dura, had been completely cleared of the French and although it was true, that they had by surprise defeated two Spanish armies, yet they had not been able to gather any fruits of their victories; for they had not advanced one step. With `respect to the expedition to Walcheren, he admitted that ministers knew of the Austrian armistice before it sailed; but he was ready to contend that it nevertheless, operated as a favourable diversion for Austria, for it had diverted to the banks of the Scheldt a large body of conscripts, which were intended to have acted against her. And, for that purpose, he knew it was the desire of Austria that we should retain Walcheren until she should come to terms of peace. And hard, as those terms were for her, whoever compared the threats of Buonaparte with the terms which He afterwards granted, must admit that some cause had reduced him to the necessity of relaxing from Ais threatened severity. This cause, in Lord Liverpool's opinion, was no other than our holding, at the express request of Austria, the island of Walcheren; and, in fact, that was the reason why we held it, after ulterior objects of the expedition were known to be defeated. But there was one important object, in which the expedition to the Scheldt had completely succeeded. It was known to be a favourite measure of our enemy to form a naval dock and arsenal at the mouth of the Scheldt; and it had always been admitted by professional men, that if an invasion of this country were ever to be attempted, it would never be effected but from the Scheldt. And in one great object we had

at least succeeded; for in the opinion of professional men it would require much less time and expence to form a new harbour and arsenal than to restore the one we had destroyed at Flushing. Some noble lords had said, that the destruction of Flushing was an achievement of no importance, and as such considered by the ruler of France. He would ask those noble lords whether, if the case could be reversed, and a French fleet were to attack and destroy Sheerness, and afterwards make good their retreat, it would be considered by Buonaparte as a small triumph, or by us as a trifling defeat?-The question being loudly called for, the house divided on Lord Grenville's amendments For the amendment 92 For the address 144 On the same day, the Lords Commissioner's speech was taken into consideration in the House of Commons. After the Speaker had finished reading the speech, Lord Barnard, in what is called a mai den speech, expressed his conviction that the house would think the exertions that had been made in the Austrian cause, not unworthy of the character of the na tion. On the subject of the expedition to the Scheldt he observed, that though the whole of its objects had not been accomplished, the advantages the country would derive from what had been effected, if not now generally acknow. ledged, would soon be generally experienced.-His majesty's sentiments on the Spanish war were suited to his dignity. While the brave and martial Spaniards fought with the spirit and perseverance of free men, he offered his aid to

plan was radically erroneous. Antwerp, he told them, instead of being a weak defenceless town, was absolutely impregnable; that the ships had been moved out of the reach of attack, and that our force, great as it was, was insufficient for the attempt, and daily diminishing from the diseases of a pestilential climate. When the objects of the expedition were at last discovered to be clearly unattainable, and all farther operations prudently abandoned, it was supposed by minis ters, that the immediate return of the expedition would mark too strongly the complete failure of their plans, and therefore they determined: that our troops should remain under a climate notoriously pestilential, and proverbially fatal, That it really was so, appeared indisputably from two facts on record. The late, Sir John Pringle, a man remarkably eminent in the medical profession, had long ago published an account of the endemic diseases of Walcheren, which were most destructive to our ar mies in 1777, at which time the proportion of the sick to the healthy, was as four to one. The Swiss troops, formerly in the pay of the United States, always made it a stipulation, that they should not be obliged to serve in Walcheren. His majesty's ministers, if they did not know the extreme insalubrity of that island, should have sought, or opened their eyes to, the easiest means of information on that subject. The motion for the amendment was seconded, in a long and elaborate, yet eloquent and animated speech by

The Honourable Mr. J. W. Ward, who rose to support the ́amendmicut. From a great variety

of observations by Mr. Ward, we select the following. It appeared, that during the last seven or eight months, his majesty's ministers had failed in three great and deliberate designs; and that, if we extended our view a little farther, we should include the campaign which terminated in the death of Sir John Moore; which, again, was preceded, at no long interval, by the convention of Cintra; so that, on the whole, the result was this, that during the time that his majesty's ministers had conducted his government, they had attempted every thing every where, on the largest scale, and that in every thing they had failed; except indeed in that instance, in which they directed his arms, not against his enemies, but his allies. Their enterprises had all of them either a ludicrous or a disastrous termina tion. Now to maintain, that accident had been every thing, and misconduct nothing, in those trans actions, was to maintain that species of miracle, was worked against us. Accidents might, account for some detached failures in the course of a long administration; but a man must have a high opinion of the king's servants indeed, and must moreover have an understanding'most singularly constituted, who could persuade himself that the convention of Cintra, the miserable expulsion of our army under Sir John Moore, the ludicrous capture of Ischia and Procida, the second useless, expensive, and destructive campaign in Spain, and, to crown all, the expedition to Walcheren ;-that all these things following each other with the utmost rapidity, not a single success intervening to break

the

the chain of calamity, happened by pure ill-luck, and without the smallest degree of blame to the wisest and best, but most unfortupate of administrations. We were required to believe in the fitness of those, who had pronounced upon each others incapacity. It was from discord at home, and disgrace abroad, that we were to infer wisdom and good conduct.

