Marquis Wellesley replied, that he knew the circumstances which had influenced his brother in all his movements during the campaign, and the plain statement of those circumstances triumphantly vindicated him. “Against strange mismanagement,” he said, “such unlooked for, such unaccountable casualties as had occurred during that campaign, and frustrated a plan so wisely contrived, no human prudence on Sir Arthur’s part could provide. Concerning the necessity of a radical change in the government of Spain, his opinions,” he continued, “were not unknown. But it surely was not to be expected that Spain could reach at once the vigour of a free government, just emerging as she was from that dreadful oppression which had broken down the faculties of her people, ... from those inveterate habits and ancient prejudices which had so long contracted her views and retarded her improvement, and from the disconnexion and disunion between her different provinces. The change which was desired could not be the work of a day. But were we therefore to desert the Spaniards in this crisis of their fortunes, and abandon them to the mercy of their invaders?... As for the circumstances which attended and followed the battle of Talavera, nothing more perhaps, in a military sense, could be said of the result, than that the British troops had repulsed the attack of a French army almost double their numbers, the efforts of which had been chiefly directed against them. But was there no skill, no bravery, no perseverance displayed in the mode in which that repulse was effected? Did no glory redound from it to the British arms? Had it not been acknowledged, even by the enemy, as the severest check they had yet sustained? That victory had saved the south of Spain from absolute destruction, had afforded time for Portugal to organize her army, and had enabled Lord Wellington to take a position where he might derive supplies from Spain, at the same time that he drew nearer to his own magazines. He should not attempt to diminish the disasters which afterwards befel the Spanish armies; both his noble brother and himself had earnestly advised them to keep on the defensive; but, flushed with the victory of Talavera, and too sanguine of success, they advanced at all points, and the result had fatally justified the propriety of the advice which had been given them. This, however, was not the present subject. It was enough for him to have shown that Lord Wellington had arrested the progress of the French armies into the south of Spain, and procured a breathing time for Portugal; that country was placed in a greater degree of security than at any time since it had been menaced by France, and such essential improvements had been introduced into the Portugueze army, that it would be enabled effectually to co-operate with the British troops. These advantages were fairly to be ascribed to Lord Wellington; and he did not hesitate to say, that his brother was as justly entitled to every distinction which his sovereign had conferred, and to every honour and reward which it was in the power of that house to bestow, as any noble lord who for his personal services had obtained the same distinctions, or who sat there by descent from his illustrious ancestors.”
To this temperate and able speech, which showed that means had been taken with due foresight, and that with due perseverance there ♦Lord Grenville.♦ was a well-grounded hope of success, Lord Grenville replied by arguing from the misconduct of the Spanish ministers against our own. “Let the house,” he said, “consider how much dependence the administration had placed upon such a government as that of the Spaniards, and then ask themselves if they could be justified in supporting them in a continuance of error. We were now told that reliance was to be placed upon the co-operation of the Portugueze; but they ought to judge of the future from the past, to recollect that for want of co-operation it had been found necessary to retreat, and that the remnant of the army was in a situation not unlike that in which it was placed by its advance to Talavera.”
♦Feb. 1.♦
The vote of thanks was opposed in like manner ♦General Tarleton;♦ in the House of Commons. General Tarleton said, that Lord Wellington’s dispatches were vain-glorious, partial, and incorrect; that he had been deficient in information concerning the amount and situation of Soult’s army; and that he had been compelled to a precipitate retreat, after abandoning his sick and wounded. ♦Mr. Whitbread.♦ Mr. Whitbread affirmed, that the battle had been more a repulse than a victory; nor could he, he said, withhold a tear, when he thought of the British blood which had been spilt in sacrifice to incapacity and folly. The consequence of the battle was, that the army had no other retreat than that through Deleitosa, and their condition during that retreat was such, that many hundred perished on the road from famine. The Spanish cause, he concluded, was now more hopeless than ever. But the motion received a powerful support from Mr. Windham, who, setting all party views aside, followed the feelings of his own generous nature. “The unproductive consequences of this victory,” he said, ... “for a victory it was, and a glorious victory, ... were not to be put in comparison with the military renown which we had gained. Ten or fifteen years ago, it was thought on the continent that we might do something at sea, ... that an Englishman was a sort of sea-animal; but our army was considered as nothing. Our achievements in Egypt first entitled us to the name of a military power; the battle of Maida confirmed it; and he would not give the battles of Vimeiro, Coruña, and Talavera, for a whole Archipelago of sugar islands.”
