men must be detached, while the remaining five thousand remain quietly between three fortified towns and a forest, from which fifty thousand men may attack them from all sides at any time. Further, the detached force must draw its subsistence from a distance of forty miles across the whole French army without any other protection than that of those five thousand men." "I beg pardon," he continued, "for taking up your time with this kind of argument, which it was not your intention to enter into, but I think it is right to show that, perhaps, people in England are not more infallible in their judgments than those upon the Continent." Irony so keen sped home even through the dense armour of Dundas's conceit. "You have not sufficiently weighed the feeling of this country," he answered, taking refuge in bluster, "if you think that any successes could have counterbalanced the loss of Ostend." Murray hastened to soothe him by pointing out that the Duke of York, though against his own military judgment, had strictly obeyed the Cabinet's instructions as to the protection of Ostend, and that it was not Grey who had saved it but the Duke himself, who, before he knew of Grey's arrival, had forced Vandamme to retire by threatening his communications.[1]
This sharp passage of arms silenced Dundas for the time, though, as will be seen, it taught him little wisdom for the future. Meanwhile, after a few small affairs of outposts, the campaign came to an end. The Emperor of Austria sent orders to Coburg to fight a general action, for no particular object; and the Committee of Public Safety gave the like instructions to Jourdan, in the hope that he might be able to advance to Namur and so to threaten the Austrian line of communication.
- ↑ Murray to Dundas, 30th October and 12th November; Dundas to Murray, 8th November 1793.
