LON 
the morning of the i 3th made a defperate attack on the 
Eritifh right under general Hill. Lord Wellington, fore- 
feeing this attempt, had fent two divifions, and part of a 
third, to reinforce that portion of the army ; but, before 
their arrival, the conted was decided : general Hill alone 
had defeated the enemy, and driven him back upon 
Bayonne. The Britilh army being now completely ef- 
tablifhed upon the Adour, Soult found it no longer ad- 
vifable to maintain his pofition in front of Bayonne. He 
left his entrenched camp therefore, marched up the river 
towards Dax, and edablilhed himfelf on the fmall river 
Gave, which falls into the Adour. 
Lord Wellington had thus attained the objeft propofed 
by thefe operations. France was entered—and that terri¬ 
tory, which for twenty years had never been trodden by 
hoftile foot, now faw a mighty invading army edabliflied 
within its frontier. 
The regency of Spain, we are told, now carried into 
execution the unanimous vote of the congrefs, which had 
ordered a grant of land to be conferred on the marquis of 
Wellington, as a folid and enduring monument of the 
gratitude of their nation. Three royal eftates were ac¬ 
cordingly fubmitted to the Britilh field-marffial for his 
choice ; and, with that difinterellednefs and talle which 
are known to temper the fplendour of his military fame, 
he gave the preference to that which was lowed in actual 
value, but which came recommended to his fancy by the 
beauty of its fituation and the amenities of its fcenery. 
It is fituated on the river Xenil, in the kingdom of Gra¬ 
nada ; and its annual produce is edimated at 30,000 dollars. 
We fhall conclude the hiftory of this campaign with 
the following charafter of our Britilh general from the fird 
volume of “ Hiftorical Sketches;” a work from which it 
would be injudice to tranfcribe too freely, but dill greater 
injudice to do fo without giving tedimony to the general 
excellence of the work, and particularly to the author’s 
maderly delineation of charaaer .—“ In this age of war, 
Wellington, next to Bonaparte, makes the greated figure 
on the theatre of the world. Lord Wellington had earned 
great glory previoufly to his Spanifh campaigns. He was 
known then as a bold and enterprifing leader, a character 
fomewhat rare among Britilh generals, who have com¬ 
monly been brave in a (lion, but timid in counfel. This 
courfe was ill fuited to the matchlefs bravery of the troops 
which they commanded ; it tended to keep down the mi¬ 
litary fame of Britain much below its natural dandard. 
Lord Wellington knew the valour of his troops, and gave 
it fcope ; a feries of fplendid viftories was the confequence. 
Yet, when circumdances prefcribed a cautious and pro- 
traced warfare, he edablilhed a new fame, eclipfing that 
which he had formerly acquired. Faction had raifed up 
violent and inveterate adverfaries, who undervalued all his 
great aCions. He lived to filence thefe murmurs; to ex¬ 
tort panegyrics from his bittered enemies; and to receive 
from an united people the tribute of admiration. Of this 
extraordinary chara&er, the bafis appears to us to be a per- 
feCly-found judgment, combined with indefatigable ap¬ 
plication, and a perfeft knowledge of all the means and 
refources of war. Promptitude and prefence of mind, in 
the highed degree, place all thefe qualifications condantly 
at command. His difpatches alfo exhibit habits of accu¬ 
rate and laborious calculation, which render him prepared 
for any emergency, and make it almod impoffible that he 
fhould be taken by furprife. Thefe certainly form qua¬ 
lities fufficient to conditute a commander of the fird or¬ 
der. We (hall, perhaps, appear bold in faying, that, be¬ 
yond thefe, we do not difcern any remarkable degree of 
what may properly be called military genius. We fee the 
able and judicious application of all the edabliflied re¬ 
fources of war; but not the difcovery of new combina¬ 
tions; not any fplendid difplay of intellect and inven¬ 
tion. If we are called to illudrate this obfervation by 
contrad, we can indance none more driking than that 
of hi* great rival, {now no longer fo.] In almod all 
Vet,. XIII. No. 91s. 
