Thus ended the Peninsular war. This war on the British side has seldom been surpassed in the steady adherence to a settled purpose, through years of discouragement and failure, maintained by the general whose name it has made immortal. Neither his strategy nor his tactical skill was always faultless; and afterwards in comparing himself with Soult, he is reported to have said, that he often got into scrapes, but was extricated by the valour of his army, whereas Soult, when he got into a scrape, had no such men to get him out of it. However this might be, Wellington's foresight in appreciating the place to be filled by the Peninsular war in the overthrow of Napoleon's domination, and his truly heroic constancy in striving to realise his own idea will ever constitute his best claim to greatness. No other man in England or in Europe discerned as he did, that with Portugal independent and guarded by the power of Great Britain on its western coast and its eastern frontier, the permanent conquest of Spain by the French would become impossible. No one else saw beforehand, what Napoleon discovered too late, that a war in Portugal and Spain would drain the life-blood of his invincible hosts, and at length help towards the invasion of France itself. No other general would have shown equal statesmanship in managing Spanish juntas and controlling even Spanish guerillas, or equal forbearance in sparing the French people the evils which a victorious army might have inflicted upon them. FOOTNOTES: [42] Napier, _Peninsular War_ (3rd edition), i., 123. [43] For Moore's campaign see Napier, _Peninsular War_, i., pp. xxi.-xxv., lvii.-lxxvi., 330-44, 431-542, and Oman, _Peninsular War_, i., 486-602; and compare Moore's _Diary_, edited by Maurice, ii., 272-398. Sir F. Maurice has not completely answered Professor Oman's criticisms. [44] Wellington, _Dispatches_, iv., 261-63 (March 7, 1809). [45] For the exact figures see Oman, _Peninsular War_, ii., 645-48. [46] Wellington, _Dispatches_, iv., 536 (July 29, 1809). [47] For Masséna's lines of march see T. J. Andrews in _English Historical Review_, xvi. (1901), 474-92. [48] The battle is picturesquely described by Napier, _Peninsular War_, iii., 536-66. See also _ibid._, pp. xxxv.-li. [49] Wellington, _Supplementary Dispatches_, vii., 318-19. [50] Napier, _Peninsular War_ (first edition), v., 513. [51] Wellington, _Dispatches_, x., 473 (June 29, 1813). [52] _Ibid._, x., 519 (July 9, 1813). CHAPTER VI. THE DOWNFALL OF NAPOLEON.