to himself, it was not equally so with respect to his majesty's ministers. What was a vindication of his character was a condemnation of their's. It was the glory of an officer to acquire success under disadvantages. Though the ministers were clear of the convention, they were responsible for the circumstances which led to it, the want of cavalry, and the injudicious supercession of the commanding officers. If the honourable General had continued in the command, he had no doubt that he would have completed the work he had so gloriously begun; that no convention would have taken place, and a most decisive triumph would have been obtained, enhancing the glory of the country. This was what connected ministers with the convention, which, though they had not made, they had yet made that which made it. The country had universally decided that the result of the campgain in Portugal had disappointed the hopes and expectations of the nation. He contended that ministers were blameable for resorting to the court of inquiry, where the parties could not either be acquitted or convicted in the event of innocence or guilt. The board of inquiry in their report had, broadly stated, that the victory of the 21st ought not to have been followed up in the manner the gainer of it would have improved it, for want of means. He differed with the honourable General as to the advantage of the evacuation of Portugal by the French. It was neither of advantage to Portugal nor Spain, that the French army should be transported in our ships to a port of France, whence they would speedily proceed to Spain. The time that might be spent in forcing the French to surrender would be amply repaired by the other advantages that would result from their capture. Why send an army to Portugal at all, if not to reduce the French to such terms? The establishing the superiority of British valour, which he had ever been convinced of, notwithstanding the base and degenerate opinion which had sometimes been entertained on that subject, would have been of incalculable advantage. If the force at first sent out was not sufficient for the reduction of the enemy, why not wait till the whole of the force destined for that object had been assembled? The fact was, this business was managed in the usual manner of the right honourable gentlemen opposite : they must be doing something, they must support their character for vigour, and thus they posted off to Portugal

like an overdrove ox, and blindly too, as that animal is supposed to move. (A loud laugh). The want of cavalry and equipment had prevented the campaign from terminating most gloriously. But the noble lord contended, that cavalry was not necessary, because victories had been obtained without cavalry. He might as well say, that the victory of the Nile, and of Trafalgar, had been obtained without cavalry. (A laugh). If the expedition was originally intended for the Tagus, he would allow that cavalry was not necessary; but the expedition landed in a part of Portugal where cavalry was necessary. The noble ford had defended the sending out of bad horses, on the ground that the loss would be the lighter if they should be sacrificed. The same argument would apply with equal justice to every article of use in life, and one might say, let me have a bad coat, a bad horse, or bad any thing, because I shall lose the less, if it be destroyed. (Alaugh). The succession of generals had been attended with the most injurious consequences; they seemed to rise out of the sea, coming in, like persons at the end of a play, from all parts of the world, one from Ephesus, another from Sion and Antioch. (A laugh). They had it now from the highest authority in the state, that the convention had disappointed the hopes and expectations of the nation. Did ministers think differently of it from what they did on the first intelligence being received when they caused the guns to be fired? Were they at length obliged to yield to the sense of the public, after all the hissings and cat-calls, and cries of off! off!"" no more! no more!" and to admit that the whole piece was execrable stuff. (Loud laughing). The fact was, that there had been a total want of foresight on the part of ministers, or of any general plan they never knew what to do: they sent troops be fore they knew where they would be received, and that was the real cause of all that was complained of. But the greatest source of regret was the opportunity that had been Fost of making an impression, by the reduction of Junot's army, upon the French and Spaniards, of the superiority of British valour. We had undoubtedly obtained a victory, and asserted that superiority: but the French would not fail to quote the convention against us. They would ask, what have you gained? Have you brought home the game? What have you bagged? (Aloud laugh.) Have you Junot and his army prisoners on the contrary, are

they not fighting against you and your allies? Upon the whole, he contended that his majesty's ministers, from their want of diligence, from their total want of plan, and the blind, inconsiderate way in which they conducted this campaign, stood condemned before their country.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer considered the pro position of the noble lord not only untenable in itself, but not maintainable at all, upon the arguments of the right honourable gentleman. The right honourable gentleman had said, that, in bis opinion, if the gallant General near him had continued in the command, the campaign would have terminated as gloriously as any that had ever taken place. As to the supercession of the officers in the command, it was to have been expected, that common prudence would have suggested to those who succeeded to take the advice of his bonourable friend. The campaign had not terminated according to the right honourable gentleman's opinion, as gloriously as it would if the plans of his gallant and honourable friend had been acted upon, But instead of blaming those who had overruled these plans, the right honourable gentleman turned round and fixed all the blame upon his majesty's ministers, for the want of cavalry, which was not necessary for that cause which the right honourable gentleman had allowed would have terminated gloriously. That was the logic which the right honourable gentleman employed to persuade the House to adopt the propositions of the noble lord. He did not object to the first of these propositions, but be cause it was to lead to another, which he was prepared to resist. The Chancellor of the Exchequer then went into a defence of the measures of government, and contrasted some of them with the measures of the late administration, It was agreed on all hands, that assistance should have been afforded in the Peninsula, but though the gentlemen opposite blamed the expedition to Portugal, they had not, since they bad been beaten out of the campaign in the Pyrenees, pointed out where the succours should have been sent. The right honorable gentleman then entered into a justification of the determination to rescue Portugal from the tyranny of the French, and coucluded with a defence of the court of inquiry, upon the ground that no other mode of investigation or trial could have been resorted to, without injustice to some or all of the officers who might be subjected to it.

