"has been repulsed (3) by the per severing exertions and valour of his Majesty's land and sea forces." Moniteur. This expression is that of a writer who is more accustomed to the bold exertions of a pamphleteer, than of a person who is in the habit of drawing up the official declarations of a government. For the purpose of occupying Si cily 30,000 men must have been de- ` tached from the continent, which was not deemed adviseable in the year 1810. In conscquenee, no pledge of any kind was given at that time that it was intended to conquer Si cily. The King of Naples had assembled at Reggio, notwithstanding all the efforts of the English, 600 small vessels, all manned by Neapolitan sailors. He kept 12,000 British in check, and compelled England to recall the force that threatened Corfu. Effecting daily disembarkations in Sicily, his flotilla was daily engaged, and as often victorious. His subjects gave proofs to the English of the ardour with which they fought against them. Sicily will be conquered whenever it is desired; but is it so trifling an advantage, then, to oblige the English to keep 12,000 men so far removed from England and Ireland? it is attended with this three-fold advantage: the dispersion of the British military force, the deterioration of their finances, and of a very useful moral effect upon the minds of the Sicilians. The appearance of an heretical military force, always brutal and intoxicated, and of that British haughtiness, so offensive to all countries, has irritated all classes of persons in Sicily. (3). Repulsed! The person who prepared the speech will be good enough to tell us how it was possible to repel an attack that was never made. Speech." The judicious ar<< rangements adopted by the officers "commanding on that station, de"rived material support from the "zeal and ardour that were mani"fested during this contest by the "inhabitants of Sicily, and from "the co-operation of the naval means which were directed by his "Sicilian Majesty to this object." Moniteur. The English people are better informed than their government. 66 ་་་་ Every one in London knows that the Sicilians were very far from manifesting either zeal or ardeur, and that they hate the English. The court itself does not conceal its aversion for them. But it was necessary to speak of the co-operation of the naval forces of his Sicilian Majesty, to induce a belief that the flotilla of the King of Naples was victorious, merely because the force opposed to it was composed partly of English and partly of Sicilians. This affectation of mentioning the naval forces of Sicily can have no other motive. Note in the Moniteur.-It was only a year ago that the English government aimed at nothing less than expelling the French from Madrid, and driving them beyond the Pyrennees. Now it is Portugal and Cadiz which constitute the principal object of its exertions: we flatter ourselves that in the speech of 1812, his Majesty will have equally succeeded in the principal object of his exertions; because at that time Por tugal and Cadiz will not be the principal objects of his exertions, but the defence of Gibraltar. (5) The designs of the enemy, you say, have been frustrated in Portugal. Should it have so happened, that they had made a land ing at Edinburgh; that after having taken possession of Scotland, Northumberland, &c. it had driven your armies before it for 15 days at the point of the bayonet; that prudently retreating with the torch in the one hand, and the steel in the other, you had devastated your plains, destroyed your cattle, your farms, your parks, your countryseats; that having arrived, &c. at the heights of London, resting one wing on the sea, and the other on the Thames, posted on desert and inaccessible mountains, fortified with 1500 pieces of heavy artillery, thirty-six, twenty-four, and eighteen pounders, drawn from your ships and your arsenals, and having your flanks so covered that it was impossible to turn you and cut you off from the sea, would you then boast that you had defended England? But the inhabitants of Essex, Middlesex, &c. would tell you, that to burn and destroy a country is not defending it; that London is not the frontier to an army which comes from Scotland; that to take a 'position 80 leagues from the frontiers, leaving the enemy master of threefourths of the country, is neither a measure of defence nor a proof of strength. This is the way, however, in which you have defended Portugal. You have abandoned Al-tages she could desire from the premeida, Ciudad Rodrigo, Olivenza, and Campo Mayer, and suffered 25,000 of your allies to be taken ; you have surrendered the country between the Minho, the Douro, and Mondragone-between the Beira and the Tagus; you have burned and laid waste; and still you have the impu-| dence to say that the defence of Portugal, the principal object of his Majesty's exertions, has been accomplished, and that the designs of the enemy have been frustrated. May Wellington one day defend England in the same manner! having abandoned three-fourths of Portugal, and of having laid waste the country of which you call yourselves the protectors, and which you consider as your own property; and still you are not sure of being able to maintain possession of it. You say hitherto; this is a confession extorted from the English government by facts. As to us, we will tell you plainly, that we wish this hitherta may be very remote; and that if the day upon which your army embarks is to be a holiday, it will be only for the English people; that the advantages of the actual contest will be the greater for us, the larger your stake is. It must be large to be decisive; it must be protracted to produce all the results we expect. An army of 60,000 English encamped upon the heights of Lisbon, obliged to procure from London even the very straw they want; England obliged to keep at the mouth of the Tagus 600 transports, and 20,000 sailors; having to subsist not