" see the French, see the "vanquished" French, in spite of all the slaughter they had experienced, in spite of the killing and 66 waggons of wounded men, which Cuesta says they had; till we see them, in spite of all this, coming again to the attack, and actually taking up the ground of our army. which now thinks proper to retreat before them with Talavera at its head. Yes, we see this same "vanquished" army becoming the assailant of those, who, only 48 hours before had obtained a glorious victory". over it; and, not only that, but we see this French army coming on over that very country, where ours could find no pro visions! This is wonderful. If ours could not advance for want of provisions, how is the French army to live, in the same country, and upon the same line of march, and that, too, after our army has passed over it again; after our army has given it another bite down? Want of provisions prevents us from moving forward after a vanquished" army; but the "van well; but, let us, in spite of this most | And, as to fatigue, oh! it will never do to glaring fact, allow Victor to have been tell us, that an army, which has “vanvanquished," what was the consequence; quished" another, and annihilated "enwhat effect upon the state of the war was "tire brigades," is unable, from fatigue, to produced? For, where every fourth man pursue that " vanquished" army. This of an army is lost; where victory is pur-will never do. It is what never was before chased so dearly, it ought to answer some heard of. And, besides, there were the purpose beyond that of procuring a title, Spaniards, who, according to the Baron's and a pension, most likely, for the Com- account, had had little share in the battle, mander. What, then, was the consequence and who could know no other fatigue than of this battle? Did it tend to drive the what arose from want of something to do. French out of the heart of Spain, where it This is all nothing, however, till we was fought? Did it shake Joseph Napoleon upon his throne at Madrid? Did it enable our army to pursue and destroy that of France; that which it had "vun-wounding of their generals, and the 87 "quished"? No, none of these; but, on the contrary, if the last published advices be correct, our army, was unable to pursue the vanquished," even for the purpose of recovering its missing; and, in two days after the Battle was fought, it was compelled to retreat before that vanquished army, some of whose generals it had killed and some wounded, and "entire brigades" of which it had annihilated! Observe, the French army could have received no augmentation after the battle; no succours after it was "vanquished;" because Talavera tells us in his dispatch, that Joseph Napoleon had come out with his troops to Victor's assistance, and that the whole of the French force in this part of Spain was collected together for this battle. The French army could not, therefore, be augmented. It was the very same "van"quished" army, which had been so cut to pieces, and cowed down but two days before. This army it was, before which our "victorious" army began its retreat, in less than 48 hours after its "glorious "victory." This is pretty fruit of victory. It was different at Blenheim and at Trafalgar. This fruit was hardly worth the lives of about 5,000 men.- -If the French army, which had been “ vanquished" only 48 hours before, had not, then, received any reinforcements, what made it either prudent or honourable to retreat before it? I should first ask, why it was not pursued; but, that has been anticipated by the Baron's dispatch of the 1st of August, where he attributes his inactivity to want of provisions and to fatigue. Now, as to provisions, why did he go on beyond his provisions. Had he been the pursued party indeed, the excuse might have been good; but, being the pursuer, he had to choose his distances. But, if he wanted provisions, was not the enemy in the same plight? quished" army is not prevented from moving forward after us, even into the country, where we experience this debilitating and benumbing want of provisions, -But, there is given us another reason for Talavera's retreat, more powerful than the former; for, indeed, to plead want of provisions and fatigue in justification of a precipitate retreat would be too barefaced even for the meridian of St. James's Street. This other reason is, that SOULT, whom the Spaniards appear to have surnamed "the cursed," was pushing on, with an army of 20,000 men, in order to get upon the rear of Baron Douro; and, that, in order to avoid being placed between two fires, the Baron was compelled to hurry back, though this movement was accom panied with the mortification of seeing himself pursued by an army, that he had vanquished." This is a very good reason for retreating; and I am not a little pleased to perceive, that, though want of provisions, and fatigue, prevented the allied armies from advancing, it had no such effect upon their powers of retreating, in which, indeed, the two armies appear, from the reports in the news-papers, to have carried their rivalship in zeal to a very high degree. So far from standing in an attitude to thrust each other on foremost, they appear, if these accounts be true, to have thought of nothing but excelling one another in alacrity. It would seem, that our army was willing to take the lead, and to leave