and baggage mules having almost all perished, and no means of recruiting them arising, we were consequently obliged (dreadful necessity!) to relinquish many carts full of the sick and fatigued, as well as others laden with necessaries, to the hard chance of falling into the grasp

of our inveterate foe..

ON THE CONDUCT OF THE WAR. [From the Edinburgh Review.]

Melancholy as is the picture which we have just been viewing, of all the varieties of impolicy crowded into the short space of three months, it is nevertheless rich in useful lessons, if the people of this country are still disposed to learn, and to save the state, before their rulers have consummated its destruction. We do not now allude to the information respecting Spain, which the history of the campaign affords, or the conclusions to which every page of it drives us, touching the policy that remains to be pursued in that unfortunate country. We do not even stop to enumerate the new and convincing illustrations which it affords of those doctrines so often maintained by us upon the general conduct of the war. But we desire any inan of common understanding, however warped it may be by party prejudices, to contemplate the gross mismanagement of the affairs of this nation which the foregoing narrative displays. We entreat him to consider, that, untaught by the events of the Portuguese campaign,-fully aware that the whole force of Spain had never ventured to disturb the remains of the French army behind ths Ebro, knowing that this army was receiving immense reinforcements, while the Spaniards were languishing under a feeble, perverse, and unpopular government, our rulers sent a British army into the heart of the peninsula, without any

one earthly object, except to march so many leagues towards certain destruction, and to furnish a few empty boasts about ministerial activity and vigour. We request him to reflect, that this case is made out against them by the documents which they have themselves laid before Parliament; and that, in no one in stance, have they or their advocates attempted to justify their conduct confining their defence entirely to a criticism of the measures pursued by officers of their own chusing, and an assertion, (how groundless we have already shown), that somewhat of the loss was owing to those measures. We implore him to bear in mind, that while a small but gallant force was thus miserably sacrificed, in an enterprise of which no one has ever yet divined the object, these masters in the art of misgovernment had at their disposal an army above three times more numerous, which, if marched in due season, and to proper points, might have rescued Spain, and which, at whatever time, and in whatever place it might have taken the field, would at least have been secure from discomfiture and flight. With these lamentable and admitted truths before his eyes, we challenge any man to tell us that he can fancy a possibility of such blunders being prevented for the future, except by the exemplary punishment of those who have in fact pleaded guilty to the charge.

The parliament of England, however, judged otherwise. The subject was brought before them by the Earl Grey, with an ability which they alone can fully appreciate who have gone through all its complicated details, and with a degree of temper which, while it suited well with the dignity of the occasion, was admirably calculated to win the favour of the senate in that day of plebeian violence. But the mute eloquence of numbers' prevailed; and it was decided, that whatever might have

been their past conduct, and what-ever the actual state of the empire, the projectors of the late campaign deserved the confidence of the country, and should still be entrusted with the management of its affairs. A new vigour was thus communicated to their operations; and the result has, in as far as was possible, surpassed their former achievements. As if to convince even the parliament, which acquitted them in spite of their confession, as if to mock that illustrious body for their implicit confidence, as if to let them feel the réal force of the vote that had been passed, and to demonstrate how speedily a parliamentary proceeding can carry ruin into every branch of public affairs;-another corps, as in sufficient as Sir John Moore's to cope with the French force, was sent into the heart of Spain, when 'that country was overrun with victorious armies,when the distractions and weakness of its government had increased,-when the most fanatical of our prophets foreboded the extinction of popular enthusiasm, and the native troops had given new proofs of their utter inability to stand before the legions of France. This gallant body of men, after being weakened, as before by detachments and skirmishes in Portugal,-after being delayed, as before, for want of money and supplies, entered Spain, as before, immediately after three armies of Spaniards had been totally defeated by the enemy, and moved towards the centre of the peninsula, exactly as before, without one earthly object in view, but to take a look at the country, and get near the French.

