CHAP. III. 53. reagh's measures for Sept. 14, 1809. Foreseeing that any co-operation with the loose and undisciplined armies and impracticable haughty generals 1809. of Spain was at present not to be thought of, and anticiLord Castle-pating ere long a serious struggle for the defence of Portugal, the next care of Lord Castlereagh was to conthe defence cert measures with Lord Wellington for its protection, of Portugal. and the measures necessary to secure the retreat of his troops in case of disaster. With this view, he wrote to him on 14th September in the following terms-remarkable as showing how clearly he foresaw and was providing for the Torres Vedras campaign :-" As the return of the British army to Portugal will afford you an opportunity of turning your undivided attention to the defence of that kingdom, I have to request that you will, as early as possible, transmit to me, for the information of his Majesty's Government, a full report upon that subject, stating your opinion of its defencibility, with what force British and Portuguese, and at what annual expense. You will consider the question of maintaining Portugal in the distinct cases; first, of the utmost effort the enemy can be expected to make against it by any probable disposition of the military force now in the Peninsula ; secondly, of the French force being largely reinforced, your army shall be fully and satisfactorily supplied, and every arrangement made which may appear to you necessary for the protection of your army against similar embarrassments in future, has received his Majesty's entire approbation."-LORD CASTLEREAGH to SIR ARTHUR WELLESLEY, August 12, 1809; Castlereagh Correspondence, vii. 101. "I am commanded to signify to your Lordship his Majesty's approbation of the conduct you have pursued, as detailed in your despatches of the 2d, 8th, and 21st August. The considerations which have influenced your determination to fall back on the frontier of Portugal, not only appear to have warranted that decision, but to have rendered it indispensable for the supply of the army; and if the Spanish Government have to regret the loss of your support, they can only attribute it to their own want of resources, or to their inability to call them forth. The judgment which marked your determination at the critical moment the step was taken to retire behind the Tagus; the success and ability with which your retreat, encumbered with the wounded, has been conducted, through a country difficult in itself, and destitute of supplies; and the determination you have shown to regulate your operations with as much attention to the safety and health of your troops as to their reputation and glory, have received his Majesty's entire approbation."-LORD CASTLEREAGH to LORD WELLINGTON, September 14, 1809; Castlereagh Correspondence, vii. 119, 120. CHAP. III. 1809. should a peace in Germany leave Buonaparte at liberty to turn his efforts in that direction. You will also state your opinion upon the practicability of embarking the British army in the Tagus (regard being had to its local circumstances), in the event of its being obliged to fall back for that purpose in the presence of a superior enemy. And further, you will suggest such measures as may appear to you necessary to be adopted within the country, either with a view to its defence, or which, in the event of its evacuation by the British army becoming necessary, should precede such an evacuation, with a view to the interests of the Prince Regent, and to the counteraction of the designs of the enemy; and in the former alternative you will state at what expense, and within what period of time, the measures you would recommend for placing Portugal in an adequate state of defence could be carried into effect." This despatch, Castleprophetic and suggestive of the lines of Torres Vedras reagh Corand the development of Sir Arthur Wellesley's memor- 120,121. able minute on the defence of Portugal of 7th March 1809, already given, was the LAST which, as Minister at War, he ever addressed to Lord Wellington. Within a few days after he resigned his office, in consequence of an intrigue which involved him in a personal conflict with Mr Canning, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, the particulars of which, as well as of the great expedition in which it originated, must now be given. 1 resp. vii. 54. reagh had naval pro the jects of Gifted beyond any of his contemporaries, except the Duke of Wellington, with the prophetic eye of genius, Lord Castleand ever looking forward to the future rather than en- divined for grossed with the present, Lord Castlereagh had long long the anticipated the greatest danger to Great Britain from naval forces of the enemy. While nearly all his temporaries were reposing on the pleasing illusion that Britain. England was unassailable on that side, and that the Nile and Trafalgar had given her the undisputed command of France con- against Great CHAP. III. the seas, he measured with a steady eye the real naval resources of his opponent, and had early divined the secret 1809. designs of Buonaparte to form a great naval confederacy which should concentrate the whole maritime strength of the Continent against this country. To this purpose he clearly saw his conquests at land were mainly directed ; and the extraordinary success with which they had been attended gave too much reason to fear that his hopes in this respect were not only likely to be realised, but rapidly approaching realisation. The practice which he had long carried out, whenever he got the command of a maritime country, of seizing the whole shipwrights, naval carpenters, and naval stores which it contained, and marching them off to the dockyards, joined to the terror of the famous Berlin and Milan decrees, left no room for doubt that it was against Great Britain that the whole forces of the Continent were to be hurled, and that this was to be done by a forced coalition of the entire maritime power of the Continent, and a naval crusade against these islands. And the knowledge which Government possessed of the secret articles of the treaty of Tilsit, left no room for doubt that preparations for carrying this great design into execution would immediately be commenced. 