the Spaniards to come after at their leisure; but whether from that affection for our army, which the Morning Chronicle supposes to have been so strong, or, from some other cause, not less delicate and more powerful, it does appear, that our army was hardly got out of sight, when the Spaniards set off after it, like a foal after its dam.Be this as it may, the reason for the retreat is quite sufficient; and, it only remains for my Lord Douro, or some of those who talk of his · military resource," to furnish as good a reason for the advance of our army to Talavera, while the cursed Soult" lay at Placentia; or while he lay any where, he or any other French commander, with a force capable, when joined to that of Victor, or co-operating with Victor's force, to place our army between two fires, and possibly to capture it. We want a sufficient reason for this. The advance into the heart of Spain has lost us many thousand of lives; it has sent some hundreds of our countrymen into French prisons, there to remain, perhaps, for several years; it will cost us many a hundred thousand of pounds; and shall we not be entitled to ask, why it was undertaken; especially when the commander is asserted to have displayed great generalship, and when he is loaded with titles for his achievements? Was he not acquainted with the strength, or the situation, of " the cursed Soult's" army? Why, then, was he not? It is one part, and a material part, of generalship to know what and whom you have to attack or to defend yourself against. Either Talavera knew what he had to encounter, or he did not if the former, he wanted the judgment necessary to enable him to weigh his means against his undertaking; and if the latter, he ought not to have advanced. In short, the advance into Spain and on to Talavera was of his own choosing there was nothing that compelle icon Portugal: he vas safe in ance of means for keeping his ground, and, of course, should not have moved forward till he had been able to form a rational hope of success. The advance was his own work; no one else had any thing to do with it; and, if it end in a flight before the French, after having cost us so much in blood and in money, shall we still be told, that he has great military resource?” Shall we still patiently hear this? Shall we still shout when the Park and Tower guns are fired? Shall we, indeed, verify the words of my motto? And, yet, shail we have the impudence, the inane assur ance, to mock at the French people on account of their credulity?-When I take a view of the Battle of Talavera, I can see in it no marks of generalship on the part of Wellesley; but, of his conduct during that battle we can, in fact, knea very little. We know what his conduct in the campaign has been, as far as it has hitherto gone; that is to say, the canpaign considered as consisting of import ant movements and measures; and, if we find him wanting in these; if we find these movements and measures productive of loss of ground as well as loss of lives and money, our decision must be against the generalship of the campaign. There is one, and, in my opinion, but one ground of apology for the advance of our army into Spain, so far as Talavera: mean, that Douro did not find either the Spanish army or the Spanish people or the Spanish provinces what he expected to find them. With respect to the two latter, however, the people and the sup plies, any one could have told him what the country afforded, and sir John Moore had told him what the people were made of.. With regard to the army he could not so well judge. He must, after what he had heard of in the corps under Romana and Blake, have had his suspicions, and it became him to take care how he exposed an English army to the probable consequences of a reliance upon the co-operation of such associates. Yet, on the other hand, it was for him to judge, whether the effect of English cxample, upon so considerable a body of Spanish troops as that under Cuesta, was not worth a trial, even at the risk of a lost battle. This appears to me to be the only ground of apology, or at least, of justification; and, I do not say, that, under similar circumstances, I should not have judged in favour of such risk. Iam of opinion, indeed, that a great part of the public think, that, at bottom, the trus cause of the apprehended flight towards "let a man tell you his story every day Cadiz, is, Wellesley's disappointment in "for a year, and, at the end of it, he the Spanish troops. Why not say this," will be your master." These hireling then? Why disguise this fact, the know- prints tell their story every day; and at ledge of which removes, at once, all the last, they, by mere dint of repeated asdoub respecting the cause of inactivity sertion, get the better of the sense and after the battle, and of the precipitate re- the reason of their readers.While my treat, which is said to have followed that Lord Douro is retreating in one part of inactivity? Why not declare openly a spain, his brother, Lord Wellesley, is, the fact so necessary not only to the justifica-hireling prints tell us, making his diplotion of our general, but to the reputation of our army?