Wellington, soldier and statesman, and the revival of the military power of England . es: he had been positively ordered toproceed to Lisbon, and he had no notion of what hewould have to encounter ; he is hardly to be censuredfor continuing his onward march. The Marshal nowdid what he ought to have done before : leaving thecorps of Junot to cover the movement, and aban-doning hundreds of his wounded men, he made, onthe evening after the battle, for the pass of Boyalva ;he found no hostile force in the defile; the excusethat a detachment of Portuguese had been employedto guard it and was not on
Wellington, soldier and statesman, and the revival of the military power of England . es: he had been positively ordered toproceed to Lisbon, and he had no notion of what hewould have to encounter ; he is hardly to be censuredfor continuing his onward march. The Marshal nowdid what he ought to have done before : leaving thecorps of Junot to cover the movement, and aban-doning hundreds of his wounded men, he made, onthe evening after the battle, for the pass of Boyalva ;he found no hostile force in the defile; the excusethat a detachment of Portuguese had been employedto guard it and was not on the spot for some unex-plained reason, appears to be of little or no a few hours the whole French army hademerged from the pass ; but this was a flank marchin the presence of a victorious enemy, at a distanceof only eight or ten miles ; Wellington has been con-demned for not seizing an advantage that might havehad immense results; in this, one of his few short-comings in a memorable campaign, we perhaps may 1 Selection, pp. 399, 400. Wellingtons language is ANDRE MASSENA, DUKE DE RIVOLI.(After the painting by Maurice ) Busaco, Torres Vedras, Fuentes dOnoro 123 see a defect in war characteristic of him, he veryseldom made the most of success. The left of theBritish General had now been turned, but he crossedthe Mondego safely, and made good his retreat; hisadversary made no attempt to molest him. Massenahad entered Coimbra by the 1st of October ; he haltedon the spot for three days—a delay for which he canhardly be blamed—to form a depot and to restorehis army; leaving only a small detachment and hiswounded behind, he boldly advanced with the massof his forces. His pursuit, however, was feeble andslow; the country on his line of march had beenharried and wasted ; Wellington was chiefly harassedby the crowds of refugees from Coimbra who followedhis columns. From the 8th to the 10th of October, the alliedarmy had almost made its way within the celebrat
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