CHAP. III. 1809. the same atmosphere, and that removal to Britain was indispensable to convalescence. Even with that the progress of amendment was in general distressingly slow, and great numbers, even of such as survived, bore the malady about them for years, and could be distinguished in the ranks by their wan visages and emaciated figures. In these circumstances it was evident that if they remained much longer in the island the whole armament would perish or be disabled; and the British Cabinet, on 2d September, unanimously and wisely adopted the opinion of the Council of War that it should be abanMarch 3, doned, and the whole expedition, naval and military, reCastlereagh turn home. This was accordingly done; and the great337-341; est armament which ever sailed from the European shores 243, 244. left the scenes of their early triumphs, baffled, discomfited, and covered with confusion.1 Sept. 2. Report on 1810; Corresp. vi. Thiers, xi. 73. failure of the expedition. The expedition, which terminated in this disastrous Cause of the result, ably and wisely conceived in the general plan by Lord Castlereagh, and composed of the largest forces by sea and land which ever sailed from the British Isles, failed entirely from errors in the execution. Thrice over the opportunity of decisive success was presented to the British Commander-in-Chief, and thrice over he failed to seize it. First, in not landing half his force in the island of Cadsand, when Lord Huntly, with his division, appeared off it, while the other half occupied Walcheren ; had he done so, the right wing of the army might have advanced to the Tête du Flandre, and occupied Antwerp, then defenceless, and garrisoned only by 2000 men. Secondly, in not taking advantage of the extraordinary good fortune of the light vessels of the fleet being able to penetrate to Batz, almost in sight of Antwerp, by the eastern mouth of the Scheldt, within three days after the troops landed, and not pushing the land troops direct on that point, so as to seize the batteries and render the straits impassable, by which the French fleet moored off Flushing could alone ascend the river to that fortress. III. 1809. This would have secured the destruction of the whole ves- CHAP. sels afloat, in itself an object of the very highest moment. Thirdly, and above all, if the descent on Cadsand was abandoned, in not pushing on to Antwerp at the very first with the whole force not required for the blockade of Flushing a measure perfectly practicable, as the flotilla had got up to Batz while that fortress was still in the enemy's hands. This would, at very little cost of life, and with very little difficulty, have secured the whole objects of the expedition; the troops, kept in a constant state of activity and excitement, would have, as long as it continued, proved to a great degree inaccessible to the fever; and they might have been brought away covered with laurels before the unhealthy period had reached its worst. It is to the neglect to do any of these things that Napoleon ascribed the failure of the expedition, which otherwise would have been certain of success. And this, in the last resort, was owing to the military and naval commanders neglecting Lord Castlereagh's instructions to regard the expedition as a coup-de-main, in which success was to be attained by vigour and celerity * Napoleon's words, which are of the very highest importance in this matter, were as follow: "The fleet," said he, "when the expedition arrived on the coast of Holland, was moored off Flushing. The great object of Chatham should have been to cut off the fleet from Antwerp, which would necessarily have led to the destruction of both, for Antwerp had only a garrison of 3000 men. This might have been done by pushing forward a corps of 6000 men through South Beveland to Batz the day the expedition landed; the fleet would then have been cut off from Antwerp, and both it and the fortress must have surrendered. But the moment that the fleet got up to Antwerp, which it did soon after the siege of Flushing began, the failure of the expedition was certain.”—NAPOLEON, in Montholon, ii. 261, and i. 219. “I am of opinion," said he to O'Meara, "that if you had landed a few thousand men at first at Williamstadt, and marched direct to Antwerp, you might, between consternation, want of preparations, and the uncertainty of the number of the assailants, have taken it by a coup-de-main; but after the fleet got up it was impossible."-O'Meara, i. 255. It is easy, doubtless, to be wise after the event, but Lord Castlereagh was here wise before the event; for the plan of operations which Napoleon said would have been successful-viz., pushing on at once to Batz, and then across to Santlivet, so as to cut off the fleet from Antwerp— was precisely the one for carrying out his coup-de-main which Lord Castlereagh had recommended in his detailed instructions to the Commander of the Forces. CHAP. 1809. Great dis in England ure of the of movement, and pursuing it according to the slower rules of methodical warfare. The public dissatisfaction at this calamitous issue of 74. an expedition, on which the hopes of the nation had so satisfaction long been set, was the more intense in Great Britain, at the fail that its commencement had been, beyond all expectation, expedition. successful; and that the victories of Sir Arthur Wellesley in the Peninsula, with a force not half of that at the disposal of Lord Chatham, and against an enemy infinitely superior, had, not without reason, led the people to believe that their soldiers were invincible, and that the fall of the French empire was rapidly approaching. These discontents were worked up to a perfect pitch of frenzy by the accounts daily received of the rapidly increasing sickness and mortality in the isle of Walcheren, and the gaunt