to pursue, the French would have marched upon Seville and upon Lisbon. Something, therefore, was gained by the diversion, dearly as it was purchased, by the shame and the loss of the retreat. But the advantages that might have been gained by it were great indeed, if the plans of government had not been frustrated by the erroneous opinion and pusillanimity of the generals. Four regiments, and two troops of horse artillery were actually disembarked, because Sir David Baird wrote home for empty transports. Five regiments more of cavalry were under orders for Spain, and would have been dispatched as soon as the ships could have returned for them. If the two generals had not despaired of the Spanish cause, they would have found these reinforcements at Coruna: the tide would then have turned; the French were beaten, and with these forces they must inevitably have been destroyed. Not a man of Soult's army would have escaped. We had tried our speed with the enemy in retreat, and Englishmen would have spurred on with far greater alacrity when it came to their turn to be the pursuers. This we lost because the generals wanted hope! But want of hope was the radical weakness of Sir John Moore's mind; and it is proved, not only by his conduct during this campaign, but by a circumstance men

tioned by Mr Hutchinson Feb. 21. in the House of Commons. After the death of Sir Ralph Abercrombie, Sir John Moore wrote to General Hutchinson in these words "I hope you see some prospect of terminating this expedition with success: left to my own mind, I own, it suggests nothing

comfortable." How that expedition terminated is known to France, and to England, and the world; yet thus it was that General Moore looked on to its result! Personally, he was as brave a man as ever met death in the field; but he wanted faith in British courage, and it is faith by which miracles are wrought in war, as well as in religion. It is not by superior skill that we beat the French at sea ;-the plan of defence at Trafalgar was as original and as masterly as the mode of attack; and their officers are as skilful as our own. When ships come to close quarters, it becomes a trial of courage; and herein it is that the superiority of the Englishman exists,-in his heart and essential nature.

The Spaniards, and especially the Gallicians, were cruelly calumniated by the friends of Sir John Moore and the opponents of ministers. The Gallicians were well excused by Buonaparte.-"You ought not,"-such is the language which he used in their character," you ought not to have advanced at first with such confidence, only to fall back afterwards with such precipitation. You should not have drawn the theatre of the war among us, and exposed us to the ravages of the two armies. After having brought down upon our heads such accumulations of disasters, you ought not to throw the fault upon

us.

We have not been able to resist the French troops, nor do you seem more able to make head against them. Forbear, therefore, to accuse and outrage us.' Even Buonaparte vindicated them thus against the base calumnies of a party in England: meanwhile they were triumphantly vindicating themselves.

Wardle's Motion.

On the second day of Jan. 20. the session, Colonel Wardle gave notice that he should, on that day week, submit to the House a motion relative to the conduct of his Royal Highness the Duke of York, commander-in-chief of the British army, with respect to the granting of commissions, the making of exchanges, and the raising of levies for the army.

In the August of the preceding year an anonymous pamphlet was published, entitled "A Plain Statement of the Conduct of the Ministry and the Opposition towards his Royal Highness the Duke of York." It was the most remarkable political tract of modern times. Among many curious passages which it contained was the following:-" Since the days of William III. there have existed in this kingdom two avowed parties,

an opposition and a ministry. As a defence from the overwhelming predominance of either, every succeeding monarch has deemed it necessary to have a kind of domestic party, a kind of closet and family council, whom he

may occasionally interpose between even his ministry and himself. The origin of this party has been imputed to his Majesty's father, or rather to his mother, whilst Princess-Dowager of Wales; but the point of fact is, that it existed in the reign of George I., and seems to have had no other origin than in its manifest necessity. It was not the creature of any design or previous arrangement, but, as a matter of prudence and necessary defensive policy, grew insensibly out of the very nature of things. Now, the immediate and almost necessary members of this party are certainly the king's family and household. From whom else, indeed, should a family council,-a domestic cabinet,-be composed, but of the members of the family,-of those who must necessarily have a community of interest, and sympathy in feeling? The heir-apparent alone, for very obvious reasons, is seldom a member of this closet council: all the other princes are almost necessarily in the immediate confidence of their sovereign and father. Let it not, there

fore, be objected to the Duke of York, that he has followed the course of things, and, with the queen, is at the head of the king's friends."

