The Sun. — London, England, 1801-02-20 00:00:00

of the .Honourable Getieral' WhO• had th&Cotii mand ,of that. Expedition, +there • was . nothing against him, his chatallier, was . always- full of manliness . and courage; that .he had never.flinched, even when it .was a_sisk of life.; ...but he apprehended that a n excellent cha . raCter .of, the General was no reason for not going: into an. Inquiry.- He had no ;doubt, the Honorable. General could give .a very fall explanation of this business, -and he should be glad to hear him ; but he should have .thought, • that he deserted the duty he.ewed to the Public, if he had omitted the lilotion with which he was now about to con- chide. There was one thing which he had for gotten.to state, which was stated to him; for the truth of.it.he did not. vouch, •but if true, it was a. latnentable event ; It Was this—That in this E t xpedition,,a, Transport of ours, with 4.00 Men, sunk, .and every -soul perished, .1-le,, concluded with moving, " That this House do resolve itself into a Committee. of the whdle House,_ to inquire into the failure o the Expedition against Fer_ to]." . g o irat Sir JAMES , NATENEY said, he thought he ought to make an apology to . the House for offering himself now to its not e, but' he trusted the House would excuse him for a 'reason which Was too obvious for him to mention.— After what had been said on this subject, it was natural for him to wish to explain himself; hitt much, as he might wish to do so, yet if the doing it could in the least degree involve him in . the necessity of disclosing any secrets which might have been entrusted to him as Commander of this Expedition, he should. have forgone all his wishes, because he should have then thought it his duty to be silent, and he hoped . he should be,.always ready to sacrifice his wishes to his duty ; but he apprehended that no Instrudions which he ,received,, or any thing which ought to remain a secret, would be at all involved in the statement ,which he had to make to the House upon this' subjeft—He should . therefore state the casein the fidleSt manner, and then the House would consider whether. any Inquiry would be neces sary or not. In the first 'place, he would ob serge, and he was not• afraid of being contras dided when he did so; that all Expeditions have •irt•Thein•sotterhitig th'at'is . • mote difficult' and ar duous than any other branch. of• Military Service. That they should be undertaken with 'caution, he apprehended , also, would - be readily allowed, and that an °Meet should , well' weigh the danger to which an .etiterpsie. will expose his force, and calculate uporytht risk - , he apprehended, would not. be denied, . He would nut dwell very nukli on. the probabls 'loss of z or •300- Men in the en_ terpri ze ; he should, as a man, lament the loss, - if. it happened ; but 'as a .Commander of a Milis tary. linterprize, hii consideration would - be confined to 'the objeCl 'to be obtained, ,and as *much. as possible.' to the general state of the "Corps. he could have attained the cibjea with the loss of zoo men;. or a. much ,greater number, he should not have. thought .. himself justified in . desisting cm that 'aceOunt.' that, however, was not , the case, as it ap reared,. for not only.• that loss most probably wo u ld have taken place, but also the whole Army • • *night either 'have been destroyed or ruined.— With that impression, he certainly thought that it was his duty to desist froth the attack, for un. questionably in his mind it would have involved the safety - of the whole body ... of the Corps; and without entering into the Insttudions which he had from GOVerlillloll., he should spew- that to issake the attacks,. as the !-lon. Gentleman had ex.. pressed, and others : might have expressed, not only would.. hay.e . - expesect a great body ; of the Troops to' loss, but ,might have-pet. to hazard som e ., thji l g hat could! . hardly be ,calculated in, its value, as to the effeel it might have op the..whole, Campaign, an the certainty of a great loss. and diminution of Force. ',Me hoped he should be able to make this manifest 'to the House, and also to answer, to the satisfadion of the House, 04jeaiops• which had been made, to his con di/4 in the command,of the Force in that Expe claton. He should endeavour, although treating of a military subjed, to speak. in ,such a manner - a - s-to be perfectly understoo4 by every MeMber oFthe House, ItOwever unacquainted with mill ra'y:opetationi. should refer to, and rely on, sit - cirtopies as mast" likely had, certainly might, ciiine to the . possession o f every Gentleman of rtiat House,.-and should not rest on any assertion of Ms •dwn, • The Honotirahle' Gentleman had, ste7y properly; stated hOw the"FrOopi'latided and got possession of the Heights. That possession gave them a full' opportunity of observing the ToWn and Fort, and•certainly, in softie dc!gree, ituinbeeof the - Enemy who were :he'll opposed to them. The number of the Enemy, from -his own obServation, and the •observation of (Alters on -whose•judgment he , was hound in a certain de grce to depend, •as well ;a4 from information which he'-collided from . ' , SOme Prisoners, that is, the numbers of theEnentv in and out. of, but near the Town, at the time the' Force under-Min-corn inanded the Heights, wasat•lcait 6000 men. As to the observations- he -made 'on the'lVot•ks and the situation of the - place, helound•Ferrol was pro toded on three Sides by the. 