BRITAIN. 



711 



onr. >! 1 1. 



carry the place by a coup ite main, was impracticable. 

 The same was the opinion of General Sir \V. F.rskine, 

 whose professional knowledge, displayed in his exa- 

 mination at the bar, had excited the admiration of the 

 !i;vd stated, that having been at Antwerp in 

 17.0K he knew it to be secure against a coup <lc main, 

 and that in one week it might be put in a situation to 

 stand a siege. Sir W. Erskine, too, had mention, d 

 his doubts respecting the expedition, to Sir Richard 

 Strachan, and by him they had been reported to 

 Lord Castlereagh before the expedition sailed, tt 

 appeared that all the predictions of the former officer 

 had been verified. Sir Eyre Coote, the Marquis of 

 Huntly, General Calvert, had all agreed that the 

 assault of Antwerp was either hazardous or impracti- 

 cable. 



From these facts, supported by evidence before the 

 house, and from a minute survey of the diffuse and 

 divided plan of operations given in the separate in- 

 structions of the commanders, Lord Porchester af- 

 firmed, that the enterprize, if not impracticable in it- 

 self, was at least rendered so by the bad arrange- 

 ments of its contrivers. The pestilence, which had so 

 frightfully destroyed our army, he said, was known 

 to professional men, and must have been known to 

 ministers. Was it forgotten what our troops had 

 experienced from the climate of Walcheren in 1794 ? 

 and yet the season was chosen for operation when 

 that pestilence was known to be most fatal. After 

 it was known in September, that there were 8000 

 sick in Walcheren, lying without medicines, without 

 blankets, and without shelter, the most fatal delays 

 had occurred in relieving the misery of our army. 

 He was not disposed to lay all the blame of that de- 

 lay on government ; but when Lord Chatham relin- 

 quished the ulterior objects of the expedition, why 

 had not the army been recalled from that scene of 

 death and contagion,', whilst it could be called an ar- 

 my ? We were not to be-told that Walcheren was to 

 be kept as a military position, because it would cost 

 more to retain it than it was worth, because our fri- 

 gates could not remain at any time in the Veer- 

 gat, Ter Teer being within the range of the enemy's 

 shot and shells. The population of Britain could 

 not supply the waste of such a position. Why had 

 ministers been so callous to the sufferings of our 

 brave men, while the country so deeply sympathised 

 with them ? Intelligence of the calamitous state of 

 the troops was received on the 2d of September. 

 On the 8th Lord Castlereagh resigned ; and on the 

 1 7th Lord Liverpool's letter for the recal of the 

 army was dated ; but the whole of that period which 

 should have been employed in arrangements for sa- 

 ving the lives of our soldiers, was consumed by mini- 

 sters in their disgraceful squabbles for office. The 

 last defence of the expedition to which his lordship 

 alluded, was its acting as a supposed diversion in fa- 

 vour of Austria. All the evidence in behalf of mi- 

 nisters to this effect, was the opinion of Colonel Mo- 

 olieim ; who could state no other effect which it pro- 

 duced, than the return of two or three battalions 

 from Louvain. It was known before the expedition 

 wiled, that the defeat of the Austrians had decided 

 the fate of the campaign, and the fate of the Aus- 

 trian war. And this was the moimnt chosen to spe- 

 culate in diversions, when France had every where a 



force completely adequate to the defence of 



part of her empire. ' -)-".- 1 



Lord Castlereagh, in reply, acknowledged, that In 

 could prodnc' no formal opinions directly in l.ivoiir 

 of the vxpi !.:i'>n ; but he had had a variety ot ci.n 

 MIIS with military judges on the subject, wlm ! 

 were so satisfactory, that he took the king's pleasure 

 on the subject on the 1 Uh of June, though tiie n 



was not finally decided on till the 21st. He 

 contended, however, that it was not necessary for go- 

 vcrnment to protect itself, as to the policy of an ex- 

 pedition, by the previous sanction of military autho- 

 rity. He appealed, if the expedition to Bucno* 

 Ayres was adopted on previous military information. 

 The expedition, planned by the great Lord Chatham, 

 against Rochefort completely failed : The officer to 

 whom it was entrusted had an impression that it 

 would not succeed, and applied for a specific plan of 

 operations. Lord Chatham replied, that it was for 

 government to judge of the policy of the plan : it 

 was for him to look to its execution, and to judge of 

 his measures from contingencies that might arise. 



In answer to all the objections that had been ur- 

 ged against the expedition on the score of policy and 

 delay, he would maintain, in the first place, that it. 

 could not have been sent out sooner, and that no 

 where could it have been employed so advantageous- 

 ly. Some thought it would have been employed 

 more advantageously in the peninsula, others in the 

 north of Germany. Both parties reprobated its be- 

 ing employed in what they called a selfish object. It 

 was our duty to send an army to the opposite coast, 

 even though it should not be able to make a consi- 

 derable advance from it. Four days before the ex- 

 pedition was determined on, government received news 

 of the battle of Aspern ; were they not justified in 

 sending an army to the continent, when the fate of 

 the world depended on what was passing on the Da- 

 nube ? The battle of Wagram which followed, adverse 

 as the result of it was, shewed the person at the head 

 of affairs in France, the danger of committing his 

 crown to a second struggle. The issue of the com- 

 bat was known to his majesty's ministers only the 

 day before the expedition sailed. To prove that the 

 expedition operated a diversion in favour of Austria, 

 it was not necessary to shew that troops were sent 

 from the Danube to oppose it, it was sufficient 

 if he could shew that troops were prevented from 

 joining the army in Moravia ; but it was a fact, 

 that though no troops were sent from the Danube, 

 th garrisons of Custrin, Glogau, and the other 

 fortresses in Silesia, were concentrated, and sent into 

 the north of Germany to oppose it. As to sending 

 the expedition to that quarter, in the first instance, 

 nothing could have been more unjustifiable. In tlir 

 first place, it would have been necessary for them to 

 create an army in the north of Germany j and were 

 they afterwards to disgrace themselves by abandon- 

 ing our supporters in that quarter ? But although 

 the object of the expedition was not selfish, he was 

 content to defend the single object of obtaining 

 Walcheren. The value of the place, in the opinion 

 of our ancestors, had b-een proved in many cases. In 

 the time of Queen Elizabeth it was retained. In 1747 

 it w<is also kept possession of. It had, indeed, been 

 retained by many different admiuistrationt, and relin- 



