the same time I must say that I felt the same inclination to serve him that I had to serve others.

To Lieut.-Colonel Murray, Quarter-Master General.

About the same period, General Wellesley made the following spirited rejoinder to a rather curious proposition from Lord Castlereagh, in a letter to that noble

man:

In respect to your wish, that I should go into the Asturias to examine the country, and form a judgment of its strength, I have to mention to you that I am not a draughtsman, and but a bad hand at description. I have told Sir Hew Dalrymple that I was not able to perform the duty in which you had desired I should be employed; that I was not a topographical engineer, and could not pretend to describe in writing such a country as the Asturias.

It would seem that both the old generals who appeared so inopportunely at the scene of action, resented even the advice of a younger, but highly distinguished, officer as an impertinence.

On the 30th of August, an agreement, after many alterations, was signed by Marshal Junot, and on the following day by Sir Hew Dalrymple; it is known as the "Convention of Cintra," though it was finally agreed to at Lisbon, and then ratified at Torres Vedras. Previous to this there was an armistice, General Kellermann having arrived with a flag of truce from Junot, while General Wellesley, at the command of his superior officer, and very reluctantly, as the tenor of his dispatches and letters on the subject shows, signed this armistice. Among the terms of the Cintra convention was the strange provision that the French army, then in Portugal, should not, in any case, be considered prisoners of war; also, that of their private property, "of every description," nothing should be detained by the conquerors. This enabled the French to return to their own country, laden with church and private plunder. So notorious was the wealth of some of the leaders, thus acquired in the spirit of freebooters, that, not long after Junot's return to France, Napoleon compelled him to pay over to the

state a million of francs. Massena also, and on several occasions, was obliged to disgorge his excessive treasures. It was a favorite axiom of the French emperor, that a foreign war should support itself by supplies being forced from the subdued provinces, but this money was wrung from the marshals for Buonaparte's general purposes.

There is good reason to believe that, even at the eleventh hour, Junot would have found some excuse to escape from the pending agreement, favorable as it was to him; for unscrupulousness, and not an honorable adherence to any stipulated undertaking, characterised him, as it did others of the French marshals, who indeed but followed their master's example; but the accession of the Duke d'Abrantes to the terms proposed was hastened by his learning that Sir John Moore had arrived in Maceira bay, and that his troops would speedily be landed, and so the convention was completed. The French duly evacuated Portugal, and Sir Arthur Wellesley felt that he had laboured and conquered to little

purpose.

When the terms of this Convention of Cintra-with Sir Arthur Wellesley as a subordinate, and even a dissenting party to them, attaching his name to the stipulations merely as matter of form-became known in England, there was a great outcry. What was most assailed was the circumstance that the English had gone voluntarily to Portugal in the proud guise of liberators and restorers of national rights, and had permitted, and even assisted, the French to carry home with them, as "baggage," the plunder of the country. General Beresford, it is true, did interpose some check, by the instructions of the commissioners of Cintra, to a very open and wholesale deportation of valuables; for he compelled the French to restore the spoils of the Lisbon museum and of the Royal library, as well as the money they had seized in the public treasury, or all that they could find left of it but this was considered a very trifling. atonement..

In Parliament, and by the Press, and even in poetry, no epithet, no sarcasm, no invective was too strong to

stigmatise the weakness of spirit of the conquerors, Sir Arthur Wellesley being honorably excepted:

ever since that martial synod met, Britannia sickens, Cintra, at thy name; And folks in office at the mention fret,

And fain would blush, if blush they could, for shame."

Time, however, softened this feeling, when the then opinion of the invincibility of Buonaparte and his marshals was taken into consideration-and such an opinion was general enough in 1808—and the ministry at home, and the Convention of Cintra, it came to be admitted, had made a bad bargain; but, under the circumstances, not such a very bad bargain!

Government, in consequence of the dissatisfaction of the people, ordered an inquiry into the transactions leading to the Convention at Cintra, and recalled Generals Burrard and Dalrymple. The court of investigation sat in November, and appears to have given itself as little trouble as possible, pronouncing that the convention had proved of great advantage to Portugal-which there was not even time for them to have ascertained— and eulogising the "unquestionable zeal and firmness" of Sir Hew Dalrymple, Sir Harry Burrard, and Sir Arthur Wellesley-last mentioned of course-as well as the ardour and gallantry of the officers and soldiers. The Government coolly adopted the expressed opinion of this court, that no further military proceedings" were required.

