CHAPTER XXVII. PROCEEDINGS IN FRANCE AND IN THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT.

♦1809.♦

♦Buonaparte divorces the Empress Josephine.♦

The year had thus closed in Spain as triumphantly for the invaders as it began; and yet the French felt, and could not but feel, that the subjugation of that kingdom was more distant at this time than they had supposed it to be when they entered upon the invasion, in the wantonness of insolent power. Buonaparte, when he recapitulated the exploits of the year to his senate, intimated an intention of returning thither to complete the conquest. “When I shall show myself beyond the Pyrenees,” said he, “the frightened leopard will fly to the ocean to avoid shame, defeat, and death. The triumph of my arms will be the triumph of the genius of good over that of evil; of moderation, order, and morality, over civil war, anarchy, and the evil passions.” He neither mentioned nor alluded to the battle of Talavera; the circumstances of that well-fought field had been so completely concealed from the French nation, that they were fully persuaded the English had suffered a great defeat; but the lesson had not been lost upon Buonaparte. That battle, and the repulse at Esling, made him for the first time feel the insecure foundation of his power; it taught him that his armies were not invincible. His hatred for England, implacable as it was, had not prevented him from regarding with admiration the military genius of Marlborough, though he was incapable of appreciating the principles and feelings which induced that excellent commander on every occasion to mitigate by every means in his power the miseries of war. He despised the counsels, and egregiously miscalculated the resources of Great Britain; but he was compelled in his heart to render reluctant justice to the national spirit, which Vimeiro and Coruña, and the Douro and Talavera, had shewn him could be displayed by her armies no less than by her fleets; and he could not but secretly and ominously apprehend, that such victories as those of Blenheim and Ramillies might be achieved by such soldiers. It is believed that this feeling determined him to connect himself by marriage with one of the great continental powers. Secret arrangements for this having been made with the house of Austria, he divorced the Empress Josephine at the close of the year by an act of his own government, and with her full acquiescence, reasons of state being made the plea, as they were the motives, for this measure. In the manner of the separation, in the provision which was made, and in the honours which were reserved for Josephine, due regard was shown her: she was a gentle and benevolent woman; and had Buonaparte in his moral nature been half as worthy of the throne, the world might have loved and revered the memory of both.

♦Farther requisition for the armies in Spain.♦

But triumphantly as the war with Austria had been concluded, the prospect of peace was yet far distant. The war-minister reported, that the French armies in Spain consisted of 300 battalions and 150 squadrons, and it would be sufficient, without sending any additional corps, to keep them at their full establishment: 30,000 men collected at Bayonne afforded means for accomplishing this, and for repulsing any force which the English might send to that country. In this state of things, no other levy was necessary than such as would supply the contingent indispensably requisite for replacing in the battalions of the interior the drafts which were daily made from them. There remained from the conscription of the years 1806, 7, 8, 9, 10, more than 80,000 men, who, though ballotted, had not been called into actual service; it was proposed to call out 36,000, and then to declare those classes free from any future call. “By these means, sire,” said the minister, “your armies will be maintained at their present strength, and a considerable number of your subjects will be definitively released from the conscription.” There were also at the Emperor’s disposal 25,000 men, afforded by the conscription for 1811; but upon these it was not proposed to call, unless events should disappoint his pacific intentions.

Thirty thousand men stationed at Bayonne to supply the constant consumption of his army in Spain, 36,000 to be raised for replacing the drafts from the interior, and 25,000 to be taken by anticipation, before the conscription in its regular course ought to have reached them, and to be held in readiness for farther demands of blood; this was the prospect held out at the conclusion of the Austrian war; these were the sacrifices which the French were called upon to make, not for defence, not for the interests, not for the honour of France, but to support a wanton and execrable usurpation, which had no other cause than the individual ambition of Buonaparte.... ♦Display of Spanish flags.♦ He felt how needful it was to persuade the French that a war which they knew to be so destructive was not as inglorious as it was unjust, and for this purpose a parade was made of the victories which had been obtained in Spain. The flags taken at Espinosa, Burgos, Tudela, Somosierra, and Madrid, were presented to the legislative body; a detachment of the grenadiers of the imperial guard was introduced, and seated on the right and left of Buonaparte’s statue, that the stage might be full. Rhetorical speeches were delivered, and the session concluded like a stage spectacle, with a flourish of trumpets, and cries of Long live the Emperor! In this exhibition, Buonaparte addressed himself to the ruling passion of the people over whom he reigned. “Without glory,” he said, “there could be no happiness for a Frenchman;” and the moral feeling of the nation had been so debased that they believed glory might be attained in a war thus flagrantly and infamously unjust. ♦1810.
January.♦ The prevailing weakness of his own character also was betrayed in this display; no other successes were brought forward than those which had been won while he was in Spain; for though he liberally rewarded his generals in all ways, and left them also at full liberty to enrich themselves by exaction and plunder, he was jealous of any celebrity that they might attain, and desired, more from personal vanity than from political considerations, that in every success the French should look to him, and to him alone, as the author of their victories.

