Note 749 — SECTION XVI: CHAPTER IX

Canning to Lord Wellesley, London, Aug. 12: ‘The question which first arises is whether the state of things in Spain be such as that a British army of 30,000 men, acting in co-operation with the Spanish armies, could be reasonably expected either to effect the deliverance of the whole Peninsula, or to make head against the augmented force which Bonaparte may now be enabled to direct against that country. Upon this question your Excellency will receive the opinion of Sir A. Wellesley, to whom a copy of this dispatch is transmitted. If the opinion of Sir A. Wellesley shall be that, with so limited a force as 30,000 men, offensive operations in Spain could not prudently be attempted, and if he shall conceive that the utmost object to which such an army would be adequate is the defence of Portugal, your Excellency will then only have to state to the Spanish Government the nature of the instructions under which Sir A. Wellesley now acts.... If on the other hand Sir A. Wellesley shall entertain the opinion that with an effective British army of 30,000, combined with the Spanish and Portuguese armies, it might be possible either to expel the French from Spain, or to resist even their augmented force with a reasonable prospect of success ... your Excellency will then also receive the opinion of Sir A. Wellesley as to the conditions necessary to be obtained from the Spanish Government, as a preliminary to entering on any concerted system of joint military operations.’