Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/61

 Canning and the Spanish Patriots in iSoS 5 1 added these words : This country [Spain] will have little cause to rejoice that the army- set at liberty to act against them did not remain blocked up at Lisbon, from whence they had no possible chance of escaping by land. This consideration seems to have escaped the notice of writers who, from Napier onward, have tried to defend the convention. Some of their arguments in its favor are not without weight in themselves; but they fail to meet the objection that Junot's posi- tion in Portugal was most precarious. After the retreat of Bessieres from Leon to Burgos and the line of the Ebro, that marshal could no longer hope to succor the French in Portugal, as had seemed possible for a few days after the French victory of Rio Seco. To remove Junot's force from a position which was hopeless to one where it could soon render effective service was surely a piece of sheer folly. Yet Napier refused to consider this objection, and, with a violence of language which he frequently used, stigmatized the opposition to the convention in England as " the most outrageous and disgraceful public clamour ever excited by the falsehoods of venal political writers "} Canning was not of that opinion : he markedly dissociated himself from those who upheld the convention and the favorable verdict of the court of inquiry on the conduct of those who signed it ; probably Stuart's despatch quoted above influenced his action in this aft'air. Apart from that, the despatch had no effect. Junot's first divsion set sail from Lisbon on Septem- ber 15; and when Stuart was penning his protest at ^Madrid, prep- arations were nearly complete for sending away the last of the French troops, which left Portugal at the end of the month or early in October. In his despatch of September 30 Stuart again dwelt on the gloom and annoyance caused by the escape of Junot's corps ; but those feelings had not lessened the feeling of confidence still prevalent in Spain, as may be seen by the following extract : All here [at Aranjuez] appear of opinion that, if their measures should be successful in Navarre, and they should be sufficiently strong to obtain the passes of the Pyrenees, that [sic' it will be expedient to transfer the theatre of war wholly to Catalonia, and from thence to attack the French frontier in conformity to the old plan of General Urutia and the opinion of many general officers, that offensive operations can be carried on with greater advantages on the canal of Languedoc than on any other part of the French frontier. Seeing that Stuart had recently reported the determination of the supreme junta to intrust the control of military affairs to a com- ' Napier, The War in the Peninsula, vol. I., bk. ii., ch. 6.