History of the Peninsular War, Volume 5 (of 6)
Date: 2019-09-29T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Peninsular War; 1807-1814

The Project Gutenberg eBook of History of the Peninsular War, Volume 5 (of 6)

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Title: History of the Peninsular War, Volume 5 (of 6)

Author: Robert Southey

Release date: September 30, 2019 [eBook #60390]

Language: English

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Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF THE PENINSULAR WAR, VOLUME 5 (OF 6) ***

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HISTORY
OF THE
PENINSULAR WAR.

“Unto thee
“Let thine own times as an old story be.”

Donne.

BY ROBERT SOUTHEY, ESQ. LL.D.
POET LAUREATE,

HONORARY MEMBER OF THE ROYAL SPANISH ACADEMY, OF THE
ROYAL SPANISH ACADEMY OF HISTORY, OF THE ROYAL
INSTITUTE OF THE NETHERLANDS, OF THE
CYMMRODORION, OF THE MASSACHUSETTS
HISTORICAL SOCIETY, ETC.

A NEW EDITION.

IN SIX VOLUMES.

VOL. V.

LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE-STREET.
MDCCCXXXVII.

Ἱστορίας γὰρ ἐὰν ἀφέλῃ τις τὸ διὰ τί, καὶ πῶς, καὶ τίνος χάριν ἐπράχθη, καὶ τὸ πραχθὲν πότερα εὔλογον ἔσχε τὸ τέλος, τὸ καταλειπόμενον αὐτῆς ἀγώνισμα μὲν, μάθημα δὲ οὐ γίγνεται· καὶ παραυτίκα μὲν τέρπει, πρὸς δὲ τὸ μέλλον οὐδὲν ὠφελεῖ τὸ παράπαν.

Polybius, lib. iii. sect. 31.

CONTENTS OF THE FIFTH VOLUME.

| Page
CHAPTER XXXIII.
Marshal Macdonald succeeds Augereau in Catalonia | 1
Siege of Mequinenza | 2
Mequinenza taken | 4
Lili appointed to the command in Tortosa | 4
Tortosa | 5
Preparations for the siege of that city | 6
The enemy appear before it | 7
O’Donell visits the city | 8
Macdonald enters the plain of Tarragona | 9
Affair near Tarragona | 10
Macdonald retires | 10
O’Donell surprises the enemy at La Bisbal | 11
The enemy’s batteries on the coast destroyed | 15
Captured provisions purchased for the French in Barcelona | 15
Lili’s preparations for defence | 16
Ferdinand’s birthday celebrated in Tortosa | 17
Conduct of the French general concerning Marshal Soult’s decree | 18
Successes of Eroles | 20
Edict against the Junta of Aragon | 22
Molina de Aragon burnt by the French | 23
Bassecourt takes the command in Valencia | 24
Defeat of the Valencians at Ulldecona | 25
Captain Fane taken at Palamos | 26
Trenches opened before Tortosa | 27
O’Donell’s plan for relieving it | 28
Tortosa surrendered | 29
Sentence on the governor for surrendering it | 29
Col de Balaguer surrendered | 30
Commodore Mends destroys the batteries on the north coast of Spain | 31
Expedition under Renovales to Santona | 32
Wreck of the Spanish vessels | 34
Expedition under Lord Blayney | 35
Mountains of Ronda | 35
Ortiz de Zarate | 35
Lord Blayney sails from Gibraltar | 38
He lands near the castle of Frangerola | 38
Failure of the expedition | 39
Lord Blayney and the British troops taken | 41
Defeat of general Blake | 41
Irregular war | 42
State of the guerrilla warfare | 48
Andalusia | 48
Mountains of Ronda | 49
Extremadura | 51
D. Toribio Bustamente | 51
D. Francisco Abad, el Chaleco | 52
Ciria, the Nero of La Mancha | 53
New Castille | 54
D. Ventura Ximenez | 54
Guerrilla banditti | 55
Crimes of Pedrazuela and his wife | 56
Alcalde of Brihuega | 57
Joseph’s escape from the Empecinado | 57
Desertion of the Juramentados | 58
Junta of Guadalaxara | 59
The Medico | 59
Fourscore French burnt in a chapel | 60
Cruelties and retaliations | 60
Old Castille | 61
The Cura | 61
Aragon | 62
The Canterero | 63
Alcalde of Mondragon | 64
Asturias | 64
Porlier | 64
D. José Duran | 65
Xavier Mina | 66
His capture | 67
Espoz y Mina elected to succeed him | 67
CHAPTER XXXIV.
Schemes of the instrusive government | 73
The Cortes | 74
Mode of election | 75
Regulations proposed by the Central Junta | 81
The Regency delays the convocation | 81
Cortes convoked | 83
Commencement of their proceedings | 84
Oath required from the Regents | 86
The Bishop of Orense scruples to take the oath | 87
First measures of the Cortes | 90
The Duke of Orleans offers his services | 91
Second Regency | 92
Marquis of Palacio refuses to take the oath | 93
Tyrannical conduct of the Cortes towards him | 94
Self-denying ordinance | 95
Liberty of the press | 96
State of the press | 100
El Robespierre Español | 102
Debates concerning Ferdinand | 102
Decree concerning him | 104
Character of the Cortes | 106
CHAPTER XXXV.
Expectations of the French | 109
Gardanne enters Portugal, and marches back again | 110
Drouet enters with 10,000 men | 111
Rash operations of Silveira | 113
Conduct of Drouet’s corps | 113
The French army left to subsist upon the country | 114
Conduct of that army towards the inhabitants | 115
Skill of the marauders | 118
Massena perseveres in remaining against Ney’s advice | 121
State of the people within the lines | 122
False statements in France | 124
Opinions of the opposition in England | 125
Schemes of co-operation with Soult | 126
Olivença taken by the French | 127
Badajoz invested | 128
Death of Romana | 128
Destruction of his army | 130
Governor of Badajoz killed | 131
Imaz appointed to succeed him | 131
Massena begins his retreat | 134
Badajoz surrendered | 135
Skill and barbarity of the French in their retreat | 140
Havoc at Alcobaça | 142
And at Batalha | 144
Direction of the enemy’s retreat | 144
Affair before Pombal | 145
Before Redinha | 146
They appear before Coimbra | 147
Montbrun fears to enter it | 147
Distress of the enemy | 149
Affair on the Ceyra | 152
Resistance made by the peasantry | 154
Guarda | 156
The Coa | 157
Sabugal | 157
Action before Sabugal | 158
The French repass the frontier | 161
Opinions of the Whigs at this time | 162
Mr. Ponsonby | 162
Mr. Freemantle | 162
General Tarleton | 163
Lord Grenville | 164
CHAPTER XXXVI.
Expedition from Cadiz | 165
Lieutenant-General Graham | 165
Apprehensions of the enemy | 166
The troops land at Algeciras | 167
They pass the Puerto de Facinas | 167
Lapeña’s proclamation | 168
Advance against Veger | 169
Junction of the troops from St. Roques | 170
The French attack Zayas, and are repulsed | 171
Passage of the Lake of Janda | 172
Position of the enemy | 173
Communication with the Isle of Leon opened | 174
Heights of Barrosa | 175
General Graham marches back to the heights | 176
Battle of Barrosa | 177
Diversion on the coast | 179
The Cortes demand an enquiry | 180
Outcry in England against Lapeña | 180
Mr. Ward’s speech | 181
Mr. Perceval | 182
Mr. Whitbread | 182
Remarks on the failure of the expedition | 184
Death of Alburquerque | 187
His epitaph by Mr. Frere | 189
CHAPTER XXXVII.
Opinions of the opposition writers at this time | 190
Address of the Portugueze government to the people | 193
Lord Wellington asks relief for the suffering Portugueze | 195
Parliamentary grant for the relief of the Portugueze | 196
Earl Grosvenor demurs at it | 196
Marquis of Lansdowne | 197
Mr. Ponsonby | 197
Public subscription | 198
Honourable acknowledgement of this relief by the Prince of Brazil | 198
Distribution of the grant | 198
Children famished at Santarem | 199
State in which the French left the country they had occupied | 199
Pombal | 200
Santarem | 200
Leyria | 201
Political effect of this distribution | 203
Marshal Beresford goes to Alentejo | 205
Valencia de Alcantara, Alburquerque, and Campo Mayor taken by the French | 206
Beresford arrives on the frontier | 206
Affair near Campo Mayor | 207
Measures concerted with the Spaniards | 209
Bridge constructed at Jurumenha | 210
Passage of the Guadiana | 211
Olivença retaken | 212
Claim of the Portugueze to that place | 213
The French retire from Extremadura | 215
Siege of Badajoz undertaken | 216
Bridge at Jurumenha swept away | 217
Lord Wellington recalled to Beira | 218
Inactivity of the Spanish commander in Galicia | 218
Country between the Agueda and Coa | 219
Massena’s address to his army | 220
Battle of Fuentes d’Onoro | 220
The French retire | 227
Escape of the garrison from Almeida | 228
Marmont succeeds Massena in the command | 230
Lord Wellington recalled to Alentejo | 231
Badajoz besieged | 231
Interruption of the siege | 232
Arrangement between Lord Wellington and Castaños concerning the command | 233
Reasons for giving battle | 234
The allies assemble at Albuhera | 234
Battle of Albuhera | 236
Siege of Badajoz resumed | 244
Unsuccessful attempts upon Fort Christoval | 245
The siege raised | 246
Junction of Soult and Marmont | 247
The allies take a position within the Portugueze frontier | 248
Soult boasts of his success | 249
Blake’s movements | 250
He fails at Niebla and returns to Cadiz | 251
The French armies separate | 252
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
Plans of the French in Catalonia | 253
The Pyrenean provinces administered in Buonaparte’s name | 254
State of Aragon | 255
System of the French commander | 255
Good effect of paying the troops regularly | 257
British goods burnt at Zaragoza | 257
Preparations for besieging Zaragoza | 258
Manresa burnt by Macdonald | 260
Scheme for the recovery of Barcelona frustrated | 262
Figueras | 263
Attempt upon that place | 264
It is taken by surprise | 265
Rovira rewarded with preferment in the church | 267
Suchet refuses to send the troops which Macdonald required from him | 269
Eroles introduces troops into Figueras | 270
The French blockade it | 270
Attempts to destroy Mina | 272
Tarragona | 291
Siege of that city | 295
Campoverde enters it after a defeat | 296
Fort Olivo betrayed | 297
Contreras appointed to command in the city | 298
Campoverde goes out to act in the field | 298
Fort Francoli abandoned | 300
Troops sent to reinforce the garrison, and landed elsewhere | 301
The lower town taken | 303
Suchet’s threat | 303
The mole at Tarragona | 303
Campoverde’s inactivity | 304
Ill behaviour of the Spanish frigates | 305
Colonel Skerrett arrives with British troops from Cadiz | 305
Tarragona taken by assault | 306
Massacre there | 308
Campoverde resolves to abandon Catalonia | 310
Eroles refuses to leave it | 311
General Lacy arrives to take the command | 311
Montserrate taken by the French | 312
Fall of Figueras | 313
Base usage of the prisoners taken there | 314
Manso | 314
Conduct of the Junta of Catalonia | 316
Lacy’s proclamation | 316
Retreat of the cavalry from Catalonia to Murcia | 317
State of the enemy in Catalonia | 319
Las Medas recovered by the Spaniards | 320
Successful enterprises of Lacy and Eroles | 322
Corregidor of Cervera taken and punished | 324
Eroles enters France and levies contributions | 324
CHAPTER XXXIX.
State of Portugal | 327
Expectation of peace | 328
Disposition of the continental powers to resist Buonaparte | 329
Plans of Soult and Marmont | 330
Dorsenne enters Galicia | 331
Abadia retreats | 331
Lord Wellington observes Ciudad Rodrigo | 332
Dorsenne recalled from Galicia | 333
Movements of the French to throw supplies into Ciudad Rodrigo | 333
The allies fall back | 335
The French retire | 338
Marmont boasts of his success | 338
Girard in Extremadura | 339
General Hill moves against him | 340
Arroyo Molinos | 341
The French surprised and routed there | 342
Marques del Palacio appointed to the command in Valencia | 345
His proclamation | 345
He is superseded by Blake | 347
Murviedro | 349
Suchet takes possession of the town | 350
The French repulsed in an assault | 351
Oropesa taken by the enemy | 352
A second assault repelled | 353
Guerrilla movements in aid of Murviedro | 353
Dispersion of the Empecinado’s troops | 355
His subsequent successes in conjunction with Duran | 355
A price set upon the heads of Mina and his officers | 356
Mina’s success at Ayerbe | 357
Cruchaga carries off the enemy’s stores from Tafalla | 359
Mina’s object in soliciting for military rank | 360
His decree for reprisals | 361
Duran and the Empecinado separate | 363
Battle of Murviedro | 364
Murviedro surrendered | 367
Valencia | 369
Suchet summons the city | 371
He establishes himself in the suburb and in the port | 371
The army endeavours to escape | 374
Xativa surrendered | 374
Blake abandons the lines and retires into the city | 375
The city a second time summoned | 376
Suchet expects a desperate resistance | 377
He bombards the city | 378
Blake surrenders the city to the army | 379
CHAPTER XL.
Attempt on Alicante | 381
Dénia surrendered | 382
Peniscola betrayed by Garcia Navarro | 382
Carrera killed in Murcia | 382
New constitution | 383
Change of Regency | 383
Ballasteros retreats to the lines of St. Roque | 384
Tarifa attempted by the French | 385
Tarifa | 387
Tarifa re-garrisoned by the English | 388
Colonel Skerrett and Copons arrive there | 389
The French invest the town | 390
Doubts whether it could be defended | 391
The garrison summoned | 393
The French repulsed in an assault | 394
Effects of a storm on both parties | 395
Siege raised | 396
General Hill occupies Merida | 398
Attempt to carry off Soult | 398
Colonel Grant rescued by the Guerrillas | 399
State of feeling at Madrid | 399
State of the country | 401
The Intruder goes to France | 403
Distress both of the Intrusive and Legitimate Governments | 404
Schemes for strengthening the Spanish government | 406
Cardinal Bourbon | 407
The Infante Don Carlos | 407
Princess of Brazil | 407
State of the Portugueze government | 408
Marquis Wellesley’s views | 410
Lord Wellington prepares for the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo | 411
Ciudad Rodrigo | 415
A redoubt carried | 416
Convent of Santa Cruz taken | 418
Captain Ross killed | 418
St. Francisco’s and the suburbs taken | 419
The place taken by assault | 421
Craufurd mortally wounded | 422
Mackinnon killed | 423
General Craufurd | 424
General Mackinnon | 425
Marmont’s movements during the siege | 427
Lord Wellington made Duque de Ciudad Rodrigo | 428
Speeches of Sir Francis Burdett and Mr. Whitbread | 428
Lord Wellington created an Earl | 429
Preparations for the siege of Badajoz | 429
Preparations for its defence | 431
Siege and capture of that city | 433
Soult advances to relieve the place, and retreats | 448
Marmont enters Beira | 449
Arrangement for the defence of that frontier | 449
Marmont deterred by a feint from assaulting Almeida | 450
Advance of the French to Castello Branco, and their retreat | 452
Marmont attempts to surprise the Portugueze at Guarda | 452
Flight of the Portugueze militia by the Mondego | 453
Marmont retreats | 454
Lord Wellington retires to Beira | 455
CHAPTER XLI.
Marquis Wellesley resigns office | 457
Restrictions on the Regency expire | 457
Communication from the Prince Regent to the leaders of opposition | 458
Reply of Lords Grey and Grenville | 459
Lord Boringdon’s motion | 460
Speech of Earl Grey | 461
Overture from the French government | 462
Lord Castlereagh’s reply | 465
Mr. Perceval murdered | 466
Conduct of the populace | 467
Overtures from the Ministers to Marquis Wellesley and Mr. Canning | 468
Marquis Wellesley’s reasons for declining them | 470
Mr. Canning’s | 471
Marquis Wellesley’s statement | 472
Mr. Stuart Wortley’s motion | 473
Marquis Wellesley charged to form an administration | 473
The ministers refuse to act with him | 474
Lords Grey and Grenville also decline | 474
Marquis Wellesley receives fuller powers | 476
The two lords persist in their reply | 477
Earl Moira’s letter to Earl Grey | 478
Marquis Wellesley resigns his commission | 480
Negotiation with Earl Moira | 480
The old Ministry is re-established | 483
Marquis Wellesley’s explanation | 483
Earl Grey’s | 485
Earl Moira’s reply | 485
Mr. Stuart Wortley’s second motion | 487
Lord Yarmouth’s statement | 487
Lord Castlereagh’s speech | 488
Pecuniary assistance to the Spaniards | 492
Proposal concerning Spanish troops | 493
Plan of a diversion from Sicily | 493

HISTORY
OF THE
PENINSULAR WAR.

CHAPTER XXXIII.
CATALONIA. MEQUINENZA AND TORTOSA TAKEN. EXPEDITIONS ON THE COASTS OF BISCAY AND OF ANDALUSIA. GUERRILLAS.

♦1810.♦

While Lord Wellington detained in Portugal the most numerous of the French armies, defied their strength and baffled their combinations, events of great importance, both military and civil, were taking place in Spain.

♦Marshal Macdonald succeeds Augereau.♦

The command in Catalonia had devolved upon Camp-Marshal Juan Manuel de Villena, during the time that O’Donell was invalided by his wound. He had to oppose in Marshal Macdonald a general of higher reputation and of a better stamp than Augereau. Augereau had passed through the revolutionary war without obtaining any worse character than that of rapacity; but in Catalonia he manifested a ferocious and cruel temper, of which he had not before been suspected. Every armed Catalan who fell alive into his hand was sent to the gibbet: the people were not slow at reprisals, and war became truly dreadful when cruelty appeared on both sides to be only the exercise of vindictive justice: it was made so hateful to the better part of the German soldiers, and to the younger French also, whose hearts had not yet been seared, that they sought eagerly for every opportunity of fighting, in the hope of receiving wounds

♦Von Staff, 296.♦ which should entitle them to their dismission, or, at the worst, of speedily terminating a life which was rendered odious by the service wherein they were engaged.

♦Siege of Mequinenza.♦

The force under Macdonald’s command consisted of 21,000 men, including 2000 cavalry, and of 16,500 employed in garrisons and in the points of communication; the army of Aragon also, which Suchet commanded, was under his direction. They could not in Catalonia, as they had done in other parts of Spain, press forward, and leave defensible towns behind them: it was necessary to take every place that could be defended by a resolute people, and to secure it when taken. After Lerida had been villanously betrayed by Garcia Conde, Tortosa became the next point of importance for the French to gain, for while that city was held by the Spaniards, the communication between Valencia and Catalonia could not be cut off. Tarragona and Valencia were then successively to be attacked, but Mequinenza was to be taken before Tortosa was besieged. This town, which was called Octogesa when the Romans became masters of Spain, which by the corrupted name of Ictosa was the seat of a bishop’s see under the Wisigoths, and which obtained its present appellation from the Moors, was at the present juncture a point of considerable importance, because it commanded the navigation of the Ebro, being situated where that river receives the Segre. It was now a decayed town with a fortified castle: the works never had been strong, and since the Succession-war had received only such hasty repairs as had been made, at the urgent representations of General Doyle, during the second siege of Zaragoza. These preparations had enabled it to repulse the enemy in three several attempts after the fall of that city. It had now, by Doyle s exertions, been well supplied with provisions, but every thing else was wanting; the garrison consisted of 700 men, upon whose discipline or subordination the commander, D. Manuel Carbon, could but ill rely. He himself was disposed to do his duty, and was well supported by some of his officers.

♦May 18.♦

Six days after the betrayal of Lerida the French Colonel Robert was sent with three battalions to commence operations against this poor fortress; he tried to force the passage of a bridge over the Cinca, which was so well defended, that it cost him 400 men. Between that river and the Ebro, Mousnier’s division approached so as to straiten the place, and a bridge of boats was thrown across the Ebro, and a tête-du-pont constructed to cut off the besieged from succour on that side. The operations were conducted with little skill or success, till at the expiration of a fortnight Colonel Rogniat came to direct them. Carbon then found it necessary to abandon the place, and retire into the Castle; to this he was compelled less by the efforts of the enemy than by distrust of his own men, who now becoming hopeless of relief, took every opportunity of deserting. His only armourer had fled, so had his masons, his carpenters, and his medical staff, the latter taking with them their stores. Four of the iron guns had burst, ... two brazen ones were rendered useless; and the Castle, which the people looked upon as impregnable, was not only weak in itself, but incapable of long resistance, had it been stronger, for want of water: there was none within the works; it was to be brought from a distance, and by a difficult

♦June.♦ road. The governor represented to the captain-general that his situation was truly miserable; that the best thing he could do, were it possible, would be to bring off the remains of the garrison; but they were between the Ebro and the Segre, and the banks of both rivers were occupied by the enemy. A force of at least 3000 men would be required to relieve him ... whereas 500 might have sufficed if they had been sent from Tortosa in time.

♦Mequinenza taken.♦

This dispatch was brought to Villena by a peasant who succeeded in swimming the Segre with it; and an attempt accordingly was made to relieve the Castle, but it was made too late. General Doyle, whom the Junta of Tortosa had addressed entreating him to continue his services to Mequinenza, asked and obtained the command of the succours, and was on the way with them, when they were met by tidings that the garrison

♦June 8.♦ had surrendered. The course of the Ebro from Zaragoza was now open to the enemy, and they prepared immediately to besiege Tortosa. If Suchet had known the state of the city at this time, he might have won it by a coup-de-main. The suspicions of the people had been re-inflamed by the betrayal of Lerida; the fall of Mequinenza excited their fears;

♦Lili appointed to the command in Tortosa.
Vol. i. 731–735.♦ and an insurrection was apprehended, to prevent which Villena requested Doyle to hasten thither, and act as governor till the Conde de Alache, D. Miguel de Lili y Idiaquez, should arrive. This nobleman had displayed such skill and enterprise in the painful but fortunate retreat which he made with a handful of men after the wreck of the central army at Tudela, that it was thought no man could be more adequate to the important service for which he was now chosen.

♦Tortosa.♦

Tortosa stands upon the left bank of the Ebro, about four leagues from the sea; it is on the high road by which Catalonia communicates with the south of Spain. Before the Roman conquest the Ilercaones had their chief settlement here, and the place was called after the tribe Ilercaonia; Dartosa was its Roman name, which either under the Goths or Moors passed into the present appellation. It was taken from the Moors1 by Louis le Debonnaire, during the life of his father Charlemagne, after a remarkable siege, in which all the military engines of that age seem to have been employed. The governor whom he left there revolted, called in the Moors to his support, and they took it for themselves. It was conquered from them by Ramon Berenguer, Count of Barcelona, in the middle of the twelfth century; and in the year following was saved from the Moors by the women, who took arms when the men were almost overpowered, rallied them, and animated them so that they repulsed the entering enemy: in honour of this event a military order was instituted, and it was enacted that the women of Tortosa should have precedence of the men in all public ceremonies. During that revolt of the Catalans which was one of the many and great evils brought upon Spain by the iniquitous administration of Olivares, Tortosa declared early for the provincial cause; but it was reduced to obedience soon and without violence, and the city, which then contained 2000 inhabitants, was secured against any sudden attack. Marshal de la Mothe besieged it in 1642, and effected a breach in its weak works: he was repulsed in an assault with considerable loss, and deemed it necessary to raise the siege. Six years afterwards the French, with Schomberg for their general, took it by storm, ... the bishop and most of the clergy falling in the breach. It was retaken in 1650. In the Succession-war this place was gladly given up to the allies by the people, as soon as the capture of Barcelona by Lord Peterborough enabled them to declare their sentiments. The Duke of Orleans took it in 1708 by a vigorous siege, and through the want of firmness in the governor; had it held out two days longer, the besieging army must have retired for want of supplies. Staremberg almost succeeded in recovering it by surprise a few months afterwards; and in 1711 he failed in a second attempt. From that time the city had flourished during nearly an hundred years of internal peace; the population had increased to 16,000; the chief export was potash; the chief trade in wheat, which was either imported hither or exported hence, according as the harvest had proved in the two provinces of Catalonia and Aragon. But during this long interval of tranquillity, while the city and its neighbourhood partook the prosperity of the most industrious province in Spain, the fortifications, like every thing upon which the strength and security of the state depended, had been neglected, and were falling to decay.

♦Preparations for the siege of that city.♦

This place, which could only have opposed a tumultuous resistance if the French had immediately pursued their success, was soon secured against any sudden attack by Doyle’s exertions. He had given up his pay in the Spanish service to the use of this province, and the confidence which was placed in him by the people and the local authorities, as well as by the generals, gave him influence and authority wherever he went. Every effort was made for storing and strengthening the city, while the enemy on their part made preparations for besieging it in form. Mequinenza was their depôt for the siege: from thence the artillery was conveyed to Xerta, a little town two leagues above Tortosa on the Ebro, which they fortified, and where they established a tête-du-pont: another was formed at Mora, half way between Mequinenza and Tortosa; the navigation of the river was thus secured. The roads upon either bank being only mountain paths, which were practicable but for beasts of burthen, a military road was constructed from Caspe, following in many parts the line of that which the Duke of Orleans had formed in the preceding century. A corps of 5000 infantry and 500 horse was to invest the city on the right bank, while another corps of the same strength watched the movements of the Catalan army. One division Suchet had left in Aragon, where the regular force opposed to it had almost disappeared in the incapable hands of D. Francisco Palafox. He had as little to apprehend on the side of Valencia; neither men nor means were wanting in that populous and wealthy province, but there prevailed a narrow provincial spirit, and General Caro remained inactive when an opportunity was presented of compelling the French, who were on the right bank, to retire, or of cutting them off. The other part of the besieging army was not left in like manner unmolested, for O’Donell had by this time recovered from his wound, and resumed the command.

♦The enemy appear before the place.♦

On the 4th of July the enemy appeared on the right bank, and occupied the suburbs of Jesus and Las Roquetas; they took possession also of the country-houses which were near the city on that side, but not without resistance. On the 8th they attacked the tête-du-pont, expecting to carry it by a sudden and vigorous attempt; they were repulsed, renewed the attempt at midnight, were again repulsed, and a few hours afterwards failed in a third attack. They were now satisfied that Tortosa was not to be won without the time and labour of a regular siege. They had seen also a manifestation of that same spirit which had been so virtuously displayed at Zaragoza and Gerona. For the Tortosan women had passed and repassed the bridge during the heat of action, regardless of danger, bearing refreshments and stores to the soldiers; two who were wounded in this service were rewarded with medals and with a pension. They enrolled themselves in companies to attend upon the wounded, whether in the hospitals or in private houses. There was one woman who during the whole siege carried water and cordials to the troops at the points of attack, and frequently went out with them in their sallies; the people called her La Titaya, and she was made a serjeant for her services. The men also formed themselves into companies, and it was evident what might be expected from the inhabitants, if their governor should prove worthy of the charge committed to him. Velasco, who held the command till the Conde de Alache should arrive, was incapacitated by illness for any exertion. The garrison, encouraged by their success in repelling the enemy, made a sally on the 10th with more courage than prudence, and lost about 100 men; the next day the French began their regular approaches.

♦O’Donell visits the city.♦

O’Donell’s first care upon resuming the command of the army was to strengthen Tortosa and provide it against the siege, which if he could not prevent he would use every exertion to impede and frustrate. Lili arrived there in the middle of July, and a convoy of provisions with him: Velasco then left the place, and retired to Tarragona, broken in health. Stores and men were introduced till the magazines were fully replenished, and the garrison amounted to 8000 effective men. On the night of the 21st the enemy made another attack upon the tête-du-pont, as unsuccessfully as before. Some days afterwards O’Donell came there to inspect the place; he thanked the inhabitants for the good-will which they were manifesting, and the readiness with which they had cut down their fruit-trees and demolished their villas in the adjoining country, sacrificing every thing cheerfully to the national cause. He directed also a sally, which was made with good effect,

♦Aug. 3.♦ some of the enemy’s works being destroyed: Lili was present in this affair, and was wounded. Having seen that every thing was in order here, and promised well, the general returned to his army.

But O’Donell deriving no support from either of the neighbouring provinces, had on the one hand to impede Suchet’s operations, and on the other to act against Macdonald. Before that Marshal could take any measures in aid of the besieging army, he had to introduce a convoy

♦Macdonald enters the plains of Tarragona.♦ into Barcelona. Having effected this object, and baffled the force which endeavoured to prevent it, he moved upon the Ebro; by this movement O’Donell was compelled to withdraw the division which kept in check the French corps upon the left bank; and Suchet, seizing the opportunity, passed that corps across the river, and advanced against the Valencian army, with which Caro had at last taken the field, ... only to make a precipitate retreat when it was thus attacked, and leave the enemy without any interruption from that side. Macdonald meantime easily overcoming the little resistance that could be interposed entered the plain of Tarragona, and took a position at Reus, with his whole disposable force, raising contributions in money and every kind of stores upon that unhappy town, while his troops pillaged the surrounding country. Tarragona was at this time but weakly garrisoned, and some apprehension was entertained that it might be his intention to lay siege to it. Campoverde’s division, therefore, was immediately removed thither from Falset, and O’Donell himself entered the place, and occupied the height of Oliva and the village of La Canonja, endeavouring by activity and display to make the most of his insufficient force. Before daybreak this latter post was attacked by the French in

♦Aug. 21.
Affair near Tarragona.♦ strength, ... the Spaniards fell back till O’Donell came to their support; he supposed the enemy’s object was to reconnoitre the place, and this he was desirous to prevent. Captain Buller, in the Volontaire frigate, was near enough distinctly to hear and see the firing; immediately he sent his launch and barge with some carronades in shore, and anchored the ship with springs in four fathoms water, to support the boats, and act as circumstances might require. These boats acted with great effect upon the right flank of the French; and the frigate bringing its guns to bear upon the enemy’s cavalry, which was forming upon a rising ground, dislodged them; so that they retreated to their position with the loss of about an hundred and fifty men. On the same day Captain Fane, in the Cambrian frigate, and some Spanish boats, performed a like service at Salou, driving from thence, with the loss of some forty men, a detachment of the enemy who had gone thither to plunder the place.

♦Macdonald retires.
Aug. 25.♦

On the fourth day after this affair the French retreated, leaving 700 sick and wounded in the hospital at Reus, and 200 at Valls. Their rearguard was overtaken in the town of Momblanch, and the plunder which they had collected there was recovered: but a Spanish general was put under arrest for not having improved the advantage which he had gained. They suffered also a considerable loss by desertion. Nearly 300 Italians deserted from Reus, and 400 more during the expedition.

Suchet with 3000 men had moved down upon Momblanch, to cover a retreat which was not made without danger. This movement left Tortosa for a while free of access, and large supplies were promptly introduced. Macdonald now took a position near Cervera, as a central point, from whence he could cover the besieging army before Tortosa, and threaten the rear of the Spaniards upon the Llobregat, and where he could occupy an extent of country capable of supplying him with provisions. But

♦O’Donnell surprises the enemy at La Bisbal.♦ this afforded opportunity to O’Donell for renewing that system of warfare which he had carried on successfully against Augereau. He embarked a small detachment at Tarragona, provided with artillery, which sailed under convoy of a small Spanish squadron and of the Cambrian frigate. On the 6th of September he put himself at the head of a division at Villafranca, having directed the movements of his troops so as to make the French infer that it was his intention to interpose between them and

♦September.♦

Barcelona. Leaving Campoverde to throw up works near La Baguda, and secure that pass, he proceeded to Esparraguera: from thence he reconnoitred El Bruch and Casamasanes, and leaving Eroles to guard that position, ordered Brigadier Georget to take post at Mombuy, close by Igualada, and Camp-Marshal Obispo to advance by a forced march from Momblanch, and place himself upon the heights to the right and left of Martorell. This was on the 9th: that same night he ordered Campoverde to march the following morning and join him at S. Culgat del Valles, sending a battalion to reinforce Georget, but letting no one know his destination. The whole division reached Mataro on the 10th, Pineda on the following day; from thence a party under the Colonel of Engineers, D. Honorato de Fleyres, was dispatched to take post at the Ermida of S. Grau, while O’Donell proceeded to Tordera. Before he left Pineda he received intelligence that the squadron had commenced its operations auspiciously. Doyle had landed at Bagur, taken forty-two prisoners there, and with the assistance of the Cambrian’s boats destroyed the battery and carried off the guns. Being now about to leave the garrison of Hostalrich in his rear, O’Donell sent off a detachment towards that fort, and another toward Gerona, that they might lead the French in both places to suppose he was reconnoitring with a view to invest them. On the 13th he reached the village of Vidreras, falling in on the way thither with an howitzer and a field-piece which had been landed for him at Calella. At Vidreras the two last detachments which he had sent off rejoined him, having performed their service with great success, the one party bringing off nine prisoners from the suburbs of Hostalrich, whom they had taken in the houses there, the other eleven from under the walls of Gerona.

This long movement had been undertaken in the hope of cutting off the French who occupied S. Feliu de Guixols, Palamos, and La Bisbal. The larger force was at La Bisbal under General Schwartz; and that he might have no opportunity to reinforce the two weaker points, it was O’Donell’s intention to attack him there, at the same time that Fleyres, dividing his detachment, should attack both the other garrisons. From Vidreras to La Bisbal is a distance which in that country, where distances are measured by time, is computed at eight hours, the foot-pace of an able-bodied man averaging usually four miles in the hour; but at this time much depended on celerity. At daybreak on the 14th he renewed his march with the cavalry regiment of Numancia, sixty hussars, and an hundred volunteer infantry, who thought themselves capable of keeping up with the horse. The regiment of Iliberia followed at a less exhausting pace; and the rest of the division, under Campoverde, went by way of Llagostera to post itself in the valley of Aro, as a body of reserve, and cut off the enemy in case they should retire from the points which they occupied. O’Donell proceeded so rapidly that he performed the usual journey of eight hours in little more than four, the infantry keeping up with the horse at a brisk trot the whole time. As soon as they reached La Bisbal, Brigadier Sanjuan, with the cavalry, occupied all the avenues of the town, to prevent the enemy, who upon their appearance had retired into an old castle, from escaping; some cuirassiers who were patrolling were made prisoners; the Spanish infantry took possession of the houses near the castle, and from thence and from the church tower fired upon it. They rung the Somaten, and the peasants who were within hearing came to join them. O’Donell perceiving that musketry was of little avail, and that Schwartz did not surrender at his summons, resolved to set fire to the gates; but in reconnoitring the castle with this object, he received a musket-ball in the leg, the sixteenth which had struck him in the course of this war. Just at this time a detachment of an hundred foot, with two-and-thirty cuirassiers, came from the side of Torruella to aid the garrison. Sanjuan charged them with his reserve; the cuirassiers fled toward Gerona, all the infantry were taken, and a convoy of provisions with its escort fell into the hands of the Spaniards. The regiment of Iliberia, quickening its march when it heard the firing, now came up; at nightfall the enemy were a second time summoned, and Schwartz, seeing no means of escape, was then glad to have the honours of war granted him, upon surrendering with his whole party, consisting of 650 men and 42 officers.

Fleyres meantime leaving S. Grau at two on the morning of the same day, divided his force, and directed Lieutenant-Colonel D. Tadeo Aldea, with 300 foot and 20 horse, against Palamos, while he with the same number of horse and 250 foot proceeded against S. Feliu de Guixols; 150 men being left as a reserve for both parties upon the heights on the road to Zeroles. Both were successful. The Spaniards were not discovered as they approached S. Feliu till they were within pistol-shot of the sentinel; and the enemy, after a brisk but short resistance, surrendered when they were offered honourable treatment in O’Donell’s name. Thirty-six were killed and wounded here; 270 men and eight officers laid down their arms. At Palamos the enemy had batteries which they defended; but there the squadron co-operated, and after the loss of threescore men, 255, with seven officers, surrendered. Seventy more were taken on the following day in the Castle of Calonge. The result of this well-planned, and singularly fortunate expedition, which succeeded in its full extent at every point, was the capture of one general, two colonels, threescore inferior officers, more than 1200 men, seventeen pieces of artillery, magazines and stores, and the destruction of every battery, fort, or house which the enemy had fortified upon the coast as far as the Bay of Rosas. The British seamen and marines had exerted themselves with their characteristic activity and good-will on this occasion; and Captain Fane, though suffering under severe indisposition at the time, had landed with Doyle, and put himself forwards wherever most was to be done. O’Donell, to mark the sense which was entertained of their services, ordered a medal to be struck for the officers and crew, with appropriate2 inscriptions.

The Spaniards had only ten men killed and twenty-three wounded; but O’Donell was disabled by his wound, and a General who had displayed so much ability, and in whose fortune the soldiers had acquired confidence could ill be spared. The system of maritime enterprise which had been thus well commenced

♦The enemy’s batteries on the coast destroyed.♦ was actively pursued. Upon General Doyle’s representation it was resolved to attack the batteries which the enemy had erected upon the coast between Barcelona and Tarragona, and by means of which, with few men, they kept the maritime towns in subjection; they were placed always in commanding situations, ... boats with supplies lay at anchor under them all day, in safety from the cruisers, and under cover of the night crept along shore toward their destination. Doyle embarked for this service, and with the aid of Captain Buller, in the Volontaire, effectually performed it, destroying every battery, and carrying off the artillery and stores. The same service was performed a second time upon the coast between Mataro and Rosas, where the enemy had re-occupied stations; the batteries were again destroyed, their coasters taken, and the Spanish Lieutenant-Colonel O’Ronan, who embarked in the Volontaire with authority from the provincial government, collected the imposts and levied contributions upon those persons who traded with France, or were known partizans of the

♦October.♦

French. He had the boldness to enter the town of Figueras with twenty-five men, and draw rations for them in sight of the enemy’s garrison; but in this cruise the Volontaire suffered so much in a gale of wind, that it was necessary to make for Port Mahon.

♦Captured provisions purchased for the French in Barcelona.♦

The British ships rendered essential service to the Catalans at this time, and were at all times useful in keeping up their hopes, and rendering it more difficult for the enemy to obtain supplies. The spirit of the people was invincible; and under such leaders as Manso, and Rovira, and Eroles, they were so successful in desultory warfare, that a land convoy for Barcelona required an army for its escort, and the French government was informed, that precarious as the supply by sea was, they must mainly trust to it. Indeed no inconsiderable part of the provisions which were sent by sea found its way to Barcelona after it had fallen into the hands of the British squadron. The cargoes were sold by the captors at Villa Nova, where there were persons ready to purchase them at any3 price: ... these persons were agents for the enemy; and when the magazines were full, a detachment came from Barcelona and convoyed the stores safely to that city, which is not twenty miles distant. The indulgence also which was intended for the Spaniards in Barcelona, in allowing their fishing-boats to come without the mole, was turned to the advantage of the garrison. There were about 150 of these boats, and upon every opportunity they received provisions and stores4, which they carried in for some time without being suspected.

♦Lili’s preparations for defence.♦

Suchet meantime could make no progress in the siege of Tortosa; though the Valencians left him undisturbed on their side, he could undertake no serious operations till the other part of his army could be brought down to complete the investment of the place, and till Macdonald should be in a situation to cover the besieging force, which that General could not do till he received reinforcements, his strength being wasted by the losses which he was continually suffering in detail, and by the numerous desertions which took place. Doyle’s address to the foreigners in the French service, in their respective languages, had produced no inconsiderable effect; copies of it were fired from the town in shells, and by that means scattered among the

♦Sept. 7.♦ besiegers. As soon as it was known that the enemy’s heavy guns had arrived at Xerta, Lili issued a proclamation to the inhabitants, requesting that all who were not able to take arms and bear an active part in its defence would withdraw, while a way was yet open: the place, he said, had no shelter for them when it should be bombarded, nor could provisions be afforded them. But the invaders, he added, deceived themselves if they supposed that his constancy was to be shaken by the fears and lamentations of old men and children and of a few women, or if they expected to find another Lerida in Catalonia; for he and his garrison had sworn, and he now repeated the vow, that Tortosa should not be yielded up till it had surpassed, if that were possible, the measure of resistance at Zaragoza and Gerona. He issued an order also that as soon as the first gun should be discharged against the place, the door of every house should be open day and night, and vessels of water kept there in readiness for extinguishing fires, ... and lights during the night.

♦Ferdinand’s birthday celebrated in Tortosa.
Oct. 14.♦

Buonaparte’s birthday recurred about this time, and the French general sent a letter into the city, informing the governor that it would be celebrated in due form with a discharge of cannon. Lili corresponded to this courtesy by sending a similar communication on the eve of Ferdinand’s anniversary; at the same time he sent the official notice which had reached him, that the yellow fever had broken out in certain ports of the Mediterranean, and that some ships were infected with it: this information, he said, was given as humanity required, in order that the enemy might take all possible precautions against the contagion in those parts of the country which were occupied by their troops. The holiday was observed with its usual solemnities and pageants, as if there had been no hostile encampment without the walls: in the morning there was service in the churches; in the afternoon the holy girdle, a relic of which Tortosa boasted, was carried in procession, a masque of giants going before it, accompanied by persons performing a provincial sword-dance, and followed by all the corporate bodies, civil and ecclesiastical, and by the military, with music, and banners displayed. Bull-fights with young animals who were neither tortured with fireworks (as is the manner in the serious exhibitions of that execrable sport) nor slaughtered, were held in the streets, and the day concluded with a ball, a banquet, and an illumination.

♦Conduct of the French general concerning Marshal Soult’s decree.
See vol. ii.♦

The next communication of Lili to the French general was not received so courteously by Harispe, who at that time was left in command of the besieging army. The Spaniards sent him copies of the decree issued by the Regency in consequence of Soult’s infamous edict against the Spanish armies, both edicts being printed on one sheet, in parallel columns; Lili sent them with a flag of truce, saying it was his duty to put the French general and his commander-in-chief in possession of this royal decree. Harispe replied, that he should always receive the Spanish commander’s messengers with pleasure, when they were the bearers of decent and useful communications; but in the present instance he must detain them prisoners of war, inasmuch as they seemed to have no other object than that of scattering satirical writings. If this reply had not been accompanied by an act in violation of the laws of war, it would have been satisfactory to the Spaniards; for the French general could not more plainly have shown the opinion which he entertained of Marshal Soult’s decree, than by thus affecting to believe that it was spurious. The besieging army, however, had given some examples of that merciless system upon which the intrusive government required its generals to act; ... for the bodies of some peasants were taken out of the river, with many bayonet wounds about them, and their hands tied: they were interred in the city, where the circumstance and the solemnity made a strong impression upon the people. There was a Piemontese, who, having resided more than twenty years in Tortosa, went over to the French, and rendered them all the service which his knowledge of the place and the country enabled him to perform. This treason on the part of a naturalized foreigner excited a strong desire for vengeance; some peasants watched his movements, laid wait for him, surprised him, and carried him prisoner into the city, where he was tried, and condemned to be shot in the back, under the gallows; that mode and place of death being chosen as the most ignominious, there being no hangman there. The besieged were gratified by another act of vengeance. An officer in the French army, before the serious business of the siege began, amused5 himself, from a favourable station, with bringing down such individuals as came within reach of his gun. At length a deserter gave information that this unseen marksman’s stand was in a house called la Casilla Blanca, upon which the commandant of artillery, D. Francisco Arnau, went with his piece to a good station on the bank of the river, and getting aim at him while he was engaged in his murderous sport, had the satisfaction of seeing him fall.

Though the enemy had established two bridges with a tete-du-pont to each between Mequinenza and Tortosa, they had not been able to render the passage of the river secure. Their boats were sometimes intercepted and sometimes sunk; and everywhere a system of war was carried on by which the armies of Macdonald and Suchet were so harassed, that the operations of the siege were impeded during five months.

♦Successes of Eroles.♦

Some brilliant achievements were performed in the Ampurdan by Baron Eroles, an officer who rendered himself so obnoxious to the enemy by the activity and success with which he discharged his duty to his country, that there was an order in the French army to hang him as soon as he should fall into their hands. The German troops in Catalonia had at this time been reduced by deaths, captures, and desertions, to such a state of inefficiency, that the few survivors were permitted to leave Spain, and stationed on the South coast of France; there in the enjoyment of rest and a benign climate, to recruit their broken health, before they returned to their respective countries. Some troops only were left in the garrisons of Lerida and Barcelona, ... the remainder, a few hundreds only of as many thousands, gladly departed from a country in which they had committed and suffered so many evils. Their place in the Ampurdan was supplied by a reinforcement of 5000 French, under General Clement; the new general, to signalize his entrance, entered Olot with 3000 men, and got possession of the stores which were deposited there, with which, and with the spoils of the town, he departed early on the

♦Dec. 6.♦ second day, having thus far successfully effected his purpose. Eroles was at Tornadis at this time, where he had collected his troops; and they were receiving their rations when intelligence was brought him that the enemy had left Olot, and were on their way to Castellfullit. A cry arose from the Catalans that they did not want their bread and their brandy then; what they wanted was cartridges, and to kill the French. The men knew their commander, and he knew his people, for what kind of service they were fit, and how surely they might be relied on in that service. The enemy had had two hours’ start, but they were impeded with artillery and plunder, and apprehending no danger, had made no speed: the Catalans had the desire of vengeance to quicken them, and performing in less than an hour and a half what is estimated at a three hours’ journey, they came up with the rearguard at Castellfullit, attacked and routed it. The French rallied, took a position on the plain of Polligé, where they were protected by the cavalry and their guns, and thus awaited for Eroles to attack them. His dispositions, however, as soon as he had reconnoitred the ground, were made for turning both their flanks; and when to prevent this they attacked his centre, their cavalry were repulsed, the attempt wholly failed, and they retreated to another position near S. Jayme. From thence they were driven, and fell back upon a battalion which had now formed in the plain of Argalaguer, and were protected by the buildings in that village; but supposing the few horse which Eroles then brought forward to be part of a greater force, Clement withdrew his men to a near wood, on the other side of a stream. Encouraged by success, the Catalans attacked them there also, drove them successively from thence and from Besalu, and did not give up the pursuit till night closed. In this affair Clement lost more than a thousand men, the Spaniards twenty-five killed and fifty wounded: scarcely any prisoners were taken; the French were persuaded that no quarter would be given, and in that persuasion some had run upon the bayonets of the Spaniards, and some had thrown themselves down a precipice near Castellfullit. The whole detachment would have been destroyed if Eroles had had his cavalry, but they had been detached before he knew of the enemy’s movements, and the utmost exertions did not suffice to bring them up in time. The Baron observed with satisfaction, in his dispatches, that they had been favoured with this victory by the patroness of Spain, on the6festival of whose conception it had been won.

Such, indeed, was the spirit which the French found in Catalonia, and such the exasperated temper on their part which this unexpected and brave resistance had occasioned, that they said it would be necessary to exterminate one-half the Catalans in order to intimidate the other. They found a similar spirit in Aragon; but there the country had not the same natural strength, nor was there a single fortress to afford protection to the people. The army, however, under D. Joze Maria Carvajal, was again in activity; and though, owing to the incapacity of their commanders in the first years of the war, and the want of means in the utter destitution wherein it was afterwards left, it was never fortunate enough to perform any splendid or signal service, it deserved this praise, that for patience and constancy under the most trying circumstances, this of all the Spanish armies was that which during the contest deserved most highly of its country. The severest means were used to intimidate the Aragonese, but in vain.

♦Edict against the Junta of Aragon.♦

Suchet, as governor-general of that kingdom for the intrusive government, published a decree, saying, it had come to his knowledge that a set of senseless men, who had the ridiculous audacity to style themselves the Junta of Aragon, had fixed themselves in the village of Manzanera, from whence they endeavoured to disturb the tranquillity of the Aragonese, by their incendiary libels, and despotically took possession of the public revenues and stores: he gave orders, therefore, that they should be pursued, delivered over to a military tribunal, and be sentenced within twenty-four hours: that the people of Manzanera, or of any other place to which they might betake themselves, should drive them out, or, failing so to do, receive an exemplary punishment, the Ayuntamiento and the parochial priest being responsible in their goods and persons for the behaviour of the inhabitants in this point: every place which received them was to be punished irremissibly, and the authorities to suffer ignominious death by the gallows. The Junta of Aragon, to show how they regarded this decree, printed it in their own Gazette, well knowing that nothing could contribute more to keep up that feeling in the nation which it was their duty to encourage and to direct. They called attention also to the important circumstance, that this decree was issued not in the name of Joseph the Intruder, but in that of the emperor of the French, King of Italy, and Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine, of whose intention to include Spain, if he could, among the states subjected to him, no equivocal indication was here afforded. The intrusive government, however deceitful in its promises, was always sincere in its threats. Of this every province had abundant proofs, and none more than

♦Molina de Aragon burnt by the French.♦ that in which Suchet commanded. The city of Molina de Aragon in an especial manner provoked the vengeance of the invaders by the disposition which the inhabitants manifested, who, as often as the French entered it, took refuge in the woods

♦Nov. 1.♦ and mountains: the enemy at length set fire to it on all sides, and three parts of the city were consumed. But acts of this kind, which proved the intention of the invaders to reduce Spain to a desert rather than leave it unsubdued, served only to confirm the Spaniards in that resolution which rendered their subjugation impossible.

♦Bassecourt takes the command in Valencia.♦

While Carvajal impeded Suchet’s operations from the side of Aragon, some efforts were made from Valencia; a province where, with ample means, little exertion had been found, and less ability to direct it. The Regency relied upon the unexhausted resources which existed there, believing that if the Valencian force were well employed, even though it should not undertake any grand operations, Tortosa could not be taken by less than 30,000 men. But when Bassecourt arrived to take the command there, he found the army in a miserable condition both as to equipments and discipline, which might have made him hopeless of success in any other warfare than that desultory one, wherein inexperienced troops may be trusted, and in which nothing is lost if they find or fancy it necessary to disperse and provide every man for his own safety. Some field-pieces had been sent from Valencia to the army of Aragon: the French obtained intelligence of this, and a strong detachment

♦Oct. 31.♦ under the Polish General Chlopisky entered Teruel to intercept this artillery, when General Villacampa, for whom it was intended, was at Alfambra, six hours distant: ... the officer in charge of the guns endeavoured to retreat with them, but was pursued and overtaken at Alventosa, and the whole fell into the enemy’s hands. After this success Chlopisky sought to inflict another blow upon Villacampa’s division, and an affair took place between Villel and La Fuensanta, which the Spaniards considered as a victory on their part, because, though compelled to retire from the ground, they had not been pursued, nor had any dispersion taken place. Somewhat better fortune attended

♦Nov. 12.♦ a maritime expedition from Peñiscola, which was planned by General Doyle and executed by his aide-de-camp, Lieutenant-Colonel San Martin; by this force the strong tower of S. Juan, which commanded the Puerto de los Alfaques, was surprised, and immediately garrisoned and stored; and thus the enemy were deprived of a port in which their corsairs and coasters found protection. A land expedition, undertaken at the same time in the hope of cutting off a French detachment at Trayguera, failed altogether; the French had withdrawn in time, and receiving a timely reinforcement, compelled the Spaniards

♦Defeat of the Valencians at Ulldecona.♦ in their turn to retreat. No loss was sustained in this attempt. General Bassecourt was less fortunate in an enterprise of greater moment; he projected an attack upon Suchet’s army, which if it succeeded, should have the effect of breaking up the siege; ... this general had not yet learnt how little either his men or officers were to be relied on in any combined or extensive operations; in full expectation7 that every thing would be executed as exactly as

♦Nov. 26.♦ it had been planned, he left Peñiscola at night, put himself at the head of his central division, and reaching the bridge over the Servol, beyond Vinaroz, halted there to give time for the movements of his right, under Brigadier Porta, which took the road of Alcanar. Having, as he supposed, allowed a sufficient interval for this, he proceeded towards Ulldecona, and halted a little before five in the morning at a place called Hereu. Here he inspected his troops, and promised them a speedy triumph, when a messenger arrived from Porta, requesting that the signal for attack might be delayed, inasmuch as his division had not been able to get forward with the speed which they had calculated on. Bassecourt waited impatiently a full hour till day began to break; then, as success depended in great measure upon surprising the enemy, he sent his advanced parties forward to attack the French outposts, and directed his cavalry to gallop into the town as soon as the gun should be fired and the rocket discharged that were the signal for attack. General Musnier’s division was quartered here; Bassecourt’s made three attempts to force its position, but not hearing any firing either to the right or left, he perceived that on both sides his combinations had failed, and deemed it therefore necessary to retreat. He succeeded in reaching Vinaroz, ... there Porta joined him with the right column; there he halted to give the harassed troops some rest, and to obtain some intelligence of his left; ... and there the enemy surprised him. The men instantly took to flight, and all that his personal exertions could effect, was to keep a few of the better soldiers together, and, under protection of his cavalry, reach Peñiscola with them.

♦Captain Fane taken at Palamos.♦

The disgrace of this affair was greater than the loss, which the French estimated at 3000 men. They were more elated by an advantage which they obtained shortly afterwards against an enemy over whom it was seldom that they had any real success to boast. The boats of the English squadron

♦Dec. 13.♦ attacked a convoy of eleven vessels laden with provisions for Barcelona, and lying in Palamos Bay, the French having re-occupied that town. The batteries which protected them were destroyed, the magazines blown up, two of the vessels brought out, and the rest burnt, ... and our men, having completely effected their object, were retiring carelessly, when two Dutchmen, who were in the British service, went over to the enemy, and told them that the sailors had but three rounds of ammunition left. The French were at this time joined by a party from S. Feliu, and the English, instead of retreating to the beach, where the ships might have covered their embarkation, took their way toward the mole, through the town, not knowing that it had been re-occupied. The boats made instantly to their assistance, and suffered severely in bringing them off, the loss amounting to thirty-three killed, eighty-nine wounded, and eighty-six prisoners, Captain Fane among the latter. The enemy behaved with great inhumanity in this affair; they butchered some poor fellows who had stopped in the town and made themselves defenceless by drunkenness; ... and they continued to fire upon a boat after all its oars were shot away, in which a midshipman was hoisting a white handkerchief upon his sword, as the only signal that could be made of surrendering, till of one-and-twenty persons who could neither fight8 nor fly, all but two were wounded, ... when another boat came to their assistance, and towed them off.

♦Trenches opened before Tortosa.
Dec. 15.♦

Macdonald now, whose army had been reinforced, took a position at Perillo and at Mora, to cover the siege against any interruption on the side of Tarragona, the only quarter from whence an effort in aid of Tortosa could be apprehended; and Suchet, secure from all farther attempts either from Valencia or Aragon, passed twelve battalions across the river at Xerta to the left bank, and in one day completed the investment of the place. The besiegers had great difficulties to overcome, the soil being everywhere rocky, ... so that the engineers were obliged to form parapets and sacks of earth, and in many places to work their way in the trenches by means of gunpowder. The trenches were opened on the night of December 20; and the siege from that hour was carried on with an alacrity and skill in which the French are never wanting. On the twelfth night the enemy had established themselves at the bottom of the ditch; they had then bombarded the city for four days, ... two days they had been engaged in mining, and there were three breaches in the body of the place: but there were nearly 8000 troops within the walls; there was a brave and willing people, and there were the examples of Zaragoza and Gerona. They were in no danger of famine, for the place had been abundantly provided; there was no want of military stores, and the besieging army did not exceed 10,000 men.

♦O’Donell’s plan for relieving the place.♦

Meantime O’Donell had concerted a bold and hopeful enterprise for its relief. He knew that there were provisions and ammunition sufficient for two months’ consumption in the city; he had full reliance upon the disposition of the people, and the whole conduct both of the garrison and the governor from the time that the enemy appeared before the walls had given him reason to confide in both. With his own force he was aware that nothing could be done against the besieging army, covered as it was by Macdonald; but he proposed that Bassecourt should supply 3000 foot and 500 horse from the Valencian army; that the central army should detach 4000 foot and 200 horse; that these should unite under Carvajal with such forces as Aragon could furnish, make demonstration upon the Ebro as if their intention was to succour Tortosa, but there turn off from the most convenient point, and by forced marches proceed to Zaragoza, whither O’Donell would at the same time detach 4000 foot and 400 horse by way of Barbastro. It was believed that the French at this juncture had not more than 4000 men in the whole of Aragon, and the garrison of Zaragoza consisted almost wholly of convalescents and invalids. Bassecourt assented heartily to this well-devised plan; from the central army a refusal was returned, ... perhaps it could not then have mustered even the small force that was required from it; but upon receiving this reply Bassecourt dispatched an officer to the Empecinado, and that intrepid and excellent partisan cheerfully engaged to co-operate. Carvajal held himself in readiness; and at no moment during the war was it so probable that a great success might be obtained with little hazard. For it was not doubted that Suchet would precipitately break up the siege of Tortosa, rather than allow the Spaniards time to strengthen themselves in Zaragoza; that they could enter it was certain, ... and no other possible event could have diffused such joy throughout all Spain. All arrangements having been concluded between the Empecinado, Carvajal, and Bassecourt, O’Donell’s aid-de-camp, who waited for this at Valencia, set off instantly for

♦Tortosa surrendered.
1811. Jan. 2.♦

Tarragona by sea; contrary winds delayed him a little while on the passage, ... and he arrived a few hours after the commander-in-chief had received intelligence that Lili had surrendered at discretion.

♦Sentence on the Governor for surrendering it.♦

There was no treason here, as there had been at Lerida, but there was a want of honour, of principle, and of virtue. Seven thousand eight hundred men, not pressed by famine, not debilitated by disease, with a brave and willing population to have supported them, laid down their arms and surrendered at discretion to ten thousand French. The enemy indeed affirmed that the garrison could not have continued the defence an hour longer without being put to the sword: the people of Spain thought otherwise; they remembered Palafox and Alvarez; they remembered that at Gerona a French army, not inferior to this of Suchet’s in number, lay ten whole weeks in sight of an open breach which they did not venture to assault a second time, though it was defended only by half-starved men, who would have come from the hospitals to take their stand there. They remembered this, and therefore they thought that the governor who under such circumstances had hung out the white flag, ought himself to have been hung over the walls. Accordingly sentence of death was pronounced in Tarragona against the Conde de Alache for having, it was said, infamously surrendered a city which he ought to have defended to the last extremity; and his effigy was beheaded there in the market-place.

♦Col de Balaguer surrendered.♦

The fortress at Col de Balaguer, which commanded a strong pass about half-way between Tortosa and Tarragona, was yielded a few days after Lili’s surrender, by the treachery or cowardice of the men entrusted with its defence. Tarragona was now the only strong place that remained to the Catalans; it had been the seat of government since the fall of Mequinenza, the Provincial Congress, which was to have assembled at Solsona, having then been summoned thither, as the only place of safety; now its land communication with Valencia and the rest of Spain was cut off; and Suchet immediately prepared to follow up his success by investing it, with less apprehension of any obstruction from the Catalan army, because the wound which O’Donell had received at La Bisbal compelled him at this time to retire to Majorca. The Marquis de Campoverde, being second in command, succeeded him. In O’Donell the Catalans lost a commander who had raised himself by his services, and whose conduct had justified the public opinion, in deference to which he had been promoted. But the spirit of the people was not shaken: they relied upon the strength of their country, even though the fortresses were lost, ... upon their cause, and their own invincible resolution; and they lived in continual hope that some effectual assistance would be afforded by England to a province which so well deserved it. The little which had been given had been gratefully received, and it had shown also how much might and ought to have been done.

♦Commodore Mends destroys the batteries on the north coast.♦

Maritime co-operation of a similar kind had been carried into effect on the northern coast of Spain. About midsummer Commodore Mends of the Arethusa frigate consulted with the Junta of Asturias, who engaged to put what they called the armies of that province, and of the Montañas de Santander, in motion, if he would take Porlier and 500 men on board his squadron and beat up the enemy’s sea-quarters. This it was deemed would draw the French troops towards the ports in their possession, calling them from the frontiers of Galicia, which they were then threatening, give the mountaineers opportunity to act with advantage, and favour the Guerrillas in Castille, whom the French were endeavouring to hunt down. The Commodore had no instructions for an expedition of this kind, but he saw that it offered a reasonable prospect of advantage; for if the Junta should fail in their part of the undertaking, or be disappointed in their hopes, he might nevertheless destroy the enemy’s sea-defences, and cut off the supplies which they received coast-ways. Accordingly Porlier with his men embarked, and the squadron sailed from Ribadeo. The wind serving for Santona, they landed on the beach to the westward of that place. The garrison there, some 120 in number, retired with the loss of about thirty men; and the French commander at S. Sebastian feared that it was their intention to establish themselves there, in a post which might easily have been rendered defensible, and would afford good anchorage during the prevalence of the westerly gales upon that coast: the utmost efforts therefore were made to prevent this; and on the second day after the landing, from seven to eight hundred French attacked them on the isthmus. This body was repulsed with considerable loss; but finding that the enemy were collecting in greater force, the Commodore re-embarked his men on the following day, having destroyed the fortifications. Pursuing his object, he demolished all the batteries upon the coast between S. Sebastian’s and Santander (those at Castro alone excepted), carried off or threw into the sea above a hundred pieces of heavy cannon, and laid that whole extent of coast bare of defence, without the loss of a single man; and having made about two hundred prisoners and taken on board three hundred volunteers, all for whom room could be found, the squadron returned to Coruña.

