Any offensive operation founded upon Canada must be preceded by a naval superiority on the lakes.  But even if we had that superiority, I should doubt our being able to do more than secure the points on those lakes at which the Americans could have access.  In such countries as America, very extensive, thinly peopled, and producing but little food in proportion to their extent, military operations by large bodies are impracticable, unless the party carrying them on has the uninterrupted use of a navigable river, or very extensive means of land transport, which such a country can rarely supply.

I conceive, therefore, that were your army larger even than the proposed augmentation would make it, you could not quit the lakes; and, indeed, would be tied to them the more necessarily in proportion as your army would be large.[7]

[Footnote 7:  The letter from the Duke the above is taken was written in reply to an application by the home government for his opinion.  We frequently find the Duke applied to for his opinion on political matters at home, while serving in the Peninsula.]

February 22, 1814.

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The Morale of an Army important to Discipline.

No reliance can be placed on the conduct of troops in action with the enemy, who have been accustomed to plunder, and those officers alone can expect to derive honour in the day of battle from the conduct of the troops under their command, who shall have forced them, by their attention and exertions, to behave as good soldiers ought in their cantonments, their quarters, and their camps.

March 5, 1814.

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English officers are very strictly instructed, and those who mean to serve their country well must obey their instructions, however fearless they may be of responsibility.  Indeed, I attribute this fearlessness very much to the determination never to disobey, as long as the circumstances exist under which an order is given.

April 16, 1814.

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French Feelings about the Slave Trade.

You (Mr. Wilberforce) judge most correctly regarding the state of the public mind here upon this question.  Not only is there no information, but, because England takes an interest in the question, it is impossible to convey any through the only channel which would be at all effectual, viz., the daily press.  Nobody reads anything but the newspapers; but it is impossible to get anything inserted in any French newspaper in Paris in favour of the abolition, or even to show that the trade was abolished in England, from motives of humanity.  The extracts made from English newspapers upon this, or any other subject, are selected with a view, either to turn our principles and conduct into ridicule, or to exasperate against us still more the people of this country; and therefore the evil cannot be remedied by good publications in the daily press in England, with a view to their being copied into the newspapers here.