—The reason is, that the greater part of those, who have got hold of the public ear, wish to deceive that public in almost every thing; but, in nothing so much as in what relates to the disposition of the people and the armies of Spain, who, until the last verse of the last chapter, we are to be told, are ready to shed their blood for FERDINAND VII. In vain do facts, multitudes of facts, flatly contradict this assertion; in vain have we read the letters of sir John Moore; in vain have we seen whole corps run away from their commanders; in vain even now, in his Orders respecting this very battle, does CUESTA Speak of his run-aways, and threaten to decimate them, when he catches them; that is to say, to put every tenth man of them to death: in vain do we see and hear all this; for we seem resolved to make no use of our senses, but still to believe the hirelings, who assure us, that the universal Spanish nation is "bent upon the restoration of their beloved Ferdinand ;" that the people, of all ranks and degrees, are enthusiastic in nis cause; and, in short, that the nation will suffer itself to be butchered to the last man, rather than submit to the sway of Joseph Napoleon. This is what we are told to believe; and this is what proofs innumerable to the contrary do not make every one disbelieve. We have now before us our army in precipitate retreat; we know that they have left some hun-ed in the harbour of Cadiz, whether it was dreds of missing; and, what is still more to bought in a pawn-broker's shop, or, whebe lamented, that they have left some ther it was hooked off from some wall, thousands of wounded and of sick to the where, under the name of bunting, it had mercy of those whom our hireling prints kindly sheltered blossoms or fruits, the hiscall «Vandals," that is to say, barbarians. torical philosopher who narrates the occurYet, though we have this picture before rence has omitted to mention; but, he has our eyes; though we know that this exists told us, and it is a fact that I wish all the in the heart of Spain, in the midst of a people in England to know and to bear in nation consisting of ten or twelve millions mind, that, when the Marquis Wellesley of people, still are there amongst us many landed at Cadiz, a French flag was laid thousands, who believe, or affect to believe, upon the ground, that he might walk over that the whole Spanish nation is enthusi-it, that he might trample it under foot, that astic in our cause, and that they hate and loath the French. There is no accounting for this but upon the principle of Burke: matic entry into another part of that devoted country, accompanied by another brother, Mr, Henry Wellesley. I believe there is a fourth brother, and would to God they were all in Spain; for, it has long been a saying about Whitehall and St. James's street, that nobody but the Wellesleys are capable of encountering the Buonapartés. Well, there are three of them in Spain. They have nothing to do but to draw upon the resources of England, and, unless their enlogists are liars, they have the universal Spanish nation on their side. There they are then, in the cabinet as well as in the field. They are' fairly pitted against the Buonapartés, and we shall see, before many months have passed over our heads, which gains the day.The Marquis, we are told in the London news-papers, stepped on shore, at Cadiz, upon a French flug, brought and spread out for the purpose. Whether this idea was borrowed from that of the bed of honour, which Marshal Vandome inade for the king of France, or whether it be of Oriental origin, I know not; though I should rather suppose the latter; and, at any rate, it must be confessed, that there is in it something vastly manful, dignified; and sublime. The circumstance of where or how, the flag was obtained, whether it was taken from the French, during a desperate conflict on sea or land, whether it came from one of the French ships detain he might thus triumph over Buonaparté. I wish this to be borne in mind by every man in England.I sincerely hope that neither of the three brothers will come home, till the contest is fairly at an end. I wish to see the thing fought out between them and the Buonapartés. They took to the war when it was in the most promising state. Napoleon was in Austria; only a handful, comparatively, of his army was left in Spain and Portugal; not yet even have any reinforcements been sent to his army; the Wellesleys have had an abundance of time to make all sorts of preparations; and, if they do not beat the Buonapartés, there will be left to them not the shadow of an excuse.-- -We have heard and read and seen enough of Lord Wellesley's Oriental wars. Some people were ill-natured enough to suppose, that these wars with the blacks were nothing. We shall now see what he will do against white men; and, for the honour of Old England, let us hope, that he will keep up his habits of triumph; for, really, it would be shocking to find, that when he came to be opposed to whites, he fell off in his career of glory. What would the Nabob Vizier of Oude say to that?