Vt\ '' 
 
 "'■'* 
 
 ■ . v,- <■ ■ 
 
 I'^m, V 
 
 /A 
 
' ; Jfc'<S\i/ : ■ " 
 
 *fj^: 
 
 r;»vu 
 
 DUKE 
 
 >;** 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 a^jL^ 
 
 treasure *Room 
 
 M-; 
 
 
 THE 
 COLERIDGE 
 COLLECTION 
 
 ■»- *v 
 
 ■'•'<»-V/? 
 
 *fr 
 
 V 1 A 
 
 <- v 
 
 WV, 
 
 kii- 
 
. ; .^> 
 
 .'. • 
 
 \1*<J 
 
 k * 
 
 
 m 
 
~> 
 
 
CONCERNING 
 
 THE RELATIONS 
 
 OF 
 
 G^EAT BRITAIN, 
 SPAIN, AND PORTUGAL, 
 
 TO EACH OTHER, AND TO THE COMMON ENEMY. 
 AT THIS CRISIS; 
 
 AND SPECIFICALLY AS AFFECTED BY 
 
 CONVENTION OF CINTRA: ' 
 
 ■W . 
 The whole brought to the test of those Principles, by xvhicr. f 
 alone the Independence and Freedom q/'Naticis 
 can be Preserved or Recovered* 
 
 Qui didicit patriae quid deheat ; ~ 
 
 Quod sit conscripti, quod judicis officium ; quas 
 Partes in bellum missi ducis. 
 
 BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, 
 
 ionBon: 
 
 PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, AND ORME, 
 PATERNOSTER-ROW. 
 
 1809. 
 
 
 3* 
 
A- 
 
 Bitter and earnest writing must not hastily be condemned j for 
 men cannot contend coldly, and without affection, about things 
 which they hold dear and precious. A politic man may write 
 from his brain, without touch and sense of his heart; as in a 
 speculation that appertaineth not unto him 3—- but a feeling 
 Christian will express, in his words, a character of zeal or love, 
 
 Lord Bacon, 
 
 m- 
 
 
 C. and R. Baldwin, Printer*, 
 Nevr Bridge-street, London. 
 
 S03* 1 % 
 
ERRATA. 
 
 Page 4. For not only the virtue, read, not only the virtues. 
 
 7. For aetually, read, actually. 
 
 « — — 8. But, from the moment of the rising of the people of 
 
 the Pyrenean peninsula, &c. should stand as the 
 beginning of a Paragraph. 
 — — 12. For need not to say, read, need not say. 
 — — 1 9- For warrantable, by all aids and appliances, — read, 
 
 by all warrantable aids and appliances. 
 
 2 89. For twenty-three, read, twenty-two, 
 
 100. For incidently, read, incidentally. 
 
 182. For In every part of the town were, read, In every 
 
 part of the town where 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 The following pages originated in the opposition which 
 ivas made by his Majesty's ministers to the expression, in 
 public meetings and otherwise, of the opinions and feelings of 
 the people concerning the. Convention ofCintra, For the sake 
 of immediate and general circulation, I determined (when I 
 had made a considerable progress in the manuscript) to print 
 it in different portions in one of the daily newspapers. Ac- 
 cordingly two portions of it (extending to page 25) were, 
 printed, in the months of December and January, in the 
 Courier, — as being one of the most impartial and extensively 
 circulated journals of the time. The reader is requested to 
 bear in mind this previous publication : otherwise he will be 
 at a loss to account for the arrangement of the matter in one 
 instance in the earlier part of the work. An accidental loss 
 of several sheets of the manuscript delayed the continuance of 
 the publication in that manner, till the close of the Christmas 
 holidays ; and— the pressure of public business rendering it 
 then improbable that room could be found, in the columns of 
 the paper, regularly to insert matter extending to such a 
 length— -this plan of publication was given up. 
 
 It may be proper to state that, in the extracts which have 
 been made from the Spanish Proclamations, I have been 
 obliged to content myself with the translations which appeared 
 in the public journals ; having only in one instance had access 
 to the original. This is, in some cases, to be regretted—where 
 the language falls below the dignity of the matter .- but in 
 general it is not so ; and the feeling has suggested correspon- 
 dent expressions to the translators; hastily as, no doubt, thy 
 must have performed their work. 
 
 1 
 
ADVERTISEMENT, 
 
 / must entreat the reader to bear in mind that I began to 
 write upon this subject in November last ; and have continued 
 without bringing my work earlier to a conclusion, partly 
 from accident, and partly from a wish to possess additional 
 documents and facts. Passing occurrences have made changes 
 in the situation of certain objects spoken of; but I have not 
 thought it necessary to accommodate what I had previously 
 written to these changes : the whole stands without alteration ; 
 except where additions have been made, or errors corrected. 
 
 As I have spoken without reserve of things (and of persons 
 as far as it was necessary to illustrate things, but no fur- 
 therj ; and as this has been unformly done according to the 
 light of my conscience; I have deemed it right to prefix my 
 name to these pages, in order that this last testimony of a 
 sincere mind might not be wanting. 
 
 May 20th, 18095 
 
■ 
 CONCERNING THE 
 
 Ti 
 
 CONVENTION OF CINTRA. 
 
 ■'j ■ j 
 
 i 
 
 HE Convention, recently concluded by the 
 Generals at the head of the British army in 
 Portugal, is one of the most important events 
 of our time. It would be deemed so' in France, 
 if the Ruler of that country could dare to make 
 it public with those merely of its known bearings 
 and dependences with which the English people 
 are acquainted; it has been deemed so in Spain 
 and Portugal as far as the people of those coun- 
 tries have been permitted to gain, or have gained, 
 a knowledge of it; and what this nation has felt 
 and still feels upon the subject is sufficiently 
 manifest. Wherever the -tidings were communi- 
 cated, they carried agitation along with them — • 
 a conflict of sensations in which, though sorrow was 
 predominant, yet, through force of scorn, impa- 
 tience, hope, and indignation, and through the uni- 
 versal participation in passions so complex, and the 
 sense of power which this necessarily included—the 
 whole partook of the energy and activity of con- 
 gratulation and joy. Not a street, not a public 
 room, not a fire-side in the island which was not 
 disturbed as by a local or private trouble ; men of 
 all estates, conditions,, and tempers were affected, 
 apparently in equal degrees. Yet was the event 
 by none received as an open and measurable 
 affliction : it had indeed features bold and intel- 
 ligible to every one ; but there was an under- 
 expression which was strange, dark, and myste- 
 
 a 1 
 
rious — and, accordingly as different notions pre- 
 vailed, or the object was looked at in different 
 points of view, we were astonished like men who 
 are overwhelmed without forewarning — fearful like 
 men who feel themselves to be helpless, and in- 
 dignant and angry like men who are betrayed,, 
 In a word, it woukL not he too much to say 
 that the tidings of this event did not spread with 
 the commotion of a storm which sweeps visibly 
 over our heads, but like an earthquake which 
 rocks the ground under our feet. 
 
 How was it possible that it could be otherwise ? 
 For that army had been sent upon a service which 
 appealed so strongly to all that was human in the 
 heart of this nation — ^that there was scarcely a 
 gallant father of a family who had not his moments 
 of regret that he was not a soldier by profession, 
 which might have made it his duty to accompany 
 it ; every high-minded youth grieved that his first 
 impulses, which would have sent him upon the 
 same errand, were not to be yielded to, and that 
 after-thought did not sanction and confirm the 
 instantaneous dictates or the reiterated persuasions 
 of an heroic spirit. The army took its departure 
 with prayers and blessings which were as widely 
 spread as they were fervent and intense. For it was 
 not doubted that, on this occasion, every person 
 of which it was composed, from the General to 
 the private soldier, would carry both into his 
 conflicts with the enemy in the field, and into his 
 relations of peaceful intercourse with the inhabi- 
 tants, not only the virtue which might be ex- 
 pected from him as a soldier, but the antipathies 
 and sympathies, the loves and hatreds of a citizen — 
 of a human being — acting, in a manner hitherto 
 unprecedented under the obligation of his human 
 and social nature. If the conduct of the rapaci- 
 
ous and merciless adversary rendered it neither 
 easy nor wise — made it, I might say, impossible 
 to give way to that unqualified admiratiou of 
 courage and skill, made it impossible in relation 
 to him to be exalted by those triumphs of the cour- 
 teous affections, and to be purified by those refine- 
 ments of civility which do, more than any thing, 
 reconcile a man of thoughtful mind and humane 
 dispositions to the horrors of ordinary war ; it was 
 felt that for such loss the benign and accomplished 
 soldier would upon this mission be abundantly re- 
 compensed by the enthusiasm of fraternal love 
 with which his Ally, the oppressed people whom 
 he was going to aid in rescuing themselves, would 
 receive him; and that this, and the virtues which 
 he would witness in them, would furnish his heart 
 with never-failing and far nobler objects of com- 
 placency and admiration. The discipline of the 
 army was well known; and as a machine, or a 
 vital organized body, the Nation was assured that 
 it could not but be formidable; but thus to the 
 standing excellence of mechanic or organic power 
 seemed to be superadded, at this time, and for 
 this service, the force of inspiration: could any 
 thing therefore be looked for, but a glorious re- 
 sult? The army proved its prowess in the field; 
 and what has been the result is attested, and long 
 will be attested, by the downcast looks — the si- 
 lence — the passionate exclamations — the sighs and 
 shame of every man who is worthy to breathe the 
 air or to look upon the green-fields of Liberty in 
 this blessed and highly-favoured Island which 
 we inhabit. 
 
 If I were speaking of things however weighty, 
 that were long past and dwindled in the memory, 
 I should scarcely venture to use this language; but 
 the feelings are of yesterday— -they are of to-day;. 
 
6 
 
 the flower, a melancholy flower it is ! is still iri 
 blow, nor will, I trust, its leaves be shed through 
 months that are to come : for I repeat that the 
 heart of the nation is in this struggle. This just 
 and necessary war, as we have been accustomed 
 to hear it styled from the beginning of the con- 
 test in the year 17Q3, had, some time before the 
 Treaty of Amiens, viz. after the subjugation of 
 Switzerland, and not till then, begun to be re- 
 garded by the body of the people, as indeed both 
 just and necessary ; and this justice and necessity 
 were by none more clearly perceived, or more 
 feelingly bewailed, than by those who had most 
 eagerly opppsed the war in its commencement, 
 and who continued most bitterly to regret that 
 this nation had ever borne a part in it. Their 
 conduct was herein consistent : they proved that 
 they kept their eyes steadily fixed upon principles; 
 for, though there was a shifting or transfer of 
 hostility in their minds as far as regarded persons, 
 they only combated the same enemy opposed to 
 them under a different shape ; and that enemy 
 was the spirit of selfish tyranny and lawless ambi- 
 tion. This spirit, the class of persons of whom 
 I have been speaking, (and I would now be un- 
 derstood, as associating them with an immense 
 majority of the people of Great Britain, whose 
 affections, notwithstanding all the delusions which 
 had been practised upon them, were, in the former 
 part of the contest, for a long time on the side of 
 their nominal enemies,) this spirit, when it be- 
 came undeniably embodied in the French govern- 
 ment, they wished, in spite of all dangers, should 
 be opposed by war ; because peace was not to be 
 procured without submission, which could not but 
 be followed by a communion, of which the word 
 of greeting would be, on the one part, insulty — 
 5 
 
and, on the other, degradation. The people now 
 wished for war, as their rulers had done before, 
 because open war between nations is a defined and 
 effectual partition, and the sword, in the hands 
 of the good and the virtuous, is the most intelli- 
 gible symbol of abhorrence. It was in order to 
 ]be preserved from spirit-breaking submissions — 
 from the guilt of seeming to approve that which 
 they had not the power to prevent, and out of a 
 consciousness of the danger that such guilt would 
 otherwise actually steal upon them, and that thus, 
 by evil communications and participations, would 
 Tpe weakened and finally destroyed, those moral 
 sensibilities and energies, by virtue of which alone, 
 their liberties, and even their lives, could be pre- 
 served, — that the people of Great Britain deter- 
 mined to encounter all perils which could follow 
 in the train of open resistance. — There were some, 
 and those deservedly of high character in the 
 country, who exerted their utmost influence to 
 counteract this resolution ; nor did they give to it 
 so gentle a name as want of prudence, but they 
 boldly termed it blindness and obstinacy. Let 
 them be judged with charity ! But there are 
 promptings of wisdom from the penetralia of 
 human nature, which a people can hear, though 
 the wisest of their practical Statesmen be deaf 
 towards them. This authentic voice, the people 
 of England had heard and obeyed : and, in oppo- 
 sition to French tyranny growing daily more in- 
 satiate and implacable, they ranged themselves 
 zealously under their Government ; though they 
 neither forgot nor forgave its transgressions, in 
 having first involved them in a war with a people 
 then struggling for its own liberties under a two- 
 fold affliction — confounded by inbred faction, and 
 beleagured by a cruel and imperious external foe. 
 
But these remembrances did not vent themselves 
 in reproaches, nor hinder us from being reconciled 
 to our Rulers, when a change or rather a revolu- 
 tion in circumstances had imposed new duties : 
 and, in defiance of local and personal clamour, it 
 may be safely said, that the nation united heart 
 and hand with the Government in its resolve to 
 meet the worst, rather than stoop its head to re- 
 ceive that which, it was felt, would not be the 
 garland but the yoke of peace. Yet it was an 
 afflicting alternative ; and it is not to be denied, 
 that the effort, if it had the determination, wanted 
 the cheerfulness of duty. Our condition savoured 
 too much of a grinding constraint— -too much of 
 the vassalage of necessity ; — it had too much of 
 fear, and therefore of selfishness, not to be con- 
 templated in the main with rueful emotion. We 
 desponded though we did not despair. In fact a 
 deliberate and preparatory fortitude — a sedate and 
 stern melancholy, which had no sunshine and 
 was exhilarated only by the lightnings of indig- 
 nation — this was the highest and best state of 
 moral feeling to which the most noble-minded 
 among us could attain. But, from the moment 
 of the rising of the people of the Pyrenean 
 peninsula, there was a mighty change ; we were 
 instantaneously animated ; and, from that moment, 
 the contest assumed the dignity, which it is not 
 in the power of any thing but hope to bestow : 
 and, if I may dare to transfer language, prompted 
 by a revelation of* state of being that admits 
 not of decay or change, to the concerns and in- 
 terests of our transitory planet, from that moment 
 * this corruptible put on incorruption, and this 
 mortal put on immortality.' This sudden eleva- 
 tion was on no account more welcome — was by 
 nothing more endeared, than by the returning 
 
3 
 
 sense which accompanied it of inward liberty and 
 choice, which gratified our moral yearnings, in- 
 asmuch as it would give henceforward to our 
 actions as a people, an origination and direction 
 unquestionably moral — as it was free — as it was 
 manifestly in sympathy with the species — as it 
 admitted therefore of fluctuations of generous 
 feeling — of approbation and of complacency. 
 We were intellectualized also in proportion ; we 
 looked backward upon the records of the human 
 race with pride, and, instead of being afraid, we 
 delighted to look forward into futurity. It was 
 imagined that this new-born spirit of resisrance, 
 •rising from the most sacred feelings of the human 
 heart, would diffuse itself through many countries; 
 and not merely for the distant future, but for the 
 present, hopes were entertained as bold as they 
 ■were disinterested and generous. 
 
 Never, indeed, was the fellowship of our sen- 
 tient nature more intimately felt — never was the 
 irresistible power of justice more gloriously dis- 
 played than when the British and Spanish Nations, 
 with an impulse like that of two ancient heroes 
 throwing down their weapons and reconciled in 
 the field, cast off at once their aversions and 
 enmities, and mutually embraced each other— 
 to solemnize this conversion of love, not by the 
 festivities of peace, but by combating side by side 
 through danger and under affliction in the devot- 
 edness of perfect brotherhood. This was a con- 
 junction which excited hope as fervent as it was 
 rational. On the one side was a nation which 
 brought with it sanction and authority, inasmuch 
 as it had tried and approved the blessings for 
 which the other had risen to contend: the one 
 was a people which, by the help of the surround- 
 
10 
 
 and its own virtues, had -preserved rt> 
 itself through ages its liberty, pure and invio- 
 Jated by a foreign invader; the other a high-mind- 
 ed nation, which a tyrant, presuming on its 
 decrepitude, had, through the real decrepitude of 
 its Government, perfidiously enslaved. What 
 could be more delightful than to think of an 
 intercourse beginning in this manner ? On the 
 part of the Spaniards their love towards us was 
 enthusiasm and adoration ; the faults of our national 
 character were hidden from them by a veil of 
 splendour ; they saw nothing around us but glory 
 and light; and, on our side, we estimated their 
 character with partial and indulgent fondness; — * 
 thinking on their past greatness, not as the under- 
 mined foundation of a magnificent building, but 
 as the root of a majestic tree recovered from a long 
 disease, and beginning again to flourish with pro^ 
 raise of wider branches and a deeper shade than 
 it had boasted in the fulness of its strength. If 
 in the sensations w T ith which the Spaniards pros- 
 trated themselves before the religion of their 
 country we did not keep pace with them — if 
 even their loyalty was such as, from our mixed 
 constitution of government and from other causes, 
 we could not thoroughly sympathize with, — and 
 if, lastly, their devotion to the person of their 
 Sovereign appeared to us to have too much of the 
 alloy of delusion,-^ — in all these things we judged 
 them gently : and, taught by the reverses of the 
 French revolution, we looked upon these disposjr- 
 tions as more human — more social — and therefore 
 as wiser, and of' better omen, than if they had 
 stood forth the zealots of abstract principles, drawn 
 out of the laboratory of unfeeling philosophists. 
 Finally, in this reverence for the past and present, 
 
We found an earnest that they were prepared to 
 contend to the death for as much liberty as their 
 habits and their knowledge enabled them to re- 
 ceive. To assist them and their neighbours the 
 Portuguese in the attainment of this end, we sent 
 to them in love and in friendship a powerful army 
 to aid — -to invigorate — and to chastise : — they 
 landed ; and the first proof they afforded of their 
 being worthy to be sent on such a service — the 
 first pledge of amity given by them was the vic- 
 tory of Vimiera; the second pledge (and this was 
 from the hand of their Generals,) was the Con- 
 vention of Cintra. 
 
 The reader will by this time have perceived, 
 what thoughts were uppermost in my mind, when: 
 I began with asserting, that this Convention is 
 among the most important events of our times : — 
 an assertion, which was made deliberately, and 
 after due allowance for that infirmity which in- 
 clines us to magnify things present and passing, at 
 the expenee of those which are past. It is my 
 aim to prove, wherein the real importance of this 
 event lies : and, as a necessary preparative for 
 forming a right judgment upon it, I have already 
 given a representation of the sentiments, with 
 which the people of Great Britain and those of 
 Spain looked upon each other. I have indeed 
 spoken rather of the Spaniards than of the Portu- 
 guese; but what has been said, will be understood 
 as applying in the main to the whole Peninsula. 
 The wrongs of the two nations have been equal, 
 and their cause is the same : they must stand or 
 fall together. What their wrongs have been, iri 
 what degree they considered themselves united, 
 and what their hopes and resolutions were, we 
 have learned from public Papers issued by them- 
 selves and by their enemies. These were read by 
 
 B Of 
 
the people of this Country, at the time when they 
 were severally published, with due impression. — 
 Pity, that those impressions could not have been 
 as faithfully retained as they were at first received 
 deeply ! Doubtless, there is not a man in these 
 Islands:, who is not convinced that the cause of 
 Spain is the most righteous cause in which, since 
 the opposition of the Greek Republics to the Per- 
 sian Invader at Thermopylae and Marathon, sword 
 ever was drawn ! But this is not enough. We 
 are actors in the struggle ; and, in order that we 
 may have steady principles to controul and direct 
 us, ( without which we may do much harm, and 
 can do no good,) we ought to make it a duty ta 
 revive in the memory those words and facts, which 
 first carried' the conviction to our hearts : that, as 
 far as it is possible, we may see as we then saw, 
 and feel as we then felt. Let me therefore entreat 
 the Reader seriously to peruse once more such 
 parts of those Declarations as I shall extract from 
 them. I feel indeed with sorrow, that events are 
 hurrying us forward, as down the Rapid of arnt 
 American river, and that there is too much danger 
 lefore, to permit the mind easily to turn back upon 
 the course which is past. It is indeed difficult. — 
 But I need not to say, that to yield to the diffi- 
 culty, would be degrading to rational beings. 
 Besides, if from the retrospect, we can either gain 
 strength by which we can overcome, or learn 
 prudence by which we may avoid, such submis- . 
 sion is not only degrading, but pernicious. I ad- 
 dress these words to those who have feeling, but 
 whose judgment is overpowered by their feelings r 
 ■ — such as have not, and who are mere slaves of 
 curiosity, calling perpetually for something new, 
 and being able to create nothing new for them- 
 selves out of old materials, may be left to wander 
 7 
 
13 
 
 about under the yoke of their own unprofitable 
 appetite. — Yet not so ! Even these I would include 
 in my request : and conjure them, as they are 
 men, not to be impatient, while I place before 
 their eyes, a composition made out of fragments of 
 those Declarations from various parts of the Pe-- 
 ninsula, which, disposed as it were in a tesselated 
 pavement, shall set forth a story which may be 
 easily understood ; which will move and teach, 
 and be consolatory to him who looks upon it. $ 
 say, consolatory : and let not the Reader shrink 
 from the word. I am well aware of the burthen 
 which is to be supported, of the discountenance 
 from recent calamity under which every thing, 
 which speaks of hope for the Spanish people, and 
 through them for mankind, will be received. Bui 
 this, far from deterring, ought to be an encou- 
 ragement; it makes the duty more imperious. 
 Nevertheless, whatever confidence any individual 
 of meditative mind may have in these represen- 
 tations of the principles and feelings of the people 
 of Spain, both as to their sanctity and truths 
 and as to their competence in ordinary circum- 
 stances to make these acknowledged, it would 
 be unjust to recall them to the public mind, 
 stricken as it is by present disaster, without at- 
 tempting to mitigate the bewildering terror 
 which accompanies these events, and which 
 is caused as much by their nearness to the 
 eye, as by any thing in their own nature. I 
 shall, however, at present confine myself to sug- 
 gest a few considerations, some of which will 
 be developed hereafter, when I resume the sub- 
 ject. 
 
 It appears then, that the Spanish armies have 
 sustained great defeats, and have been compelled 
 to abandon their positions, and that these reverses 
 
14 
 
 have been effected by an army greatly superior t'0 
 the Spanish forces in number, and far excelling 
 them in the art and practice of war. This is the 
 sum of those tidings, which it was natural we 
 should receive with sorrow, but which too many 
 have received with dismay and despair, though 
 surely no events could be more in the course of 
 rational expectation. And what is the amount of 
 the evil ? — It is manifest that, though a great 
 army may easily defeat or disperse another army, 
 less or greater, yet it is not in a like degree for- 
 midable to a determined people, nor efficient in a 
 like degree to subdue them, or to keep them in 
 subjugation — much less if this people, like those 
 of Spain in the present instance, be numerous, 
 and, like them, inhabit a territory extensive and 
 strong by nature. For a great army, and even 
 several great armies, cannot accomplish this by 
 marching about the country, unbroken^ but each 
 must split itself into many portions, and the seve- 
 ral detachments become weak accordingly, not 
 merely as they are small in size, but because the 
 soldiery, acting thus, necessarily relinquish much 
 of that part of their superiority, which lies in what 
 may be called the enginery of war; and far more, 
 because they lose, in proportion as they are broken, 
 the power of profiting by the military skill of the 
 Commanders, or by their own military habits. 
 The experienced soldier is thus brought down 
 nearer to the plain ground of the inexperienced, 
 man to the level of man : and it is then, that the 
 truly brave man rises, the man of good hopes 
 and purposes ; and superiority in moral brings 
 with it superiority in physical power. Hence, if 
 the Spanish armies have been defeated, or even 
 dispersed, it not only argues a want of magna- 
 nimity, but of sense, to conclude that the cause 
 
15 
 
 therefore is lost. Supposing that the spirit of the 
 people is not crushed, the war is now brought 
 back to that plan of conducting it, which was 
 recommended by the Junta of Seville in that in- 
 estimable paper entitled " Precautions," which 
 plan ought never to have been departed from, ex- 
 cept by compulsion, or with a moral certainty of 
 success; and which the Spaniards will now be 
 constrained to re-adopt, with the advantage, that 
 the lesson, which has been received, will preclude 
 the possibility of their ever committing the same 
 error. In this paper it is said, " let the first ob- 
 " ject be to avoid all general actions, and to con- 
 " vince ourselves of the very great hazards with- 
 " out any advantage or the hope of it, to which 
 " they would expose us." The paper then gives 
 directions, how the war ought to be conducted as 
 a war of partizans, and shews the peculiar fitness 
 of the country for it. Yet, though relying solely 
 on this unambitious mode of warfare, the framers 
 of the paper, which is in avery part of it distin- 
 guished by wisdom, speak with confident thoughts 
 of success. To this mode of warfare, then, after 
 experience of calamity from not having trusted 
 in it; to this, and to the people in whom the 
 contest originated, and who are its proper deposi- 
 tory, that contest is now referred. 
 
 Secondly, if the spirits of the Spaniards be not 
 broken by defeat, which is impossible, if the sen- 
 timents that have been publicly expressed be fairly 
 characteristic of the nation, and do not belong 
 only to particular spots or to a few individuals of 
 superior mind, — a doubt, which the internal evi- 
 dence , of these publications, sanctioned by the 
 resistance already made, and corroborated by the 
 universal consent with which certain qualities have 
 been attributed to the Spaniards in all ages, en- 
 
16 
 
 courages us to repel ; — then are there mighty re- 
 sources in the country which have not yet been 
 called forth. Far all has hitherto been done by the 
 spontaneous efforts of the people, acting under 
 little or no compulsion of the Government, but 
 with its advice and exhortation. It is an error 
 to suppose, that, in proportion as a people are 
 strong, and act largely for themselves, the 
 Government must therefore be weak. This is 
 not a necessary consequence even in the heat of 
 Revolution, but only when the people are lawless 
 from want of a steady and noble 'object among 
 themselves for their love, or in the presence of 1 
 foreign enemy for their hatred. In the early part 
 of the French Revolution, indeed as long as it 
 was evident that the end was the common safety, 
 the National Assembly had the power to turn 
 the people into any course, to constrain them to 
 any task, while their voluntary efforts, as far as 
 these could be exercised, were not abated in con- 
 sequence. That which the National Assembly 
 ■did for France, the Spanish Sovereign's authority 
 acting through those whom the people themselves 
 have deputed to represent him, would, in their 
 present enthusiasm of loyalty, and condition 
 of their general feelings, render practicable and 
 easy for Spain. The Spaniards, it is true, with a 
 thoughtfulness most hopeful for the cause which 
 they have undertaken, have been loth to depart 
 from established laws, forms, and practices. This 
 dignified feeling of self-restraint they would do 
 well to cherish so far as never to depart from it 
 without some reluctance ; — but, when old and 
 familiar means are not equal to the exigency, new 
 ones must, without timidity, be resorted to, though 
 by many they may be found harsh and ungra- 
 cious. Nothing but good would result from such 
 
Conduct. The well-disposed would rely more 
 confidently upon a Government which thus 
 proved that it had confidence in itself. Men, less 
 zealous, and of less comprehensive minds, would 
 soon be reconciled to measures from which at 
 first they had revolted; the remiss and selfish 
 might be made servants of their country, through 
 the influence of the same passions which had pre- 
 pared them to become slaves of the Invader ; or, 
 should this not be possible, they would appear 
 in their true character, and the main danger to be 
 feared from them would be prevented. The course 
 which ought to be pursued is plain* Either the 
 cause has lost the people's love, or it has not. If 
 it has, let the struggle be abandoned. If it has 
 not, let the Government, in whatever shape it may 
 exist, and however great maybe the calamitiesunder 
 which it may labour, act up to the full stretch of 
 its rights, nor doubt that the people will support 
 it to the full extent of their power. If, therefore, 
 ttie Chiefs of the Spanish Nation be men of wise 
 and strong minds, they will bring both the forces^ 
 those of the Government and of the people, into 
 their utmost action; tempering them in such & 
 manner that neither shall impair or obstruct the 
 other, but rather that they shall strengthen and 
 direct each other for all salutary purposes. 
 
 Thirdly, it was never dreamt by any thinking 
 man, that the Spaniards were to succeed by their: 
 army ; if by their army be meant any thing but 
 the people. The whole people is their army, and 
 their true army is the people, and nothing else. 
 Five hundred men, who in the early part of the 
 struggle had been taken prisoners, — I think it 
 was at the battle of Rio Seco — were returned by 
 the French General under the title of Galician 
 Peasants, a title, which the Spanish General, 
 
 C 
 
18 
 
 Blake, rejected and maintained in his. answer 
 that they were genuine soldiers, meaning regular 
 troops. The conduct of the Frenchman was po- 
 litic, and that of the Spaniard would have been 
 more in the spirit of his cause and of his own 
 noble character, if, waiving on this occasion the 
 plea of any subordinate and formal commission 
 which these men might have, he had rested their 
 claim to the title of Soldiers on its true ground, 
 and affirmed that this was no other than the rights 
 of the cause which they maintained, by which 
 rights every Spaniard was a soldier who could ap- 
 pear in arms, and was authorized to take that place, 
 in which it was probable, to those under whom 
 he acted, and on many occasions to himself, that 
 he could most annoy the enemy. But these pa- 
 triots of Galicia were not clothed alike, nor per- 
 haps armed alike, nor had the outward appearance 
 of those bodies, which are called regular troops ; 
 and the Frenchman availed himself of this pretext, 
 to apply to them that insolent language, which 
 might, I think, have been more nobly repelled on 
 a more comprehensive principle. For thus are 
 men of the gravest minds imposed upon by the 
 presumptuous ; and through these influences it 
 comes, that the strength of a tyrant is in opinion 
 —not merely in the opinion of those who sup- 
 port him, but alas ! even of those who willingly 
 resist, and who would resist effectually, if it were 
 not that their own understandings betray them, 
 being already half enslaved by shews and forms. * 
 The whole Spanish nation ought to be encouraged 
 to deem themselves #n army, embodied under the 
 authority of their country and of human nature. 
 A military spirit should be there, and a military 
 action, not confined like an ordinary river in one 
 channel, but spreading like the Nile over the 
 
ID 
 
 whole face of the land. Is this possible ? I be- 
 lieve it is : if there be minds among them worthy 
 to lead, and if those leadingminds cherish a civic 
 spirit warrantable, by all aids and appliances, and, 
 above all other means, by combining a reve- 
 rential memory of their elder ancestors with dis- 
 tinct hopes of solid advantage, from the privileges 
 of freedom, for themselves and their posterity — to 
 which the history and the past state of Spain fur- 
 nish such enviable facilities ; and if they provide 
 for the sustenance of this spirit, by organizing it in 
 its primary sources, not timidly jealous of a people, 
 whose toils and sacrifices have approved them 
 worthy of all love and confidence, and whose fail- 
 ing of excess, if such there exist, is assuredly on 
 the side of loyalty to their Sovereign, and predi- 
 lection for all established institutions. We affirm, 
 then, that a universal military spirit may be pro- 
 duced ; and not only this, but that a much more 
 rare and more admirable phenomenon may be 
 realized' — the civic and military spirit united in 
 one people, and in enduring harmony with each 
 other. The people of Spain, with arms in their 
 hands, are already in an elevated mood, to which 
 they have been raised by the indignant passions, 
 and the keen sense of insupportable wrong and 
 insult from the enemy, and its infamous instru- 
 ments. But they must be taught, not to trust 
 too exclusively to the violent passions, which have 
 already done much of their peculiar task and ser- 
 vice. They must seek additional aid from affec- 
 tions, which less imperiously exclude all individual 
 interests, while at the same time they consecrate 
 them to the public good. — But the enemy is in 
 the heart of their land ! We have not forgotten 
 this. We would encourage their military zeal, 
 and all qualities especially military, by all rewards 
 
 c 2 
 k 
 
20 
 
 of honourable ambition, and by rank and dignity 
 conferred on the truly worthy, whatever may bo 
 their birth or condition, the elevating influence of 
 which would extend from the individual posses- 
 sor to the class from which he may have sprung. 
 For the necessity of thus raising and upholding 
 the military spirit, we plead : but yet the profes- 
 sional excellencies of the soldier must be contem- 
 plated according to their due place and relation. 
 Nothing is" done, or worse than nothing, unless 
 something higher be taught, as higher, some- 
 thing more fundamental, as more fundamental. 
 In the moral virtues and qualities of passion which 
 belong to a people, must the ultimate salvation of 
 a people be sought for. Moral qualities of a high 
 order, and vehement passions, and virtuous as 
 vehement, the Spaniards have already displayed ; 
 nor is it to be anticipated, that the conduct of 
 their enemies will suffer the beat and glow to remit 
 and languish. These may be trusted to them- 
 selves, .and to the provocations of the merciless 
 Invader. They must now be taught, that their 
 strength chiefly lies in moral qualities, more silent 
 in their operation, more permanent in their nature ; 
 in the virtues of perseverance, constancy, fortitude, 
 and watchfulness, in a long memory and a quick; 
 feeling, to rise upon a favourable summons, a tex- 
 ture of life which, though cut through (as hath 
 been feigned of the bodies of the Angels) unites 
 again— these are the virtues and qualities on which 
 the Spanish People must be taught mainly to de- 
 pend. These it is not in the power of their Chiefs, 
 to create ; but they may preserve and procure to 
 them opportunities of unfolding themselves, by 
 guarding the Nation against an intemperate reli- 
 ance on other qualities and other modes of exerr- 
 #on, to which it could never ha,ve resorted in, the 
 
11 
 
 degree in which it appears to have resorted tQ 
 them without having been in contradiction to 
 itself, paying at the same time an indirect homage 
 to its enemy. Yet, in hazarding this conditional 
 censure, we are still inclined to believe, that, ia 
 spite of our deductions on the score of exaggera- 
 tion, we have still given too easy credit to the 
 accounts furnished by the enemy, of the rashness 
 with which the Spaniards engaged in pitched 
 battles, and of their dismay after defeat. For 
 the Spaniards have repeatedly proclaimed, and 
 they have inwardly felt, that their strength was 
 from their cause — of course, that it was moral- 
 Why then should they abandon this, and endea- 
 vour to prevail by means in which their opponents 
 are confessedly so much superior? Moral strength 
 is their' s ; bat physical power for the purposes of 
 immediate or rapid destruction is on the side of 
 their enemies. This is to them no disgrace, but, 
 as soon as they understand themselves, they will 
 see that they are disgraced by mistrusting their ap- 
 propriate stay, and throwing themselves upon a 
 power which for them must be weak. Nor will it 
 then appear to them a sufficient excuse, that they 
 were seduced into this by the splendid qualities of 
 courage and enthusiasm, which, being the frequent 
 companions, and, in given circumstances, the ne- 
 cessary agents of virtue, are too often themselves 
 hailed as virtues by their own title. But cou- 
 rage and enthusiasm have equally characterised 
 the best and the worst beings, a Satan, equally 
 with an Abdiel — a Bonaparte equally with a 
 "JLeonidas, They are indeed indispensible to 
 the Spanish soldiery, in order that, man to man, 
 they may not be inferior to their enemies in tfye 
 field of battle. But inferior they are and long 
 mi|st be in warlike skill and coclaess $ inferior in 
 
22 
 
 assembled numbers, and in blind mobility to the 
 preconceived purposes of their leader. If there- 
 fore the Spaniards are not superior in some superior 
 Quality, their fall may be predicted with the cer- 
 tainty of a mathematical calculation. Nay, it is 
 right to acknowledge, however depressing to false 
 hope the thought may be, that from a people prone 
 and disposed to war, as the French are, through the 
 very absence of those excellencies which give a 
 contra-distinguishing dignity to the Spanish cha- 
 racter ; that, from an army of men presumptuous 
 bj nature, to whose presumption the experience 
 of constant success has given the confidence and 
 Stubborn strength of reason, and who balance 
 against the devotion of patriotism the superstition 
 so naturally attached by the sensual and disordi- 
 nate to the strange fortunes and continual felicity 
 of their Emperor ; that, from the armies of such a 
 people a more manageable enthusiasm, a courage 
 less under the influence of accidents, may be ex- 
 pected in the confusion of immediate conflict, than 
 from forces like the Spaniards, united indeed by 
 devotion to a common cause, but not equally 
 united by an equal confidence in each other, result- 
 ing from long fellowship and brotherhood in all 
 conceivable incidents of war and battle. Therefore, 
 I do not hesitate to affirm, that even the occasional 
 flight of the Spanish levies, from sudden panic under 
 untried circumstances, would not be so injurious 
 to the Spanish cause ; no, nor so dishonourable 
 to the Spanish character, nor so ominous of ulti- 
 mate failure, as a paramount reliance on su- 
 perior valour, instead of a principled reposal on 
 superior constancy and immutable resolve. Rather 
 let them have fled once and again, than direct their 
 prime admiration to the blaze and explosion of 
 animal courage, in slight of the vital and sustaining 
 
33 
 
 warmth of fortitude ; in slight of that moral con- 
 tempt of death and privation, which does not 
 need the stir and shout of battle to call it forth or 
 support it, which can smile in patience over the 
 stiff and cold wound, as well as rush forward re- 
 gardless, because half senseless of the fresh and 
 bleeding one. Why did we give our hearts to the 
 present cause of Spain with a fervour and elevation 
 unknown to us in the commencement of the late 
 Austrian or Prussian resistance to France ? Because 
 we attributed to the former an heroic temperament 
 which would render their transfer to such domina- 
 tion an evil to human nature itself, and an affright- 
 ening perplexity in the dispensations of Providence. 
 But if in oblivion of the prophetic wisdom of 
 their own first leaders in the cause, they are sur- 
 prised beyond the power of rallying, utterly cast 
 down and manacled by fearful thoughts from the 
 first thunder-storm of defeat in the field, wherein 
 do they differ from the Prussians and Austrians ? 
 Wherein are they a People, and not a mere army 
 or set of armies ? If this be indeed so, what 
 have we to mourn, over but our own honourable 
 impetuosity, in hoping where no just ground of 
 hope existed ? A nation, without. the virtues neces- 
 sary for the attainment of independence, have 
 failed to attain it. This is all. For little has that 
 man understood the majesty of true national free- 
 dom, who believes that a population, like that of 
 Spain, in a country like that of Spain, may want 
 the qualities needful to fight out their indepen- 
 dence, and yet possess the excellencies which 
 tender men susceptible of true liberty. The Dutch, 
 the Americans, did possess the former ; but it is, 
 I&ar, more than doubtful whether the one ever 
 did, or the other ever will, evince the nobler 
 morality indispensible to the latter. 
 
u 
 
 it was not my intention that the subject should 
 at present have been pursued so far. But I have 
 been carried forward by a strong wish to be of use 
 in raising and steadying the minds of my country- 
 men, an end to which every thing that I shall 
 say hereafter (provided it be true) will contribute* 
 For all knowledge of human nature leads ultU 
 mately to repose ; and I shall write to little pur* 
 pose if I do not assist some portion of my readers 
 to form an estimate of the grounds of hope and 
 fear in the present effort of liberty against oppres- 
 sion, in the present or any future struggle which 
 justice will have to maintain against might. In 
 fact, this is my main object, i{ the sea-mark of 
 • my utmost sail:** in order that, understanding 
 the sources of strength and seats of weakness, both 
 in the tyrant and in those who would save or res- 
 cue themselves from his grasp, we may act as 
 becomes men who would guard their own liber- 
 ties, and would draw a good use from the desire 
 which they feel, and the efforts which they are 
 making, to benefit the less favoured part of the 
 family of mankind. With these as my ultimate 
 objects, 1 have undertaken to examine the Con- 
 vention of Cintra; and, as an indispensible prepa- 
 rative for forming a right judgment of this event, 
 I have already faithfully exhibited the feelings of 
 the people of Great Britain and of Spain towards 
 each other, and have shewn by what sacred bonds 
 they were united. With the same view, I shall 
 next proceed to shew by what barrier of aversion, 
 scarcely less sacred, the people of the Peninsula 
 were divided from their enemies,— their feelings 
 towards them, and their hopes for themselves ; 
 trusting, that I have already mitigated the dead- 
 ening influences of recent calamity, and that the 
 representation I shall frame, in the manner which 
 
«25 
 
 has been promised, will speak in its true colours 
 and life to the eye and heart of the spectator. 
 
