Note 9 — Chapter I

This transaction furnishes an example of the imprudence of being precipitate in granting public honours. Lord Strangford’s despatch relative to the emigration was written (as it is confidently asserted) not at Lisbon, but at Salt Hill, in the presence of sir James Yeo. His lordship (unintentionally of course) impressed the ministers with an idea that to his personal exertions the emigration should be attributed; whereas the prince regent of Portugal, yielding to the vigorous negotiations of sir Sydney Smith, not only embarked on the 27th, before lord Strangford arrived at Lisbon, but actually sailed without his lordship’s having had any official interview with his royal highness, and consequently without having had any opportunity to advance or retard the emigration. The English ministers, eager to testify their satisfaction at that event, conferred the red riband, not upon sir Sydney Smith, who had succeeded, but upon lord Strangford, who had failed! a result that his lordship could not have anticipated, or he would undoubtedly have written his despatch at Lisbon when the facts were fresh on his mind, and when he could have more forcibly described the admiral’s share in the transaction.