Chapter XXXII (3)

Having consulted with Marshal Ney, Regnier, Junot, and Montbrun, Massena determined upon sending to Buonaparte to request reinforcements, and taking a position in the interior of Portugal till they should arrive. As a preparatory measure, Montbrun was sent with the advanced guard, and with Loison’s division to occupy Abrantes. Meantime he established his head-quarters at Alenquer, those of Regnier’s corps were at Villa Franca, of Junot’s opposite to Sobral, and of Ney’s in front of Torres Vedras. Montbrun was detained two days at Santarem by an inundation of the Tagus, which covered the Campos de Golegam; as soon as the waters had retired, he advanced to Barquinha; that place, like Santarem, was deserted, but the inhabitants, relying too much upon protection from Abrantes, and from the river, had collected large magazines there, which they had now no time for removing. When he reached the Zezere, thinking to cross at Punhete, he found that the bridge of boats had been destroyed, and that a detachment from the garrison of Abrantes was entrenched in the town, which stands on the left bank. The Zezere is at all times a rapid and formidable stream; at that season it was nowhere fordable; the banks are high and difficult, and after consulting with the other generals, Montbrun determined to set the town on fire, that, under cover of the conflagration, he might throw a bridge across, and effect his passage: this resolution was taken at night; in the morning it was found that the allies had withdrawn; the river was then bridged without opposition, and the enemy advanced upon Abrantes. But that city was well provided against any sudden attack; and the French, perceiving that nothing was to be done there, retired to Punhete, and Barquinha, and Golegam. Montbrun’s next orders were to take possession of Torres Novas and Thomar. Colonel Wilson had been instructed to proceed with his corps of militia towards these towns, for the purpose of confining the enemy’s detachments on that side; but he, and Trant, and Miller, were charged always to keep in view the necessity of preserving their communication with the Lower Douro. Wilson, after the recapture of Coimbra, had followed the enemy through Leiria, and afterwards occupied the road from Ponte de Murcella to Thomar. But this town had been taken possession of by Montbrun, and there and at Torres Novas stores were found which relieved for a while the distress of the invaders, who depended for their subsistence entirely upon what they could find.

♦THE FRENCH ARMY SUBSISTS BY PLUNDER.♦

It was because Massena was too strong in numbers to be beaten without a greater expense of lives than Lord Wellington could then afford, that the British commander trusted to famine, and to that worrying system of national warfare which no army can withstand. Famine would soon and surely have compelled the invaders to retreat if the orders of the Regency had been duly observed, and the country completely cleared of all stores before the enemy approached. But the local magistrates had not taken effectual measures for enforcing these orders; while the danger was at a distance, they had continued to hope it might be averted, or at least that it would not reach their particular districts; and in very many places the farmers had secreted their stores, that they might not be constrained to sell them to the commissioners at a low price and at long credit. The precautionary measures of the government were so far carried into effect, that the enemy were severely distressed, and finally found it necessary to abandon their enterprise; but they were able to subsist some months upon what they found, for nothing escaped their search. The French soldiers had been so long accustomed to plunder, that they proceeded in their researches for booty of every kind upon a regular system. They were provided with tools for the work of pillage, and every piece of furniture in which places of concealment could be constructed they broke open from behind, so that no valuables could be hidden from them by any contrivance of that kind. Having satisfied themselves that nothing was secreted above ground, they proceeded to examine whether there was any new masonry, or if any part of the cellar or ground-floor had been disturbed: if it appeared uneven, they dug there: where there was no such indication, they poured water, and if it were absorbed in one place faster than another, there they broke the earth. There were men who at the first glance could pronounce whether any thing had been buried beneath the soil, and when they probed with an iron rod, or, in default of it, with sword or bayonet, it was found that they were seldom mistaken in their judgement. The habit of living by prey called forth, as in beasts, a faculty of discovering it: there was one soldier whose scent became so acute, that if he approached the place where wine had been concealed, he would go unerringly to the spot.

♦DESERTERS FORM THEMSELVES INTO A CORPS OF PLUNDERERS.♦

But before supplies could be brought in by this marauding system, the distress which was felt in the invading army occasioned a considerable desertion. The more desperate deserters, instead of going over to the British lines, collected in strong parties in the country about Alcobaça, Nazaré, and As Caldas da Rainha, and at length formed themselves into a regular army of robbers, calling themselves the 11th corps, under their officers and general. When they fell in with a detachment of their countrymen, they compelled them to join with them, and in a short time their numbers amounted to more than 1600. The annoyance became at length more serious to Massena than to the Portugueze; he sent two strong detachments against them, and it was not till after an obstinate action that they surrendered to a superior force, ... their leaders were then shot, and the men returned to a course of duty which differed very little from their predatory life.

