they pop in, and they pop out, like the man and woman in a peasant's barometer; they rise up like tadpoles; they may be compared to wasps, to hornets, to locusts; they send forth their pestilential breath over the whole country, and nip and destroy every fair flower in the land. The conduct of his majesty's government has led to the most frightful disasters, which are no where exceeded in the annals of history. The country is in that state which makes peace inevitable; it will be compelled to make peace, however disadvantageous, because it will be unable to maintain a war so shamefully misconducted and so disastrous in its consequences.." Lord Grenville followed. "We are now," said he, "imperiously called upon to institute those inquiries which the misconduct of ministers has rendered necessary a misconduct from which a series of disasters and calamities have resulted to the country. My lords, my heart is full, and I must give vent to my feelings. The day must come when ministers will have to render an account to parliament of the treasure which they have wasted, and the lives which they have sacrificed. We owe it to the country, that they should be called upon to render that account, and we shall fail in the discharge of our duty, if we do not insist upon it. The day will come, when the mere fact of an overflowing treasury will be utterly insufficient to satisfy this house, or the people of these realms; when we must inquire, not merely as to the fact, but as to the foundation of it, and the consequences which result from it. The day will come when the conduct of ministers, respecting America, must come under discussion, when it must become a subject for deep and serious investigation, whether in a country that yet boasts of freedom; whether in a house of parliament that yet keeps up the forms of discussion; whether it is to be endured that garbled, mutilated, and misrepresented documents are to be laid before parliament, not merely concealing what it was not thought fit to communicate, but actually, upon the face of those garbled and mutilated documents, giving an interpretation directly opposite to the sense of them in their entire and original state. In the same manner, with respect to our expeditions, it is due to the memory of those who have fallen in the service of their country; it is due to the memory of those who have bravely, but ingloriously, fallen a sacrifice to the ignorance, the incapacity, and the misconduct of ministers; it is due to a deluded and a suffering people, who demand it at our hands, that we should institute a rigorous and an effectual inquiry into the conduct of those ministers to whom these disasters are to be attributed. Let us not be deluded by their shew of a readiness for inquiry; we shall not this night do our duty, if we do not give a decided pledge to the country, that a rigorous and effectual inquiry shall be instituted. I do not mean to condemn the conduct of the officers employed; I am disposed to believe that they have done their duty, and that all the disastrous results are to be attributed to the want of information, the criminal improvidence, and the ill-digested plans of his majesty's ministers. You ought not to countenance any public outcry against the officers, but to point public indignation where alone it ought to rest, upon the heads of those ministers who sent out expeditions, either to achieve objects impracticable in themselves, or without the means of achieving any object useful or honourable to the country. If any circumstance should arise out of sacrificed, to be denominated blooming laurels? Ministers had the unlimited disposal of the treasure of the country, and of the lives of its brave defenders. How they have wasted the one, and sacrificed the other, is too painfully apparent. They had, at the time of the commencement of the last campaign between France and Austria, a disposable force of 100,000 men. I will concede to them for the moment, for the sake of argument, what I absolutely deny upon principle, and in point of fact, that it was desirable to adopt a system of continental co-operation, and endeavour to make a powerful diversion in favour of Austria. Surely it is apparent, that if a diversion is to be made at all, it ought to be made early, with a sufficient force; and it ought to bear upon the scene and pressure of the war. Now, with our maritime superiority, and the means at that time opened to us, we might have landed a large force at Trieste, or in its neighbourhood. Austria was making a gallant struggle, and the army by which she was finally overwhelmed, owed its success, in a great measure, to the reinforcements it derived from the French troops in the very neighbour. hood of Trieste. How, then, would a diversion directed to that quarter have operated? Our army would have kept in check the troops under Marmont and Macdonald, and would have effectually prevented them from marching to join the main French army on the Danube. I do not believe that this would ultimately have changed the fate of the war, but it would, very probably, have altered the fate of the campaign. There was another mode of making a powerful diversion; the north of Germany was open to us: How did his majesty's ministers encourage the risings in the the inquiry tending to impeach the conduct of any officer employed, that will be a subject for future investigation; but there are circumstances affecting the conduct of ministers, which no inquiry can render plainer or clearer than they are. It is known to every one, to the whole country, and to all Europe, not that our expeditions have partially succeeded, but that they have uniformly failed, that they present nothing but an unbroken series of disgraceful, irremediable failures. Who, then, can doubt