There was a great majority upon this question, 213 voting for the grant, 106 against it. But the current of popular opinion in the metropolis set in with the opposition at this time; for the Walcheren expedition, like a pestilential vapour, clouded the whole political ♦THE COMMON COUNCIL PETITION AGAINST THE PENSION.♦ horizon. The common council presented a petition against the pension: a measure so extraordinary, they said, in the present state of the country, and under all the afflicting circumstances attending our armies in Spain and Portugal under that officer’s command, could not but prove highly injurious in its consequences, and no less grievous than irritating to the nation at large. In the military conduct of Lord Wellington, the lord mayor and common council added, they did not recognise any claims to national remuneration; and they conceived it to be a high aggravation of the misconduct of his majesty’s unprincipled and incapable advisers, that they had, in contempt and defiance of public opinion, recommended this grant to parliament. There was neither reason nor justice in making it, and therefore they prayed that it might not pass into a law. When the second reading was moved, Mr. Whitbread said he trusted that as this petition had been presented, the minister would not press it that day. Mr. Perceval replied he saw no necessity for any such forbearance, and the bill passed by a great majority, 106 dividing against 36. In these debates ministers were completely triumphant. Some of their opponents accused them of having done too much, others of having done too little, and some would fain have persuaded the people of Great Britain, that our army had obtained no victory at Talavera. The charge of having taken no measures for conciliating the Spaniards, by obtaining for them a restoration of those political rights which had been so long withheld, was abundantly disproved by the papers laid before parliament. There it appeared that Mr. Stuart, Mr. Frere, and Marquis Wellesley, had each pressed upon the existing government the necessity of convoking the Cortes. The great error which the ministry had committed, was in their neglect of Catalonia. In the commencement of the struggle this fault was not imputable to them, but to the general, who disobeyed his instructions to convey his army to that most important scene of operations: the effects of that fatal error were to a certain extent irremediable; but no subsequent attempt was made, and the French were suffered to take fortress after fortress, without an effort on our part to relieve them. Still the conduct of administration toward Spain was far more worthy of commendation than of censure; if not without error, if not always successful, it had uniformly been brave and generous: we had every motive of policy for assisting the Spaniards in their struggle, but the assistance was given in a manner worthy of the nation which gave, and of the noble people who received it.