♦Expedition to Santona under Renovales.♦

The injury which had thus been done to the enemy was not easily remedied, because artillery could be carried only by sea to these places, the roads being so bad, and the country so mountainous, as to render the land carriage of heavy guns almost impossible. The people of the country were encouraged by the sight of their allies, and by hearing of a success which was reported everywhere, and everywhere exaggerated: and to profit by their disposition Porlier, who was one of the ablest partisans that this wild species of warfare produced, was again landed from the British squadron. The bay of Cuevas, between Llanes and Rivadesella, was chosen for the disembarkation, and arms and stores were landed with him, in large supply, and safely deposited, before he entered upon his operations. While this true Spaniard moved with rapidity from place to place, disappointing all the efforts of Bonnet to overpower him, surprising the enemy where they were weak, and eluding them where they were strong, it was determined by the Spanish government to avail themselves once more of the British squadron, and occupy Santona; and Renovales, who had now the rank of Camp-Marshal, was sent from Cadiz to Coruña, to command the force appointed for this service. It consisted of 1200 Spanish and 800 English troops, four English frigates and one Spanish, three smaller ships of war, with twenty-eight transports of all sizes. Part of the plan was, that he should co-operate with Porlier in an attack upon the French at Gijon, 600 in number. Porlier and Brigadier

♦Oct. 16.♦

Castañon collected their forces at Cezoso, and were on the heights in sight of Gijon when the squadron appeared; the enemy, after some skirmishing, withdrew from the town when they saw that Renovales was disembarking; the plunder which they endeavoured to carry with them was taken in their flight, the stores from the arsenal were put on board the Spanish transports, and the guns thrown into the sea. Before General Bonnet could collect a force to bring against the Spaniards the object had been effected; and when he arrived, and thought to have surprised Porlier by a night attack, the Asturians had retreated to Cezoso, and he found only the fires which they had kindled in their encampment for the purpose of deceiving him.

The weather which had delayed the ships on their way to Gijon became more unfavourable after their departure from that place; and though they reached Santona, and remained five days at anchor there, it was impossible to land; the Spanish gun-boats suffered so much that it was necessary to take out the crews and destroy the vessels. To remain there was impossible, and it was

♦Nov. 2.♦ deemed a fortunate deliverance when the expedition got into the port of Vivero. While they were laying there the wind recommenced, a heavy sea from the N.N.E. drove right into this insecure harbour, and in the violence of the storm the Spanish frigate parted from its cable and driving on board the Narcissus frigate completely dismasted it. The masts of the Spanish ship were left standing, so that it was driven clear; otherwise both must have perished, not having any other anchors to let go. Owing to the darkness and the tempest, it was impossible to afford any relief: the Spanish frigate was thrown upon the sand at the head of the harbour; when day broke, the beach appeared strewed with the wreck, and of nearly 500 souls on

♦The Magdalena wrecked.♦ board, there were but two survivors. This was the fate of the Magdalena: the Spanish brig Palomo was wrecked at the same time, only the captain and nine men escaped out of two hundred; and some of the other vessels also were lost during the same dreadful night. The Estrago gun-boat had parted some little time before from an English brig which had taken it in tow, and with great difficulty made the coast of Bermeo. Seeing that the French were there, the Commander, Lieutenant Aguiar y Mella, preferred all hazards to the evil of falling into their hands, and proceeded along the coast to Mundaca, where a like danger awaited him. Standing off again, he took a desperate course, among shoals and islets; and escaping from shipwreck in a manner which excited his own wonder, anchored in the bay of Lanchove; where one of the crew swam to shore, and brought off a little boat, by means of which the men were just landed before their vessel went to pieces. Not knowing which way to bend their course, they passed the night upon the mountains; and on the morrow, having been directed by a peasant, when they reached Sornoza, they learnt that forty of the enemy’s cavalry were in pursuit of them. They kept together, however, and, choosing the most unfrequented ways, travelled by night, in that inclement season, by Uncaya and the mountains of Leon, Santander, and Burgos; till, at the end of five weeks, the Lieutenant brought his whole party safe to Ferrol, and presented himself, with them, to the Commandant of the marine; giving thus an example of fidelity and resolution, for which they were rewarded with a gratuity by the Government, and an honourable mention in the Regency Gazette.

This expedition was frustrated by circumstances against which no human prudence could have provided.

♦Expedition under Lord Blayney.♦

An enterprise of greater moment, on the south coast, was attempted about the same time, and failed from other causes, but mainly because the information upon which it was undertaken proved to be fallacious. The French had experienced less resistance in Andalusia than in any other part of Spain. They

♦Mountains of Ronda.♦ were, however, far from being unmolested there, and in the mountains of Ronda the national character was well displayed, by the incessant hostilities which the people carried on against their invaders. The man who struck the spark there had been Professor of

♦Ortiz de Zarate.♦

Mathematics at Alicant; Don Andres Ortiz de Zarate was his name. In the early days of this dreadful revolution, he had taken an active part in the national cause, and afterwards was employed in service that required no slight degree of ability, by General Doyle; but perceiving from the mismanagement which prevailed in every department, civil or military, that the south of Spain would be overrun, as the north had been, he removed his family to Gibraltar, where, as a professional teacher, he could have supported them respectably, if he had not regarded the deliverance of his country more than his own concerns. But no sooner had the French taken possession of the kingdoms of Andalusia, than he obtained a supply of arms from the Governor of Gibraltar; and going among the villages, hamlets, and huts in the mountains of Ronda, roused a people who required only some moving spirit to put them in action: in the course of a fortnight 6000 men placed themselves under his orders. For himself he sought neither honours nor emolument; and when General Jacome y Ricardos, who was at that time Commandant at the camp of St. Roque, would have obtained rank for him from the Government, he declined it, saying, it would be time enough to receive the reward of his services when the country should be free. He soon became so popular among these mountaineers, that when he entered a town or village he was received with military honours, and the streets were decorated with hangings by day, and illuminated at night, as at the greatest festivals. This popularity might not have been obtained, if it had been necessary for him to levy contributions upon the people; but he commenced his operation in happy time, when the enemy had collected their first harvest of exactions, most or all of which fell into his hands, and was by him delivered over to the public service. The enemy, who had expected no such warfare, suffered severely in it; they lost some thousands, and El Pastor, as, for some unexplained reason, Ortiz de Zarate was then called, had become a celebrated name, when his career was impeded by some of those intrigues and jealousies which so frequently injured the national cause. He retired, in consequence, to Gibraltar, leaving General Valdenebro to command a people who were now no longer unanimous in any thing except their unabated hatred of the invaders. A deputation followed him there, accompanied by three hundred persons, and the Commandant of St. Roque’s prevailed upon him to return; but he would only go in the capacity of secretary to a military officer. Finding then that things were going ill, and that half the force which he had raised and organized was dispersed, he repaired to Cadiz, to inform the Government of the state of affairs, and require the repayment of what he had expended in the service, which was the whole of his own means, and some allowance for the prizes which he had taken from the enemy. His personal enemies had been embarked with him, and no sooner had he entered that city than he was arrested, put in irons, and thrown into a dungeon. The Spaniards had so long been accustomed, not to an absolute merely, but to an arbitrary Government, that even those authorities whose intentions were truly equitable were continually committing unjust and arbitrary acts. After twelve months’ imprisonment, Ortiz de Zarate, who had thus been treated as a criminal, was acquitted of all the charges which had been preferred against him; his honour, loyalty, and patriotism, were fully acknowledged, and he received payment of his claims in part. It was of importance to encourage the mountaineers whom he had put in action, and a plan therefore was formed for getting possession of Frangerola, a castle on the coast, between Marbella and Malaga, about twenty miles from the latter place. The castle was understood to be a place which might easily be taken by a coup-de-main; its capture would open a communication with the inhabitants of the Sierra, and hopes were entertained that it might lead also to the expulsion of the enemy from Malaga, where they were represented as being in no strength: the guns on the mole there were said to have been removed, and the citadel to be in a

♦Ld. Blayney sails from Gibraltar.♦ defenceless state. In consequence of these representations, an expedition sailed from Gibraltar, under the command of Major-General Lord Blayney: it consisted of four British companies (amounting to 300 men), and 500 German, Polish, and Italian deserters. They proceeded to Ceuta, and there took on board the Spanish regiment of Toledo. This regiment was said to be perfectly equipped; but upon examination it was found that there was a deficiency of 148 firelocks, and that they had been embarked without a single

♦Oct. 14.♦ round of ammunition. These deficiencies were supplied; the squadron soon anchored in a small bay, called Cala de Moral, and there the troops landed on a sandy beach, without any to oppose them.

♦He lands near the castle of Frangerola.♦

It had been proposed to Lord Blayney that he should disembark near Malaga, and that while he called off the enemy’s attention on the land side, the squadron should alarm the city from the eastward, and the boats push for the mole, and land a party to assist the inhabitants, who, it was confidently expected, would take the opportunity of rising against their oppressors. But Lord Blayney properly distrusted the information upon which this advice was founded, and he had little confidence in the motley assemblage under his command; being not without apprehension that the confusion of their tongues might affect their movements in the hour of action. He chose to begin, therefore, with the castle of Frangerola, which is about two leagues east of the bay in which he landed. Upon arriving before it, he found it to be a large square fort, occupying the whole hillock on which it stands, strongly built, commanding every part of the beach where boats could land, and in a state of defence very unlike what he had been led to expect. When he sent in a summons to surrender, a resolute refusal was returned; the fort opened its fire upon the gun-boats, sunk one, and occasioned some loss in others. Lord Blayney advanced close to the works, for the purpose of drawing the enemy’s attention from the water: here he was contending with musquetry against grape-shot and stone walls. Major Grant was mortally wounded in this unequal engagement, and several men killed; but the riflemen did their part well; the enemy’s guns were for a time silenced, the boats took their stations, and he withdrew the troops. He now directed the Spaniards to the summit of a hill, with a ravine in front, which would have been a sufficient protection from any sudden attack; but the Spanish Colonel objected that it was Sunday, and that it was not the custom of his countrymen to fight upon that day. These Spaniards were not in good humour with their allies, nor perhaps with the service, for which they had been taken from their comfortable quarters at Ceuta: by a misarrangement arising from mere inattention, they had been served in the transport with meat on a meagre day; and they were discontented also because there was no priest embarked with them. Lord Blayney, however, prevailed upon the Commandant to detach four companies, for the purpose of occupying a pass near Mijas, and preventing the enemy in that town from sending assistance to the fort. A hundred Germans were added to this detachment; the English officer who conducted this service was persuaded by the Spaniards to attack the town, though his orders were to act on the defensive; the consequence was, that he was repulsed, and obliged rapidly to fall back on the main body.

♦Failure of the expedition.♦

During the night, the men were exposed, without shelter, to a continual heavy rain, such as is common at that season in those countries, and is never seen in our climate, except sometimes during the short duration of a thunder-storm. It was accompanied with thunder now. But the night was actively employed in landing artillery; which could not be done by day, because the guns of the castle completely commanded the beach. Soldiers and sailors exerted themselves heartily; and before daybreak a battery for one thirty-two pound carronade was completed on the shore, and another for two twelve-pounders and a howitzer, on a rocky hill, 350 yards from the castle. Though

♦Oct. 15.♦ the artillery could not make impression upon the solid old masonry of the walls, it destroyed part of the parapet, and the musquetry did such execution, that Lord Blayney entertained good hope of success; when, to his surprise, he learnt that the garrison had been reinforced before his arrival, that it was in sufficient strength for him to expect that a sortie would be made, and that Sebastiani was on the way from Malaga with 4700 foot, 800 horse, and sixteen pieces of artillery; ... his own force amounted only to 1400 men, and the four guns which had been landed. These he could not re-embark under the fire of the castle, and he would not abandon; and at this time, just as he was about to strengthen his position, by occupying a ruined tower, the Rodney, and a Spanish line-of-battle ship, appeared off the coast, with the eighty-second regiment, 1000 strong, to reinforce him. Boats were sent off to assist in landing them, and Lord Blayney was about to station gun-boats so as to rake the beach; but before either object could be effected, some 600 infantry, and sixty horse, sallied from the castle. It was a complete surprise; the British troops were in front, taking provisions; the enemy made their attack on the Spaniards and the foreigners on the left: these men took to flight, and abandoned the battery. At this moment the troops had pushed off from the ships, and Lord Blayney, trusting in them and in the strength of his position, formed the few British soldiers who were with him, and retook the guns by the bayonet, but not before part of the ammunition had been blown up. A doubt was now entertained whether some troops who were moving toward them upon the left were friends or foes; some said they were Spaniards; the German deserters declared them to be French. The hesitation and delay which this doubt occasioned enabled the enemy (for enemies they were) to approach without opposition; and when Lord Blayney, having ascertained the

♦Lord Blayney and the British troops taken.♦ truth too late, charged them, the conflict ended in his being made prisoner, with about 200 men, some forty having been killed. This was the fate of the English soldiers; most of the deserters went over to the enemy. The men who were in the boats had then no course left but to return to the ships, fortunate in having thus seen the termination of an ill-planned expedition, without being farther engaged in it.

♦Defeat of General Blake.♦

It had not been supposed that Sebastiani could bring together so large a body of men as he had put in motion on this occasion. Some movement was expected from the inhabitants of Malaga, but with little reason; for the individuals who had exerted themselves most in resisting the entrance of the enemy into that city were, such of them as escaped from the slaughter, at this time in prison, with their leader, Colonel Avallo, upon some of those vague charges which, in Spain, under any of its Governments, were deemed sufficient grounds for throwing men into a dungeon, and leaving them there. It had been intended also that Sebastiani’s attention should have been called off in a different direction, by Blake, with the central army. That army was too slow in its movements to produce any effect in favour of Lord Blayney’s attempt; its head-quarters at this time were at Murcia, and its advance at Velez el Rubio. It was not till a fortnight after the failure at Frangerola, that the French thought it necessary to take any measures against this ill-disciplined, ill-appointed, ill-constituted body. The enemy’s troops were so distributed, that a considerable force could be assembled, within twenty-four hours, at any point where their presence was required; but before Sebastiani could

♦Nov. 3.♦ reach Baza, General Rey, with one regiment of dragoons, a regiment of Polish lancers, and a detachment of infantry, had routed an army which was exposed in a place without protection, and was completely broken at the first charge9. Between 1000 and 2000 were killed, and some 1200 taken; the officers here behaved better than the men, for the latter threw down their arms, and cried for quarter; while, of the former, all who were made prisoners had received sabre wounds. The prisoners were in a miserable condition, appearing half starved and half naked; a large portion of them consisted of old men and boys, and those who could not keep pace with their escort were shot upon the way.

Not discouraged by these repeated losses and multiplied disgraces the Spaniards continued to pursue that system of hostility which was carried on wherever the French were nominally masters of the country; a mode

♦Irregular war.♦ of war destructive to the invaders against whom it was directed, but dreadful also in its effect upon the people by whom it was waged. The Junta

♦See vol. i.♦ of Seville had, from the beginning of the struggle, perceived that the strength of Spain lay in her people, and not in her armies. The Central Junta also had early acknowledged the importance of that irregular and universal warfare for which the temper of the Spaniards and the character of the country were equally adapted; and they attempted to regulate it by a long edict, giving directions for forming Partidas of volunteers, and Quadrillas, which were to consist of smugglers, appointing them pay, enacting rules for them, and subjecting them to military law; but it is manifest that these restrictions would only be observed where the Government had sufficient authority to enforce them, which was only where they had armies on foot, and that when thus restricted, little was to be done by it. They spoke with a clear understanding of the circumstances in which Spain was placed when they proclaimed a Moorish war10, and bade the Spaniards remember in what manner their fathers had exterminated a former race of invaders. The country, they said, was to be saved by killing the enemies daily, just as they would rid themselves of a plague of locusts; a work which was slow, but sure, and in its progress would bring the nation to the martial pitch of those times, when it was a pastime to go forth and seek the Hagarenes. They reminded them of the old Castilian names, for skirmishes11, ambushments, assaults, and stratagems, the necessary resources of domestic warfare, and told them that the nature of the country and of the inhabitants rendered Spain invincible.

This character, on the part of the Spaniards, the war had now assumed in all parts of Spain. The French were no sooner masters of the field, than they found themselves engaged in a wearing, wasting contest, wherein discipline was of no avail, and by which, in a country of such extent and natural strength, any military power, however great, must ultimately be consumed. In any other part of Europe, they would have considered the conquest complete after such victories as they had obtained; but in Spain, where army after army had been routed, and city after city taken, ... when Joseph reigned at Madrid, and Soult commanded in Seville, ... when Victor was in sight of Cadiz, and Massena almost in sight of Lisbon, ... when Buonaparte had put all his other enemies under his feet, and in the height of his fortune, and plenitude of his power, had no other object than to effect the subjugation of the Peninsula, ... the generals and the men whom he employed there were made to feel that the cause in which they were engaged was as hopeless as it was unjust. They were never safe except when in large bodies, or in some fortified place. Every day some of their posts were surprised, some escort or convoy cut off, some detachment put to death; dispatches were intercepted, plunder was recovered, and what excited the Spaniards more than any, or all other considerations, vengeance was taken by a most vindictive people for insupportable wrongs. In every part of Spain, where the enemy called themselves masters, leaders started up, who collected about them the most determined spirits; followers enough were ready to join them; and both among chiefs and men, the best and the worst characters were to be found: some were mere ruffians, who if the country had been in peace would have lived in defiance of the laws, as they now defied the force of the intrusive Government; others were attracted by the wildness and continual excitement attendant upon a life of outlawry and adventure, to which, in the present circumstances of the nation, honour, instead of obloquy, was attached; but many were influenced by the deepest feelings and strongest passions which act upon the heart of man; love of their country, which their faith elevated and strengthened; and hope which that love and that faith rendered inextinguishable; and burning hatred, seeking revenge for the most wanton and most poignant injuries that can be inflicted upon humanity.

These parties began to be formed immediately after Buonaparte swept the land before him to Madrid, and from that time they continued to increase in numbers and activity, as the regular armies declined in reputation and in strength. The enemy made a great effort to put them down after the battle of Ocaña, and boasted of having completely succeeded, because the guerrillas disappeared before them, dispersing whenever they were in danger of being attacked by a superior force. There was nothing in their dress to distinguish them from the peasantry; every one was ready to give them intelligence or shelter; they knew the country perfectly; each man shifted for himself in time of need; and when they re-assembled at the appointed rallying place, so far were they from being dispirited by the dispersion, that the ease with which they had eluded the enemy became a new source of confidence. They became more numerous and more enterprising after it had been seen how little loss they sustained, when, for a time, the intrusive Government made it its chief object to extirpate them; their escapes, as well as their exploits, were detailed both in the official and provincial Gazettes; and the leaders became known in all parts, not of Spain only, but of Europe, by their own names, or the popular appellations which had been given them indicative of their former profession or personal appearance. El Manco, the man with a maimed arm, commanded one band; the Old Man of Sereña another. There was el Frayle, the Friar; el Cura, the Priest; el Medico, the Doctor; el Cantarero, the Potter; el Cocinero, the Cook; el Pastor, the Shepherd; el Abuelo, the grand-father. One chief was called el Chaleco, from the fashion of his waistcoat; he won for himself a better reputation than might have been expected from such an appellation: another obtained the name of Chambergo, from his slouched hat. Names of worse import appear among them; there was the Malalma, the Bad Soul, de Aibar, and the Ladron, the Robber, de Lumbier.

A large portion of the men who engaged under these leaders were soldiers, who had escaped in some of the miserable defeats to which the rashness of the Government and the incapacity of their generals had exposed them; or who had deserted from the regular army to this more inviting service. Smugglers also, a numerous and formidable class of men, now that their old occupation was destroyed, took to the guerrilla life, and brought to it the requisites of local knowledge, hardiness and audacity, and the quick sense of sight and hearing which they had acquired in carrying on their dangerous trade by night. But the greater number were men who, if circumstances had permitted, would have passed their life usefully and contentedly in the humble stations to which they were born; labourers, whom there were now none to employ, ... retainers, who partook the ruin of the great families to which they and their ancestors had been attached; ... owners or occupiers of land, whose fields had been laid waste, and whose olive-yards destroyed; and the whole class of provincial tradesmen, whose means of subsistence were cut off, happy if they had only their own ruin and their country’s quarrel to revenge, and not those deeper injuries of which dreadful cases were continually occurring wherever the enemy were masters. Monks, also, and friars, frocked and unfrocked, were among them: wherever the convents were suppressed, and their members forbidden to wear the habit on pain of death, which was done in all the provinces that the French overran, the young took arms, the old employed themselves in keeping up the spirit of the people; and the intrusive Government paid dearly for the church property, when those who had been previously supported by it exchanged a life of idleness for one of active exertion in the national cause, some to preach a crusade against the invaders, others to serve in it. These whom oppression had driven out from the cloister were not the only religioners who took arms. Not a few in the parts of the country which were still free took the opportunity, precious to them, of escaping from the servitude to which they were bound, disgusted with the follies of their profession, sick of its impostures, or impatient of its restraints. Public opinion encouraged them in this course; the multitude ascribing their conduct to a religious zeal for their country, while those who wished for the reformation of the abuses which had prepared the way for all this evil, were glad to see this disposition manifest itself in a class of men whom they justly regarded as one of the pests of Spain. The General of the Franciscans applied to Mendizabal to deliver up a friar who had enlisted in his army; but the application was so little in accord with the spirit of the times, that Mendizabal’s answer was read with universal approbation by the Spaniards. “The head of the Franciscans,” said that commander, “must have forgotten what Cardinal Ximenes de Cisneros did when he commanded the army which took Oran. If that prelate in those days thought of nothing but destroying the Koran, and substituting the Gospel in its stead, what would he do now, when the religion of our fathers and our mother country is in danger? I have taken a lesson from his Eminency. Let the present head of the order send me a list of all the brethren capable of bearing arms, not forgetting himself, if he is fit for service, and we will march together and free our religion and our country. Inspire then your friars, that they may be agents in this noble work, putting away all kind of sloth; and let no other cry be heard than that of ‘War against the tyrant, freedom for our religion, our country, and our beloved Ferdinand.’” While this course was taken by the monks and friars, it is related of the nuns in the subjected parts of the country, that they passed

♦Rocca. 240.♦ the nights in praying for the success and deliverance of their countrymen, and the days in preparing medicines and bandages for the sick and wounded French.

♦State of the guerrilla warfare.♦

Fewer guerrilla parties appeared in Andalusia than in any other province, although more had been expected there, from the fierier character of the people, and the local circumstances; the land being divided between the cathedrals, a few convents, and a few great proprietors, and the greater part of the inhabitants day-labourers, who were likely to be tempted

♦Andalusia.♦ by the prospect of a predatory life. But Andalusia seemed as if its generous blood had been exhausted in the first years of the war; and at this time the mountaineers of Ronda were the only part of its population who opposed a determined resistance to the intrusive Government. Their general, Valdenebro, tendered his resignation because the Regency had made him subordinate to the Marques de Portago, who commanded at the Campo de S. Roque; he had performed good service there; and it was stated in the Cortes as an example for imitation, that one or two patriots, and one or two priests who possessed local knowledge, and were of ordinary rank, but of extraordinary courage, composed his adjutants, his aides-de-camp, and his whole staff. The orator did not bear in mind that Valdenebro was at the head, not of an army, but of an irregular force. Forest-flies these mountaineers were called, to express the

♦Mountains of Ronda.♦ pertinacity with which they annoyed the enemy, and the facility with which they eluded him. Ready themselves to endure all privations, to encounter all dangers, to make any sacrifices in the national cause, they regarded submission in such a cause, when it proceeded from weakness, as little less odious than the conduct of those traitors who accepted office under the intrusive Government; and because the city of Ronda had made no resistance to the French, they looked upon the name as disgraced, and called their mountainous region the Serrania de Fernando VII., to mark their indignation against the conduct of its capital. If the spirit of such a people could have been subdued, the enemy were neither wanting in activity nor in inhumanity for effecting their purpose. They had light pieces of artillery for mountain service, two of which were carried by a mule, one on each side, balancing each other; the carriages and ammunition-boxes were made portable in the same way: and their attacks were so frequent, that in the course of two years there was one village which they entered forcibly fifty times. Sebastiani, in whose military command this district was comprised, was a person who betrayed no compunction in carrying the abominable edict of M. Soult into effect; and scarcely a day passed in which several prisoners were not put to death in Granada in conformity to that decree. Among the instances of heroic virtue which were displayed here during the continuance of this tyranny, there are two which were gratefully acknowledged by the national Government. Lorenzo Teyxeyro, an inhabitant of Granada, who had performed the dangerous service of communicating intelligence to the nearest Spanish general, was discovered, and might have saved his life if he would have named the persons through whom the communication was carried on; but he was true to them as he had been to his country, and suffered death contentedly. The other instance was attended with more tragic circumstances. Captain Vicente Moreno, who was serving with the mountaineers of Ronda, was made prisoner, carried to Granada, and there had the alternative proposed to him of suffering by the hangman, or entering into the intruder’s service. Sebastiani showed much solicitude to prevail upon this officer, having, it may be believed, some feeling of humanity, if not some fore-feeling of the opprobrium which such acts of wickedness draw after them in this world, and of the account which is to be rendered for them in the next. Moreno’s wife and four children were therefore, by the General’s orders, brought to him when he was upon the scaffold, to see if their entreaties would shake his resolution; but Moreno, with the courage of a martyr, bade her withdraw, and teach her sons to remember the example which he was about to give them, and to serve their country, as he had done, honourably and dutifully to the last. This murder provoked a public retaliation which the Spaniards seldom exercised, but ... when they did ... upon a tremendous scale. Gonzalez, who was member in the Cortes for Jaen, had served with Moreno, and loved him as such a man deserved to be loved; and by his orders seventy French prisoners were put to death at Marbella.

So wicked a system as that which Buonaparte’s generals unrelentingly pursued could nowhere have been exercised with so little prospect of success, and such sure effect of calling forth a dreadful vengeance, as among the Spaniards. Against such enemies they considered all means lawful; this was the feeling not here alone, but throughout the body of the nation; the treacherous commencement of the war on the part of the French, and the systematic cruelty with which it had been carried on, discharged them, they thought, from all observances of good faith or humanity towards them; and upon this principle they acted to its full extent. The labourer at his work in the fields or gardens had a musket concealed at hand, with which to mark the Frenchman whom ill fortune might bring within his reach. Boys, too young to be suspected of any treachery, would lead a party of the invaders into some fatal ambuscade; women were stationed to give the signal for beginning the slaughter, and that signal was sometimes

♦Rocca, 225, 226. 212.♦ the hymn to the Virgin! Not fewer than 8000 French are said to have been cut off in the mountains of Ronda.

There, however, it was more properly a national than a guerrilla warfare; the work of destruction being carried on less by roving parties than by the settled inhabitants, who watched for every opportunity of vengeance. There were more bands in Extremadura than in Andalusia, but

♦Estrdemadura.♦ there were not many; for Extremadura was not in the line for convoys, which always offered the

♦D. Toribio Bustamente.♦ most inviting prey. The most noted leader in the province was D. Toribio Bustamente, known by the name of Caracol, who had been master of the post-office at Medina del Rio Seco; among the other horrors which were committed in that unhappy town after Cuesta and Blake were defeated by M. Bessieres, the wife of this man had been violated and murdered, and his son also, a mere child, had been butchered. From that hour he devoted himself to the pursuit of vengeance, and many were the enemies who suffered under his hand for the crimes of their countrymen, till, after a career of two years, he fell at the pass of Miravete with the satisfaction of a man who, in the performance of what he believed to be his sacred duty, had found the death which he desired. Bustamente’s men acquired a good character, as well for their behaviour to the inhabitants, as for the courage and success with which they harassed the enemy: but there were other parties in Extremadura, who inflicted more injury upon their countrymen than upon the French. This was the case in La Mancha also; the Government, with a vigour which it seldom exerted, arrested some of the banditti leaders, and brought them to justice; but such examples were too few to deter other ruffians from pursuing the same course, while the authority of either Government, national or intrusive, was so ill-established, that there was no other law than that of the strongest. One adventurer, however, in this province raised himself to respectability and rank by his services, though known by the unpromising appellation

♦Francisco Abad, the Chaleco.♦ of El Chaleco. Francisco Abad Moreno was his name: he began his career as a common soldier, and escaping from some rout, joined company with two fugitives of his own regiment, and began war upon his own account. Their first exploit was to kill an enemy’s courier and his escort; and shortly afterwards having added two recruits to his number, he presented to the Marques of Villafranca, at Murcia, five carts laden with tobacco, quicksilver, and plate, which he had taken from the French, and the ears12 of thirteen Frenchmen who had fallen by their hands! His party increased as his name became known; and he cut off great numbers of the enemy, sometimes in Murcia, sometimes in La Mancha, intercepting their convoys and detachments. Showing as little mercy as he looked for, and expecting as little as he showed, he faced with desperate or ferocious courage the danger from which there was no escape by flight, swimming rivers when swoln by rain, or employing any means that might give him the victory. On one occasion he broke a troop of the French by discharging a blunderbuss loaded with five-and-thirty bullets; it brought down nine of the enemy, according to his own account, and he received so severe a contusion on the shoulder from the recoil, that it entirely disabled him for a time; but the party was kept together under his second in command, Juan de Bacas, and its reputation enhanced by greater exploits.

One service which Bacas performed diffused a general feeling of vindictive joy through La Mancha and the adjacent

♦Ciria, the Nero of La Mancha.♦ provinces. D. Benito Maria Ciria acted for the intrusive Government as governor and corregidor of La Mancha. He was a man of information and singular activity, who might have obtained for himself an honourable remembrance, if he had displayed the same zeal in the cause of his country which he exerted for its oppressors. From the beginning he was suspected of favouring the Intruder, and had been apprehended on that suspicion before the French forced the passes of the Sierra Morena; the military Junta of La Carolina spared him, and upon the first appearance of the enemy, he proved that his intentions had not been mistaken, by joining them. From that time Ciria served them with the rancorous alacrity of a true traitor, insomuch that he was called the Nero of La Mancha. This evil celebrity drew on him its proper punishment. Bacas was on the watch for a favourable opportunity, and as soon as it occurred, he entered Almagro at the head of his guerrillas, and seized him in the streets of that city: the people called out for his punishment upon the spot, but Bacas felt that the solemnity of a judicial sentence would make the example more impressive; he carried his prisoner therefore to Valencia de Alcantara, and delivered him there to the arm of the law, under which he suffered as a traitor. A victory could not have occasioned greater exultation throughout La Mancha; if Bacas and his party, it was said, had performed no other service than that of bringing this offender to justice, they would have deserved well of their country for that alone.

It would have been well for humanity, and honourable for Spain, if those who were engaged with right feelings in their country’s cause had always shown this regard to order and the course of law; but the Spaniards had, under long misrule, become a lawless nation; the great trampled upon the laws, and by the people murder was scarcely regarded as a crime; in their vindictive feelings they were unrestrained by any religious awe, or any apprehension of earthly punishment. A squadron of the La Manchan Crusaders entered this very city of Almagro; they sacked the house of the traitor who collected the revenues for the Intruder; and because his wife in her rage reviled them, professed her attachment to King Joseph, and threatened them with vengeance in his name, they killed her; and Ureña, a priest, who commanded the party, related the circumstance with perfect complacency in his official dispatch. The heart of the nation was already hard, and the little which might have been done by the legitimate Government for correcting the national inhumanity, and inducing, or at least endeavouring to induce, a more christian, a more civilized, a more humane spirit, was neglected.

♦New Castille.
D. Ventura Ximenez.♦

New Castille swarmed with guerrillas, among whom were some of the most distinguished chiefs. D. Ventura Ximenez made himself formidable in the parts about Toledo, till one day in action his horse carried him into the enemy’s ranks; his people rescued him, but not till he had received two sabre wounds and a pistol-shot. They carried him to Navalucillos, where he died. A price had been set upon his head; his body therefore was disinterred by the French, and the head carried to Toledo, that the dragoon who had shot him might receive the reward. In this province there were some of the vilest depredators who under the name of guerrillas infested Spain.

♦Guerrilla banditti.♦

For as in times of pestilence or earthquake, wretches are found obdurate enough in wickedness to make the visitation a cover for their guilt, and enrich themselves by plunder; so now, in the anarchy of Spain, they whose evil disposition had been restrained, if not by efficient laws, yet in some degree by the influence of settled society, abandoned themselves, when that control was withdrawn, to the impulses of their own evil hearts. These banditti plundered and murdered indiscriminately all who fell into their hands. The guerrilla chief, D. Juan Abril, caught a band of seven, who made Castille the scene of their depredations; and he found in their possession gold and silver bars, and other property, to the amount of half a million reales. A ruffian belonging to one of these bands was taken by the French, and in order to save his life, offered to show them the place where his comrades had secreted their booty; accordingly a commissioner from the criminal Junta of Madrid, with two alguazils, and an escort of forty horse, was appointed to go with him. The deposit was in the wood of Villa Viciosa, eight leagues from the capital, and there they found effects to the value of more than 700,000 reales. But D. Juan Palarea, the Medico, from whose party the bandit had originally deserted, had obtained intelligence of their movements, and intercepted them on their return; five only of the escort escaped, six were made prisoners, the rest were killed; and the commissioner was put to death, as one whose office precluded him from mercy, and even from commiseration.

Of the wretches whom this dissolution of government let loose upon mankind, the banditti were the boldest,

♦Crimes of José Pedrazuela and his wife.♦ but not the worst. A more extraordinary and flagitious course was chosen by José Pedrazuela, who had been an actor at Madrid. He assumed the character of a commissioner under the legitimate Government, and being acknowledged as such in the little town of Ladrada in Extremadura, condemned and executed, under a charge of treason, any persons whom from any motive he chose to destroy: the victims were carried at night to a wood, where their graves had been made ready, and there their throats were cut, or they were shot, or beaten to death. The people supposing him to be actually invested with the authority which he assumed, submitted to him in terror, as the French had done to Collot d’Herbois and the other monsters whom this Pedrazuela was imitating. His wife, Maria Josefa Garcia della Valle, was privy to the imposture, and if possible exceeded him in cruelty. Before they could withdraw, as they probably designed to do when they had sufficiently enriched themselves, Castaños heard of their proceedings, and instantly took measures for arresting them in their career of blood. They were brought to trial at Valencia de Alcantara; thirteen of these midnight murders were proved against them: it was said that in the course of three months they had committed more than threescore. The man was hanged and quartered, the woman strangled by the garrote. The Spaniards had not brought upon themselves the guilt of revolution, but they were visited by all its horrors!

The better guerrilla chiefs maintained order where they could, and whenever any of the banditti fell into their hands, ordered them to summary execution. There was another class of criminals whom they took every opportunity of bringing under the laws of their outraged country, ... those Spaniards who took an active part in the Intruder’s service. The alcalde of Brihuega was

♦The alcalde of Brihuega.♦ notorious for his exertions against those who were suspected of corresponding with the national Government, or in any way aiding it; his wife was passionately attached to the same cause, and the Empecinado one day intercepted a dispatch from her to the nearest French commander: he entered the town, and made her and her husband prisoners. The dispatch had provoked a barbarous spirit in the men, for they cut off the woman’s hair, shaved her eyebrows, tarred and feathered her, and in that condition paraded her through the streets; after which they delivered them both to the Junta of the province for judgment. The Empecinado seems to have had an especial pleasure in pursuing traitors of this description. He had set intelligencers

♦Rigo.♦ upon one Rigo, who, having affected great zeal in the national cause, fled afterwards to the capital, obtained a considerable appointment there, and became a persecutor of all who carried on any communication with the Government or the armed Spaniards. This man was keeping his marriage-day at a house a little way from Madrid, when, during the wedding-feast, the Empecinado entered the court-yard at the head of a sufficient band, and demanded that Rigo should be delivered up, saying no injury should be offered to any other of the party. Flight or resistance were alike impossible; the miserable traitor was surrendered into his hands, and sent immediately under a trusty escort to Cadiz; the officer into whose charge he was given being enjoined not to depart from that city till he should have seen him

♦Joseph’s escape from the Empecinado.♦ put to death in the great square. Joseph himself narrowly escaped a similar fate from the same daring adventurer. He was dining at La Alameda, six miles from Madrid, on the road to Guadalaxara, with Gen. Belliard, and a festive party, when their entertainment was interrupted by an alarm that the Empecinado was approaching, and they fled hastily towards the capital, for not a moment was to be lost. The Intruder had a second escape on the road from Guadalaxara: the Empecinado knew his movements, and six days after the French had boasted of having totally defeated him, and dispersed his band of brigands, he took post at Cogolludo, and pursued Joseph so closely that more than forty of his rear-guard were cut off at Torrejon and El Molar, before they could come within protection of the garrison of Madrid. So little indeed had that garrison the command of the surrounding country, that a whole party which had been sent out from thence were one day taken and hung by the way-side, within a short distance from the walls.

In this dreadful warfare blood called for blood; cruelty produced retaliation, and retaliation was retaliated by fresh cruelties. Eight of the Empecinado’s men were taken in the Guadarrama mountains, and nailed to the trees there, for the purpose of intimidating their fellows: such a spectacle had the sure effect of exasperating them, and the same number of Frenchmen were soon nailed to the same trees, in the same spirit of inhuman vengeance.

♦Desertion of the Juramentados.♦

A lieutenant of his party, Mesa by name, went over to the French, and engaged to bring them the head of this dreaded partisan; his interest was so good, and his proposals so plausible, that they gave him the rank of captain in one of the Spanish regiments which the Intruder was raising, and sent him with a company of 200 Spanish cavalry to perform his promise; when they came near Guadalaxara, the men put him to death, and joined their countrymen in arms. Such an example might have taught Joseph and his ministers how little they could depend upon the Spaniards, who by misery, or severe usage, were forced into his service. Half naked and ill-fed, kept in miserable prisons, or at the hardest work, upon the canals, where such work was at hand, winter and summer, sometimes up to the middle in water, they enlisted with the determination of making their escape. In the course of five months not less than 12,000 entered with this purpose; and on the first opportunity that offered, whole companies, including the officers, deserted, with arms and baggage. The celebrity of the Empecinado encouraged them to these attempts, and his movements in the vicinity of Madrid facilitated their escape. Like the other distinguished guerrilla leaders, he soon obtained rank from the national Government, but he looked to it neither for pay nor supplies.

♦Junta of Guadalaxara.♦

The Junta of Guadalaxara used the utmost exertions to assist him; the members of this Junta performed their duty with perfect fidelity in a situation where they were continually in extreme danger, from the vicinity of a strong enemy’s force. They were as often in the woods and wilds as in human habitations, and yet they collected stores, clothing, and money for the armies, while in this state of outlawry under the intrusive Government; and they circulated a newspaper which they printed in the mountains near the sources of the Tagus.

The Empecinado was supposed to have 500 horse under his command, and 2,200 foot; but this force was perpetually varying in number, according to the chance of war; and the guerrillas generally acted with better

♦The Medico.♦ success in small parties. The Medico’s party was estimated at 300 horse. This leader, joining with the band of D. Casimero Moraleja, fell in with 140 of the enemy’s troops, escorting a convoy from Madrid, about four leagues from Toledo, near Yuncles. Some twenty Juramentados, as the Spanish recruits were called because of the oath which was administered to them when they entered the Intruder’s service, immediately laid down their arms; the others, of whom

♦Fourscore French burnt in a chapel.♦ fourscore were French grenadiers under the Chef-d’escadron Labarthe, took possession of an Ermida, and refused to surrender when they were summoned, little apprehending the horrible alternative. The Spaniards set fire to the building on all sides; no mercy was shown to those who endeavoured

♦Naylies, 275.♦ to escape from the flames; eight persons only were happy enough to be made prisoners in time; the bodies13 of all the rest were left in the smoking ruins.

♦Cruelties and retaliations.♦

These details were published in the Regency’s Gazette; there was nothing revolting to the public mind in such horrors, because the Spaniards had been accustomed to cruelties, by the history of their American conquests (wherein the enormities of the conquerors have not been concealed), and by the Inquisition: and if the heart of the nation had not thus previously been hardened, the nature of this war must have hardened it. The decree of the intrusive Government for putting to death every Spaniard who should be taken in arms had not indeed been carried into effect; too many had been taken to render this possible in a christian country; ministers and generals, who might have braved the guilt, shrunk from the odium of enforcing such a measure; and it may be deemed certain, that if the French troops had been commanded to enforce it, they would not have obeyed. But toward the guerrillas the soldiers could entertain no feeling either of honour or humanity: they put to death all

♦Naylies, 274.♦ who were taken in arms and not in uniform; not regarding, or probably not considering, that a great proportion of the regular troops were in that condition! It was not to be expected that they should ask themselves on which side the provocation was given, and with whom the cruelty began. And yet, barbarous as Buonaparte’s predatory system of war necessarily made them, and with all the irritation which the guerrillas occasioned, they were less barbarous than those who were in authority over them: prisoners whom they spared in the field were, in obedience to rigid orders, shot if they lagged upon their march into captivity; and even after they had entered France, numbers were thus

♦Lord Blayney, i. 487.♦ put to death in cold blood. All who were regarded as brigands, who acted in the provincial Juntas, or against whom any proof appeared of acting under the Juntas, or giving intelligence or assistance to the guerrillas, were executed by the summary sentence of some arbitrary tribunal. Heads were exposed on poles, bodies left hanging upon the gallows, or the trees; and in the market-place of large towns, the wall against which the victims were shot was pierced with bullets, and the ground blackened with blood! Nowhere was this system of terror pursued more unrelentingly

♦Old Castille.♦ than in Old Castille, and yet nowhere were the guerrillas more active or more formidable. In ten parties, under known leaders, their numbers were estimated at 1,300 horse, and 2,500 foot. D. Geronimo Merino, the priest of Villabrau, known by the name of

♦The Cura.♦ El Cura, was the most remarkable of them for the ferocity with which he acted against enemies who were made ferocious by the dreadful circumstances in which they were placed. It was not to be expected that the Spaniards should make this allowance for their invaders; but they did not claim it for themselves; they proclaimed for admiration and example actions at which humanity should shudder: it became a matter of praise among them, as in the days of Pizarro and Garcia de Paredes, to possess the qualities of a ruffian; and if the appearance14 corresponded to the manners and character, the popular hero was perfect in his vocation. Yet mercy appears to have been more frequently shown by the guerrillas than extended to them. They obtained consideration with their own Government, and with the English, by bringing in prisoners, and were encouraged so to do; whereas the French soldiers knew that if an armed Spaniard were taken he would be put to death, and might consider it merciful at once to slay a fallen enemy, rather than deliver him over to execution. The guerrillas also, by conveying their prisoners to one of the Spanish fortresses, or to a part of the country where the allies were in force, obtained a respite, for the time, from that life of incessant vigilance and insecurity, exertion and exposure, which, without some such occasional relief, no bodily strength could have long supported. It was by the peasantry that the greatest cruelties were committed upon such miserable Frenchmen as fell into their hands,

♦Rocca, 145.♦ and by the women, who are said to have sometimes vied with the worst American savages in their unutterable barbarities.

♦Aragon.♦

There were fewer of the roving guerrillas in Aragon, because something with the name of an army was kept on foot there, and in such a state that the regular service differed little from the course of life to which the adventurers were reduced. In no other part of Spain was the intrusive Government administered with greater ability and vigilance, nor more in the spirit of remorseless oppression and rapacity. The whole yearly revenue which had been raised in that province before the invasion, amounted to from ten to twelve millions of reales: the French exacted twelve per month as the ordinary contribution; they called for extraordinary payments when they pleased; and after these official exactions, the Aragonese were not exempted from the common lot of their countrymen in being at the mercy of every plunderer. What guerrilla parties there were in this part of the country were less heard of, because on all sides there were chiefs whose reputation, founded upon repeated successes, drew to their parties the men who would otherwise have been dispersed

♦The Canterero.♦ in smaller bands. Anicio Algere, the Potter, whose scene of action was about Jaca, was the only one who obtained any degree of celebrity here. But along the great line of communication for the French armies, and especially the high road from the Bidassoa to Madrid, where it was of most importance for the enemy to secure the ways, and where most precautions were taken for securing them, there the guerrillas were most active and most daring. At the entrance of the villages houses were fortified with ditches, parapets, embrasures for field-pieces, and loop-holes for musquetry, and ditches and parapets across the roads. These stations served a double purpose; for here at every step the sick and wounded, who were on their way to France, were inspected with a vigilance so severely exercised, that it seemed as if the persons in authority, who could not escape from this hateful service, found a malignant satisfaction in disappointing others of their expected deliverance. They sometimes remanded men who had passed at several posts; and there were cases in which the wound or the malady (aggravated, perhaps, by so cruel a disappointment) proved

♦Naylies.♦ fatal at the very place where the sufferer had been refused permission to proceed, upon the plea that he was not sufficiently disabled!

Everywhere, but more especially at Irun and all the frontier places, accounts were kept for the guerrillas of the troops, who passed through, both of those who were entering the country, and of invalids on their way from it. Every artifice was used to delay the enemy when it was desired that one of these parties should have time to come up for attack, or for securing a retreat. For this purpose the priest or the alcalde would officiously prepare refreshments, while some messenger, with all the speed of earnest good will, conveyed the necessary intelligence. This would have occurred in ordinary wars; but the treachery with which they had been invaded, and the cruelties which were continually practised against them, made the Spaniards regard any vengeance, however treacherous, as an act of justice.

♦Alcalde of Mondragon.♦

An alcalde and his son were put to death at Mondragon for having at different times assassinated more than two hundred Frenchmen. When they were led to execution, they exulted in what they had done, accounting it among their good and meritorious works; and they said to their countrymen,

♦Lord Blayney.♦ that if every Spaniard had discharged his duty as well as they had done, the enemy would ere then have been exterminated, and the land been free.

It was in this part of Spain that the most noted guerrilla leaders appeared, the Empecinado only excepted; the most mountainous and rugged country being most favourable to their mode of warfare. There

♦Asturias.
Porlier.♦ were many bands in Asturias; the most numerous was that which Porlier had raised; but Porlier was a man of family, who had rank in the army, and his people had more of the feeling and character of soldiers than was commonly found in such companies. There were many also in the Montaña, where Longa obtained a good name. The French endeavoured to counteract this system of national hostility, in the province of Soria, by forcing the men into their own service: with this view they ordered a conscription, and the alcalde of Valdenebro was put to death by them in Burgo de Osma, for not having enforced it in obedience to their authority. They called for all single men from fifteen to forty years of age, and all married ones whose marriage was not of earlier date than the year on which this dreadful struggle

♦D. José Duran.♦ was begun. D. José Duran, an old officer who had grown gray in the regular service, and whom the Junta of Soria had appointed to the command there and in Rioja, impeded the execution of this scheme,

♦Nov. 20.♦ by his enterprises and his edicts: he threatened such of the inhabitants as were disposed to obey the orders of the enemy, lest their own safety might be compromised; and he interdicted the use of the word in that acceptation, saying it was their religion and their liberty which were compromised by such obedience, and that no Christian and true Spaniard could incur the guilt of such a compromise. He forbade any inhabitant of the province to enter Soria while the enemy kept a garrison there, on pain of being regarded as a traitor, whatever motive or excuse he might allege. He declared that every person obeying an order of the intrusive Government should be put to death, ... every village burnt, ... so that nothing might exist in Spain which had contributed towards its subjugation. Whenever the enemy approached a village, the inhabitants were enjoined to leave it, driving all their cattle into the mountains; and they were commanded not to leave provision of any kind in their houses, unless it were poisoned; to the end that either by want or by poison, the enemy, who were employed in destroying an unoffending people, might be themselves destroyed. The state of feeling may be understood in which such an edict could be issued by a provincial Junta who lived in hourly peril, and whose dearest connexions were the victims of foreign barbarity; but when the edict itself was sanctioned by the national Government—for sanctioned it was by being allowed to appear in the Regency’s Gazette unannulled and uncensured—it became a national disgrace.

When the guerrillas of Asturias, the Biscayan provinces, Soria, or Rioja, were closely pressed by the enemy, they usually sought refuge in Navarre, or the higher parts of Aragon: here they had their chief strength. The French, indeed, complained, in their intercepted dispatches, that these bands gave the law in Navarre, levied contributions there, and even collected the duties at the frontier custom-houses. For this

♦Xavier Mina.♦ superiority they were beholden to Xavier Mina. His career was short, but remarkable not less for the signal successes which he obtained, than for his hair-breadth escapes. On one occasion he and his little party were driven to seek refuge on a rock near Estella, where they defended the only accessible side till night-fall, and escaped during the darkness by letting themselves down the precipice by a rope. In the course of five months after his first appearance in the field, his celebrity was such that he might have raised an army from among the youth of Navarre and Upper Aragon, if there had been means to arm, and officers to discipline them: owing to the want of these, and chiefly of officers, he never had more than 1,200 under his command; greater numbers would have embarrassed him, these he was capable of directing: voluntary rations were provided for them by the villages, and for ammunition and money he looked to the enemy, calling the wood of Tafalla his powder-magazine and his mint. As a farther resource, he levied the duties of which the French complained, and he collected the rents belonging to the convents and churches, as having in this extremity reverted to the nation; and from these funds he was enabled to pay liberally and regularly for intelligence. The wisdom of his measures, not less than the chivalrous spirit of enterprise which he displayed, made him so formidable to the enemy, that his capture was considered by them as more important than a victory, when accident threw

♦Xavier Mina made prisoner.♦ him into their hands. Chance had delayed the advance of a convoy for which he was waiting: he was informed of the delay, but proposed to wait still; and went himself on horseback with only one companion, by moonlight, to reconnoitre the ground. The enemy, who would have thought no precautions necessary against a Spanish army at that time, stood in such fear of Mina, that they had formed a double line of outposts, and sent out patroles; by some of whom he and his comrade were surprised, dismounted, and taken. It is remarkable that he was not put to death as soon as identified, for he had been proscribed as a leader of banditti, and his capture as such was exultingly announced; but some person of more generosity than those who thus reviled him must have interfered; and where so little that has the character of honour or humanity can be recorded, it must be regretted that we know not to whom this redeeming act should be ascribed.

♦Espoz y Mina elected to succeed him.♦

When Mina’s followers had thus lost their leader, disputes arose concerning the command; and there being no one whose personal qualifications were generally acknowledged, it was resolved to choose his uncle for his name’s sake, for in that name there was a strength. His uncle, Francisco Espoz y Mina, was born in 1781, in the village of Ydozin, upon a little farm, the sole patrimony of his family, to which he succeeded on his father’s death. His education consisted in having merely been taught to read and write; and husbandry had been his only occupation, till under the impulse of the general feeling he took arms against the oppressors of his country; and having, according to his own account, done to them all the hurt he could as long as he remained in his own house, he enlisted as a volunteer in Doyle’s battalion. Soon afterwards, using that freedom which the times allowed, he joined his nephew’s guerrilla, and on the evening after the young hero’s capture, he left the band apparently with the intention of betaking himself to some other course of life; a deputation of seven persons followed him, and urged him to take the command, which having against his will accepted, he began to exercise with a strength of character that never halted in half measures. One of his first acts was to put down those who resisted the authority which he claimed as commander-in-chief of the guerrillas of Navarre, and in which the Junta of Aragon confirmed him. A certain Echeverria had aspired to this rank; he had some 800 men in his company, consisting mostly of German deserters, who inflicted more evil upon the peasantry than upon the French. Espoz y Mina, with about half that force, surprised and arrested him, had him shot with three of his principal comrades, and incorporated the men in his own band. A gang of forty ruffians, with a woman by name Martina for their leader, infested Biscay and Alava, and committed so many murders, that the cry of the land went forth against them; he dispatched a party, who surprised half these banditti with their execrable mistress at their head, and they were sent to summary execution. Espoz y Mina himself narrowly escaped from the treachery of another adventurer, who for his evil countenance was known by the appellation of Malcarado. This man had been a shepherd, and afterwards a serjeant in Mina’s troop. He, too, intended to make war upon his own account; but finding that this would not be permitted by the new guerrilla chief, who suffered no banditti to exercise their vocation within his reach, he deemed it better to make terms with the French than be exposed to danger on both sides; feigning, therefore, to serve under Espoz y Mina, he gave general Pannetier information of his movements, ... and drew off the advanced guard from before the village of Robres, so as to give a French detachment opportunity to enter while the chief was in bed. The alarm roused him but just in time; he defended himself at the entrance of the house with the bar of the door for want of any other weapon, till his faithful follower, Luis Gaston, came to his assistance and brought a horse. Enough of his people collected to make head against the enemy, rout them, and rescue their prisoners. Immediately he pursued Malcarado, and having what was deemed sufficient evidence of his treason, ordered him to be shot, and the priest of the village and three alcaldes to be hanged, side by side, as his accomplices.

A leader who acted always thus decisively, in disregard of forms, upon the apparent justice of the case, inspired his followers with confidence, and obtained submission everywhere. Where his orders were not executed with the alacrity of good-will, they were obeyed for fear. The alcaldes of every village were required to give him immediate information whenever they received orders from the French for making any requisition: it was at the hazard of their lives to do this; but so surely as they failed to do it, they were seized in their beds and shot. The miserable people were thus continually placed between two dangers; but their hearts were with Mina; they were attached to him by self-interest as well as by national feeling, for he encouraged them to trade with France, receiving money from the rich traders for passports, by which means he was enabled both to pay his men, and to reward his spies liberally; and thus also he obtained many articles which it would otherwise have been difficult to procure. Circumstances having forced him into a way of life which he would not have chosen, he devoted himself to it with his whole heart and soul; and his strength both of constitution and character were equal to their trials. It is said that two hours’ sleep sufficed for him; when he lay down it was with his pistols in his girdle, and the few nights which he slept under a roof were passed with less sense of security than he felt in the wilds, although his first care was to secure the doors, and guard against a surprisal. He was not encumbered with baggage; the nearest house supplied the wardrobe when he changed his linen; and he and his men wore sandals that they might more easily ascend the heights in the hair-breadth adventures to which they were exposed. His powder was made in a cave among the mountains; sometimes he obtained it from Pamplona, notwithstanding the vigilance of the enemy. His hospital was in a mountain village; when the French more than once endeavoured to surprise it, timely intelligence was given, and the villagers carried the sick and wounded in litters, upon their shoulders, into the fastnesses. He kept no man in his troop who was known to be addicted to women, lest by their likeliest means he might be betrayed. No gaming was allowed among his men, nor were they permitted to plunder; when the fight was over every one might keep what he could get; but woe to him who should lay hand on the spoil before the struggle was at an end, and the success had been pursued to the utmost!

In such enterprises as those of the two Minas and the other guerrilla chiefs, the Timours, the Babers, and Khouli Khans of Eastern history, were trained; but neither men nor officers were likely to be formed in them for the operations of regular war. The restraints, the subordination, the principle of obedience which the soldier is compelled to learn, of the necessity of which his understanding is convinced, and to which, if his disposition be good, he conforms at last morally as well as mechanically, these in no slight degree counteract the demoralizing tendencies of a military life, and compensate for its heart-hardening ones. The good soldier becomes a good citizen when his occupation is over; but the guerrillas were never likely to forego the wild and lawless course in which they were engaged; and, therefore, essential as their services now were, thoughtful men looked with the gloomiest forebodings to what must be the consequence of their multiplication, whenever this dreadful struggle should be ended; they anticipated the

♦Sem. Patr. No. 82, p. 338.♦ utter ruin of Spain. The course of events, however, was not to be controlled; circumstances had produced this irregular force, and there was now no possibility of defending the country without it. Lord Wellington had felt how hopeless it was to act in concert with a Spanish army, wherein good intentions were frustrated by obstinate counsels, and courage rendered unavailing by insubordination; but he felt at this time of what importance it was to have a nation in his favour, and how materially the movements of the enemy were impeded and their difficulties increased by the guerrilla parties who acted along their whole line, from the Pyrenees to the frontiers of Beira. Massena’s situation became every day more trying; the French in Spain were so little able to feed his army, that he was obliged to have his biscuit from France, when it had to be escorted 800 miles through a hostile country! It was as difficult for him to send dispatches as to receive supplies; and the first intelligence which Buonaparte obtained of his situation after he advanced to the lines of Torres Vedras, was brought from London, by persons employed in smuggling guineas to the continent.

CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE CORTES. PLAN WHICH THE JUNTA HAD ADOPTED ALTERED BY THE REGENCY. FIRST PROCEEDINGS OF THE CORTES. NEW REGENCY.

♦1810.♦

While the Peninsula in every part, from the Pyrenees to the Pillars of Hercules, was filled with mourning, and with all the horrors of a war carried on on both sides

♦Schemes of the intrusive Government.♦ with unexampled cruelty, the Madrid gazette spoke of public diversions, and public projects, as if the people of that metropolis, like the Parisians, were to be amused with plans of imaginary works, and entered into the affairs of the theatre and opera regardless of the miseries of their country. Needy as the intrusive Government was, it kept these places of amusement open, in the spirit of Parisian policy, taking its erroneous estimate of human nature from man in his most corrupted state: but the numbers of the audience, and the accounts of the theatres, were no longer published as in other times. Schemes of education were hinted at, and for the encouragement of literature, ... the unction which such men as Cabarrus and Urquijo laid to their souls. Canals were projected, when couriers were not safe even at the gates of the capital; and the improvement of agriculture was announced, while circulars were sent to the generals and military governors, urging them to prevent the destruction of the vines and olive trees by the troops; and promising that this ruinous course should not be continued, if the peasants would be careful always to provide fuel of their own cutting.

Spain also, like Italy, was to be despoiled of its works of art. Joseph gave orders that a selection of the best pictures should be sent to the Napoleon Museum at Paris, as a pledge of the union of the two nations. This robbery did not excite so much indignation as a decree, directing that the bones of Cortes and Cervantes, and other famous Spaniards who were buried in or near Madrid, should be translated with public solemnities to the church of St. Isidro. The Spaniards observed, that though it was known in what churches some of these illustrious men had been interred, their graves could not be ascertained; and they asked whence the money was to come for this translation, when the Intruder could pay none of his servants, and wanted funds for things of the utmost necessity? “But the decree, like many others, was intended for the gazette, and for nothing else. Nevertheless,” they continued, viewing the subject with natural and honourable feeling, “it excites our indignation that they should affect this veneration for our ancestors, who omit no means for debasing Spain, and subjecting her to the infamy of a foreign yoke.”

♦The Cortes.
April 18.♦

But the most remarkable of the Intruder’s acts, was his promise of convoking the Cortes. “It was long,” his partizans said, “since the Junta had amused the nation with vain hopes of this benefit, for which Spain was to be indebted to her new sovereign.” The object of the intrusive Government at this time, in calling a Cortes of its own, must have been, to take off the attention of the Spaniards in those parts of the country which the French occupied, from the national Cortes; and that this intention, having been thus announced, should never have been carried into effect, is proof how well the unhappy men, who were ostensibly at the head of Joseph Buonaparte’s councils, knew the insecurity of the puppet whom they served. Almost the last paper which issued from the royal press at Seville, had been an edict declaring in what manner the Cortes should be chosen. Upon this subject the central Junta had asked the advice of the Spanish universities, and public bodies. Great difficulties had been apprehended from the obscurity in which the forms of the old Cortes were involved, as well as from the difference in the different kingdoms, which had each their own. It was well remarked by the university of Seville, that these things were matters of historical research, not of practical importance; there was now neither time nor necessity for the inquiry; the present business was to convene representatives, according to the general principles of representation, and leave them, after they had saved the country, to determine the peculiar forms of the general Spanish Cortes.

♦Mode of election.♦

The plan which the Junta adopted was formed with reference to established forms, to present circumstances, and to the future convenience of election. Cities which had sent deputies to the last Cortes, were each to send one to this, and each superior Junta one also. The provinces one for every 50,000 heads, according to the census of 1797; wherever the excess above that number amounted to one half, an additional deputy was to be chosen; any smaller excess was not accounted. The mode of election was so regulated, as to render undue influence or interference impossible. Parochial Juntas were to be formed composed of every housekeeper above the age of five-and-twenty, excepting such as had been found guilty upon any criminal charge; who had suffered any corporal punishment, or infamous sentence; bankrupts, public debtors, the insane, and the deaf and dumb. Naturalized strangers also were excluded, whatever might have been the privilege of their naturalization. The secular clergy were included. As soon as the Justicia received instructions from the corregidor, or alcalde mayor of the district (Partido), a parochial meeting was to be held, and the Sunday following appointed for the business of the primary election.