only 80,000 soldiers or sailors, but 400,000 men, women, and children besides, who have taken refuge at Lisbon, and concentrated themselves in one point; being, moreover, obliged to support all this expence, with a course of exchange which has fallen 33 per cent. gives to France, already, all the advan sent contest. It is part of the continental system, which diminishes on one side your revenues by reducing your commerce, and on the other increases your expence by compelling you to maintain armies in Sicily and at Lisbon. It is, in vulgar language, to burn the candle at both ends. In the mean time, the French army, according to its fundamental law, subsists on the country upon which it makes war, and only costs us its pay, which we should be obliged to supply wherever it was. In short, if Massena, having received his reinforcements and his heavy artillery, should be inclined R to advance upon, after having silenced your batteries; or if you your selves, rendered impatient by this ruinous contest, march against him, what will be the consequence? If you are victorious you will derive no advantage from it, for you will have scarcely made two marches before you are met by new armies. If you are conquered, you are lost. The loss of 60,000 men to England, is as great as that of 500,000 to France. The two countries are in the proportion of one to three to each other with respect to population; the same proportion prevails with respect to the extent of the countries where you are obliged to have troops, which on the whole produces a proportion of one to nine. We are ignorant of the intentions of the cabinet of the Thuilleries; but we wish with all our heart, that the Prince of Essling may manœuvre instead of attacking you, and by so doing keep you some years where you are. The consequences would be, you would add 100 millions more to your debt, and we should be certain of the more complete submission of the peninsula. When the question is about a great extent of continent, what are a few years? All the nations who have been sub jugated, have defended themselves for several years; you alone have exhibited the solitary instance in history, of a nation conquered in one battle, and so subjugated by the Normans your conquerors, that your laws, your customs, every thing was torn from you by a single victory. (8) Speech." And particularly by the brilliant part which they "bore in the repulse of the enemy at Busaco." Moniteur.-The affair at Busaco, whatever was its nature, or whatever accuracy there might be in the accounts on either side, did it answer the object of the French or of the English general? The object of the English general, as he tells us himself in his dispatch By of the 30th of September, in the foling words." Although I fear I shall not be able to obtain the object I had in passing the Mondego, and in occupying the Sierra of Busaco, yet I do not regret to have done so," was to defend the position of the Mondego, the right of which rested on that river, and on the inaccessible mountains of the right bank of the Zezere, which empties itself into the Tagus 30 leagues from thence and whose left extended on the mountains which rest on the Douro. this central position, the English general did not obtain the glory of defending Portugal, since he had already abandoned $0 leagues of the country to the enemy. To defend Portugal he should have raised the seige of Almeida, or at least have occupied the fine positions of Guarda. However, having thought proper to occupy the position of Busaco, he covered 3-4ths of Portugal: he protected the fine vallies of the Tagus and the Mondego; he kept the French army at 40 leagues from the capital; he kept up his communications with Oporto, and with all the provinces on the other side of the Douro, of which he remained master. The French army of Portugal remained separated for upwards of eighty leagues from the army of the South, and derived all its subsistence from a country which Wellington had intentionally laid waste, employing alt the time that was necessary to make the devastation complete. It was thus reduced to the necessity of drawing its provisions from Spain by impassable roads; and when the rains began, the communication would be cut of with Spain, and the army would have been obliged to return to Almeida. The English army occupying the position of Busaco, all Portugal would have supplied it with provisions, and furnished nothing to the French army. If the English general, then, had maintained his position at Busaco only for 15 days, he could have boasted of having won the campaign, and saved Portugal. He would, in truth, have exposed himself to the imputation, of having laid waste thirty leagues of country, but he could have found an answer to that imputation if he had obliged the French to evacuate the country; and proved by the event that these ravages contributed to the success of the campaign. All these combinations and considerations were not unknown to the English general. He wished to defend his position, and he gave battle at Busaco; the result of the engagement was the passage of the Monde go, the evacuation of Coimbra, and a retreat by forced marches to Lisbon. In his flight Wellington could only lay waste to the extent of a league on the right and left of his line of march; and tre French army arriving almost at the same moment that he did, in sight of his ships, found immense quantities of provisions in the fine vallies of the Tagus. The French general did every thing he wished; the English general effected nothing that he intended. The battle of Busaco rendered all the ravages he committed, and for which he will ever be execrated by the Portuguese, useless. When they wish to explain to their children the English manner of defending a country, they will point to the ruins of their villages, their castles, and their towns! That several brigades, hurried on by the noble impetuosity of French troops, should wish to bound