 The government of Asturias, which was the 
 first to rise against their oppressors, thus expresses 
 itself in the opening of its Address to the People 
 of that Province. " Loyal Asturians ! beloved 
 Countrymen ! your wishes are already fulfilled. 
 The Principality, discharging those duties which 
 are most sacred to men, has already declared war 
 against France. You may perhaps dread this 
 vigorous resolution. But what other measure 
 could or ought we to adopt ? Shall, there be found 
 one single man among us, who prefers the vile 
 and ignominious death of slaves, to the glory of 
 dying on the field of honour, with arms in his 
 hand, defending our unfortunate monarch, our 
 homes, our children, and our wives ? If, in the 
 very moment when those bands of banditti were 
 receiving the kindest offices and favours from the 
 inhabitants of our Capital, they murdered in cold 
 blood upwards of two thousand people, for no 
 other reason than their having defended their in- 
 sulted brethren, what could we expect from them, 
 had we submitted to their dominion ? Their per- 
 fidious conduct towards our king and his whole 
 family, whom they deceived and decoyed into 
 France under the promise of an eternal armistice, 
 in order to chain them all, has no precedent in 
 history. Their conduct towards the whole nation 
 is more iniquitous, than we had the right to ex- 
 pect from a horde of Hottentots. They have 
 profaned our temples ; they have insulted our re- 
 ligion ; they have assailed our wives ; in fine, they 
 have broken all their promises, and there exists no 
 right which they have not violated. To arms, 
 Asturians ! to arms !" The Supreme Junta of 
 Government, sitting at Seville, introduces its de- 
 
 D 
 
26 
 
 claration of War in words to the same effect. 
 fff France, under the government of the emperor 
 Napoleon the First, has violated towards Spain the 
 most sacred compacts — has arrested her monarchs 
 — obliged them to a forced and manifestly void 
 abdication and renunciation ; has behaved with 
 the same violence towards the Spanish Nobles 
 whom he keeps in his power — has declared that 
 he will elect a king of Spain, the most horrible 
 attempt that is recorded in history— has sent his 
 troops into Spain, seized her fortresses and her 
 Capital, and scattered his troops throughout the 
 country— has committed against Spain all sorts of 
 assassinations, robberies, and unheard-of cruelties ; 
 and this he has done with the most enormous in- 
 gratitude to the services which the Spanish nation 
 has rendered France, to the friendship it has shewn 
 her, thus treating it with the most dreadful per- 
 fidy, fraud, and treachery, such as was never 
 committed against any nation or monarch by the 
 most barbarous or ambitious king or people. He 
 has in fine declared, that he will trample down 
 our monarchy, our fundamental laws, and bring 
 about the ruin of our holy catholic religion. — - 
 The only remedy therefore to such grievous ills, 
 which are so manifest to all Europe, is in war, 
 which we declare against him." The injuries, 
 done to the Portuguese Nation and Government, 
 previous to its declaration of war against the 
 Emperor of the French, are stated at length in 
 the manifesto of the Court of Portugal, dated Rio 
 Janeiro, May 1st, 1808; and to that the reader 
 may be referred: but upon this subject I will 
 beg leave to lay before him, the following extract 
 from the Address of the supreme Junta of Seville 
 to the Portuguese nation, dated May 30th, J 808. 
 * f Portuguese, — Your lot is, perhaps, the hard- 
 
est ever endured by any people on the earth. Your 
 princes were compelled to fly from you, and the 
 events in Spain have furnished an irrefragable 
 proof of the absolute necessity of that measure. — • 
 You were ordered not to defend yourselves, and 
 you did not defend yourselves. Junot offered to 
 make you happy, and your happiness has con- 
 sisted in being treated with greater cruelty than 
 the most ferocious conquerors inflict on the people 
 whom they have subdued by force of arms and 
 after the most obstinate resistance. You have 
 been despoiled of your princes, your laws, your 
 usages, your customs, your property, your liberty, 
 even your lives, and your holy religion, which, 
 your enemies never have respected, however they 
 may, according to their custom, have promised 
 to protect it, and however they may affect and 
 pretend to have any sense of it themselves. Your 
 nobility has been annihilated, — its property con- 
 fiscated in punishment of its fidelity and loyalty. 
 You have been basely dragged to foreign coun- 
 tries, and compelled to prostrate yourselves at the 
 feet of the man who is the author of all your 
 calamities, and who, by the most horrible perfidy, 
 has usurped your government, and rules you with 
 a sceptre of iron. Even now your troops have 
 left your borders, and are travelling in chains to 
 die in the defence of him who has oppressed you ; 
 by which means his deep malignity may accom- 
 plish his purpose, — by destroying those who should 
 constitute your strengh, and by rendering their 
 lives subservient to his triumphs, and to the savage 
 glory to which he aspires. — Spain beheld your 
 slavery, and the horrible evils which followed it, 
 with mingled sensations of grief and despair. 
 You are her brother, and she panted to fly to your 
 assistance. But certain Chiefs, and a Government 
 
 d 2 
 
28 
 
 either weak or corrupt, kept her in chains, and 
 were preparing the means by which the ruin of 
 our king, our laws, our independence, our liberty, 
 our lives, and even the holy religion in which we 
 are united, might accompany your's, — by which a 
 barbarous people might consummate their own 
 triumph, and accomplish the slavery of every 
 nation in Europe : — our loyalty, our honour, our 
 justice, could not submit to such flagrant atrocity ! 
 We have broken our chains, — let us then to 
 action." But the story of Portuguese sufferings 
 shall be told by Junot himself; who, in his pro- 
 clamation to the people of Portugal (dated Palace 
 of Lisbon, June 26,), thus speaks to them : " You 
 have earneslty entreated of him a king, who, aided 
 by the omnipotence of that great monarch, might 
 raise up again your unfortunate Country, and re- 
 place her in the rank which belongs to her. 
 Doubtless, at this moment your new monarch is on 
 the point of visiting you. — He expects to find 
 faithful Subjects — shall he find only rebels ? I ex- 
 pected to have delivered over to him a peaceable 
 kingdom and flourishing cities — shall I be obliged, 
 to shew him only ruins and heaps of ashes and 
 dead bodies ? — ^— Merit pardon by prompt sub- 
 mission, and a prompt obedience to my orders ; if 
 liOt, think of the punishment which awaits you. 
 —-Every city, town, or village, which shall take 
 up arms against my forces, and whose inhabitants 
 shall rise upon the French troops, shall be deli- 
 vered up to pillage and totally destroyed, and the 
 inhabitants shall be put to the sword — every indi- 
 vidual taken in arms shall be instantly shot." 
 That these were not empty threats, we learn from 
 the bulletins published by authority of the same 
 Junot, which at once shew his cruelty, and that 
 of the persons whom he employed, and the noble 
 
29 
 
 resistance of the Portuguese. " We entered Beia/ f 
 says one of those dismal chronicles, " in the midst 
 of great carnage. The rebels left 1200 dead on 
 the field of battle ; all those taken with arms in 
 their hands were put to the sword, and all the 
 houses from which we had been fired upon were 
 burned." Again in another, " The spirit of in- 
 sanity, which had led astray the inhabitants of 
 Beia and rendered necessary the terrible chastise- 
 ment which they have received, has likewise been 
 exercised in the north of Portugal." Describing 
 another engagement, it is said, " the lines endea- 
 voured to make a stand, but they were forced ; 
 the massacre was terrible — more than a thousand 
 dead bodies remained on the field of battle, and 
 General Loison, pursuing the remainder of these 
 wretches, entered Guerda with fixed bayonets." 
 On approaching Alpedrinha, they found the rebels 
 posted in a kind of redoubt — " it was forced, the 
 town of Alpedrinha taken, and delivered to the 
 flames :" the whole of this tragedy is thus sum- 
 med up — " In the engagements fought in these 
 different marches, we lost twenty men killed, and 
 30 or 40 wounded. The insurgents have left at 
 least 13000 dead in the field, the melancholy con- 
 sequence of a frenzy which nothing can justify, 
 which forces us to multiply victims, whom we 
 lament and regret, but whom a terrible necessity 
 obliges us to sacrifice." t ' It is thus," continues the 
 writer, (l that deluded men, ungrateful children 
 as well as culpable citizens, exchange all their 
 claims to the benevolence and protection of 
 Government for misfortune and wretchedness; 
 ruin their families; carry into their habitations 
 desolation, conflagrations, and death; change flou- 
 rishing cities into heaps of ashes— into vast tombs; 
 and bring on their whole country calamities which 
 
30 
 
 they deserve, and from which (feeble victims f) 
 they cannot escape. In fine, it is thus that, 
 covering themselves with opprobrium and ridi- 
 cule at the same time that they complete their 
 destruction, they have no other resource but the 
 pity of those they have wished to assassinate — 
 a pity which they never have implored in vain, 
 when acknowledging their crime, they have soli- 
 cited pardon ftom Frenchmen, who, incapable of 
 departing from their noble character, are ever as 
 generous as they are brave." — By order Of Mon- 
 seigneur le due d'Abrantes, Commander in chief." 
 — Compare this with the Address of Massaredo to 
 the Biscayans, in which there is the like avowal 
 that the Spaniards are to be treated as Rebels. 
 He tells them, that he is commanded by his 
 master, Joseph Bonaparte, to assure them — "that, 
 in case they disapprove of the insurrection in the 
 City of Bilboa, his majesty will consign to ob- 
 livion the mistake and error of the Insurgents, 
 and that he will punish only the heads and begin- 
 ners of the insurrection, with regard -to whom th§ 
 Jaw must take its course" 
 
 To be the victim of such bloody- mindedness is 
 a doleful lot for a Nation; and the anguish must 
 have been rendered still more poignant by the 
 scoffs and insults, and by that heinous contempt 
 of the most awful truths, with which the Perpetra- 
 tor of those cruelties has proclaimed them. — 
 Merciless ferocity is an evil familiar to our 
 thoughts; but these combinations of malevolence 
 historians have not yet been called upon to record ; 
 and writers of fiction, if they have ever ventured 
 to create passions resembling them, have confined, 
 out of reverence for the acknowledged constitu- 
 tion of human nature, those passions to repro- 
 bate Spirits. Such tyranny is, in the strictest 
 
31 
 
 sense, intolerable; not because it aims at the ex- 
 tinction of life, but of every thing which gives 
 life its value — of virtue, of reason, of repose in 
 God, or in truth. With what heart may we sup- 
 pose that a genuine Spaniard would read the fol- 
 lowing impious address from the Deputation, as 
 they were falsely called, of his apostate country^ 
 men at Bayonne, seduced or compelled to assem- 
 ble under the eye of the Tyrant, and speaking as 
 he dictated? " Dear Spaniards, Beloved Country- 
 men ! — Your habitations, your cities, your power, 
 and your property, are as dear to us as ourselves; 
 and we wish to keep all of you in our eye, that 
 we may be able to establish your security. — We, 
 as well as yourselves, are bound in allegiance to 
 the old dynasty — to her, to whom an end has 
 been put by that God-like Providence which rules 
 all thrones and sceptres. We have seen the great- 
 est states fall under the guidance of this rule, and 
 our land alone has hitherto escaped the same fate. 
 An unavoidable destiny has now overtaken our 
 country, and brought us under the protection of 
 the invincible Emperor of France. — We know that 
 you will regard our present situation with the 
 utmost consideration ; and we have accordingly, 
 in this conviction, been uniformly conciliating the 
 friendship to which we are tied by so many obli- 
 gations. With what admiration must we see the 
 benevolence and humanity of his imperial and. 
 royal Majesty outstep our wishes—qualities which 
 are even more to be admired than his great power! 
 He has desired nothing else, than that we should 
 be indebted to him for our welfare. Whenever 
 he gives us a sovereign to reign over us in the 
 person of his magnanimous brother Joseph, he 
 will consummate our prosperity. — As he has been 
 pleased to change our old system of laws, it be- 
 
32 
 
 comes us to obey, and to live in tranquillity, as he 
 has also promised to re-organize our financial sys- 
 tem, we may hope that then our naval and mili- 
 tary power will become terrible to our enemies, 
 8rc."— -That the Castilians were horror-stricken by 
 the above blasphemies, which are the habitual 
 language of the French Senate and Ministers to 
 their Emperor, is apparent from an address dated 
 Valladolid, — i{ He (Bonaparte) carries his audacity 
 the length of holding out to us offers of happiness 
 and peace, while he is laying waste our country, 
 pulling down out churches, and slaughtering our 
 brethren. His pride, cherished by a band of 
 villains who are constantly anxious, to offer incense 
 on his shrine, and tolerated by numberless victims 
 who pine in his chains, has caused him to con- 
 ceive the fantastical idea of proclaiming himself 
 Lord and Ruler of the whole world. There is no 
 atrocity which he does not commit to attain that 
 end -#*****. Shall these outrages, these ini- 
 quities, remain unpunished while Spaniards — and 
 Castilian Spaniards — yet exist ?" 
 
 Many passages might be adduced to prove that 
 the carnage and devastation spread over their land 
 have not afflicted this noble people so deeply as 
 this more searching warfare against the conscience 
 and the reason. They groan less over the blood 
 which has been shed, than over the arrogant 
 assumptions of beneficence made by him from 
 whose order that blood has flowed. Still to 
 be talking of bestowing and conferring, and 
 to be happy in the sight of nothing but what 
 he thinks he has bestowed or conferred, this, in a 
 man to whom the weakness of his fellows has 
 given great power, is a madness of pride more 
 hideous than cruelty itself. We have heard of 
 Attila and Tamerlane who called themselves the 
 
33 
 
 scourges of God, and rejoiced in personating the 
 terrors of Providence ; but such monsters do less 
 -outrage to the reason than he who arrogates to 
 himself the gentle and gracious attributes of the 
 Deity : for the one acts professedly from the tem- 
 perance of reason, the other avowedly in the gusts 
 *)f passion. Through the terrors of the Supreme 
 Kuler of things, as set forth bv works of destruc- 
 tion and mm, we see but darkly ; we may reve- 
 rence the chastisement, may fear it with awe, but 
 it is not natural to incline towards it in love : more- 
 over, devastation passes away — a perishing power 
 among things that perish : whereas to found, and 
 to build, to create and to institute, to bless through 
 blessing, this has to do with objects where we trust 
 we can see clearly, — it reminds us of what we 
 love, — it aims at permanence, — and the sorrow is, 
 i(as in the present instance the people of Spain feel) 
 that it may last; that, if the giddy and intoxicated 
 Being who proclaims that he does these fhings 
 with the eye and through the might of Providence 
 be not overthrown, it will last ; that it needs must 
 last : — and therefore would they hate and abhor him 
 and his pride, even if he were not cruel; if he 
 were merely an image of mortal presumption thrust 
 in between them and the piety which is natural to 
 the heart of man; between them and that religious 
 worship which, as authoritatively as his reason 
 forbids idolatry, that same reason commands. 
 Accordingly., labouring under these violations done 
 to their moral nature, they describe themselves, in 
 the anguish of their souls, treated as a people at 
 once dastardly and insensible. In the same spirit 
 they make it even matter of complaint, as com- 
 paratively a far greater evil, that they have not 
 fallen by the brute violence of open war, but by 
 4eceit and perfidy, by a subtle undermining, or 
 
 E 
 
34 , 
 
 contemptuous overthrow of those principles of 
 good faith, through prevalence of which, in some 
 degree, or under some modification or other, 
 families, communities, a people, or any frame 
 of human society, even destroying armies them- 
 selves can exist. 
 
 But enough of their wrongs ; let us now see what 
 were their consolations, their resolyes, and their 
 hopes. First, they neither murmur nor repine ; 
 but with genuine religion and philosophy they re- 
 cognize in these dreadful visitations the ways of a 
 benign Providence, and find in them cause for 
 thankfulness. The Council of Castile exhort the 
 people of Madrid "to cast off their lethargy, and 
 purify their manners, and to acknowledge the ca- 
 lamities which the kingdom and that great capital 
 had endured as a punishment necessary to their 
 correction." General Morla in his address to 
 the citizens of Cadiz thus speaks to them: — " The 
 commotion, more or less violent, which has taken 
 place in the whole peninsula of Spain, has been of 
 eminent service to rouse us from the state of le- 
 thargy in which we indulged, and to make us ac- 
 quainted with our rights, our glory, and the in- 
 violable duty which we owe to our holy religion 
 and our monarch. We wanted some electric stroke 
 to rouse us from our paralytic state of inactivity ; 
 we stood in need of a hurricane to clear the atmos- 
 phere of the insalubrious vapours with which it 
 was loaded." — The unanimity with which the whole 
 people were affected they rightly deem an indica- 
 tion of wisdom, an authority, and a sanction, — and 
 they refer it to its highest source " The defence 
 of our country and our king," (says a manifesto 
 of the Junta of Seville) " that of our laws, our 
 religion, and of all the rights of man, trodden down 
 and violated in a manner which is without example, 
 
35 
 
 by the Emperor of the French, Napoleon I. and by 
 his troops in Spain, compelled the whole nation to 
 take up arms, and choose itself a form of govern- 
 ment ; and, in the difficulties and dangers into 
 which the French had plunged it, all, or nearly- 
 all the provinces, as it were by the inspiration of 
 heaven, and in a manner little short of miraculous, 
 created Supreme Juntas, delivered themselves up to 
 their guidance, and placed in their hands the rights 
 and the ultimate fate of Spain. The effects have 
 hitherto most happily corresponded with the de- 
 signs of those who formed them." 
 
 With this general confidence, that the highest 
 good may be brought out of the worst calamities, 
 they have combined a solace, which is vouchsafed 
 only to such nations as can recal to memory the il- 
 lustrious deeds of their ancestors. The names of Pe- 
 layo and TheCid are the watch- words of the address 
 to the people of Leon ; and they are told that to these 
 two deliverers of their country, and to the senti- 
 ments of enthusiasm which they excited in every 
 breast, Spain owes the glory and happiness which 
 she has so lo?ig enjoyed. The Biscayans are called 
 to Cast their eye§ upon the ages which are past, 
 and they will see their ancestors at one time re-, 
 pulsing the Carthaginians, at another destroying the 
 hordes of Rome ; atone period was granted to them 
 the distinction of serving in the van of the army; 
 at -another the privilege of citizens. " Imitate," 
 says the address, " the glorious example of your 
 worthy progenitors." The Asturians, the Gallicians, 
 and the city of Cordova, are exhorted in the same* 
 manner. And Purely to a people thus united in 
 their minds with the heroism of years which have 
 been long departed, and living under such obliga- 
 tion of gratitude to their ancestors, it is not diffi- 
 cult, nay it is natural, to tak.e upon themselves the 
 
 e 2 
 
3$ 
 
 highest obligations of duty to their posterity ; t© 
 enjoy in the holiness of imagination the happiness 
 of unborn ages to which they shall have emi- 
 nently contributed ; and that each man, fortified 
 by these thoughts* should welcome despair for 
 himself, because if is the assured mother of hope for 
 his country. — lc Life or Death," says a proclamation 
 affixed in the most public places o£ Seville, " is in 
 this crisis indifferent ; — ye who shall return shall 
 receive the reward' of gratitude in the embraces of 
 your country, which shall proclaim you her deli- 
 verers;— ye whom heaven destines to seal with youF 
 blood the independence of your nation, the honour 
 of your women, and the purity of the religion 
 which ye profess, do not dread the anguish' of the 
 last moments ; remember in these momenta- that 
 there are in our hearts inexhaustible tears of ten- 
 derness toshed over your graves, and fervent prayers, 
 to which the Almighty Father of mercies will lend 
 an ear, to grant you a glory superior to that which 
 they who survive you shall enjoy." And in fact 
 it ought never to be forgotten, that the Spaniards 
 have not wilfully blinded themselves, but have 
 steadily fixed their eyes not only upon,danger and 
 upon death, but upon a. deplorable issue of the con- 
 test. They have contemplated their subjugation as 
 a thing possible. The next extract, from the paper 
 entitled Precautions, (and the same language is 
 holden by many others) will show in what manner 
 alone they reconcile themselves-to it. " Therefore, 
 it is necessary to sacrifice our lives and property 
 in defence of the king, and of the country; and, 
 though our lot (which we hope will never come to 
 pass) should destine us to become slaves, let »s 
 become so fighting and dying like gallant men, 
 not giving ourselves up basely to the yoke like 
 sheep, as the late infamous government would have 
 
37 
 
 dom, and fixing upon Spain and her slavery eter- 
 nal ignominy and disgrace." 
 
 But let us now hear them, as becomes men with 
 such feelings, express more cheering and bolder 
 hopes rising from a confidence in the supremacy 
 of justice, — hopes which, however the Tyrant from 
 the iron fortresses of his policy may scoff at them 
 and at those who entertained them, will render 
 their memory dear to all good men, when his 
 name will be pronounced with universal abhor- 
 rence, 
 
 " All Europe," says the Junta of Seville, "will 
 applaud our efforts and hasten to our assistance : 
 Italy, Germany, and the whole North, which 
 suffer under the despotism of the French nation, 
 will eagerly avail themselves of the favourable 
 opportunity, held out to them by Spain, to shake 
 off the yoke and recover their liberty, their laws, 
 their monarch s, and all they have been robbed of 
 by that nation. France herself will hasten to 
 erase the stain of infamy, which must cover the 
 tools and instruments of deeds so treacherous and 
 heinous. She will not shed her blood in so vile a 
 cause. She has already suffered too much under 
 the idle pretext of peace and happiness, which 
 never came, and can never be attained, but under 
 the empire of reason, peace, religion, and laws, 
 and in a state where the rights of other nations 
 are respected and preserved." To this may be 
 added a hope, the fulfilment of which belongs 
 more to themselves, and hes more within their 
 ownjpower, namely, a hope that they shall be 
 able in their progress towards liberty, to inflict con- 
 dign punishment on their cruel and perfidious ene- 
 mies. The Junta of Seville, in an Address to the 
 People of Madrid, express themselves thus : 
 " People of Madrid ! Seville has learned, with 
 
3& 
 
 tonsternation and surprize, your dreadful catas'-. 
 trophe of the second of May ; the weakness of 
 a government which did nothing in our favour, — 
 which ordered arms to be directed against you.; 
 and. your heroic sacrifices. Blessed be ye, and 
 your memory shall shine immortal in the annals 
 of our nation ! — She has seen with horror that 
 the author of all your misfortunes and of our' s 
 has published a proclamation, in which he dis- 
 torted every fact, and pretended that you gave 
 the first provocation, while it was he who provoked 
 you. The government was weak enough to sanc- 
 tion and order that proclamation to be circulated ;• 
 and saw, with perfect composure, numbers of you 
 put to death for a pretended violation of laws 
 which did not exist. The French were told in 
 that proclamation, that French blood profusely 
 shed was crying out for vengeance ! And the 
 Spanish blood, does not it cry out for vengeance I 
 That Spanish blood, shed by an army which hesi- 
 tated not to attack a disarmed and defenceless 
 people, living under their laws and their king, and 
 against whom cruelties were committed, which 
 shake the human frame with horror. We, all 
 Spain, exclaim — the Spanish blood shed in Madrid 
 cries aloud for revenge ! Comfort yourselves, we 
 are your brethren : we will fight like you, until 
 we perish in defending our king and country. 
 Assist us with your good wishes, and your con- 
 tinual prayers offered up to the Most High, whom 
 we adore, and who cannot forsake us, because he 
 never forsakes a just cause." Again, in the con- 
 clusion of their address to the People of Portugal, 
 quoted before, " The universal cry of Spain is, 
 we will die in defence of our country, but we wili 
 take care that those infamous enemies shall die 
 with us. Come then, ye generous Portugueze, 
 
^9 
 
 and unite with us. You have among yourselves 
 the objects of your vengeance — obey not the 
 authors of your misfortunes — attack them — they 
 are but a handful of miserable panic-struck men, 
 humiliated and conquered already by the perfidy 
 and cruelties which they have committed, and 
 which have covered them with disgrace in the 
 eyes of Europe and the world ! Rise then in a 
 body, but avoid staining your honourable hands 
 with crimes, for your design is to resist them and 
 to destroy them — our united efforts will do for this 
 perfidious nation; and Portugal, Spain, nay, all 
 Europe, shall breathe or die free like men." — 
 Such are their hopes ; and again see, upon this 
 subject, the paper entitled " Precautions ;" a con- 
 trast this to the impious mockery of Providence, 
 exhibited by the Tyrant in some passages here- 
 tofore quoted ! " Care shall be taken to explain 
 to the nation, and to convince them that, when 
 free, as we trust to be, from this civil war, to 
 which the French have forced us, and when placed 
 in a state of tranquillity, our Lord and King, Fer- 
 dinand VII, being restored to the throne of Spain, 
 under him and by him, the Cortes will be assem- 
 bled, abuses, reformed, and such laws shall be 
 enacted, as the circumstances of the time and 
 experience may dictate for the public good and 
 happiness. Things which we Spaniards know 
 how to do, which we have done as well as other 
 nations, without any necessity that the vile French 
 should come to instruct us, and, according to 
 their custom, under the mask of friendship, shoul4 
 deprive us of our liberty, our laws, &c. &c." 
 
 One extract more and I shall conclude. It is 
 from a proclamation dated Oviedo, July 17th. 
 *■' Yes — Spain with the energies of Liberty has to 
 contend with France debilitated by slavery. If 
 
40 
 
 she remain firm and constant, Spain will triumph. 
 A whole people is more powerful than disciplined 
 armies- Those, who unite to maintain the inde- 
 -uuenoe of their country, must .triumph over 
 tyranny. Spain will inevitably conquer, in a 
 cause the most just that has ever raised the deadly 
 weapon of war ; for she fights, not for the con^ 
 cerns of a day, but for the security and happiness 
 of ages ; not for an insulated privilege, but for 
 the rights of human nature; not for temporal 
 blessings, but for eternal happiness; not for the 
 benefit of one nation, but for all mankind, and 
 even for France herself." 
 
 I will now beg of my reader to pause a moment, 
 and to review in his own mind the whole of what 
 lias been laid before him. He has seen of what 
 kind, and how great have been the injuries en- 
 dured by these two nations ; what they have suf- 
 fered, and what they have to fear ; he has seen 
 that they have felt with that unanimity which 
 nothing but the light of truth spread over the 
 inmost concerns of human nature can create; 
 with that simultaneousness which has led Philoso- 
 phers upon like occasions to assert, that the voice 
 of the people is the voice of God. He has seen 
 that they have submitted as far as human nature 
 could bear; and that at last these millions of suf- 
 fering people have risen almost like one man, with 
 one hope ; for whether they look to triumph or 
 defeat, to victory or death, they are full of hop? 
 —despair comes not near them — they will die, 
 they say*— each individual knows the danger, and, 
 strong in the magnitude of it, grasps eag«rly at 
 the thought that he himself is to perish; and 
 more eagerly, and with higher confidence, does he 
 lay to his heart the faith that the nation will sur- 
 vive and be victorious; — or, at the worst, let the 
 
4i 
 
 contest terminate how it may as to superiority of 
 outward strength, that the fortitude and the mar- 
 tyrdom, the justice and the blessing, are their's 
 and cannot be relinquished. And not only are 
 they moved by these exalted sentiments of univer- 
 sal morality, and of direct and universal concern 
 to mankind, which have impelled them to resist 
 evil and to endeavour to punish the evil-doer, 
 but also they descend (for even this, great as in 
 itself it is, may be here considered as a descent) 
 to express a rational hope of reforming domestic 
 abuses, and of re-constructing , out of the mate- 
 rials of their ancient institutions, customs, and 
 laws, a better frame of civil government, the same 
 in the great outlines of its architecture, but ex- 
 hibiting the knowledge, and genius, and the 
 needs of the present race, harmoniously blended 
 with those of their forefathers. Woe, then, to 
 the unworthy who intrude with their help to main- 
 tain this most sacred cause! It calls aloud for 
 the aid of intellect, knowledge, and love, and re- 
 jects every other. It is in vain to send forth armies 
 if these do not inspire and direct them. The 
 stream is as pure as it is mighty, fed by ten thou- 
 sand springs in the bounty of untainted nature; 
 any augmentation from the kennels and sewers of 
 guilt and baseness may clog, but cannot streng- 
 then it. — It is not from any thought that I am 
 communicating new information, that I have dwelt 
 thus long upon this subject, but to recall to the 
 reader his own knowledge, and to re-infuse into 
 that knowledge a breath and life of appropriate 
 feeling; because the bare sense of wisdom is 
 nothing without its powers, and it is only in these 
 feelings that the powers of wisdom exist. If then, 
 we do not forget that the Spanish and Portuguezc 
 Nations stand upon the loftiest ground of principle 
 
 F 
 
42 
 
 and passion, and do not suffer on our part those 
 sympathies to languish which a few months since 
 were so strong, and do not negligently or timidly 
 descend from those heights of magnanimity to 
 which as a nation we were raised, when they first 
 represented to us their wrongs and entreated our 
 assistance, and we devoted ourselves sincerely and 
 earnestly to their service, making, with them a 
 common cause under a common hope ; if we are 
 true in all this to them and to ourselves, we shall 
 not be at a loss to conceive what actions are en- 
 titled to our commendation as being in the spirit 
 of a friendship so nobly begun, and tending assu- 
 redly to promote the common welfare; and what 
 are abject, treacherous, and pernicious, and there- 
 fore to be condemned and abhorred. Is then, I 
 may now ask, the Convention of Cintra an act of 
 this latter kind ? Have the Generals, who signed and 
 ratified that agreement, thereby proved themselves, 
 unworthy associates in such a cause ? And has the 
 Ministry, by whose appointment these men were 
 enabled to act in this manner,, and which sanc- 
 tioned the Convention by permitting them to carry 
 it into execution, thereby taken to itself a weight 
 of guilt, in which the Nation must feel that it 
 participates, until the transaction shall be solemnly 
 reprobated by the Government, and the remote 
 and immediate authors of it brought to merited 
 punishment ? An answer to each of these ques- 
 tions will' be implied in the proof which will be 
 given that the condemnation, which the People 
 did with one voice pronounce upon this Conven- 
 tion when it first became known, was just; that 
 the nature of the offence of those who signed it 
 was such, and established by evidence of such a 
 kind, making so imperious an exception to the 
 ordinary course of action, that there was no need. 
 
 5 
 
43 
 
 to wait nere for the decision of a Court of Judi- 
 cature, but that the People were compelled by a 
 necessity involved in the very constitution of man 
 as a moral Being to pass sentence upon them. 
 And this I shall prove by trying this act of their's 
 by principles of justice which are of universal 
 obligation, and by a reference to those moral sen- 
 timents which rise out of that retrospect of things 
 which has been given. 
 
 I shall now proceed to facts. The dispatches 
 of Sir Arthur Wellesley, containing an account 
 of his having defeated the enemy in two several 
 engagements, spread joy through the nation. The 
 latter action appeared to have been decisive, and 
 the result may be thus briefly reported, in a never 
 to be forgotten sentence of Sir Arthur's second 
 letter. ** In this action," says he, " in which 
 the whole of the French force in Portugal was 
 employed, under the command of the Due 
 D'Abrantes in person, in which the enemy was 
 certainly superior in cavalry and artillery, and in 
 which not more than half of the British army was 
 actually engaged, he sustained a signal defeat, and 
 has lost thirteen pieces of cannon, &c. &c." In 
 the official communication, made to the public of 
 these dispatches, it was added, that " a General 
 officer had arrived at the British head-quarters to 
 treat for terms." This was joyful intelligence 1 
 First, an immediate, effectual, and honourable 
 deliverance of Portugal was confidently expected : 
 secondly, the humiliation and captivity of a large 
 French army, and just punishment, from the hands 
 of the Portugueze government, of the most atro- 
 cious offenders in that army and among those 
 who, having held civil offices under it, (especially 
 if Portugueze) had, in contempt of all law, civil 
 and military, notoriously abused the power which 
 
 f2 
 
4,4 
 
 they had treasonably accepted : thirdly, in this 
 presumed surrender of the army, a diminution of 
 the enemy's military force was looked to, which, 
 after the losses he had already sustained in Spain, 
 would most sensibly weaken it : and lastly, and 
 far above this, there was an anticipation of a shock 
 to his power, where that power is strongest, in the 
 imaginations of men, which are sure to fall under 
 the bondage of long-continued success. The 
 judicious part of the nation fixed their attention 
 chiefly on these results, and they had good cause 
 to rejoice. They also received with pleasure this 
 additional proof (which indeed with the unthink- 
 ing many, as after the victory of Maida, weighed 
 too much,) of the superiority in courage and dis- 
 cipline of the British soldiery over the French, and 
 of the certainty of success whenever our army 
 was led on by men of even respectable military 
 talents against any equal or not too greatly 
 disproportionate number of the enemy. But 
 the pleasure was damped in the, minds of re- 
 flecting persons by several causes. It occa- 
 sioned regret and perplexity, that they had 
 not heard more of the Portugueze. They knew 
 what that People had suffered, and how they had 
 risen ; — remembered the language of the proclama- 
 tion addressed to them, dated August the 4th, 
 and signed Charles Cotton and Arthur Wel- 
 lesley, in which they (the Portugueze) were told, 
 that " The British Army had been sent in conse- 
 quence of ardent supplications from all parrs of 
 Portugal; that the glorious struggle, in which 
 they are engaged, is for all that is dear to man ; 
 that the noble struggle against the tyranny and 
 usurpation of France will be jointly maintained by 
 Portugal, Spain, and England." Why then, it 
 w^s asked, do we not hear more of those who are. 
 
45 
 
 at least coequals with us, if not principals, in 
 this contest ? They appeared to have had little 
 share in either engagement; (See Appendix A.\ 
 and, while the French were abundantly praised, 
 no word of commendation was found for them. 
 Had they deserved to be thus neglected ? The 
 body of the People by a general rising had proved 
 their zeal and courage, their animosity towards 
 their enemies, their hatred of them. It was there- 
 fore apprehended, from this silence respecting the 
 Portugueze, that their Chiefs might either be 
 distracted by factions, or blinded by selfish inte- 
 rests, or that they mistrusted their Allies. Situated 
 as Portugal then was, it would argue gross igno- 
 rance of human nature to have expected that 
 unanimity should prevail among all the several 
 authorities or leading persons, as to the means to 
 be employed : it was enough, that they looked 
 with one feeling to the end, namely, an honour- 
 able deliverance of their country and security for 
 its Independence in conjunction with the liber- 
 ation and independence of Spain. It was there- 
 fore absolutely necessary to make allowance for 
 some division in conduct from difference of opi- 
 nion. Instead of acquiescing in the first feelings 
 of disappointment, our Commanders ought to 
 have used the best means to win the confidence 
 of the Portugueze Chiefs, and to induce them to 
 regard the British as dispassionate arbiters ; they 
 ought to have endeavoured to excite a genuine 
 patriotic spirit where it appeared wanting, and to 
 assist in creating for it an organ by which it might 
 act. Were these things done ? or* if such evils 
 existed among the Portugueze, was any remedy or 
 alleviation attempted ? Sir Arthur Wellesley has 
 told us, before the Board of Inquiry, that he made 
 applications to the Portugueze General, Frere, for 
 
46 
 
 assistance, which were acceded to by General 
 Fjrere upon such conditions only as made Sir 
 Arthur deem it more advisable to refuse than 
 accept his co-operation : and it is alleged that, 
 in his general expectations of assistance, he was 
 greatly disappointed. We are not disposed to 
 deny, that such cause for complaint might exist ; 
 but that it did, and upon no provocation on our 
 part, requires confirmation by other testimony. 
 And surely, the Portugueze have a right to be 
 heard in answer to this accusation, before they are 
 condemned. For they have supplied no fact from 
 their own hands, which tends to prove that they 
 were languid in the cause, or that they had un- 
 reasonable jealousies of the British Army or Nation, 
 or dispositions towards them which were other than 
 friendly. Now there is a fact, furnished by Sir 
 Arthur Wellesley himself, which may seem to 
 render it in the highest degree probable that, pre- 
 viously to any recorded or palpable act of disre- 
 gard or disrespect to the situation and feelings of 
 the Portugueze, the general tenour of his bearing 
 towards them might have been such that they 
 could not look favourably upon him ; that he was 
 not a man framed to conciliate them, to compose 
 their differences, or to awaken or strengthen their 
 zeal. I allude to the passage in his letter above 
 quoted, where, having occasion to speak of the 
 French General, he has found no name bv which 
 to designate him but that of Due D'Abrantes 
 — words necessarily implying, that Bonaparte, who 
 had taken upon himself to confer upon General 
 Junot this Portugueze title with Portugueze do- 
 mains to support it, was lawful Sovereign of that 
 Country, and that consequently the Portugueze 
 Nation were rebels, and the British Army, and he 
 himself at the head of it, aiders and abettors of 
 
47 
 
 that rebellion. It would be absurd to suppose,, 
 that Sir Arthur Wellesley, at the time when he 
 used these words, was aware of the meaning really 
 involved in them : let them be deemed an oversight. 
 But the capability of such an oversight affords 
 too strong suspicion of a deadness to the moral 
 interests of the cause in which he was engaged, 
 and of such a want of sympathy with the just 
 feelings of his injured Ally as could exist only 
 in a mind narrowed by exclusive and overween- 
 ing attention to the military character, led astray 
 by vanity, of hardened by general habits of con- 
 temptuousness. These words, " Duke of Abran- 
 tes in person" wera indeed words of bad omen : 
 and thinking men trembled for the consequences. 
 They saw plainly, that, in the opinion of the ex- 
 alted Spaniards — of those assuredly who framed, 
 and of all who had felt, that affecting Proclama- 
 tion addressed by the Junta of Seville to the 
 Portugueze people, he must appear utterly unwor- 
 thy of the station in which he had been placed. 
 He had been sent as a deliverer — as an assertor and 
 avenger of the rights of human nature. But 
 these words would carry with them every where 
 the conviction, that Portugal and Spain, yea, all 
 which was good in England, or iniquitous in France 
 or in Frenchmen,, was forgotten, and his head 
 full only of himself, miserably conceiting that he 
 swelled the importance of his conquered antago- 
 nist by sounding titles and phrases, come from 
 what quarter they might: and that, in proportion 
 as this was done, he magnified himself and his 
 atchievements. It was plain, then, that here was a 
 man, who, having not any fellow-feeling with the 
 people whom he had been commissioned to aid^ 
 could v not know where their strength lay, and 
 
48 
 
 therefore could not turn it to account, nor by his" 
 example call it forth or cherish it ; but that, if 
 his future conduct should be in the same spirit, he 
 must be a blighting wind wherever his influence 
 was carried : for he had neither felt the wrongs of 
 his allies nor been induced by common worldly 
 prudence to affect to feel them, or at least to dis- 
 guise his insensibility ; and therefore what could 
 follow, but, in despite of victory and outward de- 
 monstrations of joy, inward disgust and depres- 
 sion ? These reflections interrupted the satisfac- 
 tion of many ; but more from fear of future con- 
 sequences than for the immediate enterprise, for 
 here success seemed inevitable ; and a happy and 
 glorious termination was confidently expected, yet 
 not without that intermixture of apprehension, 
 which was at once an acknowledgment of the 
 general condition of humanity, and a proof of the 
 deep interest attached to the impending event. 
 
 Sir Arthur Wellesley's dispatches had appeared 
 in the Gazette on the 2d of September, and on the 
 l(5th of the same month suspence was put an end 
 to by the publication of Sir Hew Dalrymple's 
 letter, accompanied with the Armistice and Con- 
 vention. The night before, by order of ministers, 
 an attempt had been made at rejoicing, and the 
 Park and Tower guns had been fired in sign of 
 good news. — Heaven grant that the ears of that 
 great city may be preserved from such another 
 outrage! As soon as the truth was known, never 
 was there such a burst of rage and indignation — 
 such an overwhelming of stupefaction and sorrow. 
 But I will not, I cannot dwell upon it— it is enough 
 to say, that Sir Hew Dalrymple and Sir Arthur 
 Wellesley must be bold men if they can think of 
 what must have been reported to them without 
 
49 
 
 awe and trembling ; the heart of their country was 
 turned against them, and they were execrated in 
 bitterness. 
 
 For they had changed all things into their con- 
 traries, hope into despair ; triumph into defeat ; 
 confidence into treachery, which left no place to 
 stand upon; justice into the keenest injur}?-. — 
 Whom had they delivered but the Tyrant in 
 captivity ? Whose hands had they bound but those 
 of their Allies, who were able of themselves id 
 have executed their own purposes ? Whom had 
 they punished but the innocent sufferer ? Whom- 
 rewarded but the guiltiest of Oppressors ? They 
 had reversed every thing : — favour and honour for 
 their enemies — insult for their friends — and robbery ■ 
 (they had both protected the person of the robber 
 and secured to him his booty) and opprobrium for 
 themselves ; — to those over whom they had been 
 masters, who had crouched to them by an open 
 act of submission, they had made themselves ser- 
 vants, turning the British Lion into a beast of bur- 
 then, to carry a vanquished enemy, with his load of 
 iniquities, when and whither it had pleased him. 
 
 Such issue would have been a heavy cala- 
 mity at any time ; but now, when we ought 
 to have risen above ourselves, and if possible to 
 have been foremost in the strife of honour and 
 magnanimity ; now, when a new-born power had 
 been arrayed against the Tyrant, the only one 
 which ever offered a glimpse of hope to a sane 
 mind, the power of popular resistance rising out 
 of universal reason, and from the heart of human 
 nature, — and by a peculiar providence disembar- 
 rassed from the imbecility, the cowardice, and the 
 intrigues of a worn-out government — that at this 
 time we, the most favoured nation upon earth, 
 should have acted as if it had been our aim to 
 
 G 
 
50 
 
 level to the ground by one blow this long-wished- 
 for spirit, whose birth we had so joyfully hailed, 
 and by which even our own glory, our safety, our 
 existence, were to be maintained; this was verily 
 a surpassing affliction to every man who had a 
 feeling of life beyond his meanest concerns I 
 
 As soon as men had recovered from the shock, 
 and could bear to look somewhat steadily at these 
 documents, it was found that the gross body of 
 the transaction, considered as a military transaction, 
 was this ; that the Russian fleet, of nine sail of the 
 line, which had been so long watched, and could 
 not have escaped, was to be delivered up to us ; 
 the ships to be detained till six months after the 
 end of the war, and the sailors sent home by us, 
 and to be by us protected in their voyage through 
 the Swedish fleet, and to be at liberty to fight 
 immediately against our ally, the king of Sweden. 
 Secondly, that a French army of more than twenty 
 thousand men, already beaten, and no longer able 
 to appear in the field, cut off from all possibility 
 of receiving reinforcements or supplies, and in the 
 midst of a hostile country loathing and abhorring, 
 it, was to be transported with its arms, ammuni- 
 tion, and plunder, at the expence of Great Britain, 
 in British vessels, and landed within a few days 
 march of the Spanish frontier, — there to be at 
 liberty to commence hostilities immediately ! 
 
 Omitting every characteristic which distinguishes 
 the present contest from others, and looking at this 
 issue merely as an affair between two armies, what 
 stupidity of mind to provoke the accusation of not 
 merely shrinking from future toils and dangers, 
 but of basely shifting the burthen to the shoulders 
 of an ally, already overpressed ! — What infatua- 
 tion, to convey the imprisoned foe to the very 
 spot, whither, if he had had wings, he would 
 4 
 
51 
 
 have flown ! This last was an absurdity as glaring 
 as if, the French having landed on our own island, 
 we had taken them from Yorkshire to be set on 
 shore in Sussex ; but ten thousand times worse ! 
 from a place where without our interference they 
 had been virtually blockaded, where they were 
 cut off, hopeless, useless, and disgraced, to become 
 an efficient part of a mighty host, carrying the 
 strength of their numbers, and alas ! the strength 
 of their glory, (not to mention the sight of their 
 plunder) to animate that host ; while the British 
 army, more numerous in the proportion of three to 
 two, with all the population and resources of the 
 peninsula to aid it, within ten days sail of it's own 
 country, and the sea covered with friendly shipping 
 at it's back, was to make a long march to en- 
 counter this same enemy, (the British forfeiting 
 instead of gaining by the treaty as to superiority 
 of numbers, for that this would be the case was 
 clearly foreseen) to encounter, in a new condition of 
 strength and pride, those whom, by its deliberate 
 act, it had exalted, — having taken from itself, 
 meanwhile, all which it had conferred, and bearing 
 into the presence of its noble ally an infection of 
 despondency and disgrace. The motive assigned 
 for all this, was the great importance of gaining 
 time ; fear of an open beach and of equinoctial 
 gales for the shipping ; fear that reinforcements 
 could not be landed ; fear of famine ; — fear of every 
 thing but dishonour ! (See Appendix, B.) 
 
 The nation had expected that the French would 
 surrender immediately at discretion ; and, sup- 
 posing that Sir Arthur Wellesley had told them 
 the whole truth, they had a right to form this 
 expectation. It has since appeared, from the evi- 
 dence given before the Board of Inquiry, that Sir 
 Arthur Wellesley earnestly exhorted his successor 
 
 g 1 
 
S3 
 
 in command (Sir Harry Burrard) to pursue th$ 
 defeated enemy at the battle of Vimiera ; and that, 
 if this had been done, the affair, in Sir Arthur 
 "Wellesley's opinion, would have had a much more 
 satisfactory termination. But, waiving any con- 
 siderations of this advice, or of the fault which 
 might be committed in not following it; and taking 
 up the matter from the time when Sir Hew E)al- 
 rymple entered upon the command, and when 
 the two adverse armies were in that condition, rela- 
 tively to each other, that none ©f the Generals 
 has pleaded any difference of opinion as to their 
 ability to advance against the enemy, I will ask 
 what confirmation has appeared before the Board 
 of Inquiry, of the reasonableness of the causes, 
 assigned by Sir Hew Dalrymple in his letter, for 
 deeming a Convention adviseable. A want of 
 cavalry, (for which they who occasioned it are 
 heavily censurable,) has indeed been proved ; and 
 certain failures of duty in the Commissariat de- 
 partment with respect to horses, Sec ; but these 
 deficiencies, though furnishing reasons against ad- 
 vancing upon the enemy in the open field, had 
 ceased to be of moment, when the business was 
 to expel him from the forts to which he might 
 have the power of retreating. It is proved, that, 
 though there are difficulties in landing upon that 
 coast, (and what .military or marine operation 
 can be carried on without difficulty ?) there was 
 not the slightest reason to apprehend that the 
 army, which was then abundantly supplied, would 
 suffer hereafter from want of provisions ; proved also 
 that heavy ordnance, for the purpose of attacking 
 the forts, was ready on ship- board, to be landed 
 when and where ft might be needed* Therefore, 
 so far from being exculpated by the facts which 
 have been laid before the Board of Inquiry, Sir 
 
53 
 
 Hew Dalrymple and the other Generals, who 
 deemed any Convention necessary or expedient 
 upon the grounds stated in his letter, are more 
 deeply criminated. But grant, (for the sake of 
 looking at a different part of the subject,) grant 
 a case infinitely stronger than Sir Hew Dalrymple 
 has even hinted at ; — why was not the taste of some 
 of those evils, in apprehension so terrible, actually 
 tried ? It would not have been the first time that 
 Britons had faced hunger and tempests, had en- 
 dured the worst of such enmity, and upon a call, 
 under an-obligation, how faint and feeble, com- 
 pared with that which the brave men of that army 
 must have felt upon the present occasion ! In the 
 proclamation quoted before, addressed to the Por- 
 tugueze, and signed Charles Cotton and Arthur 
 Wellesley, they were told, that the objects, for 
 which they contended, '*. could only be attained 
 by distinguished examples of fortitude and con- 
 stancy." Where were the fortitude and constancy 
 of the teachers ? When Sir Hew Dalrymple had 
 been so busy in taking the measure of his own 
 weakness, and feeding his own fears, how came 
 it to escape him, that General Junot must also 
 have had his weaknesses and his fears ? Was it 
 nothing to have been defeated in the open field, 
 where he himself had been the assailant ? Was it 
 nothing that so proud a man, the servant of so 
 proud a man, had stooped to send a General 
 Officer to treat concerning the evacuation of the 
 country ? Was the hatred and abhorrence of the 
 Portugueze and Spanish Nations nothing? the peo- 
 ple of a large metropolis under his eye — detesting 
 him, and stung almost to madness, nothing ? 
 The composition of his own army made up of 
 men of different nations and languages, and forced 
 into the service, — was there no cause of mistrust 
 
54' 
 
 b this ? And, finally, among the many un- 
 sound places which, had his mind been as active 
 in this sort of inquiry as Sir Hew Dalrymple's was, 
 he must have found in his constitution, could a 
 bad cause have been missed — a worse cause than 
 ever confounded the mind of a soldier when boldly 
 pressed upon, or gave courage and animation to 
 a righteous assailant ? But alas ! in Sir Hew Dal- 
 rymple and his brethren, we had Generals who 
 had a power of sight only for the strength of their 
 enemies and their own weakness. 
 
 Let me not be misunderstood. While I am thus 
 forced to repeat things, which were uttered or 
 thought of these men in reference to their military 
 conduct, as heads of that army, it is needless to 
 add, that their personal courage is in no wise im- 
 plicated in the charge brought against them. But, 
 in the name of my countrymen, I do repeat these 
 accusations, and tax them with an utter want of 
 intellectual courage — of that higher quality, which 
 is never found without one or other of the three 
 accompaniments, talents, genius, or principle; — 
 talents matured by experience, without which it 
 cannot exist at all; or the rapid insight of peculiar 
 genius, by which the fitness of an act may be 
 instantly determined, and which will supply higher 
 motives that mere talents can furnish for encoun- 
 tering difficulty and danger, and will suggest 
 better resources for diminishing or overcoming 
 them. Thus, through the power of genius, this 
 quality of intellectual courage may exist in an 
 eminent degree, though the moral character be 
 greatly perverted; as in those personages, who 
 are so conspicuous in history, conquerors and 
 usurpers, the Alexanders, the Caesars, and Crom- 
 wells ; and in that other class still more perverted, 
 remorseless and energetic minds, the Catilines and 
 
55 
 
 Borgias, whom poets have denominated " bold, 
 bad men." But, though a course of depravity will 
 neither preclude nor destroy this quality, nay, in 
 certain circumstances will give it a peculiar prompt- 
 ness and hardihood of decision, it is not on this 
 account the less true, that, to consummate this spe- 
 cies of courage, and to render it equal to all occa- 
 sions, (especially when a man is not acting for 
 himself, but has an additional claim on his reso- 
 lution from the circumstance of responsibility to 
 a superior) Principle is indispensibly requisite. I 
 mean that fixed and habitual principle, which 
 implies the absence of all selfish anticipations, 
 whether of hope or fear, and the inward disa- 
 vowal of any tribunal higher and more dreaded 
 than the mind's own judgment upon its own 
 act. The existence of such principle cannot 
 but elevate the most commanding genius, add 
 rapidity to the quickest glance, a wider range to 
 the most ample comprehension ; but, without this 
 principle, the man of ordinary powers must, in the 
 trying hour, be found utterly wanting. Neither, 
 without it, can the man of excelling powers be 
 trust-worthy, or have at all times a calm and con- 
 fident repose in himself. But he, in whom talents, 
 genius, and principle are united, will have a firm 
 mind, in whatever embarrassment he may be 
 placed ; will look steadily at the most undefined 
 shapes of difficulty and danger, of possible mis- 
 take or mischance ; nor will they appear to him 
 more formidable than they really are. For his 
 attention is not distracted — he has but one busi- 
 ness, and that is with the object before him. Nei- 
 ther in general conduct nor in particular emer- 
 gencies, are his plans subservient to considerations 
 of rewards, estate, or title : these are not to have 
 precedence in his thoughts, to govern h-is actions, 
 
66 
 
 but to follow in the train of his duty. Such men, 
 in ancient times, were Phocion, Epaminondas, and 
 Philopcemen ; and such a man was Sir Philip 
 Sidney, of whom it has been said, that he first 
 taught this country the majesty of honest dealing. 
 With these may be named, the honour of our 
 own age, "Washington, the deliverer of the Ame- 
 rican Continent ; with these, though in many 
 things unlike, Lord Nelson, whom we have lately 
 lost. Lord Peterborough, who fought in Spain 
 a hundred years ago, had the same excellence; 
 with a sense of exalted honour, and a tinge of 
 romantic enthusiasm, well suited to the country 
 which was the scene of his exploits. Would 
 that we had a man, like Peterborough or Nelson, 
 tit the head of our army in Spain at this moment ! 
 I utter this wish with more earnestness, because 
 it is rumoured, that some of those, who have 
 already called forth such severe reprehension from 
 their countrymen, are to resume a command, 
 which must entrust to them a portion of those 
 sacred hopes in which, not only we, and the 
 people of Spain and Portugal, but the whole 
 human race are so deeply interested. (See appen- 
 dix C.) 
 
 I maintain then that, merely from want of this 
 intellectual courage, of courage as generals or 
 chiefs, (for I will no! speak at present of the want 
 of other qualities equally needful upon this ser- 
 vice,) grievous errors were committed by Sir Hew 
 Dalrymple and his colleagues in estimating the 
 relative state of the two armies." A precious, 
 moment, it is most probable, had been lost after 
 the battle of, Vimiera ; yet still the inferiority of 
 the enemy had been proved ; they themselves had 
 admitted it — not merely by withdrawing from the 
 field, but by proposing terms: — monstrous terms! 
 
