THE army estimates were three mil. lions for his majesty's land forces, and two millions for the militia of Great Britain and Ireland. "The regular force of the country," Lord Palmerstone said," amounted to 235,000 men, of whom about 211,000 might be considered fully effecMarch 4. tive; the casualties could not at this time be assumed at less than 22 or 23,000 men ; the probable produce of ordinary recruiting might be stated at 11,000, and 4 or 5000 might be expected from foreign recruiting: no means was so advisable for supplying the deficiency, as that of allowing a certain portion of the militia to volunteer into the line. The militia establishment was 92,000 men, of which the effectives might be considered to be 84,000, and 5 or 6000 were still due by ballot; it might now be reduced to the old establishment, 70,000 for the two islands; and 10,000, therefore, might be allowed to enter the line."

Upon this General Tarleton rose, and entered into a criticism of the whole Spanish war, 66 not," ," he said, "arrogating to himself a superior degree of patriotism or of military knowledge, but that he might discharge a conscientious duty to his country.' The plan upon which ministers were

acting, he affirmed, would offer up our best soldiers as unnecessary victims, and by wasting our men and our resources, co-operate with the designs of Buonaparte, and open a passage for our mortal enemy: for our means were physically inadequate to the object in view; the plan and system were founded in error, and must inevitably lead to disaster and destruction. The misfortunes of Sir John Moore he ascribed wholly to the nature of the instructions which he was compelled to follow; "he himself," General Tarleton said, "evinced genius, intrepidity, and constancy; his army embarked with a heavy loss and great difficulty, and the French forces have ever since been banished from the northern provinces of Spain." The general expressed himself as if the delivery of those provin ces had been the consequence of Sir John Moore's measures, and not the work of the Spaniards themselves, after he had abandoned their defence as hopeless. The later operations in the peninsula he imputed to Lord Wellington, and never perhaps did there exist a stranger specimen of distorted representation, than in the sketch which General Tarleton drew of that commander's campaign, while he protested, at the same time, that what he was saying did not bear with any cri

ticism or attack upon his military conduct. "Lord Wellington," he said, ❝ after leaving his sick and wounded at Talavera, and consigning his hospital to the humanity of the French, evaded their power by a rapid retreat; and while part of our allies sustained a heavy loss in crossing the Tagus, he sought security from the enemy, and cantonments for his army, in the unwholesome marshes of Extremadura. Afterwards he posted himself in the neighbourhood of Ciudad Rodrigo; the enemy, in spite of all the disadvantages of the season and the nature of the country, laid siege to that fortress, and it fell in the presence of the allies, without making a long defence. Almeida also, strong as it was, strengthened as it newly had been, and powerfully garrisoned,-fell in eight-andforty hours." The fact of the explosion of the magazine, which rendered it untenable, was, like the heroic behaviour of the Spaniards at Ciudad Rodrigo, not to Ĝeneral Tarleton's purpose, and therefore he passed over both in silence. "Rumours of a conspiracy at Lisbon," he continued, "had then reached this country, and the history of the world afforded a general solution to similar reports under similar circumstances; for all historians have described the effects of invasion and overthrow, and invariably shown, that a people cease to feel confidence when they cannot obtain protection." Next, the Park and Tower guns, and the Gazette, proclaimed the victory of Busaco. "The reports of that repulse of the French which have hitherto reach ed this country," said General Tarle ton, "contain such scanty information, that the whole transaction, as a military transaction, except the repulse, appears enigmatical. The French after this repulse, however, entered Coimbra;" that they had subsequently been dispossessed of it, losing there their sick and wounded, and their hos

pitals, was another fact which it did not enter into the general's plan to notice. Our army fell back to Torres Vedras, and Massena, having faced the allies for about a month, without chu. sing to make any attempt upon the lines, fell back upon Santarem, where Loison had prepared cantonments for him. The general then appealed to the house, whether any of his observations had been made with too much severity. He proceeded to set forth the extent of the population for which Lord Wellington had to provide, and the means for providing it. For the military, at least 90,000 rations were required every day. Lisbon and the intermediate towns must contain at least 200,000 mouths, nearly destitute of food, and the fugitives perhaps exceed ed another hundred thousand. The provisions therefore to be issued daily, without taking into account the ma rines and seamen ashore or afloat in the Tagus, formed a gross amount of nearly 400,000 rations. The stores at Lisbon could not be abundant. Every article of life between the lines and the capital must long have been exhaust. ed; the supplies therefore of the whole population must come from foreign countries, and England must pay for all,

in

"What have you achieved," said the general, "or what can you accom. plish? From the frontiers of Spain, the allied armies of England and Portugal have fallen back to the neighbourhood of Lisbon, and with the pressure of an expence which will soon prove intole rable, and to defray which must you make an increase of your tax upon come, you have collected all the dis tressed inhabitants of Portugal to ask for daily bread at the hands of the Bri. tish general; whilst our common enemy, pleased with the measures of your insanity, in prosecuting a continental war, is congregating at his leisure a mighty force, and can add to its im