While France was thus rejoicing in the triumphs of its armies, the Central Junta saw the whole extent of their danger, and rested their hopes upon the goodness of their cause and the character of the Spanish nation, with a composure which nothing could shake. Never was a nation more truly represented in its defects and in its virtues, in its strength and in its weakness. While in their administration they committed the same errors, deceiving themselves and others, which in former wars had rendered the Spaniards7 the most inefficient and impracticable of all allies; their language was that of the loftiest fortitude, and their public papers breathed a spirit worthy of their station. One of the most splendid of these orations was issued during the fearful pause after the defeat of their armies at Ocaña and at Alba de Tormes, when the peace with Austria left Buonaparte at leisure to ♦Address of the Central Junta to the nation.♦ direct his whole force against Spain. “Our enemies,” said they, “exhort us to submit to the clemency of the conqueror. Because in their own degraded hearts they find nothing but baseness when they are weak, and atrocity when they are strong, they imagine that the Spaniards must abandon all their lofty hopes. Who has told them that our virtue is of so low a standard? Does fortune oppose to us greater obstacles? we will redouble our exertions! Are our dangers augmented? we shall acquire the greater glory! Slaves of Buonaparte, waste not time in sophistries which can deceive no one; speak frankly and say, we will be the most wicked of men, because we believe ourselves the most powerful: ... this language is consistent and intelligible; but do not attempt to persuade us that the abandonment of our rights is wisdom, and that cowardice is prudence! Submit?... Do these sophists know to what they advise the most high-minded nation upon earth? It would be a stain without example in our annals, if after such efforts, such incredible events, we were to fall at the feet of the crowned slave who has been sent to us as king. And for what? That from the midst of his banquets, his ruffian parasites, and his prostitutes, he may point out the churches which are to be burnt; the estates which are to be divided among his satellites; the virgins and matrons who are to be taken to his seraglio; the youths who are to be sent as the tribute to the Minotaur of France!

“Spaniards, think not that the Junta speak thus to excite you by the arts of language; what need of words, when things speak for themselves? Your houses are destroyed; your churches demolished; your fields laid waste; your families dispersed and wandering through the country, or hurried into the grave. Have we made so many sacrifices, have the flames of war consumed half Spain, that we should abandon the other half to the far more deadly peace which the enemy prepares for it? For no one will beguile himself with the insidious parade of the improvements which the French hold out. The Tartar who commands them has decreed, that Spain shall have neither industry, nor commerce, nor population, nor political representation whatever: ... to be made a waste and solitary sheep-walk for supplying French manufactures with our wools; to become a nursery of men who may be hurried away to slaughter; such is the destiny which he would impose upon the most highly favoured of all countries! Shall we then, submitting to this, submit also to the destruction of our religion; abandon the interests of heaven and the faith of our fathers to the sacrilegious mockery of these banditti; and forsake the sanctuary which, during seven centuries, and in a thousand and a thousand battles, our forefathers maintained against the Saracens? If we should do this, the victims who perished in that contest would cry to us from their graves, Ungrateful and perfidious race, shall our sacrifices be in vain, and is our blood of no estimation in your eyes? No, patriots! rest in peace, ... and let not that bitter thought disturb the quiet of your sepulchres!

“There is no peace, there can be none in this state of things! That Spain may be free, is the universal wish of the nation; and if that cannot be obtained, at least it may become one immense desert, one wide grave, where the accumulated remains of French and Spaniards may exhibit to future ages our glory and their shame. But fortune is not so inimical to virtue as to leave to its defenders only this melancholy termination. It is written in heaven, and the history of all ages attests the truth, that a people who decidedly love their liberty and independence must ultimately establish them, in despite of all the artifice and all the violence of tyranny. Victory, which is so often a gift of fortune, is sooner or later the reward of constancy. What defended the little republics of Greece from the barbarous invasion of Xerxes? What reconstructed the Capitol when it was almost destroyed by the Gauls? What preserved it from the mighty arms of Hannibal? What, in times nearer our own, protected the Swiss from German tyranny, and gave independence to Holland in spite of the power of our ancestors?

“Spaniards, the Junta announces to you frankly what has happened in the continent, because it would not have you ignorant for a moment of the new danger which threatens the country: they announce it in the confidence, that, instead of being dismayed, you will collect new strength, and show yourselves more worthy of the cause which you defend, and of the admiration of the universe: they announce it to you, because they know that the determination of the Spaniards is to be free at whatever cost; and all means however violent, all resources however extraordinary, all funds however privileged, must be called out to repel the enemy. The ship’s treasures must be thrown overboard to lighten her in the tempest and save her from shipwreck. Our country is sinking; ... strength, riches, life, wisdom, council, ... whatever we have is hers. The victory is ours, if we carry on to the end of our enterprise the sublime enthusiasm with which it began. The mass with which we must resist the enemy must be composed of the strength of all, and the sacrifices of all; and then what will it import that he pours upon us anew the legions which are now superfluous in Germany, or the swarm of conscripts which he is about to drag from France? We began the contest with 80,000 men less; he began it with 200,000 more. Let him replace them if he can; let him send or bring them to this region of death, as destructive to the oppressors as to the oppressed! Adding to the experience of two campaigns the strength of despair and of fury, we will give to their phalanxes of banditti the same fate which their predecessors have experienced; and the earth, fattened with their blood, shall return to us with usury the fruits of which they have deprived us! Let the monarchs of the North, forgetful of what they are, and of what they are capable, submit to be the slaves of this new Tamerlane; let them purchase at such a price the tranquillity of a moment, till it comes to their turn to be devoured! What is this to us, who are a mighty people, and resolved to perish or to triumph? Did we ask their consent when, twenty months ago, we raised our arms against the tyrant? Did we not enter into the contest alone? Did we not carry it on for a campaign alone?... Nothing which is necessary for our defence is wanting. Our connexion is daily drawn closer with America, to whose assistance, as timely as it was generous, the mother country is deeply indebted, and on whose zeal and loyalty a great part of our hope is founded. The alliance which we have formed with Great Britain continues and will continue; that nation has lavished for us its blood and its treasures, and is entitled to our gratitude and that of future ages. Let, then, intrigue, or fear, prevail with weak governments and misled cabinets; let them, if they will, conclude treaties, illusory on the part of him who grants, and disgraceful on the part of those who accept them; let them, if they will, relinquish the common cause of civilized nations, and inhumanly abandon their allies! The Spanish people will stand alone and erect amid the ruins of the European continent. Here has been drawn, never to be sheathed, the sword of hatred against the execrable tyrant; here is raised, never to be beaten down, the standard of independence and of justice! Hasten to it, all ye in Europe who will not live under the abominable yoke; ye who will not enter into a league with iniquity; ye who are indignant at the fatal and cowardly desertion of these deluded princes, come to us! Here the valiant shall find opportunities of acquiring true honour; the wise and the virtuous shall obtain respect; the afflicted shall have an asylum. Our cause is the same; the same shall be our reward. Come! and, in despite of all the arts and all the power of this inhuman despot, we will render his star dim, and form for ourselves our own destiny!”

