Did we not (if, from this comprehensive feeling of sorrow, I may for a moment descend to particulars)—­did we not send forth a general, one whom, since his return, Court, and Parliament, and Army, have been at strife with each other which shall most caress and applaud—­a general, who, in defending the armistice which he himself had signed, said in open Court that he deemed that the French army was entitled to such terms.  The people of Spain had, through the Supreme Junta of Seville, thus spoken of this same army:  ’Ye have, among yourselves, the objects of your vengeance;—­attack them;—­they are but a handful of miserable panic-struck men, humiliated and conquered already by their perfidy and cruelties;—­resist and destroy them:  our united efforts will extirpate this perfidious nation.’  The same Spaniards had said (speaking officially of the state of the whole Peninsula, and no doubt with their eye especially upon this army in Portugal)—­’Our enemies have taken up exactly those positions in which they may most easily be destroyed’—­Where then did the British General find this right and title of the French army in Portugal?  ‘Because,’ says he in military language, ’it was not broken.’—­Of the MAN, and of the understanding and heart of the man—­of the CITIZEN, who could think and feel after this manner in such circumstances, it is needless to speak; but to the GENERAL I will say, This is most pitiable pedantry.  If the instinctive wisdom of your Ally could not be understood, you might at least have remembered the resolute policy of your enemy.  The French army was not broken?  Break it then—­wither it—­pursue it with unrelenting warfare—­hunt it out of its holds;—­if impetuosity be not justifiable, have recourse to patience—­to watchfulness—­to obstinacy:  at all events, never for a moment forget who the foe is—­and that he is in your power.  This is the example which the French Ruler and his Generals have given you at Ulm—­at Lubeck—­in Switzerland—­over the whole plain of Prussia—­every where;—­and this for the worst deeds of darkness; while your’s was the noblest service of light.

This remonstrance has been forced from me by indignation:—­let me explain in what sense I propose, with calmer thought, that the example of our enemy should be imitated.—­The laws and customs of war, and the maxims of policy, have all had their foundation in reason and humanity; and their object has been the attainment or security of some real or supposed—­some positive or relative—­good.  They are established among men as ready guides for the understanding, and authorities to which the passions are taught to pay deference.  But the relations of things to each other are perpetually changing; and in course of time many of these leaders and masters, by losing part of their power to do service and sometimes the whole, forfeit in proportion their right to obedience.  Accordingly they are disregarded in some instances, and sink insensibly into neglect with the general