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said, the situation of the country required the instant adoption of masculine measures of this description. The country was to be saved and must be saved; and it was acknowledged on all sides, that that salvation depended on reforming the finances; he knew of nothing to intervene to prevent it. That long hackneyed bugbear, called invasion, was now declared to be " rally impossible:" the truth and fact is, said Mr. Moore, that this was always a bugbear; there never was the least foundation for any apprehension of the kind; and it only formed part of a system of delusion, of imposition, and fraud upon the public mind, from the year 1793, under which ministers had exacted from the country, and expended upwards of 1,000 millions of money.

Mr. Tierney moved an amendment, "That a sum no greater than 449,0381. 11s. 10d. be granted for the service of the military staff."

Mr. Wardle supported the amendment. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was surprised that gentlemen should think the estimate extravagant, when such a mode had been adopted by those who were formerly in power, and to whom the gentlemen had been supporters.

Mr. Whitbread said, the right hon. gent. had begun his speech as he commenced his political career, by recurring to the conduct of those who preceded him; and by a trifling recrimination. He considered the system of those estimates vicious, and would therefore vote for the amendment.

After some observations the House divided on the amendment, when there appeared Ayes 61, Noes 99-Majority 38.

HOUSE OF COMMONS.

Monday, March 26.

[LORD ERSKINE.] Sir John Anstruther begged to correct a misconception, which, from what he had said on a former evening respecting the obnoxious bye-law of the Lincoln's Inn benchers, had gone abroad. It would appear from his former statement, that lord Erskine had given his assent to that resolution, whereas the fact was, that that noble lord was only present on the 5th of February, when it was first proposed for consideration, but was not present when it was subsequently decided upon.

Mr. Sheridan stated, that he had it in authority from the noble lord to say, that

he had never given his concurrence to this order, and even, if under any impression at the time he had given such consent, from what had since come to his knowledge, he was most anxious to have it withdrawn.

Lord

[EXPEDITION TO THE SCHELDT.] Porchester rose in pursuance of his notice to submit certain Resolutions to the House founded upon the evidence taken at its bar, during the laborious but important investigation, which had occupied so much of their attention since the commencement of the present session. He was fully aware, that in endeavouring to lay before the House a clear and comprehensive analysis of that evidence the task he had undertaken was difficult, and was afraid he should weary the attention of the House by the details, which it would be absolutely necessary for him to go into, in order to the complete developement of the question which they would have to decide upon, and to lay an irrefragable ground for the motion with which he was to conclude. Difficult, however, as he felt the task he had undertaken, he also felt that it was as painful as it was arduous.-Painful to review a campaign, in the conduct of which there was so much to wonder at, to lament, and to condemn-a campaign which had equally astonished Europe by the magnitude of its preparation, as by the extent of its failure. Notwithstanding such failure, and such a calamitous issue, he had still hoped that in proceeding to ana lyse the evidence, he would have been able to extract from this mass of national misfortune, something that might by its eventual consequences amidst the present cheerless gloom, afford even partial grounds for national consolation. He had hoped to find that such dreadful failures were, at least in part, attributable to those uncontrollable causes which are incident to all the operations of war, and are inseparable from enterprises dependent for their success, upon the state and condition of the elements. But what had the disastrous issue of this Expedition proved? It had proved to be the result of predicted and anticipated causes. It had verified every prediction, and realized every fear expressed by all those best competent to decide upon its policy and practicability, but whose opinions upon this occasion, most fatally for the honour and interests of the country, his Majesty's ministers did not deem it expedient to follow.

Before he should trace this ill-judged and disgraceful Expedition from its monstrous birth to its most horrible catastrophe, he felt it necessary to advert to another abortive enterprise, which was previously in the contemplation of his Majesty's government, but with which, from the reasons he was about to state, they were wholly unable to proceed. They would find from the evidence of the commander in chief, sir D. Dundas, that so early as the the 22d of March last, a communication was made to him, directing him to attend a cabinet council on the 24th. Having so attended, he was there informed, that the enemy had a force of nine or ten sail of the line at Flushing, and he was required to say, whether a number of troops, competent for a successful attack against these shipping, could be then furnished. Here, then, was an opportunity for carrying into effect that objecta amst the growing naval force of France, which his Majesty's Govern ment professed to have had so long in contemplation. Had it succeeded at that period, what a proud theme for triumph; what a consoling source for national exultation? But why did it not succceed, or why was it not attempted It could not succeed, it could not be attempted; because, as the commander in chief himself told them, it was absolutely impossible, from the whole regular army of this country, to furnish even 15,000 men. And on what grounds did he give that opinion? Upon the well-known shattered state, in which a great portion of our dis posable force returned from Spain after the battle of Corunna? The men, for the most part, unfit for duty, with arms and equipments in the most defective state. General Calvert corroborated that statement, and fully coincided in the impossibility of providing so small a force as 15,000 men at that period.

