The National Register.
London, England, 1811-11-03 00:00:00

SUNDAY, NOVIMiIEII 3, 181 1 .

N° 1 .

1.

POLITICAL DISQUISITION.

.i

No. 188.

OFFICIAL FRENCH WORT 3.

The French Government, however hostile to the
liberty of the press, has evidently no scruple to em-
ploy it for its own purposes, and whilst liberty of
speech, and even liberty; of opinion, are wholly sup-
pressed in France on the part of the people, the
Government itself uses a liberty which even truth
and honour are not allowed to restrain. There k
not another instance in Europe of a Government
which so totally sets at defiance all the obligations
even of ordinary decorum.

It will be seen in another part of our Paper, that

the French Generals have made their official report.
of the late battles on .the Coa. Those who are ac-
customed to the gravity and modesty with which
such actions are related in the English Gazettes, and
more particularly wht...a the personal modesty of
the Commander is always the main
the dispatches, will experience a sentiment of
disgust and surprize at the falsehood and vanity of.
these French reports. They seem to be written

with no other purpose but to exalt the personal re-
putation of the French Marshals at the expense of
. that of their opponents. The Gazettes of other
nations, and particularly those of Vienna, in the
first wars of the Revolution, had adopted a similar
habit of popular delusion, but there was in them this

difference—they were free at least from the egotism

of personal boasting ; the action, perhaps, was ex-
alted above its just measure, and defeat was con-
verted above its just measure, but the interest of
the country, and not the personal ostentation of the
individual, was the motive. The dispatches were
not signed with the name of the General command-
ing, they were wisely given as narratives, and
above every thing, they abstained from any per-
sonal reproach of the very able Generals who were
opposed to them.

It appears from the general tenor of these
parratives, that Soma. and MAMONT after'
VA. IF. Nc CC.
L..

~':

raised the siege of Baikjos,
.divided their armies ;

C ~y ••

Prucc 9d.

SouLT going into the maritime provinces of Spain,
and NIA mom', with the army, termed the Army of
Portugal, watching the Anglo-Portuguese Army

of Lord WW.INGTON. Lord WELLINGTON, some
time afterward?, made a movement from Aronches
to the Coa, and was apparently assembling a force

and means to besiege Ciudad Rodrigo. MaamoNT
having been informed of this movement and its pur-
pose, advanced, on the 2d of September, to opp.qe
it. lie united himself to the four divisions under

General DORSENNE, and, on the ;34th, entered

Ciudad Rodrigo and revictualled it. He continued
his march on the 25th, and fell in, as he states, with
the English rear-guard. The French =tune.
guard, which had this rencontre, was commanded
by General MONTERUN. The English are, said to
have retreated in confusion, and to have precipi,
tared themselves in haste and surprise upon their
entrenched camp of Fuente Guinaldo. MARMONTt
of his narrative, accuses Lord

errors, to which the French Generals, in the com•
mencement of the Revolutionary Wars, owed their
repeated victories over the Austrians. But if Lord
WELLINQTON had committed these errors, did not
MARMONT commit an equally great error, in An
being in a condition to have availed himself of
them ? Why had not MARMONT made himself
acquainted with the position of his Lordship itoT a
previous recognisance ? Why was an army, whie/s
had advanced upon the express purpose of surpris'
ing an enemy, itself surprised ? Lord WELLINq.
TON, according to your account, was in a condition
to be destroyed in detail : how did it happen, there.
fore, that you had not come up with the force
sufficient to destroy it ? It seems, therefore, accord-
ing to this account, that you were both alike i;
fault.

The result, however, seems to be, that Lord
WELLINGTON had taken up the only kind of posi.
on which the peculiar nature of his circumstanc“
it fd. j-lis Lordship's system iE defensive, ao4

r„.

In°"" or in this part of his narrative, directly accuses Lor4
character of-** 'tirmusityrox of ignorance, and incapalpility, mid as
tent of equal
having committed one of those egregious military