Star. — London, England, 1815-01-28 00:00:00

fiat t 4;„ 7,h was the:eitsirtist dell/hen he discovereJ 4 ,,d saw the impossibility of 'access. To the second, tl,it t he intelligence which he wits StOUCV accesed'of h , li e v•itg and disregarding, vas reeeieed between the 7 ,h 3 nd the lt2th, he begged leave m draw the auto eidit of the Court. • It was important that the time should be more correctly and precisely stated, because f!i: degree of guilt must naturally depend not only on t h e length of time which he remained, but on the distance of the enetny. ror instance, supposing the intelligence to have reached hint on the 7th, he might be found guilty of lying idle for four days, and if the aut hentic intefirgetsci readied hibt on the' 1 lth at r i g h t , by deferring•Oideri for embarltatkm A next morning, no great degree of blame could be attached to him. But he needed not this indulgente s for he +could prove, not only that he gave the necessary ..:rdas for embarkation On the night of the llth, but ;,e could prove by the Return et Lieutenant-Colonel W i lliamson, that so far from being. idle, twenty-six p;cCCS of artillery were re-embarked during that right and the morning of the 12th. As the Jittlge Advrcate had not had it in .his power to put the Court in possession of the first authentic intelligence of the movemmts of the enemy, he would now give this information, and tallow to the view of the Court the %%hale grounds of bit conduct at that period. )!e knew to a certainty, even before the 7th, that strong detachments of the enemy bid arrived at Tot. toss ; but this proved nothing, at that placerequired reinforcements. On the Bth, all doubt as to Mar shal Sorbet's march to the northward was removed. On the =Tiling of that day a messenger arrived Irons Valencia, dispatched by one of our most confidential agents, with the certain intelligence that 9000 men h o rn San Phelippe, and the banks of the Xucar, had quieted Valencia, and that the Marshal himself on the 7th, had followed them. The late political change in Spain fortunately enabled him to mention the name of the meritorous individual who furnished the infor mation, Don Vicente Larente, Inspector of the Bota nic::) Garden under the French Government, at Va. leneia. The original note was still in his possession, and would be laid before the Court, together with _a cert;ticate of the payment of the boat conveying this impost int messenger. With respect to the Irench army, under General De Caen, it was rumoured, 'in deed, to be in movement, but could he ever have ex pected that it would not be united, and that his move able columns would have remained divided at Ge rona, Poizcerda, and Barcelona, unconcerned spec tators of the arrival of an army in the province He knew, however, that it was not assembled on the Bth, and that it had not reached Ilarcelona on the evening of the 9th ; on the evening of the 10th, be learned, that by forced marches it. had reached the Lelbregat, and that it was advancing with rapidity. This in-' telligence was given him by General Cowan. whose division he found in movement at Reuss, about four o'clock on that day. In one of his dispatches he had said that the expecta tion of reinforcements was one of the reasons which induced him to continue the siege; this expatiation certainly had some weight, and had the reinforce ments arrived, the result might bare been different. This reinforcement, promised by Lord W. Bentind in his letter of the 9th, w.O to sail in ten days, cow sisted of the 44th regiment, and 'the kith battalion of the German Legion, together 2000, besides a c derable numbereffihe 4tali m LAW/ aid troops; upon the whole, nearly 3000, and a regiment' of cava lry, which 1 thought would have augmented• niy force. Lord W. Bentinck had good grounds to change his intention, but of that change he (Sir J. Murray) was not aware till afterwards —3OOO men at that period would have been invaluable : he had a right to expect them, and, in case of their arrival, he had determined on an actiOn, and, indeed, was ready to seek it with either of the enemy's columns with the force he then had ; and though the reinforcements would not have placed him on a. par with both the ct.lumns, it would have given • him a superiority over c;:leer, and enabled him to prevent the junction of the two forces. Sir .1. Murray apologised for the length of his ea. dress, but begged permission to re-state the, points he had endeavoured to establish. He then recapitulated the chief points of his defence, sold proceeded to state that he was aware at the time, of the risk he incurred in continuing