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Wounded-Richard Stuart, lieutenant, slightly; John Webster, master's mate: W. H. Brady, midshipman; John White, able; JohnJames, able, slightly; Charles Spraggs, ordinary; Oliver Isaac, ordinary slightly; Timothy Collins, ordinary; Isaac Stafford, ordinary, very, slightly; Stephen Miller, ordinary; John Rielly, ordinary; Robert Kelly, ordinary; George Hetherstone, private marine, very dangerously; Thomas Bowles, private marine, slightly; George Mitchell, private marine.

Killed---Dal

VOLONTAIRE. housie Teit, lieutenant; Thomas Harrison, quarter-gunner.

Wounded-Robert Grant, marine, dangerously; Thomas Sutton, seaman, badly; Christopher Anderson, seaman, ditto; James Hays, seaman, ditto; Jacob Schwerin, seaman, difto; William Hinson, marine, slightly; James Dawden, marine, ditto; John Davis, seaman, ditto; William Thomas, seaman, ditto; Christopher Feat, seaman, ditto; Willian Thompson, seaman, ditto; Joseph Lewis, seaman, ditto; John Smith, seaman, ditto; Hon. J. A. Maude, lieutenant, ditto-a volunteer from the Ville de Paris; John Armstead, midshipman, ditto →a volunteer from the Ville de Paris.

APOLLO. Killed-Evan Jones, serjeant of marines; Wm. Saunders, private marine; John Mackie, able..

Wounded-J. Begbie, first lieu‚tenant, slightly; J. Forster, licutenant, severely; Peter Manning, private marine, dangerously: Louis O. Sauf, ordinary, badly; Caul Sauster, able, slightly.

TOPAZE. Killed-James Callaghan, ordinary; Dong. Carmichael, able; Jaines M'Donald, ordinary; William March, ordinary. Wounded-Thomas Wilson, able, very severely; William Holberson, ordinary, ditto; James White, ordinary, slightly; John Roberts, captain of foretop, ditto; James Harrington, able, ditto; John Card, private marine, severely; Joseph Carter, private marine, dangerously; Henry Tub, ordinary, slightly. PHILOMEL AND SCOUT. None killed or wounded.

TUSCAN. Wounded---Pascoe Dunn, lieutenant, slightly; James Lamb, ordinary, dangerously.

Total killed-1 lieutenant, 1 master's mate, 10 seamen, 1 serjeant of marines, 2 privates of marines.

Total wounded-1 seaman, 4 privates of marines, dangerously; 2 lieutenants, 1 midshipman, 7 seamen, 1 private of marines, severely; 3 lieutenants, 1 master's mate, 2 midshipmen, 28 seamen, 5 privates of marines, slightly.

Grand Total--15 killed, 55 wounded.

(Signed)

B. HALLOWELL.

Letters from the Right Honourable George Canning, to the Earl Camden, Lord President of the Council.

Gloucester Lodge, Nov. 14, 1809.

My Lord-I had written to your lordship immediately after the publication of your lordship's statement; but I delayed sending my letter, in the hope of being able

For the Statement see p. 566.

previously

previously to submit it to the peru sal of the Duke of Portland.

In this hope I have been disappointed by that fatal event which has deprived this country of one of its most upright and disinterested patriots; the king of one of his most faithful, devoted, and affectionate subjects; and the world, of one of the most blameless and most nobleminded of men.

Thus situated, I have thought it right to revise what I had written, and scrupulously to expunge every reference to the authority of the Duke of Portland, which would now stand upon my sole testimony; retaining such only as are supported, either by written documents which I shall be happy to communicate to your lordship; or by facts which are well known to your lordship or to your colleagues, and in which, for the most part, your lordship is yourself concerned.

Neither, however, can I content myself with this precaution; but must protest, at the same time, in the most earnest manner, against any possible misconstruction, by which any thing in the following letter can be strained to a meaning unfavourable to the motives which actuated the Duke of Portland's conduct.

It is impossible, indeed, not to regret the policy, however well intentioned, which dictated the reserve practised towards Lord Castlereagh in the beginning of this transaction; or that practised towards myself in its conclusion.