The Spanish government did well in connecting this with religious ceremonies. The business of the day was to commence with the Mass of the Holy Ghost; after which the parish priest was to preach upon the state of the country, and the importance of choosing proper representatives, upon whom so much depended. Then adjourning to the place appointed, the magistrate should first make inquiry whether any means had been used to influence the electors; any person for whom such means had been employed, being rendered ineligible and his agents or injudicious friends deprived of their vote: any person calumniating another, in hope of impeding his election, was punished with the same disabilities. The parishioners then, one by one, were to advance to the table at which the parochial officers and the priest presided, and there name an elector for the parish: the twelve persons who obtained a majority of names should go apart and fix upon one. It was not required that they should be unanimous, only that the person appointed should have more than six votes; and it was compulsory upon him to perform the duty to which he was elected. The primary election being thus completed, the parochial Junta was to return to the church in procession, their deputy walking between the alcalde and the priest; Te Deum was to be performed, and the day concluded with public rejoicings.

Within eight days afterward, the parochial electors should assemble in the principal town of the district, and form a Junta, over which the corregidor and the ecclesiastic of highest rank in the place presided. The testimonials of the electors were to be scrutinized; the same religious ceremonies to take place, and twelve persons chosen in the same manner, to appoint one or more electors for the district, according to its extent. They might choose them out of their own number: but any persons born in the district, and resident in it, were eligible. The business was to be transacted in the consistory, a record of its proceedings deposited among the archives, and a copy sent to every parish, and to the capital of the province, where the final election took place.

Here the electors of the district were to assemble. A Junta should have been previously constituted, consisting of the president of the superior Junta of the province; the archbishop or bishop, regent, intendant, and corregidor of the city, and a secretary. It was presumed that these persons would all be members of the provincial Junta; if not, they were called to this duty by virtue of their rank, and an equal number of members of the Junta added; this proviso being intended to secure for the provincial Junta that influence to which their services entitled them, for which their experience qualified them, and of which it might not have been easy to deprive them, even if it had been thought desirable. The board thus appointed, was to see that the primary and secondary elections were made throughout the province. After the same observances and scrutinies as on the former occasions, the final election was to be made. The person proposed must be a native of the province, but it was not necessary that his property should be there: nobles, plebeians, and secular priests, were equally eligible; no other qualification was required, than that he should be above five-and-twenty, of good repute, and not actually the salaried servant of any individual or body.

In this final election, the first step was to elect three persons successively. A simple majority was not sufficient here; more than half the electors must vote for the same person, and the voting be repeated till this should be the case: three having thus been chosen, their names were to be placed in an urn, and he whose lot was drawn was the deputy to the Cortes. A fourth was then to be elected, whose name, in like manner, was submitted to the lot with the two which had been left undrawn, and this was repeated till the number of deputies for the province was made up. Supplementary deputies were then to be chosen, in readiness for any vacancy by death; the supplementaries were in the proportion of one to three. The number of provincial deputies amounted to 208; that of the supplementaries to 68.

The provincial Juntas were to choose their members according to the rules of the final elections; observing also the same general principle, that the person chosen must be a native of the province. The form appointed for the city elections was, that where the regidores were proprietaries, or held their office during life by the kings appointment, the people should elect an equal number of electors, in the manner of the municipal elections. These electors, with the regidores, the syndic, and the officers who are called the Personero y Diputado del Comun, were to meet in the consistory, where the corregidor should preside, and there choose three persons out of their own body, the final decision being by lot. All the elections were to be made with open doors.

Twenty-six members were added for the Spanish possessions in America and the Philippines. But during the long interval which must elapse before these representatives could reach Europe, supplementaries for their respective provinces were to be chosen from natives resident in Spain; and a circular notice was issued, requiring that all American or Asiatic Spaniards then in the country would send in their names, ages, employments, places of birth and of abode. This being done, and lists made out accordingly, a Junta was to be formed, consisting of the members of the central Junta, who should at the time be acting as deputies for the colonies, or four ministers of the council of the Indies appointed by the Junta, and of four distinguished natives of the colonies, to be chosen by the other members; this Junta was to direct and superintend the election. Twelve electors for each province were to be chosen by lot from among the natives of that province then resident in Cadiz; but if it so happened that they did not amount to eighteen, that number was to be filled up by individuals of the other provinces. The twelve then chosen were to choose their deputies, in the manner of the final provincial election, first by nomination, and then by lot.

The archbishops, bishops, and grandees, were to meet in an upper house: it was required that the grandees should be the heads of their respective families, and above the age of 25; and those nobles and prelates who had submitted to the French government were excluded.

Such was the plan which the commission of the central Junta decided upon, and which the Junta adopted. The commission was composed of five members, the Archbishop of Laodicea, Jovellanos, Castanedo, Caro and Riquelme; but the two latter members being appointed to the executive committee, their places were supplied by the Count de Ayamans, and D. Martin de Garay. D. Manuel Abella, and D. Pedro Polo de Alcocer, were secretaries to the commission. The details were formed, and the official instructions drawn up by Garay. In their general principles the commissioners had been chiefly guided, as was expected and desired, by Jovellanos, the best and wisest of the Spaniards.

There was, however, a difference of opinion in the commission upon three points of considerable importance. Riquelme and Caro would have had only one house of assembly; Jovellanos referred to the English constitution, as the best model, and one to which in this point, the Spaniards, with sufficient conformity to their ancient customs, might assimilate their own. He proposed also, that certain qualifications of property, situation, and acquirements, should be required of the deputies. Riquelme opposed this restriction; and Jovellanos yielded to the majority of his colleagues with less repugnance, knowing how well the great body of the people had deserved of their country. Riquelme insisted that the Cortes should not assemble without deputies from the colonies; the other members would have omitted them in the first assembly, in consequence of the long and indefinite time which must elapse before they could be chosen in their respective provinces, and arrive in Spain. The plan which was adopted obviated this difficulty. The inadequate number of colonial deputies is less objectionable than it may at first appear, when the probable number of persons from whom the supplementaries were to be chosen is considered; especially as it was not pretended that the manner in which the first Cortes was convoked should be binding as a precedent. “The government,” said Jovellanos, “fearful of arrogating to itself a right which belongs to the nation alone, leaves it to the wisdom and prudence of the nation to determine in what form its will may most completely be represented in future.”

♦Regulations proposed by the central Junta.
Jan. 29.♦

The last act of the Junta had been to consign to the Regency the charge of seeing the Cortes assembled, according to these rules. In this final decree provision was made for choosing deputies to represent the provinces occupied by the enemy; they were to be chosen in the same manner as the colonial deputies. Here also the important point of the veto was determined. If the Regency refused its assent to a measure which had passed both houses, the measure was to be re-considered; and unless re-passed by a majority of two-thirds in each house, it was lost, and could not be brought forward again in that Cortes; but if both houses, by such a majority, ratified their former determination, three days were then allowed to the Regency, and if within that time the royal sanction was not given, the law was to be promulgated without it. The Junta endeavoured to confine the Cortes within its proper limits, by declaring that the executive power appertained wholly to the Regency, and the legislative to the representative body; and lest any party should arise, who should aim at making the Cortes permanent, or unnecessarily extending its duration, “by which means,” the Junta said, “the constitution of the kingdom might be overthrown,” the Regency was empowered to fix any time for the dissolution of the assembly, provided it were not before the expiration of six months.

♦The regency delays the convocation.♦

This decree, which developed the principles of the central Junta, and completed their labours, the Regency did not think proper to make public; one of the many acts of injustice which the Junta suffered after their compulsory resignation. The council of Castille, or rather the Consejo-reunido, in which such of its members were incorporated as had followed the legitimate Government into Andalusia, hinted, in a memorial full of calumnies against the ex-Junta, that the Cortes ought not to be convoked; their opinion was doubtless of great weight with the Regency; and as the Regents did not conceive themselves bound to follow the course which the preceding Government had marked out, they suppressed the edict, and issued in its stead an

♦Feb. 11.♦ address, breathing the same spirit as all the proclamations of the Spanish Government, but putting off the meeting of the Cortes. “The council of Regency,” they said, “could well have wished that your representatives had been at this time in Cortes assembled, and that the nation itself might thus have regulated its own destinies. The means which are necessary for our deliverance would quickly appear at its energetic and powerful voice. But this means of preservation has been too long delayed; and evils gathering upon each other, with the rapidity of a whirlwind, do not permit that it should be accomplished at the time and place appointed. The Isle of Leon, where the national congress ought to assemble, is at this time besieged by the enemy; from this isle we see their fires, we hear their artillery, we hear their insolent threats, and witness their ravages. Their rash endeavours, beyond a doubt, will fail against these intrenchments, where the watch-tower is erected which presents to all good patriots a beacon in the midst of the tempest. But the Isle of Leon, thus threatened by the enemy, cannot be at present a proper place for the celebration of our Cortes; and necessity compels us to delay it till the present crisis shall be past, and place and time suitable for so august an assembly can be assigned. Meantime, none of the measures and forms established and decreed for the convocation are to be suspended for a moment. The elections are to proceed, and the members who are chosen must hold themselves ready to perform their functions; the intention of the Government being, that the Cortes shall meet as soon as the circumstances of the war permit.”

Notwithstanding this language, it is possible that Spain was indebted for its Cortes more to the annunciation from Seville that the Intruder was about to convoke one, than to the inclination of its own rulers. The central Junta had delayed it not from intentional procrastination, but from their sense of the difficulty of the task, and from the deliberation which so peculiarly characterizes the Spaniards. They had overcome the difficulties, and framed a plan of representation, which preserved a due respect to old venerable forms, and was well adapted to the existing circumstances of the country; this having been done, as soon as it was ascertained that Cadiz might defy the enemy there ought to have been no delay. That was ascertained in February, as soon as the Isle of Leon was secured from a coup-de-main. But it was not till the middle of June that a decree was

♦Cortes convoked.♦ issued, ordering the elections to be completed as soon as possible, and requiring the deputies to assemble in the island during the month of August, that as soon as the greater part of them were met the sessions might begin. The plan which the central Junta framed was altered in one most material point, only one house being convoked. Had Jovellanos and his colleagues determined thus, they would still have summoned the privileged orders; but the Regency, departing inconsiderately from a resolution which had been the effect of long deliberation, neither summoned them to meet apart from the third estate, nor with it, nor devised any plan for representing them; so that two of the three estates were excluded as such from the national representation.

Three days of rogation were appointed previous to the opening of the Cortes, and on the 24th September they commenced their proceedings. At nine in the morning

♦Commencement of their proceedings.♦ the deputies assembled in a hall fitted up for their sittings in the palace of the Regency: the military were under arms, and they went with the Regents in procession to the parochial church of the Isle of Leon, where the Mass of the Holy Ghost was performed by Cardinal Bourbon, Archbishop of Toledo. After the gospel, the Bishop of Orense, who was president of the Regency, addressed them in a solemn discourse; and then the following oath was proposed: “Do you swear to preserve the Holy Catholic Apostolic Romish religion in these realms, without admitting any other? Do you swear to preserve the Spanish nation in its integrity, and to omit no means for delivering it from its unjust oppressors? Do you swear to preserve to our beloved sovereign, Ferdinand VII., all his dominions, and in his failure, to his legitimate successors; and to make every possible exertion for releasing him from captivity, and placing him upon the throne? Do you swear to discharge faithfully and lawfully the trust which the nation reposes in you, observing the laws of Spain, but changing, modifying, and varying such as require to be altered for the general good?” When all the deputies had made answer, “Yes, we swear,” they advanced two by two to touch the gospels; after which the bishop said, “If ye shall do this, so may God give you your reward; but if not, so may he enter into judgment with you!” The hymn Veni Sancte Spiritus, and the Te Deum, were then sung.

These ceremonies over, they returned in the same order to the hall of assembly: the Regents advanced to the throne, and occupied five seats under the canopy; the two secretaries of state, who accompanied them, took their seats at a table towards the head of the hall; and the deputies seated themselves indiscriminately as they entered, the old contest for precedency between Burgos and Toledo being no longer remembered. The bishop addressed them, briefly reminding them of the perilous state of the country, and the arduous duties which they were called upon to discharge; then desiring them to elect their president and secretaries from their own body, he and the other four members of the Regency quitted the hall, leaving a written paper upon the table.

A difficulty in point of form at the commencement of these proceedings was ended by appointing, as it were at random, two deputies to hold the offices of president and secretary, while the Cortes elected others. As soon as the election was made, the secretary read the paper which the Regents had left. “The five individuals,” it said, “who composed the Regency, received that charge, above their merits and their strength, at a time when any delay in accepting it would have been injurious to the country: but they only accepted it and swore to discharge its duties according to their capacity, till the solemn congress of the Cortes being assembled, should establish a government founded upon the general will. That moment so longed for by all good Spaniards has arrived, and the individuals of the council of Regency can do no less than state this to their fellow-citizens, that they may take it into consideration, and appoint the government which they deem most adapted to the critical circumstances of the monarchy, for which this fundamental measure was immediately necessary.”

Upon the motion of Torrero, deputy for Extremadura, the plan of a decree was then read, which had been prepared by his colleague Luxan, and which, after some discussion, was adopted to this effect. The members of the congress now assembled, and representing the nation, declared themselves legally constituted in a general and extraordinary Cortes, wherein the national sovereignty resided. Conformably to the general will, which had been declared in the most open and energetic manner, they proclaimed and swore anew, that Ferdinand VIIth, of Bourbon, was their only lawful king; and they declared null and void the cession of the crown which he was said to have made in favour of Napoleon Buonaparte, not only because of the violence which accompanied that transaction, but principally because the consent of the nation was wanting. As it was not proper that the legislative, executive, and judicial powers should remain united, they reserved to themselves the exercise of the legislative power in its full extent. They declared, that the persons to whom they should delegate the executive power, in the absence of their king, were responsible to the nation according to the laws. They authorized the Regency to continue exercising the executive power under the same title, till the Cortes should appoint a Government which they might deem more convenient. But to qualify itself for this continuance of its authority, the Regency should acknowledge the national sovereignty of the Cortes, and swear obedience to the laws and decrees which it should promulgate; for which purpose, as soon as the decree was made known to them, the members of the Regency

♦Oath required from the Regents.♦ should pass immediately into the hall of assembly, where the Cortes would remain till this was done, having declared their sitting permanent for this purpose. The form of the oath was thus prescribed: “Do you acknowledge the sovereignty of the nation, represented by its deputies in this general and extraordinary Cortes? Do you swear to obey its decrees, and the constitution which it may establish, according to the holy object for which they have assembled; to order that they shall be observed, and to see that they be executed? To preserve the independence, liberty, and integrity of the nation? the Catholic Apostolic Roman religion? the monarchial government of the kingdom? To re-establish upon the throne our beloved king D. Ferdinand VIIth, of Bourbon? and in all things to regard the public weal? As you shall observe all these things, God be your helper; and if you observe them not, you shall be responsible to the nation, in conformity with the laws.” The Cortes confirmed for the present the established tribunals, and the civil and military authorities; and they declared the persons of the deputies inviolable, and that no authority or individual might proceed against them, except according to the manner which should be appointed in future regulations, by a committee for that purpose.

Between ten and eleven at night this decree was passed. One of the members observed, that the Regents might be gone to bed, if they were not immediately apprized that their presence would be required that night; a deputation was therefore sent to them, while the ceremonial with which they were to be received was discussed. About midnight four of the Regents entered

♦The Bishop of Orense scruples to take the oath.♦ the hall and took the oath. The Bishop of Orense did not come; the unseasonableness of the hour, and the infirm state of his health, were assigned as reasons for his absence, but it was soon known that a stronger motive had withheld him. The sovereignty of the nation was a doctrine which the venerable prelate was not prepared to acknowledge, and from that hour he ceased to act as one of the Regency.

♦Sept. 25.♦

On the following day, the members resolved, as a consequence of their former decree, that the style in which they were to be addressed should be that of Majesty; highness was to be that of the executive power, during the absence of Ferdinand, and likewise of the supreme tribunals. They ordered also, that the commanders-in-chief, the captains-general of the provinces, the archbishops and bishops, tribunals, provincial Juntas, and all other authorities, civil, military, and ecclesiastic, should take the oath of obedience to the Cortes, in the same form as the Regency. By another edict, they decreed that their installation should be officially made known through all the Spanish dominions, and everywhere celebrated with Te Deums and discharges of artillery; and that prayers should be offered up during three days, imploring the divine blessing upon their councils.

♦Sept. 26.♦

The decree, by which the Regents were declared responsible, produced a memorial from them, requesting to know what were the obligations annexed to that responsibility, and what the specific powers which were given them; “unless these things,” they said, “were clearly and distinctly determined, the Regency would not know how to act, inasmuch as the ancient laws had drawn no line of distinction between the two powers; and thus they must be continually in danger, on the one hand, of exerting an authority, which, in the opinion of the Cortes, might not be included in the attributes of the executive, or, on the other, of omitting to exert the powers which it involves, and which at this time were more necessary than ever.” The reply of the Cortes proved with how little forethought they had passed their decree. “They had not limited,” they said, “the proper faculties of the executive, and the Regency was to use all the power necessary for the defence, security, and administration of the state, till the Cortes should mark out the precise bounds of its authority. The responsibility,” they added, “to which the Regents were subjected, was only meant to exclude that absolute inviolability which appertained to the sacred person of the king.” The whole of a night-session was occupied in forming this answer.

Among the many erroneous opinions which prevailed in this country respecting the affairs of Spain, the most plausible and the most general was that which expected great immediate benefit from the convocation of the Cortes; an error from which, perhaps, no person was entirely free, except the few, who, like Mr. Frere, looked to the assembly rather with apprehensions of evil than with hope. But any great immediate advantage, any rapid acceleration of the deliverance of Spain, ought not to have been expected, unless it was supposed that the Spanish deputies would proceed like the French national convention, and that a revolutionary delirium might have produced a preternatural and overpowering strength. There was as little reason to look for this, as there could be for desiring it. The Spaniards, more than any other Europeans, are attached to the laws and customs of their country. Spain is to them literally a holy land; and its history, being composed for many ages of a tissue of connected miracles, to the greater part of the people sanctifies its institutions. But unless the Cortes took the executive power into its own hands, and gave the nation a revolutionary impulse, which all circumstances forbade, it might have been known that the benefits to be expected would produce little or no immediate effect upon the operations of the war: if that assembly acted wisely they would be slow, certain, and permanent.

The mode of election secured a fair representation. Some of the members were of the French School of philosophy, and were sufficiently disposed to have followed the Brissotines, both in matters of state and church-policy. Having become converts to republicanism in their youth, and in the season of enthusiasm, they had imbibed a prejudice against England, which did not even now give way, though they hated Buonaparte and the present system of France as bitterly as the great majority of their colleagues. On this point there was but one feeling.

♦First measures of the Cortes.♦

The first measures of the Cortes indicated a sense of their power, and a determination to assert it. Want of precedents, and of experience in the business of a deliberative assembly, were great impediments at their outset; they had hardly decreed the separation of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, before they confounded them in their own practice. Nevertheless this decree was important, for it was a great object to secure the judicial authority from the interference of government: that, breaking, they said, the chains with which the arbitrary power of some centuries had bound the hands of the most respectable ministers, justice might now be administered for the happiness of the people. A commission was appointed to prepare a report upon the best means of speedily terminating

♦Oct. 11.♦ criminal causes. The result was, a decree that an extraordinary visitation of all the prisoners should be made by the respective judicial authorities, and the accused brought to trial with as little delay as possible; and that for the future, the tribunals should transmit, through the Regency, to the Cortes, at intervals of two months, accounts of all the

♦Dec. 14.♦ causes pendent, and the persons in confinement. Llano, a supplementary member for Guatemala, proposed a more effectual remedy; that a committee should be appointed to frame a law to the same effect as the Habeas Corpus of the English.

♦The Duke of Orleans offers his services.
March 4.♦

The Cortes found it necessary also to interfere with the executive. The Duke of Orleans had offered his services to the Spaniards; the former government had not thought proper to accept his offer, but the Regency, a few weeks after their installation, invited him to take the command in Catalonia. A century ago their conduct might have been easily explained, when Lord Molesworth gravely asked, what could be done for generals, in such havoc as was then made of them, if there were not so many younger sons of princes in Germany, who all ran wherever there was a war, to get bread and reputation? But pedigrees and patents of nobility were not considered now as exclusive qualifications for command, and the conduct of the Regency, in this instance, was inconsiderate and hasty. When the duke first offered his services, the Spaniards were in the full tide of success; and he expected, with good reason, that as soon as the French armies were disheartened, they would readily forsake a tyrant, to whom they were not bound by any tie of duty. Affairs bore a very different aspect when the Regency informed him, that the obstacles which had formerly frustrated his desires were now removed; reminded him of the triumphs which his ancestors had won in Catalonia; and called upon him to preserve the verdure of their laurels. The duke was a man of too much honour and courage not to fulfil the offer which he had made in more prosperous times. Accordingly he sailed from Sicily in the beginning of June, touched at Tarragona, and having been received there with the honours due to his rank, continued his voyage to Cadiz, where he landed under a salute of artillery. The Bishop of Orense had not arrived from his diocese to take his seat in the council of Regency when the duke was invited: he therefore was not implicated in this transaction, which was in every respect exceedingly imprudent. There might have been some apparent cause for it, if the duke had been a general of great experience and celebrity, or if he could have assisted Spain either with men, money, or stores; but the Sicilian court had no means at its disposal: it had sent a present of a thousand muskets early in the year, and this was the extent of its ability. On the other hand, the presence of a prince of the Bourbon line, at the head of a Spanish army, would have certainly drawn against it a stronger French force than would otherwise have been employed, the destruction of one branch of that house being of more importance to Buonaparte than the conquest of Spain. That consideration may have had some weight with the Junta of Seville, when upon the first outburst of national feeling, Louis XVIII. wrote to the principality of Asturias, offering with his brother, his nephews, and cousins, to serve in their ranks, unite the Oriflamme with their standards, and call upon the deluded French to rally round it, and restore peace to the world. So many inconveniences were perceived in this proposal, that in conformity to Padre Gil’s advice, no reply was made to it. And though the same objections did not apply to the Duke of Orleans, there was an obvious impolicy in inviting a Frenchman to the command; the central Junta had felt this, and the Cortes also felt it; they held a private sitting upon the subject, and the result was, that the duke re-embarked for Sicily.

♦Second Regency.♦

The Regents did not hold their power many weeks after the meeting of the Cortes. A new Regency was appointed, consisting of Blake, D. Pedro Agar, a naval captain and director-general of the academies of the royal marine guards; and D. Gabriel Ciscar, governor of Carthagena. The reason assigned for this change was, that the members of the former Regency had made known their earnest desire that the weight of the administration, which they had

♦Oct. 28.♦ supported for many months, under such critical circumstances, should be consigned to other hands. Those members were now to experience in their turn the same injustice which they had shown toward the Central Junta. Like them, they had disappointed the hopes of the people; and like them, more from the inevitable course of things than by their own misconduct. They were not, however, treated with equal

♦Nov. 28.♦ cruelty. A decree was passed, that they should give in an account of their administration to the Cortes within two months, with a view to some future process. Shortly afterwards, in consequence of a secret sitting, they were ordered to retire from the

♦Dec. 17.♦

Isle of Leon, and the place where each was to reside was appointed, after the arbitrary manner of the old court. Blake and Ciscar being absent, the Marquis del Palacio and D. Jose Maria Puig were appointed to act in their place till they should arrive. When

♦Oct. 28.♦ they were called upon to take the oath, the same difficulty was found as in the case of the Bishop of Orense. The marquis being asked if he swore

♦Palacio refuses the oath.♦ to obey the decrees, laws, and constitutions of the Cortes, replied, Yes, but without prejudice to the many oaths of fidelity which he had taken to Ferdinand VII. The president informed him, that he must take the oath simply, or refuse it. The marquis requested that he might be allowed to explain himself. Upon this it was agreed that he should be heard after his colleagues had been sworn; and that business having been completed, he entered into an explanation, saying, “he was ready to take the oath in the form prescribed, provided those deputies who were versed in theological points would assure him that he might do it without scruple. All that he meant was more to ensure the purport of the oath itself, conformably to those which he had so often taken to Ferdinand; and he had never doubted the sovereignty of the nation assembled in its Cortes.”

♦Tyrannical conduct of the Cortes towards him.♦

The Cortes manifested upon this occasion something of that precipitation, and something of that proneness to tyranny, by which the proceedings of popular assemblies have so often been disgraced. In this case, as in that of the Bishop of Orense, they might perhaps have thought that such scruples disqualified him for the office which he was called upon to accept; but those scruples ought to have been respected; and upon no principle of law or justice could they possibly be considered as a crime. But the marquis was ordered into custody, and the Cortes met again that night, to deliberate upon this unworthy business. One member said, that Palacio had lost the confidence of the public; he could not act in the Regency, because he had shown that his conscience was not such as was fit for a Regent; and his conduct ought to be investigated by judges appointed for that purpose. Capmany maintained, that the Cortes itself ought to take cognizance of the offence; and Arguelles, Oliveros, and Torrero, agreed in these exaggerated censures of an act which, even if censurable, amounted only to an error of judgment of the most venial kind. Arguelles declared, that should the Cortes retrace a single step, and not go forward with its decree, respecting the sovereignty of the nation and their own power, they would give a triumph to the enemy. It was voted, after a long discussion, that the marquis had forfeited the confidence of the nation, and that another Regent must be appointed in his place. The Marquis del Castelar was chosen. Palacio now represented, through the captain of the guard, that he was confined at this time in a damp room, to the danger of his health, without having a place to sit down. It was then ordered, that he should be confined in his own house, under a guard, who was never to lose sight of him. This discussion occupied the Cortes till midnight, and then they entered upon a secret sitting, probably upon the same subject. Three days after, it was voted that the marquis was no

♦Oct. 31.♦ longer qualified to act as captain-general of Aragon; and in three more, discovering how little conformable it was to their professed principles thus to proceed to condemnation before trial, the Cortes repealed the decree, and resolved, that both this case and that of the Bishop of Orense should be referred to judges appointed by the Regency, who were to hear the advocates of the Cortes, of the royal council, and of the marquis, and to consult with the Cortes concerning their sentence. Meantime he was to remain a prisoner at large in the Isle of Leon, upon his parole.

If the Cortes, in the tyrannical character of these proceedings, reminded those persons who remembered the commencement of the French revolution of the errors which were then committed, it reminded them also of a measure springing from a more generous feeling, but which, both in France and England, experience had shown to be an error. A self-denying ordinance

♦Self-denying ordinance.
Sept. 29.♦ was passed at the motion of Capmany, deputy for Catalonia, a man well known for his literary labours: it enacted, that no member of the Cortes should be permitted, during the exercise of his functions, nor for a year afterwards, to accept for himself, or solicit for any other person, any pension, favour, reward, honour, or distinction, from the executive power which at that time existed, nor from any other Government which might hereafter be appointed. Gutierrez de la Huerta, supplementary member for Burgos, had prepared a more rigorous bill to the same effect, which was to punish the deputy who solicited any employment for a kinsman within the fourth degree, by expelling him from the Cortes, and depriving him for four years of his elective right, and the capacity of being elected. It was carried by acclamation, that some public testimony of disinterestedness should be given. There were, however, a few members cool enough to temper the enthusiasm of their colleagues, and qualify the vote, so as to render it somewhat less unreasonable. At their suggestion, such persons were exempted from the decree, who, by rank or age, were accustomed to succeed in military, ecclesiastic, and civil bodies, according to the rules or statutes. And it was admitted, that cases were possible in which extraordinary services might deserve an extraordinary reward.

Two subjects of especial moment occupied much of the time of the Cortes. The situation of the colonies was one, which is too wide a topic to be touched on

♦Liberty of the press.♦ here: the other was the liberty of the press. Upon the motion of Arguelles, a committee was appointed to prepare a report upon this momentous point. Many curious discussions ensued. The Marquis of Vigo protested against taking the subject into consideration.

♦Oct. 15.♦

“He was ready,” he said, “to sacrifice his life, and even his reputation in the Cortes, which he regarded more than life, for his conduct on this occasion; but he would not sacrifice his conscience.” “Whatever light,” said Arguelles, “has spread itself over Europe, has sprung from the liberty of the press, and nations have risen in proportion as that liberty has been more or less complete among them. By its influence we saw the chains fall from the hands of the French nation; a sanguinary faction obtained the ascendency, and the French Government began to act in direct opposition to the principles which it had proclaimed. After having solemnly and by acclamation declared, that the French republic renounced all conquests, they gave orders for the incorporation of Savoy; and the conduct of the Republic uniformly contradicted the principles of the National Assembly, both in respect to the states which they occupied, and to their allies. If at that time we had enjoyed a well-regulated liberty of the press, Spain would not have been ignorant of what was the political situation of France, when she concluded the infamous peace of Basle. Spain then abandoned itself with blind subserviency to all the successive Governments of France; and from the convention to the empire, we followed all the vicissitudes of their revolution, always in the closest alliance, till we saw our strong places taken, and the armies of the perfidious invader in the heart of Spain. Till that moment it was not lawful for any one to speak of the French Government with less submission than of our own, and not to admire Buonaparte was one of the greatest crimes. In those miserable days the seeds were sown, and we are now reaping the bitter fruits. Look round the world! England is the only nation which we shall find free from these horrors; the energy of her Government has done much, but the liberty of the press has done more. By that means, wise and virtuous men were able to diffuse the antidote faster than the French could administer the poison, and the information which the people enjoyed made them see the danger, and taught them how to avoid it.”

Brigadier Gonzalez affirmed, that whoever opposed the freedom of the press was a bad Spaniard. This occasioned a warm reply, and one of those altercations followed, which the Cortes was not then so well regulated as to prevent or to cut short. A priest terminated it, by saying, that their first duty was to defend the Catholic, Apostolic, Roman religion, and whatever was contrary to that religion was bad. Then, citing the canons to prove that no work ought to be published without the license of a council, or of a bishop, he inferred that the liberty of the press was contrary to religion. The conclusion was perfectly legitimate, but it was met by an answer not less curious than the argument. “No person,” said Mexia, “will deny that Christianity has existed from the beginning of the world; for though our Saviour was not yet come, those moral precepts, which are the basis of his religion, and which were given by Moses, were written in the heart of man. In like manner, the liberty of the press has existed from the time of Adam; for printing is a mode of writing, and the liberty of doing it is the same, whether it be upon the leaf of a tree, or in wax, or upon paper; and this liberty all men have possessed. The art of printing, therefore, where the liberty of the press was restrained, was an injury to man, inasmuch as it deprived him of this primitive liberty.”

There was, however, a great number of members who were by no means prepared to change the opinions in which they had been bred up; and they listened with deep attention to those speakers who maintained that it was both for the interest of the writer and the public, that books should be subjected rather to a previous censure, than to an after responsibility. The result was not less characteristic than the long and animated discussions which preceded it. After declaring that all persons were at liberty to publish their sentiments without any license, the Cortes unanimously admitted an amendment which, by inserting the word political, curtailed this liberty of half its extent: and all writings upon religious matters were left subject to the previous censure of the ecclesiastic authorities, according to the decree of the Council of Trent. Anonymous publication was allowed, but the printer was to put his name and place of abode; and if, in case of an offence against the laws, he did not make known the author, he was to incur the punishment himself. For the purpose of securing the freedom of the press, and providing against its abuse, the Cortes was to appoint a supreme board of censure, composed of nine individuals, who were to reside near the Government; and a similar board of five members in every provincial capital; three of the nine, and two of the five, being secular clergy. The business of the provincial boards was to examine such works as were denounced; and upon their sentence the judges were to suppress the book, and call in the copies which might have been sold; but their sentence was not definitive. The author or printer might demand a copy of the censure, and lay it before the supreme board: the supreme board might require them to revise their sentence; but their second opinion was to be final. If the book were suppressed, as a private libel, the individual aggrieved had still his remedy at law against the libeller. Some appeal was allowed against the decision of the ordinary. He was not to refuse his license without assigning the ground of refusal, and hearing what the author, editor, or printer could allege in behalf of the work. If he then persisted in his refusal, the person interested might lay his censure before the supreme board, and refer the book to their judgment; if they found it worthy of approbation, their opinion was to be communicated to the ordinary, that he, being better informed upon the matter, might grant the license if he thought good, in order to prevent any farther appeal; but what that was to be was not stated. This was not the only point which, by a sort of compromise, was left doubtful in the decree. The article which empowered the supreme board to reverse the sentence of the provincial ones, declared, as it was originally worded, that upon their approbation the book should freely circulate, and that no tribunal should impede it. Some members upon this required that a proviso should be inserted, declaring this was not intended to intrench upon the authority of the Inquisition. To avoid such a recognition of that baleful power, Luxan proposed that the latter part of the sentence should be omitted, and this was carried by a majority of two votes. It was a victory for the liberal party to leave the question undecided. As soon as the discussion was concluded, a deputy moved that special and honourable mention of the Inquisition should be made in the decree; but the president prevented any debates upon this inflammatory subject by replying, that it might be taken into consideration at some future time.

Thus having admitted that public opinion was the proper and indispensable check upon the proceedings of Government, the Cortes instituted a board nominated by Government to be a check upon public opinion, which, if the measure had not been merely nugatory, would have virtually destroyed the freedom it pretended to establish. But they were dealing with no easy subject.

♦State of the press.♦

The press, like other prisoners, had broken loose when the old system was overthrown. It had effected the momentous service of rousing the nation, and it continued to keep up the spirit which it had excited; but as for exercising any salutary restraint upon the proceedings of the Government, this was of all things what the public writers were least competent to do, and the men in power least likely to tolerate. The danger was, that the press might now, at the same time, inflame and misdirect the public mind; a work for which eager volunteers are never wanting in such times. The Spaniards had taken arms to defend their institutions, to which with all their enormous abuses the people were devoutly attached. The best and wisest men wished to reform those abuses. Such men were few, and aiming only at what was lawful and just, they scrupled at any evil means for bringing it about. The party who were for destroying root and branch had no such principle to impede them. Despotism had made them republicans, and an abominable superstition had driven them into unbelief. They also were few, but they were more numerous than men whose opinions rested upon a safer ground; they were bold and they were indefatigable, acting like some of the early propagandists and victims of the French revolution, in the enthusiastic belief that nothing but good could result from the subversion of corrupted establishments. Even in the Cortes there were some who looked to the most dreadful stage of that revolution rather as an example than a warning. One member wished for what he called a Christian Robespierre to save the country; another, for un pequeño Robespierre, one who would carry on a system of terror

♦Diario de las Cortes, T. 2. 441. T. 4. 371.♦ with a little more moderation than had been used in France; caustics they said were called for; matters must be carried on with energy and with blood, or the country was lost; heads must be stricken off, and that speedily; it was necessary to shed more Spanish blood than French. When such language was uttered in the Cortes, and circulated in the diaries of that assembly, it was, indeed, most necessary that efficient measures should be taken for restraining the license of the press. A journal was published under the

♦El Robespierre Español.♦ title of “The Spanish Robespierre,” breathing the same spirit as these speeches. One of its numbers was suppressed: the fanatical author exclaimed against this as an outrage upon the sacred, the divine, the omnipotent liberty of the press. “I swear,” said he, “upon the altar of the country, no one is more a Spaniard than I. I more than any one abhor despotism and its vile satellites. I alone am sufficient to overthrow them, and reduce that infernal monster to nothing. My soul is more untamable than the planets, more elevated than the firmament itself, more great than the whole universe.” Even such ravings were not to be overlooked when, in the same number, it was asserted, that the minister who had suppressed his former paper had conspired against the liberty of the nation; that, therefore, he was guilty of treason, and consequently ought to be publicly hanged without the least delay. Yet the necessity of reform, ... of a change in the spirit of the Spanish Government, which under all its changes of form had remained the same, was shown in the treatment of this revolutionist. He was cast into prison, and left there, it was said in the Cortes, till he was half rotten, waiting indefinitely for the decision of his case, which they who prosecuted him were never likely to think of more!

♦Debates concerning Ferdinand.♦

At the motion of Perez de Castro, the Cortes voted a monument as a mark of gratitude to George III. and the British nation. They declared, at the same time, that the Spaniards would never lay down their arms till they had secured their independence, with the absolute integrity of their monarchy in both worlds, and till they had recovered their king. But though the restoration of Ferdinand was thus spoken of in this decree, there were many who perceived the evils with which his return was likely to be attended. The most cautious reformers, however loyal, knew but too well that his presence might prove a serious impediment to any reformation; the more theoretical ones could hope to effect their schemes only in his absence; and at this time it seemed probable that he might soon return, under circumstances which all true Spaniards, however widely differing upon other points, regarded with equal apprehension. The accounts which had been officially published in France of Kolli’s adventure represented Ferdinand as still soliciting to be adopted by marriage into the family of the tyrant who had betrayed him. The Spanish Government, with the timid impolicy which continued to characterize it in such things, had not permitted the statement to appear in the Spanish newspapers; the substance of it, nevertheless, was well known at Cadiz, and many things tended to accredit it. For it was well understood, that the Intruder was weary of his miserable position, that Buonaparte was not less weary of supporting him there, and that the French generals were disgusted with the odious service in which they were employed. They were said to have reported everywhere that Ferdinand, with Buonaparte’s consent, had contracted the desired marriage (according to one account, it was with an Austrian archduchess), and that Buonaparte in consequence would replace him on the throne. There was intelligence from Madrid that a Spanish army of 30,000 men was about to be raised for him. The scheme was politic enough in all its parts to be deemed probable: it would have the cordial approbation of the Intruder’s adherents; and all who regarded only their own selfish views, all who desponded, all who were impatient under privations and sufferings, all who desired repose, might be expected to concur in it. The youth, the inexperience, the defective education, the alleged simplicity of Ferdinand’s character, were to be borne in mind: as through these he had formerly been entrapped, so might he now be made the instrument of Buonaparte, who would thus seek to obtain by intrigue what he was unable to win by force. Against this it was necessary to be prepared. Long and animated discussions were held upon this matter. It was moved, that if Ferdinand should cede any portion of the Spanish dominions to France, all persons obeying his orders to that effect should be declared traitors: that any marriage which he might contract under these circumstances should be declared null, (a proposition against which some of the ecclesiastics in the Cortes exclaimed as contrary to the principles of sound theology): that if he entered Spain as Buonaparte’s ally, he must be rejected, and war carried on against him under the black flag. Now was the time to engrave with the point of the sword upon their hearts that holy Catholic religion in which they must establish their trust! To the petition in the Litany which prayed for deliverance from the deceits of the Devil, they should add, from the deceits of the French also. Rather than thus be deceived and debased, it were better that whole Spain should be made what Numantia and Saguntum had been: then might the Spaniards look down from heaven, and see whether these impious invaders would be bold enough to walk tranquilly through the silent abodes of their tremendous15 ghosts!

♦Decree concerning Ferdinand.♦

The Cortes faithfully represented the nation in their feelings on this subject; and accordingly they issued a decree, declaring null and of no effect all treaties or transactions of any kind which Ferdinand should authorize while he remained in duresse, whether in the enemy’s country or in Spain, so long as he was under the direct or indirect influence of the Usurper. The nation, it was proclaimed, would never consider him free, nor render him obedience, till they should see him in the midst of his true subjects, and in the bosom of the national congress: nor would they lay down their arms, nor listen to any proposal for an accommodation of any kind, till Spain had been completely evacuated by the troops which had so unjustly invaded it. At the time when this brave decree was passed, the condition of Spain appeared hopeless to those persons by whom moral causes are overlooked, and from whose philosophy all consideration of Providence is dismissed. Fortress after fortress had fallen; army after army had been destroyed, till the Spaniards had no longer anything in the field which could even pretend to the name, except the force under Romana with Lord Wellington. The enemy surrounded the bay of Cadiz, and were masters of the adjacent country, wherever they could cover it with their troops, or scour it with their cavalry. Yet in the sight of these enemies, from the neck of land which they thus beleaguered, the Cortes legislated for Spain; and its proceedings, though the Intruder and his unhappy adherents affected to despise them, were regarded with the deepest anxiety throughout the Peninsula, and wherever the Spanish language extends. There is no other example in history of so singular a position. During the three years which had elapsed since the commencement of the struggle, Buonaparte had not only increased his power, but seemed also to have consolidated and established it; while Spain had endured all the evils of revolution without acquiring a revolutionary strength; and, what appeared more surprising, none of those commanding spirits which revolutions usually bring forth had arisen there. Enlightened Spaniards had with one consent called for the Cortes, as the surest remedy for their country; and in England they who were most friendly to the Spaniards, and they who were least so, had agreed in the propriety of convoking it. Long as the Cortes had been suspended, it was still a venerable name; and its restoration gladdened the hearts of the

♦Character of the Cortes.♦ people. A fairer representation could not have been obtained if the whole kingdom had been free, nor a greater proportion of able men; the circumstances, also, in which they were placed, increased their claims to respect among a people by whom poverty has never been despised. Many of the members, having lost their whole property in the general wreck, were dependent upon friendship even for their food. For although a stipend was appointed, some of those provinces which were occupied by the enemy could find no means of paying it; and no provision for remedying this default had been yet devised. They who had professions could not support themselves by practising, because the business of the Cortes engrossed their whole attention. The self-denying ordinance, which they had passed, excluded them from offices of emolument; and there were deputies who sometimes had not wherewith to buy oil for a lamp to give them light. Under these circumstances they respected themselves, and were respected by the nation according to the true standard of their worth.

But as the Cortes faithfully represented the characteristic virtues of the nation, they represented with equal fidelity its defects. The majority were scarcely less bigoted than the most illiterate of their countrymen; and they prided themselves upon having made the assembly swear to preserve the Romish as the exclusive religion of Spain: this, they said, was one of the things which reflected most lustre upon the Cortes. Their opponents, who designated themselves as the Liberal party, assented to what they could neither with prudence nor safety have opposed; and they swore, accordingly, to maintain in its domination and intolerance a corrupt religion which they despised and hated. Disbelief is too weak a word for expressing the feelings of a generous Spaniard toward the superstition which has eaten like a cancer into the bosom of his country. And most unhappily for themselves and Spain, the men whose heart and understanding revolted against intolerance and imposture were themselves infected with the counterpoison of French philosophy, and their best purposes were too often sophisticated with the frothy notions of that superficial school. This party, though far inferior in numbers, took the lead, with the activity and zeal of men who had embraced new opinions, and were labouring to promote them. Though fatally erroneous in what is of most importance, they acted in many cases with a quick and ardent perception of what is just; and not unfrequently they were right in the general principle, even when they were wrong in its application. Through their exertions, measures were carried, as far as votes of the Cortes could effect them, which, if they had been effectual, would have conferred lasting benefit upon the people. But in many of these reforms they proceeded rashly, neither sufficiently regarding the rights of individuals, nor the opinions and habits of the nation; and in what was most required at such a crisis both parties were alike deficient. Instead of infusing into the Government that energy which had been expected, the Cortes weakened and embarrassed the executive by perpetually intermeddling with it; so that, under their control, the Regency which they had appointed became more inefficient than the central Junta. And instead of making the deliverance of the country their paramount object, they busied themselves in framing a constitution; a work, which, if it had been more needful, might well have been deferred till a more convenient season. Great part of their sittings was consumed in metaphysical discussions, arising out of the scheme of the constitution; and the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people was asserted in a temper which plainly manifested how surely that sovereignty, if it were once erected, would become unendurably tyrannical. Day after day these abstractions were debated, while the enemy was besieging Cadiz. Meantime no measures were adopted for bringing the army into a better state; and the mournful truth became apparent even to those who most reluctantly acknowledged it. But if it be difficult to form an effective army where there are none who have studied the principles and profited by the practice of war, it is yet more difficult to make legislators of men whose minds are ill disciplined, even when well stored.

CHAPTER XXXV.
AFFAIRS OF PORTUGAL. ROMANA’S DEATH. BADAJOZ TAKEN BY THE FRENCH. MASSENA’S RETREAT.

♦1810.
Expectations of the French.♦

Early in November, the besiegers before Cadiz fired a salute in honour of Massena’s triumphant entrance into Lisbon. Such demonstrations could not deceive the inhabitants of the Isle of Leon; but might serve to depress the Spaniards, who had no such means of information; and also to encourage the French themselves, whose confidence in their fortune had by this time received some abatement, and whose hopes of bringing the contest to an end rested chiefly now upon the success of the campaign in Portugal. Massena had undertaken the conquest of that kingdom in full expectation of outnumbering16 any disciplined force which could be opposed to him, and still more certainly of outmanœuvring it; for the French Government well knew with what misplaced parsimony the military plans of the English were calculated; and they had neither reckoned upon the skill of the British general, nor the resolution of the British ministry, nor the spirit and exertions of the Portugueze people. He had been confirmed in this expectance by the cautious system which Lord Wellington had, through that parsimony, been compelled to observe during the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo: and though it was by an accident of war that Almeida had fallen into his hands, the speedy reduction of a place so important at that juncture increased the habitual confidence of one who had been accustomed to hear himself called the Child of Victory. That presumption had received a lesson at Busaco, and a check for which he was equally unprepared at the lines of Torres Vedras. Could Lord Wellington have spared a sufficient force to have occupied Santarem, as well as Abrantes; or had the orders of the Portugueze Regency for removing all provisions, been carried into full effect in that part of the country, he must soon have been compelled to retreat. The wonder, however, is that so much devoted obedience was found to a measure, as dreadful in its immediate consequences to the persons upon whom it fell, as it was indispensable for the deliverance of the country. But being allowed to take a position which was not to be forced without a greater expense of life than his antagonist could afford; having found the means of present subsistence, and possessing also that impassibility, ... that utter recklessness of the sufferings which he inflicted, ... that perfect destitution of humanity, ... which one of his fellow-marshals

♦See vol. ii.♦ had said was necessary for a commander in this atrocious war, he was enabled to wait for assistance, and for the chance of events.

♦Gardanne enters Portugal, and marches back again.♦

He had sent General Foy to give Buonaparte the fullest account of his situation; and to supply his wants till farther orders or effectual reinforcements should be received, he ordered General Gardanne, who commanded on the Agueda, to escort a convoy of ammunition. Strong reconnoitring parties were sent out frequently, both on the Coimbra and Castello Branco roads, in the hope of meeting him; and one of these parties had at length the mortification to ascertain that he had been within three leagues of their advanced posts on the Zezere, and had then turned back, a peasant having deceived him, by declaring that the whole French army had withdrawn. Whether the man acted thus upon the impulse of the moment, or had been sent from Abrantes upon this hazardous service, he succeeded in alarming men who, from the want of other tidings, were prepared to believe the worst. Gardanne’s corps consisted of 3000 men; but they were so dispirited in their retreat, that when Colonel Grant, with a handful of the Ordenanza, fired upon them at Cardigos, they abandoned their convoy: nor did this active officer desist from the pursuit, till they had lost all their baggage and several hundred men; thus reaching the frontier in a manner which had every appearance, and all the consequences, of a precipitate and forced retreat. The Comte d’Erlon, General Drouet, who commanded the 9th corps, had meantime arrived there; and he determined to enter Portugal, and open a communication with Massena. Advancing, therefore, with 10,000 men, he left some 8000 under General Claparede, at Guarda, to drive away the Portugueze force in his rear.

♦Drouet enters with 10,000 men.♦

Silveira commanded the force in that quarter: the other divisions, under Brigadier-General Miller, Colonels Wilson and Trant, shut in the line of the Mondego to the confluence of the Alva. Trant was in Coimbra, which he had recovered by a movement as important in its effects upon the campaign, as it was promptly conceived and ably executed. Wilson had occupied the road from Ponte de Murcella to Thomar, establishing himself at Cabaços; but when the French had occupied Thomar, they attacked him twice from thence, and at length compelled him to fall back upon Espinhal. This was precisely in the line of Drouet’s march; and he was thus placed between two fires, the enemy who had driven him from Cabaços being now strongly posted there. He therefore collected boats at Pena Cova, and crossed the Mondego, timing this movement so critically, that the next day, when the enemy had passed the Alva at Ponte de Murcella, and occupied Foz d’Arouce and the neighbouring

♦Dec. 25.♦ villages, he re-crossed with a regiment of militia and some cavalry at the same place, took post the same evening at St. Andre, and captured some of their marauders there in the act of pillage; being then so near the invading force, that several of their stragglers came dropping in during the night, thinking their comrades were in possession of the place, and did not discover their mistake till they were captured. Early on the morrow he moved on Foz d’Arouce; Drouet’s rear-guard had just quitted it; the village had been sacked, and several of its inhabitants of both sexes were lying dead in the streets, victims of those outrages and cruelties which invariably marked the movements of the French in Portugal. Wilson hung upon their flank and rear; and, cutting off their stragglers and marauding parties, which was all that could be done with so small a force, made about an hundred prisoners. Trant also marched from Coimbra with part of the garrison, in the direction of Miranda de Corvo, to harass the enemy, if he should take the Condeixa road; but Drouet, having communicated with the party at Cabaços, who expected his advance, halted at Espinhal, till he received instructions from Massena to proceed with his corps and establish himself at Leyria. Wilson then collected his division, and closed upon his rear, for the purpose of impeding him in that marauding system upon which the whole army depended for subsistence. Their detached parties were then brought in daily contact; a sort of warfare in which the Portuguese were fully equal to their invaders, and in which they had always the great advantage of sure intelligence.

Claparede meantime had moved in the direction of Lamego. Silveira, giving him the opportunity which he sought, attacked his advanced guard at Ponte d’Abbade, and was repulsed: having thus exposed the comparative weakness of his force and his own

♦Rash operations of Silveira.♦ want of skill, he was in his turn attacked at Villar de Ponte, and made a precipitate retreat upon Lamego: the enemy pursued him closely; and the Portuguese, with an honourable feeling, when they evacuated the city, carried with them 140 soldiers from the hospital, on their backs; for they had no other means of transport. Silveira then crossed the Douro. Lamego was thus left to the invaders’ mercy, and Upper Beira open to their inroads. In consequence of this rashness on Silveira’s part, Miller and Wilson were ordered toward the Doura by General Bacellar. Silveira, however, had retreated with such precipitation, that neither time nor opportunity was afforded for co-operating with him; but Bacellar took a position on the Payva, on the enemy’s left flank, and Wilson at Castrodayre, on their rear. Claparede would willingly have pursued Silveira beyond the Doura, that he might obtain the resources of a province which had not been exhausted; but these divisions were closing upon him, and menacing his communication with Almeida. He returned, therefore, to his position at Guarda.

♦Conduct of Drouet’s corps.♦

But the country which Wilson had previously occupied and protected was thus left open to Drouet’s marauding parties; and no sooner was his removal ascertained, than they were let loose, and carried desolation along the banks of the Alva and to the very heart of the Estella. No part of the country suffered at this time more dreadfully than that which was exposed to this corps: it was in vain that the miserable inhabitants sought to conceal themselves in the depths of the great pine forest which extends over so large a portion of that sandy region; no recesses escaped the search of men who were impelled by hunger, by cruelty which seemed to have become in them a craving and insatiable desire, and by a brutal appetite which rendered them even more dreadful and more devilish than their thirst for blood. The number of inhabitants who perished in the diocese of Leyria (one of the smallest in the kingdom) during the four months that the French retained possession there, was ascertained by official inquiries to be not less than 20,000: and a great proportion of these were butchered in the Pinhal, or died there of famine, and disease, and wretchedness.

♦1811.
The French army left to subsist upon the country.♦

If Buonaparte had been in all other respects the hero, the philanthropist, and the philosopher, which he is represented to be by men whose understandings seem to be as impenetrable as their hearts, the history of this single campaign would nevertheless stamp his character with indelible infamy. Expecting, what indeed the event proved, that Lord Wellington had not a force with which to act offensively against Massena in the field, he calculated upon the resources of Lisbon, and made no arrangement for supplying the invading troops with provisions in case of any unexpected obstacle to their immediate and complete success. They were left as in Spain, to support themselves how they could; and in the cruelties which such a system inevitably occasioned, the evils of war received their only possible aggravation. After the battle of Busaco this army subsisted entirely upon what it could obtain by plunder. Throughout Portugal the peasantry employ oxen for draught; these fell into the enemy’s hands, wherever the orders of the Regency had not been obeyed; and though those orders had met with an obedience unexampled in its extent, from a devoted people, yet there were many who, in hope that the danger might be averted, delayed parting with what it was ruin for them to lose; and thus the French obtained a supply of cattle, which, though it would have been inconsiderable for a British army, was not so for men in whose way of preparing food nothing is wasted. But the supply was not large; because kine are nowhere numerous in that country, where there is little or no use made of their milk, and little demand for their meat; and it was not lasting, because want of bread occasioned a consumption of animal food unusual among the French; for wherever they went they found the ovens and the mills destroyed. They bruised the corn and then boiled it, and they roasted the maize, till with that alacrity and cleverness which characterise the whole nation, they had repaired the demolished mills, and in places where there were none, constructed some of their own devising, turned by an ass at the end of a lever, or by force of arm. The hand-mills which soon afterwards made part of their regimental equipments were an invention of Marmont’s, suggested probably by the inconveniences which Massena suffered at this time. If the ingenuity with which they thus remedied one of their wants is characteristic, the circumstance is not less so that finding no other fit material for mill-stones they resorted to the churches, and took for that purpose the slabs with which the graves were covered, or the vaults closed!

At first, something like discipline was observed in the marauding parties, and regular detachments with their respective officers were sent on this degrading service; but it was found that these detachments brought home little or nothing, while they who went forth without orders and purveyed for themselves, returned driving before them beasts well laden with the provisions they had discovered; they were soon left, therefore, to take their course, without the slightest attempt on the part of the generals at regulation or restraint; and a system was thus tolerated, ... not to say encouraged, ... in which it is even more dreadful to reflect upon the depravity on one side, than the unspeakable miseries which were endured on the other. French writers who were themselves engaged in this accursed expedition have told us that the whole army had at times no other food than what was obtained from hiding-places which the Portuguese who fell into their hands had been made by torture to discover; and that acts of this kind were as ordinary a topic of conversation among the soldiers as any other incidents of their campaign! In excuse for this, they observe, and truly, that the army must otherwise have perished, ... that they were like starving sailors, when as the only means of prolonging their own lives they kill and eat their comrades, in extremity of hunger. In proportion as this apology, if such it may be called, be valid, is the guilt of that tyrant by whose deliberate orders the army was detained in such a situation; and inferior only to his guilt is that of the commander by whom such orders were obeyed. Life is what every soldier must hold himself ready to lay down whenever his military duty should require the sacrifice; but woe to that soldier who acts as if life were all that he had to lose!

The same writers, who by the plea of necessity excuse a system so atrocious that even that plea cannot be admitted without doubt as well as shuddering, tell us also of supererogatory crimes committed by this army for which no motive but that of fiendish wickedness is assignable, no palliation possible. When a family was hunted out among the rocks, woods, or mountains by these hell-hounds, happy were the men who did not endure torments, the women who did not suffer violation, before they were murdered. The French officers, when any of them were made prisoners, endeavoured always to reject the opprobrium of these flagitious and undeniable deeds upon the Italians and Germans in their army: but let us be just to human nature, which has neither made the Italians and Germans more depraved than the French, nor the French than the English. The Italians, indeed, having grown up in a country where great crimes are notoriously committed with impunity, may have been accustomed to regard such crimes with less repugnance than either the Germans or the French. But French discipline had made all in its armies of whatever stock good soldiers: the first thing needful for moral improvement is to bring men under obedience, which is the root of civil virtue: military discipline had done this; had moral discipline been connected with it as it might and ought to have been, they who were made good soldiers, if they had not by the same process been made good men, would have been withheld from any open wickedness. But this was systematically disregarded in Buonaparte’s armies; the more thoroughly his servants had corrupted their feelings and hardened their hearts, the better were they fitted for the work in which they were to be employed. Under like circumstances, British soldiers might have been equally wicked; but no British Government has ever been so iniquitous as to place its soldiers in such circumstances. The only offence deemed worthy of punishment in Massena’s army was insubordination towards a superior. A wretch might sometimes be apprehended in an act of atrocity so flagrant that it was not possible to let him escape; but there was no attempt to prevent such horrors, not even when there was the wish: they were known and suffered, ... by better minds in despair, by others with unconcern. In such an army, the soldiers who brought young and handsome women to the camp, as part of their booty, were considered as humane; and humane by comparison they were, though these women, ... whatever their former condition had been, ... were played for as a stake at cards, were bartered for provisions or horses, and were put up publicly to sale! It is related, that such women as survived the first horrors of their situation became reconciled to it, because of the terror in which they had previously lived, and because their lives were now secure; that they attached themselves to those who became, as it is called, their protectors; and that it was no uncommon thing for a woman to pass from one such protector to another, rising a step at every exchange, till she became at last the mistress of a general!

♦Skill of the marauders.♦

The skill which some of these marauders acquired in their search for food, resembled the sagacity with which savages track their prey. That they should detect with unerring certainty any place of concealment in a dwelling or an out-house, might have been expected from the habits of plunder which they had been indulged in in former campaigns; but when they were questing in woods, or among rocks, or in the open country, a new sense seemed to be developed in them. There were men in every company who could discover a depôt of provisions by scent far off. Such resources, however, could ill suffice for such an army; and the reinforcements which they received bringing with them no supplies, added as much to their difficulties as to their strength. Wine, which was found in abundance at first, was lavishly consumed while it lasted. Bread failed entirely; and in many corps the rations of maize were reduced first to a half, then to a third. A third of the whole army was at last employed in thus purveying from a wasted country, and their comrades are described as stationing videttes to watch for their coming, and communicate by signals the joyful intelligence if they came with supplies; for little now was brought back by the most successful marauders, and sometimes the whole produce of such an excursion was consumed before they returned to their quarters. They had found when they entered the kingdom whole towns and villages deserted at their approach; more appalling spectacles were presented now in the recesses to which they penetrated; whole families were seen there lying dead; or in a state worse than death: and those who were not suffering from famine or disease seemed to be bewildered in mind as well as rendered wild in appearance, by perpetual terror and exposure.

The helpless and the most devoted were they who suffered thus, ... old men, women, and children; and they who remaining to protect wives, children, sisters, and parents, or to perish with them, forewent for the performance of that duty the pursuit of vengeance. Meantime, the greater part of the effective population were actively employed. Everywhere in the rear of the enemy parties of the militia and ordenanza were on the alert: and when General Foy, returning from Paris, entered Portugal with an escort of 3000 men to rejoin the invading army, Lieutenant-Colonel Grant, with eighty of the ordenanza, took possession of a height which commanded a pass near the village of Enxabarda, and kept up a fire upon them for two hours, as long as daylight served. Above 200 of their dead were counted within the distance of four leagues, the inclemency of the weather having killed many of the wounded. The invaders were not prepared to encounter such severe cold as is sometimes felt among these mountains. About three hundred men of Drouet’s corps were frozen to

♦Feldzug von Portugal, p. 66.♦ death during a night march between Castello Branco and Thomar. There was a peasant belonging to the latter district of great bodily strength, and answerable hardihood, who, being deprived of his former peaceful occupations, took up in its stead that of destroying Frenchmen, that he might live by spoiling them as they did by spoiling others; this man is said to have killed more than thirty of the enemy, during the month of February, with his own hand, and to have recovered from them about fifty horses and mules, which, with other booty, he carried to Abrantes for sale. He continued to carry on this single-handed war as long as they remained in the country; and became so well known by his exploits that the French set a large price upon his head; but he was in no danger of being betrayed by his countrymen, and too wary to be entrapped. A cave in the mountains was his usual abode. Some of the wretched inhabitants from the adjacent parts took refuge near him, and felt themselves comparatively secure under his protection.

Small parties from Abrantes cut off some 300 of the enemy during the two first months of the year. In one of these desultory affairs, which were all that occurred, while the two armies were waiting anxiously, each with its own views, Captain Fenwick, a most enterprising young officer, who commanded at Obidos, and had been engaged more than twenty times with the French foraging parties, received a mortal wound near Alcobaça: he was pursuing with some Portugueze recruits a party of fourscore French, when one of them, as he was within a few yards, turned round and shot him through the body. He had so won the confidence and good will of the peasantry, many of whom he had armed with French musquets, that they not only brought him the best information, but were ready under his command to face any danger. No man could have been more regretted for the excellent military qualities which he had displayed, and the expectations which were formed of him. The only other affair deserving of notice occurred at Rio Mayor. General Junot made a reconnoisance thither from Alcanhede in considerable force, having learned that there were stores of wine and corn in the town. The piquet which was stationed there retired. Junot rashly galloped into the town, and a soldier of the German hussars waited for him and brought him down. But though this robber left some of his blood upon that earth which had long been crying for it, the wound was not fatal, the ball having lodged between the nose and the cheek bone. A box of topazes which he designed as a present for Marie Louise, was intercepted by a party of the Spanish army in Extremadura, who with rare disinterestedness, foregoing all right to the prize, delivered it to the government. There were seventy-three stones, valued at 3250 dollars: as it was not possible in such times to discover from what churches or what family they had been plundered, the Spanish government disposed of them by raffle, and appropriated the produce to the relief of faithful Spaniards in the province of Burgos and La Mancha.