operations after.the Sth, and asked what military operations were free from them Every battle is a risk, and the expedition itself was nothing more than a risk. The greateit act of a good General is to risk with jadvitent, taking care de; the risk is not arpal to the object attempted; he applied this to the c.be in question, and said he had only risked a few stores and some hoe gnni, her the chance of accom. plidiing two of the objects of the Duke of ,Welling. ton, besides other objects of inferior importance, the ugh by no Means trivial. He bad run this risk, wtetlier with judgment •or not the Omit wield de termine, but at all events he did it with deliberation, and with a perfect sense Of the dtingey to which he vas exposed—but if such a consideration could have influenced his conduct, he shankd richly have deserved the censure of tbeCourt ; such mete his views of the 11)ject, and the line of conduct he bid adopted, in his hatable opinion, with a view less to the success of an individ ua l object than to the accomphsheseat of the plan of the Duke of Wellington; Ind therefore be contended that his conduct was not unmilitarb anJ to far from being in opposition to his 111111ftled000) it was not only in the Spirit, bet even is conformity' to the very letter of those instructions- Although lie felt satisfied that he Stood fully acquitted, and that the charge Was entirely disproved, yet the deft. nceheielt due to the Court, and the regard due to li;s own character, induced him to enter more at length into the subject, and to state the motives ,ch he was actuated throughout the operation.-- ''inn his instructions, it *as evident that the siege I.nragona had two objects in view—first, the cap !re ( i the place ; and, secondly, such a diversion in foray of the Duke del Parque, es would enable Mien 11) hare the line of the Xucar, and front thence pods llitristlf of th e ki ng d om o f Valencia. Such being his 'n'w (1 the case, he had no difficulty in landing with 41 Ow expedition Which the weather would permit; 4 nd he believed that every thing that was lost was on shnre before the lOth, even if ,it had beenp roved tkot e then d espa i re d o f success. . Th e charge wai " for I4 l'd!n, and permitting to remain on shore when i nded " The latter pail of the charge he had ne .esit at i on i n admitting ; but no evidencehad been ad* doted to prove that any g uns had been landed thee the 10 1 h. 11e would co nfine himself, therefore; le .. • permlft . . ngi • the skillet& and street to reel • ' Sh ' :He hoped be had 'stile iently dentonstea a ted in , on tharlt e ; never easy. till the nigheof tWe 11th, any physical impossibility of success, *ad, no necessity for em barkation could therefore, till then, occur to him. It was only on the morning of the 6th that the first batteries were opened on the Puerte Real. On the 7th, in the evening, another battery w as cons t ructe d, which opened its fire on the morning of the Bth ; and on the evening of that day the first batteries, which were to play upon the body of die place, consisting of ten pieces of cannon, were commenced. They opened their fire on the morning of the 11th. Here, then, were no marks of desponding ; and while theie works were going on, it would hardly be that auy of theßuns should be embarked. O n the night of (he siege being raised, even fresh works would have been began, and probably completed. In fact, pros pects or success were held out to the last. He ac knowledged that he had been taught to expect Same.. thing from the character of the Governor ; but it was but justice to that officer, however, to state, that the information which he received upon this sub ject was false, no reasonable hopes of success being deducible from that officer's conduct. . Sir John Murray then proceeded to contend, that from the opinion of Colonel Thackery, as well as front other circumstances, he was perfectly justified In not despairing of success....