Sir John Craddock to lord Castlereagh, April.
‘There is a ferry at Salvaterra, near Alcantara, and another up the left bank of the Tagus in the Alemtejo, where there is also a ford, and the river may be easily passed.’
Extract from a Memoir by sir B. D’Urban, quarter-master-general to Beresford’s army:—‘The Tagus, between Golegao and Rio Moinhos was known to offer several fords after a few days’ dry weather.’[12]
Thus we see that, in nearly every month in the year, this unfordable Tagus of the reviewer is fordable in many places, and that in fact it is no barrier except in very heavy rains. But to render this still clearer I will here give one more and conclusive proof. In an elaborate manuscript memoir upon the defence of Portugal, drawn up by the celebrated general Dumourier for the duke of Wellington, that officer argues like this reviewer, that the Tagus is unfordable and a strong barrier. But a marginal note in Wellington’s hand-writing runs thus:—‘He (Dumourier) does not seem to be aware of the real state of the Tagus at any season.’
What can I say more? Nothing upon this head, but much upon others. I can call upon the reader to trace the deceitful mode in which the reviewer perverts or falsifies my expressions throughout. How he represents the Spaniards at one moment so formidable as to resist successfully the utmost efforts of more than 300,000 soldiers, the next breath calls them a poor unarmed horde of peasants incapable of making any resistance at all. How he quotes me as stating that the ministers had unbounded confidence in the success of the struggle in Spain; whereas my words are, that the ministers professed unbounded confidence. How he represents me as saying, the Cabinet were too much dazzled to analyse the real causes of the Spanish Revolution; whereas it was the nation not the Cabinet of which I spoke. And this could not be mistaken, because I had described the ministers as only anxious to pursue a warlike system necessary to their own existence, and that they were actuated by a personal hatred of Napoleon. Again, how he misrepresents me as wishing the British to seize Cadiz, and speaks of a mob in that city, when I have spoken only of the people (oh, true Tory!); and never proposed to seize Cadiz at all, and have also given the unexceptionable authority of Mr. Stuart, general M‘Kenzie, and sir George Smith, for my statement. And here I will notice a fine specimen of this reviewer’s mode of getting up a case. Having undertaken to prove that every river in Portugal is a barrier, except the Zezere which I had fixed upon as being an important line, he gives an extract of a letter from lord Wellington to a general Smith, to the effect that, as the Zezere might be turned at that season in so many ways, he did not wish to construct works to defend it then. Now, first, it is necessary to inform the reader that there is no letter to general Smith. The letter in question was to general Leith, and the mistake was not without its object, namely, to prevent any curious person from discovering that the very next sentence is as follows:—‘If, however, this work can be performed, either by the peasantry or by the troops, without any great inconvenience, the line of the Zezere may, hereafter, become of very great importance.’
All this is very pitiful, and looks like extreme soreness in the reviewer; but the effrontery with which he perverts my statements about the Austrian war surpasses all his other efforts in that line, and deserves a more elaborate exposure.
In my history it is stated, that some obscure intrigues of the princess of Tour and Taxis, and the secret societies on the continent, emanating from patrician sources, excited the sympathy, and nourished certain distempered feelings in the English ministers, which feeling made them see only weakness and disaffection in France. This I stated, because I knew that those intrigues were, in fact, a conspiracy concocted, with Talleyrand’s connivance, for the dethronement of Napoleon; and the English ministers neglected Spain and every other part of their foreign affairs for the moment, so intent were they upon this foolish scheme and so sanguine of success. These facts are not known to many, but they are true.
In the same paragraph of my history it is said, the warlike preparations of Austria, and the reputation of the archduke Charles, whose talents were foolishly said to exceed Napoleon’s, had awakened the dormant spirit of coalitions; meaning, as would be evident to any persons not wilfully blind, had awakened that dormant spirit in the English ministers.
Now reader, mark the candour and simplicity of the reviewer. He says that I condemned these ministers, ‘for nourishing their distempered feelings by combining the efforts of a German monarch in favour of national independence.’ As if it were the Austrian war, and not the obscure intrigues for dethroning Napoleon that the expression of distempered feelings applied to. As if the awakening the dormant spirit of coalitions, instead of being a reference to the sentiments of the English ministers, meant the exciting the Austrians and other nations to war, and the forming of a vast plan of action by those ministers! And for fear any mistake on that head should arise, it is so asserted in another part of the review in the following terms:—
‘To have “awakened the dormant spirit” of coalitions, is another of the crimes which the British ministers are charged with, as if it would have been a proof of wisdom to have abstained from forming a combination of those states of Europe which still retained some degree of independence and magnanimity to resist a conqueror,’ &c. &c.—Review.