♦STATE OF LISBON.♦

There was necessarily great distress meantime at Lisbon, because so many families had taken refuge there in a state of destitution; but that distress was alleviated by the care of the government, and by a religion in which alms-giving ranks high in the scale of religious works, and is enjoined as a regular compensation for sin. Thousands of these poor fugitives were hutted in the open country; many were sent across the river, and they who came from those parts of the country which, by the recovery of Coimbra, were delivered from the French, returned home. Provisions were dear, but there was neither danger nor dread of famine. That country from which the capital receives all its garden produce was within the British lines; on the other side the river Alentejo and Algarve were free from the enemy; and the latter fertile province, with that part of the former which is considered as the granary of the south of Portugal, perfectly secure from them, unless the subjugation of the kingdom were effected. The Barbary coast was close at hand; ships from America and England were daily arriving, and the supply of wheat was soon fully equal to the consumption of the army and of the increased population.

But the opposition writers in England endeavoured to raise an alarm, “that Lisbon, not Massena, was in danger of famine; he,” they said, “could drive in upon our lines the population ♦OPINIONS OF THE OPPOSITION IN ENGLAND.♦ of the surrounding country to increase our difficulties, and to relieve his own could send his foraging parties into an immense track of country as yet untouched. England, meantime, must send out not merely regiment after regiment, but cargo after cargo of grain throughout the winter; and what if the bar of the Tagus should be locked up by adverse winds? Massena, we might be sure, with the talents and prudence universally ascribed to him, did not act without a confident prospect of success. It had been said in the Gazette, that he possessed only the ground on which his army stood; this was an _erratum_, where for Massena we ought to read Wellington. Our situation in Portugal would become infinitely more disagreeable than his, even if he did not, bringing his whole force to bear on one, two, or three points, by his superior numbers thus concentrated, break the lines in which Lord Wellington’s army was so much drawn out. He would have the most productive part of the kingdom open to him; we should have only Lisbon and its vicinity, with the whole Portugueze army to maintain, as well as the British; nay, with the whole population of Lisbon, increased by the fugitives who had taken asylum there, deprived of their usual resources, and thrown upon us even for daily bread! What a delicate and irksome part then would our troops have to support, if they were to pass the winter upon those mountains, possessing no part of Portugal but that in which they were posted, incessantly harassed by the French in their front, with a Portugueze army double their own number within their lines, and a starving metropolis in the rear? The French had obviously the advantage; they could remain in their post as long or as short a time as they pleased: they could retire and return at their discretion. They might wait for the reinforcements which the despot their master would draw to their aid from every quarter of subjected Europe: they were likely to accumulate, while the British must in the nature of things decrease. Massena was in truth master of the game he had to play. The most disastrous thing that could happen to us, next to positive defeat, would be the necessity of keeping our position on these heights for the winter; and we trust,” said these hopeful directors of public opinion, “we trust that we shall not have to incur that calamity! Lord Wellington may reembark his troops without much molestation; and rather than he should be driven to the necessity of continuing in these positions for the winter, we confess, we wish that he were re-embarked.”

♦GENERAL LA CROIX KILLED.♦

The people of Lisbon had not been without some apprehension that the British government would withdraw, rather in hopelessness than in weakness, from the contest. The merchants, therefore, had prepared to take flight, some for Brazil, others for England. But when they saw with what determination the lines were manned, this apprehension was laid aside; the fullest confidence succeeded, and all persons relied upon the skill of Lord Wellington, the strength of his position, and the discipline and courage of the allied armies. Such was the security which they felt behind his impregnable lines, that parties resorted to Alhandra for the sake of seeing them, as idlers flock from London to behold a review. A battalion of British seamen had been formed to serve in defending that part of the position. Land service was a jubilee to these men; they had the town of Alhandra to themselves, the inhabitants having forsaken it, and there those who were off guard sat in large armed chairs of embossed leather, two centuries old, smoking and drinking in the open streets. In reconnoitring this part of the line from the side of Villa Franca, General La Croix was killed by a shot from the water. Frequent skirmishes took place on the right flank and in the rear of the French encampment; but the piquets, by one of those agreements which mutual convenience will sometimes produce between enemies, did not fire upon each other, and this gave occasion for some of the old humanities of war. Some of our men even went and drank wine with the French, till an order was issued prohibiting a sort of intercourse which could neither with propriety nor safety be permitted.

♦1810. NOVEMBER.

MASSENA RETREATS FROM THE LINES.♦

Certain movements of the enemy seemed at this time to indicate an intention of crossing the Tagus. Laborde was sent to garrison Santarem. He threatened to destroy the little town of Chamusca on the Alentejo side (noted for its sweet wine), if the boats there were not sent over for his use: upon which the inhabitants burnt them. A detachment advanced toward Villa Velha, in hopes of winning the bridge there, but it had been removed in time. Abrantes secured the passage against them at one practicable point; and Major-General Fane was sent into Alentejo to observe the enemy at Santarem, with a sufficient force to defeat any attempt that might be made in that quarter. Meantime Massena’s apparent inactivity was regarded with some wonder, and made the subject of pasquinades in his own army. Sickness and desertion were daily reducing his numbers; his only possibility of success depended upon effecting a plan of co-operation with Soult; but time must elapse before that could be attempted, and without reinforcements he could not maintain his ground in Portugal the while. For these he had applied pressingly, and having determined where to await them, and prepared accordingly, after remaining a month in front of the British lines, he broke up from his bivouac on the night of the 14th of November, for the purpose of retiring into cantonments. The allies were immediately put in motion to follow him, but the movement was so ably conducted, on the enemy’s part, that not above 400 prisoners were taken during the retreat.

