continually wet; sometimes they were bivouacked in a swamp, when better ground was near: they lay down upon the wet ground, fell asleep from mere exhaustion, were roused to receive their meat, and had then no means of dressing it, ... the camp-kettles had been sent on, or by some error were some miles in the rear, or the mules which carried them had foundered on the way; and no fire could be kindled on wet ground, with wet materials, and under a heavy rain. The subalterns threw the blame upon their superiors, and these again upon theirs, all complaining of incompetence in some of the general officers, and carelessness or supercilious neglect in some of the staff. But the intended effect was produced. That something was deficient in the equipments of the army was perceived, and in part remedied. Alas! no one observed that there was an utter want of that discipline by virtue of which Cromwell conquered, which rendered the Swedes invincible under their great Gustavus, and to which the Prince of Parma owed little less than to his own military genius, admirable as that was. CHAPTER XLIII. OPERATIONS DURING THE WINTER AND SPRING. BATTLE OF VITTORIA. ♦NOVEMBER, 1812. OPINIONS OF THE OPPOSITION.♦ Lord Wellington’s failure at Burgos, and his consequent retreat to the Agueda, gave the Whigs a last opportunity of repeating their predictions, that the war in the Peninsula must prove unsuccessful, and they availed themselves of it with unabated confidence. The more rancorous radicals insulted the nation for the hopes which had been entertained, exulted in the reverses which they magnified, and reviled the ministers and the General, ... the ministers both for having continued the war, and for “starving” it; Lord Wellington both for inactivity and for rashness, for doing too little and too much, for wasting time at Madrid, and for attempting a siege with such inadequate means, that nothing but the most profuse expenditure of blood could afford even a forlorn hope of its succeeding. Even when the events of the Russian campaign made it evident that the formidable tyranny against which we had so long contended must soon be overthrown, the opposition, as well as the revolutionists, turned away their eyes from the prospect. ♦MARQUIS WELLESLEY CALLS FOR INQUIRY.♦