130 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1809. 



iher the system of promotions in 

 the service was not better than 

 it had been. Generals Norton 

 and Fitzpatrick, sir James Murray 

 Pulteney, sir Arthur Wellesley, and 

 general Grosvenor, all bestowed 

 the warmest praise on the conduct 

 of his royal highness as comman- 

 der-in-chief. — This seems the pro- 

 per place to introduce the fine 

 encomium made on the public 

 conduct of the duke of York, in 

 the House of Lords, on the last 

 day of January, by the earl of 

 Suffolk. For some time past, his 

 lordship observed, rumour had 

 been exceedingly busy in spread- 

 ing reports of a tendency ex- 

 tremely injurious to the character 

 of the army. Having been bred 

 a soldier from his earliest days, he 

 could not hear these scandalous 

 falsehoods propagated, without 

 taking the first opportunity of giv- 

 ing his meed of refutation to the 

 calumny. Not only the army de- 

 served this at his hands, but the 

 conduct of the illustrious person- 

 age who had the command-in- 

 chief loudly called for it as an act 

 of justice: for he could take upon 

 him to say, that the British army 

 never was in the memory of man 

 in so complete a state of discipline 

 as it had arrived at since his royal 

 highness had been appointed to 

 that great and responsible situa- 

 tion. The whole object of that 

 illustrious duke had been to bring 

 the army to that state of perfec- 

 tion which by its recent demean- 

 our, it had so nobly proved. It 

 was that discipline which enabled 

 our troops, after a march of up- 

 wards of four Iiundred miles 

 through a barren tract of country, 

 at an inhospitable season of the 

 year, to give battle to their ad- 



versaries, and gain over them a 

 signal victory ; it was that disci- 

 pline which enabled them to sus- 

 tain all the hardships and all the 

 privations which they endured in 

 that retreat, and finally, to secure 

 and save themselves from a tre- 

 mendous enemy. This was the 

 effect of the discipline introduced 

 and acted upon throughout the 

 British forces, and which was de- 

 monstrated in a thousand instan- 

 ces. There was one which he 

 would mention, however reluctant 

 he was to do it, and that was, 

 when his royal highness heard that 

 the lieutenant colonel of a regi- 

 ment (the regiment which his 

 lordship commanded, and which 

 the late lieutenant-general sir John 

 Moore once commanded) was de- 

 ficient in talents and knowledge to 

 hold such a commission, he re- 

 moved him, and appointed another 

 more effective in his stead ; and 

 neither his family connections, 

 (being the son of a noble lord) 

 nor any other interest, was al- 

 lowed to prevent that removal : 

 the consequence whereof was, that 

 the regiment immediately im- 

 proved in effective force as it did 

 in discipline. — There was another 

 circumstance which he wished to 

 notice to their lordships, and that 

 was, an ill-founded opinion enter- 

 tained of that excellent institution 

 the Military Asylum, namely, that 

 it was a useless burthen to the 

 state. This his lordship could 

 most solemnly contradict, and also 

 take upon him to say, that a more 

 beneficial establishment, as a nur- 

 sery for good soldiers, never was 

 instituted in any country. 



On the next day after the 

 examination of witnesses was 

 closed, February 23, the Speaker 



rose 



