The first news which reached England of the Spanish insurrection was brought by the Asturian deputies, and it was soon followed by dispatches from Coruña, Cadiz, and Gibraltar. Never was any intelligence received with more general joy. Notwithstanding the frequent hostilities in which Spain had been involved with this country, first, during the age of its power; then through its connexion with the Bourbons; and afterwards from the ascendance which the Directory and Buonaparte had obtained over an infamous minister, an imbecile King, and a wretched government, the English had always regarded the Spaniards as the most honourable people with whom they were engaged either in commerce or in war; nor was there ever a war in which some new instance of honour and generosity on their part did not make us regret that they were our enemies. Hitherto the present contest had been carried on with little hope. ♦1808.
June.♦ No other sympathy than that of mere political interest had as yet been felt in our alliances with Austria or Russia; but, from the moment when the Spaniards called upon us for aid, we felt that we had obtained allies worthy of our own good cause, and the struggle assumed a higher and holier character. It became, avowedly and plainly to every man’s understanding, a war for all good principles; and we looked on to the end with faith as well as hope. Never since the glorious morning of the French revolution, before one bloody cloud had risen to overcast the deceitful promise of its beauty, had the heart of England been affected with so generous and universal a joy. They who had been panic-stricken by the atrocities of the French demagogues, rejoiced to perceive the uniform and dignified order which the Spaniards observed in their proceedings, and their adherence to existing establishments; ... firmer minds, in whom the love of liberty had not been weakened by the horrors which a licentious and unprincipled people committed under that sacred name, were delighted that the Spaniards recurred with one accord to those legitimate forms of freedom, which a paralyzing despotism had so long suspended; the people universally longed to assist a nation who had risen in defence of their native land; and professional politicians, not having time to consider, nor being able to foresee in what manner these great events would affect their own party purposes, partook of the popular feeling.
♦Proceedings in parliament.
The first parliamentary notice of these proceedings was by a speech of Mr. Sheridan’s, made by him for the purpose of stimulating the ministry to a vigorous co-operation with the Spaniards. “There had never,” he said, “existed so happy an opportunity for Great Britain to strike a bold stroke for the rescue of the world. Hitherto, Buonaparte had run a victorious race, because he had contended against princes without dignity, ministers without wisdom, and countries where the people were indifferent as to his success; he had yet to learn what it was to fight against a people who were animated with one spirit against him. Now was the time to stand up, fully and fairly, for the deliverance of Europe; and, if the ministry would co-operate effectually with the Spanish patriots, they should receive from him as cordial and as sincere a support, as if the man whom he most loved were restored to life and power. Will not (said he) the animation of the Spanish mind be excited by the knowledge that their cause is espoused, not by ministers alone, but by the parliament and the people of England? If there be a disposition in Spain to resent the insults and injuries, too enormous to be described by language, which they have endured from the tyrant of the earth, will not that disposition be roused to the most sublime exertion by the assurance that their efforts will be cordially aided by a great and powerful nation? Never was any thing so brave, so generous, so noble, as the conduct of the Spaniards! Never was there a more important crisis than that which their patriotism had thus occasioned in the state of Europe!”
Mr. Canning replied, that his Majesty’s ministers saw, with the most deep and lively interest, this noble struggle against the unexampled atrocity of France; and that there was the strongest disposition on the part of government to afford every practicable aid in a contest so magnanimous. In endeavouring to afford this aid, he said, it would never occur to them that a state of war existed between Spain and Great Britain. They should proceed upon the principle, that any nation who started up with a determination to oppose a power, which, whether professing insidious peace, or declaring open war, was the common enemy of all nations, ... whatever might be the existing political relations of that nation with Great Britain, became instantly our essential ally. As for what were called peculiarly British interests, he disclaimed them as any part of the considerations which influenced government. In this contest, wherein Spain had embarked, no interest could be so purely British as Spanish success; no conquest so advantageous for Great Britain as conquering from France the complete integrity of the Spanish dominions in every quarter of the world. This declaration satisfied Mr. Whitbread; but that gentleman thought proper to deprecate the tone in which the Emperor Napoleon was spoken of, saying, that, when he heard him called despot, tyrant, plunderer, and common enemy of mankind, he wished from his heart England could come into the cause with clean hands.
