LONDON: W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
LONDON: W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
PREFACETO THE SECOND EDITION.
It has been very gratifying to me to witness the flattering manner in which this Journal has been received by the Public, and, with one exception, by the several writers who have noticed it.
As my own part in the Work is so small, the risk I ran in publishing it was small in proportion; but I confess that I did feel anxious not to damage the fair fame of my late brother.
The exception to which I allude is that of the Reviewer in the “Athenæum,” a paper which (having been a subscriber to it for many years) I hold in high estimation.
The writer must pardon me for observing (whilst fully admitting his right to state his conscientious opinion of the work itself), that the sneers at Mr. Larpent’s having been Fifth Wrangler, and at hisslowprogress at the Bar, are strangely misplaced. Surely a person attached to literature cannot seriously deprecate academic honours, or deny theirprimâ facieevidence of ability. And as for theslowprogress in the laborious pursuit of the law, the Reviewer must have been aware that such has been the fortune of many eminent Lawyers who have afterwardsrisen to the highest honours of the profession. Legal or political connexions, or a fortunate opportunity of displaying latent talents, are in truth the chief causes of rapid success at the Bar. None of these did my brother possess or obtain.
Is it not, therefore, somewhat severe to argue from this admission of mine, that he was a person not above mediocrity, and to represent him as merely a respectable sort of second-rate plodding official? The writer in the “Athenæum” may have had peculiar opportunities of judging, and it is not for me to contest the opinion he may have thus formed, but it certainly was not the opinion of my brother’s contemporaries. The observations of the writer in the “Athenæum” involve also charges of more importance than his remarks upon my brother’s abilities—
“We see,” he says, “in the sweeping and unqualified charges against the soldiers of England, Scotland, and Ireland, the censorious habits of one who filled the post of Judge-Advocate General, and the passage,” he adds, “comes with bad grace from one who narrates his own discomfortsad nauseam.”
I had allowed every passage to stand which expressed the opinion of the Author upon public matters, nor did I expunge those complaints of personal inconveniences which a man, for the first time placed in my brother’s situation, naturally feels, and as naturally describes in his letters to his family.
It has been too much the fashion to garble such Journals to suit the public taste; but my aim was to give the truth, and the whole truth, of all that my brother witnessed and described in his Journal.
This rather uncommon fidelity is, I believe, one of the chief merits of the work, and one of the chief causes of its success.
If my brother, in commenting upon the want of selfcontroland irregular habits and propensities of the British soldiery (defects which the Duke’s own Despatches, his proclamation upon the retreat from Burgos, and the uniform testimony of the writers upon the Peninsular War unfortunately confirm), had omitted to notice their many redeeming qualities, he might have been partly open to the rebuke of the writer alluded to; but throughout his narrative Mr. Larpent bears the strongest testimony to the undaunted courage, the immoveable steadiness of the British soldiers under the severest fire, and the perfect reliance the Duke always placed upon the bravery of his army.
The truth is, that the conscription in France forced into the ranks of its army a more intelligent and more intellectual class of persons than those who volunteered into our service.
Thus the moral conduct of the French soldier was perhaps more correct; but the stubborn courage, thepluck, if I may use such an expression, of the British soldier, guided by officers taken from theéliteof our gentry, and almost fastidiously alive to the sense of honour and of duty, enabled them in the Peninsula, at Waterloo, and wherever British troops have been called into action, to maintain a decided superiority over their opponents.
It has been remarked, that I have never mentioned the lady to whom these Letters were addressed.
She was my much honoured and loved mother; but I deprived myself of the pleasure of noticing her many excellent qualities, lest it should be thought that, in praising her, I sought to confer credit upon myself, or to gratify my own vanity.
She was the daughter of Sir James Porter, in his day a distinguished diplomatist, successively employed in the Netherlands and Germany, and for many years ambassador to the Ottoman Porte. She married my fatherwhen my brother was very young, and became a second mother to him. There never was the slightest distinction between him and her own children, and had we not been told that we were by different mothers, we should never have known the fact from her conduct. That she possessed my brother’s warmest affections, these letters would have abundantly shown, had I not thought it better to omit many passages, which, however gratifying to her to whom they were addressed, could be of no interest to the public.
George Larpent.
London, June, 1853.