57 
 
 and bow ought they to have been received ? 
 Repelled undoubtedly with scorn, as an insult. 
 If our Generals had been men capable of taking 
 the measure of their real strength, either as exist- 
 ing in their own army, or in those principles of 
 liberty and justice which they were commissioned 
 to defend, they must of necessity have acted in 
 this manner ; — if they had been men of common 
 sagacity for business, they must have acted in this 
 manner; — nay, if they had been upon a level 
 with an ordinary bargain-maker in a fair or a 
 market, they could not have acted otherwise. — > 
 Strange that they should so far forget the nature 
 of their calling! They were soldiers, and their 
 business was to fight. Sir Arthur Wellesley had 
 fought, and gallantly, it was not becoming his 
 high situation, or that of his successors, to treat, 
 that is, to beat down, to chaffer, or on their part 
 to propose : it does not become any general at the 
 head of a victorious army so to do. * They were to 
 accept — and, if the terms offered were flagrantly 
 presumptuous, our commanders ought to have re- 
 jected them with dignified scorn, and to have 
 referred the proposer to the sword for a lesson of 
 decorum and humility. This is the general rule 
 of all high-minded men upon such occasions; 
 and meaner minds copy them, doing in prudence 
 what they do from principle. But it has been 
 urged, before the Board of Inquiry, that the con- 
 duct of the French armies upon like occasions, 
 and their known character, rendered it probable 
 that a determined resistance would in the present 
 instance be maintained. We need not fear to say 
 that this conclusion, from reasons which have 
 
 * Those rars cases are of course excepted, in which the supe- 
 riority on the one side is not only fairly to be presumed but posi- 
 tive — and so prominently obtrusive, that to propose terms is to 
 inflict terms; 
 
 H 
 
been adverted to, was erroneous. But, in the 
 mind of him who had admitted it upon whatever 
 ground, whether false or true, surely the first 
 thought which followed, ought to have been, not 
 that we should bend to the enemy, but that, if 
 they were resolute in defence, we should learn 
 from that example to be courageous in attack. 
 The tender feelings, however, are pleaded against 
 this determination ; and it is said, that one of the 
 motives for the cessation of hostilities was to pre- 
 vent the further effusion of human blood, — 
 When, or how ? The enemy was delivered over 
 to us ; it was not to be hoped that, cut off from 
 all assistance as they were, these, or an equal num- 
 ber of men, could ever be reduced to such straits 
 as would ensure their destruction as an enemy, 
 with so small a sacrifice of life on their part, or 
 on ours. What then was to be gained by this 
 tenderness ? The shedding of a few drops of blood 
 is not to be risked in Portugal to-day, and streams 
 of blood -must shortly flow from the same veins 
 in the fields of Spain! And, even .if this had not 
 been the assured consequence, let not the con- 
 sideration, though it be one which no humane 
 man can ever lose sight of, have more than its 
 due weight. For national independence and liberty, 
 and that honour by which these and other bless- 
 ings are to be preserved, honour — which is no 
 other than the most elevated and pure conception 
 of justice which can be formed, these are more 
 precious than life : else why have we already lost 
 so many brave men in this struggle ? — Why not 
 submit at once, and let the Tyrant mount upon 
 his throne of universal dominion, while the world 
 lies prostrate at his feet in indifference and apathy, 
 which he will proclaim to it is peace and happi- 
 ness ? But peace and happiness can exist only by 
 knowledge and virtue ; slavery has no enduring ' 
 
59 
 
 connection with tranquillity or security — she cannot 
 frame a league with any thing which is desirable — 
 she has no charter even for her own ignoble ease 
 and darling sloth. Yet to this abject condition, 
 mankind, betrayed by an ill-judging tenderness, 
 would surely be led ; and in the face of an inevit- 
 able contradiction ! For neither in this state of 
 things would the shedding of blood be prevented, 
 nor would warfare cease. The only difference 
 would be, that, instead of wars like those which 
 prevail at this moment, presenting a spectacle of 
 such character that, upon one side at least, a 
 superior Being might look down with favour and 
 blessing, there would follow endless commotions 
 and quarrels without the presence of justice any 
 where, — in which the alternations of success would 
 not excite a wish or regret ; in which a prayer 
 could not be uttered for a decision either this way 
 or that ; — wars from no impulse in either of the 
 combatants, but rival instigations of demoniacal 
 passion. If, therefore, by the faculty of reason 
 we can prophecy concerning the shapes which 
 the future may put on, — if we are under any bond 
 of duty to succeeding generations, there is high 
 cause to guard against a specious sensibility, which 
 may encourage the hoarding up of life for its own 
 sake, seducing us from those considerations by 
 which we might learn when it ought to be re- 
 signed. Moreover, disregarding future ages, and 
 confining ourselves to the present state of man- 
 kind, it may be safely affirmed that he, who is 
 the most watchful of the honour of his country, 
 most determined to preserve her fair name at all 
 hazards, will be found, in any view of things 
 which looks beyond the passing hour, the best 
 steward of the lives of his countrymen. For, by 
 proving that she is of a firm temper, that she will 
 
 h 2 
 
6o 
 
 only submit or yield to a point of her own fixing, 
 and that all beyond is immutable resolution, he 
 will save her from being wantonly attacked ; and, 
 if attacked, will awe the agressor into a speedier 
 abandonment of an unjust and hopeless attempt. 
 Thus will he preserve not only that which gives 
 life its value, but life itself; and not for his own 
 country merely, but for that of his enemies, to 
 whom he will have offered an example of magna- 
 nimity, which will ensure to them like benefits ; 
 an example, the re-action of which will be felt 
 by his own countrymen, and will prevent them 
 from becoming assailants unjustly or rashly. 
 Nations wil: thus be taught to respect each 
 other, and mutually to abstain from injuries. 
 And hence, by a benign ordinance of our nature, 
 genuine honour is the hand-maid of humanity ; 
 the attendant and sustainer — both of the sterner 
 qualities which constitute the appropriate excel- 
 lence of the male character, and of the gentle 
 and tender virtues which belong more especially 
 to motherliness and womanhood. These general 
 laws, by which mankind is purified and exalted, 
 and by which Nations are preserved, suggest like- 
 wise the best rules for the preservation of indi- 
 vidual armies, and for the accomplishment of 
 all equitable service upon which they can be 
 sent. 
 
 Not therefore rashly and unfeelingly, but from 
 the dictates of thoughtful humanity, did I say 
 that it was the business of our Generals to fight, 
 and to persevere in fighting; and that they did 
 not bear this duty sufficiently in mind ; this, 
 almost the sole duty which professional soldiers, 
 till our time, (happily for mankind) used to think 
 of. But the victories of the French have been 
 attended every where by the subversion of Govern- 
 
 2 
 
<5l 
 
 ments; and their generals have accordingly united 
 folitic.il with military functions ; and with what 
 success this has been done by them, the present 
 state of Europe affords melancholy proof. But 
 have they, on this account, ever neglected to 
 calculate upon *he advantages which might fairly 
 be anticipated from future warfare ? Or, in a treaty 
 of to-day, have they ever forgotten a victory of 
 yesterday ? Eager to grasp at the double honour 
 of captain and negociator, have they ever sacrificed 
 the one to the other ; or, in the blind effort, lost 
 both ? Above all, in their readiness to flourish 
 with the pen, have they ever overlooked the sword, 
 the symbol of their power, and the appropriate 
 instrument of their success and glory ? I notice 
 this assumption of a double character on the part 
 of the French, not to lament over it and its con- 
 sequences, but to render somewhat more intelli- 
 gible the conduct of our own Generals ; and to 
 explain how far men, whom we have no reason to 
 believe other than brave, have, through the in- 
 fluence of such example, lost sight of their pri- 
 mary duties, apeing instead of imitating, and fol- 
 lowing only to be misled. 
 
 It is indeed deplorable, that our Generals, from 
 this infirmity, or from any other cause, did not 
 assume that lofty deportment which the character 
 and relative strength of the two armies authorized 
 them, and the nature of the service upon which 
 they were sent, enjoined them to assume ; — that 
 they were in such haste to treat — that, with such 
 an enemy (let me say at once,) and in such 
 circumstances, they should have treated at all. 
 Is it possible that they could ever have asked 
 themselves who that enemy was, how he came 
 into that country, and what he had done there ? 
 From the manifesto of the Portugueze govern- 
 
62 
 
 ment, issued at Rio Janeiro, and from other offi- 
 cial papers, they might have learned, what was 
 notorious to all Europe, that this body of men 
 commissioned by Bonaparte, in the time of pro- 
 found peace, without a declaration of war, had 
 invaded Portugal under the command of Junot, 
 who had perfidiously entered the country, as the 
 General of a friendly and allied Power, assuring 
 the people, as he advanced, that he came to pro- 
 tect their Sovereign against an invasion of the 
 English ; and that, when in this manner he had 
 entered a peaceable kingdom, which offered no 
 resistance, and had expelled its lawful Sovereign, 
 he wrung from it unheard-of contributions, ra-> 
 vaged it, cursed it with domestic pillage and open 
 sacrilege; and that, when this unoffending people, 
 unable to endure any longer, rose up against the 
 tyrant, he had given their towns and villages to 
 the flames, and put the whole country, thus re- 
 sisting, under military execution. — Setting aside 
 all natural sympathy with the Portugueze and 
 Spanish nations, and all prudential considerations 
 of regard or respect for their feelings towards these 
 men, and for their expectations concerning the 
 manner in which they ought to be dealt with, it 
 is plain that the French had forfeited by their 
 crimes all right to those privileges, or to those 
 modes of intercourse, which one army may de- 
 mand from another according to the laws of war. 
 They were not soldiers in any thing but the 
 power of soldiers, and the outward frame of an 
 army. During their occupation of Portugal, the 
 laws and customs of war had never been referred 
 to by them, but as a plea for some enormity, 
 to the aggravated oppression of that unhappy 
 country ! Pillage, sacrilege, and murder — sweep- 
 ing murder and individual assassination, had been 
 
63 
 
 proved against them by voices from every quarter. 
 They had outlawed themselves by their offences 
 from membership in the community of war, and 
 from every species of community acknowledged by 
 reason. But even, should any one be so insensible 
 as to question this, he will not at all events deny, 
 that the French ought to have been dealt with as 
 having put on a double character. For surely they 
 never considered themselves merely as an army. 
 They had dissolved the established authorities of 
 Portugal, and had usurped the civil power of the 
 government; and it was in this compound capacity, 
 under this two-fold monstrous shape, that they had 
 exercised, over the religion and property of the 
 country, the most grievous oppressions. What 
 then remained to protect them but their power ? — 
 Right they had none, — and power ! it is a morti- 
 fying consideration, but I will ask if Bonaparte, 
 (nor do I mean in the question to imply any thing 
 to his honour,) had been in the place of Sir Hew 
 Dalrymple, what would he have thought of their 
 power ? — Yet before this shadow the solid substance 
 of justice melted away. 
 
 And this leads me from the contemplation of 
 their errors in the estimate and application of means, 
 to the contemplation of their heavier errors and 
 worse blindness in regard to ends. The British 
 Generals acted as if they had no purpose but that 
 the enemy should be removed from the country in 
 which they were, upon any terms. Now the eva- 
 cuation of Portugal was not the prime object, but 
 the manner in which that event was to be brought 
 about; this ought to have been deemed first both in 
 order and importance ; — the French were to be 
 subdued, their ferocious warfare and heinous 
 policy to be confounded ; and in this way, and 
 no other, was the deliverance of that country to 
 be accomplished. It was not for the soil, or for 
 
64 
 
 the cities and forts, that Portugal was valued, 
 but for the human feeling which was there ; for 
 the rights of human nature which might be there 
 conspicuously asserted ; for a triumph over in- 
 justice and oppression there to be atchieved, which 
 could neither be concealed nor disguised, and 
 which should penetrate the darkest corner of the 
 dark Continent of Europe by its splendour. We 
 combated for victory in the empire of reason, for 
 strong-holds in the imagination. Lisbon and Por- 
 tugal, as city and soil, were chiefly prized by us 
 as a language; but our Generals mistook the 
 counters of the game for the stake played for. 
 The nation required that the French should sur- 
 render at discretion ; — grant that the victory of 
 Vimiera had excited some unreasonable impatience 
 -—we were not so overweening as to demand that 
 the enemy should surrender within a given time, 
 but that they should surrender. Every thing, 
 short of this, was felt to be below the duties of 
 the occasion ; not only no service, but a grievous 
 injury. Only as far as there was a prospect of 
 forcing the enemy to an unconditional submission, 
 did the British nation deem that they had a right 
 to interfere ; — if that prospect failed, they expected 
 that their army would know that it became it to 
 retire, and take care of itself. But our Generals 
 have told us, that the Convention would not have 
 been admitted, if they had not judged it right to 
 effect, even upon these terms, the evacuation of 
 Portugal — as ministerial to their future services in 
 Spain. If this had been a common war between 
 two established governments measuring with each 
 other their regular resources, there might have 
 been some appearance of force in this plea. But 
 who does not cry out at once, that the affec- 
 tions and opinions, that is, the souls of the people 
 of Spain and Portugal, must be the inspiration and 
 
65 
 
 the power, if this labour is to be brought to a 
 happy end ? Therefore it was worse than folly to 
 think of supporting Spain by physical strength, 
 at the expence of moral. Besides, she was strong 
 in men ; she never earnestly solicited troops from 
 us ; some of the Provinces had even refused them 
 when offered, — and all had been lukewarm in the 
 acceptance of them. The Spaniards could not 
 ultimately be benefited but by allies acting under 
 the same impulses of honour, rouzed by a sense 
 of their wrongs, and sharing their loves and 
 hatreds — above all, their passion, for justice. They 
 had themselves given an example, at Baylen, pro- 
 claiming to all the world what ought to be- aimed 
 at by those who would uphold their cause, and 
 be associated in arms with them. And was the 
 law of justice, which Spaniards, Spanish peasantry, 
 I might almost say, would not relax in favour of 
 Dupont, to be relaxed by a British army in favour 
 of Junot ? Had the French commander at Lisbon, 
 or his army, proved themselves less perfidious, less 
 cruel, or less rapacious than the other ? Nay, did 
 not the pride and crimes of Junot call for humi- 
 liation and punishment far more importunately, 
 inasmuch as his power to do harm, and therefore 
 his will, keeping pace with it, had been greater ? 
 Yet, in the noble letter of the Governor of Cadiz 
 to Dupont, he expressly tells him, that his con- 
 duct, and that of his army, had been such, that 
 they owed their lives only to that honour which 
 forbad the Spanish army to become executioners. 
 The Portugueze also, as appears from various 
 letters produced before the Board of Inquiry, have 
 shewrijto our Generals, as boldly as their respect 
 for the British nation would permit them to do, 
 what they expected. A Portugueze General, who 
 was also a member of the regency appointed by 
 
 I 
 
66 
 
 the Prince Regent, says, in a protest addressed to 
 Sir Hew Dalrymple, that he had been able to 
 drive the French out of the provinces of Algarve 
 and Alentejo ; and therefore he could net be con- 
 vinced, that such a Convention was necessary. 
 What was this but implying that it was dishonour- 
 able, and that it would frustrate the efforts which 
 his country was making, and destroy the hopes 
 which it had built upon its own power ? Another 
 letter from a magistrate inveighs against the Con- 
 vention, as leaving the crimes of the French in 
 Portugal unpunished ; as giving no indemnifica- 
 tion for all the murders, robberies, and atrocities, 
 which had been committed by them. But I feel 
 that I shall be wanting in respect to my country- 
 men, if I pursue this argument further. I blush 
 that it should be necessary to speak upon the sub- 
 ject at all. And these are men and things, which 
 we have been reproved for condemning, because 
 evidence was wanting both as to fact and person ! 
 If there ever was a case, which could not, in any 
 rational sense of the word, be prejudged, this is 
 one. As to the fact — it appears, and sheds from 
 its own body, like the sun in heaven, the light 
 by which it is seen ; as to the person — each has 
 written down with his own hand, I am the man. 
 Condemnation of actions and men like these is 
 not, in the minds of a people, (thanks to the 
 divine Being and to human nature !) a matter of 
 choice ; it is like a physical necessity, as the hand 
 must be burned which is thrust into the furnace — 
 the body chilled which stands naked in the freezing 
 north- wind. I am entitled to make this assertion 
 here, when the moral depravity of the Conven- 
 tion, of which I shall have to speak hereafter, 
 has not even been touched upon. Nor let it 
 be blamed in any man, though his station be in 
 
67 
 
 private life, that upon this occasion he speaks 
 publickly, and gives a decisive opinion concern- 
 ing that part of this public event, and those mea- 
 sures, which are more especially military. All 
 have a right to speak, and to make their voices 
 heard, as far as they have power. For these are 
 times, in which the conduct of military men con- 
 cerns us, perhaps, more intimately than that of 
 any other class; when the business of arms comes 
 unhappily too near to the fire side; when the cha- 
 racter and duties of a soldier ought to be under- 
 stood by every one who values his liberty, and 
 bears in mind how soon he may have to fight for 
 it. Men will and ought to speak upon things 
 in which they are so deeply interested ; how else 
 are right notions to spread, or is error to be des- 
 troyed ? These are times also in which, if we may 
 judge from the proceedings and result of the 
 Court of Inquiry, the heads of the army, more 
 than at any other period, stand in need of being 
 taught wisdom by the voice of the people. It is 
 their own interest, both as men and as soldiers, 
 that the people should speak fervently and fear- 
 lessly of their actions : — from no other quarter 
 can they be so powerfully reminded of the duties 
 which they owe to themselves, to their country, 
 and to human nature. Let any one read the evi- 
 dence given before that Court, and he will there 
 see, how much the intellectual and moral con- 
 stitution of many of our military officers, has 
 suffered by a profession, which, if not counter- 
 acted by admonitions willingly listened to, and 
 by habits of meditation, does, more than any 
 other, denaturalize — and therefore degrade the 
 human being ; — he will note with sorrow, how 
 faint are their sympathies with the best feelings, 
 and how dim their apprehension of some of the 
 
 I 2 
 
68 
 
 most awful truths, relating to the happiness and 
 dignity of man in society. But on this I do not 
 mean to insist at present ; it is too weighty a sub- 
 ject to be treated incidentally : and my purpose 
 is — not to invalidate the authority of military men, 
 positively considered, upon a military question, 
 but comparatively ; — to maintain that there are 
 military transactions upon which the people have 
 a right to be heard, and upon which their autho- 
 rity is entitled to far more respect than any man 
 or number of men can lay claim to, who speak 
 merely with the ordinary professional views of 
 soldiership ; — that there are such military trans- 
 actions ; — and that this is one of them. 
 
 The condemnation, which the people of these 
 islands pronounced upon the Convention of Cintra 
 considered as to its main military results, that is, as a 
 treaty by which it was established that the Russian 
 fleet should be surrendered on the terms specified; 
 and by which, not only the obligation of forcing 
 the French army to an unconditional surrender 
 was abandoned, but its restoration in freedom and 
 triumph to its own country was secured; — the 
 condemnation, pronounced by the people upon a 
 treaty, by virtue of which these things were to be 
 done, I have recorded — accounted for — and there- 
 by justified. — I will now proceed to another divi- 
 sion of the subject, on which I feel a still more 
 earnest wish to speak ; because, though in itself 
 of the highest importance, it has been compara- 
 tively neglected ; — I mean the political injustice 
 and moral depravity which are stamped upon the 
 front of this agreement, and pervade every regu- 
 lation which it contains. I shall shew that our 
 Generals (and with them our Ministers, as far as 
 they might have either given directions to this 
 effect, or have countenanced what has been done) 
 
— when it was their paramount duty to maintain 
 at all hazards the noblest principles in unsuspected 
 integrity ; because, upon the- summons of these, 
 and in defence of them, their Allies had risen, 
 and by these alone could stand — not only did not 
 perform this duty, but descended as far below the 
 level of ordinary principles as they ought to have 
 mounted above it ; — imitating not the majesty of 
 the oak with which it lifts its branches towards 
 the heavens, but the vigour with which, in the 
 language of the poet, it strikes its roots downwards 
 towards hell : — 
 
 Radice in Tartara tendit. 
 
 The Armistice is the basis of the Convention ; 
 and in the first article we find it agreed, " That 
 there shall be a suspension of hostilities between 
 the forces of his Britannic Majesty, and those of 
 his Imperial and Royal Majesty, Napoleon I." 
 I will ask if it be the practice of military officers, 
 in instruments of this kind, to acknowledge, in 
 the person of the head of the government with 
 which they are at war, titles which their own 
 government — for which they are acting — has not 
 acknowledged. If this be the practice, which I 
 will not stop to determine, it is grossly improper ; 
 and ought to be abolished. Our Generals, how- 
 ever, had entered Portugal as allies of a Govern- 
 ment by which this title had been acknowledged ; 
 and they might have pleaded this circumstance in 
 mitigation of their offence ; but surely not in an 
 instrument, where we not only look in vain for 
 the name of the Portugueze Sovereign, or of the 
 Government which he appointed, or of any heads 
 or representatives of the Portugueze armies or 
 people as a party in the contract, — but where it is 
 stipulated (in the 4th article) that the British 
 
70 
 
 General shall engage to include the Portugueze 
 armies in this Convention. What an outrage! — 
 We enter the Portugueze territory as allies ; and, 
 without their consent — or even consulting them, 
 we proceed to form the basis of an agreement, 
 relating — not to the safety or interests of our own 
 arm y — but to Portugueze territory, Portugueze 
 persons, liberties, and rights, — and engage, out of 
 our own will and power, to include the Portugueze 
 army, they or their Government willing or not, 
 within the obligation of this agreement. I place 
 these things in contrast, viz. the acknowledgement 
 of Bonaparte as emperor and king, and the utter 
 neglect of the Portugueze Sovereign and Portu- 
 gueze authorities, to shew in what spirit and 
 temper these agreements were entered upon. I 
 will not here insist upon what was our duty, on 
 this occasion, to the Portugueze — as dictated by 
 those sublime precepts of justice which it has been 
 proved that they and the Spaniards had risen to 
 defend, — and without feeling the force and sanc- 
 tity of which, they neither could have risen, nor 
 can oppose to their enemy resistance which has 
 any hope in it ; but I will ask, of any man who 
 is not dead to the common feelings of his social 
 nature — and besotted in understanding, if this be 
 not a cruel mockery, and which must have been 
 felt, unless it were repelled with hatred and scorn, 
 as a heart-breaking insult. Moreover, this con- 
 duct acknowledges, by implication, that principle 
 which by his actions the enemy has for a long 
 time covertly maintained, and now openly and 
 insolently avows in his words — that power is the 
 measure of right ; — and it is in a steady adherence 
 to this abominable doctrine that his strength 
 mainly lies. I do maintain then that, as far as 
 the conduct of our Generals in framing these in- 
 
 5 
 
71 
 
 swuments tends to reconcile men to this course 
 of action, and to sanction this principle, they are 
 virtually his Allies : their weapons may be against 
 him, but he will laugh at their weapons, — for he 
 knows, though they themselves do not, that their 
 souls are for him. Look at the preamble to the 
 Armistice! In what is omitted and what is in- 
 serted, the French Ruler could not have fashioned, 
 it more for his own purpose if he had traced it 
 with his own hand. We have then trampled 
 upon a fundamental principle of justice, and 
 countenanced a prime maxim of iniquity ; thus 
 adding, in an unexampled degree, the foolish- 
 ness of impolicy to the heinousness of guilt. A 
 conduct thus grossly unjust and impolitic, without 
 having the hatred which it inspires neutralised by 
 the contempt, is made contemptible by utterly 
 wanting aWv colour of right which authority and 
 power, yr)«<Ptjoi"th. in defence of our Allies — in as- 
 serting 4j&eii}( just claims and avenging their in- 
 juries, might have given. But we, instead of tri- 
 umphantly displaying our power towards our ene- 
 mies, have ostentatiously exercised it upon our 
 friends ; reversing here, as every where, the prac- 
 tice of sense and reason ; — conciliatory even to 
 abject submission where we ought to have been 
 haughty and commanding, — and repulsive and 
 tyrannical where we ought to have been gracious 
 and kind. Even a common law of good breeding 
 would have served us here, had we known how to 
 apply it. We ought to have endeavoured to raise 
 the Portugueze in their own estimation by con- 
 cealing our power in comparison with theirs ; 
 dealing with them in the spirit of those mild and 
 humane delusions, which spread such a genial 
 grace over the intercourse, and add so much to 
 the influence of love in the concerns of private 
 
n 
 
 life. It is a common saying, presume that a man 
 is dishonest, and that is the readiest way to make 
 him so : in like manner it may be said, presume 
 that a nation is weak, and that is the surest course 
 to bring it to weakness, — if it be not rouzed to 
 prove its strength by applying it to the humiliation 
 of your pride. The Portugueze had been weak ; 
 and, in connection with their allies the Spaniards, 
 they were prepared to become strong. It was, 
 therefore, doubly incumbent upon us to foster 
 and encourage them — to look favourably upon 
 their efforts — generously to give them credit upon 
 their promises — to hope with them and for them; 
 and, thus anticipating and foreseeing, we should, 
 by a natural operation of love, have contributed 
 to create the merits which were anticipated and 
 foreseen. I apply these rules, taken from the 
 intercourse between individuals, to 'ciictiConduct 
 of large bodies of men, or of nations T ujwa£ds each 
 other, because these are nothing bue^frregates 
 of individuals ; and because the maxims of all 
 just law, and the measures 6f all sane practice, are 
 only an enlarged or modified application of those 
 dispositions of love and those principles of reason, 
 by which the welfare of individuals, in their con- 
 nection with each other, is promoted. There was 
 also here a still more urgent call for these courte- 
 ous and humane principles as guides /of conduct ; 
 because, in exact proportion to the physical weak- 
 ness of Governments, and to the distraction and 
 confusion which cannot but prevail, when a people 
 is struggling for independence and liberty, are 
 the well-intentioned and the wise among them 
 remitted for their support to those benign elemen- 
 tary feelings of society, for the preservation and 
 cherishing of which, among other important objects^ 
 government was from the beginning ordained. 
 
73 
 
 Therefore, by the strongest obligations, we were 
 bound to be studious of a delicate and respectful 
 bearing towards those ill-fated nations, our allies : 
 and consequently, if the government of the Ppr- 
 tugueze, though weak in power, possessed their 
 affections, and was strong in right, it was incum- 
 bent upon us to turn our first thoughts to tfyat 
 government — to look for it if it were hiddenf-f-;to 
 call it forth, — and, by our power combing WJfk 
 that of the people, to assert its rights. Or, if ,tf>e 
 government were dissolved and had no existence, 
 it was our duty, in such an emergency, to have 
 resorted to the nation, expressing its will through 
 the most respectable and conspicuous authority, 
 through that which seemed to have the best rig^ 
 to stand forth as its representative. In whatever. 
 circumstances Portugal had been placed, the^para^ 
 mount right of the Portugueze nation, or govern^ 
 ment, to appear not merely as a party but a 
 principal, ought to have been established as a pri- 
 mary position, without the admission of which, 
 all proposals to treat would be peremptorily re- 
 jected. But the Portugueze had a government ; 
 they had a lawful prince in Brazil ; and a regency, 
 appointed by him, at home ; and generals, at the 
 head of considerable bodies of troops, appointed 
 also by the regency or the prince. Well then 
 might one of those generals enter a formal protest 
 against the treaty, on account of its being " to- 
 tally void of that deference due to the prince 
 regent, or the government that represents him; 
 as being hostile to the sovereign authority a.nd 
 independence of that government ; and as being 
 against the honour, safety, and independence of 
 the nation." I have already reminded the reader, 
 of the benign and happy influences which might 
 have attended upon a different conduct; how 
 
 K 
 
n 
 
 much good we might have added to that already 
 in existence ; how far we might have assisted in 
 strengthening, among our allies, those powers, 
 and in developing those virtues, which were pro- 
 ducing themselves by a natural process, and to 
 which these breathings of insult must have been 
 a deadly check and interruption. - Nor would the 
 eviTbe merely negative ; for the interference of 
 pripfes&d friends, acting in this manner, must have 
 sufferinduced dispositions and passions, which 
 were alien to the condition of the Portugueze ; — 
 scattered weeds which could not have been found 
 ujabn the soil, if our ignorant hands had not sown 
 them. : Of this I will not now speak, for I have 
 already detained the reader too long at the thresh- 
 old ";2 — but I have put the master key into his 
 possession ; and every chamber which he opens 
 will be found loathsome as the one which he last 
 quitted. Let us then proceed. 
 
 By the first article of the Convention it is cove- 
 nanted, that all the places and forts in the king- 
 dom of Portugal, occupied by the French troops, 
 shall be delivered to the British army. Articles 
 IV. and XII. are to the same effect — determining 
 the surrender of Portugueze fortified places, stores, 
 and ships, to the English forces ; but not a word 
 of their being to be holden in trust for the prince 
 regent, or his government, to whom they be- 
 longed ! The same neglect or contempt of justice 
 and decency is shewn here, as in the preamble to 
 these instruments. It was further shewn after- 
 wards, by the act of hoisting the British flag 
 instead of the Portugueze upon these forts, when 
 they were first taken possession of by the British 
 forces. It is no excuse to say that this was not 
 intended. Such inattentions are among the most 
 grievous faults which can be committed ; and are 
 
75 
 
 impossible, when the affections and understandings 
 of men are of that quality, and in that state, 
 which are required for a service in which there is 
 any thing noble or virtuous. Again, suppose that 
 it was the purpose of the generals, who signed 
 and ratified a Convention containing the articles 
 in question, that the forts and ships, &c. should 
 be delivered immediately to the Portugueze go- 
 vernment, — would the delivering up of them wipe 
 away the affront ? Would it not rather appear, 
 after the omission to recognize the right, that we 
 had ostentatiously taken upon us to bestow — as a 
 boon — that which they felt to be their own ? 
 
 Passing by, as already deliberated and decided 
 upon, those conditions, (Articles II. and III.) by 
 which it is stipulated, that the French army shall 
 not be considered as prisoners of war, shall be 
 conveyed with arms, &c. to some port between 
 Rochefort and L'Orient, and be at liberty to 
 serve, I come to that memorable condition, (Article 
 V.) " that the French army shall carry with it all 
 its equipments, that is to say, its military chests 
 and carriages, attached to the field commissariat 
 and field hospitals, or shall be allowed to dispose 
 of such part, as the Commander in Chief may 
 judge it unnecessary to embark. In like manner 
 all individuals of the army shall be at liberty to 
 dispose of their private property of every de>crip- 
 tion, with full security hereafter for the purchasers." 
 This is expressed still more pointedly in the Ar- 
 mistice, — though the meaning, implied in the two 
 articles, is precisely the same. For, in the fifth 
 article of the Armistice, it is agreed provisionally, 
 " that all those, of whom the French 'army con- 
 sists, shall be conveyed to France with arms and 
 baggage," and all their private property of every 
 description, no part of which shall be wrested 
 
 k 2 
 
76 
 
 from them." In the Convention it is only ex- 
 pressed, that they shall be at liberty to depart, 
 (Article II.) with arms and baggage, and (Article 
 V.) to dispose of their private property of every 
 description. Bat, if they had a right to dispose 
 of it, this would include a right to carry it away — 
 which was undoubtedly understood by the French 
 general. And in the Armistice it is expressly said, 
 that their private property of every description 
 shall be conveyed to France along with their per- 
 sons. What then are we to understand by the 
 words, their private property of every description? 
 Equipments of the army in general, and baggage 
 of individuals, had been stipulated for before : 
 now we all know that the lawful professional gains 
 and earnings of a soldier must be small ; that he 
 is not in the habit of carrying about him, during 
 actual warfare, any accumulation of these or other 
 property ; and that the ordinary private property, 
 which he can be supposed to have a just title to, 
 is included under the name of his baggage ; — 
 therefore this was something more ; and what it 
 was — is apparent. No part of their property, 
 says the Armistice, shall be wrested from them. 
 Who does not see in these words the conscious- 
 ness of guilt, an indirect self- betraying admission 
 that they had in their hands treasures which might 
 be lawfully taken from them, and an anxiety to 
 prevent that act of justice by a positive stipula- 
 tion ? Who does not see, on what sort of property 
 the Frenchman had his eye ; that it was not pro- 
 perty by right, but their possessions — their plunder 
 ■ — every thing, by what means soever acquired, 
 that the French army, or any individual in it, was 
 possessed of? But it has been urged, that the 
 monstrousness of such a supposition precludes this 
 interpretation, renders it impossible that it could 
 
77 
 
 cither be intended by the one party, or so under- 
 stood by the other. What right they who 
 signed, and he who ratified this Convention, have 
 to shelter themselves under this plea — will appear 
 from the ]6th and 17th articles. In these it is 
 stipulated, " that all subjects of France, or of 
 powers in alliance with France, domiciliated in 
 Portugal, or accidentally in the country, shall 
 have their property of every kind — moveable and 
 immoveable — guaranteed to them, with liberty of 
 retaining or disposing of it, and passing the pro- 
 duce into France :" the same is stipulated, (Article 
 XVII.) for such natives of Portugal as have sided 
 with the French, or occupied situations under 
 the French government. Here then is a direct 
 avowal, still more monstrous, that every French- 
 man, or native of a country in alliance with 
 France, however obnoxious his crimes may have 
 made him, and every traitorous Portugueze, shall 
 have his property guaranteed to him (both pre- 
 viously to and after the reinstatement of the Por- 
 tugueze government) by the British army ! Now 
 let us ask, what sense the word property must 
 have had fastened to it in these cases. Must it 
 not necessarily have included all the rewards which 
 the Frenchman had received for his iniquity, and 
 the traitorous Portugueze for his treason ? (for no 
 man would bear a part in such oppressions, or 
 would be a traitor for nothing ; and, moreover, 
 all the rewards, which the French could bestow, 
 must have been taken from the Portugueze, ex- 
 torted from the honest and loyal, to be given to 
 the wicked and disloyal.) These rewards of ini- 
 quity must necessarily have been included ; for, 
 on our side, no attempt is made at a distinction ; 
 and, on the side of the French, the word im- 
 moveable is manifestly intended to preclude such 
 
78 
 
 a distinction, where alone it could have been 
 effectual. Property, then, here means — posses- 
 sions thus infamously acquired ; and, in the in- 
 stance of the Portugueze, the fundamental notion 
 of the word is subverted; for a traitor can have 
 no property, till the government of his own 
 country has remitted the punishment due to his 
 crimes. And these wages of guilt, which the 
 master by such exactions was enabled to pay, and 
 which the servant thus earned, are to be guaran- 
 teed to him by a British army! Where does there 
 exist a power on earth that could confer this 
 right ? If the Portugueze government itself had 
 acted in this manner, it would have been guilty 
 of wilful suicide ; and the nation, if it had acted 
 so, of high treason against itself. Let it not^. 
 then, be said, that the monstrousness of covenant- 
 ing to convey, along with the persons of the 
 French, their plunder, secures the arricle from 
 the interpretation which the people of Great 
 Britain gave, and which, I have now proved, they 
 
 ivere bound to give to it. But, conceding for 
 
 a moment, that it was not intended that the words 
 should bear this sense, and that, neither in a fair 
 grammatical construction, nor as illustrated by 
 other passages or by the general tenour of the 
 document, they actually did bear it, had not un- 
 questionable voices proclaimed the cruelty and 
 rapacity — the acts of sacrilege, assassination, and 
 robbery, by which these treasures had been 
 amassed? Was not the perfidy of the French 
 army, and its contempt of moral obligation, both 
 as a body and as to the individuals which com- 
 posed it, infamous through Europe ? — Therefore, 
 the concession would signify nothing : for our 
 Generals, by allowing an army of this character 
 to depart with its equipments, waggons, military 
 
79 
 
 chest, and baggage, had provided abundant means 
 to enable it to carry off whatsoever it desired, and 
 thus to elude and frustrate any stipulations which, 
 might have been made for compelling it to restore 
 that which had been so iniquitously seized. And 
 here are we brought back to the fountain-head of 
 all this baseness ; to that apathy and deadness to 
 the principle of justice, through influence of 
 which, this army, outlawed by its crimes, was 
 suffered to depart from the land, over which it 
 had so long tyrannized — other than as a band of 
 disarmed prisoners. — I maintain, therefore, that 
 permission to carry off the booty was distinctly 
 expressed ; and, if it had not been so, that the 
 principle of justice could not here be preserved; 
 as a violation of it must necessarily have followed 
 from other conditions of the treaty. Sir Hew 
 Dalrymple himself, before the Court of Inquiry, 
 has told us, in two letters (to Generals Beresford 
 and Friere,) that " such part of the plunder as 
 was in money, it would be difficult, if not impos- 
 sible, to identify ;" and, consequently, the French 
 could not be prevented from carrying it away 
 with them. From the same letters we learn, that 
 " the French were intending to carry off a con- 
 siderable part of their plunder, by calling it 
 public money, and saying that it belonged to the 
 military chest ; and that their evasiofis of the article 
 were most shameful, and evinced a want of pro- 
 bity and honour, which was most disgraceful to 
 them." If the French had given no other proofs 
 of their want of such virtues, than those furnished 
 by this occasion, neither the Portugueze, nor 
 Spanish, nor British nations would condemn them, 
 nor hate them as they now do ; nor would this 
 article of the Convention have excited such indig- 
 nation. For the French, by so acting, could not 
 
80 
 
 deem themselves breaking an engagement; no 
 doubt they looked upon themselves as injured, — 
 that the failure in good faith was on the part of 
 the British ; and that it was in the lawlessness of 
 power, and by a mere quibble, that this con- 
 struction was afterwards put upon the article in 
 question. 
 
 Widely different from the conduct of the 
 British was that of the Spaniards in a like case : — 
 with high feeling did they, abating not a jot or a 
 tittle, enforce the principle of justice. " How," 
 says the governor of Cadiz to General Dupont 
 in the same noble letter before alluded to, "how," 
 says he, after enumerating the afflictions which 
 his army, and the tyrant who had sent it, had 
 unjustly brought upon the Spanish nation, (for 
 of these, in their dealings with the French, they 
 never for a moment lost sight,) " how," asks he, 
 " could you expect, that your army should carry 
 off from Spain the fruit of its rapacity, cruelty, 
 and impiety ? how could you conceive this pos- 
 sible, #r that we should be so stupid or senseless?" 
 And this conduct is as wise in reason as it is true 
 to nature. The Spanish people could have had 
 no confidence in their government, if it had not 
 acted thus. These are the sympathies which 
 prove that a government is paternal, — that it 
 makes one family with the people : besides, it is 
 only by such adherence to justice, that, in times 
 of like commotion, popular excesses can either 
 be mitigated or prevented. If we would be 
 efficient allies of Spain, nay, if we would not run 
 the risk of doing infinite harm, these sentiments 
 must not only be ours as a nation, but they must 
 pervade the hearts of our ministers and our gene- 
 rals — our agents and our ambassadors. If it be 
 not so, they, who are sent abroad, must either be 
 
81 
 
 conscious how unworthy they are, and with what 
 unworthy commissions they appear, or not: if 
 they do feel this, then they must hang their 
 heads, and blush for their country and themselves ; 
 if they do not, the Spaniards must blush for them 
 and revolt from them ; or, what would be ten 
 thousand times more deplorable, they must pur- 
 chase a reconcilement and a communion by a 
 sacrifice of all that is excellent in themselves. 
 Spain must either break down her lofty spirit, her 
 animation and fiery courage, to run side by side 
 in the same trammels with Great Britain ; or she 
 must start off from her intended yoke-fellow with 
 contempt and aversion. This is the alternative, 
 and there is no avoiding it. 
 
 I have yet to speak of the influence of such 
 concessions upon the French Ruler and his army. 
 With what Satanic pride must he have contem- 
 plated the devotion of his servants and adherents 
 to their law, the steadiness and zeal of their per- 
 verse loyalty, and the faithfulness with which they 
 stand by him and each other ! How must his 
 heart have distended with false glory, while he 
 contrasted these qualities of his subjects with the 
 insensibility and slackness of his British enemies ! 
 This notice has, however, no especial propriety 
 in this place ; for, as far as concerns Bonaparte* 
 his pride and depraved confidence may be equally 
 fed by almost all the conditions of this instru- 
 ment. But, as to his army, it is plain that the 
 permission, (whether it be considered as by an 
 express article formally granted, or only involved 
 in the general conditions of the treaty,) to bear 
 away in triumph the harvest of its crimes, must 
 not only have emboldened and exalted it with 
 arrogance, and whetted its rapacity ; but that 
 hereby every soldier, of which this army was 
 
composed, must, upon his arrival in his own 
 country, have been a seed which would give back 
 plenteously in its kind. The French are at 
 present a needy people, without commerce or 
 manufactures, — unsettled in their minds and de- 
 based in their morals by revolutionary practices 
 and habits of warfare ; and the youth of the 
 country are rendered desperate by oppression, 
 which, leaving no choice in their occupation, dis- 
 charges them from all responsibility to their own 
 consciences. How powerful then must have been 
 the action of such incitements upon a people so 
 circumstanced ! The actual sight, and, far more, 
 the imaginary sight and handling of these trea- 
 sures, magnified by the romantic tales which must 
 have been spread about them, would carry into 
 every town and village an antidote for the terrors 
 of conscription ; and would rouze men, like the 
 dreams imported from the new world when the first 
 discoverers and adventurers returned, with their 
 ingots and their gold dust — their stories and their 
 promises, to inflame and madden the avarice of 
 the old. " What an effect," says the Governor 
 of Cadiz, " must it have upon the people," (he 
 means the Spanish people,) " to know that a 
 single soldier was carrying away 2580 livres 
 tournois !" What an effect, (he might have said 
 
 also,) must it have upon the French ! 1 direct 
 
 the reader's attention to this, because it seems to 
 have been overlooked ; and because some of the 
 public journals, speaking of the Convention, (and, 
 no doubt, uttering the sentiments of several of 
 their readers,) — say " that they are disgusted with 
 the transaction, not because the French have been 
 permitted to carry off a few diamonds, or some 
 ingots of silver ; but because we confessed, by 
 consenting to the treaty, that an army of 35,000 
 
83 
 
 British troops, aided by the Portugueze nation, 
 was not able to compel 20,000 French to surrender 
 at discretion." This is indeed the root of the 
 evil, as hath been shewn ; and it is the curse of 
 this treaty, that the several parts of it are of such 
 enormity as singly to occupy the attention and to 
 destroy comparison and coexistence. But the 
 people of Great Britain are disgusted both with 
 the one and the other. They bewail the violation 
 of the principle : if the value of the things carried 
 off had been in itself trifling, their grief and 
 their indignation would have been scarcely less. 
 But it is manifest, from what has been said, that 
 it was not trifling ; and that therefore, (upon that 
 account as well as upon others,) this permission 
 was no less impolitic than it was unjust and dis- 
 honourable. 
 
 In illustrating these articles of the Armistice 
 and Convention, by which the French were both 
 expressly permitted and indirectly enabled to carry 
 off their booty, we have already seen, that a con- 
 cession was made which is still more enormous ; 
 viz. that all subjects of France, or of powers in 
 alliance with France, domiciliated in Portugal or 
 resident there, and all natives of Portugal who 
 have accepted situations under the French govern- 
 ment, &c, shall have their property of every kind 
 guaranteed to them by the British army. By 
 articles l6th and 17th, their persons are placed 
 under the like protection. " The French" (Article 
 XVI.) " shall be at liberty either to accompany 
 the French army, or to remain in Portugal ;" 
 « And the Portugueze" (Article XVII.) " shall not 
 be rendered accountable for their political con- 
 duct during the period of the occupation of the 
 country by the French army : they all are placed 
 under the protection of the British commanders, 
 
 12 
 
84 
 
 and shall sustain no injury in their property or 
 persons." 
 
 I have animadverted, heretofore, upon the un- 
 professional eagerness of our Generals to appear 
 in the character of negotiators when the sword 
 would have done them more service than the pen. 
 But, if they had confined themselves to mere 
 military regulations, they might indeed with 
 justice have been grievously censured as injudicious 
 commanders, whose notion of the honour of 
 armies was of a low pitch, and who had no con- 
 ception of the peculiar nature of the service in 
 which they were engaged : but the censure must 
 have stopped here. Whereas, by these provisions, 
 they have shewn that they had never reflected 
 upon the nature of military authority as contra- 
 distinguished from civil. French example had so 
 far dazzled and blinded them, that the French 
 army is suffered to denominate itself " the French 
 government ;" and, from the whole tenour of these 
 instruments, (from the preamble, and these articles 
 especially,) it should seem that our Generals fancied 
 themselves and their army to be the British govern- 
 ment. For these regulations, emanating from a 
 mere military authority, are purely civil ; but of 
 such a kind, that no power on earth could confer 
 a right to establish them. And this trampling 
 upon the most sacred rights— this sacrifice of the 
 consciousness of a self- preserving principle, with- 
 out which neither societies nor governments can 
 €xist, is not made by our generals in relation to 
 subjects of their own sovereign, but to an inde- 
 pendent nation, our ally, into whose territories 
 we could not have entered but from its confidence 
 in our friendship and good faith. Surely the per- 
 sons, who (under the countenance of too high 
 authority) have talked so loudly of prejudging 
 
85 
 
 this question, entirely overlooked or utterly forgot 
 this part of it. What have these monstrous pro- 
 visions to do with the relative strength of the two 
 armies, or with any point admitting a doubt } 
 What need here of a court of judicature to settle 
 who were the persons (their names are subscribed 
 by their own hands), and to determine the quality 
 of the thing ? Actions and agents like these, ex- 
 hibited in this connection with each other, must 
 of necessity be condemned the moment they are 
 known : and to assert the contrary, is to maintain 
 that man is a being without understanding, and 
 that morality is an empty dream. And, if this 
 condemnation must after this manner follow, to 
 utter it is less a duty than a further inevitable con- 
 sequence from the constitution of human nature. 
 They, who hold that the formal sanction of a 
 court of judicature is in this case required before 
 a people has a right to pass sentence, know not to 
 what degree they are enemies to that people and 
 to mankind ; to what degree selfishness, whether 
 arising from their peculiar situation or from other 
 causes, has in them prevailed over those faculties 
 which are our common inheritance, and cut them 
 off from fellowship with the species. Most deplo- 
 rable would be the result, if it were possible that 
 the injunctions of these men could be obeyed, or 
 their remonstrances acknowledged to be just. For, 
 (not to mention that, if it were not for such prompt 
 decisions of the public voice, misdemeanours of 
 men high in office would rarely be accounted for 
 at all,) we must bear in mind, at this crisis, that 
 the adversary of all good is hourly and daily ex- 
 tending his ravages ; and, according to such 
 notions of fitness, our indignation, our sorrow, 
 our shame, our sense of right and wrong, and all 
 those moral affections, and powers of the under- 
 
86 
 
 standing, by which alone he can be effectually 
 opposed, are to enter upon a long vacation ; their 
 motion is to be suspended—- a thing impossible ; if 
 it could, it would be destroyed. 
 
