Inquiry, however, was called for, not upon that reasonable ground, but in the avowed hope that it would prove the ministry guilty of that utter misconduct for which their enemies so ♦LORD GRENVILLE.♦ loudly and exultingly arraigned them. Lord Grenville said it was indeed a sinking country if such mismanagement were suffered to continue in the midst of our unexampled perils and difficulties. The hand of Providence appeared to be on us. Within three years we had lost the two great statesmen in whom the nation reposed its confidence, an admiral who had carried our navy to a pre-eminence which it never before enjoyed, and now a great military chieftain, whose talents were of the first order. “Was it ♦LORD ERSKINE.♦ possible,” Lord Erskine asked, “to deplore the loss of friends whom we loved, and of men whose lives were precious to their country, without lamenting in bitterness that they were literally immolated by the ignorance and folly of those who now wished to cover their own disgrace by the just and natural feelings of the public towards men who had died for their native land? But for their immortal renown, it would have been better for them, certainly much better for their country, to have shot them upon the parade of St. James’s Park, than to have sent them, not to suffer the noble risk of soldiers, in a practicable cause, but to endure insufferable, ignoble, and useless misery, in a march to the very centre of Spain, where for them to attack was impracticable, and to retreat only possible, by unparalleled exertions: and what sort of retreat? ... a retreat leaving upon the roads and in the mountains of Spain from 8000 to 9000 of our brave men, dying of fatigue, without one act of courage to sweeten the death of a soldier. What could, then, be a more disgusting and humiliating spectacle, than to see the government of this great empire, in such a fearful season, in the hands of men who seemed not fit to be a vestry in the smallest parish?” ♦FEB. 24. MR. PONSONBY.♦