History of the Peninsular War, Volume 4 (of 6)

by Robert Southey

♦Mr. Curwen;♦

Mr. Curwen said, “that as the Portugueze people had suffered a French army to overrun their country without any resistance, he was not for placing much reliance upon the Portugueze troops. If the enemy could point out what he would wish that we should undertake, his first wish would be, that we should attempt to defend Portugal. Buonaparte,” he said, “could not receive more cheering hopes of ultimate success, than he would derive from learning that the present ministers were to continue in office, and that the House of Commons still persisted in placing a blind confidence in them, and enabling them to enter upon measures which, in their inevitable result, could not fail to answer all his purposes. The vote of the house this night, if it should decide against attempting the defence of Portugal, would be more important than if we were to take half the French army prisoners.”

♦Mr. Leslie Foster;♦

Mr. Leslie Foster then rose, and his speech, in the spirit which it breathed, and the knowledge which it displayed, formed a singular contrast to the harangues of the opposition. “The present proposition of his majesty,” said he, “is partly connected with his past conduct towards the Peninsula; it is but a continuance and extension of the same spirit of British resistance. It is now, however, open to the reprehension of two classes of politicians; those who think we never ought to have committed ourselves for the salvation of Portugal and Spain; and those who, having approved of that committal while the event appeared doubtful, think that the overwhelming power of France has at length brought this tragedy so nearly to a close, that nothing is left for us, but to escape if possible from being sharers in its catastrophe. Hope, they contend, has vanished; there is no longer room for prediction; history has already recorded, in letters of blood, the fate that awaits our perseverance. To me the aspect of the Peninsula appears an enigma, which it is no reflection on any ministers not perfectly to have understood; a revolution bursting out at a period the least expected, exhibiting events in its progress the most singularly contradictory, and pregnant with results which I still think no man living can foresee. If, on the one hand, we are referred to the apathy of Gallicia during the retreat of Sir John Moore, ... if we are desired to remember Ocaña and Tudela, and all the other defeats which the Spaniards have endured, and endured without despondency, ... must we not in candour remember that there was a battle of Baylen? Are we to shut our eyes to the extraordinary phenomenon, that in Catalonia, the very next province to France, the French, at this hour, appear to be as often the besieged as the besiegers? and can we forget Zaragoza and Gerona? But above all, shall we not do justice to that singular obstinacy, to give it no more glorious a character, which has sustained their spirit under two hundred defeats, and which, in every period of the history of Spain, has formed its distinguishing characteristic? The expulsion of the Moors was the fruit of seven centuries of fighting uninterrupted, and of 3600 battles, in many of which the Spaniards had been defeated. In the beaten but persevering Spaniards of these days we may trace the descendants of those warriors, as easily as we recognize the sons of the conquerors of Cressy and of Agincourt in the English who fought at Talavera. We may trace the same fortitude and patience, the same enthusiastic superstition, the same persevering insensibility of failure, and, I will add, the same absolute indifference as to liberty, constitution, or cortes, that distinguished the expellers of the Moors. Because we feel that freedom is the first of blessings, it is too much to say that other nations are to be raised in arms by no other motives than its influence. History should have taught us, that there is another spirit prompting men to war, and which once poured all Europe forth in the Crusades; and however we may pronounce on the motives of our ancestors, the fact we cannot deny, that the greatest spectacle of embattled nations ever exhibited on the theatre of war was under governments and systems which indeed were not worth the defending. I believe we may consider the inhabitants of the Peninsula, first, as a multitude of hardy and patient peasantry, buried in ignorance and superstition, and accustomed from their cradles, by the traditions and the songs of their ancestors, to consider the sword as the natural companion of the cross; and almost inseparably to connect in idea the defence of their religion with the slaughter of their enemies; and with these predispositions goaded into madness by ecclesiastics, as ignorant almost as their flocks; but without an idea or a wish for freedom; with Fernando Settimo in their mouths, as a watch-word, and fighting, if you will, for the continuance of the Inquisition. And with these qualifications it is my most firm conviction, that they would have overwhelmed all the armies of France, but that it was their misfortune to be cursed with a nobility in all respects the opposite of the peasantry, differing from them, not merely in their moral qualities, but even in their physical appearance; a nobility of various degrees of worthlessness, but with a few brilliant exceptions, generally proportioned to the rank of their nobility; and further cursed by a government (I speak not of their kings but of the Junta) both in its form and in its substance the most abominable that ever repressed or betrayed the energies of a nation; hence desperate from repeated treason, destitute of confidence, not in themselves but in their commanders, unable to stand before the French in battle, but still more unable to abstain from fighting. One rare and unquestionable feature they presented, ... a nation that would fight with France; and certain I am, that if we had not tried the experiment of fighting by their side, these very men, who now most loudly condemn the course we have pursued, would be calling for the impeachment of these ministers, who had neglected such glorious opportunities; who, in the crisis of the fate of France, had shrunk from the only field where there was a prospect of contending with success; who had coldly refused our aid to the only allies who were ever worthy of British co-operation. It is too much a habit to call for the fruits of our battles, tacitly assuming that nothing but the absolute and complete attainment