Wellington

Front matter

Gift of

.

.

Chapter I Page

The Family of Wellesley . 1

1769. Birth of Arthur Wellesley . 2

1787. He enters the army . 3

His various regiments . 4

1790. Enters the Irish Parliament . 6

The British Army at this period . 7

Its proficiency in musketry . 8-9

Condition of the soldier . 10

Condition of the officer . 11

1793. Outbreak of war with France . 14

Arthur Wellesley Colonel of the Thirty-third . . 15

1794. The regiment lands in the Low Countries . . .15

State of the army in the Low Countries . . . 16

The Commissariat and the Medical Service . . 19

The campaign of 1794 . 20

Retreat of the British to the Ems . 21

The lessons of the campaign . 21-23

Chapter II

1795. Arthur Wellesley embarks for the West Indies . 25

He is driven back twice by foul weather . . .25

1796. He embarks with the Thirty-third for India . . 27

1797. He is appointed to command an expedition to

Manila . 27

The expedition is recalled . 28

[Vii]

PAGH

1798. Lord Mornington comes Governor-General to India 29

State of the British service in India . . . 29-30

The danger from Tipu Sahib . 31—32

Arthur Wellesley acts as chief of staff to Morning-

ton . 32

1798-99. His preparations for the Mysore campaign . 33

1799. The advance upon Seringapatam .... 34-35

Arthur Wellesley’s mishap at Sultanpettah Tope . 37

His campaign against Dundia Wao . . . 39-41

1800. The expedition to Mauritius . 44

Wellesley carries his force to Bombay .... 46

Preparations for the expedition to Egypt ... 46

1801. Wellesley returns to his work in Mysore ... 48

1801-2. The nature of that work . 49

1802. The Balam campaign . 50

The Mahrattas . 52

Wellesley appointed to command a field-force . . 53

1803. His dash upon Poona . 54

His plans for a Mahratta campaign . . . 55-56

Strength of his army; the military situation . . 57

Capture of Ahmednagar . 59

Wellesley’s advance upon Assaye . 60

Battle of Assaye . 62-64

Battle of Argaum and siege of Gawilghur ... 66

Wellesley and Lake compared . 67-68

His work in India surveyed . 69-71

The impression that he made on his contemporaries 72

Chapter III

1805. Wellesley returns to England . 73

He sails with Cathcart’s expedition to the Weser . 73

[Viii]

PAGE

1805. Military changes since his absence in India . . 75

The changes in regimental courts-martial . . . 76

Moore’s camp at Shorncliffe; shrapnel shell . . 78

Wellesley’s marriage; he enters the House of

Commons . 79

Napoleon’s designs in Italy . 80

England’s lost opportunities in Italy . . . . 81

Maida and the South American expedition ... 82

1807. Wellesley becomes Chief Secretary for Ireland . 83

The Treaty of Tilsit . 85

Wellesley’s work at Dublin . 86-87

The expedition to Copenhagen . 89

Wellesley’s share in it . 89

Napoleon’s invasion of Portugal . 90

The British Ministry’s projects in South America 92

1808. Napoleon’s invasion of Spain; the Spanish in¬

surrection . 93

Aid given to it by General Spencer .... 94

Wellesley appointed to command a force in Portu¬ gal . 95

His preparations . 96

His arrival in the Peninsula . 99

The disembarkation on the Mondego . . . .100

His arrangements for transport and supply . .101

His advance to Rolifa . 103

Combat of Rolhja . 104

The position of Vimeiro . 105

Battle of Vimeiro . 106-107

The Convention of Cintra . 109

Wellesley returns to England . Ill

He is reappointed to the command in Portugal . 112

[ix]

PAGE

Chapter IV

1808. Events in the Peninsula . 115

1809. Moore’s raid on Napoleon’s communications . . 114

The Cabinet decides to prosecute operations in the

Peninsula . 116

Condition of the British Army at this time . 117— 118

Wellesley’s staff . 120-121

The Walcheren expedition . 121

Condition of the French in the Peninsula . . .121

Disunion of the French commanders . . . .125

Advantages of Wellesley . 125

, Situation of the French armies . 126

Wellesley marches on Oporto . 128

Passage of the Douro . 128-129

Disastrous retreat of Soult . 130

Preparations for a campaign jointly with the

Spaniards . 132

Position of the French armies in July .... 134 Wellesley marches with Cuesta eastward . . .135