the necessity, the absolute, the imperious, the indispensible necessity of inquiry, when nothing but irretrievable failures have resulted from ill-advised, and illdigested plans; when nothing in the melancholy retrospect presents itself to our view, but national disgrace arising from misconduct; an absurd and lamentable waste of public treasure, and an useless and most melancholy sacrifice of the lives of our gallant countrymen? We were told, my lords, last session, of the successes which were to flow from our efforts; of the impression we were to make upon the continent; nay, one noble lord went so far as to talk with an air of confidence of the deliverance of Europe. And how has Europe been delivered? By a series of unparalleled disasters; by expeditions, which, in their conduct and results, have exhausted our means, and rendered us the derision of the whole continent. And yet, in the speech of the king's commissioners, ministers have the confidence, the unblushing confidence, to tell us of a victory gained to the country! Are we then arrived at that melancholy situation of our affairs, in which gilded disasters are to be called splendid victories, and the cypress that droops over the tombs of our gallant defenders, whose lives have been uselessly north of Germany? What hopes did they not hold out to the brave inhabitants of those provinces, and how cruelly did they disappoint those hopes, abandoning to destruction those brave men, even in the territories of our own sovereign, whom they had deluded with false hopes and delusive promises? A force landed in the north of Germany would have found ready to co-operate with them, not an armed peasantry, not an undisciplined rabble, but disciplined troops, disbanded soldiers, men who had been trained to the use of arms, and in habits of discipline and subordination. To meet such a force, the national guards of Paris could not have been sent, nor the armed Maréchaussée of the frontiers, but regular troops must have been detached from Saxony and Bavaria, and a powerful diversion would thus have been made; not that I believe that the fate of the war would even thus ultimately have been changed, although the event of the campaign very probably might. This, my lords, is what they might have done, and now comes, "like a lean and blasted ear," what they have done. Of the disposable force which they had of 100,000 men, about 15 or 16,000 were stationed in Sicily; for what purpose they were kept there may be the subject of a future inquiry, but is foreign to the present discussion. The remainder were divided into two armies, I will say, for the sake of round numbers, of 40,000 each; though I believe neither the troops sent to Portugal, nor those sent to Walcheren amounted to that number, yet they did not fall far short of it. With respect to the force sent to Spain, ministers seemed resolutely determined not to profit by experience; precisely the same errors and the same faults were committed as in the expedition sent there under Sir John Moore. Nothing can more clearly shew their perseverance in error; expecting, in the first instance, a co-operation from an armed peasantry, which it was idle and absurd to expect; and after the fallacy of this expectation had been proved, persevering in the same error, and making that a part of the plan of a second expedition to the peninsula, although the absurdity of it was manifest even before its fallacy was proved, and although all idea of that species of co-operation had been distinctly shewn by experience to be nugatory and absurd. Ministers ought to have known that history is pregnant with proof, that an armed population cannot be considered as a disciplined army; that it is not enough that men should be attached to the cause they are to defend, but disciplined, steady, and obedient to command; having skilful officers, able to execute the commands they receive, and capable of judging what commands to give, and at the same time fit to be trusted.-We are told in the speech, that the expedition to Walcheren was undertaken with the view of making a diversion in favour of Austria. Ån immense expence was incurred, no less than 38 ships of the line were employed, more than 100 frigates, and an immense number of transports. It was known to ministers, in September 1808, that a war was likely to take place between Austria and France; yet this immense armament to the Scheldt, which was to operate the so much-boasted diversion in favour of Austria, did not sail till the latter end of July. Before it sailed, the armistice was signed, which led to the fatal treaty that prostrated the Austrian monarchy; not only this event had taken place, but intelli gence of the signature of that armis tice had actually arrived in this country. And thus, when all prospect of operating a diversion in favour of Austria had failed, the expedition had sailed from our shores, and the destruction of a few ships, and the plunder of the docks of the enemy, were to be substituted for the object so much boasted of-that of making a diversion in favour of Austria. Your ally, vanquished and subdued, had accepted the law from the conqueror, and then your tardy army left your shores. Shall I be told that it was a great armament; that it was delayed by necessity; that, like every naval force, it depended on the winds, and the transports being in readiness? Why all this is not new to you. If you want to land 40,000 men in the neighbourhood of the Scheldt, it is necessary to have transports to convey them; but if, by events which you could not controul, it was impossible to send this armament sooner, why send it at all? But besides incurring an immense expence to achieve an object of comparatively trifling value, a still more serious objection exists to