that people quiet, that is, to strike terror into our friends instead of our enemies? Were our troops, or were they not, welcome to the people of Spain? He had reason to doubt that fact. He was fearful that a multitude of Spaniards wished success to Buonaparte rather than to us. Although we must condemn the injustice of Buonaparte in his attack upon Spain, yet his measures were extremely judicious. He abolished the Inquisition, feudal rights, and unequal taxation. This was certainly holding out some temptation to the people to acquiesce in the changes which he wished to introduce, and unquestionably it had produced great effect. The government which England supported was not connected with any thing like a promise of the reform of any of the evils of the old system, nor with any thing like a melioration of the condition of the Spaniards. God forbid that we should abandon their cause while it was possible to support it with any prospect of success; but he was far from being sure that the time might not come when we should have to treat with France after she had totally subdued Spain. Ministers were justified in refusing to treat on the terms offered at Erfurth; indeed they must have been the basest of mankind if they had accepted such a preliminary. But he could not avoid regretting that the country had lost so many fair opportunities of negotiating a peace, and that it had at length been reduced to so foul a one that it could not have been accepted without eternal disgrace. Mr. William Smith said, with a similar feeling, that though he concurred in the propriety of rejecting the last offer of negotiation, he by no means meant to declare that the country ought never to commence another while Spain was in the hands of the French government. This first debate made it apparent that the cause of the Spaniards, in which all Britain had appeared to partake so universal and generous a sympathy, was now regarded by a party in the state as a party question; and that because ministers, true to the interest of their country, and to its honour (of all interests the most important), were resolved to continue faithful to the alliance which they had formed with Spain, there were men who felt little concern for what Europe and liberty and human nature would lose if Buonaparte should succeed in bowing the Spaniards beneath his yoke, and who looked on with ill-dissembled hope to the advantage which such a catastrophe might give them over their parliamentary opponents. Their disposition was more broadly manifested when the overtures from Erfurth were discussed, and an address moved approving the answer which had been ♦DEBATES ON THE OVERTURES FROM ERFURTH. JAN. 26.♦ returned. They admitted that the overtures were insincere, and could not possibly have led to peace, and yet they took occasion to carp and cavil at what they could not in common decency oppose. ♦LORD GRENVILLE.♦ ♦LORD AUCKLAND.♦