of our object can justify having fought them. I never can agree to measure the justification of a battle by the mere fruits of victory! yet even on this ground I must contend, that never were there laurels the more opposite of barren, than those which have been reaped by our countrymen in Spain. We, indeed, wanted not to be convinced that our army, like our navy, equalled in science, and exceeded in courage, that of any other nation in the world: but if we have any anxiety for our character with other armies, if reputation is strength, and if the reputation of a nation, as well as of an individual, consists not in the estimation in which it holds itself, but in the estimation in which it is held by others, it is a false vanity that causes us to shut our eyes and ears to the opinions of other nations. Spain at least had been convinced by the exertions of her government, misrepresenting our failure at Buenos Ayres, and other scenes of our misfortunes, that Great Britain, omnipotent by sea, was even ridiculous on land. So much so, that when the army of General Spencer was landed near Cadiz, than which a finer army never left the English shore, it was the wonder as well as the pity of the Spaniards, that such noble-looking soldiers should be so absolutely incapable of fighting. The ‘beautiful’ army was even the emphatic denomination by which the British forces were distinguished; and when Sir John Moore was known to be at length on his march, that the beautiful army, the ‘hermoso exercito,’ was actually advancing, was a subject of Spanish surprise, at least as much as of Spanish exultation; but when that army had commenced its retreat, old impressions were revived with tenfold force, ‘hermoso’ was no longer the epithet bestowed on it, but one which it is impossible for me to repeat. Nor let it be said that Coruña was a full vindication of its fame! We indeed know that British heroism never shone more conspicuous than on that day; but the ray of glory which illuminated that last scene of our retreat, was but feebly reflected through the rest of Spain from that distant part of the Peninsula. The French returned in triumph to Madrid, and boasted that they had driven us into the sea; ... it was certain we were no longer on the land; ... and under such circumstances it is not surprising that Spain should have declined to have given to us all the credit which we really deserved. Some gentlemen, I see, are of opinion that it is no great matter what the Spaniards thought about us; but are we equally indifferent to the opinions of the French? Let us not too hastily conclude that they did full justice to our merits. We are told, indeed, that at Maida and in Egypt we had set that point at rest. Of Maida, I shall only say, that within the last month it has been, for the first time, mentioned in any newspaper of France, and that I believe nine-tenths of the French soldiers have never heard either of the battle, or of the existence of such a place; and as to Egypt, their opinion is universally that which General Regnier, in his most able, but untrue representation, of those events, has laboured to impress, namely, that the treachery of Menou, and the detestation in which the army held the service in Egypt, and their anxiety to return to France, were the real causes of their expulsion; and that an overwhelming force of ninety thousand men, of English, Turks, and Indians, which he says, and which they believe, we brought against them, furnished a decent excuse for their surrender. Let us remember too, that it was after these proofs of British military excellence, that Buonaparte, on the heights of Boulogne, parcelled out in promise to his soldiers the estates of the ‘nation boutiquiere:’ let us remember also our own opinions in those days, how general engagements were to be avoided; ... how a system of bush-fighting was to be adopted in Kent; ... and our hopes that England might be saved after London might be lost, ... or what inundations we should make to protect it. Such language was then termed ‘caution:’ but on the proud eminence on which we are now placed, we may afford to acknowledge there was in it some mixture of distrust in the good old bayonet of Britain. Where are the promises of Buonaparte now? The very ridicule of such assertions would render it impossible for him to repeat them. It is these guilty ministers who have taught to him, and what I think of much more consequence, have taught to England, another style of conversation. They have fairly tried that point, so carefully avoided by their predecessors; they have brought our armies to a meeting with the finest armies of France; and have added more to our strength, as well as to our glory, by fighting in Spain, than their predecessors by abstaining from it in Poland.... Such is the view which I take of what is past: With respect to the second point, whether the time is indeed come, when our further assistance can only be destruction to ourselves, without being serviceable to our allies, a very little time must show us that; and if there are indeed good grounds of hope, any premature expression of our despondency will certainly extinguish them. The Junta is at length demolished. The French are again dispersed over every part of the Peninsula: the people are still every where in arms. Let us not damp that spirit which may effect much, and which must effect something, ... which must at least give long employment to the forces of our enemy. If, indeed, it depended solely upon us, whether our allies should continue that sacrifice of blood which they have so profusely shed, I should not think us justifiable in purchasing our quiet at such a price: but convinced as I am, that whether we stand by them, or forsake them, those gallant nations will still continue to bleed at every pore, our assistance assumes a new character; and independent of the advantages to be derived to ourselves, ... independent of 200,000 Frenchmen already fallen, ... independent of not less than 300,000 more required even to preserve existence in the Peninsula, ... independent of Brazil and South America, for ever severed from our enemies, ... and independent of the fleets of the Peninsula, I trust, rescued from their grasp, ... independent of these gains to ourselves, there is another feeling binding upon a nation, as well as upon an individual, not to forsake our friend because he is in his greatest danger!... Still, however, I acknowledge a limit there must be, beyond which we cannot go, and whenever we can agree in declaring that

