expect that Madrid would follow the example of Zaragoza, and its people emulate the compatriots of the heroic Palafox. I do not blame him, then, for the course which he pursued; I should have thought him blameable if he had not pursued it. I should not think well of the heart of any soldier, who, upon such assurances of the determined resistance of Madrid, would have let pass the opportunity for making a bold effort against the common enemy. Here, then, the agency of Mr Frere ended, and nothing had been done by him but what was calculated to raise the character of this country in Spain, and to conciliate the attachment of the Spaniards to Great Britain. The chief reason for Sir John Moore's advance was not founded on any external agency: it arose out of inform. ation obtained from an intercepted letter written by Berthier to Soult, directing him to be at a particular place on a particular day, and promising him reinforcements. This led Sir John to hope that he should be able to cut off Soult's corps; and in advancing with that intent, he acted as a statesman no less than as a soldier; because, even though he might fail, he should draw off the French from Madrid, and from their operations against the southern provinces. Thus, then, there had been no imprudence committed in marching the troops by land, in dividing them on their march, and in their subsequent advance against the enemy; and even if either or all these measures had been wrong, government stood clearly acquitted upon all.

"There remained another charge. Instead of sending a force to support the army at Coruna, troops which had actually been embarked were relanded. The fact was true. They

were re-landed in consequence of a distinct requisition from Sir David Baird, that he wanted a certain number of transports; and the ships from which those troops had been disembarked were sent out pursuant to that requisition. It was an afflicting circumstance to send out empty, for the purpose of bringing off the British army, those transports which had been filled for the purpose of reinforcement and assault. It had cost his Majesty's ministers a severe pang. Among all the decisions to which I have been a party," said Mr Canning, "no one has ever, in the course of my life, occurred, which gave me more pain than this: every dictate of the understanding was tortured, and every feeling was wrung by it. But his Majesty's ministers had no choice. They felt that it would excite dissatisfaction in England, and dismay in Spain, and yet they had no alternative."

Mr Canning then proceeded to the more general arguments of Mr Ponsonby,-sweeping arguments, in which, from false premises, he had deduced fallacious inferences. " It had been argued," he said, "that before the assistance of this country had been given to Spain, we ought to have ascertained whether or not the Spaniards were instigated by the monks; whether they were encouraged by the higher ranks; whether they were wedded to their ancient institutions, or disposed to shake off the oppression of their former government; to abjure the errors of a delusive religion; and to forswear the pope and the grand inquisitor. These were questions better suited for the employment of a period of learned leisure, than for the hours of action. The policy of his Majesty's government was different. They felt that

the Spanish nation wanted other and more aids than lectures on municipal institutions; they were content that a British army should act in Spain, though the grand inquisitor might have been at the head of the Spanish armies; though the people might have been attached to their ancient monarchy, and with one hand upheld Ferdinand VII., whilst with the other they worshipped the Lady of the Pillar. To assist the patriotic efforts of the Spanish nation was the sole object, and they did not wish to inflict upon that country any change, as the price of that assistance. God forbid that we should ever be so intolerant, as to make a conformity to our own opinions the price of our assistance to others, in their efforts for national independence; or to carry the sword in one hand, and what we might choose to call the Rights of Man in the other! If the principle upon which government had acted was not sound, if the measures resorted to had only paralized the efforts of the Spanish nation, for God's sake, let the administration of the government be trusted to more enthusiastic and abler hands. But the enthusiasm of the Spaniards was not pretended; what they had in their mouths, they felt in their hearts: they were enthusiastically determined to defend their country to the last extremity, or to perish under its ruins. The language held by his Majesty's government to Spain, was not that no assistance should be afforded till a supreme government should be established; but whilst assistance was sent to every part of Spain, we called upon that country to collect its authority in one supreme government; not in order to obtain our assistance, but to induce other nations of Europe to join in aiding their exertions. Un

