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bombast, call a vanquished enemy. Yet, this is not all. As if it were not sufficient for us to be disgraced in the eyes of the

crows and kites in the land of our ally which they had invaded and laid waste? I have never been eager to encourage the indulgence of sanguine expectations in the peo-world, and for the Portuguese to be injured

ple; but, if any nation ever had a right to expect any thing, this nation had a right to expect a result such as I have described.

-Instead of this, what have we? To go through the several articles of these "Con"ventions" would be useless. To be fully sensible of the disgrace which they affix upon us, as of the lasting injury, which we, as well as our allies, must sustain from them, we have only to read them. They speak for themselves in a language too plain to be misunderstood. The short view of them is this: The French had an army in Portugal, which army, though completely masters of the country at first, had so plundered the people and had so outraged their feelings of every kind, that, at last, its situation became perilous, and that, too, at a time, when, from the unexpected resistance of Spain, it became next to impossible for it to receive supplies. We go to the commander of this army, having at our back a force three times as great as his, and having already beaten him with less than a third part of that force, and with him we agree to find shipping to carry him and his army to a place of convenience in France; to carry also, his artillery, his horses, his baggage, his immense plunder, and to take each man and gun so prepared with all requisites as to be able to begin a battle the moment they are landed, and even at sea; to take, lest his baggage or plunder should consist of immoveable articles, the said articles in the way of purchase or exchange; to provide effectually for the security of the persons and property of all those, whether French or Portugueze, who may have taken part with the spoilers, therein engaging to use the forces (sent for the deliverance of Portugal and for the punishment of its plunderers) so as not only to secure impunity to every villain engaged in such plunder, but also to secure to him the legal possession and disposal of what he had thereby acquired, that is to say, if the house and goods of a faithful Portuguese have been confiscated and sold by the French to a traitor, to that traitor we guarantee the quiet enjoyment of such house and goods. Is not this the plain fact? Talk to us of the surf, and of the equinox. Why, if there had been a mine under you and the match lighted ready to blow you into the air, you ought to have spurned at such conditions; conditions, which you have received at the hands of bin hauts your bragging

as much as it was in our power to injure them; as if this were not sufficient, a pretence (for it appears to be merely a pretence) is found for our engaging to make "the Spaniards," not the Patriots of Spain, not the Spanish Nation, not any thing dig nified or honourable, but to make "the

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Spaniards" set at liberty, "restore," a if they had stolen them, all "the French "subjects" detained in Spain and not taken in battle. That is to say, all the horde of spies, intriguers, fomenters of discord, plum derers and cut-throats, who have bean the principal cause of all that the people of Spain have suffered, and who are held in durance, not only because they are capable of still doing mischief, but, doubtless, as a security for the lives of such Spaniards as may, with out being taken in arms, fall, or have fal len, into the hands of the French. Whit right had we, and that too without reference to numbers of persons, to make any such stipulation with respec: to Spain? Whost authority had we for it? By what instm ment had the people of Spain placed their honour and their safety in the hands of ear "Chevaliers du bain ?" What powe we to cause such a stipulation to be fu The promise is like that which a man when a foot-pad has him down and hold knife across his throat. Did the men wh made this promise beat the Duke d'Abrantes; or were they like the curs, who, having f the bite of the mastiff, lose all confidence in their numbers, and, though they bark vie tory, suffer him to retire in quiet, carrying off his bone to be disposed of at his leisure? No: not so, for they complaisantly carry the bone for him.The naval yields, in no respect, to the military convention. The Emperor Alexander, who is carrying on a desperate and blood-thirsty war against our really faithful and very brave ally, the king of Sweden, had, with a view of cooperating with the French in their project for "restoring the liberty of the seas," of, in other words, destroying the maritime predominance of England, sent a fleet round into the Tagus. For the return of this fleet to Russia, the priests of the Greek church have been saying and burning incense any time these nine months past. Our "Chevaliers du bain" seem to have been penetrated with the sup plications and offerings which had hither to been used in vain; and, though they did not send the fleet home; though they

