Ostend, after a voyage of nineteen days from Cork, one squadron of the Fourteenth Light Dragoons and the Thirty-third regiment, the latter under the command of an officer whose name it still bears, but who was then an impecunious younger son of five-and-twenty, possessed indeed of some skill in playing the violin, but still distinguished by no higher title than
June 26. that of Colonel Arthur Wellesley. On the morrow Moira with the last of the reinforcements[1] also reached Ostend, where he found an advanced guard of the French within four miles of the town, a large force of several thousand men close behind it, and the Commandant very wisely embarking his garrison with a view to retreat. The whole district was in a state of panic; but Moira promptly landed the whole of his men, and having observed the difficulties of defending Ostend, and the military worthlessness of the place, quietly selected his fighting ground outside it. "I am not at all satisfied with my position," he wrote calmly to Dundas, "but since you appear to attach importance to the town I will do my best to maintain it." "The defences are so detestable," he added cheerfully to Nepean, "that I shall go into the open field if we must come to blows. If you are to lose everything it does not signify if you are beaten into the bargain."[2] It is dangerous for a General, be he even so able as Moira, to address an English Minister of War in this strain; for, in the event of mishap, the words may be brought up as evidence against him in Parliament to prove that he was reckless, careless, neglectful, or despondent.
During these days the Duke of York remained in
