University of Virginia Library

It has been universally allowed, that the classical and military advantages of Sir John Moore's education were superiour to those of any modern English General. These great opportunities of improvement to his tactical intuition were afforded in the school of living history, on the scite of battles, marked with the vestiges of victory and defeat, of stratagem and fortune. The scenes, over which he dwelt with the fondest devotion, were those, which had formed the theatre of the wars of the illustrious Frederick; a hero, who, on one day could not place his foot on one inch of sand, which would own his impression as a master; and who, on on the next day, was the lord of an empire, and, by the fame of his talents, the awe, the astonishment and the admiration of Europe. The line of the poem above quoted alludes to the celebrated battle, which achieved this glorious event.

Had this distinguished military prince transmitted to the present incumbent on his throne that character and science of arms, which were so much admired, and so enthusiastically studied by Sir John, when he travelled under the tutelage of his father, with the Duke of Hamilton—the day, in which we live, would have been spared the shame to have witnessed the disgraceful and perfidious flight of Jena, nor would it have so painfully perceived the terrible distinction, between,

But national hypocrisy, like the fraud of individuals, is always punished by a signal Providence. The affectation of sovereignty is but the shadow of power; and while the hundred arms of Briareus gave him the reputation of a Giant, yet this would have been but an empty proclamation of strength, had he not been inspired with the courage to lift even one of his fingers at his enemy.

It has been the fate of Sir John Moore, a fate most severely unpropitious to the reputation and honour of some administrations of the British Cabinet, to be envied, opposed, checked, cramped and neglected, (durante potestate) from the first onset of his military life. His great talents, dauntless courage, commanding person, practical knowledge, gallant virtues, contempt of selfishness, inaccessibility to party, firmness in battle, and generosity to his army, and above all, his rapid and comprehensive foresight of the fears and the hopes of a jejunely projected expedition, and his own rejected map of an admirable campaign, which might, in all military and geographical calculation, have reduced the invaders of Spain to submission or flight, condemned him to the honourable neglect of the ministry, whom he despised. But this persecution had been practised before, and under the same influence. At the siege of Calvi, one of the mountainous, and the best fortified towns in Corsica, and to which the line in the Poem refers, Sir John was eminently distinguished. It was the last, and was deemed the impregnable strong hold of the Island. From the eminence of its rocks, and the danger of its access, it demanded a veteran and a hero in the art of war, to assault and reduce it to surrender. This exploit of skill and of honour Sir John undertook and performed; and this intrepid and scientifick General's services in Corsica were rewarded by the impolitick and calculating ingratitude of an invidious ministry.

Rome was built on its own seven hills, which gave security to its glory, while its virtue remained. Yet its inhabitants, reared to habits of legionary discipline, and bold in their contempt of death, had not, for near five hundred years, any knowledge, either of the fosse and glacis of a city, or of the entrenchment and palisade of a camp. When stormed by Brennus, defeated by Pyrrhus, or overwhelmed by Hannibal, the citizens of Rome, despairing of its safety, fled either to the rock of the Capital, or to the mountains, which surrounded it. The Romans gained their first knowledge of intrenchment from the conquered camp of the Grecian hero, Pyrrhus.