rudence nor success. He complained
that the public had been kept in a state of ignorance as to whether
they were in peace or at war: in his opinion it was a peace without
tranquillity, and a war without honour. The object of the quadruple
alliance had been to appease the civil dissensions in Portugal; not to
sanction the intervention of France and England in Spain. He did not
object to this, but he lamented the policy which led to the additional
articles signed in 1834, which stipulated for a certain degree of
interference. The Duke of Wellington, during the four months he had been
in office, had acted up to the spirit of those articles, as he was bound
to do; but Lord Palmerston had thought proper to proceed still further,
in suspending the foreign enlistment act, and allowing twelve thousand
Englishmen to enlist under the banners of the queen. Lord Mahon went on
to contrast our position throughout the peninsular campaign. The great
object had then been to drive the French out of the Peninsula, an object
which had been sanctioned by all our greatest statesmen for more than
a century and a half. Lord Palmerston had, however, departed from this
line of policy. Count Mole, the prime minister of France, said in the
chamber of deputies that "Lord Palmerston considered that circumstances
justified the co-operation of France; and that in March, 1836, he
notified to General Sebastiani, that it was his intention to land a
certain force of marines on the coast of Spain, and invited France to
join in that co-operation." At the same time he had offered France the
occupation of the port of Passages, and left to her own option the
mode and extent of co-operation. M. Thiers had, however, declined the
invitation. Next came the revolution of La Grunja, and soon after
that event, an increased force was sent to relieve 'Bilboa. More than
L540,000 had already been expended in the war, and all the accounts
were not as yet sent in. In Lord Mahon's opinion, the influence of Great
Britain in Spain had not been augmented by these measures; and in
proof of it, he quoted a memorial presented by the British merchants of
Alicant, complaining that their interests had been neglected; and that
while England carried away three-fourths of the produce of Spain, that
country took very little in return. To illustrate still further the
decline of our influence with the court of Madrid, Lord Mali on alluded
to a tax imposed on British subjects. "For the liber