not a single original treatise on sieges; all our knowledge of the subject is at tained from foreign writers, and their maxims, whether well or ill adapted to the physical and moral powers of our men, are implicitly followed. Many British officers, at different periods, acquire much knowledge and experience in the art; but, as they never communicate that knowledge to the public, it dies with them; and each succeeding generation is obliged to acquire its skill without a guide, and at the expence of much blood and trea sure to the country. Thus it happens that there is no general understanding on the subject, and no acknowledged authority, as in other arts, on which to rely. Hence also there are no rules nor regulations for the conduct of an English siege: Each officer, according to his abilities and experience, regulates the attack; no note nor memorandum of any former operation is ever produced, to direct and guide the assailant in future; the errors and the skill displayed in all prior attacks are alike buried in oblivion, and each succeeding siege is conducted without experience.

Besides the general impression al-, ready mentioned, that the science of defence has of late received some great improvement, the events of the sieges in Spain have given rise to opinions peculiar to the British army. Among these may be enumerated the false notions that great loss and uncertainty are inherent to the operations of a siege; that the French possess superior knowledge in the art of defence; that they fight better behind walls than in the field; and that the English are not fitted for such undertakings. These notions, however, seem to be totally unfounded; and the defects of our military establishments alone, not an inferiority in the art, gave rise to the occurrences on which they are grounded.

The happy insular situation of Great Britain, and her maritime superiority, have diverted the attention of British officers from this art, and the service connected with it. The expeditionary mode of warfare adopted during the greater part of the last century, contributed greatly to the same result; and so much has the establishment for sieges been overlooked, that the corps of officers who are kept in pay for the professed object of attacking and defending fortresses, have always been without the necessary assistance to render them efficient.

If we look back to the commencement of the war in 1793, we shall find the infantry, cavalry, and artillery, all equally inferior; but in the course of service, their several defects were observed and remedied, and those three arms are now superior to any in existance. It happened that in the course of fifteen years of war, the English never attempted any great siege, and the deficiencies of the establishments for that service, were not so apparent ; nothing was done, therefore, to improve them; and at the commencement of the campaigns in the peninsu-. la, the engineer department was the same as it had been previously to the war. The first sieges undertaken in Spain shewed its numerous deficiencies; some of which have since been remedied, but many improvements are yet required, to render that arm equally efficient with the others. Such perfection, however, it may be hoped, will ultimately be attained, from the exertions which have been made to effect it.

The superior courage of the officers and soldiers of the British army is too well known and established ever to be questioned. Their feats in arms are too numerous and brilliant ever to be forgotten; and their fame is top firmly fixed for them to wish that their failures should be concealed.

prove

The radical fault of the sieges in Spain has arisen from our not carrying the works sufficiently forward to close with the enemy; and a little reflection will that every miscarriage, and all the losses sustained, may be traced to this source. To rectify this defect, therefore, and to introduce a closer mode of attack, is the object which claims the chief attention. Should we be prepared at all future sieges to gain the ground inch by inch, till securely posted on the summit of the ramparts, the hitherto constant evils attendant on such operations would be remedied, and the just rules of attack would be scrupulously observed.

The system of making a breach from a distance, and of hazarding all on the valour of the troops, rather than insuring success by their labour, has become habitual to the British army. They have in this way generally succeeded in their colonial wars, where the nature of the climate justified such a mode of attack, delay being often more fatal than repulse. The extreme hazard of such a proceeding is not so apparent, therefore, to the English as to the people of other nations.-The authority of history, as well as the evidence of recent events, is against such a mode of attack; and it has been entirely abandoned by the great continental powers in their operations against French garrisons since the modified or donnance of 1705, (commanding governors to stand at least one assault in the body of the place,) has been enforced; before that period the practice was pretty general, and, when resisted, was usually attended with the same results as at present.

In the 16th, and beginning of the 17th centuries, the art of disposing the different works of a fortress, so as to cover each other, and to be covered by the glacis from the view of an enemy, was either unknown or disregarded. Artillery was then little used, on ac

count of the great expence and difficulty of bringing it up. The chief care of those who fortified towns, was, by height of situation, and lofty walls, to render them secure from escalade; and places built prior to that period are invariably of such construction. The simplicity of the places to be attacked gave the same character to the operation itself; and every thing was then effected by desperate courage, without the aid of science; but when the use of artillery became more common, such exposed walls could no longer oppose a moderate resistance, even to the imperfect mode of attack which was then practised; and to restore an equality to the defence, it became necessary to screen the garrison from distant fire. The attempt was scarcely made, when the genius of one man, (Vauban,) perfected a new system, which gave to the defence of towns a superiority over the attack, by rendering them unassailable by all open efforts, such as were at that time practised.

Unfortunately for mankind, Vauban afterwards served a prince bent on conquest; and, turning his great talents to the aid of his master, he, with an unhappy facility, in a few campaigns, perfected a covered mode of attack, by a combination of science and labour, which rendered easy to the steady advances of a few brave men, the reduction of places capable of defying for ever the open violence of multitudes. Since that period all the continental powers have made such men an integral part of their armies, and they have thus rendered the success of their attacks on strong places nearly certain. England, however, remained alone for one hundred years without imitating her rivals; and hence it is that in the 19th century, her generals were driven to the same hazardous expedients for reducing places as those of Philip the Second, in the 16th. Had a British army, under these circum

stances, been opposed to a place fully covered, according to the modern system, all its efforts to reduce it would have been unavailing, and no period of time, nor sacrifice of men, would have effected the object.

