to be borne, has a tendency to make all enterprizes too hazardous to be attempted."

Mr Whitbread replied to Mr Canning, beginning by a vehement attack upon him individually for those ministerial disputes, upon which Mr Canning had so properly maintained silence in that house. Then proceeding to the military details, he strayed into a strain of irony in commenting upon General Craufurd's account of the campaign as it ought to have been. "I have indeed wondered, sir," said Mr Whitbread," how your vigour was able to stand it, though my surprise is much abated, when I consider the exertions which you are ever ready to make for the general interest. I really, however, had sunk into a slight oblivion during some of the sieges; though, in truth, few of them took much time. And, when I awakened to resume my services, happening to ask from a friend near me, how far we had got-"Oh," said he, "our general says, 'by God, he has just taken Bergen-op-Zoom." This oath, I hope, never will rise in judgement against the gallant officer, but be forgotten by the generosity of the angel alluded to by that interesting writer, whose pictures from nature the gallant officer's speech is strikingly calculated to call to one's recollection. That gallant officer, however, might, like Mr Shandy, be anxious to mount his hobby horse upon military tactics. The siege of Bergen-op-Zoom might be as familiar to his imagination as that of Namur was to Mr Shandy; but neither he nor his friends, the ministers, were fit to cope with Mr Shandy. Mr Shandy had plans of all the towns he had to invest, but neither the gallant officer nor his friends had a single plan."

Mr Whitbread was in the vein of satire, and the next person upon whom he indulged it was Sir William Curtis. "The expedition,” he said, “was so completely fitted out, that even the city staff was perfect. The good city of London was represented by the jolliest of her aldermen. To him Lord Chatham paid the most marked attention. He went to Deal. He was the last person he saw. Oh! how tenderly affecting was the interview! The fleet sailed-how sad was the parting! The noble lord stood on the shore saluting the jolly alderman, and catching his last sigh-when the worthy baronet, in the words of the ballad,

"Waved his lily hand, And bade his noble friend adieu."

But at last the envious winds interfered the Phoenix spread her wings, and wafted the turtles and the alderman to the destined port. Last night I looked about for him, when an allusion was made to the expence at which the city estimated the expedition. The jolly baronet was away, but another kissed the rod. He is also a baronet, but that is not sufficient to describe him, there are so many of them; he may be known, however; his face is less round and less ruddy than the other. There were no less than three of them there huddled together on the same benchthree baronets, all elevated for unheard-of services."

Then passing to Lord Castlereagh; "it seemed," he said, “the noble lord would call over the French emperor to bear testimony to the policy of his arrangements;-that call, however, would now be answered according to the old adage, that he was married, and could not come.' And may that marriage," continued

are their notions of general felicity compatible with the universal dominion of France upon the continent, the annihilation of the freedom of the press, the extinction of national independence, and an absolute military despotism?

The orator admitted that he had not been very consistent, in mingling matter of mirth with such a subject, "he was now come to pure unmixed tragedy, the prodigality of human life, and the wanton extravagance of human happiness, the cruelty of sending men to such a climate at such a season, and the aggravated inhumanity of detaining them there so long: that additional guilt he attributed chiefly to Mr Canning, for he it was who, by throwing the apple of discord among his colleagues, produced confusion in their councils, which unfitted them for some time for almost any measure of government. More, much more, might be said; but, exhausted as he and the house equally were, he would conclude by demanding their unanimous decision. The nation demanded their decision; the wreck of our brave army demanded it; the martyred thousands whom they had left to rot in Walcheren demanded it. There is, indeed, from the centre to the circumference of the empire, one united, universal, heartrending cry for justice. Give it then to the supplications of the people! give it to the sorrows of the army! give it as the last consolation to the widows and orphans of the dead!

the army, call for vengeance upon the authors of this expedition, and I trust in God that the house will attend to the call."

This terminated the third night's debate. On the fourth, Sir Francis Burdett spoke. "Was there no punishment," he March 31. asked, "for those who sent out this expedition? The ministers stood as criminals before the house, and not only the ministers, but the general and admiral ought to be punished for having undertaken to conduct an expedition, in a state of complete ignorance as to the mode in which the duty could be performed. Nothing less than the impeachment of the one, and a court martial on the others, could, or ought to satisfy the country. In all their proceedings there was a marked disregard for their country, and a cautious concern merely for their own interests. From beginning to the end they were all the same; all ignorant, presumptuous, and imbecile. As to the commander-in-chief, the result of the inspection of the papers on the table was merely wonder how any man, with the feelings of a gentleman, could act as he did; how any man possessed of such conscious and convicted imbecility, could retain his situation. Lord Castlereagh was very anxious to separate the question of the medical board, from that of the merits of the expedition. He betrayed, indeed, through all his speech a callous insensibility to the miseries

