markable facilities for languages, every one of which qualifications constitute a claim of military merit; but how difficult, or rather impossible, would it be to weigh them fairly in the balance, and make selections against which no one shall have a cause for murmur!

"The Service," Colonel Mitchell declares, "derives no benefit from the advancement of young officers, unless they be also meritorious officers;" but he never fairly explains how the meritorious are to be selected, and, till he gives us this great secret, he must not wonder that we look to the fact before us, that, as matters now stand, officers of regiments see their comrades pass over their heads by purchase with far less vexation to their feelings than if they were to see them promoted by arbitrary influence and selection under the mask of merit. To prove the danger and uncertainty of a merit system, take the case of certain naval officers, who, according to report, very recently received appointments to ships immediately on failing in their late elections. Ask the Admiralty, why they gave these officers ships?-they have the ready answer, "We are the judges of naval merit, and we think these officers deserve their ships." Who can gainsay their award? But how would such merit promotion be tolerated in the Army?

Colonel Mitchell overlooks one circumstance, which, in its practical effect, greatly diminishes the annoyance (which, of course, no one denies) of officers purchasing over their comrades' heads, namely, the general tendency of the system to prevent the stagnation of advancement complained of by the Marines; for what officer of the Army, who is acquainted with his true interest, would not prefer entering a regiment where there were most officers likely to purchase, rather than a regiment where it is known there are few purchasers? Nor does Colonel Mitchell sufficiently regard the convenience which often arises from officers retiring by the sale of their commissions, an arrangement, the want of which is much felt by our Ordnance and Marine services, but declares, with much self-satisfaction, that "we have nothing to do with the Marines," and that any comparative allusion to their regulations of promotion is as little to the purpose as a lecture on Chinese tulips." If this is meant jocosely, there is no need of requesting readers ut risum teneatis; but if gravely, we venture to ask, what can it possibly be meant to convey?

66

Colonel Mitchell is apt to introduce in his arguments one of those favourite and very novel theories for which he seems to require more vent than conversation affords him. He tells us that "Dash, Daring, and Confidence are the essentials for Cavalry," and quotes the events of the Peninsular war. Now, if the reader will look back to the various accounts of the Cavalry actions of that war, it will appear that most of the Cavalry mishaps arose from the excess of Dash, Daring, and Confidence; and that Order, Steadiness, and Prudence were the points in which our Cavalry appeared wanting on the rare occasions where they were unsuccessful. Colonel Mitchell argues, that, because Blucher and Suwarrow were in the full vigour of their character at an advanced age, the general efficiency of an Army does not much depend on youth; but surely he will not deny the fatal disasters which befell the Austrians when their veterans-Beaulieu, Alvinzi, Melas, and others of the same service, were opposed to the younger leaders who sprung from the revolution of France. Marengo was a gained battle, had not Melas, a very fine old officer, been forced to quit the field for repose of infirmities

2

of eighty-five years. Both Beaulieu and Alvinzi had been distinguished officers in their time, and failed from bodily infirmity of age rather than any want of military knowledge.

In quoting the promotion of the Navy during the war which enabled Nelson to rise so rapidly, Colonel Mitchell forgets that scarce a single day passed at that period without some brilliant opportunity of distinction for our young naval officers individually. Every privateer or merchantman cut out of a harbour by two or three British boats gave an occasion for positive proof of merit in the lieutenant who led the party, and the power vested in the Admirals of foreign stations, of promoting on the spot, did really furnish an honest and fair means of rewarding skill and courage. But the moment peace was declared the Navy lost both the test and the reward which followed it, and interest became the main spring of promotion, and has so continued.

It is no small confirmation of what is here recalled to the reader, that, in one of the Duke of Wellington's dispatches from Spain, he strongly represents the hardship of not being able to promote on the spot for any brilliant and skilful action of regimental officers; and every one will agree with Colonel Mitchell that in cases of actual service before the enemy the General of an Army should have the same power of reward in his hands as is given by the rules of the Naval Service to an Admiral in command at sea.

It is really strange that Colonel Mitchell should blind himself to the present evils of the professed merit promotion in the Navy. He thinks it is enough to say "Who ever heard of the Navy wanting spirit?" No one ever was so silly as to say the Navy wanted spirit; but that they want a system of promotion fairer than their mock-merit system now in use may be asserted without fear of contradiction.