It is to be regretted, that the Duke of Portland should have imposed, and that your lordship should have accepted, the condition of silence, in the first communications

between you,

It is also to be regretted, that I should not have learnt in July, that your lordship was not party to the assurances then given to me, on behalf of lord Castlereagh's friends in general; and that another member of the cabinet, comprehended in that description, had (as I have since heard,) refused to concur in them.

Had I been made acquainted with these circumstances, I should then have resigned; and my resig nation would, at that time, have taken place without inconvenience or embarrassment; and without stirring those questions (no way connected with the causes of my retirement) or subjecting me to those misinterpretations of my conduct and motives, which have been produced by the coincidence of my resignation with that of the Duke of Portland.

But, however this reserve may be to be regretted, it is impossible to attribute the adoption of it, on the part of the Duke of Portland, to any other motives than to: that gentleness of nature which eminently distinguished him; and which led him to endeavour (above all things) to prevent political differences from growing into personal dissention; and to aim at executing whatever arrangement might be expedient for improving or strengthening the administration, with the concurrence (if possible) of all its existing members.

And no man who knows the affectionate respect and attachment, which the manly and generous qualities of the Duke of Portland's mind were calculated to command, and which I invariably bore to him. will suspect me of being willing to establish my own vindication, at the expence of the slightest disre

spect

spect to his memory, or prejudice
to his fame.

I have the honour to be,
My Lord,

Your Lordship's most obe-
dient, humble servant,
GEORGE CANNING.

To the Earl of Camden, &c. &c. My Lord-The statement, which has been published in the newspapers, in your lordship's name, has decided a question on which I had before been hesitating, as to the necessity of an authentic detail of the transactions (so far as I am concerned in them or am acquainted with them) to which that statement refers.

Castlereagh's quarrel, and supposed (I trust, most injuriously) to be his lordship's particular friends.

The perversious and misrepresentations of anonymous writers, however, would not have extorted from me any reply. But to them succeeded the publication of Lord Castlereagh's letter to me of the 19th September.*

I entirely disbelieve that Lord Castlereagh, and I distinctly deny that I myself had any knowledge of this publication.

But, by what means it matters not, the letter is before the world; and though the course originally chosen by Lord Castlereagh precluded me from offering any explanation to him, the course which has since been adopted on his behalf (though undoubtedly without his privity) might perhaps have been considered as rendering such an ex

For that purpose, I think a direct address to your lordship more decorous, both towards your lordship and for myself, than an anonymous paragraph in a newspaper. It is with the most painful reluct-planation due to myself. It is, ance that I recur to a subject which, however, only since your lordship's so far as it concerns Lord Castle- publication that I have felt it to be reagh aud myself, had been settled indispensably necessary. in a manner, which is usually, I believe, considered as final.

Discussions of the causes of dispute more commonly precede, than follow, the extreme appeal to which Lord Castlereagh resorted: And when, after mature consideration, his lordship had determined to resort to that appeal in the first instance, I should have thought that such a choice, deliberately made, would have been felt by his friends to be equally conclusive upon them as upon bimself.

But your lordship needs not to be informed, how assiduously my character has been assailed by writers in the newspapers, espousing Lord

The statement on my behalf, which has also found its way, (without my consent and against ny wish) into the public papers, was written under a sense of delicacy and restraint, as to the particulars of the transaction, which from the character of the transaction itself, must always continue to prevail in a great degree; but from which, until Wednesday, the 11th of October, the day on which I gave up the seals, I had not an opportunity of soliciting any dispensation.

Of the indulgence which I then most humbly solicited, I trust I shall be able to avail myself sufficiently for my own vindication, without lo

* See pages 56% and 563.

sing sight of those considerations of duty and propriety, by which the use of such an indulgence must necessarily be regulated and confined. It is stated in Lord Castlereagh's letter "That I had demanded and procured from the Duke of Portland, before the rising of parliament, a promise for Lord Castlereagh's removal from the War Department; that, by this promise, Lord Castlereagh's situation, as a minister of the crown, was made dependent upon my pleasure; and that this promise I afterwards thought myself entitled to enforce ;" "That, after, and notwithstand ing this virtual supersession of Lord Castlereagh in his office, I allowed him to originate and conduct the expedition to the Scheld;"

"And that, during this whole period, I knew that the agitation, and the decision of the question for his removal, were concealed from him: and was party to this concealment." Lord Castlereagh indeed admits, That he has no right as a public man, to resent my demanding, upon public grounds, his removal from his office, or even from the administration, as a condition of my continuing a member of the government."

