Wellington thought otherwise, for he knew not that the commissariat stores, which he had ordered up, did not arrive regularly because of the extreme fatigue of the animals who carried them; and those that did arrive were not available for the troops, because, as the rear of an army, and especially a retreating army, is at once the birth-place and the recipient of false reports, the subordinate commissaries and conductors of the temporary dépôts, alarmed with rumours that the enemy’s cavalry had forestalled the allies on the march, carried off or destroyed the field-stores: hence the soldiers were actually feeding on acorns when their commander supposed them to be in the receipt of good rations. The destruction of the swine may be therefore, in some measure, palliated; but there is neither palliation nor excuse to be offered for the excesses and outrages committed on the inhabitants, nor for many officers’ habitual inattention to their duty, of which the general justly complained. Certainly the most intolerable disorders had marked the retreat, and great part of the sufferings of the army arose from these and previous disorders, for it is too common with soldiers, first to break up the arrangements of their general by want of discipline, and then to complain of the misery which those arrangements were designed to obviate. Nevertheless Wellington’s circular was not strictly just, because it excepted none from blame, though in conversation he admitted the reproach did not apply to the light division nor to the guards. With respect to the former the proof of its discipline was easy though Wellington had not said so much in its favour; for how could those troops be upbraided, who held together so closely with their colours, that, exclusive of those killed in action, they did not leave thirty men behind. Never did the extraordinary vigour and excellence of their discipline merit praise more than in this retreat. But it seems to be a drawback to the greatness of lord Wellington’s character, that while capable of repressing insubordination, either by firmness or dexterity as the case may require, capable also of magnanimously disregarding, or dangerously resenting injuries, his praises and his censures are bestowed indiscriminately, or so directed as to acquire partizans and personal friends rather than the attachment of the multitude. He did not make the hard-working military crowd feel that their honest unobtrusive exertions were appreciated. In this he differs not from many other great generals and statesmen, but he thereby fails to influence masses, and his genius falls short of that sublime flight by which Hannibal in ancient, and Napoleon in modern times, commanded the admiration of the world. Nevertheless it is only by a comparison with such great men that he can be measured, nor will any slight examination of his exploits suffice to convey a true notion of his intellectual power and resources. Let this campaign be taken as an example.