♦LORD WELLINGTON ADVANCES TO SANTAREM.♦

Lord Wellington, not knowing what might be Massena’s intention, could not pursue him with his whole force; Picton’s division was retained in its station, in case the enemy should move round Monte Junto for the purpose of making an attack on that side; and Hill was sent across the Tagus with his corps, to protect Alentejo, and communicate with Abrantes, if that place should be attacked. With the remainder of the army Lord Wellington followed the French, and came up with them near Santarem, where they occupied a position strong in itself, and rendered formidable by retrenchments and abbattis. It was where the high road, which is in that place a raised causeway walled on either side, crosses a wide morass, through which the Rio Mayor makes its way to the Tagus. The approach was defended by breastworks and trees cut down, and the causeway was commanded from a hill, close to its termination on the Santarem side, by artillery, which would have swept its whole length. Demonstrations for attacking them were made, rather to ascertain whether a retreat from the country were intended, than with any intent of assailing a position so well chosen and secured. Had this indeed been seriously designed, the heavy rain which fell during the night, and rendered the fords of the Rio Mayor impassable, must have frustrated it. Perceiving that the enemy were in considerable force there, instead of being, as had been at first supposed, only the rear-guard, and having ascertained that Massena’s ♦BOTH ARMIES GO INTO CANTONMENTS.♦ purpose was to canton his troops in the finest part of that country, Lord Wellington retained only his light division in front of Santarem, and cantoned the army at Cartaxo (where his head-quarters were fixed), Azambuja, Alcoentre, Alenquer, and Villa Franca, from whence they might at any time fall back within their lines, if the enemy should receive such reinforcements as might render this expedient. Massena’s head-quarters were first at Santarem, but he soon removed them to Torres Novas: Regnier was left at Santarem with his corps; Junot’s was cantoned at Pernes; Ney’s at Thomar, Torres Novas, and Punhete; the companies of artificers at Barquinha, and a reserve of cavalry at Ourem. In this state both armies prepared to pass the winter, both expecting reinforcements, and each ready to take advantage of any favourable opportunity that circumstances might present.

“If this,” said the despondents in England, “be termed the defence of a country, the Portugueze or any other people may well exclaim, God preserve us from such defenders!” “The campaign,” they predicted, “would be renewed in February, with such an accumulation of force on the part of the enemy, as must make the protection even of Lisbon hopeless, much less the deliverance of the Peninsula.” “They knew how galling it must be to the pride of the nation thus to be foiled, and thus, in expedition after expedition, to see the treasures and the blood of their countrymen squandered in vain; but if the public would give confidence to men of shallow intellects, ... to men who, having no real stake in the country, submitted to execute the projects, however extravagant, of the Junta who had so long misguided us, ... they must bear the calamity and disgrace of constant miscarriage. It was a most erroneous view of British policy, to conceive that we could ever, with our limited population and commercial habits, become a military people; and it would be just as rational for the French to strive to cope with us by sea, as for us to enter the lists with them by land. All that they now prayed for was, that our eyes might be at length opened to the true policy which we ought to pursue, that of retrieving our finances, and employing our resources upon objects truly British.” This was the language of the opposition, and it excited now for the first time the fears of the English public, because circumstances as melancholy as they were unforeseen seemed to render it probable that they would soon have it in their power to act upon the principles which they professed.

♦THE KING’S ILLNESS.♦

Toward the latter end of October the Princess Amelia died, after a protracted and painful illness, which she had endured with exemplary meekness and resignation. Aware of what must be its termination, she had some of her hair set in a ring, and one day when her blind father, making his daily visit, came to her bed-side, and held out his hand to her, she put this sad memorial upon his finger silently. Her dissolution occurred so soon afterwards, that she never knew the fatal consequences. The King had suffered intense anxiety during her illness, and when he felt this last indication of his daughter’s love, feeling at the same time but too surely all that it implied, it affected him so strongly as to bring on the recurrence of a malady which had rendered the appointment of a regent necessary two-and-twenty years before. There was, however, good reason for hope, because the disease of mind was not constitutional and hereditary; they who had the best grounds for forming an opinion believed that its foundation was laid by extreme anxiety and consequent insomnolence during the latter years of the American war. The physicians confidently expected that it would prove of short continuance, and therefore parliament having met according to summons, adjourned for a fortnight without a dissentient voice. At the expiration of that term a second adjournment for a similar time was proposed, upon the same grounds, and carried against a small minority: that time also having elapsed, a report of the privy council was laid before parliament, containing the examination of the King’s physicians, all of whom declared it highly ♦1810. DECEMBER.♦ probable that he would recover. Upon this report the house adjourned for a third fortnight, but not without warm debate and a great increase of numbers to the minority. At the end of this third adjournment ministers informed parliament that although a considerable degree of progressive amendment had taken place, and the same confident hopes of ultimate recovery were still entertained, yet the immediate state of his Majesty’s health was not such as could warrant them to propose a farther adjournment. It became necessary, therefore, to deliberate in what manner a regency should be formed.

