3i AM NUAL REGISTER. 1810. 



jretired On what grounds, Mr. 



Vernon asked, did lord Welling- 

 ton calculate that his 25,000 men 

 would be able to contend with 

 100,000 Frenchmen, in the heart 

 of the peninsula ? It had been 

 said, that the French armies had 

 been checked by this battle ; but 

 the real result of the battle of Ta- 

 lavera was, that our army was 

 checked — checked in its proposed 

 march to Madrid, for which impor- 

 tant service Joseph Buonaparte 

 had thanked his troops. The re- 

 sources of Spain were stated to 

 consist in her loyalty and religion. 

 There were systems of religion, 

 such as those which inculcate pre- 

 destination, that inspire an extra- 

 ordinary contempt of danger. He 

 did not know that such was the 

 character of the religion to which 

 theSpaniardswerebigoted;neither 

 did he calculate much on their 

 loyalty to such a sovereign as Fer- 

 dinand VII., who had voluntarily 

 thrown himself into the hands of 

 the enemy, and might be said to 

 have resigned his crown. If he 

 saw the crown and the altar sur- 

 rounded with equal laws, and the 

 spirit of liberty, theanimaiing prin- 

 ciple and bond of union among 

 the Spaniards, then he should not 

 despair of that country. This he 

 believed to havebeen the principle 

 which dictated the heroic resist- 

 ance of Saragossa and Gerona. 

 He was not, however, for desert- 

 ing the Spaniards altogether. He 

 would wish to lend them every as- 

 sistance except a British army. 



Lord Castlereagh Kupported the 

 motion for thanks to lord Wel- 

 lington, not only by a description 

 of the battle of Talavera, but by 



a brief review of the whole cam- 

 paign, in the same manner as had 

 been done by the marquis of Wel- 

 lesley in the House of Peers. 



Mr. Whitbread observed, that 

 while lord Wellington accused 

 general Cuesta of delay, he ought 

 to have stated the grounds of it; 

 and in not doing it he did that ge- 

 neral injustice. The Spaniards, 

 whom he represented as taking no 

 part in the action, he was, never- 

 theless, necessitated to mention no 

 less than five times in his dispatch; 

 and it was rather too much to say 

 that he had contended with double 

 his numbers. He had even men- 

 tioned a Spanish general, who was 

 wounded in bringing up his inac- 

 tive infantry to assist in the battle. 



Mr. Windham, too, was sor- 

 ry that such a letter as had been 

 sent by lord Wellington had ever 

 been written. It proclaimed glory 

 which did not belong to him. As 

 in a sea engagement, it could not 

 be contended that the hull of a 

 vessel had nothing to do with the 

 guns, which gained the victory. 

 So with the Spanish army ; they 

 did all that was required of them. 

 They kept their position.* But 

 the victory itstlf must have been 

 of use to the Spanish cause, as it 

 showed them that a British army 

 was invincible. And the victory 

 well deserved the honour of the 

 reward moved to be bestowed on 

 it by the House. 



Many other members spoke on 

 the opposite side of the question. 

 The vote of thanks to lord Wel- 

 lington was carried without a di- 

 vision. Thanks to the other offi- 

 cers unanimously ; and also, unani- 

 mously, acknowledgments to the 



• Coraparp Hist, of Europp, Vol. TJ. [1809] pp..IS.5, 186. 



