Their agents in the Peninsula were men singularly unfitted for the
position. Then the Government divided the commands among their generals
and admirals, sending to each absolutely contradictory orders, and when at
last they brought themselves to appoint one to the supreme command, they
changed that commander six times in the course of a year. While lavishing
enormous sums of money, arms, clothing, and materials of war upon the
Spaniards, who wasted or pocketed them, they kept their own army
unsupplied with money, transport, or clothes. Unsupported by the home
authorities, the British commanders had yet to struggle with the
faithlessness, mendacity, and inertness of the Portuguese and Spanish
authorities, and were hampered with obstacles such as never beset a
British commander before. Still, in spite of this, British genius and
valour triumphed over all difficulties, and Wellesley delivered Lisbon and
compelled the French army to surrender.
Then again, Moore, by his marvellous march, checked the course of victory
of Napoleon and saved Spain for a time. Cradock organized an army, and
Wellesley hurled back Soult's invasion of the north, and drove his army, a
dispirited and worn-out mass of fugitives, across the frontier, and in
less than a year from the commencement of the campaign carried the war
into Spain.
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