In pursuance of these opinions, Mr. Whitbread, when a bill was brought in for allowing three-fourths of any militia regiment to volunteer for foreign service, moved to insert in the preamble to the bill, that this was for bringing the war to a speedy and happy termination, and obtaining the blessings of peace upon terms of reciprocity, honour, and security, to all the belligerent powers. What he meant by reciprocity between some of those powers he would have found it difficult to explain; ... but the proposed insertion was negatived as unnecessary, and Mr. Whitbread neither opposed the bill, nor the supplies voted for carrying into effect the engagements of this nation with its ♦Lord Holland. Dec. 20.♦ allies. Lord Holland approved of the confidence which was thus placed in ministers. “Although,” he said, “great part of the happy results of this war might be justly attributed to a powerful popular impulse, and to that infatuation on the part of the enemy, which, thank God, always attended the long abuse of power, ... yet it must be felt that a great deal of the merit is to be attributed to the conduct of the government of this country. If the sentiments of an individual,” he pursued, “are of consequence enough to arrest your attention, it must be in your Lordships’ recollection that I always approved of the interposition and interference of ministers in the cause of Spain. The merit of such policy appears, and ever has appeared to my judgment, quite indisputable, and must now indeed be universally admitted; for, aided by the uncommon genius of Lord Wellington, that policy has produced the most important results. It has driven the enemy from that country which he had so long and so unremittingly oppressed. It has presented a most encouraging and impressive example to Europe of what a people excited by oppression were capable of achieving. It has changed the whole character of the war, by making it a war of the people. But a still farther advantage has arisen out of this policy. A most atrocious calumny had become current in Europe, that the government of this country was always ready to distribute its subsidies with a view to embroil the nations of the continent, while it kept its own people aloof from the contest. No such impression can ever again prevail in Europe. The calumny has been effectually refuted by the policy we have pursued with respect to Spain; for there we have not only given our money but our men; there we have given our money, not to excite the people but to enable them to act, and we have seconded their exertions by a powerful army.

“In declaring my approbation of ministers in consequence of their moderate language and conduct, that approbation is, of course, founded upon a hope and confidence, that the very different language which appears in certain publications has in no degree their sanction or countenance. Sounding a violent and barbarous war-whoop through the country, abounding in coarse, vulgar, virulent epithets, these publications complete their abominable character by excitements to assassination. Although the French ruler has rendered himself so odious by his conduct, yet it must be admitted that he is a great military commander, still at the head of a great nation; and is it fitting that the press of this country should become the means of advising the assassination of such a man, ... nay, of exhorting to the deed? and what else can be meant by the repeated declaration, that no peace can be concluded while this individual lives? The French ruler is no doubt ambitious, inordinately ambitious; but if it were resolved that no peace should be made with France while it was under the government of an ambitious man, when, I would ask, could peace be expected? The meaning, however, of all the publications I have referred to, may be to recommend the restoration of the Bourbon family; but the attempt at such a measure would be totally inconsistent with the professed moderation and policy of ministers. That restoration might be good; but it would be preposterous to look for the success of such an object through the intervention of foreign armies; and it would be opposite to the policy and principle of ministers to engage in any such undertaking.”

Alluding then to the just remark of Lord Grenville, that one great advantage resulting from the recent changes on the continent was, that it afforded an opportunity for restoring the balance of power, “I must be allowed,” said Lord Holland, “to say, that the re-establishment and maintenance of that balance can never consist in, nor depend upon, particular divisions of territory, so much as upon the existence of a general feeling among the European states, that it is the interest of each to preserve the independence of each and all. Such is the feeling which gave birth and cement to the present confederacy; and therefore I wish that such a confederacy may continue to exist in peace as well as in war. I esteem the principle of this confederacy, because it appears solicitous to preserve the interest of all, without gratifying the peculiar interest of any one; and upon that principle I would rather leave France with such possessions as should make her feel an interest in the common object of the confederacy, than transfer from her to any other state any possessions which might be likely to withdraw that state from the general feeling which it is the interest of peace and Europe to improve and strengthen.”

