Page:Viscount Hardinge and the Advance of the British Dominions into the Punjab.djvu/22

18 important despatches to Sir John Moore, performing the journey to Benevente with singular rapidity. We then find him with the rear-guard of Sir John Moore's force during the arduous retreat to Corunna, ending in that brilliant engagement which purchased the safe embarkation of the army at the price of its commander's life. As Hardinge was, I believe, almost the only officer by the side of Sir John Moore when he received his fatal wound, it may be worth while to quote his own description of the scene: —

'The circumstances which deprived the army of its gallant commander, Sir J. Moore, are of too interesting a nature not to be made public for the admiration of his countrymen; but I trust that the instance of fortitude and heroism of which I was a witness may also have another effect — that of affording some consolation to his relatives and friends. I had been ordered by the Commander-in-Chief to desire a battalion of Guards to advance, which battalion was intended to have dislodged a corps of the enemy from a large house and garden on the opposite side of the valley; and I was pointing out to the General the situation of the battalion, when a shot from the enemy's battery carried off his left shoulder and part of the collar bone. The violence of the shock threw him off his horse; but not a muscle of his face altered, nor did a sigh betray the least sensation of pain. The blood flowed fast, but the attempt to stop it with my sash was useless from the size of the wound. Sir John assented to being removed in a blanket to the