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were not quite so far over-awed by the Duke d'Abrantes as to raise the blockade and to let the fleet come out and go home, they took care to stipulate, that the officers and men of the fleet should be immediately carried back to Russia, without any impediment to their being at once employed to fight against us, or against our ally, the king of Sweden; that all this should be done at our expense, and that we should take care of the ships, so as to have them to deliver up at the conclusion of the peace. The Eastern warrior, Sir Arthur Wellesley, had, in his part of the negociation, agreed to let ships and all go home; but, then, there was the chance, at least, of their meeting with an English fleet at sea. This chance, how Ever, was small; for, the start which he had allowed them, would have enabled them to make a French port before our feet off the Tagus could overtake them; they might, too, have fallen in with some of our detached ships, who could be in expectation of no such event; and, in any case, a meeting with them might have cost us lives worth more than those of all the "Cheva

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liers du bain" that ever existed. It must, therefore, be confessed, that what finally agreed to was a little less bad and less disgraceful than what the conqueror of the Nabob Vizier of Oude had, as far as he was empowered, made an article of the be famous convention. But, besides the aheretofore unheard-of title and language of this naval

agreement, where were the circumstances that could justify it? The fleet was completely in our power. There was scarcely a possibility of their escaping. In a few weeks, unless cowardice seized our army, the batteries, under which, the fleet lay, must have been in our hands. Or, whether they were or not, the fleet could

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Sir Charles Cotton, therefore,

is full as culpable as Sir Hew Dalrymple and Sir Arthur Wellesley: for, though he did not agree to the terms at first proposed, he agreed to terms very disgraceful to us and injurious to our allies. "The surf and the approaching equinox!" Shades of all the thousands and hundreds of thousands of English seamen, who, without a millionth part of the motive, have perished in bravng the wates and the winds and the shoals. and the rocks, come forth from the deep and hear this! The surf and the equiox!" Why, it is like the language of the chicken-hearted secretary of Charles XII, who, letting drop the pen, upon part of the room being torn away by a cantionball, and being asked by the king why he did not proceed, exclaimed, in a trembling

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voice, the ball, your Majesty!" Weit," said the king, and what of the ball? The "ball said nothing about your writing." In a man like this, strong apprehension at dauger so very imminent was not only excusable but naturally to be expected; but, to hear commanders of British forces, by sea as well as land, pleading the surf and the equinox as an excuse for having assented to termą confessedly not such as could have been wished for, is enough to fill the nation with anger approaching to madness.-There was, Dalrymple says, doubts whether Sir John Moore's division could be safely landed at that season of the year; but, it appears, that these doubts were not founded, because they were safely landed before the Convention was signed. But, suppose it had been certain that they could not be landed? Wel- ́ lesley (for it is time to have done with long names) had, as he says, beaten the whole of the French force with one half of his, and his army bad received an augmentation before Sir John Moore arrived. What, then, had the landing of Sir John Moore's division to do with the matter? Indeed, it would seem to bave been better for him not to land, but to wait for orders from home. At any rate, however, lauded he was before the convention was signed, so that the excuse is completely nullified. Then comes the excuse about provisions. "It was doubted, "whether the supply of so large an army "with provisions from the ships could be "provided for, under all the disadvantages "to which the shipping were exposed." The Knight's grammar is, to say the least of it, quite equal to his logic. What, then, it would seem, that here was an army sent to Portugal, without due precautions taken as to finding it in food? For, observe, the difficulties and dangers of the seas are, upon such occasions, always taken into view at the war-office and the admiralty. But now, we are, it seems, to be told, that, after all the immense expense of this armament; after an expense of preparation such as neyer was heard of before for such an enterprize; after all this, we are to be very coolly told, that there were doubts as to the possibility of supplying the army with food, even for a fortnight or three weeks ! ' Let us see: there were, after Sir John Moore landed, about thirty thousand men. Could not these men have been fed for a fortnight or three weeks, without producing a famine in Portugal, even supposing it impossible to get any thing at all from the ships? Can Dalrymple say, that there was not already a week or ten days' provision in the armiy It will be proved, I think, that there was.

