Chapter IV: Book THE FIRST (1)

1807-1810

N.B.—Copied in 1824. Written between December, 1817, and December, 1818.

In the latter end of the Session of 1808 the public attention was diverted from domestic occurrences, and indeed from Parliament itself, to events on the Peninsula of Spain. They changed the aspect of affairs both at home and abroad, and led ultimately to those extraordinary revolutions by which the next seven years were distinguished. These notes are devoted to English politics, and however some documents and recollections within my reach might illustrate the history of Spain during that period, it is my intention to confine myself _here_ to such occurrences as have immediate reference to our domestic parties. Some account, however, of the campaigns on the Peninsula is necessary, to explain the state of parties in England and the character and circumstances of those who took a part in them.

I have not hitherto adverted to the emigration of the Court of Lisbon to the Brazils, though it took place in November, 1807, and was much connected with English politics.[1] It was in truth so interwoven with the state in which our armies found that part of the Peninsula, that in relating the ensuing campaign I must have fallen into some repetition. The Portuguese Minister, the Chevalier d’Aranjo (who was all along suspected of promoting the designs of the French, and was certainly in secret correspondence with them, though possibly, and indeed probably, with the somewhat less criminal design of deceiving them), always assured me that the Prince Regent of Portugal would, as he was in policy bound to do, submit to almost anything to avoid a French invasion; but that whenever he despaired of averting that calamity, he would throw himself into the arms of the English, and emigrate to Rio Janeiro with all his family and Court, rather than hold a nominal and precarious authority under a French garrison in his own dominions. This previous view of the subject, not Lord Strangford’s[2] negotiations, induced him to resort to that measure; and he was on board the ship before that Minister landed, and under weigh, if he had not actually crossed the bar, before he had any interview with the person who in a public dispatch strongly implies that his previous representations and promises, if not an audience on November 28 in Lisbon, had prevailed on him to embark.[3]

Lord Strangford arrived in London with the news of the safe departure of the Court from the Tagus, before the official intelligence which he had sent by another ship reached the office. He had leisure during his voyage to improve the story he had invented, and he made the whole so dramatic that Mr. Canning, in the first fervour of gratitude, gave him a riband; promised him the appointment to Rio Janeiro; offered him an Irish earldom, which, as Mr. Canning expressed it, he had the _modesty_ to refuse; and above all pressed him most earnestly to write a full account of the animating tale he had related in the shape of a dispatch, and to date it, “_Off the Tagus_.” He accordingly complied; and in observance of the rules of fiction which both as a poet and a politician he had studied and practised so successfully

Servetur ad imum
Qualis ab incepto processerit,

he composed an epistle in Reddish’s Hotel, St. James’s Street, as true, or rather as false, as the date of it. It was published, while the ink of the original was yet wet, in the official Gazette of the country![4] Mr. Canning must have been thunderstruck when he received the original dispatch, and discovered many variations in the second edition. He was, however, either too vain to acknowledge himself a dupe or too good-natured to expose the impostor. So far, therefore, from disavowing Lord Strangford, he appointed him Minister to Rio Janeiro, where, notwithstanding his detected falsehoods and other misconduct, he was continued for many years against the better judgment of his various employers, through the contrivances of the Portuguese Ambassador, Souza[5] (Count Funchal), and the interest of his relation and protector, the Duke of Northumberland. Mr. Brougham, who saw him frequently, did not spare him in the _Morning Chronicle_; indeed, he dwelt so much on the subject that I intimated to him and to Mr. Perry, the proprietor, that it was growing tiresome. Whether by the contrivance of Mr. Brougham to avenge himself of this criticism, or by pure accident, I know not, but certain it is that Lord Strangford has always imputed those just but severe strictures on his conduct to me, and with exquisite judgment complained to Mr. Brougham, the real author, of the malignity and inveteracy with which they were penned.

To return, however, to my narrative. Some regiments, detached from Sicily to co-operate with a squadron for compelling the Portuguese and Russian fleets on the Tagus to surrender in case the Prince of Brazil had not determined to sail for America, were on the coast; an expedition, which I have already adverted to as prepared during our Ministry, was at Cork[6]; and a small army, sent to the King of Sweden under the command of Sir John Moore, was released from that service by the dis-agreements which occurred between that King and the English general. All these forces were ready to act when the intelligence of the revolution in Spain reached England.[7]

It was brought thither at the end of May, or beginning of June, 1808, from the Asturias by Matarosa and Don Andres de la Vega: the first, a young nobleman afterwards better known by the name of Count Torreno; the latter, a provincial lawyer, who united to considerable sagacity and unblemished integrity great sobriety of judgment and a character capable of inspiring and of feeling confidence. He afterwards laboured to counteract the effects of that suspicion which both in and out of Cortes was estranging the Spaniards from their allies; but he died of the yellow fever at Cadiz before he acquired all the fame he deserved, and before the healing qualities of his temper could be applied to the prevention of those calamities which the return of King Ferdinand so unexpectedly produced. His modest character and inferior rank, the extreme youth of Matarosa, and the comparative insignificance of the province of the Asturias, made our Government hesitate till the arrival of the Galician and Andalusian deputies, men not equal in capacity, but of higher rank by birth or station. Admiral Apodaca, though, in truth, selected to screen him from the resentment of the multitude for having signed a proclamation favourable to the French and not for any proof of zeal against them, had a very prepossessing appearance, and a manner which announced more knowledge of the world and talents of business than he really possessed. These circumstances, and a confirmation of the simultaneous rising throughout Spain on St. Ferdinand’s Day (May 25), determined our Government to afford all possible aid to the first popular resistance which the aggressions of Napoleon had encountered. Mr. Whitbread and some other Whigs, but especially that genuine though sober lover of freedom “wherever pleaded,” Mr. Horner,[8] caught the flame which such a contest was likely to kindle in every generous breast. Lord Grey, while his first impressions were yet warm, wrote me word that had he been in office I should have been despatched to the insurgents without loss of time. Some of the Ministers were less sanguine than the public; and Lord Westmorland,[9] in a phrase characteristic of his feelings and taste, said, “The Spaniards had got into a d——d scrape, and if we did not look sharp they would drag us into it too.”

