The British marched across France, and embarked for England and America. The Spanish and Portuguese armies retired to their respective territories, and the French armies dispersed over France. The now fully established standing army of Great Britain had, notwithstanding the indiscipline and violence that at times unfortunately characterised its fighting, earned a reputation which it has never lost. Its undaunted courage had broken down altogether the civilian fear of an army. It was for the future only to be regarded economically or financially, not as a possible danger to the public peace. There was scarcely a family, hardly a village throughout the land which had not to mourn, but mourn with pride, the loss of some of its sons. It had earned the respect of foe as well as friend. It had dauntlessly shown that Englishmen were not afraid to die. This spirit is touchingly referred to by Thorburn in some poetry relating to a drummer boy of the 43rd, a regiment that, now linked with the 52nd, and, like it, in Peninsular days a component part of the famous Light Division, distinguished itself from the Coa to the Pyrenees. As the story is told, it is that of an old grenadier who, in the rush of the charge which then formed the most important element in battle, as fire and the bullet do now, was wounded, but struggled on to find in his way “’Twas a little drummer boy, with his side Torn terribly with shot; But still he feebly beat his drum, As though the wound were not. But when the Mameluke’s wild horse Burst with a scream and cry, He said, ‘O men of the Forty-third, _Teach me the way to die_.’” And so the story goes on to tell how the wounded grenadier, with a bullet in his hip, pressed on into the fight, to fall himself later. The story is, of course, probably mythical, but there is a certain _ring_ in it that shows the spirit of those old fighting days. Equally mythical is that of the drummer boy and Sergeant Matcham in the Ingoldsby “Legend of Salisbury Plain,” where “one Mr. Jones,” hearing certain groans, states-- “That he followed the moans, and, led by their tones, Found a raven a-picking a drummer boy’s bones! Then the Colonel wrote word, From the King’s _Forty-third_, That the story was certainly true that they heard.” It must not be imagined that the final result of the war on the French side was other than creditable in the highest degree to Soult. No one recognises this more than Napier, and his eulogy is worth quoting.