♦PROCEEDINGS CONCERNING A REGENCY.♦

During the subsequent proceedings, ministers were accused in the most vehement language of flagrant usurpation, and of grossly violating the constitution. They were called a parcel of second-rate lawyers and needy adventurers, who in their desperate ambition cared not for the fate of the nation, so they could only contrive to keep their places and retain the command of the public purse. Their proceedings, it was said, were miserable shams and pretences, tending to inflict a mortal stab upon the constitution of the country, and to vest the government in an oligarchical House of Commons. Mr. Perceval would fain persuade that house to make him governor of the country, and let him put the crown in his pocket. Parliament, therefore, was exhorted to withdraw from ministers as speedily as possible the power which they enjoyed, for the day of their dismissal, it was said, would be the best day England had ever seen. Among the evils which might be expected from the suspension of the executive power, it was urged that no assistance could be sent to Lord Wellington, no money drawn from the exchequer, however indispensable a supply might be at this time. Lord Holland dwelt upon this argument; to which Lord Liverpool replied, he was not aware of any injury to the public service from any such delay, nor that ministers had abstained from any acts, from which, under other circumstances, they would not have advised his Majesty to abstain. At whatever risk to themselves, he said, they would do that which they deemed most conducive to the safety, honour, and interest of the country, leaving it for the justice of parliament to consider of, and decide upon, the grounds of their justification. This reply was not received as it ought to have been. Lord Holland made answer, it was highly proper that indemnity should follow statesman-like measures, called for by necessity; but those who had assumed the functions of the executive power could not be entitled to indemnity for measures rendered necessary by a delay which they themselves had caused. And the Duke of Norfolk observed in the same tone, that if no inconvenience had resulted from the suspension of the executive power, then had ministers in effect taken the sovereignty into their own hands.

♦MR. PERCEVAL.♦

Upon this subject Mr. Perceval spoke with characteristic manliness. “We have not,” said he, “been blind to these things. If ministers should find it necessary to take such steps, they would be justified under the particular circumstances of the case; but they would act under a heavy responsibility, and parliament would be bound in duty to examine their conduct afterwards. I am deeply convinced, that I stand in a situation of as deep responsibility as ever a minister stood in; a double responsibility, a responsibility to the public, and a responsibility to the King my master. I feel this to be our situation; and parliament must have felt it so too, in suffering the delays that have already taken place. Gentlemen opposite may put what construction they please upon what I am about to say; but I do contend boldly before parliament, and before my country, that if, under these circumstances, any measure, in any of the public departments, required the sign manual, the officer at the head of that department would act most culpably if he did not issue the necessary orders to his inferior upon his responsibility. This is the view I have of the situation and of the duties of his Majesty’s ministers; and although gentlemen on the other side have thought proper to insinuate that our measures have been influenced by a desire of retaining our offices, I am sure the house will not be of opinion that our situation is particularly enviable, or one that could by any possibility be an object of choice. We feel ... we admit ... all the inconvenience of the present state of things; but, considering the duration to be but short, are they in any degree equal to the inconvenience of appointing another person to execute the functions of the sovereign; or, in other words, of appointing a regent, unless the necessity of the case absolutely requires it? It is not from feelings of delicacy only that his Majesty’s ministers have acted, but from the conviction that the preserving to his Majesty the power of exercising his authority immediately upon his recovery, without the interruption of a regent, would be a great national advantage. The regent, when appointed, would of course act as he thought best for the interests of the state; and even admitting that the plans which he would adopt would be better than those now pursued, yet I contend, that this change from a bad to a better system, with the probability of again shortly recurring to the old system, would be much more injurious to the welfare of the public, than the inconveniences which have been so strongly urged by the gentlemen on the other side of the house.

“The delay which has taken place has been no covert delay: it has been perfectly open, and the reason why it was asked was fairly stated. We have had no disguise, no subterfuge; our object was broadly and fairly stated to parliament. Sir, I say again, that ministers feel deeply the heavy responsibility of their situation: they know that their conduct will necessarily be examined and scrutinized by parliament; they know that they may have to request justice from parliament for their conduct, at a time when those who are now censuring their conduct with so much acrimony may possess a greater sway than they do at present. Is such a situation, then, a desirable one? Is it an object of ambition? Is it possible that any man, or set of men, can covet such a situation, or wish to retain it, except from the imperious sense of the duty which they owe to their sovereign and to their country? That duty I will perform to the best of my humble abilities, and cheerfully submit my conduct to the justice of parliament and of my country.

