throws them into a strain of discord, and then conjures them to be harmonious. By this time, however, he was himself become completely ignorant who was the commander-inchief; they had been appointed in such rapid succession, that he knew not to whom he should address himself as such, and all his future instructions were therefore directed to the senior officer for the time being!

"There is yet one point more which requires attention, relative to the equipment of this expedition. It is stated in the instructions furnished by Lord Castlereagh, that the great expence of rendering the army maintainable on its landing has determined him to trust to the resources of the country, as there was no doubt it would furnish every species of supply. Sir Arthur Wellesley affirms, that no exertions whatever could have drawn from Portugal a supply of bread; that the supplies of cattle for slaughter were not sufficient for the army; and that it is a country which never fed itself for more than seven months in the year. Yet this is the country on which the noble lord, from considerations of expence, was to rely, not only for the sustenance of the army, but for the means of facilitating the rapidity of its motions! The noble lord is not often economical, but when his economy does come for ward, it produces considerable effect. Philosophy has been stated to be a good horse in the stable, but a bad one on the road: the same may be said of economy: but the noble lord's economy is always on the road, never in the stable. When no expeditions are going forward, then he has transports ready for 4000 cavalry: In time of war, when every thing depends upon rapidity, then his economy will not allow transports for more

than 7 or 800; his economy will have artillery horses that are lame, and blind, and unfit for service; and his economy will draw supplies from a country which has not the power of supplying itself!

"Sir Arthur landed, and commenced a bold system of operations, which, supported by British bravery, could not have been otherwise than successful. Sir Harry Burrard arrived to supersede him ;-to him all the defects in the state of the army were immediately obvious :-he saw the want of cavalry and of artillery, and the inability of the country to afford provisions; and upon these grounds he rests the justification of his subsequent conduct. His reign, however, was but short: The north wind brought Sir Harry, the south brought Sir Hew; and scarcely had Sir Harry's sun risen, when it set for ever. And here it is but justice to point out the very peculiar situation in which Sir Hew Dalrymple was placed. He had first taken the command of an army which he had never before seen, and landed in a country with which he was not acquainted: he was committed to a system of operations upon which he had never been consulted:-in his own words, all the responsibility was vested in him, all the direction in others. He was in want of every thing necessary to enable him to act with confidence and decision. First, and most materially, he was in want of precise instructions; he was in want also of cavalry and artillery horses; and to these deficiencies is to be attributed the conclusion of the fatal and ever-to-be lamented armistice.

"Of the maritime convention it would be superfluous to speak, were it not to shew that its principle was introduced by Lord Castlereagh him

self. So late as the year 1807, Lord Strangford suggested that it might be possible to reduce the Russian fleet, by blockade, to such a state as would in all probability lead to a convention; and this was followed up by a letter from the admiralty to Sir Charles Cotton, authorising him to conclude a maritime convention, upon the terms on which that convention was concluded. Not a word of instruction was afterwards received by Sir Charles. Circumstances were materially changed, and yet he remains in September with the same instructions which he had received in April! He goes on and concludes the convention; and then it is that the Board of Admiralty write a letter to him, in which they do not condemn him for applying at one time the instructions meant for another, but they blame him for introducing a new principle into the service. But this was precisely the very principle which Lord Castlereagh had suggested; and yet when Sir Charles Cotton had concluded a treaty upon that principle, the noble lord thinks it ingenuous to turn round upon the gallant admiral, and exclaim, Thou canst not say I did it!'

"It is but a short time, sir," Lord Henry continued, addressing himself to the Speaker," since, as the organ of this House, you stated to those brave men by whose skill and courage the victory of Vimiera was achieved, that their swords had not been drawn in vain. As far as valour and skill were concerned, assuredly their swords were not drawn in vain; but for any purpose of solid advantage to ourselves, or of afford. ing assistance to our allies, they were drawn in vain. I would ask our allies the Spaniards, I would ask the people of Biscay, Gallicia, and Astu

rias, who have recently tracked the desolating progress of the enemy,I would ask our own countrymen, who shed their best blood before Coruna, against that very army which had been transported from Portugal to fight them, whether the battles of Vimiera and Roleia had not been fought in vain? I would ask even the people of Portugal, whom we have now abandoned, or must speedily abandon, whether the skill and valour so gloriously displayed in these battles was not displayed in vain,-whether, in a word, our gallant countrymen did not draw their swords in vain? Let the House compare the situation of General Junot in June with what it was in the December following, when he was quelling insurrect on in Spain, and assisting to drive the British army to Coruna. What had intervened between July and December? A British expedition! British success! British victory! I hope, at least, that the result of the vote this night will be to give some important instruction to the country, and that those who have been attributing the failure of our expedition to other causes will come to a distinct vote; that they will inform the country, if they are of that opinion, that although the expedition was properly commanded, yet it was convenient that the commander should be changed; that although it was proper there should be a large force of cavalry, yet that it was not inconvenient to have scarcely any cavalry at all; that although it was proper to have efficient artillery horses, yet it was no detriment to the service to have horses that were wounded, lame, blind, spavined, and cast off; that it was necessary to have the most precise instructions given to the commanders, and yet that it was no fault

