The vote was carried in both houses without a division. But the opposition tried their strength in the House of Commons upon the King’s message, recommending that a pension of 2000_l._ should be settled upon Lord Wellington, and the two next heirs to his title in succession. “With the grant of the peerage,” ♦MR. CALCRAFT;♦ Mr. Calcraft said, “that house had nothing to do; he was sorry it had been conferred; but though there was no remedy for it, the house ought not to add to it the pension. Pensions and thanks might be voted, but they could not permanently blind the country; whatever the public opinion might be now, it would not be with ministers upon this subject a month hence, when the whole fruits of Lord Wellington’s victories and campaigns would develope themselves to public view. It was mournful and alarming to hear that Lord Wellington had said he could defend Portugal with 50,000 men, provided 30,000 of them were British; for if the French were in earnest in their designs upon that country, before three months Lord Wellington and his army would be in England. Neither Portugal nor any other country could be defended by victories like that of Talavera.” It was said by General Craufurd, a peerage might be an incumbrance to Lord Wellington without a pension. General Loftus also remarked, that he had always been one of the most liberal men in existence, and the state of his circumstances was therefore, he imagined, far from sufficient for the support of the dignity ♦OPPOSED BY SIR FRANCIS BURDETT;♦ to which he was elevated. Sir Francis Burdett took this occasion for touching a popular note. “If Lord Wellington’s liberality,” he said, “had brought him into difficulty or debt, who was it whom they called upon to free him from the incumbrance? ... the people; ... who already owed debts enough, not in consequence of any prodigality of their own, but through the impositions of their representatives. As to the military part of the question, he could only say, that the result was failure, ... failure as complete as failure could be. But even if the occasion had been such as to deserve reward, he should object to making any appeal for that purpose to the people’s purse. What was become of the patronage of the government? Where were the sinecures, which were always defended because they afforded a fund for such purposes as these? Yet application was made to the people, ... and this by a government who, while they perpetually threw the burden upon the people, had greater means of rewarding merit at their disposal than all the combined merit of Europe could possibly exhaust.” ♦MR. WHITBREAD;♦