Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 38.djvu/375

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Moore
369
Moore

ciples, but the admirable system of discipline and interior economy which laid the foundation of the famous Peninsular light division, and has been maintained ever since in the regiments trained under him (cf. ib. pp. 61–72). On 14 Nov. 1804 Moore was made K.B. He chose as supporters of his arms ' a light infantry soldier, as being colonel of the first light infantry regiment, and a 92nd highlander, in gratitude and acknowledgment of two soldiers of that regiment who saved my life in Holland, 2 Oct. 1799' (ib. p. 439). Moore's officers presented him with a diamond star of the Bath, worth 350 guineas. He became lieutenant-general on 2 Nov. 1805, but still had his headquarters at Shorncliffe. Moore commanded in Kent, and Lieutenant-general Charles Lennox, afterwards Duke of Richmond [q. v.], in Sussex, under David Dundas, who was still at Canterbury. Moore's reputation now stood very high. Pitt often went over from Walmer to Shorncliffe to consult him, and when, in 1806, it was proposed to send Moore as commander-in-chief to India, Charles James Fox protested against sending so skilled a general far away in the existing position of European affairs. In June 1806 Moore was ordered to Sicily to serve as second in command under General Henry Edward Fox [q. v.], who was appointed to the Mediterranean command, and accredited as ambassador to the court of Palermo. When Fox returned home in ill-health, Moore held the Mediterranean command. Bunbury gives many interesting particulars of the period, of the intrigues of the Neapolitan court, and of the luckless expedition to Egypt under command of Major-general Alexander Mackenzie Fraser [q. v.] (Narrative, pp. 267–330). In September 1807 Moore received orders from home to leave the command in Sicily to John Coape Sherbrooke, and to proceed to Gibraltar with seven thousand troops for the assistance of Portugal against the French invasion under Junot. The Portuguese royal family declined assistance and withdrew to Brazil, and Moore, in accordance with his instructions, brought the troops home to England without landing them.

In May 1808 Moore was sent to Sweden to assist the king, Gustavus IV, who was menaced by France, Kussia, and Denmark. He arrived at Gothenburg on 17 May. He was not allowed to land his troops, but was summoned to Stockholm to confer with Gustavus, whom he found crazily bent on schemes of conquest. The king proposed that the British, with some Swedish troops, should seize Zealand, and afterwards that the British should go to Finland to fight the Russians. Moore objected that his force was insufficient for such projects, on which Gustavus ordered him not to leave the capital. He made his escape to Gothenburg in the guise of a peasant, and returned with the troops to England. Moore appeared to think that he had been sent on a wild-goose chase for some party purpose, and in a private letter referred to the service as the most painful on which he had been employed (Life of Moore, ii. 93). On arrival he was summoned to London, and told that he was to go out to Portugal to serve under Sir Hew Dalrymple and Sir Harry Burrard. He expressed himself very strongly to Lord Castlereagh at this treatment that, after holding chief commands in Sicily and Sweden, he should be sent to serve without option under other officers, one of whom had never been employed as a general in the field (ib. ii. 104). But handing over the troops to Burrard, he sailed with him, as second in command, at the end of July 1808. From a frigate met off Finisterre they learned that Sir Arthur Wellesley had landed in Mondego Bay. Burrard pushed on to Oporto, leaving Moore with the troops off Vigo, whence he moved down to Mondego Bay and prepared to land.

Moore did not join the army until the convention of Cintra had been signed. He had an interview with Sir Arthur Wellesley, who was going home. Sir Hew Dalrymple resigned soon afterwards, and Sir Harry Burrard was recalled, leaving Moore, then at Lisbon, as commander-in-chief. A letter from Lord Castlereagh, dated 25 Sept. 1808, informed Moore that an army of not less than thirty-five thousand men was to be employed under his orders in the north of Spain, assisting the Spanish government; fifteen thousand men would be sent out to join him by way of Corunna. It was left to his judgment whether he should fix some point of rendezvous on the frontier of Leon or Galicia, or transport his troops by sea from Lisbon to Corunna. He chose the land route. He was faced by administrative difficulties of every kind, and appears to have had from the outset a melancholy foreboding of the end. He received a letter from Sir Arthur Wellesley, who appears to have taken on himself the part of a peacemaker, dated London, 8 Oct. 1808, saying : 'I told Lord Castlereagh that you thought that the government had not treated you well, and that you felt it incumbent on you to express your sentiments on that treatment, but that after you had done so you thought no more of the matter, and that it would be found that you would serve as cordially and zealously in any situation in which you might be employed