lighten the people. No change could be expected in such a government, except from some great effort of the people themselves. And yet without such a change, how was it possible to hope for success? a single officer of rank and character, under his command, who either advised the second campaign, or who would have been willing to stake any part of his reputation on that advice. He did not know what there was to put in the opposite scale. Perhaps one might form some idea of the nature of the information on which his majesty's ministers proceeded, from that of the agents whom they spread over the face of the peninsula, and who were understood to maintain a correspondence with government at home. These missionaries were, for the most part, military men, not very high in the profession, and who were of course delighted with the honours they received. It was natural enough that persons of this description, and that without imputing to them any deliberate dereliction of their duty, should represent only the fair side of things; give a little colouring to whatever was good, and extenuate all that was discouraging. They might even deserve praise for their activity and spirit; but he really believed, that out of the whole number there was scarcely a cool-headed, soundjudging man, scarcely one whose opinion was much better than that of the famous colonel Charmilly himself. The opinion of major Carrol stood on one side, the opinion of sir John Moore on the other, and ministers preferred that of major Carrol. The flight of the Supreme Junta to Seville had not cured them of the inactivity they had displayed at Aranjuez. Of all their enemies the only one they had been able to subdue, was the press. They had done nothing for the people, and nothing to endered the plan, the object, or the The fundamental error which pervaded the whole of our opera tions respecting Spain, consisted in supposing that the Spanish troops were capable of acting in conjunction with ours. Now it was clearly established, both by the events of sir J. Moore's campaign, and by every other species of evidence, that the Spaniards neither had a regular army, nor any thing that was capable of cooperating with a regular army; and that whenever the French chose to concentrate their force, at the risk of a rising in that part of the country, which such a movement would compel them to abandon, and which they might easily re-occupy when they had obliged us to retire, they would meet with very little opposition from our allies, and that we should have virtually to contend with them singlehanded. It was the art of that great general and politician, king William III. to render defeat harmless. It was the art of ministers and generals of these days to make victory itself unavailing. The successes at Oporto, and afterwards Talavera, for which the highest honours and panegyrics had been bestowed on our general! were attended with no permanent advantages whatever, and in their consequences resembled not vic tories, but defeats. With regard to the expedition to Walcheren, whether we consi person to whom the execution of it was intrusted, our history did not afford an example of any thing so disgraceful and so absurd. Buonaparte knew it was on the banks of the Danube alone that he was to fight, not only for Germany, but for Spain, Italy, Holland; for France itself, for all his conquests, and all his glories; and, did his majesty's ministers so far measure his mind by their own poor and inadequate conception of affairs, as even to dream that he could be arrested in his career, through the fear of losing Middleburgh, or even Antwerp? There had been times when even the present ministers, or any other persons of moderate under standings and attainments, might have governed the country, though not with much credit, yet without danger. But now that the whole power of Europe was concentrated in France, and the whole power of France concentrated in one man, and that man the greatest general and statesman the world ever produced, and the bitterest enemy England ever knew, it was an absolute infatuation not to have recourse to our best means of defence, moral as well as physical, to the wisdom and union of our councils, as well as the strength of our fleets and armies. Perhaps we were already in a situation which defied the efforts of the wisest and best among us, and which would have defied the efforts of those wiser and greater men whom we had lost. But sure he was, that the country could not be preserved by the remnant of a ministry, by something weaker than that which was supposed to have obtained the utmost possible point of debility. Mr. Herbert objected to the amendment, as it condemned the conduct of ministers without evidence. Sir Thomas Turton thought that the House ought, without delay, to pledge themselves to the country, to call for a rigid inquiry into the conduct of an expedition which had terminated in disgrace and disaster. He was astonished to hear of a fresh army having been sent to Spain, after the disasters that had befallen the former, which had a much fairer prospect of success. The most infallible mode of securing miscarriage in the conduct of the war had been resorted to by ministers, when they divided their force between Spain and Walcheren. Lord Kensington wished the House to present a dutiful address to the throne, desiring an inquiry into the conduct of ministers, but carefully avoiding all expressions that might appear to prejudge one or all of them. Mr. Brand saw no good likely to arise to the country from an inquiry, as he was well aware of the manner in which it would most likely be carried on. He, therefore, liked that part of the amendment which at once condemned the expeditions to Walcheren and Spain, better than that which merely proposed an inquiry into them. Buonaparte was enabled to withdraw part of his forces from Spain, and bring the war to a termination before our expedition could reach Walcheren. Could not the same armament have been sent to Walcheren before this event happened? But ministers had acted similarly towards Spain. The mar quis of Wellesley had been appointed ambassador, from this country to the Supreme Junta, on the 29th of May last, but he did not depart from England till the end of July. In Spain there was not the least hope of our arms having ultimately success. Whenever we succeeded by land against the French they were in an insulated situation, where their chief had no means of re-inforcing them but into Spain he could pour his legions at pleasure, and compel us to retreat.Mr. Bathurst had come down to the house, with the hope, not only that ministers would have put into the speech a declaration of their readiness to afford every information that could be required, but that the mover and seconder of the address would have introduced into it a pledge, on the part of parliament, to take the calamities and disorders that had befallen us into immediate consideration. The amendment, how ever, went too far, and rather precluded inquiry, by prejudging the case that was to be inquired into. It would have been a sufficient pledge to the country, to have stated, after thanking his majesty for the communication of the necessary documents, that they should immediately proceed to institute a parliamentary inquiry into the failures of the late campaign. Mr. Bathurst objected particularly to the position in the amendment, that our last campaign had been "marked only by a repetition of former error." The battle of Talavera had placed the valour of our troops on a height on which it had never before stood. Mr. Ponsonby observed, that Mr. Bathurst had much misunderstood the amendment. It did not criminate in the first instance any particular person in any particular