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 disastrous losses lacked even the compensation of brilliant feats of arms. The public was determined to find a scapegoat, and they found one in Castlereagh. His unpopularity was increased by the fact that the British, in spite of the victory of Talavera, had been compelled to retire behind the Tagus, and by the news of extensive sickness and mortality in the Peninsula army. Hence, when he fell through dissensions in the cabinet, he fell unlamented.

The events of 1809, which led to the quarrel between Canning, the foreign secretary, and Castlereagh, are obscure. Whoever was responsible for the way in which Castlereagh's colleagues treated him, he certainly had the right to deem himself ill-used. Canning and he administered departments whose duties overlapped, and for some time there had been friction and probably rivalry between them. Castlereagh had carried the cabinet with him in supporting the convention of Cintra; and Canning, who took the opposite view, was not only overborne, but thought that insufficient regard had been had to his position as foreign secretary. As early as the end of March 1809 Canning had told the prime minister, the Duke of Portland, that rather than go on as the ministry then was going on, he would resign. Apparently he did not name, but certainly he must have indicated, Castlereagh as the difficulty before him. The duke consulted the king, who appears to have suggested that, if Canning would hold his hand, Castlereagh might be removed to another office at the end of the session. Portland, afraid of the shock his ministry must sustain by any change, procrastinated, and by a reticence, which may have been due to misunderstanding but looks very much like treachery, Castlereagh was kept in complete ignorance of what was going on. In the House of Commons he was being attacked as to his disposal of Indian patronage in Lord Clancarty's case (, Diaries, ii. 178) and his intervention in Maddock's election; and Canning naturally thought he had gone too far in the former matter, and would do well to retire. Parliament was prorogued on 21 June, and the Walcheren expedition was then agreed upon. No hint reached Castlereagh that his colleagues, when agreeing to his plan, had already arranged for his removal. Canning chafed and protested against both the secrecy and delay. Perceval, the chancellor of the exchequer, was then for the first time told of what was in contemplation, and pointed out that, after adopting the military plan, the ministry could not honourably drop its author. Matters drifted on. The Walcheren expedition failed; on 2 Sept. was published Chatham's despatch abandoning the attempt on Antwerp. The Duke of Portland was in ill-health, and, as he was on the eve of resignation, there was probably some fishing in troubled waters among his possible successors. At length, almost by accident, dining with Lord Camden, Castlereagh was told that he was to go. An offer was indeed made him of the office of president of the council, but though he consented to resign, he declined any other post. Perceval then showed him the letters that had been written by Canning on the subject, and Castlereagh thus first learnt that for months, during the Talavera campaign and the Walcheren expedition, he had been allowed to go on in ignorance that his colleagues had already resolved to supersede him. Fastening the blame for the whole affair on Canning, he sent him a challenge, and a duel took place on Putney Heath on 21 Sept., in which Canning was slightly wounded in the thigh. Both rivals then quitted the ministry.

During his tenure of the war office, in spite of checks and disasters, Castlereagh, largely by his own exertions and policy, had altered England's position from one of isolation after Tilsit to one in which headway against Napoleon was being made, though slowly, still on a comprehensive scale. He had begun that combination of forces by sea and land which ultimately wore out the power of the Napoleonic empire. The design was, however, too bold to be popular either with his colleagues or with the country. It abandoned alike Fox's policy of holding aloof from continental alliances and Pitt's series of desultory operations; and, though events proved that the offensive abroad was the only successful means of defence at home, nothing but successes at the outset, instead of the failures which were actually met with, would have won for it general support.

Castlereagh remained out of office during the greater part of Perceval's premiership. He assumed no ill-natured attitude to Perceval's ministry, and spoke frequently with effect in the House of Commons. On the regency question, at the end of 1810, he supported the restrictions on the regent's powers, and, in spite of the treatment he had received, defended the ministerial resolve to continue the Peninsular war when it was attacked by the whigs. On 1 Feb. 1810 he warmly praised Lord Wellington's character and conduct of the campaign of Talavera, and again defended the whole policy of the Peninsular war on 4 March 1811. When the difficulty of procuring specie became almost insuperable, and England was drained of