Two things are remarkable in this paper; the total change, or rather restoration of public feeling, which must have been effected, before a Spanish government would hold up the resistance of the Dutch to Philip as a glorious example to the Spanish people; and the want of foresight and information in the Junta, who could not only rely upon the attachment of the colonies, but even venture to declare, that the hopes of the country rested in great measure upon them. But though the Spanish government deceived itself in looking for hope where none was to be found, and in its exaggerated opinion of its military strength, it was not mistaken in relying upon the national character, and that spirit of endurance which constituted ♦State of public opinion in England.♦ its moral strength. Upon this it was, and upon the extent and nature of the Peninsula, that those persons who from the commencement looked on with unshaken confidence to the final expulsion of the invaders, founded their judgement. The Continent, notwithstanding its extent, fell under the yoke of France, because the spirit of the people was not such as to supply the want of magnanimity and of wisdom in their rulers: the Tyrolese were subdued notwithstanding their heroism, because, in so small a territory as the Tyrol, numbers, remorselessly employed, must necessarily overcome all resistance. But no force can be sufficient to conquer and keep in subjection a peninsula, containing about 170,000 square miles, and twelve millions of inhabitants, if the people carry resistance to the uttermost. Their armies may be defeated, their towns occupied, their fortresses taken, their villages burnt, ... but the country cannot be conquered while the spirit of the nation remains unsubdued. In Spain the mountains form a chain of fastnesses running through the whole Peninsula, and connecting all its provinces with each other. In such a country, therefore, when the war ceases to be carried on by army against army, and becomes the struggle of a nation against its oppressors, pursued incessantly by night and day, the soldier, no longer acting in large bodies, loses that confidence which discipline gives him; while the peasant, on the other hand, feels the whole advantage which the love of his country, and the desire of vengeance, and the sense of duty, and the approbation of his own heart, give to the individual in a contest between man and man. The character of the Spaniards was displayed in their annals. The circumstances of their country remained the same as when Henri IV. said of it, that it was a land wherein a weak army must be beaten, and a strong one starved. They who were neither ignorant of history nor of human nature considered these things; and therefore, from the commencement of the struggle, regarded it with unabated hope.

But never since the commencement of the French revolution had the affairs of England, of Europe, and of the world, worn so dark an aspect as at this time. The defeats which the Spaniards had sustained were far more disheartening than those of the preceding winter, because they evinced that neither had the armies improved in discipline, nor the government profited by experience. It was but too plain, that, notwithstanding the show of resistance made at the Sierra Morena, the kingdoms of Andalusia were in fact open to the enemy; so supine was the Central Junta, as to make it even probable that Cadiz itself might be betrayed or surprised; and if, now that Buonaparte had no other object, he should march a great force against the English in Portugal, there were few persons who had sufficient knowledge of the country and of the character of the people, to look onward without dismay.

♦Lord Wellington’s views with regard to Portugal.♦

Lord Wellington calculated upon both. He knew that man is naturally brave, that the men of any country therefore may, with good training, be made good soldiers, and that if the Spanish troops were no longer what they had been under the Prince of Parma, the fault was not in the materials, but in the composition of their armies. The Portugueze were as proud a people as the Spaniards, and had in their history as much cause for pride; but they were not so impracticable. The removal of their court removed all those intrigues and jealousies which would otherwise have been at work; the nation felt itself at this time dependent upon England; but there was no humiliation in this; any such sentiment was precluded by old alliance, the confidence of hereditary attachment, and the consciousness that it was willing and able to do its own part in its own defence. Whatever measures the British government advanced were cordially adopted; and Lord Wellington, during the mortifying inaction to which he was reduced, had the satisfaction of knowing that the Portugueze troops were every day improving in military habits and feelings, and that he might reckon upon them in the next campaign as an efficient force. In all his views and opinions concerning the course to be pursued, Marquis Wellesley entirely agreed with him; and the Marquis, when he returned to England to take his place in administration, proposed that every effort should be made for placing Portugal in the best state of preparation. He knew that we might rely upon the Spaniards for perseverance through all reverses and under every disadvantage; but it was on the Portugueze that we must place our trust for regular and effectual co-operation.

♦The King’s speech.♦

When parliament assembled this was referred to in the king’s speech. “The efforts,” it was said, “of Great Britain, for the protection of Portugal, had been powerfully aided by the confidence which the Prince Regent had reposed in his majesty, and by the co-operation of the local government, and of the people of that country. The expulsion of the French from that kingdom, and the glorious victory of Talavera, had contributed to check the progress of the enemy. The Spanish government had now, in the name and by the authority of Ferdinand VII., determined to assemble the general and extraordinary Cortes of the nation. This measure, his majesty trusted, would give fresh animation and vigour to the councils and the arms of Spain, and successfully direct the energies and spirit of the Spanish people to the maintenance of the legitimate monarchy, and to the ultimate deliverance of their country. The most important considerations of policy and of good faith required, that as long as this great cause could be maintained with a prospect of success, it should be supported, according to the nature and circumstances of the contest, by the strenuous and continued assistance of the power and resources of Great Britain.”

