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new topic, and the people with a new wonder. The propositions from Erfurth, the dispersion of the Spanish armies, the betrayal of Madrid, and the retreat and death of Sir John Moore, then followed in such rapid succession, that the convention, having been regarded only as to immediate interests, not with reference to principles which are of eternal application, seemed like a thing that no longer concerned us, but was already obsolete, and out of date. This advantage ministers obtained from the recess of Parliament; they derived another from the manner in which their antagonists attacked them. No man could blame them, except in the spirit of opposition, for having sent an expedition to Portugal: the public sense of what had been lost by the armistice sufficiently proved the wisdom of its destination; and that it was sufficient for its purpose, we had the authority of Sir Arthur Wellesley, and the conclusive evidence of the victory which he had gained. All arguments, therefore, against the direction of the force were fallacious; and as to the deficiency of its equip ment, it only appeared that there had been some roguery in the Irish commissariat. Two faults the ministry had committed. They superseded Sir Arthur by men who were unfit for command.-Moore we knew, (or thought we knew,) and Wellesley we knew; but who were the generals to whom they gave place? what were their qualifica

tions? where had they been tried? what had they done? This assuredly was a grievous fault. They had erred also in ratifying a convention which they disapproved: but on neither of these points were they arraigned. It seemed, indeed, to have been agreed on all sides that the generals were to be spoken of with the utmost respect; and not a suspicion was intimated that the convention ought to have been broken. Ministers, therefore, in this debate had the victory, as well in argument as in numbers: but it was a poor victory, affording to themselves no other advantage than that it closed an irksome discussion; and to the public no other satisfaction than the mournful one, that however inadequate to their station the present ministers might be, they who would fain displace them were in nothing better.

It was confessed by ministry,they could not but confess it,-that they disapproved the convention. Nay, it appeared that when the armistice* first reached them, (which it did by a strangely circuitous route

from the junta of Oviedo, through the Portugueze ambassador,) so monstrous did they think the terms, that they could not bring themselves to believe it. believe it. Mr Canning admitted this,-admitted that he and his colleagues disbelieved the armistice, be cause the matter appeared incredible. What then did it behove them to have done? Not, assuredly, to have withstood the public feeling, never

*There can be little doubt that measures would have been taken to prevent the convention, had the armistice been duly communicated to our government. This is apparent from the King's final declaration upon the proceedings of the Court of Inquiry, where it is said, "that Sir Hew's delaying to transmit the armistice concluded on the 22d of August till the 4th of September, when the ratified convention was transmitted at the same time, was calculated to produce great public inconve nience; and that such inconvenience had in fact resulted therefrom."

more unanimously nor more generously excited; not to have resisted, and baffled, and disarmed it; but to have answered it, and gone with it, and acted with the nation, and made themselves strong in the strength of the people:-not to have confused the plain state question with military details and formalities; not to have overlaid it with the bulky proceed. ings of a military court; but at once to have displaced the three generals, annulled the convention, and detained Junot and his whole army prisoners of war. The highest and truest principles of justice required this; and in proportion as policy deviates from those principles, it necessarily becomes feeble and inefficacious, unless, as in the instances of Cæsar Borgia, and Buonaparte, it derives a portentous strength from the abandonment of all principles. All contracts which involve a breach of law, or are contrary to good morals, are null and void; the law pronouncing

them illegal, with whatever forms they may be fenced. In the law of nations it is the same. That law was violated by the convention of Cintra, palpably and grossly violated; and the English government, having no other alternative than that of breaking faith with its enemy or its allies, should have chosen the lesser evil. Had they done this, and met Parliament with an avowal of what they had done, France might have railed against an action which it would have felt so sorely, and the journalists of the opposition might have assailed them with the puny morals and false philosophy of a miserable school; but they would have been justified before God, their country, and the world. Portugal and Spain would have blest them; they would have acquired a strength in public opinion which they have never yet possessed; and they would have felt in their own hearts an unerring earnest of the approbation of future times.

CHAP. III.