-a feeling - ill which be was upheld by the letter of his instructions, from which he was expeited to posh the experiment, as to time, to the utmost extremity, "censistently with the safety oT the army. With these facts in view, he would ask, if he had given up the siege en the 7th, or even the 9th, how he could have answered to hii Excellency, or to the country, for not having made the experiment ? He had then no certain knowledge I of the advance and near approach of Marshal Suchet; and he, therefore, could not on those days have adopted so unwise and so pusillanimous a line of conduct . ; he could have no motive for it but the fear of clamour, and a dread of the responsibility which such elamour might occasion. He hoped he was above such fears; and that he had, in the conscien tious discharge of his duty, unhesitatingly exposed himself to all the illiberal and unfounded attacks which had been made upon s him, was now clearly established. It appeared th at Marshal Suchet, knoW ing the importance of the positions be occupied, clung to them to the last ; that he did not quit Valencia till the 7th, and his troops did not reach Tortosa.till the 10th. Now if he (Sir John Murray) had commen ced embarkation on the 7th, or even on the Bth or 9th, what would have been. the conduct~ of Marshal Su- ebet ? He Wight boldly affirm, that he would in stantly have retraced his steps, and again have esta blished himself at Megente and San Pbillippe.— This, however, would not have been the only misfor tune : for the Duke del Parque would have been immediately opposed to the whole weight of the enemy's force. If be defended the position of Cis calla. he would 'inevitably have been defeated, and in all probability would have had great difficulty to (stoma the total dispersion of his army. Under all these circumstances, the importance of drawing Marshal Suchet's army to the wettest pos !ibis distance from the Spanish corps, was most evi t ; in fact, the further the Marshal could be drawn 1 the Xucar, the geeater .. egm.he _prebalehty aid E n ' Allied Army returning ti time to support the Duke del Parque—whilst the more harassing the March became, and the longer Suchet was detained 0 Catalonia, the less chance was there of his having either the inclination or the power to retire from it., -lifting the advanced position which the grand army under the personal command of his. Excellency the _Commander of the Forces, was daily acquiring on his flank. A precipitate abandonment of the siege might have produced consequences no less unfortu nate, in the eastern extremity of the province—inas much as the co-operation of Lord Exmouth had been required, to make a diversion in favour of the forces ;At Tarragona. by an attack upon the .Bay of Roses. And as his Lordship had been engaged in this expe. dim., he (Sir John Murray) felt himself bound in honour, as well as in duty, not to expose him to ha esard, which could be avoided ; and he felt it no less prudent to await the event, and to profit by the con tequences, which he conceived, must infallibly have resulted from this operation. Had Lord Exmouth's force been crippled, then indeed would the clamour have been formidable, and it would have become more forcible as his (Sir Jogn's) conscience would have told. him it was just. Had the plan been his stern, he Might have acted as he pleased ; but as that was not the case, and as the success of the plan depended on his rem7ining . aa long as possible before Tarragona, he had no choice of action *left. Up to the 1 lth, there was no phy sical imereeticability in conducting the siege, al though there might be something d to apprehend, but there was nothing to excite despair : the enemy was in march only on one flank, end, under such cir cumstances, he would -not ,have beet justified in abandoning the siege. later the assurance that he had , given the Duke oflVellington, thit he Would perse. ievere till the last; besides clue advance of the enetny was not unexpected, or calculated to excite his alarm - From the advance of the enemy there was cause of anxiety, but be would not admit that it was ground of despair. While Marshal Suebee was on his march, he {Sir J. M. ) determined to attack the column of Decatch and took steps for the Measure. Despondency formed no part of his feelings, or he should hot have cons. milted himself in such decisive operations. At nine he o'clock on the night of the I ith, obtained infor mation that Suchet was on his march from Tortosa, and then, and not till then,' lie thought it would he ~the height of temerity and folly to perseyere,in the siege. The physical iitiP°Well ty thee , became ap parent, and ail hope of fti#ineser thee , va nished. Nothing more was to'be Cemewith Suchet, aiio then he gave the necessary yet** for the em barkation. lf necessaryit should be orders that he afterwards lie xtOpps and 'torch he must bit foetid guilty of th e proved or steps t o save t he char e. S 9 long as he considered ,himselt op.. only to Decaen's force , he determined to the, intentioe. on hear- , attack it, and only gave up _...,. , 1 Suchet. , He did not abett ing of the march OSu . f " the don the siege till, in the words ' 9 Such e t, . i fists of his army covering the heights, conveyed. rs illigence of.his approtch. ' Tin then the elliedartni 'had