we have been obliged to decline, that in so doing, we THE UNIVERSAL MAGAZINE. No. XIV....VOL. III.] For JANUARY 1805. A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF SIR ROBERT GOONS. [With his Portrait.] AN author of fome celebrity has faid, that we feldom fee the fame man a good fighter and an able writer. This obfervation, however, will never grow into an axiom. There are too many exceptions to it in antient as well as in modern days, from Xenophon down to the perfon of our prefent fubject. Among the Romans, belides Cæfar, there were many able generals who diftinguished themfelves not merely for their accuracy, but for the elegance of their narrations. The fact is, that by far the greater number of thofe perfons intended for the military profeflion enter very young into the army, in order to obtain early rank, in which cafe it is obvious that they must be deficient in that academical groundwork which fhould qualify them to write with confidence, and a profpect of commendation. The great Turenne entered into the profeffion of arms before he had learnt to write a billet-dour. Frequently he has been heard to say, that he would gladly cede a portion of his military fame for the advantages arifing from a due cultivation of letters. It is, indeed, to be lamented that the capacity to write is not oftener joined with the readiness to fight; we fhould then be likely to have more exact annals of military affairs, more accurate narratives of a campaign or a fiege, than when undertaken by penmen who have thought proper to keep at a refpectable distance froin the contending armies. In the German and French army lifts we shall find many officers of rank, even as high up as commanders of large forces, who have fignalized themfelves for their hiftorical as well as warlike talent. The Ruffian arms have not been without a pen to celebrate their achievements; and but for a Count de Lacy, the Emperor at the head of his army against the Poles in Ingria, and his Marchal Schremetof's exploits, as well as thofe of Prince Repnin, might have fcarcely been known a few leagues from the fcene of action. The campaign of 1792, fo full of events, and fo influential in the affairs of the French revolution, have been better unVOL. III, NEW SERIES. derstood by the hiftory of General Money; and though there is much to be objected to in the want of difcernment and juft reasoning in this author, his work cannot be faid to be without its ufe. Time, the great expofer of truth and expounder of riddles, corrects the errors in the way of thinking of the felf opiniated, and contradicts the hazardous affertions of the rafh or over confident. Military men, in general, affert with too much boldness, and thereby lead their hearers into miftaken notions of men and things. As they flay an enemy by the ftroke of a fabre, fo, with equal impetuofity, they often, by a dath of the pen, wound the reputation of a cotemporary or a friend. Colonel (now General) Tarleton, by his "Hiftory of the Campaigns of 1780 and 1781 in the Southern Provinces of North America," in this way greatly offufcated the military characters of Lord Cornwallis and Lord Rawdon (as the latter then was); and in this fame way Marthal de Camp Money did a violent and undeferved injury to the honest fame of the Marquis La Fayette. In this narrator's dashing or rather flashing manner of writing, after furprifing the friends of General Dillon (who fo early and fo fhockingly fell in the conflict) by reprefeuting him either as a poltroon or a traitor, he fpeaks of the young and noble French general who fo much attracted the efteem of his fellow foldier, Wafhington, as follows: "I muft not here omit a circumftance which deferves attention. La Fayette had drawn back his army from Longwy to Sedan, on the approach of the Duke of Brunfwick's forces. Whoever obferves this manœuvre with the eye of a foldier, will be inclined to suspect either that La Fayette meant to betray the caufe in which he was engaged, or that his profeffional knowledge may be called in queftion." The phrafe Whoever beholds this with the eye of a foldier, impofes a kind of noli profequi upon the mind of every reader, especially of every one but a military reader, and he is at once trepanned into a belief that the writer cannot be far from the truth, he is fo far from hesitation. Unfortunately for thefe intrepid writers, their books now and then fall under the eye of logicians, of men who (contrary to the A leffons ufually imbibed by the foldier gree, to impugn the conduct of Lord from his fuperior) will think for them- Cornwallis. The celerity of the movefelves; and fuch perfons will naturally ments of our commander of the flying