as undertaken since the time of Henry V. It was composed of not
less than seventy thousand men in all,--forty thousand land-forces and
thirty thousand sailors. It did not succeed, on account of the
incapacity of the leader.

A descent entirely similar in character to that of Charles X. of Sweden
was effected by thirty Russian battalions passing the Gulf of Bothnia on
the ice in five columns, with their artillery. Their object was to take
possession of the islands of Aland and spread a feeling of apprehension
to the very gates of Stockholm. Another division passed the gulf to
Umea, (March, 1809.)

General Murray succeeded in effecting a well-planned descent in the
neighborhood of Tarragona in 1813, with the intention of cutting Suchet
off from Valencia: however, after some successful operations, he thought
best to re-embark.

The expedition set on foot by England against Napoleon after his return
from Elba in 1815 was remarkable on account of the great mass of
_materiel_ landed at Ostend and Antwerp. The Anglo-Hanoverian army
contained sixty thousand men, but some came by land and others were
disembarked at a friendly port.

The English engaged in an undertaking in the same year which may be
regarded as very extraordinary: I refer to the attack on the capital of
the United States. The world was astonished to see a handful of seven or
eight thousand Englishmen making their appearance in the midst of a
state embracing ten millions of people, taking possession of its
capital, and destroying all the public buildings,--results unparalleled
in history. We would be tempted to despise the republican and unmilitary
spirit of the inhabitants of those states if the same militia had not
risen, like those of Greece, Rome, and Switzerland, to defend their
homes against still more powerful attacks, and if, in the same year, an
English expedition more extensive than the other had not been entirely
defeated by the militia of Louisiana and other states under the orders
of General Jackson.

If the somewhat fabulous numbers engaged in the irruption of Xerxes and
the Crusades be excepted, no undertaking of this kind which has been
actually carried out, especially since fleets have been armed with
powerful artillery, can at all be compared with the gigantic project and
proportionate preparations made by Napoleon for throwing one hundred and
fifty thousand veterans upon the shores of England by the use of three
thousand launches or large