information. Lord Mulgrave said they got it from Bonaparte. Whilst he was speaking Lord Eldon said to Lord Ellenborough that it was impossible to muzzle a fool.

I left Woburn on February 6, and, after passing two or three days in town, returned to Woodnesboro'. The day before I left town I went to the House of Lords for the first time, and heard an interesting debate on the Copenhagen expedition.1

On March 25 the frost was so hard as to freeze Mr. Smith's pond entirely. On the same day Clare and I went to shoot on the shore, and found it a very pleasant day. About the same time William again came to Canterbury as aide-de-camp to Sir George Ludlow, and I went every now and then to spend a day with him. It was about this time that Mr. Perceval first attempted to conquer France by depriving it of bark.2

I went to dine with Sir G. Ludlow on March 31. . . . They talked about Winsor's gas lights, which they said would only answer in lighthouses, printing houses, &c., and would not succeed in private houses. It is hydrogen gas, which, being communicated by pipes under Pall Mall, lights the street most beautifully.3

1 In August 1807 the Ministry sent an expedition to the Baltic to seize the Danish fleet at Copenhagen, though Denmark was then at peace with England. The proceeding was justified on the ground that Napoleon-as the Ministry believed-intended to compel the Court of Denmark to close the Sound, and to seize the Danish navies for the invasion of Great Britain and Ireland. Lord W. Russell saw his first service in this expedition. The propriety of the expedition has been often questioned, and perhaps the late Sir G. Lewis described it most accurately as 'an extreme exercise of the rights of war.'

2 The allusion is to the Orders in Council under which Mr. Perceval endeavoured to retaliate on Napoleon's Baltic decree by regulating British trade with the Continent. Under these orders the exportation of all goods to France was prohibited which were not carried from this country and had not paid an export duty here. But there were certain articles which the Minister decided that the Continent should have on no terms, and amongst others quinine, or Jesuit's bark, as it was called. Sydney Smith, writing as Peter Plymley, said, You cannot seriously suppose the people to be so degraded as to look to their safety from a man who proposes to subdue Europe by keeping it without Jesuit's bark.' Hence evidently Lord John's statement.

3 Gas was invented by Murdoch in 1792. The Lyceum was lit with it by Mr. Winsor in 1803, and it was adopted experimentally as a street illuminant in 1807, and generally in 1814, in London. Sir G. Ludlow's guests were not the only sceptics as to the practicability of its use. Sir H. Davy is said to have declared that you might as well talk of ventilating London with windmills, as of lighting it with gas,

Tavistock left Cambridge in May, having been there, in supposition, two years.

...

In the end of May, or beginning of June, my brother William got a troop in the 23rd L. D., after changing from the Royals, in which he had a lieutenancy, to the Canadian Fencibles, and afterwards to 81st Infantry. He had some trouble occasioned by a job of Mr. Greenwood's to get Lord Fitzroy Somerset in the 23rd first.1 We had some good rook-shooting at Waldershare on June 17 and 23, in both of which I killed forty-four rooks.2 . . . We stayed at Woodnesboro' the whole of June. . . . On the 30th, Clare, Butler, and I left in a post-chaise for London, where we arrived at half-past six. After staying in London a week I went with my father and the Duchess to Cheneys, and on the following morning we came to Woburn. About July 20 Lord and Lady Holland, Lord Erskine, the Duke of Argyle [sic], Mr. Broome [? Brougham], and others were there. . . . On August 8 I was in London at Tavistock's wedding,3 and on the Saturday I returned to Woburn. Two days afterwards I went to Weston with William, who in a short time after left that place for Dublin. After passing three weeks there very pleasantly, I went with Lord Bradford through Lemington [sic] to Stony Stratford; from thence I went to Woburn, and thence to Oakley, where I found Lord and Lady Tavistock. On September 4 we all went to Woburn, where there were soon assembled my father, the Duchess, Lord and Lady Tavistock, Lord William, Francis, and Gertrude. Lady William 5 died on August 30. On September 18 I came to town with the Duchess and Francis, and on the 20th, I came to Woodnesboro' in a chaise with Clare and Butler.6

It would be interesting to ascertain whether any Somerset recorded in his diary that the future Lord Raglan lost his step through a job of the Duke of Bedford's.

2 Alluding to one of these days' shooting, Lord John wrote to Lady A. M. Stanhope, 'About a week ago I went rook-shooting at a place of Lord Guilford's, and shot most miraculously-for me-for in about one hundred shots I killed twenty-one rooks; but I must not forget that in all probability I should not have hit one had it not been for certain trees and places to rest my gun on." 3 Lord Tavistock married Lady A. M. Stanhope, eldest daughter of Lord Harrington. At the time of his marriage, Lord Tavistock was only twenty years of age. He could, however, plead his father's example as his excuse. His father was not twenty years old when he married his first wife. Lord William Russell's eldest son and daughter.

5 Lady W. Russell was the eldest daughter of George, fourth Earl of Jersey. Lord John says that, during his stay at Woodnesboro', he had 'gone

It was probably while Lord and Lady Holland were at Woburn in July 1808, that they suggested to the Duke of Bedford that Lord John should accompany them in the following autumn in a tour which they contemplated making in Spain at that time the theatre of events interesting in themselves and pregnant with mighty consequences to the future of Europe.