♦Terms offered by the allies to Buonaparte.♦

It was well for Great Britain and for the continent that Buonaparte was not contented with such terms of peace as the allies, with a generosity which had neither the character of wisdom nor of justice, would a little before this have granted him. Even when he had been driven over the Rhine, they would, according to their own declaration, have left France more powerful than she had ever been under her kings, if he would have consented to give up Italy. Out of Germany and out of the Peninsula he had been beaten; but they would have allowed France to remain with the whole of the Netherlands, and with the Rhine for her boundary, if vain-glory and a blind confidence in his fortune had not still demented Buonaparte. But he declared that he would not under any circumstances abandon Italy; and they who ought not, under any circumstances, now to have negotiated with him, prepared to enter France. On his part he collected the largest force that that exhausted country could supply, to resist the impending invasion; and as it thus became an object of great importance for him to bring to his assistance Suchet’s army, and the troops who were shut up in the remaining garrisons in Valencia and Catalonia, he thought this might be effected by dictating a treaty to ♦Buonaparte treats with Ferdinand.♦ his prisoner, Ferdinand. Accordingly he sent the Comte de Laforest to Valençay, to negotiate with that poor Prince, saying, that under the existing circumstances of his empire and his policy, he wished at once to settle the affairs of Spain; that England was encouraging Jacobinism and anarchy there, for the purpose of destroying the nobility and the monarchy, and erecting a republic; that he could not but grievously feel the destruction of a neighbouring state, connected by so many maritime and commercial interests with his own; that he desired to remove every pretext for English interference, and to re-establish those ties of friendship and good neighbourhood by which Spain and France had been so long connected; and therefore he had sent the Comte de Laforest under a feigned name, to whom his Royal Highness might give entire credit in all that he should propose.

♦Conference between Comte de Laforest and Ferdinand.♦

The Comte accordingly presented himself under the name of M. Dubois, in order that the negotiation might be kept secret, because, if the English were to discover, they would use every means for frustrating it. The Emperor, he represented, had done all he could in Bayonne to accommodate the differences which then existed between father and son; but the English had marred every thing; they had introduced Jacobinism into Spain, where the land was laid waste, religion destroyed, the clergy ruined, the nobility crushed, the marine existing only in name, the colonies dismembered and in insurrection, and, in fine, everything overthrown. Those islanders desired nothing but to change the monarchy into a republic; and yet, to deceive the people, they put the name of his Royal Highness at the head of all their public acts. Moved by these calamities, and by the lamentations of all good Spaniards, the Emperor had chosen him for this important mission, because of his long experience, for he had been more than forty years in the diplomatic career, and had resided in every court; but, as there were so many persons who knew him, he requested that the Spanish princes on their part would contribute to keep the affair secret. Ferdinand had at this time none with whom to consult, except his brother and his uncle, who were both as inexperienced in business as himself. He replied, that so unexpected a proposition required much reflection; he must have time for considering it, and would let him know the result. Laforest, without waiting for this, obtained an audience on the following day, and then said, that if his Majesty accepted the kingdom of Spain, which the Emperor wished to restore to him, they must concert means for getting the English out of that country. To this Ferdinand replied, that he could make no treaty, considering the circumstances in which he was placed at Valençay, and indeed could take no measures without the consent of the nation, as represented by the Regency. The old diplomatist made answer, it certainly was not the intention of the Emperor that his Majesty should do the slightest thing which might be contrary to the wish of Spain; but in this case it would be necessary that he should find means of ascertaining it. Ferdinand then said that, during five years and a half, for so long he had been absent from his own country, he had known nothing more of the state of affairs than what he read in the French newspapers. Those papers, Laforest affirmed, exhibited the true state of things; and he made a speech of some length to prove what Ferdinand was not so devoid of penetration as to believe. He concluded in words to this effect: “He who is born to a kingdom has no will of his own; he must be a king, and is not like a private individual, free to choose for himself that way of life which he may think most agreeable. And where is he who, when a kingdom is offered him, would not instantly accept it? Yet, withal, if he who should be a king were to say, ‘I renounce all dignity from this time, and, far from seeking honours, desire only to lead a private life;’ in that case the affair becomes of a different kind. If, therefore, your Royal Highness is in this predicament, the Emperor must have recourse to other means; but if, as I cannot but believe, your Royal Highness thinks of receiving the sceptre, the indispensable preliminary must be to settle the principal bases of the negotiation upon which afterwards to treat, and for this purpose to appoint a Spaniard, one of those who are at this time in France.” Ferdinand calmly replied that this required consideration. Upon this Laforest observed, that when a kingdom was to be received, there was not much to consider, reasons of state being the sole rule of conduct. But Ferdinand made answer, that he was far from agreeing with him in that maxim; it was his belief that nothing required greater consideration, and he would take time to deliberate upon it.