In the debates which ensued it was a melancholy thing to see how strongly the spirit of opposition manifested itself even in those persons whose opinions and feelings regarding the justice and necessity of the war were in entire ♦Speech of Earl St. Vincent;♦ sympathy with the government. Earl St. Vincent inveighed in the strongest terms against the ministers, to whose ignorance and incapacity, to whose weakness, infatuation, and stupidity, he said, all our disasters and disgrace were owing. After panegyrizing Sir John Moore as one of the ablest men who ever commanded an army, he spoke of the battle of Talavera as a victory which had been purchased with the useless expenditure of our best blood, which led to no advantage, and which had had all the consequences of defeat. “It is high time,” said he, “that parliament should adopt strong measures, or the voice of the country will resound like thunder in their ears. Any body may be a minister now: they pop in, and they pop out, like the man and woman in a peasant’s barometer; they rise up like tadpoles; they may be compared to wasps, to hornets, to locusts; they send forth their pestilential breath over the whole country, and nip and destroy every fair flower in the land. The conduct of his majesty’s government has led to the most frightful disasters, which are no where exceeded in the annals of history. The country is in that state which makes peace inevitable; it will be compelled to make peace, however disadvantageous, because it will be unable to maintain a war so shamefully misconducted and so disastrous in its consequences.”

♦Lord Grenville;♦

Lord Grenville spake in a similar temper. The day must come, he said, when ministers would have to render an account to parliament of the treasures which they had wasted, and the lives which they had sacrificed. Their measures had uniformly failed, and presented nothing but an unbroken series of disgraceful, irremediable failures. And yet they had the confidence, the unblushing confidence, to tell us of a victory! Gilded disasters were called splendid victories, and the cypress that droops over the tombs of our gallant defenders, whose lives have been uselessly sacrificed, was to be denominated blooming laurels! He spake of what might have been done if an army had been sent either to Trieste or to the north of Germany; condemned the Walcheren expedition, as the plan and execution of that miserable enterprise deserved, and pronounced a condemnation not less unqualified upon the plans which had been pursued in Spain, where, he said, they had persisted in expecting co-operation from an armed peasantry, persevering in error after the absurdity of such an expectation had been proved. Why too had the army in that country been exposed in unhealthy situations? But the Lords had a duty to perform; having seen what had taken place before in Spain and Portugal, they could not exculpate themselves for having continued to repose confidence in such ministers. They must exert themselves in this most imminent crisis of their country. “You cannot be ignorant,” said he, “of its tremendous situation, and where can you look? To the government! See it, my Lords, broken, distracted, incompetent, incapable of exerting any energy, or inspiring any confidence! It is not from the government that our deliverance is to be expected; it must be found, if it be found at all, in your own energy and in your own patriotism.” And he concluded with moving as an amendment to the address, that vigorous and effectual proceedings should be instituted, as the only atonement which could be made to an injured people!

♦Honourable Mr. Ward;♦

The language of the opposition in the House of Commons was not more temperate. “Lord Wellington’s exploits at Talavera,” said the Honourable Mr. Ward, “left the cause of Spain as desperate as they found it, and in their consequences resembled not victories, but defeats. For by what more disastrous consequences could defeat have been followed, than by a precipitate retreat, by the loss of 2000 men left to the mercy of the enemy upon that spot where they had just fought and conquered, but fought and conquered in vain; that spot which, as it were in mockery to them, we had endeavoured to perpetuate in the name of the general? By what worse could it have been followed than by the loss of all footing in Spain, the ruin of another army, and the virtual renunciation of all the objects of the war? William III. used by his skilful generalship to render defeat harmless, ... our generals made victory itself unavailing.”

♦Mr. Ponsonby;♦

Mr. Ponsonby said it was a crisis which called upon the House of Commons to put forth its penal powers; and that had he a choice between punishment and pardon, he should prefer punishment, because the circumstances of the country imperiously required some solemn example. ♦Mr. Whitbread;♦ Mr. Whitbread directed the force of his invective against Marquis Wellesley. “To Spain,” he said, “he had gone, after delays which ought to be accounted for; and what were his services when he got there? Why, he went through the mummery of dancing on the French flag! He visited the Junta, went through all the routine of etiquette and politics, made a speech about reform, took his glass after dinner, and religiously toasted the Pope. On his return, of course, when the places were going, he came in for his share, and made one of the administration which the Chancellor of the Exchequer had at length compiled; but in what manner had he compiled it? His first application was to two noble lords, with whose principles he had been at war all his political life: they rejected the tender in a manner worthy of their dignity, and the rebuff which they gave would have daunted any man of less temerity than himself. There was not a man, from the Orkneys to the Land’s End, who did not pronounce him and his administration weak, incapable, and insufficient. Even with the addition of the two colleagues who had deserted them they were feeble, but they then stood on a principle, or rather in opposition to a principle; but now, having been rejected by all who were worthy, the weak, and old, and infirm, were collected from the hedges and high roads, and consorted with for want of better.

“Let our relative situation with the enemy,” he pursued, “be well considered! Austria gone, the French force concentrated, and Spain their only object. We are told that Portugal may be defended by 30,000 men; but would not Buonaparte know our force to a drummer? and where we had 30,000 he would have three score. Who would struggle against such fearful odds? We held our ground in that country just at the will of the French Emperor, and at his option he could drive us out of it. And what could we expect from our present ministry, ... or rather from a single man, for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in fact, stood alone? Marquis Wellesley, of whom such account had been made, might be considered as completely insignificant. Who was he? The governor of India, ... the man who had scarcely escaped the censure of that house for his cruel tyranny! the man who had assailed the press, that sacred palladium of the people! the friend of despotism! the foe to liberty! Could this man say to Buonaparte, in the noble indignation of insulted virtue, ‘I have not done as you have!’ Alas! if such a man had strength, he would indeed be a fearful acquisition to such a government; but he was known, and therefore weak and harmless. Peace,” Mr. Whitbread concluded, “should be the cry of the nation. Peace, ... particularly because the thraldom of millions of our fellow-subjects was the tenure by which this incapable junto held their offices.”