♦June 4. Mr. Whitbread proposes to negotiate with France.♦
A few days after this debate, Mr. Whitbread, in a speech upon the state of the empire, took occasion to refer to an opinion concerning peace, which he had delivered early in the session. “I then stated,” said he, “that it did not appear to me degrading for this country to propose a negotiation for peace with France: at no period of the interval which has elapsed, has it appeared to me that such a proposition would be degrading; nor can I anticipate, during the recess which is about to take place, any circumstance, the occurrence of which can, by possibility, render it unexpedient or degrading to open such a negotiation.” The common feeling and common sense of the country were shocked at the mention of negotiating with Buonaparte, just at the moment when his unexampled treachery towards an ally was the theme of universal execration; and when a whole nation had just arisen against his insolent aggression. ♦July 4. Mr. Whitbread speaks in favour of the Spaniards.♦ Mr. Whitbread felt that he had injured himself in the opinion of the people, and therefore, on the last day of the session, took occasion to express his admiration of the Spanish patriots; and to regret that ministers had not applied for a vote of credit, which would enable them more effectually to second the wishes of all ranks of Englishmen, by aiding and assisting the Spaniards. “Had such a message,” he said, “been sent down, it would have been met with unanimous concurrence; and that concurrence would have been echoed throughout the country. The Spanish nation was now committed with France: never were a people engaged in a more arduous and honourable struggle; and he earnestly prayed God to crown their efforts with a success as signal as those efforts were glorious. He could not help thinking, that it would have been well to have given an opportunity of manifesting to them the sympathy which glowed in every British heart, through the proper channel, the legitimate organ of the British people. For himself, from the bottom of his soul, he wished success to the patriotic efforts of the Spaniards; and that their present struggle might be crowned with the recovery of their liberty as a people, and the assertion of their independence.”
♦Mr. Whitbread’s letter to Lord Holland.♦
As a farther avowal of these sentiments, Mr. Whitbread addressed a letter, on the situation of Spain, to Lord Holland; “the subject,” he said, “being peculiarly interesting to that distinguished nobleman, from the attachment he had formed to a people, the grandeur of whose character he had had the opportunity to estimate, and to which he had always done justice, even when that character was obscured by the faults of a bad government.” Having repeated his professions of ardent sympathy with the Spaniards, he recurred to his proposal for negotiating. “It has been falsely and basely stated,” said he, “that I advised the purchase of peace by the abandonment of the heroic Spaniards to their fate. God forbid! A notion so detestable never entered my imagination. Perish the man who could entertain it! Perish this country, rather than its safety should be owing to a compromise so horridly iniquitous! My feelings, at the time I spoke, ran in a direction totally opposite to any thing so disgusting and abominable. I am not, however,” he pursued, “afraid to say, that the present is a moment in which I think negotiation might be proposed to the Emperor of the French by Great Britain, with the certainty of this great advantage, that if the negotiation should be refused, we should be at least sure of being right in the eyes of God and man; an advantage which, in my opinion, we have never yet possessed, from the commencement of the contest to the present hour; and the value of which is far beyond all calculation.”
In vindicating himself from the imputation of regarding the cause of the Spaniards with indifference, Mr. Whitbread succeeded for the time; but, in other respects, this letter lowered him in the opinion of judicious minds. The folly of wasting time in a farce of negotiation; the certainty that such delay would injure the Spaniards, and the probability that it might induce them to regard us with a suspicion, which such conduct would render reasonable; above all, the absurdity of proposing to treat with the tyrant at the very time when he was perpetrating the most flagrant breach of treaties; when he had proved in the eyes of all Europe, that no treaties, no alliances, no ties of public faith, or individual honour, could restrain him, ... were so glaring to every man’s understanding, that Mr. Whitbread’s advice appeared like absolute infatuation. So far, indeed, from opening a negotiation at that time, and on these grounds, with the Corsican, it behoved the British Government then to have made the war a personal war against him, ... to have proclaimed loudly before God and the world, that this country never would treat with a man who had avowed his contempt for the laws of nations; and given open proof that he made treaties only for the purpose of more securely effecting the destruction of those who were credulous enough to rely upon his faith. Then was the time to have appealed to the French people themselves.... The Spanish war was a war of the Buonaparte family, not of France. Hitherto, Buonaparte and his immediate agents were the only persons implicated in the infamy of this unexampled treachery and usurpation. Would France appropriate that infamy to herself? Would she, for the sake of this foreign family, entail upon herself the privations, the sacrifices, and the hazards of interminable war? To France we offered peace, under any other ruler; we reclaimed none of her conquests; we asked nothing from her, ... we were ready to restore prosperity to her merchants, her citizens, and her peasantry; and to open her ports to the commerce of the world. But peace with Buonaparte was impossible. How could England, so long the object of his avowed and inveterate hatred, trust him, when his insatiable ambition did not spare the oldest, the most faithful, the most serviceable, the most submissive of his allies and friends! If proclamations to this tenor had been scattered over the whole coast of France, Buonaparte might have been endangered by the British press and the force of truth, when he stood in no fear of any other force. The importance of communicating true intelligence to the French was manifested by the care with which he kept them in ignorance, and the shameless falsehoods which continually appeared in his official papers.