Chapter XLI (2)

There was no tendency in this speech to conciliate, but it was not likely farther to displease those whom Marquis Wellesley had already wounded, nor to wound ♦EARL GREY.♦ others. Earl Grey then rose to make his explanation and his charges. “For himself,” he said, “no man could be more anxious than he was, even as far as was consistent with his honour, to outstretch a feeble but a ready hand to save a sinking nation. But a strong suspicion had operated on his mind throughout the recent negotiations, that he and his friends were either not to be admitted into the cabinet at all, or, if admitted, to be bound down in such a manner that the public should be secured against the influence of the principles and measures to which, during their whole parliamentary existence, they had been pledged.” Alluding then to Marquis Wellesley and Earl Moira, he said, “that though in his late intercourse with them he could discover nothing but an unceasing and earnest desire to conciliate, and a laudable anxiety for the general good, he nevertheless suspected that they themselves had been deceived, and were not aware of the secret management of which they had been made the instrument.” ♦EARL MOIRA’S REPLY.♦ Earl Moira replied with becoming warmth to the imputation, solemnly declaring, “that he had undertaken the negotiation without a single particle of reservation in the authority with which he was intrusted; that he had stated to Lords Grey and Grenville, beyond the possibility of misapprehension, that his instructions were of the most liberal and unlimited nature, and that the transaction from beginning to end had been conducted with a severity of fairness, if he might use the expression, which was perfectly unparalleled. I claim,” said he, “of the noble Earl a statement of the particular circumstances to which he alludes, that I may repel the assertion in as haughty a tone as he has ventured to make it. My lords, I feel that I have not deserved this reproach: it is a disgrace which I do not merit, and which I cannot bear. If he can bring forward but the shadow of a proof that even unknowingly I submitted to be made such an instrument, I shall bow my head to his reproof, and to the degradation which must ensue. If he cannot, I shall repel the imputation as proudly as it was made. There was never in the most insignificant point the slightest reservation or hint of reservation: the powers given to me were complete and ample; and whenever limited, they were limited only by me from a sense of what was due to the public. I now call upon the noble Earl more satisfactorily to explain his meaning.” But Earl Grey contented himself with hinting that he might find some future opportunity for a more distinct explanation; and he let it appear that he himself was the person to whom the authority for forming an administration ought, in his opinion, to have been intrusted. Lord Grenville, with more judgment, avoided all offensive topics in his speech; the points which Earl Grey and he had refused to concede were, he averred, of material and fundamental importance, and they never would consent to become members of a ministry founded on a principle which, in their deliberate opinion, was calculated to overthrow the practice of the constitution.

♦MR. STUART WORTLEY’S SECOND MOTION.♦

But it was in the House of Commons that it was made known with what hasty imprudence the two lords had broken off their negotiation with Earl Moira. Mr. Stuart Wortley, who ought to have learned from the result of his former motion how bootless the repetition of such an experiment must prove, moved for a second address to the Prince, regretting that the first had not led to its expected consequences, and expressing the anxiety of the House that the arrangements for establishing an efficient administration should speedily be brought to a close. But the House was not disposed a second time to entertain such a motion. The temper in which Earl Moira’s overtures had been rejected drew forth severe comments in the course of the debate; and a statement which ♦LORD YARMOUTH’S STATEMENT.♦ Lord Yarmouth made on the part of the household produced a strong impression both in and out of Parliament. “With respect to the household,” he said for himself and his friends, “that it was their intention to resign their situations before the new administration should enter upon office. This intention,” he affirmed, “was well known: they had taken every means of stating it in quarters whence it was likely to reach the interested parties, and in particular they had communicated it to one who took an active part in the negotiation, and with whom all who knew him confessed it was a happiness to spend their private hours.” Mr. Sheridan, who was the person intended, confirmed this statement. “They took every means short of resignation,” Lord Yarmouth continued, “to show that they never wished to have any connexion with the noble lords; and their intention originated in a wish to save the Prince from the humiliation which he must have experienced at seeing them turned out of office, ... a humiliation which could only serve to convey an unfavourable impression against the government throughout the country. He did not speak in the name of one or two, but of all the officers of the household: they stated expressly to his Royal Highness that they wished to resign, and not to be turned out; and all they requested was, that they might know ten minutes before certain gentlemen received the seals that such a circumstance was to take place: before God he declared that this had been their intention, and that the only principle by which they were actuated was to save the Prince from humiliation; for they could not but consider the attempt at making this change in the household a preliminary to entering upon the negotiation as calculated to humiliate his Royal Highness in the eyes of the country.”

