ANNUAL REGISTER, 1810. 



Lord Grenville, on the subject 

 of our expeditions, said, it was 

 due to the memory of those who 

 liad bravely, but ingloriously, 

 fallen a sacrifice to the ignorance, 

 the incapacity, and the miscon- 

 duct of ministers ; it was due to a 

 deluded andsulFering people, who 

 demanded it at their lordships' 

 hands, that thev should institute 

 a rigorous and effectual inquiry 

 into the conduct of those minis- 

 ters to whom those disasters were 

 to be attributed. They found, in 

 the speech of the king's commis- 

 sioners, that ministers, from a 

 sense of their guilty situation, 

 glaring misconduct, and a fear of 

 tiie consequences of that miscon- 

 duct, had condescended to tell 

 tiiem that thej' would lay before 

 parliament certain documents and 

 papers relative to the disgraceful 

 and calamitous expedition to Wal- 

 cheren. But lord Grenville cau- 

 tioned their lordships not to be 

 deluded by that shew of readiness 

 for inquir}'. The speech merely 

 said, such papers and documents 

 as should be deemed satisfactory 

 to ministers themselves, should be 

 laid before parliament. The ad- 

 dress moved, did not contain any 

 pledge to the country of an inten- 

 tion, on the part of their lordships, 

 to institute an inquiiy. It did not 

 even declare the necessit}' of hav- 

 ing nil the papers and documents 

 relative to the disastrous expe- 

 dition laid before them; but con- 

 sisted merely of a complimentary 

 expression of thanks, that certain 

 papers were intended to be pro- 

 duced. Their lordships would 

 not, that night, do their duty, if 

 they did not give a decided 

 pledge to the country, that a 

 vigorous and effectual inquiry 

 should be instituted : and an ex- 



phcit declaration of that pledge 

 was the object of the amendment 

 which it was his intention to move. 

 He did not mean to condemn the 

 conduct of the ofiBcers employed 

 by ministers in their ill-planned 

 expeditions. He was disposed 

 to believe that the officers had 

 done their duty, and that all the 

 disastrous results were to be at- 

 tributed to the want of inform- 

 ation, the criminal improvidence, 

 and the ill-digested plans of his 

 majest3''s ministers. Their atten- 

 tion ought not to be drawn oft" 

 from the misconduct of ministers, 

 by any unwarrantable attempt 

 of theirs to throw blame from 

 themselves upon the different offi- 

 cers employed. Their lordships 

 must all remember the manner in 

 which the blame of our former 

 failure in Spain was attempted 

 to be thrown on that gallant and 

 able officer, sir John Moore. It 

 was insinuated that he had an 

 unlimited discretion. But how 

 did the real state of the case 

 turn out ? So far from having an 

 unlimited discretion, sir John 

 Moore was fettered in the first in- 

 stance by the plan of the secretary 

 of state. That plan was essen- 

 tiallj' contrary to the dictates of 

 his own better judgment ; he be- 

 ing sent, not to tlie south of Spain, 

 which was his plan, but to the 

 north ; and, when there, he was 

 to receive directions from a diplo- 

 matic character, of whom lord 

 Grenville wished to say nothing 

 now. But, by these directions sir 

 John Moore was completely fet- 

 tered, and prevented from exer- 

 cising his discretion or judgment, 

 under those very difficult circum- 

 stances where they might have 

 been eminently useful. The work 

 published by a near relation of 