The parallel indeed ends here; for it was only in the planning, that the campaign of the north was copied. The British general was attacked in front by a superior force. A rare mistake of the French general; and the extreme gallantry of English soldiers saved him from de

struction, and even enabled him to repulse the enemy; but a large army, the very same that he had some what whimsically boasted of having destroyed a few weeks before, came down upon his rear; and he was compelled to fall back upon Portugal with the utmost rapidity. Too happy to escape with any troops at all, he left his sick and wounded to the vanquished French. Scarcely hoping to carry off the victorious English, he left the invincible Spaniards' to get one more beating, and was in this plight driven out of the country which he came to save, by one army which he had completely beaten, and another which he had entirely destroyed! Our rulers, re flecting on the vote of last session, immediately conferred the highest honours upon this great commander; and, by a refinement of mockery, elevated him to a distinguished place among those peers who had passed it. His brother, about the same time, having been sent to new model the Spanish government, and to complete the conquest of the French in that quarter, signalized his arrival by the exhibition of a splendid triumph over that people. He stept on shore upon a flag, representing a captured standard,-typical, it is to be presumed, of his near relationship to a person who was then driving the enemy before him in all direc tions, and emblematical, no doubt, of his own fixed resolution of putting a speedy end to Bonaparte.*

The folly of our government now only admitted of one increase. After the sanction which a confiding par

*This transaction, in which the dignity of the British nation was so shamefully outraged, by the persons sent to support it, and in which we were held up to the laughter of the whole world, disputed by the parties or their friends. has been repeatedly stated, and never We have also received it upon authority that enables us, however painful it may be, to pledge ourselves to its truth.

liament had given to their former measures, it was fit that they should repeat their operations at all events in Spain. But it was desirable, also, that they should present the same design upon an enlarged scale elsewhere, both for the purpose of showing that their forte was not confined to Spanish campaigns, and to exhibit a specimen of the art, where the merit was entirely their own, and could not be divided with their allies. It was further proper, that after the approbation expressed by parliament, of the system of frit tering down our immense resources, and attempting many unattainable things at once, the whole power of England should be drawn forth and employed at once in three distinct and simultaneous failures. To demonstrate, therefore, that, if the new Spanish campaign was undertaken with inadequate forces, it was not owing to the want of a sufficient ar my, they sent, at the same moment, an expedition of a few thousand men against the body of the French power in Italy; and dispatched another armament to invade France in the Netherlands;-thus contriving, with that superior talent which is ever aiming at combined operations, that comprehension of mind which makes all its movements mutually dependent, and forms of the whole line of its operations one vast and solid plan;—contriving, in a word, with that last reach of genius, which they had caught from their enemy, to make Sir J. Stuart's failure support Sir A. Wellesley's, and to combine both those movements with the failure of Lord Chatham, to cover and give effect to the whole!

The diversion at Procida and Ischia is now finished; but trophies still remain from the other parts of the plan. We retain an unhealthy marsh in Estremadura, and keep a pestilential island in Holland, because the whole of the West Indies do not furnish a sufficient number

VOL. VI.

of useless spots, where our army may be divided, and. our hospitals filled.

There wanted but one circumstance to make the history of these events complete; and that too has been added by the combined force of genius and fortune. The balance of force between Austria and France was, for the first time since 1800, almost equal; and half the disposeable force of England would, if seasonably and judiciously directed, not, indeed, in the beautiful Bay of Naples, or against the iron wall of the Netherlands, but in the Gulph of Trieste, have sufficed to turn it in favour of our ancient ally, and of European independence.

The parliament of England is about to assemble once more; and the authors of our calamities cannot prevent their conduct from being at least brought before that illustrious tribunal. Hitherto they have not made any defence; nor have they even hinted that they had any to make. They have admitted all their failures to be complete and fatal; they have confessed, that the opportunities they have lost will in all probability never return. After a few wretched attempts to divide the blame among themselves, in shares different from those in which the country is disposed to apportion it, they have been compelled to avow that among themselves it must all he divided, and upon them alone must the responsibility rest. They have not dared to deny, that the prospects of the continent are become more dismal than ever; that its confidence in England is gone; that the map of Europe, from Moscow to Paris, and from Lapland to Calabria, offers to the eye only a collection of states, aggrandized by her hostility, or ruined. by the perilous bounty of her alliance. Abroad and at home -which way soever the eye can turn, cur rulers have amply admitted, that our affairs are only not desperate, and have themselves come

३

forward to declare, that the empire is reduced to a state of difficulty, from which there can be no precedent of its ever havingescaped in former times. And after all these confessions, their only excuse, the only attempt they make to regain the confidence of the people, is to tell us, that the King has reigned fifty years! They have ruined our allies; they have failed in every plan; they have brought us through slaughter and disgrace, loaded with ignominy, and weighed down with almost intolerable burthens-to the very brink of destruction :- but the King is very old,' and he has reigned above half a century!

