The ‘policy of filching sugar islands,’ as Sheridan wittily called it--of sending out expeditions of moderate size, which only inflicted pin-pricks on non-vital portions of the enemy’s dominions--was still in full favour when the Spanish War began. There was hardly a British statesman who rose above such ideas; Pitt and Addington, Fox and Grenville, and the existing Tory government of the Duke of Portland, had all persisted in the same futile plans. At the best such warfare resulted in the picking up of stray colonies, such as Ceylon and Trinidad, the Cape, St. Thomas, or Curaçao: but in 1808 the more important oversea possessions of France and her allies were still unsubdued. At the worst the policy led to checks and disasters small or great, like Duckworth’s failure at Constantinople, the abortive Egyptian expedition of 1807, or the catastrophe of Buenos Ayres. Castlereagh seems to have been the only leading man who dared to contemplate an interference on a large scale in Continental campaigns. His bold scheme for the landing of 60,000 men in Hanover, during the winter of 1805-6, had been foiled partly by the hesitation of his colleagues, partly by the precipitation with which Francis II made peace after Austerlitz[178]. [178] This fine and not unpromising scheme deserves study (see Alison’s _Life of Castlereagh_, i. 199-202). But the policy of sending small auxiliary forces to the Iberian Peninsula was quite a familiar one. We had maintained a few thousand men under Generals Burgoyne and Townsend for the defence of Portugal against Spain in 1762. And again in 1801 there had been a small British division employed in the farcical war which had ended in the Treaty of Badajoz. In the year after Austerlitz, when it seemed likely that Bonaparte might take active measures against Portugal, the Fox-Grenville ministry had offered the Regent military aid, but had seen it politely refused, for the timid prince was still set on conciliating the Emperor.