Funditus occidimus, neque habet Fortuna regressum,

then, indeed, the first laws of self-preservation will call on us to discontinue the contest. But surely Great Britain will not utter such a sentiment until her allies shall be disposed to join in it. They do not despair, and I will never despair of them so long as they do not despair of themselves, ... so long as I should leave it in their power to say to us at a future day, ‘Whence these chains?... If you had stood firm a little longer, ... if you had not so soon fainted, ... we should not at this day be in the power of our enemies!’”

♦General Ferguson;♦

General Ferguson was the first person who rose after Mr. Leslie Foster had concluded this able and manly speech. “He had been in Portugal,” he said, and “he did not think there were 30,000 soldiers in that country; those that were there had certainly, through the exertions of General Beresford and other British officers, attained an appearance of discipline: but he feared that an army adequate to the task of defending Portugal must be able to make a stand in the first instance; and if obliged to retreat, must still, as opportunity offered, return to the charge; and thus make resistance after resistance. Now he was decidedly of opinion, from what he had seen and heard of them, that on the very first defeat the little discipline of the Portugueze army would vanish, and a dispersion be the consequence.”

♦Mr. Fitzgerald;♦

Mr. Fitzgerald asked whether ministers had employed transports to bring away our cavalry from Portugal? in this service, he said, our money would be best employed. He had never heard of any achievement performed by the Portugueze, except, indeed, that 2000 of them, with the Bishop of Porto at their head, had entered Porto, and taken twenty-four Frenchmen ♦Lord Milton;♦ prisoners. Lord Milton repeated the erroneous proposition of the Marquis of Lansdowne, that it was highly improper to act as principals in a foreign country, instead of as auxiliaries. “No reasonable man,” he affirmed, “could vote a million of the public money for such a purpose, when the French were under the walls of Cadiz. It had often been the practice to subsidize foreign troops, but he believed it had never before entered the head of any English statesman to grant subsidies to the Portugueze, ... to those, in fact, among whom the materials for ♦Mr. Bankes;♦ an army could not be found.” Mr. Bankes talked of the money: “We had it not to spare, and if we had, even then we ought not to spare it. Too much had already been furnished to the Spaniards. Where were we to find more? specie we had not, and paper would not answer. The enemy were now perhaps in possession of Cadiz, which had escaped immediate capture only through an accident. The Cortes had not even a town in Spain to meet in. It was quite romantic to expect that a British army, of 20,000 or 25,000 men, even with whatever co-operation Portugal could give, would be able to maintain the war there as a principal against France. He must oppose the motion, and recommend that the resources of the country should be husbanded for our defence.”