Star.
London, England, 1809-01-18 00:00:00

mir,

ODE FOR THE NEW YEAR, 1809.

By H. I. PYE, Esq. P. L.

all-orb'd in equinoctial skies,
VTben the pale moon malignant rides,
And bids the howling tempest rise,
And swells the Ocean's briny tides,
Dreadful against the sounding shore
The winds and waves tumultuous roar,
The torrent-braving mound in vain
The stormy inroad would reiti-ain,
The surges with redstless sway
force o'er the labour'd mole their way,
Scorn every weak resource of human toil,
o•erwhelm the peopled town, and waste the cultur'd soil.

But when,by native fences hared
Prom billowy rage, the happier land,
And rocky cliffs for ever stand
To the wide-wateed coast a guard,
Such as on Vecta's southern steep
Look down defiance on the raging deep,
Such as on Dover's breezy down
On Gallia's hostile herders frown,
'rho' billows urging, billows roar
And idly beat against the shore,
While from the heights sublime the swain
Mocks the vain efforts of the foaming main,
Till Nature bids the delug'd surge subside,
Hush'd is the tempest's voice, and refluent rolls the tide.

So o'er Europa's ravag'd plain
We saw the torrent wild of war
Resistless spread its iron reign,
And scatter ruin wide and far ;
The embattled wall, the warlike band,
Vainly the Tyrant's coarse withstand;
Before the impious sons of Gaul
The legions fly, the bulwarks fall;
Yet Britain's floating castles sweep
Invision from her subject deep,.
Yet by ber rocks secure from harm,
St,:urer by her patriot arm,
Iberia turns the battle's tide,
Resists the injurious Tyrant's prid,
While, freely floating fn the ambient sky,
~icred to freedom's cause, their mingled ensigns fly.

... .

SIR ARTHUR WELLESLErS NARRATIVE.

(Concluded from our lad.)
NO. IV.
OSERVATIONS ON SIR HARRY BURRARD9S NARRATIVE.
SIR DAVID DUNDAS.
AND

MY LORDS AND GENTLEMEN,
Two or three points have been adverted to in the
Narrative of Sir Harry Burrard, and some circum-
rrances have been stated in evidence, upon which I
wish to trouble the Court with some observations.
The first and principal of these is the reason stated
by Lieutenant-General Sir Harry Burrard for not
deeming it expedieht to place Lieutenant-General Sir
;uhn Moore's corps at Santarem, as proposed by me
fut my letters of thc Bth, 10th, and 12th of August,
which are before the Court, because, as Lieutenant-
General Sir Harry Burrard states, it would not, in,
his opinion, have been sufficiently strong to oppose
the enemy, if he had retreated by that road. .• •
I beg to refer the Court to my dispatches of that Fe-
Lod, which I consider the fairest slacitmente to which,
I can refer ; as' • when they were written, I had cer-
tainly no notion that the subjects to which they relat,
cd would ever hive become the topic of discussion
here : the Court will see, that in these dispatches I,
always considered the possession of Lisbon and of the.
Tagus to be the great object of the campaign both to
us and the French ; that for this object a battle would
be fought in the field, in which I thought I had rea-
son to expect success, and that the enemy would, af-
ter this battle, endeavour to retire across the Tagus
ttoanEtalvams, otor alondg the rights tn bank of the Tagus by
da.
If the Court will refer to the paper drawn by the
French engineer, laid before them by Lieutenant-
General Sir Hew Dalrymple, they will see that these
are the lines of retreat recommended by the officers
of the engineers to the French Commander in Chief ;
now, the occupation of the position .at Santarem by
Sir John Moore's corps, was calculated to cut off these
lines of retreat, in the first supposed case, by the fa-
cility and celerity with which the Tagus would have
been crossed ; in the second, as it was upon the road
which the enemy must have taken. But as I set out
with the certainty that the French would not, nay,
could not abandon Lisbon and the Tagus, without
fighting a battle for these possessions, I may con-
dude,
that after that battle they would have been so
much weakened, as that Sir John Moore's corps would
Lave been a match for them ; and at all-events, it is
cot to be supposed that it this battle had been fought
they would not have been followed by a part, if not
the whole of the army, which in this .supposition,
would have defeated them. •
Indeed the Court will have observed, by ns cor-
respondence with Sir Harry Burrard, that I considered
this position at Santarem to be so little dangerous,
Ind at the same time to sideantagsous, that if- the
trigades of Brigadier-Generals Aland and Anstru-
ter had been equipped to act independently of any
r.ber body of troops, I should have ordered those bri-
tales to occupy it: .
The next point on which I wish to observe, is the
Ll3de in which I proposed, and intended that this
,:pS should be supplied at Santarem. The Court
al see this mode, and all the dilficulties'which
sled it, discussed in my letters to Sir Harry Bur-
41d ; and I have no doubt whatever that he would
toe been able to procure carts in the country, on the
Mondego, to enable him to form at Leyria the pro-
posed depot, and at that place the'means of Moving
%tut should be required to Santarem.
I also wish to '
say a few words upost the strength
of the corps under my command in comparison with
'at of the enemy.
I marched from Lavaos on the 10th of August
!ith 13,000 men, and I was joined by and expected
die co-operation of 6000 Portuguese troops. J VII
disappointed in this expectation on the 15th of Au-
gust, when I was engaged in an operation against
a detachment of the unary, which promised the ut-
m)st success ; from which I could not with propriety
withdraw, and which ended in the battle of the 17th
of August.
Chl the 18th, I heard of ibe airivat of General