ing two regiments from Lisbon to the army on the frontier of Portugal, and observed how little statesmen at home knew of these difficulties, in the emphatic words, 'My Lord Wellesley does not know all this.' Lord Wellington was no less solicitous about the arrangements to be made for transporting and provisioning the army, than about the military operations themselves. Mr. Bissett, who acted as Chief Commissary during the absence of Mr. Kennedy, told me that on the day of the battle of Salamanca, Lord Wellington sent for him. He found the General lying on his camp-bed, having devoted an hour or two to repose, while a division which he had sent for, to take part in the battle, was coming up from a distance. Mr. Bissett told me that Lord Wellington entered with the greatest detail into the arrangements to be made for the transport and supply of the army with provisions. Thus, on the eve of a great battle, Lord Wellington could refresh his bodily energies by a short repose, and dictate the complicated arrangements necessary for an army whose means of transport and whose food were paid for and not extorted by force. While he did so, his mind was undisturbed by the immediate prospect of an impending battle, in which his fame and his life were to be exposed to a hazard which might have appalled men of the greatest courage.

In the autumn of 1813, I again saw Lord Wellington at his head-quarters in the Pyrenees. It was either at

Lesaca or at Vera that I was for a day at the British head-quarters. I could not but feel admiration and joy at beholding the General whom I had visited in a critical position, defending with difficulty the capital of Portugal, now advancing in command of an admirable army to the invasion of France. The same coolness, the same imperturbable judgment in the midst of danger, distinguished him in the advance as had marked his prudent defence of the lines of Torres Vedras. My brother, Lord William Russell, who was on his staff, told me that on one occasion a single division of the army having crossed a river, Lord Wellington with a few officers of his staff likewise crossed with a view to observe the enemy. In the evening the river was flooded, and it swelled with such rapidity that it was impossible to pass from one bank to the other. The officers of the staff showed much anxiety lest the French should take advantage of the dangerous position of a single division of the army and overwhelm General and troops with their superior forces. Lord Wellington, alone, remained perfectly calm, and never betrayed the slightest symptom of uneasiness or anxiety. Such was, in fact, the strength of mind upon which the whole British Army relied, stronger than the arms they bore, unconquerable as the discipline by which they were united and controlled. Thus Ovid, in describing Cadmus when about to encounter the Python, says

telum splendenti lancea ferro,

Et jaculum; teloque animus præstantior ullo.

Such was the spirit by which, at the end of this great contest, the constancy, courage, and perseverance of the British people, animating the prostrate nations of the Continent, at length achieved a triumph over the most formidable combination of military genius, warlike population, conquering armies, and political talent, which ever threatened the independence of our country.

In 1814, happening to be with my father at Florence, I found there was an opportunity of going to Elba in a brig of war, and I eagerly availed myself of the occasion to have an interview with the late master of Europe. To Lord Ebrington (afterwards Lord Fortescue) he had spoken fully of his past life, and the accusations which history might bring against him, but when I saw him he was in evident anxiety respecting the state of France, and his chances of again seizing the crown which he had worn for ten years. I was so struck with his restless inquiry, that I expressed in a letter to my brother in England my conviction that he would make some fresh attempt to disturb France and govern Europe.

In speaking of the Duke of Wellington, Napoleon said it was a mistake to send him as Ambassador to Paris-On n'aime pas un homme par qui on a été battu.'

The coalition of 1815 and the Battle of Waterloo

put an end to Napoleon's enterprise and restored peace to Europe.

I have pointed out what I conceive to have been the error of policy of the Whig party, when they failed to see that the war of 1808 was a war in a great popular struggle, linked closely with the cause of the independence of Europe. After the peace of 1815 the Tory party committed an error as great, and still more irretrievable.

During the continuance of the war, men readily listened to the saying of Windham, that it is dangerous to repair our house in the hurricane season, and thus Lord Eldon, Lord Sidmouth, and other bigoted Tories were permitted to leave windows which shut out the light, and passages that led to nothing,' in the Palace and the Parliament. But when the storm was over, men would naturally survey the building, repair the crumbling walls, and admit the excluded rays of the sun. A wise Ministry would have studied Mr. Pitt's policy from 1784 to 1792, and would have found how little ground there was for considering him as an enemy to extended commerce and religious freedom.

As, however, the majority of the ministers preserved in 1816 the attitude their great leader had taken in 1793, it behoved the Whigs, who had toasted in the worst of times The cause of civil and religious liberty all over the world,' to come forward and under happier auspices to propose the reform of our foreign policy, our

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financial system, our commercial exclusions, our intolerant laws, and lastly of our Parliamentary representation.

The foreign policy of our Government was at this time a timid repudiation of all those doctrines of national liberty and independence which had been inscribed on our flag at the end of the war, and which had led Madame de Staël to declare that the Tories of England were the Whigs of Europe.

Our financial system was based on the necessity of keeping up a Navy and Army suited to our high position, and of paying the interest of a debt which, having amounted to one hundred and thirty millions before the American War, had risen to eight hundred and thirtysix millions at the death of George III. In order to defray these expenses, the taxation of the country had penetrated to every corner and cranny of an Englishman's life, in the manner described with so much humour, and no less truth, by Sydney Smith.

With the same object of collecting a large revenue, and also of promoting native industry, prohibition and protection pervaded our commercial code.

No Roman Catholic could hold high civil office, or be admitted to a seat in Parliament. No Protestant dissenter could hold any official position without nominally, at least, submitting to what, in his eyes, were degradation and profanation.

Last of all, our Parliamentary representation was a mockery and a scandal.

But I must explain these various matters of grievance