Count Florida Blanca[10] and my amiable, philosophical friend, Don Gaspar Melchior de Jovellanos,[11] on acceding to the cause of the insurgents, wrote to me to convey the intelligence to our Government. I forwarded their respective letters, with a translation, to the Secretary of State’s office, and a copy of my answers, in which I pointedly disclaimed all connection or influence with any Ministry, but expressed my private conviction that every Englishman in or out of our Councils would be forward in assisting Spain in so arduous and so honourable a struggle. I observed that Mr. Canning took very slight notice of these communications, which, considering the character and station of the writers, were not unimportant. I have since ascertained that he took umbrage at my writing to the Under-Secretary of State and not to himself, which I did from an unwillingness to give my correspondence too great an air of importance or an appearance of obtruding either inquiry or opinion of mine on the Government.

On my applying soon afterwards for a passport to travel in Spain, he wrote me a letter of misplaced admonition; which I answered in a way to show him that I should regulate myself by my own notions of propriety without considering his, and that I did not conceive a Secretary of State, in granting a passport to an English gentleman, had any authority or occasion to read him a lecture as to his intercourse with foreigners. This little incident and other traits which occurred at the same time were indications of that personal vanity and flippancy which have often obstructed his ambitious designs by raising him enemies most unnecessarily, and which are the real defects of his character rather than weaknesses of a baser nature at that time very generally, but at all times very falsely, imputed to him. In our party Lord Grenville, swayed by Mr. Wickham,[12] who deemed French armies invincible, and Mr. Brougham, who had written himself into a persuasion that everything which postponed peace must terminate in disaster, took in the course of the summer a very despondent view of the contest on the Peninsula; but the Duke of Norfolk was the only man who in 1808 publicly deprecated the policy of assisting the Spaniards. The Convention of Cintra, the retreat of Sir John Moore, the defeat and the dispersion of the Spanish armies, and the arguments in the _Edinburgh Review_, converted many to the same opinion in the course of a few months. Even Mr. Windham, with all his ardour for war and hatred of the French, was at moments startled at the apparition of liberty which the patriots occasionally summoned to their aid, and at a subsequent period was scared at the notion of resisting Napoleon himself by anything approaching to democratical principles.

The troops I have described above[13] were employed in the first instance and in the absence of Sir John Moore, who was personally detained some time in Sweden, to rescue Portugal from the French. They were placed for that purpose under the command of Sir Arthur Wellesley. The King disapproved of entrusting so important an expedition to a General so low in the list. He insisted on some older officer superseding him if the force were augmented. These objections of His Majesty led to the appointments of Sir Hew Dalrymple and Sir Harry Burrard, which occasioned no little confusion. The brilliant battle of Vimiero and the Convention of Cintra,[14] which, though it sacrificed some advantages, at least liberated the west coast of the Peninsula from all French armies, are all matters of history.

The circumstances relating to them were well sifted at the time, and I know of no private or unpublished fact which would further illustrate them. The success in Portugal, however incomplete, was considered by all as necessarily the forerunner of some more extensive undertaking, but the Generals there employed were for different reasons incapacitated from the command of any immediate and greater expedition. The appointment of a commander became the subject of much public speculation and anxiety, and no doubt of as much secret deliberation and private intrigue. The popular writers affected to apprehend that the Duke of York was destined by Court favour to that important service. It is indeed probable that his father countenanced such pretensions; and till the subsequent career of Sir Arthur Wellesley enabled him without self-disparagement to acquiesce in any appointment founded on a series of triumphs, it is natural to suppose that a Prince of the Blood at the head of the army was somewhat unwilling to admit his failures to be disqualifications for a command to which no rival could aspire on the plea of any splendid or popular success. The public, and the Ministry perhaps, thought otherwise. Cobbett and other writers employed their memory and their wit to expose his incapacity in the field; and a pamphlet, written in a mysterious tone of insinuation and menace, prepared a way for the charges which were afterwards preferred against him. It proceeded from a cabal, with which some persons in the Duke of Kent’s family were reported to have a connection. Ministers possibly were not displeased at having it in their power to plead the existence of popular clamour and prejudice against an appointment, which for many stronger but less courtly reasons they wished to avoid. But Sir John Moore, the only person whom they could venture to recommend to so extensive and important a command, never enjoyed their confidence either before or after his appointment.[15] His support at home in case of misfortune must have appeared to him precarious, and he assumed the command in a temper of distrust very natural, and in some views laudable, but not very propitious to the success of a cause depending more upon passion than calculation, nor encouraging to a people whose main resource consisted in an inward and rooted persuasion that they were invincible.