♦Massena perseveres in remaining, against Ney’s advice.♦

Had Ney’s advice been followed, the French, as soon as they had ascertained that it was hopeless to attack the lines of Torres Vedras, would have retreated immediately to the frontier. Well had it been for the credit of that army, and well for humanity, if this counsel had been taken. But he and Massena were upon ill terms; Massena, by his defence of Genoa, had acquired a character for endurance which was supposed to influence him at this time and Buonaparte, in whose calculations human sufferings were never regarded, undoubtedly expected that there would be a change of ministry in England, and that the first measure of the Whigs when in power would be to withdraw the army from Portugal and leave Lisbon open to him. That party deceived him by their hopes as much as they deceived themselves; and they in return were duped by the falsehoods which the French Government published for the purpose of deluding the French people. The only statements which were allowed to be made public in France admitted, indeed, that the English force, and still more the nature of the ground, rendered the lines of Torres Vedras a strong position; but they affirmed that within those lines there was so severe a famine, that people lay dead and dying in the streets of Lisbon, while the French in their quarters were abundantly supplied. But at this very time it was felt by the invading army as no slight aggravation of their sufferings, that while they were in want of every thing, there was plenty beyond that near demarcation which they were unable to force, with all their courage and their excellent skill in war. Throughout the tract which they occupied, the towns of Torres Novas and Thomar were the only places where the inhabitants had generally remained in their houses; but now, when they who had erroneously chosen this as the least of two evils found that the food was taken from them and their

♦State of the people within the lines.♦ children, they began to retire within the British lines, ... almost in a starving state. Lisbon, notwithstanding the great military force which it then had to support, and though 200,000 fugitives had taken shelter there, was constantly and plentifully supplied; and the distress for food which was felt there, arose only from want of means wherewith to purchase what was in the market. This was relieved by the Government and by the religious houses, who in feeding the poor at this time rendered unequivocal service to the community. Private charity also was never more nobly manifested than in this exigency; among the British officers, a weekly subscription was regularly raised in aid of the destitute; and it is believed that not less than 80,000 of the persons thus suddenly thrown upon the mercy of their fellow-creatures were housed, fed, and clothed at the private cost of those who in their own circumstances had very materially suffered from the interruption which the war had occasioned to their trade, from the pressure of war taxes, and of other requisitions rendered necessary by the exigencies of a state which was struggling for existence. There had been more danger from disease than from dearth, for no sooner had the army retreated upon the lines than the military hospitals were filled, and various other public and private buildings in or near the capital, which were appropriated to the same use. The hospital stores of every kind had been consumed, or carried off by Junot’s army, and had not yet been re-supplied. Recourse was immediately had to the benevolent feelings of the people, and clothing and other things needful for the sick were liberally contributed. But during the time that the armies remained in their respective positions, the fever in the hospitals proved more destructive than the sword of the enemy. Meantime the condition of the Portugueze who remained without the lines, though within the protection of the allies, became every day more dreadful; they were not within reach of that eleemosynary distribution by which their less miserable countrymen were supported; any thing which the country could afford was only to be obtained by rescuing it from the enemy, or by marauding in those parts which were open to his ravages; and when the men of the family perished in this pursuit, or were rendered by over-exertion and disease incapable of following it, there was no other resource for the women and children and the men thus rendered helpless, than the scanty aid which the troops stationed there could bestow. The British officers at Caldas da Rainha formed a hospital for these unhappy persons, anxiety and inanition having produced a fever: in that little, but then crowded town, the average of burials was from twenty-five to thirty a day: a trench was dug, and the dead laid along the side of it, till a Priest came once a day, and with one funeral service consigned them to the common grave. Orphaned children were wandering about with none to care for them, or give them food: and frightful as the mortality was, it would have been far greater but for a distribution of soup and maize bread, made once a day by the British officers.

♦False statements in France.♦

It was also asserted in France that the discontent of the Portugueze, under the privations which their allies compelled them to endure, was at its height; that Marshal Beresford had ordered every inhabitant to be shot without process, who did not abandon his house upon the enemy’s approach; that Trant and Silveira had been destroyed; and that not a day passed in which English deserters did not come over. Germans and Portugueze, it was said, were not accounted deserters, because they only returned to their duty in joining the army of Napoleon. Such representations obtained more credit among factious Englishmen than in France, and Massena looked with far less hope to the result of his operation than was expressed by these despondents. With that confident ignorance which always characterised their speculations, they gave him an additional army of more than 20,000 men, which was to join him under Bessieres, and they called Sebastiani from Malaga to co-operate in the united attack. “The whole effort,” said they, “will be directed against Lord Wellington: the whole force is collecting and marching to the different points of attack, with the knowledge of the allies, but without their having any means of warding off the blow. The battle must be fought at the time, and in the way we have always foretold: and he must have firm nerves who can contemplate the probable issue with composure.” “The crisis in Portugal,” said another self-constituted director of public opinion, “may now be expected daily; and then let the calumniators of Sir John Moore do justice to the memory of that injured officer, who was goaded to commit his errors, and then abused for being defeated! He had not interest enough to have his errors christened exploits, and his flight victory.” Another demagogue, after representing that it was England which caused the calamities of Portugal, and the English, whom the Portugueze ought to hate and execrate as the authors of their sufferings, asked triumphantly, “Who is there mad enough to expect that we shall be able to put the French out of the Peninsula, either by arms, or by negotiation? Where is the man, in his senses, who believes, or will say that he believes, that we shall be able to accomplish this? Suppose peace were to become the subject of discussion, does any one believe that Napoleon would enter into negotiations about Spain and Portugal? Does any one believe that we must not leave them to their fate? This is bringing the matter to the test. And if the reader is persuaded that we should not be able to stipulate for the independence of the Peninsula, the question is settled, and the result of the war is in reality ascertained!”

An immediate retreat, such as Ney advised, would have been attended with a loss of reputation, which if Massena had been willing to incur, would have been ill

♦Schemes of co-operation from the side of Andalusia.♦ brooked by Buonaparte. But in the position which the French had taken, if they could by any means subsist there, they might look for assistance from Soult, and so waiting, facilitate his operations, by occupying the chief attention of the British army. The Spaniards had nowhere displayed so little spirit as in Andalusia. The people of Cadiz, contented with the security for which they were beholden to their situation, seemed not inclined to make any effort against their besiegers; Soult, therefore, might spare a sufficient force for besieging Badajoz. His means for the siege were ample, and the place must fall unless it were relieved by an army capable of meeting the besiegers in the field; but such a force could be drawn only from the lines of Torres Vedras. If the allies were thus weakened, their position might be attacked; or should this still be thought too hazardous, the passage of the Tagus might probably be effected. This would put great part of Alemtejo in their power, and open the communication with Seville and Madrid. If, on the other hand, Badajoz were suffered to fall without an attempt at relieving it, the same advantage would follow from the advance of the victorious army. Masters of Badajoz, and the other less important fortresses, they might leave Elvas behind them; and if they could win the heights opposite Lisbon, they might from thence bombard the capital and destroy the shipping. With these views, Massena made preparations for crossing the Tagus. The British troops which were detached to the south bank, for the purpose of defeating this intention, were cantoned in the villages there, and suffered very much from ague in that low and unwholesome country. Opposite Santarem the river is sometimes fordable; and once the enemy took possession of an island, called Ilha dos Ingleses, whence they carried off a guard of the ordenanza, and some cattle. The possession of this islet might have greatly facilitated their passage, but they were speedily dislodged by a company of

♦January.♦ the 34th, which remained there for that time. To provide, however, against the possibility of their effecting this movement, and also against the advance of a force from the Alentejo frontier, measures had been taken for fortifying a line from the Tagus opposite Lisbon to Setubal; orders were issued for clearing and evacuating the country on their approach; and the inhabitants (well knowing by Loison’s campaign what atrocities were to be expected from such invaders) were required to retire within this line.

♦Olivença taken by the French.♦

Soult and Mortier accordingly, as had been foreseen, advanced from Seville in the latter end of December. Ballasteros, with his ill-equipped and ill-disciplined, but indefatigable troops, was driven out of the field; and Mendizabal, who, with 6000 foot and 2500 Portugueze and Spanish cavalry, had advanced to Llerena, and forced Girard to retire from thence, was now himself compelled to fall back upon Almendralejo and Merida, and finally upon Badajoz, throwing 3000 men into Olivença, a place which had been of great importance in the Acclamation and Succession wars, but which it would at this time have been more prudent to dismantle than to defend. Taking immediate advantage of this error, Soult sent Girard against it with the artillery of the advanced guard. The trenches were opened on the 12th of January. The commander, Don Manuel Herk, communicated with Mendizabal on the 21st, assuring him of his determination and ability to hold out: but a division of besieging artillery had arrived; it was planted in battery that night; and in the morning as soon as it opened, Herk surrendered at discretion. Mortier then immediately invested Badajoz.

♦Badajoz invested.♦

The city of Badajoz, which in the age of Moorish anarchy was sometimes the capital of a short-lived kingdom, stands on the left bank of the Guadiana, near to the spot where it receives the Gevora, and about a league from the little river Caya, which on that part of the frontier divides Spain from Portugal. Its population before the war was estimated at 16,000. Elvas is in sight, at the distance of twelve miles, standing on higher ground, and in a healthier as well as stronger situation; for endemic diseases prevail at certain seasons in the low grounds upon the Guadiana. Count La Lippe had made Elvas one of the strongest fortifications in Europe. Badajoz is a place of the third order; it has no advantage of natural strength, like its old rival; but it had been well fortified, and was protected by two strong forts, S. Christoval on the west, and Las Pardaleras on the east. The acquisition of this city was of the utmost importance to the enemy; if Massena could keep his ground till it fell, a communication would be opened for him with Andalusia; Mortier’s army would be enabled to co-operate with him and act against Abrantes; and against Lisbon itself, unless the Transtagan lines, which were in progress, should be as formidable as those of Torres Vedras: and supplies might then be drawn from Alentejo, the western part of that province being a rich corn country.

♦Death of Romana.♦

Lord Wellington had concerted his plans for the defence of this important frontier with Romana; and a position behind the Gevora had been fixed on for keeping open a communication with Badajoz. Romana’s army re-crossed the Tagus, and began their march thither; British troops were to follow, as soon as the reinforcements should arrive, which westerly winds, unusually prevalent at that season, had long delayed;

♦Jan. 23.♦ and Romana had named the following day for his own departure, when he was cut off by sudden17 death, occasioned by ossification about the heart. Due honours were paid to his remains by the Portugueze Government, as well as by the British army: his bowels were buried close to the high altar at Belem, the burial-place of the Portugueze kings, during the most splendid age of their history: his heart and body were sent to his native place, Majorca; and a monument was voted to him by the Cortes. Castaños was appointed to succeed him, and sailed from Cadiz for Lisbon accordingly; but before he could arrive, the consequences of Romana’s death had been severely felt. Under the most difficult and hopeless circumstances that noble Spaniard had still kept his army in the field, and had repeatedly annoyed the enemy and obstructed their measures, without ever exposing himself

♦Feb. 6.♦ to any considerable loss. The troops, therefore, had full confidence in him; but when Mendizabal met them at Elvas, and took the command, they had no such reliance upon their new leader. On the same day the Portugueze cavalry, under General Madden, drove the French beyond the Gevora; but being unsupported, they were driven back with some loss by General Latour Maubourg, and the whole force then entered, some into Badajoz, some into Fort Christoval. On the morrow a sortie was made, with more gallantry than good fortune, and with the loss of eighty-five officers, and 500 men killed and wounded: Don Carlos d’España was among the latter. The courage of the men in this sally was not more remarkable than the total want of arrangement in their leaders: when they had won the first battery they could not disable the guns, because they had forgotten to take spikes with them! Not discouraged by this severe loss, the troops came out on the 9th. The enemy’s cavalry retired before them across the Gevora, and they took up their intended position on the heights of S. Christoval, between the Gevora, the Caya, and the Guadiana. From thence Mendizabal communicated with Elvas and Campo Mayor, and there he fancied himself in perfect security. The position, indeed, was strong, and while it was held, Badajoz could not be taken. Lord Wellington had advised Romana to occupy it, but he had advised him to intrench it also, and the necessity of so doing had been repeatedly

♦Destruction of his army.♦ represented to Mendizabal in vain. Well understanding with what an antagonist he had to deal, Mortier would instantly have attacked him if the Gevora and Guadiana had not at this time overflowed their banks. Losing, however, no time in his operations, he carried Las Pardaleras by assault on the night of the 11th. On the 18th all things were ready for the passage of the Guadiana, and a few shells from a well-planted howitzer had the effect of making Mendizabal remove his whole army out of the protection of the fort. Thus he abandoned the main advantage of his position, and yet took no other precaution against an attack than that of destroying a bridge over the Gevora; but soldiers seldom fail to know when they are ill commanded, and Romana’s men now deserted in troops, rather than be exposed to the certain destruction which they foresaw. That very night Mortier threw a flying bridge over the Guadiana, forded the Gevora where it was waist-deep, and surprised Mendizabal on the heights. The camp was taken standing, with all the baggage and artillery: the cavalry fled, notwithstanding the efforts of their officers to rally them; 850 men were killed; more than 5000 taken; some escaped into the city; some, with better fortune, into Elvas; the rest dispersed. The loss of the French, in killed and wounded, was only 170; so cheaply was this important success obtained.

♦Governor of Badajoz killed.♦

This was the first consequence of Romana’s death; far worse were to ensue. Relieved from all inquietude on that side, Mortier now pressed the siege; and yet not with that full confidence of success which the consciousness of his own strength and adequate preparations might else have given him, because he knew that the governor, Don Rafael Menacho, intended to have emulated Zaragoza in the defence which he should make. This governor was killed upon the walls by a cannon ball, when the garrison were making their last sortie to prevent the covered

♦Imaz appointed to succeed him.♦ way from being crowned. Don José de Imaz succeeded to the command: he was an officer of reputation, who had escaped with the troops from Denmark, had shared their sufferings under Blake, borne a part in their victory under the Duque del Parque, and followed their fortunes through evil and good till the present time.

In the official accounts of the French it was said that the English, according to their custom, had remained tranquil spectators of the destruction of their allies. They had, indeed, been so in the early part of the campaign, to the bitter mortification of the army and of the general, who, by the half measures of his Government, was placed in this most painful situation. The ill effects of the Walcheren expedition were felt more in the timid temporizing policy which ensued, than in the direct loss, lamentable as that had been; for the ministry having spent then where they ought to have spared, spared now where they ought to have spent. Just views, right feeling, and public opinion (which in these days is, whether right or wrong, more powerful with a British ministry than any or all other considerations) made them continue the contest; while secret apprehension of ill success, insensibly produced by the constant language of their opponents, who spoke with more than oracular confidence of defeat and total failure as the only possible event, withheld them from prosecuting it with vigour. They considered always what was the smallest force with which Lord Wellington could maintain his ground, never entrusting him with one that might render success calculable, and not yet venturing to believe that British courage would render it not less certain by land than it was by sea. Some excuse for this weak policy, which even to themselves needed excuse, they found in the prepossessions of the king, who, although upon some points of the highest importance he took clearer and juster views than the ablest of his ministers, could never in his latter days be brought to contemplate war upon the enlarged scale which the French Revolution had introduced; but looked upon an army of 20,000 men to be as great a force as it had been in the early part of his reign. Against this prepossession the ministers had always to contend while the king was capable of business; and when his fatal malady removed that impediment, Marquis Wellesley could not yet persuade his colleagues that the parsimony which protracts a war is more expensive than the liberal outlay which enables a general to prosecute it with vigour, and thereby bring it to a successful end.

Had Lord Wellington found a reinforcement of 10,000 men when he fell back upon his lines, Massena, being entirely without provisions at that time, must have retreated as precipitately as Soult had done from Porto. That they were not attacked before they took up a position for the winter, and that no operations against them were undertaken while they remained there, the French imputed either to want of enterprise, or want of skill in the British commander, undervaluing both, as much as they overrated the force at his disposal. But though they were thus unjust in their censures of Lord Wellington, the imputation which they cast upon the British Government had been to all appearance justified up to this time, except in the case of Badajoz, on which occasion it was now made. Nothing but the grossest negligence and incapacity on his own part could have exposed Mendizabal to the total discomfiture which had befallen him. After the loss of his army it was impossible for Lord Wellington to detach a force sufficient for raising the siege, while Massena continued in his position; but it was of such importance to preserve Badajoz, that the British general determined to attack him, strongly as he was posted, as soon as the long-looked for reinforcements should arrive. But the opportunity which both generals at this time desired of thus deciding the issue of the invasion was not afforded them: the winds continued to disappoint Lord Wellington in his expectations of succour; and no patience on the part of the French could enable them longer to endure the privations to which the system of their wicked Government had exposed them. They consoled themselves under those privations by thinking that no English army could have supported them; for that the sufferings which they had borne patiently would have driven Englishmen to desert. But their endurance had been forced now to its utmost extent. Reports were current, that if Massena would not engage in some decisive operations, which might deliver them from their sufferings, he should be set aside, and Ney, in whose intrepidity they had the fullest confidence, be called upon to command them. That degree of distress had been reached at which discipline itself, even in the most intelligent army, gives way; and the men, when nothing was left of which to plunder the inhabitants, began to plunder from each other, without regard of rank, the

♦Feldzug von Portugal, 30.♦ stronger from the weaker. Massena, therefore, was compelled, while it was yet possible to secure supplies for the march, to determine upon retreating to that frontier which he had passed with such boastful anticipations of triumph.

♦The French begin their retreat.♦

The first information of his purpose came through a channel which was entitled to so little credit, that it seems to have obtained none. On the evening of the first of March, a Portugueze boy was apprehended in Abrantes with articles of provision, which were with reason suspected to be for an enemy, because the boy was not ready with an answer when he was asked for whom he was catering. Being carried before the governor, he confessed that he was servant to the commanding officer of a French regiment, who had sent him to purchase these things, because the army was about to return to the north of Portugal. The next day,

♦March.♦ he added, Massena would review the troops on the south of the Zezere, and the retreat would commence on the evening of the fifth. That a boy in such a situation should have acquired this knowledge, is a remarkable proof of his sagacity, and of the indiscretion of the officer from whom he must have obtained it; for it was verified in all its parts.

Such a movement was, however, so probable, that it had for some days been expected. The first apparent indication of it was given by the French setting fire to their workshops, stores, and bridge-materials at Punhete, on the 3rd. They had previously been sending the heavy artillery, the baggage, and the sick to the rear. On the 4th, transports with 7000 British troops on board anchored in the Tagus; and that same day the enemy’s advanced corps withdrew from Santarem. Lieutenant Claxton, who commanded the gun-boats appointed to co-operate with the troops in Alentejo, saw them departing, as he was reconnoitring under that city. No time was lost in occupying it by the allies; and when it was seen how the natural advantages of that position had been improved by all the resources of military skill, Lord Wellington’s prudence in waiting till time and hunger had done his work was acknowledged by those who before had been inclined to censure him for inactivity and want of enterprise. The opportunity which he had so long desired, and so anxiously expected, had now arrived; and in the sure confidence of intellectual power, he saw that the deliverance of the Peninsula might be secured in that campaign, if Badajoz were defended as it might and ought to be. No sooner, therefore, had it been ascertained that the enemy was retreating, than he despatched the intelligence to Elvas, desiring the commander to communicate it to the governor of Badajoz, assuring him that he should speedily be succoured, and urging him, in reliance upon that assurance, to defend the fortress to the last extremity. That intelligence was despatched on the 6th. General Imaz received it on the 9th. The next day a breach was made, and Mortier summoned him

♦Badajoz surrendered.♦ to surrender. The garrison at this time consisted of 7500 effective men: the townsmen might have been made effective also; provisions and ammunition were in abundance; and the intelligence which Lord Wellington received from thence on the very day that Massena’s retreat was made known to Imaz, was, that the place might probably hold out a month; so well was it stored, so ably garrisoned, and so little injury had it received. The general, however, like every man who, in such a situation, is inclined to act a dishonourable part, called a council of war. The director of engineers delivered it as his opinion, that 5000 men would be required to resist an assault, and that then the surrender could only be delayed two or three days: if there was an evident probability of being succoured in that time, it would be their duty to hold out, though it should be to the last man; without such a probability, no farther sacrifice ought to be made. Twelve officers voted with him; one of them qualifying his vote with the condition, that unless the garrison were permitted to march out by the breach, and incorporate themselves with the nearest Spanish army, no terms should be accepted. Imaz delivered his opinion in these words: “Notwithstanding that our second line of defence is not formed; that we have very few guns in the batteries of Santiago, St. José, and St. Juan, and no support for withstanding the assault, I am of opinion that, by force of valour and constancy, the place be defended till death.” In this he was followed by General Don Juan José Garcia. The commandant of artillery, Don Joaquin Caamaño, gave his vote for holding out in very different terms, and with as different a spirit. “The enemy,” said he, “not having silenced the fire of the place, the flanks which command the ascent of the breach being in a state of defence, the breach being mined, the pitch barrels ready, and the entrance covered by the parapet which we formed during the night, I think we ought to stand an assault; or make our way out to join the nearest corps, or the neighbouring forts.” This opinion, which did not, like that of the governor, invalidate itself, was followed by Camp-Marshal Don Juan Mancio. It is due to those who did their duty thus to particularise their names. In the votes of an unworthy majority Imaz found all he wanted; and even in their excuse, it must be remembered that this traitorous governor did not inform them of Massena’s retreat, and the assurance which he had received of certain and speedy relief. Romana, whose fear of democracy made him everywhere at variance with the popular authorities, had ordered the Junta of Extremadura to leave Badajoz, and retire to Valencia de Alcantara. That Junta had distinguished itself by its activity and zeal, and had its members not been thus imprudently expelled, they might have given to the defence of the city that civic character which had formed the strength of Zaragoza, and Gerona, and Ciudad Rodrigo; and which, in this instance, would have proved the salvation, as well as the glory of the fortress.

On the eleventh of March, therefore, the garrison laid down their arms, and were made prisoners of war. The empty stipulation that they should march out by the breach was granted, curiously, as it proved, to the disgrace of those who proposed it, ... for so insignificant was this breach that some time was employed in enlarging it, to render it practicable for their passage! “Thus,” in Lord Wellington’s words, “Olivença and Badajoz were given up without any sufficient cause; while Marshal Soult, with a corps of troops which never was supposed to exceed 20,000 men, besides capturing these two places, made prisoners and destroyed above 22,000 Spanish troops!” 17,500 were marched as prisoners of war to France! Mortier, in his dispatches, endeavoured to gloze over the conduct of General Imaz. “The death of Menacho,” he said, “had possibly contributed to protract the siege for some days; for his successor wished to give some proof of his talents, and thereby occasioned a longer resistance.” This could deceive no one. The Regency, when they communicated to the Cortes Mendizabal’s official account of the fall of the place, informed them that they were not satisfied with the conduct of Imaz, and had given the commander-in-chief orders to institute an enquiry. But the surrender of the city was not the only part of these unhappy transactions which required investigation; and Riesco proposed that rigorous enquiry should also be made concerning the action of the 19th of February, and the consequent dispersion of Mendizabal’s army, in order that condign punishment might be inflicted on those who were found culpable. “The loss of Badajoz,” he said, “was a calamity of the greatest importance at this time: it facilitated to the enemy a free communication with Castille and Andalusia, gave them an entrance into Alentejo, and means for besieging Elvas: it would also enable them to support Massena; so that this fatal calamity might draw after it the conquest of Portugal.” Calatrava proposed that it should also be explained why so considerable a division had been shut up in Olivença, and no attempt made to succour it. “My melancholy predictions concerning Extremadura,” said he, “have been verified. The chiefs of the army of the left, instead of defending that province and preserving the capital, have at length ended in losing army, province, and capital. Well, indeed, may it be wondered at, that the governor, after having himself voted for continuing the defence, should immediately have capitulated, without sustaining an assault, ... a contradiction which can no otherwise be explained, than by supposing that the vote was given insincerely.” He concluded by proposing, that notwithstanding the conduct of the governor, the Cortes should make honourable mention of the heroic inhabitants of that place, and the brave garrison. Del Monte said, it had been remarked on this occasion, that the loss of a battle was followed always by the surrender of a place besieged. This, he properly observed, was a position not less perilous to get abroad, than it was false in itself.... Another member, with indignant feeling, demanded, that when the capitulation of Badajoz, and the votes of the council of war were published, there should be added to them a statement of the situation of Gerona when that city was surrendered. “At Badajoz,” said he, “nothing has been alleged for surrendering, but that there was an open breach; nothing was said of want ... nothing of sickness, nor of any one of those causes which might have justified the surrender. Let then the soldiers and the nation contrast with this the conduct of Gerona! Months before that city was yielded, there was not merely an open breach, but the walls were destroyed; ... the scarcity was such, that boiled wheat was sometimes the only food; and for the sick, a morsel of ass-flesh, when it could be had. In this state the governor of Gerona ordered, that no man, on pain of death, should speak of capitulation. By this path did they make their way to glory and immortality! The soldier who would step beyond the common sphere has here what to imitate. If Badajoz had resisted only four days longer, it would have been relieved.”

This was a cutting reflection. But though the loss of that city led to consequences grievously injurious to the allies, and to a dreadful cost of lives, it did not produce all the evil which Riesco apprehended; and that its evil effects did not extend thus far, was owing to the spirit of the Portugueze people, who, unlike General Imaz and his companions in infamy, had discharged their duty to the utmost. Treachery, which had done much for France in other countries, had not been found in Portugal; and popular feeling, which had done more, was there directed with all the vehemence of vindictive justice against the most unprovoked, the most perfidious,

♦Skill and barbarity of the French in their retreat.♦ and the most inhuman of invaders. But Massena’s military talents had never been more eminently shown, and nothing could exceed the skill which was now manifested in all his dispositions. His columns moved by angular lines converging to a point, upon gaining which they formed in mass, and then continued their retreat, Ney with the flower of the army covering the rear, while Massena so directed the march of the main body, as to be always ready to protect the rear guard, which whenever it was hardly pressed fell back, and brought its pursuers with it upon the main army, waiting in the most favourable position to receive them. This praise is due to M. Massena and his generals, and the troops which they commanded: but never did any general or any army insure such everlasting infamy to themselves by their outrages and abominations, committed during the whole of their tarriance in Portugal, and continued during their retreat. Lord Wellington said, their conduct was marked by a barbarity seldom equalled, and never surpassed: all circumstances considered, he might have said it had never been paralleled. For these things were not done in dark ages, nor in uncivilised countries, nor by barbarous hordes, like the armies of Timour or Nadir Shah; it was in Europe, and in the nineteenth century, that these atrocities were committed by the soldiers of the most cultivated and most enlightened part of Europe, mostly French, but in no small proportion Germans and Netherlanders. Nor was the French army, like our own, raised and recruited from the worst members of society, who enter the service in an hour of drunkenness, or of necessity, or despair: the conscription brought into its ranks men of a better description, both as to their parentage, their breeding, and their prospects in life; insomuch, that the great majority are truly described as sober, orderly, intelligent, and more or less educated. Nor is it to be believed, that, although they acted like monsters of wickedness in this campaign, they were in any degree worse than other men by nature: on the contrary, the national character of the French, Germans, and Netherlanders, authorises a presumption that they were inclined to be, and would have been good and useful members of society, if the service in which they were compulsorily engaged had not made them children of perdition. How nefarious, then, must have been the system of that Government which deliberately placed its armies in circumstances where this depravation was inevitably produced!... how deserving of everlasting infamy the individual by whose absolute will that Government was directed!... and how deep the guilt of those who were the willing and active agents of such a Government, ... the devoted servants of such a ruler! No equitable reader will suppose that any national reproach is intended in thus dwelling upon the crimes which were committed throughout the Peninsular war by the French and their allies: Englishmen under like circumstances would have been equally depraved: the reproach is not upon a brave and noble nation; it rests upon those alone on whom the guilt abides; and as we tender the welfare and improvement of the human race, let us hope that it may be perpetual!

The retreat of this abominable army was marked by havoc, conflagration, and cruelties of every kind. The towns of Torres Novas, Thomar, and Pernes, with the villages which were near the British lines, suffered least, because the enemy wished not to discover their intention of retreating. In these places some of the corps had had their head-quarters for four months, and some of the inhabitants had been induced to remain: these people had now fresh proof of their delusion, in supposing that honour or humanity were to be found in the armies of Buonaparte: the French sacked their houses, and destroyed as many as time permitted on the night of their departure; and when their movements could no longer be concealed, they burnt, by Massena’s orders, every town and village through which they passed.

♦Havoc at Alcobaça.♦

The most venerable structure in Portugal was the convent of Alcobaça. Its foundation was coeval with the monarchy. It had been the burial-place of the kings of Portugal for many generations. The munificence of nobles and princes, the craft of superstition, and the industry and learning of its members in better times, had contributed to fill this splendid pile with treasures of every kind. Its gorgeous vestments, its vessels of plate and gold, and its almost matchless jewelry, excited the admiration of the vulgar; the devotee and the philosopher were equally astonished at the extraordinary articles in its Relic-room; the artist and the antiquary beheld with wonder and delight its exquisite monuments of ancient art; and its archives and library were as important to Portugueze literature, as the collections of the Museum or the Bodleian are in our own country. Orders were issued from the French head-quarters to burn this place: that the work of destruction might be complete, it was begun in time, and the mattock and hammer were employed to destroy what the flames would have spared. The tesselated pavement from the entrance to the high altar was broken up with pickaxes, and the ornaments of the pillars destroyed nearly up to the arches. The French, who at this very time inserted an article in the capitulation of Badajoz, that no stipulations were therein made respecting religion, because they were catholics like the Spaniards, mutilated here the Crucifix and the images of the Virgin, as if they studied in what manner they could most effectually shock and insult the feelings of the Portugueze. They cut the pictures which they did not burn; they broke open the tombs. Those of Pedro and Ignez de Castro were covered with historical sculptures: rich as England is in remains of this kind, we have none of equal antiquity which could be compared with them for beauty, or for their value to the antiquarian; and a story, hardly less generally known throughout Europe than the most popular parts of classical history, had in an especial manner sanctified these monuments. These, therefore, were especial objects of the enemy’s malice, and more laborious mischief was exerted in destroying them, the tombs being so well constructed as not without difficulty to be destroyed. Fire was at length put to the monastery in many parts, and troops set round it to prevent the people from making any efforts to stop the conflagration. The edifice continued burning for two-and-twenty days. Two of the Cistercian brethren were afterwards appointed commissioners to search the ruins. They found some bones of Queen Orraca and part of her clothes; the body of Queen Beatriz, in a state of good preservation, and that of Pedro still entire, with the skin and hair upon it18. A few fragments only of Ignez de Castro could be found. These remains were deposited once more in the tombs, and the monuments repaired, as far as reparation was possible. The most valuable of the books and manuscripts had happily been removed in time.

♦Batalha.♦

Batalha was a structure equally sacred, and more beautiful. Had King Emanuel completed the original design, it would have excelled all other Gothic buildings; even in its unfinished state, it was the admiration of all who beheld it. It was founded upon the spot where the tent of Joam I. stood on the night before that battle which, for inferiority of numbers on the part of the conqueror, may be compared with Cressy, Poictiers, and Agincourt; and which, for the permanent importance of its consequences, when considered in all their bearings, is unparalleled. Here Joam was buried, after a long and glorious reign, upon the scene of his triumph; and here his four sons were buried also, men worthy of such a father; one of them being that Prince Henry whose grave, it might have been thought, would have been equally respected by all civilised nations. The monuments of these Infantes and of their parents were in a state of correspondent beauty with the temple in which they lay, and perfectly preserved. They were broken open by the French, and the remains of the dead taken from their graves to be made the mockery of these ruffians, who kicked about the head of Joam I. as a football, and left the body in the pulpit, placed in the attitude of one preaching.

♦Direction of the enemy’s retreat.♦

Regnier’s corps, which was the enemy’s left, had moved from Santarem upon Thomar, from thence towards Espinhal: their centre from Pernes, by Torres Novas and Cham de Maçans, and the right from Leyria. The two latter effected their junction on the 9th in the plain before Pombal. What course the enemy would take in their retreat could not be foreseen: had they intended to retire by the way which they had entered, it was thought they would have sent a larger proportion by the Espinal road. The centre of the allies had taken the same line as that of the French; the right advanced upon Thomar, the left upon Leyria. Our light troops had never lost sight of the enemy; and when the centre and right joined before Pombal, the British advanced guard, coming from Cham de Maçans, saw their junction from the heights. A

♦Affair before Pombal.♦ brisk affair took place that day before Pombal, where the enemy had eight squadrons formed in different parts of the plain, supported by their whole cavalry. The 1st hussars and the 16th light dragoons attacked the most advanced of these squadrons, defeated them one after another, and drove them all together in confusion on their support, the troops composing which were repeatedly called upon by their officers to advance, but would not move; for they were quite dispirited, and satisfied with safety, seeing the allies were not in sufficient force to pursue their advantage. Lord Wellington could not collect a sufficient body to commence an operation before the 11th, when Loison, with three corps, and Montbrun’s division of cavalry, were leaving a position in front of Pombal. Having burnt the town, they attempted to hold the old castle, which stands upon an eminence above the Arunca; they were driven from thence, they then formed on the farther side of the town, and our troops did not arrive in time to complete the dispositions for attacking them while it was day; ... but they were in time to rescue six women from the flames, whom the French had stripped naked, shut into a house, and then set the house on fire! During the night the enemy retired, and their rear took up a strong position between Pombal and Redinha, formerly a city, now a town, but bearing rather the appearance of a decayed village. They were posted at the end of a defile in front of the

♦Affair before Redinha.
March 12.♦ town, their right in a wood upon the little river Danços, their left extending to some heights upon the same stream, which has its source about two miles above the town. The light division, under Sir William Erskine, the Portugueze caçadores, under Colonel Elder, forming part, attacked their right; and Lord Wellington, bearing testimony to the merit of these allies, declared that he had never seen the French infantry driven from a wood in more gallant style. Our troops then formed in the plain beyond the defile with great celerity, and Sir Brent Spencer led them against the heights, from which the French were immediately driven; but their skill was conspicuous in every movement, and no local advantage escaped them. Their retreat was by a narrow bridge, and a ford close to it, over the Danços; our light troops passed with them in pursuit, but they commanded these passages with cannon, and gained time to form again upon the nearest heights, before troops enough could pass over to make a fresh disposition for attacking them. As soon as this was done, they fell back upon their main body at Condeixa; and there they sent out regular parties to drive into the camp all females above ten years of age, and these victims were delivered to the soldiers!

There was now every reason to fear that Coimbra would share the fate of Alcobaça, and Leyria, and Pombal, and that the enemy, getting into Upper Beira, would lay waste in their destructive course a tract of country which had hitherto been preserved from their ravages; or that Massena would endeavour to obtain possession of Porto, and defend himself there better than Soult had done. As soon as Lord Wellington had ascertained that the enemy were directing their retreat toward the Mondego, which was on the fourth day after they retired

♦March 8.♦ from Santarem, he dispatched advices to General Bacelar, whose head-quarters were at S. Pedro do Sul, directing him to send his baggage across the Douro, to secure means for passing it himself, with the troops under his command, and to take measures for defending the passage both at Lamego and at Porto. It was supposed in this dispatch that Colonel Trant would have retired from Coimbra upon the Vouga, the bridge over which river he was now ordered to destroy, and then proceed to Porto. Trant, however, had intercepted a letter from Drouet to Claparede (who was then near Guarda), which led him to expect that the French would speedily commence their retreat, and that it would be in this direction; in consequence he destroyed an arch of the bridge at Coimbra; and when the concentration of their force at Pombal and Redinha made their course no longer doubtful, he withdrew his post from Condeixa, and evacuated the suburb of S. Clara, which is on the

♦The French endeavour to get possession of Coimbra.♦ left bank: this had just been effected on the morning of the 11th, when General Montbrun entered it with a large body of cavalry. Preparations had been made for defending the passage, and happily at that time the Mondego was not fordable. The rivers in that part of the country are rendered impassable for cavalry by a few hours’ rain, the water pouring down to them from the mountains on every side; but their course is so short, that they fall as rapidly as they rise. Montbrun, having no guns with him, could not return the fire of six six-pounders, the only artillery which Trant possessed; he retired, therefore, from S. Clara to the heights above it. This movement prevented him from discovering that the river became fordable in the course of the evening, and continued so for some days following. During the night Trant received advice from Colonel Wilson, that the river had become passable at a place some ten miles above the city; and from the other hand he was informed that a few of the enemy’s dragoons had actually crossed near Montemor o Velho. Measures were immediately taken for defending both fords; and the field-pieces were fired occasionally, in the hope that they might be heard at the advanced posts of the allied army, and Lord Wellington thus be assured that Coimbra was not in the enemy’s possession; but the wind was southerly, and the intention therefore failed. Not doubting but that the French were in retreat and the allies in close pursuit, Trant had no thought of retiring from his post, when he now received dispatches from Bacelar, inclosing Lord Wellington’s instructions, wherein he was supposed already to have withdrawn, and was ordered to take upon himself the protection of Porto. These orders he obeyed, by sending off the main body of the militia, during the night of the 12th, toward Mealhada, remaining himself with a detachment at the bridge. In the morning there was no indication of an attempt upon the town; only a few dragoons were to be seen on the heights of S. Clara; he resolved, therefore, to place his division in a position, and proceeded to join it for that purpose; instructing the officer whom he left in command at the bridge, to take nothing upon himself in case of any communication from the enemy, but refer it to him, and act accordingly. An hour had hardly elapsed, before Montbrun summoned the city to surrender. The officer referred the summons to Trant: it had been merely made to keep in check the garrison which Montbrun supposed to be still there, and in force; for that general having found them ready on the 11th and 12th had advised Massena to retire by the Ponte de Murcella; and when Lord Wellington came up with the main body, who were strongly posted at Condeixa, to his great joy he perceived that they were sending off their baggage in that direction. Immediately he inferred that Coimbra was safe, and marching General Picton’s division upon their left towards this road, now the only one open for their retreat, they were instantly dislodged, leaving Condeixa in flames. The allies then communicated with Coimbra; a detachment of cavalry, returning from their demonstration against that important city, were made prisoners, and Trant and Wilson were directed to move along the right bank of the Mondego, and prevent the enemy from sending detached parties across. In the order which Massena issued for burning every town and village, Coimbra had been particularly mentioned.

On the 14th the French rear-guard were driven from a strong position at Casal Nova, where they had encamped the preceding night. The whole line of their retreat was full of advantageous positions, of which they well knew how to avail themselves; but he who pursued them was also a master in the art of war; and in his own retreat had acquired a perfect knowledge of the ground. Their outposts were driven in: they were dislodged by flank movements from the posts which they successively took in the mountains, and were flung back with considerable loss upon the main body at Miranda do Corvo, where it was well posted to receive and support them. Here Regnier, with the second corps, effected his junction, so that the whole French army was now assembled. General Nightingale, who had pursued this column, rejoined the British army the same day at Espinhal: and as it was now in the power of Lord Wellington to turn their position, they abandoned it during the night.

A thick fog on the following morning gave them time, and favoured their movements. Some deserters came in, who said that they were destroying carriages, baggage, and ammunition. About nine the day cleared up, and the troops, renewing the pursuit, passed through the smoking ruins of Miranda do Corvo. Hitherto they had only seen proofs of the cruelty of the enemy along the road; they now began to see proofs of his distress; for from this place the road was strewn with the wreck of a retreating army, broken carriages, baggage, carcasses of men and beasts, the wounded and the dying. Amid this general havoc, nothing was more shocking than the number of horses, asses, and mules, which the French, when their strength failed, had hamstrung, and left to suffer a slow death. To have killed them at once would have been mercy, but mercy was a virtue which this army seemed to have forsworn: it even appeared, by the manner in which these poor creatures were grouped, that Massena’s troops had made the cruelties which they inflicted a matter of diversion to themselves! Every day the bodies of women were seen whom they had murdered. In one place some friars were hanging, impaled by the throat upon the sharpened branches of a tree. Everywhere peasants were found in the most miserable condition; poor wretches who had fallen into the hands of the French, and been tortured to make them discover where supplies were hid, or made to serve as guides, and when their knowledge of the way ended, shot, that they might give no information to the pursuers. The indignation of our army was what it ought to be; men and officers alike exclaimed against the atrocious conduct of their detestable enemies. “This,” said Lord Wellington, “is the mode in which the promises have been performed, and the assurances fulfilled, which were held out in the proclamation of the French commander-in-chief, when he told the inhabitants of Portugal, that he was not come to make war upon them, but, with a powerful army of an hundred and ten thousand men, to drive the English into the sea! It is to be hoped that the example of what has occurred in this country will teach the people of this and of other nations, what value they ought to place on such promises and assurances; and that there is no security for life, or for any thing that renders life valuable, except in decided resistance to the enemy.”

The retreating army had no provisions except what they plundered on the spot, and could carry on their backs, and live cattle, with which they were well provided. As far as Condeixa the allied troops had been supplied by transport from Lisbon, to their own admiration, so excellent had been the previous arrangement. But as they advanced, they suffered more privations than the enemy whom they were driving out of the country, for the French left the land as a desert behind them, and the commissariat could not keep up with the rapidity of such a pursuit. The dragoons always kept sight, of the enemy; they were constantly mounted before daybreak, their horses were never unsaddled, and were obliged to carry their own sustenance, which, it may be supposed, was sufficiently scanty. In the midst of a country where the people regarded them not merely as allies, but as friends, brothers, and deliverers, that people had not even shelter to afford them, and none of the troops had tents; those which they occupied in the lines were left there. But they reaped an abundant reward in the success of their general’s well-concerted and patient plan, in the anticipated applause of their own countrymen, in the blessings of the Portugueze, and in that feeling, ... of all others the happiest which can fall to a soldier’s lot, ... that they were engaged in a good cause, and that the wickedness of the enemy rendered it as much a moral as a military duty to labour for his destruction. With these feelings they attacked them wherever they were found. Massena had taken up a formidable position on the Ceyra, which falls into the Mondego a few leagues above Coimbra, and is one of the Portugueze rivers in whose bed gold has been found; a whole corps was posted as an advanced guard in front of Foz de Arouce, on the left side of the river. Here Lord Wellington again moved his divisions upon their right and left, and attacked them in front. In this affair the French sustained a considerable loss, which was much increased by a well-managed movement of the English 95th. That regiment observed a body of the enemy moving off in two parallel columns. There was a woody cover between them, into which the 95th got, the fog and the closing evening enabling them to do so unperceived; from thence they fired on both sides, and retiring instantly that the fire was returned, left the two columns of the French to keep up a heavy fire upon each other as they passed the cover. The darkness of the night increased their confusion: many were drowned in crossing the river, ... a mountain stream swoln by the rains, ... and it is said that one column blew up the bridge while the other was upon it. Much baggage, and some ammunition carriages, here fell into the hands of the pursuers. The light division got into the enemy’s bivouac, and found not only some of their plunder there, but their dinners on the fires. A heavy fog had delayed the movements of the army, and prevented a more serious attack, from which much had been expected.

♦March 16.♦

Having blown up the bridge, the enemy’s rear-guard took a position on the bank of the river, to watch the ford. The loss which they had sustained on the preceding day was betrayed in part by the bodies which they had thrown into the water to conceal it, but which were seen as the stream bore them down. Lord Wellington was obliged to halt the whole of the following day for supplies, the rains having rendered bad roads almost impassable. Here, too, the ill news from Badajoz compelled him to order toward that frontier a part of his army, which should otherwise have continued in the pursuit. During the night, the French moved off, and the pursuers forded the Ceyra on the 17th. On the 18th, they advanced toward the Ponte de Murcella; the French, who, during the whole of the retreat, made their marches by night, putting their troops in motion a few hours after dusk, had retired over this bridge and destroyed it, using the very mines which the British had constructed for the same purpose, on their retreat in the preceding autumn. They were now posted in force on the right of the Alva. Lord Wellington turned their left by the Serra de Santa Quiteria, and manœuvred in their front; this compelled them to retire upon Mouta. It was believed that they had intended to remain some days in the position from which they were thus driven, because many prisoners were taken who had been sent out in foraging parties toward the Mondego, and ordered to return to the Alva. During the night the staff corps constructed a bridge which was ready at daybreak for the infantry. The cavalry passed at a ford close by, and there was some difficulty in getting the artillery across. On the 19th, they were assembled on the Serra de Mouta, the enemy, as usual, having retired in the night. From this place they continued their retreat with the utmost rapidity. Lord Wellington kept up the pursuit with only the cavalry and the light division under Sir William Erskine, supported by two divisions of infantry, and by the militia on the right of the Mondego. The remainder of the army was obliged to halt, till the supplies, which had been sent round from the Tagus to the Mondego, should arrive; this was absolutely necessary, for nothing could be found in the country.

♦Resistance made by the peasantry.♦

The peasants did not everywhere abandon their villages to the spoilers; in some places they found means to arm themselves, and their appearance deterred the enemy from making their intended attack, the pursuers being so near at hand; in others they entered the burning villages with the foremost of the allied army in time to extinguish the flames. There is a village called Avo, six-and-thirty miles from Coimbra, containing about 130 houses. The ordenanza of that district were collected there; they repelled a body of 500 French in five different attacks, and saved the village. The little town of Manteigas was less fortunate. The inhabitants of the adjoining country, confiding in the situation of a place which was, as they hoped, concealed in the heart of the Serra de Estrella, had brought their women and children thither, and their most valuable effects; but it was discovered, and in spite of a desperate defence, the town was stormed, by a force as superior in number as in arms. The officers carried off the handsomest women; the rest were given up to the mercy of men as brutal as their leaders. But everywhere the naked bodies of the straggling and wounded, which the English found upon the way, showed well what vengeance these most injured people had taken upon their unprovoked and inhuman enemies. In one place a party of them were surprised in a church digging the dead out of their graves in search of plunder.

As the French drew nearer the frontier, their foraging parties assumed more confidence, and at the same time their wants becoming more urgent, made them more daring. They passed the fords of the Mondego near Fornos, in considerable numbers, to seek supplies in a country as yet unravaged; but they were attacked by Wilson, who pursued them across the river and captured a great number of beasts of burthen, laden with plunder of every description, which they abandoned in their flight. He took several prisoners also, and in consequence of the loss which they had thus sustained a strong division was detached against him, which took a position on the left bank of the river, so as to cover the flank of the retiring columns from any further operations of this militia force, till they had passed Celorico. Lord Wellington, for want of supplies, was not able to proceed till the 26th, when he advanced to Gouvea, halted, again the next day, and on the following reached Celorico. The French were then at Guarda, which they occupied in strength, and where they apparently intended to maintain themselves. Between Celorico and that city, the inhabitants of a village, men and women alike, were found dead or dying in the street, their ears and noses cut off, and otherwise mangled in a manner not to be described. The horror and indignation of the allies were raised to the highest pitch by this dreadful sight; and the advanced guard coming up with some hundreds of the guilty troops, whose retreat had been impeded by the premature destruction of a bridge, gave them as little quarter as they deserved. But as the enemy only passed through this part of the country, it had not suffered so much as those places where they had been stationary, and consequently had had leisure to prepare19 for the work of barbarous devastation which their Generals had determined upon committing. Not having time now to destroy every thing before them, they burnt only the principal houses: poorer habitations escaped; and the peasants who had fled before the retreating army to the mountains no sooner saw the allies come up, than they returned to their dwellings, baked bread for their deliverers from the corn which they had concealed, and did every thing in their power to assist them.

♦Guarda.♦

Guarda stands upon a plain of the Serra de Estrella (the Mons Herminius of the Romans) near the sources of the Zezere and the Mondego, and near the highest part of that lofty range; its site is said to be higher than that of any other city in Europe; the ascent to it continues nearly four miles, by a road wide enough for two carts abreast, winding in numberless sinuations along the edge of a deep precipice, the sides of which are overspread with trees. The city indeed owes its origin to this commanding situation, having grown round a watch tower (called in those days guarda) which Sancho the First erected there in the first age of the monarchy. Lord Wellington collected his army in the neighbourhood and in the front of Celorico, with a view to dislodge the enemy from this advantageous post. The following day he moved forward in five columns, supported by a division in the valley of the Mondego; the militia under Trant and Wilson covering the movement at Alverca against any attempt which might have been made against it on that side. So well were the movements concerted, that the heads of the different columns made their appearance on the heights almost at the same moment; upon which the enemy, without firing a shot, retired upon Sabugal on the Upper Coa; for although Dumouriez, with his superficial knowledge of the country, had spoken of Guarda as the key of Portugal, and upon that authority it has been described as one of the finest military positions in the kingdom, the French Generals perceived that its apparent strength only rendered it more treacherous, and were too prudent to attempt making a stand there, against one whom they now could not but in their hearts acknowledge to be at least their equal in the art of war. Their retreat was so rapid that they had not time to execute the mischief which they intended; our troops entered in time to save the Cathedral, the door of which was on fire: the wood of its fine organ had been taken by the enemy for fuel, and the pipes for bullets. They took a strong position, their right at Ruvina guarding the ford of Rapoula de Coa, with a detachment at the bridge of Ferreiros; their left was at Sabugal, and their 8th corps at Alfayates. The right of the allied army was opposite Sabugal, their left at the bridge of Ferreiros, and Trant and Wilson were sent across the Coa below Almeida, to threaten the communication of that place with Ciudad Rodrigo and with the enemy’s army.

♦The Coa.♦

The river Coa rises in the Sierra de Xalma, which forms a part of the great Sierra de Gata; and entering Portugal by Folgozinho, falls into the Douro near Villa Nova de Foscoa. The whole of its course is through one of the most picturesque countries in Europe, and it is everywhere difficult of access.

♦Sabugal.♦

Sabugal stands on the right bank. This town was founded about the year 1220, by Alonso X. of Leon, who named it from the number of elder-trees (sabugos) growing about it: the place is now remarkable for some of the largest chesnut-trees that are anywhere to be seen. It was afterwards annexed to the Portugueze dominions, and its old castle still remains a monument of king Diniz, whose magnificent works are found over the

♦April.♦ whole kingdom. The enemy’s second corps were strongly posted with their right upon a height immediately above the bridge and town, and their left extending along the road to Alfayates, to a height which commanded all the approaches to Sabugal from the fords above the town. They communicated by Rendo with the sixth corps at Ruvina. It was only on the left above Sabugal that they could be approached; our troops, therefore, were put in motion on the morning

♦Action before Sabugal.♦ of the 3rd of April, to turn them in this direction, and to force the passage of the bridge of Sabugal. The light division and the cavalry, under Sir W. Erskine and Major-General Slade, were to cross the Coa by two separate fords upon the right, the cavalry upon the right of the light division; the third division, under Major-General Picton, at a ford on the left about a mile above Sabugal; the fifth division, under Major-General Dunlop, and the artillery at the bridge. The sixth division remained opposite the enemy’s corps at Ruvina, and a battalion of the seventh observed their detachment at the bridge of Ferreiros. Colonel Beckwith’s brigade of the light division was the first that crossed, with two squadrons of cavalry upon its right; the riflemen skirmished; the enemy’s picquets fell back from the river as they advanced: they forded, gained the opposite height, formed as the companies arrived, and moved forward under a heavy fire. At this time so thick a rain came on, that it was impossible to see any thing before them, and the troops pushing forward in pursuit of the picquets, came upon the left of the main body, which it was intended they should turn. The light troops were driven back upon the 43rd regiment; and Regnier, who commanded the French, perceiving, as soon as the atmosphere cleared, that the body which had advanced was not strong, attacked it in solid column, supported by artillery and horse. The allies repulsed it, and advanced in pursuit upon the position. They found a strong enclosure in the front lined with a battalion; and the enemy forming fresh and stronger bodies, attacked them with the hussars on the right, and a fresh column on the left. Our troops retired, took post behind a wall, formed again under a heavy fire of grape, canister, and musketry, again repulsed the enemy, again advanced against them, and took from them a howitzer posted in the rear of the French battalion, which was formed under cover of that in the stone enclosure: this gun had greatly annoyed the allies. They had advanced with such impetuosity that their front was somewhat scattered; a fresh column with cavalry attacked them; they retired again to their post, where the battalions of the 52nd and the 1st Caçadores joined them: these troops once more repulsed the enemy, and Colonel Beckwith’s brigade, with the first battalion of the 52nd, again advanced upon them. Another column of the French, with cavalry, charged their right: but they took post in the stone enclosure on the top of the height, from whence they could protect the howitzer which had been won, and they again drove back the enemy. Regnier had moved a column on their left to renew the attack, when part of General Picton’s division came up; the head of General Dunlop’s column forced the bridge at the same time, and ascended the heights on the right flank; the cavalry appeared on the high ground in rear of their left, and Regnier then retreated across the hills towards Rendo, leaving the howitzer in the hands of those by whom it had been so gallantly won; about 200 were left on the field, with six officers and 300 prisoners. Our loss in killed, wounded, and prisoners, amounted to 161. What that of the French was in wounded is not known. They retired in the greatest disorder, cavalry, artillery, infantry, and baggage, all mixed. A fog favoured them, otherwise a good account would have been given of half their corps. Lord Wellington described this action, though the unavoidable accidents of weather had materially interfered with the operations, and impeded their success, as one of the most glorious that British troops were ever engaged in.

Regnier joined the sixth corps at Rendo; for it had broken up from its position at Ruvina as soon as the firing began; they retreated to Alfayates, followed by our cavalry; that night they continued their retreat, and entered the Spanish frontier on the fourth. On the following day the advance of the allied army pushed on, and occupied Albergaria, the first village on the Spanish border. An inhabited village was what they had not seen before since their retreat in the autumn, those excepted which were within the lines of Torres Vedras. The villages in Spain had not been injured; it seemed as if the French wished to make the Spaniards on this frontier compare their own condition with that of the Portugueze, that they might become contented with subjection. Massena’s soldiers even paid here for bread; and arriving not only hungry, but with a longing desire for that which is to them the most necessary article of food, they paid any price for it: the peasants seeing that they were rich in plunder, and finding them in the paying mood, made their charges accordingly. This sudden transition from a devastated country to one which had been exempted from the ravages of war, where the villages were clean, and the cottages reminded Englishmen of those in their own land, was not less striking than was the passing at once from a wild mountainous region to a fine and well-wooded plain.

Some hope was entertained that the appearance of Trant and Wilson’s force before Almeida might make the French apprehend a serious attack, and induce them to evacuate it. But throughout the war they never committed any error of this kind. It rarely happened in their service that any person was appointed to a situation for which he was not well qualified; and the commander of this fortress, General Brenier, was a man of more than common qualifications. The Coa, after these divisions crossed it at Cinco Villas, rose; and the governor concerted with General Regnier an attack upon them, which, their retreat being thus cut off, must have ended in their destruction, if Lord Wellington, apprehending the danger, had not pushed forward a small corps, which arrived just in time to divert the enemy’s attention, and save them. On the eighth the last of Massena’s army crossed the Agueda, not a

♦The French cross the frontier.♦

Frenchman remaining in Portugal, except the garrison of Almeida, which Lord Wellington immediately prepared to blockade. The allies took up that position upon the Duas Casas, which General Craufurd had occupied with the advanced guard during the latter part of the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo, having their advanced posts upon Galegos and the Agueda. Thus terminated the invasion of Portugal, in which Massena, with 110,000 men, had boasted that he would drive the English into the sea. A general of the highest reputation, and of abilities no ways inferior to his celebrity, at the head of the largest force which France could send against that country, was thus in all his plans baffled by a British general, and in every engagement beaten by British troops. An enemy the most presumptuous and insolent that ever disgraced the profession of arms, the most cruel that ever outraged human nature, had been humbled and exposed in the face of Europe; ... it was in vain for the French Government to call their retreat a change of position, ... however they might disguise and misrepresent the transactions in Portugal, however they might claim victories where they had sustained defeats, the map discovered here their undeniable discomfiture; and the smallest kingdom in Europe, a kingdom too which long misgovernment had reduced to the most deplorable state of disorganization, had, by the help of England and the spirit of its inhabitants, defied and defeated that tyrant before whom the whole continent was humbled. Russia had been so foiled in arms and dressed in negociation so as to become the ally of France, to co-operate in her barbarous warfare against commerce, and to recognise her extravagant usurpations. Prussia had been beaten and reduced to vassalage. Austria was still farther degraded by being compelled to give a daughter of its emperor in marriage to one whose crimes that emperor himself had proclaimed to the world. Poles and Italians, Dutch and Germans, from every part of divided and subjected Germany, filled up the armies of this barbarian; and the Portugueze, ... the poor, degraded, and despised Portugueze, ... the vilified, the injured, the insulted Portugueze, ... were the first people who drove this formidable enemy out of their country, and delivered themselves from the yoke.

♦March 18.
Opinions of the Whigs at this time.♦

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.♦

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.

CHAPTER XXXVI.
CADIZ. BATTLE OF BARROSA. DEATH OF ALBURQUERQUE.

♦1811.♦

About the same time that the tide had thus turned in Portugal, came tidings of a victory in Spain, which, if it led to no other result, tended to raise the character of the British army, and the spirits of the nation. When Soult marched against Badajoz, hoping to co-operate with Massena in the conquest of Portugal, he made

♦Expedition from Cadiz.♦ such large drafts from the army before Cadiz, that it was thought possible, by a well-concerted attack, to raise the blockade. The plan was, that an expedition should sail from Cadiz, and force a landing between Cape Trafalgar and Cape de Plata, or at Tarifa, or at Algeciras. The Spanish force at St. Roques was then to join, and a combined attack to be made upon the rear of the enemy’s line; while, in the meantime, an attempt should be made from the Isle of Leon to open a communication with them. D. Manuel de Lapeña was appointed to the command. He had conducted the wreck of the central army during the latter part of its retreat, under circumstances in which no military skill could be displayed, but in which his patriotism and

♦Lieutenant-General Graham.♦ moderation had been fully proved. Lieutenant-General Graham, who commanded the British troops at Cadiz, consented to act under him. This officer was now in his sixty-first year. The former part of his life he had passed in the enjoyments of domestic comfort, amusing himself with rural sports, with improving his estates, and with literature: after eighteen years of happiness his wife died on the way to the south of France, and Mr. Graham, seeking for relief in change of place, and in active occupations, joined Lord Hood as a volunteer when Toulon was taken possession of in 1793. Here he distinguished himself greatly, and on his return to England obtained permission to raise a regiment, but not without great difficulty and express discouragement from the commander-in-chief. He was at Mantua with Wurmser in 1796, and escaped by cutting his way through the besiegers in a night sortie: and he bore a distinguished part at Malta when Sir Alexander Ball, under circumstances the most painful, and with means the most inadequate, by his wisdom and perseverance recovered that island from the enemy. Nevertheless the time of life at which he had entered the army, and the manner, impeded his promotion; and he would probably never have risen in rank if General Moore had not experienced great assistance from him in his retreat, and at the battle of Coruña, and sent home so strong a recommendation that it could not be neglected.

♦Apprehensions of the enemy.♦

The expedition, though upon no extensive scale, was yet a great exertion for a government so poor in means as the Regency, so feeble, and with all its branches so miserably disorganised. The bustle in the roads was visible from the enemy’s lines, as well as from the city; in Cadiz the highest hopes were excited, and Marshal Victor felt no little degree of alarm. He thought that when Soult had so considerably weakened the blockading force, he ought to have placed Sebastiani’s army at his disposal, in case of need: this had not been done, and Victor, seeing the naval preparations, sent to that general, entreating him to manœuvre so as to alarm the allies upon their landing, and to endanger them; but his entreaties were of no effect, and Victor complained in his public dispatches, that this corps, though numerous, in good condition, and at leisure, had not given him the least assistance.

♦February.
The troops land at Algeciras.♦

During the latter days of January and great part of the following month, heavy rains delayed the expedition, and rendered all the roads impracticable by which the allies could have approached the enemy. On the 20th of February, the troops were embarked, waiting a favourable opportunity to proceed into the Straits: General Graham had about 4000 British and Portugueze, the Spaniards were 7000. The British got to sea the next day, and not being able to effect a landing near Cape Trafalgar, nor at Tarifa, disembarked at Algeciras, from whence they marched to Tarifa. The roads between the two towns were impassable for carriages, and therefore the artillery, provisions, and stores, were conveyed in boats, by indefatigable exertions of the seamen, against every disadvantage of wind and weather. The Spanish transports were thrice driven back, but reached Tarifa on the evening of the 27th, and the next day they began their

♦They pass the Puerto de Facinas.♦ march to the Puerto de Facinas, a pass in that chain of mountains which, bounding the plain of Gibraltar on the west, runs to the sea from the Sierras of Ronda. To this point the road was practicable for carriages, some days’ labour having been employed in making it so: from thence it descends to those spacious plains which extend from the skirts of the chain to Medina Sidonia, Chiclana, and the river Santi Petri: and the roads below were in a dreadful state, the country being marshy, intersected with a labyrinth of streams; one of which, the Barbate, which receives the waters of the Lake of Janda, is a considerable river. At Veger, about half way between Tarifa and the Isle of Leon, the French had three companies of infantry and 180 horse. They had also a small fort with two pieces of cannon at Casas Viejas, on the road to Medina. These points it was hoped to surprise, and the troops therefore encamped on the side of the mountain, taking every precaution to conceal their movements from the enemy.