Austerlitz and Jena had placed central Europe at the feet of the French Emperor. The Treaty of Tilsit had made Russia his ally; and this country alone, secure from its naval predominance, maintained the struggle with France. For the moment, indeed, the combatants experienced an inability to engage on a common arena. The one was virtually lord on land, the other as indisputably mistress of the seas. Both powers, unable to settle the issue by the shock of arms, invented other means of ruining one another. Napoleon, by the continental system, endeavoured to exclude British commerce from the entire coasts of Europe. The Portland Ministry, by the Orders in Council, retaliated by saying that the Continent should have no goods except those which came through England. In this strange and unprecedented contest, her command of the seas and her rich colonial possessions gave England some advantage; and Napoleon imagined that he could redress the balance by acquiring colonies for France. Two European nations possessed a colonial empire. which exceeded in extent, and perhaps equalled in importance, the rich possessions of England. One of them, Portugal, was the hereditary ally of England; the other, Spain, weakened by centuries of misrule, was under the sway of an impotent King and a powerful Minister. Napoleon easily prevailed on through two books and a half of the Georgics, two Satires, an Epistle, the Ars Poetica, and a book of the Odes of Horace; Greek, &c. ; in summing, decimal fractions, algebra, and the first book of Euclid. I had read for Smith Stanyan's Grecian History, and De Lolme On the Constitution; and, for my own amusement, Robertson's History of Charles V., The Tatler, Spenser's Faerie Queen, Milton's Paradise Lost, Young's Night Thoughts, Brydone's Tour to Sicily and Malta, Mr. Fox's History of James II., The Story of Romeo and Juliet in Italian; and for Goujon (the French master) a volume and a half of Rollin, and three of Racine's plays.'

the Spanish Government to agree to a treaty for the partition of Portugal. French troops were marched into the Peninsula for the purpose of carrying out this arrangement. The royal family of Portugal, leaving the capital, which was occupied by Marshal Junot, fled across the Atlantic to Brazil; and Napoleon, pressing the advantage which he had secured, and disregarding the treaties which he had made, directed his troops to occupy Madrid, procured the abdication of the Spanish monarch, and placed his own brother Joseph on the throne of Spain. The power of France, which was already carried to the boundaries of Russia, was thus extended throughout the Spanish Peninsula.

In the spring of 1808 the policy of Napoleon seemed as successful as it was unscrupulous. But in the course of May the Spanish people rose against the French; they drove them from Madrid; they held Saragossa and other places; and they kindled, in their resistance, a beacon-fire perceptible to the nations of Europe.

The rise of the Spanish people naturally excited enthusiasm in this country. The Tory Ministry, which governed England, rightly interpreting the national sentiment, decided on sending effectual aid to the people who had manifested so striking a resolution to help themselves. They despatched Sir Arthur Wellesley, who had commanded the land force at Copenhagen in the previous year, to Portugal, and that general began his great career in the Peninsula by defeating Junot at Vimiera. This battle, though it was followed by the unfortunate convention of Cintra, had the effect of freeing Portugal from the presence of the French, and of encouraging the Ministry to make a new effort. Sir John Moore was sent into the north of Spain with orders to advance into the interior. It was hoped that the Spanish armies, reinforced by his presence, would obtain the evacuation of the entire Peninsula.

It was the misfortune of the Whig party at this conjuncture that they misunderstood both the conditions of the campaign and the opinions of their fellow-countrymen. Instead of boldly

supporting the Ministry in a war which was now conducted in circumstances which would have made abstention both dishonourable and unwise, their leaders declaimed against the folly of a new campaign, and insisted on the paramount necessity of making peace.

Some few members of the Whig party did not share the views of their leaders in this respect. Lord Holland, for example, recollected that his uncle, Mr. Fox, had adopted in office the patriotic course of supporting a war which he had resisted in opposition. He declined consequently to admit that peace at any price was the hereditary policy of the party to which he belonged. Personally acquainted with Spain, he had friends in the Peninsula, who gave him a new interest in the struggle; and roused to enthusiasm by the noble conduct which the Spaniards were displaying, he determined to visit Spain, and witness the liberation of the country.

The views which Lord Holland entertained were naturally embraced by his young companion. Lord John Russell, as he said himself in later life, 'joined to sympathy for Spain a boyish hatred of Napoleon, who had treacherously obtained possession of an independent country by force and fraud.' He went consequently to Spain with all the enthusiasm of youth, about to be introduced to new scenes, and to participate in a great national triumph. Falmouth, at that time, was one of the ports easiest of access; and there Lord John joined the Hollands in October, and

About nine o'clock in the morning of November 3, 1808, I had the pleasure of finding myself in the port of Coruña after a passage of 3 days from Falmouth. We had been detained more than a fortnight at that place, waiting at one time for the arrival of the Amazon frigate from Plymouth, at another for orders from the Admiralty to enable her to sail, and lastly for a north-east wind to carry us to the coast of Spain.

Four English regi

Coruña was in a state of excitement. ments were quartered there; additional troops were constantly arriving. Lord Holland had Spanish friends in the town, with whom he and his party frequently dined; and a theatre