not hive abandoned the siege without diseahri the Cbondabder atftd alit whole &tip I a, ..o, .. ,_ Ift.:o fib CH AO.. ! The' Wow u .the Second .Cliaxge . was I toed into. The accusations contaiturd re this Cho get rpriseil atmuch as they, astpnishill General Matra). ! het First Charge w a s - more of . a pUblic nature, as related to wh at m i g h t be de eme d- a f a a ur e irl Judgment. But this Charge morel immediately applied in a personal point of view, as it charged him ,with direct disobedience- of orders—an im putation of error might be borne, but the charge a disobedience of positive orders could not be admitted. It was a charge which had never en tered in his mind--in v ai n b a d h e p eruse d o ver find -over again the instructions, of the Duke of 'Wel lington, to discover in what part he had. neglected or disobeyed them—stilt he found no order there which he bid disobeyed. The charge accused hint of a ne- Ikact of duty, and with dis ibedience of orders, in not soambarking the troops after the taking of the Col de adapter, and going to the relief of the armies in VA fiencia. These charges he most peremptotily denied ; there was no order to embark the army even after the siege of Tarragona should be raised. Before those charges could b e proved against him, it was neces. sary to prove that the written orders of the Duke .of Wellington had been disobeyed. To those charges his : defence would be made on three grounds, al tholigh it would be a good legal defence if he only proved that he had not disobeyed any written ordeis ; but; defence he did not consider as sufficient to satisfy his own mind; and thetelore he would prove, seeciadly. that he did give orders for the embarkation of the troops, as soon as the siege was raised ; and in the third place, that be so acted as to assist,, as tar as was possible, the armies in Valencia.— He then went into a detail of facts and arguments thereon, to prove what he had stated, and in parti cular read the seventh paragraph of his instructions, to shew that the Duke of Wellington saw the difficul ties of his (Sir John Murray's) situation, and expressly said, that the siege of Tarragona was a question* of time and means. lie then adduced a variety of argu ments,. founded on the strength and positions of the enemy, to prove the prudence of remaining so long before Tarragona ; and urged that by so doing he had an opportunity of esercising that discretional power which was given to him by the Duke of Wei lington's instruction*; from the fifteenth paragraph of those instructions, it was clear that no time for embarkation was fixed ; and by the 22d paragraph, it was also evident that a discretionary power , was . given, and indeed as long as Sachet was kept on the left bank of the Ebro, those instructions might be considered as obeyed. Those paragraphs were al} that applied to the re turn of the army to Valencia, and it was therefore appOrent that no disobedience of written orders had been proved. With this he might conclude the de fenee.to the second Charge, but this was not enough to satisfy his own honor,-, he should therefore pro ceed to the two remaining grounds. And when per sonal animosity. and misguided feeling should have subsided, he hoped his defence would be found to 'contain principles of action which would be consi . dered as worthy of approbation and imitation.. —General Clinton, in his evidence, informed the Court, that he came to head-quarters on the night of the I I th, and found that orders had then been issued, ' for raising the siege. This circumstance could aloe .beleavedrhy,all. les Soff cifficersk to *hoar 4e outs.' municated hie intentions. However peremptory ifie Judge Advocate might have construed his orders for embarkation to be, yet surely he would not deny that the place where the embarkation was to take place was to be left to his (General Murray's) dis cretion. It was not necessary for him to state to' the Court his i auras for embarking the cavalry and artillery at Balaouer. It was enough that he con,i tiered this the most safe measure for the army which he could adopt. In consequence of information he afterwards received, that a column of the enemy was at Bandillos, he foresaw that infantry would be necessary to cover the embarkation of the ca valry. Up to the I.4th of June no imputation of delay in the embarkation could be imputed to hint. Late in the evening of that night the complexion of things changed. He then received information that the detachment ofsDe Caen's army, which ad vanced to Vitlafratica, had retired to the Lobregat. Now he found himself opposed only to Marshal Su