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But, upon the very face of the thing, this excuse is worth nothing. They were in a friendly country; they wanted no force for foraging, or for. obtaining accommodations of every sort; the sea was not only open to them, but they had the exclusive possession of all its shores; if the "surf" prevailed to-day, or this week, why, it would not continue for ever, and, when it ceased, any flour or other provisions that might have been got from the Portuguese, could have been returned with interest, for, it is not pretended, that there was not an abundance on-board the ships. But, how did the Duke D'Abrantes, as Wellesley calls him (for the first time that any Englishman has called him so); how did the Duke D'Abrantes, to call whom by that title was a cruel insuit to the oppressed and plundered Portuguese; how did Wellesley's Duke D'Abrantes make shift to get provisions, not only for the "fortnight or three weeks" to come; not only as long as he wight remain besieged; but how had he made shift to find provisions for many months before, and that too, Jet it be observed, without the possibility of any communication with the sea? The Duke D'Abrantes, a tile taken from a city and territory of Portugal, and which Wellesley acknowledges to be his due; the Duke D'Abrantes had fourteen thousand men, about a thousand horses, and, probably, about six or seven thousand men, on board the Russian fleet and other ships; all these Wellesley's Duke D'Abrantes made shift to provide with every thing, and to lay up stores for a si ge, and that, too, amongst a people decidedly hostile to him, and all this Chevain that very country, where our " “liers du bain" were under mortal apprehensions of being starved to death from the mere hostility of the surf, though they had a friendly people to apply to, a sea always open, and an England at the distance of ten days sail.Dalrymple will hardly pretend, that Junot had collected all the provisions of the country and carried them to his

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strong position." But, they were become scarce." May be so. But, will any man believe, that, just at the end of harvest, or indeed, at any time, provisions for such an army for a few weeks, might not have been borrowed in Portugal, where our melination to, and our means of, repayment were so well known? What avail these, our reputation and our means, if they were not to be resorted to upon an occasion like this? Is it not notorious that there are other ports in Portugal besides Lisbon; that into these ports we could have entered; that ⚫ur means of conveyance, in all manner of

vehicles, was so great as to leave nothing to fear upon that score; and, would the Porteguese have wanted any thing but the simple promise of repayment to induce them to af ford our army ample supplies of provisions, as to the kind of which there could have been no difficulty to apprehend, seeing that the position of our ariny must necessarily have remained nearly the same? So that, view it in whatever light we please, this excuse about provisions appears to be the most futile ever made by mortal mangreat plea, however; that upon which the "Chevaliers du bain' mean to make ther

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stand, appears to be that of gaining time So eager were they to be in Spain, that they thought nothing at all of Portugal. Ther capacious minds, accustomed to travel over the vast regions of the East, were impatien under the confinement to a little plot of land on the shores of the Atlantic. Now, as gaining time, if that is to be considered a positive good, then one way of obtaming is to decamp; and, if they had shipped d if they had not caught a Tartar in Wellesle Duke D'Abrantes, they would certain have gained time, though they would, must be confessed, have left Portugal just they found it, except that the land wed have been enriched with the bodies and blood of some of the bravest of their trymen. Well, then, this gaining may be an evil; and now let us see was in this case. →→→→ → Dalrymple says:

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opinion in favour of the Convertion "principally founded" [not founded pr cipalty, and I wish he had set Junot at de fiance as much as he does sense] " on the great importance of time, which the va

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son of the year rendered peculiarly "luable, and which the enemy could easily "have consumed in the protracted defence "of the strong places they occupied, ba "terms of Convention been refused them. Terms of Convention, Sir Knight, is a new phrase,invented, I presume, to avoid the assertion,that the terms of the convention were the only terms that the Duke would accept of your hands. But, to continue in proceeding backwards, in the examination of this excuse, on what is founded the assertion, the unqualified assertion, that Junot could easi have consumed time in a protracted defence! Is it founded upon your knowledge, or you opinion, that he had plentiful stores of pro visions for his men, horses, and fleet, sup plies got in a country wherein you were afraid of starving? Or, did you apprehend, that he would be able to obtain supplies defiance of Cotton's fleet, your army, the universal hatred and hostility of the peo