. Here he must intreat the House to recal to its recollection the barefaced assertions, the confident assurances so frequently repeated by his Majesty's ministers during the last session of parliament. Let them compare the lamentable truths which the commander in chief had communicated, and which would never have been disclosed but for this inquiry, with the statements that were re-echoed from the opposite side of the House and the returns which were officially laid upon their table during the last session. Why, he would ask, had statements and returns so

contradictory to truth thus been made? Was it not to disguise the nature and extent of the nation's afflictions, to gloss over the misconduct of ministers, and by keeping from view the just description of such lamentable occurrences to confirm that House in a fatal and ruinous delusion-[Hear! hear!] What answer could ministers make to this charge? Here they had the undeniable information before them that although in the month of January last, 23,000 men re-embarked at Corunna, still in the month of March, it was impossible out of the whole regular army to furnish 15,000 men for the purpose of effecting a most desirable object.

He should now proceed to take a view of. the first overt act in this Expedition. In order to form any thing like a correct judgment upon the subject, it would be necessary to trace it through every part of its history and progress; to expose the grossignorance and improvidence of its authors throughout every part of the detail, before any opinion should be formed upon their aggregate imbecility and incompetence. The first overt act then in the history of this most disastrous Expedition was the Letter of Lord Castlereagh to the commander in chief, dated May 29th. That Letter conveyed to the commander in chief the following statement: "The naval establishment which the enemy has created in the Scheldt, has already led to the construction of not less than twenty ships of the line in different stages of equipment, and promises to receive at no distant period an extension in point of number of ships, and a solidity in point of de fence, which must render it, as a maritime position, not only extremely formidable to the security of Great Britain, but still more invulnerable to attack. The intelligence received from the northern parts of France, from Flanders, and from Hol land, although not such as will enable me to furnish you with any precise statement of the enemy's force on that line, represents them as drained as low, if not lower, than at any former period, of the regular troops; and I apprehend it may be generally assumed that we can never expect to find the enemy more exposed or more assailable in that quarter.' In this they had the first overt act of the noble lord, who, though obviously ignorant of the real strength or actual situation of the force of the enemy in that quarter, still advised, planned and carried into execution an Expedition, in the disastrous con

sequences of which the dearest interests of the nation were most wantonly sacrificed. Willing however as he was to allow every credit to minister, where credit was justly due to them, he was free to acknowledge the propriety of their conduct, so far as that propriety was discernible in their application for advice and intelligence to the best sources of authority; but here their title to credit terminated. For when gentlemen read the opinions of those officers to whom ministers applied for information, and contrasted the course determined upon with those opinions, it was absolutely impossible even to conjecture, much more to ascertain their motives at all for making the application. This attempt upon the shipping and arsenals of Antwerp, ministers told them was a plan long considered and fully matured, and yet, strange to say, in this letter to the commander in chief, they found him called upon not to state his opinion as to the best means of carrying into effect this long considered and determined project, but his sentiments" upon the practicability of such an attempt, the means required, and the mode of carrying it into execution." The noble lord (Castlereagh) admitted in this letter too his inability to afford a precise atatement of the enemy's force upon that line of operation, but he assured the commander in chief, that that part of the enemy's territories was never more exposed, nor more assailable, and that this country had never at its command a greater disposable force. Upon the receipt of this communication, with a most laudable attention to the interests of the country, and to the protection of that army at the head of which his Majesty was pleased to place him, the commander in chief felt it to be his duty to consult with other officers of high and distinguished character, and qualified from talents, experience and many other particular circumstances to afford him most able assistance, in returning the fullest information to his Majesty's government. His own and their opinions he delivered to the noble lord, in official documents dated the third of June.

