The proposed amendment provoked a severe reply from Mr. Croker. He exposed the inconsistency of the mover, who in his letter to Lord Holland, when he had stated his opinion that it became the Government at that time to negotiate, recommended that “the complete evacuation of Spain by the French armies, the abstinence from all interference in her internal arrangements, and the freedom of the Royal Family, should be the conditions of the negotiation.” Mr. Croker commented also with just indignation upon the strain of argument which Mr. Whitbread had pursued. “He has set out,” said he, “by doing Buonaparte the favour of trying to find a parallel for his attack on Spain; and he boasts of having found many. But in the registers of British discussion, in the recollections of British feeling, I defy the honourable gentleman to find a parallel for his own speech, ... a speech calculated only to plead the enemy’s cause. I do not mean to represent him as intentionally their advocate; but I will assert that, whether intentionally or not, he has taken that course by seeking for examples which might keep the French government in countenance. But even if he were not so deeply to blame for ♦1809. FEBRUARY.♦ this, ... supposing even that this course was necessary to his argument, ... even then he had been in error: he had produced no parallel instance; the history of the world did not furnish one; and he had fruitlessly gone out of the path to weaken the cause of his country.” ♦MR. WHITBREAD’S SPEECH CIRCULATED BY THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT.♦ Mr. Whitbread’s amendment was so little in accord with the feelings even of his colleagues in opposition, that it was not put to the vote. But his speech was so favourable to Buonaparte, and so suited to the furtherance of his purposes, that the French government availed themselves of it. A very few omissions adapted it to the meridian of Paris; it was translated, inserted in the provincial papers as well as those of the capital, and circulated through France and those countries which were under its dominion or its influence. To deceive the French and the people of the continent by the official publication of false intelligence was part of Buonaparte’s system; but no fabrication could so well have served his purpose as thus to tell them that an English statesman, one of the most eminent of the Whigs, of the old advocates of liberty, a leading member of the House of Commons, had declared in that House that the overtures of peace made by France were unexceptionable, and had been unwisely, impoliticly, and unnecessarily answered with insult; that Buonaparte, wielding the greatest power which had ever existed, was hastening to fulfil all his prophecies; that England must be reduced to treat with him at last, and therefore that the King of England ought to be advised by his Parliament to commence a negotiation as soon as possible upon such terms as circumstances might permit! ♦DEBATES ON THE PORTUGUEZE CAMPAIGN.♦