AN ACCOUNT OF THE BRITISH CAMPAIGN OF 1809, UNDER SIR ARTHUR WELLESLEY, IN PORTUGAL AND SPAIN: BY THE EARL OF MUNSTER. NOTICE TO THE READER. The following Narrative of one of the most brilliant and important Campaigns of the British Army on the Peninsula, was originally published, in parts, (commencing in May 1829) in the United Service Journal, under the head of "A revised Journal of an Officer on the Staff of the Army." Though anonymous, it was soon discovered by internal evidence to be the production of Colonel Fitzclarence—now Earl of Munster,—who served throughout the whole of the Peninsular Campaigns, with the exception of that of 1812, when he returned to England on promotion. Yielding, in point of fidelity and spirit, to no existing Record of the Events of which it treats, this soldier-like Sketch is reprinted in a complete form, as a valuable addition to the Military Memoirs of The British Army.—EDITOR. AN ACCOUNT OF THE BRITISH CAMPAIGN IN 1809, UNDER SIR A. WELLESLEY, IN PORTUGAL AND SPAIN. On the 18th of January, 1809, when the last transport, containing the rear guard of Sir. J. Moore's army, sailed from the harbour of Corunna, the British little foresaw that the Peninsula was still to be the arena for their conquests and renown. None were so sanguine as to hope that their splendid successes and example should yet cause Europe to regain the moral feelings she had lost under the long victorious career of France, or that the latter country was finally to sink under their exertions. Neither did Buonaparte suspect, when halting on the confines of the Galician mountains, and leaving to Soult the easy task of "driving the leopard into the sea," that his legions were soon to be checked and defeated; or that his vaunted representation of the broken-hearted and dismayed state of the British army, should, by the repulse of his troops within a few days after in a set battle, become a severe reflection on the conduct of his own soldiery. Neither Soult nor the Frenchmen under his command could have supposed, at the same period, how early the fate of war would create a total reverse in their hitherto prosperous campaigns; or that their corps, which had led the advance to Corunna, should soon become the _pursued_, and in a retreat not less disastrous than that they had just witnessed. But Buonaparte ever miscalculated, and at this time was wholly unacquainted with, the perseverance of our national character, or the power of England; and when he compared her apparent means with those of France, by showing she had not a million of infantry or one hundred thousand cavalry to oppose her rival, he had to learn the extent of her vast and boundless resources, and the determined character of her people.[25]