They fall back on Talavera . 136

Battle of Talavera . 137—138

Retreat of Wellesley . 139

His campaign unduly hazardous . 140

His measures to protect Portugal . 142

He is created Viscount Wellington . 142

The French invasion of Andalusia . 144

1810. Napoleon’s plans to drive the British from the

Peninsula . 145

Wellington’s dispositions; the French advance . 146

Combat of the Coa . 148

Massena marches on Lisbon . 150

PAGB

1810. The position of Bussaco . 151

Battle of Bussaco . 152

Massena stopped by the lines of Torres Vedras . 152

He falls back to Santarem . 153

The French reinforced . 154

1811. Retreat of Massena . 156

Its disastrous nature . 157

Wellington’s anxieties . 158

His plans for the future . 159-160

CHAPTER V Wellington sends Beresford to besiege Badajoz . 161

Advance of Massena upon Almeida . 162

Battle of Fuentes de Onoro . 163—164

Escape of the garrison of Almeida . 165

Beresford’s battle with Soult at Albuera . . .166 Wellington again besieges Badajoz . . . .167 He concentrates on the Caia to meet the joint

forces of Soult and Marmont . 168

He blockades Ciudad Rodrigo; combat of El Bodon 170

Affair of Arroyo Molinos . 171

Napoleon’s new plans in the Peninsula . . .171

1812. Wellington besieges Ciudad Rodrigo . . 172-173

Consternation of Marmont at its fall . . . .174

Wellington besieges and storms Badajoz . . .176

Misbehaviour of the troops after the storm . .177

The affair of Almarez . 178

Wellington’s troubles . 179

His advance against Marmont . 181

Battle of Salamanca . 182

Wellington enters Madrid . 183

[Xi]

PAGE

1812. The siege of Burgos . 184

The French armies unite against Wellington . .184

His retreat to Ciudad Rodrigo . 186

Losses of French and British in 1812 . . 186-187

Wellington’s condemnatory general order . .188

Chapter VI

1813. Improvement of Wellington’s army . . . .189

Napoleon’s disaster in Russia . 189

Wellington’s advance to the Ebro . 191

Battle of Vitoria . 193

Soult placed in chief command of the French . .193

His counter-attack in the Pyrenees; Sorauren . . 194

He is driven back with heavy loss . 195

Storm of San Sebastian . 196

Wellington halts . 196

Battle of the Nivelle . 198

Battles of the Nive and St Pierre . . . 199-200

1814. Passage of the Adour . 201

Battle of Orthez . 201

Combat of Tarbes . 203

Battle of Toulouse . ... 204

End of the Peninsular War . 206

Reasons why its later phases are described briefly 206

Superiority of the British Army . 208

Its faults; and the faults of the French . . . 209

Triumph of Wellington’s system of discipline . .210

CHAPTER VII Wellington employed in diplomatic work at Madrid and Vienna . 213-214

[Xii]

PAGE

1815. Napoleon’s flight from Elba . 214

Wellington takes command in the Low Countries . 215

Description of his British troops . 216

The Dutch troops . 217

The Belgian troops . 218

Wellington’s staff . 220

The Prussian troops . 220-221

Napoleon’s army . 221

His plans . 221

Wellington’s difficulties . 222

Advance of Napoleon . 224

The Allies completely surprised . 225

Constant de Rebecque occupies Quatre Bras . . 227

Wellington joins him there on 16th June . . . 228

Confusion of Napoleon’s designs . 230

Battle of Quatre Bras . 230

The Prussians, beaten at Ligny, fall back on Wavre 231

The 16th of June a bad day for Napoleon . . 233

Wellington retreats to the position of Waterloo . 236

His uncertainty as to the prospect of a decisive

battle . 237

The numbers of both armies . 239

The battle of Waterloo . 240-242

The victory due wholly to Wellington .... 244

The advance to Paris and the treaty of peace . . 244

1815-18. Wellington commands the Army of Occupation

in France . 245

His good service to France . 246

Chapter VIII

1818. Wellington as Master-General of the Ord¬ nance . 247-248

[xiii]

PAGE

1826. He becomes Commander-in-Chief . 248

1827. He resigns the Commandership-in-Chief . . . 249

1828. He becomes Prime Minister . 250

His great knowledge of foreign politics . . .251

His ignorance of domestic politics . 252

His talents unfitted for Parliamentary government 253 His creation of the police . 254