The party who were in opposition seemed to think it preposterous that the existing ministers should presume to hold their offices. “It was monstrous,” Lord Milton said, “to see men who were held up repeatedly to scorn and ridicule brave public opinion and return into power!” ♦LORD CASTLEREAGH’S SPEECH.♦ Lord Castlereagh defended himself and his colleagues with considerable address, and ably performed the not very difficult task of contrasting their conduct with that of their assailants. “The proposed address,” he said, “contained no expressions to which he could hesitate in becoming a party, neither should he to the further expression of a hope that the Prince would avail himself of any opportunity for strengthening the present administration: ... but such an address was uncalled for by any message from the Crown: it could lead to no practical result; its obvious import was to insinuate that the administration was not likely to possess the confidence of the country; and this insinuation was founded upon its structure, not upon its conduct: he could not then think it possible that the House would sanction it for no other purpose but to disqualify the government from the arduous task in which it was engaged. The late transactions would induce the House not again to push the principle which they had so strongly asserted. A proceeding so sudden was not to be found in English history as that which they had lately seen, when the House decided, not against a ministry who had proved themselves unworthy of confidence, but against an administration the formation of which was but in progress. This precedent he hoped future Parliaments would never follow; for those must be blind who could not see the calamitous consequences which the occurrences of the last three weeks were calculated to produce on our foreign and domestic relations. Three or four distinct negotiations had failed, and the Crown was obliged to call on the present cabinet to charge itself with the affairs of the country. It was his consolation to think, that while on the one hand he and his colleagues had never stood between the Crown and the people, so on the other hand they had never shown a disposition to shrink from the discharge of public duties, deterred as they otherwise might be by the accumulated difficulties which the late transactions had occasioned. For he could not help thinking that the course which had been pursued was most injurious, and might be fatal to the interests of the public. Never in former times had a negotiation between public men been exhibited to the eyes of Parliament and the country at large, and exposed to all the invidious comments which the malignity and the ignorance of mankind might pass upon them. For his part, he could never augur well of any negotiation in which two men could not approach each other in a private room, although on public principles, without coming armed with pen and ink, and prepared to let every thing they might utter go forth immediately for the judgment of the public! The consequences in this instance would, he trusted, have the effect of preventing the recurrence of such scenes for the time to come.... It was a painful task for him to speak of the overtures from Marquis Wellesley, though he disclaimed any thing like personal animosity to him. The paper which had appeared he understood to have been published without the noble Marquis’s consent; but after such a statement had appeared, describing as it had described Mr. Perceval and those who acted with him, he appealed to the House whether gentlemen situated as his colleagues were could without degradation meet such an overture in any other way than that in which it had been met? He entertained the sincerest respect for Marquis Wellesley, with the highest admiration for his accomplishments and his talents; and those feelings were heightened by the consideration that he was the brother of the greatest soldier this country had produced. For him, therefore, it was peculiarly painful to be called on to decide on such an occasion; but when one answer only could be given by his colleagues, thinking as he did, though not included in it, that the description which had been given of them was unjust, he must have abandoned every sense of duty if he had not been anxious to repel the charge.” Having then touched upon Earl Moira’s negotiation with the two lords, and observed that the question concerning the household had been taken up in a tone which the country would never countenance in those who approached the throne, he concluded thus: ... “And now all I have to say for ministers is, that they claim the constitutional support of Parliament till their actions seem to speak them unworthy of it; and though the present government may not possess within itself all those attributes which we have heard given to broad and extended administrations, they have at least one recommendation to public confidence (and it is not a small one), that they have no disunion among themselves. We have no private ends to answer; we are anxious to serve our country, to do our best, and to submit our conduct to the judgment of Parliament.”

