put the best face on his affairs, and hints at the distress of the ene→ my for want of provisions, endeavouring to persuade us that "they possess no part of the country excepting that on which their arty stands," acknowledges that " it is impossible to form an estimate "of the quantity of provisions which they have found in the villages on the ground which they occupy, although," he adds, "it is "certain that they can draw none from 'any other part of the "country, the whole being in possession of our troops." We leave our readers to judge from the article just quoted from the Times, and from the letters of Lord Wellington, of the truth of the various accounts in the ministerial prints of the "famished state of "the French army." As the Editor of the Morning Chronicle has very justly remarked: "All the narratives of Count UGOLINO "are mere trifles to the gift of starving possessed by Masseua and "his followers. He displayed his talent for starving, in no com"mon degree at Genoa, but he has fully demonstrated his powers "of abstinence in Portugal!"

Although the dispatches of the British commander are long and the details minute, there being three letters respecting one battle in which Major Pinto had “one of his men, and two of the enemy killed," we have little real information respecting the state of the two armies, or of the probable termination of the campaign.The following short letter, inserted in the best conducted of our daily evening prints (The Statesman) received by a person at Nottingham, from her husband serving in the British army, we believe contains a more just representation of the state of our army, than can be learned from the long-winded dispatches which have filled so many sheets of Extraordinary Gazettes.

"DEAR WIFE,

October 27th, 1810.

"I have been very poorly for this fortnight back. Our men "are very sickly, and they die very fast. Serjeant Barks is dead " and we have three more serjeants dangerously ill. The weather " is very cold and wet, and we are obliged to lie on our arms night "and day. The French have driven us down near Lisbon, and "here we lie upon some high hills; the French are very near us upon some other hills; we have 100 pieces of cannon upon our heights, and the French have the same number upon their heights. "We expect to be engaged every morning, and God knows it will "be a very warm job whenever it does happen. We have gone through twenty different towns, but not a soul but the military "were to be seen. The inhabitants all run away through fear, and "well they may !3d Guards."

It appears that Massena, by his intercepted dispatches relative to the battle of Buzaco, claims the victory, for which he assigns the same reason, as on most other occasions during the present cam

paign-The retreat of the British General; and however the latter may be in the habit of claiming victories, as much as he is in the habit of retreating, or "changing his position," we leave it to every impartial person to judge whether, if instead of retreating four hundred miles, he had compelled his enemy to retreat the same distance, he would not have alleged such a circumstance as demonstrative evidence, whatever his losses might have been, of the great advantage he had uniformly maintained over the enemy.

It is melancholy to observe the mutual recriminations, respecting the devastated state of the unfortunate country visited by both armies. The British general accuses the French of practising every species of plunder and outrage. The French general retorts the charge, and descends to particulars. "The enemy," he observes, "burns and destroys every thing as he evacuates the country: he "forces the inhabitants to abandon their houses. Coimbra, a "town of 20,000 inhabitants is deserted. We find no provisions, "the army is subsisting on Indian corn, and the vegetables which "we find remaining in the ground. Lord Wellington, not daring "to wait for us in the open country, endeavours to destroy every thing which might subsist an army. The people of the towns "and villages are very miserable; they are compelled to serve on pain of death. In short, no period of history furnishes an example of such barbarity."

The inhabitants of countries the seat of war, have we fear the same grounds for complaint against their professed friends, as against their open enemies; but a curious apology has been set up for this kind of atrocities by the editor of the Courier, "Massena," he remarks, affects to be horror struck at the ravages we have com"mitted in Portugal, in cutting down the corn, destroying the "mills, and making a desert of the country. He knows that it is "not the English that have done, or could have done this without "the consent of the Portugueze: this part of his letter pleases us, because it shews the disposition, and spirit of the people of Por"tugal; their unconquerable hatred of the French, their unanimous "determination to resist him, with all their might and with all their "strength. Blighted be the corn, exclaim the gallant, loyal Portugueze, and blasted the grass, wherever the hoof of Frenchman "treads. May the earth yield him neither food nor water! May "his unburied bones bleach the ground, he would have reduced "beneath his yoke."-It is truly curious to observe, that a day or two after the appearance of these extraordinary exclamations put into the mouth of the loyal Portugueze, an account appears in the same paper, of a most formidable and "detestable conspiracy "which had been discovered at Lisbon, in which the higher orders were principally concerned," and on whose heads the writer ve.

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66

hemently calls down "signal vengeance." This it must be acknowledged was rather an awkward incident, happening just after Marshal Beresford had so warmly panegyrised " the excellent disposi❝tions of all classes of people, shewing every where the utmost zeal "and loyalty in defence of their country, and the most decided de"testation of the common enemy, who justly deserves it by his un"warrantable conduct, and by the acts of violence and excesses "which he daily commits. In all places the people rather leave "their homes, than submit to the necessity of affording the enemy any kind of subsistence, and thns evince a most ardent love of "their country!" Let the editor of the Courier, or even Marshal Beresford say what he will on this subject, we confess that we feel it somewhat difficult to believe, that men should leave their homes, "cut down the corn, destroy the mills, and make a desart "of their country," to shew their preference of one invading army to another. This disposition is not in human nature. What have the "deliverers" of Portugal, or of Europe, done for the people, or even proposed doing for them? Their avowed aim in all their undertakings has been to restore that curse of the different countries, their old despotic governments, which had deprived them of every civil and religious right, pillaged them of their property, and reduced them to the most wretched state of ignorance, vice, and slavery. The people of Portugal severely suffering from the ravages of their "deliverers," as well as their invaders may naturally wish that the "unburied bones" of both armies "might bleach the "country" they had, in their different turns, rendered the melancholy theatre of plunder, conflagration, blood, and devastation.