 Let us now see what language the Portugueze 
 speak upon that part of the treaty which has 
 incited me to give vent to these feelings, and to 
 assert these truths. " I protest," says General 
 Friere, " against Article XVII., one of the two 
 now under examination, because it attempts to tie 
 down the government of this kingdom not to 
 bring to justice and condign punishment those 
 persons, who have been notoriously and scan- 
 dalously disloyal to their prince and the country 
 by joining and serving the French party : and, 
 even if the English army should be allowed to 
 screen them from the punishment they have 
 deserved, still it should not prevent their expul- 
 sion — whereby this country would no longer have 
 to fear being again betrayed by the same men." 
 Yet, while the partizans of the French are thus 
 guarded, not a word is said to protect the loyal 
 Portugueze, whose fidelity to their country and 
 their prince must have rendered them obnoxious 
 to the French army ; and who in Lisbon and 
 the environs, were left at its mercy from the day 
 when the Convention was signed, till the departure 
 of the French. Couple also with this the first 
 additional article, by which it is agreed, " that 
 the individuals in the civil employment of the 
 army," (including all the agitators, spies, in- 
 formers, all the jackals of the ravenous lion,) 
 " made prisoners either by the British troops or 
 the Portugueze in any part of Portugal, will be 
 restored {as is customary) without exchange." 
 That is, no stipulations being made- for reciprocal, 
 conditions ! In fact, through the whole course of 
 
87 
 
 this strange interference of a military power with 
 the administration of civil justice in the country of 
 an ally, there is only one article (the 15th) 
 which bears the least shew of attention to Portu- 
 gueze interests. By this it is stipulated, "That, from 
 the date of the ratification of the Convention, all 
 arrears of contributions, requisitions, or claims 
 whatever of the French Government against sub- 
 jects of Portugal, or any other individuals residing 
 in this country, founded on the occupation of 
 Portugal by the French troops in the month of 
 December 1807, which may not have been paid 
 up, are cancelled: and all sequestrations, laid upon 
 their property moveable or immoveable, are re- 
 moved; and the free disposal of the same is restored 
 to the proper owners." Which amounts to this. 
 The French are called upon formally to relinquish, 
 in favour of the Portugueze, that to which they 
 never had any right ; to abandon false claims, 
 which they either had a power to enforce, or they 
 had not : if they departed immediately and had not 
 power, the article was nugatory ; if they remained 
 a day longer and had power, there was no security 
 that they would abide by it. Accordingly, loud 
 complaints were made that, after the date of the 
 Convention, all kinds of ravages were committed 
 by the French upon Lisbon and its neighbour- 
 hood : and what did it matter whether these were 
 upon the plea of old debts and requisitions; or new 
 debts were created more greedily than ever — from 
 the consciousness that the time for collecting them 
 was so short ? This article, then, the only one 
 which is even in shew favourable to the Portugueze, 
 is, in substance, nothing : inasmuch as, in what 
 it is silent upon, (viz. that the People of Lisbon 
 and its neighbourhood shall not be vexed and 
 oppressed by the French, during their stay, with 
 
88 
 
 new claims and robberies,) it is grossly cruel or neg- 
 ligent; and, in that for which it actually stipulates, 
 wholly delusive. It is in fact insulting ; for the 
 very admission of a formal renunciation of these 
 claims does to a certain degree acknowledge their 
 justice. The only decent manner of introducing 
 matter to this effect would have been by placing 
 it as a bye clause of a provision that secured the 
 Portugueze from further molestations, and merely 
 alluding to it as a thing understood of course. 
 Yet, from the place which this specious article oc- 
 cupies, (preceding immediately the ]6th and If th 
 which we have been last considering,) it is clear that 
 it must have been intended by the French General 
 as honey smeared upon the edge of the cup — to 
 make the poison, contained in those two, more 
 palateable. 
 
 Thus much for the Portugueze, and their par- 
 ticular interests. In one instance, a concern of the 
 Spanish Nation comes directly under notice ; and 
 that nation also is treated without delicacy or 
 feeling. For by the 18th article it is agreed, " that 
 the Spaniards, (4000 in number) who had been 
 disarmed, and were confined on ship-board in the 
 port of Lisbon by the French, should be liberated." 
 And upon what consideration ? Not upon their 
 right to be free, as having been treacherously and 
 cruelly dealt with by men who were part of a 
 power that was labouring to subjugate their coun- 
 try, and in this attempt had committed inhuman 
 crimes against it ; — not even exchanged as soldiers 
 against soldiers : — but the condition of their eman- 
 cipation is, that the British General engages " to 
 obtain of the Spaniards to restore such French 
 subjects, either military or civil, as have been de- 
 tained in Spain, without having been taken in 
 battle or in consequence of military operations, but 
 
89 
 
 on account of the occurrences of the 2Qth of last 
 May and the days immediately following. " Occur- 
 rences!" I know not what are exactly the features 
 of the face for which this word serves as a veil : I 
 have no register at hand to inform me what these 
 events precisely were : but there can be no doubt 
 that it was a time of triumph for liberty and huma- 
 nity ; and that the persons, for whom these noble- 
 minded Spaniards were to be exchanged, were no 
 other than a horde from among the most abject of 
 the French Nation ; probably those wretches, who, 
 having never faced either the dangers or the fa- 
 tigues of war, had been most busy in secret prepa- 
 rations or were most conspicuous in open acts of 
 massacre, when the streets of Madrid, a few weeks 
 before, had been drenched with the blood of two 
 thousand of her bravest citizens. Yet the liberation 
 of these Spaniards, upon these terms, is recorded 
 (in the report of the Court of Enquiry) " as one of 
 the advantages which, in the conremplation of the 
 Generals, would result from the Convention ! " 
 
 Finally, " If there shall be any doubt (Article 
 XIV.) as to the meaning of any article, it shall be 
 explained favourably to the French Army ; and 
 Hostages (Article XX.) of the rank of Field Offi- 
 cers, on the part of the British Army and Navy, 
 shall be furnished for the guarantee of the present 
 Convention." 
 
 I have now gone through the painful task of 
 examining the most material conditions of the 
 Convention of Cintra : — the whole number of 
 the articles is twenty-three, with three additional 
 ones — a long ladder into a deep abyss of infamy! — » 
 
 Need it be said that neglects — injuries — and in- 
 sults — like these which we have been contemplat- 
 ing, come from what quarter they may, let them be 
 exhibited towards whom they will, must produce 
 
 M 
 
90 
 
 not merely mistrust and jealousy, but alienation 
 and hatred. The passions and feelings may be 
 quieted or diverted for a shqrt time ; but, though 
 out of sight or seemingly asleep, they must exist; 
 and the life which they have received cannot, but 
 by a long course of justice and kindness, be over- 
 come and destroyed. But why talk of a long 
 course of justice and kindness, when the immediate 
 result must have been so deplorable ? Relying upon 
 our humanity, our fellow-feeling, and our justice, 
 upon these instant and urgent claims, sanctioned 
 by the more mild one of ancient alliance, the Por- 
 tugueze People by voices from every part of their 
 land entreated our succour ; the arrival of a British 
 Army upon their coasts was joyfully hailed ; and 
 the people of the country zealously assisted in 
 landing the troops; without which help, as a British 
 General has informed us, that landing could not 
 have been effected. And it is in this manner that 
 they are repaid ! Scarcely have we set foot upon 
 their country before we sting them into self- 
 reproaches, and act in every thing as if it were our 
 wish to make them ashamed of their generous con- 
 fidence as of a foolish simplicity— proclaiming to 
 them that they have escaped from one thraldom 
 only to fall into another. If the French had any 
 traitorous partizans in Portugal, (and we have seen 
 that such there were; and that nothing was left 
 undone on our part, which could be done, to keep 
 them there, and to strengthen them) what answer 
 could have been given to one of these, if (with this 
 treaty in his hand) he had said, " The French 
 have dealt hardly with us, I allow ; but we have 
 gained nothing : the change is not for the better, 
 but for the worse : for the appetite of their tyranny 
 was palled ; but this, : being new to its food, is 
 keen and vigorous. If you have only a choice 
 
91 
 
 between two masters, (such an advocate might have 
 argued) chuse always the stronger : for he, after his 
 evil passions have had their first harvest, confident 
 in his strength, will not torment you wantonly in 
 order to prove it. Besides, the property which 
 he has in you he can maintain ; and there will be 
 no risk of your being torn in pieces — the un- 
 settled prey of two rival claimants. You will 
 thus have the advantage of a fixed and assured 
 object of your hatred : and your fear, being stripped 
 of doubt, will lose its motion and its edge : both 
 passions will relax and grow mild ; and, though 
 they may not turn into reconcilement and love, 
 though you may not be independent nor be free, 
 yet you will at least exist in tranquillity, — and pos- 
 sess, if not the activity of hope, the security of 
 despair." No effectual answer, I say, could have 
 been given to a man pleading thus in such circum- 
 stances. So much for the choice of evils. But, 
 for the hope of good ! — what is to become of the 
 efforts and high resolutions of the Portugueze and 
 Spanish Nations, manifested by their own hand 
 in the manner which we have seen ? They may live 
 indeed and prosper ; but not by us, but in despite 
 of us. 
 
 Whatever may be the character of the Portu- 
 gueze Nation; be it true or not, that they had a 
 becoming sense of the injuries which they had re- 
 ceived from the French Invader, and were rouzed 
 to throw off oppression by a universal effort, and 
 to form a living barrier against it •,<— certain it is 
 that, betrayed and trampled upon as they had 
 been, they held unprecedented claims upon huma- 
 nity to secure them from further outrages. — More- 
 over, our conduct towards them was grossly incon- 
 sistent. For we entered their country upon the sup- 
 position that they had such sensibility and virtue; 
 
 m 1 
 
9* 
 
 we announced to them publickly and solemnly our 
 belief in this : and indeed to ha\ r e landed a force 
 in the peninsula upon any other inducement would 
 have been the excess of folly and madness. But 
 the Portugueze are a brave people — a people of 
 great courage and worth ! Conclusions, drawn from 
 intercourse with certain classes of the depraved in- 
 habitants of Lisbon only, and which are true only 
 with respect to them, have been hastily extended to 
 the whole nation, which has thus unjustly suffered 
 Loth in our esteem and in that of all Europe. In 
 common with their neighbours the Spaniards, they 
 were making a universal, zealous, and fearless effort; 
 and, whatever may be the final issue, the very act 
 of having risen under the pressure and in the face 
 of the most tremendous military power which the 
 earth has ever seen — is itself evidence in their fa- 
 vour, the strongest and most comprehensive which 
 can be given ; a transcendent glory ! which, let it 
 be remembered, no subsequent failures in duty 
 on their part can forfeit. This they must have 
 felt— that they had furnished an illustrious ex- 
 ample; and that nothing can abolish their claim 
 upon the good wishes and upon the gratitude of 
 mankind, which is, — aqd will be through all ages 
 their due. At such a time, then^ injuries and 
 insults from any quarter would have been de- 
 plorable ; but, proceeding from us, the evil must 
 have been aggravated beyond calculation. For we 
 have, throughput Europe, the character of a sage 
 and meditative people. Qur history has been read 
 by the degraded Nations of the Continent with 
 admiration, and spme portions of if with awe ; with 
 a recognition of superiority and distance, which 
 was honourable to us— salutary for those to whose 
 hearts, in their depressed state, it could find en- 
 trance — and promising for the future condition of 
 
93 
 
 the human race. We have been looked up to as a 
 people who have acted nobly ; whom their con- 
 stitution of government has enabled to speak and 
 write freely, and who therefore have thought com- 
 prehensively ; as a people among whom philoso- 
 phers and poets, by their surpassing genius — their 
 wisdom — and knowledge of human nature, have 
 circulated — and made familiar — divinely-tempered 
 sentiments and the purest notions concerning the 
 duties and true dignity of individual and social 
 man in all situations and under all trials. By so 
 readily acceding to the prayers with which the 
 Spaniards and Portugueze entreated our assistance, 
 we had proved to them that we were not wanting in 
 fellow-feeling. Therefore might we be admitted 
 to be judges between them and their enemies — 
 unexceptionable judges — more competent even 
 than a dispassionate posterity, which, from the very 
 want comparatively of interest and passion, might 
 be in its examination remiss and negligent, and 
 therefore in its decision erroneous. We, their con- 
 temporaries, were drawn towards them as suffering 
 beings ; but still their sufferings were not ours, nor 
 could be ; and we seemed to stand at that due 
 point of distance from which right and wrong 
 might be fairly looked at and seen in their just 
 proportions. Every thing conspired to prepossess 
 the Spaniards and Portugueze in our favour, and 
 to give the judgment of the British Nation autho- 
 rity in their eyes. Strange, then, would be their 
 first sensations, when, upon further trial, instead of 
 i a growing sympathy, they met with demonstrations 
 of a state of sentiment and opinion abhorrent from 
 their own. A shock must have followed upon this 
 discovery, a shock to their confidence' — not per- 
 haps at first in us, but in themselves : for, like all 
 
94 
 
 men under the agitation of extreme passion, no 
 doubt they had before experienced occasional mis- 
 givings that they were subject to error and distrac- 
 tion from afflictions pressing too violently upon 
 them. These flying apprehensions would now take 
 a fixed place ; and that moment would be most 
 painful. If they continued to respect our opinion, 
 so far must they have mistrusted themselves : fatal 
 mistrust at such a crisis ! Their passion of just 
 vengeance, their indignation, their aspiring hopes, 
 every thing that elevated and cheared, must have 
 departed from them. But this bad influence, the 
 excess of the outrage would mitigate or prevent ; 
 and we may be assured that they rather recoiled 
 from allies who had thus by their actions dis- 
 countenanced and condemned efforts, which the 
 most solemn testimony of conscience had avouched 
 to them were just ; — that they recoiled from us with 
 that loathing and contempt which unexpected, 
 determined, and absolute hostility, upon points of 
 dearest interest will for ever create. 
 
 Again : independence and liberty were the bles- 
 sings for which the people of" the Peninsula were 
 contending — immediate independence, which was 
 not to be gained but by modes of exertion 
 from which liberty must ensue. Now, liberty — 
 healthy, matured, time-honoured liberty — this is 
 the growth and peculiar boast of Britain ; and na- 
 ture herself, by encircling with the ocean the 
 country which we inhabit, has proclaimed that this 
 mighty nation is for ever to be her own ruler, and 
 that the land is set apart for the home of immortal 
 independence. Judging then from these first fruits 
 of British Friendship, what bewildering and de- 
 pressing and hollow thoughts must the Spaniards 
 and Portugueze have entertained concerning the 
 
95 
 
 real value of these blessings, if the peoplewho have 
 possessed them longest, and who ought to under- 
 stand them best, could send forth an army capable 
 of enacting the oppression and baseness of the Con- 
 vention of Cintra ; if the government of that people 
 could sanction this treaty ; and if, lastly, this dis- 
 tinguished and favoured people themselves could 
 suffer it to be held forth to the eyes of men as ex- 
 pressing the sense of their hearts — as an image of 
 their understandings. 
 
 But it did not speak their sense — it was not 
 endured — it was not submitted to in their hearts. 
 Bitter was the sorrow of the people of Great Britain 
 when the tidings first came to their ears, when they 
 first fixed their eyes upon this covenant — over- 
 whelming was their astonishment, tormenting their 
 shame ; their indignation was rumultuous ; and 
 the burthen of the past would have been insup- 
 portable, if it had not involved in its very nature 
 a sustaining hope for the future. Among many 
 alleviations, there was one, which, (not wisely, 
 but overcome by circumstances) all were willing 
 to admit ; — that the event was so strange and 
 uncouth, exhibiting such discordant characteristics 
 of innocent fatuity and enormous guilt, that it 
 could not without violence be thought of as indi- 
 cative of a general constitution of things, either in 
 the country or the government ; but that it was a 
 kind of lusus natura in the moral world — a solitary 
 straggler out of the circumference of nature's law-** 
 a monster which could not propagate, and had no 
 birthright in futurity. Accordingly, the first ex- 
 pectation was that the government would deem 
 itself under the necessity of disanulling the Con- 
 vention; a necessity which, though in itself a great 
 evil, appeared small in the eyes of judicious men, 
 
96 
 
 compared wkh the consequences of admitting that 
 such a contract could be binding. For they, who 
 had signed and ratified it, had not only glaringly 
 exceeded all power which could be supposed to be 
 vested in them as holding a military office ; but, 
 in the exercise of political functions, they had 
 framed ordinances which neither the government, 
 nor the nation, nor any power on earth, could 
 confer upon them a right to frame : therefore the 
 contract was self-destroying from the beginning. 
 It is a wretched oversight, or a wilful abuse of 
 terms still more wretched, to speak of the good 
 faith of a nation as being pledged to an act which 
 was not a shattering of the edifice of justice, but a 
 subversion of its foundations. One man cannot 
 sign away the faculty of reason in another ; much 
 less can one or two individuals do this for a whole 
 people. Therefore the contract was void, both 
 from its injustice and its absurdity ; and the party, 
 with whom it was made, must ha*e known it to be 
 so. It could not then but be expected by many 
 that the government would reject it. Moreover, 
 extraordinary outrages against reason and virtue 
 demand that extraordinary sacrifices of atonement 
 should be made upon their altars ; and some were 
 encouraged to think that a government might 
 upon this impulse rise above itself, and turn an 
 exceeding disgrace into true glory, by a public 
 profession of shame and repentance for having 
 appointed such unworthy instruments ; that, this 
 being acknowledged, it would clear itself from 
 all imputation of having any further connection 
 with what had been done, and would provide 
 that the nation should as speedily as possible, 
 be purified from all suspicion of looking upon it 
 with other feelings than those of abhorrence. The 
 
97 
 
 people knew what had been their own wishes when 
 the army was sent in aid of their allies ; and they 
 Clung to the faith, that their wishes and the aims 
 of the Government must have been in unison ; and 
 that the guilt would soon be judicially fastened 
 upon those who stood forth as principals, and who 
 (it was hoped) would be found to have fulfilled 
 only their own will and pleasure, — to have had no 
 explicit commission or implied encouragement for 
 what they had done, — no accessaries in their crime. 
 The punishment of these persons was anticipated, 
 not to satisfy any cravings of vindictive justice (for 
 these, if they could have existed in such a case, 
 had been thoroughly appeased already : for what 
 punishment could be greater than to have brought 
 upon themselves the sentence passed upon them by 
 the voice of their countrymen ?) ; but for this rea- 
 son — that a judicial condemnation of the men, 
 who were openly the proximate cause, and who 
 were forgetfully considered as the single and sole 
 originating source, would make our detestation of 
 the effect more signally manifest. 
 
 These thoughts, if not welcomed without scruple 
 ancl relied upon without fear, were at least en- 
 couraged ; till it was recollected that the persons at 
 the head of government had ordered that the 
 event should be communicated to the inhabitants 
 of the metropolis with signs of national rejoicing. 
 No wonder if, when these rejoicings were called to 
 mind, it was impossible to entertain the faith 
 which would have been most consolatory. The 
 evil appeared no longer as the forlorn monster 
 which I have described. It put on another shape 
 and was endued with a more formidable life — with 
 power to generate and transmit after its kind. A 
 new and alarming import was added to the event 
 
 N 
 
98 
 
 by this open testimony of gladness and approbation ; 
 which intimated — which declared — that the spirit, 
 which swayed the individuals who were the osten- 
 sible and immediate authors of the Convention, 
 was not confined to them ; but that it was widely 
 prevalent : else it could not have been found in 
 the very council-seat ; there, where if wisdom and 
 virtue have not some influence, what is to become 
 of the nation in these times of peril ? rather say, 
 into what an abyss is it already fallen ! 
 
 His Majesty's ministers, by this mode of commu- 
 nicating the tidings, indiscreet as it was unfeeling, 
 had committed themselves. Yet still they might 
 have recovered from the lapse, have awakened after 
 a little time. And accordingly, notwithstanding an 
 annunciation so ominous, it was matter of surprise 
 and sorrow to many, that the ministry appeared to 
 deem the Convention binding, and that its terms 
 were to be fulfilled. There had indeed been only 
 a choice of evils : but, of the two the worse — 
 ten thousand times the worse — was fixed upon. 
 The ministers, having thus officially applauded the 
 treaty, — and, by suffering it to be carried into 
 execution, made themselves a party to the trans- 
 action, — -drew upon themselves those suspicions 
 which will ever pursue the steps of public men 
 who abandon the direct road which leads to the 
 welfare of their country. It was suspected that 
 they had taken this part, against the dictates of 
 conscience, and from selfishness and cowardice ; 
 that, from the first, they reasoned thus within 
 themselves : — " If the act be indeed so criminal as 
 there is cause to believe that the public will pro- 
 nounce it to be ; and if it shall continue to be 
 regarded as such ; great odium must sooner or later 
 fall upon those who have appointed the agents : 
 And this odium, which will be from the first con- 
 
99 
 
 siderable, in spite of the astonishment and indig- 
 nation of which the framers of the Convention may 
 be the immediate object, will, when the astonish- 
 ment has relaxed, and the angry passions have died 
 away, settle (for many causes) more heavily upon 
 those who, by placing such men in the command, 
 are the original source of the guilt and the dis- 
 honour. How then is this most effectually to be 
 prevented ? By endeavouring to prevent or to 
 destroy, as far as may be, the odium attached 
 to the act itself." For which purpose it was sus- 
 pected that the rejoicings had been ordered ; and 
 that afterwards (when the people had declared 
 themselves so loudly), — partly upon the plea of the 
 good faith of the nation being pledged, and partly 
 from a false estimate of the comparative force of 
 the two obligations, — the Convention, in the same 
 selfish spirit, was carried into effect ; and that the 
 ministry took upon itself a final responsibility, 
 with a vain hope that, by so doing and incorpo- 
 rating its own credit with the transaction, it might 
 bear down the censures of the people, and overrule 
 their judgment to the superinducing of a belief, 
 that the treaty was not so unjust and inexpedient : 
 and thus would be included — -in one sweeping 
 exculpation — the misdeeds of the servant and the 
 master. 
 
 But, — whether these suspicions were reasonable 
 or not, whatever motives produced a determination 
 that the Convention should be acted upon, — there 
 can be no doubt of the manner in which the 
 ministry wished that the people should appreciate 
 it ; when the same persons, who had ordered that 
 it should at first be received with rejoicing, availed 
 themselves of his Majesty's high authority to give 
 a harsh reproof to the City of London for having 
 prayed " that an enquiry might be instituted into 
 
 N 1 
 
100 
 
 this dishonpurable and unprecedented transaction. * 
 In their petition they styled it also " an afflicting 
 event — humiliating and degrading to the country, 
 and injurious to his Majesty's Allies." And for 
 this, to the astonishment and grief of all sound 
 minds, the petitioners were severely reprimanded ; 
 and told, among other admonitions, " that it was 
 inconsistent with the principles of British juris- 
 prudence to pronounce judgement without pre- 
 vious investigation." 
 
 Upon this charge, as re-echoed in its general 
 import by persons who have been over- awed or 
 deceived, and by others who have been wilful 
 deceivers, I have already incidently animadverted ; 
 and repelled it, I trust, with becoming indignation. 
 I shall now meet the charge for the last time for- 
 mally and directly; on account of considerations ap- 
 plicable to all times; arid because the whole course 
 of domestic proceedings relating to the Convention 
 of Cintra, combined with menaces which have been 
 recently thrown out in the lower House of Parlia- 
 ment, renders it too probable that a league has been 
 framed for the purpose of laying further restraints 
 upon freedom of speech and of the press ; and that 
 the reprimand to the City of London was devised 
 by ministers as a preparatory overt act of this 
 scheme ; to the great abuse of the Sovereign's Au- 
 thority, and in contempt of the rights of the nation. 
 In meeting this charge, I shall shew to what des- 
 perate issues men are brought, and in what woeful 
 labyrinths they are entangled, when, under the 
 pretext of defending instituted law, they violate 
 the laws of reason and nature for their own unhal- 
 lowed purposes. 
 
 If the persons, who signed this petition, acted 
 inconsistently with the principles of British juris- 
 prudence ; the offence must have been committed 
 
101 
 
 by giving an answer, before adequate and lawful 
 evidence had entitled them so to do, to one or 
 other of these questions: — "What is the act? 
 and who is the agent ? " — or to both conjointly. 
 Now the petition gives no opinion upon the agent ; 
 it pronounces only upon the act, and that some 
 one must be guilty ; but who — it does not take 
 upon itself to say. It condemns the act ; and calls 
 for punishment upon the authors, whosoever they 
 may be found to be ; and does no more. After 
 the analysis which has been made of the Conven- 
 tion, I may ask if there be any thing in this which 
 deserves reproof; and reproof from an authority 
 which ought to be most enlightened and most dis- 
 passionate, — as it is, next to the legislative, the 
 most solemn authority in the land. 
 
 It is known to every one that the privilege of 
 complaint and petition, in cases where the nation 
 feels itself aggrieved, itself being the judge, (and 
 who else ought to be, or can be ?) — a privilege, the 
 exercise of which implies condemnation of some- 
 thing complained of, followed by a prayer for its 
 removal or correction — not only is established by 
 the most grave and authentic charters of English- 
 men, who have been taught by their wisest states- 
 men and legislators to be jealous over its preser- 
 vation, and to call it into practice upon every 
 reasonable occasion ; but also that this privilege is 
 an indispensable condition of all civil liberty. Nay, 
 of such paramount interest is it to mankind, exist- 
 ing under any frame of Government whatsoever ; 
 that, either by law or custom, it has universally 
 prevailed under all governments — from the Grecian 
 and- Swiss Democracies to the Despotisms of Im- 
 perial Rome, of Turkey, and of France under her 
 present ruler. It must then be a high principle 
 which could exact obeisance from governments at 
 
102 
 
 the two extremes of polity, and from all modes of 
 government inclusively ; from the best and from 
 the worst; from magistrates acting under obedience 
 to the stedfast law which expresses the general 
 will ; and from depraved and licentious tyrants, 
 whose habit it is — to express, and to act upon, their 
 own individual will. Tyrants have seemed to feel 
 that, if this principle were acknowledged, the sub- 
 ject ought to be reconciled to any thing ; that, by 
 permitting the free exercise of this right alone, an 
 adequate price was paid down for all abuses ; that 
 a standing pardon was included in it for the past, 
 and a daily renewed indulgence for every future 
 enormity. It is then melancholy to think that the 
 time is come when an attempt has been made to 
 tear, out of the venerable crown of the Sovereign 
 of Great Britain, a gem which is in the very front 
 of the turban of the Emperor of Morocco. — (See 
 Appendix D.J 
 
 To enter upon this argument is indeed both 
 astounding and humiliating : for the adversary in 
 the present case is bound to contend that we 
 cannot pronounce upon evil or good, either in the 
 actions of our own or in past times, unless the 
 decision of a Court of Judicature has empowered 
 us so to do. Why then have historians written ? 
 and why do we yield to the impulses of our 
 nature, hating or loving — approving or condemn- 
 ing according to the appearances which their 
 records present to our eyes ? But the doctrine is 
 as nefarious as it is absurd. For those public 
 events in which men are most interested, namely, 
 the crimes of rulers and of persons in high autho- 
 rity, for the most part are such as either have 
 never been brought before tribunals at all, or before 
 unjust ones : for, though offenders may be in hos- 
 tility with each other, yet the kingdom of guilt is 
 4 
 
103 
 
 not wholly divided against itself; its subjects are 
 united by a general interest to elude or overcome 
 that law which would bring them to condign 
 punishment. Therefore to make a verdict of a 
 Court of Judicature a necessary condition for 
 enabling men to determine the quality of an act, 
 when the " head and front" — the life and soul of the 
 offence may have been, that it eludes or rises above 
 the reach of all judicature, is a contradiction which 
 would be too gross to merit notice, were it not 
 that men willingly suffer their understandings to 
 stagnate. And hence this rotten bog, rotten and 
 unstable as the crude consistence of Milton's Chaos, 
 M smitten" (for I will continue to use the lan- 
 guage of the poet) " by the petrific mace — and 
 bound with Gorgonian rigour by the look " — of 
 despotism, is transmuted ; and becomes a high-way 
 of adamant for the sorrowful steps of generation 
 after generation. 
 
 Again : in cases where judicial inquiries can be 
 and are instituted, and are equitably conducted, 
 this suspension of judgment, with respect to act or 
 agent, is only supposed necessarily to exist in the 
 court itself ; not in the witnesses, the plaintiffs or 
 accusers, or in the minds even of the people who 
 may be present. If the contrary supposition were 
 realized, how could the arraigned person ever have 
 been brought into court ? What would become of 
 the indignation, the hope, the sorrow, or the sense 
 of justice, by which the prosecutors, or the people 
 of the country who pursued or apprehended the 
 presumed criminal, or they who appear in evidence 
 against him, are actuated ? If then this suspen- 
 sion of judgment, by a law of human nature 
 and a requisite of society, is not supposed neces- 
 sarily to exist — except in the minds of the court ; 
 if this be undeniable in cases where the eye and 
 
104 
 
 car- witnesses are few ; — how much more so in a 
 case like the present ; where all, that constitutes 
 the essence of the act, is avowed by the agents 
 themselves, and lies bate to the notice of the 
 whole world ? — Now it was in the character of 
 complainants and denunciators, that the petitioners 
 of the City of London appeared before his Ma- 
 jesty's throne ; and they have been reproached by 
 his Majesty's ministers under the cover of a sophism, 
 which, if our anxiety to interpret favourably words 
 sanctioned by the First Magistrate— makes us 
 unwilling to think it a deliberate artifice meant 
 for the delusion of the people, must however 
 (on the most charitable comment) be pronounced 
 an, evidence of no little heedlessness and self- 
 delusion on the part of those who framed it. 
 
 To sum up the matter— the right of petition 
 (which, we have shewn as a general proposition, 
 supposes a right to condemn, and is in itself an act 
 of qualified condemnation) may in too many in- 
 stances take the ground of absolute condemnation, 
 both with respect to the crime and the criminal. 
 It was confined, in this case, to the crime ; but,, if 
 the City of London had proceeded farther, they 
 would have been justifiable ; because the delin- 
 quents had set their hands to their own delin- 
 quency. The petitioners, then, are not only 
 clear of all blame ; but are entitled to high praise : 
 and we have seen whither the doctrines .lead, 
 upon which they were condemned. — And now, 
 mark the discord which will ever be found in 
 the actions of men, where there is no inward har- 
 mony of reason or virtue to regulate the outward 
 conduct. 
 
 Those ministers, who advised their Sovereign to 
 reprove the City of London for uttering prema- 
 turely, upon a measure, an opinion in which they 
 
105 
 
 were supported by the unanimous voice of the 
 nation, had themselves before publickly prejudged 
 the question by ordering that the tidings should 
 be communicated with rejoicings. One of their 
 body has since attempted to wipe away this stigma 
 by representing that these orders were given out of 
 a just tenderness for the reputation of the generals, 
 who would otherwise have appeared to be con- 
 demned without trial. But did these rejoicings 
 leave the matter indifferent ? Was not the positive 
 fact of thus expressing an opinion (above all in a 
 case like this, in which surely no man could ever 
 dream that there were any features of splendour) 
 far stronger language of approbation, than the 
 negative fact could be of disapprobation ? For these 
 same ministers who had called upon the people of 
 Great Britain to rejoice over the Armistice and 
 Convention, and who reproved and discounte- 
 nanced and suppressed to the utmost of their 
 power every attempt at petitioning for redress of 
 the injury caused by those treaties, have now 
 made publick a document from which it appears 
 that, "when the instruments were first laid before 
 his Majesty, the king felt himself compelled at 
 once'' (i.e. previously to all investigation) i( to ex- 
 press his disapprobation of those articles, in which 
 stipulations were made directly affecting the in- 
 terests or feelings of the Spanish and Portugueze 
 nations." 
 
 And was it possible that a Sovereign of a free 
 country could be otherwise affected ? It is indeed 
 to be regretted that his Majesty's censure was not, 
 upon this occasion, radical — and pronounced in a 
 sterner tone ; that a council was not in existence 
 sufficiently intelligent and virtuous to advise the 
 king to give full expression to the sentiments of his 
 own mind; which, we may reasonably conclude, were 
 
 O 
 
io6 
 
 in sympathy with those of a brave and loyal people. 
 Never surely was there a public event more fitted 
 to reduce men, in all ranks of society, under the 
 supremacy of their common nature ; to impress 
 upon them one belief ; to infuse into them one 
 spirit. For it was not done in a remote corner by 
 persons of obscure rank ; but in the eyes of Europe 
 and of all mankind ; by the leading authorities, 
 military and civil, of a mighty empire. It did not 
 relate to a petty immunity, or a local and insulated 
 privilege — but to the highest feelings of honour 
 to which a nation may either be calmly and gra- 
 dually raised by a long course of independence, 
 liberty, and glory ; or to the level of which it may 
 be lifted up at once, from a fallen state, by a sudden 
 and extreme pressure of violence and tyranny. It 
 not only related to these high feelings of honour ; 
 but to the fundamental principles of justice, by 
 which life and property, that is the means of 
 living, are secured. 
 
 A people, whose government had been dissolved 
 by foreign tyranny, and which had been left to 
 work out its salvation by its own virtues, prayed 
 for our help. And whence were we to learn how 
 that help could be most effectually given, how they 
 were even to be preserved from receiving injuries 
 instead of benefits at our hands, — whence were we 
 to learn this but from their language and from our 
 own hearts ? They had spoken of unrelenting and 
 inhuman wrongs ; of patience wearied out ; of the 
 agonizing yoke cast off; of the blessed service of 
 freedom .chosen ; of heroic aspirations; of con- 
 stancy, and fortitude, and perseverance ; of resolu- 
 tion even to the death ; of gladness in the embrace 
 of death ; of weeping over the graves of the slain, 
 by those who had not been so happy as to die ; of 
 resignation under the worst final doom ; of glory, 
 
107 
 
 and triumph, and punishment. This was the lan- 
 guage which we heard — this was the devout hymn 
 that was chaunted ; and the responses, with which 
 our country bore a part in the solemn service, were 
 from her soul and from the depths of her soul. 
 
 O sorrow ! O misery for England, the land of 
 liberty and courage and peace ; the land trust- 
 worthy and long approved ; the home of lofty ex- 
 ample and benign precept ; the central orb to 
 which, as to a fountain, the nations of the earth 
 " ought to repair, and in their golden urns draw 
 light ;'%*-£> sorrow and shame for our country; for 
 the grass which is upon her fields, and the dust 
 which is in her graves ; — for her good men who 
 now look upon the day ; — and her long train of 
 deliverers and defenders, her Alfred, her Sidneys, 
 and her Milton ; whose voice yet speaketh for our 
 reproach ; and whose actions survive in memory 
 to confound us, or to redeem ! 
 
 For what hath been done ? look at it : we have 
 looked at it : we have handled it : we have pon- 
 dered it steadily : we have tried it by the principles 
 of absolute and eternal justice ; by the sentiments 
 of high-minded honour, both with reference to 
 their general nature, and to their especial exaltation 
 under present circumstances ; by the rules of expe- 
 dience ; by the maxims of prudence, civil and 
 military : we have weighed it in the balance of all 
 these, and found it wanting; in that, which is most 
 excellent, most wanting. 
 
 Our country placed herself by the side of Spain^ 
 and her fellow nation ; she sent an honourable 
 portion of her sons to aid a suffering people to 
 subjugate or destroy an army — but I degrade the 
 word — a banded multitude of perfidious oppressors, 
 of robbers and assassins, who had outlawed them- 
 selves from society in the wantonness of power ; 
 
 o 1 
 
loa 
 
 who were abominable for their own crimes, and on 
 account of the crimes of him whom they served — 
 to subjugate or destroy these ; not exacting that it 
 should be done within a limited time ; admitting 
 even that they might effect their purpose or not ; 
 she could have borne either issue, she was prepared 
 for either ; but she was not prepared for such a 
 deliverance as hath been accomplished ; not a deli- 
 verance of Portugal from French oppression, but 
 of the oppressor from the anger and power (at least 
 from the animating efforts) of the Peninsula : she 
 was not prepared to stand between her allies, and 
 their worthiest hopes : that, when chastisement 
 could not be inflicted, honour— as much as bad 
 men could receive— should be conferred : that 
 them, whom her own hands had humbled, the 
 same hands and no other should exalt : that finally 
 the sovereign of this horde of devastators, himself 
 the destroyer of the hopes of good men, should 
 have to say, through the mouth of his minister, and 
 for the hearing of all Europe, that his army of 
 Portugal had "dictated the terms of its glo- 
 rious RETKEAT." 
 
 I have to defend my countrymen : and, if their 
 feelings deserve reverence, if there be any stirrings 
 of wisdom in the motions of their souls, my task is 
 accomplished. For here were no factions to blind; 
 no dissolution of established authorities to con- 
 found ; no ferments to distemper ; no narrow selfish 
 interests to delude. The object was at a distance ; 
 and it rebounded upon us, as with force col- 
 lected from a mighty distance ; we were calm till 
 the very moment of transition ; and all the people 
 were moved— and felt as with one heart, and spake 
 as with one voice. Every human being in these 
 islands was unsettled ; the most slavish broke loose 
 as from fetters ; and there was not an individual— it 
 
109 
 
 need not be said of heroic virtue, but of ingenuous 
 life and sound discretion—who, if his father, his 
 son, or his brother, or if the flower of his house 
 had been in that army, would not rather that they 
 had perished, and the whole body of their coun- 
 trymen, their companions in arms, had perished to 
 a man, than that a treaty should have been sub- 
 mitted to upon such conditions. This was the 
 feeling of the people ; an awful feeling : and it is 
 from these oracles that rulers are to learn wisdom. 
 
 For, when the people speaks loudly, it is from 
 being strongly possessed either by the Godhead or 
 the Demon ; and he, who cannot discover the true 
 spirit from the false, hath no ear for profitable 
 communion. But in all that regarded the des- 
 tinies of Spain, and her own as connected with 
 them, the voice of Britain had the unquestionable 
 sound of inspiration. If the gentle passions of pity, 
 love, and gratitude, be porches of the temple ; if 
 the sentiments of admiration and rivalry be pillars 
 upon which the structure is sustained ; if, lastly, 
 hatred, and anger, and vengeance, be steps which, 
 by a mystery of nature, lead to the House of 
 Sanctity ; — then was it manifest to what power the 
 edifice was consecrated ; and that the voice within 
 was of Holiness and Truth. 
 
 Spain had risen not merely to be delivered and 
 saved ; — deliverance and safety were but interme- 
 diate objects ;— regeneration and liberty were the 
 end, and the means by which this end was to be 
 attained ; had their own high value ; were deter- 
 mined and precious; and could no more admit 
 of being departed from, than the end of being for- 
 gotten. — She had risen — not merely to be free ; 
 but, in the act and process of acquiring that free- 
 dom, to recompense herself, as it were in a moment, 
 for all which she had suffered through ages ; to 
 
110 
 
 levy, upon the false fame of a cruel Tyrant, large 
 contributions of true glory ; to lift herself, by the 
 conflict, as high in honour — as the disgrace was 
 deep to which her own weakness and vices, and 
 the violence and perfidy of her enemies, had sub- 
 jected her. 
 
 Let us suppose that our own land had been so 
 outraged ; could we have been content that the 
 enemy should be wafted from our shores as lightly 
 as he came, — much less that he should depart, 
 illustrated in his own eyes and glorified, singing 
 songs of savage triumph and wicked gaiety ? — No* 
 ■ — Should we not have felt that a high trespass — a 
 grievous offence had been committed ; and that 
 to demand satisfaction was our first and indispensa- 
 ble duty ? Would we not have rendered their 
 bodies back upon our guardian ocean which had 
 borne them hither ; or have insisted that their 
 haughty weapons should submissively kiss the soil 
 which they had polluted ? We should have been 
 resolute in a defence that would strike awe and 
 terror : this for our dignity : — moreover, if safety 
 and deliverance are to be so fondly prized for their 
 own sakes, what security otherwise could they 
 have ? Would it not be certain that the work, 
 which had been so ill done to-day, we should be 
 called upon to execute still more imperfectly and 
 ingloriously to-morrow ; that we should be sum- 
 moned to an attempt that would be vain ? 
 
 In like manner were the wise and heroic Spani- 
 ards moved. If an Angel from heaven had come 
 with power to take the enemy from their grasp (I 
 do not fear to say this, in spite of the dominion 
 which is now re-extended over so large a portion of 
 their land), they would have been sad ; they would 
 have looked round them ; their souls would have 
 turned inward ; and they would have stood like 
 jnen. defrauded and betrayed. 
 l 
 
ill 
 
 Fof not presumptuously had they taken upon 
 themselves the work of chastisement. They did not 
 wander madly about the world — like the Tamer- 
 lanes, or the Chengiz Khans, or the present barba- 
 rian Ravager of Europe — under a mock title of De- 
 legates of the Almighty, acting upon self-assumed 
 authority. Their commission had been thrust upon 
 them. They had been trampled upon, tormented, 
 wronged — bitterly, wantonly wronged — if ever a 
 people on the earth was wronged. And this it was 
 which legitimately incorporated their law with the 
 supreme conscience, and gave to them the deep 
 faith which they have expressed — that their power 
 was favoured and assisted by the Almighty. — 
 These words are not uttered without a due sense 
 of their awful import : but the Spirit of evil is 
 strong : and the subject requires the highest mode 
 of thinking and feeling of which human nature is 
 capable.- — Nor in this can they be deceived ; for, 
 whatever be the immediate issue for themselves, 
 the final issue for their Country and Mankind must 
 be good ; — they are instruments of benefit and 
 glory for the human race ; and the Deity there- 
 fore is with them. 
 
 From these impulses, then, our brethren of the 
 Peninsula had risen ; they could have risen from 
 no other. By these energies, and by such others as 
 (under judicious encouragement) would naturally 
 grow out of and unite with these, the multitudes, 
 who have risen, stand -, and, if they desert them, 
 must fall. — Riddance, mere riddance — safety, mere 
 safety — are objects far too defined, too inert and 
 passive in their own nature, to have ability either to 
 rouze or to sustain. They win not the mind by 
 any attraction of grandeur or sublime delight, 
 either in effort or in endurance : for the mind gains 
 consciousness of its strength to undergo only by 
 
112 
 
 exercise among materials which admit the impres- 
 sion of its power, — which grow under it, which 
 bend under it, — which resist, — which change 
 under its influence, — which alter either through 
 its might or in its presence, by it or before it. 
 These, during times of tranquillity, are the objects 
 with which, in the studious walks of sequestered 
 life, Genius most loves to hold intercourse ; by 
 which it is reared and supported ; — these are the 
 qualities in action and in object, in image, in 
 thought, and in feeling, from communion with 
 which proceeds originally all that is creative in art 
 and science, and all that is magnanimous in virtue. 
 — Despair thinks of safely, and hath no purpose ; 
 fear thinks of safety ; despondency looks the 
 same way : — but these passions are far too selfish, 
 and therefore too blind, to reach the thing at which 
 they aim ; even when there is in them sufficient 
 dignity to have an aim. — All courage is a projec- 
 tion from ourselves ; however short-lived, it is a 
 motion of hope. But these thoughts bind too 
 closely to something inward, — to the present and 
 to the past, — that is, to the self which is or has 
 been. Whereas the vigour of the human soul is 
 from without and from futurity, — in breaking 
 down limit, and losing and forgetting herself in 
 the sensation and image of Country and of the 
 human race ; and, when she returns and is most 
 restricted and confined, her dignity consists in the 
 contemplation of a better and more exalted being, 
 which, though proceeding from herself, she loves 
 gnd is devoted to as to another, 
 
 In following the stream of these thoughts, I have 
 not wandered from my course : I have drawn out 
 to open day the truth from its recesses in the minds 
 pf my countrymen. — Something more perhaps 
 may have been done : a shape hath perhaps been 
 
113 
 
 given to that which was before a stirring spirit. I 
 have shewn in what manner it was their wish that 
 the struggle with the adversary of all that is good 
 should be maintained — by pure passions and high 
 actions. They forbid that their noble aim should 
 be frustrated by measuring against each other 
 things which are incommensurate — mechanic 
 against moral power — body against soul. They 
 will not suffer, without expressing their sorrow, 
 that purblind calculation should wither the purest 
 hopes in the face of all-seeing justice. These are 
 times of strong appeal — of deep-searching visita- 
 tion ; when the best abstractions of the prudential 
 understanding give way, and are included and ab- 
 sorbed in a supreme comprehensiveness of intellect 
 and passion ; which is the perfection and the very 
 being of humanity. 
 
 How base ! how puny ! how inefficient for all 
 good purposes are the tools and implements of 
 policy, compared with these mighty engines of 
 Nature ! — There is no middle course : two masters 
 cannot be served : — Justice must either be en- 
 throned above might, and the moral law take place 
 of the edicts of selfish passion ; or the heart of 
 the people, which alone can sustain the efforts of 
 the people, will languish : their desires will not 
 spread beyond the plough and the loom, the field 
 and the fireside : the sword will appear to them 
 an emblem of no promise ; an instrument of no 
 hope ; an object of indifference, of disgust, or fear. 
 Was there ever — since the earliest actions of men 
 which have been transmitted by affectionate tradi- 
 tion or recorded by faithful history, or sung to 
 the impassioned harp of poetry — was there ever a 
 people who presented themselves to the reason 
 and the imagination, as under more holy influences 
 than the dwellers upon the Southern Peninsula % 
 
 P 
 
114 
 
 as rouzed more instantaneously from a deadly sleep 
 to a more hopeful wakefulness ; as a mass fluctu- 
 ating with one motion under the breath of a 
 mightier wind ; as breaking themselves up, and 
 settling into several bodies, in more harmonious; 
 order ; as reunited and embattled under a standard 
 which was reared to the sun with more authentic 
 assurance of final victory ? — The superstition (I do 
 not dread the word), which prevailed in these 
 nations, may have checked many of my country- 
 men who would otherwise have exultingly accom- 
 panied me in the challenge which, under the 
 shape of a question, I have been confidently utter- 
 ing ; as I know that this stain (so the same persons 
 termed it) did, from the beginning, discourage their 
 hopes for the cause. Short-sighted despondency ! 
 "W hatever mixture of superstition there might be 
 in the religious faith or devotional practices of the 
 Spaniards ; this must have necessarily been trans- 
 muted by that triumphant power, wherever that 
 power was felt, which grows out of intense moral 
 suffering — from the moment in which it coalesces 
 with fervent hope. The chains of bigotry, which 
 enthralled the mind, must have been turned into 
 armour to defend and weapons to annoy. Wherever 
 the heaving and effort of freedom was spread, puri- 
 fication must have followed it. And the types and 
 ancient instruments of error, where emancipated 
 men shewed their foreheads to the day, must have 
 become a language and a ceremony of imagina- 
 tion ; expressing, consecrating, and invigorating s 
 the most pure deductions of Reason and the holiest 
 feelings of universal Nature. 
 