“It has been asked, whether, if under the present circumstances the evacuation of Portugal were deemed necessary, any order could be sent out to Lord Wellington for that purpose? And do gentlemen really believe that any difficulty exists upon such a subject? Do they really believe that Lord Wellington would refuse to obey an order transmitted to him, by his Majesty’s secretary of state, for that purpose, merely because he had heard of the King’s indisposition? Undoubtedly they do not: the case they have put is then an imaginary one.... Sir, in the office which I have the honour to hold, money must be taken out of the Exchequer for the public service; it is the bounden duty of ministers to see that service performed; and do the honourable gentlemen opposite think that I would hesitate to draw the money for that purpose?”... At this a loud cry of Hear! hear! was raised from the opposition benches.... “Sir,” pursued Mr. Perceval, “I am unable to account for the distinction which the gentlemen opposite appear to me to make between the two cases which I have put. When I said that ministers would not hesitate to give orders for the evacuation of Portugal, if it were deemed necessary, they seemed, by their silence at least, to acquiesce in what I said; but when I spoke of applying the money voted for the public service to the public service, they affect great astonishment, as if the principle of the two cases was not the same. But do they think that where money has been voted by parliament, and ordered by parliament to be applied to a particular service, that I would hesitate to have that public service performed, for fear of the responsibility that would attach to me? Do they think that I would endanger the best interests of the country, from any consideration of personal danger to myself? Do they think that I would risk a mutiny in the army or the navy, rather than take upon me the responsibility of issuing their pay? No, sir, if I could be guilty of such conduct, I should be unfit indeed for the situation which I hold! I should be guilty of a base dereliction of my duty to my sovereign and my country!”

♦TROOPS SENT TO PORTUGAL.♦

This was no empty language; and however the manly appeal might be lost upon those persons to whom it was immediately addressed, it was not lost upon the people of England. The ministers, with a spirit which alone might be sufficient to atone for all their errors, and entitle them to the lasting gratitude of these kingdoms, had ordered off reinforcements to Lord Wellington, on their own responsibility, at a crisis when they held their power by so precarious a tenure, that it was not unlikely their successors’ orders for the evacuation of Portugal might be upon the seas at the same time. For that this was the policy which the opposition intended to pursue, if, as they now fully expected, they were to be invested with power, ♦ISSUES OF MONEY REQUIRED.♦ was what they themselves avowed. Issues of money also became necessary for the army and navy: money had been appropriated by parliament for these services; but the exchequer act requires that the issue should be under the great seal, or under the privy seal, or by authority of an act of parliament. Mr. Perceval thought that under the existing circumstances it would be proper to use the privy seal: the keeper of the privy seal was willing to take upon himself this responsibility; but the signature of Mr. Larpent, clerk of the privy seal, was likewise necessary, and that gentleman refused to affix it, pleading scruples on account of his oath of office. Mr. Perceval upon this issued an order from the Treasury to the Exchequer, deeming this sufficient, and thinking also that it was better for the responsible servants ♦1811. JANUARY.♦ of the crown to risk the censure, or wait the indemnity of parliament, than to procrastinate public business, by bringing such topics into discussion in the house from time to time. ♦JAN. 1. CONDUCT OF LORD GRENVILLE AS AUDITOR OF THE EXCHEQUER.♦ But when these warrants were brought to Lord Grenville, in his capacity of Auditor of the Exchequer, he returned an answer to Mr. Perceval, requiring time “to consider the nature and extent of the duties which this new and unexpected course of proceeding imposed upon him;” and therefore requesting to know when it was necessary that the money should be issued. He was informed, “that, according to the usual course of supplying the weekly issues to the navy and army, it would be necessary that sums should be issued for both services, beyond the amount of the existing credit at the exchequer, either on the morrow, or the next day at farthest; but if an actual issue could be made within six days, no serious inconvenience was apprehended.” Lord Grenville then desired that the opinions of the Attorney and Solicitor General should be taken. These law officers pronounced, that they “did not think the warrant of the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury was in law a sufficient authority imperative upon the Auditor, nor, consequently, a legal sanction for his proceeding to obey the same; nor that any discretion was left to him by the law on this occasion, for the exercise of which he would not be responsible.” The Lords Commissioners of the Treasury transmitted this opinion to Lord Grenville, informing him at the same time “that their sense of the mischief to the public service, which would arise if any delay should take place, appeared to render it indispensable that the warrants should be forthwith complied with, and that they were consequently ready to take upon themselves the responsibility of any act which might be essential for that purpose.” Lord Grenville replied, that it was matter of the deepest concern to him to be made the involuntary cause of any, even the shortest delay, in an issue of his Majesty’s treasury, stated to him from such high authority to be important to the public service. “If,” said he, “I could be satisfied of the propriety of my doing what is required, there is no personal responsibility which I would not readily incur for the public interests; but I cannot persuade myself, that I could obey those warrants, without a breach of my official duty in that point, which is above all others peculiarly obligatory on the person placed in the situation of Auditor of the Exchequer; nor without a high and criminal violation both of a positive statute, and also of the essential principles of our monarchical and parliamentary constitution.