55. reagh's plan naval con To meet this grand design of Napoleon, which he himLord Castle- self has since often told us was the great object of his to defeat life, Lord Castlereagh's plan of operations consisted of Napoleon's two parts. The first was, to take advantage of our prefederacy. sent maritime superiority to effect such a blockade of the enemy's harbours as might inflict on him as much injury as his Continental blockade was likely to inflict on this country. The second was, to make such use of the * "The more I have had time to reflect on our future prospects in this war, the more impressed I am with a conviction that neither peace nor independence can be the lot of this nation, till we have found the means of making France feel that her new anti-social and anti-commercial system will not avail her against a power that can, for its own preservation, and consequently legitimately, counteract at sea what she lawlessly inflicts and enforces on shore. I considerable military force at the disposal of this country CHAP. as might, by transporting it from place to place by sea, compensate its inferiority upon the whole to the land 1809. troops of the enemy; and, by thus rendering it superior, at unexpected points, on sudden attacks, to any local force that could be opposed to it, effect the destruction of his principal naval establishments before his forces, toiling by land journeys, could concentrate in sufficient numbers successfully to resist. The Orders in Council were the result of the first; the great expeditions, which, for the first time in the war, signalised his war ministry, were the carrying out of the second. This new system, obviously founded in reason, but so much at variance with the plan of operations hitherto pursued that it passed at the time for Quixotic and impracticable, required no small amount of moral courage for its conception, and political influence for its execution. But Lord Castlereagh possessed both; and the success which had hitherto attended his plan was such as to justify the most sanguine hopes of the advantages which might result from its further and more extended adoption. For by the Copenhagen expedition he had completely paralysed the naval forces accumulating in the enemy's hands in the Baltic; and by alimenting the Peninsular war, he had withdrawn the whole fleets of Spain and Portugal from their grasp. Stripped of its two wings, the French naval centre alone presented a formidable object of attack; but circumstances had now occurred which warranted the opinion that it might be assailed with every prospect of success. So early as the year 1797, a very able memorandum had been laid before the Cabinet by desire of Mr Pitt wish you would turn in your mind, whether we are of necessity bound to III. CHAP. and Mr Dundas, pointing out the expedience of finding employment for the enemy's force at home, and suggest1809. ing the island of WALCHEREN as a favourable point of Plan of the attack.* The eagle eye and military genius of Lord Walcheren Castlereagh made him at once seize the same idea which, vast import- since that time, had become recommended by a great expedition; ance of it. variety of other considerations. Antwerp had now become the chief naval establishment of Napoleon-the great fortified harbour where the larger part of the armament destined for the invasion and subjugation of Great Britain was to be assembled. Cherbourg was to be the centre, and Brest the left; but the great bulk of the forces were to be collected in the Scheldt. It was there that the Prince of Parma, one of the ablest generals whom Europe ever saw, collected his naval and military forces for the invasion of England in the time of Queen Elizabeth. Napoleon, with his usual penetration, had long discerned its paramount importance. He had already constructed magnificent docks capable of holding forty sail of the line at Antwerp, and he projected still greater works on the opposite side of the Scheldt, where the * "Practice and experience seem to unite with the actual circumstances of Britain and of its enemy, in pointing out that, as we can no longer divide the armies of France by Continental wars, we ought to attempt the destruction of the armaments in the havens where they are preparing for invasions, and thus oblige the French Directory either to find new plunder from their own subjects or from among their oppressed allies to support their armies, or to run the risk of those armies turning on the upstart rulers of their devoted country. "The island of Walcheren, in Zealand, recommends itself for the destination of a conjunct expedition, and the armament can be covered in its operations by the North Sea fleet. The situation of this island, with regard to the mouths of the Scheldt, is such that, in the event of obtaining it, we could completely command the navigation of that river, and render the possession of the other Zealand islands, and the countries bordering on them, of no value, because we could control the former Dutch and Austrian Netherlands. Flushing, situated on the southern extremity of the island, is the best naval port on the north coast of the Netherlands, and the place from which attempts to attack Britain could be best made, because it could send out large transports and men-of-war to protect flat-bottomed boats and the port also, which, in the hands of Britain, would dispose the Dutch, if restored to them, more than any other circumstance, to return to their former state, or to yield readily any of their foreign possessions in exchange for this key to their country."Memoir by JOHN BRUCE, framed by desire of MR PITT, December 25, 1797; Castlereagh Correspondence, vi. 245, 246. |