♦Lapeña’s proclamation.♦

Lapeña, when the troops commenced their march, addressed a proclamation to them, which at once disclosed the extent of his object, and the confidence with which he expected to realize it. “Soldiers of the fourth army,” said he, “the moment for which you have a whole year been longing is at length arrived: a second time Andalusia is about to owe to you her liberty, and the laurels of Mengibar and Baylen will revive upon your brows. You have to combat in sight of the whole nation assembled in its Cortes; the Government will see your deeds; the inhabitants of Cadiz, who have made so many sacrifices for you, will be eye-witnesses of your heroism; they will lift up their voices in blessings and in acclamations of praise, which you will hear amid the roar of musketry and cannon. Let us go then to conquer! my cares are directed to this end; implicit obedience, firmness, and discipline, must conduct you to it: if these are wanting, in vain will you seek for fortune! and woe to him who forgets or abandons them: he shall die without remission! The gold, whose weight makes cowards of those who have plundered it from us, the bounties which a generous Government will bestow, and the endless blessings of those who will call you their deliverers, ... behold in these your reward!” At Facinas the operations were to commence; here, therefore, the order of march was arranged, and the troops formed into three divisions, the van being under General D. Jose Lardizabal, the centre under Camp-Marshal the Prince of Anglona, and the reserve under General Graham.

♦Advance against Veger.♦

At night-fall on the first of March, a detachment under Colonel D. José Aymerich with two four-pounders, began its march to surprise Veger. A squadron accompanied it under the first adjutant of the staff, Major-General Wall, as far as the Fuente del Hierro, where these two parties separated, Aymerich taking the direct line for Veger, Wall going to the right across the lake of La Janda and the river Barbate, to cut off the retreat of the enemy by the roads to Medina and Chiclana. It was hardly probable that he should succeed in this attempt, for the way was not only circuitous and full of difficulties, but there was also another road, that of Conil, by which they might make their retreat, and which lay so wide of the others, that it could not be occupied: Wall’s movement, however, covered Aymerich’s, and facilitated his operations. The Barbate is navigable as far as Veger bridge, where it touches the foot of the high hill upon which Veger stands. At this bridge Aymerich arrived in the morning; it was fortified, and the French, under every advantage of situation, were preparing to defend it, when Wall’s cavalry appeared on the other side; upon this they retired by the Conil road fast enough to effect their retreat. Three of their gun-boats and three pieces of cannon were taken here; the enemy suffered no other loss, but the chief object in view was accomplished, for the possession of this post secured the flank of the allies.

Meantime the main body advanced against Casas Viejas: the distance being twelve miles, Lapeña supposed, from the information of his guides, that he should arrive some hours before daybreak. But there were so many streams to cross, and so many intervening marshes, that notwithstanding the hard labour of the pioneers, and the utmost exertions of the artillery officers, these twelve miles were a journey of twelve painful hours, so that he did not arrive in time to reconnoitre the fort before it was broad day. The enemy having fired a few shot, took post upon a hill behind the fort, on the Medina road. The German hussars in the British service, and the Spanish carbineers under General Whittingham, were ordered to wheel round upon the enemy’s right, and surround them in that direction, while Baron

♦March.♦

Carondelet, with another squadron of cavalry, forded the Barbate, and crossing a flooded marsh, where the water was up to their saddle-girths, advanced to charge them. Two battalions of infantry, the one Spanish, the other English, crossed at the same time to support him; and the enemy presently gave way, leaving about thirty killed and wounded, thirty-three prisoners, two pieces of cannon, and all their stores.

♦Junction of the troops from St. Roques.♦

The troops from St. Roques joined this day, marching by way of Las Casas de Castaño, and leaving a small detachment in Alcala de los Gazules. This division, consisting of 1600 men, was added to the centre, whose force now amounted to 6000; that of the vanguard was 2100, that of the rear 3100, 4300 being British and Portugueze, the rest Spaniards. The cavalry were in a separate body under Whittingham. The whole force, when thus united, consisted of 11,200 foot, 800 horse20. They had twenty-four pieces of cannon. Lapeña’s plan was now to march by Veger, upon the Santi Petri, and attack the intrenchments there which formed the left of the enemy’s lines. Thus the pass of the river would be laid open, and a communication established with the Isle of Leon, from whence the army might receive provisions, which it now began to want, and might be reinforced with artillery, foot, and horse: thus too they might combine their operations with those which would be made from the Spanish line of defence, and from the bay, in such manner, that while the success appeared almost certain, the risk, even in case of defeat, would be avoided, which must be incurred upon any other plan from the nature of the ground and the want of stores. Victor did not suspect that any difficulties upon this head could influence the movements of the allies, and he seems to have expected that his position would be attacked in a more vital part. He reinforced with a battalion of voltigeurs General Cassagne, who occupied Medina Sidonia with three battalions and a regiment of chasseurs; and he took a position himself with ten battalions at the Cortijo de Guerra, the intermediate point between Medina and Chiclana, from whence he could bear upon the allies in case they should advance upon either. General Lapeña, however, had no thought of moving upon Medina: “it was strong by nature,” he said, “fortified with seven pieces of cannon, besides some in its castle, and distant only two leagues from the Cortijo.”

♦The French attack Zayas, and are repulsed.♦

Camp-Marshal D. Jose de Zayas, who commanded in the Isle of Leon, meantime had well performed his part of the concerted operations. He pushed a body of troops over the Santi Petri, near the coast, on the first, threw a pontoon bridge across, and formed a tete-du-pont the following evening. The French General Villatte was immediately ordered to attack this point during the night, and, in French customary phrase, to drive the Spaniards into the sea. About midnight the enemy made their attack with three regiments, and by dint of superior numbers forced their way into the works at various points. Zayas speedily reinforced the post, and drove them out with the bayonet: it was wholly an affair of the bayonet, for the troops were too much intermingled to permit of firing. Some of the French had reached the middle of the bridge, others crossed it, probably as the best means of saving themselves when they found that they had pushed on too far; they fell in with the Spaniards who were hastening to assist their comrades, and in this manner effected their escape.

♦Passage of the lake of Junda.♦

Having failed in this attempt, Victor marched towards Chiclana, and ordered Cassagne to join him from the Cortijo, rightly concluding that Lapeña meant to attack the French lines at Santi Petri, which, should he succeed, would enable him to receive reinforcements from the Isle, and then he would march upon Chiclana. The Spanish general thought to deceive him into a belief that the attack would be made by Medina, and for this purpose left a party at Casas Viejas to mount guard, and keep up fires, as if the whole force was there, while on the third they proceeded to Veger. An excess of caution seems to have been Lapeña’s failing; lest the enemy from Medina, which was about ten miles from the beaten road, should think of attacking him upon his march, he chose a by-road on the left of the Barbate, unfrequented, because there is the lake of Junda to be crossed on the way. This lake is a considerable piece of water, between the two roads from Tarifa to Medina Sidonia and to Chiclana. The bottom consists of mud; but to render it fordable, a stone causeway had been built, rather under than in the water, about six feet wide, and some 500 yards in length, bushes and poles being fixed at intervals to mark its edge, and prevent the traveller from stepping into the mud. At this time the water upon the causeway was in some places more than mid-deep. The Spaniards were some hours in passing, Lapeña exhorting them from his horse; and many of the officers made the men carry them across, while our officers were encouraging their soldiers by example, and General Graham was in the water on foot. On the evening of the 4th, they advanced from Veger, by way of Conil, towards Santi Petri. This place Lapeña hoped to reach by daybreak; but upon entering a wood about ten miles from the village, and about as much in extent, his advanced guard was suddenly attacked by some cavalry who sallied from the cover. The enemy were repelled, but the column halted while the wood was explored; and this, with the doubt and hesitation of the guides, heightened by the fears and feelings which night excited, and the local circumstances of a country where carriages seldom or never passed, caused a delay of two hours, so that they did not get out of the wood till it was broad day; and the hope which Lapeña had with little reason indulged, of surprising his vigilant enemy, was destroyed. The three divisions therefore advanced in as many columns; their movements could not possibly be concealed; the enemy did not appear to molest them, but an officer of the French staff was seen singly reconnoitring them. The operation was to commence from a height called the Cabeza del Puerco: they halted here to refresh themselves, and Lapeña harangued the van which was destined to make the attack.

♦Position of the enemy.♦

The lines which were to be attacked formed the left of the French works. They were supported by the sea on one side, on the other by the channel of Alcornocal, and the fortified mill of Almansa. Villatte had about 4000 men to defend this position, but his force had been considerably weakened in his unsuccessful attempt upon the tete-du-pont. He had, however, very considerable advantage in the nature of the broken ground, a thick wood through which the assailant must advance, and the perfect knowledge, which, in the course of twelve months’ undisturbed possession, he had acquired of every path and every inequality of surface. This wood so covered the enemy, that only four of their battalions in the first line were visible; they had their right supported by the Torre Bermeja, and three guns in their centre. Lardizabal, reinforced by part of the second division, advanced to attack them: the remainder of the troops held a position upon the Cabeza del Puerco, or hill of Barrosa, the cavalry being in advance upon the right.

♦Communication with the Isle of Leon.♦

Villatte anticipated their movements, and fell upon both flanks of Lardizabal’s advance at the same time; at first he had the advantage, ... but the regiment of Murcia, under its Colonel D. Juan Maria Muñoz, checked his progress, Lardizabal with a battalion of the Canaries attacked his right, and the Spanish guards, and the regiment of Africa, under Brigadier D. Raymundo Ferrer, and Colonel D. Tomas Retortillo, charged with the bayonet. The enemy were routed, and the communication with the Isle of Leon was thus opened by this well-conducted and successful attack. Two battalions of the French escaped and carried off their field-pieces, the nature of the ground saving them. Lapeña’s first object was thus accomplished, and in order to maintain the important position that he had gained, which had in its front a thick pine forest, extending to Chiclana, and which he apprehended the enemy would use their utmost efforts to recover, he directed, in concert with General Graham, that the British troops should move down from Barrosa towards the Torre de Bermeja, leaving some Spanish regiments under Brigadier Begines upon the heights. The position which it was intended to occupy is formed by a narrow woody ridge, the right on the sea cliff, the left falling down to the creek of Almansa on the edge of a marsh. From the position of Barrosa to that of Bermeja, the communication is easy, along a hard sandy beach upon the west. General Graham’s division had halted on the eastern slope; his road therefore lay through the wood, and having sent cavalry patroles toward Chiclana, who saw nothing of the enemy, he began his march about noon.

General Lacy, the chief of the Spanish staff, was sent forward by Lapeña to maintain the heights of Bermeja; here it was that the danger was apprehended; and the firing had recommenced in that direction. The nature of the ground was such, that what was passing at Barrosa could not be seen at Bermeja; perhaps there was a deficiency in those arrangements, by which, in a well-organized army, information of what is passing in one part is rapidly conveyed to another; and there was certainly the want of a good intelligence between General Graham and the Spanish commander under whom he had consented to act. The British troops had proceeded about half way, and were in the middle of the wood, when they were informed that the enemy was appearing in force upon the plain, and advancing towards the heights of Barrosa. That position General Graham considered as the key to that of Santi Petri, and immediately countermarched in order to support the troops who had been left for its defence.

♦Heights of Barrosa.♦

The heights of Barrosa extend to the shore on one side, and slope down to the plain on the other towards a lake called the Laguna del Puerco: the ridge itself was called Cabeza del Puerco by the Spaniards, but it will retain the better name which was this day acquired for it. Victor with 8000 men advanced against this point. The troops which had been left there were the regiments of Siguenza and Cantabria, a battalion of Ciudad Real, another of the Walloon guards, and a battalion of the King’s German legion. Ignorant of Graham’s movements, and knowing themselves unable to maintain the post against such very superior numbers, they thought it best to form a junction with the British, whose rear they should by this means cover, and be themselves covered on the way by the pine forest through which they were to pass. Accordingly they made this movement with perfect coolness and in perfect order, General Whittingham covering one flank, Brigadier D. Juan de la Cruz Mourgeon the other; for on both sides the enemy endeavoured to envelope them.

♦General Graham marches back to the heights.♦

Graham, meantime, was marching rapidly back, but at a distance from the shore; whereas these troops kept near it, apparently to lessen the danger of being turned on that side by the enemy’s light infantry. In such intricate and difficult circumstances it was impossible to preserve order in the columns; and before the troops were quite disentangled from the wood, they saw that the detachment which they were hastening to support had left the heights; that the left wing of the French were rapidly ascending there, and their right stood upon the plain, on the edge of the wood within cannon shot. General Graham’s object in countermarching had been to support the troops in maintaining the heights; “but a retreat,” he says, “in the face of such an enemy (already within reach of the easy communication by the sea beach) must have involved the whole allied army in all the danger of being attacked during the unavoidable confusion of the different corps arriving on the narrow ridge of Bermeja nearly at the same time.” Trusting, therefore, to the courage of his men, and regardless of the numbers and position of the enemy, he resolved immediately to attack them.

♦Battle of Barrosa.♦

Marshal Victor commanded the French; General Ruffin, whose name was well known in the history of this wicked war, commanded the left upon the hill; General Leval the right. Graham formed his troops as rapidly as the circumstances required; there was no time to restore order in his columns, which had unavoidably been broken in marching through the wood. The brigade of guards, Lieutenant-Colonel Browne’s flank battalion of the 28th, Lieutenant-Colonel Norcott’s two companies of the 2nd rifle corps, and Major Acheson, with a part of the 57th (separated from the regiment in the wood), formed on the right under Brigadier-General Dilkes. Colonel Wheatley’s brigade, with three companies of the Coldstream guards, under Lieutenant-Colonel Jackson, (separated likewise from his battalion in the wood,) and Lieutenant-Colonel Barnard’s flank battalion, formed on the left; Major Duncan, opening a powerful battery of ten guns in the centre, protected the formation of the infantry; and as soon as they were thus hastily got together, the guns were advanced to a more favourable position, and kept up a most destructive fire.

Leval’s division, notwithstanding the havoc which this battery made, continued to advance in imposing masses, opening its fire of musketry. The British left wing advanced against it, firing. The three companies of guards, and the 87th, supported by the remainder of the wing, charged them with right British bravery; Colonel Bilson with the 28th, and Lieutenant-Colonel Prevost with part of the 67th, zealously supported their attack, which was decisive in this part of the field. An eagle, the first which the British had won, was taken. It belonged to the 8th regiment of light infantry, and bore a gold collar round its neck, because that regiment had so distinguished itself as to have received the thanks of Buonaparte in person. The enemy were closely pursued across a narrow valley, and a reserve, which they had formed beyond it, was charged in like manner, and in like manner put to the rout. General Dilkes was equally successful on his side. Ruffin, confident in his numbers and in his position, met him on the ascent. A bloody contest ensued, but of no long duration, for the best troops of France have never been able to stand against the British bayonet. Ruffin was wounded and taken, and the enemy driven from the heights in confusion. In less than an hour and a half they were in full retreat, and in that short time more than 4000 men had fallen, ... for the British loss in killed and wounded amounted to 1243; not a single British soldier was taken. The French loss was more than 3000. General Bellegrade was killed, General Rousseau mortally wounded and taken; the prisoners were only 440, because there was no pursuit.

The 20th Portugueze regiment fought side by side with the British in this memorable action. One squadron of the German Legion, which had been attached to the Spanish cavalry, joined in time to make a successful charge against a squadron of French dragoons, which it completely routed. General Whittingham, with the rest of the cavalry, was engaged, meantime, in checking a corps of horse and foot who were attempting to win the height by the coast. The Walloon guards, and the battalion of Ciudad Real, which had been attached to Graham’s division, and had been left on the height, made the greatest exertions to rejoin him; but it was not possible for them to arrive before the victory was decided, and the troops were too much exhausted to think of pursuing their advantage. They had been marching for twenty hours before the battle.

The distance from Barrosa to Bermeja is about three miles; Lapeña could not see what was passing at the great scene of action, and an attack was made at the same time upon Bermeja by Villatte, who had received reinforcements from Chiclana: the enemy were vigorously resisted there, and were called off by Victor in consequence of his defeat. When the Spanish general was informed of Graham’s brilliant action, he entertained great hopes of succeeding in the farther movement which had been intended. In the dispatch which he sent that night to Cadiz, “The allied army,” he said, “had obtained a victory so much the more satisfactory as circumstances rendered it more difficult; but the valour of the British and Spanish troops, the military skill and genius of General Graham, and the gallantry of the commandant-general of the vanguard, D. Jose Lardizabal, had overcome all obstacles. I remain,” he continued, “master of the enemy’s position, which is so important to me for my subsequent operations.”

♦Diversion on the coast.♦

But no attempt was made to profit by the bloody victory which had been gained. General Graham remained some hours upon the heights which he had won, and as no supplies came to him, the commissariat mules having been dispersed at the beginning of the action, he left a small detachment there, and then withdrew his troops, and early the next morning crossed the Santi Petri. While he was on his march, two landings were effected by way of diversion, between Rota and Catalina, and between Catalina and Santa Maria, by the marines of the British squadron, with 200 seamen and 80 Spanish marines: they stormed two redoubts, and dismantled all the sea defences from Rota to St. Maria, except Catalina. Preparations were made to attack the tete-du-pont and the bridge of St. Maria, but the enemy advanced in force from Puerto Real, and Sir Richard Keats, knowing that General Graham had now re-entered the Isle of Leon, ordered the men to re-embark.

♦The Cortes demand an inquiry.♦

Such was the lame and impotent conclusion of an expedition which had been long prepared and well concerted, in which the force employed was adequate to the end proposed, and of which every part that was attempted had been successfully effected. General Graham complained loudly of Lapeña; and the people of Cadiz, the Cortes, and the government, were at first equally disposed to impute the failure to the Spanish commander. The Cortes voted an address to the Regency on the 9th, saying that the national congress, not being able longer to endure the grief and bitterness of seeing the circumstances of the expedition remain in doubt and obscurity, requested the executive government to give them, as speedily as possible, a circumstantial account of the proceedings of the Spanish army. When this account was laid before them, they declared that the conduct of the general with regard to the advantages which might have been obtained on the memorable day of the battle was not sufficiently clear; “the Cortes, therefore,” said they, “in discharge of its sovereign mission, and using the supreme inspection which it has reserved to itself over whatever may influence the salvation of the kingdom, desires that the council of Regency will immediately institute a scrupulous investigation with all the rigour of military law.”

♦Outcry in England against Lapeña.♦

If such was at first the prevailing opinion in Cadiz, it may well be supposed that the Spanish general would be exposed to severe censure in England. The story which obtained belief was, that Lapeña and the Spaniards had been idle spectators of the action, whereas, if they had only shown themselves upon the adjoining heights, the French would have raised the blockade, and retired in dismay to Seville; and that after the battle, while he and 12,000 Spaniards remained inactive, he sent to General Graham, whose troops were without food, and had marched sixteen hours before they came into action, desiring him to follow up the victory, for that now was the time to deliver Cadiz. A vote of thanks passed unanimously in both houses; but a few days afterwards, when the ordnance estimates were before

♦April 1.
Speech of Mr. Ward.♦ the house, the honourable J. W. Ward said, “he hoped he might now be allowed to ask for some explanation of the deplorable misconduct of our allies; for of that conduct it would be idle to affect to speak in doubtful terms, it was reprobated with equal indignation by all parties throughout the country. Was it to be endured,” said he, “that while the British troops were performing prodigies of valour in an unequal contest, that those allies for whose independence they were fighting, should stand by, cold-blooded spectators of deeds, the bare recital of which should have been enough to warm every man of them into a hero? If, indeed, they had been so many mercenaries, and had been hired to fight for a foreign power and in behalf of a foreign cause; ... if they had been so many Swiss, ... in that case their breach of duty, however culpable, would have been less unaccountable, and perhaps more excusable; but here, where they were allies bound to this country in obligations greater than ever before one nation owed to another ... our brave men lavishing those lives which their country had so much better right to claim, in defence of that cause in which those allies were principals ... in such a case, tamely to look on while the contest between numbers and bravery hung in doubtful issue, ... this did appear to him to betray an indifference, an apathy, which, if he could suppose it to prevail among the Spaniards, must render, in his mind, the cause of Spanish independence altogether hopeless.”

♦Mr. Perceval.♦

Mr. Perceval replied, “that Mr. Ward had expressed a stronger and more determined censure upon the Spaniards than could be justified by any evidence which had yet appeared. Had he expressed his regret that the English had been left to fight the battle alone, and had he required some explanation on the subject, such conduct would have been perfectly natural and right; but it was neither just nor generous thus upon insufficient grounds to prejudice men who were to undergo a legal investigation. General Graham’s dispatches furnished no grounds for these sweeping accusations; the Spanish troops which had been attached to his division made every effort to come back and join in the action; and when the situation of the rest of the army, posted at four miles’ distance, was taken into consideration, it required more information than they possessed at present, even to justify the passing a censure upon the whole Spanish army, or even upon any part of it.”

♦Mr. Whitbread.♦

Mr. Whitbread now rose. “He should have been glad,” he said, “to have joined in the general expression of exultation when the vote of thanks was passed; ... he should have been glad to have added his mite to the general tribute in applause of the heroism of that day, and to have claimed the hero of that day as his much-valued friend. This he should have been glad to have done, if he could have had sufficient control over himself to have abstained from doing more. Mr. Perceval had spoken like the advocate of the Spaniards; they must be defended at all events, no matter how! And what was it that was attempted to be defended? The English army was on the point of being sacrificed ... the Spaniards were in sight of them, within twenty minutes quick march of them! and what did they? What were they? Why, just what they have been described by his honourable friend ... cold-blooded spectators of the battle! After coldly witnessing a band of heroes fighting and dying for their cause, General Lapeña tells our small army, exhausted with its unparalleled victory over numbers, that, forsooth, now was the time to push its success. What did this redoubted general mean? Was it insult, or treachery, or cowardice, ... each, or all? He did not mean to complain of the Spanish people, but of their officers. He should ever think of Barrosa as a day memorable for the glory of the Britons, and no less memorable for the infamy of the Spaniards. Was it to be endured, that our brave fellows should be so basely deserted, after an excessive night-march, the moment they entered the field, against a foe always formidable from discipline, and then doubly so from numbers? Why were the two battalions withdrawn from the heights of Barrosa? why was their position abandoned precipitately to the French? who gave this order but a Spanish officer? What! should not this excite a jealousy? Was this the first time a Spanish army had been cold-blooded spectators of British heroism? Did they want this to remind them of the stately indifference shown by Cuesta in the battle of Talavera? Was all sound in Cadiz? Was there no French party there? Were British armies never before betrayed till the battle of Barrosa? He said betrayed, for it was nothing less; the two battalions never came up till our army had repulsed the French, beaten them off, and was in hot pursuit of them as fast as our army could pursue ... as fast as their exhausted limbs could carry their noble hearts! Then what had been our allies?... At Talavera nothing ... at Barrosa nothing ... or rather at both perhaps worse than nothing. The allied force sailed from Cadiz ... the British fought ... the Spaniards looked on. The British conquered; and yet the siege was not raised. Again he asked, was all sound at Cadiz? Was it true that General Graham had been obstructed and foiled in all his plans ... that in the midst of the fight, while the British troops were doing feats which perhaps British troops alone could do, their allies were doing what, he hoped, such men alone were capable of ... plundering the British baggage? Was this true? It was not the Spanish people he complained of; he gave them every credit; but he gave their leaders none. If all this was so, or nearly so, were the British armies to be risked so worthlessly? Were they to be abandoned to treachery or cowardice? For in either or both must have originated the unnatural, ungrateful, and infamous treatment they had met with.”

♦Remarks on the failure of the expedition.♦

Whatever error of judgment General Lapeña might have committed, the charges thus brought against him and his army were as ill-founded as they were intemperately urged. Instead of being cold-blooded spectators of the battle, the main body of the Spaniards were four miles distant; there was a thick wood between them and the scene of action, and they were themselves actually engaged at the time. And it is worthy of remark, that while invectives, which had no other tendency than to produce a breach between England and Spain, were thus lavished upon the Spaniards, by those politicians who would have had us abandon Spain and Portugal to the tyrant’s pleasure, the French were endeavouring to excite discontent between the two countries by accusations which directly contradicted these aspersions. Marshal Victor affirmed in his official account, that when he determined to attack the heights, the Spaniards under Lapeña were at the time warmly engaged; the cannonade and the fire of the musketry were extremely brisk, he said; and with that falsehood which characterised the execrable system of his government, he added, that the English, according to their custom, had wished to place the Spaniards in the post of danger, and expose themselves as little as possible.

Lapeña prayed that an immediate inquiry should be instituted, that the inquiry should be made public, and that he should be punished if he were found culpable. The inquiry was made, and the result was an honourable acquittal. The proceedings were not published; and unhappily the good opinion of the Spanish Government afforded no proof, scarcely a presumption, of the deserts of those on whom it was bestowed. At this very time they appointed Mahy, who had done nothing in Galicia, but oppress the inhabitants and paralyse the efforts of a brave and willing population, to another command; and Mendizabal, by whose misconduct their best army had been destroyed, was sent to command in the North. But though it cannot be inferred that General Lapeña was not worthy of censure, because he was pronounced free from fault, little investigation may suffice to show that the outcry raised against him was intemperate, if not altogether unjust, and that the failure of the expedition was owing to the disagreement between the British and Spanish generals, more than to any misconduct on the part of the latter. Whether prudently or not, General Graham had consented to act under Lapeña; and whether the plan of operations was well concerted or not, he had assented to it. That plan was, that the allies should open a communication with the Isle of Leon, by breaking through the left of the enemy’s line; this being done, they would receive supplies and reinforcements, and might proceed to farther successes. It had never been intended in this plan that the British should turn back to attack a part of the French army, whose numbers were, to their own, in the proportion of two to one, and who had every advantage of ground; nor that they should cripple themselves by fighting upon ground, where mere honour was all that could be gained. The memorial which Lapeña addressed to the Cortes, praying for an inquiry into his conduct, contains his justification. “He had assured General Graham,” he says, “on the evening after the battle, that the troops from the isle should come out, and that provisions should be sent to the English; and it was with extreme surprise he learned that they had retreated without his knowledge.” The cause of this movement is perfectly explicable; the Spaniards in Cadiz and the island, never very alert in their movements, were not ready with an immediate supply of provisions, and the British troops after the battle were neither in a humour, nor in a state, nor in a situation to wait patiently till it should arrive. From this moment all co-operation was at an end. When the Spanish general applied to his own Government, and to General Graham, respecting farther operations, the former told him that they had written to the British ambassador, and were waiting for his answer; the latter that he was not in a condition to come out of the isle again, but that he would cover the points of the line of defence. Lapeña thus found himself deprived of that part of the allied force upon whose skill and discipline his best hopes of success must have been founded; “had he acted for himself,” he said, “he would have pursued the enemy with the Spanish troops alone, but he was under the necessity of consulting the Government which was so close at hand.” This alone would have occasioned delay; but Lapeña was at that moment under a charge of misconduct preferred against him by the British, and echoed by the people and the Cortes; and thus in delays, formalities, and examinations, the irrecoverable hours were lost.

♦Death of Alburquerque.♦

It must have added to the grief of the true Spaniards in Cadiz upon this occasion, when they remembered that they might at this day have had a general who had every claim to the confidence of his men, his government, and his allies, that distinguished services, unbounded sacrifices, enterprise, talents, and devoted patriotism could give. That general, the Duque de Alburquerque, whose name will ever be regarded as the most illustrious of his illustrious line, had just at this time fallen a victim to the malignity of the Junta of Cadiz. After remaining in England eight months in a state of exile, intolerable to one who was as capable as he was desirous of serving his country in the field, he printed a statement of his conduct and case, which he had withheld as long as any possible injury could be apprehended from its publication. This he sent to the Cortes; it was received as the merits of its author deserved; eulogiums never more justly merited were heard from all sides; the Cortes declared that the duke and his army had deserved well of their country, particularly for preserving the Isle of Leon and Cadiz, and they desired that the Regency would recall him from England that he might again be actively employed. In consequence of this, he was appointed to the command in Galicia. The Junta of Cadiz, however, acting as they had done in other cases, even of greater importance, in contempt of the Government, drew up a reply to his statement; it was addressed to the duke, and with insolence equal to their ingratitude, and falsehood if possible surpassing both, they called him, in direct terms, an impudent calumniator and an enemy to his country. Each of the members of this body signed it individually; it was printed as a hand-bill, and a copy of it was sent to London by some private hand, and reached Alburquerque through the twopenny post, that no possible mark of insult might be wanting to the transaction.

Alburquerque ought to have despised any attack from that quarter, and more especially one which, by its intemperance and scurrility, so plainly showed in what vile passions it had originated. But he wore his heart for daws to peck at, and his enemies knew but too well the infirmity of his nature. At first he endeavoured to repress or to conceal his feelings, and drew up a short and dignified representation to the Cortes; but this did not satisfy him; notwithstanding the earnest dissuasions of his friends, he determined upon replying to the Junta, and he devoted himself to this composition with an earnestness which made him forgetful both of food and of sleep. Three days were thus employed in a state of restless and feverish anxiety. The wound all this while was rankling, and the venom of the Junta did its work. On the fourth day a frenzy-fever seized him; he felt the approach of the disease, and was perfectly sensible of the cause, for having sent for D. J. M. Blanco White, he took from his pocket, as soon as he saw him, a strip of paper on which he had written, “como calumniador y enemigo de la patria,” ... the words which had stung him to the heart, ... and said, “When they ask why I have lost my senses, this paper will answer for me.” ... A dreadful scene ensued; fits of tears were followed by paroxysms of rage, and on the third day of his illness he expired: happily in the course of the disease the sense of his own wrongs, intolerable and fatal as it had proved, gave way to a deeper feeling: he forgot himself in thinking of his country: his repeated exclamations of vengeance upon Napoleon Buonaparte were so vehement and loud that they were distinctly heard by the passers in the street; and his last breath was spent in imprecations upon the tyrant whose wickedness had caused all the unutterable miseries of Spain. Every public honour which the British Government could bestow was paid to the remains of this illustrious man, and his body was deposited in that same vault in Henry VII.’s chapel wherein Marlborough’s had formerly been laid, till it could be sent home, to rest with his ancestors21.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

GRANT AND SUBSCRIPTION FOR THE RELIEF OF THE PORTUGUEZE. OPERATIONS ON THE ALENTEJO FRONTIER. BATTLES OF FUENTES D’ONORO AND ALBUHERA. BADAJOZ UNSUCCESSFULLY BESIEGED BY THE ALLIES.

♦1811.♦

It was now made apparent, as well by the battle of Barrosa, as by the whole conduct of the Cortes, that no successful exertions were to be expected on that side; and that, though the subjugation of the Peninsula could not but appear every day more hopeless to the Intruder’s government, all reasonable hope of its deliverance must rest upon Lord Wellington, and the allied army under his command. Thus far his foresight had been fully approved by the issue of Massena’s invasion; that general had entered Portugal with 72,000 men, and had received reinforcements to the amount of about 15,000 more: ten he had lost at Busaco; about as many more had died while he perseveringly maintained his ground; and what with prisoners, sick and wounded, and the losses on the retreat, about 40,000 only were remaining when he recrossed the frontier. The invaders had lost their horses, carriages, ammunition, and cannon; but for this they cared not; they had the strong hold of Ciudad Rodrigo on which to retire; and even the wreck of their army was more numerous than the force which drove them out of Portugal.

♦Opinions of the opposition writers at this time.♦

During these events, the opponents of the English ministry improved with more than their wonted infelicity the opportunity afforded them of exhibiting their errors in judgment, their want of that knowledge which is the foundation of political wisdom, and their destitution of that generous feeling which sometimes renders even error respectable. When the first news arrived that the French were breaking up from their position, they cautioned the public against extravagant expectations; “such accounts,” they said, “have come too often to raise enthusiasm in any but simpletons and stock-jobbers; and there seems no reason for altering the opinion which we have so often expressed, that, happen what may partially, the ultimate loss of the Peninsula is as certain as ever it was, and that we are only delaying the catastrophe by needless proofs of a valour, which our enemies admire much more than our allies. In the meantime, Spain does nothing, except calumniate and kill her exiled patriots; and reasonable people have long ceased to look to any place but South America for the resuscitation of Spanish independence.”

When it was known beyond all doubt to those whose belief was not influenced by their wishes, that Massena was in full retreat and Lord Wellington pursuing him, “these retreats and pursuits,” said they, “are fine things for tickling the ears. Most probably the retreat is, as usual, an alteration of position; and the pursuit a little look-out on the occasion, enlivened by the seizure of a few unfortunate stragglers.” At the discovery that this change of position was from the Zezere to the Agueda, ... nothing less than the evacuation of Portugal, ... the despondents were neither abashed nor silenced. “Buonaparte’s honour,” they said, “was pledged to effect his projects in the Peninsula, and unfortunately his power was as monstrous as his ambition. Massena would now throw himself upon his resources both in men and provisions; he was removing from a ravaged and desolate country, to one comparatively uninjured and fertile; and it was to be remarked, that while the French were falling back upon their supplies, the allies were removing from their own. In such a state of things, could Lord Wellington’s army long exist on the frontiers? The war had become one of supplies and expenses; if the enemy could establish large magazines at Almeida, they could again advance, the same scenes would again be repeated, and Lisbon would again become the point of defence. The result must certainly be determined by the success or ill success of the French in Spain. If Spain falls,” said they, “nothing short of a miracle can preserve Portugal; and that Spain will fall, is almost as certain as that her people are self-willed and superstitious, her nobility divided and degraded, and her commanders incapable, arrogant, or treacherous.” We were, moreover, warned by these sapient politicians, to remember, that there were seven marshals in Spain, besides generals, with distinct commands; and that the French, having retired upon their resources, had only abandoned Portugal for the season, that they might return and reap the harvest which they had left the natives to sow. It was not enough to dismay the nation by thus prognosticating what the French would do, they threw out alarming hints of what, even now, it was to be apprehended they might have done. “If,” said they, “Massena had received adequate reinforcements from France, the positions which he took at Guarda and Almeida would have drawn the allies into a most dangerous predicament; and let us imagine what might at this very instant be the perilous situation of Lord Wellington, if a considerable army had really been collected under Bessieres!” Happy was it for England, that the councils of this country were not directed by men who would have verified their own predictions, leaving the enemy unresisted, as far as Great Britain was concerned, because they believed him to be irresistible!

♦Address of the Portugueze Government to the people.♦

But while the factious part of the British press was thus displaying how far it was possible for men to deaden their hearts against all generous emotions, the Portugueze governors were expressing their gratitude to England for the effectual support which she had given to her old ally. They told the people that their day of glory was at length arrived; they had passed through the fiery ordeal, by which the merits of men were tried and purified; they were become a great nation. “Humbling themselves,” they said, “before the first and sovereign Author of all good, they rendered thanks to their Prince, for establishing, in his wisdom, the basis of their defence; ... to his British majesty, to his enlightened ministry, and to the whole British nation, in whom they had found faithful and liberal allies, constant co-operation, and that honour, probity, and steadiness of principle, which peculiarly distinguished the British character; ... to the illustrious Wellington, whose sagacity and consummate military skill had been so eminently displayed; ... to the zealous and indefatigable Beresford, who had restored discipline and organization to the Portugueze troops; ... to the generals and officers, and their comrades in arms, who had never fought that they did not triumph; ... finally, to the whole Portugueze people, whose loyalty, patriotism, constancy, and humanity, had been so gloriously displayed, during the season of danger and of suffering.” “Portugueze,” said they, “the effects of the invasion of these barbarians; the yet smoking remains of the cottage of the poor, of the mansion of the wealthy, of the cell of the religious, of the hospital which afforded shelter and relief to the indigent and infirm, of the temples dedicated to the worship of the Most High; the innocent blood of so many peaceful citizens of both sexes, and of all ages, with which those heaps of ruins are still tinged; the insults of every kind heaped upon those whom the Vandals did not deprive of life ... insults many times more cruel than death itself; the universal devastation, the robbery and destruction of everything that the unhappy inhabitants of the invaded districts possessed: ... this atrocious scene, which makes humanity shudder, affords a terrible lesson, which you ought deeply to engrave in memory, in order fully to know that degenerate nation, who retain only the figure of men, and who in every respect are worse than beasts, and more blood-thirsty than tigers or lions; who are without faith and without law; who acknowledge neither the rights of humanity, nor respect the sacred tie of an oath.”

They proceeded to speak with becoming feeling and becoming pride of the manner in which the emigrants from the ravaged provinces had been received wherever they had fled. The great expense of subsisting the fugitives at Lisbon had been supported, they said, by the resources which were at the disposal of Government, but still more by the voluntary donations of individuals, among whom they mentioned with particular distinction, the British subjects in Portugal. It remained for completing the work, to restore the fugitives to their homes; to render habitable the towns which the barbarians had left covered with filth and unburied carcases; to relieve with medicine and food the sick, who were perishing for want of such assistance; to revive agriculture, by supplying the husbandman with seed corn, and bread for his consumption for some time, and facilitating his means of purchasing cattle and acquiring the instruments of agriculture. These, they said, were the constant cares of the Government, these were their duties; but their funds were not even sufficient to provide for their defence, and therefore they called upon individuals for further aid.

♦Lord Wellington asks relief for the suffering Portugueze.♦

Lord Wellington in the preceding autumn, as soon as he fell back to the lines of Torres Vedras, had represented to his own Government the distress to which those districts must be reduced through which the enemy passed, ... a distress which Portugal had no means of relieving. “Upon former occasions,” he said, “the wealthy inhabitants of Great Britain, and of London in particular, had stepped forward to relieve foreign nations, whether suffering under the calamities inflicted by Providence, or by a cruel and powerful enemy. Portugal had once before experienced such a proof of friendship from her oldest and most faithful ally: but never was there case in which this assistance was required in a greater degree than at present, whether the sufferings of the people, or their loyalty and patriotism, and their attachment to England, were considered. I declare,” said Lord Wellington, “that I have scarcely known an instance in which any person in Portugal, of any order, has had communication with the enemy, inconsistent with his duty to his own sovereign, or with the orders he had received. There is no instance of the inhabitants of any town or village having remained, or of their having failed to remove what might be useful to the enemy, when they had sufficiently early intimation of the wishes of Government, or of myself, that they should abandon their houses, and carry away their property.” He therefore recommended this brave and suffering people to the British Government, and the British people, whenever the country should be cleared of its barbarous invaders, as he hoped and trusted that it would.

♦April 8.
Parliamentary grant for the relief of the Portugueze.♦

That hope had now been accomplished: his letter was laid before Parliament, and a message from the Prince Regent was presented, stating, “That, having taken into consideration the distress to which the inhabitants of a part of Portugal had been exposed, in consequence of the invasion of that country, and especially from the wanton and savage barbarity exercised by the French in their recent retreat, which could not fail,” he said, “to affect the hearts of all persons who had any sense of religion or humanity, he desired to be enabled to afford to the suffering subjects of his Majesty’s good and faithful ally, such speedy and effectual relief as might be suitable to this interesting and afflicting occasion.” Accordingly a grant of

♦Marquis Wellesley.♦

100,000l. was proposed; Marquis Wellesley saying, when he moved an address to this effect, “he hoped he had not lived to see the day, though he had sometimes been surprised by hearing something like it, when it should be said that ancient faith, long-tried attachment, and close connexion with our allies, were circumstances to be discarded from our consideration, and that they should be sacrificed and abandoned to the mere suggestions and calculations of a cold

♦Earl Grosvenor.♦ policy.” Earl Grosvenor was the only person who demurred at this motion. “He felt considerable difficulty in acceding to it,” he said, “particularly when he considered how much had been done already for Portugal, and he would ask whether their lordships were really prepared to take the whole burden upon themselves, and exempt the Portugueze altogether from the charge of relieving their own countrymen? It was a principle as applicable to public as to private affairs, that you should be just to your own people before

♦Marquis of Lansdowne.♦ you were generous to other nations.” The Marquis of Lansdowne spoke in a better mind: “Whatever,” he said, “might have been his opinion regarding the policy of our exertions in Portugal, no doubt existed with him, that the efforts made by the people of Portugal eminently deserved at our hands the aid now asked, to relieve that distress into which they had been plunged by the enemy. Even, therefore, if he believed that Lord Wellington would be again compelled to retreat, still he would vote for the present motion, convinced that it could not fail to make an impression in Europe highly favourable to the British character, by displaying its beneficence, its generosity, and its humanity, as contrasted with the savage barbarity of the enemy. In extending to the people of Portugal that generosity for which they might look through Europe and the world in vain, we placed our national character upon a pinnacle of greatness which nothing could destroy. Even if our army was compelled to evacuate Portugal, and we should be unable to withstand there the progress of the French, still the posterity of the inhabitants of Portugal would remember with gratitude the aid afforded to their ancestors in the hour of their distress. For these reasons, the address should have his hearty concurrence.”

♦Mr. Ponsonby.♦

Mr. Ponsonby in like manner, when the vote was moved in the Commons, declared, “that it was not less due to the spirit of Portugal, than to the magnanimity of Great Britain, ... that it was as consistent with our interest, as it was material to our honour. The only regret,” said he, “with which it is accompanied on my part, proceeds from the reflection, that the vast expenditure of this country should render it necessary to limit the vote to so small a sum.” But the liberality of the British people has seldom been more conspicuously displayed, than in the subscriptions which were made on this occasion. About 80,000l. was subscribed. The public grant was to be measured, not by

♦Public subscription.♦ the necessities of the Portugueze sufferers, but by the means of the British Government; and the Prince of Brazil called it “a most ample donation, entirely corresponding to the generosity with which a great nation and its Government had assisted Portugal.” The individual proofs of beneficence were acknowledged in the most honourable manner; the Prince issued an order, that the list of subscribers should be printed at the royal printing-office, and copies sent to the chambers of each of the suffering districts, where, having been publicly read after mass, they should be laid up in the Cartorios, or archives of the respective districts; the original list was to be deposited among the royal archives in the Torre do Tombo at Lisbon, “that the humanity of the one nation,” said the Prince, “and the gratitude of the other may be attested to future generations.”

♦Distribution of the grant.♦

The dezembargador, Joam Gaudencio Torres, and Mr. Croft (one of a family which had been long established at Porto, and who was subsequently attached to the British legation) accepted the charge of distributing this grant, and for that purpose, of visiting the districts which had been ravaged, and seeing in person to the distribution. It required no common degree of humanity, and no ordinary strength of heart, to undertake so painful an office. The time, it may be hoped, is approaching, when the usages of war will as little be admitted before man, as a plea for having destroyed the innocent and the helpless, as it will before God. Massena had gone to the utmost limits of that dreadful plea before he broke up from his position. Opposite to the house in which he had fixed his own quarters at Santarem were the ruins of a church, into which a number of wretched children, whose parents had perished, and who were themselves perishing for hunger, had crept, that they might lie down and

♦Children famished at Santarem.♦ die. They were found there by the first British troops who entered the town, stretched upon straw and rubbish ... the dying and the dead together, reduced to skeletons before they died. When the officer, who relates this in his journal, saw them, pieces of bread which our soldiers had given these poor orphans were lying untouched before many who were incapable of eating, and some who had breathed their last. Multitudes, indeed, had been famished before he abandoned his hopes of conquest; but for the subsequent conduct of that merciless general and his army no military motives can be assigned ... none but what are purely malignant and devilish. Marshal Massena had formerly declared, that if he could land with an army in England, he would pledge himself, not indeed to effect the conquest of the country, but to reduce it to a desert. In Portugal it was proved that out of the wickedness of his heart his lips had then spoken; for on his retreat, he endeavoured, in perfect conformity with the political system of his emperor, to increase by every possible means the horrors of war and the sum of human suffering. The cruelties which were perpetrated by that retreating army formed but a little part of the evils they inflicted upon the brave nation which had successfully

♦State in which the French left the country they had occupied.♦ resisted them; and in the districts which they devastated, the inhabitants who perished under their hands were less to be compassionated than those who survived. The famine which they intentionally produced, by destroying every thing in the course of their retreat and within reach of their power, continued to depopulate the country long after it was delivered from its enemies. Endemic diseases were produced by want of food and of raiment, by exposure, by grief, and hopeless wretchedness. The hospitals, with which Portugal abounded, had shared the general destruction: many had been burnt, others gutted, the resources of all destroyed; and those of the clergy and of the convents, to which the sufferers would otherwise have looked for aid, and from which they would have found it, were in like manner totally dilapidated. The income of the Bishop of Leyria was reduced from 40,000 cruzados to forty; and others had suffered in a like degree. In that district the population was cut down by the barbarities of the enemy, by famine, and by disease, from 48,000 to 16,000; and in the subdivision

♦Pombal.♦ of Pombal from 7000 to 1800. Two hundred families in the town of Pombal derived before the invasion a comfortable subsistence from husbandry; after the retreat an hundred and sixty-four of those families had totally disappeared; and the few survivors of the remaining thirty-six were suffering under famine and disease. In a principal street of that poor town the commissioners found one dismantled dwelling, standing alone in the midst of ruins, and containing three wretched inhabitants. Such was the desolation which this more than barbarous enemy had left behind them, that in what had been the populous and

♦Santarem.♦ flourishing town of Santarem, the screech owls took possession of a whole street of ruins, where it seemed as if man had been employed in reducing human edifices to a state which rendered them fit receptacles for birds and beasts of prey. The number of these birds, and the boldness with which the havoc everywhere about inspired them, made it frightful to pass that way even in the daytime; insomuch, that a soldier who had been promoted for his personal bravery was known more than once to forego his mess, rather than pass to it through these ruins. Dogs who were now without owners preyed upon the dead. Wolves fed on human

♦Leyria.♦ bodies in the streets of Leyria; and retaining then no longer their fear of man, attacked the living who came in their way. The servant of an English gentleman was pursued one evening by two, in the outskirts of that city; he escaped from them only by climbing a single olive tree, which, happily for him, had been left standing; it was just high enough to afford him security, yet so low that the wolves besieged him in it all night; three or four others joined them in the blockade, and when he was seen and rescued in the morning, the bark as high as they could reach had been scored by their repeated endeavours to spring up and seize him.

There were parts of the country where the people, having no other sustenance, allayed the pain of emptiness without supplying the wants of nature, by eating boiled grass, which they seasoned, such as could, with the brine and scales left in the baskets from which salt fish, or sardinhas had been sold, these being at that time the scarce and almost only remaining articles of food. Among a people in this extreme distress, the commissioners had the painful task of selecting the cases which could bear no deferment of relief, when every case was urgent, when multitudes were perishing for want, and when the whole amount of the means of relief at their disposal, economized as those means were to the utmost, was deplorably inadequate to the just and pressing claims upon it. Eighteen months after the retreat, the price of provisions in the wasted provinces was about six times higher than before the invasion; a fact from which some conception may be formed of the misery endured in the course of those months, and of the state of things when the commissioners entered upon their arduous and painful task. Inadequate to this dreadful necessity as the aid of England was, yet, while it is to be feared a greater number perished for want of human, or of timely help, 43,000 sick and 8000 orphans were saved by it. The relief was not bestowed in food alone, and in the means of removal, but in the means of future subsistence ... cows, oxen, implements of agriculture, and seed of various kinds. The gratitude of the people, to their honour it should be said, was more in proportion to the intention and good-will which were thus manifested, than to the actual relief which was afforded. And if in Portugal, as there would have been in any other country, men were found whose hearts were so hard and their consciences so stupified that they sought only how to make the necessities and miseries of their fellow-creatures an occasion of lucre for themselves, it may safely be asserted, that never in any public calamity was there less of such wicked selfishness displayed than at this time. The commissioners who were employed ten months upon this service, (which was not less hazardous than painful, for it exposed them continually to contagious disease as well as to the constant sight of suffering), performed their office gratuitously, and would not consent to have their personal expenses reimbursed: the secretary and assistants who always accompanied them refused to accept any pecuniary recompense for their time and labour: and the house of the Vanzellers of Porto advanced money for purchasing great part of the cattle, and would receive no commission whatever upon the negociation and payment of the bills. A brother of that house, while the allied army occupied the lines, received under his own roof at Lisbon, and at his own cost maintained more than forty refugees, who were all personally unknown to him before that time: and at his mother’s22 country house near Porto, as many as came daily were fed in her own presence, from seventy to an hundred and upwards being the usual number. It is consolatory to record such examples in a history where so many errors and crimes must be recorded. When the distribution was completed, the Portugueze Regency assured the British Government that there did not appear to have been a single complaint against the justice and regularity with which it had been made, and that this scrupulous and efficient application of the grant to the ends intended was owing to the unwearied exertion of Mr. Croft and his colleagues: they added, that they should lay those high services, as they properly denominated them, before the Prince of Brazil, and expressed their desire that Mr. Croft’s conduct might be made known to the Prince Regent of Great Britain. That gentleman was, in consequence, created a Baronet, and received the royal Portugueze order of the Tower and Sword.

♦Political effect of the distribution.♦

No measure could have had the effect of inspiring the Portugueze people with so much confidence, as this public distribution of seed corn, and tools, and cattle. They who had been most apprehensive of another invasion, were convinced that Great Britain would not have conferred such a gift, if what was now bestowed upon them were likely to be wrested from them by the enemy; and under that conviction they resumed in hope those labours, from which despair might otherwise have deterred them. But it was far from Lord Wellington’s intention to deceive them into any fallacious opinion of their own security; on the contrary, his first thought, after he had driven the French beyond the frontier, was to warn the Portugueze that the danger might yet be renewed. “Their nation,” he said, “had still riches left, which the tyrant would endeavour to plunder: they were happy under a beneficent sovereign, and this alone would make him exert himself to destroy their happiness: they had successfully resisted him, and therefore he would leave no possible means unemployed for bringing them under his iron yoke.” He appealed to all who had witnessed the successive invasions of Junot, Soult, and Massena, whether the system of the French had not been to confiscate, to plunder, and to commit every outrage which their atrocious dispositions could devise? and whether from the general, to the lowest soldier, they had not delighted in the practice of such excesses? “The Portugueze,” he said, “ought not to relax their preparations for resistance. Every man capable of bearing arms ought to learn the use of them: those who, by their age or sex, were not capable of taking the field, should beforehand look out for places of safety where they might retire in time of need: they should bury their most valuable effects, every one in secret, not trusting the knowledge of the place to those who had no interest in concealing it: and they should take means for effectually concealing, or destroying the food, which, in case of necessity, could not be removed. If,” said Lord Wellington, “these measures are adopted, however superior in number the force may be which the desire of plunder and of vengeance may induce the tyrant to send again for the invasion of this country, the issue will be certain, and the independence of Portugal will be finally established, to the eternal honour of the present generation.” Having issued this proclamation, and made arrangements for the blockade of Almeida, Lord Wellington, leaving his army under Sir Brent Spencer, took advantage of the temporary inaction of the enemy to go into Alentejo.

♦Marquis Beresford goes to Alentejo.♦

Beresford had accompanied the commander-in-chief in pursuit of the retreating enemy, as far as the Ceyra. There Lord Wellington received news as unexpected as it was unwelcome, that Badajoz had been surrendered by its base governor. Another piece of intelligence distressed him; a Spanish officer of rank and ability, who had arranged the correspondence which was carried on with his countrymen in those parts of Spain possessed by the French, had been made prisoner in the route of Mendizabal’s army, and immediately entered the Intruder’s service. Lord Wellington acted with characteristic sagacity on this occasion; neither treating, nor considering this person as wholly reprobate because he had shown a want of principle which proceeded from want of courage to endure adversity, he caused a letter to be written to him, containing a hint, that bad as his conduct was, it would be his own fault if he made it unforgiveable. The hint was taken as it was meant; ... for the motive of ingratiating himself with his new patrons was not strong enough to overpower a natural humanity, a remaining sense of honour, and a prudential consideration of the instability of fortune: the officer kept his secret, and lived to be well rewarded for having done so. The surrender of Badajoz, which left the besieging army at liberty to act against the allies wherever they might deem best, divided Lord Wellington’s attention, and checked him in what else would have been a career of victory: but while he continued the pursuit of the retreating army, he sent the Marshal to his command on the south of the Tagus, to provide against the consequences which might result from Imaz’s baseness.

♦Valencia de Alcantara, Albuquerque, and Campo Mayor taken by the French.♦

Mortier, meantime, not failing to pursue to the utmost the advantage which that misconduct had given him, advanced upon Valencia de Alcantara, Albuquerque, and Campo Mayor, in order that the troops which he knew would be sent against him might be deprived of those points of support. The first of these places had long ceased to be of any importance as a fortress; it was taken by surprise, and seven brass guns, being the whole of its artillery, were destroyed for want of carriages. Latour Maubourg went against Albuquerque; its fortress, a century ago, had been called impregnable; and might now have made some defence, relief being so near at hand; but the appearance of an enemy and a few cannon-shot sufficed to terrify the garrison; they surrendered without resistance, and were sent prisoners to Badajoz with seventeen brass guns of large calibre: the French then razed the works. While these detachments were thus successfully employed, Mortier himself

♦March 22.♦ opened the trenches before Campo Mayor: this fortress resisted better than its Castilian neighbours had done; a battalion of militia incurred some disgrace by its conduct, but the spirit of the inhabitants and the governor was excellent, and the place held out eleven days.

♦Beresford arrives on the frontier.♦

The fall of Campo Mayor was regretted, more for the sake of its brave defenders than for any advantage that could accrue to the enemy from a conquest which they could not maintain. Marshal Beresford arrived at Chamusca during the siege, and on the day that it surrendered, assembled his corps at Portalegre, now strengthened by the 4th division, and Colonel de Gray’s brigade of heavy cavalry. On the 24th, everything was collected at and in front of Arronches; and on the following day he moved against the Campo Mayor, meaning, if the enemy should persist in retaining it, to interpose between that town and Badajoz. The main body of the French had by this time returned to the Caya, the whole of their besieging train had re-entered Badajoz, they had removed thither the heavy guns from Campo Mayor, and Soult had

♦Affair near Campo Mayor.♦ given orders to destroy the works there, which were prevented by the appearance of Marshal Beresford’s corps. About a league from the town, the allies fell in and skirmished with the enemy’s advanced horse: and Brigadier-General Long advancing rapidly with the cavalry, came up with their whole force, which, upon perceiving his movements, had evacuated the place, and was retiring towards Badajoz. It consisted of eight squadrons of cavalry, and two battalions of infantry, commanded by General Latour Maubourg; the latter were retreating in column with two troops of hussars at their head and two closing their rear, the rest manœuvring so as at once to cover the retreat of the foot, and secure to themselves its support: upon the approach of the allies, the French infantry formed an oblong square, and the horse took up a position en potence. Long’s first object was to dispose of their cavalry; he ordered Lieutenant-Colonel Head, with the 13th dragoons, to attack in flank the three squadrons which were on the same line with the infantry; while he, with three Portugueze squadrons, attacked in front the three which formed the angle to the right of the others: Colonel Elder, with two squadrons of Portugueze, was to cover his left, and turn the enemy’s right; and eight squadrons of heavy dragoons to support the attack. As soon as Head advanced, the enemy changed their position, brought forward their right, and met the charge; they were immediately broken, and in their flight carried away with them the other squadrons, which, from the change of position, had in some measure become a second line. From Campo Mayor to Badajoz is an open plain without tree or bush; over this ground the French retreated rapidly, skirmishing the whole way. The 13th pursued with ungovernable eagerness, and the two squadrons of Portugueze which were sent to their support caught the same spirit, and dispersed in the heat of pursuit. In this affair, there were many opportunities for the display of individual courage and dexterity. Colonel Chamorin, of the 26th French dragoons, was encountered by a corporal of the 13th, whose comrade he had just before shot through the head; each was a master of his horse and weapon, but at length the corporal, striking off the helmet of his enemy with one blow, cleft his head down to the ears with another.

The heavy cavalry, meantime, had been halted two miles off, and there only remained with General Long three squadrons of Portugueze with which to harass and impede the French infantry, till it could be brought up: these Portugueze did not stand the fire of the column and the appearance of the hussars; and though they were soon rallied, the retreating column gained ground considerably before the heavy cavalry could overtake them. The 13th and the two Portugueze squadrons were then perceived returning from the pursuit which they had followed with such heedless precipitation, as to have given the enemy the superiority of numbers, and to have lost twenty-four killed, seventy wounded, and seventy-seven prisoners: some of them had pushed on to the very gate of Badajoz, and were taken on the bridge. Marshal Beresford would not risk the loss of more cavalry, and the enemy’s column therefore retired unmolested, retaking fifteen out of sixteen guns which our 13th had taken. The loss of the French was very considerable; in one of their regiments only six officers out of sixteen remained for duty. The next morning a French captain of dragoons came with a trumpet, demanding permission to search the field for his colonel. Several of our officers went out with him. The peasants had stripped the dead during the night; and more than six hundred naked bodies were lying on the ground, mostly slain with sabre wounds. It was long before they could find Chamorin, lying on his face in his clotted blood: as soon as the body was turned up, the French captain gave a sort of scream, sprung off his horse, threw off his brazen helmet, and kneeling by the body, took the lifeless hand, and kissed it repeatedly with a passionate grief which affected all the beholders.

♦Measures concerted with the Spaniards.♦

After this affair Beresford cantoned his troops at Campo Mayor, Elvas, Borba, and Villa-Viçosa: they were equally in need of rest and of refitment, great part of the British infantry having made forced marches from Condeixa, and being in want of shoes. General Ballasteros, who was seldom at any time in force without suffering defeat, and never defeated without presently obtaining some success, after experiencing some of these customary alternations, and incurring some severe losses in the Condado de Niebla, had fallen back upon Gibraleon, hoping to effect a junction with Zayas, who had been sent from Cadiz with 6000 men, of whom 400 were cavalry. Something was always to be expected from Ballasteros’s remarkable activity; but there was equal reason for dreading the effect of his incaution: by Beresford’s request, therefore, Castaños wrote to desire that he and Zayas would not commit themselves, but reserve their force entire for co-operating with him. Beresford’s objects at this time were, to throw a bridge across the Guadiana at Jurumenha, ... to recover Olivença, drive Mortier out of Extremadura, and form as soon as possible the siege of Badajoz. Foreseeing the want of a bridge, Lord Wellington had frequently, before the fall of that place, urged the Spanish general officers to remove the bridge-boats, and other

♦April.♦ materials which were in store there, to Elvas. They began to follow this advice, but so late and so slowly, that only five of the twenty boats had been removed, when Mendizabal’s defeat rendered any further removal impossible: these, when laid down, left 160 yards of the river uncovered. Nor was this the only difficulty. It had been supposed that ample supplies had been collected at Estremoz and Villa Viçosa; but owing to the poverty of the Government, and to that mismanagement which, from the highest to the lowest of its departments, prevailed and was maintained, as if by prescriptive right, throughout, not enough were found to ensure the subsistence of the troops from day to day. Moreover, there were no shoes in store for an army which had marched itself barefoot. And had there been no deficiency of stores, and no previous difficulties to overcome, Beresford’s force, consisting of 20,000 effective men, British and Portugueze, was inadequate to the operations which he was to undertake with it, though it was the utmost that Lord Wellington could spare from the more immediately important scene of action on the frontier of Beira.

♦Bridge constructed at Jurumenha.♦

Nothing, however, that could be done by diligence and exertion was omitted. The Guadiana was in such a state that it seemed feasible to construct a bridge by fixing trestles across the shallow part of the river, and connecting them with the five Spanish boats in the deeper stream; or those boats might be used as a floating bridge for the artillery and heavy stores, and the interval filled with some half dozen tin pontoons, which had been sent from Lisbon to Elvas, and which, though weak and bad of their kind, might bear the weight of infantry, there being a practicable ford for the horse. This latter plan was preferred: materials were collected not without great difficulty, and delays which that difficulty occasioned: trees were to be felled for the purpose, and the trestles were made only seven feet in height, because no timber for making larger was found near the spot. On the 2nd of April the engineers reported that the passage was ready for the following day, and three squadrons passed that evening, and stretched their piquets along the advanced hills; thus making a show which imposed upon the enemy. The troops marched from their cantonments, and arrived at daybreak in a wood within a mile of the bridge. No apprehensions of the river had been entertained, for there had been no rain in those parts; but heavy rains had fallen far off, in the high regions where the Guadiana has its sources. When day broke it was seen that the water had risen three feet seven inches in the course of the night: planks, trestles, and pontoons were swept away by the current, and the ford also had become impassable. Beresford still determined to cross, not losing the opportunity which the enemy by their want of vigilance allowed him. Enough of the trestles were collected from the river to form, with two of the pontoons, two landing-places, and two floating bridges were made of the

♦Passage of the Guadiana.♦

Spanish boats. This was completed by the afternoon of the 5th. The army immediately began to cross; and continued crossing, without an hour’s intermission, from three that afternoon till after midnight on the 8th. Only one man and horse were lost in the operation. Some country boats meantime carried across the three days’ reserve of biscuit; and the same proportion of slaughter-cattle swam over. The troops bivouacked in succession as they passed, forming a position in a small semicircle, from Villa Real on the right to the Guadiana on the left. Severely as the French had suffered in the affair before Campo Mayor, they acted at this time with as much disregard of their enemies, as if they had no abler general than Mendizabal to contend with, and no better troops than those which they had so easily routed. They had 12,000 men within three hours’ march, who might have effectually disputed the passage, or cut off the advanced guard. But so ill were they informed of Beresford’s movements, and so negligent in ascertaining them, that they made no endeavour to interrupt him till the morning of the 8th, when they advanced in some force, and surprised before daybreak a piquet of the 13th dragoons; but they were driven back by the 37th, which closed the right of the position; and finding the allies too strong for them, desisted from any further attempt.