Before he should proceed to an analysis of these opinions, he wished to advert to the last sentence in Lord Castlereagh's letter, which he must contend, did not afford the information that was necessary, and ought to be afforded in order to enable the gallant officers who had been consulted to form a definite and conclusive

VOL. XVI,

opinion. Instead of such general indefinite statements as the noble lord's letter contained positive defined intelligence ought to have been communicated, but, above all, the safety of so large, and, perhaps, the last army of this country ought not to have been risqued upon such desultory arguments. But, returning to the opinions of the five military officers, it was evident from their tenor, that in putting into prac tice their plan of attack upon the naval resources of the enemy at Antwerp his Majesty's ministers had in their own contemplation two plans. One to proceed by way of Ostend, and the other, that is the one attempted, by naval and military operations in the Scheldt. Extravagant as was the one which, in their wisdom, they had adopted, ten times more so was that which they had abandoned. But the commander in chief stated in his answer, that if the attack was to be made at all, it should be a combined naval and land operation, and he proposed, that the relative strength of our force, and the presumed amount of the enemy, should be determined as a question of calculation, and not of surmise.

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The commander in chief wrote as follows: "Horse Guards, June 3, 1809. The object to be attained is a most important and desirable one, but the force we have to employ must be considered, and the difficulties and risks they have to encounter from the enemy's strength and advantages must be well weighed. Every calculation or prospect of successful attack can only be foreseen on a knowledge of the relative situations and strength of the enemy's country, fortresses, and armed men that can be brought in defence of both. If the route of the army is therefore to be taken, as in the first case, though Flanders, the country is known to be one of the most intricate in Europe for military operations. With our state of preparation and numbers, an attempt by this route of marching through Flanders to arrive at Antwerp would be most singular, and perhaps without example. In whatever way Antwerp is to be approached or taken, the service is one of very great risk, and in which the safe return of the army so employed may be very precarious, from the opposition made and the length of time consumed in the operation, which enables the enemy in a short time to assemble a great force from every part of the Netherlands and Holland, and even from Westphalia, and from the course of E

the Rhine, as well as from the frontier of France."

Here was the opinion of an old, an able and experienced military man, which one might suppose would have arrested even the rapid progress of the noble lord's (Castlereagh) enthusiastic mind--an opinion, that ought to have created in him a distrust of his frantic project, and let in such light upon him, that he must have almost anticipated that issue which in the destruction of our army and the disgrace of our character, has far exceeded even the forlorn and disastrous expedition, which, under the same auspices, had but just preceded it.

The next opinion delivered was, that of general Calvert-an opinion deserving of the most serious attention because he had what his Majesty's ministers had not, a knowledge of the local. That officer

itself afforded, they were told by general Calvert that the service would be arduous, and that the troops employed upon it must be exposed to conderable risk.

He next came to an opinion which was almost impossible to believe to have been received by ministers, or if it had been received, that it was ever read by them, for most assuredly had any attention been paid to its most impressive and unanswerable inferences, they never would in contradiction to its purport have conveyed a British army to almost certain destruction. Need he say, that he alluded to the military opinion of colonel Gordon? (Hear, hear!) That officer stated the previous consideration necessary in weighing the practicability of this project, to be "the extent of our means compared with the means of the enemy, and the obstacles we should have opposed to us ;" and in continuation observed, "that there does not appear to be any datum that can lead to any probable guess at the extent of the force which the enemy may have at

or even at the extent of the armed popula tion or militia of the neighbouring districts; but it is imagined from various concurring testimonies, that the whole rego lar force has been drawn off towards Germany, and that the country in the vicinity of Antwerp has been left more destitute of troops than at any former period. This appears to be the utmost extent of our information, and upon the accuracy of which must depend the success or failure of our project." Upon his receiving this opinion it was really astonishing to think that the noble lord did not pause before he ventured to send an army, such as this was, out of the country, to certain destruction. The whole of that oficer's opinion went most conclusively, in his mind, to deter any man or set of men, but his Majesty's late minister of war, and those who acted with him, from encountering the hazardous and horrible enterprize.

stated the utter impossibility of laying down any thing decisive in the shape of detailed reasoning, without being in possession of that knowledge, which most people imagine an indispensable preli-Antwerp and the strong towns adjacent, minary, but which, important as it must appear to all others, was by his Majesty's ministers, through the whole arrangement of this project, considered highly superfluous, namely a knowledge of local circumstances and to what extent those circumstances would admit of a naval cooperation. After describing the means possessed by the enemy in drawing from various quarters reinforcements, he concluded with an opinion, that, one should have supposed, would have operated with ministers against the adoption because it must have proved to them the inexpediency of this project. Before he read that conclusion he must say, that he was not aware of the extent of their want of that description of information, without which his Majesty's government should not have ventured to risque the safety of a gallant army. For what said general Calvert upon that point. He told them that having no data to go on in respect of the enemy's force, no argument could be entered ito upon that point. Would the noble lord or any one of his former colleagues say, that they should have committed the honours and interests of this country, the blood of its defenders, and the product of its industry, upon an enterprize, the success of which must have depended upon a state of things, of which they themselves now stood so confessedly ignorant? Yet even upon the presumptions that the case

