Star.
London, England, 1810-03-28 00:00:00

Lion; as to the taking of Antwerp by assault, they
admitted it to be a, thing not improbable. But as
to the evidence 'cif Colonel Gordon, which was.relied
on ,by those who opposed the policy of this Expedi-
ei as the strongest of all the opinions that had been
given against that measure ; be admitted that Colo-
nel Gordon was a man of an useful understanding ;
but he was,-however, a person of very little practice
in his profeision, as an officer viewing things in the
true light in which they ought to be inthis mat-
ter, he had not the means of,qualifying himself to
form a correct judgment on things of this kind, for
he had seen very little service at all on a great scale,
such as this Expedition was planned upon, although
he had seen much set-eke of another, and much less
extended nature ; aod therefore, as to the general
. opinion of the mode of commanding, an army upon a
large scale, the judgment of Colonel Gordon, al-
though he was a man of very good sense on other
matters, was not the.best nerson to be applied to for
conclusive judgment on such a topic ; it was, on the
contrary, to be received with very great abatement ;
in a werd, an adequate judgment could not be for-
med on such matters by any but men who had seen
a great deal of general service. Of the character of
Colonel
.Gordon's opinion upon this subject, a to-
lerable jiidgment might be formed from the mode
of attack he recommended against Antwerp, a mode
which was sufficiently defective to• call on those
who comprehended the matter to doubt the sound-
ness of the judgment.of • that gallant Officer on this
• expedition. ljedisposeci, inmuch the same manner,
of the opinion which had !wen given upon this expedi-
tion by Sir W. Erskine; he hadtnuch regard, and in-
deed an hereditary respect for that gallant Officer ;
knew him to be brave, and worthy of his station ; had
the pleasure of serving with his father; but he, like
Colonel Gordon, was a man unacquainted with the
mode of disposing an immense force upon a large scale
of military operations. Colonel Gordon and Sir Wm.
Erskine were men of undoubted military merit ; but
their knowledge was of a minute kind, not of that ex-
panded comprehensive nature which alone could qualify
them to-form an edequate opinion upon such a vast
force as this Expedition embraced ; and therefore they
were two of the last opinions that ought to have been
taken on such a question as the present. He then
maintained, that the intelligence which Government
received as to the state of Antwerp was, that its gar-
rison was in a defective state, that there were in it
actually two breached, and which intelligence was
afterwards corroborated, so far as that the ditch
was actually dry and unfit to receive water, and also
.that the troops were few in number, and made up of
noneffective men ; that the enemy was not in a state
of preparation to resist us had we gone at once to
Antwerp ; that we might with ease have taken Fort
Lille, and from thence have gone up to Antwerp ;
for, between Lillo and Antwerp, there was not one
battery completed until the 27th of August ; that on
the 22d of August they were employed in repairing
Flushing, which proved that then it was not in a state
of defence capable of resisting such an attack as our
force would have against it, had that been tried. As
to the strength of the enemy at Antwerp, it had been
most enormously exaggerated. It had been stated at
45,000 effective troops ; whereas they aniounted in
all to no more than 30,000 men, and they were made
up of garrison battalions, almost all of whom were non-
effective, and in that number were included 11,000
seamen, who would have been nothing like a match
to ours. From all this mass of information which Go-
vernment had in their possession, he did say they were
completely justified in entering on this Expedition, and
that had it been acted upon as it was first intended,
there was no doubt not only that the first, but also all
the ulterior objects of that enterprise would have been
accomplished. He contended that there should have
been no delay at all in the military operations of this
Expedition; that Walcheren ought to have been taken
off hand at once, in which event he vfas sure there
would have been no difficulty ; 7000 men would have
been an ample force with which to take Flashing.—
He was not employed in any military service at pre-
sent. He was sorry for it ; for he would have un-
dertaken to be master of Flushing in the course of
three days, with only 6000 British troops, or to forfeit
his head; and he saw no difficulty whatever in pro-
ceeding up the Scheldt to Antwerp with one pilot--
As to that which was called the fortune of war, there
was nothing in it. He considered that good or bad
fortune in war depended purely on wind and tide ;
the rest of the fortune of war was good or bad, just
as the conduct of the Commander and his men was
good or bad. The military force we had in this Ex-
pedition was 38,000 men, perfectly fit in every respect
for service, and they were wholly adequate to the
task allotted to them, and might, nay, must have
accomphshed the object of their destination, with pro-
per management. Had he the command, he should
have left at Walchcren 7000 men, at South Beve.
land 2000, which wculd be 9000, 6000 at'Lillo, and
Bergen-op-zoom :;00(). There would then remain
20,000 men applicable to the attack upon Antwerp ;
8000 of which he would employ to carry on opera-
tions with a body of stamen ; 12,000 Lobe employed
in the nature of a blockade that -was to go on the
sidesof the town, to prevent the town from receiving
succours from the enemy ; and in this, situation of
things the garrison would never dareto make a sally,
for it would be aware of the certainty of being de-.
.feared: the town and garrison would soon be mese,
and so would the arsenal, and it was ridiculous,to
doubt it; no military man of experience in operations
upon an extended scale could doubt it. From all
these considerations, the gallunt Officer was clearly
satisfied that Government were fully justified in plea-
ming this Expedition : he could not, therefore, vote
for censuring them for planning that measure. The
gallant General concluded, by moving an Amend-
ment to the Resolutions of Lord Porchester, with
which he could not coincide, excepting that one re-
ferring to the conduct of the army and navy, to the
following effect

61 That this House, taking into its consideration the extreme
imFortance of destroying the arsenals in the Scheldt, with the
navyeas it was constituted and growing to a most formidable ex-
tent, and also the expediency of making a favourable diversion in
sur-port of the cause of Austria, at the moment most likely to be
beneficial to that power,. and to the critical state of the war on
the Continent at the pet lud in which the expedition sailed, and
the probability of success, considering the reduced state of the
force oT the enemy in that quarter to which the expedition was
directed, is of opinion that Ministers were justified in applying
with zeal and promptitude the naval and military means of the
country to endeavour to effect that grand national object—the j
.prospect of essential assistance to our ally. That notwithitandirg