mensity and mightiness in the comparative proportion of ten combatants to one. He is not entangled by suffering inhabitants-by the cries of humanity or by the importunities of famishing thousands: he is not restricted in his operations by any respect for laws, human or divine: he does not call in vain for reinforcements; nor has he drained to the dregs the military population of Europe. Massena and his master are now bringing to a close the downfall of British resources, and, with fell and malignant joy, are already contemplating a mortal blow against the unprotected vitals of our empire and constitution. If ancient history is worthy of your consideration, look at the fate of Carthage-a commercial against a military nation! If that government had not destined the flower of its army for the invasion of Italy, the overthrow and destruction in Africa might have been retard ed, or ultimately averted. But it is in vain to cite instances from history to you, if you are not admonished by your own errors. You ought to have remembered the first ill-planned expedition from Salamanca, committed to Sir John Moore. You ought to have remembered the enterprise directed against Madrid, under the auspices of Lord Wellington. Both these awful lessons are written in the blood of your best soldiers! and yet you intemper. ately urge on your course of folly and rashness, and lay open the last disposable army of England to dangers of that extent and alarm, as such a precious stake ought not to be liable to, except upon our own shores, and in defence of British liberty and inde pendence."

When General Tarleton had concluded this curious speech, Lord Castlereagh said," he hoped it would nei ther be considered to arise from disrespect to his arguments, or acquies cence in his sentiments, if he forbore

His

to follow him through a field of discussion, too extensive, as well as too important, to be mixed with the detailed considerations of the army, which were then before the house." lordship then proceeded to offer some suggestions, in that spirit by which every member of a legislative assembly ought to be actuated, but which party feeling has almost banished from a large proportion of the British legislature. He asked, whether, if the allowance of a militia man's wife and family were continued at the pub hic expence, (the counties of course being relieved from the charge) in case of the man transferring his services to the line, it would not operate as the best species of bounty; and he recom mended to the attention of ministers the principle which he had introduced in 1809, of protecting the counties, as far as possible, from the heavy incon venience of a ballot, by making the expence of filling up vacancies, which arose from volunteering to the line, fall upon the public, provided the county succeeded in raising the men within a certain time. "But," he said, "there was one improvement in our military system, which he had always deemed of the highest importance, of which he had never for a moment lost sight, and which he had only been induced, when in administration, to delay pressing upon the consideration of parliament, from the persuasion that its success might have been risked, had it been brought forward entangled with the many other arduous military measures which had in latter years occupied the legislature. The sphere of service of the militia was not co-extensive with the general exigencies of the empire, but still remained broken and localized by those national distinctions, which happily, in other respects, had ceased with the Union. When the militia system was extended to Scotland in 1797, it was not at first

view, the operations of the campaign have been eminently advantageous. The enemy has at least been kept in check; and we have not only been gaining time, which, in a war of such a character as this, is no small gain of itself, time for the working of chance in our favour; but our military means, and the military discipline and efficiency of our allies, have been greatly augmented. The period of our final and separate struggle is deferred; and the probabilities of success in it are multiplied in our favour. This at least is the fruit of the campaign. The honourable general thinks he has said every thing, when he has declared, that Lord Wel lington set out with a determination to defend Spain-then undertook to pro. tect Portugal-and is now, contented with merely covering Lisbon. Even admitting this representation to be correct, which I utterly deny, I still contend, that, whilst there was a possibility of defending Spain in Spain itself, it was the essential interest of Great Britain to make every practicable effort for that purpose; that when untoward circumstances rendered it inexpedient to prosecute the contest in that country, Great Britain was bound to maintain it in Portugal; and if even the vicissitudes of war should have reduced us to the mere possession of the city of Lisbon itself, and the strong positions in its environs, even there Great Britain is as much bound in honour, as she is impelled by a just sense of her own interest, to make her stand. "But the honourable general's views are as clearly at variance with the facts, as those facts are happily at variance with what that honourable general and his friends thought proper to anticipate last year, of the probable success of our operations. Much indeed is wanting to bring the result up to the standard of our wishes, much remains to be done; but we are not therefore to give up the contest as hopeless, or to abandon

the cause to despair. We have a right to resort to another standard of comparison; to compare the present state of the war with the insolent vaunts of the enemy, and with the gloomy predictions of many amongst ourselves; to compare the present state of things with what it was when the whole of the peninsula was in the power of the enemy-when not a breath of resistance was any where to be heard-when the eagles of France were planted, not only over the walls of Madrid, but upon the ramparts of Lisbon. This is the comparison which we are entitled to make; and from this I am authorised to draw inferences far different from those of the honourable general. As I never was party to those dismal anticipations, which we have too often been condemned to hear in this house ; as I knew the talents and skill of the British general; as I was convinced of the valour and discipline of the British army; and as I confidently anticipated the best effects from the instruction and example of English officers on the physicaland moral qualities of a brave nation, I have all along looked to the contest in Portugal with hope-a hope qualified undoubtedly by a mixture of anxiety, but wholly unalloyed by any thing like despair. Nor has the result disappointed my expectations. If Lord Wellington has arrested, in its career of victory, that mighty military power, before whose overwhelming masses the greatest armies of the continent have crumbled into dust; if he has seized the uplifted bolt of vengeance, which was ready to be hurled against the devoted towers of Lisbon, has diverted it from its destination, and conducted it harmless into the earth; if, protecting the kingdom committed to his defence against the destroyers of the independence of nations, he has stood as it were between the dead and the living, and stayed that deadly plague which had filled every other part of Europe with ha