With great and very unusual qualities of understanding and disposition, Sir John Moore was perhaps less adapted to the command to which he was appointed than to any other to which his destiny could have called him. He was, indeed, the most accomplished soldier in our army. He united firmness, knowledge, and sagacity, to great military skill and zeal for his profession and his country. He had shown decision of character in the field of action, and never betrayed any want of it in such commands as he had been entrusted with. Nor was this all. The attachment of numerous, and among them the most sensible, officers in the army, and the veneration in which his memory was held by them even after his disaster and death, cannot be accounted for by the active praise of his relations and countrymen,[16] but prove that he really possessed those virtues which confer on a commander an authority over the opinions and wishes as well as the actions of his followers. But as he could not feel, so neither could he inspire, confidence in any but a regular force. His affections were limited to British officers, and he was either unwilling or unable to court the goodwill or humour the weaknesses of any other. His high spirit would not stoop to countenance either absurdity or exaggeration; he disdained, perhaps he undervalued, the advantages which, in a moment of national ferment, some extravagance of hopes and even of expressions may produce.[17] He knew the superiority of English troops over the undisciplined and ill-officered bands of their allies; and if not childishly complacent in displaying, he was at least at no pains to conceal, his sentiments on that subject.

He could not rely on the statements or depend on the skill of the Spaniards with whom he came in contact, and he soon let them know that he had made that discovery. Anxious not to forfeit his military reputation, he probably expressed less ardour in the cause than he evinced apprehension of reproach should he risk the safety of so large a British force; and the tone of circumspection and diffidence at headquarters spread through the army, and tended, no doubt, to produce in some degree that backwardness to co-operate with them in the natives, which he quotes so often in his notes and correspondence as a proof of their want of enthusiasm. In the last and most important epoch of his life he put himself in the right in all his differences with others; but it is observable that, though in the right, he did always differ with those whose co-operation and concert were most necessary to his success.

Before he took the command of the army, Ministers should have sent him to the Spanish Governments then forming, or should have selected at his recommendation some military man with whom he was in the habits of confidence. The choice, however, fell on my friend, Mr. Frere,[18] a man of a warm and generous disposition, of singular and original wit, and of great literary accomplishments, who was zealous in the cause of Spain. He had, it is true, contributed to our rupture with that country in 1804 and to the scandalous capture of the frigates; but his personal quarrel with the Prince of the Peace[19] might well be expected to atone for all such offences, in the eyes of a nation irritated even to madness against that favourite. His anti-Gallican spirit, too, somewhat extravagant elsewhere, was congenial with the feelings of Spaniards, and not unlikely to inspire them with confidence in him.

These considerations and his intimacy with Mr. Canning were his recommendations. He had no other: with all his ardour, reading, talents, and humour, he was a bad man of business. His manners, repulsive at all times to new acquaintance, became yet more so when the importance of the affairs in which he was engaged rendered him absent and pompous. Thus distant to some and suspicious of all, he was often the dupe of low and designing men, and yet oftener of his own imagination. He had no knowledge of men’s characters, and even when he adopted their ideas and approved of their conduct, was neither communicative nor cordial in his official intercourse with them. His habitual absence assumed, when he was in a public capacity, the appearance of haughty demeanour and self-sufficiency; and though entirely exempt from such vices, he preferred incurring the imputation of them to the acknowledgment of the more venial infirmities of inattention, indolence, or forgetfulness. In his correspondence with Sir John Moore he showed great want of judgment in collecting intelligence, was unaccountably remiss in conveying such as he did collect, and culpably presumptuous and offensive in the tone and substance of his advice and remonstrances.

The General, from the commencement, was disposed to remain on or near the frontiers of Portugal, and averse to any forward movement, especially after the discomfiture of Blake in Biscay and Castanos in Arragon. He wavered, however, either from want of accurate intelligence or from the earnest representations of Mr. Frere. By that irresolution some time was lost in forming his junction with Sir David Baird,[20] who had landed at Coruña; and between the project of retreating by Portugal or Galicia the necessary preparations were completed in neither. When it was determined to retreat through Galicia, Admiral de Courcy, who commanded at Coruña, was directed to prepare the transports at that port _or_ at Vigo, according to his judgment as to which port was most favourable for the embarkation of troops in the face of an enemy. On that subject no seaman could doubt. Ships can anchor in Vigo Bay beyond the reach of cannon, and, even if driven from thence, the islands at the mouth of the harbour afford water for an army and a road with tolerable anchorage for a fleet, where they could lie for a favourable wind in safety from any attack but such as supposes a superiority at sea in the enemy.

Thither, therefore, most of the transports were sent early in December, 1808, and there Sir Samuel Hood, detached with a large squadron of men-of-war, found them. While they lay there, that is, for more than a month, the wind continued from the eastward, and would have rendered it difficult and tedious for them to beat up to Coruña. Sir John Moore, before he left Lugo on January 9, sent orders to Vigo to bring the transports to Coruña, but the messenger lost the dispatch and arrived without it. Captain Capel,[21] however, on the 13th or 14th, received another and private letter from the army. There was a hasty note on the cover, written, I think, in pencil, and nearly obliterated by the carriage and damp weather. It mentioned the orders to retreat on Coruña, and after some consultation Sir Samuel Hood inferred from it that the lost dispatch must have contained orders to sail from that port. The wind, as if to favour that design, suddenly changed to the south and south-west. It blew fresh, but the whole fleet weighed anchor, put to sea, and actually entered the Bay of Coruña on the evening of the 15th, with a stiff breeze which, both from its strength and direction, would have impeded, if not prevented, its sailing out of the same bay in the face of an enemy.

