Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 38.djvu/377

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Moore
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Moore

the enemy paid his funeral honours, and Soult, with a noble feeling of regard for his valour, raised a. monument to his memory' (Hist. Peninsular War, rev. edit. i. 333). Soult bore generous witness to his opponent's skill, but the statement as to the monument requires correction. Howard Douglas [q. v.] has shown that it was erected by the Spanish commander the Marquis de la Romana. Romana returned to Corunna with his army, when the French abandoned Galicia on entering Portugal. Seeing the unmarked grave, Romana had a memorial, in the form of a broken shaft of a column, of wood, painted to resemble stone, raised over it upon a pediment of real guns and shells. On its completion he attended in state, and, in presence of the civic authorities of the place and the whole garrison, unveiled the column, and wrote on it in black chalk, with his own hand:—

A la Gloria del Excelentísimo Señor Don
Juan Moore,
General en Gefe del Exércitos Británicos,
Y á sus Valientes Soldados,
La España Agradecida,
Batalla de Elvinas, 16 Enero 1809.

Howard Douglas (see Life of Sir H. Douglas, by Fullom) brought the matter under the notice of the prince regent, and on his return to Spain, late in 1811, was ordered to convert the memorial into a permanent one, with the aid of slabs of marble, to receive a Latin inscription by Dr. Samuel Parr. This was done (for the inscription see Life of Moore, ii. Appendix, pp. 238-9). It was restored by Consul Bartlett in 1834, and the oval enclosure was laid out as a pleasure-ground, chiefly through the exertions of General Mazaredo. 'The railing round the plain granite urn that now marks the site of the grave makes it difficult to read the inscriptions in Latin, English, and Spanish on the sides of the tomb' (Ford, Handbook of Spain, 5th edit. : Borrow, Bible in Spain, 1849 edit. p. 155).

Much crude and ungenerous criticism was evoked by the news of Moore's failure, but popular feeling soon accepted the view that his life was sacrificed in an enterprise which, under the circumstances, was impracticable (cf. Marquis Wellesley, Despatches in Spain; Grenville Papers; Buckingham Papers, iv. 311). Parliament passed a vote of thanks to his troops, and ordered a public monument to be erected to him in St. Paul's Cathedral. A motion on 19 Feb. for a parliamentary inquiry into the conduct of the campaign was defeated by 220 votes to 127 (Parl. Debates, pp. 1057-1119). A horseguards order recorded his many services to his country {Life, ii. 235). His native city, Glasgow, erected a monument to him, in the shape of a bronze statue in George Square, at a cost of over 3,000l.; and the Rev. Charles Wolfe published his 'Funeral of Sir John Moore,' which has remained one of the most popular poems in the language.

Moore died unmarried. Bruce, the son-in-law and biographer of the historian Napier, states that when Moore was in Sicily he contemplated making an offer of marriage to Miss Caroline Fox, daughter of General Henry Edward Fox [q. v.], but was deterred by a chivalrous feeling of doubt that the disparity of age and his high position might influence her decision unwisely for her contentment in after life. The offer was never made, and in 1811 Miss Fox became the wife of the future Sir William Napier (Bruce, Life of Sir William Napier, i. 61).

Moore, who possessed a very winning address, was in person tall and graceful, and his features, even when worn with service, were eminently handsome. A portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A., is in possession of the family; it has been often and very badly engraved. The photograph from it in Moorsom's 'Historical Records 52nd Light Infantry' was taken by Claudet. Another portrait of Moore with his father and the eighth Duke of Hamilton, by Gavin Hamilton, is in the National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh. With some of Moore's friends it was the fashion to call him an 'unlucky man,' chiefly because he was so often wounded in action. The epithet was once applied to him by Wellington. Bunbury says: 'Everything in Moore was real, solid, and unbending. He was penetrating and reflective. His manner was singularly agreeable to those whom he liked, but to those he did not esteem his bearing was severe' (Narrative, p. 271). No British commander was ever more popular with his officers, none have left a more lasting impress on the troops trained under them. In the Peninsular epoch, and long after, to have been 'one of Sir John Moore's men' carried with it a prestige quite sui generis. Napoleon said of him: 'His talents and firmness alone saved the British army [in Spain] from destruction; he was a brave soldier, an excellent officer, and a man of talent. He made a few mistakes, which were probably inseparable from the difficulties with which he was surrounded, and caused perhaps by his information having misled him.'

[James Carrick Moore's Life of Sir John Moore, 2 vols. London, 1835, and Narrative of the Campaign in Spain in 1809; Annual Registers under dates; Life and Letters of first Earl of Minto, vol. ii.; Wilson's Campaign in Egypt in