is a positive fact upon which your lordships may rely, and to which I pledge my word,—­between the summer of 1834 and the period at which the exchange of prisoners was agreed upon in 1835,—­that is, in the course of a very few months,—­the superiority had been gained by Don Carlos in that part of the country, so far that he had forced the enemy to take up a position on the other side of the Ebro, abandoning all their fortified posts, except Pampeluna and one other; and, I must add, they had very wisely abandoned them, because they found they could not march to their relief through the country.  Now, my lords, this is literally and truly a fact; and it is a fact not to be forgotten, with respect to the present contest in Spain.  I say, then, that it was the business of this government not to have interfered by force.  We ought not to have done so, according to the noble marquis’s principle—­that there ought to be no interference between two hostile parties in a nation like Spain.

June 19, 1838.

* * * * *

The Legion a failure.

The noble viscount has told your lordships, certainly, that he sent out an expedition; and the noble marquis has informed us that it has always been the policy of this country to encourage such expeditions.  Now, without meaning to assert that the result of that expedition was a dire catastrophe, I must be permitted to say that the legion has been, in my opinion and conviction, a complete failure.  It has cost the Spanish government an enormous sum of money.  Great expectations were raised respecting it, not one of which has been fulfilled.  When the legion went to Spain, the Queen of Spain’s army was in all the provinces, with the exception of Biscay and Navarre.  Her government was established in all parts of Spain, excepting these places.  Excepting them, all other places might be said to be in a state of tranquillity.  But it appears the Queen of Spain could not carry on the war, unless she got ten thousand Isle of Dogsmen—­a legion from England, and another from France.  If the Spanish government had asked for officers, or for arms, or for money, or for artillery, I should not have been surprised, as I know well the manner in which the Spanish arsenals are supplied.  But asking for 10,000 men from England to destroy Don Carlos, who was shut up in the mountains, was a matter really not to be seriously thought of.  The object was not to bring 10,000, or 15,000, or 20,000 men into action, but to bring the red coats and the blue coats, the French and English troops, into the contest; that was the object, and the view was, to produce a moral effect.  But the government ought to have known that that which gave them the influence on the one side, was fatal to that influence on the other.  Thus was an end put to that moral influence which this country could, and ought to have exerted, but which can only be effectually exercised by strict adherence,