1832. He withdraws his opposition to reform . . . 254

He becomes again a Cabinet Minister for a short

time . 255

1839. His first serious attack of illness . 256

1841. Again a Cabinet Minister . 257

Passes repeal of the Corn Laws . 258

1842. Again appointed Commander-in-Chief .... 259 1848. He is called in to advise as to the threatened

Chartist insurrection . 259

1852. 1st May: His last speech in public . 261

14th September: Death . 261

CHAPTER IX Wellington’s physical appearance . 263

Count Mole’s judgment upon him . 266

Advantages of his work in India . 267-268

His work in the Peninsula . 269-270

His military police . 271

His transport service . 272

His medical service . 273

His chaplains’ service . 273-274

His system of supporting generals, whether good or bad 276

The case of Colonel Willoughby Gordon . 276

His refusal ever to revoke a written censure .... 277

[xiv]

PAGE!

His wrath and his sarcasm . 278

His sympathy with younger officers . 279

His readiness to delegate command . 280

His merit as a tactician . 282

His handling of cavalry and artillery . 283

His tributes to British commanders in minor campaigns . 285

His three eminent pupils . 285

His work for the private soldier . 287

Deliberate neglect of his advice by Whig politicians . 287

His keenness as a regimental officer . 290

His maintenance of the lash . 290

The army too small for the Empire’s needs .... 292 The reasons for the British officers’ dislike of uniform:

Parliamentary hysterics . 293

Royal tailoring . 294

His opposition to changes in the administration of the

army . 296

His welcome to newly invented weapons . 296

His prejudice in favour of gentlemen for officers . . . 298

His gifts as a writer . 300

His impatience with the trifles of party government . 302

His openness to new ideas and inventions .... 304

His domestic habits . 305

His religious sense . 306

His love of music . 307

His preferences in painting . 308-309

His relations with women . 309-310

His friendships . 310

His contempt for decorations . 312

A lonely figure . 313

[XV]

ILLUSTRATIONS

Portrait of Wellington . Frontispiece

PAGE

Wellesley’s Campaigns in India . 30

The Iberian Peninsula . 90

The Low Countries . 216

Chapter I

The family of Wellesley appears to trace its origin to Devon, the name having passed from its primi¬ tive form of Westleigh through the corruptions of Westley and Wesley before it assumed, little more than a century ago, its present familiar shape. There is evidence that a Wellesley was already in Ireland in the thirteenth century. The family of Colley is conjectured to have come from Glouces¬ tershire; and a branch of it was settled in Ireland early in the sixteenth century. No man bearing either name seems to have attained to any great prominence in the Irish branch until, in 1746, Richard Colley of Castle Carbury, Kildare, was created a peer of Ireland. Having in 1728 suc¬ ceeded to the estates of his cousin, Garrett Wesley of Dangan and Mornington, in County Meath, he took the additional surname of Wesley, and chose for his title the Barony of Mornington. Upon his death he was succeeded by his son Garrett, who in 1760 was advanced in the peerage by the titles of Earl of Mornington and Viscount Wellesley. He is said to have owed his promotion to his musical talents, which commended him to the favour of George III, himself an enthusiast over music. Undoubtedly he possessed unusual gifts in the most emotional of the arts, and his name survives as the composer of double-chants and of one or two glees to this day.

This musical Lord Mornington married Anne Hill, daughter of Arthur, first Viscount Dungan¬ non, who bore him nine children: Richard, after¬ wards Marquess Wellesley, born in 1760; William, later Lord Maryborough, born in 1763; two sons, Arthur and Francis, who died in early boyhood; a daughter, Anne, born in 1768; Arthur, the future Duke of Wellington, born on some uncer¬ tain day at the very end of April or beginning of May 1769; Gerald, later a prebendary of Durham, bom in 1770; a second daughter, Mary, born in 1772, who died in 1794; and Henry, later Lord Cowley, born in 1773.

Lady Mornington is said to have been a cold and austere woman; but, if a portrait of her in old age can be trusted as a guide, she must have been remarkably beautiful, which would be enough to attract any Wellesley, let alone one with a touch of musical genius. In any case, if she spoiled any of her children, it must have been the eldest, a brilliant and beautiful boy: certainly it was not Arthur. We know little of Arthur’s childhood, but enough to be sure that it was not happy. He was not very strong physically, and was shy and unsociable. Possibly he was rather over¬ powered by his elder brothers, and he seems to have received no more sympathy from his sister than from his mother. He inherited his father’s love of music, and learned to play the violin with some skill; but his father died when the boy was twelve years old, and any kindly influence that may have flowed from him was lost. The lad was driven back upon himself ; and the key of his character became self-repression.