'sea, or rather arms of the sea. • The fourth was regularly fortified for the extent of from sixteen to eighteen Mins dred yards. It• had six bastions and a curtain - which conrieded them - with a. stone parapet, or rather stone wall. These works• were all of per_ fefilfgood order andlate construdion.• 00 one pirt,,where- the-arm of the sea extended, there was a rings of i-ocks, which gitve great iirbtedion refftteirriTSftreifzftlit' tittbrks; and whi.slr-ite mitt. tioneci only to give an idea of the works, and which every one thereladdn opportunity of ob. serving, and. which were very w attentively ob served by other, O ffi cers as w ell: as himself. This being the state.of the place, thus .strong by nature and fortified by art, and maintained by force, it did certainly appear 'to hiM that, morally spea ing, there was no chance of success if he had at tacked it. Hehad doubt then, frrim his own Ob servations, that thiewits a right conclusion. The Officers Ite—sonv-ersed -wi th had • no doubt : —tha t Opinion had since been confirmed by that which ap= peared to him the best authority upon this subject, . . . namely, the authority of His .T.Viajestrs'EnemieS— Here he quoted that which had been published from the Madrid Gazette, as a 'thnfirmation of the opinion he had)fUemed•of the strength fertile Oita—and maintained, that this disposed ;at once: of the whole Question, as far as , it- regarded the' supposed facility;of taking the Tewn. 'He ob. : servest, that the observations he made were;early . • in the. morning of - the 26th .of August-. At two o'clock on the same day he perceived a Canip of Grenadiers and Chasseurs, which made a very formidable appearance. . Besides this, the Troops which - came - from Corunna to Ferrol, made the ,Enethy at this time amount to about 7 or 8000 men: Now this being- the -case; he could not agree to the assertion that the Town of Ferrol was at this time open and defenceless ; indeed the Enemy themselves had acknowledged that they were very strongly garrisoned there. Such in- , . deed was their feeling- of the strength of the place, that zOOO men who were in a certain po sition, changed it so as to pot-our. Troops be tween them and the - town ; .this chewed they : were confident of their strength, and this•appear ed from the account published by the Enemy, and, the General said, confirmed the ideas he had formed of the place. He could not, therefore, assent to the assertion, that the opinion he formed of the place was 'lightly taken up, on a ground that- was proved to be erroneous. There was' another, part of the assertion of the Hon. Gentle man which demanded an explanation from. him— He observed, that .the Fort had no artillery. There certainly was no time lost in the landing of our Troops, nor any , delay in gaining the Heights. Our Troops arrived at the Heights at five o'clock in the morning, and he observed can ;non mounted upon the Ramparts, and our Troops had•a pretty severe adion in the evening. This being the state of things, the General saicL cer tainly he did think, and certainly does now think, that it was not advisable for us to attack that place. He did take upon himself the whole re- I sponEibility of the measure of the Retreat from that place. At the same-time he begged to he ( understood, as being of opinion that he should have been to blame if he had nos endeavoured to profit by the experience of the Officers he had with him, whose advice *he thought it hi's duty to take, and'did take.—They were most respea able Officers. He did therefore take their . opinion, nor in the form of a Council of War, as. the Honourable Gentleman had btst i in another way: ' They were, however, all of opinion-that an attack upon that - place • of fered -.no' adequate prospedt of success—There was one `Officer'. who: did hot • then make up his mind on the subject, and he gave the General his reason for it ;.hersincelie had - deciared to the General, from - what he then saw, and what he had since -learnt, •he was of the opinion - which the General had entertained- and - acted upoh in this • business. An Officer - of Engineers had - been alluded to this night, and it was said that that I Officer had declared it to beihis opinion that the place might be taken by Escalade in the night ; but this. was ;an iimperfed -recital of the opinion of chat Officer, for although he had said he thought the. Town might be taken -by Escalade in • the night, yet even •he ;had. said there• was much risk and danger in -the-attempt ; he only. thought it _ , might be. successful ..--The General then isaid; he' should nor' enter 'minutely into these i points; at. present ; • hiss opinion then was -en tirely ditiercnt from thel'opiltion . .of that Engineer upon that ; stilsjeet; mid his opinion now was the 'same-as it .was.then.