It now remains to be seen, whether that parliament, which stands in no need of reformation-which is a fair representative of the people of England-which speaks the sentiments of the country-will be satisfied with this set off; and once more acquit the ministers of all blame for their recent mismanagement. Holding, in common with the parliament itself, the doctrine of its purity and of its sufficiency to save the state, we cannot anticipate such a decision. But if, unhappily, we should find ourselves mistaken; if, again, every measure and every minister be covered over with its approbation, then we will venture to predict, not that the gopernment is acquitted, but that the parliament stands condemned; and we shall MOST UNWILLINGLY COMPELLED TO APPEAR IN THE FOREMOST RANK OF THOSE WHO

BE

MUST ACKNOWLEDGE THAT THEY ARE CONVINCED AND CONVERTED! -For it is needless to disguise the matter. A refusal to punish the authors of our misfortunes can only mean one of two things-either that there has been no blame incurredor that it is inexpedient to declare it, because such a resolution would drive the guilty persons from the government. In the one ease, the parJianient will show that it is not the

representative of the country; in the other, we shall have a conclusive proof that the ministers of the crown are irremoveable. The responsibility of our rulers, that fairest feature in the theory of the constitution, will be no longer even a name, wherewithal to round parliamentary periods; and the people will thenceforward recognize, in the great council of the nation, not the guardian of their interests, and the champion of their rights, but a well contrived instrument of taxation!

The consequences of such a decision, therefore, will be productive of incalculable mischief; it will complete the alienation of the country from the government, and shame away the boldest defenders of the present system. In the mean time, the pressure of the war, and of the public burthens, will rapidly increase. The scene of hostilities will approach to our own shores; and the taxes, which, like the war, have as yet only been felt at a distance, will at length come home to every man. This truth will then break upon the minds of all, even of the most confiding and inconsiderate,the truth with which we opened the present discussion-that there is an intimate and necessary connexion between the foreign policy of the state, and the happiness of each individual within its boundaries; that every man who pays taxes-every man who values the security of his property, or his own future safety from foreign dominion, is immedi ately affected by the mismanagement of the war; that not a plan falls to the ground, not a bad appointment of commander or ambassador is made at court, not an opportunity of beating the enemy in councils, or in arms, is lost, without our being, a little sooner, or a little later, individually sensible of it. What will then remain for the people to do, we need scarcely point out. If they value their personal happiness and

My first letter in reply to the reasons or rather the objections against Reform, stated by the Edinburgh, Reviewers, was of a general and introductory nature; it consisted, indeed, of little more than a plea put in, on behalf of the people, against the nefarious attempt of these gentlemen to deprive them of their antient and undoubted right to a third part of the legislature.-I am sorry that an unavoidable absence of six weeks rendered it impossible for me to continue my observations on this, according to my estimation, important cause, in which I shall now proceed to call evidence, and bring it to a hearing before the grand tribunal of the public.

The evidence, Sir, in this case, consists of the fundamental laws and institutions of our ancestors, together with such authorities, as it was impossible for me, before my return to my own library, to have recourse to: these Sir, will establish, beyond all question, the right of the party whose cause I espouse-a cause so good that it need fear no danger even in the hands of so feeble an advocate; lest, however, I should not do it the justice it deserves, I shall endeavour, as much as possible, instead of my own words, to make use of the words of those who on former occasions, have had the honour of defending it: for as it has had both. its secret and avowed enemies in

46

The

materials, partly to batter and beat “down, and partly to sap and un"dermine this constitution and hap-. "py form of government?" friends of liberty will be unanimous in the opinion that it is worth contending for: they will not scruple to hold it by military service, if the wayward passions of men, and the temptation produced by so great a prize will not permit them to retain it by a more peaceable tenure. In this contest, however, which it is to be feared is too closely interwoven, with the condition of human nature to have a speedy termination, if any, the parties stand upon very different grounds: the one are upheld by laws, customs, charters, and other documents of unquestionable authority; the other depend totally upon their own ingenuity, on cavilling, on the art of mis-stating, and sometimes of ridiculing facts too stubborn to be gainsayed, or frittered away by finespun metaphysical arguments. What is there Sir, in this world, so sacred and so well established, as to be perfectly shielded from such kind of attacks? But this, permit me to say, is a sort of warfare I equally detest

* Acherley's Britannic Constitution. P. 154.