Men engaged only in civil affairs and especially book-men are apt to undervalue military genius, talking as if simple bravery were the highest qualification of a general; and they have another mode of appeasing an inward sense of inferiority, namely, to attribute the successes of a great captain, to the prudence of some discreet adviser, who in secret rules the general, amends his errors, and leaves him all the glory. Thus Napoleon had Berthier, Wellington has sir George Murray! but in this, the most skilful, if not the most glorious of Wellington’s campaigns, sir George Murray was not present, and the staff of the army was governed by three young lieutenant-colonels, namely, lord Fitzroy Somerset, Waters, and Delancey; for though sir Willoughby Gordon joined the army as quarter-master-general after the battle of Salamanca, he was inexperienced, and some bodily suffering impeded his personal exertions. Such then were the principal points of skill displayed by Wellington; yet so vast and intricate an art is war, that the apophthegm of Turenne will always be found applicable: “_he who has made no mistakes in war, has seldom made war_.” Some military writers, amongst them the celebrated Jomini, blame the English general, that with a conquering army, and an insurgent nation at his beck, he should in three months after his victory have attempted nothing more than the unsuccessful siege of Burgos. This censure is not entirely unfounded; the king certainly escaped very easily from Madrid; yet there are many points to be argued ere the question can be decided. The want of money, a want progressively increasing, had become almost intolerable. Wellington’s army was partly fed from Ciudad Rodrigo, partly from the valley of the Pisuerga, Hill’s troops were fed from Lisbon; the Portuguese in their own country, and the Spaniards every where, lived as the French did, by requisition; but the British professed to avoid that mode of subsistence, and they made it a national boast to all Europe that they did so; the movements of the army were therefore always subservient to this principle, and must be judged accordingly, because want of money was with them want of motion. Now four modes of operation were open to Wellington. 1º. _After the victory of Salamanca to follow the king to Valencia, unite with the Alicant army, and, having thus separated Soult from Joseph and Suchet, to act according to events._