♦Mr. Perceval.♦

Mr. Perceval replied to this speech in all its parts. “As to the situation,” he said, “which he had the honour to hold in his Majesty’s council, he must state, in the most explicit manner, that it was not an object of his own desire; on the contrary, if his wishes had been realized, another person would then have held the office of first lord of the treasury. When, by his Majesty’s directions, he had applied to Lords Grey and Grenville, for the purpose of forming an extended administration, the first proposition which he should have made to them, if they had given him an opportunity of stating it, would have been, that it should be left to themselves to determine who should be the first lord of the treasury.” This was a confession of weakness: twelve months before, Mr. Perceval was strong in the opinion of the people; but now the deplorable Walcheren expedition hung about him like a mill-stone, and, even in his own feelings, weighed him down. Having said what he could in defence of that expedition, he rose into a higher strain, when speaking of the Spaniards, and the unjust and unfeeling manner in which their conduct had been represented. “Was it liberal,” he said, “that the defenders of Zaragoza and Gerona should be said to have displayed no generosity, no enthusiasm, no patriotism? Well, indeed, might those persons censure what was done to aid the Spanish cause, who could assert that the cause did not deserve success! But neither in ancient nor in modern history could an example be found of a country maintaining a contest like that which this degraded Spain, and this degraded Spanish government, had so long supported. Never, in recent times, had 250,000 Frenchmen been so long in a country without subduing it. Spain was not subdued; but what effect upon the Spaniards such language as had been used that night might produce, it was impossible to predict!”

♦Vote of thanks to Lord Wellington opposed by the Earl of Suffolk.♦

When a vote of thanks to Lord Wellington was moved in the House of Lords, it was opposed by the Earl of Suffolk, who argued that the best mode of assisting Spain was by a floating force, which might be landed wherever it could be most useful; by such a mode of warfare, he said, Gerona, during its long and glorious defence, ♦Earl Grosvenor;♦ might have been relieved. Earl Grosvenor also opposed the vote, and made some judicious remarks upon the practice of raising men to the peerage whose fortunes were not adequate to support the rank. The ends of military fame, he said, would be better promoted if different orders of military merit were established; the same spirit of valour might be excited, and all inconveniences to the constitution ♦Earl Grey;♦ avoided. Earl Grey denied that the battle of Talavera was a victory; it had been trumpeted as such, he said, by ministers, but in so doing they had practised an unworthy deception. Lord Wellington had betrayed want of capacity and want of skill: the consequences had been most disastrous, nor did we yet know the extent of the evil. One army had been compelled to retreat into Portugal, where he feared it was in a very critical situation, and where, from the unhealthiness of the position which it occupied, disease had made such an alarming progress among the troops, that he believed their numbers did not at that time exceed 9000 effective men.

♦Marquis Wellesley;♦

Marquis Wellesley replied, that he knew the circumstances which had influenced his brother in all his movements during the campaign, and the plain statement of those circumstances triumphantly vindicated him. “Against strange mismanagement,” he said, “such unlooked for, such unaccountable casualties as had occurred during that campaign, and frustrated a plan so wisely contrived, no human prudence on Sir Arthur’s part could provide. Concerning the necessity of a radical change in the government of Spain, his opinions,” he continued, “were not unknown. But it surely was not to be expected that Spain could reach at once the vigour of a free government, just emerging as she was from that dreadful oppression which had broken down the faculties of her people, ... from those inveterate habits and ancient prejudices which had so long contracted her views and retarded her improvement, and from the disconnexion and disunion between her different provinces. The change which was desired could not be the work of a day. But were we therefore to desert the Spaniards in this crisis of their fortunes, and abandon them to the mercy of their invaders?... As for the circumstances which attended and followed the battle of Talavera, nothing more perhaps, in a military sense, could be said of the result, than that the British troops had repulsed the attack of a French army almost double their numbers, the efforts of which had been chiefly directed against them. But was there no skill, no bravery, no perseverance displayed in the mode in which that repulse was effected? Did no glory redound from it to the British arms? Had it not been acknowledged, even by the enemy, as the severest check they had yet sustained? That victory had saved the south of Spain from absolute destruction, had afforded time for Portugal to organize her army, and had enabled Lord Wellington to take a position where he might derive supplies from Spain, at the same time that he drew nearer to his own magazines. He should not attempt to diminish the disasters which afterwards befel the Spanish armies; both his noble brother and himself had earnestly advised them to keep on the defensive; but, flushed with the victory of Talavera, and too sanguine of success, they advanced at all points, and the result had fatally justified the propriety of the advice which had been given them. This, however, was not the present subject. It was enough for him to have shown that Lord Wellington had arrested the progress of the French armies into the south of Spain, and procured a breathing time for Portugal; that country was placed in a greater degree of security than at any time since it had been menaced by France, and such essential improvements had been introduced into the Portugueze army, that it would be enabled effectually to co-operate with the British troops. These advantages were fairly to be ascribed to Lord Wellington; and he did not hesitate to say, that his brother was as justly entitled to every distinction which his sovereign had conferred, and to every honour and reward which it was in the power of that house to bestow, as any noble lord who for his personal services had obtained the same distinctions, or who sat there by descent from his illustrious ancestors.”

To this temperate and able speech, which showed that means had been taken with due foresight, and that with due perseverance there ♦Lord Grenville.♦ was a well-grounded hope of success, Lord Grenville replied by arguing from the misconduct of the Spanish ministers against our own. “Let the house,” he said, “consider how much dependence the administration had placed upon such a government as that of the Spaniards, and then ask themselves if they could be justified in supporting them in a continuance of error. We were now told that reliance was to be placed upon the co-operation of the Portugueze; but they ought to judge of the future from the past, to recollect that for want of co-operation it had been found necessary to retreat, and that the remnant of the army was in a situation not unlike that in which it was placed by its advance to Talavera.”