Sir John Moore had been there four days, and the French army had come up to him more than forty-eight hours before the transports arrived. Had the wind that brought them continued, they would scarcely have improved the prospects of the English army. But during the night of the 15th and the ensuing day, while the battle was yet fighting, it came round more and more to the eastward, and was so favourable in the afternoon that the greater part of the troops, though in considerable confusion, were not only on board, but actually at sea the very night of the action, which did not commence till about midday on the 16th. The General, who, after a painful campaign, had fallen as it closed, was “buried sadly” at dead of night, and left, as the melancholy dirge expresses it, “to his glory”: which, however, is not only commemorated in that very beautiful composition, and in the Latin inscription written by Dr. Parr on his monument at Coruña, but must live in the recollection of the English army, and be preserved by every impartial historian of the time.

The particulars I have related prove, indeed, that the transports should either never have been sent to Vigo, or the retreat should have been made upon that place; not perhaps from Lugo, but from Astorga by Orense and Tuy. The country through which that road lies is comparatively fertile, and it had been less exhausted by the recent passage of troops. The roads are less practicable, and the cannon of both the flying and pursuing armies must have been left behind. But Vigo is a port admirably adapted for the embarkation of troops. The preference given to Coruña, which nothing but the most signal good fortune prevented from being fatal to fleet and army, and the irresolution between November 16 and December 5, seem the only mistakes that military critics can discover in the unfortunate but arduous campaign of Sir John Moore. The vagueness, inaccuracy, and contradictions of the intelligence he received sufficiently account for the latter. It was, in truth, more extraordinary that he was not led into yet greater embarrassments, than that he incurred inconveniences from the expectations held out to him by the Spaniards, the sudden dispersion of all their armies, and the contradictory statements by which it was attempted to conceal the extent, nature, and consequences of those disasters.

A transcendent genius would, I think, have done more than this great officer accomplished; but very few would have displayed more firmness or so much sagacity. Less of either of those qualities would have betrayed him into a situation which, without serving the cause of Spain, must have terminated in the surrender or annihilation of the English army. His view of affairs appeared at the time to some, and among them to myself, to be dictated by an unwarrantable indifference in the cause and an excess of circumspection, amounting to timidity, in council. But subsequent disclosures prove such circumspection to have been necessary. It reflects honour on his discernment, without in the smallest tittle detracting from his zeal in the service of his country. He formed a just estimate of the effects of his advance; it exposed his army to be attacked and almost surrounded by superior numbers, but by bringing the whole disposable French force northwards, it gave the Spaniards a chance, and deferred the invasion of the Andalusias. In his last melancholy letter, written three days before his death, he seems to repent of having departed from his original determination of retreating from Salamanca through Portugal.[22] But the movement which he regrets saved Spain, though it did so, perhaps, chiefly in consequence of the Austrian war, of which he was not apprised.[23] Seville and Cadiz would have inevitably fallen had the French corps pressed forward through Estremadura and La Mancha. They were recalled on the alarm of Sir John Moore’s advance into Old Castile. It was consequently some time before the French could resume offensive operations in the south. The hostility of the peasantry and the increase of the irregular bands or guerillas harassed their communications, when their armies were spread over so large a surface.

Numerous though not very formidable armies were collected by the Spaniards in the south, and that sanguine officer, Sir Robert Wilson,[24] with a miserable band of ragamuffins called the “Lusitanian Legion,” contrived, by threatening proclamations, letters purposely thrown in the way of the enemy, and other devices, to preserve Ciudad Rodrigo from attack and to keep on the alert a French force considerable enough to have taken that fortress and made a fatal inroad on Portugal itself. He remained where he was, in spite of the orders of Sir John Cradock[25] and the remonstrances of almost every English officer with whom he communicated. The value of this service can only be estimated by those who were in the country at the time. Such was the consternation at Lisbon that his retreat would have been the signal for embarking every British soldier in that capital or its neighbourhood.

The result of this campaign produced disappointment and dismay in England. Sir John Moore was in habits and opinions more connected with the Whigs than with their opponents. He was sincerely lamented by that party; and in vindicating his memory, sometimes from reasonable criticism, at others from malevolent aspersions, many members of it were hurried into disparaging a cause in which they thought he had been sacrificed by Ministers. Mr. Canning was compelled to give up his friend Mr. Frere in debate. He did so with much emotion in manner, but without assigning those reasons in his defence which might have been urged with truth, though probably with little public effect. He was recalled, and Lord Wellesley appointed Ambassador to Spain. Mr. Frere, though mortified, loitered on at Seville, accepted a title from the Junta, which he was permitted by our Court to bear anywhere _out of England_,[26] and would not have quitted Spain if the progress of the French had not driven him to the coast.