♦Pension voted for Lord Wellington. Feb. 16.♦
The vote was carried in both houses without a division. But the opposition tried their strength in the House of Commons upon the King’s message, recommending that a pension of 2000l. should be settled upon Lord Wellington, and the two next heirs to his title in succession. “With the grant of the peerage,” ♦Mr. Calcraft;♦ Mr. Calcraft said, “that house had nothing to do; he was sorry it had been conferred; but though there was no remedy for it, the house ought not to add to it the pension. Pensions and thanks might be voted, but they could not permanently blind the country; whatever the public opinion might be now, it would not be with ministers upon this subject a month hence, when the whole fruits of Lord Wellington’s victories and campaigns would develope themselves to public view. It was mournful and alarming to hear that Lord Wellington had said he could defend Portugal with 50,000 men, provided 30,000 of them were British; for if the French were in earnest in their designs upon that country, before three months Lord Wellington and his army would be in England. Neither Portugal nor any other country could be defended by victories like that of Talavera.”
It was said by General Craufurd, a peerage might be an incumbrance to Lord Wellington without a pension. General Loftus also remarked, that he had always been one of the most liberal men in existence, and the state of his circumstances was therefore, he imagined, far from sufficient for the support of the dignity ♦Opposed by Sir Francis Burdett;♦ to which he was elevated. Sir Francis Burdett took this occasion for touching a popular note. “If Lord Wellington’s liberality,” he said, “had brought him into difficulty or debt, who was it whom they called upon to free him from the incumbrance? ... the people; ... who already owed debts enough, not in consequence of any prodigality of their own, but through the impositions of their representatives. As to the military part of the question, he could only say, that the result was failure, ... failure as complete as failure could be. But even if the occasion had been such as to deserve reward, he should object to making any appeal for that purpose to the people’s purse. What was become of the patronage of the government? Where were the sinecures, which were always defended because they afforded a fund for such purposes as these? Yet application was made to the people, ... and this by a government who, while they perpetually threw the burden upon the people, had greater means of rewarding merit at their disposal than all the combined merit of Europe could possibly exhaust.”
♦Mr. Whitbread;♦
The same strain of argument was pursued by Mr. Whitbread. “It was often argued,” he said, “that the expectation of one of those great places falling in satisfied many a claimant: if so, why should not Lord Wellington wait for one of them? It was an important part of the question, whether, supposing the peerage to have been merited, the circumstances of the new peer were such as to require the pension; for if they were not, it would be a scandalous waste of the public money. Nor was it necessarily to follow, that whenever the king was advised to grant a peerage to any officer, the House of Commons was bound to vote him a pension.”
This produced from Mr. Wellesley Pole a ♦Mr. Wilberforce;♦ statement of his brother’s fortune. Mr. Wilberforce then appealed to the house, whether, if Lord Wellington had devoted the great talents which confessedly belonged to him to the bar, or to any other liberal pursuit, he would not have rendered them infinitely more productive than it appeared that he had done by actively employing them in the service of his country? and he protested against the unjust and impolitic illiberality of opposing such a grant upon such grounds. The same opinion ♦Mr. Canning.♦ was delivered by Mr. Canning. “The victories of Lord Wellington,” he said, “had re-established our military character, and retrieved the honour of the country, which was before in abeyance. If the system of bestowing the peerage was to be entirely changed, and the House of Lords to be peopled only by the successors to hereditary honours, Lord Wellington certainly would not be found there. But he would not do that noble body the injustice of supposing that it was a mere stagnant lake of collected honours: it was to be occasionally refreshed by fresh streams. It was the prerogative of the crown to confer the honour of the peerage; it was the duty of that house to give it honour and independence. The question was, whether they would enable Lord Wellington to take his seat with the proudest peer in the other house, or whether they would send him there with the avowed intention that it was only to the crown he was to look for support. It was their duty to take care if the crown made a peer, that it should not make a generation of peers wholly dependent on its favour for their support.”