“I am told,” he continued, “that I must act on my own discretion, for the exercise of which I must alone be responsible. This responsibility, if it legally attaches upon me, I certainly cannot transfer to any other persons, and least of all to your lordships, whatever willingness you have expressed to take it on yourselves. My attempting to do so would itself be criminal; tending to confound the official relations in which I have the honour to stand towards your lordships, and to annul those checks which the law has established for ensuring the faithful discharge of our respective duties, and thereby the security of the public treasure. But I beg leave humbly to submit to your lordships, that the law has in truth invested me with no discretion on this subject. The exigencies of the public service, which your lordships have condescended to detail to me in these your warrants, are matters of state, of which, as Auditor of the Exchequer, I have no knowledge, and can take no cognizance; my official duty is strictly limited to an observance of the accustomed forms of the exchequer, and of the laws which have from time to time been passed for its regulation. To these I am bound to adhere; and it is on the fullest consideration which this pressure of time has permitted me to give them, that I am compelled to decline, but with all due respect to your lordships, a compliance with the requisition contained in those warrants, to which this letter refers.” His lordship concluded, by recommending that the difficulty should be submitted to the consideration of the two houses of parliament, with whom rested the right and duty to provide the means of removing it, and to whose pleasure he would defer with entire submission.

♦JAN. 3.♦

Mr. Perceval immediately laid this correspondence before parliament, saying, “that, though, if it had not been for the difficulty thus unexpectedly started, he should not have thought it expedient to bring the subject under their immediate notice, yet he had always anticipated it as his duty to submit it to their consideration, not for the purpose of obtaining a previous vote of indemnity, but, having incurred the responsibility of action, with the view of calling on the house to determine whether or not ministers had acted justifiably.” He now moved a resolution, that the Lords of the Treasury should issue their warrants for the payment of such sums as were necessary, and that the Auditors and officers of the Exchequer should obey those warrants. In the course of the debate he noticed the argument, that public inconvenience was now proved to have arisen from the delay occasioned by adjournments. “We have,” said he, “this marked, monstrous, abominable, and aggravated case before us, ... and what is it? what is this great public inconvenience? Why, that ministers have found it necessary to come to parliament to authorize the issue of money, for services for which that very money has been appointed!”

The resolution passed without a division; but, in the Upper House, twenty Peers, among whom were all the Royal Dukes, protested against it; because, they said, the principle on which it was founded would justify the assumption of all the executive power of the crown by the two houses of parliament, during any suspension of the personal exercise of the royal authority. This business attracted more notice than it otherwise would have done, because, upon Lord Grenville’s accession to the first place in the ministry after the death of Mr. Pitt, a bill had been passed, empowering him to hold at the same time the offices of First Lord of the Treasury and Auditor of the Exchequer; offices which, it was argued in support of the bill, might without inconvenience be held by the same person. The imprudence of bringing thus to recollection a measure, which at the time had called forth strong animadversions, did not tend to lessen the unpopularity of Lord Grenville and the coalition with which he acted.

♦STATE OF THE OPPOSITION.♦

That party fully expected their return to power. They were strong in borough influence, while Mr. Perceval, owing to the course which he pursued concerning the regency, lost the support of those members of the royal family who had been most closely connected with their father’s government. Their journalists were numerous and active, and they depended upon the Prince’s favour. But though all the various sects and subdivisions of opposition had united in one cry against the king’s ministers, there were too many points of difference between them to be easily accommodated. On the question of what is insidiously termed catholic emancipation they were agreed; but only on that question: the Grenvilles were at variance with all their allies upon the subject of parliamentary reform, and the reformists were at variance among themselves as to the nature and extent of their purposed reformation. The war also was another ground of dissension. One party would have sacrificed our allies, our interest, and our honour, for the sake of obtaining vile popularity, by concluding a nominal and deceitful peace. They saw no difficulty in accommodating our differences with all our enemies; according to them, their country was in the wrong upon every disputed point; we had therefore only to concede every thing to America, and suffer Buonaparte, without farther opposition, to govern Spain and Portugal in his own way: then we might have illuminations for a definitive treaty, transparencies of Peace and Plenty, and quartern loaves and pewter pots carried in jubilant procession, in honour of the reduced prices of bread and porter. This would have been the foreign policy of the radical reformers; that of Lord Grenville and the despondents would have been equally ruinous; believing it impossible that we could resist the military power of France, and yet knowing that peace would be only a snare, they would have carried on a timid defensive war, without the hope or the possibility of bringing it to a glorious termination. Lord Holland, on the contrary, would have acted with additional vigour in aid of Spain; in this he would have been supported by Earl Moira and Mr. Sheridan, and perhaps by the Marquis of Lansdowne and Mr. Ponsonby.

♦THEIR EXPECTATIONS.♦

The hopes, however, of the opposition were raised to the highest pitch, and their partizans scarcely even attempted to conceal their joy at an event, which, as they fully expected, was to restore them to their places. The disposition of the Prince was well known to be favourable to these hopes: he had a personal regard for some of the leaders of the party, and it was believed that many of his political opinions had been imbibed from Mr. Fox. It was therefore probable that a change of ministry would take place; and all the opponents of government, however greatly they differed among themselves as to their ultimate objects, from the regular opposition, under Lords Grey and Grenville, down to the very dregs of the revolutionary faction, vied with each other in exulting over a falling enemy.

