The rear-guard had been detailed by Sir John Moore himself, to assist the Spaniards in manning the guns on the land front of Corunna,--to keep possession of the small island in the bay,--and to cover the embarkation of the troops from the citadel. The Artillery attached to it was commanded by Major Beevor, assisted by Major Thornhill, Captains Truscott, Beane, Brandreth, and Greatley, and Lieutenants Maling, Wright, and Darby. There were 36 non-commissioned officers and 253 men. The whole of the rear-guard was embarked, but with difficulty, on the evening of the 18th and morning of the 19th. The voyage to England was tempestuous in the extreme. Many officers and men died on the passage; many others, including Colonel Harding himself, only survived their hardships a few months. The whole army landed in England at various ports in such a state of destitution, that the whole nation was shocked, and could not believe it possible that the story of the final success was true. These skeleton regiments, starved and half-clothed, had not the appearance of an army fresh from victory; and for many years the skill displayed in the retreat upon Corunna, and the subsequent success, received little, if any, credit from the people. So ended Sir John Moore’s campaign in Spain;--and with it--his life. A type of the same individuality of which the Duke of Wellington was the perfection,--in which a sense of duty rises above every other feeling,--he yet possessed charms of character, denied to his great comrade, which won for him the love, as well as the confidence, of his troops. A disciplinarian, indeed, he was--what leader can be great who is not?--but, with all his strictness, there was something so winning in his disposition, that even after a lapse of fifty years, the writer of these pages has seen tears in the eyes of a man who had served under him, at the mere mention of his name.