With these remarkable circumstances was that ministry formed, under whose administration the French were beaten out of Spain, and Buonaparte’s empire overthrown. For the second time since the commencement of the war it had rested with the leaders of opposition whether or not they should take the government into their own hands; and for the second time, by an overweening opinion of their own importance, and a most undue depreciation of those whom they expected to displace, they disappointed their own hopes, and in an equal degree the apprehensions of the nation. The sound part of the public, and they were a large majority, regarded the result with as much satisfaction as they had felt upon the recapture of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz; they looked upon it as tantamount to a great victory over the enemy, and the enemy would indeed have seen in a contrary result the surest presage of their own success; for what more could the French ministers desire than that the British government should be conducted by men who from the beginning of the war in ♦MAY.♦ Spain up to this crisis had pronounced their own cause to be hopeless? That danger was no longer to be feared; and although the cabinet had lost its ablest member in Mr. Perceval ... the only member who united in himself powerful ability with sound judgment, and strength of character with strength of principle, and who commanded in an equal degree the respect of his opponents and the confidence of his friends, the opposition had lost more in the exposure of their temper and the total frustration of their hopes, which was as much the proper as the necessary consequence.

The only unfortunate circumstance in these transactions was, that Marquis Wellesley should have been excluded, or rather should have excluded himself, from a place in the ministry: whatever his own expectations might have been, his friends had expected to see him at its head; and had Lord Wellington been supplied with such reinforcements as in that event might have been looked for, it was believed in the army that in the course of the year he would have driven the French out of Spain. The Spanish Government was at this time ♦PECUNIARY ASSISTANCE TO THE SPANIARDS.♦ little satisfied with Great Britain, because greater pecuniary assistance was not afforded them from resources which they supposed to be infinite. It was indeed the opinion of those whose opportunities of information enabled them to form a just opinion upon the subject, that the Spaniards could make no efficient exertion unless they were aided with two millions a year in money and one in provisions, which might be procured at Cadiz from America and from the Mediterranean by bills on England: but the British Government consented only to give 600,000_l._ in the course of the current year, with arms and clothing for 100,000 men; at length it agreed that the money should be one million. The Spaniards did not remember with how little wisdom and effect the large supplies which they had hitherto received had been expended; and in England sufficient allowance was not made for the peculiar difficulties in which Spain was placed: and while the errors of its successive governments were strongly perceived, sufficient credit was not given for the national spirit which had displayed itself with such unexampled and invincible endurance.

♦PROPOSAL CONCERNING SPANISH TROOPS.♦

Some persons there were who were of opinion that no sure progress could be made towards the deliverance of Spain, unless a Spanish army were created on whose operations Lord Wellington could calculate and rely. But the opinion was abandoned upon farther knowledge of the Spaniards: the officers, with some rare and noble exceptions, were too ignorant, too idle, too prejudiced, and too proud, to receive instruction from their allies; and British officers could not be introduced in any useful number, for this would have offended the national pride. It was suggested by Mr. Tupper, who in his station as consul at Valencia had acted with great zeal and ability in the common cause, that the foreign regiments in the Spanish service might be taken into English pay, and officered by British officers. They still retained their foreign names, and were under foreign officers, but were chiefly composed of Spanish recruits: this, therefore, he argued, might be done without wounding the pride of the Spaniards, offending their prejudices, or injuring the interests of any class of men; whereas to place the Spanish army under the same subordination as the Portugueze, though the people, and especially the soldiers themselves, might like it, must be impossible, so great would be the opposition of the officers and of all the higher classes. This suggestion, for whatever reason, was either not entertained, or not found practicable; and the only arrangement made at this time was, that the Spaniards allowed 5000 men to be enlisted and incorporated with the allies. Some hope, however, was entertained from a diversion to be made on the eastern coast by a British force from Sicily in conjunction with ♦PLAN OF A DIVERSION FROM SICILY.♦ a Spanish division, which by General Whittingham’s recommendation had been formed in Majorca, and trained there under his directions. This force it was thought, if its operations were well planned and vigorously pursued, might compel the French to withdraw from the southward; and engaged as it was now evident that Buonaparte would be in his Russian war, the deliverance of Spain might be hoped for as now not long to be delayed.

END OF VOL. V.

Printed by WILLIAM CLOWES and SONS, Stamford Street.

FOOTNOTES

[1] The importance which was at that time attached to it led the Archbishop Pierre de Marca to remark _cujus momenti sit Dartosa in bello Hispaniensi; quæ cum sita sit in trajectu Iberi, latam aperit viam ad faciendam irruptionem in reliquas Hispaniarum regiones, unde ex hujus urbis deditione ingens Maurorum Sarracenorumque metus_. Marca Hispanica, 294.

[2] On the one side _La España reconocida a la intrepidez Britanica_, on the other _Alianza eterna_.

[3] They gave four dollars for the measure of rice (for example), which at Port Mahon would have produced only half a dollar.