♦Feb. 1.♦

The vote of thanks was opposed in like manner ♦General Tarleton;♦ in the House of Commons. General Tarleton said, that Lord Wellington’s dispatches were vain-glorious, partial, and incorrect; that he had been deficient in information concerning the amount and situation of Soult’s army; and that he had been compelled to a precipitate retreat, after abandoning his sick and wounded. ♦Mr. Whitbread.♦ Mr. Whitbread affirmed, that the battle had been more a repulse than a victory; nor could he, he said, withhold a tear, when he thought of the British blood which had been spilt in sacrifice to incapacity and folly. The consequence of the battle was, that the army had no other retreat than that through Deleitosa, and their condition during that retreat was such, that many hundred perished on the road from famine. The Spanish cause, he concluded, was now more hopeless than ever. But the motion received a powerful support from Mr. Windham, who, setting all party views aside, followed the feelings of his own generous nature. “The unproductive consequences of this victory,” he said, ... “for a victory it was, and a glorious victory, ... were not to be put in comparison with the military renown which we had gained. Ten or fifteen years ago, it was thought on the continent that we might do something at sea, ... that an Englishman was a sort of sea-animal; but our army was considered as nothing. Our achievements in Egypt first entitled us to the name of a military power; the battle of Maida confirmed it; and he would not give the battles of Vimeiro, Coruña, and Talavera, for a whole Archipelago of sugar islands.”

♦Pension voted for Lord Wellington. Feb. 16.♦

The vote was carried in both houses without a division. But the opposition tried their strength in the House of Commons upon the King’s message, recommending that a pension of 2000l. should be settled upon Lord Wellington, and the two next heirs to his title in succession. “With the grant of the peerage,” ♦Mr. Calcraft;♦ Mr. Calcraft said, “that house had nothing to do; he was sorry it had been conferred; but though there was no remedy for it, the house ought not to add to it the pension. Pensions and thanks might be voted, but they could not permanently blind the country; whatever the public opinion might be now, it would not be with ministers upon this subject a month hence, when the whole fruits of Lord Wellington’s victories and campaigns would develope themselves to public view. It was mournful and alarming to hear that Lord Wellington had said he could defend Portugal with 50,000 men, provided 30,000 of them were British; for if the French were in earnest in their designs upon that country, before three months Lord Wellington and his army would be in England. Neither Portugal nor any other country could be defended by victories like that of Talavera.”

It was said by General Craufurd, a peerage might be an incumbrance to Lord Wellington without a pension. General Loftus also remarked, that he had always been one of the most liberal men in existence, and the state of his circumstances was therefore, he imagined, far from sufficient for the support of the dignity ♦Opposed by Sir Francis Burdett;♦ to which he was elevated. Sir Francis Burdett took this occasion for touching a popular note. “If Lord Wellington’s liberality,” he said, “had brought him into difficulty or debt, who was it whom they called upon to free him from the incumbrance? ... the people; ... who already owed debts enough, not in consequence of any prodigality of their own, but through the impositions of their representatives. As to the military part of the question, he could only say, that the result was failure, ... failure as complete as failure could be. But even if the occasion had been such as to deserve reward, he should object to making any appeal for that purpose to the people’s purse. What was become of the patronage of the government? Where were the sinecures, which were always defended because they afforded a fund for such purposes as these? Yet application was made to the people, ... and this by a government who, while they perpetually threw the burden upon the people, had greater means of rewarding merit at their disposal than all the combined merit of Europe could possibly exhaust.”

♦Mr. Whitbread;♦

The same strain of argument was pursued by Mr. Whitbread. “It was often argued,” he said, “that the expectation of one of those great places falling in satisfied many a claimant: if so, why should not Lord Wellington wait for one of them? It was an important part of the question, whether, supposing the peerage to have been merited, the circumstances of the new peer were such as to require the pension; for if they were not, it would be a scandalous waste of the public money. Nor was it necessarily to follow, that whenever the king was advised to grant a peerage to any officer, the House of Commons was bound to vote him a pension.”

This produced from Mr. Wellesley Pole a ♦Mr. Wilberforce;♦ statement of his brother’s fortune. Mr. Wilberforce then appealed to the house, whether, if Lord Wellington had devoted the great talents which confessedly belonged to him to the bar, or to any other liberal pursuit, he would not have rendered them infinitely more productive than it appeared that he had done by actively employing them in the service of his country? and he protested against the unjust and impolitic illiberality of opposing such a grant upon such grounds. The same opinion ♦Mr. Canning.♦ was delivered by Mr. Canning. “The victories of Lord Wellington,” he said, “had re-established our military character, and retrieved the honour of the country, which was before in abeyance. If the system of bestowing the peerage was to be entirely changed, and the House of Lords to be peopled only by the successors to hereditary honours, Lord Wellington certainly would not be found there. But he would not do that noble body the injustice of supposing that it was a mere stagnant lake of collected honours: it was to be occasionally refreshed by fresh streams. It was the prerogative of the crown to confer the honour of the peerage; it was the duty of that house to give it honour and independence. The question was, whether they would enable Lord Wellington to take his seat with the proudest peer in the other house, or whether they would send him there with the avowed intention that it was only to the crown he was to look for support. It was their duty to take care if the crown made a peer, that it should not make a generation of peers wholly dependent on its favour for their support.”

There was a great majority upon this question, 213 voting for the grant, 106 against it. But the current of popular opinion in the metropolis set in with the opposition at this time; for the Walcheren expedition, like a pestilential vapour, clouded the whole political ♦The common council petition against the pension.♦ horizon. The common council presented a petition against the pension: a measure so extraordinary, they said, in the present state of the country, and under all the afflicting circumstances attending our armies in Spain and Portugal under that officer’s command, could not but prove highly injurious in its consequences, and no less grievous than irritating to the nation at large. In the military conduct of Lord Wellington, the lord mayor and common council added, they did not recognise any claims to national remuneration; and they conceived it to be a high aggravation of the misconduct of his majesty’s unprincipled and incapable advisers, that they had, in contempt and defiance of public opinion, recommended this grant to parliament. There was neither reason nor justice in making it, and therefore they prayed that it might not pass into a law. When the second reading was moved, Mr. Whitbread said he trusted that as this petition had been presented, the minister would not press it that day. Mr. Perceval replied he saw no necessity for any such forbearance, and the bill passed by a great majority, 106 dividing against 36.

