Economic History: Naughty, Naughty, Eric Hobsbawm!

He wrote:

Eric Hobsbawm: The Machine Breakers: ‘Mr Darvall has done well to remind us that the 12,000 troops deployed against the Luddites [in 1811-13] greatly exceeded in size the army which Wellington took into the Peninsula in 1808... <archive.org/details/lab…>

In 1808 Arthur Wellesley was still plain Mr. Arthur Wellesley. (He would not be ennobled as Viscount Wellington of Talavera and of Wellington, and Baron Douro of Wellesley until August 26, 1809). He was then the junior one of four generals sent to Portugal and Spain.

He was sent in in command of the first 9,000 troops, yes.

But 6,000 more rapidly followed. And then in October David Baird arrived with 13,000 more and the overall commander, John Moore, brought an additional 15,000. The total was 43,000 committed in the year 1808—plus more later.

No, the British government did not commit more soldiers to suppress the Luddites than to fight Napoleon.

• Hobsbawm, Eric J. 1952 [1964]. "The Machine Breakers." Reprinted in Labouring Men: Studies in the History of Labour. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Pp. 7-26. <archive.org/details/lab…>.