-Well, come; let us leave them a while, and see what they will do; but, this I certainly shall do, whenever the result is known, make a comparison between the wars of the Wellesleys in Spain, and their wars in India. at his remedies. No, no: for a paper cur- Botley, Thursday, 31st August 1509. MR. TOWNSEND ON TYTHES. Busbridge, Aug. 20, 1809. Sir; Your Political Register of yesterday is now before me, and as you are the last man in the world by whom I would wish any thing that was said or written by me to be misunderstood, your observations on my Letter concerning the Godalmin Tythes, (to use your own words) "demand an answer." So, indeed, do your questions concerning Sir Arthur Wellesley's dispatches, and I wish the one may be answered as satisfactorily as I trust I shall answer the other. But, before I enter on the subject of the Tythes, I must tell you, Sir, that I take an uncommon degree of interest in every thing that comes from your pen; for we often think alike, and upon some occasions, I have found the opinions published in your Register, correspond exactly with those I had in private expressed: which was the case in regard to the late dispatches from Sir Arthur Wellesley. For my friends know that I had made every observation It was my intention to have offered some remarks upon an article, which has been published in the Morning Chronicle, upon the subject of depreciation of bank-notes, that depreciation being now openly acknow-respecting them, which in yesterday's Reledged to exist; but, I thought it my duty, before I proceeded to any other subject, to place upon record my opinions, relative to the battle of Talavera, and the extraordinary transactions connected with it. This Bank-Note work is going steadily on, and so it ought; but, I can remember when I was accused of a wish to overthrow the government, because I insisted, that bank-notes had depreciated. They have, it would appear from this article, now depreciated nearly 20 per cent., and this is stated, too, in the public prints, to which I will add, that I am very far from thinking the depreciation an unpromising sign for the country. The bank notes are the funds, and the funds are the bank notes. pleasant concern altogether; but it is what I feel no interest in, and what, if annihilated to-morrow before breakfast-time, would not at all endanger the safety of England. This being my opinion, the author of the article in question must excuse me if I smile at his alarms, and especially It is a gister was made by you: particularly the misunderstanding which the dispatches were likely to produce betwixt the Spaniards and us. When one feels that a man really loves his country, when one knows that in consequence, he is deserv edly looked up to by that country, one must be anxious that he should upon all occasions view things in the right light. For if he sees things through a false medium, let his intentions be ever so good, he would never be able to apply a remedy to the existing evil; and he would be sure to split on the rock, on which so many have struck before.-I will confess to you, Sir, that your Summary of Politics, which I have read to day, has relieved me from some alarm, by convincing me that the "zeal" you feel for the public cause, will be directed in the proper way. Yes, Sir, it is the "Medecin malgré-lui, it is a "stupid way of thinking received and en"couraged by certain hireling writers on "the continent, (and you might have " to end. The government lays on taxes, the rector raises the tythes, the farmer the price of corn; but what is to become of the public at large? and what remedy can be applied to the frightful prospect that now presents itself to my mind?-A Parliamentary Reform-that may put a stop to the shameful profusion of the public money which has existed for the last sixteen years! If the public money were properly managed, thought I, the taxes might be reduced, and then there would not be a necessity for the parson's raising his tythes, or the farmer the price of corn. But as a Parliamentary Reform might be a long time in taking place, if it ever took place at all, I proceeded to consider, whether there might not be some act, some regulation respecting Tythes, that might be immediately applied to, for the purpose of keeping down the farmer's outgoings, and therefore the price of corn. In searching the Statutes at large, I found an Act that particularly applied to my case, and which I now transcribe for your perusal. It is a statute enacted 15 Ric. II. c. 6, and which was renewed and enforced by Statute 4 Hen. IV. c. 12. "added in this country) that has been the 66 In appropriation of Benefices there "shall be provision made for the "Poor, and the Vicar. "Item, because divers damages, and hindrances oftentimes have happened, "and daily do happen to the parishioners of divers places, by the appropriation "of Benefices of the same places; it is agreed and assented, that in every li"cence from henceforth to be made in the "Chancery of the appropriation of any parish Church, it shall be expressly con"tained and comprised that the diocesan "of the place, upon the appropriation of "such churches, shall ordain according to "the value of such churches a convenient sum of money to be paid and distributed yearly, of the fruits and profits of the "same churches, by those that shall have "the said churches in proper use, and by "their successors, to the poor parishioners "of the said churches, in aid of their liv ing and sustenance for ever; and also "that the vicar be well and sufficiently "endowed." Now, Sir, I trust I have convinced you, that the raising of the Tythes at Godalmin, has to do with Parliamentary Reform, for I have no doubt that the same rise of Tythes, and the same reason for raising them, (that is, the weight of the taxes) goes from one end of the kingdom |