Upon the first appearance of this extraordinary pamphlet, the best London papers affirmed that it had evidently been written under the eye, and published with the sanction of the Duke of York himself; and some of them asserted that it must have had the concurrence of the highest authority in the kingdom. Such, however, was the general astonishment which it excited, and so forcible and constitutional were the comments which it called forth, that it was speedily disavowed by the duke's friends, and disappeared from circulation, though not before a second edition had been published, in which some of the most incautious expressions were expunged; those, in particular, which represented the queen as being at the head of the king's friends, and the heir apparent as generally excluded from the closet council. The avowal of this private privycouncil, this party behind the throne, this sanctum sanctorum of the state, though the most remarkable part of this curious pamphlet, was not the main purpose for which it was written. Its object was to complain that the Duke of York was not merely deserted by all parties, but even persecuted by all; that a system of anonymous attack was carried on against him, against which he could find no protection in any ministry, though he had appealed for it. Their answer was, that they had no influence or authority over the free press; that the law was open to his royal highness; and that the attorneygeneral might be instructed to prosecute; but that they advised him to hold all such libellous accusations

in contempt. To this it was replied, that, notwithstanding this disavowal of any influence or authority over the free press, that press was notoriously divided between the two leading parties in the country; and the ministers and the opposition had the same influence, not to say authority, over the newspapers, as if they were the actual editors; that the encouragement, the countenance, the impunity of these libellers, was the efficient cause of all their insolence; that, though the law was open, "there might be innumerable allusions, inuendoes, and even assertions, which had substance enough to wound, and that most deeply, but were not palpable enough for the visitation of the law; that the terms of these coldblooded libels were so studiously picked and culled, as to elude the just vengeance of the law; and even were they not so, there were many subjects which, however grossly offensive to all honourable feeling, could not be laid open before a court of justice; for there was a necessary and indiscriminating publicity in law, from which a mind of any delicacy could not but avert." After this avowal that the calumnies which were complained of were not within reach of the law, and that the duke did not desire legal redress, it is not easy to discover what redress was wanted. The writer, however, lamented that the natural and necessary protection due to his rank and station should be withheld from his royal highness, and exclaimed, "In what manner has Coriolanus offended both the consuls and the senate, that he is cast out naked, to meet his fate among the factious tribunes?"

Whenever any great expedition to the continent has been talked of, there has always prevailed a rumour

that the Duke of York was to have the command. These rumours never failed to excite a general uneasiness. Such an appointment would have been as little agreeable to the ministry as to the army and the nation, and every ministry, therefore, was well pleased at seeing the public opinion expressed plainly in the newspapers, because it either prevented the duke from pressing to be employed, or supplied them with a valid excuse for resisting his solicitations. It was this which the pamphleteer complained of. The indecent language in the daily prints, he said, was certainly not from the mouth of ministers; but the editors of those prints would never write thus, "unless they were persuaded that they were advocating a cause generally pleasing to their patrons. No instance had ever occurred in which a billet from Downing street had been refused admission, and, if required, an ample confirmatory comment through all the treasury papers." The disposition of ministers, indeed, upon this subject could not be doubted, and the decorous manner in which the papers under their controul expressed the universal opinion of the country, produced even a greater effect than the language of those writers whose comments were mingled with personal asperity. Of these men there were some whose talents were equal to their animosity; others whose insolence and brutality would have made them worthy of contempt and abhorrence, even if the matter of their scurrility had been true. Cobbett stung like a scorpion; but such libellers as Hague were like vermin, whose filth is more offensive than their venom.

It cannot be denied that the Duke

of York had been singularly unfortunate as a commander. This was the topic upon which the hostile newspapers assailed him, and this was sufficient to make him unpopular. Every person remembered his campaign in Flanders, and the capitulation of the Helder; and few were capable of judging how far these disasters were to be imputed to the ministry who planned the operations, rather than the general who executed them. Another circumstance materially injured the duke in the public opinion:-the whole foppery of the army, in all the variety of extravagant and senseless fashions with which it had for many years abounded, was ascribed to him, though, in most instances, it was more imputable to the colonels of the respective regiments, and though the volunteer corps had proved that this kind of display suited the humour of the times. The inconvenience of some of these fashions was so glaring as to excite general ridicule; and thus the duke laboured under an imputation of follies which he had rather suffered than committed; while the real, essential, and important reforms which he had made in the army were known to few. There were ill reports also with respect to his conduct as commander-in-chief. It was said that the readiest mode of obtaining promotion in the army was through one of the duke's mistresses, and that money well applied in that direction was sure of its object. Stories of this nature had long been prevalent; but they became more frequent, and obtained a more general belief towards the close of the year 1808, in consequence of an Appeal to the Public, and a Farewell Address to the Army, published by Brevet-Ma