All the encumbrances being shipped on the morning of the 16th, it was intended to embark the fighting men in the coming night, and this difficult operation would probably have been happily effected; but a glorious event was destined to give a more graceful, though melancholy, termination to the campaign. About two o'clock a general movement of the French line gave notice of an approaching battle, and the British infantry, fourteen thousand five hundred strong, occupied their position. Baird's division on the right, and governed by the oblique direction of the ridge, approached the enemy; Hope's division, forming the centre and left, although on strong ground abutting on the Mero, was of necessity withheld, so that the French battery on the rocks raked the whole line of battle. One of Baird's brigades was in column behind the right, and one of Hope's behind the left; Paget's reserve posted at the village of Airis, behind the centre, looked down the valley separating the right of the position front the hills occupied by the French cavalry. A battalion detached from the reserve kept these horsemen in check, and was itself connected with the main body by a chain of skirmishers extended across the valley. Fraser's division held the heights immediately before the gates of Corunna, watching the coast road, but it was also ready to succour any point.

When Laborde's division arrived, the French force was not less than twenty thousand men, and the Duke of Dalmatia made no idle evolutions of display. Distributing his lighter guns along the front of his position, he opened a fire from the heavy battery on his left, and instantly descended the mountain, with three columns covered by clouds of skirmishers. The British pickets were driven back in disorder, and the village of Elvina was carried by the first French column.

The ground about that village was intersected by stone walls and hollow roads; a severe scrambling fight ensued, the French were forced back with great loss, and the fiftieth regiment entering the village with the retiring mass, drove it, after a second struggle in the street, quite beyond the houses. Seeing this, the general ordered up a battalion of the guards to fill the void in the line made by the advance of those regiments; whereupon, the forty-second, mistaking his intention, retired, with exception of the grenadiers; and at that moment, the enemy being reinforced, renewed the fight beyond the village. Major Napier, commanding the fiftieth, was wounded and taken prisoner, and Elvina then became the scene of another contest; which being observed by the Commander-in-Chief, he addressed a few animating words to the forty-second, and caused it to return to the attack. Paget had now descended into the valley, and the line of the skirmishers being thus supported, vigorously checked the advance of the enemy's troops in that quarter, while the fourth regiment galled their flank; at the same time the centre and left of the army also became engaged, Baird was severely wounded, and a furious action ensued along the line, in the valley, and on the hills.

General Sir John Moore, while earnestly watching the result of the fight about the village of Elvina, was struck on the left breast by a cannon-shot; the shock threw him from his horse with violence; yet he rose again in a sitting posture, his countenance unchanged, and his steadfast eye still fixed upon the regiments engaged in his front, no sigh betraying a sensation of pain. In a few moments, when he saw the troops were gaining ground, his countenance brightened, and he suffered himself to be taken to the rear. Then was seen the dreadful nature of his hurt. As the soldiers placed him in a blanket, his sword got entangled, and the hilt entered the wound; Captain Hardinge, a staff officer, attempted to take it off, but the dying man stopped him, saying: "It is as well as it is. I had rather it should go out of the field with me;" and in that manner, so becoming to a soldier, Moore was borne from the fight.

Notwithstanding this great disaster, the troops gained ground. The reserve overthrowing everything in the valley, forced La Houssaye's dismounted dragoons to retire, and thus turning the enemy, approached the eminence upon which the great battery was posted. In the centre, the obstinate dispute for Elvina terminated in favour of the British; and when the night set in, their line was considerably advanced beyond the original position of the morning, while the French were falling back in confusion. If Fraser's division had been brought into action along with the reserve, the enemy could hardly have escaped a signal overthrow; for the little ammunition Soult had been able to bring up was nearly exhausted, the river Mero was in full tide behind him, and the difficult communication by the bridge of El Burgo was alone open for a retreat. On the other hand, to fight in the dark was to tempt fortune; the French were still the most numerous, their ground strong, and their disorder facilitated the original plan of embarking during the night. Hope, upon whom the command had devolved, resolved therefore, to ship the army, and so complete were the arrangements, that no confusion or difficulty occurred; the pickets kindled fires to cover the retreat, and were themselves withdrawn at daybreak, to embark under the protection of Hill's brigade, which was in position under the ramparts of Corunna.

From the spot where he fell, the general was carried to the town by his soldiers; his blood flowed fast, and the torture of the wound was great; yet the unshaken firmness of his mind made those about him, seeing the resolution of his countenance, express a hope of his recovery. He looked steadfastly at the injury for a moment, and said, "No, I feel that to be impossible." Several times he caused his attendants to stop and turn round, that he might behold the field of battle; and when the firing indicated the advance of the British, he discovered his satisfaction and permitted the bearers to proceed. When brought to his lodgings, the surgeons examined his wound; there was no hope, the pain increased, he spoke with difficulty. At intervals, he asked if the French were beaten, and addressing his old friend, Colonel Anderson, said, "You know I always wished to die this way." Again he asked if the enemy were defeated, and being told they were, said, "It is a great satisfaction to me to know we have beaten the French." His countenance continued firm, his thoughts clear; once only when he spoke of his mother he became agitated; but he often inquired after the safety of his friends and the officers of his staff, and he did not even in this moment forget to recommend those whose merit had given them claims to promotion. When life was nearly extinct, with an unsubdued spirit, as if anticipating the baseness of his posthumous calumniators, he exclaimed, "I hope the people of England will be satisfied! I hope my country will do me justice!" In a few minutes afterwards he died; and his corpse, wrapped in a military cloak, was interred by the officers of his staff, in the citadel of Corunna. The guns of the enemy paid his funeral honours, and Soult, with a noble feeling of respect for his valour, raised a monument to his memory on the field of battle.

NAPIER.

[Note:Battle of Corunna. The French army having proclaimed Joseph Buonaparte, King of Spain, the Spanish people rose as one man in protest, and sought and obtained the aid of England. The English armies were at first driven back by Napoleon; but the force under Sir John Moore saved its honour in the fight before Corunna, 16th January, 1809, which enabled it to embark in safety.]

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