Ferdinand could not have acted with better judgment at this time, if he had had the ablest statesmen to advise him. In fact, the straight course was the sure one; for, though he had been kept in complete ignorance of all recent events, the very circumstance of this proposal was proof sufficient that Buonaparte’s fortune had failed, and that his motive for giving up his pretensions to Spain was that he was no longer able to support them. On the morrow, he said to the ambassador that, having maturely reflected upon what had been proposed, he must repeat that he could do nothing, and treat of nothing, in his present situation, without consulting with the nation, and of course with the Regency. “The Emperor,” said he, “has placed me here; and if he chooses that I should return to Spain, he it is who must consult and treat with the Regency, because he has means of doing this, and I have not; or he must afford me means, and consent that a deputation from the Regency should come hither, and inform me concerning the state of Spain, and propose to me measures for rendering it happy: any thing which I may then conclude here with his Imperial Majesty will be valid. And it is the more necessary that such a deputation should come, because there is no person in France whom I could fitly employ in this affair.” Laforest replied at some length, endeavouring to persuade him that the English and Portugueze governed Spain, and that their intention was to place the house of Braganza upon the Spanish throne, beginning with his sister, the Princess of Brazil. He also pressed Ferdinand to declare whether, when he returned to Spain, he meant to be the friend or the enemy of the Emperor? This was presuming upon the weakness of the person whom he addressed; but Ferdinand was not wanting in presence of mind on this occasion. “I esteem the Emperor highly,” he replied, “but I never will do any thing that may be injurious to my people and their welfare; and upon this point I now finally declare that nothing shall make me alter my determination. If the Emperor chooses that I should return to Spain, let him treat with the Regency, and when that is done, and I am assured of it, I will sign the treaty; but for this it will be necessary that a deputation should come here and inform me of every thing. Report this to the Emperor, and tell him, also, that this is what my conscience dictates to me.”

♦Nov. 21.♦

Ferdinand expressed himself to the same effect in a letter, which on the morrow he delivered into Laforest’s hands. “I am still under the protection of your Imperial Majesty,” he added, “and still profess the same love and respect of which you have had so many proofs. If your Majesty’s system of policy, and the actual circumstances of your empire, will not allow of your conforming to this course, I shall then remain quietly and willingly at Valençay, where I have now passed five years and a half, and where I shall remain for the rest of my life, if God has so appointed it. It is painful to me, Sire, to speak in this manner to your Majesty, but conscience compels me to it. I have as much interest for the English as for the French, but, nevertheless, I must prefer the interest and happiness of my own nation to every thing. Your Imperial and Royal Majesty will see, I hope, in this nothing more than a new proof of my ingenuous sincerity, and of the affection which I bear towards you. If I should promise any thing to your Majesty, and afterwards be obliged to act in opposition to it, what would you think of me? you would say that I am inconstant, and you would despise me, and dishonour me with all Europe.”