 When the Boy of Saragossa (as we have been 
 told), too immature in growth and unconfirmed in 
 strength to be admitted by his Fellow-citizens 
 into their ranks, too tender of age for them to bear 
 
115 
 
 the sight of him in arms— when this Boy, forget- 
 ful or unmindful of the restrictions which had been 
 put upon him, rushed into the field where his 
 Countrymen were engaged in battle, and, fighting 
 with the sinew and courage of an unripe Hero, 
 won a standard from the enemy, and bore his ac- 
 quisition to the Church, and laid it with his- own 
 hands upon the Altar of the Virgin ; — surely there 
 was not less to be hoped for his Country from this 
 act, than if the banner, taken from his grasp, had, 
 without any such intermediation, been hung up in 
 the place of worship— -a direct offering to the in- 
 corporeal and supreme Being. Surely there is 
 here an object which the most meditative and 
 most elevated minds may contemplate with abso- 
 lute delight ; a well-adapted outlet for the dearest 
 sentiments ; an organ by which they may act ; a 
 fuiiction by which they may be sustained.— Who 
 does not recognise in this presentation a visible 
 affinity with deliverance, with patriotism, with 
 hatred of oppression, and with human means put 
 forth to the height for accomplishing, under divine 
 countenance, the worthiest ends ? 
 
 Such is the burst and growth of power and vir- 
 tue which may rise out of excessive national afflic- 
 tions from tyranny and oppression ;— -such is the 
 hallowing influence, and thus mighty is the sway, 
 of the spirit of moral justice in the heart of the 
 individual and over the wide world of humanity. 
 Even the very faith in present miraculous inter- 
 position, which is so dire a weakness and cause of 
 weakness in tranquil times when the listless Being 
 turns to it as a cheap and ready substitute upon 
 every occasion, where the man sleeps, and the Saint, 
 or the image of the Saint, is to perform his work, 
 and to give effect to his wishes ; — even this infirm 
 faith, in a state of incitement from extreme passion 
 
 p 2 
 
1 16 
 
 Sanctioned by a paramount sense of moral justice j 
 having for its object a power which is no longer 
 sole nor principal, but secondary and ministerial 1 ; 
 a power added to a power ; a breeze which springs 
 up unthought-of to assist the strenuous oarsman; — 
 even this faith is subjugated in order to be exalted ; 
 and — instead of operating as a temptation to relax 
 or to be remiss, as an encouragement to indolence 
 or cowardice ; instead of being a false stay, a ne- 
 cessary and definite dependence which may fail— - 
 it passes into a habit of obscure and infinite con- 
 fidence of the mind in its own energies, in the 
 cause from its own sanctity, and in the ever-pre- 
 sent invisible aid or momentary conspicuous appro- 
 bation of the supreme Disposer of things. 
 
 Let the fire, which is never wholly to be extin- 
 guished, break out afresh; let but the human 
 creature be rouzed ; whether he have lain heedless 
 and torpid in religious or civil slavery — have lan- 
 guished under a thraldom, domestic or foreign, or 
 under both these alternately — or have drifted about 
 a helpless member of a clan of disjointed and fee- 
 ble barbarians ; let him rise and act ; — and his do- 
 mineering imagination, by which from childhood 
 he has been betrayed, and the debasing affections, 
 which it has imposed upon him, will from that 
 moment participate the dignity of the newly en- 
 nobled being whom they will now acknowledge 
 for their master ; and will further him in his pro- 
 gress, whatever be the object at which he aims. 
 Still more inevitable and momentous are the results, 
 when the individual knows that the fire, which is 
 reanimated in him, is not less lively in the breasrs 
 of his associates; and sees the signs and testimo- 
 nies of his own power, incorporated with those of 
 a growing multitude and not to be distinguished 
 from them, accompany him wherever he moves.— 
 
117 
 
 Hence those marvellous atchievements which were 
 performed by the first enthusiastic followers of 
 Mohammed ; and by other conquerors, who with 
 their armies have swept large portions of the earth 
 like a transitory wind, or have founded new reli- 
 gions or empires. — But, if the object contended 
 for be worthy and truly great (as, in the instance 
 of the Spaniards, we have seen that it is) ; if cruel- 
 ties have been committed upon an ancient and 
 venerable people, which " shake the human frame 
 with horror ;" if not alone the life which is sus- 
 tained by the bread of the mouth, but that — 
 without which there is no life — the life in the 
 soul, has been directly and mortally warred against ; 
 if reason has bad abominations to endure in her 
 inmost sanctuary; — then does intense passion, con- 
 secrated by a sudden revelation of justice, give 
 birth to those higher and better wonders which I 
 have described ; and exhibit true miracles to the 
 eyes of men, and the noble'st which can be seen. 
 It may be added that, — as this union brings back 
 to the right road the faculty of imagination, where 
 it is prone to err, and has gone farthest astray ; as 
 it corrects those qualities which (being in their 
 essence indifferent), and cleanses those affections 
 which (not being inherent in the constitution of 
 man, nor necessarily determined to their object) 
 are more immediately dependent upon the imagi- 
 nation, and which may have received from it a 
 thorough taint of dishonour ; — so the domestic 
 loves and sanctities which are in their nature less 
 liable to be stained, — so these, wherever they have 
 flowed with a pure and placid stream, do instantly, 
 under the same influence, put forth their strength 
 as in a flood ; and, without being sullied or pol- 
 luted, pursue — exultingly and with song— a course 
 which leads the contemplative reason to the ocean 
 of eternal love. 
 
i is 
 
 I feel that I have been speaking in a strain which 
 it is difficult to harmonize with the petty irritationsj 
 the doubts and fears, and the familiar (and there- 
 fore frequently undignified) exterior of present and 
 passing events. But the theme is justice : and my 
 voice is raised for mankind ; for us who are alivej 
 and for all posterity : — justice and passion ; clear- 
 sighted aspiring justice, and passion sacred as vehe- 
 ment. These, like twin-born Deities delighting 
 in each other's presence, have wrought marvels in 
 the inward mind through the whole region of the 
 Pyrenean Peninsula. I have shewn by what 
 process these united powers sublimated the ob- 
 jects of outward sense in such rites — practices 
 — and ordinances of Religion — as deviate from 
 simplicity and wholesome piety ; how they con- 
 verted them to instruments of nobler use ; and 
 raised them to a conformity with things truly di- 
 vine. The same reasoning might have been car- 
 ried into the customs of civil life and their accom- 
 panying imagery, wherever these also were incon- 
 sistent with the dignity of man ; and like effects of 
 exaltatiori and purification have been shewn. 
 
 But a more urgent service calls me to point to 
 further works of these united powers, more obvi- 
 ous and obtrusive- — works and appearances, such as 
 were hailed by the citizen of Seville when return- 
 ing from Madrid ; u where" (to use the 
 
 words of his own public declaration) " he had left 
 his countrymen groaning in the chains which per- 
 fidy had thrown round them, and doomed at every 
 step to the insult of being eyed with the disdain 
 of the conqueror to the conquered ; from Madrid 
 threatened, harrassed, and vexed ; where mistrust 
 reigned in every heart, and the smallest noise made 
 the citizens tremble in the bosom of their families ; 
 where the enemy, from time to time, ran to arms 
 
119 
 
 to sustain the impression of terror by which the 
 inhabitants had been stricken through the recent 
 massacre; from Madrid a prison, where the gaolers 
 took pleasure in terrifying the prisoners by alarms 
 to keep them quiet ; from Madrid thus tortured 
 and troubled by a relentless Tyrant, to fit it for the 
 
 slow and interminable evils of Slavery;" -■ 
 
 when he returned, and was able to compare the 
 oppressed and degraded state of the inhabitants of 
 that metropolis with the noble attitude of defence 
 in which Andalusia stood. " A month ago," says 
 he, " the Spaniards had lost their country ; — 
 Seville has restored it to life more glorious than 
 ever ; and those fields, which for,, so many years 
 have seen no steel but that of the plough-share, 
 are going amid the splendour of arms to prove 
 the new cradle of their adored country." — " I 
 could not," he adds, " refrain from tears of joy 
 on viewing the city in which I first drew breath — 
 and to see it in a situation so glorious !" 
 
 We might have trusted, but for late disgraces, 
 that there is not a man in these islands whose heart 
 would not, at such a spectacle, have beat in sym- 
 pathy with that of this fervent Patriot — whose 
 voice would not be in true accord with his in the 
 prayer (which, if he has not already perished for 
 the service of his dear country, he is perhaps utter- 
 ing at this moment) that Andalusia and the city 
 of Seville may preserve the noble attitude in which 
 they then stood, and are yet standing ; or, if they 
 be doomed to fall, that their dying efforts may 
 not be unworthy of their first promises; that the 
 evening — the closing hour of their freedom may 
 display a brightness not less splendid, though more 
 aweful, than the dawn ; so that the names of Seville 
 and Andalusia may be consecrated among men, 
 and be words of life to endless generations. 
 6 
 
120 
 
 Saragossa ! — She also has given bond, by her past 
 actions, that she cannot forget her duty and will 
 not shrink from it. # Valencia is under the seal of 
 the same obligation. The multitudes of men who 
 were arrayed in the fields of Baylen, and upon the 
 mountains of the North ; the peasants of Asturias, 
 and the students of Salamanca ; and many a soli- 
 tary and untold- of hand, which, quitting for a 
 moment the plough or the spade, has discharged 
 a more pressing debt to the country by levelling 
 with the dust at least one insolent and murder- 
 ous Invader ; — these have attested the efficacy 
 of the passions which we have been contemplating 
 — that the will cf'good men is not a vain impulse, 
 heroic desires a delusive prop ; — have proved that 
 the condition of human affairs is not so forlorn 
 and desperate, but that there are golden opportuni- 
 ties when the dictates- of justice may be unrelent- 
 ingly enforced, and the beauty of the inner mind 
 substantiated in the outward act; — for a visible 
 standard to look back upon ; for a point of realized 
 excellence at which to aspire ; a monument to 
 record ; — for a charter to fasten down ; and, as far 
 as it is possible, to preserve. 
 
 Yes! there was an annunciation which the good 
 received with gladness; a bright appearance which 
 emboldened the wise to say — We trust that Rege- 
 neration is at hand : these are works df recovered 
 innocence and wisdom : 
 
 Magnus ab integro seclorum nascitur ordo; 
 Jam redit et Virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna j 
 Jam nova progenies caelo demittitur alto. 
 
 The spirits of the generous, of the brave, of the 
 meditative, of the youthful and underlled — who, 
 upon the strongest wing of human nature, have 
 accompanied me in this journey into a fair region 
 
 * Written in February. 
 
121 
 
 — must descend : and, sorrowful to think ! it is at 
 the name and remembrance of Britain that we are 
 to stoop from the balmy air of this pure element. 
 Our country did not create, but there was created 
 for her, one of those golden opportunities over 
 which we have been rejoicing : an invitation was 
 offered — -a summons sent to her ear, as if from 
 heaven, to go forth also and exhibit on her part, 
 in entire coincidence and perfect harmony, the 
 beneficent action with the benevolent will ; to ad- 
 vance in the career of renovation upon which the 
 Spaniards had so gloriously entered ; and to solem- 
 nize yet anbther marriage between victory and 
 justice. How she acquitted herself of this duty, 
 we have already seen and lamented : yet on this — 
 and on this duty only — ought the mind of that 
 army and of the government to have been fixed. 
 Every thing was smoothed before their feet ; — 
 Providence, it might almost be said, held forth to 
 the men of authority in this country a gracious 
 temptation to deceive them into the path of the 
 new virtues which were stirring ; — the enemy was 
 delivered over to them ; and they were unable to 
 close their infantine fingers upon the gift. — The 
 helplessness of infancy was their's — oh ! could I 
 but add, the innocence of infancy ! 
 
 Reflect upon what was the temper and condi- 
 tion of the Southern Peninsula of Europe-— the 
 noble temper of the people of this mighty island 
 sovereigns of the all-embracing ocean ; think also 
 of the condition of so vast a region in the Western 
 continent and its islands ; and we shall have cause 
 to fear that ages may pass away before a conjunc- 
 tion of things, so marvellously adapted to ensure 
 prosperity to virtue, shall present itself again. It 
 could scarcely be spoken of as being to the wishes 
 
122 
 
 of men,— it was so far beyond their hopes. — The 
 government which had been exercised under the 
 name of the old Monarchy of Spain — this govern- 
 ment, imbecile even to dotage, whose very selfish* 
 ness was destitute of vigour, had been removed ; 
 taken laboriously and foolishly by the plotting 
 Corsican to his own bosom ; in order that the 
 world might see, more triumphantly set forth than 
 since the beginning of things had ever been seen 
 before, to what degree a man of bad principles is 
 despicable— though of greatr power — working 
 blindly against his own purposes. It was a high 
 satisfaction to behold demonstrated, in this manner, 
 to what a narrow domain of knowledge the intel- 
 lect of a Tyrant must be confined ; that, if the 
 gate by which wisdom enters has never been 
 opened, that of policy will surely find moments 
 when it will shut itself against its pretended master 
 imperiously and obstinately. To the eyes of the 
 very peasant in the field, this sublime truth was 
 laid open — not only that a Tyrant's domain of 
 knowledge is narrow, but melancholy as nar- 
 row ; inasmuch as— from all that is lovely, dig- 
 nified, or exhilarating in the prospect of human 
 nature — he is inexorably cut off; and therefore he 
 is inwardly helpless and forlorn. 
 
 Was not their hope in this — twofold hope ; from 
 the weakness of him who had thus counteracted 
 himself; and a hope, still more cheering, from the 
 strength of those who had been disburdened of a 
 cleaving curse by an ordinance of Providence— em- 
 ploying their most wilful and determined enemy 
 to perform for them the best service which man 
 could perform ? The work of liberation was virtu- 
 ally accomplished— we might almost say, esta- 
 blished. The interests of the people were taken 
 from a government whose sole aim it had been fca 
 
123 
 
 prop up the last remains of its own decrepitude by 
 betraying those whom it was its duty to protect ; — 
 withdrawn from such hands, to be committed to 
 those of the people ; at a time when the double 
 affliction which Spain had endured, and the return 
 of affliction with which she was threatened, made 
 it impossible that the emancipated nation could 
 abuse its new-born strength to any substantial in- 
 jury to itself. — Infinitely less favourable to all good 
 ends was the condition of the French people when, 
 a few years past, a revolution made them, for a sea- 
 ton, their own masters,— rid them from the in- 
 cumbrance of superannuated institutions — the gal- 
 ling pressure of so many unjust laws — and the 
 tyranny of bad customs. The Spaniards became 
 their own masters : and the blessing lay in this, 
 that they became so at once : there had not been 
 time for them to court their power : their fancies 
 had not been fed to wantonness by ever-changing 
 temptations : obstinacy in them would not have 
 leagued itself with trivial opinions : petty hatreds 
 had not accumulated to masses of strength con- 
 flicting perniciously with each other : vanity with 
 them had not found leisure to flourish — nor pre- 
 sumption : they did not assume their authority, — -it 
 was given them, — it was thrust upon them. The 
 perfidy and tyranny of Napoleon " compelled" says 
 the Junta of Seville in words before quoted, " the 
 whole nation to take up arms and to choose itself a 
 form of government ; and, in the difficulties and 
 dangers into which the French had plunged it, all 
 — or nearly all— the provinces, as it were by the 
 inspiration of Heaven and in a manner little short of 
 miraculous, created Supreme Juntas — delivered 
 themselves up to their guidance— and placed in 
 their hands the rights and the ultimate fate of 
 Spain."— Governments, thus newly issued from 
 
 a'i 
 
124 
 
 the people; could not but act from the spirit of 
 the people— be organs of their life. And, though 
 misery (by which I mean pain of mind not with-? 
 out some consciousness of guilt) naturally disorders 
 the Understanding and perverts the moral sense, 
 —calamity (that is suffering, individual or national, 
 when it has been inflicted by one to whom no in- 
 jury has been done or provocation given) ever 
 brings wisdom along with it ; and, whatever out- 
 ward agitation it may cause, does inwardly rectify 
 the will. 
 
 But more was required \ not merely judicious de- 
 sires ; not alone an eye from which the scales had 
 dropped off" — which could see widely and -clearly ; 
 but a mighty hand was wanting. The government 
 had been formed ; and it could not but recollect 
 that the condition of Spain did not exact from her 
 children, as a first requisite, virtues like those due 
 and familiar impulses of spring-time by which 
 things are revived and carried forward in accus- 
 tomed health according to established order — not 
 power so much for a renewal as for a birth— labour 
 by throes and violence j — a chaos was to be con- 
 quered — a work of creation begun and consum- 
 mated; — and afterwards the seasons were to advance, 
 and continue their gracious revolutions. The 
 powers, which were needful for the people to enter 
 upon and assist in this work, had been given ; we 
 have seen that they had been bountifully con- 
 ferred. The nation had been thrown into— rather, 
 lifted up to — that state when conscience,, for the 
 body of the people, is not merely an infallible 
 monitor (which may be heard and disregarded) ; 
 but, b>y combining— with the attributes of insight 
 to perceive, and of inevitable presence to admonish 
 and enjoin — the attribute of passion to enforce, it 
 was truly an all-powerful deity in the soul. 
 
125 
 
 Oh ! let but any man, who has a care for the 
 progressive happiness of the species, peruse merely 
 that epitome of Spanish wisdom and benevolence 
 and " amplitude of mind for highest deeds" which, 
 in the former part of this investigation, I have laid 
 before the reader : let him listen to the reports — 
 which they, who really have had means of know- 
 ledge, and who are worthy to speak upon the sub- 
 ject, will give to him — of the things done or en- 
 dured in every corner of Spain ; and he will see 
 what emancipation had there been effected in the 
 mind ; — how far the perceptions- — the impulses — 
 and the actions also — had outstripped the habit 
 and the character, and consequently were in a pro- 
 cess of permanently elevating both ; and how 
 much farther (alas I by infinite degrees) the prin- 
 ciples and practice of a people, with great objects 
 before them to concentrate their love and their 
 hatred, transcend the principles and practice of 
 governments ; not excepting those which, in their 
 constitution and ordinary conduct, furnish the 
 least matter for complaint. 
 
 Then it was — when the people of Spain were 
 thus rouzed ; after this manner released from the 
 natal burthen of that government which had bowed 
 them to the ground ; in the free use of their un- 
 derstandings, and in the play and " noble rage" 
 of their passions ; while yet the new authorities, 
 which they had generated, were truly living mem- 
 bers of their body, and (as I have said) organs of 
 their life ; when that numerous people were in a 
 stage of their journey which could not be accom- 
 plished without the spirit which was then prevalent 
 in them, and which (as might be feared) would too 
 soon abate of itself; — then it was that we — not we, 
 but the heads of the British army and nation — 
 when, if they could not breathe a favouring breath, 
 ' 7 
 
10.6 
 
 they ought at least to have stood at an awful dis- 
 tance — stepped in with their forms/ their impedi- 
 ments, their rotten customs and precedents, theif 
 narrow desires, their busy and purblind fears ; and 
 called out to these aspiring travellers to halt — 
 tc For ye are in a dream ;" confounded them (for 
 it was the voice of a seeming friend that spoke) ; 
 and spell-bound them, as far as was possible, by an 
 instrument framed " in the eclipse" and sealed 
 " with curses dark." — In a word, we had the power 
 to act up to the most sacred letter of justice — and 
 this at a time when the mandates of justice were 
 of an affecting obligation such as had never before 
 been witnessed ; and we plunged into the lowest 
 depths of injustice :— We had power to give a 
 brotherly aid to our allies in supporting the mighty 
 world which their shoulders had undertaken to 
 uphold ; and, while they were expecting from us 
 tnis aid, we undermined — without forewarning 
 thenWthe ground upon which they stood. The 
 evil is incalculable ; and the stain will cleave to 
 the British name as long as the story of this island 
 shall endure. 
 
 Did we not (if, from this comprehensive feeling 
 of sorrow, I may for a moment descend to parti- 
 culars) — did we not send forth a general, one whom, 
 since his return, Court, and Parliament, and Army, 
 have been at strife with each other which shall most 
 caress and applaud — a general, who, in defending 
 the armistice which he himself had signed, said in 
 open court that he deemed that the French army 
 was entitled to such terms. The people of Spain 
 had, through the .Supreme Junta of Seville, thus 
 spoken of this same army : " Ye have, among 
 yourselves, the objects of your vengeance ;— attack 
 them ;— they are but a handful of miserable panic- 
 struck men, humiliated and conquered already by 
 
127 
 
 their perfidy and cruelties ; — resist and destroy 
 them : our united efforts will extirpate this perfi- 
 dious nation" The same Spaniards had said, 
 (speaking officially of the state of the whole Penin- 
 sula, and no doubt with their eye especially upon this 
 army in Portugal) — lf Our enemies have taken up 
 exactly those positions in which they may most 
 easily be destroyed." — Where then did the British. 
 General find this right and title of the French: 
 army in Portugal ? '* Because," says he in military 
 language, " it was not broken." — Of the Man, 
 and of the understanding and heart of the man — 
 of the Citizen, who could think and feel after this 
 manner in such circumstances, it is needless to 
 speak; but to the General I will say, This is 
 most pitiable pedantry. If the instinctive wisdom 
 of your ally could not be understood, you might 
 at least have remembered the resolute policy of 
 your enemy. The French army was not broken ? 
 Break it then-^wither it — pursue it with unre- 
 lenting warfare — hunt it out or its holds ; — if im- 
 petuosity be not justifiable, have recourse to patience 
 . — to watchfulness — to obstinacy : at all events, 
 never for a moment forget who the foe is — and 
 that he is in your power. This is the example 
 which the French Ruler and his Generals have 
 given ypu at Ulm — at Lubeck — in Switzerland — 
 over the whole plain of Prussia — every where; — (■ 
 and this for the worst deeds of darkness ; while 
 youi^s was the noblest service of light. 
 
 This remonstrance has been forced from me by 
 indignation ; — let me explain in what sense I pro- 
 pose, with calmer thought, that the example of 
 our enemy should be imitated. — The laws and 
 customs of war, and the maxims of policy, have 
 all had their foundation in reason and humanity ; 
 and their object has been the attainment or security 
 
,4 28 
 
 of some real or supposed — some positive or rela- 
 tive — good. They are established among men as 
 ready guides for the understanding, and authori- 
 ties to which the passions are taught to pay de- 
 ference. But the relations of things to each other, 
 are perpetually changing ; and in course of time 
 many of these leaders and masters, by losing part 
 of their power to do service and sometimes the 
 whole, forfeit in proportion their right to obedU 
 ence. Accordingly they are disregarded in some 
 instances, and sink insensibly into neglect with the 
 general improvement of society. But they often 
 survive when they have become an oppression and 
 a hindrance which cannot be cast off decisively, 
 but by an impulse — rising either from the abso- 
 lute knowledge of good and great men, — or from 
 the partial insight which is given to superior minds, 
 though of a vitiated moral constitution, — or lastly 
 from that blind energy and those habits of daring 
 which are often found in men who, checked by 
 no restraint of morality, suffer their evil passions 
 to gain extraordinary strength in extraordinary cir- 
 cumstances. By any of these forces may the 
 tyranny be broken through. We have seen, in 
 the conduct of our Countrymen, to what degree it 
 tempts to weak actions, — and furnishes excuse for 
 them, admitted by those who sit as judges. I wish 
 then that we could so far imitate our enemies as, 
 like them, to shake off these bonds ; but not, like 
 them, from the worst — but from the worthiest im- 
 pulse. If this were done, we should have learned 
 how much of their practice would harmonize with 
 justice ; have learned to distinguish between those 
 rules which ought to be wholly abandoned, and 
 those which deserve to be retained; and should 
 have known when, and to what point, they ought 
 to be trusted. -But how is this to be ? Power of 
 
mind is wanting, where there is power of place. 
 Even we cannot, as a beginning of a new journey, 
 force or win our way into the current of success, 
 the flattering motion of which would awaken intel- 
 lectual courage — the only substitute which is able 
 to perform any arduous part of the secondary work 
 of "heroic wisdom;" — I mean, execute happily any 
 of its prudential regulations. In the person of our 
 enemy and his chieftains we have living example 
 how wicked men of ordinary talents are em- 
 boldened by success. There is a kindliness, as 
 they feel, in the nature of advancement ; and pros- 
 perity is their Genius. But let us know and re- 
 member that this prosperity, with all the terrible- 
 features which it has gradually assumed, is a child 
 of noble parents — Liberty and Philanthropic Love. 
 Perverted as the creature is which it has grown up 
 to (rather, into which it has passed), — from no in- 
 ferior stock could it have issued. It is the Fallen 
 Spirit, triumphant in misdeeds, which was formerly 
 a blessed Angel. 
 
 If then (to return to ourselves) there be such 
 strong obstacles in the way of our drawing benefit 
 either from the maxims of policy or the principles 
 of justice ; what hope remains that the British 
 nation should repair, by its future conduct, the in- 
 jury which has been done? \ — ■ 
 
 We cannot advance a step towards a rational an- 
 swer to this question — without previously advert- 
 ing to the original sources of our miscarriages ; 
 which are these : — First; a want, in the minds of 
 the members of government and public function- 
 aries, of knowledge indispensible for this service ; 
 and, secondly, a want of power, in the same per- 
 sons acting in their corporate capacities, to give 
 effect to the knowledge which individually they 
 possess. — Of the latter source of weakness, — this 
 
 R 
 
130 
 
 inability as caused by decay in the machine of 
 government, and by illegitimate forces which are 
 checking and controulingits constitutional motions, 
 —I have not spoken, nor shall I now speak : for 
 I have judged it best to suspend my task for a 
 while : and this subject, being in its nature deli- 
 cate, ought not to be lightly or transiently touched. 
 Besides, , no immediate effect can be expected from 
 the soundest and most unexceptionable doctrines 
 which might be laid down for the correcting of 
 this evil. — The former source of weakness, — 
 namely, the want of appropriate and indispensible 
 knowledge, — has, in the past investigation, been 
 reached, and shall be further laid open ; not with- 
 out a hope of some result of immediate good by a 
 direct application to the mind ; and in full confi- 
 dence that the best and surest way to render 
 operative that knowledge which is already pos- 
 sessed — is to increase the stock of knowledge. 
 
 Here let me avow that I undertook this present 
 labour as a serious duty ; rather, that it was forced 
 (and has been unremittingly pressed) upon me by a 
 perception of justice united with strength of feeling ; 
 — in a word, by that power of conscience, calm or 
 impassioned, to which throughout I have done re- 
 verence as the animating spirit of the cause. My 
 work was begun and prosecuted under this con- 
 troul : — and With the accompanying satisfaction 
 that no charge of presumption could, by a think- 
 ing mind, be brought against me : though I had 
 taken upon myself to offer instruction to men 
 who, if they possess not talents and acquirements, 
 have no title to the high stations which they hold; 
 who also, by holding those stations, are understood 
 to obtain certain beneflt'of experience and of know- 
 ledge not otherwise to be gained ; and who have a 
 further claim to deference — founded upon reputa- 
 tion, even when it is spurious (as much of the re- 
 
131 
 
 putation of men high in power must necessarily 
 be ; their errors being veiled and palliated by the 
 authority attached to their office ; while that same 
 authority gives more than due weight and effect to 
 their wiser opinions). Yet, notwithstanding all 
 this, I did not fear the censure of having unbe- 
 comingly obtruded counsels or remonstrances. 
 For there can be no presumption, upon a call so 
 affecting as the present, in an attempt to assert 
 the sanctity and to display the efficacy of principles 
 and passions which are the natural birth-right of 
 man ; to some share of which all are born ; but 
 an inheritance which may be alienated or con- 
 sumed ; and by none more readily and assuredly 
 than by those who are most eager for the praise of 
 policy, of prudence, of sagacity, and of all those 
 qualities which are the darling virtues of the 
 worldly-wise. Moreover ; the evidence to which 
 I have made appeal, in order to establish the truth, 
 is not locked up in cabinets ; but is accessible to 
 all ; as it exists in the bosoms of men — in the ap- 
 pearances and intercourse of daily life — in the de- 
 tails of passing events — and in general history. 
 And more especially is its right import within the 
 reach of Him who — taking no part in public mea- 
 sures, and having no concern in the changes of 
 things but as they affect what is most precious in 
 his country and humanity — will doubtless be more 
 alive to those genuine sensations which are the 
 materials of sound judgment. Nor is it to be over- 
 looked that such a man may have more leisure 
 (and probably will have a stronger inclination) to 
 communicate with the records of past ages. 
 
 Deeming myself justified then in what has been 
 said, — I will continue to lay open (and, in some 
 degree, to account for) those privations in the ma- 
 terials of judgment, and those delusions of opinion, 
 r2 * 
 
132 
 
 and infirmities of mind, to which practical States- 
 men, and particularly such as are high in office, 
 are more than other men subject ; — as containing 
 an answer to that question, so interesting at this 
 juncture, — How far is it in our power to make 
 amends for the harm done ? 
 
 After the view of things which has been taken, 
 — we may confidently affirm that nothing, but a 
 knowledge of human nature directing the opera- 
 tions of our government, can give it a right to an 
 intimate association with a cause which is that of 
 human nature. I say, an intimate association 
 founded on the right of thorough knowledge ; — 
 to contradistinguish this best mode of exertion 
 frdm another which might found its right upon a 
 vast and commanding military power put forth 
 with manifestation of sincere intentions to benefit 
 our allies — from a conviction merely of policy that 
 their liberty, independence, and honour, are our 
 genuine gain ; — to distinguish the pure brotherly 
 connection from ttys other (in its appearance at 
 least more magisterial) which such a power, guided 
 by such intention uniformly displayed, might au- 
 thorize. But of the former connection (which 
 supposes the main military effort to be made, even 
 at present, by the people of the Peninsula on whom 
 the moral interest more closely presses), and of the 
 knowledge which it demands, I have hitherto 
 spoken- — and have further to speak. 
 
 It is plain a priori that the minds of Statesmen 
 and Courtiers are unfavourable to the growth of 
 this knowledge. For they are in a situation ex- 
 clusive and artificial ; which has the further dis- 
 advantage, that it does not separate men from men 
 by collateral partitions which leave, along with 
 difference, a sense of equality — that they, who 
 are divided, are yet upon the same level ; but by a 
 
133 
 
 degree of superiority which can scarcely fail to be 
 accompanied with more or less of pride. This situ- 
 ation therefore must be eminently unfavourable for 
 the reception and establishment of that knowledge 
 which is founded not upon things but upon sen- 
 sations ;— sensations which are general, and under 
 general influences (and this it is which makes them 
 what they are, and gives them their importance) ; 
 — not upon things which may be brought ; but 
 upon sensations which must be met. Passing by 
 the kindred and usually accompanying influence 
 of birth in a certain rank — and, where education 
 has beep pre-defined from childhood for the ex- 
 press purpose of future political power, the ten- 
 dency of such education to warp (and there- 
 fore weaken) the intellect ; — we may join at once,, 
 with the privation which I have been noticing, a 
 delusion equally common. It is this : that prac- 
 tical Statesmen assume too much credit to them- 
 selves for their ability to see into the motives and: 
 manage the selfish passions of their immediate 
 agents and dependants ; and for the skill with 
 which they baffle or resist the aims of their oppo- 
 nents. A promptness in looking through the most 
 superficial part of the characters of those men — 
 who, by the very circumstance of their contending 
 ambitiously for the rewards and honours of go- 
 vernment, are separated from the mass of the 
 society to which they belong — is mistaken for a 
 knowledge of human kind. Hence, where higher 
 knowledge is a prime requisite, they not only are 
 unfurnished; but, being unconscious that they are 
 so, they look down contemptuously upon those 
 who endeavour to supply (in some degree) their 
 
 want. The instincts of natural and social 
 
 man ; the deeper emotions ; the simpler feel- 
 ings ; the spacious range of the disinterested ima- 
 
134 
 
 gination ; the pride in country for country's sake, 
 when to serve has not been a formal profession — 
 and the mind is therefore left in a state of dignity 
 only to be surpassed by having served nobly and 
 generously ; the instantaneous accomplishment in 
 which they start up who, upon a searching call, 
 stir for the land which they love — not from per- 
 sonal motives, but for a reward which is undefined 
 and cannot be missed ; the solemn fraternity which 
 a great nation composes—gathered together, in a 
 stormy season, under the shade of ancestral feel- 
 ing ; the delicacy of moral honour which pervades 
 the minds of a people, when despair has been sud- 
 denly thrown off and expectations are lofty ; the 
 apprehensiveness to a touch unkindly or irreverent, 
 where sympathy is at once exacted as a tribute 
 and welcomed as a gift ; the power of injustice and 
 inordinate calamity to transmute, to invigorate, 
 and to govern — to sweep away the barriers of 
 opinion — to reduce under submission passions 
 purely evil — to exalt the nature of indifferent 
 qualities, and to render them fit companions for the 
 absolute virtues with which they are summoned to 
 associate — to consecrate passions which, if not bad 
 in themselves, are of such temper that, in the 
 calm of ordinary life, they are rightly deemed so 
 — to correct and embody these passions — and, 
 without weakening them (nay, with tenfold addi- 
 tion to their strength), to make them worthy of 
 taking their place as the advanced guard of hope, 
 when a sublime movement of deliverance is to be 
 originated ; — these arrangements and i»esources of 
 nature, these ways and means of society, have so 
 little connection with those others npon which a 
 ruling minister of a long-established government 
 is accustomed to depend ; these — elements as it 
 were of a universe, functions of a living body—. 
 4 
 
135 
 
 are so opposite, in their mode of action, to the for- 
 mal machine which it has been his pride to manage; 
 — that he has but a faint perception of their imme- 
 diate efficacy ; knows not the facility with which 
 they assimilate with other powers ; nor the property 
 by which such of them — as, from necessity of 
 nature, must change or pass away — will, under wise 
 and fearless management, surely generate lawful 
 successors to fill their place when their appropriate 
 work is performed. Nay, of the majority of men, 
 who are usually found in high stations under old 
 governments, it may without injustice be said ; that, 
 when they look about them in times (alas ! too. 
 rare) which present the glorious product of such 
 agency to their eyes, they have not a right to say 
 — with a dejected man in the midst of the woods, 
 the rivers, the mountains, the sunshine, and 
 shadows of some transcendant landscape — 
 
 '•' I see, not feel, how beautiful they are:" 
 
 These spectators neither see nor feel. And it is 
 from the blindness and insensibility of these, and 
 the train whom they draw along with them, that 
 the throes of nations have been so ill recompensed 
 by the births which have followed ; and that re- 
 volutions, after passing from crime to crime and 
 from sorrow to sorrow, have often ended in throw- 
 ing back such heavy reproaches of delusiveness 
 upon their first promises. 
 
 I am satisfied that no enlightened Patriot will 
 impute to me a wish to disparage the characters of 
 men high in authority, or to detract from the esti- 
 mation which is fairly due to them. My purpose 
 is to guard against unreasonable expectations. 
 That specific knowledge, — the paramount import- 
 ance of which, in the present condition of Europe, 
 I am insisting upon, — they, who usually fill places 
 of high trust in old governments, neither do — ■ 
 
136 
 
 nor, for the most part, can — possess : nor is it ne- 
 cessary, for the administration of affairs in ordi- 
 nary circumstances, that they should. — The pro- 
 gress of their own country, and of the other nations 
 of the world, in civilization, in true refinement, in 
 science, in religion, in morals, and in all the real 
 wealth of humanity, might indeed be quicker, 
 and might correspond more happily with the wishes 
 of the benevolent, — if Governors better under- 
 stood the rudiments of nature as studied in the 
 walks of common life ; if they were men who had 
 themselves felt every strong emotion " inspired by 
 nature and by fortune taught ;" and could calcu- 
 late upon the force of the grander passions. Yet, 
 at the same time, there is temptation in this. To 
 know may seduce ; and to have been agitated may 
 compel. Arduous cares are attractive for their own 
 sakes. Great talents are naturally driven towards 
 hazard and difficulty ; as it is there that they are 
 most sure to find their exercise, and their evidence,, 
 and joy in anticipated triumph— the liveliest of all 
 sensations. Moreover ; magnificent desires, when 
 least under the bias of personal feeling, dispose 
 the mind — more than itseif is conscious of — to 
 regard commotion with complacency, and to watch 
 the aggravations of distress with welcoming ; from 
 an immoderate confidence that, when the appoint- 
 ed day shall come, it will be in the power of intel- 
 lect to relieve. There is danger in being a zealot 
 in any cause — not excepting that of humanity. 
 Nor is it to be forgotten that the incapacity and 
 ignorance of the regular agents of long- established 
 governments do not prevent some progress in the 
 dearest concerns of men ; and that society may 
 owe to these very deficiencies, and to the tame and 
 unenterprizing course which they necessitate, much 
 security and tranquil enjoyment. 
 
w 
 
 Nor, on the other hand, (for reasons which 
 may be added to those already given) is it so 
 desirable as might at first sight be imagined, 
 much less is it desirable as an absolute good, 
 that men of comprehensive sensibility and tutored 
 genius — either for the interests of mankind or for 
 their own — should, in ordinary times, have vested 
 in them political power. The Empire, which they 
 hold, is more independent: its constituent parts 
 are sustained by a stricter connection : the domi* 
 nion is purer and of higher origin ; as mind is 
 more excellent than body — the search of truth an 
 employment more inherently dignified than the 
 application of force — the determinations of nature 
 more venerable than the accidents of human insti- 
 tution,. Chance and disorder, vexation and dis- 
 appointment, malignity and perverseness within or 
 without the mind, are a sad exchange for the steady 
 and genial processes of reason. Moreover ; worldly 
 distinctions and offices of command do not lie in 
 the path — nor are they any part of the appropri- 
 ate retinue — of Philosophy and Virtue. Nothing, 
 but a strong spirit of love, can counteract the con- 
 sciousness of pre-eminence which ever attends 
 pre-eminent intellectual power with correspondent 
 attainments: and this spirit of love is best en- 
 couraged by humility and simplicity in mind, 
 manners, and conduct of life ; virtues, to which 
 wisdom leads. But,— though these be virtues in 
 a Man, a Citizen, or a Sage, — they cannot be re- 
 commended to the especial culture of the Political 
 or Military Functionary ; and still less of the Civil 
 Magistrate. Him, in the exercise of his functions, 
 it will often become to carry himself highly and 
 with state ; in order that evil may be suppressed, 
 and authority respected by those who have not 
 understanding. The power also of office, whether 
 
 S 
 
3 38 
 
 the duties be discharged well or ill, will ensure a 
 never-failing supply of flattery and praise : and of 
 these — a man (becoming at once double-dealer and 
 dupe) may, without impeachment of his modesty, 
 receive as much as his weakness inclines him to ; 
 under the shew that the homage is not offered up to 
 himself, but to that portion of the public dignity 
 which is lodged in his person. But, whatever may 
 be the cause, the fact is certain — that there is an 
 unconquerable tendency in all power, save that of 
 knowledge acting by and through knowledge, to 
 injure the mind of him who exercises that power; so 
 much so, that best natures cannot escape the evil of 
 such alliance. Nor is it less certain that things of 
 soundest quality, issuing through a medium to 
 which they have only an arbitrary relation, are 
 vitiated : and it is inevitable that there should be 
 a reascent of unkindly influence to the heart of 
 him from whpm the gift, thus unfairly dealt with, 
 
 proceeded. -. *■= In illustration of 
 
 these remarks, as connected with the management 
 of States, we need only refer to the Empire of 
 China — where superior endowments of mind and 
 acquisitions of learning are the sole acknowledged 
 title to offices of great trust ; and yet in no coun- 
 try is the government more bigotted or intolerant, 
 or society less progressive. 
 
 To prevent misconception ; and to silence (at 
 least to throw discredit upon) the clamours of 
 ignorance ; — I have thought proper thus, in some 
 sort, to strike a balance between the claims of men 
 of routine— and men of original and accomplished 
 minds — to the management of State affairs in ordi- 
 nary circumstances. But ours is not an age of 
 this character : and, — after having seen such a 
 long series of misconduct, so many unjustifiable 
 attempts made and sometimes carried into effect, 
 
139 
 
 good endeavours frustrated, disinterested wishes 
 thwarted, and benevolent hopes disappointed, — it 
 is reasonable that we should endeavour to ascertain. 
 to what cause these evils are to be ascribed. I 
 have directed the attention of the Reader to one 
 primary cause : and can he doubt of its existence, 
 and of the operation which I have attributed to it ? 
 
 In the course of the last thirty years we have 
 seen two wars waged against Liberty — the Ameri- 
 can war, and the war against the French People in 
 the early stages of their Revolution. In the latter 
 instance the Emigrants and the Continental Powers 
 and the British did, in all their expectations and 
 in every movement of their efforts, manifest a 
 common ignorance — originating in the same 
 source. And, for what more especially belongs 
 to ourselves at this time, we may affirm — that the 
 same presumptuous irreverence of the principles 
 of justice, and blank insensibility to the affections 
 of human nature, which determined the conduct 
 of our government in those two wars against liberty, 
 have continued to accompany its exertions in the 
 present struggle for liberty, — and have rendered 
 them fruitless. The British government deems (no 
 doubt), on its own part, that its intentions are 
 good. It must not deceive itself : nor ftiust we 
 deceive ourselves. Intentions — thoroughly good — 
 could not mingle with the unblessed actions which 
 we have witnessed. A disinterested and pure in- 
 tention is a light that guides as well as cheers, and 
 renders desperate lapses impossible. 
 
 Our duty is — our aim ought to be — to employ 
 the true means of liberty and virtue for the ends 
 of liberty and virtue. In such policy, thoroughly 
 understood, there is fitness and concord and ra- 
 tional subordination ; it deserves a higher name— 
 
 s 1 
 
140 
 
 organization, health, and grandeur. Contrast, iri 
 a single instance, the two processes ; and the qua- 
 lifications which they require. The ministers of 
 that period found it an easy task to hire a band of 
 Hessians, and to send it across the Atlantic, that 
 they might assist in bringing the Americans (accord- 
 ing to the phrase then prevalent) to reason. The 
 force, with which these troops would attack, was 
 gross— tangible, — and might be calculated ; but 
 the spirit of resistance, which their presence would 
 create, was subtle — ethereal — mighty — and: incal- 
 culable. Accordingly, from the moment where 
 these foreigners landed — men who had no interest, 
 no business, in the quarrel, but what the wages of 
 their master bound him to, and he imposed upon 
 
 his miserable slaves; nay, from the first rumour 
 
 of their destination, the success of the British was 
 (as hath since been affirmed by judicious Ameri- 
 cans) impossible. 
 
 The British government of the present day have 
 been seduced, as we have seen, by the same com- 
 mon-place facilities on the. one side; and have 
 been equally blind on the other. A physical 
 auxiliar force of thirty- five thousand men is to be 
 added to the army of Spain : but the moral 
 energy, which thereby might be taken away from 
 the principal, is overlooked or slighted ; the ma- 
 terial being too fine for their calculation. What 
 does it avail to graft a bough upon a tree; if this be 
 done so ignorantly and rashly that the trunk, which 
 can alone supply the sap by which the whole must 
 flourish, receives a deadly wound ? Palpable effects 
 of the Convention of Cintra, and self-contradicting 
 consequences even in the matter especially aimed 
 at, may be seen in the necessity which it entailed 
 of leaving 8,000 British troops to protect Portu- 
 guese traitors from punishment by the laws of 
 
Ml 
 
 their country. A still more serious and fatal con- 
 tradiction lies in this — that the English army was 
 made an instrument of injustice, and was dis- 
 honoured, in order that it might be hurried for- 
 ward to uphold a cause which could have no life 
 but by justice and honour. The nation knows 
 how that army languished in the heart of Spain : 
 that it accomplished nothing except its retreat, is 
 sure : what great service it might have performed, 
 if it had moved from a different impulse, we 
 have shewn. 
 
 It surely then behoves those who are in au- 
 thority — to look to the state of their own minds. 
 There is indeed an inherent impossibility that they 
 should be equal to the arduous duties which have 
 devolved upon them : but it is not unreasonable 
 to hope that something higher might be aimed 
 at ; and that the People might see, upon great 
 occasions, — in the practice of its Rulers — a more 
 adequate reflection of its own wisdom and virtue. 
 Our Rulers, I repeat, must begin with their own 
 minds. This is a precept of immediate urgency ; 
 and, if attended to, might be productive of imme- 
 diate good. I will follow it with further conclu- 
 sions directly referring to future conduct. 
 
 I will not suppose that any ministry of this 
 country can be so abject, so insensible, and un- 
 wise, as to abandon the Spaniards and Portuguese 
 while there is a Patriot in arms ; or, if the people 
 should for a time be subjugated, to deny them 
 assistance the moment they rise to require it again. 
 I cannot think so unfavourably of my country as 
 to suppose this possible. Let men in power, how- 
 ever, take care (and let the nation be equally care- 
 ful) not to receive any reports from our army — of 
 the disposition of the Spanish people — without mis- 
 trust. The British generals, who were in Portugal 
 
M2 
 
 (tlie whole body of them,* according to the state-* 
 inent of Sir Hew Dalrymple), approved of the Con- 
 vention of Cintra ; and have thereby shewn that 
 their communications are not to be relied upon in 
 this case. And indeed there is not any information, 
 which we can receive upon this subject, that is so 
 little trust- worthy as that which comes from out 
 army — or from any part of it. The opportunities 
 of notice, afforded to soldiers in actual service, 
 must necessarily be very limited ; and a thousand 
 things stand in the way of their power to make a 
 right use of these. But a retreating army, in the 
 country of an ally ; barrassed and dis- 
 satisfied ; willing Jo find a reason for its failures in 
 any thing but itself, and actually not without 
 much solid ground for complaint; retreating; 
 sometimes, perhaps, fugitive ; and, in its disorder, 
 tempted (and even forced) to commit offences 
 upon the people of the district through which it 
 passes ; while they, in their turn, are filled with 
 
 fear and inconsiderate anger ; an army, 
 
 in such a condition, must needs be incapable of 
 seeing objects as they really are ; and, at the same 
 time, all things must change in its presence, and 
 put on their most unfavourable appearances. 
 