Since the introduction of science, there is, perhaps, no military undertaking so certain in its results, as the reduction of a fortified place; every other military event is in some degree governed by chance, but the result of a siege is matter of sure calculation. The art of attack has been rendered so much superior to that of defence, that no artificial work can resist beyond a limited time; bravery and conduct will serve a little to retard its fall, but cannot long prevent it. Shells, and an enfilade fire à ricochet, are irresistible -the timid and the brave alike fall before them. Such certainty in a siege, however, depends on an exact adherence to the rules of art; and when these are departed from, all becomes confusion ;-time, life, and success, are then put to imminent hazard. To this cruel alternative it is apparent that Lord Wellington has been driven in all his attacks, from the want of means and of a due establishment to carry into effect his own more just ideas.

It is time, therefore, that we should mature our infant establishments ;that our officers should study the theory of attack, and our soldiers be instructed in the details. If a period of, peace is duly improved, we shall attain such perfection, that, in the next contest, there will be no plea for a recurrence to former modes of attack ;wherever adequate armaments can act, knowledge will be united to physical power; and sieges being carried on by the British army with science equal to its bravery, they will be rendered certain, simple, and comparatively bloodless.

It must ever be recollected, that no exertion of science or bravery will be

availing unless seconded by powerful means in artillery, stores, and materials. The want of these, particularly of the latter, deeply injured the operations in Spain; and was, without doubt, a principal cause of their uncertainty. But, as on most occasions the siege establishments, even in the peninsula, were unequal to a full use of the other means, if provided, such deficiencies have not been much regarded. Nothing is more certain than that the reduction of a town must be paid for either in materials or men, as the one or the other shall be made the chief sacrifice. It must be remembered, however, that every saving in the former has the double inconvenience of an additional expenditure of time as well as of life. In Spain, a combination of unfavourable circumstances occasioned a great sacrifice of life at the sieges; an exhausted country without carriage-an engineer's department without a driver, horse, or waggon belonging to it-a superior enemy in the field, and a consequent necessity for secrecy-all these circumstances combined to prevent the British army from receiving due supplies. It is improbable, however, that such complicated difficulties should again occur; and as many of them may be removed by care and attention in the outset, the sieges which may in future be undertaken by our armies will be brought to a speedy and more prosperous conclusion.

As many of the impediments to success in Spain were either local, or such as may easily be avoided in future, to acquire immediate efficiency in carrying on sieges, nothing remains but to obviate the imperfection of our mode of attack. We must learn to aid bravery by science, and to gain by labour whatever is denied to force. It is satisfactory to observe how slight the changes are which will be required to place the army on an efficient footing. When this shall be effected, and the close

mode of attack pursued, we may hail the commencement of a siege as the sure forerunner of a national triumph. To carry on a siege we possess advantages far greater than the French, and other continental nations ;-our soldiers are stronger and braver than theirs,—our instruments of attack are better, and in quantity of ammunition, stores, artillery, &c. how can they come into competition with us, who can convey them to their destination by water, with little trouble or expence, whilst among our enemies every thing must move by a tedious and expensive land-carriage, from arsenals in

the interior? It is not, therefore, too much to conclude, that, so soon as the superior courage and force of our men shall be seconded by the superior means we have it usually in our power to supply, and when, by scientific direction, as much benefit shall be drawn from their labour as from their bravery, the British soldiers must prove superior to any in Europe, in besieging a fortress; but so long as the present imperfect mode of attack continues to be followed, any covered work will seriously impede it, and may prove an insurmountable obstacle to the best and bravest efforts of the assailants.

FROM the brilliant career of the allies in the north of Spain, we must now turn to the operations which took place on the eastern coast of the peninsula. In Catalonia and Valencia the French still maintained a very large force, and were in possession of numerous fortresses, some of which ranked among the strongest in Europe. Suchet, who commanded this force, occupied a position in front of Valencia, at St Phillippe, on the line of the Xucar. -The allies, on the other hand, had collected a very considerable force in and near Alicant. Several British and native regiments had been withdrawn from Sicily; and a large force collected from the population of the neighbouring provinces had been organized in the Balearic islands, under British officers. This corps could act in combination with the second Spanish army under General Elio, which was drawn up along the frontiers of Murcia. The troops remained, however, in a state of inaction till the middle of April, when the Anglo-Sicilian army, under Sir John Murray, left Alicant, and advanced to Castella: General Elio, at the same time, took post at

Yesla and Villena. It appears, however, that these different corps had not been in a state of proper combination; and Suchet soon discovered the advantage which might be derived from this oversight. Collecting his whole disposeable force, he, on the 11th of April, attacked the corps of General Elio, unsupported by the rest of the allies; drove it, with some loss, from Yesla, and, having invested the castle of Villena, compelled that place, with its garrison of 1000 men, to surrender next day at discretion. Having thus succeeded against the Spanish army, he proceeded to the attack of the British positions; and, on the 12th, at noon assailed their advanced posts at Biar. The resistance was vigorously maintained against superior force for five hours; and the troops at length fell back upon the main body, only in compliance with the orders of General Murray. Suchet, however, not disheartened by this reception, proceeded, on the following day, to attack the position at Castella, where the British were concentrated. At noon on the 13th, after having displayed all his cavalry, he advanced a corps of 2000 in