[4] When this practice was discovered, and some of them searched in consequence, a mortar was found in one of them. These boats had forfeited all claim to indulgence, in the first year of the war, when they boarded a British prize, and carried her in.

[5] _Se preciaba de buen tirador, y se divertia en esto._ Diario de Tortosa.

[6] Major Von Staffe (340–2) dates this affair in November, instead of the following month. If there could be any doubt between his authority and that of Eroles’s dispatch, this circumstance would determine it.

[7] _No era imaginable frustrase mis calculos, atendida la circumspeccion con que se formaron, la exactitud de los datos, y el valor de la tropas; pero casualidades funestas, que no pueden entrar en la prevision de un gefe superior, que fia una parte de sus esperanzas á la suerte, y á manos subalternos, hicieron inutiles mis tareas._ Thus he expresses himself in his official dispatch.

[8] The French officers, who went on board the frigate after this affair to propose an exchange, walked along the main deck, where some of the wounded were lying between the guns for the sake of the air, and with a spirit perfectly worthy of the cause in which they were engaged, and the character they had acquired in it, asked them insultingly when they would be pleased to pay them another visit on shore!

[9] No account (as far as I can discover) of this disgraceful action was published by the Spanish Government. There was no longer the same magnanimity in relating its misfortunes as in the days of the Central Junta.

[10] _Guerra de Moros contra estos infideles._

[11] _Escaramuzas, celadas, rebatos, ardides,--son nombres castellanos de la antigua milicia, la mas necessaria en la guerra domestica._

[12] The Chaleco states this fact himself in the _Relacion de sus Meritos_, which he published at the end of the war!

[13] Lord Blayney saw them there; victims of retaliation he calls them, and says that the French General and his officers, who were conducting him prisoner to Madrid, could not help expressing their detestation of the barbarous manner in which the war was carried on.

[14] Thus this Merino is described as _el terror de la comarca; y su caracter feroz está indicado en lo fiero de su semblante, y en lo membrudo y velloso de su cuerpo. Este es el Cura decantado._ But it should be added, that the man who is thus described spared his prisoners, and conducted them to Alicant. The general appearance of the guerrillas is described by a British officer as “horribly grotesque; any thing of a jacket, any thing of a cap, any thing of a sword, pistol, or carbine, and any thing of a horse.”

[15] _Sea la España toda otra Numancia o Sagunto; y veremos desde el empireo, si estos impios espiritos fuertes se atreven a pasearse tranquilos por la silenciosa morada da nuestros tremendos manes._--Diario de las Cortes, T. 2. 172.

[16] An intercepted despatch from Berthier to Massena had informed him, on the authority of the English newspapers, that the British army did not amount to more than 23,000 men; that a reinforcement of 3000 had reached Lisbon; and, therefore, he had little to apprehend from their resistance; the Portugueze were about as many, and his force was fully sufficient to ensure success.

[17] A small edition of Pindar, which he had brought from the north, was in his pocket when he died. It is now in the possession of my friend Mr. Locker.

[18] An officer whose journal is before me, and who entered Alcobaça on the 7th, describes what were supposed to be the bodies of Pedro and Ignez as having been well embalmed, and having each a great deal of hair still attached to the head.

[19] A French orderly book was found near Batalha, in which it appeared what number of men were daily ordered upon the service of destroying, as far as they could, that beautiful edifice, one of the finest in Europe.

[20] Marshal Victor, in his official account, affirmed, as positively as falsely, that there were 22,000 men, among whom were at least 8000 of the best English troops; thus, according to the system of his government, doubling the number of his opponents.

[21] The following epitaph upon Alburquerque, worthy of the author and of the subject, is the composition of Mr. Frere:--

“Impiger, impavidus, spes maxima gentis Iberæ,
Mente rapax, acerque manu bellator, avita
Institui monumenta novis attollere factis;
Fortunâ comite, et virtute duce, omnia gessi;
Nullâ in re, nec spe, mea sors incœpta fefellit.
Gadibus auxilium tetuli, patriamque labentem
Sustentavi; hæc meta meis fuit ultima factis,
Quippe iras hominum meritis superare nequivi.
Hic procul a patriâ vitæ datus est mihi finis,
Sed non laudis item; gliscit nova fama sepulto,
Anglorum quod testantur proceres populusque,
Magno funus honore secuti, mœstitiâque
Unanimes. Æterna, pater, sint fœdera, faxis,
Quæ pepigi. Nec me nimium mea patria adempto
Indigeat, nec plus æquo desideret unquam.
Sint fortes alii ac felices, qui mea possint
Facta sequi, semperque benignis civibus uti.”