 Deeming it then not to be doubted that the 
 British government will continue its endeavours to 
 support its allies ; one or other of two maxims of 
 policy follows obviously from the painful truths 
 which we have been considering : — Either, first, 
 that we should put forth to the utmost our 
 strength as a military power — strain it to the 
 very last point, and prepare (no erect mind will 
 start at the proposition) to pour into the Peninsula 
 
 * From this number, however, must be excepted the gallant 
 and patriotic General Ferguson. For that officer has had the 
 virtue publicly and in the most emphatic manner, upon t\V0' 
 occasions, to reprobate the whole transaction. 
 
143 
 
 a force of two hundred thousand men or more, — 
 and make ourselves for a time, upon Spanish 
 ground, principals in the contest ; or, secondly, 
 that we should direct our attention to giving sup- 
 port rather in Things than in Men. 
 
 The former plan, though requiring a great effort 
 and many sacrifices, is (I have no doubt) practica- 
 ble : its difficulties would yield to a bold and ener- 
 getic Ministry, in despite of the present constitution 
 of Parliament. The Militia, if they had been 
 called upon at the beginning of the rising in the 
 Peninsula, would (I believe) — almost to a man— i- 
 have offered their services : so would many of the 
 Volunteers in their individual capacity. They 
 would do so still. The advantages of this plan 
 would be— that the power, which would attend it, 
 must (if judiciously directed) insure unity of 
 effort ; taming down, by its dignity, the discords 
 which usually prevail among allied armies ; and 
 subordinating to itself the affections of the 
 Spanish and Portuguese by the palpable service 
 which it was rendering to their Country. A fur- 
 ther encouragement for adopting this plan he will 
 find, who perceives that the military power of our 
 Enemy is not in substance so formidable, by many 
 — many degrees of terror, as outwardly it appears to 
 be. The last campaign has not been wholly without 
 advantage ; since it has proved that the French 
 troops are indebted, for their victories, to the im- 
 becility of their opponents far more than to their 
 own discipline or courage — or even to the skill 
 and talents of their Generals. There is a super- 
 stition hanging over us which the efforts of our 
 Army (not to speak of the Spaniards) have, I hope, 
 removed. — But their mighty numbers ! — In that 
 is a delusion of another kind. In the former in- 
 stance, year after year we imagined things to be 
 what they were not : and in this, by a more fatal 
 
144 
 
 and more common delusion^ the thoaght of what 
 things really are — precludes the thought of what 
 in a moment they may become : the mind, over- 
 laid by the present, cannot lift itself to attain a 
 glimpse of the future. 
 
 All — which is comparatively inherent, or can 
 lay claim to any degree of permanence, in the 
 tyranny which the French Nation maintains over 
 Europe — rests upon two foundations : — First ; 
 Upon the despotic rule which has been established 
 in France over a powerful People who have lately 
 passed from a state of revolution, in which they 
 supported a struggle begun for domestic liberty, 
 and long continued for liberty and national inde- 
 pendence : — and, secondly, upon the personal cha- 
 racter of the Man by whom that rule is exercised. 
 As to the former ^everyone knows thatDespotism, 
 in a general sense, is but another word for weak- 
 ness. Let one generation disappear ; and a people 
 over whom such rule has been extended, if it have 
 not virtue to free itself, is condemned to embar- 
 rassment in the operations of its government, and 
 to perpetual languor ; with no better hope than 
 that which may spring from the diseased activity 
 of some particular Prince on whom the authority 
 may happen to devolve. This, if it takes a regu- 
 lar hereditary course : but, — if the succession be 
 interrupted, and the supreme power frequently 
 usurped or given by election, — worse evils follow. 
 Science and Art must dwindle, whether the power 
 be hereditary or not : and the virtues of a Trajan 
 or an Antonine are a hollow support for the feeling 
 of contentment and happiness in the hearts of their 
 subjects : such virtues are even a painful mockery; 
 — something that is, and may vanish in a moment, 
 and leave the monstrous crimes of a Caracalla or 
 a Domitian in its place, — men, who are probably 
 
145 
 
 leaders of a long procession of their kind* The 
 feebleness of despotic power we have had before our 
 eyes in the late condition of Spain and Prussia; and 
 in that of France before the Revolution ; and in 
 the present condition of Austria and Russia. But, 
 in a new-bom arbitrary and military Government 
 (especially if, like that of France, it have been 
 immediately preceded by a popular Constitution), 
 not only this weakness is not found ; but it pos- 
 sesses, for the purposes of external annoyance, a pre- 
 ternatural vigour. Many causes contribute to 
 this : we need only mention that, fitness — real or 
 supposed — being necessarily the chief (and almost 
 sole) recommendation to offices of trust, it is clear 
 that such offices will in general be ably filled ; and 
 their duties, comparatively, well executed : and 
 that, from the conjunction of absolute civil and 
 military authority in a single Person, there natu- 
 rally follows promptness of decision ; concentra- 
 tion of effort ; rapidity of motion ; and confidence 
 that the movements made will be regularly sup- 
 ported. This is all which need now be said upon 
 the subject of this first basis of French Tyranny. 
 
 For the second — namely, the personal character 
 of the Chief; I shall at present content myself 
 with noting (to prevent misconception) that this 
 basis is not laid in any superiority of talents in 
 him, but in his utter rejection of the restraints of 
 morality — in wickedness which acknowledges no 
 limit but the extent of its own power. Let any 
 one reflect a moment ; and he will feel that a new 
 world of forces is opened to a Being who has 
 made this desperate leap. It is a tremendous prin- 
 ciple to be adopted, and steadily adhered to, by a 
 man in the station which Buonaparte occupies ; 
 and he has taken the full benefit of it. What 
 there is in this principle of weak, perilous, and 
 self-destructive— -I may find a grateful employment 
 
 T 
 
U6 
 
 in endeavouring to shew upon some future occa- 
 sion. But it is a duty which we owe to the pre- 
 sent moment to proclaim — in vindication of the 
 dignity of human nature, and for an admonition to 
 men of prostrate spirit — -that the dominion, which 
 this Enemy of mankind holds, has neither been 
 acquired nor is sustained by endowments of intel- 
 lect which are rarely bestowed, or by uncommon 
 accumulations of knowledge ; but that it has risen 
 from circumstances over which he had no in- 
 fluence ; circumstances which, with the power 
 they conferred, have stimulated passions whose 
 natural food hath been and is ignorance ; from the 
 barbarian impotence and insolence of a mind — 
 originally of ordinary constitution — lagging, in 
 moral sentiment and knowledge, three hundred 
 years behind the age in which it acts. In such 
 manner did the power originate ; and, by the forces 
 which I have described, is it maintained. This 
 should be declared : and it should be added — that 
 the crimes of Buonaparte are more to be abhorred 
 than those of other denaturalized creatures whose 
 actions are painted in History ; because the Author 
 of those crimes is guilty with less temptation, and 
 sins in the presence of a clearer light. 
 
 No doubt in the command of almost the whole 
 military force of Europe (the subject which called 
 upon me to make these distinctions) he has, at this 
 moment ^ third source of power which may be added 
 to these two. He himself rates this last so high — 
 either is, or affects to be, so persuaded of its pre- 
 eminence — that he boldly announces to the worrd 
 that it is madness, and even impiety, to resist him. 
 And sorry may we be to remember that there are 
 British Senators, who (if a judgement may be 
 formed from the language which they speak) are 
 •inclined to accompany him far in this opinion. 
 But the .enormity of this power has in it nothing 
 
U7 
 
 inherent or permanent. Two signal overthrows in . 
 pitched battles would, I believe, go far to de- 
 stroy it. Germans, Dutch, Italians, Swiss, Poles, 
 would desert the army of Buonaparte, and flock 
 to the standard of his Adversaries, from the mo- 
 ment they could look towards it with that confi- 
 dence which one or two conspicuous victories 
 would inspire. A regiment of 900 Swiss joined 
 the British army in Portugal ; and, if the French 
 had been compelled to surrender as Prisoners of 
 War, we should have seen that all those troops, 
 who were not native Frenchmen, would (if encou- 
 ragement had been given) have joined the British : 
 and the opportunity that was lost of demonstrating 
 this fact — was not among the least of the mis- 
 chiefs which attended the termination of the cam- 
 paign. — In a word ; the vastness of Buonaparte's 
 military power is formidable — not because it is im- 
 possible to break it ; but because it has not yet 
 been penetrated. In this respect it may not inaptly 
 be compared to a huge pine-forest (such as are 
 found in the Northern parts of this Island), whose 
 ability to resist the storms is in it's skirts : let but 
 the blast once make an inroad ; and it levels the 
 forest, and sweeps it away at pleasure. A hundred 
 thousand men, such as fought at Vimiera and 
 Corunna, would accomplish three sucfh victories 
 as I have been anticipating. This Nation might 
 command a military force which would drive 
 the French out of the Peninsula : I do not say 
 that we could sustain there a military force which 
 would prevent their re-entering ; but that we could 
 transplant thither, by a great effort, one which wouM 
 expel them -.—This I maintain : and it is matter of 
 thought in which infirm minds may find both re- 
 proach and instruction. The Spaniards could then 
 taj^e possession of their own fortresses ; apd have 
 
 t 2 
 
leisure to give themselves a blended civil and mili- 
 tary organization, complete and animated by 
 liberty; which, if once accomplished, they would 
 be able to protect themselves. The oppressed 
 Continental Powers also, seeing such unquestion- 
 able proof that Great Britain was sincere and earnest, 
 would lift their heads again ; and, by so doing, 
 would lighten the burthen of war which might 
 remain for the Spaniards. 
 
 In treating of this plan — I have presumed that 
 a General might be placed at the head of this 
 great military power who would not sign a Treaty 
 like that of the Convention of Cintra, , and say 
 (look at the proceedings of the Board of Inquiry) 
 that he was determined to this by " British in- 
 terests ;" or frame any Treaty in the country m/ an 
 Ally (save one purely military for the honourable 
 preservation, if necessary, of his own army or part 
 of it) to which the sole, or even the main, induce- 
 ment was — our interests contradistinguished from 
 those of that Ally ; — a General and a Ministry 
 whose policy would be comprehensive enough to 
 perceive that the true welfare of Britain is best 
 promoted by the independence, freedom, and 
 honour of other Nations ; and that it is only by 
 the diffusion and prevalence of these virtues that 
 French Tyranny can be ultimately reduced ; or 
 the influence of France over the rest of Europe 
 brought within its natural and reasonable limits. 
 
 If this attempt be " above the strain and tem- 
 per" of the country, there remains only a plan laid 
 down upon the other principles ; namely, service 
 (as far as is required) in things rather than in men ; 
 that is, men being secondary to things. It is not, 
 I fear, possible that the moral sentiments of the 
 British Army or Government should accord with 
 those of Spain in her present condition. Com- 
 
149 
 
 rnanding power indeed (as hath been said), put forth 
 in the repulse of the common enemy, would tend, 
 more effectually than any thing save the prevalence 
 of true wisdom, to prevent disagreement, and to ob- 
 viate any temporary injury which the moral spirit of 
 the Spaniards might receive from us : at all events — 
 such power, should there ensue any injury, would 
 bring a solid compensation. But from a middle 
 course — an association sufficiently intimate and 
 wide to scatter every where unkindly passions, and 
 yet unable to attain the salutary point of decisive 
 power — no good is to be expected. Great would 
 be the evil, at this momentous period, if the hatred 
 of the Spaniards should look two ways. Let it be 
 as steadily fixed upon the French, as the Pilot's 
 eye upon his mark. Military stores and arms 
 should be furnished with unfailing liberality : let 
 Troops also be supplied ; but let these act sepa- 
 rately, — taking strong positions upon the coast, if 
 such can be found, to employ twice their numbers 
 of the Enemy ; and, above all, let there be Float- 
 ing Armies — keeping the Enemy in constant un- 
 certainty where he is to be attacked. The penin- 
 sular frame of Spain and Portugal lays that region 
 open to the full shock of British warfare. Our 
 Fleet and Army should act, wherever it is possible, 
 as parts of one body — a right hand and a left ; 
 and the Enemy ought to be made to feel the force 
 of both. 
 
 But — whatever plans be adopted — there can be 
 no success, unless the execution be entrusted to Ge- 
 nerals of competent judgement. That the British 
 Army swarms with those who are incompetent- 
 is too plain from successive proofs in the trans- 
 actions at Buenos Ayres, at Cintra, and in the re- 
 sult of the Board of Inquiry.- — Nor must we see 
 a General appointed to command — and required, 
 5 
 
150 
 
 at the same time, to frame his operations accord- 
 ing to the opinion of an inferior Officer : an in- 
 junction (for a recommendation, from such a 
 quarter, amounts to an injunction) implying that a 
 man had been appointed to a high station — of 
 which the very persons, who had appointed him, 
 deemed him unworthy ; else they must have 
 known that he would endeavour to profit by the 
 experience of any of his inferior officers, from the 
 suggestions of his own understanding : at the 
 same time — by denying to the General-in-Chief the 
 free use of his own judgement, and by the act of 
 announcing this presumption of his incompetence 
 to the man himself — such an indignity is put upon 
 him, that his passions must of necessity be rouzed ; 
 so as to leave it scarcely possible that he could 
 draw any benefit, which he might otherwise have 
 drawn, from the local knowledge or talents of the 
 individual to whom he was referred : and, lastly, 
 this injunction virtually involves a subversion of 
 all military subordination. In the better times of 
 the House of Commons — a minister, who had pre- 
 sumed to write such a letter as that to which I 
 allude, would have been impeached. 
 
 The Debates in Parliament, and measures of 
 .Government, every day furnifch new proofs of the 
 .truths which I have been attempting to establish — 
 of the utter want of general principles ; — new and 
 lamentable proofs ! This moment (while ] am 
 drawing towards a conclusion) I learn, from the 
 newspaper reports, that the House of Commons has 
 refused to declare that the Convention of Cintra 
 disappointed the hopes mid expectations of the Nation. 
 
 The motion, according to the letter of it, was 
 ill-framed ; for the Convention might have been 
 a very good one, and still have disappointed the 
 hopes and expectations of the Nation — as those 
 
151 
 
 might have been unwise : at all events, the words 
 ought to have stood — the just and reasonable hopes 
 of the Nation. But the hacknied phrase of 
 ' disappointed hopes and expectations' — should not 
 have been used at all : it it a centre round which 
 much delusion has gathered. The Convention 
 not only did not satisfy the Nation's hopes of 
 good ; but sunk it into a pitfall of unimagined and 
 unimaginable evil. The hearts and understandings 
 of the People tell them that the language of a pro- 
 posed parliamentary resolution, upon this occasion, v 
 ought — not only to have been different in the 
 letter — but also widely different in the spirit : and 
 the reader of these pages will have deduced, that 
 no terms of reprobation could in severity exceed 
 the offences involved in — and connected with — 
 that instrument. But, while the grand keep of 
 the castle of iniquity was to be stormed, we have 
 seen nothing but a puny assault upon heaps of the 
 scattered rubbish of the fortress ; nay, for the most 
 part, on some accidental mole-hills at its base. I 
 do not speak thus in disrespect to the Right Hon. 
 Gentleman who headed this attack. His mind, 
 left to itself, would ( I doubt not) have prompted 
 something worthier and higher : but he moves in 
 the phalanx of Party ; — a spiritual Body ; in which 
 (by strange inconsistency) the hampering, weaken- 
 ing, and destroying, of every individual mind of 
 which it is composed — is the law which must con- 
 stitute the strength of the whole. The question 
 was — whether principles, affecting the very ex- 
 istence of Society, had not been violated ; and an 
 arm lifted, and let fall, which struck at the root of 
 Honour ; with the aggravation of the crime having 
 been committed at this momentous period. But 
 what relation is there between these principles arid 
 actions, and being in Place or out of it ? If the 
 
152 
 
 People would constitutionally and resolutely assert 
 their rights, their Representatives would be taught 
 another lesson ; and for their own profit. Their 
 understandings would be enriched accordingly : for 
 it is there — there where least suspecred*— that the 
 want, from which this country suffers, chiefly lies. 
 They err, who suppose that venality and corrup- 
 tion (though now spreading more and more) are 
 the master-evils of this day : neither these nor im- 
 moderate craving for power are so much to be de- 
 precated, as the non-existence of a widely- ranging 
 intellect ; of an intellect which, if not efficacious 
 to infuse truth as a vital fluid into the heart, might 
 at least make it a powerful tool in the hand. Out- 
 ward profession, — which, for practical purposes, is 
 an act of most desirable subservience, — would then 
 wait upon those objects to which inward reverence, 
 though not felt, was known to be due. Schemes 
 of ample reach and true benefit would also pro- 
 mise best to insure the rewards coveted by personal 
 ambition : and men of baser passions, rinding it 
 their interest, would naturally combine to perform 
 useful service under the direction of strong minds : 
 while men of good intentions would have their 
 own pure satisfaction ; and would exert themselves 
 with more upright — I mean, more hopeful — 
 cheerfulness, and more successfully. It is not 
 therefore inordinate desire of wealth or power 
 which is so injurious — as the means which are and 
 must be employed, in the present intellectual con- 
 dition of the Legislature, to sustain and secure 
 that power : these are at once an effect of barren- 
 ness, and a cause ; . acting, and mutually re-acting, 
 incessantly. An enlightened Friend has, in con- 
 versation, observed to the Author of these pages 
 -r-that formerly the principles of men were better 
 than they who held them ; but that now (a far 
 
153 
 
 worse evil!) men are better than their prin6j>ieS; 
 I believe it: — of the deplorable quality and state of 
 principles, the public proceedings in our Country 
 furnish daily new proof. It is however some conso- 
 lation, at this present crisis, to find— -that, of the 
 thoughts and feelings uttered during the two debates 
 which led me to these painful declarations, such — i 
 as approach towards truth which has any dignity 
 in it— come from the side of his Majesty's Minis- 
 ters. — But note again those contradictions to which 
 I have so often been obliged to advert. The 
 Ministers advise his Majesty publicly to express 
 sentiments of disapprobation upon the Convention 
 of Cintra ; and, when the question of the merits 
 or demerits of this instrument comes before them 
 in Parliament, the same persons-— who, as advisers 
 of the crown, lately condemned the treaty — now, 
 in their character of representatives of the people, 
 by the manner in which they received this motion, 
 have pronounced an encomium upon it. For; 
 though (as I have said) the motion was inaccu- 
 rately and inadequately worded, it was not set aside 
 upon this ground. And the Parliament has there- 
 fore persisted in withholding, from the insulted and 
 injured People and from their Allies, the only re- 
 paration which perhaps it may be in its power to 
 grant ; has refused to signify its repentance and 
 sorrow for what hath been done ; without which; 
 as a previous step, there can be no proof — no gra- 
 tifying intimation, even to this Country or to it§ 
 Allies, that the future efforts of the British Parlia- 
 ment are in a sincere spirit. The guilt of the 
 transaction therefore being neither repented ofj nor 
 atoned for ; the course of evil is, by necessity, 
 persevered in. -•• ■ •? . ■ '• * But let us turn to a 
 brighter region. 
 
154 
 
 %pe events of the last year, gloriously destroy- 
 ing tn^ny frail fears, have placed — in the rank of 
 serene and immortal truths — a proposition which, 
 as an okyect of belief, hath in all ages been fondly 
 cherished ; namely — That a numerous Nation, 
 determined to be free, may effect its purpose in 
 despite of the mightiest power which a foreign 
 Invader can bring against it. These events also 
 have pointed out how, in the ways of Nature and 
 under the guidance of Society, this happy end is 
 to be attained : in other words, they have shewn 
 that the cause of the People, in dangers and diffi- 
 culties issuing from this quarter of oppression, is 
 safe while it remains not only in the bosom but in 
 the hands of the People ; or (what amounts to 
 the same thing) in those of a government which, 
 being truly from the People, is faithfully for them. 
 While the power remained with the provincial 
 Juntas, that is, with the body natural of the com- 
 munity (for those authorities, newly-generated in 
 such adversity, were truly living members of that 
 body) ; every thing prospered in Spain. Hopes 
 of the best kind were opened out and' encouraged ; 
 liberal opinions countenanced ; and wise measures 
 arranged : and last, and (except as proceeding 
 from these) least of all,— victories in the field, in 
 the streets of the city, and upon the walls of the 
 fortress. 
 
 I have heretofore styled it a blessing that the 
 Spanish People became their own masters at once. 
 It was a blessing ; but not without much alloy : 
 as the same disinterested generous passions, which 
 preserved (and would for a season still have 
 preserved) them from a bad exercise of their power, 
 impelled them to part with it too soon; before 
 labours, hitherto neither tried nor thought-of, 
 ]had created throughout the country the minor 
 
155 
 
 excellences indispensible for the performance of 
 those labours \ before powerful minds, not hitherto 
 of general note, had found time to shew them- 
 selves ; and before men, who were previously 
 known, had undergone the proof of new situations. 
 Much therefore was wanting to direct the general 
 judgement in the choice of persons,when the second 
 delegation took place ; which was a removal (the 
 first, we have seen, had not been so) of the power 
 from the People. But, when a common centre 
 became absolutely necessary, the power ought to 
 have passed from the provincial Assemblies into 
 the hands of the Cortes ; and into none else. A 
 pernicious Oligarchy crept into the place of this 
 comprehensive — this constitutional — this saving 
 and majestic Assembly. Far be it from me to 
 speak of the Supreme Junta with ill-advised con- 
 demnation : every man must feel for the distress- 
 ful trials to which that Body has been exposed. 
 But eighty men or a hundred, with a king at 
 their head veiled under a cloud of fiction (we 
 might say, with reference to the difficulties of this 
 moment, begotten upon a cloud of fiction), could 
 not be an image of a Nation like that of Spain, or 
 an adequate instrument of their power for their 
 ends. The Assembly, from the smallness of its 
 numbers, must have wanted breadth of wing to 
 extend itself and brood over Spain with a quicken- 
 ing touch of warmth every where. If also, as 
 hath been mentioned, there was a want of expert 
 ence to determine the judgment in choice of per- 
 sons ; this same smallness of numbers must have 
 unnecessarily increased the evil — by excluding 
 many men of worth and talents which were so far 
 known and allowed as that they would surely have 
 been deputed to an Assembly upon a larger scale. 
 Gratitude, habit, and numerous other causes mus$ 
 
 u 2 
 
15.6 
 
 have given an undue preponderance to birth, 
 station, rank, and fortune ; and have fixed the 
 election, more than was reasonable, upon those 
 who were most conspicuous for these distinctions ; 
 — men whose very virtue would incline them super- 
 stitiously to respect established things, and to mis- 
 trust the People — towards whom not only a frank 
 confidence but a forward generosity was the first 
 of duties. I speak not of the vices to which such 
 men would be liable, brought up under the dis- 
 cipline of a government administered like the old 
 Monarchy of Spain : the matter is. both ungraci- 
 ous and too obvious. 
 
 But I began with hope ; and hope has inwardly 
 accompanied me to the end. The whole course of 
 the campaign, rightly interpreted, has justified my 
 hope. In Madrid, in Ferrol, in Corunna, in every 
 considerable place, and in every part of the country 
 over which the French have re-extended their do- 
 minion, — we learn, from their own reports, that the 
 l»ody of the People have shewed against them, to 
 the last, the most determined hostility. Hence it 
 is clear that the lure, which the invading Usurper 
 found himself constrained lately to hold out 
 to the inferior orders of society in the shape 
 of various immunities, has totally failed : and 
 therefore he turns for support to another quarter, 
 and now attempts to cajole the wealthy and the 
 privileged. But this class has been taugjit, by 
 late Decrees, what it has to expect from him ; and 
 how far* he is to be confided-in for its especial in- 
 terests. Many individuals, no doubt, he wil| 
 seduce; but the bulk of the class, even if they 
 could be insensible to more liberal feelings, cannot 
 but be his enemies. This change, therefore, is not 
 merely shifting ground ; but retiring to a position 
 which he himself has previously undermined. Here 
 is confusion ; and a power warring against itself. 
 
157 
 
 So will it ever fare with foreign Tyrants when 
 (in spite of domestic abuses) a People, which has 
 lived long, feels that it has a Country to love ; and 
 where the heart of that People is sound. Between 
 the native inhabitants of France and Spain there 
 has existed from the earliest period, and still does 
 exist, an universal and utter dissimilitude in laws, 
 actions, deportment, gait, manners, customs : join 
 with this the difference in the language, and the 
 barrier of the Pyrenees ; a separation and an oppo- 
 sition in great things, and an antipathy in small. 
 Ignorant then must he be of history and ©f the 
 reports of travellers and residents in the two coun- 
 tries, or strangely inattentive to the constitution of 
 human nature, who (this being true) can admit 
 the belief that the Spaniards, numerous and power- 
 ful as they are, will live under Frenchmen as their 
 lords and masters. Let there be added to this 
 inherent mutual repulsiveness— those recent indig- 
 nities and horrible outrages ; and we need not fear 
 to say that such reconcilement is impossible ; 
 even without that further insuperable obstacle 
 which we hope will exist, an establishment of a 
 free Constitution in Spain. — The intoxicated setter- 
 up of Kings may fill his diary with pompous stories 
 of the acclamations with which his solemn puppets 
 are received ; he may stuff their mouths with im- 
 pious asseverations ; and hire knees to bend before 
 them, and lips to answer with honied greetings of 
 gratitude and love : these cannot remove the old 
 heart, and put a new one into the bosom of the 
 spectators. The whole is a pageant seen for a day 
 among men in its passage to that " Limbo large 
 and broad" whither, as to their proper home, fleet 
 
 All the unaccomplish'd works of Nature's hand, 
 Abortive, monstrous, or unkindly mix'd, 
 Dissolved on earth. 
 
1$& 
 
 Talk not of the perishable nature of enthusiasm; 
 and rise above a craving for perpetual manifesta- 
 tions of things. He is to be pitied whose eye can 
 only be pierced by the light of a meridian sun, 
 whose frame can only be warmed by the heat of 
 midsummer. Let us hear no more of the little 
 dependence to be had in war upon voluntary ser- 
 vice. The things, with which we are primarily 
 and mainly concerned, are inward passions ; and 
 not outward arrangements. These latter may be 
 given at any time ; when the parts, to be put 
 together, are in readiness. Hatred and love, and 
 each in its intensity, and pride (passions which, 
 Existing in the heart of a Nation, are inseparable 
 from hope) — these elements being in constant pre- 
 paration — enthusiasm will break out from them, 
 or coalesce with them, upon the summons of a 
 moment. And these passions are scarcely less than 
 inextinguishable. The truth of this is recorded 
 in the manners and hearts of North and South 
 Britons, of Englishmen and Welshmen, on either 
 border of the Tweed and of the Esk, on both sides 
 of the Severn and the Dee ; an inscription legible, 
 and in strong characters, which the tread of many 
 and great blessings, continued through hundreds 
 of years, has been unable to efface. The Sicilian 
 Vespers are to this day a familiar game among the 
 boys of the villages on the sides of Mount Etna/ 
 and through every corner of the Island ; and 
 " Exterminate the, French !" is the action in their 
 arms, and the word of triumph upon their ton- 
 gues. He then is a sorry Statist, who desponds or 
 despairs (nor is he less so who is too much elevated) 
 from any considerations connected with the quality 
 of enthusiasm. Nothing is so easy as to sustain it 
 by partial and gradual changes of its object ; and 
 by placing it in the way of receiving new inter- 
 
 1 
 
159 
 
 positions according to the need. The difficulty- 
 lies — not in kindling, feeding, or fanning the flame ; 
 but in continuing so to regulate the relations of 
 things — that the fanning breeze and the feeding 
 fuel shall come from no unworthy quarter, and 
 shall neither of them be wanting in appropriate 
 consecration. The Spaniards have as great helps 
 towards ensuring this, as ever were vouchsafed to 
 a People. 
 
 What then is to be desired ? Nothing but that 
 the Government and the higher orders of society 
 should deal sincerely towards the middle class 
 and the lower : I mean, that the general temper 
 should be sincere. — It is not required that every 
 one should be disinterested, or zealous, or of one 
 mind with his fellows. Selfishness or slackness in 
 individuals, and in certain bodies of men also (and 
 at times perhaps in all), have their use : else why 
 should they exist ? Due circumspection and neces- 
 sary activity, in those who are sound, could not 
 otherwise maintain themselves. The deficiencies 
 in one quarter are more than made up by con- 
 sequent overflowings in another. " If my Neigh- 
 bour fails," says the true Patriot, " more devolves 
 upon me." Discord and even treason are not, in a 
 country situated as Spain is, the pure evils which, 
 upon a superficial view, they appear to be. Never 
 are a people so livelily admonished of the love they 
 bear their country, and of the pride which they 
 have in their common parent, as when they hear 
 of some parricidal attempt of a false brother. For 
 this cause chiefly, in times of national danger, are 
 their fancies so busy in suspicion ; which under 
 such shape, though oftentimes producing dire and 
 pitiable effects, is notwithstanding in its general 
 character no other than that habit which has 
 grown out of the instinct of self-preservation — . 
 elevated into a wakeful and affectionate apprehen- 
 
l6o 
 
 sion for the whole, and ennobling its private and 
 baser ways by the generous use to which they are 
 converted. Nor ever has a good and loyal man such 
 a swell of mind, such a clear insight into the con- 
 stitution of virtue, and such a sublime sense of its 
 power, as at the first tidings of some atrocious act of 
 perfidy ; when, having taken the alarm for human 
 nature, a second thought recovers him ; and his faith 
 returns — gladsome from what has been revealed 
 within himself, and awful from participation of the 
 secrets in the profaner grove of humanity which 
 that momentary blast laid open to his view. 
 
 Of the ultimate independence of the Spanish 
 Nation there is no reason to doubt : and for the 
 immediate furtherance of the good cause, and a 
 throwing-off of the yoke upon the first favourable 
 opportunity by the different tracts of the country 
 upon which it has been re-imposed, nothing is 
 wanting but sincerity on the part of the govern- 
 ment towards the provinces which are yet free. 
 The first end to be secured by Spain is riddance 
 of the enemy : the second, permanent indepen- 
 dence : and the third, a free constitution of go- 
 vernment ; which will give their main (though far 
 from sole) value to the other two : and without 
 which little more than a formal independence, and 
 perhaps scarcely that, can be secured. Humanity 
 and honour, and justice, and all the sacred feelings 
 connected with atonement, retribution, and satis- 
 faction ; shame that will not sleep, and the sting 
 of unperformed duty ; and all the powers of the 
 mind, the memory that broods over the dead and 
 turns to the living, the understanding, the imagi- 
 nation, and the reason ; — demand and enjoin that 
 the wanton oppressor should be driven, with 
 confusion and dismay, from the country which he 
 has so hfcinously abused. 
 
i6l 
 
 j 
 
 This cannot be accomplished (scarcely can it be 
 aimed at) without an accompanying and an inse- 
 parable resolution, in the souls of the Spaniards, 
 to be and remain their own masters ; that is, to 
 preserve themselves in the rank of Men ; and not 
 become as the Brute that is driven to the pasture, 
 and cares not who owns him. It is a common 
 saying among those who profess to be lovers of 
 civil liberty, and give themselves some credit for 
 understanding it, — that, if a Nation be not free, it 
 is mere dust in the balance whether the slavery be. 
 bred at home, or comes from abroad ; be of their 
 own suffering, or of a stranger's imposing 1 . They 
 see little of the under-ground part of the tree of 
 liberty, and know less of the nature of man, who 
 can think thus. Where indeed there is an indis- 
 putable and immeasurable superiority in one nation 
 over another ; to be conquered may, in course of 
 time, be a benefit to the inferior nation : and, 
 upon this principle, some of the conquests of the 
 Greeks and Romans may be justified. But in what of 
 really useful or honourable are the French superior 
 to their Neighbours ? Never far advanced, and, 
 now barbarizing apace, they may carry — amongst 
 the sober and dignified Nations which surround 
 them — much to be avoided, but little to be imitated. 
 
 There is yet another case in which a People may 
 be benefited by resignation or forfeiture of their 
 rights as a separate independent State ; I mean, 
 where — of two contiguous or neighbouring coun- 
 tries, both included by nature under one conspicu- 
 ously defined limit — the weaker is united with, or 
 absorbed into, the more powerful ; and one and 
 the same Government is extended over both. 
 This, with due patience and foresight, may (for the 
 most part) be amicably effected, without the in~ 
 tfervention of conquest ; but — even should a vio.~ 
 
 X 
 
1(52 
 
 lent course have been resorted to, and have proved 
 successful— the result will be matter of congratu- 
 lation rather than of regret, if the countries have 
 been incorporated with an equitable participation 
 of natural advantages and civil privileges. Who 
 does not rejoice that former partitions have dis- 
 appeared, — and that England, Scotland, and Wales, 
 are under one legislative and executive authority ; 
 and that Ireland (would that she had been more 
 justly dealt with !) follows the same destiny? The 
 large and numerous Fiefs, which interfered injuri- 
 ously with the grand demarcation assigned by 
 nature to France, have long since been united and 
 consolidated. The several independent Sovereign- 
 ties of Italy (a country, the boundary of which is 
 .still more expressly traced out by nature ; and 
 which has no less the further definition and cement 
 of country which Language prepares) have yet 
 this good to aim at : and it will be a happy day 
 for Europe, when the natives of Italy and the na- 
 tives of Germany (whose duty is, in like manner, 
 indicated to them) shall each dissolve the pernici- 
 ous barriers which divide them, and form them- 
 selves into a mighty People. But Spain, except- 
 ing a free union with Portugal, has no benefit of 
 this kind to look for : she has long since attained 
 it. The Pyrenees on the one side, and the Sea 
 on every other ; the vast extent and great resources 
 of the territory ; a population numerous enough to 
 -defend itself against the whole world, and capable 
 of great increase; language; and long duration 
 of independence ; — point out and command that 
 the two nations of the Peninsula should be united 
 in friendship and strict alliance; and, as soon as it 
 may be effected without injustice, form one inde- 
 pendent and indissoluble sovereignty. The Penin- 
 sula cannot be protected but by itself : it is top. 
 
i6s 
 
 large a tret to be framed by nature for a station 
 among underwoods; it must have power to toss its. 
 branchcs in the wind, and lift a bold forehead to 
 the sun. 
 
 Allowing that the " regni novitas" should 
 either compel or tempt the Usurper to do away 
 some ancient abuses, and to accord certain insig- 
 nificant privileges to the People upon the pur- 
 lieus of the forest of Freedom (for assuredly he 
 will never suffer them to enter the body of it) ; 
 allowing this, and much more ; that the mass of 
 the Population would be placed in a condition 
 outwardly more thriving — would be better off (as 
 the phrase in conversation is) ; it is still true that — 
 in the act and consciousness of submission to an 
 imposed lord and master, to a will not growing 
 out of themselves, to the edicts of another People 
 their triumphant enemy- — there would be the loss 
 of a sensation within for which nothing external, 
 even though it should come close to the garden 
 and the field—to the door and the fire-side, can 
 make amends. The Artisan and the Merchant 
 (men of classes perhaps least attached to their 
 native soil) would not be insensible to this loss ; 
 and the Mariner, in his thoughtful mood, would 
 sadden under it upon the wide ocean. The cen- 
 tral or cardinal feeling of these thoughts may, at a 
 future time, furnish fit matter for the genius of 
 some patriotic Spaniard to express in his own noble 
 language — as an inscription for the Sword of 
 Francis the First ; if that Sword, which was so 
 ingloriously and perfidiously surrendered, should 
 ever, by the energies of Liberty, be recovered, and 
 deposited in its ancient habitation in the Escurial. 
 The Patriot will recollect that, — if the memorial, 
 then given up by the hand of the Government, 
 had also been abandoned by the heart of the People* 
 
 x2 
 
.104 
 
 and that indignity patiently subscribed ta ; — hif 
 country would have been lost for ever. 
 
 There are multitudes by whom, I know, these 
 sentiments will not be languidly received at this 
 day; and sure I am- — that, a hundred and fifty 
 years ago, they would have been ardently welcomed 
 by all. But, in many parts of Europe (and espe- 
 cially in our own country), men have been pres- 
 sing forward, for some time, in a path which has 
 betrayed by its fruitfulness ; furnishing them con- 
 stant employment for picking up things about their 
 feet, when thoughts were perishing in their minds. 
 While Mechanic Arts, Manufactures, Agriculture, 
 Commerce, and all those products of knowledge 
 which are confined to gross — definite — and tangi- 
 ble objects, have, with the aid of Experimental Phi- 
 losophy, been every day putting on more brilliant 
 colours ; the splendour of the Imagination has been 
 fading : Sensibility, which was formerly a generous 
 nursling of rude Nature, has been chased from its 
 ancient range in the wide domain of patriotism and 
 religion with the weapons of derision by a shadow 
 calling itself Good Sense: calculations of presump- 
 tuous Expediency- — groping its way among partial 
 and temporary consequences — have been substi- 
 tuted for the dictates of paramount and infallible 
 Conscience, the supreme embracer of consequences: 
 lifeless and circumspect Decencies have banished 
 the graceful negligence and unsuspicious dignity of 
 Virtue. 
 
 The progress of these arts also, by furnishing 
 such attractive stores of outward accommodation, 
 lias misled the higher orders of society in their more 
 disinterested exertions for the service of the lower. 
 Animal comforts have been rejoiced over, as if 
 they were the end of being. A neater and more 
 fertile garden; a greener field; implements -and 
 
1(55 
 
 utensils more apt ; a dwelling more commodious 
 and better furnished ; — let these be attained, say 
 the actively benevolent, and we are sure not only 
 of being in the right road, but of having success- 
 fully terminated our journey. Now a country 
 may advance, for some time, in this course with 
 apparent profit : these accommodations, by zealous 
 encouragement, may be attained: and still the 
 Peasant or Artisan, their master, be a slave in mind ; 
 a slave rendered even more abject by the very 
 tenure under which these possessions are held : 
 and — if they veil from us this fact, or reconcile us 
 to it — they are worse than worthless. The springs 
 of emotion may be relaxed or destroyed within 
 him ; he may have little thought of the past, and 
 less interest in the future. — The great end and 
 difficulty of life for men of all classes, and espe- 
 cially difficult for those who live by manual labour, 
 is a union of peace with innocent and laudable 
 animation. Not by bread alone is the life of Man 
 sustained ; not by raiment alone is he warmed ; — 
 but by the genial and vernal inmate of the breast, 
 which at once pushes forth and cherishes ; by 
 self-support and self-sufficing endeavours ; by an- 
 ticipations, apprehensions, and active remem- 
 brances ; by elasticity under insult, and firm resist- 
 ance to injury ; by joy, and by love ; by pride 
 which his imagination gathers in from afar ; by 
 patience, because life wants not promises ; by 
 admiration ; by gratitude which — debasing him 
 not when his fellow-being is its object — habitually 
 expands itself, for his elevation, in complacency 
 towards his Creator. 
 
 Now, to the existence of these blessings, na- 
 tional independence is indispensible ; and many of 
 them it will itself produce and maintain. For it 
 is some consolation to those who look back upon 
 
m 
 
 the history of the world to know-^-thar, even* 
 without civil liberty, society may possess—diffused 
 through its inner recesses in the minds even of its 
 humblest members — something of dignified enjoy- - 
 ment. But, without national independence, this is 
 impossible. The difference, between inbred op- 
 pression and that which is from without, is essential z 
 inasmuch as the former does not exclude, from the 
 minds of a people, the feeling of being self- 
 governed ; does not imply (as the latter does, when 
 patiently submitted to) an abandonment of ihe first 
 duty imposed by the faculty of reason. In reality t 
 where this feeling has no place, a people are not a 
 society, but a herd; man being indeed distinguished 
 among them from the brute ; but only to his 
 disgrace. I am aware that there are too many 
 who think that, to the bulk of the community, this 
 independence is of no value ; that it is a refine- 
 ment with which they feel they have no concern ; 
 inasmuch as, under the best frame of Government, 
 there is an inevitable dependence of the poor 
 upon the rich — of the many upon the few — so un- 
 relenting and imperious as to reduce this other, 
 by comparison, into a force which has small in^ 
 fluence, and is entitled to no regard. Super- 
 add civil liberty to national independence ; and 
 this position is overthrown at once : for there is no 
 more certain mark of a sound frame of polity than 
 this ; that, in all individual instances (and it is upon 
 these generalized that this position is laid down)? 
 the dependence is in reality far more strict on the 
 side of the wealthy ; and the labouring man leans 
 less upon others than any man in the community. 
 — But the case.before us is of a country not in- 
 ternally free, yet supposed capable of repelling ari 
 external enemy who attempts its subjugation. If 
 a country have put oa chains of its own forging; 
 
167 
 
 in the name of virtue, let it be conscious that to 
 itself it is accountable : let it not have cause to 
 look beyond its own limits for reproof: and, — in 
 the name of humanity, — ^if it be self-depressed, 
 let it have its pride and some hope within itself. 
 The poorest Peasant, in an unsubdued land, 
 feels this pride. I do not appeal to the exam- 
 ple of Britain or of Switzerland -, for the one. 
 is free, and the other lately was free (and, I 
 trust, will ere long be so again) : but talk with 
 the Swede ; and you will see the joy he finds in 
 these sensations. With him animal courage (the 
 substitute for many and the friend of all the manly 
 virtues) has space to move in ; and is at once ele- 
 vated by his imagination, and softened by his 
 affections : it is invigorated also ; for the whole 
 courage of his Country is in his breast. 
 
 In fact: the Peasant, and he who lives by the 
 fajr reward of his manual labour, has ordinarily a 
 larger proportion of his gratifications dependent 
 upon these thoughts — than, for the most part, men 
 in other classes have. For he is in his person 
 attached, by stronger roots, to the soil of which 
 he is the growth : his intellectual notices are gene- 
 rally confined within narrower bounds : in him no 
 partial or antipatriotic interests counteract the 
 force of those nobler sympathies and antipathies 
 which he has in right of his Country ; and lastly 
 the belt or girdle of his mind has never been 
 stretched to utter relaxation by false philosophy, 
 under a conceit of making it sit more easily and 
 gracefully. These sensations are a social inheri- 
 tance to him ; more important, as he is precluded 
 from luxurious — and those which are usually called 
 refined — enjoyments. 
 
 Love and admiration must push themselves out 
 towards some quarter : otherwise the moral man- is 
 
killed. Collaterally they advance with great vigour 
 to a certain extent — -and they are checked : in 
 thaf direction, limits hard to pass are perpetually 
 encountered : but upwards and downwards, to 
 ancestry and to posterity, they meet with gladsome 
 help and no obstacles ; the tract is interminable.-^. 
 Pe/dition to the Tyrant who would wantonly cut 
 off an independent Nation from its inheritance in 
 past ages ; turning the tombs and burial-places of 
 the Forefathers into dreaded objects of sorrow, or 
 of shame and reproach, for the Children ! Look 
 upon Scotland and Wales : though, by the union 
 of these with England under the same Govern- 
 ment (which was effected without conquest in one 
 instance), ferocious and desolating wars, and more 
 injurious intrigues, and sapping and disgraceful 
 corruptions, have been prevented ; and tranquillity, 
 security, and prosperity, and a thousand inter- 
 changes of amity, not otherwise attainable, have 
 followed ; — yet the flashing eye, and the agitated 
 voice, and all the tender recollections, with which 
 the names of Prince Llewellin and William Wallace 
 ate to this day pronounced by the fire-side and on 
 the public road, attest that these substantial bles- 
 sings have not been purchased without the relin- 
 quishment of something most salutary to the moral 
 nature of Man * else the remembrances would not 
 cleave so faithfully to their abiding- place in the 
 human heart. But, if these affections be of gene T 
 ral interest, they are of especial interest to Spain ; 
 whose history, written and traditional, is pre-emi- 
 nently stored with the sustaining food of such 
 affections : and in no country are they more justly 
 and generally prized, or more feelingly cherished. 
 In the conduct of this argument I am not 
 speaking to the humbler ranks of society : it is 
 unnecessary : they trust in nature, and are safe* 
 7 
 
The people of Madrid, and Corunna, and Ferrol, 
 resisted to the last ; from an impulse which, in 
 their hearts, was its own justification. The failure 
 was with those who sjtoogl higbetf in tue scale; In 
 fact ; the universal rising of the Peninsula, under 
 the pressure and in the face of the most tremendous 
 military power which ever existed, is evidence which 
 cannot be too much insisted upon ; and is decisive 
 upon this subject, as involving a question of virtue 
 and moral sentiment. All ranks were penetrated 
 with one feeling : instantaneous and universal was 
 the acknowledgement. If there have been since 
 individual fallings-off; those have been caused by 
 that kind of after- thoughts which are the bastard 
 offspring of selfishness. The matter was brought 
 home to Spain ; and no Spaniard has offended 
 herein with a still conscience. — It is to the world- 
 lings of our own country, and to those who think 
 without carrying their thoughts far enough, that I 
 address myself. Let them know, there is no true 
 wisdom without imagination ; no genuine sense ; — 
 that the man, who in this age feels no regret for 
 the ruined honour of other Nations, must be poor 
 in sympathy for the honour of his own Country ; 
 and that, if he be wanting here towards that which 
 circumscribes the whole, he neither has-^nor can 
 have— -a social regard for the lesser communities 
 which Country includes. Contract the circle, and 
 bring him to his family ; such a man cannot pro- 
 tect that with dignified loves. Reduce his thoughts 
 to his own person ; he may defend himself, — what 
 he deems his honour ; but it is the action of a brave 
 man from the impulse of the brute, or the motive 
 of a coward. 
 
 But it is time to recollect that this vindication of 
 fyuman feeling began from an hypothesis, — that the 
 outward state of the mass of the Spanish people 
 
 y 
 
170 
 
 would be improved by the French usurpation. 
 To this I now give an unqualified denial. Let me 
 also observe to those men, for whose infirmity this 
 hypothesis was tolerated, — that the true point 
 of comparison does not lie between what the 
 Spaniards have been under a government of their 
 own, and what they may become under French 
 domination ; but between what the Spaniards 
 may do (and, in all likelihood, will do) for them- 
 selves, and what Frenchmen would do for them. 
 But, — waiving this, — the sweeping away of the 
 most splendid monuments of art, and rifling of the 
 public treasuries in the conquered countries, are ari 
 apt prologue to the tragedy which is to ensue. 
 Strange that there are men who can be so besotted 
 as to see, in the decrees of the Usurper concerning 
 feudal tenures and a worn-out inquisition, any 
 other evidence than that of insidiousness and of a 
 constrained acknowledgement of the strength 
 which he felt he had to overcome. What avail 
 the lessons of history, if men can be duped thus ? 
 Boons and promises of this kind rank, in trust- 
 worthiness, many degrees lower than amnesties 
 after expelled kings have recovered their thrones. 
 The fate of subjugated Spain may be expressed in 
 these words, — pillage-— depression — and helotism 
 —for the supposed aggrandizement 4 of the imagi- 
 nary freeman its master. There would indeed be 
 attempts at encouragement, that there 1 might be a 
 supply of something to pillage : studied depression 
 there would be, that there might arise no power of 
 resistance : and lastly helotism ;■ — but of what kind ? 
 that a vain and impious Nation might have slaves, 
 worthier than itself, for work which its own hands 
 Would reject with scorn. 
 