♦Olivença retaken.♦

On the morning of the 9th, as soon as the fog cleared, the army marched in three columns upon Olivença: it was thought not unlikely that the enemy would wait for them there, or on the opposite bank of the Valverde river, where the ground was favourable: they had, however, fallen back to Albuhera, leaving a garrison in Olivença. The place was summoned, and refused to surrender; guns and stores, therefore, were ordered from Elvas; the fourth division remained to besiege it; and the rest of the army moved by Valverde, and bivouacked in the wood of Albuhera, the enemy’s rear-guard retiring before their advance, which entered S. Martha on the 12th. Here the army halted till the 15th, to get up provisions which were still brought from the rear; and on that day Olivença surrendered at discretion, before the breach was practicable. The garrison consisted of about 480 men, in a place where Mendizabal had thrown away 3000. The French had committed a fault of the same kind, though not to an equal extent; the force they left there being totally inadequate to the defence of so large a fortress. The recapture of this place would have produced an angry contention between the Spanish and Portugueze Governments, if Portugal had not been rendered, by English influence, patient in this instance under a galling sense of injustice. The territory on the left of the Guadiana, in which Olivença stands, was part of the dowry given with his daughter to Affonso III. by the Castillian king, Alfonso the Wise; a grant which, though deemed at the time to have been an arbitrary,

♦Claim of the Portugueze to that place.♦ and therefore an illegal cession of national rights, was subsequently confirmed to Portugal with due form by the treaty between kings Dinez and Ferdinand IV. But as the Guadiana might seem to form a natural boundary between the two kingdoms on this part of the frontier, Spain has ever looked with an evil eye upon this cession. Five centuries had not reconciled a people peculiarly tenacious of what they deem national rights, to this dismemberment, as they considered it, though in itself of little importance to Spain, and though what had been ceded to Portugal was in reality the right of winning it from the Moors, and keeping it when won. In times of international war, therefore, the possession of Olivença had been contested not less as a point of honour than for its own value, when it was a place of great strength; and so strong was the border spirit which prevailed there that, when the Spaniards captured it in 1658, the whole of the inhabitants chose rather to leave the town, and lose whatever they could not carry with them, than become subjects to the King of Spain, though the property of those who should remove was offered to any who would remain. It was restored at the end of that war, and Portugal continued to hold it till its cession was extorted in 1801, in the treaty of Badajoz. But the war which was terminated by that treaty had been entirely unprovoked by Portugal: Spain was then acting as the deceived and degraded instrument of French policy; and the Portugueze felt, as they well might do, that the surrender, though made to Spain, had been compelled by France; and that so long as Spain retained Olivença by virtue of that treaty, they were an injured people. The Prince of Brazil, in the proclamation which he issued on his arrival in Brazil, declaring war against France, and against Spain as then the ally and instrument of French oppression, had protested against the injustice which was done him in that treaty, and declared his intention of recovering when he could whatever he had then been compelled to abandon: and the Spaniards were themselves so conscious of this injustice, that the local authorities, with the sanction of the Junta of Extremadura, had, at the commencement of the war against Buonaparte and the Intruder, proposed to restore Olivença and its district to Portugal for a certain sum of money. The Central Government had not authorised this proposal; and Olivença was not to be thought of in times when the independence of both nations was at stake. But fortune had now put it in the power of the Portugueze to right themselves: Olivença had been taken by the French, and retaken from them by an allied force of Portugueze and British: and one of the Portugueze Regents proposed to his colleague the British ambassador that the Portugueze standards should be displayed there, without previous explanation, or subsequent justification of the measure. There prevailed at that time a strong feeling of irritation in the Portugueze Government against the Spaniards, occasioned by the conduct of the Spanish officers on the frontier, and the unrestrained irregularities of the Spanish troops wherever they passed: they had even sacked a townlet near Badajoz; an act for which the Portugueze meditated reprisals, and had actually proposed so insane a measure to the British ministry, when the Spanish regency allayed their resentment by disavowing the act, and issuing orders for the punishment of the parties concerned. Having thus been in some degree mollified, they were persuaded not to injure the common cause by asserting their own claim, just and reasonable as that claim was, but to wait the effect of a treaty then pendant with Spain, in which the restoration of Olivença was stipulated and not disputed. It is discreditable to Spain that the restitution which Portugal was then contented to wait for has not yet been made.

♦The French retire from Extremadura.♦

Olivença having been taken, the allied army marched upon Zafra and Los Santos; this movement being designed to secure themselves from interruption in the intended siege, and to protect Ballasteros, who, after failing to effect a junction with Zayas, was pressed by a French division under General Maransin, and compelled to retire successively on the 13th and 14th from Fregenal and Xeres de los Cavalleros. The French, upon discovering Beresford’s advance, on the following day retired hastily toward Llerena, which Latour Maubourg, who had succeeded to Mortier in the command, occupied with about 6000 horse and foot: the division which now joined him consisted of 4000 infantry and 500 cavalry. At Los Santos the allied cavalry fell in with the 2nd and 10th of the enemy’s hussars, about 600 in number, who were apparently sent on reconnoissance: they charged our 13th dragoons weakly, and were repulsed; then retreated from the force which was moving against them; and presently quickening that retreat, fled to Villa Garcia, and were followed for nearly ten miles at a gallop. In this they lost a chef d’escadron, killed, and about 160 men and horses prisoners: the British eleven horses of the 4th dragoons, who died of fatigue after the chase. The enemy remained one day longer at Llerena, and on the following, when a movement against them had been ordered for the next morning, retired to Guadalcanal; thus for the time abandoning Extremadura. Beresford then cantoned his infantry at Valverde, Azenchal, Villa Alva, and Almendralejo, the cavalry remaining at Zafra, Los Santos, Usagre, and Bienvenida: here the resources of the country were sufficient for their plentiful supply. A Spanish corps of about 1500 men, under the Conde de Penne Villamur, belonging to Castaños’s army, occupied Llerena. Ballasteros, with about an equal force, was at Monasterio; and Blake, who had sailed from Cadiz for the Guadiana on the 15th, with 6000 foot and 400 horse, had reached Ayamonte, with 5000 of his men and 200 of his cavalry; the others had been compelled by weather to put back. Soult was at this time uniting his disposable force near Seville: nearly the whole corps from the Condado de Niebla had joined him there, and he had also drawn a detachment from Sebastiani’s corps,

♦April 20.♦ and some regiments from Puerto S. Maria. This was the situation of the respective armies when Lord Wellington arrived at Elvas, and was met there by Marshal Beresford.

♦Siege of Badajoz undertaken.♦

Thus far in this memorable campaign the war had been conducted by the British commander as a game of skill: it was now to become a game of hazard. The base surrender of Badajoz distracted his attention as much as it had disappointed his reasonable hopes: that the place should be recovered was of the greatest importance to his future operations: to the enemy, it was of equal importance to maintain it. Soult could bring into the field a force sufficient for its relief. It was well garrisoned: whatever injury had been done to the works was thoroughly repaired: it had sufficient artillery, and was well supplied. Lord Wellington and Beresford reconnoitred it: three battalions

♦March 22.♦ came out to skirmish with the reconnoitring party, and were driven back, but with the loss on our side of three officers and about forty men killed and wounded. The siege, to be successful, must be vigorously pursued, so that there might not be time enough allowed for relieving the place: no plan, therefore, could be adopted which would require more than sixteen days’ open trenches: but at least twenty-two, and this too, if the means were fully equal to the undertaking, would be required, if either of the south fronts were attacked, which yet it was plainly seen would have been the preferable points of attack, had time permitted; and means as well as time were wanting. The plan which was adopted therefore as the only one in these circumstances feasible, was to breach and assault Fort Christoval, and having reduced it, to attack the castle from thence: three or four days’ battering might, it was thought, form a practicable breach in the castle wall, which on that side was entirely exposed, as well as apparently weak; and if the castle were carried, Badajoz could make no farther resistance.

♦Bridge at Jurumenha swept away.♦

During the night of the 23rd the Guadiana rose nearly eight feet and a half in the course of twelve hours: the bridge which had been thrown across it at Jurumenha since the army passed was swept away, and the whole of its materials carried down the stream and lost. The communication was restored by another bridge of casks at the end of the month; but Lord Wellington, seeing the danger of such a river in the rear of the army, immediately changed the cantonment of the troops, and directed Beresford to occupy and rest his rear upon Merida, where the old Roman bridge rendered his passage at any

♦Lord Wellington recalled to Beira.♦ time sure. No sooner had these instructions been given than he was recalled to Beira by intelligence that Massena was approaching the Agueda in force, and seemed to threaten an attempt for the relief of Almeida.

♦Inactivity of the Spanish commander in Galicia.♦

It was owing in great measure to the inactivity of the Spanish commander in Galicia that Massena felt himself in safety as soon as he was out of Portugal, was enabled to rest the remains of his army, and to draw reinforcements from Castille, which enabled him to resume offensive operations only fifteen days after the last of his troops had crossed the frontier in their retreat. The enemy had received great annoyance in Old Castille and Leon from D. Julian Sanchez, and other guerrilla parties, but none from the nominal army of Galicia, whose general, D. Nicolas Mahy, had suffered Massena’s dépôts to be protected by from 5000 to 6000 men dispersed between Burgos and Ciudad Rodrigo. The Galicians cried out against him, complaining that, when he had filled the prisons with his own countrymen, he seemed to think any other operations unnecessary. He was displaced in consequence of their representations, and General Abadia appointed, (after Albuquerque’s death,) to succeed him; but Abadia had lingered at Lisbon instead of hastening to take the command. Massena, as soon as the pursuit ceased upon the frontier, had no danger to apprehend from any other quarter, and his army was re-equipped and reinforced in no longer time than would have been necessary to recruit it after its fatigues. The Intruder having gone to Paris, the force which would otherwise have been required for his personal security was disposable for this service, so that with the cavalry and artillery of the imperial guard, and the troops which were collected from Castille and Leon, he mustered not less than 40,000 effective infantry and 5000 horse. Lord Wellington had not supposed it possible that, after such a retreat, Massena could in so short a time have been at the head of such a force. He arrived at Villa Fermosa on the 28th, and at once perceived that a formidable attempt would be made for relieving Almeida: his own force consisted of 34,000 men, 2000 horse, including those who were engaged in the blockade.

♦Country between the Agueda and Coa.♦

The country between the Agueda and the Coa is a high open tract, which falls in a gradual slope from the mountains on the south in which those rivers have their sources, to the Douro: here and there are woods of cork and ilex, and the whole tract is intersected and divided into ridges by streams which run parallel to the larger rivers during the greater part of their course, and fall most of them into the Agueda. An army advancing into Portugal might, by moving upon the ridge of Fuentes Guinaldo, turn the right of all the positions that can be taken upon these smaller streams; or if it advanced in a direct line, the

♦May.♦ parallel ridges and woods covering any movement without interrupting it, would favour it in manœuvring and directing its principal strength against either flank. The allies were cantoned along the Duas Casas, and toward the sources of the Azava, the light division being at Gallegos and Espeja, upon the latter. But the ridge between the Duas Casas and the Turon offered the most advantageous position, because on the left it was of difficult access in front, and on the right it connected with the high country about Navedeaver, from whence the communications were easy in the direction of Alfayates and Sabugal.

♦Massena’s address to his army.♦

Before Massena took the field, he addressed his troops in another bootless boast. “Soldiers of the army of Portugal,” said he in his general orders, “after six months of glorious and tranquil operations, you have returned to the first scene of your triumphs; but the enemies of Napoleon the Great have the audacity to blockade a fortress which they dared not previously attempt to defend. Soldiers, if your valour then intimidated their columns, will it not now punish them for their temerity? Will not you bring to their recollection that you are still the same brave men who drove them to their trenches at Lisbon? Some regiments of cavalry, and reinforcements from his majesty’s guards, conducted by the marshal of the district, assist in your efforts and your duties. Forget not that it is your courage which must maintain that superiority of heroism and intrepidity which forms the subject of the admiration and the envy of other nations. Through you, the honour of the French armies will render renowned the hitherto unknown banks of the Coa, as you have made the rivers of Italy and of the North for ever memorable. Soldiers, a victory is necessary, in order to procure you that repose which the equipment and administration of the regiments require. You will obtain it; and you will prepare yourselves in the leisure that will result from it of marching to new triumphs.”

♦Battle of Fuentes d’Onoro.♦

At daybreak on the 2nd of May the main body of the French crossed the Agueda at Ciudad Rodrigo, and moved in two columns toward the Azava, which they crossed that evening: our light division fell back from its cantonments on that river, the enemy being very superior in cavalry, and the horses of the allies in bad condition, by reason of hard service and wretched fodder: so great, indeed, was the want of food for them, that it had been necessary to cut the green rye, to the harvest of which the unfortunate peasants had looked for their next year’s subsistence.

♦May 3.♦

On the following morning the French continued to advance, two columns moving towards Alameda and Fort Conception, and one, with the whole of the cavalry, upon Fuentes d’Onoro, a little village upon the Duas Casas. Lord Wellington had assembled his first, third, and seventh divisions on the heights, between that river and the Turon, in front of Villa Fermosa: the 3rd was posted on a ridge crossing the road from that townlet to Fuentes d’Onoro, which village was occupied by its light companies, and by three companies of the 5th battalion of the 60th under Lieutenant-Colonel Williams: the first division was formed on the right of the third, and the seventh moved from Navedeaver towards the first, throwing our flanking parties toward Poço Velho. This division incurred some danger in the movement: they were in the wood of Poço Velho, and the enemy’s cavalry got in their rear; but though they had ground to pass on which cavalry could act, they made good their retreat, notwithstanding the superiority of the French in that arm. Major-General Campbell, with the sixth, observed the bridge over the Duas Casas at Alameda, and Sir W. Erskine the passages of the same stream at Fort Conception and Aldea do Bispo. Brigadier-General Pack, with his brigade of Portugueze and the Queen’s regiment from the sixth division, kept up the blockade of Almeida; and Julian Sanchez occupied Navedeaver with his little party of horse and foot, ... men more experienced in desultory warfare than in regular battles, but of approved courage. The extent of this position was not less than six miles from flank to flank, the left being supported by the ruins of Fort Conception, the right at Navedeaver: the village of Fuentes d’Onoro was in the right of the centre, close to the Duas Casas, situated on a slope, and concealed by the ground: a great part of the line from that village to the ruined fort was in a certain degree secured by the rocky and intricate channel of the Duas Casas, and its steep and rugged bank on the side of the allies, ... the passage being very difficult for cavalry and artillery, and defensible by a comparatively small force: on the other side the position was not so strong, being nearly on a flat, save that there was a small eminence with a tower on its summit, on which the right rested. Head-quarters were at Villa Fermosa, behind the Turon, about two miles from Fuentes d’Onoro. The heights which the troops occupied are of a very gradual ascent, accessible to cavalry in every part, except here and there, where there are masses of rock. The ground upon which the French formed was a plain, with woods behind it; and immediately in the neighbourhood of Fuentes d’Onoro there were groves of ilex on the right bank of the Duas Casas, which they occupied in force throughout.

The position which Lord Wellington had taken appeared to Massena a fine line of battle, but he thought it was not without danger to the troops that held it; for they had the wild Coa behind them, and only a single carriage communication, in itself sufficiently difficult, by the little town of Castello Bom. This communication it was his intention to seize; and for that purpose, while with a part of his army he kept the centre of the allies in check, he proceeded in force against their right, and endeavoured to obtain possession of Fuentes d’Onoro. Having brought up his artillery, he commenced the attack at two in the afternoon, by a cannonade upon the village, under cover of which fire a strong column of infantry moved against it. Lord Wellington perceived his intention, and reinforced the village as occasion required with the 71st, the 79th, and the second battalion of the 24th. Lieutenant-Colonel Williams was wounded, and the command then devolved on Lieutenant-Colonel Cameron of the 79th. Repeated and vigorous efforts were made against this post; and the enemy at one time obtained possession of it in part, but they were driven out before night put a stop to the action.

♦May 4.♦

The French did not renew the attack on the following day, but confined themselves to reconnoitring the British position, particularly the right, toward which they moved part of their troops, chiefly cavalry, in the direction of Navedeaver, Massena thinking that he had found accessible ground between that village and Poço Velho. Lord Wellington, from the course of his reconnoissance, inferred what was his purpose, and in the evening moved the 7th division, under Major-General Houston, to protect, if possible, the passage of the Duas Casas at Poço Velho, where the enemy intended to cross in hopes of gaining possession of Fuentes d’Onoro from that side, and of the ground

♦May 5.♦ behind the village. As soon as it was daylight on the 5th, this intention on their part became evident. The allied cavalry was then moved to the left of the 7th division, somewhat more forward; the light division was in march from Alameda towards the same station; the 3rd had bivouacked in a line parallel to the ridge of the hill toward Fuentes d’Onoro; and the 1st upon its right: these divisions were connected with each other, and the village was occupied by part of the troops of both, both being ready to support it. There was a distance of about one mile from the right of the 1st division to the ground on which the light division had arrived, and about half a mile from thence to the 7th. The cavalry covered this last interval; the former was protected by piquets and light infantry in the wood between Fuentes d’Onoro and Poço Velho. This would have been a critical situation for a commander less reasonably confident in himself and in his troops. There was no appui for the right of the British army, and it had the Coa in its rear with only one passage for artillery. The French were superior in numbers, and what was of far greater importance here, greatly so in cavalry: their horses were fresh, whereas ours had been of necessity overworked and insufficiently fed: moreover, the ground favoured their preparations for attack, a large extent of wood, within little more than a mile of the British line concealing their movements.

Early in the morning one of the enemy’s corps appeared in two columns in the valley of the Duas Casas, opposite Poço Velho, having the whole of their cavalry under General Montbrun on the left. The infantry directed itself against the village; the cavalry moved through the open country between it and Navedeaver, a part circling about, under favour of the ground, to turn the right flank of the allies. Julian Sanchez was compelled to retire; and so, with some loss, were two battalions of the 7th division from Poço Velho. Houston moved with that division to protect their retreat and that of the cavalry, with which view he placed himself on a rocky height, and there formed the Chasseurs Britanniques. The first attack of their advanced cavalry was met by a few squadrons of British, who obtained a partial advantage, and took a colonel and some other prisoners; but their eagerness, and still more their inferiority, occasioned some confusion: they were in their turn pressed, and the enemy for a short time had possession of two guns belonging to our horse artillery. The main body of the French cavalry advanced rapidly, charged through the piquets of the 85th, and followed our horse up the hill: but the attack thus gallantly begun was not maintained with equal gallantry. The ground was intersected with stone walls, which protected part of our troops; those who had not that advantage stood firm. The chasseurs under Lieutenant-Colonel Eustace, and a detachment of the Brunswick corps, were somewhat concealed by a rising ground, where in many parts the rocks stood several feet above the surface: availing themselves of this, they waited till the main body of the enemy’s cavalry came in a line with their front, within threescore paces, and then rising up threw in a well-directed volley, which checked them and made them retire in disorder; yet the charge had appeared so formidable, that, it is said, Lord Wellington feared the Brunswickers were lost. Their loss was trifling; but they narrowly escaped afterward from the Portugueze, who, because of their caps, mistook them for enemies. The attack was renewed, but in vain, though some of the French dismounted and acted as light infantry to assist in it.

Lord Wellington had occupied Poço Velho and the adjoining ground for the sake of maintaining his communication across the Coa by Sabugal, while he provided at the same time for maintaining the blockade of Almeida. The danger of attempting both was now evident, and looking with just confidence rather to victory than to any likelihood of retreating, he drew in the right of the army. Placing, therefore, the light division in reserve in the rear of the left of the 1st, he ordered the 7th to cross the Turon and take post on some commanding ground, which protected the right flank and rear of the 1st, covered the communication with the Coa on that side, and prevented that of the enemy with Almeida by the roads between the Coa and the Turon. The 7th division thus covered the rear of the right, which was formed by the 1st in two lines. Colonel Ashworth’s brigade, in two lines, was in the centre, and the 3rd division, in two lines also, on the left. D. Julian’s infantry joined the 7th in Fresneda; his horse were sent to interrupt the communication with Ciudad Rodrigo. Fuentes d’Onoro was in front of the left. The right of the French infantry was opposite that village, the left and centre between it and Poço Velho, in the wood, and within 2000 yards of the British position. A part of their cavalry was on the right flank of their right; a few squadrons were with artillery opposite the 1st division, and the main body was in the open country, from whence the right wing of the allies had withdrawn.

The great object of the enemy now was to gain possession of Fuentes d’Onoro, which was defended by the 24th, 71st, and 78th; and these regiments were supported by the light infantry battalions of the 1st and 3rd divisions, and some Portugueze corps. They directed against this post several columns of their infantry supported by artillery; succeeded in turning it by the wood toward Poço Velho; gained possession by superior numbers of the point of land where the chain of piquets passed, and from thence penetrated into the village. They even advanced some little way on the road toward Villa Fermosa: but here the 21st Portugueze regiment checked them; the 74th and 78th were detached by General Picton, charged them, and retook the village. Lieutenant-Colonel Cameron was mortally wounded, by an enemy who stepped out of the ranks to aim at him. His countrymen, the Highlanders at whose head he fell, set up a shriek, and attacked the French with a spirit not to be resisted: the man who had slain their commander was pierced by many bayonets at once: the leader of the French, a person remarkable for his stature and fine form was killed, and the Highlanders in their vengeance drove the enemy before them. More than once Fuentes d’Onoro was won and lost; the contest in the streets was so severe that several of the openings were blocked up with the dead and the wounded, but they were finally driven through it by Colonel Mackinnon: they kept up a fire upon it till night closed, at which time 400 of their dead were lying there. The command of the village devolved upon Lieutenant-Colonel Cadogan.

Meantime, the enemy from the wood in front of the British line brought fifteen pieces of cannon to bear upon it, and with those above the village established a severe cross fire, under cover of which, a column of infantry attempted to penetrate down the ravine of the Turon, to the right of the 1st division: but they were repulsed by the light infantry of the guards, and some companies of the 95th. Their cavalry also charged and cut through the piquets of the guards, but were checked by the fire of the 42nd. During the night and the succeeding day, Lord Wellington strengthened his position by throwing up breast-works and batteries; and this, after the lesson he had received, deterred Massena from attempting any farther attack. He made no movement till the 8th, nor did Lord Wellington provoke an action: he had succeeded in keeping his ground, and thereby maintaining the blockade; and nothing was to be gained by attempting more with inferior numbers, and a weak and exhausted

♦The French retire.♦ cavalry. On the 8th and 9th, the French collected their whole army in the woods between the Duas Casas and the Azava, recrossed the latter river on the evening of the 9th, and retired the next day across the Agueda, having failed entirely in the object for which the movement had been undertaken, and the battle fought. The loss of the allies on both days amounted to 1378 killed and wounded, 317 prisoners. That of the French was not ascertained: they acknowledged only 400: but that number was counted in the village of Fuentes d’Onoro, and 500 of their horses were left dead on the field. Under the government of Buonaparte, truth was never to be found in any public statement, unless it was favourable to himself; and none of his generals exercised to a greater extent than M. Massena the license which all took of representing their defeats as victories. This action had severely mortified that general; he had been beaten by an army numerically inferior to his own, and weak in cavalry, upon ground which was favourable for that arm, and which Lord Wellington would not have chosen, had circumstances permitted a choice; it was an action in which the skill and promptitude of the British commander, and the gallantry and steadiness of the allied troops, had been evinced throughout.

♦Escape of the garrison from Almeida.♦

Defeated in the field, and disappointed in his intention of saving Almeida, Massena sent orders to the Governor, General Brenier, to blow up the works, and retire with the garrison upon Barba de Puerco. Brenier having previously received instructions from Bessieres and from Berthier to prepare for thus evacuating the place, should it be necessary, had made 140 cavities ready to be charged before the end of April; but knowing that Massena would make every effort to retain possession of this fortress, which was the only fruit of his six months’ campaign in Portugal, he had prepared also for a vigorous defence, hoping to hold out till the first of June. The battle of Fuentes d’Onoro put an end to his hopes; for the firing was heard in Almeida, and proved that it was a serious action; and as the communication which he every moment expected did not arrive, Brenier could be in no doubt concerning the event. Massena’s orders reached him on the 7th. Immediately the cavities were filled, the balls and cartridges thrown into the ditch, and the artillery destroyed by discharging cannon into the mouths of the pieces. Two days were thus employed; on the morning of the 10th he assembled the officers, and having read to them his instructions, told them, that when the place was once demolished, the intentions of their sovereign would be perfectly fulfilled; that that single object ought to animate them; that they were Frenchmen and must now prove to the universe that they were worthy of being so. They continued to work in destroying stores and artillery, and completing the mines till the moment of their departure; and at ten at night, all being assembled with the greatest silence, Brenier gave as a watchword, Buonaparte and Bayard, and set off (in his own words) under the auspices of glory and honour. In coupling these names, he seems not to have felt how cutting a reproach they conveyed to every honourable Frenchman.

About one, the mines exploded; at the same time the garrison attacked the piquets which observed the place, and forced their way through them. They marched in two columns, fired as little as possible, and passed between the bodies of troops which had been posted to support the piquets. Brenier had studied the ground so well that he would not take a guide; a guide, he thought, would only make him hesitate and perhaps confuse him; the moon served as his compass, the different brooks and rivers which he crossed were so many points which insured his direction, and he placed his baggage at the tail of each column, in order that it might serve as a lure to the enemy, for to save it he knew was impossible. On the part of the blockading troops there was a culpable negligence; for as the garrison had frequently attacked the nearest piquets, and fired cannon in the night during the whole blockade, but more particularly while Massena was between the Duas Casas and the Azava, they thought this attack was nothing more than one of the ordinary sallies, and did not even move at the sound of the explosion, till its cause was ascertained. General Pack, however, who was at Malpartida, joined the piquets upon the first alarm with his wonted alacrity, and continued to follow and fire upon the enemy, as a guide for the march of the other troops. The 4th regiment, which was ordered to occupy Barba del Puerco, missed the way, and to this Brenier was chiefly indebted for his escape. Regnier was at the bridge of San Felices to receive him, and there he effected his junction, having lost, in this hazardous and well-executed escape, by the French official account, only sixty men. But the loss had been tenfold of what was there stated. For though the lure of the baggage was not thrown out in vain, and too many of his pursuers stopped or turned aside to secure their booty when the horses and mules were cast loose, he was followed and fired upon by General Pack’s party, and by a part of the 36th regiment, the whole way to the Agueda, 490 of his men were brought in prisoners, and the number of killed and wounded could not have been inconsiderable.

♦Marmont succeeds Massena in the command.♦

The English and their general did full justice to the ability with which Brenier performed his difficult attempt. Massena made use of it to colour over his defeat, and represented the evacuation and not the relief of Almeida as the object for which the battle of Fuentes d’Onoro was fought. “The operation,” he said, “which had put the army in motion was thus terminated.” Shortly afterwards he returned to France, with Ney, Junot, and Loison, leaving behind them names, ever to be execrated in Portugal, and to be held in everlasting infamy. Marmont succeeded him in the command. The army, which still called itself the army of Portugal, went into its cantonments upon the Tormes, having, in Massena’s curious language, advanced into Spain that it might rest; and Lord Wellington set out for the south summoned by intelligence from Marshal Beresford that Soult, notwithstanding previous rumours, which described him as fortifying Seville, and preparing to stand on the defensive in Andalusia, was advancing into Extremadura.

♦Lord Wellington recalled to Alentejo.♦

These tidings reached him on the night of the 15th; and he set out on the following morning.

When the British commander had been recalled from Badajoz to secure the recovery of Almeida, Beresford was left waiting till the Guadiana should fall sufficiently for him to re-establish the bridge. The French under Latour Maubourg, when they had been forced to retire from Llerena, fell back to Guadalcañal; it was of importance to push them as far off as possible during the intended siege; and a combined movement of Colonel Colborne, Ballasteros, and the Conde de Penne Villamur, who commanded the cavalry of the Spanish army in Extremadura, made them, though far superior in force, retire to Constantino. This service having been performed, the investment of Badajoz was commenced on the 4th of May. But the enterprise was undertaken

♦Badajoz besieged.♦ under every possible disadvantage. For Marshal Beresford had not force enough to carry on the siege, and at the same time hold a position which should cover it from interruption. He was as inadequately supplied with other means as with men: ample stores, indeed, had been ordered from Lisbon to Elvas, and on the part of the governor at Elvas, General Leite, nothing was wanting which his zeal and activity could effect: but these could do little in an exhausted country, where carriage was not to be procured, and all that could be brought up was miserably insufficient. At that time also, the French were perfectly skilled both in the attack and defence of fortified places, while we had every thing to learn: there was not even a corps of sappers and miners attached to the army, so that all those preliminary operations to which men may be trained at home, at leisure, and in perfect safety, were here to be learnt under the fire of an enemy as well skilled in all the arts of defence as we were deficient in those of attack. In this branch of war they were as superior to us as our troops were uniformly found to theirs in the field; and it is a superiority against which courage, though carried to the highest point, can be of no avail. On the part of the besieged, courage and the high sense of duty may suffice, though outworks have fallen, walls are weak, and science wanting; this had been proved at Zaragoza and Gerona. But it is one thing to assail ramparts, and another to defend them; and the braver the assailants, the greater must be their loss, if they are not directed by the necessary skill.

♦Interruption of the siege.♦

On the 8th the investment of the town on the northern side was effected, and that same evening the siege commenced. The soil was hard and rocky; the men unaccustomed to such work and not numerous enough for it, for which causes, and the want also of intrenching tools, a sufficient extent of ground could not be opened the first night. The enemy, who allowed no opportunity to escape them, took advantage of this, made a sortie on the morning of the 10th, gained possession of a battery, and when driven back were pursued with such rash ardour to the very walls of Fort Christoval and the tête-de-pont that the besiegers lost more than 400 men. A breaching battery, armed with three guns and two howitzers, was completed during the next night, and on the morrow the garrison’s well-directed fire disabled one of the howitzers and all the guns. That same day intelligence was received from the Regent, General Blake, that Soult had left Seville with the declared intention of relieving Badajoz, and that Latour Maubourg, returning upon Guadalcañal and Llerena, had forced Penne Villamur to fall back. Orders therefore were given to hold every man in readiness to retire. But other accounts, on the 12th, seemed to make it probable that Soult’s movements were only intended against Blake, who had come to Fregenal, and against Ballasteros, who from Monasterio had pushed his advances toward Seville; and on that probability Beresford ordered ground to be broken against the castle. Fresh dispatches in the middle of the night from various quarters, made it beyond all doubt that Soult was rapidly advancing; immediate orders, therefore, were given to raise the siege, for Beresford deemed it better to meet the French marshal, and give him battle with all the force that could be collected, Spanish, Portugueze, and British, than by looking at two objects to risk the loss of one. General Cole’s division was left with some 2000 Spaniards to cover the removal of the guns and stores; and Beresford met Blake and Castaños at Valverde on the 14th. Any jealousy which might have arisen concerning the command had been obviated by a previous arrangement between Castaños and Lord

♦Arrangement between Lord Wellington and Castaños concerning the command.♦

Wellington. The latter in a written memorial concerning the operations which ought to be pursued in Extremadura, had proposed that whenever different corps of the allied armies should be united to give battle, the general who was possessed of the highest military rank, and of the longest standing, should take the command of the whole. This would have given it to Castaños; but he, with that wise and disinterested spirit which always distinguished him, proposed, as a more equitable arrangement, that the general who had the greatest force under his orders should have the chief command, and that the others should be considered as auxiliaries. Lord Wellington perfectly approved of the alteration. “It was my duty,” said he, “in a point so delicate as that of the allied troops acting in concert, to submit a proposition so reasonable in itself as to obtain universal assent; but it was becoming the manly understanding, candour, and knowledge of existing circumstances which characterise your excellency to make an alteration in it, substituting another proposal better calculated to please those of the allies who have most to lose in the battle, for which we must prepare ourselves.”

♦Reasons for giving battle to the French.♦

Lord Wellington had left it at Beresford’s discretion to fight a battle or retire, if circumstances should render one or other alternative necessary. But the effect of a retreat would, as he saw, have been most disastrous: it would have deprived the Spaniards of all hope for any efficient exertion on the part of Great Britain; it would have exposed Blake and Castaños to destruction: the British army would have suffered a second time in reputation; the Portugueze troops would have lost their confidence in their allies and in themselves; and in the retreat itself, ... with an army so dispirited, through an exhausted country, and before such troops as the French under such a commander, ... the numerical loss might have been greater than in a well-fought though unsuccessful engagement, and the consequences worse.

♦The allies assemble at Albuhera.♦

Our cavalry, with that of Castaños, under the Conde de Penne Villamur, falling back as the enemy advanced, was joined at Santa Martha by Blake’s. The British and Portugueze infantry, except the division which was left to cover the removal of the stores to Elvas, occupied a position in front of Valverde; but as this, though stronger than any which could be taken up elsewhere in those parts, would have left Badajoz entirely open, Beresford determined to take up such as he could get directly between that city and the enemy. He therefore assembled his force on the 15th at the village of Albuhera, where the roads meet which lead to Badajoz and to Jurumenha by Valverde and Olivença. A little above the village a brook called Ferdia falls into the Albuhera, one of the lesser tributary streams of the Guadiana; between these rivulets, and beyond them, is one of the open and scattered woods of ilex, which are common in this part of the country. There is a bridge over the Albuhera in front of the village. The village had been so completely destroyed by the enemy, that there was not an inhabitant in it, nor one house with a roof standing. The cavalry which had been forced in the morning to retire from Santa Martha joined here, and in the afternoon the enemy appeared. Blake’s corps making a forced march, arrived during the night; Cole with his division, and the Spanish brigade under D. Carlos d’España, not till the following morning. The 15th had been a day of heavy rain; and both these divisions, from forced marches, and the latter also from fatigue in dismantling the works before Badajoz, were not in the best state for action.

The whole face of this country is passable everywhere for horse and foot; Beresford formed his army in two lines nearly parallel to the Albuhera, and on the ridge of the gradual ascent from its banks, covering the roads to Badajoz and Valverde; Blake’s corps was on the right in two lines; its left on the Valverde road joined the right of Major-General Stewart’s division, the left of which reached the Badajoz road, and there Major-General Hamilton’s division closed the left of the line. Cole’s division, with one brigade of Hamilton’s, formed the second line. The allied force consisted of 8000 British, 7000 Portugueze, and 10,000 Spaniards; hardly two thousand of these were cavalry. Soult had drawn troops from the armies of Victor and Sebastiani, and left Seville with 16,000 men; Latour Maubourg joined him with five or six thousand; but he had a very superior cavalry, not less then 4000, and his artillery also was superior, he having forty-two field-pieces of which several were twelve-pounders, the allies only thirty. He had the greater advantage of commanding soldiers who were all in the highest possible state of discipline, and whom, though they were of many countries, long habit had formed into one army; whereas the allied force consisted of three different nations; the Portugueze indeed disciplined by British officers, but the Spaniards in their usual state of indiscipline; and one third of the army not understanding, or understanding imperfectly, the language of the other two.

♦May 16.
Battle of Albuhera.♦

Soult did not know that Blake had joined during the night, and he thought to anticipate his junction by attacking the right of the allies, thus throwing himself upon their line of communication, when the possession of the rising ground would decide the battle. At eight in the morning his troops were observed in motion; his horse crossed the Ferdia, and formed under cover of the wood in the fork between the two rivulets. A strong force of cavalry, with two heavy columns of infantry, then marched out of the wood, pointing toward the front of the allied position, as if to attack the village and bridge of Albuhera; while, at the same time, under protection of that superior cavalry which in such a country gave them command of the field, their infantry filed over the river beyond the right of the allies. Their intention to turn the allies by that flank, and cut them off from Valverde, was now apparent; upon which Beresford ordered Cole’s division to form an oblique line to the rear of the right, with his own right thrown back, and requested Blake to form part of his first line and all his second to that front.

While the French General Godinot made a false attack upon Albuhera, Soult, with the rest of the army, bore on the right wing of the allies. The attack began at nine o’clock; a heavy storm of rain came on about the same time, as favourable to the French, who had formed their plan, and consequently arranged their movements, as it was disadvantageous for the allies, whose measures were to be adapted for meeting those of the enemy. After a gallant resistance, the Spaniards were forced from the heights, and the enemy set up a shout of triumph which was heard from one end of the line to the other; their exultation was not without good cause, for the heights which they had gained raked and entirely commanded the whole position. The Spaniards to a man displayed the utmost courage; but their want of discipline was felt, and the danger of throwing them into confusion whenever change of position was necessary; yet the station which had been entrusted to them was precisely that upon which the fate of the whole army depended. They rallied at the bottom of the hill, turned upon the enemy, and withstood them, while Lieutenant-Colonel Colbourne brought up the right brigade of Stewart’s division, and endeavoured to retake the ground which had been lost.

These troops had been hurried as soon as the intention of the French was perceived: they arrived too late; instead of being the defendants of the strongest ground, they had to assail the enemy already established there, and the more they advanced the more their flank became exposed. Finding that they could not shake the enemy’s column by their fire, they proceeded to attack it with the bayonet; but in the act of charging, they were themselves suddenly turned and attacked in the rear by a body of Polish lancers: these men carried long lances with a red flag suspended at the end, which, while so borne by the rider as to prevent his own horse from seeing any other object, frightens those horses who are opposed to it. Never was any charge more unexpected, or more destructive; the rain, which thickened the whole atmosphere, partly concealed them; and those of the brigade who saw them approaching mistook them for Spaniards, and therefore did not fire. A tremendous slaughter was made upon the troops who were thus surprised; and the loss would have been greater, if the Poles, instead of pursuing their advantage, had not ridden about the field to spear the wounded. The three regiments of Colbourne’s brigade lost their colours at this time; those of the Buffs were recovered, after signal heroism had been displayed in their defence. Ensign Thomas, who bore one of the flags, was surrounded, and asked to give it up. Not but with my life! was his answer, and his life was the instant forfeit; but the standard thus taken was regained, and the manner in which it had been defended will not be forgotten when it shall be borne again to battle. English Walsh, who carried the other colours, had the staff broken in his hand by a cannon ball, and fell severely wounded; but, more anxious about his precious charge than himself, he separated the flag from the shattered staff, and secured it in his bosom, from whence it was taken when his wounds were dressed after the battle.

The 31st regiment, being the left of the brigade, was the only one which escaped this charge, and it kept its ground under Major L’Estrange. The issue of the day seemed at this time worse than doubtful, and nothing but the most determined and devoted courage saved the allies from a defeat, of which the consequences would have been worse than the immediate slaughter. The third brigade under Major-General Houghton, with the fusileers and Portugueze brigade under Major-General Cole, advanced to recover the heights, their officers declaring that they would win the field or die. Houghton and Sir William Myers fell, each leading on his brigade. The fusileers, and the Lusitanian legion, 3000 when they advanced, could not muster 1000 after they had gained the rising ground, ... for they did gain it after all this carnage; 2000 men, and sixty officers, including every lieutenant-colonel, and field officer, were either killed or wounded. But the enemy in their turn suffered greater slaughter when they were forced down into the low ground toward the river; our musketry and shrapnells then mowed them down. The attack upon the village was continued somewhat longer; but the enemy were never able to make any impression there.

Soult made a vigorous effort to rally his men in this part of the field: he rode forward with an eagle in his hand, and for a moment checked their flight; but it was only for a moment: they saw their left retreating in confusion, and they followed the example. Only two battalions could be collected at first, and afterwards four, in any order: these formed behind the first rivulet at the foot of the ridge; the rest of their force was dispersed like a swarm of bees, and could not be brought up till they reached the wood. Still the superiority of the enemy in horse was such that it was impossible for the allies to pursue their victory. Soult therefore retired to his bivouac in the wood, and his reserve with a powerful artillery occupied the hill, under cover of which he had formed his columns of attack. The rain which had fallen heavily during the action became more severe at evening, and continued so that night and the following day. The rivulets, swoln now to torrents as they poured from the heights, were reddened with blood; and exposed to that weather the wounded lay where they had fallen, for there was no possibility of removing them; not a house which could have afforded shelter was near ... not a carriage or beast of burden could be found for transporting them to the rear. But wickedness is ever on the alert, and many of the wounded in this condition were stripped to the skin, by those miscreants who attend upon the movements of an army like birds and beasts of prey.

The allies made fresh dispositions immediately after the battle, in case the enemy should re-advance: they improved their position by moving toward the right flank; their freshest troops were placed in the first line; and the flags taken from the Polish lancers, some hundreds in number, were planted in defiance upon the crest of the position, singular trophies of a most well-deserved victory. Kemmis’s brigade came up the next morning, and reinforced them with 1500 men; but all continued quiet on both sides. On the night of the 17th, Soult moved off his wounded under cover of the wood, and prepared for his retreat, which he commenced the ensuing day. Our cavalry followed to hang upon his rear, and in a very gallant affair with the rear-guard at Usagre, about 150 of their horse were killed, wounded, or taken, without loss on our part, though they had then 3000 men in the field, and the allies not more than half that number. Hamilton’s division was sent back to re-invest Badajoz: that place had remained free between the 16th and 19th, in which interval it had received no relief, and the garrison had only time loosely to fill up the approaches which had been made. Lord Wellington arrived at Elvas on the 20th; rode over the field the next day, and expressed himself highly pleased with Marshal Beresford, upon whom so arduous a responsibility had rested, and with the army which had demeaned itself so gallantly.

The battle of Albuhera was one of the most murderous in modern times. The British loss consisted of nearly 900 killed, 2732 wounded, 544 missing; the Portugueze, of whom only a small part were brought into action, lost about 400; the Spaniards above 2000. The French left 2000 dead on the field; about 1000 were made prisoners; Generals Werle and Pepin were killed. Soult, in his official dispatch, declared, that his whole loss amounted only to 2800 men; but a letter from General Gazan was intercepted, wherein he stated that he had more than 4000 wounded under his charge. The heat, he said, would prove very injurious to them, especially as there were only five surgeons to attend them, and many had died upon the road. This letter was written three days after the action, and as the bad cases die in numbers in the first few days, and the mortality must have been greatly increased by want of rest, of accommodation, and of surgical aid, it was inferred, that the total loss of the enemy could not have been less than 8000 men. Soult is said to have acknowledged, that, in the whole course of his long service, he had never before seen so desperate and bloody a conflict. He is said, also, to have observed, “there is no beating those troops, in spite of their generals! I always thought them bad soldiers, and now I am sure of it; for I turned their right, and penetrated their centre; they were completely beaten; the day was mine, and yet they did not know it, and would not run.” About 300 of his prisoners were put into a convent which had been converted into a prison: they undermined the wall, and escaped with their officers at their head. The peasantry guided them, and supplied them with food on their way, and they rejoined the army in a body on the thirteenth day after the battle.

The official dispatch of the French general was, as usual, falsified for the public. Soult there asserted that, having gained the height, he was surprised to see so great a number of troops, and that he then first learned from a prisoner how Blake with 9000 Spaniards had effected a junction during the night. This discovery, he said, made him resolve not to pursue his victory, but content himself with keeping the position which had been taken from the enemy, and that position he23 retained, ... the enemy, after the carnage which was made among them by Latour Maubourg and the Polish lancers, not having dared to attack him again.

Few battles have ever given the contending powers so high an opinion of each other. The French exhibited the highest possible state of discipline that day: nothing could be more perfect than they were in all their movements; no general could have wished for more excellent instruments, and no soldiers were ever directed by more consummate skill. This was more than counterbalanced by the incomparable bravery of their opponents. The chief loss fell upon the Buffs and the 57th. The first of these regiments went into action with twenty-four officers and 750 rank and file; ... there only remained five officers and thirty-four men to draw rations on the following day. Within the little space where the stress of the battle lay, not less than 7000 men were found lying on the ground, literally reddening the rivulets with blood. Our dead lay in ranks as they had fought, and every wound was in front. A captain of the 57th, who was severely wounded, directed his men to lay him on the ground at the head of his company, and thus continued to give his orders. Marshal Beresford saved his life by his dexterity and personal strength: as he was encouraging his troops after the charge of the Polish lancers, one of these men attacked him; avoiding the thrust, he seized him by the throat, and threw him off his horse; the lancer recovered from his fall to aim a second thrust, but at the moment was shot by one of the general’s orderlies. Sir William Meyers, leading on that brigade which recovered the fortune of the field, exclaimed it would be a glorious day for the fusileers. In ascending the ground his horse was wounded; another was brought, which he had hardly mounted, when a ball struck him under the hip, and passed upward obliquely through the intestines. He did not fall, and attempted to proceed; but this was impossible, and when he was carried off the field he seemed to forget his own sufferings in exultation at beholding the conduct of his brave companions. A heavy rain was falling; there was no shelter near, and Valverde, whither it was thought proper to convey him, was ten miles distant. He would rather have had a tent erected over him; but his servants hoping that he might recover, insisted upon removing him to a place where a bed might be procured. The body of General Houghton was borne past him, on a mule, to be interred at Elvas. Upon seeing it, Sir William desired, that if he should die they would bury him on the spot. He lived, however, to reach Valverde, and till the following day. When his dissolution drew near, he desired that his ring might be taken to his sister, and that she might be told he had died like a soldier. Six of his own men bore him to the grave, and laid him under an olive tree near Valverde. It is to be hoped that a monument will be placed there to mark the spot.

Blake, Castaños, Mendizabal, Ballasteros, Zayas, and Carlos d’España, were in the field, and all distinguished themselves. Blake and Castaños had each an arm grazed. España was run through the hand by a lance. In the heat of the action, when the issue of the battle appeared most hopeless, many of the Spaniards were heard exclaiming to each other, “What will the Conciso say?” ... thus stimulating themselves to new exertion by remembering the honour or dishonour which a free press would bestow, according to their deserts. Of three stand of colours which were taken from the enemy, one was presented to the Cortes. Del Monte moved, that it should be deposited in some church dedicated to the Virgin-Mother, the patroness of the Spains; but Garcia Herreros observed, that the hall in which they met would, after the dissolution of the Cortes, again be used as a church, and it was therefore resolved that the colours should remain there. It was proposed also, that a pillar should be erected in the plains of Albuhera; and that the little town of that name which had been entirely destroyed, should be rebuilt by the nation, and exempted from all rates and taxes for ten years.

♦Siege of Badajoz resumed.♦

By this time the 3rd and 7th divisions arrived from Beira. Lord Wellington re-invested Badajoz on the 25th, and broke ground four days afterward. It was well that the former siege had been interrupted; there would otherwise have been a great sacrifice of men in attempts which, for want of adequate means, must have been unsuccessful. The means, though somewhat increased both in men and materials, were still inadequate; time pressed also; for where Lord Wellington’s efforts were directed, thither would those of the enemy be directed also; Marmont would move from the Tormes toward the Tagus to co-operate with Soult against him, and the disposable force which they might bring together far exceeded all that he could command. Rapid measures, therefore, were necessary, and it was determined to pursue the original plan, but to commence the attacks upon Fort Christoval and the castle at the same time, that the enemy’s attention might be divided. Guns were brought from Elvas, and the officers and gunners of a company of British artillery were distributed among the Portugueze, to supply as far as their numbers went the want of skill in their allies: but the guns were of a soft composition of metal, false in their bore, without any of the modern improvements; the shot were of all shapes and sizes; the howitzers which were used for mortars were not better in their kind than the guns, nor did the shells fit them better; and these wretched brass pieces failed so fast under the heavy firing which was required, that iron guns were ordered from Lisbon.

♦June.
Unsuccessful attempts upon Fort Christoval.♦

On the 6th of June the breach in Fort Christoval was reported practicable; it appeared to be so from the trenches; and at the following midnight a storming party of 180 men, conducted by Lieutenant Forster of the Royal Engineers, who had examined the breach the preceding night, moved towards it. The palisades had been destroyed by the battery; the counterscarp at that spot was only four feet deep; the advance, therefore, easily descended into the ditch and reached the foot of the breach, where they discovered that since evening closed the enemy had removed the rubbish, and that the escarp was standing clear nearly seven feet high. The advance, after it had in vain endeavoured to get over this obstacle, might have retired with little loss: but the main body had now entered the ditch; and in that spirit of mad courage which attempts impossible things, they tried with ladders fifteen feet long, which had been sent for mounting the breach with, to escalade the front scarp of the fort where it was twenty feet high; in this they persisted for an hour, while the garrison showered down upon them shells, stones, hand-grenades and combustibles at pleasure, and almost as a sport; nor did they retire till they had lost twelve killed and ninety wounded, more than two-thirds of their number, Forster being among the slain. Not disheartened by this, the besiegers renewed the attempt three nights after: they were provided with ladders of sufficient length; but the enemy were now on the alert, and had strongly garrisoned the fort: the officer who conducted the advance was killed on the glacis, and the officer in command immediately on descending into the ditch: and it could not be ascertained, from the report of the survivors, whether they had attempted a breach which, having, as on the former occasion, been cleared, had been rendered impracticable, or whether their efforts had been misdirected against the face of a demibastion which had been much injured, and might in the night easily be mistaken for a breach: but in one or other of these blind endeavours they persisted desperately under a tremendous shower of the most destructive missiles, till after an hour’s perseverance, when forty had been killed and an hundred wounded, the remainder were ordered to retire.

♦The siege raised.♦

That night’s failure determined Lord Wellington to raise the siege. It had manifestly become hopeless for want of means; and the next morning an intercepted letter from Soult to Marmont was brought in, dated the 5th, and saying that he was ready to begin his march, effect a junction, and complete the object of their wishes. “If they lost no time,” he said, “they might reach the scene of action before the English reinforcements arrived, and Badajoz would be saved.” By other communications, Lord Wellington knew that Drouet’s corps had marched from Toledo, and would probably join Soult that very day, and that Marmont might be expected at Merida in a few days; for this general, after having patroled on the 6th to Fuentes d’Onoro and Navedeaver, as a reconnoissance, and to cover the march of a convoy to Ciudad Rodrigo, began his march the next day to the south, by way of the Puerto de Baños and Placencia: he crossed the Tagus at Almaraz, an important point, where the French, having re-established the bridge, had covered it by strong batteries. In consequence of this information Lord Wellington began to move the stores to the rear, as soon as darkness had closed. The whole loss had been nine officers and 109 men killed, twenty-five officers and 342 men wounded and prisoners: but the numerical inadequately represents the real loss in those operations for which men are either selected for their skill, or adventure in the hope of distinguishing themselves. On the 12th the siege was finally raised; but the blockade was still maintained, and Lord Wellington posted his army near Albuhera to cover it and to hold in check an enemy who would not again venture upon giving battle,

♦Junction of Soult and Marmont.♦ unless with an overpowering force. The French, however, had now collected all their troops from the two Castilles, except a small garrison at Madrid, all the remains of Massena’s army, and all their force from Andalusia, except what was sufficient for Sebastiani and Victor to keep up a show of inactive strength within positions where experience had now fully shown that no vigorous attack was to be apprehended. Thus they brought together a greater force than the allies could oppose to them; and though Lord Wellington was not so inferior in numbers as to have felt fear, or even doubt, concerning the issue of an action, the relative resources of the allies in men, as those resources were then managed, were not such that they could afford to win a second battle of Albuhera. The blockade therefore was raised after Marmont and Soult had effected their junction: the enemy entered Badajoz, and the allies, recrossing the Guadiana, took up a line within the Portugueze frontier. There the corps from the north, under Sir Brent Spencer, joined them. It had crossed the Tagus at Villa Velha by a floating bridge, carrying about twenty horses at a time. The spirit of our light division at this time was such that the men would suffer any thing on a march rather than be seen straggling; and in this movement two men, when ascending the hills to Niza, carried that spirit so far that they actually died of heat in the ranks.

♦The allies take a position within the Portugueze frontier.♦

The whole army being thus united, a position was chosen in which battle would have been given if the French had attempted to enter Portugal: it was on the heights behind Campo Mayor, and the troops were bivouacked on the Caya in readiness to occupy it: their line extended from Arronches to Jurumenha, that of the enemy from Merida to Badajoz. But though the French had brought together not less than 70,000 men including 8000 cavalry, while the cavalry opposed to them were only 3500, and the whole force not more than 56,000, they contented themselves with making a reconnoisance in considerable strength. One body of their horse got in the rear of a piquet of the 11th light dragoons: the situation was ill chosen; the regiment had arrived from England but a few days before; the men, therefore, were inexperienced in such service, and ignorant of the ground: they mistook the enemy for Portugueze; and every man, sixty-nine in number, except the lieutenant in the advance, was taken. This was the only advantage they could obtain. Another body at the same time failed in an endeavour to ascertain the position and number of the allies: their intention was perceived; the main body of the troops was concealed from them behind the hills; and after some hours’ manœuvring, some skirmishing, and some firing from Campo Mayor, the guns of which fortress flanked the front of Lord Wellington’s position, they desisted from their baffled attempt.

♦Soult boasts of his success.♦

Soult affected to regret that a general action had not been brought on. He magnified the merit of the defence of Badajoz, saying, that it would be cited in military history as one of the most memorable exploits of its kind; and he magnified the importance of the junction of the two armies on the Guadiana, calling it one of the most marked events of the war in Spain. This general had a more than common interest in blazoning forth a success which covered his late defeat. “Thus,” said he, “the signal victory which was gained at Albuhera has been ascertained in favour of the imperial army: the main object which I had in view was then accomplished, that of making a diversion in favour of Badajoz, and enabling that fortress to prolong its resistance. It is now evident that the battle of Albuhera gained us at least twenty days, during which we were enabled to make arrangements for bringing up new reinforcements, and the army of Portugal was able to take part in the operations: thus the second object which I had in view in making my first movement has been also accomplished; and the troops which fought at Albuhera have not ceased a single day to act upon the offensive against the enemy.” Beyond all doubt Marshal Soult was one of the ablest generals of his age: his operations at this time were ultimately successful, but his earnestness to prove that he had gained a victory at Albuhera only shows how deeply he felt the defeat.

The French government were elated with an advantage which came seasonably after the various disgraces that the French arms had suffered in the Peninsula. “The English,” said they, “are again to learn, and by a mighty thunderbolt ... (the raising of the siege of Badajoz is a presage of it), that they cannot with impunity leave the element of which they have usurped the empire.” The English, however, had long been accustomed to hear of these thunderbolts, and to defy the more tangible weapons of the enemy. Soult said, in his official account, “that they appeared to have given us Spain entirely, and to be concentrating themselves for the defence of Lisbon: they felt their inability to support the contest; and every thing,” he added, “induced him to think that when the army of reserve should have arrived upon Almeida, they would feel the impossibility even of maintaining themselves at Lisbon.” While the enemy threw out these boastful anticipations, Lord Wellington remained in his position, watching their movements, and certain that they could not long subsist the force which they had brought together.

♦Blake’s movements.♦

Before the allies retreated across the Guadiana, a plan had been arranged between General Blake and Lord Wellington, that the former should make a movement into the country of Niebla, distract the enemy’s attention by threatening their rear, and take advantage of whatever favourable opportunity this concentration of the French forces might give him. Accordingly the Spaniards set out on the 18th from Jurumenha, and on the 22nd reached Mertola, ... the distance is about 110 miles, ... but it was a most exhausting march in the midst of summer, through a dry country, for troops half of whom were barefoot, and whose commissariat was in the most deplorable state. The provisions were never sufficient to allow full rations; and though the Spaniards supported fatigue and hunger with their characteristic patience, men will not continue to undergo such privations without a strong hope that some adequate success will recompense them; and Blake had unhappily acquired the character of being an unfortunate leader.

From Mertola, he embarked his artillery for Ayamonte. The horse swam the Guadiana, the men crossed it by a temporary bridge of boats; and after resting two days to refresh the troops, he marched

♦June 30.
He fails at Niebla and returns to Cadiz.♦ against Niebla. Niebla is an old town, which had fallen to such decay, that its population at this time did not exceed an hundred persons: its walls, however, were less dilapidated than its houses, and the French had repaired its castle so as to render it a post of respectable strength, from whence they domineered over the surrounding country. Blake found it stronger than he expected: he attempted an escalade in the night with ladders, which were too short, as well as too few, for the success of the enterprise; consequently the attempt failed, though the garrison did not consist of more than 300 men. He remained three days before the place, which gave the French governor of Seville time to take the field against him, and make some prisoners before his army could reach the mouth of the Guadiana, and re-embark for Cadiz. Great numbers of his men deserted during this ill-conducted expedition. Blake possessed considerable talents, but the good which those talents might have produced, when he was called to the Regency, was in great measure frustrated by his jealousy of the English. At Albuhera he seemed to have overcome this unworthy feeling; but it returned upon him, and Lord Wellington remarked, in his public dispatches, that neither General Castaños nor himself had received any intelligence from him since he began his march from Jurumenha.

♦The French armies separate.♦

This movement, therefore, which might have greatly annoyed the enemy, and of which such expectations had been raised, that it was at one time reported and believed Blake had actually entered Seville, ended only in the diminution of the army and of the general’s reputation. But Lord Wellington had taken his measures too wisely to suffer any other evil than that of disappointed hope from this failure. He knew that the enemy could not possibly long continue to subsist their forces when thus concentrated; and accordingly, as he expected, they broke up from the Guadiana about the middle of July, having fortified the old castles of Medellin and Truxillo to strengthen their hold upon Extremadura. Soult returned to Seville; and Marmont, recrossing the Tagus at Almaraz, went again to his command in the north. Lord Wellington then moved his whole army to the left, and cantoned them in Lower Beira, where he remained, waiting till time and opportunity should offer for the blow which he was preparing to strike.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

MEASURES OF THE FRENCH IN ARAGON. MANRESA BURNT. FIGUERAS SURPRISED BY THE CATALANS. SIEGE AND CAPTURE OF TARRAGONA BY THE ENEMY, AND RECAPTURE OF FIGUERAS. CAMPOVERDE SUPERSEDED BY GENERAL LACY.

♦1811.♦

Both in Portugal and in Andalusia the French had at length encountered a resistance which, with their utmost efforts, they were unable to overcome: but their career of success continued longer in the eastern provinces, where their operations were conducted with more unity of purpose, and where Great Britain afforded only a precarious and inefficient aid to the best and bravest of the Spaniards.

♦Plans of the French in Catalonia.♦

No sooner had Tortosa fallen, than Marshal Macdonald began to prepare at Lerida for laying siege to Tarragona. The arrival at Barcelona of a convoy of ammunition and grain from Toulon relieved him from all anxiety on that point, and left him at leisure to direct his whole attention to this great object, which in a military view would complete the conquest of Catalonia, ... any other Buonaparte was incapable of taking. Tortosa was to be the pivot of the intended operations against Tarragona first, and after its fall, which was not doubted, against Valencia; and to facilitate these operations, Col de Balaguer was put in a state of defence, and Fort Rapita which commanded the mouth of the Ebro. These measures had been taken when General Suchet received orders from Paris to undertake the siege, and was at the same time informed that Lower Catalonia was to be under his command. Early in the preceding year this general had

♦March 19.♦ been told that he must raise in his government of Aragon means both for the pay and subsistence of his troops, France being no longer able to support such an expense; and that while he was to communicate as before with the E’tat-major of the army

♦The Pyrenean provinces administered in Buonaparte’s name.♦ concerning military affairs, he was to receive instructions upon all matters relating to the administration, police, and finances of the country, from the Emperor alone. It was evident, therefore, that Buonaparte was as little disposed to keep faith with his brother, King Joseph, as he had been with his ally Charles IV., and Ferdinand his invited guest, but that it was his intention to extend the frontier of France from the Pyrenees to the Ebro; and in fact from that time all orders of the government in that part of the Peninsula were issued in his name. The faithful Spaniards cared not in which name it was administered, acknowledging neither, and detesting both: if they had any feeling upon the subject, it was a sense of satisfaction that their unworthy countrymen in the Intruder’s service should be deprived of the shallow pretext with which they sought to excuse their treason to their country. At first this change appeared to increase the difficulties of Suchet’s situation, who, while he looked only to a temporary occupation of the province, would without scruple have supplied himself by force, regardless in what condition he might leave it to those who should succeed him, or what sufferings he might bring upon the inhabitants. But regarding himself now as fixed in a permanent command, it behoved him to adopt measures which, ... if any thing could have that effect upon the Aragonese, might gradually reconcile them to subjection, by giving them the benefit of a military government, regularly as well as vigorously administered.

