same kind to assist in paying the Spanish subsidy; and I have adopted measures in respect to corn and other articles in Gallicia, with a view to get a little money for the army in that quarter. _If these measures were not adopted, not only would it be impossible to perform the king’s engagement, but even to support our own army._” _Mr. Stuart to Mr. Hamilton._ “_8th May._ “Though I thank you for the letter from the Admiralty contained in yours of the 21st April, I propose rather to refer Government to the communication of lord Wellington and the admiral, by whose desire I originally adverted to the subject, than to continue my representations of the consequences to be expected from a state of things the navy department are not disposed to remedy. My private letter to lord Castlereagh, enclosing lord Wellington’s observations on the letter from the Treasury, will, I think, satisfy his lordship that the arrangements which had been adopted for the supply of the army and population of this country are of more importance than is generally imagined. _I am indeed convinced that if they had been left to private merchants, and that I had not taken the measures which are condemned, the army must have embarked, and a famine must have taken place._” Now if these complaints thus made in the duke’s letters, written at the time, were unfounded, his Grace’s present letter is, for so much, a defence of Mr. Perceval; if they were not unfounded his present letter is worth nothing, unless as a proof, that with him, the memory of good is longer-lived than the memory of ill. But in either supposition the complaints are of historical interest, as shewing the difficulties, real or supposed, under which the general laboured. They are also sound vouchers for my historical assertions, because no man but the duke could have contradicted them; no man could have doubted their accuracy on less authority than his own declaration; and no man could have been so hardy as to put to him the direct question of their correctness.