The Bravest of the Brave;
or, With Peterborough in Spain,
by G. A. Henty.



PREFACE


My Dear Lads:

There are few great leaders whose lives and actions have so completely
fallen into oblivion as those of the Earl of Peterborough. His
career as a general was a brief one, extending only over little more
than a year, and yet in that time he showed a genius for warfare
which has never been surpassed, and performed feats of daring worthy
of taking their place among those of the leaders of chivalry.

The fact that they have made so slight a mark upon history is due
to several reasons. In the first place, they were overshadowed
by the glory and successes of Marlborough; they were performed in
a cause which could scarcely be said to be that of England, and in
which the public had a comparatively feeble interest; the object,
too, for which he fought was frustrated, and the war was an
unsuccessful one, although from no fault on his part.

But most of all, Lord Peterborough failed to attain that place in
the list of British worthies to which his genius and his bravery
should have raised him, because that genius was directed by no
steady aim or purpose. Lord Peterborough is, indeed, one of the