[22] This lady is known with her own hand and that of her waiting woman, to have vaccinated above 12,000 persons. The Royal Academy of Sciences at Lisbon presented her with a medal in acknowledgment and commemoration of the services which, in public and private, she was continualy rendering to humanity.

[23] The dispatch, however, like other falsehoods of the same kind, carried with it its own confutation; for it stated that the allies made no prisoners except two or three hundred wounded, who were left on the field; but the same dispatch said, that the French kept the field for two days, retaining the position they had won, ... how then could the wounded who were left upon the field have fallen into the hands of the allies? But throughout this war the remark made some three centuries ago by the Flemish historian Meyer was verified, that _res suas Galli non majore solent SCRIBERE fide, quam GERERE_.

[24] Diario de Manresa, April 20.

[25] _Voilà qui est militaire_ was the phrase in which Buonaparte expressed his approbation.

[26] Sixty thousand bushels, from the woods at the foot of the western mountains, were shipped in the year 1775.--SWINBURNE.

[27] This, which was suspected at the time, I happen to _know_.

[28] Contreras insinuates as much in his account of the siege. I have heard it asserted as a thing believed by those who had the best opportunity of forming a true opinion; but the assertion was not supported by direct evidence, as in the case of Fort Olivo.

[29] There was a town called Bedouin in the department of Vaucluse, which contained about 500 houses and some 2000 inhabitants: they had a good trade in silk, and the place was flourishing. In the month of May, 1794, the tree of liberty which had been planted without this town was cut down during the night. Fearing in those dreadful times the consequence of this act of individual indiscretion, the townsmen themselves informed the deputy Maignet of it, an ex-priest, who was then upon a Robespierrean mission in the department. This availed nothing in their favour: he issued a decree proscribing not only the people of Bedouin, but of the surrounding communes also, and condemned the town to be burnt. An officer, by name Suchet, commanded the battalion which accompanied Maignet’s commission to execute this decree. Sixty fathers of families, after the mockery of a revolutionary trial, were put to death, those who were spared being placed at the foot of the scaffold during the execution. Suchet then gave the word for setting fire to the town, and it was burnt to the ground. The church was the only building which was not destroyed by the flames, and that was demolished by means of gunpowder. Such of the inhabitants as had fled were hunted out in their retreats by the soldiers of the detachment, and shot like wild beasts. The answer of Robespierre’s Committee of Public Safety to the report of this transaction was, _Le Comité est satisfaite de la conduite de Maignet_.

_Prud’homme, Hist. des Erreurs, des Fautes, et des Crimes commis pendant la Revolution Française, t. 2. 170–176._

I know not whether the Suchet of Tarragona was the Suchet of Bedouin. If he was not, then has France produced two monsters of the name instead of one.

[30] One of the first acts of the provisional government upon the overthrow of this tyrant, was to give orders for the liberation of those injured Catalans, and their removal to Spain; considering, they said, that the violence committed upon men, whose only offence was that of having fought in defence of their country, outraged humanity, and the laws which were consecrated by the nations of Europe.

[31] _Por Urbano se debe entender en mi concepto_, said Sr. Aner in the debates upon this subject, _aquel que se halle armado para conservar la tranquilidad de los pueblos, y quando mas para La defensa interior de una provincia, sin tener que salir jamas de ella_. Diario de las Cortes. T. 4. p. 103.

[32]

_La carne es yerva, la yerva agua,
Los hombres mugeres, las mugeres nada._

[33] “Colonel,” said one of the 87th, the regiment which took the eagle at Barrosa, “Colonel, I only want to _taich_ ’em what it is to attack the _Aiglers_.”

[34] One of those friends obtained leave to go to England at the beginning of the winter. Upon rejoining the army after the capture of the place, he expressed his sorrow to Lord Wellington that his request should have been granted at a time when an enterprise of such importance was contemplated. Lord Wellington replied to this effect: “Perhaps, ... you did me better service by your absence, than you could have rendered had you been on the spot. Have you never said that your presence was required at home for your own family affairs, and that it was your intention to ask leave as soon as the campaign was over and nothing more was to be done? And do you suppose that Marmont had not heard this, and known of your departure?”

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