While Massena was retreating, and before the intelligence arrived in England, a debate took place in both houses, upon a motion, that two millions should be granted for the Portugueze troops in British pay. The opposition did not let pass this opportunity of repeating their opinions and their ♦Mr. Ponsonby.♦ prophecies, ... in happy hour! Mr. Ponsonby said, that our success consisted in having lost almost the whole of Portugal, and having our army hemmed in between Lisbon and Cartaxo; except that intermediate space, we had abandoned all Portugal. ♦Mr. Freemantle.♦ Mr. Freemantle, after a panegyric upon Sir John Moore’s retreat, said that the present campaign left Lord Wellington incapable of quitting his intrenchments, and only waiting the result of such movements as the enemy might be disposed to make. “It rests with the enemy,” said he, “to choose his day, to make his own dispositions, to wait for his reinforcements, to choose whether he will continue to blockade you, or whether he will give you a fair opportunity of contending with him in the field. If we are to judge by the publications in France, he will decide upon the former; and in this he will judge wisely. The result of all your victories, of all your expenditure in men and money, of all your exertions, and of all your waste of the military resources of this country, is ... the position of your army at Lisbon, insulated and incapable of acting, but at the discretion of the enemy: your allies in every other part of the peninsula overwhelmed, and only manifesting partial and unavailable hostility; your own resources exhausted, and your hopes of ultimate success, to every mind which is not blinded by enthusiasm, completely annihilated! Such is the result of a system founded upon the principle of attempting to subdue Buonaparte by the force of your armies on the continent! Will any man say that this has been a wise system? Will any man, who is not determined, under any circumstances, to support the measures of a weak and misguided government, contend that it has been successful? that it has answered either the promises to your allies, or the hopes to your country? that it has either contributed to their security, or to your own benefit?”

General Tarleton also delivered it as his opinion, that we had lost the whole of the peninsula, except the spot between Cartaxo and Lisbon; that the Portugueze troops had never been of any actual service; that we could not maintain ourselves in the country, for the fatal truth must at length be told; and that when our army was to get out of it, he was afraid it would be ♦Lord Grenville.♦ found a difficult matter. Lord Grenville, in the Upper House, spoke to the same purport, affirming that the British army in Portugal did not possess more of the country than the ground which it actually occupied, and that while we were vainly draining our own resources, and hazarding our best means, we did not essentially contribute to help Portugal, or to save it. It was, he added, because he had the cause of Spain and Portugal sincerely and warmly at heart, that he felt anxious we should pause in this wild and mad career of thoughtless prodigality, look our own situation in the face, and learn the necessity of economising our resources, that we might be able, at a period more favourable than the present, to lend to the cause of the nations of the Peninsula, or to that of any other country similarly situated, that support and those exertions which, when made under all the circumstances of our present situation, must be found not only wholly unavailing to our allies, but highly injurious to ourselves.

Two days after these opinions were delivered, the telegraph announced the news of Massena’s retreat.