in his Majesty's ministers to have abstained from giving any instructions at all. We have been warned that we ought to guard against the lan. guage of humiliation, and to prevent ourselves from being depressed by the appearance of the sinking fortune of the country. The language that

infers national humiliation I do not approve of; but if results such as we have seen are to proceed from British valour, if such are to be the only fruits that we are to reap from victory, all that I can say is, that the language of humiliation best becomes this House. But if valour and victory only lead to misfortune and disgrace, let us point out to whom the language of humiliation ought to belong. If the glory of armies be rendered unavailing by the weakness of our councils; if valour in the field be defeated by incapacity in the cabinet, let us at least discriminate.With this view I propose, with deference to the House, the adoption of resolutions intended to record a most important commentary on the past, and to present a most instructive lesson for the future."

To one part only of this able and argumentative speech was Lord Castlereagh able to make a satisfactory reply. "At the commencement of the campaign," he said, "ministers had a disposable force of 5000 men, under General Spencer, at Gibraltar, and of 10,000 at Cork, under Sir Arthur Wellesley. That under Sir John Moore could not be calculated on immediately, as its getting free of the Baltic was uncertain; so that there was no possible chance that these three corps could be brought speedily to act together on the same service, still less in one expedition. But was it not better to send the two former to the immediate aid of the

Spanish cause, than to delay them until additional succours could be provided in England? General Spencer was sent in the first instance to Cadiz, and not to Portugal; and the plain reason was, that if he had arrived in the Tagus before the main force under Sir Arthur, it might have been a signal to the enemy to concentrate his force.

"The charge against ministry of a deficiency in the equipment of the expedition had been greatly narrowed since it was first set up. At first the whole failure was imputed to them :-they had sent out an army destitute of ammunition, of artillery, of provisions, of tents, of every thing: but now the points to be relied on were the deficiency of artillery horses, and the situation of Portugal with respect to supplies. An advancing army, in general, depended for supplies upon the country which it went to succour. Provisions are not meant ; for all the expeditions to Spain and Portugal carried with them provisions for three months, exclusive of the transport provisions, which amounted to eight weeks more. But an army requires a great number of cattle to convey those provisions and other necessaries :-in the Austrian army, so great a proportion as even one half is usual; so that for 30,000 men, 15,000 beasts of burden would be wanted. It was not surprising, therefore, that for assistance of this kind they should depend on the country; and it was also necessary that an army should land at some distance from the enemy, in order that it might have time to create and collect the means to enable it to advance. When a want of artillery horses was complained of, Lord Henry must have shut his eyes to the reinforcement which was immediately to follow from

England, which made them amount to 778. For his countrymen, the horses from Ireland," Lord Castlereagh pursued," he must be permitted to say a few words. They were not so bad as they had been represented; they were very much admired by the French; and 100 of them had been actually selected to pursue the campaign in Spain, through one of the most fatiguing marches ever made. Such were the feats of the so unjustly and ungratefully abused Irish horses! As far as he had been able to trace their history, they were the best and most serviceable of any in the army. It was, however, a question whether an army was useless without any horses at all. In Egypt we had only about 150; the same was the case when Sir Ralph Abercromby was in Holland; and in General Wolfe's battle the sailors drew the guns. And as for the want of cavalry, surely it would not be contended, either that they could have been sent sooner, or that Sir Arthur Wellesley should have been kept back till they could be sent. At

all events, it would be sufficient if they could be shewn to have been equal to the enemy :-in the whole they would have amounted to 1500, and the enemy never had more.

"It was hardly possible," he thought, "that in any extensive military operations the chief command should not occasionally change hands: -in the Low Countries it had once happened that four such changes took place within eight-and-forty hours, though he did not mean to say there was any advantage in that circumstance. Sir Hew Dalrymple, upon whom so much obloquy had fallen, had acted in the most delicate matters, with regard to Spain, with, a strength of mind and acuteness of

judgment which had inspired his Majesty's ministers with the greatest confidence in him: not only was there no complaint against him, but he had acted with the greatest propriety, skill, and courage. This was his opinion of the commander-in-chief. Of the campaign :-Was it nothing, in the short period of three weeks, to have taken possession of a country of great strength,-to have defeated an army of 25,000 men,-to have liberated a whole kingdom from the grasp of our enemy, and to have restored it to its own people and its native government? It was natural to expect, after a victory where the public feelings had broke loose, that they should not be easily satisfied; but it was a heated and hasty feeling, which the public had suffered to be too much indulged; and if the intelligence of the victory and the armistice had come at the same time, every thinking man would have received it differently. He himself had gone with the public in this feeling, and therefore he felt himself entitled now to reproach the overindulgence of it. It had been his painful duty to signify to Sir Hew Dalrymple the disapprobation of government as to some articles of the convention which interfered with the rights of other states; but with that exception, he could not, on cool reflection, withhold from the convention his tribute of applause.-The maritine convention was another sub

ject on which the mind of the country had been very much irritated: the course pursued, however, had been the best; and the Admiralty thought the conduct of Sir Charles Cotton proper, though they judged it necessary, generally, to set their faces against the principle of the conditional surrender of ships. The ia