[The Prose Works of William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth]@TWC D-Link book
The Prose Works of William Wordsworth

PREFACE
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On the 10th of November the Estramaduran advanced guard, of about 12,000 men, was defeated at Burgos by a division of the French army _selected_ for the service--and having a vast superiority in cavalry and artillery.

This event, with the same neglect of circumstances as in the former instance, Sir J.M.thus reports:--'The French, after beating the army of Estramadura, are advanced at Burgos.' Now surely to any unprejudiced mind the bare fact of 12,000 men (chiefly raw levies) having gone forward to meet and to find out the main French army--under all the oppression which, to the ignorant of the upper and lower classes throughout Europe, there is in the name of Bonaparte--must appear, under any issue, a title to the highest admiration, such as would have made this slight and incidental mention of it impossible.
The two next events--viz.

the forcing of the pass at Somosierra by the Polish horse, and the partial defeat of Castanos--are, as might be shewn even from the French bulletins, no less misrepresented.

With respect to the first,--Sir J.Moore, over-looking the whole drama of that noble defence, gives only the catastrophe; and his account of the second will appear, from any report, to be an exaggeration.
It may be objected that--since Sir J.M.no where alleges these events as proving any thing against the Spaniards, but simply as accounting for his own plans (in which view, howsoever effected, whether with or without due resistance, they were entitled to the same value)--it is unfair to say that, by giving them uncircumstantially, he has misrepresented them.

But it must be answered, that, in letters containing elsewhere (though not immediately in connexion with these statements) opinions unfavourable to the Spaniards, to omit any thing making _for_ them--_is_ to misrepresent in effect.


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