♦State of Aragon.♦

The province was in a miserable state: though the population had increased from the end of the Succession war till the beginning of Charles IV.’s reign, it had diminished since that time, owing to causes which have not been explained. There were 150 deserted villages in it, and nearly 400 in which a few houses were all that remained, ... this, not in consequence of the existing war, but of the preceding decay. Yet before the invasion, Aragon exported corn, wine, and oil to Catalonia on one side, and to Navarre on the other: to that export the war had put an end; fields, and vineyards, and oliveyards, had been laid waste; and an enormous consumption of sheep by the armies had almost destroyed the only kind of cattle which in that country could be depended on for food. It had been drained of money also both by the national and intrusive governments: before the siege of Zaragoza, three millions of francs had been remitted to Seville; and the spoils of the suppressed convents to the amount of a million reales and 3000 marks of silver had been afterwards sent to Joseph’s treasury at Madrid. Very many families, and among them all the wealthiest, had emigrated, taking with them all the specie they could collect, ... the miserable remains of their fortunes. Trade had suffered in the same degree as agriculture; there were no manufacturers left; and from a province in this condition, which in its best times paid only four million francs to its native government, eight millions were to be raised for the annual pay of the troops alone. Suchet began by levying an extraordinary contribution per month, which

♦System of the French general.♦ more than doubled in amount the tax in ordinary times; the mode of collecting was prepared for him by a regulation of Philip V., who, as a punishment upon the three provinces of Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia, for their adherence to his opponent the Archduke Charles, had subjected them to a property tax, taking from them the privilege which they had formerly possessed of taxing themselves. It might have been thought impossible to wring this additional impost from a ruined people; but the hoards of prudence, of selfishness, and of misery are opened at such times, and what has been withheld from the pressing necessities of a just cause, is yielded to a domineering enemy; and Suchet, while he insisted to the utmost upon the law of the strongest, and regarded no other law, had clear views of the policy by which obedience to that law is to be facilitated or conciliated. No compunction withheld him from any crime which he deemed it expedient to commit; but he would do good as well as evil, and perhaps more willingly, when it accorded with his purpose; and worldly wisdom producing the effect of better motives might under other circumstances have made him a beneficent ruler. He abolished monopolies, by retaining which nothing was to be gained; he sent for his wife from France, to conciliate the Aragonese ladies by her means, and their husbands by theirs; he employed the influence of those priests who followed the example of their traitorous archbishop; and he purchased with offices in the revenue department and in the police the ablest of the Spaniards whose souls were for sale. Among them was Mariano Dominguez, who having held the office of military Intendant under Palafox during the siege of Zaragoza, lived to be praised by General Suchet for the eminent services which he rendered to the French. He was made corregidor of that city; and it is said that under his administration not a single murder occurred there during eighteen months, though before the war the annual average exceeded three hundred. In no situation does a man seem so cut off from repentance, as when he can reconcile himself to his own dereliction of duty by the good that he may do in an office which he has accepted as the price of his integrity.

♦Good effect of paying the troops regularly.♦

The money which Suchet raised for his military and civil establishments was presently expended in the province, to the immediate benefit of the people upon whom it had been levied. The troops were paid every five days, the civil officers regularly received their salaries, and what they received was necessarily spent in the country. Suchet took care also to purchase there whatever it could supply for the clothing and equipment of the troops, paying for it at once from the contributions; and the active circulation

♦Mémoires du Maréshal Suchet, 1. 302.♦ which was thus occasioned, if he may be believed, made the inhabitants themselves sensible that they were gainers by such taxation. He repaired the dykes, the sluices, and the great basin at Mount Torrero which had been destroyed during the siege; the canal was thus again restored: preparations were made for conducting water into the city and erecting fountains there: the hospitals and the bull circus were repaired; bull fights, the national sport and the national reproach, were exhibited; and by these means ... and by his refusal to send the treasure of Our Lady of the Pillar to Madrid, notwithstanding repeated orders to that effect, ... he endeavoured to gratify the Zaragozans, while he erected works about the city to secure it against any sudden attempt. Buonaparte’s orders were not so safely to be disregarded as those of the Intruder; when,

♦British goods burnt at Zaragoza.♦ therefore, Suchet was instructed to confiscate and burn all the English goods which could be found in Aragon, the general remonstrated against so impolitic a measure, and proposed instead to levy a duty upon such goods of fifty per cent.; but Buonaparte hated England too vehemently to be capable of receiving any advice which opposed the indulgence of that insane passion, and Suchet found it necessary to search the warehouses, and make a bonfire of what he found there, in the Plaza Mayor at Zaragoza, taking care however that the search should be as perfunctory as he could venture to make it, and leaving colonial

♦Mémoires, 1. 306.♦ produce untouched because it happened not to be specified in his orders.

♦Preparations for besieging Tarragona.♦

But the Spaniards were a people whom no length of time could reconcile to an usurpation by which they felt themselves insulted as much as they were wronged and outraged. Though his political sagacity was equal to his military skill, and though he was placed in a part of the peninsula where the Spaniards never received the slightest assistance from their British allies, even in Aragon he felt the insecurity of his position, and deemed it an advantage of no trifling moment when he could discover a manufactory of arms among the mountains. The Spanish frontier is that upon which France was least provided with military establishments; but the want of stores, which in other quarters could be drawn abundantly from the arsenals of Douay, Metz, and Strasbourg, was supplied here by the treacherous seizure of Pamplona before hostilities commenced, and by the subsequent capture of Lerida, Mequinenza, Tortosa, and Col de Balaguer. In this respect the war had abundantly furnished its own means; nor was he deficient in numbers for the siege which he was about to undertake, the army now under his command consisting of more than 40,000 men, notwithstanding its daily waste, and the great losses it had suffered. The Italian division from 13,000 to 14,000 had been reduced to five or six; but with the population of France, Italy, and the Netherlands, at his disposal, and of those states which, under the name of confederates, were actually subjected to the French government, Buonaparte thought that no war could thin his armies faster than the conscription could recruit them; and under his officers he well knew that men of any nation would soon be made efficient soldiers. Suchet found it better to make the regiments of different nations act together than to keep them in separate divisions; they were more likely thus to be influenced by a common feeling, and less liable to be affected by the proclamations in Italian, German, Dutch, and Polish, as well as Spanish and French, which General Doyle addressed to them, inviting them to abandon the unjust service in which they were engaged. Suchet provided also for their wants with a solicitude which made him deservedly popular among his men. He saw that the commissariat department was better administered by military than by civil agents; and having placed it therefore wholly in their hands, he adopted the farther improvement of giving to each regiment the charge of its own cattle, convoys of which from Pau and Oleron were constantly on the road, protected by a chain of fortified posts from Canfranc and Jaca to Zaragoza. It was found that by this means the cattle were better guarded and more easily fed; that the movements of the army were not impeded by them; and that when the soldiers reached their bivouac they were no longer under the necessity of marauding for their food. This general was as little subject as Massena to any visitations of compassion; but he knew that a system of marauding must in the end prove as fatal to the army which subsisted by it, as to the inhabitants who were the immediate sufferers.

But the people whom he protected from irregular exactions were under an iron yoke; they were to be kept down only by present force and the severest intimidation; and Suchet prepared willingly for the siege of Tarragona, because he saw that the only serious losses which the Spaniards sustained was when they defended fortified places with a large military force. Their armies, when routed in the field, collected again as easily as they were dispersed; but from Lerida, Mequinenza, and Tortosa, no fewer than 800 officers and 18,000 soldiers had been sent prisoners into France. He desired therefore to attack a fortress which would be regularly defended, as much as he dreaded to encounter

♦Mémoires. 2. 17.♦ a civil defence. While he was preparing for the enterprise, the news of Massena’s retreat raised the hopes of the Spaniards, and made their desultory parties everywhere more active: in proportion as they were elated, were the invaders exasperated. A

♦Manresa burnt by Macdonald.♦ considerable force under Marshal Macdonald moved upon Manresa. Sarsfield and Eroles were on the alert to harass its movements: and they attacked its rear at Hostal de Calvet, about an hour’s distance from that city: many of the Manresans were in the field. The disposition of the inhabitants was well known, and perhaps Manresa was marked for vengeance, because it was the first place in Catalonia which had declared against the French; and one of those journals also was printed there which contributed so greatly to keep up the national spirit. Upon whatever pretext, ... for pretexts are never wanting to those who hold that everything ought to succumb before

♦March 30.♦ military force, ... orders were given to burn the city: it was set on fire in the night, and between seven and eight hundred houses were consumed. The very hospitals were not spared, though an agreement had been made between the Spanish and French generals, that they should be considered sacred, and though that agreement was produced by one of the physicians to General Salme, and its observance claimed on the score of honour and good faith as well as of humanity. It availed nothing; the wounded were taken out of their beds; the attendants plundered; the building sacked and set on fire. It was by the light of the flames that Sarsfield and Eroles attacked the enemy at Hostal de Calvet; their orders were that no quarter should that night be given; and in consequence, of many who surrendered (for in this partial action the Catalans had greatly the advantage), one man alone was spared. The commander-in-chief Campoverde accused Macdonald of having in this instance broken his faith, as well as violated the received usages of war; and he

♦April.♦ issued orders that his troops, regular or irregular, should give quarter to no Frenchman, of what rank soever, who might be taken in the vicinity of any place which had been burned or sacked, or in which the inhabitants had been murdered. Subscriptions were raised for the relief of the Manresans; and, as in every case where intimidation was intended, the effect of this atrocity was to render the invaders more odious, and give to that desire of vengeance with which the Spaniards were inflamed the dreadful character of a religious obligation.

Macdonald was at this time meditating an attempt upon Montserrat, the possession of which place would be of great advantage in the operations against Tarragona. But the Catalans were not idle. Looking to something of more permanent importance than could be achieved in desultory warfare, Rovira, who from the commencement of the struggle had so distinguished himself as to be honoured with the particular invectives of the French, had long projected schemes for recovering from the enemy some of the fortresses whereof they had possessed themselves, and these schemes he proposed to the successive generals in the principality, all of whom, till Campoverde took the command, regarded them as impracticable. Rovira, however, was not deterred by ridicule from prosecuting plans which appeared to him well founded; and Campoverde at length listened

♦Scheme for the recovery of Barcelona frustrated.♦ to his representations. He had established a communication in Barcelona, which, like other attempts of the like nature, was discovered; and five persons, two of whom were women, were condemned to death for it, but only one, Miguel Alzina by name, fell into the enemy’s hand, and he was executed upon the glacis of Monjuic. The sentence charged him with having conspired to betray that fortress and the place of Barcelona to the Spaniards: this he had done, and in suffering for it, felt that he was dying a martyr to his country’s cause: but he was charged also with having intended to poison the garrison; and that any such purpose should have been sanctioned by the commander-in-chief, under whose sanction the scheme was formed, or that it should have been communicated to him, or even formed at all, is not to be believed. Of the persons who were acquitted of any share in the conspiracy, two were nevertheless ordered to be sent into France, and there detained till the general pacification of Catalonia; and one, who was niece of Alzina, to be confined in a nunnery, under the special observation of the vicar-general and of the prioress, who were to be responsible for her.

Rovira had concerted a plan also for surprising Figueras: it was conceived in the spirit of more adventurous ages, and therefore, some of those persons who felt no such spirit in themselves called it, in mockery, the Rovirada; to better minds, however, it appeared so feasible for men like those who had undertaken it, that Martinez, the commandant of the division of Ampurdan, was instructed by Campoverde to join him in the attempt.

♦Figueras.♦

Figueras is a little town situated in the midst of the fertile plain of Ampurdan, eighteen miles from the French frontier. Some centuries ago it was burned, and its castle razed, by the Count of Ampurias, in his war with Jayme I. of Aragon; but in the last century, Ferdinand VI. erected there one of the finest fortifications in Europe, which he called, after his canonized namesake and predecessor, the Castle of St. Fernando. It is an irregular pentagon, the site of which has been so well chosen upon the solid and bare rock, that it is scarcely possible to open trenches against it on any side; and it commands the plain, serving as an entrenched camp for 16,000 men. As a fortress it is a masterpiece of art; no cost was spared upon it, and the whole was finished in that character of magnificence which the public works of Spain continued to exhibit in the worst ages of the Spanish monarchy. But an English traveller made this prophetic remark

♦Townsend’s Travels, 1. p. 81. 3rd edition.♦ when he visited Figueras in the year 1786: “Every such fortress requires an army to defend it, and when the moment of trial comes, the whole may depend on the weakness or treachery of a commander, and instead of being a defence to the country, may afford a lodgement to the enemy.” Nowhere has that apprehension been more fully verified than in the place where it was excited. Figueras was surrendered to France in the revolutionary war, by corruption or by treason, more likely than by cowardice; for the governor had behaved bravely at Toulon. After the peace he returned to Spain, was delivered over to trial, and condemned to lose his head: but the punishment was commuted for perpetual exile. When the place was restored, after the treaty of Basle, some ink spots still remained upon the wall, where an officer, in honourable indignation, had dashed his pen, either determining not to sign the capitulation, or in despair for having borne a part in that act of infamy. And now Figueras served as a stronghold for the invaders, having been one of the four fortresses which Godoy delivered into their hands as the keys of Spain, before Buonaparte avowed his profligate design of usurping the kingdom.

♦Attempt upon Figueras.♦

Rovira, who was a doctor in theology as well as a colonel, and regarded the contest to which he had devoted himself as a holy war, fixed upon Passion week as the fittest time for the attempt: there could be no season so proper for it, he thought, as that on which the church was celebrating

♦April 6.♦ the sufferings and death of Christ24! Accordingly, on Palm Sunday he assembled his division in the village of Esquirol, and when they were drawn up, addressing them, says the Spanish relator, like another Gideon, he desired that every man who was willing to accompany him in an expedition of great peril, but of the highest importance and greatest honour, should step out of the line; 500 men immediately volunteered, all of the second Catalan legion. The same appeal was made to another detachment at S. Privat, and ninety-two of the battalion of Almogavares, and 462 of the Expatriates, as those Catalans were called who came from parts of the country which the French possessed, offered themselves. The two parties formed a junction that night at Ridaura, and marched the next day, by roads which were almost impracticable, to Oix, a village close upon the French border. From thence they proceeded on the 8th by Sadernes, Gitarriu, and Cofi, to Llorena, taking this direction in order that the enemy and the men themselves might be induced to believe it was their intention to make an incursion into France. The alarm spread along the border as they wished; the somaten was rung; the French peasantry, and about 300 troops of the line, collected at S. Laurent de Sardas, and remained under arms for thirty hours. At noon on the 9th, the Catalans left Llorena, and proceeded in a direction toward Figueras as far as the wood of Villarit, where they concealed themselves in a glen till night came: it had rained heavily all day, and a strong north wind was blowing, nevertheless orders were given that no man should kindle a fire on pain of death.

♦Rovira takes it by surprise.♦

One scanty meal a day was all that could be allowed to these hardy and patient men; but a good allowance of generous wine had been provided for them when it should be most needed: this was distributed now after they had been formed into six companies, and when night set in they advanced to Palau-Surroca, a short hour’s distance from the fortress. The officers of each division were men who were well acquainted with the works; and each was now informed what point he was to attempt, at what time, and in what manner. At half-past two the first party leaped into the ditch; three soldiers, who had served in the garrison more than a year, for the purpose of performing this service when the hour should come, opened the gate which leads into the ditch to receive them. The first sentinel whom they met was killed by one thrust before he could give the alarm; the different parties went each in its allotted direction; and so well had every part of this enterprise been planned, and so perfectly was it executed in all its parts, that before men, officers, or governor, could get out of their quarters, ... almost before they were awakened, ... Figueras was in the hands of the Spaniards, and its garrison, amounting to about 1000 men, were prisoners. The gate by which they had entered was immediately walled up to guard against any counter-surprise; and as Rovira, being a native of the country, and conspicuous in it since the commencement of the war, was better known than Martinez, orders were sent out in his name, and signed by his hand, calling upon the men of the adjoining country to come and strengthen the garrison. His signature left no doubt of an event which they could else hardly have been persuaded to believe, so much was it beyond their hopes, and in a few hours men enough were assembled there to man the works.

There were about 700 of the enemy in the town, who supposed at first that the stir which they perceived in the castle was merely some quarrel between the French and the Italians of whom the garrison was composed. One of them went to ascertain this; he was asked Quien vive? as he approached, and upon his replying “France,” was fired at and shot. Upon this the French commandant sent a trumpeter, who was ordered to return and tell his master, on the part of General Martinez and Colonel Rovira, that no Frenchman must again present himself before the fortress, or he would be answered at the cannon’s mouth. Martinez immediately sent off a dispatch in brief but characteristic language: “Glory to the God of armies, and honour to the brave Catalans, St. Fernando de Figueras is taken; Rovira had the happiness of directing the enterprise, and I of having been the commander.” The Doctor-Colonel, in a private letter which found its way to the press, alluded to the ridicule which had been cast upon his project: “The Rovirada is made,” said he, “and the great fortress is ours!”

♦Rovira rewarded with church preferment.♦

Rovira needed no other reward than the place in history which the success of this Rovirada secured for him; but it was not the less becoming that the government should express their sense of his services. Some little time after, the dignity of Maestre-Escuela, which is equivalent to that of prebend in the English church, fell vacant in the cathedral of Vich. A decree had past in the preceding year for leaving unfilled such ecclesiastical offices as could, without indecency, be dispensed with, and applying their revenues to the public use as long as the necessities of the country should require. The Regency applied to the Cortes to dispense with this law for the present occasion only, that they might confer the vacant dignity upon Rovira, as the most appropriate testimony of national gratitude; that when the bloody struggle in which they were engaged against the tyrant of Europe should have terminated happily, as was to be expected, they said, he might have a decorous retirement suitable to his profession, and an establishment for that time in which, indispensably, he ought to renounce the military honours and dignities with which he was now decorated, but which, in any other than the actual circumstances, were incompatible with his ministerial character. Arguelles declared, that the Doctor Brigadier (for to this rank he had then been promoted) was worthy in the highest degree of national gratitude; but he wished that any mode of remuneration should be devised rather than one which involved the suspension of a law, ... too perilous an example not to be carefully avoided. But Creus observed, that Rovira, who was a priest as much in heart as in profession, would value this prebend more than any military rank which could be conferred upon him; and more even than the archdeanery of Toledo, because it was in his own country. And he argued, that no injury could accrue to the state, as the income might be reserved for the treasury while the existing circumstances continued. Garcia Herreros was of opinion that the reward ought to be of the nature of the service; the soldier should have a military recompense, the priest a clerical one; he proposed, therefore, that as the order of St. Fernando had just been instituted, Dr. Rovira should be the first person who should be invested with it; and that when the war was ended one of the best prebends should then be given him. The proposal of the Regency, however, was adopted, and Rovira was made Maestre-Escuela of the cathedral of Vich, for having recovered Figueras.

Had the Catalans been equally successful at Barcelona, all their losses would have been more than compensated; the success which they had gained excited the greatest exultation, not only in Catalonia, but throughout the whole of Spain. Te Deum was sung at Tarragona, and the town was illuminated three successive nights. In Madrid the Spaniards could scarcely dissemble their joy. In the Cortes the news was welcomed as the happiest which had been received since the battle of Baylen; and the Regency called upon the people for fresh contributions and fresh efforts to improve this unexpected success, the first of its kind which had been obtained during the war. The army which had achieved it, they said, was in want of every thing; and the two Regents who were in Cadiz (Blake being absent) set the example themselves by contributing each a month’s salary. It was, indeed, a success which, if the Spaniards had been able, or their allies alert enough to have improved it, might have been a far more momentous advantage than the victories of Barrossa and Albuhera. The first report appeared incredible to the French generals; when it was confirmed,

♦Suchet refuses to send the troops which Macdonald required from him.♦

Macdonald called upon Suchet to send him by forced marches that part of the army of Catalonia which he had placed under his command; unless this were done, he said, Upper Catalonia was lost: for neither Rosas, Gerona, nor Hostalrich, were provisioned, and the consequences of this cruel event were incalculable; and Maurice Mathieu, who commanded in Barcelona, instructed the governor of Lerida to be ready with provisions for these troops upon their way, not doubting but that Suchet would see the necessity of the measure in which he was called upon to concur. But when that general had recovered from the first grief and astonishment which the news excited, he considered that part of these troops being employed in an expedition among the mountains, and the others along the Ebro to protect its navigation, from twenty to five and twenty days must elapse before they could receive orders from Zaragoza, assemble at Lerida, and march from thence by Barcelona to Figueras; during which interval the Spaniards would have done all they could do for storing and garrisoning the place. All the French could do was to blockade it with the troops which were nearest at hand: those from a distance would arrive too late, and there would then be the difficulty of supporting them in a part of the country stripped of its resources. If the Spaniards should fail in endeavouring to throw sufficient supplies into the fortress which they had surprised, the unexpected success with which they were now so greatly elated would in the end be little to their advantage: it would even facilitate his operations against Tarragona, for Campoverde would doubtless move his army towards the Ampurdan, instead of endeavouring to interrupt the investment of that city; to hasten that investment, therefore, and press the siege would be the best service which he could render to the French in Upper Catalonia: this opinion he thought Buonaparte would form, whom the intelligence would reach at Paris five or six days before he had received it at Zaragoza: upon that opinion, therefore, he resolved to act, on his own responsibility; and he had soon the satisfaction of knowing that his conduct in so doing was approved and25 applauded.

His judgment was not less accurate as to what was,

♦Mémoires, 1. 13–18.♦ in this instance, to be expected from the Spaniards, who were still destined to suffer for the weakness of their government, the want of union in their leaders, and the want of system which was felt in every

♦Eroles introduces troops into Figueras.♦ department. Eroles, indeed, acted on this emergency as he always did, with promptitude, and vigour, and ability. Collecting all the force he could, he hastened from Martorell to reinforce the garrison of Figueras, and on his way took the forts which the French had erected in Castelfollit and Olot, and made above 500 prisoners there. Though a considerable

♦April 16.♦ force had already been collected to blockade the place, he entered it on the sixth day after its capture, with 1500 infantry, 150 horse, and about 50 artillerymen, losing on the way some forty killed and sixty wounded; but the French battalion, which endeavoured to prevent his entrance, suffered

♦The French blockade it.♦ more than a threefold loss. General Baraguay d’Hilliers had by that time brought together about 8000 troops for the blockade, nearly half of which had been called off from blockading the Seu d’Urgel, and had made a circuitous march within the French border. All posts of minor importance they immediately abandoned, retaining only Rosas, Gerona, and Hostalrich, in that part of Catalonia, and even weakening the garrison of Gerona so much, that that place might have been recovered by a second Rovirada, had there been another Rovira to conduct one. But there was little concert among the Catalan leaders; it was deemed fortunate that Eroles had not been obliged to require the co-operation of another body, which from its position he might have looked to for aid, because there was ill blood between that body and the corps which he commanded. His arrival was well-timed, for the garrison was disorderly as well as weak, ... more enterprising than wary, ... not to be restrained from making rash sallies against the blockading force; and they had also 1500 prisoners to guard, whom, for their own security, they were compelled to confine so closely, that they were in reasonable apprehension lest disease and infection should be the consequences. But supplies were as needful as reinforcements; wine and oil were especially wanted. The Spaniards, with more alertness than they often exerted, sent off a convoy of stores with one of their frigates from Tarragona: it came into the bay of Rosas three days after Eroles had entered the fortress, but it had to wait off shore, vainly expecting that a sufficient force for escorting it might be collected. The British squadron off that coast was too weak to afford any effectual assistance. Captain Buller, taking immediate advantage of the enemy’s departure from those places, had landed at Palamos, St. Feliu, Cadeques, and Selva, embarked their guns and destroyed their batteries; a useful service for the time, but one which could not affect the operations on the land, and the commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean, who was applied to for some ships of the line, could spare none from his own anxious station, where all his vigilance was required for watching those ports in France from whence the enemy might look for reinforcements or supplies. In Valencia, where there were most means, there was least energy; and in Tarragona, where alacrity was not wanting, it was necessary to wait for the new levies before they could venture to send from thence any considerable body of old soldiers with which Campoverde might undertake the relief of the blockaded fortress, lest Suchet, if his preparations for besieging that city were anything more than a feint, should find it in a state of insecurity and weakness.

That general had never been more in earnest. He

♦Mémoires, 2. 20.♦ perceived that he could no longer look for co-operation from the side of Catalonia in his intended siege; from thence, however, he expected little interruption, but he apprehended serious annoyance from Mina; for if that enterprising chief could connect himself with the Catalans of the upper valleys, it would be possible for him, he thought, to draw after him so large a part of the Aragonese, that he might cut off the communication with France, and thus endanger the subsistence

♦Attempts to destroy Mina.♦ of the besieging army. None of the Guerrilla leaders were placed in so dangerous a position as Espoz y Mina. Every fortress in Navarre was occupied by the French, and they were in possession of all the country which surrounded it. There was no point from which he could receive succour; none upon which he could retire: the mountains were his only fastnesses; and he had no resources but what were to be found in his own genius, and in the courage of his comrades, and in the love of his countrymen. But this man was the Scanderbeg of his age. Reille, the French governor of Navarre, had received special instructions to hunt him down; and toward the close of the preceding year, the enemy had succeeded in surprising his troop. He and the commanders of the second and third battalions, Cruchaga and Gorriz, immediately began to collect their scattered force, and perceiving that their dispersion would not have been so injurious but for want of order, they abstained awhile from offensive operations, for the purpose of disciplining the men. Reille hoped again to surprise them while they were thus employed, and detached Colonel Gaudin from Pamplona with 1500 foot and 200 horse, who was to form a junction with an equal number, drawn from Tudela, Caparroso, and Tafalla by Colonel Brescat, surround Mina, and occupy all the points by which he might endeavour to escape. Mina was informed of their movements: before the two detachments could join, he drew Gaudin into an ambuscade, in which forty of his cavalry were killed, and about 100 infantry made prisoners, he then attacked them in their position at Monreal, drove them from it, and was about to renew the attack upon a second position which they had taken, when intelligence that Reille with a force from Pamplona was hastening to Gaudin’s succour, induced him to retire. The Guerrilla chief let his men rest one day, and on the second attacked Brescat, who, with 1300 men and 170 horse, occupied Aybar, part of the line within which it was intended to surround this heroic Navarrese. The enemy were driven successively from every position where they attempted to make a stand, till having fallen back two leagues, they reached the river Aragon: the infantry crossed it by the bridge at Caseca, the cavalry swam the stream, and thus interposed a barrier between themselves and their pursuers, which Mina was not able to force, being without artillery. In this action the French left 162 men and sixty-three horses upon the field: their commander and about 220 men were wounded.

♦Jan. 12.♦

Reille next sent his brother, at the head of 5000 foot and 200 horse, against this harassing enemy. For the last month Mina had been manufacturing arms, ammunition, and clothing for his men, at Lumbier, and there two thousand of the French found him. Aware of their intention, and having concerted measures with his officers, he did not disturb the soldiers in the rest which they were enjoying, till the moment arrived. Then, telling them what the force was which was ordered against them, they exclaimed, with one voice, that it would not be for their honour to abandon the post without resistance, even though all France should attack it. Two companies, under D. Juan de Villanueva, defended the fords of the river, and repulsed the enemy in their first attempt at crossing, forcing them to retire with such precipitation, that some of Mina’s men, who passed over at night to see what they had left behind, collected more than a hundred muskets from the field. The French took a position which Mina was not strong enough to force, and for a day and a half both parties kept up a fire upon each other; by that time a reinforcement came to the enemy from Pamplona. The river was well defended against them, and before they won the passage they lost above 300 killed, and twice the number wounded: among those who died of their wounds was Leon Asurmendi, a renegade Spaniard, known by the name of Conveniencias, and infamous for the crimes which he had committed in aid of the intrusive government. Having succeeded in crossing the river, the French chose rather to perpetrate their usual cruelties upon the inhabitants of Lumbier than follow Mina, who retired without loss, and in the best order. They obtained information from some traitors of the place where the Spaniards had their hospital; but Cruchaga and Gorriz were too vigilant to let it be surprised, and when the enemy approached they were so warmly received that they were driven back the four hours’ march to Lumbier, leaving on the way sixty killed, many wounded, and twelve prisoners.

Mina was at this time raising a fourth battalion; the French sent a detachment to cut it off before it should be completely formed. Four hundred and fifty men, destined for this service, proceeded against the village of Echarri-Aranaz, where the commandant of the battalion, D. Ramon de Ulzurrun y Eraso, had only about one hundred to oppose them. He left the village, and disposed his handful of men so judiciously, for the double purpose of concealing their numbers and annoying the enemy, that the French dared not enter the place, and during the night the officers did the piquet duty themselves, being afraid to trust their soldiers. “Reams of paper,” Mina said, “would not suffice for the details of all the skirmishes in which he and his party were engaged, ... for every day, and sometimes twice or thrice in the day, they were occurring.”

The more the enemy suffered from this band, the more efforts they made for its destruction, and towards the close of January, Mina was again surrounded. But this lion was not to be taken in the toils. His first measure was to determine upon a point of reunion, and with that spirit which made him so truly formidable to the usurpers of his country, he fixed upon the mountains immediately above Pamplona. Here, having overcome every difficulty that a vigilant and powerful enemy could interpose, Mina collected his gallant companions: still the pursuers were on all sides; there was not a point which he could occupy without being attacked, neither could he remain in that position; and 2000 men, with a proportionate cavalry, sallied from Pamplona to dislodge him. Mina had not waited for this: knowing that there was no escape but by becoming the assailant, he sent Gorriz to El Carrascal, upon the left of the city, to call the attention of the enemy in that direction, and fall upon any convoy or escort which might be upon the road. This movement succeeded perfectly: the troops which were advancing had proceeded little more than a mile when they were hastily recalled by the alarm which Gorriz had raised in another quarter, and the governor, thinking that Mina was on that side, and that the other roads were secure, ordered a convoy of sixty carts with ammunition and stores to set out for Vitoria; 200 men escorted it, and 1000 men followed at about an hour’s interval: ... in Navarre distance is commonly expressed by time ... the best measure in so mountainous a country.

When Mina received intelligence that this convoy was setting out, his men were fasting, and they were three hours’ march from the position which it was proper to occupy for intercepting it. Leaving Cruchaga with the main body, he set off with the horse and two companies of foot; but the convoy had passed the place where he meant to attack it before he could come up. The horsemen, however, fell upon its escort, and they, abandoning the carts, took possession of an adjoining height, where they defended themselves, relying upon the greater force in their rear, and likewise upon assistance from the fortress of Irurzun, which was only at half an hour’s distance. Mina had no time to complete their destruction; it was of more importance for him to secure the ammunition, more precious in his circumstances than the richest booty, and for this there was little leisure; ... on two sides the enemy were approaching in force, and the escort was ready to assail him on the third. Night came on, and on all sides there was firing; his men became mingled with the enemy, and sometimes engaged one another. But when Mina had succeeded in collecting his men, and would have contented himself with drawing them off in safety, and destroying the stores, a general cry arose that they would rather perish than leave behind them what they should make so useful. The men, therefore, loaded themselves with cartridges, of which, after each man had stored himself, they carried off more than 60,000. Other effects, however tempting, they regarded not: but, spoiling what they could, and setting fire to the powder carts, they drew off in safety with their precious plunder. The joy of Mina and his comrades for this success was clouded by one of those fatal accidents for which even a soldier is not prepared: Gorriz that day, in leading on his troops, was thrown from his horse, and lived only long enough to go through the last ceremonies of the Romish superstition: however worthless these were to the sufferer, the thought that his salvation was thus secured was the consolation of his comrades, and probably of no little importance in keeping up their hopes and their belief in the protection of Heaven. Mina spoke of his loss with the deepest sorrow, a sorrow which was felt by all his fellows in arms, whom he had more than once led on to victory, and sometimes saved from destruction.

Mina was now in that perilous stage of his progress, when every new exploit, adding to his celebrity without adding to his strength, served to increase his danger, by exasperating afresh the enemy, and exciting them to make greater efforts to destroy him. In Aragon, as well as in Navarre, the French troops were put in motion to hunt him down, by night and day, like a wild beast. Harispe occupied the bridges of Sanguessa, Galipienzo, and other passes into Aragon; Panatier with another division watched La Ribera de los Arcos, Estella, and its vicinity; and three moveable columns kept up the chase. The first impulse of the Navarrese hero, when he found himself thus beset, was to attack the enemy; but for this he was too weak. Turning back, he marched above Pamplona by El Carrascal, and there he discovered that two of their columns were close at hand; upon this he countermarched towards Lumbier. Harispe was informed of his movements, and at Irurozqui Mina found

♦Feb. 11.♦ the French in his front: his men had made long and rapid marches for the three preceding days, nevertheless they prepared for battle with their wonted resolution. Before the firing began Harispe sent a cavalry officer with a flag, which Cruchaga, who went out to meet him as an enemy, discovered just in time as he levelled a pistol at him. The Frenchman said, he had matters of great importance to treat of, and Mina therefore came to hear them. His errand related to the treatment of prisoners; it was believed in the French army that Mina’s soldiers gave no quarter, and he came to request that this practice might no longer be continued. Mina on his part disclaimed the system which was imputed to him, and required a like declaration on the part of the enemy; to which the French officer replied, that his general was distinguished for humanity, and that all the officers of that division had received orders to treat such of Mina’s men as might fall into their hands as prisoners of war, since they now knew that they did not deserve to be styled brigands, but defenders of their country. Mina observed in his dispatches, that this officer behaved with perfect courtesy, and with more honour than was usual for a Frenchman; and he clearly perceived that this acknowledgment of the rights of war proceeded not from the humanity of the general, but from the discontent of the miserable men under his command, whom Buonaparte and his agents in Spain sent to butcher or to be butchered.

An affair ensued, in which Harispe lost half his cavalry in vainly attempting to break the Spaniards. Five times he attacked their position, and was as often repulsed; but Mina perceiving that a movement was made to cut off his retreat, withdrew in time, in good order, and keeping up a brisk fire. This continued till evening closed; night set in with fogs, and the French and Spaniards got confused and intermingled, firing upon their comrades: at length the latter retired into a difficult pass, where the enemy did not venture to follow them. Mina now determined, with the advice of Cruchaga and his other officers, to break up his force into companies, sending each to a different point; a measure which would distract the attention of the enemy, who would thus lose sight of him, withdraw perhaps part of their troops, and divide the others, and thus give him opportunity to collect his companions again, and strike a blow when it was not expected. He himself retained only twenty horsemen, with whom he meant to make a circuit to preserve order among his scattered bands, and prevent excesses of any kind. After awhile he came to a village near the French border, where some of his companions had stationed themselves, and where he hoped to give a little rest to his comrades; but an overpowering force was brought against him, and he, again dispersing his infantry, went with his little band of horsemen into France. Here he found that his name was known, and his virtues honoured by the mountaineers, while every heart cursed the tyrant who inflicted curses upon Europe, and brought disgrace as well as misery upon France, by the crimes which he compelled her to perpetrate. They offered all they had to the Spaniards, but Mina would suffer nothing to be taken without paying its fair price.

It was not long before the French discovered with astonishment, that Mina had entered France; they dispatched forces against him, which he eluded, and, wandering about the borders of Roncesvalles, Viscarret, and Olbayceta, surprised one of their parties, killing two officers and seven men. A handful of men only were engaged, ... but it was a well-timed success, and an auspicious scene, and Mina said, that the Spanish spirit of old times shone in his comrades that hour. A greater force, to which the fugitives had given the alarm, followed him during the whole night, but without success; and he continued among the mountains within the French border, waiting impatiently for better prospects. “From thence,” says he, “I stretched my eyes over this kingdom close at hand, covered with innumerable enemies, and I groaned for her miserable condition; the imprisonment of so many of its good inhabitants, the persecution and the banishment of the relations of my companions rent my soul, seeing myself without the means for redressing their wrongs.”

But the opportunity which he expected, and which he provided by his retreat, soon occurred; the greater part of the troops which had been sent against him returned toward Zaragoza, and so well had Mina instructed his officers, and so well did they execute their instructions, that when he re-entered Navarre, his whole band were re-assembled within four-and-twenty hours. “It would not have been strange,” he said, “if some of the men, closely pursued as they had been, and dispersed in scattered parties, as the only means of safety, had returned home; but only a very few, who were sick, had done this, and of them not a man without his officer’s permission.” During this long pursuit, the enemy, less accustomed to fatigues and privations than the hardy mountaineers of Spain, suffered a tenfold greater loss than they inflicted; above 1000 of their men were invalided, and as many more wounded in the incessant skirmishes which took place.

♦March 18.♦

A seasonable supply of flints, cartridges, and other necessaries, was sent at this time to Mina by the Junta of Aragon. He was soon seen at the gates of Estella; from that city he decoyed a hundred of the garrison, by showing only a few of his men, whom they sallied to cut off; then he rose upon them, killed half their number, and took the rest prisoners under the very walls of the fortress, not one escaping. A letter from Reille to Marshal Bessieres was intercepted shortly afterwards, in which he said, “that by this imprudence of the governor of Estella, they had lost more men in one foolish affair, than they had taken from the enemy during a pursuit of two months. The brigands,” he added, “had so many partisans, that their sick and wounded were in all parts of the country, and yet it was impossible to detect them: the public spirit was very bad, and the business could never be completed in Navarre, till a place of deportation was appointed for all the relations and connexions of the brigands, and strong escorts along the road to convoy them thither.”

♦March 23.♦

Renewing their efforts for the destruction of an enemy who became every day more popular among his oppressed countrymen, the French attacked Mina a few days after his exploit before Estella, near Arcos. His inferiority in numbers was compensated by his perfect knowledge of every foot of the ground, the experience of his officers in their own mode of warfare, and his confidence in all his followers. After an action which continued nearly the whole day, he drew off in good order, and scarcely with any loss, having killed and wounded nearly 400 of the enemy. They obtained

♦March 26.♦ a reinforcement, and renewed the attack on the third day at Nacar, where he occupied a strong position, and where he succeeded in repulsing them, with the loss of forty killed, about 200 wounded, and seventeen prisoners. He now entered Aragon, and while one part of his force, under Cruchaga, approached Zaragoza, Mina, with three companies and a few horse, surprised a party of the enemy consisting of 152 gendarmes and twenty-eight cavalry: the horses, the commander, another officer, and seventy-seven of the soldiers, were made prisoners, all the rest fell, not a man escaping. Successes of this kind made Mina dangerous in more ways than one to the invaders. Germans, Italians, and even French deserted to him. In the course of five days fifteen hussars came over with their arms and horses, and fourteen foot soldiers, besides some poor juramentados, who were happy in an opportunity of joining their countrymen.

The Junta of Valencia sent him a timely supply of arms; he issued his proclamations through Navarre, and a man was soon found for every musket. Another convoy from Valencia was on its way, and had to cross the Ebro in front of Calahorra. Mina set forth to secure its passage, leaving one battalion at Puente la Reyna to observe the enemy in Pamplona, and another at Carcar to cover Lodosa, which the enemy occupied, and from whence he apprehended most danger. When he reached the river he stationed part of his little force upon the left bank to guard against any attack from Lodosa, on that side also, and with two companies forded, meaning to attack a body who occupied a village on the other side, about a league from the ford. They fled at his approach, leaving some of their effects behind them: 150 horse also, who were in Calahorra, fled to Lodosa; and the passage being thus freed, Mina received his convoy, and returned the same night to Estella, ... for the French after their late loss had evacuated that city, and he made it at this time his head-quarters.

Well had it been for Spain if all the supplies which the Juntas of Aragon and Valencia raised had been as well employed as the little portion allotted to Espoz y Mina. The French were now so well aware of the superiority of his followers over their troops in personal conflict, that they never moved against him without artillery. In his mode of warfare it was impossible for him to be provided with equal arms; but one of his men, by name Josè Suescun y Garcia, contrived to fix three barrels upon one stock and fire them by one lock;

♦May 17.♦ they carried two ounce balls, and were found to succeed well the first trial, which was in an action fought by Cruchaga near Tafalla, with an inferior force against 1500 foot and 180 horse. Between 300 and 400 of the enemy were killed and wounded, and twelve were made prisoners, whom Mina, upon the proposal of the French, joyfully exchanged for an equal number of his own men.

At this time the Intruder went to Paris, for the ostensible purpose of being present at the baptism of Buonaparte’s son. Mina was on the watch to incommode him, as he said, upon his journey; but this wretched man was too well aware of the danger not to take every possible precaution, and occupied every place along the road with a strong force before he ventured to advance. Mina had still his eye upon this road; and shortly afterwards, when 6000 of the enemy from Pamplona and Tudela were about to make a combined movement for the purpose of dislodging him from Estella, he abandoned

♦May 22.♦ that place to them, as if in fear of their numbers, and with the whole of his force entered the province of Alava. He himself, with three of his four battalions and the cavalry, reached Orbizu, the first village in that province, on the morning of the next day; the fourth proceeded by a different route. Here he received information that Massena was expected at Vitoria, on his way to France, with an escort of 2000 men, after his defeat at Fuentes d’Onoro. The hope of meeting with one who had been called the Child and Favourite and Angel of Victory delighted Mina, and he set off immediately in hopes of intercepting him; but Cruchaga, overcome by an illness against which he had borne up for many days, was most reluctantly compelled to remain behind.

At five in the evening of the 24th they reached the Puerto de Azazeta, and halted there till it was dark, lest they should be seen by the enemy or some of his scouts, in passing some plains which were at no great distance from Vitoria. Mina would not enter any village on his way, for the French, under pain of rigorous punishment, had enjoined all persons to give intelligence of his movements; and he was careful not to compromise the people. On the 25th, at four in the morning, he reached Arlaban, the mountain which forms the boundary between Alava and Guipuzcoa, and here he chose his ground, placing one battalion in the woods on the left of the road, two on the right, and the cavalry upon the plain; the fourth he meant to station in a grove when it should arrive, from whence it might surprise the enemy’s rear-guard. There was a little village near, about six miles only from Vitoria; and, that no information might be given by any of the inhabitants, he marched them all off, old and young, into the mountains, and placed a guard over them, ordering them to remain quiet for eight hours as they valued their lives.

Soon after these preparations were made, a messenger reached him with news that Massena had arrived at Vitoria, and would halt there; but that a great convoy was on the point of setting out, with a general in one coach, a colonel and lieutenant-colonel and two women in another, 1100 prisoners, and an escort of 2000 foot and 200 horse. The hope of delivering the prisoners repaid him for the disappointment of his design against Massena. Not trusting too implicitly to the messenger, for fear of deceit, he ordered him to be bound to a point of the rock, and placed a guard over him, who was to put him to death if he attempted to escape, but he promised him a munificent reward if his information should be verified. They were not long in suspense. About eight o’clock the enemy’s van appeared, ... 100 foot and twenty horse, who were allowed to pass unmolested; a second party of thirty foot and twelve horse passed in like manner, that Mina might not, by giving the alarm too early, lose his object. The main body came next with the prisoners, a number of carts laden with plunder, and one of the coaches. A fire was opened upon them from the left by one battalion, and the two others rushed out upon them from the right. The prisoners threw themselves upon the ground that they might not fall by the hands of their friends; then joyfully ran to join their deliverers. Mina went to the coach, for the purpose of saving its passengers; the two officers, however, refusing to surrender, defended themselves with their sabres; one was killed; Colonel Lafitte, the other, was wounded and made prisoner with the women. The French, though thrown at first into confusion and dreadfully cut up, formed with the celerity of well-disciplined and experienced troops; 600 foot and 100 horse brought up the rear with the other coach: upon the first fire the coach was driven back to Vitoria, escorted by the horsemen; the infantry remained and got possession of a height, from whence they annoyed the Spaniards, who were now completing their victory. Two hundred men from the garrison of Salinas came to their succour, but they were dislodged and driven to the gates of Salinas. Mina’s fourth battalion did not arrive till the business was done: the men had made a forced march of fifteen hours and were fasting, nevertheless they joined in the pursuit. By this time reinforcements came to the enemy from Vitoria, and the French in Salinas being joined by part of the garrison of Mondragon, and of all the neighbouring posts, again showed themselves. Mina drove them back, and then thought it advisable to secure what he had gained; the affair had continued five hours, and his men had neither eaten nor drank since ten in the morning of the preceding day; he therefore retired with his spoils to Zalduendo, six hours’ distance from the field.

The French lost their whole convoy and above 1000 men, of whom about 110 only were made prisoners. Among the slain was Valbuena, who, having formerly been aide-de-camp to Castaños, had entered the Intruder’s service, and distinguished himself by his cruelty to his own countrymen. The booty was very great: Mina reserved one load of specie for the public service, and his men took what they could find, many loading themselves with gold, ... the plunder which their enemies were conveying to France. The peasants’ artillery was tried on this day for the second time with excellent effect; at the first discharge it brought down above twenty of the French, and on the second dispersed a column which had formed in the road. The loss of the Spaniards was inconsiderable, but D. Pedro Bizarron, who that day commanded the cavalry, was dangerously hurt, to the great mischief of Mina and all his comrades. Many women were taken, they were treated with respect, and set at liberty. Among the Spaniards who were delivered were twenty-one officers; Garrido was one, the leader of a Guerrilla party in Castille.

Mina’s first care was to place the rescued prisoners in safety, and this could only be done by getting them into Valencia. For this purpose he sent to Duran and the Empecinado to co-operate with him, and pass along the bank of the Ebro in order to protect their passage; but Duran was too far distant, and the Empecinado was at this time closely pressed by the enemy; he had therefore nothing to rely on but himself. Accordingly he made preparations for throwing a bridge over the river, and named the place where it was to be done; the materials were sent towards this place, and he moved in the same direction: then in the middle of the night turning aside marched to a part of the river twelve miles distant, tried the depth by forcing his own horse into the water, and making each of his cavalry take up a man behind him, in this manner landed the whole in safety, while the enemy were waiting to attack him when he should be employed in making his bridge.

♦June 6.♦

Next his band was heard of at Irun, when D. Josè Gorriz, who, according to the Maccabean system, had succeeded his kinsman in the command of the third battalion, forming a junction with the fourth under Ulzurrun, marched against that place, defeated the garrisons of Oyarzun and Beriatu, got possession of the stores of the Intrusive government at Irun, and burnt the bridge which the French had constructed over the Bidasoa, which there separates France from Spain; after which they returned with their booty, though all the force of the adjoining posts was collected to oppose them. Greater and more persevering efforts were now made to destroy him. Caffarelli arrived to take the command in Biscay, and his first object was to signalize himself by the destruction of an enemy, for whose blood Buonaparte thirsted as he had thirsted for that of Schill and of Hofer. Mina was in the village of Mendigorria with three of his battalions and his cavalry, when Caffarelli with one division came against him by Puente la Reyna, another by the Valle de Echaurri; Reille advanced with a third by Carrascal, and a fourth moved from Logroño upon Estella. The whole force in

♦June 14.♦ motion against him amounted to 8000 foot and 2000 horse. Mina put himself in ambush near Carrascal, meaning to attack Reille; he engaged him, and forced him to retire upon Tafalla: but when the Guerrilla chief had advanced in pursuit as far as the village of Barasoain, he discovered that Caffarelli, marching back from Puente, had contrived to cut off the battalion which he himself commanded, and place it between two fires. Reille and Caffarelli then, whose joint force amounted to 700 horse and 4000 foot, attacked him with as great advantage of ground as of numbers, and Mina for the moment expected to see six of the seven companies of his battalion cut off. Their desperate courage brought them off with the loss of twenty-three killed and eighty taken; a heavy loss, but far less than there had been cause to dread, ... and for which in the action they had revenged themselves. He himself was in the most imminent peril: a party of hussars surrounded him, and one of them aimed a blow which he had no other means of avoiding but by stretching himself out upon his horse; the horse at the same moment sprung forward and threw him; he recovered his feet and ran; the horse, ... whether by mere good fortune, or that, in the wild life to which Mina was reduced, like an Arab he had taught the beast to love him ... followed his master, who then lightly leaped into his seat, and, though closely pursued, saved himself.

He got to Lerga with his men; Reille marched to Tafalla, Caffarelli to Monreal; each division being thus three hours’ distance from him. The next day he moved to Sanguesa, and rested there the whole day. On the morrow he was apprized that Caffarelli was approaching Lumbier and Reille Caceda, both points within two hours of him: upon this he sent his cavalry along the river Aragon to call off their attention in that direction, while with the infantry he took his route for the mountains of Biqueza. The two hostile divisions followed him, one on the right, and the other on the left, hoping again to place him between two fires: he had the start of them only half an hour, and having gained the mountain, put his men in order to defend the post; but in the evening the enemy moved off, meaning to take him at more advantage, and he reached the village of Veguezal. This was on the 16th of June; the next day he was informed that Caffarelli and Reille, with the French from the district of the Cinco Villas, would attack him on the 18th on the three sides of the Puerto, Navascues, and Tiermas: he eluded them all by marching to Iruzozgui. Caffarelli followed him as far as Artieda, which was an hour and a half’s distance. Mina was not informed of this: they met on the way to Aoiz; the Spaniards had the good fortune to gain a strong position upon some heights, where they were able to repulse the enemy, notwithstanding his forces were double in number, with the loss of more than 300 killed. This gained them a day’s respite from their pursuers: on the 20th they learnt that Reille had again joined Caffarelli, and Mina once more resolved to divide his force, and thus multiply the chances of escape. Cruchaga, with the second battalion, took his course toward Roncesvalles, and he with the first and third marched for Zubiri. On his way he learnt that the French in Aoiz had been 6000 foot and 700 horse, who were now thus disposed of; 4000 were marching to Zubiri, 2000 with 400 horse to the town of Urroz, and Reille with 300 horse was gone to Pamplona; 200 who had escorted the wounded were also on their way to Zubiri with a supply of ammunition. Fearful as this intelligence was, his men ate their rations with composure, and then amidst incessant rain turned to Larrainzar; ... from thence he sent his third battalion to Bustan, and he himself, with the remaining one marched for the village of Illarse. His own danger was not diminished by this separation, for it seemed of more importance to the enemy to secure his single person than to destroy the troop; they followed close upon the scent: from Illarse they pursued him to Villanueva in Araguil, where he arrived at night, and from whence he set out at two in the morning: as little was he able to rest at Echarri Aranaz; from thence, through the Puerto de Tizatraga, he made for the Puerto de Lezaun; still they were close upon him; he got on to Los Arcos, and the enemy halted at Estella, twelve miles distant.

The French had formed their plan for hunting him down with perfect knowledge of the country, meaning to hem him in on all sides among the mountains; and they had assembled not only all their troops in Navarre for this service, but had drawn soldiers from Alava also, and from part of Castille, and were aided by reinforcements from France. Not less than 12,000 men were now employed against him. Mina, however, knew the ground as well as his pursuers, and never losing hope, and never without resources, he once more divided his men into small moveable columns, which he dispersed among the mountains in contrary directions, but with such instructions, that whenever a favourable opportunity arrived, the reunion might be effected as rapidly as before. The French were thus compelled either to extend their line so far that their strength would not be sufficient to cover it, or else to keep it together without any object upon which they could bring it to bear. As he expected, they found themselves at fault, and before they knew how to act, or where to seek him, he had reunited his three battalions and all his cavalry in Estella, where Cruchaga, with the other battalion, hastened to join him, after having attacked the enemy in Roncesvalles, killed and wounded twenty-five of them, and driven the rest into their fort.

Mina’s reputation was greatly raised by the ability with which he extricated himself from so many dangers, and the loss which he so frequently inflicted upon the enemy; but these persevering efforts of the French had the desired effect of rendering it impossible for him to undertake any enterprise which might tend to the relief

♦Suchet, T. 2. 20. Tarragona.♦ of Figueras, or, by disturbing Suchet in Aragon, operate in aid of Tarragona. That city, one of the most remarkable in Spain for its monuments of antiquity, and for the historical circumstances connected with it, stands about the distance of a musket-shot from the sea shore, on a steep and rocky

♦España Sagrada, T. 24. p. 69.♦ eminence, where (in the words of Florez) it commands and enjoys a free air, a clear sky, and its own fertile plain. Its foundation being in an age beyond the reach of history, has been variously ascribed to Tubal, Hercules, Teucer, Remus, a king of Egypt, and a colony of Phocæans, by fablers who sought in their inventions to gratify that allowable and useful pride which citizens learn to take in the place of their birth and abode ... or to accredit their own theories, or to support some baseless etymology of its name. This alone is certain, that it was a considerable place before

♦Ycart. Grandezas de Tarragona, 65.♦ the Romans and Carthaginians contended for the dominion of Spain; and the remains of its more

♦Laborde Voyage Pittoresque. Introd. p. 31.♦ ancient walls, which excited the wonder of antiquaries in the sixteenth century, excite in the present age their sagacity, their conjectures, and their doubts; for, though resembling those which are called Cyclopean in magnitude and solidity, they differ from them in construction. The Scipios so greatly enlarged and embellished it, as almost to be considered its refounders; and on the division of the Peninsula under the Romans, it gave name to that province which had before been called Citerior Spain. Augustus, according to fond Spaniards, issued from Tarragona his ever memorable decree that all the world should be taxed: here it was that the palm was said to have grown upon his altar during his life; and the year after his death the inhabitants sent deputies to Rome, soliciting permission to erect a temple to him as a god: ... a fragment of that altar, a single stone of that temple, and a few medals, are now the only remains of their vile and impious adulation. When Galba was declared

♦Suetonius.♦ emperor, the crown of gold for his inauguration was taken from the temple of Jupiter in this city. The Egyptian Isis was worshipped here, and the African goddess Cœlestis: and when the Romish church had corrupted Christianity with the polytheism and idolatry of Pagan Rome, changing the names, but retaining the superstition, the craft, and the sin, it was then inferred that Santiago must have sanctified Tarragona by his presence, it being certain that he was at Zaragoza when our Lady descended there with the pillar from heaven. When the barbarians in the reign of

♦Orosius, L. 7. § 15.♦

Gallienus first entered Spain, Tarragona was reduced by them almost to a heap of ruins; and it was the last place in that country which the Romans retained. Many of the Gothic kings coined money there. It underwent a second destruction from the Moors, in revenge for the resolution with which the inhabitants resisted them. Louis the Pious recovered it from them at the beginning of the 9th century, but the Christians could not hold it long; nor is it known by whom it was finally taken from the Mahommedans, nor when, except that it was some time in the 11th century, ... an uncertainty, which shows how slowly it had risen

♦Ordericus Vitalis, 892, quoted by Florez, T. 25. p. 116.♦ from its ruins. Indeed, when Oldegar was made archbishop there, in the year 1116, large oak and beech-trees were growing in the cathedral. This personage, eminent during his life, as a politic prelate and saint militant, and as a worker of miracles after his death, refortified the city, and may be said to have refounded it.

The ruined and almost desolate city, with all belonging or which ought to belong thereunto, was given to this prelate and his successors in the see, under the Romish church, by the Count of Barcelona, Ramon

♦Florez, T. 25. App. No. v.♦

Berenguer 3; the deed of gift transferring to the archbishop full power of every kind, stipulating only for an alliance offensive and defensive with the Tarragonans. Oldegar, finding that after ten years his means were not sufficient to complete the cathedral, or to defend the city, transferred the grant to

♦Ordericus Vitalis, L. 13. § 5. Florez, T. 10. App. ult.♦ be held as a feud under the see to a Norman knight, Rodbert Burdet by name, who had married in that land, and had acquired there considerable possessions and a great name; but

♦Diago. Condes de Barcelona, p. 183.♦ this family, a branch whereof continues to flourish in England, seems to have taken no root in Spain. The tithes both of the sea and land were reserved for the see: ... those of the nuts26 alone from the Selva de Avellana are said to have yielded in some years a thousand escudos. Funds for completing the cathedral, the largest and massiest in Catalonia, were raised by a contribution which the Pope imposed upon the suffragan bishops, and by soliciting alms in aid of the work throughout the province: but the city never recovered even a semblance of its former prosperity.

♦Florez, T. 24. 69.♦

Its circumference is now little more than two miles, and the river Francoli, which, when it bore its ancient name of Tulcis, ran close to Tarragona, is now a mile distant from it. War had not been the cause of this improsperity; for after its restoration, the Moors never attempted it; it suffered little in the revolt of the Catalans; and nothing in the Succession War, the English being received there by the inhabitants, and retiring from it after the peace of Utrecht. But at the time when it might otherwise have partaken the improvement which was then general in Spain, the neighbouring town of Reus made an extraordinary advance in industry and opulence, trebling its population in the course of fifteen years; and making Salo its port, it had the effect rather of taking from Tarragona what trade it might have had, than of contributing to it.

When this unexpected war commenced, Tarragona was deemed so little important as a fortress, that its garrison consisted only of fifty men; it was now the only strong place which the Catalans possessed upon the coast; every exertion had been made to strengthen its works, and they who relied upon fortresses regarded it as the last bulwark of Catalonia. The city was crowded with fugitives from the open country and from towns in the enemy’s possession; there was a strong garrison; and Tarragona had this advantage above every other place in the province which had yet been besieged, that supplies and reinforcements could at all times be thrown in by sea. Captain Codrington was in the roads with the Blake, Invincible, and Centaur, ready to aid in any way wherein the zeal and intrepidity of British seamen could be rendered available. Under these circumstances, the spirit of the principality being what it was, and Valencia with unexhausted resources close at hand, a resolution like that of the Zaragozans and Geronans, or an influencing mind like that of Palafox or of Mariano Alvares, would have baffled all the efforts of the enemy; and unity of counsels, with a competent leader in the field, might have rendered the siege fatal to the besiegers. There were men and means in abundance; the inhabitants as well as the garrison were prepared to act or to suffer; neither will nor resolution were wanting; but there was no commanding mind, no harmony of purpose; some hearts were accessible to fear, and some to corruption. This Count Suchet knew, and could calculate as certainly upon confusion and perplexity in their counsels as upon steadiness and method in his own.

♦May 2.
Siege of Tarragona.♦

He established his head-quarters at Reus: the inhabitants of that busy town had been properly rewarded for the inclination which they had shown toward the French; and their hatred toward them now was in proportion to their sufferings and their repentance. Suchet endeavoured to win them over by maintaining strict discipline, and by courting the chief authorities, civil and religious. Expecting also an obstinate resistance, he prepared extensive hospitals with all things necessary to receive his wounded, and made arrangements for removing them without delay from the trenches; measures whereby he deserved and obtained the affections of the soldiery in a greater degree than any other of the French generals in Spain. He pushed the siege with characteristic vigour, and had soon the satisfaction to learn that Campoverde, having

♦Campoverde enters the city after a defeat.♦ been defeated before Figueras in attempting to relieve that fortress, had hastened back to Tarragona by sea with the remainder of his troops, who were more likely to dispirit the garrison by the distrust which they had conceived of themselves and of their commander, than to bring any increase of real strength. Sarsfield remained with one division in the field, and threatened the enemy’s line from Mora to Reus. This brave and enterprising officer annoyed them on that side; and that part of the besieging army which was encamped on the high and dry level ground at a distance from the Francoli and the Gaya, suffered for want of water, having continually to repair and protect the aqueduct. The most important of the outworks were Fort Francoli, on the left bank of the river to the west of the city, and Fort Olivo: the latter was a new fort, about 400 toises to the north, on ground so high that it could not with safety have been left unoccupied; and this it was deemed necessary to reduce before any attack could be made upon the body of the place. On the part of the enemy’s engineers everything was done which could be expected from a thorough practical knowledge of their destructive art; and so vigorously were their advances resisted by the Spaniards, that the wounded who were carried to the French hospitals are stated by Suchet himself to have been from fifty to threescore daily during the siege of this outwork. The Spaniards estimated them as nearer 300. In one of the sorties General Salme was killed; his body was buried under a part of the aqueduct; his heart embalmed, and deposited under that well-known monument which is called the Tomb of the

♦Fort Olivo betrayed.♦

Scipios. Olivo held out till the night of the 29th; nor would it then have been taken had there not been found a wretch wicked enough to sell the blood of his comrades and the interests of his country. The garrison, consisting of 2000, was to be changed that night, the regiment of Illiberia returning into the town, and that of Almeira taking its place: the French presented themselves at the same time with the new garrison, while a false attack was made in another quarter, and entered with them; others found their way through a dry aqueduct, which the Spaniards had neglected either to destroy or properly to secure, and Fort Olivo was thus taken, some 800 Spaniards being made prisoners, and more than as many slain. For the information which led to this carnage a price had been bargained, and the money27 was paid.