In the matter of education Arthur was sent first to a preparatory school at Chelsea and then to Eton ; but his mother’s means were too scanty to permit him to stay at Eton after his father’s death, and she took him away with her to Brussels, where he received private tuition. Lady Mornington then decided that her “ugly boy” was fit food for powder, and in 1786 she sent him to a military academy, which was principally a riding-school, at Angers. Here he remained for about a year, when, through the interest of his brother, Lord Mornington, he obtained a commission as ensign in the

Seventy-third Highlanders, then serving in India. So far he had learned at least to speak and write French, if not with perfect idiomatic correctness, at least with facility and resolution, and to acquire a rather ugly seat on a horse.

Within six months of donning the red coat, in November 1787, he was appointed aide-de-camp to two Lords-Lieutenant of Ireland, first the Duke of Buckingham and later Lord Westmorland, remaining on that staff until March 1793. Mean¬ while, as was the fashion in those days, he passed rapidly from regiment to regiment in the way of promotion. On the 25th of December 1787 he was advanced to a lieutenancy into the Seventysixth Foot, which was just coming to birth as one of four new regiments raised for service in India. By this manoeuvre, no doubt, he obtained his lieutenancy without purchase, but, as he had no wish to proceed to India, he exchanged on the 23rd of January 1788 into the Forty-first, then in process of transformation from a corps of Invalids into a regular regiment of the Line, and therefore also containing a few subalterns who had not bought their commissions. Finally, on the 25th of June in the same year, he was transferred to the Twelfth Light Dragoons, whereby he secured the convenience of belonging to a regiment which was, and indeed for nearly seventy years had been, quartered in Ireland. On their muster-rolls he remained for three years, until on the 30th of June 1791 he obtained a company in the Fifty-eighth Foot, once again apparently without purchase and possibly by the favour of the Lord-Lieutenant, for the Fifty-eighth was on the Irish establishment. On the 31st of October 1792 he was transferred to the Eighteenth Light Dragoons, also quartered in Ireland at that time, and so accomplished his sixth change of regiments within five years.

Whether he did regimental duty with any of these corps is extremely doubtful. Some of them perhaps he never joined nor even saw, but he probably presented himself at the depot of the Seventy-third, and he certainly was for a time with the Fifty-eighth. It may have been there that he caused a private to be weighed, with and without his kit and accoutrements, so as to judge of the burden that the soldier was expected to carry. There, too, he may have mastered his drill before he betook himself to Dublin Castle; but, once within those precincts, it is unlikely that he entered a barrack-yard again. Meanwhile, life on the staff of the Lord-Lieutenant can hardly have been congenial to a shy and sheepish young man. He varied it by entering the Irish Parlia¬ ment as member for the borough of Trim in 1790, and is said to have won popularity among his constituents by his excellent temper, his firmness, and his amiable manners. The experience was doubtless of value to him; but meanwhile the life was expensive, and his private income did not exceed ,£125 a year. It is said that he ran into debt, and that his chief, Lord Buckingham, came to his assistance; and it is certain that to the end of his life he showed particular affability to the Grenvilles and to their relations. A more serious matter was that he fell in love with Lady Katherine Pakenham, and became engaged to her, though lack of means upon both sides forbade them marry. Altogether the first five years of his life as a soldier were passed in a fashion which would by no means commend itself to a modern commanding officer.

And yet it must be said for him that there was little that was attractive in the military profession at that period. For the British soldier, the ten years that intervened between the end of the American rebellion and the beginning of the war of the French Revolution were among the very worst in history. In the first place, the army had returned

