62 THE WINTER TROUBLES. UHAi'. owned by the 'personal' as distinguished from ^^' our genuine ' State ' sovereign, the honour of the English arms was shamelessly entrusted to . a Eoyal Duke who, though having, it is true, a real aptitude for giving uniformity and sound- ness to the structure of regiments at home, was not only conspicuous for intemperance in that madly intemperate age, but garrulous, untrust- worthy, and utterly without the brain-power required for command in the field.(l^) To strive under that sort of leadership against the far- famed Dumouriez,(l^) some 1700 of our Guards — not one Line battalion yet ready! — were huddled into such empty colliers as could be found in the Thames ; and from that character- istic beginning of a mighty war, on the 25th of February 1793, down to 1809, the year of the Walcheren disaster, there stretched a long series of military ' expeditions ' {^'^) which so often afforded examples of wasted valour and strength, that during that period — a period of nearly seventeen years — our rudely formed War ad- ministration, and the fruitless campaigns it prepared, may be said to have ranged in a se- quence which would rather import the relation of natural ' cause and effect,' than furnish ground for maintaining that the system had ' worked ' at all well. III. The Wei- So far, therefore, the assailant of our adminis- iu.gt/;n LT.i. ^^^^^^g machinery is not confronted by facts which tend to impugn his conclusion ; but at