he had caused, truly shocking; he sported with the deaths which he had occasioned, and even presumed to persuade the country that its calamities were honours! One would have thought that he who came down with the deaths of thousands on his head, would have expressed some sorrow for the bloody consequence of his own folly and incompetence. But no! he dared even to compare himself to Chatham, Nelson, St Vincent, and those brave heroes who had directed our arms, under better and happier auspices, and to constant and imperishable glory. I was amazed," exclaimed Sir Francis, "how he dared to mention the names of those great men on such an occasion. Why, this dreadful expedition has cost the country, on a serious calculation from the returns on the table, which, however, were far below the mark, three times as many lives as all the glorious naval victories which we have gained since the commencement of the war, including Trafalgar! And yet of all this the noble lord spoke with a tranquillity, with respect to which I want language to express the feelings of my mind! When every indignant sentiment of patriotism was roused by the contemplation of these calamities, his lordship spoke of disease, death, and destruction, as familiarly as girls of thirteen would talk of puppy dogs!

"He should now," he pursued, "most heartily support the resolutions proposed by Lord Porchester, though he thought they should have gone farther. The ministers ought to be called to an account very different from a mere censure of that house, and the officers ought to be tried by courts martial. But the removal of the present ministers from

office was not the only thing to be done for the salvation of the country. Without a change of system-without reverting to the principles of the constitution, with the decline of which the country had declined, no permanent good could be expected. If we wished to be rescued from our present perilous situation, we must have reform-reform which would revive and re-establish the ancient fundamental principles of our constitution. Unless this was obtained, neither himself nor the country would be satisfied. From the folly of not demanding this arose all our calamities. From it arose this expedition-this child of corruption, expiring by its own inherent imbecility. All their calamities, all their disgraces, were derived from the want of a fair and equal representation. To that, and that alone, the people ought to look; it would be folly to expect relief from any other cause. If this was obtained, they would no longer see ministerial weakness working on abandoned prostitution. This was their only avenue of escape from ruin, imminent ruin. For himself, he cared not, if that ruin was to come, whether it came in the shape of a rotten borough, or an open iron despotism. In looking at this expedition through all its parts, one could hardly speak of it with the necessary moderation. If in private life, he saw the catastrophe of men so brave, so patient, so martyred, he could call it nothing else than cool, deliberate, atrocious murder. Though ministers within twelve hours' sail of Walcheren might have had every information, they would not deign to seek it, but sent their soldiers unheedingly to their grave. They now called for vengeance the honour of the house was pledged to give it; and, for himself,

he would say nothing but instant impeachment and court-martial should satisfy the nation for the cruel effusion of their army's blood."

Sir Francis had spoken of the energies of Greece and Rome, which, he said, were to be accounted for by the free nature of their institutions. Mr Bathurst reminded him, that those energies were first impaired by the exertions of factious leaders of the populace, who, having destroyed the aristocracy, ultimately established a military despotism. Upon the question before the house, Mr Bathurst said, he did think that house would abdicate all its functions, if, disregarding the general voice of the country, it could be warped by any consideration from giving to this calamitous expedition its appropriate character, and from pronouncing its censure upon the conduct of those who advised it. Mr Perceval concluded the defence of ministers; the policy of undertaking the expedition had already been explained at length, so also had the plan of operations; he therefore chiefly confined himself to that set of resolutions which condemned them for having, after the great object of the expedition was abandoned, left a large proportion of the army to the imminent danger of attack from the enemy, and exposed, during more than three months, to the fatal ravages of disease. "Upon this part of the case," Mr Perceval said, "more feeling had very naturally been excited than upon any other. No man could speak of it, no man could think of it without the deepest regret. He could not, however, suppose, that they who declaimed loudest upon this melancholy subject, really felt more upon it than his majesty's ministers. Even party opposition could hardly

be carried to such a length, as to induce any man to believe that the feelings of regret on one side of the house were more acute than they were on the other. But it was one thing to regret the loss of lives, and another to maintain that that loss was owing to any misconduct of ministers. Now he would most confidently contend, that when the ulterior object had failed, that very circumstance made it of infinitely greater importance to retain Flushing; if Antwerp had been taken, our security would have been effected; but having left such great naval means in the hands of the enemy, the possession of Walcheren became doubly valuable. The question was, whether Walcheren being in our possession, an island which had been the object of pursuit to so many governments, ministers would have been justified in giving it up, without taking every means of ascertaining whether it was possible to retain it: nothing, indeed, but an absolute conviction in his mind, that it was impossible to do this without a greater expence of men and money than seemed to be within the means of this country, would have induced him to give it up.

"The customs of Antwerp in 1806 were one third more than those of all the other ports of France put together; ministers knew this, and knew also, that if they retained Walcheren the enemy would not only be deprived of that revenue, but of all the trade from which it proceeded. This, though a small object compared with the importance of Antwerp as a naval station, certainly was one to be considered. Mr Pitt, Lord Sidmouth, and Lord Grenville, each in his several administration, had turned their thoughts toward Walcheren, and the plan had always been abandoned, not