over inaccessible heights-that they should not find on the crest of these mountains sufficient space to extend themselves-all this is very possible; but this does not give the enemy a right to claim the victory. All that occurred on that day tends to prove, that the composition and the spirit of the French troops were so far superior to those of the English army, that the latter neither could nor would defend a position upon which the fate of Portugal depended! The English, then, were defeated at Busaco: whether it was the fault of the general, the officers, or the soldiers, is of no consequence. An army is composed of all these. The French general did every thing he wished; the English general did nothing, protected nothing, executed none of his plans; the battle of Busaco frustrated them all. Speech (9). "On which the liber"ties and independence of the Spa"nish and Portuguese nations entirely depend." 66 Moniteur.--It would be curious to read the speeches in parliament during the last twenty years. When the expedition of the Duke of York to Belgium was to be defended, it was said that the war was carried on for the independence and liberty of Belgium. When the Duke of York landed in Holland, it was for the liberty and independence of Holland, so necessary to England, that he did so. Such is always the language, without paying any greater attention now than on former occasions, that it is not sufficient to justify a great undertaking, to shew the advantages arising from war followed by victory; but that it is necessary to calculate the probability of such victory. By this mode of reasoning, it would be much the plainer way to land at Havre and march to Paris; for certainly upon the sup-, position of victory, the advantages and the glory would be incontestable. Is it probable that England can maintain a contest with France in Spain? This is the whole of the question. She was not able to do so when considerable Spanish armies occupied Sarragossa, St. Andero Bilboa and Burgos. The fine army of Moore was even then forced to a shameful flight, in which it lost a great many men, horses, a part of its baggage, and even its treasure. She could not do so upon the fifth coalition. Wellington advanced as far as Talavera; he gained some ad vantages, and almost immediately to the advice of all their generals, was compelled to abandon his hos- and recognised the impossibility of pitals, his sick, and to escape into withdrawing Spain from the influPortugal. The presence of Moore ence of France, had renounced the was unable to prevent the defeat of Spanish war, the Spanish war would Blake at Espinosa, of the army of have been ended; all the provinces Estremadura at Burgos, of Castanos united in their integrity and their at Tudela, and the capture of Sara- energy, having experienced some gossa and Madrid. Wellington, vic- checks balanced by some successes, torious at Talavera, was unable to would have formed a happy and prevent the passage of the Sierra powerful nation under the govern Morena, the occupation of Jaen, of ment of a prince allied to the family Seville, of Grenada, the blockade of of France; and the integrity and inCadiz, and the capture of the camp dependence of Spain "would have of St. Roch. Wellington has not de- been more confirmed thereby. France fended Portugal; he has suffered the and Spain, governed by members of fortresses to be taken; he has aban- the same family, would have been, doned the country; he has retired in fact, a revival of the relations to inaccessible heights, where he which existed since the time of Phiholds himself in readines to embark lip V. The only advantage that with the first favourable wind. Such France would have derived from this are the consequences of the preten- arrangement, would have been the ded victory of Busaco. If the En- security that Spain would never take glish lose 80 leagues of a country part against her in any civil war. after victory, what events are they Spain, regenerated by the constituin expectation of to enable them to tion of Bayonne, and deriving fresh drive the French out of the Penin- vigour from them, would have besula? And if it be admitted, as no come more independent than she man of sense can doubt, and as the had been for 300 years before; and English generals themselves have ad- the wish expressed in the speech mitted, since Moore's expedition, from the throne would have been that it is impossible for them to de- accomplished. England, though she fend the Peninsula; why do they knew to a certainty that she could run such risks without the hope of not defend Spain, has indeed found success? It will be said all this employment for 300,000 French; is allowed, but still the English pro- but Spain, conquered foot by foot, long the contest: they prevent the becomes wholly subjugated; and it country from settling; is that no- is England herself who has endanthing?" No man with the least sen- gered the independence and integrity sibility, or possessing the common of Spain, by engaging in a contest feelings of hmmanity, can contain his in which it is proved by experience indignation in seeing a nation so im- that all the chances are against her. moral as to excite every species of dis- The conquest of Spain will produce order among fourteen millions of peo- effects quite different from those of ple, without any other object than a simple change of dynasty, which that of retarding for some moments would have turned to the advantage the progress of a social organization! of the nation, the plans of reform, But the consequences of the con- and the liberal ideas introduced by a duct of England, on this occasion government, young, firm, and vigoas on many others, will be to con- rous. Posterity, to whom years are solidate the power of France. In only as a moment, will attribute fact, if after Moore's retreat, the the great results which have so conEnglish administration had listened spicuously combined to the advan |