Mr. Whitbread said, that notwithstanding the very Jucid speech, as it was called, which he had heard from the noble Lord (Castlereagh), and the very ingenious speech of the right honourable and learned gentleman (Mr. Perceval), he still thought they had opposed a very feeble defence indeed to the formidable attack which had been made by the noble lord, and his right honourable friend (Mr. Windham). Government had one literary and military champion (Mr. Canning) who had not as yet come forward, but he understood that he was an enemy to the convention. The noble lord (Lord Castlereagh), was certainly an accessary to the reproof which was given to the city of London: but in that reproof bis majesty confessed, through the lips of his secretary of state, that this convention had disappointed the just hopes and expectations of the nation. Would the noble lord now recede from that opinion which his majesty had been advised by his ministers to pronounce? The gallant General (Sir A. Wellesley) had said, and he was perfectly convinced that he had said rightly, that if his opinion had been followed, such a convention would not have been necessary. He hoped that gallant General would not now vote for approbation of those measures which made that convention necessary. It was no answer at all to the charge brought against them, for ministers to say to their opponents: if we blunder now, you blundered as much about four or five years ago. If the game of the country was now thrown away, it was no answer to the people of England to say, that formerly other persons manged it as ill. Let all that were guilty be punished, bu let the country demand, that, at the present and in future, its affairs shall be well managed, whatever faults may have been committed in former times. As to the court of inquiry, he, in common with the public, considered it as a court set up rather to screen than to consider of punishing. Sir A. Wellesley stated, in one of his letters, that he perceived the other generals had no confidence in him. This was the fault of ministers, for how was it to be expected that the necessary confidence should prevail among generals who did not know each other, and who were not bound together by those ties by which men of great, or nearly equal abilities, are generally linked together. He conceived that ministers had impro perly meddled and interposed their nonsense about rank

and etiquette, between Sir Arthur and what was to have been expected from him. They nipped in the bud the blossoms of his military glory. He wished that the noble lord would look for precedents rather to France than to Austria. He should rather study the steps of the conqueror than of the conquered. Buonaparte always fostered and encouraged military merit, and would never have allowed such a general as Sir A. Wellesley to be superseded in the manner he had been superseded. He could not allow the reasoning of the gallant General (for whose merits he had the sincerest respect), concerning the allowing the French to cross the Tagus. He was convinced it would have conduced much more to the interests of Spain, and the honour of this country, that in the month of December, the French should be forced to become prisoners of war at Elvas, than that such a convention as was made should be signed. He did not like to hear the noble lord talk about the military policy of Mr. Pitt, as he thought the sound was ominous. His military policy produced in its results a series of misfortunes, and the loss of Europe.

Mr. W. Pole assured the House, that no authority had ever been derived from him, for the insertion of any paragraphs in the newspapers to the effect imputed to the friends of Sir. A. Wellesley, He was the only relative of Sir Arthur in town, at the time the news of the convention had arrived; and although he had been applied to by several persons for materials to write in defence of Sir A. Wellesley, he had uniformly refused affording any, observing, that he trusted that Sir Arthur, on his return, would be fully able to vindicate his own character.

The Honourable Christopher Hely Hutchinson was reluctant to trespass on the patience of the House at so late an hour; but the concluding words of the gallant General's (Wellesley's) speech compelled him to rise.

Having compared the conventions of Cairo and Alexandria with that of Cintra, and drawn a conclusion fa vourable to the latter, and discreditable to the former, by stating that," The French army in Portugal possessed advantages which the garrisons in Egypt had not, and that those who had to decide on the convention of Cintra knew, that there were other objects for the British troops in Portugal, which the situation of Europe, at the period of the Egyptian expedition did not hold out:" he conVOL. II.-1809.

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