figures and woeful visages of such of the troops as returned from that scene of suffering. Ignorant of, or incapable of appreciating, the real causes. which had led to its failure, the people burst forth in loud complaints against the authors of the expedition, which, it was said, conceived in folly, and suggested by infatuation, had been planned in ignorance, and executed with incapacity. Upon the head of Lord Castlereagh, as Minister-at-War, and known to have been its principal author, the vials of the public wrath were, in an especial manner, discharged; and this, coupled with the simultaneous retreat of the army in Spain to Estremadura, after the battle of Talavera, and the fearful sickness and mortality of the troops there, spread abroad a general opinion of his unfitness for the lead in military arrangements and combinations. It is not surprising it was so: the English people as yet knew war only in its holiday dress; they were ignorant of the slow steps by which the summits of military greatness are reached, of the fearful waste of life at which the conquests of the French empire were purchased, and that the mortality they deplored in Walcheren and Spain was not a tithe of that which III. 1809. annually attended the march of the imperial legions. CHAP. But the spread of these opinions in the nation, which were aggravated by the violence of the daily press, caused an intrigue to come to light in the Cabinet, discreditable only to its authors, but which now reached maturity, and exercised an important influence on the career of Lord Castlereagh, and was not without its effect on the fortunes of the British empire. 75. the Cabinet to overturn Lord Castle April 4. Unknown to that statesman, and without giving him the slightest reason to suspect its existence, a party had Intrigue in been formed in the Cabinet inimical to him, and the object of which was to get him removed from his position reagh. as Minister-at-War, and Lord Wellesley substituted in his room. This was arranged by the whole Cabinet, with the exception of his Lordship, as early as the 4th of April 1809. Mr Canning then said that the views which he entertained regarding the future conduct of the war were so utterly at variance with those adopted and hitherto acted upon by Lord Castlereagh, that they could no longer, with advantage to the public service, form members of the same Government, and that one or other must be called upon to resign. IIe professed, at the same time, his own willingness to retire. The Duke of Portland, with his whole Ministry, seem to have acquiesced in this opinion; but, dreading the loss of the oratorical talents of Mr Canning, they requested him to withhold his proffered resignation, and suggested the most profound secrecy on the intended removal of Lord Castlereagh. This injunction was strictly obeyed, and Lord Castlereagh remained in entire ignorance that his removal had been resolved on, although it was quite fixed, and the King's pleasure had been taken upon the subject. He continued in this state of ignorance till the beginning of September, when Mr Canning threatened, if the removal was any longer delayed, to resign himself. This brought matters to a crisis, and on the 7th September the painful Sept. 7. duty was devolved on Lord Camden of communicating to CHAP. 1809. his early and dear friend, whom he had in a manner in- So far all was well; and, contrary to what might have been expected in the circumstances, this extraordinary secret intrigue had arrived at the desired result without "October 26.-Lord Camden having expressed a great anxiety to talk with me, I called on him this morning, when he entered fully into Lord Castlereagh's business, so far as he had been concerned in it; and after going through his narrative, showed me some letters which had passed between him and the Duke of Portland, respecting the arrangement pressed for by Mr Canning, either for a new division of the departments, or for the Marquess of Wellesley to be named for that of War. Lord Camden admits the communication to have been made to him as early as, Mr Canning states, the end of April; but so far from his being at liberty to acquaint Lord Castlereagh with it, it was made to him under the most solemn injunction of secrecy, respecting which he was so uneasy, that, on the 29th June, he wrote to the Duke of Portland to know whether he was in any mistake about that, to which the Duke answered the same day that he was not, stating that he had most strongly enjoined him to secrecy, in the hope that matters might be so arranged as to avoid the necessity of anything being said to Lord Castlereagh on the subject; his Grace taking upon himself, in the clearest terms, whatever blame might attach to the concealment. A further correspondence took place between Lord Camden and the Duke of Portland in July, begun by the latter on the same subject; his Grace continuing to press for silence till the end of the Walcheren expedition, upon the same ground as before. And at length, when disclosure became indispensably necessary, Lord Camden made it to Lord Castlereagh on 7th September, without, however, letting him know how early the matter had been decided on, not conceiving it necessary that his Lordship's feelings should be wounded by a knowledge that his removal from office had been acquiesced in by his colleagues before the expedition had been set on foot, and that he had been allowed to conduct the whole of it when his death-warrant was in their possession. Lord Castlereagh, then, having been led to believe that the measure was only now adopted to strengthen the Government, agreed to resign, and declined to accept any other office offered him, Lord Camden having pressed his own, the Presidentship of the Council, upon him."-ROSE's Diary, ii. 421, 422. A very entertaining and valuable work. |