I was in Spain during the whole Session of 1809, and was fortunate in being so. All minds in England were engrossed with the inquiry into the conduct of the Duke of York and the examination, among other bad characters, of his mistress, Mrs. Clarke. It was a disgusting business, and I am unacquainted with the details. The intemperate defiance to which Mr. Charles Yorke and the Ministers resorted, his own sanguine temper and hasty assertion of a negative proposition, and, I am afraid I must add, the injudicious management of Mr. Adam,[27] both before and during the investigation, combined with the unpopularity which an apprehension of his commanding an expedition had produced, were the leading causes of a result unfavourable to the Commander-in-Chief. His case, though exempt from moral turpitude, legal guilt, or dishonourable feeling, was yet indefensible in public. He was compelled to resign. Sir David Dundas,[28] who succeeded him, was considered, how truly I know not, as his creature: and the Army was thought to be as much under his direction, through the connivance of the King and the subserviency of that General after his removal, as before.

The accusation originated in a cabal of disappointed and malignant men, among whom were to be found Captain Dodd, aide-de-camp to the Duke of Kent, and Mr. Glennie, an officer of Engineers, formerly treated with some harshness by the Duke of Richmond. They availed themselves of disclosures, true and false, made to them in moments of passion by a Mrs. Clarke, a mistress discarded by the Duke of York and defrauded of the annuity to which a direct promise had entitled her. The woman, however, acted more from interest and vanity than malignity or revenge. She was at first averse to any public exposure of His Royal Highness, and only desirous to extort the money which she thought her due, and which, in honour as well as policy, ought never to have been withheld. Irritated afterwards by the taunts of the Duke’s advisers and partisans, and tickled by the success of her personal charms and flippant repartees in the House of Commons, she ransacked her memory for every private transaction and confidential conversation on the subject of promotions, and related them, with great apparent accuracy and perspicuity and without asperity or exaggeration, to the public.

All the popular writers, Tory as well as Whig, Methodist as well as Jacobin, joined in representing the testimony as conclusive of corruption. The country was in a flame. There had never hitherto (at least in our time) been any measure hostile to the Court so popular as the inquiry and censure of the Duke of York. Colonel Wardle, who conducted it, of mean capacity and meaner disposition, was remarkable for nothing but the atrocities he had perpetrated and encouraged against the Irish insurgents in 1797; he was a party to the designs and a tool in the hands of that little knot of discontented officers with whom the proceeding originated.[29] Other members in pursuit of popularity were led into too much co-operation with them; and Lord Folkestone,[30] a man of integrity, honour, and understanding, perhaps the most formidable of the Duke’s opponents, got so much entangled in an amour with Mrs. Clarke, that he might have made allowance for weaknesses of which he found himself, even at the moment of arraigning them, very susceptible.

Many Whigs, though they disdained all connection with such associates as Colonel Wardle and Mrs. Clarke, thought they were not bound to show much forbearance towards one who abhorred their principles and had sapped their power; much less to incur the offence and odium of screening what, if not delinquency, was at least impropriety of conduct, for the sake of riveting in authority a Prince who would never exert it in their favour. “We have for once,” said Lord Althorp,[31] a spirited young man, keen in sport and in politics, “the people in full cry against the Court, and we are fools if we do not ride up to the hounds.” The older and more sober members of the party, especially the Cavendishes and those who recollected the Duke of York’s good qualities when they agreed with him on politics in 1788, were inclined to adopt a more magnanimous but less popular policy; but the Whigs as a body took no distinct or manly tone whatever on this embarrassing occasion. The different sides they espoused proved that no leader had any authority over them, and perhaps the violence of some and the irresolution of others proved as clearly that not one of them had the qualities requisite to assume it. Mr. Ponsonby[32] sunk in the estimation of the party, and the party sunk yet more in the estimation of the public.

During the remainder of the Session many motions were brought forward with a view of courting popularity or allaying the ferment of men’s minds. Ministers were arraigned by name for interfering with elections and other corrupt practices; bills for abolishing sinecures, reducing pensions, and reforming Parliament were announced, and one with many alterations by the Ministry for the further prevention of bribery was passed, though with little benefit to the public. On the whole these discussions did harm. The exaggeration of the reformers, on one side, and the scandalous admission and defence of many practices grossly improper, on the other, lowered the House of Commons without strengthening the people, and thereby weakened the only weapon which can be used with any efficacy against the silent but steady encroachments of Regal and Ministerial power.

During this period Ministers were not united. The shrewd among their opponents perceived both in their speeches and their measures strange symptoms of difference, if not disunion. The fatal expedition to Walcheren was evidently adopted as a compromise, but in its consequences widened and proclaimed the breach. Lord Castlereagh was not consulted by his colleague, Mr. Canning, on the affairs of Spain, and a diversion in the north of Europe, strongly urged by the Austrians, was, in the shape of an expedition to Walcheren, resorted to as an expedient to prevent his interference with projects relating to the Peninsula, where the nature of his views was likely to create (and in one or two instances did actually create) considerable embarrassment. During the retreat of Sir John Moore he had sent a Sir George Smith with a small force to Cadiz, to secure by negotiation, and in certain cases by force, the Spanish squadron there.[33] That object was not, I suspect, even communicated to Mr. Canning; it was certainly mistaken and unknown by Mr. Frere, and when suspected by the Junta, pointedly and sincerely disclaimed by Mr. Frere. Whether right or wrong, a measure so offensive to the Spanish was inconsistent with all our professions, and not of a piece with any of the other transactions in that country. Sir Sidney Smith[34] likewise had received instructions in the Brazils from Lord Castlereagh, which justified him in adopting a line directly contrary to that which Lord Strangford, in obedience to Mr. Canning, was pursuing.

