A charitable fund was raised, and 1400 women and children belonging to the expedition received immediate relief. The inhabitants of Portsmouth had a less mournful task. That part of the army which landed there had not embarked from the field of battle; and they who were well enough to partake of festivity ♦DR. NEALE’S TRAVELS, P. 217.♦ were feasted in the Town-Hall. The troops brought back with them a pestilential fever, which spread through the military hospitals, and raged for some months before it could be subdued. ♦JAN. 19.♦ Parliament met before the issue of Sir John Moore’s campaign was known, but it was understood that he was hastily retreating toward the coast with the intention of embarking, and intelligence was hourly looked for with fearful ♦THE KING’S SPEECH.♦ expectation. The King’s speech was in a spirit suited to the times. He had given orders, he said, that the overtures from Erfurth should be laid before both Houses, and he was persuaded they would participate in the feelings which he had expressed when it was required that he should consent to commence the negotiation by abandoning the cause of Spain. So long as the people of that country remained true to themselves, so long would he continue to them his most strenuous assistance: and in the moment of their difficulties and reverses he had renewed to them the engagements which he had voluntarily contracted at the outset of their struggle. He had called his Parliament in perfect confidence that they would cordially support him in the prosecution of a war which there was no hope of terminating safely and honourably except through vigorous and persevering exertions. The various grades of opposition were distinctly marked in the debates ♦LORD SIDMOUTH.♦ which ensued. Lord Sidmouth said, that there prevailed among the people a feeling of dissatisfaction which was most honourable to them, because it arose from their zealous loyalty and generous desires. They were neither contented with the extent of the exertions which had been made to support the Spaniards, nor with the manner in which those exertions had been directed. Something, he trusted, would be done to allay this laudable discontent, while he avowed his full belief that it behoved us to prosecute the war with vigour. Such language was consistent with the constant tenor of Lord Sidmouth’s conduct; a man who never in a single instance allowed either personal or party feeling to prevail over his natural integrity. Earl St. ♦EARL ST. VINCENT.♦ Vincent agreed in the necessity of carrying on determined hostilities against the common enemy, but he condemned the ministers alike for what had been done, and what had been left undone. They had brought upon us, he said, the greatest disgrace which had befallen Great Britain since the Revolution. It appeared as if they had not even a geographical knowledge of the Peninsula, insomuch that they ought to go to school again, to make themselves masters of it. Why had there been that