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ple of the whole of Portugal?" Strong places?" I never before heard of any in Portugal. Had you been before. Lisle, Brissae, or Maestricht, you could not have written in language more desponding, even if the country around had been filled with your enemy's friends and adherents. Had you not battering cannon? Had you not an ample portion of artillery, the best constituted and the best supplied in Europe; an abundance of aminunition of all sorts; a large fleet to apply to for aid of every description; your word to pass as current as gold and silver for the hire of labour, materials and implements of every kind; were you not as well situated, in every respect, as if you had had to carry on a siege of Dover? And yet, you talk of strong places, easily defended to a protracted duration. The question now comes: since when did these places become so very strong? Júnot found no difficulty in getting into them, when he entered Portugal with that same army, which Wellesley told us, he had beaten hollow, only a few days before you made the convention; nay, he marched into them, or, rather, over them. They have been very quick, theh, it seems, in growing into places of such adamantine materials. Well, now for the time that was to be gained. You do not tell us what good purpose that time was to answer; but, some person, who has taken upon him your defence, has suggested it to the public in the following words, to which the Courier newspaper says it is desired to give insertion." Now, then, let us see this great purpose that you had in view in this sacrifice of honour to the gaining of time." The public seem much disappointed that the terms "of capitulation granted Junot and his "forces have been so disadvantageous to our "interests, and perhaps justly, were it not "that there might have been some secret "motives and very strong ones: supposing, "for instance, Junot had possession of a strong post, and it was doubtful if he

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might not have defended it for a fortnight, "three weeks, or a month, or perhaps "much longer, was it no object to gain that "time in the situation that Spain is, with "reinforcements pouring down from all quarters of France, to strengthen the enemy in Biscay and Navarre, and to "have a disposeable force so large as that "which would otherwise be employed in "Portugal, to throw into the assistance of "the Spaniards in that quarter? Were they able by our assistance to drive the enemy beyond the passes of the Pyren nees, before he has time to collect his "forces, would not that be a greater object

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in the ultimate, success of the war, and "does it not materially add to the prota bility of doing this by assisting them with this force three weeks or a month sooner than we could have done had we not accept"ed of the terms so complained of as grunt"ed to Junot."--Mark here; we accept of terms in one line, and grant them in the next. No, no. The Chevaliers du bain". did not grant. They accepted, and in that sort of way in which an apprentice boy accepts of a Monday morning's threatening, while the strap or the walking-stick is shaken over his shoulders. So, these heroes might have their secret motives? They might want to get into Spain to stop the progress of the armies of Napoleon? But, would it not have been as well to send Junot and his army and the Russian fleet to England first, with a request to be ordered to march into Spain; for, even now we shall see, that the army will be able to leave Portugal very little sooner than they would, if they had waited the result of a siege of even a month's duration, while there appear no grounds for believing, that the siege couldhave lasted for a week, under the direction of brave and skilful assailants. This is the least part of the objection, however; for, the army of Junot, an army so formidable as to produce the convention that we have been examining, is. to be landed precisely at that point, whence they can most easily march into Spain; and so, finding ourselves unable to dislodge him from a place where we were certain of capturing him and preventing the possibility of his doing further mischief either to Spain or Portugal, we let him loose, in order to have the chance of beating him. in the Pyrennees. No, not so: we do not let him loose; we carry him round at our proper expence ; we carry all his armis,. horses, baggage, plunder, and we put him down in a condition, not only to march off to Spaip, but we fill even his pouches with sixty rounds each, that he may be ready in stantly to begin the battle.-Besides, is it not evident, that, though Portugal is evacuated, it must still, in a certain degree, be left to our defence. Can the whole of our army quit Portugal instantly? Can that country, in the state in which it now is, be left without from ten to twenty thousand English troops? We shall see that it cannot; and we shall see, that we have carried, in Junot's army, more men to fight against Spain, than we can send from Portugal to the assistance of the Spanish People.If this be so, where shall we find words to express our indignation at this pitiful plea of