To prevent such conflicts of authority, it seems that the notable device of giving Lord Castlereagh some expedition entirely his own was hit upon.[35] The enterprise on the Scheldt originated with him at a time when so little cordiality subsisted between him and Mr. Canning, that the latter had applied to the Duke of Portland to remove him from his office, and declared that his continuance in it was incompatible with his own possession of the Foreign Seals. The removal of Lord Castlereagh had been agreed to, but was deferred on various pretences of the Duke of Portland and Lord Camden.

The expedition originated with a Minister thus circumstanced, and, as it were, secretly condemned by his colleagues. Lord Chatham[36] was entrusted with the command, at whose suggestion I know not. The appointment was certainly a strange and unfortunate one. His countenance and carriage, indeed, bespoke high spirit and genius, and such qualities might readily have been expected from the brother of Mr. Pitt and the son of Lord Chatham. But his life had hitherto belied all such appearances and expectations. He had never spoken in Parliament, and in the high offices he had filled had been remarkable for nothing but procrastination and inactivity. Alike insensible to the glories shed on his name by his father and the favours showered upon him by his brother, he sold the monument raised to the first Lord Chatham at Burton Pynsent[37] for a few pounds to a neighbouring apothecary; and he remained in office with Mr. Addington when all Mr. Pitt’s personal friends retired with him in 1801. Injuries, real or supposed, made a deeper impression on his mind; he never forgave Lord Melville for urging his removal from the Admiralty in 1795, and he hardly excused his brother for complying with that suggestion, though his indolence in office had rendered it unavoidable and become so notorious that he was nicknamed by the Navy, from the hours he kept, _The Late Lord Chatham_. He had imperceptibly risen to be an old General in the Army; for, with the exception of the disastrous descent at the Helder in 1799, and possibly a part of the siege of Gibraltar, he had never seen any service,[38] and for more than twenty-five years had discharged no military duties whatever. Yet he now assumed the command of the largest expedition which ever left our coast with as much indifference as he had voted in Parliament and received the emoluments of the Admiralty, the Presidentship, or the Ordnance, during the last twenty-three years of his life.

The calamities of the expedition are matter for history. The Navy ascribed the failure to Lord Chatham; his conduct at the Admiralty was not forgotten by them, and Sir Home Popham,[39] who had instigated the expedition and devised many of the plans, was not sorry to shift the whole blame on the execution rather than the design. No exploit was performed sufficient to reconcile the public to so unexpected an appointment as that of Lord Chatham. When, however, he was examined in the House of Commons, the stateliness of his deportment, the firmness and compass of his voice, his self-possession, dignity, and dexterity, persuaded some who were no mean judges that the necessity of exertion would have discovered in him great parliamentary talents, though command in the field had drawn forth no display of military genius. He delivered clandestinely to the King a paper justifying himself, and in some degree inculpating the Navy, and even the Admiralty. Lord Mulgrave[40] repelled the charge in the House of Lords with spirit; but Lord Chatham, who was obliged to retire from his office, never opened his lips, but on his examination.

The expedition to Walcheren occasioned changes in France as well as in England. Napoleon was on the Danube. Fouché,[41] Minister of the Interior, on the first alarm of our descent on the coast of Holland, raised, without communicating the step to the Emperor, a large body of national guards. They were of some service at Antwerp; but the circumstance, together with a negotiation with Lord Wellesley soon afterwards for peace, which was carried on by an agent of Fouché without the participation of his colleagues or of the Emperor himself, gave Napoleon great umbrage.[42] He thought his Minister too powerful and too busy; and though his conduct on the invasion of Walcheren had been serviceable to France, it furnished a motive for dismissing him.

In England, Lord Castlereagh, mortified at the complete discomfiture of his favourite project, found that he had been all along sacrificed by his colleagues, and, partly from calculation, partly from anger, resigned. Mr. Canning had done so the day before, either because Lord Castlereagh had not been apprised of the intention of removing him, or because he had not been removed. The duel between these two Ministers, the challenge, correspondence, and circumstances which led to it, were all printed, published, and canvassed at the time. Lord Castlereagh, in his rage, sought a mode of redress not well suited to the injury, and perhaps he did not select the real offender. For if the concealment, not the conception, of the design of removing him constituted the offence, with the Duke of Portland and Lord Camden, not Mr. Canning, rested the guilt of the concealment. Mr. Canning pressed them to disclose it; he possibly, and even probably, thought that they had disclosed it. The conduct of Lord Castlereagh, who was an excellent marksman, and had practised with pistols to qualify himself for the Irish House of Commons, seemed dictated by a thirst of vengeance rather than a sense of wounded honour.[43] “A gentleman,” observed Mr. Windham, “does not fight to avenge his political wrongs, but to vindicate his character. Here is an injury, and possibly some duplicity, of which Lord Castlereagh has a right to complain; but there has been no aspersion on his reputation, no insult which demands reparation or satisfaction.”