transaction. Its only object was to tell his majesty that that House felt deeply the calamities and disgraces of the last campaign; and that they were resolved to inquire into the causes of them, and to punish their authors. Did the honourable gentlemen now deny that the public had been exposed to calamity and disgrace? That it was never exposed to so great calamity and disgrace, at any former period? What had been published by the enemy, on the subject of our last campaign, justly held up the British government to the derision of Europe. If our forces had been concentrated in the north of Germany instead of being dispersed in Spain, Walcheren, and Sicily, Austria would have received effectual succour, and perhaps been delivered from her perils, with great glory, inasmuch as the British army, thus collected, would have been more numerous than that which defeated the French at Essling. What was the state of the country, and of Europe, at the end of the first campaign, in the peninsula? That general, who had been much and most unjustly traduced, fell in the month of January 1809, in the battle of Corunna, at the moment of victory, which he sealed with his blood: a battle, notwithstanding what had been said by Mr. Bathurst, at least as brilliant and glorious as that of Talavera: a battle fought when the commander was carrying a retreating army out of the country; not one where the rashness and presumption of the general induced him to risk an engagement, which there was no call on him to hazard, and where there was not even one good consequence to be effected by the result. After the departure of the Eng, Jish army, Buonaparte also quitted Spain; and it was known to themselves that Austria had determined on an attempt once more to stem the torrent of his ambition. His leaving Spain must have shewn the ministers of this country, that he considered Austria as the most formidable enemy, for it was his rule never to trust his generals, however experienced, with the most important service, but to undertake that himself. They had not only general means of information, but must have had what amounted to almost a perfect knowledge on this subject. And thus were they enabled to choose the best point for diversion that presented itself, either in favour of Spain or Austria; though the conduct of Buonaparte himself must have convinced them, that the cause and support of Austria was infinitely the more important. If they had chosen such a point, and confined our concentrated forces to any one object, they might have effected some great operation. But, after all the notorious misconduct of ministers, it was still contended that the House should first enquire, and that all definitive judgment should be suspended till the result of deliberate inquiry was fairly before them. What was intended by all this? That they were to begin by taking those things as problematical, which were universally known, establish ed, and acknowledged? That they were gravely to proceed in an inquiry, whether the climate of Walcheren was, or was not, unhealthy? Whether the season at which the VOL. LII. British army made its descent on that island was, or was not, unfavourable? Whether ministers were or were not wholly ignorant of the climate and circumstances of an island within twenty hours sail of England? Were they to inquire who was selected to take the command of the greatest expedition that ever left the shores of England? Was that another of the notorieties of which it was so necessary to ascertain the truth? But who was this commander? A general, wise from long experi ence, and illustrious from the splendor of many victories? No! The flower of the British troops was committed, in an evil hour, to the guidance of that inauspicious and ill omened officer, of whom nothing more was known than that he was once at the head of the admiralty? And such was his lazy discharge of the duties of that department, that the minister, though his near relative, had not the courage to suffer the functions of the state to sleep beneath the indolence of even his own brother. The situation of the country was extremely awful; and if they, whose ignorance and obstinacy had placed it in that situation, were now to be exempted from the responsibility of having done so, its danger would not, on that account, be less alarming. After a repetition of the same errors had produced a repetition of the same disasters, the House could not content itself with doing merely that which it had thought sufficient in periods less critical, and under exigencies less pressing. The present was no time for half measures. Mr. Ponsonby did think it was a crisis that called upon the House of ComC mons to put forth its penal powers. It was no time for civility. It was no time for ceremoniously waving the best interests of the state, in courteous compliance with the feelings of those who had either betrayed or endangered them. The present was not a time for shaping amendments to the imaginary niceties of those gentlemen who revolted at all idea of punishment. It was the time to speak out, and pursue with unwearied zeal public defaulters of every description. Lord Castlereagh said, that, conscious of the wise policy on which the expeditions, on which so much of that day's discussion turned, were formed, and the manner in which they had been directed to the attainment of their objects, he had more reason to court than to shrink from inquiry; nor did he fear the exercise of that penal justice, with which Mr. Ponsonby had threatened him. But he trusted, that the House would not, like the honourable gentleman, think it necessary, in order to furnish the grounds of charge, or subjects of inquiry, to recur to the whole course of the administration, in which he had lately a share. They would not attempt, he trusted, to bestow censure beyond the transactions of last year. It was not his intention to make any invidious comparisons; but in the military and naval strength of the country, much improvement had latelytaken place. The Baltic was in our possession. The Brest fleet had been nearly annihilated. And the fleet of the Tagus had been brought into our ports; and, he would ask if Spain would have discovered that spirit of resistance and enthu siasm against the common enemy, if she had not been conscious of acting in conjunction with this country? He would also ask whether, amidst the political misfortunes that surrounded us, this country was not only in a state of safety, but of unexampled prosperity? With all our power and prosperity, however, this was not, comparatively speaking, a military country. We could not go to the continent as we did to sea. Our military efforts being directed to the continent, depended on the results of the efforts and engagements of other powers, to whom we could only be auxiliary. But whatever might have been the result of last year's campaign, the military glory of this country had been much promoted. The principles on which the late campaign in the peninsula had been conducted, were far different from those on which the antecedent Spanish campaign had been undertaken, being particularly connected with the security of Portugal. Lord Wellington had a discretionary power; and that power he most judiciously exercised. Had he not advanced to Talavera, he must have disgraced himself and the British army. Never had a greater victory been achieved than that at Talavera.-As to the expedition to Walcheren, the means were wanting to move it sooner, the transports not having arrived from Portugal till the 5th of July. It was impossible to transport 40,000 men to the North of Ġermany; and had it been possible, in a military point of view it would have been improper, from the situation and the disposition of the |