- - Undoubtedly, Ferrol w as not, a; very strongly fortified Town ; but he was lconvinced; it , otfered us much difficulty to- an Es. „ .. . learadeior a Coup - -deeetaine . as a strongly fortified I Towm These were the; circumStanees, the-: Ge neral said; under which lie . had . formed his opinion ;then, an opinion' which he certainly adhered to, • : which was, that. the operation 'of attacking' to ' take this place, could not have succeeded. As to the-remarks of the Engineer, he must observe, that if the . Engineer had madeean-•Otrer of any Plana - the Place, or of the:Attack . ; or had taken 1 any measures in his own professiorr to, make him. sellunasterof the subje6l, or - had attempted . to ' devise Me-tins - for carrying it. into execution, • the opinion of ' an Engineer must have had •a great effeet ;• but, upon the 'bare sohjeti of an. Escalade-, without any thing else to'be joined with the opinion-of an Engineerei was no. better than the opinion. of any other .Officer ; - for the subject. of an • Escalade was as easily .judged • of by one Officer as by-another ; a man's being an .En gineer gave-him no 'superiority in that respeel ; arid the General added, that : apeaking: on this subjeel impartially, as he ought to do, on therquali, ties _of those who-were under:his command, - he was bound- to 'say, that those who diared from this:Engineer, ill opinion upon this -subjeet, were persons who had seen more general service, than he , -had seen, and they.deeided':that: an Escalade could not e without' - imminent danger, be under taken.. Why, then the only - remaining question was,- whether it was prudenvto have entered into a regular siege. Now that ;could not • be 'done without brin*ing -up' heavy' cannon, and much preparation for a . -batter)% - He' did :not know whether the' House -would 'wish •him to go much in detail upon that subjesEt, he would only say; that his opinion. was 'against making that at.. tempt, and every Officer he conversed with upon the subject, was of his opinion ; . this opinion they formed from the nature of the Coast, and the 'tnountains• by which the place is environed : he trust have taken Fort St. Philip, during-which time the Fleet would. have remained in a very hazardous situation ; he must then have made a large detachment. to -the 'opposite side oldie Har bour to protedt it ; so that. he would' only 'have had 7 or 8000 been to airre, on the Siege. —Now, upon the subject of Siege; general ly speaking, it had been understood, as not ad: visabie, unless • the Besiegers were three to one in number; to the Besieged.tt Certainly it had never been - thought prudent . to undertake • it with an inferior number to the Besieged, - and in this case, there would have been: twelve--'or thirteen thousand of-the Enemy ready, la •- ad dition to the Garrison, before we could have , opened the Trenches 4. and in that case,' to open siege, would havebeen-perfect madness. These • were tee reasons, .the General said, which induced him- ty:-desist from the 'operation intended by: the Exs*dirions There. had' been many. reports upon • this .subject.; it - was. Unnecessary- for him to take. notice of them all—but some of the reports he would. just touch upon. It had been said, that the Town was ready to capitulate; and that the Governor came out with the Keys, and that there were only a few Hundred Men in the Town ; and that the Admiral offered' to take it at once with a few Men : these stories were such palpable von sense, that. the House would excuse him from, saying a • word upon them. But he would say a few words on some reports said to be pre valent among some part of - the , Land Force. —And first, as to the pannic with which the Enemy was supposed to be struck, he was confident there was no foundation for that idea, for although they lost t 30 -men in the skirmish, they did not appear to be in any confusion what ever.—As to the confusion which was seen in•the Town, it was only the cenfusion Which is to be seen in any town among the inhabitants who are not military persons:, whenever they apprehend any attack from an Enemy, and this was the case here; a number of Merchants and Tradesmen - appeared to be confused from this eppreltension, but this had not the smallest conneaion with the strength of the place.—As to the facility of taking Fort St. Philip, and that it was abandoned as had been said, and that there were only: about 5o men 'in it ; he saw many men going oft he saw about Roo retire from the Fort, not out of fear,' but because these men were more than the Fort could conveniently hold. Another report which was extremely important for the House to• coh,isler was, that the Admiral offered -to go ih with his Fleet and take the place ; and thia acco et had been very much relied on, and the Ad o%••• had been repeatedly represented as hay ing''' monstrated with the General on the broaching of the idea of a Retreat ; but the • truth was, the General said, the Admiral never offered the slightest obje4lion to the General's Retreat, nor did any one of the Officers offer any objdtion to such Retreat ; nor did any conversation he had .previously had with the Admiral, ever tend in the least degree to give the General an idea that the Admiral had any" such objeCt in view as had been stated that •he had. The HOuse, however, might be assured that he did not mean to cast