 What good can the present arbitrary power con- 
 fer upon France itself? Let that point be first 
 settled by those who are inclined to look farther. 
 
171 
 
 The earlier proceedings of the French Revolution. 
 no doubt infused health into the country ; some- 
 thing of which survives to this day : but let not 
 the now-existing Tyranny have the credit of it. 
 France neither owes, nor can owe, to this any ra- 
 tional obligation. She has seen decrees without 
 end for the increase of commerce and manufac- 
 tures ; pompous stories without number of har- 
 bours, canals, warehouses, and bridges : but there 
 is no worse sign in the management of affairs than 
 when that, which ought to follow as an effect, goes 
 before under a vain notion that it will be a cause. 
 —Let us attend to the springs of action, and we 
 shall not be deceived. The works of peace cannot 
 flourish in a country governed by an intoxicated 
 Despot ; the motions of whose distorted benevo- 
 lence must be still more pernicious than those of 
 his cruelty. " I have bestowed ; 1 have created ; I 
 have regenerated ; I have been pleased to organize;* 
 ■ — this is the language perpetually upon his lips, 
 when his ill-fated activities turn that way. Now. 
 commerce, manufactures, agriculture, and all thfc 
 peaceful arts, are of the nature of virtues or intel- 
 lectual powers : they cannot be given ; they cannot 
 be stuck in here and there ; they must spring up ; 
 they must grow of themselves : they may b£ 
 encouraged ; they thrive better with encourage- 
 ment, and delight in it ; but the obligation must 
 have bounds nicely defined ; for they are delicate, 
 proud, and independent. But a Tyrant has no joy 
 in any thing which is endued with such excellence: 
 he sickens at the sight of it : he turns away from 
 it, as an insult to his own attributes. We have 
 seen the present ruler of France publicly ad- 
 dressed as a Providence upon earth ; styled, among 
 innumerable other blasphemies, the supreme Ruler 
 of things ; and heard him say, in his answers, that 
 he approved of the language of those who thu? 
 
 T 2 
 
Ml 
 
 saluted him. (See Appendix E.) — Oh folly to' 
 think that plans of reason can prosper under such 
 countenance! If this be the doom of France, 
 what, a- monster would be the double-headed 
 tyranny of Spain ! 
 
 It is immutably ordained .that power, taken arid 
 exercised in contempt of right, never can bring 
 forth good. Wicked actions indeed have often- 
 times happy issues : the benevolent ceconomy of 
 nature counter-working and diverting evil ; and 
 educing finally benefits from injuries ; and turning 
 curses to blessings. But I am speaking of good in a 
 direct course. All good in this order— all moral 
 good — begins and ends in reverence of right. The 
 whole Spanish People are to be treated not as a 
 mighty multitude with feeling, will, and judgment; 
 not as rational creatures ; — but as objects without 
 reason ; in the language of human law, insuperably 
 laid down not as Persons but as Things. Can 
 good come from this beginning ; which, in matter 
 ©f civil government, is the fountain-head and the 
 main feeder of all the pure evil upon earth ? Look 
 at the past history of our sister Island for the quality 
 of foreign oppression : turn where you will, it is 
 miserable at best ; but, in the case of Spain !-= — it 
 might be said, engraven upon the rocks of he# 
 own Pyrenees, 
 
 "Per me si va nella citta dolente; 
 Per me si va nell' eterno dolorej 
 Per me si va tra la perduta gente. 
 
 So much I have thought it necessary to speak 
 upon this subject; with a desire to enlarge the 
 views of the short-sighted, to cheat the despond- 
 ing, and stimulate the remiss. I have been treat- 
 ing of duties which the People of Spain feel to be' 
 solemn and imperious ; and have referred to springs 
 of action (in the sensations of love and hatred, of 
 hope and fear),-^-for promoting the fulfilment o£ 
 
173 
 
 these duties, — which cannot fail. The People 
 of Spain, thus animated, will move now ; and will 
 be prepared to move, upon a favourable summons, 
 for ages. And it is consolatory to think that, — 
 even if many of the leading persons of that 
 country, in their resistance to France, should not 
 look beyond the two first objects (viz. riddance 
 of the enemy, and security of national indepen- 
 dence) ; — it is, I say, consolatory to think that -the 
 conduct, which can alone secure either of these 
 ends, leads directly to a free internal Government. 
 We have therefore both the passions and the rea- 
 son of these men on our side in two stages of the 
 common journey : and,when this is the case, surely 
 we are justified in expecting some further com- 
 panionship and support from their reason — acting 
 independent of their partial interests, or in opposi- 
 tion to them. It is obvious that, to the narrow 
 policy of this class (men loyal to the Nation and 
 to the King, yet jealous of the People), the most 
 dangerous failures, which have hitherto taken 
 place, are to be attributed : for, though from acts 
 of open treason Spain may suffer and has suffered 
 much, these (as I have proved) can never affect 
 the vitals of the cause. But the march of Liberty 
 has begun ; and they, who will not lead, may be 
 borne along. — At all events, the road is plain. Let 
 members for the Cortes be assembled from those 
 Provinces which are not in the possession of the 
 Invader : or at least (if circumstances render this 
 impossible at present) let it be annouced that such 
 is the intention, to be realized the first moment 
 when it shall become possible. In the mean while 
 speak boldly to the People : and let the People 
 Write and speak boldly. Let the expectation be 
 familiar to them of open and manly institutions of 
 Jaw and liberty according to knowledge. Let 
 4 
 
174 
 
 them be universally trained to military exercises, 
 and accustomed to military discipline : let them 
 be drawn together in civic and religious assemblies ; 
 and a general communication of those assemblies 
 with each other be established through the coun- 
 try : so that there may be one zeal and one life in 
 every part of it. 
 
 With great profit might the Chiefs of the 
 Spanish Nation look back upon the earlier part of 
 the French Revolution. Much, in the outward 
 manner, might there be found worthy of qualified 
 imitation : and, where there is a difference in the 
 inner spirit (and there is a mighty difference !), the 
 advantage is wholly on the side of the Spaniards. 
 • — Why should the People of Spain be dreaded by 
 their leaders ? I do not mean the profligate and 
 flagitious leaders ; but those who are well-inten- 
 tioned, yet timid. That there are numbers of this 
 class who have excellent intentions, and are willing 
 to make large personal sacrifices, is clear ; for they 
 have put every thing to risk — all their privileges, 
 their honours, and possessions— by their resistance 
 to the Invader. Why then should they have fears 
 from a quarter- — whence their safety must come, if it 
 come at all ? — Spain has nothing to dread from Ja- 
 cobinism. Manufactures and Commerce have there 
 in far less degree than elsewhere — by unnaturally 
 clustering the people together — enfeebled their 
 bodies, inflamed their passions by intemperance, 
 vitiated from childhood their moral affections, and 
 destroyed their imaginations. Madrid is no enormous 
 city, like Paris ; over-grown, and disproportionate ; 
 sickening and bowing down, by its corrupt humours, 
 the frame of the body politic. Nor has the pestilen- 
 tial philosephism of France made any progress in 
 Spain. No flight of infidel harpies has alighted upon 
 their ground. A Spanish understanding is a hold 
 
J75 
 
 too strong to give way to the meagre tactics of the 
 *f Sy steme de la Nature ;" or to tne pellets of logic 
 which Condillac has cast in the foundry of national 
 vanity, and tosses about at hap-hazard — self-per- 
 suaded that he is proceeding according to art. The 
 Spaniards are a people with imagination : and the 
 paradoxical reveries of Rousseau, and the flippan- 
 cies of Voltaire, are plants which will not naturalise 
 in the country of Calderon and Cervantes. 
 Though bigotry among the Spaniards leaves much 
 to be lamented ; I have proved that the religious 
 habits of the nation must, in a contest of this kind, 
 be of inestimable service. 
 
 Yet further : contrasting the present condition 
 of Spain with that of France at the commence- 
 ment of her revolution, we must not overlook one 
 characteristic ; the Spaniards have no division 
 among themselves by and through themselves ; no 
 numerous Priesthood — no Nobility — no large body 
 of powerful Burghers — from passion, interest, and 
 conscience — opposing the end which is known and 
 felt to be the duty and only honest and true in- 
 terest of all. Hostility, wherever it is found, must 
 proceed from the seductions of the Invader : and 
 these depend solely upon his power : let that be 
 shattered ; and they vanish. 
 
 And this once again leads us directly to that 
 immense military force which the Spaniards have 
 to combat ; and which, many think, more than 
 counterbalances every internal advantage. It is 
 indeed formidable : as revolutionary appetites and 
 energies must needs be ; when, among a people 
 numerous as the people of France, they have ceased 
 to spend themselves in conflicting factions within 
 the country for objects perpetually chafing shape ; 
 and are carried out of it undei^he strong controul' 
 of an absolute despotism, as opportunity invites, 
 for a definite object — plunder and conquest. Ii is, 
 
176 
 
 t allow, a frightful spectacle — to see the prime of 
 a vast nation propelled out of their territory with 
 the rapid sweep of a horde of Tartars ; moving 
 from the impulse of like savage instincts ; and fur- 
 nished, at the same time, with those implements 
 of physical destruction which have been produced 
 by science and civilization. Such are the motions 
 of the French armies ; unchecked by any thought 
 which philosophy and the spirit of society, pro- 
 gressively humanizing, have called forth— rto deter- 
 mine or regulate the application of the murderous 
 and desolating apparatus with which by philo- 
 sophy and science they have been provided. With 
 a like perversion of things, and the same mis-* 
 chievous reconcilement of forces in their nature 
 adverse, these revolutionary impulses and these 
 appetites of barbarous (nay, what, is far worse, of 
 barbarized) men are embodied in a new frame of 
 polity; which possesses the consistency of an ancient 
 Government, without its embarrassments and weak- 
 nesses. And at the head of all is the mind of one 
 man who acts avowedly upon the principle that 
 every thing, which can be done safely by the 
 supreme power of a state, may be done (See 
 appendix F.J ; and who has, at his command, the 
 greatest parr of the continent of Europe — to fulfil 
 what yet remains unaccomplished of his nefarious 
 purposes. 
 
 Now it must be obvious to a reflecting mind 
 that every thing which is desperately immoral, 
 being in its constitution monstrous, is of itself 
 perishable : decay it cannot escape ; and, further, 
 it is liable to sudden dissolution : time would 
 evince this in the instance before us; though not, 
 perhaps, Vntirnafityte and irreparable harm had 
 been done. But, even at present, each of the . 
 sources of this preternatural strength (as far as ;t 
 is formidable to Europe) has its corresponding seat 
 
m 
 
 of weakness ; which, were it fairly touched, would 
 manifest itself immediately.- The power is in- 
 deed a Colossus : but, if the trunk be of molten- 
 brass, the members are of clay ; and would fall to 
 pieces upon a shock which need not be violent. 
 Great Britain, if her energies were properly called 
 forth and directed, might (as we have already 
 maintained) give this shock. " Magna parvis ob- 
 scurantur" was the appropriate motto (the device 
 a Sun Eclipsed) when Lord Peterborough, with a 
 handful of men opposed to fortified cities and 
 large armies, brought a great part of Spain to- 
 acknowledge a sovereign of the House of Austria. 
 We have ftotv a vast military force ; and, — even 
 without a Peterborough or a Marl borough,— at this 
 precious opportunity (when, as is daily more pro- 
 bable, a large portion of the French force must 
 march northwards to combat Austria) we might 
 easily, by expelling the French from the Peninsula, 
 secure an immediate footing there for liberty ; and 
 the Pyrenees would then be shut against them for 
 ever. The disciplined troops of Great Britain 
 might overthrow the enemy in the field ; while the 
 Patriots of Spain, under wise management, would 
 be able to consume him slowly but surely. 
 
 For present annoyance his power is, no doubt, 
 mighty : but liberty — in which it originated, and of 
 which it is a depravation — is far mightier ; and the 
 good in human nature is stronger than the evil. The 
 events of our age indeed have brought this truth 
 into doubt with some persons : and scrupulous ob- 
 servers have been astonished and have repined at 
 the sight of enthusiasm, courage, perseverance, and 
 fidelity, put forth seemingly to their height,-— and 
 all engaged in the furtherance of wrong. But the" 
 minds of men are not always devoted to this bad 
 service as strenuously as they appear to be. I have 
 
 7j 
 
personal knowledge that, when the attack was made 
 which ended in the subjugation of Switzerland, 
 the injustice of the undertaking was grievously 
 oppressive to many officers of the French army ; 
 and damped their exertions. Besides, were it 
 otherwise, there is no just cause for despondency 
 in the perverted alliance of these qualities with 
 oppression. The intrinsic superiority of virtue and 
 liberty, even for politic ends, is not affected by it. 
 If the tide of success were, by any effort, fairly 
 turned ; — not only a general desertion, as we have 
 the best reason to believe, would follow among the 
 troops of the enslaved nations ; but a moral change 
 would also take place in the minds of the native 
 French soldiery. Occasion would be given for 
 the discontented to break out ; and, above all, for 
 the triumph of human nature. It would then be 
 seen whether men fighting in a bad cause,— men 
 without magnanimity, honour, or justice, — could 
 recover ; and stand up against champions who by 
 these virtues were carried forward in good fortune, 
 as by these virtues in adversity they had been sus- 
 tained. As long as guilty actions thrive, guilt is 
 strong: it has a giddiness and transport of its own ; a 
 hardihood not without superstition, as if Providence 
 were a party to its success. But there is no inde- 
 pendent spring at the heart of the machine which 
 can be relied upon for a support of these motions 
 in a change of circumstances. Disaster opens the 
 eyes of conscience ; and, in the minds of men 
 who have been employed in bad actions, defeat 
 and a feeling of punishment are inseparable. 
 
 On the other hand ; the power of an un- 
 blemished heart and a hrave spirit is shewn, in the 
 events of war, not only among unpractised citizens 
 and peasants ; but among troops in the most per- 
 fect discipline. Large bodies of the British army 
 
 6 
 
179 
 
 have been several times broken— that is, tech- 
 nically vanquished' — in Egypt, and elsewhere. 
 Yet they, who were conquered as formal soldiers, 
 stood their ground and became conquerors as 
 men. This paramount efficacy of moral causes 
 is not willingly admitted by persons high in the 
 profession of arms; because it seems to diminish 
 their value in society — by taking from the im- 
 portance of their art : but the truth is indisputa- 
 ble : and those Generals are as 1 blind to their 
 own interests as to the interests of their country, 
 who, by submitting to inglorious treaties or by 
 other misconduct, hazard the breaking down of 
 those personal virtues in the men under their com- 
 mand — to w^hich they themselves, as leaders, are 
 mainly indebted for the fame which they acquire. 
 Combine, with this moral superiority inherent 
 in the cause of Freedom, the endless resources 
 open to a nation .which shews constancy in defen- 
 sive war ; resources which, after a lapse of time, 
 leave the strongest invading army comparatively 
 helpless. Before six cities, resisting asSaragossa hath 
 resisted during her two sieges, the whole of the 
 military power of the adversary would melt away. 
 Without any advantages of natural situation ; 
 without fortifications ; without even a ditch to 
 protect them ; with nothing better than a mud 
 wall ; with not more than two hundred regular 
 troops ; with a slender stock of arms and ammu- 
 nition ; with a leader inexperienced in war; — the 
 Citizens of Saragossa began the contest. Enough 
 of what was needful — was produced and created ; 
 and — by courage, fortitude, and skill, rapidly 
 matured-— they baffled for sixty days, and finally 
 repulsed, a large French army with all its equip- 
 ments. In the first siege the natural and moral 
 victory were both on their side j nor less so virtu- 
 
180 
 
 ally (though the termination was different) in the 
 second. For, after another resistance of nearly 
 three months, they have given the enemy cause 
 feelingly to say, with Pyrrhus of old, — " A little 
 more of such conquest, and I am destroyed." - 
 
 If evidence were Wanting of the efficacy of the 
 principles which throughout this Treatise have 
 been maintained, — it nas been furnished in over- 
 flowing measure. A private individual, I had 
 written ; and knew not in what manner tens of 
 thousands were enacting, day after day, the truths 
 which, in the solitude of a peaceful vale, I was 
 meditating. Most gloriously have the Citizens of 
 Saragossa proved that the true army of Spain, in 
 a contest of this nature, is the whole people. The 
 same city has also exemplified a melancholy— yc$ 
 a dismal truth ; yet consolatory, and full of joy ; 
 that, — when a people are called suddenly to fight 
 for their liberty, and are sorety pressed upon, 
 -—their best field of battle is the floors upon 
 which their children have played ; the chambers 
 \yhere the family of each man has slept (his own or 
 his neighbours') ; upon or under the roofs by which 
 they have been sheltered ; in the gardens of their 
 recreation ; in the street, or in the market-place ; 
 before the Altars of their Temples ; and among 
 their congregated dwellings- — blazing,or up-rooted. 
 
 The Government of Spain must never forget 
 Saragossa for a moment. Nothing is wanting, to 
 produce the same effects every where, but a lead- 
 ing mind such as that city was blessed with. In the 
 latter contest this has been proved ; for Saragossa 
 cpntained, at that tjme, bodies of men from almost 
 all parts of Spain. The narrative of those two 
 sieges should be the manual of every Spaniard : 
 l]e may add to it the ancient stories of Numantia 
 and Saguntum : let him sleep upon the book as a 
 
181 
 
 pillow ; and, if he be a devout adherent to the 
 religion of his country, let him wear it in his bosom 
 for his crucifix to rest upon. 
 
 Beginning from these invincible feelings, and the 
 principles of justice which are involved in them ; 
 let nothing be neglected, which policy and pru- 
 dence dictate, for rendering subservient to the 
 same end those qualities in human nature which 
 are indifferent or even morally bad ; and for making 
 the selfish propensities contribute to the support of 
 wise arrangements, civil and military. — Perhaps 
 there never appeared in the field more steady sol- 
 diers — troops which it would have been more diffi- 
 cult to conquer with such knowledge of the art 
 of war as then existed — than those commanded 
 by Fairfax and Cromwell : let us see from what 
 root these armies grew. 9 Cromwell," says Sir 
 Philip Warwick, f * made use of the zeal and cre- 
 dulity of these persons" (that is — such of the 
 people as had, in the author's language, the fana- 
 tic humour) ; f< teaching them (as they too readily 
 taught themselves) that they engaged for God, 
 when he led them against his vicegerent the King. 
 And, where this opinion met with a natural courage, 
 it made them bolder— and too often crueller ; and, 
 where natural courage wanted, zeal supplied its 
 place. And at first they chose rather to die than 
 flee ; and custom removed fear of danger : and 
 afterwards — finding the sweet of good pay, and of 
 opulent plunder, and of preferment suitable to 
 activity and merit-— the lucrative part made gain 
 seem to them a natural member of godliness. And 
 I cannot here omit" (continues the author) <c a 
 character of this army which General Fairfax gave 
 unto myself j when, complimenting him with the 
 regularity and temperance of his army, he told me, 
 The best common soldiers he had— came out of 
 
182 
 
 our army and from the garrisons he had taken 
 in. So (says he) I found you had made them 
 good soldiers ; and I have made them good men. 
 But, upon this whole matter, it may appear" (con- 
 cludes the author) " that the spirit of discipline of 
 warr may beget that spirit of discipline which even 
 Solomon describes as the spirit of wisdom and 
 obedience." Apply this process to the growth 
 and maturity of an armed force in Spain. In 
 making a comparison of the two cases; to the sense 
 of the insults and injuries which, as Spaniards and 
 as human Beings, they have received and have to 
 dread, — and to the sanctity which an honourable 
 resistance has already conferred upon their misfor- 
 tunes, — add the devotion of that people to their 
 religion as Catholics ; — and it will not be doubted 
 that the superiority of the radical feeling is, on 
 their side, immeasurable. There is (I cannot re- 
 frain from observing) in the Catholic religion, and 
 in the character of its Priesthood especially, a 
 source of animation and fortitude in desperate 
 struggles — which may be relied upon as one of the 
 best hopes of the cause. The narrative of the 
 first siege of Zaragoza, lately published in this 
 country, and which I earnestly recommend to the 
 reader's perusal, informs us that, — " In every part 
 of the town were the danger was most imminent, 
 and the French the most numerous,— was Padre 
 St. Iago Sass, curate of a parish in Zaragoza. As 
 General Palafox made his rounds through the city, 
 he often beheld Sass alternately playing the part 
 of a Priest and a Soldier ; sometimes administering 
 the sacrament to the dying ; and, at others, fight- 
 ing in the most determined manner againat the 
 enemies of his country. — He was found so service- 
 able in inspiring the people with religious senti- 
 ments, and in leading them on to danger, that the 
 
183 
 
 General has placed him in a situation where both 
 his piety and courage may continue to be as useful 
 as before ; and he is now both Captain in the 
 army, and Chaplain to the commander-in-chief." 
 
 The reader will have been reminded, by the 
 passage above cited from Sir Philip Warwick's 
 memoirs, of the details given, in the earlier part of 
 this tract, concerning the course which (as it ap- 
 peared to me) might with advantage be pursued in 
 Spain : I must request him to combine those de- 
 tails with such others as have since been given : 
 the whole would have been further illustrated, if I 
 could sooner have returned to the subject ; but it 
 was first necessary to examine the grounds of hope 
 in the grand and disinterested passions, and in the 
 laws of universal morality. My attention has 
 therefore been chiefly directed to these laws and 
 passions ; in order to elevate, in some degree, the 
 conceptions of my readers ; and with a wish to 
 rectify and fix, in this fundamental point, their 
 judgements. The truth of the general reasoning 
 will, I have no doubt, be acknowledged by men 
 of uncorrupted natures and practised understand- 
 ings ; and the conclusion, which I have repeatedly 
 drawn, will be acceded to ; namely, that no resist- 
 ance can be prosperous which does not look, for 
 its chief support, to these principles and feel- 
 ings. . If, however, there should be men who still 
 fear (as I have been speaking of things under 
 combinations which are transitory) that the action 
 of these powers cannot be sustained ; to such 
 I answer that, — -if there be a necessity that it 
 should be sustained ^fc : the point to which it first 
 ascended, or should recover that height if there 
 have been a fall,-— nature will provide for that 
 necessity. The cause is in Tyranny : and that 
 will again call forth the effect out of its holy 
 retirements. Oppression, its own blind and pre- 
 
184 
 
 destined enemy, has poured this of blessedness' 
 upon Spain, — that the enormity of the outrages, of 
 which she has been the victim, has created art 
 object of love and of hatred — -of apprehensions and 
 of wishes — adequate (if that be possible) to the 
 utmost demands of the human spirit. The heart 
 that serves in this cause, if it languish, must lan- 
 guish from its own constitutional weakness ; and 
 not through want of nourishment from without* 
 But it is a belief propagated in books, and which 
 passes currently among talking men as part of 
 their familiar wisdom, that the hearts of the many 
 are constitutionally weak ; that they do languish ; 
 and are slow to answer to the requisitions of things. 
 I entreat those, who are in this delusion, to look- 
 behind them and about them for the evidence of 
 experience. Now this, rightly understood, not 
 only gives no support to any such belief; but 
 proves that the truth is in direct opposition to it. 
 The history of all ages ; tumults after tumults ; wars^ 
 foreign or civil, with short or with no breathing- 
 spaces, from generation to generation ; wars — why 
 and wherefore ? yet with courage, with perseve- 
 rance, with self-sacrifice, with enthusiasm — with 
 cruelty driving forward the cruel man from its 
 own terrible nakedness, and attracting the more 
 benign by the accompaniment of some shadow 
 which seems to sanctify it ; the senseless weaving 
 and interweaving of factions—evanishing and re- 
 viving and piercing each other like the Northern 
 Lights; public commotions, andjthose in the bosom 
 of the individual ; the long -calenture to which the 
 Lover is subject ; the blast, litee the blast of the de-< 
 sart, which ( sweeps perennially through a frightful 
 solitude of its own making in the mind of the 
 Gamester ; the slowly quickening but ever quick- 
 ening descent of appetite down which the Miser 
 is propelled; the agony and cleaving oppression 
 
185 
 
 of grief; the ghbst- like hauntings of shame; the 
 incubus of revenge ; the life-distemper of ambi- 
 tion ; — these inward existences, and the visible and 
 familiar occurrences of daily life in every town and 
 village ; the patient curiosity and contagious accla- 
 mations of the multitude in the streets of the city 
 and within the walls of the theatre; a procession, 
 or a rural dance ; a hunting, or a horse-race ; a 
 flood, or a fire ; rejoicing and ringing of bells for 
 an unexpected gift of good fortune, or the coming 
 
 of a foolish heir to his estate ; these 
 
 demonstrate incontestibly that the passions of men 
 (I mean, the soul of sensibility in the heart of man) 
 — in all quarrels, in all contests, in all quests, in all 
 delights, in all employments which are either 
 sought by men or thrust upon them— do immea- 
 surably transcend their objects. The true sorrow 
 of humanity consists in this ;— not that the mind of 
 man fails ; but that the course and demands of 
 action and of life so rarely correspond with the 
 dignity and intensity of human desires : and hence 
 that, which is slow to languish, is too easily turned 
 aside and abused. But — with the remembrance of 
 what has been done, and in the face of the inter- 
 minable evils which are threatened — a Spaniard 
 can never have cause to complain of this, while a 
 follower of the Tyrant remains in arms upon the 
 Peninsula. 
 
 Here then they, with whom I hope, take their 
 stand. There is a spiritual community binding 
 together the living and the dead ; the good, the 
 brave, and the wise, of all ages. We would not 
 be rejected from this community : and therefore 
 do we hope. We look forward with erect mind* 
 thinking and feeling : it is an obligation of duty : 
 take away the sense of it, and the moral being 
 would die within us.-—Among the most illustrious 
 
 Aa 
 
186 
 
 of that fraternity, whose encouragement we partici- 
 pate, is an Englishman who sacrificed his life in 
 devotion to a cause bearing a stronger likeness to 
 this than any recorded in history. It is the elder 
 Sidney — a deliverer and defender, whose name I 
 have before uttered with reverence ; who, treating 
 qf the war in the Netherlands against Philip the 
 Second, thus writes : " If her Majesty," says he, 
 " were the fountain ; I wold fear, considering 
 what I daily find, that we shold wax dry. But 
 she is but a means whom God useth. And I know 
 not whether I am deceaved ; but I am fully per- 
 suaded, that, if she shold withdraw herself, other 
 springs wold rise to help this action. For, methinks, 
 I see the great work indeed in hand against the 
 abuses of the world ; wherein it is no greater fault 
 to have confidence in man's power, than it is too 
 hastily to despair of God's work." 
 
 The pen, which I am guiding, has stopped in 
 my hand ; and I have scarcely power to proceed. 
 — I will lay down one principle ; and then shall 
 contentedly withdraw from the sanctuary. 
 
 When wickedness acknowledges no limit but 
 the extent of her power, and advances with aggra- 
 vated impatience like a devouring fire ; the only 
 worthy or adequate opposition is — that of virtue 
 submitting to no circumscription of her endeavours 
 save that of her rights, and aspiring from the im- 
 pulse of her own ethereal zeal. The Christian ex- 
 Jiortation for the individual is here the precept for 
 nations- — " Be ye therefore perfect ; even as your 
 Father, which is in Heaven, is perfect." 
 
 Upon a future occasion (if what has been now 
 said meets with attention) I shall point out the 
 steps by which the practice of life may be lifted 
 up towards these high precepts. I shall have to 
 speak of the child as well as the man ; for with the 
 
Child, or the youth, may we begin with more hope : 
 but I am not in despair even for the man : and 
 chiefly from the inordinate evils of our time. 
 There are (as I shall attempt to shew) tender and 
 subtile ties by which these principles, that love to 
 soar in the pure region, are connected with the 
 ground-nest in which they were fostered and from 
 which they take their flight. 
 
 The outermost and all-embracing circle of bene- 
 volence has inward concentric circles which, like 
 those of the spider's web, are bound together by 
 links, and rest upon each other ; making one frame, 
 and capable of one tremor; circles narrower and nar- 
 rower, closer and closer, as they lie more near to 
 the centre of self from which they proceeded, and 
 which sustains the whole. The order of life does 
 not require that the sublime and disinterested feel- 
 ings should have to trust long to their own un- 
 assisted power. Nor would the attempt consist 
 either with their dignity or their humility. They 
 condescend, and they adopt: they know the time of 
 their repose ; and the qualities which are worthy 
 of being admitted into their service — of being 
 their inmates, their companions, or their substi- 
 tutes. I shall strive to shew that these principles 
 and movements of wisdom — so far from towering 
 above the support of prudence, or rejecting the 
 rules of experience, for the better conduct of 
 those multifarious actions which are alike neces- 
 sary to the attainment of ends good or bad — do 
 instinctively prompt the sole prudence which 
 cannot fail. The higher mode of being does 
 not exclude, but necessarily includes, the lower ; 
 the intellectual does not exclude, but necessarily 
 includes, the sentient; the sentient,, the animal i 
 and the animal, the vital — to its lowest degrees. 
 Wisdom is the hidden root which thrusts forth 
 the stalk of prudence ; and these uniting feed and 
 aa 2 
 
168 
 
 uphold "the bright consummate flower" — Na- 
 tional Happiness — the end, the conspicuous crown, 
 and ornament of the whole. 
 
 I have announced the feelings of those who 
 hope : yet one word more to those who despond. 
 And first ; he stands upon a hideous precipice 
 (and it will be the same with all who may succeed 
 to him and his iron sceptre) — he who has outlawed 
 himself from society by proclaiming, with act and 
 deed, that he acknowledges no mastery but power. 
 This truth must be evident to all who breathe — 
 from the dawn of childhood, till the last gleam 
 of twilight is lost in the darkness of dotage But 
 take the tyrant as he is, in the plenitude of his 
 supposed strength. The vast country of Germany, 
 in spite of the rusty but too strong fetters of corrupt 
 princedoms and degenerate nobility,— Germany- — 
 with its citizens, its peasants, and its philosophers—^ 
 will not lie quiet under the weight of injuries 
 which has been heaped upon it. There is a sleep, 
 but no death, among the mountains of Switzer- 
 land. Florence, and Venice, and Genoa, and 
 Rome,-— have their own poignant recollections, and 
 a majestic train of glory in past ages. The stir 
 of emancipation may again be felt at the mouths 
 as well as at the sources of the Rhine. Poland 
 perhaps will not be insensible ; Kosciusko and his 
 compeers may not have bled in vain. Nor is, 
 Hungarian loyalty to be overlooked. And, for 
 Spain itself, the territory is wide : let it be over- 
 run : the torment will weaken as the water spreads. 
 And, should all resistance disappear, be not daunt- 
 ed : extremes meet : and how often do hope and 
 despair almost touch each other- — though uncon- 
 scious of their neighbourhood, because their faces. 
 §re turned different ways ! yet, in a moment, thf 
 
189 
 
 one shall vanish ; and the other begin a career ia 
 the fulness of her joy. 
 
 But we may turn from these thoughts : for the 
 present juncture is most auspicious. Upon liberty, 
 and upon liberty alone, can there be permanent 
 dependence ; but a temporary relief will be given 
 by the share which Austria is about to take in the 
 war. Now is the time for a great and decisive 
 effort ; and, if Britain does not avail herself of it, 
 her disgrace will be indelible, and the loss infinite. 
 If there be ground of hope in the crimes and 
 errors of the enemy, he has furnished enough of 
 both : but imbecility in his opponents (above all, 
 the imbecility of the British) has hitherto pre- 
 served him from the natural consequences of his 
 ignorance, his meanness of mind, his transports of 
 infirm fancy, and his guilt. Let us hasten to 
 redeem ourselves. The field is open for a com- 
 manding British military force to clear the' Penin- 
 sula of the enemy, while the better half of his 
 power is occupied with Austria. For the South 
 of Spain, where the first effort of regeneration was 
 made, is yet free. Saragossa (which, by a truly 
 efficient British army, might have been relieved) 
 has indeed fallen ; but leaves little to regret ; for 
 consummate have been her fortitude and va- 
 lour. The citizens and soldiers of Saragossa are 
 to be envied : for they have completed the circle 
 of their duty ; they have done all that could be 
 wished— all that could be prayed for. And, though 
 the cowardly malice of the enemy gives too 
 much reason to fear that their leader Palafox 
 (with the fate of Toussaint) will soon be among 
 the dead, it is the high privilege of men who 
 have performed what he has performed — that they 
 cannot be missed ; and, in moments of weakness 
 V-nly, can they be lamented : their actions represent 
 
3 DO 
 
 them every where and for ever. Palafox has taken 
 his place as parent and ancestor of innumerable 
 heroes. 
 
 Oh ! that the surviving chiefs of the Spanish 
 people may prove worthy of their situation ! With 
 such materials, — their labour would be pleasant, 
 and their success certain. But— though heads of 
 a nation venerable for antiquity, and having good 
 cause to preserve with reverence the institutions 
 of their elder forefathers — they must not be indis- 
 criminately afraid of new things. It is their duty 
 to restore the good which has fallen into disuse ; 
 and also to create, and to adopt. Young scions 
 of polity must be engrafted on the time-worn 
 trunk : a new fortress must be reared upon the 
 ancient and living rock of justice. Then would it 
 be seen, while the superstructure stands inwardly 
 immoveable, in how short a space of time the 
 ivy and wild plant would climb up from the base, 
 and clasp the naked walls ; the storms, which 
 could not shake, would weather-stain ; and the 
 edifice, in the day of its youth, would appear to 
 be one with the rock upon which it was planted,, 
 and to grow out of it. 
 
 But let us look to ourselves. Our offences are 
 unexpiated : and, wanting light, we want strength. 
 With reference to this guilt and to this deficiency, 
 and to my own humble efforts towards removing 
 both, I shall conclude with the words of a man of 
 disciplined spirit, who withdrew from the too busy 
 world — not out of indifference to its welfare, or to 
 forget its concerns — but retired for wider compass 
 of eye-sight, that he might comprehend and see in 
 just proportions and relations ; knowing above all 
 ihat he, who hath not first made himself master of 
 the horizon of his own mind, must look beyond it 
 only to be deceived. It is Petrarch who thus writes : 
 
igi 
 
 " Haec dicerem, et quicquid in rem praesentem et 
 indignatio dolorque dictarent ; nisi obtorpuisse am- 
 inos, actumque de rebus nostris, crederem. Nempe, 
 qui aliis iter rectum ostendere solebamus, nunc 
 (quod exitio proximum est) coeci coecis ducibus 
 per abrupta rapimur ; alienoque circumyolvimur 
 exemplo ; quid velimus, nescii. Nam (ut coeptum 
 exequar) totum hoc malum, seu nostrum jproprium 
 seu potius omnium gentium commune, Ignoratic* 
 Finis facit. Nesciunt inconsulti homines quid 
 agant : ideo quicquid agunt, mox ut coeperint, ver- 
 git in nauseam. Hinc ille discursus sine termino ; 
 hinc, medio calle, discordiae ; et, ante exitum, 
 Damnata Principia ; et explete nihil." 
 
 As an act of respect to the English reader — I 
 shall add, to the same purpose, the words of our 
 own Milton ; who, contemplating our ancestors in 
 his day, thus speaks of them and their errors : — 
 " Valiant, indeed, and prosperous to win a field ; 
 but, to know the end and reason of winning. 
 injudicious and unwise. Hence did their victories 
 prove as fruitless, as their losses dangerous ; and 
 left them still languishing under the same griev- 
 ances that men suffer conquered. Which was indeed 
 unlikely to go otherwise ; unless men more than 
 vulgar bred up in the knowledge of ancient and 
 illustrious deeds, invincible against many and vain 
 titles, impartial to friendships and relations, ha4 
 conducted their affairs." 
 
 THE END. 
 
 C. and R. Bald-win, Printers, 
 New Bridge-street, London. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 A (page 45 J. 
 
 WHEN this passage was written, there had appeared only un- 
 authorized accounts of the Board of Inquiry's proceedings. Nei- 
 ther from these however, nor from the official report of the Board 
 (which has been since published) ,is any satisfactory explanation to 
 be gained on this question — or indeed on any other question of 
 importance. All, which is to be collected from them, is this : the 
 Portuguese General, it appears, offered to unite his whole force 
 with the British on the single condition that they should be 
 provisioned from the British stores; and, accordingly, rests his 
 excuse for not co-operating on the refusal of Sir Arthur Wel- 
 lesley to comply with this condition. Sir A. W. denies the 
 validity of his excuse j and, more than once, calls it a pretence ; 
 declaring that> in his belief, Gen. Freire's real motive for not 
 joining was — a mistrust in the competence of the British to 
 appear in the field against the French. This however is mere 
 surmise ; and therefore cannot have much weight with those 
 who sincerely sought for satisfaction on this point : moreover, 
 it is a surmise of the individual whose justification rests on 
 making it appear that the difficulty did not arise with himself} 
 and it is right to add, that the only fact produced goes to dis- 
 credit this surmise 5 viz. that Gen. Friere did, without any 
 delay, furnish the whole number of troops which Sir Arthur 
 engaged to feed. However the Board exhibited so little 
 anxiety to be satisfied on this point, that no positive informa- 
 tion was gained. 
 
 A reference being here first made to the official report of the 
 Board of Inquiry ; 1 shall make use of the opportunity which it 
 offers to lay before the reader an outline of that Board's pro- 
 ceedings ; from which it will appear how far the opinion — pro- 
 nounced, by the national voice, upon the transactions in Portu- 
 gal — ought, in sound logic, to be modified by any part of those 
 proceedings. 
 
 We find in the warrant under which the Board of Inquiry 
 was to act* and which defined its powers, that an inquiry was 
 to be made into the conditions of the " armistice and conven- 
 tion 5 and into all the causes and circumstances, whether arising 
 frona the operations of the British army, or otherwise, which led 
 to them." 
 
 Whether answers to the charges of the people of England 
 
 were made possible by the provisions of this warrant— -and, 
 
 secondly* whether even these provisions have been satisfied by 
 
 the Board of Inquiry — will best appear by involving those 
 
 Bs 
 
194 APPENDIX. 
 
 charges in four questions, according to the following scale, 
 which supposes a series of Concessions impossible to those who 
 think the nation justified in the language held on the trans- 
 actions in Portugal. 
 
 1 . Considering the perfidy with which the French army had 
 entered Portugal ; the enormities committed by it during its 
 occupation of that country; the vast military power of which 
 that army was a part, and the use made of that power by its 
 master; the then existing spirit of the Spanish, Portuguese, 
 and British nations ; in a word, considering the especial nature 
 of the service, and the individual character of this war j— was it 
 lawful for the British army, under any conceivable circum- 
 stances, so long as it had the liberty of re-embarking, to make 
 any conceivable convention? i. e. Was the negative evil of a total 
 failure in every object for which it had been sent to Portugal of 
 worse tendency than the positive evil of acknowledging in the 
 French army a fair title to the privileges of an honourable enemy 
 by consenting to a mode of treaty which (in its very name, im- 
 plying a reciprocation of concession and respect) must be under 
 any limitations as much more indulgent than an ordinary capi- 
 tulation, as that again must (in its severest form) be more indul- 
 gent than the only favour which the French marauders could 
 presume upon obtaining — viz. permission to surrender at dis- 
 cretion ? 
 
 To this question the reader need not be told that these pages 
 give a naked unqualified denial ; and that to establish the rea- 
 sonableness of that denial is one of their main purposes : but, 
 for the benefit of the men accused, let it be supposed granted j 
 and then the second question will be 
 
 2. Was it lawful for the English army, in the case of its 
 being reduced to the supposed dilemma of either re-embarking 
 or making some convention, to make that specifical convention 
 which it did make at Cintra ? 
 
 This is of necessity and d fortiori denied ; and it has 
 been proved that neither to this, nor any other army, could it 
 be lawful to make such a convention — not merely under the 
 actual but under arly conceivable circumstances : let however 
 this too, on behalf of the parties accused, be granted ; and 
 then the third question will be 
 
 3. Was the English Army reduced to that dilemma ? 
 
 4. Finally, this also being conceded (which not even the Gene- 
 rals have dared to say), it remains to ask by whose and by what 
 misconduct did an army — confessedly the arbiter of its own 
 movements and plans at the opening of the campaign — forfeit 
 that free agency- — either to the extent of the extremity sup-< 
 posed, or of any approximation to that extremity ? 
 
 Now of these four possible questions in the minds of all those 
 who condemn the convention of Cintra, it is obvious that the 
 King's warrant supposes only the three latter to exist (since. 
 
APPENDIX. 195 
 
 though it allows inquiry to be made into the individual conven- 
 tion, it no where questions the tolerability of a convention in 
 genere) 3 and it is no less obvious that the Board, acting under 
 that warrant, has noticed only the last — i. e. by what series of 
 military movements the army was brought into a state of diffi- 
 culty which justified a convention (the Board taking for grant- 
 ed throughout — 1st, That such a state could exist ; 2ndly, That 
 it actually did exist; and 3rdly, That — if it existed, and aecord- 
 ingly justified some imaginable convention — it must therefore of 
 necessity justify this convention). 
 
 Having thus shewn that it is on the last question only that the 
 nation could, in deference to the Board of Inquiry, surrender 
 or qualify any opinion which it had previously given— let us ask 
 what answer is gained, from the proceedings of that Board, 
 to the charge involved even in this last question (premising 
 however — first — that this charge was never explicitly made by 
 the public, or at least was enunciated only in the form of a 
 conjecture — and 2ndly that the answer to it is collected chiefly 
 from the depositions of the parties accused) ? Now the whole 
 sum of their answer amounts to no more than this — that, 
 in the opinion of some part of the English staff, an opportunity 
 was lost on the 21st of exchanging the comparatively slow 
 process of reducing the French army by siege for the brilliant 
 and summary one of a coup-de-main. 
 
 This opportunity, be it observed, was offered only by Gen. 
 Junot's presumption in quitting his defensive positions, and 
 coming out to meet the English army in the field ; so that it 
 was an advantage so much over and above what might fairly 
 have been calculated upon : at any rate, if this might have 
 been looked for, still the accident of battle, by which a large 
 part of the French army was left in a situation to be cut off, 
 (to the loss of which advantage Sir A. Wellesley ascribes the 
 necessity of a convention) could surely never have been antici- 
 pated ; and therefore the British army was, even after that loss, 
 in as prosperous a state as it had from the first any right to 
 expect. Hence it is to be inferred, that Sir A. W. must have 
 entered on this campaign with a predetermination to grant a 
 convention in any case, excepting in one single case which he 
 knew to be in the gift of only very extraordinary good fortune. 
 With respect to him, therefore, the charges — pronounced by the 
 national voice — are not only confirmed, but greatly aggravated. 
 Further, with respect to the General who superseded him, a]l 
 those — who think that such an opportunity of terminating the 
 campaign was really offered, and, through his refusal to take 
 advantage of it, lost — are compelled to suspect in him a want of 
 military skill, or a wilful sacrifice of his duty to the influence 
 of personal rivalry, accordingly as they shall interpret life 
 motives. 
 
 b b 2 
 
196 APPENDIX. 
 
 The whole which we gain therefore from the Board of In- 
 quiry is — that what we barely suspected is ripened into cer- 
 tainty — and that on all, which we assuredly knew and declared 
 without needing that any tribunal should lend us its sanction, 
 no effort has been made at denial, or disguise, or palliation. 
 
 Thus much for the proceedings of the Board of Inquiry/ 
 upon which their decision was to be grounded. As to the de- 
 cision itself, it declares that no further military proceedings are 
 necessary ; " because " (say the members of the board), " how- 
 ever some of us may differ in our sentiments respecting the 
 fitness of the convention in the relative situation of, the two 
 armies, it is our unanimous declaration that unquestionable zeal 
 and firmness appear throughout to have been exhibited by 
 Generals Sir H. Dalrymple, Sir H. Burrard, and Sir A. Wel- 
 Jesley." In consequence of this decision, the Commander-in- 
 Chief addressed a letter to the Board — reminding them that, 
 though the words of his Majesty's warrant expressly enjoin that 
 the conditions of the Armistice and Convention should be 
 strictly examined and reported upon, they have altogether neg- 
 lected to give any opinion upon those conditions. They were 
 therefore called upon then to declare their opinion, whether an 
 armistice was adviseable j and (if so) whether the terms of thai 
 armistice were such as ought to be agreed upon ; — and to declare, 
 in like manner, whether a convention was adviseable ; and (if 
 to) whether the terms of that convention were such as ought 
 to have been agreed upon. 
 
 To two of these questions — viz. those which relate to the 
 particular armistice and convention made by the British Gene- 
 rals — the members of the Board (still persevering in their blindr 
 ness to the other two which express doubt as to the lawfulness 
 of any armistice or convention) severally return answers which 
 convey an approbation of the armistice and convention by four 
 members, a disapprobation of the convention by the remaining 
 three,* and further a disapprobation of the armistice by one of 
 those three. 
 
 Now it may be observed—first—that, even if the investigation 
 had not been a public one, it might have reasonably been con- 
 cluded, from the circumstance of the Board having omitted to 
 report any opinion concerning the terms of the armistice and 
 the convention, that those terms had not occupied enough of 
 its attention to justify the Board in giving any opinion upon 
 them— whether of approbation or disapprobation ; and, secondly, 
 • — this conclusion, which might have been made d, priori, is 
 confirmed by the actual fact that no examination or inquiry 
 of this kind appears throughout the report of its proceedings : 
 and therefore any opinion subsequently given, in consequence 
 of the requisition of the Commander-in-Chief, can lay claim to 
 
APPENDIX. 1§7 
 
 no more authority upon these points — than the opinion of th« 
 same men, if they had never sat in a public court upon this 
 question. In this condition are all the members, whether they 
 approve or disapprove of the convention. And with respect to 
 the three who disapprove of the convention, — over and above 
 the general impropriety of having, under these circumstances, 
 pronounced a verdict at all in the character of members of 
 that Board— they are subject to an especial charge of incon- 
 sistency in having given such an opinion, in their second re- 
 port, as renders nugatory that which they first pronounced. 
 For the reason — assigned, in their first report, for deeming 
 no further military proceedings necessary — is because it ap- 
 pears that unquestionable zeal and Jirmness were exhibited 
 throughout by the several General Officers ; and the reason- 
 assigned by those three who condemn the convention — is that 
 the Generals did not insist upon the terms to which they were 
 entitled j that is (in direct opposition to their former opinions), 
 the Generals shewed a want of firmness and zeal. If then the 
 Generals were acquitted, in the first case, solely upon the ground 
 of having displayed firmness and zeal ; a confessed want of firm- 
 ness and zeal, in the second case, implies conversely a ground 
 of censure — rendering (in the opinions of these three members) 
 further military proceedings absolutely necessary. They, — who 
 are most aware of the unconstitutional frame of this Court or 
 Board, and of the perplexing situation in which its members 
 must have found themselves placed, — will have the least diffi- 
 culty in excusing this inconsistency : it is however to be regretted; 
 particularly in the instance of the Earl of Moira 5 — who, disap- 
 proving both of the Convention and Armistice, has assigned 
 for that disapprobation unanswerable reasons drawn — not 
 from hidden sources, unapproachable except by judicial investi- 
 gation — but from facts known to all the world. The reader 
 
 will excuse this long note ; to which however I must add one 
 word : — Is it not strange that, in the general decision of the 
 Board, zeal and firmness — nakedly considered, and without 
 question of their union with judgment and such other qualities 
 a^ can alone give them any value — should be assumed as suffi- 
 cient grounds on which to rest the acquittal of men lying under 
 a charge of military delinquency ? 
 