Nevertheless, the proof of spirit, where very unwarrantably none had hitherto been supposed to reside, raised the character of the man, and even softened the unpopularity he had incurred by the disastrous expedition to Walcheren.[44] On the other hand, no explanation of Mr. Canning could do away the impression in the world that he had acted unfairly and treacherously by his colleague. He sunk in the same proportion as his rival rose in public estimation, and particularly in the House of Commons. It was whimsically observed that the first two Irishmen that had ever sat together in an English _Cabinet_ terminated their differences in the _field_.

The day after the duel Mr. Perceval wrote to Lord Grey and Lord Grenville, the former of whom was in Northumberland, the latter in Cornwall. His letter mentioned the intention of the Duke of Portland to resign in consequence of bad health, and stated His Majesty’s authority to Lord Liverpool and himself to communicate with the two Lords, “for the purpose of forming an extended and combined Administration”; he then expressed his hopes that they would come to town to forward, with as little delay as possible, that important object, and apprise him of their arrival. He also mentioned Lord Castlereagh’s and Mr. Secretary Canning’s intentions of resigning.

Lord Grey construed this letter as containing _His Majesty’s authority_ to Mr. Perceval to communicate with him, and _Mr. Perceval’s_ hopes that he would come up to town and avoid loss of time in forwarding the object of forming a combined Administration. He therefore contented himself with declaring that such a union was impossible; and thinking his appearance in London might occasion delay in forming a settled Government, remained in the country, after requesting Mr. Perceval to lay before His Majesty his humble entreaties that His Majesty would not attribute his conduct to any want of attachment or diminished zeal in his service.

Lord Grenville, thinking that Mr. Perceval’s letter contained an express signification of His Majesty’s pleasure that he should come up to London, left Cornwall; but immediately on his arrival at Camelford House wrote to Mr. Perceval to decline the proposed communication, from a conviction that it would be productive of no public advantage. He disclaimed in his letter all personal hostilities and all desire of prolonging political differences, and hinted at his opinions on the Catholic question, by declaring that it was “his wish and the duty of every loyal subject to compose, not enflame, the divisions of the Empire.” “His accession to the Administration,” he observed, “could not contribute to that object, and could only be considered as a dereliction of public principles. The retreat of some members from the Ministry made no difference; his objections not being to persons, but to the principles of the Government itself and the circumstances attending its appointment.” He then closed the letter with the usual assurances of zeal and attachment to His Majesty.

Mr. Perceval, in a reply to Lord Grenville studiously polite and conciliatory, endeavoured to mark his sense of the different conduct of Lord Grey; and though that conduct arose from a different construction put by the two Lords on the phraseology of Mr. Perceval’s first overture, there was some apprehension in Lord Grey’s mind lest an inference of more substantial difference in their views might be drawn from it. Such a consequence was, however, entirely avoided. It happened fortunately enough that the conduct of each on this occasion seemed to refute the calumnies on their respective characters, which had of late been most sedulously propagated by their enemies. Lord Grenville, so often styled by the courtiers stiff, unbending, and repulsive, came up to town on the summons, though his purpose was to decline the proffered negotiation. Lord Grey, on the contrary, who had most unaccountably been accused by the demagogues of an undue appetite for office, did not even wait to consult his friends, but, at the risk of offending the King, peremptorily and instantly declined all communication, and remained at the distance of three hundred miles. Their answers were approved by the party in a manner highly creditable to the disinterestedness of so large a body of men. Nor were they unpalatable to the public at large. The doctrine that all politicians will sacrifice principle to office had been recently inculcated with great industry. The country was gratified, as it should be, at a practical refutation of that false and degrading supposition. Lord Westmorland, to whose understanding a combined Administration and a loss of place were synonymous, remarked on this transaction, “What an escape the country has had!”

Lord Grey communicated his answer to the Prince of Wales, and Lord Grenville apprised him of his also, before they were publicly known. When I called at Carlton House I found His Royal Highness exceedingly pleased at this attention, and mightily disposed to thrust himself into some negotiation either for a coalition or a new Administration. With that view he had offered his services to the King, and expressed a readiness to go down to Windsor; but his father in a short and dry answer declined the offer, reminding him of some assurance, formerly made (probably at the time of our dismissal from office), of never interfering in political arrangements unless _expressly requested_ to do so by His Majesty. Lord St. Vincent, to whom the Prince of Wales showed this letter of His Majesty, said: “I admire it, sir, as a masterpiece in its way; it is the best attorney letter I ever read.”

Mr. Sheridan took me to Carlton House to see this correspondence. He told me in the anteroom that I should like the Prince’s letter extremely. “The fact is,” added he, “the Prince had drawn it out at first himself, but in a way that would never have done, awkward in expression, forgetful of things that had passed, and pledging himself to others in future that would have been the devil and all. I contrived, however, just by hinting a thing here and there, to recast the whole, and he is delighted with it; because having drawn the original sketch he fancies the picture his own, though I left none of the outline and the colouring was never his own.”

No sooner was I admitted and seated than a scene ensued, which would really have been worthy of Mr. Sheridan’s pencil, if he had not himself performed a part in the original. The Prince produced the paper with great complacency, and began by informing me that he was sure I should like it, “For,” said he, “Sheridan will excuse me, but though he is a clever fellow at such things, I must say he had drawn up a d——d bad paper on this occasion. I just took the form and outline, but I have altered it myself, and was obliged to do so.” He then read it over sentence by sentence, and almost at every word he turned to Mr. Sheridan and said: “You know it stood so and so, but I altered it,” or, “You will allow that’s better, Sheridan?” To all which Mr. Sheridan nodded assent. I left the house without being deeply impressed with the value of the article contended for, but utterly at a loss to decide to whom the merit, such as it was, belonged.