til this supreme government had been established, no accredited minister could be sent to Spain; but at an early period of the national ebullition, agents had been sent by his Majesty's ministers to all parts of Spain, and from the information collected from these gentlemen, they were enabled to judge for themselves. But was there no other way of knowing the state of the country than by the barren reports of the agents who might be sent thither? If one were desirous of knowing what was passing in Eng. land, would he not ask whether such or such a person, who might have been known in Europe to be connected with public affairs, had any share in the passing transactions? This source of information was open to us in Spain; and the men connected with the national struggle afforded the best illustration of the principle, and the best comment upon the cause. In Catalonia, Espeleta, who had been Governor of South America, and President of the Council of Castile, took the lead. In Castile, Cuesta was at the head of the army. In Murcia, the venerable Florida Blanca. Besides these and others, there were Saavedra and Jovellanos; the former an able minister for foreign affairs, the latter distinguished in the home department; whose connection with the popular ebullition was a fortunate omen of its success, and a distinct proof of its extent. Morla, too, was active in his country's cause; which, alas! he had since betrayed. These were not all. Amongst those who attended their sovereign to Bayonne, and who took the earliest opportu nity to join their country, were Don Pedro Čevallos and the Duke del Infantado. When the hoary wisdom of age, and the ardent enthusiasm of youth,-when the whole mass of the

population, and the distinguished individuals of every rank were associated for the common defence of their country, who could doubt of their cause? The military part of the transaction might have disappointed expectation, but the cause was not desperate. The soldiers who conquered at Baylen, and those who rallied after the defeat of Rio Seco; those who defended Madrid before they were soldiers, and drove the French out of Castile, were still staunch in the cause. The spirit of the people was unsubdued; the boundaries of French power were confined within the limits of their military posts; the throne of Joseph was erected on sand, and would totter with the first blast; and Buonaparte, even should he succeed, instead of a yielding and unreproaching ally, would have an impatient, revolting, and turbulent nation to keep down. In this state of things he could not admit that the cause of Spain was hopeless. Austria and Prussia had sunk under the fortune of Buonaparte; but though his career had not been stopped, it had been interrupted by the unarmed population of Spain. The cause of Spain and of Europe was not therefore desperate, because our army of 30 or 40,000 men had been obliged to withdraw from Spain; and it was not just to the country, or to the army, which he hoped would again prove the stay and bulwark of Europe, to assert that its honour was in consequence gone for ever. All the energy of liberty, and all the sacredness of loyalty, still survived; and the Spanish resolution was, he trusted, destined by Providence to stand between posterity and French despotism, and to shew to the world, that, amidst the paroxysms of freedom, a monarch

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might still be loved. If, therefore, ministers could shew that these were the feelings by which they were influenced, and that they had acted up to those feelings, their justification would be complete; and he was convinced that the liberal and disinterested measures of his Majesty's government towards Spain were more congenial to British feeling, and more honourable to the national character, than if they had set out in their career of assistance by picking up golden apples for ourselves. himself, as an humble individual of the government, and having a share in these transactions, the recollection, whatever might be the vote of that night, would be a source of gratification which he should carry with him to the grave. Such had been the cause in which his Majesty's ministers had embarked; such the principles upon which they acted; and such the objects which they had in view. If we had been obliged to quit Spain, we had left that country with fresh laurels blooming upon our brows; and whatever failure there had been upon the whole, might still be repaired. If that was to be brought forward as the ground for accusation, he stood there for judgment, and should submit with patience to whatever sentence it might be the pleasure of the House to pass upon him. The object of the right honourable gentleman's motion was obviously calculated to take the reins of government out of the hands of those who at present held them; and upon that ground he desired that the present ministers might be judged by comparison. Was it the pleasure of the House that the cause of Spain should be abandoned? Was it a principle agreed upon, that the direction of the affairs of government should

be committed to other hands? If a new course was to be pursued with respect to Spain, undoubtedly the direction of affairs must be put into new hands. Was it then a settled opinion, that there was something fatal in the will, and irresistible in the power of Buonaparte? and was the world to submit to his tyrannous resolves, as to a divine infliction? Whatever might be the fruits of Buonaparte's victories in other respects, the spirit of the Spanish nation was yet unsubdued. His fortune, no doubt, had been augmented; but still it was fortune, not fate; and therefore not to be considered unchangeable and fixed. There was something unworthy in the sentiment that would defer to this fortune, as to the dispensations of Providence; looking upon it as immutable in its nature, and irresistible by human means.