 B (page 51 J. 
 
 It is not necessary to add, that One of these fears was re- 
 moved by the actual landing of ten thousand men, under Sir J. 
 Moore, pending the negociation: and yet no change in the 
 terms took place in consequence. This was an important cir- 
 cumstance ; and, of itself, determined two of the members of 
 the Board of Inquiry to disapprove of the convention : such an 
 accession entitling Sir H. Dakymple (and, of course, making it 
 
3 3$ ATtzsmx. 
 
 his duty) to insist on more favourable terms. But the argument 
 is complete without it. 
 
 C (page 56). 
 
 t was unwilling to interrupt the reader upon a slight occa- 
 •ion j but J cannot refrain from adding here a word or two by 
 way of comment. — I have said at page 51, speaking of Junot's 
 army, that the British were to encounter the same men, &c. 
 Sir Arthur Wellesley, before the Board of Inquiry, disallowed 
 this supposition ; affirming that Junot's army had not then 
 reached Spain, nor could be there for some time. Grant this : 
 was it not stipulated that a messenger should be sent off, imme- 
 diately after the conclusion of the treaty, to Buonaparte — ap- 
 prising him of its terms, and when he might expect his troops ; 
 and would not this enable him to hurry forward forces to the 
 Spanish frontiers, and to bring them into action — knowing that 
 these troops of Junot's would be ready to support him ? What 
 did it matter whether the British were again to measure swords 
 with these identical men j whether these men were even, to ap- 
 pear again upon Spanish ground ? It was enough, that, if these 
 did not, others would — who could not have been brought to 
 that service, but that these had been released and were doing 
 elsewhere some other service for their master ; enough that 
 every thing was provided by the British to land them as near tht 
 Spanish frontier (and as speedily) as they could desire. 
 
 D (page \01). 
 
 This attempt, the reader will recollect, is not new to our 
 Country j — it was accomplished, at one seVa of our history, in 
 that memorable act of an English Parliament, which made it 
 unlawful for any man to ask his neighbour to join him in a 
 petition for redress of grievances ; and which thus denied the 
 people " the benefit of tears and prayers to their own infamous 
 deputies ! " For the deplorable state of England and Scotland at 
 that time — see the annals of Charles the Second, and his 
 successor. — We must not forget however that to this state of 
 things, as the cause of those measures which the nation after- 
 wards resorted to, we are originally indebted for the blessing 
 of the Bill of Rights. 
 
 E (page Ml). 
 
 I allude here more especially to an address presented to 
 Buonaparte (October 27th, 1808) by the deputies of the new 
 departments of the kingdom of Italy ; from which address, as 
 given in the English journals, the following passages are ex- 
 tracted : — 
 
 1 
 
AjPENDfX. 199 
 
 " In the necessity, in which you are to overthrow — to destroy 
 ■ — to disperse your enemies as the wind dissipates the dust, you 
 are not an exterminating angel; but you are the being that 
 extends his thoughts — that measures the face of the earth — to 
 re-establish universal happiness upon better and surer bases." 
 *»***#****#*#*##*#**# *** ***** 
 
 " We are the interpreters of a million of souls at the extremity 
 
 of your kingdom of Italy." " Deign, Sovereign 
 
 Master of all Things, to hear (as we doubt not you will)" &c. 
 
 The answer begins thus : — 
 
 " I applaud the sentiments you express in the name of my 
 people of Musora, Metauro, and Tronto." 
 
 F (pageiyQ). 
 
 This principle, involved in so many of his actions, Buonaparte 
 has of late explicitly avowed : the instances are numerous : it 
 will be sufficient, in this place, to allege one — furnished by his 
 answer to the address cited in the last note : — 
 
 "I am particularly attached to your Archbishop of Urbino : 
 that prelate, animated with the true faith, repelled with indig- 
 nation the advice — and braved the menaces — of those who 
 wished to confound the affairs of Heaven, which never change, 
 with the afFairs of this world, which are modified according to 
 circumstances of force and policy." 
 
 SUSPENSION OF ARMS 
 
 Agreed upon between Lieutenant-General Sir Arthur Wel- 
 lesley, K. B. on the one part, and the Gentral-of- Division 
 Kellermann on the other part ; each having powers from the 
 respective Generals of the French and English Armies. 
 
 Head-Quarters of the English Army, August 22, 1SG8. 
 
 Article I. There shall be, from this date, a Suspension of 
 Arms between the armies of his Britannic Majesty, and his 
 Imperial and R.oyal Majesty, Napoleon I. for the purpose of 
 negociating a Convention for the evacuation of Portugal by the 
 French army. 
 
 Art. II. The Generals-in-Chief of the two armies, and the 
 Commander-in-Chief of the British fleet at the entrance of the 
 
200 A*PENUIX, 
 
 Tagus, will appoint a day to assemble, on such part of the coast 
 as shall be judged convenient, to negociate and conclude the 
 said Convention, 
 
 Art. III. The river of Sirandre shall form the line of de* 
 markation to be established between the two armies ; Torres 
 Vedras shall not be occupied by either. 
 
 Art. IV. The General-in-Chief of the English army under- 
 takes to include the Portuguese armies in this suspension of 
 arms : and for them the line of demarkation shall be established 
 from Leyria to Thomar. 
 
 Art.V. It is agreed provisionally that the French army shall 
 not, in any case, be considered as prisoners of war ; that all the 
 individuals who compose it shall be transported to France with 
 their arms and baggage, and the whole of their private pro- 
 perty, from which nothing shall be exempted. 
 
 Art. VI. No individual, whether Portuguese, or of a na- 
 tion allied to France, or French, shall be called to account for 
 bis political conduct -, their respective property shall be pro- 
 tected j and they shall be at liberty to withdraw from Portugal, 
 within a limited time, with their property. 
 
 Art. VII. The neutrality of the port of Lisbon shall be re- 
 cognised for the Russian fleet : that is to say, that, when the 
 English army or fleet shall be in possession of the city and port, 
 the said Russian fleet shall not be disturbed during its stay ; nor 
 stopped when it wishes to sail ; nor pursued, when it shall sail, 
 until after the lime fixed by the maritime law. 
 
 Art. VIII. All the artillery of French calibre, and also the 
 horses of the cavalry, shall be transported to France. 
 
 Art. IX. This suspension of arms shall not be broken with- 
 out forty-eight hours' previous notice. 
 
 Done and agreed upon between the above-named Generals, 
 the day and year above-mentioned. 
 
 (Signed) Arthur Wellesley. 
 
 Kellermann, General-of-Division, 
 
 Additional Article. 
 The garrisons of the places occupied by the French afmy 
 shall be included in the present Convention, if they have 
 not capitulated before the 25th instant. 
 
 (Signed) Arthur Wellesley. 
 
 Kellermann, General-of-Division. 
 
 (A true Copy.) 
 A. J. Dalrymple, Captain, Military Secretary, 
 
APPENDIX. 201 
 
 DEFINITIVE CONVENTION FOR THE EVACUATION OF 
 PORTUGAL BY THE FRENCH ARMY. 
 
 The Generals commanding in chief the British and French 
 armies in Portugal, having determined to negociate and con- 
 dude a treaty for the evacuation of Portugal by the French 
 troops, on the basis of the agreement entered into on the 22d 
 instant for a suspension of hostilities, have appointed the under- 
 mentioned officers to negociate the same in their names ; viz. 
 - — on the part of the General-in-Chief of the British army, 
 Lieutenant-Colonel Murray, Quarter- Master-General ; and, 
 on the part of the General-in-Chief of the French army, Mon- 
 sieur Kellermann, General-of-Division ; to whom they have 
 given authority to negociate and conclude a Convention to that 
 effect, subject to their ratification respectively, and to that of 
 the Admiral commanding the British fleet at the entrance of 
 the Tagus. 
 
 Those two officers, after exchanging their full powers, have 
 agreed upon the articles which follow : 
 
 Article L All the places and forts in the kingdom of 
 Portugal, occupied by the French troops, shall be delivered up 
 to the British army in the state in which they are at the period 
 of the signature of the present Convention. 
 
 Art. lis The French troops shall evacuate Portugal with 
 their arms and baggage ; they shall not be considered as pri- 
 soners of war ; and, on their arrival in France, they shall be at 
 liberty to serve. 
 
 ■ Art. III. The English Government shall furnish the means 
 of conveyance for the French army ; which shall be disembarked 
 in any of the ports of France between Rochefort and L'Orient, 
 Inclusively. 
 
 Art. IV. The French army shall carry with it all its artillery,; 
 of French calibre, with the horses belonging to it, and the 
 tumbrils supplied with sixty rounds per gun. All other artillery, 
 arms, and ammunition, as also the military and naval arsenals, 
 shall be given up to the British army and navy in the state in 
 which they may be at the period of the ratification of the Con- 
 vention. 
 
 Art. V. The French army shall carry with it all its equip- 
 ments, and all that is comprehended under the name of pro- 
 perty of the army ; that is to say, its military chest, and car- 
 riages attached to the Field Commissariat and Field Hospitals - r ■ 
 or °hall be allowed to dispose of such part of the same, on its 
 account, as the Commander-in-Chief may judge it unnecessary 
 to embark. In like manner,, all individuals of the army shall b? 
 
 Cc 
 
201 At^E&DlX. 
 
 at liberty to dispose of their private property of every descrip-- 
 tion ; with full security hereafter for the purchasers. 
 
 Art. VI. The cavalry are to embark their horses j as also the 
 Generals and other officers of all ranks. It is, however, fully un* 
 derstood, that the means of conveyance for horses, at the dis- 
 posal of the British Commanders, are very limited ; some addi- 
 tional conveyance may be procured in the port of Lisbon : the- 
 number of horses to be embarked by the troops shall not exceed 
 six hundred ; and the number embarked by the Staff shall not 
 exceed two hundred. At all events every facility will be given 
 to the French army to dispose of the horses, belonging to it, 
 which cannot be embarked. ■ 
 
 Art. VII. In order to facilitate the embarkation, it shall 
 take place in three divisions 5 the last of which will be princi- 
 pally composed of the garrisons of the places, of the cavalry, 
 the artillery, the sick, and the equipment of the army. The 
 first division shall embark within seven days of the date of the 
 ratification ; or sooner, if possible. 
 
 Art. VIII. The garrison of Elvas and its forts, and of Pe- 
 niche and Palmela, will be embarked at Lisbon ; that of Almaida 
 at Oporto, or the nearest harbour. They will be accompanied 
 on their march by British Commissaries, charged with provid- 
 ing for their subsistence and accommodation. 
 
 Art. IX. All the sick and wounded, who cannot be em- 
 barked with the troops, are entrusted to the British army. They 
 are to be taken care of, whilst they remain in this country, at 
 the expence of the British Government 5 under the condition of 
 the same being reimbursed by France when the final evacuation 
 is effected. Tb& English government will provide for their re- 
 turn to France j which shall take place by detachments of about 
 one hundred and fifty (or two hundred) men at a time. A suf- 
 ficient number of French medical officers shall be left behind to 
 attend them. 
 
 Art. X. As soon as the vessels employed to carry the army 
 to France shall have disembarked it in the harbours specified, 
 or in any other of the ports of France to which stress of wea- 
 ther may force them, every facility shall be given them to re- 
 turn to England without delay y and security against capture un- 
 til their arrival in a friendly port. 
 
 Art. XI. The French army shall be concentrated in Lisbon, 
 and within a distance of about two leagues from it. The, Eng- 
 lish army will approach within three leagues of the capital ; and 
 will be so placed as to leave about one league between the two 
 armies. 
 
 Art. XII. The forts of St. Julien, the Bugio, and Cascais, 
 shall be occupied by the British troops on the ratification of the 
 
APPENDIX. 203 
 
 Convention. Lisbon and its citadel, together with the forts and 
 batteries, as far as the Lazaretto or Tarfuria on one side, and 
 fort St. Joseph on the other, inclusively, shall be given up on 
 the embarkation of the second division ; as shall also the har- 
 bour y and all armed vessels in it of every description, with their 
 rigging, sails, stores, and ammunition. Th& fortresses of Elvas, 
 Almaida, Peniche, and Palmela, shall be given up as soon as 
 the British troops can arrive to occupy them. In the mean 
 time, the General-in-Chief of the British army will give notice 
 of the present Convention to the garrisons of those places, as 
 also to the troops before them, in order to put a stop to all fur- 
 ther hostilities. 
 
 Art. XIII. Commissioners shall be named, on both sides, to 
 regulate and accelerate the execution of the arrangements 
 agreed upon. 
 
 Art. XIV. Should there arise doubts as to the meaning of 
 any article, it will be explained favourably to the French 
 army. 
 
 Art. XV. From the date of the ratification of the present 
 Convention, all arrears of contributions, requisitions, or claims 
 whatever, of the French Government, against the subjects of 
 Portugal, or any other individuals residing in this country, 
 founded on the occupation of Portugal by the French troops in 
 the month of December 1S07, which may not have been paid 
 up, are cancelled ; and all sequestrations laid upon their pro- 
 perty, moveable or immoveable, are removed ; and the free dis- 
 posal of the same is restored to the proper owners. 
 
 Art. XVI. All subjects of France, or of powers in friend- 
 ship or alliance with France, domiciliated in Portugal, or acci- 
 dentally in this country, shall be protected : their property of 
 every kind, moveable and immoveable, shall be respected : and 
 they shall be at liberty either to accompany the French army, 
 or to remain in Portugal. In either case their property is 
 guaranteed to them ; with the liberty of retaining or of disposing 
 of it, and passing the produce of the sale thereof into France, 
 or any other country where they may fix their residence j the 
 space of one year being allowed them for that purpose. 
 
 It is fully understood, that the shipping is excepted from this 
 arrangement; only, however, in so far as regards leaving the 
 port ; and that none of the stipulations above-mentioned can be 
 made the pretext of any commercial speculation. ■*, 
 
 Art. XVII. No native of Portugal shall be rendered ac- 
 countable for his political conduct during the period of the 
 occupation of this country by the French army ; and all those 
 who have continued in the exercise of their employments, or- 
 who have accepted situations under the French Government, 
 are placed under the protection of the British Commanders ; 
 
 cc2 
 
204 \ APPENDIX. 
 
 they shall sustain no injury in their persons or property j it not 
 having been at their option to be obedient, or not, to the French 
 Government : they are also at liberty to avail themselves of the 
 stipulations of the loth Article. 
 
 Art. XVIII. The Spanish troops detained on board ship in 
 the port of Lisbon shall be given up to the Commander-in-Chief 
 of the British army ; who engages to obtain of the Spaniards to 
 restore such French subjects, either military or civil, as may have 
 been detained in Spain, without being taken in battle, or in, 
 consequence of military operations, but on occasion of the oc- 
 currences of the 29th of last May, and the days immediately 
 following. 
 
 Art. XIX. There shall be an immediate exchange estab- 
 lished for all ranks of prisoners made in Portugal since the 
 commencement of the present hostilities. 
 
 Art. XX. Hostages of the rank of field-officers shall be rau? 
 tually furnished on the part of the British army and navy, and 
 on that of the French army, for the reciprocal guarantee of the 
 present Convention. The officer of the British army shall be 
 restored on the completion of the articles whiph concern the 
 army ; and the officer of the navy on the disembarkation of the 
 French troops in their own country. The like is to take place 
 on the part of the French army. 
 
 Art. XXI. It shall be allowed to the General-in-Chief of 
 the French army to send an officer to France with intelligence 
 of the present Convention- A vessel will be furnished by the 
 British Admiral to convey him to Bourdeaux or Rochefort. 
 
 Art. XXII. The British Admiral will be invited to accom- 
 modate His Excellency the Commander-in-Chief, and the 
 other principal officers of the French army, on board of ships 
 of war. 
 
 Done and concluded at Lisbon this 30th day of August, 
 1808. 
 
 (Signed) George Murray, 
 
 1 Quarter-Master-General. 
 
 Kellermann, 
 
 Le General de Division, 
 
 We, the Duke of Abrantes, Gener-al-in-Chief of the French 
 army, have ratified and do ratify the present Definitive Con- 
 vention in all its articles,, to be executed according to its form, 
 and tenor. 
 
 (Signed) The Duke of Abrantes, 
 
 Head-Quarters — Lisbon, 30tk August, 1808. 
 
APPENDIX, 205 
 
 Additional Articles to the Convention of the 30lh of August, 
 
 1808. 
 
 Art. I. The individuals in the civil employment of the army 
 made prisoners, either by the British troops, or by the Portu^ 
 guese, in any part of Portugal, will be restored, as is customary, 
 without exchange. 
 
 Art. Tl. The French army shall be subsisted from its own 
 magazines up to the day of embarkation j the garrisons up to 
 the day of the evacuation of the fortresses 
 
 The remainder of the magazines shall be delivered over, in 
 the usual form, to the British Government ; which charges 
 itself with the subsistence of the men and horses of the army 
 from the above-mentioned periods till they arrive in France j 
 under the condition of their being reimbursed by the French 
 Government for the excess of the expense beyond the esti- 
 mates, to be made by both parties, of the value of the maga- 
 zines delivered up to the British army. 
 
 The provisions on board the ships of war, in possession of 
 the French army, will be taken in account by the British 
 Government in like manner with the magazines in the for^ 
 tresses. 
 
 Art. III. The General commanding the British troops will 
 take the necessary measures for re-establishing the free circu- 
 lation of the means o£ subsistence between the country and the 
 capital. 
 
 Done and concluded at Lisbon this 30th day of August, 
 J808. 
 
 (Signed) George Murray, 
 
 Quarter-Master-General, 
 Keelermann, 
 
 Le General de Division. 
 
 We, Duke of Abrantes, General-in-Chief of the French 
 army, have ratified and do ratify the additional articles of 
 the Convention, to be executed according to their form and 
 tenor. , - 
 
 The Duke of Abr antes, 
 
 (A true Copy.) 
 A, J. Dalrymple, Captain, Military Secretary. 
 
206 ' APPENDIX. 
 
 Articles of a Contention entered into between Vice- Admiral Seni- 
 avin, Knight oftheOrder of St . Alexander and other Russian 
 Orders, and Admiral Sir Ch arles Cotton, Bart, for the Sur- 
 render of the Russian Fleet, now anchored in the River Tagus. 
 
 Art. I, The ships of war of the Emperor of Russia, now in 
 the Tagus (as specified in the annexed list), shall be delivered 
 up to Admiral Sir Charles Cotton, immediately, with all their 
 stores as they now are ; to be sent to England, and there held 
 as a deposit by his Britannic Majesty, to be restored to His 
 Imperial Majesty within six months after the conclusion of a 
 peace between His Britannic Majesty and His Imperial Ma- 
 jesty the Emperor of all the Russias. 
 
 Art II. Vice- Admiral Seniavin, with the officers, sailors, and 
 marines, under his command, to return to Russia, without any 
 condition or stipulation respecting their future services ; to be 
 conveyed thither in men of war, or proper vessels, at the ex- 
 pence of His Britannic Majesty. 
 
 Done and concluded on board the ship Twerday, in the Ta-r 
 gus, and on board His Britannic Majesty's ship Hibernia, off 
 the mouth of that river, the 3d day of September 1808. 
 
 (Signed) De Seniavin. 
 
 (Signed) Charles Cotton, 
 
 (Counter-signed) By command of the Admiral,- 
 
 L. Sass, Assesseur de College. 
 (Counter-signed) By command of the Admiral, 
 James Kennedy, Secretary. ' 
 
 POSTSCRIPT 
 
 ON SIR JOHN MOORE'S LETTERS. 
 
 Whilst the latter sheets of this work were passing through 
 the press, there was laid before Parliament a series of corres- 
 pondence between the. English Government and its servants 
 in Spain ; amongst which were the letters of Sir John Moore. 
 That these letters, even with minds the least vigilant to detect 
 contradictions and to make a commentary from the past ac- 
 tions of the Spaniards, should have had power to alienate them 
 from the Spanish cause — could never have been looked for ; ex- 
 cept indeed by those who saw, in the party spirit on this question, 
 3 promise that more than ordinary pains would be taken to 
 misrepresent their contents and to abuse the public judgment. 
 But however it was at any rate to have been expected— -both. 
 
APPENDIX. 207 
 
 from the place which Sir J. Moore held in the nation's esteem 
 previously to his Spanish campaign, and also especially from 
 that which (by his death in battle) he had so lately taken in its 
 affections — that they would weigh a good deal in depressing the 
 general sympathy with Spain : and therefore the Author of this 
 work was desirous that all which these letters themselves, or 
 other sources of information, furnished to mitigate and contra- 
 dict Sir J. M.'s opinions — should be laid before the public >. but 
 —being himself at a great distance from London, and not having 
 within his reach all the documents necessary for this purpose— he 
 has honoured the friend, who corrects the press errors, by mak- 
 ing over that task to him ; and the reader is therefore apprised, 
 that the Author is not responsible for any thing which follows-. 
 ******** a***************** 
 
 Those, who have not examined these letters for themselves, 
 will have collected enough of their general import, from con- 
 versation and the public prints, to know that they pronounce 
 an opinion unfavourable to the Spaniards. They will perhaps 
 have yet to learn that this opinion is not supported by any body 
 of facts £(for of facts only three are given ; and those, as 
 we shall see, misrepresented) ; but solely by the weight of Sir 
 John Moore's personal authority. This being the case, it be- 
 comes the more important to assign the value of that authority, 
 by making such deductions from the present public estimate 
 of it, as are either fairly to be presumed from his profession and 
 office, or directly inferred from the letters under consideration. 
 As reasons for questioning d priori the impartiality of these 
 letters, — it might be suggested (in reference to what they would 
 be likely to omit) — first — that they are the letters of a soldier; 
 that is, of a man trained (by the prejudices of his profession) to 
 despise, or at least to rate as secondary, those resources which 
 for Spain must be looked to as supreme ; — and, secondly, that they 
 are the letters of a general ; that is, of a soldier removed by his 
 rank from the possibility of any extensive intercourse with the 
 lower classes ; concerning whom the question chiefly was. 
 But it is more important to remark (in reference to what they 
 would be likely to mis-state) — thirdly — that they are the letters 
 of a commander. in- chief ; standing — from the very day when 
 he took the field — in a dilemma which compelled him to risk 
 the safety of his army by advancing, or its honour by retreat- 
 ing ; and having to make out an apology, for either issue, to the 
 very persons who had imposed this dilemma upon him. — The 
 reader is requested to attend to this. Sir John Moore found 
 himself in Leon with a force " which, if united," (to quote his 
 own words) " would not exceed 26,000 men." Such a force, 
 after the defeat of the advanced armies,* — he was sure — could 
 effect nothing ; the best result he could anticipate was an in- 
 glorious retreat. That he should be in this situation at the very 
 
208 APPENDIX* 
 
 opening of the campaign, he saw, would declare to all Europe 
 that somewhere there must be blame : but where I with him- 
 self he knew that there was none : the English Government 
 (with whom he must have seen that at least a part of the blame 
 lay — for sending him so late, and with a force so lamentably 
 incommensurate to the demands of the service) it was not for 
 him — holding the situation that he did — openly to accuse 
 (though, by implication, he often does accuse them) j and 
 therefore it became his business to look to the Spaniards ; and; 
 in their conduct, to search for palliations of that inefficiency on 
 his part — which else the persons, to whom he was writing, 
 would understand as charged upon themselves. Writing with 
 such a purpose— and under a double fettering of his faculties ; 
 first from anxious forebodings of calamity or dishonour ; and 
 secondly from the pain he must have felt at not being free to 
 censure those with whom he could not but be aware that the 
 embarrassments of his situation had, at least in part, origi- 
 nated — we might expect that it would not be difficult for him 
 to find, in the early events of the campaign, all which he sought) 
 and to deceive himself into a belief, that, in stating these events 
 without any commentary or even hints as to the relative cir- 
 cumstances under which they took place (which only could 
 give to the naked facts their value and due meaning), he was 
 making no misrepresentations, — and doing the Spaniards no 
 injustice. 
 
 These suggestions are made with the greater earnestness, 
 as it- is probable that the honourable death of Sir John Moore 
 will have- given so much more weight to his opinion on any 
 subject — as, if these suggestions be warranted, it is entitled on 
 this subject to less weight — than the opinion of any other indi- 
 vidual equally intelligent, and not liable (from high office and 
 perplexity of situation) to the same influences of disgust or 
 prejudice. 
 
 That these letters were written under some such influences, 
 is plain throughout : we find, in them, reports of the four first 
 events in the campaign ; and, injustice to the Spaniards, it must 
 be said that all are virtually mis-statements. Take two instances: 
 
 1. The main strength and efforts of the French were, at the 
 opening of the campaign, directed against the army of Gen. 
 Blake. The issue is thus given by Sir J. M. : — <" Gen. Blake's 
 army in Biscay has been defeated — dispersed ; and its officers 
 and men are flying in every direction." Could it be supposed 
 that the army, whose matchless exertions and endurances are all 
 merged in this over-charged (and almost insulting") statement 
 of their result, was, 'mere peasantry'(Sir J. M's own words) and 
 opposed to greatly superior numbers of veteran troops ? Con- 
 front with this account the description given by an eye-witness 
 ( Major-Gen. Leith ) of their constancy and the trials ot 
 
 6 - 
 
APPENDIX. 203 
 
 their constancy ; remembering that, for ten successive days, they 
 were engaged (under the pressure of similar hardships, with the 
 addition of one not mentioned here, viz. — a want of cloathing) 
 in continued actions with the French: — "Here I shall taW 
 occasion to state another instance of the patience (and, I will 
 add, the chearfulness) of the Spanish soldiers under the great- 
 est privations. — After the action of Soronosa on the 31st ult., 
 it was deemed expedient by Gen. Blake, for the purpose of 
 forming a junction with the second division and the army of 
 Asturias, that the army should make long, rapid, and con- 
 tinued marches through a country at any time incapable of 
 feeding so numerous an army, and at present almost totally 
 drained of provisions. From the 30th of October to the pre* 
 sent day (Nov. 6), with the exception of a small and partial 
 issue of bread at Bilboa on the morning of the 1st of Novem- 
 ber, tluVacmy has been totally destitute of bread, wine, or 
 spirits j and has literally lived on the scanty supply of beef and 
 sheep which those mountains afford. Yet never was there a 
 symptom of complaint or murmur ; the soldiers' minds ap- 
 pearing to be entirely occupied with the idea of being led 
 
 against the enemy at Bilboa." " It is impossible for me to 
 
 do justice to the gallantry and energy of the divisions engaged 
 this day. The army are loud in expressing their desires to be led 
 against the enemy at Bilboa ; the universal exclamation is — 
 1 be bayonet! the bayonet ! lead us back to Soronosa." 
 
 2. On the 10th of November the Estramaduran advanced- 
 guaid, of about 12,000 men, was defeated at Burgos by a divi- 
 sion of the French army selected for the service — and having a 
 vast superiority in cavalry and artillery. lhi> event, with the 
 same neglect of circumstances as in the former instance, Sir J, 
 M. thus reports : — " The French, after beating the army of 
 Estramadura, are. advanced at Burgos." Now surely to any un- 
 prejudiced mind the bare fact of 12,000 men (chiefly raw le- 
 vies) having gone forward to meet and to find out the main 
 French army — under all the oppression which, to the ignorant 
 of the upper and lower classes throughout Europe, there is in 
 the name of Bonaparte — must appear, under any issue, a title 
 to the highest admiration, such as would have made this slight 
 and incidental mention of it impossible. 
 
 The two next events — viz. the forcing of the pass at Somo- 
 sierraby the Polish horse, and the partial defeat of Castanos — 
 are, as might be shewn even from the French bulletins, no less 
 misrepresented. With respect to the first, — Sir J. Moore, over- 
 looking the whole drama of that noble defence, gives only the 
 catastrophe ; and his account of the second will appear, from 
 any report, to be an exaggeration. 
 
 It may be objected that — since Sir J. M. no where alleges 
 these events as proving any thing against the Spaniards, but 
 
 D D 
 
210 APPENDIX. 
 
 airnply as accounting for his own plans (in which view, how* 
 soever effected, whether with or without due resistance, they 
 were entitled to the same value) — it is unfair to say that, by 
 giving them uncircumstantially, he has misrepresented them. 
 But it must be answered, that, in letters containing elsewhere 
 (though not immediately in connexion with these statements) 
 opinions unfavourable to the Spaniards, to omit any thing mak- 
 ing _ /or them — is to misrepresent in effect. And, further, it 
 shall now be shewn that even those three charges — which Sir 
 J. M. does allege in proof of his opinions — are as glaringly 
 mis-stated. 
 
 The first of these charges Is the most important r I give it to 
 the reader in the words of Sir John Moore : — " The French 
 cavalry from Burgos, in small detachments, are over-running 
 the province of Leon ; raising contributions ; to whieh the in- 
 habitants sabm.it without the least resistance." Now here it 
 cannot be meant that no efforts at resistance were made by in- 
 dividuals or small parties ; because this would not only contra- 
 dict the universal laws of human nature, — but would also be at 
 utter variance with Sir J.M.'s repeated complaints that he could 
 gain no information of what was passing in his neighbour- 
 hood. It is meant therefore that there was no regular or orga- 
 nised resistance ; no resistance such as might be made the subject 
 of an official report. Now we all know that the Spaniards 
 have every where suffered deplorably from a want of cavalry ; 
 and, in the absence of that, hear from a military man (Major- 
 Gen, Brodrick) xvhy there was no resistance : " At that 
 
 time 1 was not aware how remarkably the plains of Leon and 
 Castille differ from any other I have seen ; nor how strongly 
 the circumstances, which constitute that difference, enforce the 
 opinion I ventured to express." (He means the necessity of 
 cavalry reinforcements from England,) " My road from Astorga 
 lay through a vast open space, extending from 5 to 20 or more 
 miles on every side ; without a single accident of ground which 
 could enable a body of infantry to check a pursuing enemy, or 
 to cover its own retreat. In such ground, any corps of infan- 
 try might be insulted, to the very gates of the town it occupied, 
 by cavalry far inferior in numbers; contributions raised under 
 their eyes, and the whole neighbourhood exhausted of its re- 
 sources, without the possibility of their opposing any resistance to 
 such incurs'oHs." 
 
 The second charge is made on the retreat to Corunna : " the 
 Gallicians, though armed," Sir J. M. says, " made no attempt to 
 3top the passage of the French through the mountains." That 
 they were armed — is a proof that they had an intention to do so 
 (as one of our journals observed): but what encouragement 
 had they in that intention from the sight of a regular force — 
 aiore than 30,000 strong — abandoning, without a struggle,, 
 
APPENDIX. 211 
 
 passes where (as an English general asserts) " a body of a thou- 
 sand men might stop an army of twenty times the number ?" 
 
 The third charge relates to the same province: it is a com- 
 plaint that 'the people run away; the villages are deserted ;' 
 and again, in his last letter, — " They abandoned their dwell- 
 ings at our approach ; drove away their carts, oxen, and every- 
 thing which could be of the smallest aid to the army." To this 
 charge, in so far as it may be thought to criminate the Spa- 
 niards, a full answer is furnished by their accuser himself in the 
 following memorable sentence in another part of the very same 
 letter : — " I am sorry to say that the army, whose conduct I 
 had such reason to extol in its march through Portugal and on 
 its arrival in Spain, has totally changed its character since it 
 began to retreat." What do we collect from this passage ? 
 Assuredly that the army ill-treated the Gallicians ; for there is 
 no other way in which an army, as a body, can offend— except- 
 ing by an indisposition to fight 5 and that interpretation (besides 
 that we are all sure that no English army could so offend) Sir 
 J. Moore expressly guards against in the next sentence. 
 
 The English army then treated ks ally as an enemy: and, — 
 though there are alleviations of its conduct in its great suffer- 
 ings, — yet it must be remembered that these sufferings were 
 due — not to the Gallicians — but to circumstances over which 
 they had no controul— to the precipitancy of the retreat, the 
 inclemency of the weather, and the poverty of the country ; 
 and that (knowing this) they must have had a double sense of 
 injustice in any outrages of an English army, from contrasting 
 them with the professed objects of that army in entering Spain. 
 — It is to be observed that the answer to the second charge 
 would singly have been some answer to this ; and, reciprocally, 
 that the answer to this is a full answer to the second. 
 
 Having thus shewn that, in Sir J. Moore's very inaccurate 
 statements of facts, we have some further reasons for a pre- 
 vious distrust of any opinion which is supported by those state- 
 ments, — it is now time to make the reader acquainted with the 
 real terms and extent of that opinion. For it is far less to be 
 feared that, from his just respect for him who gave it, he should 
 allow it an undue weight in his judgment—than that, reposing 
 on the faithfulness of the abstracts and reports of these let- 
 ters, he should really be still ignorant of its exact tenor. 
 
 The whole amount then of what Sir John Moore has al- 
 leged against the Spaniards, in any place but one, is com- 
 prised in this sentence : — " The enthusiasm, of which we have 
 heard so much, no where appears 5 whatever good-will there is 
 ■(and I believe amongst the lower orders there is a great deal) 
 is taken no advantage of." It is true that, in that one place 
 (viz. in his last letter written at Corunna), he charges the Spa- 
 niards with " apathy and indifference :" but, as this cannot be 
 reconciled with his concession of a great deal of good-zcill, we 
 
 D D 2 
 
212 APPENDIX. 
 
 are bound to take that as his real and deliberate opinion which 
 he gave under circumstances that allowed him most coolness 
 and freedom of judgment. — The Spaniards then were wanting 
 in enthusiasm. Now what is meant by enthusiasm ? Does it 
 mean want of ardour and zeal in battle ? This Sir J. Moore 
 nowhere asserts 3 and, even without a direct acknowledge- 
 ment of their good conduct in the field (of which he had 
 indeed no better means of judging than we in England), there 
 is involved in his statement of the relative numbers of the 
 French and Spaniards — combined with our knowledge of the 
 time during which they maintained their struggle — a sufficient 
 testimony to that ; even if the events of the first campaign had 
 not made it superfluous. Does it mean then a want of good- 
 will to the cause ? So far from this, we have seen that Sir J. 
 M. admits that there was, in that-class where it was most want- 
 ed, ' a great deal' of good- will. And, in the present condition 
 of Spain, let it be recollected what it is that this implies. We 
 see, in the intercepted letter to Marshal Soult (transmitted by 
 Sir J. M.), that the French keep accurate registers of the be- 
 haviour of the different towns ; and this was, no doubt, well 
 known -throughout Spain. - Therefore to shew any signs of 
 good-will — much more to give a kind welcome to the English 
 (as had been done atBadajoz and Salamanca) — was, they knew, 
 a pledge of certain punishment on any visit from the French. 
 So that good-will, manifested in these circumstances, was no- 
 thing less than a testimony of devotion to the cause. 
 
 HereHhen, the reader will say/I find granted — in the courage 
 and the good-wil) of the Spaniards — all the elements of an en- 
 thusiastic resistance j and cannot therefore imagine what 
 more could be sought for except the throwing out and making 
 palpable of their enthusiasm to the careless eye in some signal 
 outward manifestations. In this accordingly we learn what 
 interpretation we are to give to Sir J. MVs charge : — there were 
 no tumults on his entrance into Spain ; no insurrections ; they 
 did not, as he says, f? rally round" the English army. But, to 
 determine how far this disappointment of his expectations tells 
 against the Spaniards, we must first know how far those ex- 
 pectations were reasonable. Let the reader consider, then, 
 
 First j what army was this round which the Spaniards were 
 to rally ? If it was known by the victory of Vimiera, it was 
 known also to many by the Convention of Cintra : for, though 
 the government had never ventured to communicate that: affair 
 officially to the nation, dark and perplexing whispers were 
 however circulated about it throughout Spain. Moreover, it 
 must surely demand some superstition in behalf of regular 
 troops — to see, in an army of 2o',000 men, a dignity adequate 
 to the office here claimed for it of awakening a new vigour and 
 enthusiasm in such a nation as Spain 5 not to mention that an 
 
APPENDIX. 213 
 
 English army, however numerous, had no right to consider it- 
 self as other than a tributary force — as itself tending to a centre 
 — and attracted rather than attracting. 
 
 Secondly ; it appears that Sir J. M. has overlooked one most 
 important circumstance ; — viz. that the harvest, in these pro- 
 vinces, had been already reaped 3 the English army could be 
 viewed only as gleaners. Thus, as we have already seen, Es- 
 tramadura had furnished an army which had marched before 
 his arrival ; from Salamanca also — the very place in which he 
 makes his complaint — there had gone out a battalion to Biscay 
 which Gen. Blake had held up, for its romantic gallantry, to 
 the admiration of his whole army. 
 
 Yet, thirdly, it is not meant by any means to assert that 
 Spain has put forth an energy adequate to the service — or in 
 any tolerable proportion to her own strength. Far from it! 
 But upon whom does the blame rest ? Not surely upon the 
 people — who, as long as they continued to have confidence in 
 their rulers, could not be expected (after the early fervours of 
 their revolution had subsided) much to overstep the measure of 
 exertion prescribed to them — but solely upon the government. 
 Up to the time when Sir J. M. died, the Supreme Junta had 
 adopted no one grand and comprehensive measure for calling 
 out the strength of the nation ; — scarcely any of such ordinary 
 vigour as, in some countries, would have been adopted to meet 
 local disturbances among the people. From their jealousy of 
 popular feeling, — they had never taken any steps, by books 
 or civic assemblies, to make the general enthusiasm in the cause 
 available by bringing it within the general consciousness ; and 
 thus to create the nation into an organic whole. Sir J. M. was 
 fully aware of this: — "The Spanish Government," he says, 
 " do not seem ever to have contemplated the possibility of a 
 second attack : '* and accordingly, whenever he is at leisure to 
 make distinctions, he does the people the justice to say — that 
 the failure was with those who should have "taken advantage" 
 of their good will. With the people therefore will for ever 
 remain the glory of having resisted heroically with means utterly 
 inadequate ; and with the government the whole burthen of the 
 ^disgrace that the means were thus inadequate. 
 
 But, further, — even though it should still be thought that, in 
 the three provinces which Sir J. Moore saw, there may have 
 been some failures with the people, — it is to be remembered 
 that these were the very three which had never been the theatre 
 of French outrages ; which therefore had neither such a vivid 
 sense of the evils which they had to fear, nor so strong an anima- 
 tion in the recollection of past triumphs : we might accordingly 
 have predicted that, if any provinces should prove slack in their 
 exertions, it would be these three. So that, after all, (a candid 
 inquirer into this matter will say) admitting Sir J. M.'s descrip- 
 tion to be faithful with respect to what he saw, I can never 
 
14 AfBENDIX. 
 
 allow that tbe conduct of these three provinces shall be held 
 forth as an exponent of the general temper and condition of 
 Spain. For that therefore I must look to other authorities. 
 
 Such an inquirer we might then refer -to the testimonies of 
 Gen. Leith and of Capt. Pasley for Biscay and Asturias ; of Mr. 
 Vaughan (as cited by Lord Castlereagh) for the whole East and 
 South j of Lord Cochrane (himself a most gallant man, and 
 giving his testimony under a trying comparison of the Spaniards 
 with English Sailors) for Catalonia in particular ; of Lord W. 
 Bentinckfor the central provinces ; and, for all Spain, we might 
 appeal even to the Spanish military reports — which, by the 
 discrimination of their praises (sometimes giving severe rebukes 
 to particular regiments, &c), authenticate themselves. 
 
 But, finally, we are entitled — after the actions of the Spani- 
 ards — to dispense with such appeals. Spain might justly deem 
 It a high injury and affront, to suppose that (after her deeds 
 performed under the condition of her means) she could require 
 any other testimony to justify her before all posterity. What 
 those deeds have been, it cannot surely now be necessary to 
 inform the reader : and therefore the remainder of this note 
 shall be employed in placing before him the present posture 
 of Spain — under two aspects which may possibly have escaped 
 his notice. 
 
 First, Let him look to that part of Spain which is now in the 
 possession of the enemy ; — let him bear in mind that the 
 present campaign opened at the latter end of last October ; that 
 tbe French were then masters of the country up to the Ebro; 
 that the contest has since lain between a veteran army (rated, 
 on the lowest estimate, at 113,000 men — with a prodigious 
 superiority in cavalry, artillery, &c.) opposed (as to all regular 
 opposition) by unpractised Spaniards, split into three distinct 
 armies, having no communication with each other, making a 
 total of not more than 80,000 men ; — and then let him inquire 
 what progress, in this time and with these advantages, the 
 French have been able to make (comparing it, at the same 
 time, with that heretofore made in Prussia, and elsewhere): the 
 answer shall be given from the Times newspaper of April 8th — 
 t ' It appears that, at the date of our last accounts from France 
 as well as Spain, about one half of the Peninsula was still un- 
 subdued by the French arms. The provinces, which retain 
 their independence, form a sort of irregular or broken crescent; 
 of which one horn consists in parts of Catalonia and Valencia, 
 and the other horn includes Asturias (perhaps we may soon 
 add Gallicia). The broader surface contains the four kingdoms 
 of Andalusia (Seville, Grenada, Cordova, and Murcia), and 
 considerable parts of Estramadura, and La Mancha ; besides 
 Portugal." — The writer might have added that even the pro- 
 vinces., occupied by the French, cannot yet be counted substan- 
 
APPENDIX. 215 
 
 tially as conquests : since they have a military representation in 
 the south ; large proportions of the defeated armies having re- 
 treated thither. 
 
 Secondly, Let him look to that part of Spain which yet re- 
 mains unsubdued. — It was thought no slight proof of heroism 
 in the people of Madrid, that they prepared for their defence — - 
 not as the foremost champions of Spain (in which character 
 they might have gained an adventitious support from the splen- 
 dour of their post ; and, at any rate, would have been free 
 from the depression of preceding disasters) — but under a full 
 knowledge of recent and successive overthrows ; their advanced 
 armies had been defeated ; and their last stay, at Somosierra, 
 had been driven in upon them. But the provinces in the South 
 have many more causes for dejection : they have heard, since 
 these disasters, that this heroic city of Madrid has fallen ; that 
 their forts in Catalonia have been wrested from them ; that an 
 English army just moved upon the horizon of Spain — to draw 
 upon itself the gaze and expectations of the people, and then 
 to vanish like an apparition ) and, finally, they have heard of 
 the desolation of Saragossa. Under all this accumulation of 
 calamity, what has been their conduct ? In Valencia redoubled 
 preparations of defence ; in Seville a decree for such energetic 
 retaliation on the enemy, — as places its authors, in the event 
 of his success, beyond the hopes of mercy ; in Cadiz — on a 
 suspicion that a compromise was concerted with their enemy — 
 tumults and clamours of the people for instant vengeance; 
 every where, in their uttermost distress, the same stera.and un- 
 faultering attitude of defiance as at the glorious birt^ ?f their 
 resistance. 
 
 In this statement, then, of the past efforts of Spain — and of 
 her present preparations for further efforts — will be found a full 
 answer to all. the charges alleged, by Sir John Moore in his 
 letters, against the people of Spain, even if we did not find suf- 
 ficient ground for rejecting them in an examination of these 
 letters themselves. 
 **»*.** * * # * * * * * * ¥ . * 
 
 The author of the above note — having, in justice to the 
 Spaniards, spoken with great plainness and freedom— feels it 
 necessary to add a few wo^ds, that it may not thence be con- 
 cluded that he is insensible to Sir J. Moore's claims upon his 
 respect. Perhaps — if Sir J. M. could himself have given us his 
 commentary upon these letters, and have restricted the exten- 
 sion of such passages as (from want of vigilance in making dis- 
 tinctions or laxity of language) are at variance with concessions 
 made elsewhere — they would have been found not more to 
 differ from the reports of other intelligent and less prejudiced 
 observers, than we might have expected from the circum- 
 stances under which they were written. Sir J. M. has himself 
 
 I 
 
21$ '.FPEKDIX. 
 
 told us (in a letter published since the above note was written 
 that he thinks the Spaniards "a fine peoplej" and that acknow 
 ledgement, from a soldier, cannot be supposed to exclude cou 
 rage; nor, from a Briton, some .zeal for national independence 
 We are therefore to conclude that, when Sir J. M. pronounce 
 opinions on "the Spaniards" not to be reconciled with thi 
 and other passages, he speaks— not of the Spanish people — bu» 
 of the Spanish government. And, even for vihat may still re- 
 main charged uncandidly upon the people, th^ writer does not 
 forget that there are infinite apologies to be found inS'r J. 
 Moore's situations the earliest of these letters were written u ri- 
 der great anxiety and disturbance of mind from the anticipation 
 of calamity ; — and the latter (which are the most severe) 
 under the actual pressure of calamity ; and calamity of that 
 sort which would be the most painful to the feelings of a gallant 
 soldier, and most likely to vitiate his judgment with respect to 
 those who had in part (however innocently) occasioned it. 
 There may be pleaded also for him — that want of leisure which 
 would make it difficult to compare the different accounts he re- 
 ceived, and to draw the right inferences from them. But then these 
 apologies for his wa»t of fidelity — are also reasons before-hand 
 for Mispecting it : and there are now (May 18th) to be addea 
 to these reasons, and their confirmations in the letters them- 
 selves, fresh proofs in the present state of Gallicia, as manifest- 
 ed by the late re-capture of Vigo, and the movements of the 
 Marquis de la Bomana j all which, from Sir J. Moore's account 
 of the temper in that province, we might have confidently pro- 
 nounce ^possible. We must therefore remember that what 
 in him were simply mis-statements — are now, when repeated 
 with oar better information, calumnies j and calumnies so muci 
 the less to be excused in us, as we have already (in pur con- 
 duct towards Spain) given her other and no light matter m 
 complaint against ourselves. 
 
 LND UF THE JVPrE-N" Xflti 
 
 €.amd K. Baldwin, Primed 
 New Bnd^e-fji.ect, London. . 
 
*.<-'}/ 
 
 m 
 
 
\ 1 ) 
 
 -4/< i 
 
 
 ■■♦.--s 
 
 

 ■*¥'' r 'i?« 
 
 MM 
 
 \ ■'■* » .• 
 
 V .- 
 
 V^>^