The weekly Ottumwa courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1857-1872, 1862-09-27

land, when, at the close of the first decade
of the war, she dismissed '.the pilot that
weathered the Storm celebrated grand
apotheosis Of fimbecility in the person of the
Addington ministry, and patched up the
peace of Amiens, without the attainment Of
any ono Of the objects for which ruinous
war Of ten years had been waged? Is our
future less hopeful than that Of the Allies,
when this short lived truce was broken, and
the emperor Napoleon, having held the en-
tire arms-bearing population of England on
foot for months, to repel a threatened inva-
sion, broke into Germany n,lsO5, shook the
wretched Mack, and $4,000 veterans out Of
Ulm by the fear Of his name, struck the ter
rife blow at Austerlitz, which laid Austria
for third time at his feet, abolished the
Holy Roman Empire, and broke the lion
heart of Pitt2 Are not our chances Of final
success at least as good as those of the AL
lies the following years, when Prussia was
reduced to the dimension of province by
the overthrow at Jena, and Russia, tanned
and subdued at Eylau and Friedland, was
content to accept the peace Of Tilsit? Did
the prospect brighten for England when Ju-
not, in 1908, marched with French army
through Spain, established himself as con-
queror at Lisbon, and drove the house of
Braganza into exile beyond the sea; or when
all that was effected by the auxiliary forces
Of England, was the convention Of Cintra by
which that French army vas sent home in
safety, and the British Generals who nego-.
tiated it (Sir Arthur Wellesly among the
resD were recalled in disgrace to England
Have we anv greater reason for discourage
ment than England after the disastrous re-
treat of Sir John Moore from Spain, his no.
BILE army demoralized by his flight which
was precipitated to such a degr &c that casks
of dollars were'' abandoned and rolled down
the mountains. That retreat was conducted
indeed with Roman fortitude by the gallant
commander and crowned with glory by the
heroism Of its close, although, in the words
of the national historian, sort OF despair
seized upon the public mind Of England,
when the news came that "the British army,
instead Of making Napoleon prisoner in the
heart of Spain, was expelled, after disas-
trous retreat, with the loss of its general,
from the Spanish peninsula" "Napoleon a
prisoner in Spain - Scarcely had the re-
treat of Sir John Moore commenced. when
the tidings being brought to the French En-
peror, then in Spain, that Austria was pre-
pairing for war, he rushed back to France,
raised an army, marched on Vienna, which
capitnlated on his approach, and after SUI
perhunan struggles and perils on the Danu-
be, gained the decisive victory of Wagram,
which laid Austria for fourth time in the
dust. If fortune seemed, about three weeks
after the battle Of Wagram, to smile upon
the cause Of the allies in Spain, by the VIC
tory OF Wellington at Talavera. so honorable
to him and the British arms. that transient
smile was soon changed to her wonted frown.
For the best of military and political reasons.
Lord Wellington abandoned Spain, with
drew with his army into Portugal, and en-
trenched himself within the three fold lines
of Torres Vedras. "The retreat of Yelling
ton from Talayera," says Alison, sand the
unsuccessful issue ofthe preceding campaign
excited the most desponding feelings in a
large proportion of the inhabitants Of Great
Britain" The Common Council of London
petitioned the crown against the proposed
grant to the Duke Of Wellington, and stated
in their memorial that:
"After useless display Of British valor
and frightfu carnage, that army, like the
preceding one, was compelled to seek it's
safety in precipitate flight, before an enemy
who, we are told, had been conquered, aban-
doning many thousands Of our wounded
countrymen to the French. That calamity,
like the others, had passed without injury
and as If their long experienced impunity
had put the servants Of the crown above the
reach of justice. ministers have actually gone
the length of advising your majesty to con-
fer honorable distinctions on general (Wel,
lington) who has thus exhibited, Nth equal
rashness and ostentation, nothing but a use
less calor -
Such is glance at the history of the war
of the French revolution for the first eight
teen years. If, with courage which no re-
verses could shake, and fortitude no bur-
| dans corld cruch the Government and the
people Of England persevered to the glorious
and triumphant end. is it now becoming her
kindred blood, her long and earnestly pro-
fessed sympathy in the cause Of human free
dom, her respect for stable government, and
for all the qualities of vigorous nationality,
to indulge in unfriendly forebodings as to
the issue of our great struggle, because it has
not, in sixteen months, been crowned with
success which she, in alliance with all the
powers of Europe, was hardly able to achieve
! in twenty-three years?
| We are told indeed t',at the inauspicious
and unfrendly tone of the British press rep
reserts the feelings neither of the Govern
ment nor Of majority Of the people Of Eng
| land, and this there is reason to believe
The steadiness with which Lord Palmerston
has resisted the clamors for intervention, and
the rebuke administered by Lord Russell to
the blockade runners from Nassau, who, af-
ter violating every principle of the law of
nations, have the effrontery to demand the
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