this expedition. We have been charged upon the continent with sacrificing the interests of our allies to expeditions, the only objects of which were to burn a few ships, and destroy docks, with the mere view of some little interest of our own. Till the hour of the Copenhagen expedition, nothing had occured in our conduct to give currency to this falsehood; now, however, a still greater and more just currency must be given to it from the nature and achievements of this expedition to Walcheren, which terminated in the mighty exploit of blowing up the basin and the docks of Flushing! The plan displayed all that egregious want of information, and that extreme incapacity which have marked all the expeditions of his Majesty's ministers. At the first point of attack, where, according to the information of ministers, only 2000 men were sta tioned, 14,000 were found; and the second point of attack, which, according to the same information, was stated to be completely open and accessible, was found to be strongly fortified, beyond the reach of our attack, secure from hostile approach, and inaccessible to our force. These different disastrous expeditions have been attended with a dreadful waste of life; they were collected and dispatched at an immense expence ; the resources of the country, and the lives of its armies, were squandered upon vain and impracticable objects, under circumstances naturally to be foreseen, and which ought consequently to have been guarded against. There may be cases in which it may be necessary to expose your armies not only to the dangers of battle, but also to those of disease. Deeply to be regret. ted as such cases are, yet they may exist. Why our armies were exposed in unhealthy situations in Spainwhether it was necessary they should be so exposed, will be matter for future inquiry. How has that happened as to Walcheren? the place, the situation, nay, the season of the year were chosen by his majesty's ministers. There is a season of the year when the air of that place is most pestilential and dangerous; yet to that place, and at that time, say his majesty's ministers, "We will send the flower of the British army." Have they then been ignorant, have they not read of the nature of the climate of Walcheren, in that book to which one would think they would naturally resort under their circumstances— I mean Sir John Pringle's work upon the Diseases of the Army? Have they not examined that work, where they would find the pestilential effects of the climate of that unhealthy is land described, and proved by our own dearly-bought experience? Nay, so notorious have been the effects of that climate, that the Swiss Cantons, when they furnished mercenary troops as auxiliaries to the Dutch, thought it necessary to stipulate expressly that they should not be sent to Walcheren during the noxious season, it being well known that if they were sent there they must inevitably perish. This, then, is not a case of unforeseen calamity. Ministers knew, or ought to have known, all these things before they sent an army into Walcheren; and they are of consequence most deeply responsible for the lives of those brave men who perished there, without the chance of being able to confer any benefit upon their country, which might afford her some consolation under a loss so afflicting. Our armies had hardly been there a month, when the object appeared clearly impracticable to all but to his majesty's ministers: The commander-in-chief determined to return. On the 27th of August, we were told by him who had advised the expedition, and who had been appointed to command it, that the object was not to be accomplished; still the troops were suffered to remain in the island for two or three months, a prey to the diseases of that pestilential climate! To whom, then, are to be imputed the deaths that took place in consequence? To whom is to be imputed this wanton waste of the valuable lives of our brave defenders? What excuse can these ministers offer to the parents, the relations, the friends, of those brave men, who were suffered to perish thus uselessly, and thus ingloriously? What excuse can they offer to their country for this most afflicting loss? While letters were passing and repassing on this subject, hundreds of British soldiers were perishing for no object whatever. With such a case then already established, do you mean to wait for inquiry before you pronounce upon that which is now evident? Will garbled papers be a compensation for all this mass of calamity and disgrace to an injured and outraged country? Separate yourselves, my lords, I beseech you, in this awful and perilous crisis of your fate, from this misconduct of ministers;-declare your severe reprobation of their conduct on that point, which is already completely before you; and which, from its very nature, can admit of no defence. You will find them, no doubt, attempting, as on former occasions, to shift the blame from themselves to the officers: They will not stop there, they will involve your lordships in the same charge; you, who after the experience you had of their mode of proceeding in the expedition under General Moore, encouraged them to go on in the same course. And how can you entirely exculpate yourselves? How can you, who saw what had taken place before in Spain and Portugal, without expressing your disapprobation, excuse yourselves from a share in the disasters which have since happened in the same countries? Obligation does not, in these cases, rest solely with ministers.-You, too, have a duty to perform, which, if you do not perform, you are justly chargeable with your share in the public calamities. We must look to parliament. These are not times for votes of confidence, and implicit reliance upon ministers. Parliament |