chet ; and with the view of cutting off the division 'of his army stationed at Bandillos t he immediately gave orders for attacitieg it. Here he had a better prospect of forcing Sachet to retire float the 40wer Ebro, than by any other possible measure. This could i be easily proved by calculatioo, if necessary. Up to the 17th of June, his army was constantly in pre sence of the enemy, which, of course, prevented the embarkation. After that, When the embarkation Gould be safely entered on, in less than three days the artillery horses and cavalry on shore were embarked. To disembark so large an army, not less than four days were requisite s and it was impossible to join the Duke del Farque in less titan seven days. It was impossible for him, therefore, to reach the Spa. nish army in less than fourteen days ; whereas it was possible tor Marshal Suchet to reach St. Philippe in seven days. There was another circumstance which prevented the embarkation from taking place on the lath, and' that was the sudden and rapid return of the enemy from the Lobregat. Notwithstanding the roads were ma:spied by General Copoos, General Murray heard *thing of his return till theenemy was before Tar ragona. The only conclusion that could be draws from this return was, that a combined attack wait Meditating on the Allies; but the enemy retired agora ume night. It was his duty, however, to provide gainst this attack. On the 17th Lord W. Bentiuck pie arrived, and in consequence of the arrival of Lord Exmouth with 12 or 14 sail of the line, which afford old great additional means of•embariation, the army was all earbarked at twelve o'clock cf the 19th.— t.-Wheat it was said that be might have resorted to 'more expeditious means of embarkation, he would state, that by the retreat of one of the armies of the poemy, he considered himself equal to the other ; and 'that there *as oproweet of,eutting off the column of the enemy at Balt4illos phut their retreat in the p*ltt frustrated that objeCt. To conclude, be denied to its principle and the fht pp s u c c h a arg uoi e t . o b t o gi w t p kih rin r c C irle c . t These was nothing in his instiaktions b *bit% it was warranted; and he rippecations,, even supposing his instructions to new bees diferest, was Warr. kis 'opt ,left to prow do* live of ming whisl l be ea• safety sot the was in direct In arthwer, _ embark Ain't t embarkation umstances. when it '"he siege could of the aroy .rizer unneces sarily, andranother to extend an important operation, when such extension was required by prudence. Here be was left to the exercise of that discretion which was vested in every commanding officer, except lie was tied dawn by positive instructions. 'nil= CHARGE. General Multiuse rose to rea4 the Third Charge. Mr. Litarmer Glaser*, ask p*ably Admiral Hallowell was not led to expect that the Defence on the Third Charm would be entered on before the evi dence on the othee Urn charges had been gone into. Admiral Haunwina. said be was not. General M. then proceeded--It was no wonder that a feeling of discontent prevailed in the army under him, respecting the manner in which the siege had been raised. The army of Catalonia were desirous of rivalling their brethren in arms; and they felt keenly ,the disappointment of the espntation which they had been led to torm, however unwarranted such expec tations might have been. But was it astonishing that the disappointment should have become general, when it was considered that the oft:er at the head of the naval part of the expedition had told them there wit& no geese for the-precipitate retreet which had taken place, and that he had made an offer *bigh t if ac cepted, would have prevented the loss of part of the equipinent. Before, however, he could admit the Ad miral's responsibility in this c Ise, he had to consider how far it would have been admitted by others. If the offer of embarkation had not been then made and ante persisted in till now as possible, he could got have believed that the idea would ever have been en tertained by an officer of Admiral Hallowell's expe rience. With only two line-ol•battle ships he under took to have all embarked in the course of the night. Admitting that he could hive so emb irked every thing—hoer did Admiral Hallowell propose to ac complish this? He said, if the army had been permit ted to remain on shore till Right, it might liav been done; but this involved Gen. Murray is the hazard which, by his instructicns, he was to avoid. He knew very well that the guns might thus have been saved ; but from all the intelligence rectived, Cen. Mutter was led to suppose that the enemy would be in son tact with hisp on the lath ; and this proposal was nei ther more nor less than to allow the army to reniten on shore at the hazard of its sarety."