Page:The War with Mexico, Vol 2.djvu/325

Rh [by rejecting the plan of a lieutenant general] never to have one."

"The military tactics of the Americans," remarked the Examiner at the same stage, "have displayed an equal want of talent and of purpose"; while its fair colleague, Britannia, exclaimed: The hostilities against Mexico are "at once wretched and ridiculous. . . . So much for the boasting of Jonathan!" With unwinking and unsuspecting humor the Times commented thus on the fight at Buena Vista: "Beyond the fact that the Americans undoubtedly beat off, though from a strong position, a force nearly quadrupling their own, they seem to have no great grounds for triumph." In fact they were now "worse off than ever'; they had actually lost prestige; and all the Mexicans needed to do was "to sit still and be sulky."

Scott fared no better than Taylor. His bombarding Vera Cruz was characterized as "revolting," as an "infamy," as "one of the most atrocious and barbarous acts committed in modern times by the forces of a civilized nation," as "degrading to mankind." Somehow the Times was repentant enough to publish a reply, which said: "The first broadside of Lord Exmouth's guns at Algiers destroyed a greater number of unoffending, unarmed people, than the bombardment of Vera Cruz,"' and pointed out that Scott was under some obligation to treat with humanity his own troops, whom delay would have exposed to the yellow fever. Compassionate John Bull! exclaimed the American Review; "Is it true that the English bombarded Copenhagen? Is Hindostan more than a fiction? Had Clive and Hastings any substantial bodily existence? Is not Ireland a mythe?" and of course it might have added that an assault would have caused immensely more loss of life at Vera Cruz than did the bombardment.

According to the Times our contemplated advance against Mexico City was "the mere dream of an ignorant populace"; while the more prudent Morning Chronicle termed it "about as visionary as that of Napoleon upon Moscow." "There is but one thing we know of," added the Chronicle, "that is more difficult than for the United States army to get to Mexico, and that would be to get back again to Vera Cruz." When the Americans triumphed at Cerro Gordo over both nature