Sir William, lately deputy to the Duke of Wellington at the Board of Ordnance, had no very great experience of campaigning, but his reputation was for a sure and steady hand. He picked his way carefully into the barge. The swell was not heavy, but Sir William was fifty-seven years old, and although but the same age as the duke, evidently by his appearance he was not nearly so active. He settled in the stern, where a bosun’s mate placed a blanket and a light paulin over his legs, pulled down his cocked hat, turned up the collar of his greatcoat, and set his gaze at the shore. It was his first sight of the city, although he had served briefly in Spain under the duke. As a young captain he had seen a little action (and much discomfort) in Flanders under the Duke of York, and as a colonel he had been aide-de-camp at the Horse Guards when the Duke had been appointed commander-in-chief. He had briefly been governor of Madeira, and as a major-general had seen a little service in Sicily, but since the end of the French war his time had been taken up with parliamentary duties. However, Lord Bathurst, Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, was of a mind that these credentials were apt enough for an intervention essentially diplomatic in its nature. Besides, he would have good brigadiers.
The barge made easy progress to the shore three cables distant, past the Moorish Torre de Belem, which old Peninsular hands had told Sir William to observe closely, with its statue of Our Lady of Safe Homecoming to bless the nation’s navigators and merchantmen. Sir William gave it a passing look, but his thoughts were more engaged by the audience he would have with the regent, and the warning that Lord Bathurst had given him just before he set out. Sir William liked clarity in affairs of all kind, and he was feeling the want of it now, for Bathurst had revealed strong disquiet over the purpose of the Foreign Secretary, Mr Canning, in sending five thousand men to Portugal. He reached inside his cloak and took out the tattered copy of Hansard, which had been his constant reference during the passage. He had been in the House of Commons when Mr Canning had read the message from His Majesty, and he had thought he had understood it plainly – before Lord Bathurst had sown the present doubt in his mind: His Majesty, said Hansard, had acquainted both the House of Lords and Commons that he had received an earnest application from the princess regent of Portugal, claiming, in virtue of the ancient obligations of alliance and amity subsisting between His Majesty and the Crown of Portugal, His Majesty’s aid against hostile aggression from Spain.
Sir William well recollected the acclamation in the Commons. There was a sentiment for Portugal stronger than for most places. Doubtless the fortified wine of Porto had much to do with it, but the sentiment went beyond commerce and taste. Portugal had been as good an ally as any in the late war with Bonaparte, and superior to most. Her soldiers had fought as well as His Majesty’s own (and in truth, on occasion, better). There was a fellow feeling for this country, and he was most conscious of it.
He took up Hansard again. It recounted that His Majesty had informed both houses of his exertions, in conjunction with the King of France, to prevent aggression, and of the repeated assurances of His Catholic Majesty neither to commit, nor to allow to be committed, any aggression against Portugal from Spanish territory. But His Britannic Majesty had learned that, not-withstanding these assurances, hostile inroads into the territory of Portugal had been concerted in Spain, and executed under the eyes of the Spanish authorities by Portuguese regiments which had deserted into Spain, and which the Spanish government had repeatedly and solemnly engaged to disarm and disperse . . .
The Tagus spray was giving Hansard a salty soaking, but still Sir William sought to assure himself of the King’s mind, and the government’s intentions. He read that His Majesty had left no effort unexhausted to awaken the Spanish government to the dangerous consequences of this apparent connivance, and that His Majesty made his communication to parliament with the full and entire confidence that both houses would afford him support in maintaining the faith of treaties, and in securing against foreign hostility the safety and independence of the kingdom of Portugal, ‘the oldest ally of Great Britain’.
They had been fine words when Sir William had first heard them, and they were fine, yet, on the page. As a dutiful member of the House of Commons, and deputy to a member of the cabinet (which rank the appointment of Master General of the Ordnance carried), Sir William had voted without hesitation in favour of the King’s proposal, as had the overwhelming majority of members, laying aside for the time being any party prejudice for or against Pedro or Miguel. And the Foreign Secretary’s own eloquence in the matter had been so affecting: Mr Canning might not enjoy the trust or affection of many, even in his own party, but his words had been received uncommonly well that day (and faithfully recorded in Hansard).If into that war this country shall be compelled to enter, we shall enter into it, with a sincere and anxious desire to mitigate rather than exasperate, and to mingle only in the conflict of arms, not in the more fatal conflict of opinions. But I much fear that this country (however earnestly she may endeavour to avoid it) could not, in such case, avoid seeing ranked under her banners all the restless and dissatisfied of any nation with which she might come in conflict. It is the contemplation of this new power, in any future war, which excites my most anxious apprehension. It is one thing to have a giant’s strength, but it would be another to use it like a giant. The consequence of letting loose the passions at present chained and confined, would be to produce a scene of desolation which no man can contemplate without horror.
Sir William pondered deeply on those words – ‘a sincere and anxious desire to mitigate rather than exasperate, and to mingle only in the conflict of arms, not in the more fatal conflict of opinions’. That had been the import, as he understood it, of the King’s message. Yet Mr Canning seemed to believe that a force of intervention could not avoid the enmity of faction. Sir William read over the lines once more. Who, precisely, were ‘the restless and dissatisfied of any nation’? His orders from the Horse Guards were one thing, but what the Foreign Secretary had in mind might be quite another. Sir William shook his head. But at least, it seemed to him, Canning had nailed his colours to the mast in his grandisonant final flourish: if it came to ‘a scene of desolation’, and he, General Clinton, was hauled before parliament to give account for the wages of ambiguity, he would at least be able to point to the magnificent purpose of the intervention:Let us fly to the aid of Portugal, by whomsoever attacked; because it is our duty to do so: and let us cease our interference where that duty ends. We go to Portugal, not to rule, not to dictate, not to prescribe constitutions – but to defend and to preserve the independence of an ally. We go to plant the standard of England on the well-known heights of Lisbon. Where that standard is planted, foreign dominion shall not come.
What, indeed, could be plainer than that? Sir William recalled, too, the Duke of Wellington’s words to him, that ‘the expedition ought to bring the Spanish king to a sense of what is due to himself and his own dignity’. Sir William smiled at the characteristic terms in which the duke had added, ‘our business is to drive out the enemy, Clinton; nothing else!’
If only Lord Bathurst had not said that Portuguese deserters combined with disaffected citizens were the likelier enemy than the Spanish! What should be his position, therefore, if Portuguese forces – the Miguelites – invaded from across the border with Spain, but without Spanish troops?