vaders became every hour more
embarrassing. In Portugal, meanwhile, the English general (created Lord
Wellington after the battle of Talaveyra) was gradually organising a
native force not unworthy of acting under his banners; and on that side
it was obvious that, unless Napoleon made some extraordinary exertions,
the French cause was wholly undone.

Portugal was safe; and the character of the British army had been raised
by another splendid victory in Spain; but these were trivial advantages
compared with what Lord Wellington might have achieved, had his
government placed him, as they could easily have done, at the head of an
army of 80,000 or 100,000 men, while Napoleon was occupied with the
campaign of Essling and Wagram. Instead of strengthening Wellington's
hands in an efficient manner, the English cabinet sent 40,000 troops,
under the command of the Earl of Chatham, an indolent or incompetent
general, to seize the isle of Walcheren, and destroy the shipping and
works at the mouth of the Scheld; nor was this ill-judged expedition
despatched from Britain until the first of August, three weeks after the
decisive battle of Wagram had been fought and won. Lord Chatham took
Flushing, and fixed his headquarters at Middleburg; but Bernadotte
(Prince of Ponte Corvo) put Antwerp into such a state of defence that
the plan of besieging that city was, ere long, abandoned. A pestilence,
meantime, raged among the marches of Walcheren; the English soldiers
were dying by thousands. The news of the armistice of Znaim arrived; and
Lord Chatham abandoned his conquests. A mere skeleton of his army
returned to their own country, from the most disastrous expedition which
England had undertaken since that of Carthagena, seventy years before.

The announcement of the armistice with Austria put an end, in effect, to
all hostile demonstrations on the continent, the Peninsula alone
excepted. The brave Schill (as has already been said) was happy enough
to fall in the field: his followers, being at last compelled to
surrender at Stralsund, were treated as rebels, and died with the
constancy of patriots. The Duke of Brunswick, who had by this time
obtained considerable successes in Franconia, found himself abandoned,
in like manner, to the undivided strength of Napoleon. At the head of a
few regiments, whose black uniform announced their devotion to the one
purpose of avenging their former sovereign, the Duke succeeded in
cutting his way to the