Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.
"Dost thou remember, soldier old and hoary,
The days we fought and conquered, side by side,
On fields of bank, famous now in story,
Where Britons triumphed, And where Britons died?"
* * * * * * *
"Dost thou remember all those marches weary,
From gathering foes, to reach Coruña's shore?
Who can forget that midnight sad and dreary,
When in his grave we laid the noble Moore?
But ere he died, our General heard us cheering
And saw us charge with Victory's flag unfurled,—
And then he slept, without a moment's fearing
For British soldiers conquering all the world."
NORMAN MACLEOD.
His sabre descended in one swift sweep.
Frontispiece.
ROY
A TALE IN THE DAYS OF
SIR JOHN MOORE
BY
AGNES GIBERNE
AUTHOR OF "COULYNG CASTLE"
"AIMÉE, A TALE OF THE DAYS OF JAMES II."
ETC. ETC.
"Duris non Frangor"
LONDON
C. ARTHUR PEARSON, LIMITED
HENRIETTA STREET
1901
DEDICATED
BY EXPRESS PERMISSION
TO
FIELD-MARSHAL THE RIGHT HON.
G. J. VISCOUNT WOLSELEY
K.P., G.C.B., G.C.M.G., COL.R.H.G.
COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF
VICTOR AT TEL-EL-KEBIR
ETC. ETC.
PREFACE
IN the following pages I have tried to give a faithful picture of lifein England and in France during the first decade of the NineteenthCentury. The invasion scare, the state of National feeling in our land,the conditions which prevailed among British prisoners in France,the descriptions of French conscripts and French dungeons, etc., arein accordance with reality. My authorities have been many, includingvolumes written and published at the time, long since out of print. Onechief authority for dungeon-scenes is the "Narrative" of Major-GeneralLord Blayney, himself four years a captive at Verdun and elsewhere; buthis account by no means stands alone. My aim has been in no case tooverdraw, but to be true to those things which actually were.
Some old MS. letters, handed down in my own family, belonging to thatdate, have been no inconsiderable help.
In the central figure of the tale I have sought to draw a portrait,true again to life, of him who in an age of British heroes ranked parexcellence as England's foremost soldier-hero; of him about whom,twenty years later, Sir George Napier wrote—"That great and goodsoldier ... to whom I looked up as the first of men;" of him aboutwhom, half a lifetime after the Battle of Coruña, Sir Charles Napier,the famous conqueror of Scinde, could sadly say—"Thirty-eight years agothe great Moore fell: I have never seen his equal since!"
To these past testimonies may be added that of Lord Wolseley, whohas kindly granted his permission f