Our readers have perceived the high tone of confidence adopted by our ministerial journalists respecting the successful termination of the campaign on the part of Lord Wellington; they have likewise attended to the altered tone of one of them, the Times, since the arrival of Lord Wellington's dispatches. Let us Let us now just attend to another of these intelligent, impartial, honest writers. The Morning Post of the 23d. and the 27th. instant, contain the following paragraphs :-

"The fact is, that in the relative situations of the two armies, there are "the circumstances of hope, on either side, which are so natural in a " contest in which the armies of the two greatest nations in the world, are opposed to each other, each under a commander of great talent and ex"perience. To be on either side perfectly confident of success, would be " unwarrantably to underrate the skill and bravery undeniably possessed by "the other. We feel certainly a very considerable portion of confidence, "but it does not make us blind to the dangers which are to be overcome, "which we therefore state from time to time, as they occur to us, without "in any degree altering the opinion to which we have been led, by a com"parison in difficulties and advantages !"

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1

VOL. VIII.

"It is thus, as to the sustenauce of the French army, that we have "hopes and fears. We do not conceive that Massena can have much with "him; he can, of course, derive none in his front nor on his right; in his

rear, and to the left of his rear, we trust that the Portuguese under "Trant, Miller and Silviera, are sufficient to prevent his drawing re " sources. We even feel pretty certain as to the south bank of the Tagus, "which is in the front of his left; but there is an extent of country on the "enemy's left, in the fertile province of Beira, between the Mondego and "the Tagus, through which the British army has not passed, which has not, " as it is said, been exhausted or luid waste, and through which, by Castello "Branco, if not by Almeida, the communication is open into Spain by "Spanish Estremadura. We are told that many persons are of opinion, "that it will be impossible to prevent the French from drawing supplies "from this quarter. Upon consulting the map it will be seen, that "allowing this opinion to be correct, the interruption of Massena's communications is so nearly complete as to justify the hopes which we have 66 expressed; although, reflecting, as we have already said, upon the ta"lents of the French commander, and his experience in the particular "difficulties to which he is now exposed, we cannot entirely stifle our fears " that he may be able so far to overcome them as to continue to occupy "the concentrated position in which he has placed himself a state of "things which, however it may disappoint the expectations of some in "this country, is very different indeed from that which the French have, "over and over again, been taught to expect-which would falsify in za "degree any expectations held out by our commander-and which, in "reference to the general peninsular war, would operate more favourably than any other result short of the destruction of the French army."

So much for the high tone, firm confidence, the repeated assurances, the proud boasts of complete victory and triumph to be speedily obtained by our modern "MARLBOROUGH," over the

laughed-at" MASSENA, and his retreating, famished, discomfited, ruined, and dissipated army.-If the readers of the prints · alluded to can ever in future give credit to information or assertions resting on their authority, it will be no easy matter to determine whether the writers are the more unprincipled, or their readers the more infatuated!

That we may farther judge of the state of the British and Portugueze armies, we must recollect that they are now entrenching themselves, acting on the defensive, and at the same time are depending in some considerable degree for supplies of provisions, aud re-inforcements from England; and that numbers of the inhabitants of the different towns and villages of Portugal, which have been devastated by the armies of friends and enemies, and who have fled for refuge and support to Lisbon, must be provided for from the same source; and this is the state of our boasted victorious army towards the conclusion of the third campaign. Although the number of the allied forces we are assured is nearly double to that of the enemy, the former is compelled to act merely on the defensive,

and their most sanguine panegyrists cannot "stifle their fears," as to the final result!

From the desponding language held by our journalists within these few days, we shall not be surprised should it turn out that they are in possession of some information which they do not deem it prudent to give their readers. There are indeed letters from our officers, which although they still boast of the superior numbers of the allied forces, and their superior advantages over the enemy, conclude by expressing their apprehensions, "that they "shall be compelled to embark for England." Should the campaign thus terminate, it will occasion little surprise, except to those persons who have been gulled by the romances of those disciples of Satan, the principle articles of whose traffic are delusion and falsehood.

Parliament is about to assemble, and from the slender hope that remains of his MAJESTY'S speedy recovery, it is not improbable that the executive authority will be vested in the PRINCE of WALES: we hope the nation will not be again insulted with the disgusting squabbles of the ins and the outs on the subject of the regency: his royal highness the heir apparent, is surely arrived at such a period of his life, as safely to be entrusted with the full exercise of the royal authority. But whatever may be the hopes or fears of different parties, we are not very sanguine as to any material change for the better, under either the present Sovereign or his successor, while the borough-monger system continues, and while the great mass of the people appear to be attentive to nothing but their own immediate pecuniary self-interest, and to have no idea of the injustice and folly of war in general, and in particular of that war in which they have been so long, so unnecessarily, and so unsuccessfully engaged. We shall no doubt in the approaching session of parliament have mucli animadversion on the conduct of ministers, and ample exposure of their sins of omission and commission in the general conduct of the war. But as to the grand PRINCIPLE of that war, we agree with Lord LIVERPOOL, that there is little difference of opinion between ministers and their opponents ; and as long as war affords such a vast accession of influence to the existing administration, and the people are content to remain Issachar like, "strong asses, crouching down between the two burdens" with which they are so heavily loaded by Church and State, and careless and unconcerned whilst they can provide themselves with a little provender out of their own hard earnings:-So long as the people neglect to reform themselves, and to insist on a reformation of their representative body, it will signify but little in what branch of the royal family the executive authority is vested, and from what party the Sovereign may select his ministers.