This was the first consequence of Romana’s death; far worse were to ensue. Relieved from all inquietude on that side, Mortier now pressed the siege; and yet not with that full confidence of success which the consciousness of his own strength and adequate preparations might else have given him, because he knew that the governor, Don Rafael Menacho, intended to have emulated Zaragoza in the defence which he should make. This governor was killed upon the walls by a cannon ball, when the garrison were making their last sortie to prevent the covered ♦IMAZ APPOINTED TO SUCCEED HIM.♦ way from being crowned. Don José de Imaz succeeded to the command: he was an officer of reputation, who had escaped with the troops from Denmark, had shared their sufferings under Blake, borne a part in their victory under the Duque del Parque, and followed their fortunes through evil and good till the present time.
In the official accounts of the French it was said that the English, according to their custom, had remained tranquil spectators of the destruction of their allies. They had, indeed, been so in the early part of the campaign, to the bitter mortification of the army and of the general, who, by the half measures of his Government, was placed in this most painful situation. The ill effects of the Walcheren expedition were felt more in the timid temporizing policy which ensued, than in the direct loss, lamentable as that had been; for the ministry having spent then where they ought to have spared, spared now where they ought to have spent. Just views, right feeling, and public opinion (which in these days is, whether right or wrong, more powerful with a British ministry than any or all other considerations) made them continue the contest; while secret apprehension of ill success, insensibly produced by the constant language of their opponents, who spoke with more than oracular confidence of defeat and total failure as the only possible event, withheld them from prosecuting it with vigour. They considered always what was the smallest force with which Lord Wellington could maintain his ground, never entrusting him with one that might render success calculable, and not yet venturing to believe that British courage would render it not less certain by land than it was by sea. Some excuse for this weak policy, which even to themselves needed excuse, they found in the prepossessions of the king, who, although upon some points of the highest importance he took clearer and juster views than the ablest of his ministers, could never in his latter days be brought to contemplate war upon the enlarged scale which the French Revolution had introduced; but looked upon an army of 20,000 men to be as great a force as it had been in the early part of his reign. Against this prepossession the ministers had always to contend while the king was capable of business; and when his fatal malady removed that impediment, Marquis Wellesley could not yet persuade his colleagues that the parsimony which protracts a war is more expensive than the liberal outlay which enables a general to prosecute it with vigour, and thereby bring it to a successful end.