The Sun.
London, England, 1860-10-16 00:00:00

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the result now depends on your votes in the
balloting urn.
Such is the spirit of this proclamation. Little,
indeed, does it contain to satisfy the demands of
routine diplomacy, b.t quite enough to satisfy
those to whom it is addressed. They have Noted
FRANCIS 11. and tyra X y out; it but remains to
vote VICTOR Emlticit and liberty in. When a
wholea nation, with tHt exception of a fortress held
by the rejected Ki4G, votes for the candidate
King, the case is, r d ought to be, settled. A for-
tress, and the rerttnant of a large army, have no 1
title to make or keep a King for eleven millions of
people ; and all the diplomacy in the world cannot
alter the fact that that is now the position of things
in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. The more
promptly the King of ITA.LT, for so we must now
begin to style him, ejects the pretender from the
threshold of the kingdom h
te better. A speedy
settlement is wanted, and that will be effected
;n the last Bourbon has quitted Italy.

An array at home competent to resist an invasion
but subject to reduction in proportion to the de
velopment of our navy—the army to be reduced to
a peace establishment when the navy has attained
what would be required in a state of war—this is
Sir HOWARD DOUGLAS'S general view of what we
need for complete defence. There are, however,
two points on which, at the present time, the chief
interest of his observations will centre; his
decided preference for defending London, not by
forts, nor by a railway girdle, but by an army well
posted in the field; and his illustration of the value
of guerilla corps such as our Volunteer corps might
become, and that in a high state of efficiency.
To take the last of these first. Suppose an
invading army landed, and, we presume, making
for the capital—the first duty would be to em-
barrass their proceedings in every way. To drive
away cattle, and to destroy or remove all other
means of support on their line of march ; to break
up railways, and canals too, where they might be
of use in flooding the ground around the enemy,
and thus to impede his march by all possible phy-
sical difficulties. Our navvies especially might
occasion them endless trouble, breaking up all the
roads in advance of the invader. But the most
formidable impediments to his advance, in addition
to the regular troops, might be a guerrilla force,
such as we could now easily provide, and which, if
well managed, might give him no rest. Our author

says—
" There are distinguished military men among us who
maintain that our sole dependence must bo placed on enr
regular army, and that we should derive no benefit from
an armed population ; while there aro some who
contend that our regular army is too small in point of num-
bers to enable it to oppose the invaders in the field ; and
these persons would have us trust only to the desultory
actions of the bands of volunteers, whom their love of their
country would bring forth in time of need. The experience
which the author acquired during the Peninsular War
enables him, however, to assert with confidence, that neither

the regular army nor the bands of volunteers, alone, would

suffice to save the country from tho ruin in which a suc-
cessful invasion would result; and that, to obtain this

end, both of these means of defence must be judiciously

combined."
Sir HOWARD DOUGLAS does not write theoretically

He was sent in 1811 to Spain, to examine into the

state of military means there, regular and irregular,
and it fell to his lot to have a great deal to do with

the guerilla forces. At that time the capital and
all the large towns had submitted to the French ;
the regular armies had all been defeated and dis-
persed, but the guerillas were leading the French
such a life of it, that even in towns they had con-

quered the French were afraid to remain within I
them during the night ; they withdrew always
to their fortified camp, and the guerillas entered
and made merry with the inhabitants, retiring in
their turn in the day time. But the French never
knew when and where they were safe. All the in-
habitants were spies for the guerillas. Not a move-
ment of any small body could take place without
danger of attack from their well-informed, and
ever-watchful enemies. Here is a picture of the
kind of life which our young friends of Wimble-
don and Hyde-park would lead, such of
the fire-eating colonels as might be gratified in
their request to be led to London to bury us—three
millions of assassins—in the ruins of our houses :
" The guerilla chief, Don Juan Sanchez, observing that
the Governor of Ciudad Rodrigo was in the habit of taking
an airing on horseback in the country, attended by a small
escort, made arrangements for his capture, and carried him
off prisoner, with all his attendants, in the sight of the
place. And numerous other instances of this description
occurred in the course of the war. When any officers of
the French garrison, established in a city or town, were
desirous of indulging in a shooting excursion, pickets of
cavalry and infantry were sent out to form a complete line
of sentries and ♦idottes round the whole of the space upon
which the party was to act, before the sportsmen dared
proceed to the ground. A circumstance of this kind the
author witnessed, when near Astorga."

The Duke of WELLINGTON, in a letter which is
quoted, strongly expresses his sense of the service
rendered by the guerillas. In one instance we are
told that 10,000 infantry, 24 guns, and 4,000 ca-
valry, were happily kept off from Lord WELLING-
TON'S hands, at the battle of Salamanca, through
the operations of the Spanish irregular forces, and
as the result of the whole, that " Without the co-
operation of these powerful auxiliaries, the army of
WELLINGTON might have been overmatched by a
concentration of all the French forces in the field
against him; but the two forces effected,conjointly,
that great object which neither could have accom-
plished singly."
We dwell somewhat on this subject for the en-
couragement of our Volunteers, who should, how-
ever, procure and read the pamphlet for themselves.
It is a most encouraging one to them ; it shows
them how, by such partial encounters, by the
effects of disease, and by other accidents which
always happen in a conntry where the people are
hostile to an army, that, without incurring much
loss themselves, the Volunteers may inflict in a few
months greater losses on the enemy than they
would have sustained in a general engagement.
" The principle on which a guerilla warfare should be
carried on, is to avoid general engagements with disciplined
troops arranged in order of battle ; such engagements being
the particular duty of the regular army of the country, as
part of the strategical combinations of tho general com-
manding in chief the whole force of the nation. The parti-
zan bands should hover on the flanks, and in the rear of
the invading army ; they should attack its detachments,
overpowering all escorts which may be too weak to resist
them, seizing treasure, getting possession of despatches
from the enemy's commanders, and cutting off all stragglers
on the line of march. A warfare thus conducted, under
the direction of skilful leaders, will not fail to keep tho
enemy in constant alarm : he will bo attacked on every
road, and will be compelled to fight in every defile, where
the riflemen of the country will await him ; he will not be
able to send the smallest supply from one place to another
without a considerable escort—thus wearying out his troops
and exposing them to numerous petty losses, without the
acquisition of honour or advantage."
Sir HOWARD DOUGLAS tells us it is astonishing
how an attack on their native country
cans out military genius in the guerilla
stamp. Tho skilful leaders of the Spanish
peasantry,
a against the French were a miller, a
u
surgeon, and a shepherd ! And it is
curate,
rate
stated on good authority that during the seven
years that the war iu Spain continued more than
4500,000 French soldiers perished in that country
ti)y the guerilla bands alone.
To the defence of London by a system Of forts our