D <* N. 357 
his grand operations, there is fomethirtg unexpefted, 
amazing, which confounds all calculation, which no 
common mind could have predicted. We allude, parti¬ 
cularly, to the envelopement and capture of the army of 
Mack, the paffage of the Danube at Entzerdorf, and to 
almod every dep of his fird Italian campaign. But among 
the many battles which lord Wellington has gained, we 
fcarcely recolleft one in which viftory was achieved by 
any grand manoeuvre or droke of genius. Salamanca it- 
felt' may hereafter appear to be only a doubtful exception. 
He commits not himfelf without a fair profpeft of fuc- 
cefs; he givos fcope to the energies of Britifli troops; this 
is fufficient. Perhaps, indeed, from this very circumdanpe, 
he may form a fafer commander for us than one addicted 
to thefe new and daring manoeuvres. The circumdances 
confidered under which Britain wages war on the conti¬ 
nent, with an army which could not eafily be replaced, 
and with a hard druggie againft fuperior numbers, it is, 
perhaps, eligible to keep within lecure and eflabliffied 
limits. Thefe bold ftrokes are like commercial experi¬ 
ments, always liable, more or lefs, to failure, and great 
confequent lofs. Lord Wellington is well known to the 
Britilh public, not only by his fword, but by his pen; his 
difpatches forming the only authentic channel by which 
the operations of the Britilh army are tranfmitted. They 
do not make the (mailed aim or pretenfion to literary me¬ 
rit ; indeed they rather, in this refpeft, exhibit a marked 
deficiency. Yet we confefsthey pleafe us by that abfence 
of all odentation, that clofe adherence to plain and prac¬ 
tical bufinefs, which breathes fo drongly in them. They 
contain nothing fuperfluous; no rhetorical ornament; n® 
rhodomontade; the plain faff is fimply related, as if by an 
indifferent fpeCator. This dyle reminds us confiderably 
of that of Caffar, though it has not attained to the claffic 
elegance of that celebrated writer and warrior. Both, for 
example, agree in often ufing one word repeatedly in the 
fame lentence, difregarding the inelegance thereby caufed ; 
and this, which would be a grievous fault in a writer by 
profeffion, appears rather a grace in the narrative of a maa 
of bufinefs, who has great affairs to relate.” 
After having dwelt fo long on the viciffitudes of the 
great European war, our readers, we prefutne, will be fa- 
tisfied with a very flight outline of what occurred on the 
other fide of the Atlantic. 
The American government feems, notwithdanding its 
failures by land, to have perfided in its purpofe of invad¬ 
ing Canada. General Dearborn, on the 16th of November, 
1812, broke up his camp from Plattlburg, and marched 
to Champlain, on the Canada-line, the neared point t® 
Montreal. On the night of the 19th, a detachment of 
cavalry with 1000 infantry, falling in with a body of tra¬ 
vellers and Indians, got into confufion, fired upon one 
another, and then difperfed. Upon the whole, this grand 
army, which intended to winter at Montreal, returned to 
the place it fet out from without accomplilhing a fingl® 
objeC. 
At the beginning of the year 1813, the Americans 
made extraordinary efforts to retrieve the difaders of the 
former campaign; and they were .oon able to re-affemble 
an army which greatly outnumbered the Britilh, A large 
force colleCed from the back fettlements again approached 
Detroit, in the hope of wiping off the didionour which 
had been fudained there in the lad campaign. (See p. 
304.) Colonel Proctor, who commanded the- Britilh, 
judged it inexpedient to delay till the whole of the enemy’s 
troops could be brought forward. On the 22d of January, 
he attacked the advanced-guard under general Wincheder, 
amounting to upwards of 1000 men, which was poded at 
French-town, on the river Raifin. The Americans, though 
they found in the houfes and inclofures of the village an 
advantageous defen five pofition, were yet unable to with- 
dand the impetuofity of Britifli valour. They were not 
only defeated, but entirely cut off. All who were not 
killed and wounded in the aCiou were taken prifoners ; 
4 Y a*4 