In these debates ministers were completely triumphant. Some of their opponents accused them of having done too much, others of having done too little, and some would fain have persuaded the people of Great Britain, that our army had obtained no victory at Talavera. The charge of having taken no measures for conciliating the Spaniards, by obtaining for them a restoration of those political rights which had been so long withheld, was abundantly disproved by the papers laid before parliament. There it appeared that Mr. Stuart, Mr. Frere, and Marquis Wellesley, had each pressed upon the existing government the necessity of convoking the Cortes. The great error which the ministry had committed, was in their neglect of Catalonia. In the commencement of the struggle this fault was not imputable to them, but to the general, who disobeyed his instructions to convey his army to that most important scene of operations: the effects of that fatal error were to a certain extent irremediable; but no subsequent attempt was made, and the French were suffered to take fortress after fortress, without an effort on our part to relieve them. Still the conduct of administration toward Spain was far more worthy of commendation than of censure; if not without error, if not always successful, it had uniformly been brave and generous: we had every motive of policy for assisting the Spaniards in their struggle, but the assistance was given in a manner worthy of the nation which gave, and of the noble people who received it.

The result of any discussion upon this subject was anticipated by the public; they, in spite of the efforts of factious news-writers, and journalists of higher pretensions, whose want of feeling was more disgraceful even than their want of foresight, continued to feel concerning Spain like freemen and like Englishmen. Nor was Mr. Windham the only member of opposition who expressed this sentiment. When in ♦Marquis of Lansdown;
June 8.♦ the course of the session the Marquis of Lansdown moved for a vote of censure upon ministers for rashness and ignorance, the strong bias of party spirit did not prevent him from rendering justice, in some respects, both to his own countrymen and to Spain. “Whatever he might think of the policy which led to the battle of Talavera,” he said, “or of its consequences, he should ever contemplate the action itself as a proud monument of glory to the general who commanded, and to the army who won that ever-memorable day. No success, he affirmed, could be expected in Spain under such a government, or with armies so constituted and commanded as the Spanish armies, or where supplies could not be procured; these things ought to have been known; but these things were no reflection on the Spanish national character. The Spaniards had displayed acts of the most splendid heroism which had ever been recorded; they had converted the walls of Zaragoza and Gerona into fortifications almost impregnable. Their disasters were imputable, not to the people, but to those who could suppose that a junta of persons put together in any manner composed a government, and that a crowd of men collected in any way was an army. Still he was ready to confide in the Spanish people, and to believe that much might yet be done by their efforts; and he cherished the hope, and would cherish it to the last, that if ever Europe was saved, our own country would be an important agent in that great event. But it was not by co-operating in rash expeditions with such armies as that of Cuesta.”

♦Lord Holland;♦

Lord Holland spoke to the same purport, while the intent of his speech was to fix a censure on the ministers. He condemned them for having sent out Mr. Stuart and Mr. Frere without adequate instructions, particularly with regard to the most important point, the arrangement of a system for redressing the grievances of the Spanish people and restoring their rights. But on that point the British government was fully justified. He condemned them also for neither having sent an adequate force, nor given proper instructions, nor made adequate provision for that force which they did send: but the event had shown, that a larger force had been sent than could be provided, in the inexperienced state of our own commissariat, and in the disordered state of Spain. He said that ministers ought equally to be condemned by those who disapproved of our interposing at all in the affairs of Spain, and by those who were most interested in the success of the Spaniards: if, indeed, there was any difference, the friends of Spain must condemn them most, because they were peculiarly mortified by the disappointment of their wishes, a disappointment which the misjudging policy of these ministers had produced. He was one who had felt this mortification, for no event had ever excited a livelier interest in his mind, not even the dawn of the French revolution. But having thus spoken to justify the vote of censure which he was about to give, Lord Holland argued in defence of the principle which his own party vehemently and even virulently opposed. He dwelt upon the importance of supporting Spain to the utmost, and upon the perilous facilities which Cadiz and Lisbon would afford for the invasion of Ireland, if those ports were suffered to fall into the hands of the French. If, after all efforts, he said, Spain should ultimately be subdued, his advice was, that we should promote the establishment of such a system of government in the Spanish colonies as good statesmen could approve, the only system which ought to be approved in any country, a system founded upon the opinions and wishes of the people.