' [6]

from America defeated and discredited. The war had been enormously costly, and the first and most natural economy was to reduce the military forces to the lowest possible strength. This would have signified less if any pains had been taken to maintain their efficiency, whatever their numerical ■weakness; but, on the contrary, they were allowed to fall absolutely to pieces. The pay of the pri¬ vate soldier was literally insufficient to keep him from starvation, and the result was that recruits could hardly be obtained, or, if beguiled into accepting the shilling, deserted immediately. In Ireland, particularly, the average number of de¬ serters amounted to one-sixth of the whole estab¬ lishment. Thus, weak though the regiments would have been even if their ranks had been filled, they were weaker still from want of recruits. In other words, the officers had no men to command. It must be remembered, too, that regiments were rarely kept together in those days. In England there were, except in a few fortresses — such as the Tower, — no barracks, and the men were billeted in small bodies, often no more than troops or com¬ panies, in the ale-houses of provincial towns. In Ireland there were barracks, but these were mostly small and widely distributed, so as to enable the

m troops to do the work of police. In either country it might take a colonel a day’s journey to visit the whole of his regiment. Thus there was every facility for slackness on the part of the officers, and every difficulty in the way of a commander who disapproved of such slackness.

Moreover, there were plenty of colonels who gave themselves no trouble about their regiments; and, despite of periodic inspections by generals, it was almost impossible to stir such commanding officers into activity. A colonel was the proprietor of his regiment, having paid hard cash for it, and, within certain limits, did very much what was right in his own eyes. Even in the matter of drill no uniform¬ ity was enforced until March 1792. A colonel might be an able and enthusiastic soldier who gave his men training that was far in advance of his time, or he might be a hard-thinking old dullard who was quite content if his battalion could blunder through the prescribed movements somehow. At the best, all that was expected of a battalion or a regiment of cavalry was extreme precision of drill with, in the case of the infantry, very exact per¬ formance of the manual and firing exercise. With the old musket the average number of misfires was forty per cent.; and only extraordinary care in loading could keep that average below fifty or sixty per cent. For this reason good commanders worked to make the business of loading a matter of mechanical habit, so that their men should go through it as coolly in the heat of action as on parade ; but even so the first volley, which had been loaded carefully before the engagement, was jeal¬ ously husbanded, for it was bound to be more effective than any that should subsequently be fired.

But here it must be noted that in respect of musketry the British were far ahead of any army in Europe. During the War of American In¬ dependence they had been called upon to meet an elusive enemy, who had carried marksmanship in civil life to a high degree of perfection; and they had been obliged to adapt themselves to that enemy’s tactics. The result had been not only great improvement in shooting, but a definite and far-reaching change in tactical formation. Hith¬ erto the British infantry, even as all the infantry of Europe, had been drawn up three ranks deep for action, the front rank kneeling and the two rear ranks firing over their heads. In America the British soon learned to fight in two ranks only, frequently also loosening their formation to encounter scattered sharp-shooters in woodland fight¬ ing. This formation in double rank, though not laid down by regulation, became the rule after the end of the war, and it signified the very im¬ portant fact that, given an equal number of men, the British front of fire was longer than that of any other nation. The soundness of the lessons learned in America had been tested against F rench regular troops in St Lucia in 1778. There thirteen hundred British soldiers, fresh from active service in America, repulsed twelve thousand French, inflicting upon them a loss of four hundred killed and twelve hundred wounded. This in itself was a notable performance, but the engagement pre¬ sented one very remarkable feature. At the height of the action the British ammunition failed, and it was thought best to reserve the one or two rounds left to each man for a final effort. The order was therefore given to cease fire, and it was instantly obeyed. Men who had their muskets to their shoulders and their fingers on the trigger in all the heat of combat, brought their weapons down with¬ out hesitation undischarged. I know of no finer example of fire-discipline in all military history; and no doubt it was quoted as such in the army.

This was the supreme achievement of military training over the very rude material of which the British Army was composed. That better material should be obtained under existing conditions was not to be expected. In barracks the men were infamously housed, being huddled together by fours in wooden cribs to sleep, and having only their sleeping-rooms in which to do everything but their drill. They drank hard, as did every class at that time, and they could buy fiery spirits in the barrack-yard ; it being judged impossible to prevent them from smuggling liquor into their quarters, and therefore a less evil to permit them to purchase it. There was no encouragement to good behav¬ iour ; and one principal punishment, merciless flog¬ ging, was inflicted for misconduct. They were, on the other hand, always officers who sought, and with great success, to rule their men with kindness and consideration; but their great difficulty was that they could not afford to rid themselves of bad characters. A soldier was enlisted for life, and, if he were discharged, he must be replaced, which was a matter of expense to the officers, for the country did not grant bounty enough to attract recruits. In 1790, for instance, an alarm of war with Spain led to sudden augmentation of the army. The Treasury offered a bounty of five guineas ; but the actual price of recruits rose to fifteen guineas. Hence officers were obliged by sheer penury to keep not only undesirable men, but decrepit old veterans who could hardly stand on their legs and were utterly useless except on parade. It was not that they wilfully defrauded their country, but that the Treasury, by its extreme niggardliness, forced such fraud upon them.

