76 



ANNUAL REGISTER, 1809.' 



might have been attached to their 

 ancient monarchy, and with one 

 hand upheld P'erdinand VII, whilst 

 with the other they worshipped 

 the Lady of the Pillar. The right 

 honourable gentleman hadobjecied 

 to the appointment of any other 

 than a military man on a mission 

 to Spain ; but as the objects of 

 that right honourable gentleman 

 were of a philosophical nature, 

 military men would not have 

 been the most proper persons for 

 their accomplishment. The mili- 

 tary part of the transactions in 

 Spain might have disappointed ex- 

 pectation, but the cause was not 

 desperate. The soldiers who con- 

 quered at Baylen, and those who 

 rallied after the defeat of Medina 

 del Rio Seco, those who defended 

 Madrid before they were soldiers, 

 and drove the French out of Cas- 

 tille, were still staunch in the cause. 

 The spirit of the people was un- 

 subdued. The boundaries of the 

 power of the French were confined 

 within their military posts. The 

 throne of Joseph was erected on 

 sand, and would totter with the 

 first blast. When he compared 

 the present situation of Spain with 

 what it was when the French were 

 in the undisturbed possession of 

 Biscay, Castille, Catalonia, and 

 Portugal, he could not discover 

 any grounds for despondency. — 

 The French had now Gallicia, but 

 they had not Portugal; so that, 

 upon the whole, the situation of 

 Spain was not so unpromising as 

 in June last. Whatever might be 

 the fruits of Buonaparte's victo- 

 ries in other respects, the spirit of 

 the Spanish nation was yet unsub- 

 dued. His fortune, no doubt, had 

 been augmented; but still it was 

 fortune, not fate. There was 



something unworthy in the senti- 

 ment that would defer to this for- 

 tune as to the dispensations of Pro- 

 vidence, looking upon it as immut- 

 able in its nature, and irresistible 

 by human means. Mr. C. con- 

 cluded by stating his intention to 

 give his negative to the motion. 



Mr. Windham was determined 

 to confine what he had to say to 

 the objects of the proposed in- 

 quiry, and should therefore pass by 

 four-fifths of the speech of Mr. C. 

 It was an odd moment for the 

 right honourable gentleman to ex- 

 press his hopes, and an odd quar- 

 ter from which such l)opes pro- 

 ceeded, when our army had been 

 withdrawn from Spain, and when 

 we had left the Spaniards to fight 

 their own battles. It appeared a 

 great fault in the military councils 

 of this country, that on the 12th 

 of July they were so very badly 

 informed of the situation of Por- 

 tugal, where every man was our 

 friend, and where information 

 would issue from every port, to 

 suppose that there was but 5,000 

 French in that country, when, in 

 fact, there were 25,000. If Spain 

 had been assisted in the best man- 

 ner, there was every reason to sup- 

 pose that our assistance would 

 have been effectual. There were, 

 evidently, two courses to be pur- 

 sued : either to strike a stroke on 

 the part that first presented itself, 

 namely, on the Ebro, and to en- 

 deavour to drive the enemy out of 

 Spain, by attacking him instantly, 

 while his force was small, and when 

 his views upon Austria, or his jea- 

 lousy of what Austria might de- 

 sign against him, divided his atten- 

 tion, and made it impossible greatly 

 to augment his numbers; or, giv- 

 ing up that attempt as hopeless, 



to 