One of Colonel Mitchell's vents cannot here be passed over. He says the Navy have their weak points as well as their neighbours; but they have neither cuirassiers nor one-handed lancers-they have neither bear-skin caps to make them hideous, nor bayonets to make them ridiculous. Now the caps are a matter of taste-though many experienced officers consider a bear-skin cap, if not too high, one of the best headdresses for a soldier; but did those who witnessed the attacks of the French cuirassiers at Quatre Bras and Waterloo discover that they were ridiculous? Were the charges of the Polish lancers at Albuera ridiculous? As to the ridicule of bayonets, it would be hardly credible to find any officer who has served with British infantry venturing such a remark, had not Colonel Mitchell thrust into his History of Wallenstein the following paragraph, on a subject about which he apparently desires to challenge discussion on every opportunity. Here are his words:

"What will posterity think of our bayonets? Will they ever believe that such rickety zig-zags were ever meant to be used in mortal combat? and what idea must future generations form of the historians and dispatch-writers who have gravely ascribed victories to the power of such weapons? What, again, must be deemed of the military intelligence of an age which could tolerate the tactical puerilities founded on the presumed use of a toy which has been brandished with bombastic fierceness for upwards of a century, and has never yet in fair and manly fight inflicted a single wound on mortal man ?"

To argue the bayonet question with one who thus treats the historians and dispatch-writers (which last can only mean the Generals in com

mand of armies during the most warlike century we know of) would be idle; but it may be permitted to observe to the reader that, setting aside the numerous occasions where the dispatch-writer of the Peninsular War alluded to the success of the bayonet, the very recent attack and defeat of the American rebels and desperadoes at Pele Island by Captain Brown gave a striking instance of the value of the bayonet, the spirited use of which saved him and his gallant detachment from being destroyed by the distant fire of a far superior force. Even this small but very creditable affair seems sufficient to refute Colonel Mitchell's assertion at page 105 of his History of Wallenstein, that no manly contest takes place between modern infantry: everything is effected by distant firing. Now Captain Brown proved the reverse by engaging in a manly contest with the bayonet, which prevented his destruction by distant firing.

In Colonel Mitchell's "Wallenstein," a work of much interest and merit (though he has thought proper to disfigure it with extraneous and inapplicable matter in order to give vent to his peculiar theories), there is another passage which he must not be surprised to see brought forward here, to show what an arbitrary tone he assumes and what utter contempt of general opinion he displays. Speaking of Napoleon, he gravely declares the "insignificance of his military talents." Now, can Colonel Mitchell produce one single military man of distinction, either of those who served under Napoleon or against him, who will admit this wild, desultory, unsupported, opinion, that Napoleon's military talents were insignificant?

It would tire the reader to follow Colonel Mitchell through pages of declamation, such as "the worship of mammon and essence of tufthunting," not even leaving out the devil himself, for he talks of "Satan taking notes with a smile;" but it will be enough again to display the general spirit of his reasoning by another quotation from his Wallenstein. At page 286 Colonel Mitchell says "In the English service no one speaks in favour of the soldiers, and promotion is sold for money or given according to the interest of the parties, and always, as an inevitable consequence of such a system, with a perfect disregard to merit."

that a

No one speaks in favour of the soldiers! If the evidence before the House of Commons Committee be of any value, it would appear general solicitude is incessantly exercised by regimental officers for the welfare of the soldiers, and that the authorities take every possible occasion of attending to regimental recommendations, by appointing serjeants to those commissions of Adjutant, Quarter-master, and Ridingmaster, for which they are most fitted by habit and education, and to which they look forward as their reward. Can Colonel Mitchell sincerely disclaim being an agitator when he publishes such sentences as these-in the English service no one speaks for the soldiers?—and that, as to officers, promotion is always given with a perfect disregard to

merit.

He quotes the case of an officer of cavalry (Captain White, of the 13th

*In the last number of the United Service Journal at p. 82, the reader will find a letter from the late Sir T. Picton, dated from Torres Vedras, after the battle of Busaco, in which he says, speaking of the enemy's attack on his division, "I had the good fortune to repulse him with great slaughter in four different attempts to penetrate my line, which were all repelled with the bayonet."

Dragoons) who was unhappily killed before he had received promotion for a notoriously gallant action. Here was no doubt a case where the General in command should have had the power of instant reward, allowed to every Admiral on service: however, Captain White's death occurred within two years of the action in which he distinguished himself, and it is hard to assert that his claims would never have been attended to had he lived longer, especially as the Service has, at this moment, the satisfaction of seeing in command of regiments so many cavalry officers who served with credit in the Peninsula. For instance, the 2nd Dragoon Guards, 4th Dragoon Guards, 5th Dragoon Guards, Carbineers, 7th Dragoon Guards, 12th Lancers, 14th Light Dragoons, 15th Hussars, not one of whom is supposed to be either rich or possessed of any interest beyond his claim on the score of meritorious service.