This was a triumphant reply. The arguments of the opposition had been so misdirected, that there was no occasion of subterfuge, sophistry, or the never-failing shield of a majority to baffle them: they were refutable by a plain statement of facts, where they relied on facts,-by an appeal to principles and feelings, where they pretended to philosophy. Mr Canning, on this occasion, spoke from his heart. There was nothing which he was required to extenuate or to exaggerate; all that was needful was a manly avowal of what had been done, and the reason why it had been done. He had a good cause to plead, and he pleaded it with a force and eloquence worthy of the occasion. The latter part of his speech was frequently interrupted by a cry of fire.

Drury-Lane theatre was in flames; and Lord Temple proposed that the debate should be adjourned, in consequence of the calamity which this event would bring upon Mr Sheridan. Mr Sheridan replied, that whatever that calamity might be, he could not consider it as worthy to interrupt the proceedings of the House of Commons: yet, notwithstanding this reply, General Montague Matthew moved the adjournment, and the preposterous motion was seconded. The sense of the House was decidedly against it. This being settled, Mr Windham rose. "When the great

est stake which this country had ever set upon the hazard was lost, either by ill fortune, or by the mismanagement of ministers, it was full time," he said, " for inquiry. Our expedition to Spain was managed in such a manner, as not only to do no good, but to do what was much worse

than nothing. We held out to the Spaniards the disheartening example of what we called our best ar my retreating from the field, without striking a single blow, and on the mere rumour of the enemy's advance. We showed them, by our example, that our best troops could do nothing, and therefore that there was little chance of their undisciplined peasantry succeeding better. It was impossible not to be struck with the total want of all plan, and even of all right conception in the ministers of the very nature of the work in which they engaged. There were evidently two courses to be pursued ;-either to strike a blow on the Ebro, and endeavour to drive the enemy out of Spain while his force was but small, and his attention distracted; or, giving that attempt up as hopeless, to proceed at once to what ought to be the gene

ral plan, with a view to the final de liverance of the peninsula. On the former course he could give no opinion: it was a nice question, on which few but those in office could have the necessary means for judging. It was not, however, true that the one plan created any necessity of giving up the other. If the force sent to the Ebro had (as it ought to have been) been chiefly cavalry, (which the enemy most wanted, and which we could best spare,) such a force, even if it had been found insufficient for its immediate object, could still have been Mable to take care of itself, and to have retired in safety to that part of the peninsula where, at all events, and in E every view, the great mass of our force should be collected-the neighbourhood of Cadiz and Gibraltar. These were the only two places from which a large body of troops, when pressed by a superior army, could hope to get away; and there was no other part of Spain to which a British army, large enough to be of any use, could with propriety be trusted. "There, therefore," Mr Windham continued, "I would have collected not only a large army, but the greatest force that this country, in its then state of zeal and ardour, could by any posssibility have furnished. There was no reason why we might not have had an army of 100,000. An hundred thousand men, with Gibraltar to retreat upon, was a far less risk to the country than 30,000 in the situation in which the ministry had placed them; nay, than 30,000 in the very situation spoken of; because a general must be miserably deficient in knowledge of his business, who, in such an abundant country, and with such a fortress behind him, would, with an army of that amount, suffer himself to be prevented from

making good his retreat, by any force which the enemy could bring against him. For when we talked of Buonaparte's numbers, we must recollect where those numbers were to act. To meet in the south of Spain a Britishforce of 100,000, Buonaparte must bring over the Pyrenees a force of not less than 200,000; to say nothing of the demand that would be made upon him by the large Spanish army that might be raised in that part of Spain, to co-operate with the British, and which the presence of such a British force would help to raise. Buonaparte would have a whole kingdom, which he must garrison, behind him, if he would either be sure of his supplies, or make provision against total destruction, in the event of any reverse. He must fight us at arm'slength, while our strength would be exerted within distance, with an impregnable fortress at hand, furnishing at once a safe retreat in case of disaster, and a source of endless supply, by means of its safe and undisturbable communication with this country.— And let it not be said, that while the army continued in the south, Buonaparte might continue master of the north. What mastery could he have of any part of Spain, while such an army could keep on foot in any other? And why, in case of success, did the security of its retreat require that it should never advance ?-There was never any thing so demonstrable, therefore, as that the only way of carrying on effectually a compaign in Spain, whatever else you might have done, was to collect your army in the south. A force raised to the greatest possible amount to which the mind and means of the country,

then elevated above itself, and exalted to something of a preternatural greatness, could have carried it,