—Admiral Hal. Lowell could not have been responsible for this. Had any thing been wrong in his own department, for that he would of course have been responsible; but it w tut(' have been no excuse for General Murray, with his Majesty's Ministers, that he had failed in coasequznce of his listening to the advice, and the proffered respon sibility of Admiral Hallowell, who might in some Measure be considered as an iiidiff!rent spectator, and whose honour was no ways implicated in the issue. But Admiral Hallowell erred from ignorance of the truth; he knew only of .5,000 men of the enemy, but had he been aware that there were more than twenty thliusind, instead of five thousand, pressiag fat ward , tOLaUslakialla Alied arils ? Tint pxygmal nfAx. viral la oiled the minds of part of the army agft General Murray; but this Court would see that . he . could not %Lin to it. It appeared, that he was in this charge accused of making no preparations . previous to embarkation. He kritsv of no preparations which the army wanted. If any were necessary for the fleet, he could not be Warned for any defiziency in that de partment, for Admiral Hallowell knew as early as the 9th how probable it was that the embarkation was to take place, and on the 11th it was determined on in so far as related to die army. The transports which brought the troops were still there, and all that was necessary was to order the boats to repair to the beach. - What was the consequence of General Murray's ,ad hering to his own determinatioa? Why, the artillery horses and cavalry were all brought on board, and nothing was left on shore but such things as were not immediately necessary. Fortunately it was not ne cessary for him to make arty great preparations, for had any such preparations been necessary, the/ would not have been made. The precipitation of which he was accused arose from the determination of adhering to the last moment to the ob ject t entrusted to him, which necessarily brought w: ► it the loss of some ar tillery and stores. This measure was necessary to render the operations of the Duke del Parque as com plete as possible. For wa:t of judgment he might be condemned but of want of foresight he stood ac quitted. He bad only to justify his 'retreat by proving the superior force of the enemy against him. When the Duke of Wellington retreated to Torres Vedras, was this measure condemned ? Was the retreat from Bur gos ever considered degrading ? And yet in those cases • much of the equipment of the army was lost : and it was only necessary for the General to say that he was not equal to the enemy in force to stand acquitted. Butahat General was happy in being alone I He had no naval co operation to impede and thwart him. When Lord William Bentinck afterwards retreated from before Tarragona, was it considered degrading ? The enemy was so superior, that prudence forbade him to hesitate a moment as to hiseoutse. The su periority of an enemy depended more on its compo. salon than its number. What crime had be com: mined, that the same credit was not to be given to his statements which had been given to other Gene rals, and that his reports were not to be believed?— The cause was evident. He had only to cast his eye to the place where his accuser, Admiral Hallowell, was sitting, and the source of all this was ev;dent. To prove the superiority of the enemy, was a difficult platter, from the care which they always took to con. ceal their numbers, and their activity in detecting and punishing spies. He did not mention this difficulty as an excuse for not establishing his case, but in order its bespeak the indulgence of the Court. The gall ant General now proceeded to state, that he would call the best evidence in his power of the strength of the enemy. He would first call Gener Dookins from whose report, founded upon the best' authorities, it would appear that the army of Amason amounted to 2,4000 men. Front subsequent accounts reteiVed, Itoskever, through" the medium of an inter. cepted luny of BOthetiti it ttiztald Medlar dre and Bth hot& bad Nan added to ember carper . enti p e iveadopyg 4lettlareti tufrlsitits tLe • army, Ar4,tbat. which Acty4lly porvied enisost.svidt thewirit of his, initructions. tbe,fiss, l l,o the charge 4 delaying the i fg ti l e. a r aw ,,sp stnuld state, that tb .t Was intempted by irnporious soitld anion* gp nn with safety. The eat be said. to be kaisefri till the s•hole was sailboard. It wos one thing to liaj