of musketry, and made a nienacing de- monstration with his holseinen just as the dm kuess fell : the British guns im- mediately opened their fire, a squadron of dragoon,' galloped forwards front the left, the infontry, eros.ilig the marshy stream with an impetuoushaste,hastened to the summit of the hill, and a rough shock seemed at hand, but there was no longer an enemy ; the main body of the French had gone into the thick forest on their own left dining the firing, and the skirmishers fled swiftly after, covered by the smoke anti by the darkness.

Meanwhile alancinte maintained a noble battle. Ile was outflanked and out- numbered, but the safety of the French army depended on his courage: Inc knew it, and Pakenhatn, inarking his bold demeanour, advised Clinton, who was immediately in his front, not to assail him until the third division should have turned his left. Nevertheless, the sixth division was soon plunged afresh into action under great disadvantage; for, after being kept by its commander a long time without reason close under Maucune's batteries, which ploughed heavily through the ranks, it was suddenly directed by a staff.officer to attack the hill. Assisted by a brigade of the fourth division, the troop3 then rushed up, and in the darkness of the night the fire showed from afar how the battle

went. On the side of the British, a sheet of flame was seen, sometimes ad- vancing with an even front, sometimes pricking forth in spear heads, now fall-

ing back in waving lines, and anon darting upwards in one vast pyramid, the apex of which often approached yet never gained the actual summit of the mountain ; hut the French musketry, rapid as lightning, sparkled along the brow of the height with unvarying Minos, and with what destructive effects the dark gaps and clanging shapes of the adverse tire allowed too plainly. Yet • when larkenhain hail again turned the enemy's left, and Foy's division had glided into the forest, 31aucuue's teak was completed, the effulgent crest of the ridgy became black and silent, and the whole French army vanished, as it were, in the darkness.

A CAPITAL DURING WAR.

That city (Math id ) exhibited a sad mixture of luxury and desolation. When it was first entelcd, a violent, cruel, and unjust persecution of those who were called Afrancesados Was cuinmenced, and continued, until the English General intelfered, and as an example made no distinctiun in his invitations to to the palace feasts. Truly it was not necessary to increase the sufferings of the miserable people ; for though the markets were full of provisions, there was no money wherewith to buy ; and, though the houses were full of rich furni- ture, there were neither purchasers nor lenders : even noble families secretly sought charity, that tloy might live. At night, the groans and stilled cries of famishing people were hearth ; and every men l g, emaciated dead bullies, cast into the streets, showed why those cries hall ceic,ed. The calm resignation with which these terrible sulfetings were borne was a distinctive mark. of the national character : not many begged, none complainea, there was no. violence, no reproaches, very few thefts; the Allies lost a few animals, nothing more, anti these were generally thought to be taken by robbers front the country. But with this patient endurance of calamity, the Illudrilenos discovered a deep anti unall'ected gratitude for kindness received at the hands of the Mau& officers who contributed, not much, for they had it nut, but enough of motley to form soup charities, by which hundteda were succoured. It was the third division, and, I believe, tile Forty-fifth Regiment, which set the example ; and timely this is not die Jetta of the many honourable distinctions those brave men have earned.