State of public Opinion respecting Spain at the time of Sir John Moore's Retreat. Return of his Army. Vote of Thanks to the Army, and of a Monument to the General. Reason why the Ministry and the Opposition agreed upon these Points. Curiosity excited concerning Sir John Moore's last Dispatch. Delate upon Mr Ponsonby's Motion for an Inquiry into the Conduct of the Campaign in Spain. Mr Frere's Correspondence called for, and laid before the House. General Moore's last Dispatch made public. Remarks on its Contents.

THE expedition to Spain occasioned more frequent and more angry discussions than the campaign in Portugal. Events were more recent, and the disgrace which we had sustained was apparent and glaring, both to our friends and foes; nor was it possible to conceal our loss and humiliation from ourselves. It was known when the session opened that Sir John Moore was on the retreat. "How ardently do we wish," this was the language of our best and wisest political writers, -"how ardently do we wish that for every man under his command there had been two! The result would not then have been matter of trembling apprehension. Nay, had there been but 20,000 more; had we but 50,000 in the field, who would have dreaded the issue? But even as it is, and great as are the odds against us, that it will be honourable to the British name we do not doubt,-that

it may be successful to our arms we do not despair." There was the right spirit in this language, the spirit of our forefathers, the right old English spirit; but the event was expected with a different temper by the opponents of ministry. They, when the first acclamation of generous sympathy with the Spanish patriots had subsided, true to their belief in the omnipotence of Buonaparte, began again to expatiate upon the folly of opposing one against whom it was impossible to succeed. Spain, according to them, was soon to be subdued: he had declared that he would subdue it; and the patriots would inevitably be crushed. Thus they reasoned: They calcu lated upon the skill of his generals, the wisdom of his cabinet, the inexhaustible number of his armies, and their irresistible force; but they overlooked the circumstances which

*Times, January 19.

distinguished this contest from ordimary wars, and neither took into their account the peculiar character of the Spanish nation, nor the nature of man, nor the strength of moral principles and of a righteous cause. That faith in the superiority of English courage, by which the fields of Cressy, and Poictiers, and Agincourt were won, and which in our own days we had seen proved, not only upon our own element, our empire of the seas, at the mouths of the Nile and Cape Trafalgar, but before the walls of Acre, and in Egypt, and at Maida, and in Portugal; that faith which should ever be the first article of an Englishman's creed, for while it is believed, so long is it true;-that faith these writers had abjured, and substituted in its place a political heresy, as baneful as it was false, that upon land nothing could withstand the French. The world was made for Buonaparte, and he had only to walk over it, and take pos

session.

But the baseness of party went beyond this. Not only were ministers blamed for what they had done in assisting Spain, and counselled to withdraw their assistance as speedily 23 possible, but even the Spaniards themselves were calumniated and inulted. They had neither courage, nor honour, nor patriotism; no love for their country, nor any thing in their country worth defending. What mattered it to them whether their King were called Joseph or Ferdiand, a Buonaparte or a Bourbon? God would dispense sunshine and showers upon the peninsula, whoever was his vicegerent there; the corn and the olive would ripen, and the me and the fig tree yield their fruits in

due season. What folly then to contend for a feeble and oppressive government, of which the loss was gain! The Emperor of the French had rid them of this wretched government; he had abolished the inquisition, reduced the monastic orders, and would suppress them and all other remaining grievances as soon as the obsti nacy of the people would allow him leisure. And indeed the people were sensible of all these benefits:-A few chiefs, the overgrown aristocracy of the land, had for a while misled them, but their eyes were opened now; they saw that Buonaparte was doing good; while, on the other hand, such were their prejudices, their churlishness, and their bigotry, that they regarded the English as heretics; and no circumstances of alliance could overcome the antipathy which this feeling occasioned.

The circumstances of Sir John

Moore's retreat, and the return of his army, were matter of triumph to these calumniators. "The dismal news,"

they said, " was at last arrived! the truth of the abused bulletins was at last established to its utmost latitude! the pledge of throwing the English into the sea was almost to its literal meaning fulfilled! * The Spanish junta and their allies, after six months trifling, blundering, and vapouring, were now finally defeated! the spirit of patriotism, both in Spain and Portugal, was extinct! the majority of the Spaniards had all along been indifferent respecting the dynasty by which they were to be governed; yea, many were more attached to the Buonapartes than the Bourbons. The triumphs of France, the defeat and dispersion of the Spanish armies, wherever they were attacked,

* Cobbett.

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