Lord Grenville communicated the correspondence relative to Mr. Perceval’s overture, as it was called, to Lord Sidmouth, who said, “The result of that step was such as was naturally to have been expected.” He hoped, however, that Lord Grey and Lord Grenville were disposed to afford “satisfaction and confidence” to the King’s mind on the Catholic question, to which Lord Grenville gave no answer.

Soon afterwards Lord Sidmouth had to return the compliment, and communicated an overture made to him of a very singular nature through Lord Chatham. It was to ask him to influence his brother-in-law, Mr. Bragge Bathurst,[45] and Mr. Hobhouse,[46] to take office. The communication was stated to be authorised and desired by the King and Mr. Perceval; but there was not one word in it expressive of a wish to have the assistance of Lord Sidmouth himself. It was of course rejected: his friends would not separate from him; but Lord Sidmouth expressed a disinclination to listen to any proposals that did not include the Whigs, unless it was ascertained that they adhered inflexibly to a measure on which the King could not give way. Mr. Perceval told Lord Sidmouth, very _frankly_ at least, that his motive for desiring the aid of his friends _without him_ was the unsurmountable personal objection felt to Lord Sidmouth himself by some whose support was necessary to the Government.

Lord Sidmouth, though chagrined at so preposterous a proposal and so unmannerly an explanation of it, was yet very earnest in extorting from Lord Grenville some declaration on the subject of the Catholics, that is, the views and intentions of the Whigs as to what he termed _setting the King’s mind at ease_. Lord Grenville very prudently answered that to the principle of Mr. Perceval’s Government, that is, to a pledge in itself unconstitutional, he could not directly or indirectly ever become a party; but that it was not possible to enter into further explanations of his views or of his possible conduct on the subject of Irish Catholics in all the various circumstances that might arise; nor could any answer be given to general phrases, such as _setting the King’s mind at ease_, and the like, it not being known what would be required for that purpose.

On the death of the Duke of Portland, Lord Grenville was chosen Chancellor of the University of Oxford. It was considered as a triumph at the time, though it was perhaps owing to a persuasion in that learned body that the object of their choice would ere long be Minister of the country; though there was some sagacity in an apprehension of Lord Cowper’s that it might have a pernicious effect on Lord Grenville’s opinions even in Opposition, and yet worse if he should obtain power on all subjects connected with the Church.[47] To remove, as far as he could with honour and consistency, the jealousies entertained of his principles respecting the Roman Catholics, he wrote and printed a letter on the subject. It contained a firm exposition of his opinions, and in point of composition did him great credit; but it revived the agitation of details which it would have been more advantageous to postpone till further progress was made in the main measure, and it seemed in some degree to pledge him to support _the Veto_, which in a few years he acknowledged to be impracticable and, though desirable, not absolutely necessary. He valued the distinction of the Chancellorship very highly. The unbiassed suffrages of a learned and pious body were, in his estimation, so many testimonies to literature, taste, integrity, and virtue. Who, therefore, of an honest mind but was gratified at seeing a man who had sacrificed so much to a sense of public duty rewarded at last by a favourite and innocent object of ambition?

I was not myself altogether insensible to an appointment, however comparatively humble, which, upon the death of the Duke of Portland, was conferred upon me by the Corporation of Nottingham. They chose me Recorder, from respect to the memory of Mr. Fox and a persuasion that I should never abandon his principles.

In November, 1809, died John Henry, second Marquess of Lansdowne,[48] after possessing that title about four years, during which time he never took any part in debate nor even voted in the House of Lords. He had been harassed by Government or by individuals in Ireland for his incautious expression of violent political opinions a short time before he succeeded to his title. The lady, whom he avowed as his wife immediately upon his father’s death, was not sorry to draw him nearer to the winning side. He was a very accomplished man, with much general knowledge, but yet more wit and eloquence, though both were of a very laboured kind. He had more singularity of conduct than originality of thought, but he had much of the latter. He was neither ambitious nor designing, and but for suspicion might have been a good man. But he had perversely persuaded himself, and some errors in his education had taught him, to guard against every kind affection of the heart—a quarter in which he was not by nature very vulnerable.

I owe much of the little useful knowledge I possess to the habits I acquired in an intimate intercourse with him—perhaps, among other things, the faculty, such as it is, of writing these memoirs. It is true he afterwards used me and mine unkindly and unjustly; but it was not without a pang that I saw a person from whom I had derived so much amusement and instruction, and with whom I had lived in such friendship, sinking at the age of forty-two or forty-three into an untimely grave. He told me a fortnight before his death that he was not fool enough to imagine that he was ever to rise from that couch; and after some sarcastic irony on the received notions of religion in which he was apt to indulge, he assured me that the thoughts of approaching death had never kept him awake for a minute, though he had been aware of it for more than two months. “I am surprised at this,” he added, “for when in health I should have guessed that such a conviction would have harassed me exceedingly; it is true, however, there is some little lethargy in my complaint, and that may contribute to account for it.” He composed an epitaph for himself, beginning,

Here lies drowned in his armchair,

and he fixed therein upon the period of his decease as well as described the mode very nearly as it happened.[49]