dden appearance of Soult on the English line of
advance. Wellesley was forced to retreat hastily on Badajoz, and his
failure was embittered by heavier disasters elsewhere; for Austria was
driven to sue for peace by a decisive victory of Napoleon at Wagram,
while a force of forty thousand English soldiers which had been
despatched against Antwerp in July returned home baffled after losing
half its numbers in the marshes of Walcheren.

[Sidenote: The Perceval Ministry.]

The failure at Walcheren brought about the fall of the Portland
ministry. Canning attributed this disaster to the incompetence of Lord
Castlereagh, heir to an Irish peerage, who after taking the chief part
in bringing about the union between England and Ireland had been raised
by the Duke of Portland to the post of Secretary at War; and the quarrel
between the two Ministers ended in a duel and in their resignation of
their offices in September 1809. The Duke of Portland retired with
Canning; and a new ministry was formed out of the more Tory members of
the late administration under the guidance of Spencer Perceval, an
industrious mediocrity of the narrowest type; while the Marquis of
Wellesley, a brother of the English general in Spain, succeeded Canning
as Foreign Secretary. But if Perceval and his colleagues possessed few
of the higher qualities of statesmanship, they had one characteristic
which in the actual position of English affairs was beyond all price.
They were resolute to continue the war. In the nation at large the fit
of enthusiasm had been followed by a fit of despair; and the City of
London even petitioned for a withdrawal of the English forces from the
Peninsula, Napoleon seemed irresistible, and now that Austria was
crushed and England stood alone in opposition to him, the Emperor
determined to put an end to the strife by a vigorous prosecution of the
war in Spain. Andalusia, the one province which remained independent,
was invaded in the opening of 1810, and with the exception of Cadiz
reduced to submission; while Marshal Massena with a fine army of eighty
thousand men marched upon Lisbon. Even Perceval abandoned all hope of
preserving a hold on the Peninsula in face of these new efforts, and
threw on Wellesley, who had been raised to the peerage as Lord
Wellington after Talavera, the responsibility of resolving to remain
there.

[Sidenote: Torres Vedras.]

But the cool judgement and firm temper which distinguished Wellington
enable