♦LANGUAGE OF THE ANARCHISTS.♦

Two years before the King’s illness, one of their journalists had said, that “of all monarchs, since the revolution, the successor of George III. would have the finest opportunity of becoming nobly popular.” This sentence, connected as it was with the anticipation of “a crowd of blessings that might be bestowed upon the country, in the event of a total change of system,” had unwisely been selected for prosecution by Sir Vicary Gibbs, and the defendants were of course acquitted. Such language was perfectly consistent in the Foxites; but in the mouths of the anarchists, the flattery which was now used toward the Prince appeared not a little extraordinary. “Never,” they said, “was there so fair an opportunity for producing a great and salutary effect, as the Prince now had. We want a change of the whole system, a radical and a sweeping change of it; and it is because we hope that such a change would be the consequence of giving full powers to the Prince, that we wish to see full powers given to him. Is not the Prince of Wales as likely to be able to judge of political systems as his father, ... afflicted as the latter unhappily has been in more ways than one, and bent down with age as he now is? Is not the Prince as likely to be able to choose proper advisers as his father was, or ever can be? Why then should powers, of any sort, belonging to the kingly office, be withheld from him? I know it has been said, that we are _bidding_ for the Prince; and who can bid above us? We have to offer him _hearts_, and _sinews_, and _lives_, if he needs them, and we ask for nothing but our well-known rights in return. We want to strip him of nothing. We grudge him and his family nothing that the constitution awards them, or that they could ever wish for, in the way of splendour. All we have to beseech of him is, that he will resolve to be the ruler of a free people, and not the leader of a faction.” ... “His succession to power,” we were told by another of these journalists, “with such opportunities before him, and at so momentous a time, appeared a lot so enviable, that it might turn philosophy itself into ambition. Hitherto he had been seated in that domestic privacy, which he had learnt how to value and dignify. And so wonderfully had past circumstances held back the cause of radical reform, and so favourable for it were the present, that Fate seemed purposely to have reserved the amiable task for his royal highness, that with one restoring breath he might melt away the accumulated oppressions of half a century.”

The wishes of this party concerning the King’s resumption of authority were sufficiently expressed. They told us, it was exposing the government to the contempt of foreign powers, to have a person at the head of affairs who had long been incapable of signing his name to a document, without some one to guide his hand; a person long incapable of receiving petitions, of even holding a levee, or discharging the most ordinary functions of his office; and now, too, afflicted with this mental malady! They cited cases to show how doubtful and precarious were the appearances of recovery from mental derangement; observed that persons having been so afflicted were easily hurried, and inferred that a man subject to hurries was not fit to wield the executive power. When they were charged by their opponents with thus disclosing a determination, that if they acceded to power the King should never resume his functions, the manner in which the charge was repelled was such as confirmed it. “Every one,” they said, “expresses regret that the King, or that any other human being, should be afflicted with blindness. But old age is old age, and blindness is blindness, in a King as well as in other men; and when blindness is unhappily added to old age, and to both are added _mental derangement_, is it unreasonable that people whose happiness or misery must, in a great degree, depend upon their government, should be solicitous that _great caution_ should be used in the resumption of the royal authority by a person thus afflicted?”... “Throw him into a corner!” exclaimed a ministerial writer, when he exposed with indignation the wishes of this party; “tell him, this is the lot reserved for a king who has reigned so long!” The reply to this was any thing rather than a confutation or denial of the charge. “We have had nothing to do with the _lot_,” said a mouthpiece of the anarchists; “we have had no hand in making the King either old, or blind, or mentally deranged. The _lot_ has fallen upon him. The first is the lot of every man, and is generally esteemed a very fortunate lot; the second is nothing very rare, and it is by no means an unfrequent companion of old age; and the third, and all three, are the work of nature, and not of any of us. And as to the King’s having reigned so long, there is neither merit nor demerit in that, either in him or his people.”