on any of these Gallant (Akers' the least ;. reflettion .. whatever ; he only . meant to ailedge, .t h at iio spat proposal vs as made to him as had been so often and so confidently stated. Another point deserved par ticular notice. It had: been stated, the General said, that he had retreated on this .occasion, in consequence of private orders from the Com- mender in Chief. How Such a thing could have been asserted, or how it grew up Into a report, lie knew not, but certain it was, there was, no foundation for it : he said - he-wanted no >such-. apology ; and on. that subject a single sentence was enough ; that Illustrious Fersonage was in capable of giving any order that was contrary to the interest of> his Country. There were other reports of an absurd natute upon 'this subjeCt— andanany of them t urned s upon some opinions which had been given by Officers in the two Ilieinches of the Sers ice. As to the opinions which lukue been entertained by. some Officers of the Navy, the House would consider, whether they wet e, or were not the best judges of Military affairs ; as to the Officers of inferior rank in theA tiny, 'ilany of them disapproved of the Re treat, the observation upon them .was, that they were in a situation for the most part in which their proper attention .to.their duty excluded them from the chance of• observing this place 'and the force. of it, in such a manner as - qualified them to form a very good opinion upon thesubjeCt, not. to insist upon it that their experience and judg ment was necessarily inferior to Many others with whom the General had conversed, and all of whom had approved of that Retreat. — In a word, these Gentlemen who, had expressed their disapprobation of this Retreat, were good Officers, but' they had not the same- means of judging as.. others, their Seniors, 114—Hay. ing 'already mentioned to the House ,how the matter stood in point of fael, the question then would be s " Whether experienced Officers in the. Army, having approached and examined the. place, and having taken all the circumstances. the case into consideration, were, or were better judges of that case, than those who ne saw . the place. at all,, which was the.case with same e or those who having seen theeplace e had neither leisure nor ability to form. the best opi nion of it, which was the case of others ?." Much had been said on the subjdt'af the Retreet having this ideato 'inany . been' s`o quick, and . I I led error's upon the matter, and Might, said, deed, to be the great foundation of all the errors which had laid hold of the minds' of some persons on this subjea. To this he would not oppose any argument, he would barely assert that Ferrol' al ;though an objet, was not the only objeA.of this Expedition, nor the only place in view ; and this his consideration also, had its share in deter mining him to adopt The line he did : He should )lave adopted the same line of eanduCt, even if the Garrison had been, in some • consider eble degree,. different from what it was : 7 -He was determined to avoid every unnecessary loss he did not think he should have been aft-' ing the part .of a good General, if, for the sake of a little temporary personal - reputation, he was to risk the loss of any part of the Forces under ' his command: objea was to save his Tioops much as possible from loss : He knew that every hour was attended with danger and hazard, especially as the place was extremely.unfa enure ble, for the Troops, as they could not get into the Boats at all, • except in a certain state of t: • tide. As to the difference of opinion which was stated to have existed-between the Army and the Ness} , upon this subjeft, he begged leave to say he knew of no' such difference, other than than, that of which he had already -taken notice. But us to what . the Hon. Gentleman had said upon the supposed opinion of the Engineer, upon the practicability of taking this place by our. Troops, it was entirely groundless, except that of his having iaid•he believed it was poisible ; 'but that was attended with a qualification of his being of opinion it would have been attended with danger, and this opinion was, that the thing was to be ex., muted by Escalade, in which the opinion of an En gineer was no . bet ter than that of any other Officer. The a tryth was, thattliete was no foundation in fa 6 for this9pinion of the. Engineer.—tikt the Coun cilof War,. if a COW)CiI of War it was to be cal- led,. that Engineer-was present, - and all the. other Officers told- the General they were convinced .it was impossible to etreet it. It had been stated, that he was to blame iOr not having. summone4 . the Town to surrender : the truth was, _that he had a Summons in.his pocket, properly writtea, out, but after learning the, real. strength of t he place„ and the number of the Enemy that were within, and still great number that were near it, being convinced there was no prababili tyof success, he did not send the Summons to the Town to surren. der, because he did not wish to expose the Country which he came from to disgrace and ridicule.