But he contends, that a proposition, "justifiable in itself," ought not to have been "executed in an unjustifiable manner;" and he makes me responsible for the manner in which the "head of the administration," and some members of the government, "supposed to be his (Lord Castlereagh's) friends," axecuted the proposition which he attributes to me."

He is ready to acknowledge, indeed, "that I pressed for a disclosure, at the same time that I press VOL. LI.

ed for a decision; and that the disclosure was resisted by the Duke of Portland and his (Lord Castlereagh's) supposed friends."

But, in this circumstance, Lord Castlereagh professes not to see any justification of what he conceives to have been my conduct towards him; because, by acquiescing in the advice or intreaties of his "supposed friends," I admitted "an authority" on their part," which I must have known them not to possess ; because, by "pressing for disclosure," I shewed my own sense of the "unfairness" of concealment; and because, with that sense, I “ought" (as he conceives me not to have done) "to have availed myself of the same alternative, namely, my own resignation, to enforce disclosure, which I did to enforce decision."

Without offering a single word in the way of argument, I shall by a distinct detail of facts in order of their date, substantiate my contradiction of these charges.

I shall only premise,

1st, That I had (as is admitted by Lord Castlereagh) an unquestionable right to require, on public grounds, a change in the War Department, tendering at the same time the alternative of my own resignation.

2dly. (What no man at all acquainted with the course of public business will dispute) That the regular, effectual, and straight-forward course for bringing that alternative to issue, was to state it directly to the "head of the administration," the king's chief minister, to be laid by that minister before the king.

I proceed to the detail of facts. In the beginning of April, (the 2d) I addressed a letter to the Duke Pp

of

of Portland, containing a representalion on the state of his administration, and expressing my wish and intention, unless some change were effected in it, to resign.

(April 4th to 8th.)-Upon the Duke of Portland's requiring a more detailed explanation as to the motives of my proffered resignation, I stated, among other things, that a change either in my own department, or in Lord Castlereagh's, ap. peared to me to be expedient for the public service-I stated my perfect willingness that the alternative should be decided for my retirement; and only requested that the decision might, (if possible) take place before the recommencement of business in parliament after the Easter holidays.

The Duke of Portland requested me to suspend the execution of my intention to resign: wishing to have an opportunity of consulting with some of his colleagues, before he determined what advice to lay before the king.

The Easter holidays thus passed away. On the 16th of April, short ly after his Grace's return to towa from Bulstrode, the Duke of Portland opened the subject to one of the members of the cabinet, whose name, (not having been hitherto brought forward) I do not think it necessary to mention. Your lordship is perfectly acquainted with it. By the Duke of Portland's desire, I had a communication with that member of the cabinet, within a very few days after his interview with the Duke of Portland. He strongly represented the difficulty of making any new arrangement during the sitting of parliament; and urged me to defer the pressing my own resignation till the

end of the session. To this recommendation I did not promise to accede: but we agreed (whether uponhis suggestion or upon mine, I am not confident) that, at all events, no step whatever could properly be taken, until after the decision of the questiou upon the writership; which was about this time brought forward in the House of Commons.

That question was decided on Tuesday the 25th of April.

On Friday, the 28th, the Duke of Portland communicated fully with your lordship; and informed me as the result of that commuoication, that your lordship thought a change in Lord Castlereagh's situation in the government desirable, provided it could be effected honourably for Lord Castlereagh, and that it could be reconciled to Lord Castlereagh's feelings."

From this period, I understood that your lordship was constantly consulted by the Duke of Portland in every step of the transaction. Other members of the cabinet were also consulted by the Duke of Portland; but how many of them, or at what precise periods, I neither knew at the time, nor can now undertake to say.

Shortly after your lordship's first interview with the Duke of Portland, (I am sure before the 5th of May) that member of the cabinet with whom his grace had first communicated, reported to me a suggestion of your lordship's of a change of office for Lord Castlereagh, evidently calculated on the principles which your lordship had stated as indispensible to such a change. Whether, this communication to me was in the nature of a direct message from your lordship, I do not exactly know. But I un

derstood

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