We had seen how, in the course of the first campaign in Spain, our army had suffered more than it could have suffered in a country decidedly hostile; that it was received with jealousy and unwillingness, and that its presence, instead of rousing the Spaniards to greater eforts, by an increased prospect of success, seemed only to chill whatever enthusiasm might have been supposed to exist among them before. Instead of gratitude and enthusiasm, all we met with was a bare preference of England to France, in a choice of evils; a mere inclination to expel their invaders, if it could be done without the expence and trouble of adopting the necessary means. All we obtained from them was the gracious, though somewhat tardy permission of the Supreme Junta, to waste as many lives, and as much treasure as we pleased in their defence. Sir John Moore was ordered to advance, and make common cause with the Spanish nation. He did advance, but the Spanish nation seemed to dwindle away as he approached; and of all those numerous armies of patriots, on which he was taught to rely, not one ever appeared, unless indeed that name was to be bestowed on a few miserable bands of fugitive peasants, who crossed his way, in

terrupted his march, and encum< bered him with fresh difficultiesz That general, one of the best offi cers, and ablest men this country ever produced, in all he did, in all he wrote, in his life, and by his death, bore uniform testimony against the whole system of depending on the Spaniards, and of assisting Spain, by means of an army to be marched into the interior of the country. Be it that he was over cautious, desponding, guided by a pedantic attachment to regular troops. Be it that he admired the military genius of Buonaparte, while he was slow to discern that of the Marquis of Ro mana. Be it that with unparallel ed coldness and scepticism, he doubted the zeal of the inhabi tants of Madrid, and the unshaken patriotism of Don Thomas Morla Let all the foolish objections, and ridiculous calumnies avail, that had been invented, in order to blacken the memory of that illustrious man, who fell a victim to the folly and impracticability of the design, in which he was engaged. Setting Sir John Moore aside: what were the opinions of all the other offi cers who served in that expedition? they surely were not all incapable of forming a judgment. They did not all labour from be ginning to end, under the influence of invincible prejudice and incurable despondency. And did any of them, if they were consulted, advise a second experiment? The opinions of some of them were recorded along with those of Sir John Moore, and perfectly coincided with his. Nay, he was persuaded that one might go yet farther, and defy his majesty's ministers to produce the name of a single

a single officer of rank and character, under his command, who either advised the second campaign, or who would have been willing to stake any part of his reputation on that advice. He did not know what there was to put in the opposite scale. Perhaps one might form some idea of the nature of the information on which his majesty's ministers proceeded, from that of the agents whom they spread over the face of the peninsula, and who were understood to maintain a correspondence with government at home. These missionaries were, for the most part, military men, not very high in the profession, and who were of course delighted with the honours they received. It was natural enough that persons of this description, and that without imputing to them any deliberate dereliction of their duty, should represent only the fair side of things; give a little colouring to whatever was good, and extenuate all that was discouraging. They might even deserve praise for their activity and spirit; but he really believed, that out of the whole number there was scarcely a cool-headed, soundjudging man, scarcely one whose opinion was much better than that of the famous Colonel Charmilly himself. The opinion of Major Carrol stood on one side, the opinion of Sir John Moore on the other, and ministers preferred that of Major Carrol. The flight of the Supreme Junta to Seville had not cured them of the inactivity they had displayed at Aranjuez. Of all their enemies the only one they had been able to subdue, was the press. They had done nothing for the people, and nothing to en

lighten the people. No change could be expected, in such a governiment, except from some great effort of the people themselves, And yet without such a change, how was it possible to hope for success?

The fundamental error which pervaded the whole of our operations respecting Spain, consisted in supposing that the Spanish troops were capable of acting in conjunction with ours. Now it was clearly established, both by the events of Sir J. Moore's campaign, and by every other species of evidence, that the Spaniards neither had a regular army, nor any thing that was capable of cooperating with a regular army: and that whenever the French chose to concentrate their force, at the risk of a rising in that part of the country,which such a movement would compel them to abandon, and which they might easily re-occupy when they had obliged us to retire, they would meet with very little opposition from our allies, and that we should have vir tually to contend with them singlehanded. It was the art of that great general and politician, King William III. to render defeat harmless. It was the art of ministers and generals of these days to make victory itself unavailing. The successes at Oporto, and afterwards Talavera, for which the highest honours and panegyrics had been bestowed on our general! were attended with no permanent advantages whatever, and in their consequences resembled not victories, but defeats.

With regard to the expedition to Walcheren, whether we consi dered the plan, the object, or the

person