From what had transpired during the inquiry, it was apparent that his Majesty's ministers intended resting a part of their defence upon information alledged to have been received subsequent to the delivery of these military opinions. But in an swer to such an extenuation, he would challenge his Majesty's government to state one single proof of such subsequent information. Was there any thing in the documents submitted to the secret Com

mittee which could authorise that House to believe that the army in the vicinity of Antwerp were, in any considerable force, drawn off into Germany? In this opinion, dated so far back as the 29th of May it was also to be recollected, that colonel Gordon considered that the first operation necessary would be to get possession of Cadsand and South Beveland. And yet it was not until the Expedition had in part actually sailed, that it had ever occurred to his Majesty's ministers to consider of the necessity of taking possession of these places or of hinting at it in the instructions given to the officers entrusted with the execution of this project. But it was impossible to put the nature of the Expedition in a stronger light, than as stated in the emphatic words of colonel Gordon, when he summed up with his concluding inference. "That this attempt would be a most desperate enterprise cannot be doubted; and that in the attempt, whether successful or otherwise, a very large proportion of our navy, and military means, would be put to imminent hazard."

The next opinion taken by the commander in chief was that of general Brownrigg, who agreed with all the other military authorities, that the line of operations through Flanders was not to be thought of and for the following reasons:

"But if the enemy is enabled to assemble a force sufficient materially to obstruct the progress of the march at particular points, and that the people of the country are hostile, which may also be expected, it is hardly probable that the Army can reach Antwerp in less than fifteen days after its landing. That it may penetrate that distance, under the presumption of the absence of the French armies in Germany, cannot be doubted; but so much time would be afforded to the enemy to assemble troops from Hol land, and the fortified places immediately in the vicinity of Antwerp, that it being able to effect its object is by no means certain; should it not do so, a retreat by the route which it took in its advance seems nearly impossible, as an army must be expected to be formed in its rear, of the Militia and Gens d' Armes of the country, and from the garrisons of at least twenty fortified towns of West Flanders, none of which are at a greater distance than seven days march from Ghent, which would be retaken, and would probably be the point of assembly,

while it would be pursued by that which opposed it at Antwerp."

Upon the conjoint operations in the Scheldt general Brownrigg proceeded to state his opinion.

"If I am justified in the foregoing reasoning, it appears that the loss of the whole force is risked by such an undertaking; but if the destruction of the enemy's arsenals at Antwerp, and his fleet in the Scheldt, is the object in view, I am humbly of opinion, that this can only be effected by our fleet being able to sail up the Scheldt, 10,000 troops on board, to land occasionally, to possess forts and batteries placed to obstruct the navigation. Should this be deemed impracticable, the possession of the island of Walcheren seems the most likely step to lead to the accomplishment of what is so much desired. By possessing the anchorage of Flushing, the enemy's fleet in the Scheldt would be rendered useless, and exposed to such modes of attack as might from that point be devised for its destruction."

As to the accomplishment of the ulterior and main object of the Expedition general Brownrigg thus expressed himself:

"Should it be thought right from thence to attempt the destruction of the arsenals at Antwerp, a force passing over to South Beveland would take possession of Sandvliet and the main land, and from thence, the distance to Antwerp being about six leagues, might succeed in taking it by a coup-de-main; or being masters of the Western Scheldt, the force of this enterprise might proceed by sea to Sandvliet.-I have, &c."

Of all the plans proposed, this was by far the most extravagant and impractica ble. Flushing having been taken, general Brownrigg really thought that a force passing over to South Beveland, would take possession of Santvliet on the main land, and the distance from thence to Antwerp being only six leagues, might succeed in taking the latter place by a coup-de-main.

The House would perceive, that although this opinion was not as adverse as the preceding ones to the ministerial project, still it was far from very encouraging. The next opinion taken was that of general Hope. He began with making several assumptions, and after dilating upon the impracticability of effecting any part of the objects of the Expedition by an attempt to penetrate to Antwerp through

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