And the officers had other grievances, of which the most serious was that they were wholly under civil control. There was no Commander-in-Chief, only a civilian Secretary at War, who, as was natural, conducted all his business with the main object of securing votes. There were an Adjutant- General and a Quartermaster- General, who, tech¬ nically, were on the immediate staff of the King; but there was no one to press upon Ministers the grievances and the requirements of officers and men. Apart from the prohibitive expense of re¬ cruits, the pay of subalterns of cavalry was, owing to the high price of forage, scarcely equal to the maintenance of their servants and their horses; and the result was that vacant cornetcies could not be filled. The pay of an officer gave him only an absurdly trifling sum over and above the interest on the price of his commission ; and it was too much to expect that gentlemen should invest money in a dead loss. The Adjutant- General in vain pressed the hard case both of these subalterns and of the private soldier upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer. But William Pitt, who was busy with the task of putting the finances of the country on a sound basis — in itself a transcendent service, — turned a deaf ear. In 1792 he did improve the position of the private soldier so far as not only to deliver him from starvation, but actually to allow him the munificent sum of a trifle under one penny one farthing a day; but this he did at the cost of leaving the subalterns unrelieved. The general result of Pitt’s parcimony and of civilian control of the army was that discipline among the officers was extremely bad. Colonels could not be hard upon their officers for not keeping the ranks of their companies full, when they literally could not afford to pay the cost of recruits; and a subaltern took little account of his military superiors when, if he were refused leave of absence by them, he could obtain it, through political influence, directly from the Secretary at War.

Such, very briefly, was the state of the army, or rather of the group of self-dependent regiments which was called the army, when Arthur Wellesley joined it, and when the war of the French Revolu¬ tion and Empire began. By the end of 1792 the revolutionary government of F ranee, having landed the country in bankruptcy, set out to indemnify itself by the plunder of its neighbours; and Hol¬ land, rich in money but absolutely effete in govern¬ ment and military efficiency, was their first object. Though Pitt counted upon the destruction of French trade over sea as the surest means of vanquishing France, and, to that end, sent most of the meagre British battalions to the West Indies, he could not refuse a small contingent to join the Austrians in driving the French out of the Austrian Netherlands, and in thus saving not only the bank of Amsterdam but the port of Ant¬ werp from falling into French hands. War was declared on the 7th of February 1793, and by the end of March two weak brigades, one of the Guards, the other of the Line, had been landed in Holland, to serve, together with a contingent of Hanoverians and hired Hessians, under the Duke of York, subject to the supreme direction of an Austrian Commander-in-Chief.

In that same month of March Arthur Wellesley begged his elder brother, Mornington, to advance him the money for purchase of a majority in the

Thirty-third. Mornington did so, afterwards re¬ fusing to accept repayment; and Arthur, having become major on the 30th of April, was further promoted lieutenant-colonel, with command of the regiment, on the 30th of September. As to the condition of the Thirty-third at the time we know nothing, but, if it were not weak in numbers, it must have been full, in common with all other regiments, of bad recruits. Meanwhile, the cam¬ paign of 1793 in the Low Countries had been wrecked by the failure of the Duke of York’s siege of Dunkirk, a fatuous operation which had been forced upon him by Ministers in the hope of mak¬ ing the war popular. The campaign of 1794, after a brilliant little success or two, went even worse. The Austrians deliberately exposed the Duke of York’s troops to certain defeat at the Battle of Tourcoing ( 18th of May) in order to give themselves an excuse for evacuating the Nether¬ lands. By the middle of June they had already left the British contingent in isolation on the Scheldt; and the British war minister, whose one idea of conducting operations was to hold on tightly to the port of Ostend, hurried thither three regiments from Ireland, the Thirty-third among them, together with eight more battalions and a large body of drafts — in all, about ten thousand men — under Lord Moira. The first batch of these reinforcements reached Ostend on the 21st of June; on the 25th the Thirty-third disembarked after a passage of nineteen days from Cork; and on the 26th arrived the remainder of the troops, together with Moira himself.