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The whereabout, and the opinion of Sir Arthur Wellesley, of the way in which he was cheated of his fame, are expressed in the following letter:

London, 6th Oct., 1808.

I have the honor to inform your Lordship, that I arrived in London this day, by leave of the commander of the forces in Portugal; and having seen a copy of his Excellency's letter to your Lordship, dated at Cintra, the 3rd Sept., in which it would appear, from an inaccuracy of expression, that I had agreed upon and signed certain articles for the suspension of hostilities on the 22nd August," I beg leave to inform your Lordship that I did not negotiate that agree

ment; that it was negotiated and settled by his Excellency in person, with General Kellermann, in the presence of Lieut.General Sir H. Burrard and myself, and that I signed it by his Excellency's desire. But I could not consider myself responsible, in any degree, for the terms in which it was framed, or for any of its provisions.

To Viscount Castlereagh.

It now appeared as if Sir Arthur Wellesley's military career in the Peninsula was at an end; and in December he resumed the routine duties of his secretaryship in Dublin. Parliament met in January, 1809, and on the 27th of that month, Sir Arthur, having taken his seat in the House of Commons, was thanked by the Speaker, on the part of the house, for his services in the war in Portugal:

It is to your praise, said Mr. Speaker (Mr. Abbot), to have inspired your troops with unshaken confidence and unbounded ardour; to have commanded, not the obedience alone, but the hearts and affections of your companions in arms; and having planned your operations with the skill and promptitude which have so eminently characterised all your former exertions, you have again led the armies of your country to battle, with the same deliberate valour and triumphant success which have long since rendered your name illustrious in the remotest parts of this empire. Military glory has ever been dear to this nation; and great military exploits, in the field or on the ocean, have their sure reward in royal favour and the gratitude of Parliament. It is, therefore, with the highest satisfaction, that, in this instance, I now proceed to deliver to you the thanks of this house.

There must have been much in the Speaker's remarks, flattering as they are, which would jar Sir Arthur Wellesley's feelings. He is complimented on having again led the armies of his country to battle and victory, while he himself had stated, although not publicly, that he would have achieved a great and decisive triumph had he "not been prevented." His reply to the Speaker was, as usual, terse and soon spoken, and there seems to lurk within it a strain of covert satire. He said:

No man can value more highly than I do the honorable distinction which has been conferred upon me—a distinction

which it is in the power of the representatives of a free people alone to bestow, and which it is the peculiar advantage of the officers and soldiers in the service of his Majesty to have held out to them as the object of their ambition, and to receive as the reward of their services.

The reward of their services! and the lofty appreciation of the power of "the representatives of a free people" do not read like earnest. A few days after, the House of Lords paid Sir Arthur a similar compliment.

A few months elapsed, and Sir Arthur Wellesley was again in Portugal. He had taken a sort of jocular leave of the country, saying, that as nothing seemed left for himself or his staff to do, the officers might go and shoot red-legged partridges if they liked, but he should go home. In April, 1809, he resigned the Irish secretaryship and his seat in parliament, and hurried to the arena of the war. Buonaparte had, in the meantime, with the quick, dashing vigour, at any cost of men's lives, which then characterised him, possessed himself, and his delegate brother, again, of Madrid, and of the title of King of Spain; and his victorious troops overran Leon and Estremadura, and threatened Portugal, while to protect the feebleness of that kingdom, the British Government was bound by treaty. Sir John Moore had been compelled, by an overpowering force, to make a most disastrous retreat to Corunna, where, after gallantly repulsing the French, who pressed hardly upon his retreat, he was shot, and buried at night in the battlefield, his troops embarking for England;—in the midst, we say, of all these reverses, the British Government resolved to dare another chance to humble the monstrous power and pretensions of France, and they dispatched Sir Arthur Wellesley with reinforcements, and some regiments of cavalry, to Lisbon. Before this, Marshal Soult, having overrun Galicia, had entered the northern Portuguese provinces, and, with little delay and little loss, had stormed Oporto, where he lay.

Sir Arthur entered upon his task with his usual cool judgment and rapid action. A British force of nearly 10,000 men had remained in Portugal when Sir John