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gaining time, when we take into view the other part of the Convention, which makes us carry, at our expence, five or six thousand Russian seamen to fight against the Swedes; when we reflect on the vast means of conveyance and of acceleration, in every way, that we lose by the employment of our ships of war and transports in carrying home the Russians and the French; and when we consider how much more ten thousand of the conquerors of Junot would have been worth in Spain than twenty thousand of those who have purchased his return home with sacrifices so great? What we wanted, what our allies wanted, what the general cause wanted, was, not a month sooner possession of the fortresses of Portugal, but à signal defeat, a humiliation, of a part Napoleon's army. We wanted an instance of triumph, a proof of victory, which no one could gainsay. We wanted the boasting threateners of invasion brought hither; we wanted Junot and his army in England, and to hear our commanders say to the people: "There are your invaders, go and look at ** them." This is what we wanted. This would have spoken conviction to the minds of Englishmen, of Frenchmen, of our Allies, and of the whole world. This is what true policy dictated; this is what would, at once, have presented itself to a high and enlightened mind, though it appears never, for one moment, to have entered the mind of either our generals or our admiral. Such an example, such an irrefragable proof, of the great power of England, would have given her such consequence in the world; would have placed her so high in the opinion of all man, kind, that it is impossible for a man who leves his country not to hate those who have prevented its existence. In speaking of the victories in Portugal, I reckoned (at page 385) amongst its consequences, this: "that "it would diminish that dread, in which "the French arms had been so long held in "other nations, and particularly in the

Southern parts of Europe." But, this mis rable Convention, dictated to us in terms so haughty and insolent, and in which we cognize the title of Emperor and King in Napoleon, will not only undo all that was done by these victories, but will confirm that dread which it was so great an object to remove; for, to what cause, other than that of a conviction of a decided superiority in the French armies, can this convention possibly be ascribed? And, after this, after secing us thus act; after seeing us so shamefully betray the interests of our alles of Portugal and Sweden; after seeing us make a Convention, in which all the dearest interests

of the Portuguese were so deeply involved, without even consulting any one of the Portuguese commanders or chiefs, who can be weck enough to believe, that the Spaniards will trust a British commander? If they imbibe a distrust of us, and that they must is but too evident, who knows what effect that may have upon their councils; how many it may cause to waver, who would otherwise be firm; how many it may lead to abandon the contest; in how many ways it may operate in favour of Buonaparte's plan of subjugation? Never can we expect such another opportunity of turning the tide of the war. The power of doing this was put completely in our hands; that power we have most shamefully thrown away, and we must take the consequences of such foolish and dastardly conduct.The sorry lives of those, who have thus di graced our country, and ruined our cause, would do us no good. They would not restore to this world one of the brave men whe fell in acquiring the means of terminating the war in Portugal with so much ho our and advantage as might have met in its termination, nor would they restore to the pockets of us at home the immense sums which have been, in that war, expended for a mischie vous purpose; but, no one will deny, that something ought to be done; that law justice, in some shape or other, ought wal these commanders before them. Whitede suffered (slightly indeed) for his silliness, his cowardice, or both together; but, is was beaten, at any rate. He did stop 'tillk was beaten, before he signed terms, which none but a beaten army could submit These commanders have not waited for the imperious cause of submission. They hart volunteered in disgrace. They have made a sacrifice of their country's honour and terests, without being able to set up smallest plea of necessity. Whitelocke's ex pedition was a thing of dubious importance There were many, among whom I was one, who thought that all that there was to regnt in his failure was the mere loss of lives. But, here was an object of such vast consequence, and of a nature so unequivocal, that it was impossible for any man, having only a co mon feeling for the honour of his country, not to have it deeply at heart. Every man seemed to say, every countenance bespoke the sentiment: "Now is the time; we are.

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w striking the blow, that is to fix the "character of our country, and that is to be the source of noble emulation in the "bearts of our children's children." This blow our gallant countrymen had proved that they were able to strike; their sword

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