The proportion of officers who have risen to command of regiments by merit in the Infantry is in the same proportion. How, then, is it possible that any one who really knows the present condition of our Army can, in respect of the manner in which it is officered, agree with Colonel Mitchell, that promotion is always giyen either with perfect disregard to merit, or with disregard of the security of the empire and efficiency of the Service?

SPECTATOR.

NARRATIVE OF THE LATE CARLIST EXPEDITION FROM THE

PROVINCES.

BY AN EX-CARLIST officer.

No. II.

AFTER remaining at Huesca so long a time that the Christinos were enabled to collect another Army along the banks of the Ebro, the Carlist expedition moved eastward to Barbastro, on its road to Catalonia. Having lost the opportunity afforded by their last victory of crossing into Lower Arragon, the Carlist Generals deemed it the most secure course to effect a junction, in the first instance, with the insurgent Catalans, and afterwards with Cabrera, until, like a river which increases in strength as it flows onward and receives the waters of tributary streams, their force should have attained such magnitude as to enable them to pounce at once upon the capital. At Barbastro, however, aware that the enemy was following them up again, they waited to give him battle before proceeding further. The broken ground and olive-gardens which clothe the sides of the hills which extend round the city of Barbastro, and to within half a league of its walls, afforded highly favourable positions for the infantry, and most advantageous grounds for the Tirallieurs. Oraa, having assembled 13,000 men, exclusive of the remains of the French foreign legion and a numerous corps of artillery, did not for a moment hesitate attacking the Carlist army, which, occupying the ground we have described, calmly awaited his attack. The onset made by the Queen's troops, as in the previous action of Huesca, was very fierce in the first instance, but their leader, aware that if he could not force in their line at once he would be unable

The

to do so afterwards, probably continued the attack rather to draw the Carlists from their 'vantage ground than with any other object. French foreign legion advanced with great intrepidity, but were again. successfully opposed by their own deserters and several detached companies of provincial battalions, and retired in great disorder. Colonel Conrad, their commander, was mortally wounded,-it is said by his own soldiers, as he was forcing them on to the fight. It is certain that after this event they could no longer be kept together. The fall of the gallant Conrad was the death-blow to his corps, which had done no inconsiderable service to the Queen's cause since it had disembarked from Africa, and whose conduct as soldiers had been as praiseworthy as it was detestable as men. As it was the last of fields for Conrad, so it was for his legion, and, with characteristic ingratitude, when it was destroyed as a body at Barbastro, the Queen's Generals endeavoured to heap contumely and disgrace on the survivors, charging them with indiscipline and cowardice, although every officer was killed or wounded in the action. Composed mostly of old soldiers-deserters from every service in the world, or the worst characters in the French army, the legion had acquired a veteran character by the long and harassing service it had performed against the Bedouins, and, whilst kept within the bounds of a most rigid discipline, its excellence, in a military point of view, was undeniable; but all the horrors of the civil war were thrown completely into the shade by the monstrous cruelty and deep depravity which pervaded this corps, in which seemed to have been concentrated all the vices we have ever heard or read of: even the habit of companionship, which influences both in the human species and the animal kingdom, with the exception of the wolf, the most savage beings, seemed entirely lost on these ferocious soldiers. The instant one of their own people was wounded it was the custom to despatch him, for the sake of the miserable spoil he might afford.

On the formation of the Carlist legion from the deserters, a French nobleman informed us that, in the first affair in which he was engaged with his company, he perceived two soldiers lay down their muskets and beat in the skull of their wounded comrade with ponderous stones; after which they proceeded to despoil him. He ran his sword through the body of one of the wretches, but found that the custom was so prevalent that there was no possibility of putting an end to it, and he threw up his command in disgust. The galley-slave, the murderer, and the parricide seemed all to have found a refuge in these "black bands," who were, apparently, as fearless of all laws, human and divine, as they were of the enemy, and their nearly total annihilation on both sides at Huesca and Barbastro was almost the only event, during the civil war, to which one can look with no regret. After repulsing the attack of the enemy successfully, Moreno, the Carlist chief of the staff, assumed the offensive, encouraged by the enthusiasm of his men. Although far inferior, in point of numbers, the cavalry of the provinces was, as we have already stated, in very excellent condition, and, flushed with their victory at Huesca, advanced so boldly, that after a few successful charges their adversaries sounded the retreat, which was begun in the greatest confusion, and attended by a heavy loss. With all the caution of age, Moreno was afraid to take advantage of the tide of victory the moment it had turned, and contented himself with driving his adversary U. S. JOURN, No. 115, JUNE, 1838.