BOOK IV. was stripped of the national guards; and an army, formidable from numbers, if not from CHAP. X. discipline and experience, bad actually been collected for the defence of Antwerp and the shipping; the naval stores were removed, and preparations were made for conveying the ships so high up the river, as to put them beyond the reach of either the invading army or navy.

.1809

While the commander of the British land forces displayed none of the requisite qualities of a general, and while, by his delay and indecision, he gave the enemy an opportunity of assembling force sufficient to oppose our progress, Sir Richard Strachan acted with the usual promptitude and decision of a British sailor. He offered, in the most unqualified manner, every assistance and co-operation which the navy was capable of affording, and received with undissembled dissatisfaction and indignation the determination of Lord Chatham to reject his proffered assistance, and proceed no further.

The most melancholy and disastrous part of this ill-judged and ill-conducted expedition remains to be told. Lord Chatham, with a great proportion of the troops, returned to England; and the remainder found it expedient to give up all their conquests but the Island of Walcheren. This pestilential station it was resolved to keep, for the purpose of shutting up the mouth of the Scheldt, and for enabling our merchants to introduce British merchandise into Holland, But, from this island, the sole fruit of one of the most formidable and expensive expeditions ever sent from this country, we were doomed to be driven by an enemy more cruel and destructive than the French. A malady of the most fatal kind soon showed itself among the troops, and suggested, in a language that could not be misunderstood, the necessity for immediate recall. Ministers, however, clung with paternal attach ment to this dearly-bought acquisition, and it was not till a great proportion of the forces had either died of the prevailing epidemic, or been rendered incapable of performing their duty, that the fortifications, which we had repaired at an enormous expense, were destroyed, and the island was evacuated in the sight of an enemy, who, knowing that the ravages of disease would render any attack unnecessary, took no measures to expel the British forces from their fatal conquest.

The attention of the people was soon diverted from the disastrous expedition against Walcheren, by two circumstances of a very opposite nature-the intrigues and disputes among

the ministry, and the celebration of a jubilee, on the king having attained the fiftieth year of his reign. It had long been suspected that the members of the British cabinet were at variance; and the failure of the expedition to Holland called forth those disputes into a disgraceful act, calculated to awaken the public indignation at home, and to lower the British government in the estimation of foreign states. On the 21st of September, a duel took place between Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Canning, two members of his majesty's cabinet, holding the highest official situations in the state; the former being secretary for the war and colonial department, and the latter, secretary for foreign affairs. The parties, who met on Putney-Heath, fired a first time without effect; and as the nature of the difference did not appear to the combatants to admit of explanation or apology, they fired at each other the second time, when Mr. Canning received his antagonist's ball in his right thigh. This duel was preceded, and immediately occasioned, by a letter from Lord Castlereagh to Mr. Canning. In this letter, his lordship accuses the foreign secretary of having clandestinely endeavoured to procure his removal from his situation, and of having obtained a positive promise to that effect from the Duke of Portland. land. His lordship declares that he would not have deemed the conduct of Mr. Canning improper or unfair towards him, if he had not concealed his intention from his lordship, who, as the person most interested, ought explicitly, at first, to have been made acquainted with Mr. Canning's proposal for his removal. But instead of pursuing this manly and liberal course of conduct, Mr. Canning, notwithstanding he had declared his conviction that Lord Castlereagh was unfit for his situation, and had prevailed upon the premier to consent to his removal, continued to treat his lordship as if he still possessed his confidence and good opinion, and permitted a minister, whom he had denounced as incapable, to plan and carry into execution the most extensive and formidable expedition perhaps ever sent from the British shores.

and

Against these serious charges, equally implicating Mr. Canning as a gentleman and a public minister, the nation naturally expected a prompt if not a satisfactory reply; but nearly a month elapsed before Mr. Canning found himself prepared to enter on his defence; and in the mean time the ministry was completely dissolved. The Duke of Portland gave in his resignation, on account of his age and infirmities; and Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Canning