♦MR. PERCEVAL POPULAR AT THIS TIME.♦

Whether the agitators and anarchists really believed that the Prince could be so infatuated as to countenance their plans for a radical and sweeping change, ... or whether they held out this hope to their dupes and disciples, in order that their certain disappointment might engender a deadlier disaffection, is best known to themselves; but if, abstaining from their indecent attempts to show that the King ought never to be permitted to resume his authority, they had talked of no other reform than that of curtailing the power of what they called the borough-mongering faction, there never was a time when the better part of the people would have been so well inclined to listen to their arguments. Mr. Perceval had never stood so high in public estimation as at this moment. When first he came into power, the tide of popularity was in favour of him and his colleagues: because any men would have been popular who succeeded to the administration which was then displaced; but a series of untoward events had for a time lessened his hold upon the country, without in any degree diminishing the general dislike with which his opponents were regarded. The unhappy expedition to Walcheren drew after it a cry of grief and disappointment, against which, perhaps, he could scarcely have borne up, if Sir Francis Burdett, by a factious dispute with the House of Commons, had not, most unintentionally, but most effectually, drawn off the public attention at the very moment when the decision upon the inquiry came on. It was always asserted by his enemies, that he held his situation, not through any weight of influence in the country, nor of talents in parliament, but through the confidence and especial favour of the King; and that nothing could be more unfit than that the British prime minister should be thus dependent upon, and literally, as it were, the servant of the crown. They who argued thus against Mr. Perceval’s administration did not perceive how strong an argument they supplied against that system, to which they themselves owed their only power; certain, however, it is, that Mr. Perceval was thought a weak minister, because he wanted that influence; and a sense of this weakness seems sometimes to have made him assent to measures which he would gladly have prevented, if he had held his situation by a stronger tenure. But when the prop upon which he really had leaned, and by which it was believed that he was entirely supported, was suddenly taken away, then it was that he felt his own resources, and the people saw him confident in his motives and measures, and with the strength of integrity hold on his steady course; not to be deterred from what he knew to be his duty, either by the clamours and threats of the faction within doors, and the demagogues without; nor by the expressed displeasure of the Prince, in whose power it would presently be to dismiss him from office. Then, perhaps, for the first time, he became conscious of his own powers, and the dignity of his nature shone forth; it was seen that the man, whose individual character was without a spot, carried the pure principles of his privacy into public action, and possessed the steadiness and intrepidity of a statesman in as eminent a degree as the milder and most endearing virtues of domestic life. Mr. Perceval never held so high a place in public opinion as the favoured minister of the King, in full and secure possession of power, as now, when he was only the faithful servant of a master who was no longer sensible of his services, and no longer capable of supporting him.

♦SCHEMES FOR A NEW MINISTRY.♦

Accustomed as the various members of opposition were to coalitions, and compromises, and concessions, it was no easy task to form a coherent ministry out of such heterogeneous elements. At the very commencement of the arrangements, Lords Grey and Grenville could not accord, and the Earl left town in disgust; they found it, however, expedient to agree, and he returned in time to give counsel when the Prince had to answer the proposed restrictions sent to him by parliament. It is said that the answer which these lords had advised was shown by the Prince to Mr. Sheridan, and that Mr. Sheridan declared it would prove of the most pernicious consequences, inasmuch as it could hardly fail to involve the Prince in a dispute ♦1811. FEBRUARY.♦ with the House of Commons. This opinion was followed, and the answer which was delivered was composed according to Mr. Sheridan’s counsel. The two leading opposition lords were offended at this, and intimated, that as his Royal Highness had not deemed it proper to adopt their advice, they could not be of any service to him in the intended arrangement. The Prince upon this requested Lord Holland to form an administration; but Lord Holland had no influence, and was utterly unable to ensure majorities. The Prince, therefore, who now began to feel the difficulties of government, was driven back to Lords Grey and Grenville, and a temporary conciliation took place. The triumph of the opposition seemed now to be complete; they thought the field was their own, and that nothing remained but to distribute the spoils. This distribution, however, excited claims and contentions, of which the Prince heard more than he liked.

♦THE KING’S OPINION DURING AN INTERVAL OF AMENDMENT.♦

When the time of the regency drew near, Mr. Perceval waited on the King at Windsor, and found him well enough to converse upon public affairs, though not sufficiently recovered to bear the weight of business. He inquired anxiously concerning the Prince’s conduct, and expressed great joy at finding that he had not thrown himself entirely into the hands of a party who were directly hostile to all the measures of his father’s government; and he desired that the Queen would write to the Prince, to signify this approbation, and to request that he might not be harassed on his return to society by having to ♦THE PRINCE REGENT ANNOUNCES HIS INTENTION OF MAKING NO CHANGE. FEB. 4.♦ change an ephemeral administration. The Prince, it is said, was well pleased to be thus relieved from the difficulties in which he found himself involved by jarring opinions and contending claims. He made known his determination of making no change to the opposition; and on the day before the regency bill passed, he officially acquainted Mr. Perceval that it was his intention not to remove from their stations those whom he found there as the King’s official servants. “At the same time,” said he, “the Prince owes it to the truth and sincerity of character, which, he trusts, will appear in every action of his life, explicitly to declare, that the impulse of filial duty and affection to his beloved and afflicted father leads him to dread that any act of the Regent might, in the smallest degree, have the effect of interfering with the progress of his Sovereign’s recovery. This consideration alone dictates the decision now communicated to Mr. Perceval. Having thus performed an act of indispensable duty, from a just sense of what is due to his own consistency and honour, the Prince has only to add, that, among the many blessings to be derived from his Majesty’s restoration to health, and to the personal exercise of his royal functions, it will not, in the Prince’s estimation, be the least, that that most fortunate event will at once rescue him from a situation of unexampled embarrassment, and put an end to a state of affairs ill calculated, he fears, to sustain the interests of the united kingdom in this awful and perilous crisis, and most difficult to be reconciled to the genuine principles of the British constitution.”

♦MR. PERCEVAL’S REPLY.♦