fay, If La Fayette had entered into a legion must often raise a great duft: it good understanding with the enemy as a might for a moment envelope his fuperiors traitor to France, would that enemy have and rival commanders in a cloud, but it treated him with the long continued and could not blind the clear-fighted at home, cruel rigor he received at their hands? who were able to difcover an abfolute Reafon and common feufe forbid fuch a contradiction in the writer's own account. belief, and circumstances, which never He fays, "no letter, order, or intelliutter falfehoods, are more to be relied on gence, from head quarters reached Tarleat all times than facts, though uttered in ton after this reply, previous to the dethe most positive manner. Thefe are the feat on the 17th; and after that he found writers who contribute to leffen the credit Earl Cornwallis on Turkey Creek," &c. which should be due to the hiftorian, and &c. Then how can he fpeak of a concerted this is the kind of writing which fometimes point for his lordship to arrive at? Did our brings history into difgrace; and well might active colonel confider his defire, that it be faid, by the perfon who criticifed the Lord Cornwallis might acquire as high a work of the commander of the British ftation as poffible on the river, an abfolute legion serving in America, that "the command? Did his zeal in the caule, his Lieutenant-Colonel's conclufions are not thirst for renown, betray him into a noalways logically deduced;" and it might tion that a fuperior officer would move well be added, not warranted by mili- with his larger army at the will of an intary Science. Having fubftantiated our ferior commander, to fill the measure of objections to the reafoning of the French fuch a tyro's fame, at the hazard of enmilitary hiftoriad, it is poffible as much dangering his own? These are the overmay be expected from us with regard to ights, the blemishes, which let down the our own general and hiftorian, and the value and dim the luftre of military bifinftance we shall produce is that wherein tory. he comments on his own difaftrous defeat at the battle of Cowpens. Money laid himself under an unfavourable prepoffeffion with his reader by On the 14th, Earl Cornwallis inform- an er gratia flourish, which took away ed Tarleton that Leflie had furmounted from the refpect we bear the foldier who his difficulties, and that he imagined the fights from principle. In his preface, he enemy would not pass the Broad-river, alligns no other reafon for ferving in the though it had fallen very much. Tarle- armies of France, than that he loved the ton then anfwered, that he would try to profeffion, and went there merely to imcrofs the Pacolet, to force them, and de- prove himself in it. Giving no reafon at fired Earl Cornwallis to acquire as high a all would have been better. War can ftation as poffible, in order to stop their only be contemplated without horror on retreat. No letter, order, or intelligence, the ground of its neceffity, or on the plea from head-quarters reached Tarleton af- of felf-defence. Upon the principles of ter this reply, previous to the defeat on humanity and the Chriftian religion, it is the 17th; and after that event he found a detestable trade; and we profefs ourEarl Cornwallis on Turkey Creek, near felves ignorant of the anatomical contwenty-five miles below the place where ftruction of that man's mind who can the action had happened. The diftance love fuch a calling, and follow it upon between Wynnetborough and King's- that fcore. Our hiftorian, Tarleton, has mountain, or Wynnesborough and Little had no fuch prejudice to operate against Broad-river, which would have answered the work of his hand. When he fought the fame purpose, does not exceed fixty- againfi liberty, he might well enough think five miles. Earl Cornwallis commenced he was fighting againft rebellion alfo; his march on the 7th or 8th of January. It would be mortifying to defcribe the advantages that might have refulted from his lordship's arrival at the concerted point, or to expatiate upon the calamities which were produced by this event.' Now it is eafy to fee that this paffage in his hiftory is intended to ftife any prejudice which might arise against him from at difaftrous affair, and, in a great de and, therefore, he loft nothing in the opinion of his countrymen and readers on the ground of confiftency and principle. The part he has taken to perpetuate the practice and horrors of flavery are fins which he has fallen into as a member of parliament, as the reprefentative of a town which has flourished and grown wealthy by the obnoxious traffic which philofophers as well as philanthropists |