should not remain entirely on the defensive, but at the same time I would not go lightly in quest of adventures, with regiments raised with extreme difficulty, without means of recruiting, and commanded principally by officers without experience or knowledge of their profession. The expense, likewise, of expeditions is enormous, and the disgrace attending upon ill success is not likely to promote that most desirable object—a good peace."
After the re-embarkation of the Ferrol expedition, he writes: "The prospect of public affairs is most gloomy. What a disgraceful and what an expensive campaign have we made! Twenty-two thousand men, a large proportion not soldiers, floating round the greater part of Europe the scorn and laughing-stock of friends and foes."
In the spring of 1801, Lord Cornwallis, replaced in Ireland by Lord Hardwicke and Sir W. Medows, assumed the command of the eastern district in England—invasion appearing imminent. His letters to his friend Ross at this period are most desponding. Our best troops were abroad upon expeditions. One barren success in Egypt, with which ministers attempted to gild half-a-dozen failures, had cost us the gallant Abercromby. The defence of the country was intrusted to the militia. The Duke of York had actually proposed to introduce a Russian force to coerce and civilize Ireland, and would have done so had not the better sense and feeling of Cornwallis prevailed. "My disgrace must be certain," writes he to Ross, "should the enemy land. What could I hope, with eight weak regiments of militia, making about 2,800 firelocks, and two regiments of dragoons?". . . "In our wooden walls alone must we place our trust; we should make a sad business of it on shore.". . . "If it is really intended that should defend Kent and Sussex, it is of very little consequence what army you place under his command.". . . "God send that we may have no occasion to decide the matter on shore, where I have too much reason to apprehend that the contest must terminate in the disgrace of the general and the destruction of the country.". . . "I confess that I see no prospect of peace, or of anything good. We shall prepare for the land defence of England by much wild and capricious expenditure of money, and if the enemy should ever elude the vigilance of our wooden walls, we shall after all make a bad figure."[1]
Bad as matters had been at the time of Humbert's invasion, it is clear that Lord Cornwallis believed our military affairs to be in a much worse condition in 1801.
In Ireland, in 1798, he had under him a few officers on whom he could depend, and although his army, thanks to Lord Amherst and the Duke of York, was in a deplorable state of discipline, he, a good and practised general, was at its head, to make the best of it.
- ↑ Lieut.-Col. Gordon (Sir Willoughby), Military Secretary to the Duke of York, speaks of Lord Cornwallis as "an officer whose estimation in the army could not be exceeded."—Lieut.-Col. Gordon to Sir A. Wellesley, 1807.
