Chapter XIX: Appendix: A

(See p. 10)

Lord Strangford,[429] in some _Observations_ on a note in Colonel Napier’s book, has this year (1828) given a very different version of the whole story. From a dispassionate consideration of the documents he produces in his defence, and the account he gives of the whole transaction, I am inclined to believe that some _unimportant_ particulars in my relation of them are incorrect. It is clear that his dispatch was _not_ written in Reddish’s Hotel, but in Bruton Street. It is possible, and indeed probable, that it was written at Mr. Canning’s request, and that Mr. Canning urged as a reason, _though in all likelihood_ not as the only reason, for writing it, that “he preferred the form of one unbroken dispatch, and that the publication of the whole of Lord Strangford’s letters as they stood was impossible”;[430] and it is true that the dispatch so written does not _directly_ assert, as I had imagined that it did, that Lord Strangford had an audience of the Prince Regent immediately before his embarkation, and had persuaded him to embark. Lord Strangford, in his publication of this year, directly and repeatedly acknowledges that the embarkation of the Prince Regent was not the result _of his brief visit to Lisbon on the night of November 28, when the Royal Family were already embarked_.[431]

Thus far the real state of the facts may be more favourable to Lord Strangford than my representation of them in the text and the account I collected of them from the testimony of those whom I have quoted in the preceding note; but the main point of the charge against Lord Strangford’s veracity and the authenticity of the dispatch remains unrefuted. The dispatch was written in London and on December 19, not, as the date indicates, on board the _Hibernia_ off the Tagus, November 29; and that false date, as well as the promise “to detail further particulars in a future dispatch,” and the apology for haste at the end, prove the intention of the writer to deceive the public reader as to the time and place of the composition. The reasons for writing such a dispatch and the allegation of those reasons by Mr. Canning may be correctly noted by Lord Strangford in his _Observations_, but they do not disprove the facts which I have stated in my text and which I believe, namely, that Lord Strangford had arrived in London and written the dispatch afterwards printed in the _Gazette_, before the official intelligence contained in a dispatch really written on board the _Hibernia_ by him had come to hand; secondly, that the original dispatch varied in many points with that written and printed in London; and thirdly, that Mr. Canning was thunderstruck at discovering such variations. It is, I think, undeniable that the printed dispatch, without positively propounding as a fact that Lord Strangford had prevailed on the Prince Regent to embark, is calculated and apparently intended to convey that impression to the reader, and it somewhat broadly implies that it was “in interesting communications with the Court of Lisbon” after November 27, that he prevailed on His Royal Highness to embark, or at least confirmed him in his previous intentions to that effect. In the dispatch Lord Strangford says that “on proceeding to Lisbon on the 27th, he had immediately most interesting communications with the Court of Lisbon,” for the particulars of which he refers to some future dispatch: but adds, “It suffices to mention in this place that the Prince Regent wisely directed all his apprehensions to a French army, and all his hopes to an English fleet; that he received the most explicit assurances from me, etc., etc.; and that I promised, etc., etc.” Nobody would doubt in reading the above passage that the interesting communications were immediately after Lord Strangford had proceeded to Lisbon on the 27th, that the particulars referred to a future dispatch had occurred either on or after the 27th, and that the expression of the Prince Regent’s hopes and fears, as well as the explicit assurances of Lord Strangford and his promises to the Prince Regent, were all made in an audience with the Prince Regent, or at least with his Ministers, after Lord Strangford had proceeded to Lisbon, and before the Prince Regent had embarked. The fact is now acknowledged by Lord Strangford himself that the Royal Family were already embarked during his brief visit to Lisbon, and that he saw M. D’Aranjo and the Prince Regent for the first time after his proceeding thither on board ship.