The Earl of Liverpool remarked, in reply, how singular it was that every one who censured the plan which ministers had followed with regard to Spain had a plan of his own, and that none of those plans should have a single principle of agreement with each other. This at least, he said, showed the difficulty which government must have felt in forming its measures, though it afforded a facility in defending them. As to the accusation of not sending a sufficient force of cavalry, he stated that as much tonnage was required for 5000 horse as for 40,000 foot; and moreover that vessels of a different description were necessary, of which a very limited number could at any time be procured. Yet from 8000 to 9000 horse had been sent, and there would have been not less than 12,000, had not the General countermanded the reinforcements which were ready. Weak as Earl Grey might be pleased to deem the ministers, they had not been so foolish as to expect that the first efforts of the Spaniards would meet with uninterrupted success; they were not yet guilty of calculating upon impossibilities; they had not supposed that such a cause as the cause of Spain, to be fought for with such an enemy as the ruler of France, could be determined in one campaign. Reverses they had met; but those reverses were not owing to the indifference or apathy of the Spaniards; they were imputable to their want of discipline, and to an ill-judged contempt for the French, a proof in itself of their zeal and ardour. And what would have been the general sentiment in that country and in this if our army had retired without attempting any thing? If, when after all her repeated disasters, the spirit of Spain was unsubdued, and her capital bidding defiance to an immense army at the very gates; if a British army, so marshalled and equipped, and after a long march to the aid of their ally, had in that hour of trial turned their backs upon her danger, what would have been thought of the sincerity of our co-operation? “I believe in my conscience,” he continued, “that that movement of Sir John Moore saved Spain. There are some, perhaps, who may be startled at the assertion: it is my fixed and decided opinion, and as such I will avow it. After the destruction of Blake’s army, the defeat of Castaños, and the dispersion of the army of Extremadura, ... after the capitulation of Madrid, which promised to emulate the glory of Zaragoza, and would have done so, had not treachery interposed; if at that crisis Buonaparte had pursued his conquests, by pushing to the southern provinces, the Spanish troops would never have had time to rally there. But that time was given by Sir John Moore’s advance in their favour. Never was there a more effectual diversion. Sir John Moore himself said, that as a diversion it had completely and effectually succeeded. Nor was the moral effect of thus re-animating the spirit of the nation to be overlooked. Let the final issue of the