♦Marquis Wellesley.♦

Marquis Wellesley replied to the general attack which was made upon ministers, in a manner worthy of his reputation as a statesman. He pointed out the solid advantages which had been gained during the last campaign, by securing Portugal, and giving time for the Portugueze to form an army, which was now in a state to co-operate with the British troops; he showed also what advantages had been gained to the Spaniards, had the Junta known how to profit by them, or followed the advice which both he himself and Lord Wellington had pressed upon them in vain. Then, in a clear and masterly manner, he enforced the duty and necessity of supporting the cause of Spain. “Justly,” he said, “had it been stated by the noble Marquis, that if ever Europe was to be delivered, England must be the great agent in her deliverance; and justly he might have added, that the fairest opportunity for effecting that deliverance opened, when Spain magnanimously rose to resist the most flagrant usurpation of which history records an example. Not only were we called upon by the splendour, the glory, the majesty of the Spanish cause, to lend our aid; a principle of self-preservation called upon us also: these efforts on the part of Spain afforded us the best chance of providing for our own security, by keeping out of the hands of France the naval means of Spain, which Buonaparte was so eager to grasp, knowing they were the most effectual weapons he could wield against the prosperity and the power of Great Britain. The views of Buonaparte, in his endeavours to subjugate Spain, were obvious, even to superficial observers. The old government had placed at his disposal the resources of that country, but the old government was feeble and effete; and, however subservient to his will, he knew it was an instrument which he could not pitch to the tone of his designs. He therefore resolved to seize upon the whole Peninsula, and to establish in it a government of his own. He may have been prompted to this partly by his hatred to the Bourbon race, partly by the cravings of an insatiable ambition, partly by the vain desire of spreading his dynasty over Europe, partly by mere vanity: but his main object was, that he might wield with new vigour the naval and colonial resources of Spain, to the detriment of Great Britain. This alone could suit the vastness of his designs; this alone could promise to gratify his mortal hatred of the British name. By the entire subjugation of the Peninsula, and the full possession of its resources, he knew that he should be best enabled to sap the fundamental security of these kingdoms. Therefore how highly important was it to keep alive there a spirit of resistance to France! There were no means, however unprincipled, which Buonaparte would scruple to employ for the attainment of his ends. To him force and fraud were alike, ... force, that would stoop to all the base artifices of fraud, ... fraud, that would come armed with all the fierce violence of force. Every thing which the head of such a man could contrive, or the arm execute, would be combined and concentrated into one vast effort, and that effort would be strained for the humiliation and destruction of this country. Universal dominion is, and will continue to be, the aim of all French governments; but it is pre-eminently the object to which such a mind as Buonaparte’s will aspire. England alone stands in the way of the accomplishment of that design, and England he has therefore resolved to strike down and extirpate. How then were these daring projects to be met? How, but by cherishing, wherever it may be found, but particularly in the Peninsula, the spirit of resistance to the usurpations of France? If we have saved the navy of Portugal; if we have saved the Spanish ships at Ferrol; if we have enabled the Portugueze government to migrate to their colonies; if we have succeeded in yet securing the naval and colonial resources both of Portugal and Spain; how have these important objects been achieved, but by fomenting in both these kingdoms a spirit of resistance to the overwhelming ambition of Buonaparte? To this end must all our efforts be now directed. This is the only engine which now remains for us to work in opposition to Buonaparte’s gigantic designs. Why then should we depart from that salutary line of policy? what is there to dissuade or discourage us from adhering to it? I can discover nothing in the aspect of Spanish affairs that wears any thing like the hue and complexion of despair. If, indeed, it had appeared that this spirit began to languish in the breast of the Spaniards, if miscarriages, disasters, and defeats had been observed to damp the ardour and break down the energies of the Spanish mind, then might it be believed that further assistance to the Spanish cause would prove unavailing. But, fortunately for this country, not only is there life still in Spain, but her patriotic heart still continues to beat high: the generous and exalted sentiment, which first prompted us to lend our aid to the cause of Spain, should therefore be still maintained in full force, and should still inspirit us to continue that aid to the last moment of her resistance. The struggle in which Spain is now engaged is not merely a Spanish struggle. In that struggle are committed the best, the very vital interests of England. With the fate of Spain the fate of England is now inseparably blended. Should we not therefore stand by her to the last? For my part, my lords, as an adviser of the crown, I shall not cease to recommend to my sovereign to continue to assist Spain to the latest moment of her resistance. It should not dishearten us that Spain appears to be in the very crisis of her fate; we should, on the contrary, extend a more anxious care over her at a moment so critical. For in nations, and above all in Spain, how often have the apparent symptoms of dissolution been the presages of new life, and of renovated vigour? Therefore, I would cling to Spain in her last struggle; therefore, I would watch her last agonies, I would wash and heal her wounds, I would receive her parting breath, I would catch and cherish the last vital spark of her expiring patriotism. Nor let this be deemed a mere office of pious charity; nor an exaggerated representation of my feelings; nor an overcharged picture of the circumstances that call them forth. In the cause of Spain, the cause of honour and of interest is equally involved and inseparably allied. It is a cause in favour of which the finest feelings of the heart unite with the soundest dictates of the understanding.”

Full use was made of these debates by the French government, which was at this time employing every artifice for making the people believe that Great Britain was on the brink of ruin. The King’s speech, as usual, was falsified, and sent abroad. There it was said, that whatever temporary and partial inconveniences might have resulted from the measures which were directed by France against our trade and revenue, the great source of our prosperity and strength, those measures had wholly failed of producing any general effect. The official French paper substituted for these words a sentence, in which the King was made to tell his parliament, they must be aware that the measures adopted by France to dry up the great sources of our prosperity had been to a certain degree efficient. It was said that we were not merely on the verge of national bankruptcy, but actually suffering under all the horrors of famine; that our crops of every kind had failed; we were obliged to feed our cattle with sugar and molasses, and had nothing but sugar, cocoa, and coffee, and the skin and bones of these cattle for ourselves. To a certain degree, Buonaparte and his journalists may have perhaps believed the falsehoods which they circulated; they read in our factious newspapers of decaying trade, diminished resources, and starving manufacturers; and the opposition told them, that France was certain of success in whatever she attempted on the Continent; that the cause of Spain was hopeless; that it was impossible for us to carry on the war; that if we did not grant the Roman Catholics all that they demanded, Ireland would be lost, and the loss of Ireland would draw after it the downfal of the British empire. Speeches of this tenour were carefully translated for the use of the Emperor’s subjects, and circulated throughout the Continent: but when the French saw it asserted, upon the authority of English members of parliament, that the Spaniards and Portugueze had nothing worth fighting for; that they were inimical in their hearts to England; that Buonaparte was reforming the abuses of their old government, and redressing their grievances; when they saw it affirmed in the English House of Commons, that the people of Spain must know Marquis Wellesley would, if opportunity should offer, take both Spain and Portugal as Buonaparte had done; when they saw the same persons who represented Sir John Moore as a consummate general vilify the talents of Lord Wellington, deny his merits, oppose the rewards which were so justly conferred on him, and maintain, in the face of their insulted country, that the British army had gained no victory at Talavera; it appeared to them impossible that language, at once so false, so absurd, and so co-operative with the designs of France, could have been uttered by an English tongue; such speeches were supposed to have been invented in France, and they attributed to the artifices of their own government what were in reality the genuine effusions of perverse minds, irritable tempers, and disappointed faction.