— As to the variety of gallant offers which parts of, the Army were supposed to have made, to take this place by a coup,de-main, he could as- sure the House, that such. offers had been kept a profound secret from him. On the . subject of run ning down the Transport-with 400 of our Men in it, he could only say, that he never heard of that circumstance before this night, nor would, he have been .answerable, if the faa had been so.-- He might follow step by step, every report that had been made in this case, but that he thought that would be taking up improperly the rime of the House. He thought however . it was but right to say, that, by accidents which* human prudence could not prevent, he was disap. pointed, on his arrival off the Coast, of intel ligence upon, which he had.depended. His Ma jesty!s 'Ministers, nor any body else on our part, were to blaitle, that the objea was frustrated.- He afted, on .a view of all the circumstances, for the best in behalf of this Country, and he had some considerable information on the spot ; he would however say, that in his opinion His Majesty's Ministers were perfealy justified in the manner in which they caused these 'Troops to be employed—And although = the intelligence on which the plan •was.,formed was not perfect, yet it did convey a sufficient ground of-hope to justify the enterprise. Ile concluded with saying, that notwithstanding all the attempts that had been made to affix - blame . upon him, he did not once feel tfie slightest regret at hisown,cOndurt: Ifhis opinion had not been confirmed by the opinion of others, he should have aeled as did, becadse he must, 'to be honest, have .a4ted,- not upon the . judgment of others, but his owo, for that was the sole guide in time of the greatest difficulty. for a Commander .; and had he followed any other • course, he should have thought himself unworthy • of, his situation ; for, Coovinced ai.hc Wati, the , operation would not have succeeded, it would have been vain, for. the. sake of his ,own personal . _reputation to have attempted it, and thereby to• hazard the fate of the Troops under his com. mand : but he had the satisfation of feeling that he. aacd conformably to the opinion of the most, distinguished Officers whose opinions he took, and he hoped, he should this night also receive the sanction of that House upon that ..übjed. Air. JEKYLL said, that in his opinion the lion. Gentleman who had just sat down was bound to thank his Honourable Friend for the. Motion which he had now brought forward, as it afforded him an opportunity Of explaining the' circumstances respeaing , this Expedition. He was free to .confess, that for one he was pettedly satisfied with the account which the Hon. Ge. 1-ncral had given ; he had not only cleared him_ 'self from every impiitatiOn, but had, at least in Ihis,opinion, completely fixed the guilt upon Mi. nisters. It would then remain fur them to clear themselves to their Country, and to account for this failure. If, Upon inquiry, ,it should appear that Ministers had undertaken this plan without due information, they would not be able in their defence to say that • they had- not the means of acquiring information, for Parliament had not refused to grant. them what they- thought it right to ask for Secret Service Money. It was no excuse to that House for the enormous expence of that Expedition, to say, that the Troops upon landing found it impossible to take the place, because, it was surrounded on three sides by the. sea, and , because it was surrounded 'on the fourth by bastions and curtains, be 'cause these were circumstances which Ministers .ought to have known before .the:: undertook the ;Expedition. Instead of this, however, it ap.. ,peared that they had given the Hon. General in 'struCtions tolook at Ferrol, without ever appriz ing him of the dangers he had to encounter. He did not know. wha t wean these Gentlemen—....they were a sort of Ephemeral Beings, a sort nfNon de.scripts in Politics—they said they would be ready at all times. to meet inquiry, but in three or four days more, perhaps, they would-nolonger be Ministers, they would no longer be in respon.. iible situations. In whatever tharader,however, they.' might appear, he thought the Country had a right to .ask them why they sent out such a uumber of brave men, without knowing 'the force to which 'they exposed them ? 'There was one • point in which he did 'nOt agree with the Hon. General, who had saxes that he conceived that the Ministers were justified in sending'out *this Expedition. He saw no ground upon which they Could . prove the propriety of hazarding such force, if they had a further Expedition in view. The Country had a right. to is full explanation upon this subjed ; it way highly itripottant to the Country that the livel of so. many brave men should not be endangered, withouts.some 4 round., of success. We were at present 'trembling for the fateof the Expedition under Sir R. AB ItC ROSO Y, and under these circumstances,, lie did nOt think it right that the present Ministers should slink from Administration without fully explaining ' I their conduct. A great part of the twenty-eight: Millions ,which had been voted might perhaps be • spent in similar Expeditions, and therefore the House was bound to make a stril inquiry into the subject. Upon the whole, it appeared to him