♦General Contreras.♦

At this time General Senen de Contreras arrived at Tarragona in a frigate from Cadiz. He had distinguished himself when a young man, by abridging the voluminous Military Reflections of the Marquis de Santa Cruz, and was thought to have studied his profession so well that he was sent by Charles III. on a travelling mission, to examine into the military institutions of other countries. On this service he was employed four years, visiting England, France, Prussia, Austria, and Russia, and in the campaign of 1788 he served against the Turks. In the war against revolutionary France he acted as aide-de-camp to General Urretia in the Pyrenees; and in the present contest had afforded a timely support to the Portugueze in Alemtejo and Algarve, ... had been in the retreat of the central army, gaining some partial successes in those disastrous days, ... and afterwards, in some critical situations and some important stations, supported the reputation which he had obtained. He landed now at Tarragona in an inauspicious hour, and had immediately a command entrusted to him at the gate opposite Fort Olivo, where he passed the first unhappy night after his arrival in receiving the fugitives. On the following morning Campoverde assembled his chief officers and the deputies of the superior Junta: it was agreed that an effort for raising the siege should be made in the field; and while the general in chief should be thus

♦Contreras appointed to command in the city.♦ employed, Contreras was appointed to command in the city. The danger of the place, and the numerous defects of its incomplete works, were obvious to all military men; and to no one more clearly than to the general who now unwillingly took upon himself the charge of defending it. He represented

♦June.♦ that he was neither acquainted with the troops and officers whom he was to command, nor with the civil authorities with whom he should have to act, nor with the people on whose energetic aid he must rely, nor with the place itself (of which not even a plan could be produced), having, in fact, none of that information which might be considered indispensable for such a command. With this responsibility, however, Contreras was left; and Campoverde

♦Campoverde goes out to act in the field.♦ departed by sea with his staff, and so many officers (every man seeming to act at his own pleasure), that of the regiments in the garrison only two were left with their own colonels or proper commanders. He issued a proclamation before his departure, promising to return in the course of six or eight days with an army, and make an effort, which was to be seconded by the garrison, for raising the siege. The new commander had no expectation that this promise would be performed; but the garrison and the inhabitants looked with confidence to its fulfilment, ... for the Spaniards are a hopeful people, and, all circumstances considered, they had on no former occasion had such reasonable ground for hope. They had lost about 3000 men during the siege, which they supposed to be a less loss than the French had sustained, and they could more easily be reinforced. If, indeed, the same means of defence had been resorted to here as in Zaragoza and Gerona, Tarragona, defective as its works were, must have been impregnable; it was secure against famine; it was in no danger of pestilence; and its numbers might always have been kept up. The enemy had broken the aqueduct, expecting to distress the besieged by reducing them to use the brackish water of their wells; but in this he was deceived, for no distress was occasioned by it. The very sight of the English squadron, and the constant communication with it, and its aid on all opportunities, contributed greatly to the confidence which was felt.

Contreras did not partake that confidence; his measures, however, were such as might support it. He established a military police; he formed the inhabitants into companies; and he employed the women in such services as they were capable of performing. On their part, indeed, a spirit was manifested such as the time required; no danger deterred them from administering refreshments to the soldiers at their stations, nor from bearing away the wounded: it was sometimes necessary to restrain their ardour, but on no occasion did it need excitement. The military chest was almost exhausted; the commander replenished it by levying a contribution upon those merchants who had retired to Villa Nueva with their effects. He gave ear to no overtures from the enemy of whatever kind. When Suchet proposed a suspension of hostilities, that the dead might be interred who lay in heaps around Fort Olivo, in sight from the ramparts of the city, even that proposal was rejected; and in that hot season of the year, and on that rocky soil where graves could not be dug, the French, for their own sakes, were compelled as long as the siege continued to consume the slain by fire.

♦Fort Francoli abandoned.♦

They gave the fort which they had won the name of Salme, from the general who had fallen before it. And now their attacks were directed against Fort Francoli, which they reduced at length to such a state that the commandant found it necessary to abandon it as untenable, destroying such stores as he could not remove. Hitherto there had been no want of firmness in the besieged; but vigour, confidence, and unanimity were wanting among their leaders. Three members of the supreme Junta were in the city, in order that the civil power might through them afford all the aid which the military might require: this they did most unreservedly; but the proposals which they made met with no correspondent consideration, and the soldiers complained of the inaction in which they were kept. When Campoverde first entered the place, it was supposed that he had invested Sarsfield with powers to act for him both as governor-general of the province and

♦Sarsfield.♦ commander in the field; but Sarsfield was soon called after him to Tarragona, and remained there after he had departed. This general was one of the best officers in the Spanish service for an inferior command, ... an intelligent, enterprising, intrepid, and honourable man; but he was punctilious and irritable, and thought less of his country and his duty than of his own personal importance, ... differing in this most widely from Eroles, of whose high reputation and higher virtues he was so jealous, that he regarded him with a dislike little short of personal enmity. This same unhappy temper made it impossible for him to act cordially with Contreras. In the field he might have been far more serviceable than in the fortress, for in the field it was that the best service might have been effected, and the French acknowledged and feared his activity as a partisan; but though he kept up that character in the sallies which he directed, his impractical disposition marred all his better qualities. What he did

♦Cataluña Atribulada, 13.♦ was without consulting the governor; he neither thought it necessary to concert operations with him, nor even to inform him of the results.

♦Troops sent to reinforce the garrison, and landed elsewhere.♦

Meantime the siege was pressed with the utmost skill and exertions; and on the part of the Spaniards there was as much want of concert and ability without the walls as within. Troops were twice sent from Carthagena to reinforce the place, and both times without arms, so that when they arrived they were useless, there being already 2000 men there more than there were weapons for; and therefore by desire of Contreras they were carried on to Villa Nueva, there to be armed, if Campoverde could arm them, or to take their own course! And on the part of Campoverde himself there was such uncertainty, such seeming apathy, that the British officers, who were exerting themselves with indefatigable zeal, apprehended the worst consequences from the incapacity which they now perceived in him. O’Donell, now Conde de Bisbal, was not yet sufficiently recovered from his wound to take the field: his services were never more needed than at this time, when there was no lack of means or men, only of hearts and heads to direct them. He consulted, however, with his brother, who had a command in the Valencian army, and in concert with him and Captain Codrington it was agreed that 4000 of the best Valencian troops should be sent in British ships to reinforce the garrison, while the rest of that army should move to the banks of the Ebro, and there, in concert with the Aragonese, threaten Suchet’s depôts, the movement which of all others he apprehended most. These troops, under General Miranda, were accordingly embarked at Peñiscola, with written orders to land at Tarragona; the intention being that they should join in a sally, which Captain Codrington thought could not fail of success. Miranda, however, refused to land, protesting that both his written and verbal instructions forbade him to shut himself up in the fortress with his division. This was neither the place nor the time for disputing; and as little good service can be expected from one in whom good will is evidently wanting, the division landed at Villa Nueva, according to Campoverde’s desire, that they might join him at Igualada, and act upon the besiegers’ flank.

Suchet, meantime, was not without uneasiness: he had already lost 2500 men, including 280 officers; and hitherto the chief advantage which he had gained had been obtained less by force of arms than by corruption. But the feeble irresolution of the Spanish leaders and their ruinous delays gave him time, by which he profited like one who knew its value; and on the evening of the 21st he assaulted the lower town; three breaches had been made, and with all its defences, it was in the course of an hour in his hands, at the cost of about 500 men. It is said that the same means for insuring success had been provided here as at Fort Olivo28. With the exception of a small number, all the Spaniards were put

♦The lower town taken.♦ to the sword in the town, at the port, in the houses, and in pursuit ... to the gates of the upper town; only 160 prisoners were taken, most of whom were wounded; no more than these were spared, while the number of bodies which the French collected and burnt amounted to 1350. Suchet then held forth a threat which he had now shown, that the troops whom he commanded were capable of carrying into effect: “I

♦Suchet’s threat.♦ fear much,” said he, “that if the garrison wait for the assault in their last hold, I shall be forced to set a terrible example, and intimidate Catalonia and Spain for ever by the destruction of a whole city!”

Sarsfield, who was slightly wounded in this action, embarked immediately to join Campoverde and act in the field; this he did without informing Contreras of his intention, and at a moment when his presence was more needful than it had been at any former time. An officer was appointed to succeed him as soon as his departure was known; but before that officer could repair to his post, the enemy had forced it, and were

♦The mole at Tarragona.♦ masters of the mole. Ten years had not quite elapsed since that port had been a scene of proud rejoicing, the King and Queen of Spain having visited it to inspect the works at the mole, which having been commenced in the year 1790, were then on the point of completion. The quarries being near at hand, an enormous stone had been prepared for this occasion, on which an image of Neptune, ten feet high, was placed, with one hand reining the dolphin on which he stood, with the other holding his trident. The huge mass was raised by the exertions of three hundred men, and let down into its place in the sea. Neptune descending with it as into his own empire, amid the sound of music, and the festive discharge of artillery, and the exulting acclamations of myriads of beholders. The beach which on that day had been lined with happy multitudes was soon to become the scene of the most atrocious tragedy in this whole dreadful war.

♦Campoverde’s inactivity.♦

The Junta of Tarragona were now so indignant at the conduct of Campoverde, whose futile movements at this crisis were as injurious as his inactivity, that they enclosed to him his own proclamation, issued at the time of his departure, wherein he had promised to relieve them in the course of a few days. Three weeks had now elapsed; he had been reinforced with 4000 Valencian troops on whom he had not counted when that promise was made; and there was a general outcry against his unfitness for the command. Eroles alone acted with the spirit which the exigence required, and succeeded in capturing a convoy of 500 laden mules between Mora and Falset, and cutting off part of their escort. Wherever his services were most needed there he was always to be found, ... seeking as little to aggrandize as to spare himself, his single object being the deliverance of his country. The magazines at Reus were not so well provided but that the loss of these supplies would have been felt by the besiegers, if the city had been defended after the manner of Gerona. But the Geronans were commanded by a man of the old heroic stamp, and they had no base examples to discourage them: whereas the garrison and the people of Tarragona saw nothing in the conduct of their leaders and their countrymen but what was disheartening. While the gun-boats and launches of the British squadron were employed every night, and all night long, in annoying the enemy’s working parties, there were two Spanish frigates which remained quiet spectators. While the English were removing women, children, and wounded, in their transports to Villa

♦Ill behaviour of the Spanish frigates.♦

Nueva, those frigates would not receive on board their wounded countrymen who were sent off to them; and these poor creatures were left to lie without assistance of any kind in the boats which brought them off till relief was sent them from the British ships. This heartless disregard of all duty called forth strong remonstrances from General Doyle, as well as from Captain Codrington; and it was not till above 2000 people had been removed in our transports that the positive orders of Contreras, and the threat of General Doyle, that the captain of one of their frigates should be put under arrest if he refused to receive the wounded, compelled them to act as if they had some sense of honour and humanity. Had the Spaniards in the fortress and in the field displayed as much spirit and alacrity as was manifested by the British ships in their aid, Contreras has declared that Tarragona could not have been taken.

♦Col. Skerret arrives with British troops.♦

Suchet meantime pushed his attacks vigorously against the only remaining defences of the city, aware that he had no time to lose, and that if preparations were made for defending the streets and houses, a war of that kind might detain him till efficient succours should arrive by sea. Sir Edward Pellew, who had just taken the command of the Mediterranean fleet, was hastening with all speed to assist the besieged; and when the enemy’s batteries for forming a breach were almost completed, a detachment of 2000 British troops under Colonel Skerret arrived from Cadiz in the bay. He landed with his engineers, and they perceived how ill the front which the French threatened was able to withstand such batteries as would presently be opened against it. There was but one point now at which a disembarkation could be effected, and that point was flanked by the enemy. The disembarkation would nevertheless have been made, and these troops would have saved Tarragona, or fallen in its defence, if Contreras had not recommended that they should co-operate with Campoverde from without: their presence, he thought, might goad that general on to action, and give reasonable hope of some decisive success in the field, from which alone he looked for deliverance. Besides, he said, the garrison was numerous enough; and as soon as the enemy should have opened their trenches, and begun to batter in breach, he had determined to abandon the place, thinking it of more importance to preserve 7000 fine troops, than to defend the ruins of Tarragona. Skerret, therefore, met Eroles, who came from Campoverde; and they agreed with Doyle and Codrington, that the best plan would be for a sally to be made from the town with 4000 men, and Skerret at the same time to land and join in it. But when they came to consult with Campoverde himself and with Sarsfield, doubts and difficulties were started; other schemes were proposed, discussed, and rejected, and at length a written project of Campoverde’s was assented to. He had just before required 3000 of the best troops from the garrison: Contreras said, he would not commit such an error as to send them: he sent, however, one of the regiments which had been specified. Meantime, precious hours were let pass unprofitably by the Spaniards, and the French the while were unremittingly active in their operations.

♦Tarragona taken by assault.♦

On the 28th a breach had been made between two bastions capable of only two, or, at the most, three men abreast. That afternoon there was a strong cannonade: it ceased, and a dispatch came off from Contreras to the squadron, saying that the British guns had silenced the enemy’s batteries, that very little harm had been done to the place, and that the breach was nothing; yet he said, knowing the city was not tenable, he had determined upon leaving it with the garrison next day. While the British officer was reading this dispatch, the enemy were seen from the ships storming the breach, and in half an hour the place was carried. The Spaniards, disheartened by all the previous events of the siege, ... betrayed by some, and by others deceived and disappointed, ... abandoned themselves now: they were seized with a sudden panic; ... and there is nothing to alleviate, nothing to mingle with and modify the horror wherewith the ensuing tragedy will be regarded as long as the history of these times shall be held in remembrance. The scene was shameful as well as shocking. Instead of maintaining the breach, as the people of Gerona had done when suffering under disease and famine; instead of attempting to cut their way through the enemy, which at one time had less wisely and less generously been intended, the soldiers fled. Without the satisfaction of selling their lives dearly, or the sense of duty to console them in death, they suffered themselves to be butchered without resistance. Some of the officers tried every means to rally their men, but such efforts were in vain; that moral discipline had been neglected by which Zaragoza and Gerona have rendered themselves for ever worthy of admiration. The governor of the place, Gonzalez, with a handful of brave men, defended himself till the last, and fell. Contreras was wounded, and taken prisoner. The last effort was made before the cathedral, whither a multitude of Spaniards had betaken themselves; some in the vain hope that the sanctity of the place might protect them, some that they might die before their altars, and some to avail themselves of the vantage ground afforded by the ascent, which is by a flight of threescore steps. The conquerors made their way up under a destructive fire; and their fury, according to Suchet, knew no bounds, till upon entering the cathedral they beheld nine hundred wounded lying on the

♦Mémoires, 2. 105.♦ pavement. Their bayonets, he says, respected them; and he commends what he calls this trait of humanity. Little was shown elsewhere; but the carnage was chiefly among the inhabitants. Many thousands who had got over the ramparts or through the embrasures, or through the gate of St. Antonio, fled along the beach. The French field artillery and the batteries opened a fire upon this mixed and flying multitude on one part; and on another the cavalry charged among them, sabring the women and children, and trampling them down.

♦Massacre at Tarragona.♦

These execrable conquerors kept up a heavy fire upon the landing-place, where women and children stood grouped together, crowding to the British boats; and they endeavoured to sink the boats that were employed in this service of humanity. Suchet stated in his official account that four thousand men were killed in the city, and a thousand sabred or drowned in endeavouring to make their escape, ... “a horrible massacre had been made,” he said, “with little loss on the side of the conquerors; the terrible example which he had foreseen had taken place, and would be long remembered in Spain!” From the Spaniards and from our own officers we learned what was the nature of this example, which, because it was threatened, must be believed to have been predetermined! More than 6000 unresisting persons were butchered; old and young, man and woman, mother and babe; and when the enemy had satiated their thirst for blood they turned to the perpetration of crimes more damnable than murder. In the streets and in the churches they violated women who had escaped their first fury, only to suffer now worse horrors before they died. Nuns and wives, and widows in the hour when they were widowed, girls and children, were seized on by these monsters, ... and, retaining their cruelty when rage and lust were palled, they threw many of these victims, and of the wounded Spaniards, into the burning houses.

There were officers in this accursed army whose hearts revolted at the wicked service in which they were engaged, and who at all times redeemed themselves as far as they could by acts of individual humanity. What little mercy was shown at Tarragona ... little indeed it was, ... was owing to such men. But General Suchet was of the school of terrorists29; his intention was to intimidate Catalonia and the whole of Spain by this terrible example; and on the following morning he ordered the Alcaldes and Corregidores from the surrounding country to be brought together and led through the streets of Tarragona, that they might see the bodies

♦Contreras, p. 72.♦ which were lying there, and report to their countrymen what they might expect if they dared attempt resistance to the French! If, indeed, at

♦Campoverde resolves to abandon Catalonia.♦ any time it were possible to intimidate such a people as the Catalans, who in all ages have shown the same invincible resolution, it would have been now, when the last bulwark of the province had fallen. By some strange imprudence the greater part of their ammunition had been deposited there, and very little remained in those parts of the country which were yet free. There still remained in the field the remains of an army which they had clothed and armed at their own cost, as well as raised among themselves; and which, often as it had been defeated, had nevertheless shown a braver countenance to the enemy, and inflicted upon him greater loss than any other in the Spanish

♦July 1.♦ service. The general, however, held a council of war at Cervera; the usual course when a commander wishes to shift from himself the ignominy of the measures which he is prepared to take. It was proposed to abandon the province, as if farther resistance were hopeless. Eroles was not present; and though Sarsfield, who was the first to give his opinion, declared that any one who should vote for such an abandonment would be a traitor to his country, and that he and his division would stand or fall with the principality, he received only a faint and false support from Campoverde, and was consequently outvoted; and an aid-de-camp of the general was sent to inform Captain Codrington that they were on their march to Arens, there to embark, leaving their horses on the beach. Codrington replied, that having brought the Valencians thither for a special service, he felt himself bound in duty to take their division on board, and return them to the general and kingdom by which they had been spared; but that he would not embark the army of Catalonia, and thus make himself a party concerned in the abandonment of a province which he was sent to protect. Upon receiving this answer, Campoverde determined upon marching into Aragon, ... not upon any brave attempt, but for the chance of making his way into some safer country; a determination which so dismayed the Valencians, that nearly 2000 of them dispersed, as well knowing how much better they could shift for themselves individually than they were likely to fare in such an undertaking. The commander now began to perceive that as the English would not take away his army by sea, neither would the troops follow him by land; and there was a general call that Eroles should take upon himself the command.

♦Eroles refuses to leave it.♦

But Eroles, who acted always from a worthier motive than ambition, replied to the Junta of generals who would have conferred it upon him in obedience to the voice of the people, that as long as any of those who were his superior officers remained in the principality, he must decline it; but that whenever, in pursuance of the resolution which had been taken, they should pass the boundaries, he would then, however unwillingly, take upon him that duty, rather than see his country thrown into the worse anarchy which must otherwise ensue.

♦General Lacy arrives to take the command.♦

That anarchy began already to be felt. The superior Junta at Solsona were left to learn as they could the resolution that had been taken of withdrawing the army which they had raised and provided; and deserters were already collecting in bands and acting as guerrillas, or as banditti, as opportunity invited. But the Junta, when they laid their situation (dissembling nothing) before the British admiral, assured him that they would persevere in the contest, because they knew that the Catalans were more than ever unanimous in their abhorrence of the invaders. Tarragona had been betrayed, not conquered: the enemy might congratulate themselves upon their good fortune, not upon victories well contested and fairly won; ... this was the language of the people. At this crisis, General Luis Lacy arrived upon the coast to take the command: the Duque del Infantado had been talked of for it, and the Catalans wished for him; but the Duke was more in his place at Cadiz; and a fitter commander than Lacy could not at that time have been sent to a charge which might seem so hopeless. Eroles, after a fruitless endeavour to meet him, sent him full information of the state of affairs, and promised to support him in the command whereto he was regularly appointed with all the personal exertions of which he was capable, and all the

♦July 9.♦ influence that he possessed in this his native province. The French were just then endeavouring to cut off the Valencian division, and their movements made the communication difficult between the army and the coast. The remainder of that division, however (reduced to 2400, though not a man had fallen, for they had never faced the enemy), made their way to Arens de Mar, and were there embarked, Eroles detaining the enemy by a feint at Mataro. Lacy then assumed the command of an army which he said was non-existent: “Bad as I expected to find things,” said he, “they are infinitely worse; and my only consolation must be, that there is absolutely nothing left for me to lose.”

♦Montserrate taken by the French.♦

The fortified points which the Catalans still retained were Berga, Montserrate (for this had been made a military post), Figueras, Cardona, and the Seu d’Urgel. Berga was dismantled by Lacy, because he was unable to defend it, and it might have been a useful hold for the French. Orders arrived from Paris to demolish Tarragona, preserving only a redoubt there, to reduce Montserrate, and then prepare to march against the kingdom of Valencia. Suchet was at the same time created a marshal of the empire for his services; the massacre at Tarragona was considered as no reproach to him, or the army by which it had been perpetrated. By General Rogniat’s advice, the works which surrounded the upper town were preserved, because they might be defended by a thousand men: the other works were destroyed, and the greater part of the artillery removed to Tortosa. Montserrate was then attacked; ... its former peaceful inhabitants had removed to Majorca, and taken with them in time the treasures of their sanctuary. Great enterprise and activity were displayed in the attack; and the garrison, confiding too much in the natural strength of the mountain, suffered themselves to be surprised from its heights. This was a severe loss to the Catalans; for it was now their chief depôt, and they had counted upon its security. The

♦Fall of Figueras.♦ last calamity in this series of misfortunes was the fall of Figueras. When it had been blockaded between four and five months, and all the horses were eaten, the garrison sallied, and attempted to force their way through the besiegers. An aid-de-camp of the governor had deserted and given information of their purpose; the enemy therefore were prepared to receive them; nevertheless they made their way to the abattis, formed of trunks of trees, which they found impenetrable;

♦August 19.♦ and after three attempts in the course of one day, these gallant men were compelled to capitulate, three sacks of flour being all the provisions which were left. During two preceding days they had employed themselves in destroying whatever could be of use to the enemy. Honourable terms were obtained, and Martinez was made to say in his dispatch to his own Government that the garrison were treated by the French with the generosity which characterises that nation. That phrase would be rightly understood by

♦Base usage of the prisoners taken there.♦ the Spaniards. It had been stipulated that they should march out with their baggage, and deliver their arms on the glacis. But no sooner had they given up their arms than they were plundered; and they were marched into France in such a state of destitution, that they were indebted for needful covering to the humanity of the towns through which they passed. Eight hundred peasants were among these prisoners. Buonaparte sent them to the hulks at Brest and Rochefort, and there they were compelled to work with the convicts, being distinguished from them only by a dress of different colour, not by any difference in30 treatment.

When Figueras had been recovered from the enemy, it was asserted in the Government gazette, that in consequence of that event the French had abandoned Hostalrich and Gerona, and that the English had taken Rosas; so readily did the Spaniards listen even to the idlest rumours of success! The French in like manner believing, or professing to believe, what they wished, gave out upon their recapture of this fortress that the war in Catalonia was ended: so M. Macdonald affirmed in his dispatches; and the vain boast was repeated in the Barcelonan journal, though in that city undeniable proofs of its falsehoods were daily and hourly received. One of the most remarkable men whom these troubles had drawn from obscurity into active life was Jose

♦Manso.♦

Manso, who at the commencement of the struggle followed the humble occupation of a miller upon a small patrimony of his own, near Barcelona; some French officers, by their outrageous conduct towards him, roused in him a spirit which under happier circumstances might never have been awakened, and he began his honourable warfare against the invaders with only three comrades. By a series of exploits skilfully planned and bravely executed, he had gained for himself a high reputation, which was in no slight degree enhanced by his moral worth; for it might truly be said of him that he was without fear and without reproach. When Manso entered upon this new course of life he was about two or three and twenty years of age, and was so uneducated that he could neither write nor read; but every portion of time that could now be spared from his military duties was devoted to self-improvement, and his progress in this kept full pace with his fortune. At this time he held the rank of lieutenant-colonel in the Catalan army; and when Suchet, soon after the fall of Tarragona, was on his way to the capital of the province, he, at the head of a detachment, harassed his march, and succeeded in cutting off some fifty of the enemy and taking six, between Ordal and Molins de Rey; but twelve of his soldiers were taken in these skirmishes, and the French commander ordered some of them to be shot, some to be hanged, and some to be burnt, though they claimed the protection to which they were entitled by the laws of war, and though they threw themselves at his feet and entreated mercy. His orders were executed; some thirty peasants of St. Vincente, Molins de Rey, and Palleja, who were working in the fields, were murdered in like manner; and every woman who fell into the hands of these inhuman troops became their victim. Manso issued a proclamation denouncing these crimes before God and man; and declaring that the right of reprisals which till then he had from humanity forborne to exercise should instantly be enforced; he hung his six prisoners in the immediate vicinity of Barcelona; and gave notice, that every Frenchman who from that hour fell into his hands should be put to death, till the enemy should have learnt to treat as prisoners of war brave men who were fighting for their country, which had been perfidiously invaded, their religion, which was insolently outraged, and their king, who had been treacherously decoyed into captivity.

♦Conduct of the Junta of Catalonia.♦

The French asserted also in their journals, that the Junta of Catalonia had fled to Majorca, giving up the principality in despair. The Spanish frigates had indeed run for that island, contrary to orders, carrying with them the archives, and the money, stores, ammunition, and medicines intended for the inland fortresses, and at that time especially needed by them. But the Junta were at their post when Catalonia was left to stand or fall by its own strength, and when without their presence there could have been none to call forth or direct it. In many parts of Spain the provincial Juntas disregarded sometimes, and sometimes counteracted, the orders of the Government; but here the duties of Government devolved upon the Junta. From Solsona they now issued some of those proclamations which contributed so greatly to support the national cause, calling upon their countrymen in the language of hope and heroism and indignation, and exhorting them to rely upon their good cause and their own right arms, and the justice of the Almighty. The Barcelonan journal said that Lacy had fled with the Junta. If they who made this assertion believed it themselves, they

♦Lacy’s proclamation.♦ were speedily undeceived. That general declared in a proclamation, that if his well-founded hope of soon seeing better days should be disappointed, he would die with the last soldier rather than abandon his post: eight days he allowed the dispersed troops for rejoining their colours at the places fixed upon; those who should not then have rejoined were to be pursued as deserters by the civil and military authorities. “Catalans,” said he, “the country is in danger, and now more than ever stands in need of your exertions. The Junta and your general are bound to explain to you your situation, because true courage consists not in being ignorant of danger, but in overcoming it. The fall of Tarragona has made that situation critical in the extreme, not desperate. There yet remain to us inextinguishable hatred of oppression and ardent love of independence; ... there yet remain to us strong-holds and mountains; ... there remain to us the arms of our numerous and valiant youth for recovering what is lost, and for making the enemy know that the attempt to conquer us is vain. With fewer resources did Pelayo from the mountains of Covadonga begin the deliverance of Spain: and there are not wanting to us chiefs who are determined to follow his glorious example. Great efforts are necessary: let our efforts then be united, and for those who have not spirit to follow this resolution, let them abandon us and join the enemy, that we may know whom to treat as enemies, and whom as friends. The priest, the religioner, the father of a family, every one has wrongs to avenge, every one has much to lose, and our country calls upon all. In all parts the alarm-bell is heard, and wherever there are enemies, there should be Catalans to fight them. War and vengeance must be our only business; and, like our forefathers, let us leave to the women the care of our houses and families!”

♦Retreat of the cavalry from Catalonia to Murcia.♦

Yet while Lacy held this language, and used at the same time every exertion for collecting the dispersed troops, he was obliged to dismiss a body of cavalry, from utter inability to support them, or even to feed the horses. Brigadier D. Gervasio Gasca commanded this division, which contained twelve superior and 112 subaltern officers, 922 men, and about 500 horses, the remains of the regiment of Alcantara, the Numancian dragoons, Spanish hussars, cazadores of Valencia, and hussars of Granada. They had to make their way through Aragon, into a free province, and incorporate themselves with the first army they could find. The details of their march show the skill with which the enemy had chosen his positions, so as to give him military command of the country; for near as Valencia was, Gasca was six weeks on the way, and travelled between 700 and 800 miles before he could effect his junction with a Spanish army. He began this perilous retreat on the 25th of July, with his horses in miserable condition for want of food, and without money; getting provisions and information as he could find them; and having no means of procuring either, except such as chance or charity might bestow. At Graus, a small party of the enemy were found, whom they kept in check with a part of their force, while the rest forded the Esera by Barazona. Making long marches, so as to outrun the intelligence of the enemy, they succeeded in passing the rivers Cinca and Gallego without opposition; but when they were in the district of Las Cinco Villas de Aragon, knowing that the French from Barbastro and Huesca were about to collect and cut them off, they made yet longer marches, taking a more devious direction, and moving by night. Notwithstanding these precautions, they were attacked at midnight near the village of Luesia, by what force they knew not, but the fire came from the village, and from a height which commanded the ground over which they were passing. Gasca could not prevent his men from making a precipitate retreat; he had only time to name a place of rendezvous; and while the enemy, who consisted of 1000 foot, and from two to three hundred horse, under the Polish general Chlopiski, hastened to cut them off from the pass of the Gallego, Gasca avoided them by entering Navarre, where he rested three days at Eybar, expecting help from Espoz y Mina to effect the perilous passage of the Ebro. Three parties of that distinguished leader’s cavalry came to assist and guide him: their knowledge of the country was of essential service; they made a rapid and unexpected march to one of the fords of the river; its waters were swoln, and they were obliged in some places to swim: the passage, however, was effected, and immediately Gasca marched from four in the afternoon of one day till eight on the following morning, that he might get out of reach of the garrisons of Tafalla, Caparroso, and Tudela. The danger was now less imminent, though still sufficiently great; they made shorter marches, varying their direction, according to the intelligence they procured of the enemy; and thus, after six weeks of such hardships as few people, except the Spaniards, could have sustained, they joined the army in Murcia by the circuitous way of Guadalaxara and Cuenca, having lost upon the road four officers, 153 men, and 213 horses: the greater part of these men had been dispersed in the night route at Luesia; the horses had mostly died upon the march.

♦State of the enemy in Catalonia.♦

But the Catalans, in circumstances under which almost any other people would have despaired, never lost hope; their saying was, that now, when the fortified places were lost, the war was only begun. And indeed, deplorable as the state of things was for the natives, it was far more so for the invaders: they were masters of almost every fortress, but their dominion did not extend beyond the walls. They levied contributions upon the villages near, and this was all; ... they could only move in large detachments, and wherever they moved they were harassed by the armed peasantry and the Somatenes. The daily and hourly cost of life at which they kept their ground was such, that the enemy, who avowed their determination of extirpating half the inhabitants in order to intimidate the rest, must have exhausted the resources, if not the patience, of France, before such a determination could be executed. In the preceding year Suchet had dispersed a proclamation, declaring that Great Britain and her Spanish allies had made peace with France, and acknowledged Joseph Buonaparte as king of Spain. The French now circulated a report that negotiations were going on, and with such probability of success, that Talleyrand had been sent to London, and the Emperor himself had gone to the coast for the purpose of expediting the business. But these artifices availed them nothing, for Doyle contradicted their falsehood in addresses which were carried everywhere, and eagerly received, ... and British ships were still upon the coast, to act wherever opportunity might offer.

♦Las Medas recovered by the Spaniards.♦

Every success at this time was of great importance in its moral effect. Men are usually alive to hope in proportion as their natures are generous; and the same cause, which throughout the war rendered it impossible to depress the Spaniards, made them easily elated. Of the patriotic journals which were published in every part of Spain, scarcely a number appeared that did not contain details of some skirmish, some guerrilla attack, some successful enterprise, or hair-breadth escape, ... more animating than success in the recital. These things, more even than signal victories, tended to excite a military spirit, when no other advantage accrued from them. But of the advantages which the Catalans at this time obtained, one was of considerable importance. An expedition of Spaniards and English, who in all were but a handful

♦Sept. 1.♦ of men, recovered the isles of Las Medas, which had been betrayed to the enemy the preceding year. Colonel Green, the British commissioner, and Baron de Eroles, commanded in this well-planned and well-executed attempt; and the crew of the Undaunted frigate, Captain Thomas, displayed that zeal and those resources in dragging guns up the rocks, by which British seamen have often made themselves dreaded upon their enemies’ shores. They found in the fort four guns and provisions for three months. Both officers perceived how important it was to retain possession of a place which at little expense might be rendered a second Gibraltar, ... for little was necessary to render it impregnable: here was a post where they could receive supplies, and here a depôt might be securely established. Eroles, therefore, dispatched orders for 500 men to come and garrison it. The French were equally aware of the advantage which the possession of this point would give their enemies. They brought down a considerable force to Estardit, a village on the opposite shore, and opened batteries against the island, which was within reach of shells. The succours which Eroles had gone to expedite did not appear; the force upon the island consisted only of 146 men, exhausted with the fatigues they had undergone; and Colonel Green reluctantly yielding to the representations of the officer

♦Sept. 4.♦ of the Undaunted, abandoned the works which he had begun, and with them the hopes which he had formed, and blew up the fort. The opportunity, however, was happily retrieved. Lacy, who felt the want of such a point to look to, embarked with 200 men from Arens de Mar in the Undaunted; and taking

♦Sept. 13.♦ with him labourers, tools, and stores in some transports, re-occupied the islands, giving them the names of the Isles of Restoration, because, he said, this might be considered as the first step to the recovery of the principality. Water was discovered there, a sufficient garrison established, and the fortifications commenced and carried on in sight of the enemy on the opposite shore, and in defiance of their batteries. Bomb-proofs for men and stores were soon made in a situation favourable for such works. The chief battery was named Lacy by the governor; but that general said he would not permit himself to receive this honour, it should be called Montardit, in honour of the last Catalan whom the French, having taken in arms, had put to death, in violation of the laws of war.

General Lacy, being unable to undertake any considerable attempt against the enemy, determined, in the right spirit of a soldier, to make activity and enterprise supply the want of numbers, and cut up the invaders in

♦Successful enterprise of Lacy and Eroles.♦ detail. They had formed a chain of fortified posts from Barcelona to Lerida. These he resolved to attack, and began by a rapid march upon Igualada, where the enemy had fortified a Capuchine convent. Four hundred men with two guns were to have joined him from Cardona; but he was disappointed of this aid, for no means of moving the guns, nor for making the road practicable for them, could be procured in time; all that could be done was to surprise the town, and cut off as many of the French as possible before they could take refuge in their fort. At three in

♦Oct. 4.♦ the morning the sentinels were put to the sword, the enemy surprised in their quarters, twenty-five prisoners were taken, and about 150 killed; the rest escaped into the convent, as they got out of their beds; and Lacy, seeing at daybreak that succours were coming to them from Monserrate and Casa-Masana, retired to Col de Gusem, satisfied with his success, and thence to Manresa. This made them suppose that he had desisted from offensive operations; and a convoy which, in fear of his movements, had been for some days detained at Cervera, ventured to move toward Igualada. Eroles with half the Catalan force got before it, and the commander-in-chief with the other half cut off its retreat. A column with artillery sallied from Igualada to its assistance, but came only to share in the defeat;

♦Oct. 7.♦

200 were wounded and made prisoners, the killed were in proportion, and the whole convoy was taken.

The general finding now that his presence was necessary in the Junta, to forward the formation and organization of the army, left Eroles, his second in command, to complete the plan, which had already so far succeeded that the French, dreading a second attack, and weakened by this last loss, retired precipitately from Igualada, Monserrate, and Casa-Masana, to Barcelona. Eroles no sooner knew that Igualada had been evacuated

♦Oct. 10.♦ than he marched against Cervera. The French, when they saw him approaching, withdrew from the city into the university, which they had fortified; and a body of 500 foot and thirty horse, which had just arrived from Lerida to their support, turned back to provide for its own safety. D. Luis de Creeft and D. Jose Casas were sent to pursue them, while Eroles with one ten-pounder prepared to attack buildings which had been designed by their founders for far other purposes than those of war. This single gun threw down part of the house in which it was planted; but Eroles turned the accident to advantage; for while he affected to be replacing it, in order to deceive the enemy, the gun was moved to another situation, from whence it opened its fire, anew, and its carriage was rattled along so as to make them believe that more artillery was about to be brought to bear. Their commandant soon hung out the white flag, and 630 men were made prisoners of war, at an expense to the Catalans of only ten in killed and wounded.

♦Corregidor of Cervera taken and punished.♦

This conquest set free a considerable territory, which, ever since the loss of Tarragona, had been at the enemy’s mercy. Creeft, meantime, with a force inferior to that he was pursuing, followed the column which was retreating to Lerida, and which on its way was joined by the garrison of Tarrega, another post abandoned by the French in their alarm. In this pursuit the corregidor of Cervera was taken attempting to escape with the enemy; a man who had joined the French, and, with the malevolence of a traitor, persecuted his own countrymen. He had invented a cage in which to imprison those who did not pay their contributions, or were in any way obnoxious to him: it was so constructed as to confine the whole body, leaving the head exposed to be buffeted and spit upon; and sometimes this devilish villain anointed the face of his victim with honey to attract the flies and wasps. “Tomorrow,” said Eroles in his dispatches, “the señor corregidor will go out to parade the streets in this same cage, where the persons who have suffered this grievous torment may behold him: Discite justitiam moniti, et non temnere Divos!” The capture of this man was worth as much, in the feelings of the people, as all the preceding success.

♦Eroles enters France and levies contributions.♦

Eroles, with the rest of his division, now hastened to Bellpuig, where Creeft had blockaded about 400 French in the old palace of the Dukes of Sesa, a castle of the fifteenth century, which they had fortified, and which commanded the town. The besiegers had only one ten-pounder, and the walls were more than seven feet thick. They had no time to lose, for Latour, with the troops who had escaped from Igualada, and the garrisons of the other evacuated posts, was preparing, in concert with the enemies from Lerida and Balaguer, to march against them. Unused as they were to such operations, and, as Eroles said, without any other engineers than ingenuity and strong desire, they made three mines which reduced

♦Oct. 14.♦ the castle almost to a heap of ruins: 184 prisoners were taken, the rest of the garrison perished. This success completed Lacy’s plan, and set free the whole of the country between Lerida and Barcelona. Eroles then, by a movement as judicious as it was unexpected, while the French commanders were concerting plans against him, marched by the Seu de Urgel to Puigcerda, where he routed all the force that the enemy could bring against him: then having occupied the pass of the Valle de Luerol, he entered France, and levied contributions in Languedoc. It was the earnest wish of Baron de Eroles that his troops in this expedition should be as much distinguished by their good order, moderation, and humanity, as the French in Spain were for their crimes. In every place, except one, this object was effected; but in the little town of Marens, the only place where resistance was made by the inhabitants and an armed force, a soldier, in violation of his orders, set fire to one of the houses: the wind was high, the flames spread, notwithstanding the efforts which were made to stop them, and the whole place was burnt. Villamil, governor of Seu de Urgel, who commanded this division of Eroles’ army, expressed his regret for what had happened; “But, perhaps,” he said, “the furious hand which committed the evil had been impelled by divine justice, that France might behold an image of Manresa.” Every where else the orders of the commander were rigidly observed; and the French, admiring the humanity of an enemy who had been so grievously wronged, in many places where they paid the required contribution, acknowledged the justice of this retaliation. Some thousand sheep and corn, and specie to the amount of 50,000 dollars, were the fruits of this first inroad of the Spaniards into France.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

THE FRENCH ENTER GALICIA. LORD WELLINGTON THREATENS CIUDAD RODRIGO, WHICH IS RELIEVED BY MARMONT. GENERAL HILL SURPRISES THE ENEMY AT ARROYO MOLINOS. SIEGE OF MURVIEDRO. DEFEAT OF BLAKE, AND CAPTURE OF VALENCIA.

♦1811.
August.
State of Portugal.♦

At no time had Lord Wellington’s situation been more uneasy than at this: not so much because of the inadequacy of his means in the field, for, such as they were, he was able to oppose the enemy and baffle him at all points; as because of the distressed state of the Portugueze Government, and the apprehended instability of his own. Marlborough had had more various and conflicting interests to adjust and keep in unison, but he had no other difficulty with his allies: he could rely upon a sure support in the British cabinet, till he had beaten down all opposition in the field; and the feelings both of the army and the nation were with him. Lord Wellington might rely upon himself with a confidence as well founded, but he could have no other trust. Nothing was to be expected from any government which the Spaniards might form for themselves; and it now began to appear that the inert part of the nation, which must every where be the majority, would have been best pleased to remain neuter if that had been possible, and let the French and English fight the battle and bear the cost. Portugal, indeed, had been delivered from the enemy: but there Lord Wellington had to contend with intrigues and jealousies in the Government both at Lisbon and Rio de Janeiro; and with the difficulties arising from want of provisions, want of transports, and the state of the commissariat, the persons employed in which were for the most part either idle or dishonest, or ignorant of their duty; so that at this time the Portugueze army, though brought by Marshal Beresford and the British officers to an efficient state of discipline, was reduced to half its nominal strength. Their troops were starving in the field, and dying in the hospitals, for want of money. If there was much to complain of here on the part of the Portugueze ministry, the conduct of Great Britain itself was neither consistent nor generous. Engaged as we were in the war, Lord Wellington thought we ought to have entered upon it with a determination of carrying Portugal through it at whatever cost; that for this purpose we should have required an efficient control over all the departments of the state, have seen the resources of the country honestly and exclusively applied to the objects of the war, and have made up the deficiency whatever it might be: this he had recommended from the beginning, but the influence which was exercised was less at this time than it had been when the Convention of Cintra was concluded.

♦Expectation of peace.♦

No general ever more anxiously desired to be placed at the head of an army than Lord Wellington did now to be relieved from the command; but of this he had no prospect, except from such a peace as would in its certain consequences have given Buonaparte all that he was seeking vainly to obtain by war. There was great apparent danger of this at this time. In case of the death of the king, or the acknowledged unlikelihood of his recovery (which now daily became more unlikely), the French speculated upon a change of administration in England, and the accession of the Whigs to power. The French officers eagerly looked for this, expecting to make such a peace as would enable them to withdraw from the Peninsula without loss of credit, and to re-enter it as soon as their perfidious policy should have prepared a favourable opportunity. In our own army also there were many who regarded the probability of peace with as much complacency as if the end for which the war had been waged would have been secured by it. These were persons who neither by their acquirements, nor pitch of mind, were qualified for the rank which they had attained in their profession; who had not the slightest feeling or perception of the great interests which were at stake, but knowing little, understanding nothing, and criticising every thing, infected all about them with despondency and discontent.

♦Disposition of the continental powers to resist Buonaparte.♦

On the other hand, there was at this time, in many parts of Europe, hopeful symptoms, of which Lord Wellington was well informed. Even when Austria had concluded the most unfortunate of its struggles, with loss of honour as well as loss of territory, one of the wisest heads in Germany assured the British Government, that although the German courts swarmed with men who were great calculators of all possible disasters, and who knew nothing more of the human heart than its weaknesses and its selfishness, ... the Germans themselves, though subjugated, were not yet debased by their subjugation; they would one day revenge their wrongs; a warlike spirit would be developed among them, which had been neglected or suppressed by their feeble and corrupt governments; and it would then be seen that there are times when enthusiasm judges more wisely than experience, and when elevation of mind creates resources for the talents which it calls forth. Russia, which had so long been duped by Buonaparte, became sensible of his perfidy, when, in violation of the treaty of Tilsit, he incorporated the Hanse towns and the duchy of Oldenburgh with the French empire. An opposition to the tyrant’s schemes was manifested in Sweden, where it was less to have been expected: for when the French government demanded permission to march troops through Sweden into Norway, and embark them there for the purpose of invading England, the Swedish government refused, and communicated its refusal to the British cabinet. Prussia, meantime, was silently preparing to break its yoke; and in the course of this autumn, arms, stores, and artillery to a considerable amount, were shipped from England for its use. This was so secretly done, that not a rumour got abroad of any expectations from that quarter; and if the British ministry had acted with as much ability in the management of the war, as in its other foreign relations, its conduct would now have been entitled to unqualified praise: but no representations could as yet induce it to make exertions proportionate to the opportunities that invited, or the necessity that called for them. Whether Buonaparte apprehended, or not, any opposition to his ambitious career in the north of Europe, he was too able a politician to let pass the opportunity of employing as large a force in the Peninsula as could be supported there upon his predatory system of warfare; and accordingly more than 50,000 troops were marched into Spain between the middle of July and the end of September.

♦Plans of Soult and Marmont.♦

When Marmont and Soult, finding it impossible to take Lord Wellington at advantage, separated on the Guadiana, their plan was, that the former should keep the English in check, while Dorsenne, who had succeeded Bessieres in the north, should enter Galicia, fortify Lugo, seize Coruña by a coup de main, and in this manner once more obtain military possession of the province.

♦Dorsenne enters Galicia.♦

Abadia had just taken the command of the Galician army; it was in wretched equipment, and without magazines of any kind; but the men had confidence in their general, and when Spanish soldiers have this feeling to invigorate them, they will support privations under which the troops of almost any other nation would sink. His advanced guard was at S. Martin de los Torres, and occupied the bridge of Cebrones; one division was at Bañeza, another at the bridge of Orbigo, and the reserve at Astorga. Dorsenne collected his troops in a line of operations on the Ezla, the right leaning upon Leon, and the left at Castro

♦August 25.♦

Gonzalo: then he crossed the Ezla, one division marching upon the bridge of Orbigo, two upon Bañeza, and the reserve upon Cebrones. Abadia well knowing the state of his own army, and the strength of the country behind him, had formed his plans in case of such an attack. The division at Bañeza withstood a charge of lancers, and fell back in good order to Castro Contrigo, from whence its retreat was unmolested to Puebla de Sanabria, the place appointed.

♦Retreat of Abadia.♦

The other divisions fell back from four in the evening, when the enemy first presented themselves, till night had closed, when they were all collected in Castrillo. The next day the French entered upon the mountains behind Astorga in pursuit. The points of Manzanal and Molina Seca were well defended, and though the Spaniards retired at both points before superior numbers, they brought off with them the eagle of the sixth regiment of infantry, which Abadia, in the name of the army, dedicated to Santiago, and deposited in the chapel of that saint, in his cathedral at Compostella. Seeing the force of the enemy, and divining their purpose, he fell back to Ponferrada, covering, with his little cavalry, a considerable body of men who were crippled for want of shoes, and in the most dismal state of nakedness and want. The ferry in Valdeorras, that gorge through which the river Sil entering Galicia carries with it all the waters of the Bierzo, was the point of re-union. The artillery at Villafranca was ordered back into the interior, three regiments took a position upon the heights of Valcarcel to cover the roads from that town, and another detachment was stationed at Toreno for the double purpose of assisting the reserve and watching Asturias. Abadia himself took a position at the Puente de Domingo Florez. In the Vale of Orras he hoped to find provisions, meaning, as soon as he should have collected enough for three days, and received shoes for his men, to act upon the offensive, in co-operation with the Portugueze general Silveira.

♦Lord Wellington observes Ciudad Rodrigo.♦

The French hoped, that while Dorsenne was dispersing the Galician army, and getting possession of that important province, Lord Wellington would make some incautious movement upon Salamanca, and expose himself to Marmont’s superior numbers, and far superior cavalry, in the open country. Lord Wellington knew better in what manner to relieve Galicia. Immediately upon his failure at Badajoz, his attention had been directed to Ciudad Rodrigo, and orders were given for bringing a battering train and siege stores up the Douro to Villa de Ponte, whereby much of the difficulty experienced in Alentejo for want of means of transport was avoided. General Hill had been left with 14,000 men to guard that frontier; the rest of the army was collected on the Agueda; and Lord Wellington fixing his head-quarters at Fuente Guinaldo, kept his troops there in a healthy country, and rendered it impossible for the enemy to throw supplies into Ciudad Rodrigo, unless they advanced with an army strong enough to give him battle. Marmont,

♦Dorsenne recalled from Galicia.♦ in consequence, recalled Dorsenne to join him, that they might raise the blockade, and supply the fort with provisions for a long time. Dorsenne, indeed, could not have advanced without danger of having his retreat cut off; even in his own account, wherein he asserted that the Galician army was entirely dispersed, and could not possibly resume the offensive, he pretended to have occasioned them no greater loss than that of 300 killed and wounded, and 200 prisoners: but in reality no dispersion had taken place: if he had pursued his original plan of descending upon Lugo and Coruña, Abadia would have been in his rear, and the French knew by experience what it was to encounter the peasantry of Galicia, armed against them, and thirsting for vengeance. Dorsenne therefore retired more rapidly than he had advanced, leaving behind him some of his wounded, and provisions enough to supply Abadia’s army with three days’ consumption, ... a booty of no little consequence in the deplorable state of the Spanish commissariat. The Spaniards in their turn advanced, and fixed their head-quarters in Molina Seca, where

♦August 31.♦ they had won the eagle four days before; and the French derived no other advantage from their expedition, than the possession of Astorga, which they once more occupied, and repaired its ruined fortifications.

♦Movements of the French to throw supplies into Ciudad Rodrigo.♦

The relief of Ciudad Rodrigo was an object not less important to the French in this part of the country than that of Badajoz had been on the side of Extremadura, and equal exertions were made to effect it. Lord Wellington had formed the blockade to make these exertions necessary, not with any serious intention of attacking the town, an operation for which he was not yet prepared. Two important objects were fulfilled by making the enemy collect their force upon this point. It relieved Galicia, and it drew from Navarre General Souham’s division, which had been destined to hunt down Mina. Lord Wellington was perfectly informed of Marmont’s plans; the only thing doubtful was the strength of the enemy, and upon that head reports were as usual so various, that he determined to see them, being certain of his retreat, whatever their superiority might be, and ready to profit by any opportunity which might be offered. As soon, therefore, as the French commenced their movements with the convoy of provisions from the Sierra de Bejar, and from Salamanca, he collected his army in positions from which he could either retire or

♦Sept. 22.♦ advance without difficulty, and from whence he could see all that was going on, and ascertain the force of the hostile army.

The third division occupied a range of heights on the left of the Agueda, between Fuente Guinaldo and Pastores, having its advanced guard on the heights of Pastores, within three miles of Ciudad Rodrigo. The fourth division was at Fuente Guinaldo, which position had been strengthened with some works. The light division was on the right of the Agueda, its right resting upon the mountains which divide Castille and Extremadura. The left, under General Graham, who, having joined Lord Wellington’s army, had succeeded Sir Brent Spencer as second in command, was posted on the Lower Azava; D. Carlos d’España and D. Julian Sanchez observed the Lower Agueda, and Sir Stapleton Cotton, with the cavalry, was on the Upper Azava in the centre. The fifth division was in the rear of the right, to observe the Pass of Perales, for General Foy had collected a body of troops in Upper Extremadura. On the 23rd, the enemy appeared in the plain near the city, and retired again: the next morning they advanced in considerable force, and before evening collected on the plain their whole cavalry, to the amount of 6000, and four divisions of infantry; the rest of their army was encamped on the Guadapero, immediately beyond the hills which surround the plain; and on the following day an immense convoy, extending along many miles of road, entered the town under this formidable escort.

♦The allies fall back.♦

On the 25th, fourteen squadrons of their cavalry drove in our posts on the right of the Azava. General Anson’s brigade charged them, pursued them across the river, and resumed the posts. But their chief attention was directed toward the heights on the left of the Agueda; and they moved a column in the morning, consisting of between thirty and forty squadrons of cavalry, fourteen battalions of infantry, and twelve guns, from Ciudad Rodrigo, against that point. The cavalry and artillery arrived first, and one small body sustained the attack. A regiment of French dragoons succeeded in taking two pieces of cannon; the Portugueze artillerymen stood to their guns till they were cut down; and the guns were immediately retaken by the second battalion of the fifth regiment under Major Ridge. When the enemy’s infantry were coming up, Lord Wellington saw they would arrive before troops could be brought to support this division, and therefore he determined to retire with the whole on Fuente Guinaldo. The 77th, which had repulsed a charge of cavalry, and the second battalion of the 5th, were formed into one square, and the 21st Portugueze regiment into another, supported by General Alten’s small body of cavalry, and by the Portugueze artillery. The enemy’s horse immediately rushed forward, and obliged our cavalry to retire to the support of the Portugueze regiment. The 5th and 77th were then charged on three faces of the square; Lord Wellington declared, that he had never seen a more determined attack than was made by this formidable body of horse, and repulsed by these two weak battalions. They halted, and received the enemy with such perfect steadiness, that the French did not venture to renew the charge.

In the evening, Lord Wellington had formed his troops into an echellon, of which the centre was in the position at Guinaldo, the right upon the pass of Perales, and the left at Navedeaver. In the course of that night and of the ensuing day, Marmont brought his whole army in front of the position. Fuente Guinaldo stands on an extensive plain, and from the convent there the whole force of the enemy, and all their movements, could be distinctly seen. Their force was not less than 60,000 men, a tenth part being cavalry, and they had 125 pieces of artillery. There was no motive for risking a battle, for the happiest result would only have been a profitless and dearly-purchased victory, as at Albuhera. Lord Wellington therefore retired about three leagues. No movement was ever executed with more ability in the face of a superior enemy; ... yet even this, performed with consummate skill and perfect courage, without hurry, without confusion, and almost without loss, presented but too many of those sights which make the misery of a soldier’s life. The sick and hungry inhabitants of the villages were crawling from their huts, too well aware of the fate which awaited them if they trusted to the mercy of Buonaparte’s soldiers; women were supplicating our troops to put their children in the provision cars; and the sick and wounded were receiving medical assistance, while they were carried over a rugged and almost impassable road.

Lord Wellington formed his army, after this retreat of twelve miles, with his right at Aldea Velha, and his left at Bismula: the fourth and light divisions with General Alten’s cavalry in front of Alfayates, the third and seventh in second line behind it. Alfayates, though now one of the most wretched of the dilapidated towns in Portugal, was once a Romish station, and has since been considered as a military post of great importance. It is about a league from the border, standing so as to command an extensive view over a beautiful, and in happier times a fertile, country. Here Lord Wellington stood by the castle (one of the monuments of King Diniz), observing the enemy with a glass. Marmont had intended to turn the left of the position at Guinaldo by moving a column into the valley of the Upper Azava, and thence ascending the heights in the rear of the position by Castillejo; from this column he detached a division of infantry and fourteen squadrons of cavalry to follow the retreat of the allies by Albergaria, and another body of equal strength followed by Forcalhos. The former drove in our piquets at Aldea da Ponte, and pushed on to the very entrance of Alfayates. Lord Wellington, with General Stuart and Lord Robert Manners, stood watching them almost too long; for the latter, who retired the last of the three, was closely pursued by ten of the enemy’s dragoons, and might probably have been taken, if his horse, being English, and accustomed to such feats, had not cleared a high wall, and so borne him off.

General Pakenham, supported by General Cole, and by Sir Stapleton Cotton’s cavalry, drove the enemy back through Aldea da Ponte upon Albergaria; the French being reinforced by the column which had marched upon Forcalhos advanced again about sunset, and again gained the village, from which they were again driven. But night had now come on; General Pakenham could not know what was passing on his flanks, nor was he certain of the numbers which might be brought against him; and knowing that the army was to fall back farther, he evacuated Aldea da Ponte during the night. The French then occupied it; and Lord Wellington, falling back one league, formed his army on the heights behind Soito, having the Sierra das Mesas on their right, and their left at Rendo on the Coa. Here ended his retreat. Marmont had accomplished the object of throwing supplies into Ciudad Rodrigo, and could effect nothing more. Lord Wellington was not to be found at fault. He had fallen back in the face of a far outnumbering enemy, without suffering that enemy to obtain even the slightest advantage over him. The total loss of the allies on the 25th amounted to twenty-eight killed, 108 wounded, twenty-eight missing. On the 27th, fourteen killed, seventy-seven wounded, nine missing. The hereditary prince of Orange was in the field, being then for the first time in action.

♦The French retire.♦

While the British took their position behind Soito, the French retired to Ciudad Rodrigo, and then separated, Dorsenne’s army toward Salamanca and Valladolid, Marmont’s towards the pass of Baños and Plasencia. Marmont boasted in his dispatches of having forced Lord Wellington to abandon an intrenched camp, and driven him back with great loss

♦Marmont boasts of his success.♦ and confusion; “The Spanish insurgents,” he added, “have felt the greatest indignation at seeing themselves thus abandoned in the north as well as in the south; and this contrast between the conduct of the English, and the promises which they have incessantly broken, nourishes a natural hatred, which will break out sooner or later.” “We should have followed the enemy,” said Marshal Marmont, “to the lines of Lisbon, where we should have been able to form a junction with the army of the south, ... which is completely entire, and has in its front only the division of General Hill, ... had the moment been come which is fixed for the catastrophe of the English.” Soult, of whose unbroken strength Marmont thus boasted, was at this time devising measures for destroying the army which Castaños had recruited, or rather remade, since it had been so miserably wasted after Romana’s death. General Girard therefore, with a division of about 4000 foot and 1000 cavalry, was sent into that part of Extremadura which was still free, thus to confine Castaños within narrower limits, and deprive his army of those rations which it still, though with difficulty, obtained, and which were its sole means of subsistence; for in the miserable state of the Spanish commissariat and Spanish Government, their armies subsisted upon what they could find, and had little or nothing else to depend upon.

♦Girard in Extremadura.♦

Girard took his position at Caceres, extending as far as Brozas. Of the spirit in which his detachment acted, one instance will suffice. He sent a party against the house of D. Jose Maria Cribell in Salvatierra, an officer in the service of his country; they carried off his wife in the fifth month of her pregnancy; plundered the house, even to the clothes of her two children, one five years old, the other three, and left these children naked to the mercy of their neighbours. The presence of such a force greatly distressed the country, and produced the intended inconvenience to Castaños; that general, therefore, concerted with Lord Wellington a movement for relieving this part of Extremadura by striking a blow against the enemy. The execution was entrusted to general Hill, with whom a Spanish detachment was to co-operate under Camp-Marshal D. Pedro Augustin Giron.

General Hill, with such a portion of his force as was thought sufficient for the service, moved from his cantonments in the neighbourhood of Portalegre on the

♦General Hill moves against him.♦

22nd of October, and advanced towards the Spanish frontier. On reaching Alburquerque he learned that the enemy, who had advanced to Aliseda, had fallen back to Arroyo del Puerco; and that Aliseda was occupied by the Conde de Penne Villemur with the rear of the Spaniards. At that place, the allies and the Spaniards formed their junction the next day. The French occupied Arroyo del Puerco with 300 horse, their main body being at Caceres. Penne Villemur, on the 25th, drove back their horse to Malpartida, which place they held as an advanced post. At two on the following morning the allies began their march upon this place, in the midst of a severe storm; they arrived at daybreak; but the enemy had retired in the night. Penne Villemur, with the Spanish cavalry, and a party of the second hussars, followed them, skirmishing as far as Caceres, supported by the Spanish infantry under D. Pablo Morillo. Girard, as soon as he knew that the allies were advancing, retired from that city, and General Hill received intelligence of his retreat at Malpartida, but what direction he had taken was uncertain. In consequence of this uncertainty, and of the extreme badness of the weather, the British and Portugueze halted for the night at Malpartida, the Spaniards occupying Caceres.

♦Oct. 27.♦

The next morning General Hill, having ascertained that the enemy had marched on Torremocha, put his troops in motion, and advancing along the Merida road, by Aldea del Cano, and the Casa de D. Antonio; for as this was a shorter line than that which Girard had taken, he hoped to intercept him and bring him to action. On the march he learned that the French had only left Torremocha that morning, and that their main body had again halted at Arroyo Molinos, leaving a rear-guard at Albala. This proved that Girard was ignorant of the movements of the allies, and General Hill therefore made a forced march that evening to Alcuescar, a place within four miles of Arroyo Molinos, where he was joined by the Spaniards from Caceres. Everything confirmed the British general in his opinion that the enemy were not only ignorant of his near approach, but also off their guard; and he determined upon attempting to surprise them, or at least bringing them to action, before they should march in the morning. The troops, therefore, lay under a hill, to be out of sight of the enemy; they had marched the whole day in a heavy rain, the rain still continued, and no fires were allowed to be made.

♦Arroyo Molinos.♦

Arroyo Molinos is a little town situated at the foot of one extremity of the Sierra de Montanches; this mountain, which is everywhere steep, and appears almost inaccessible, forms a cove or crescent behind it, the two points of which are about two miles asunder. The Truxillo road winds under the eastern point; the road to Merida runs at right angles with that to Alcuescar, and that to Medellin between the Truxillo and Merida roads. The ground between Alcuescar and Arroyo Molinos is a plain, thinly scattered with cork-trees and evergreen oaks; and General Hill’s object was to place a body of troops so as to cut off the retreat of the enemy by any of these roads. At two in the morning, the allies moved from their comfortless bivouac: it was dark, the rain was unabated, and the wind high, but in their backs: but this weather, severe as it was, was in their favour, for it confirmed the French in their incautious security. When Girard had first advanced into Extremadura, he felt some uneasiness at the neighbourhood of General Hill, and demanded succour, saying, that unless he was reinforced he should not be able to resist in case the English should attack him. But the little enterprise which the British and Portugueze army had hitherto displayed, seems to have lulled him into a contemptuous confidence; and there was no distinguished guerrilla leader to disturb the enemy in this part of the country, since D. Ventura Ximenes fell in a rencontre near Toledo.

♦The French surprised and routed there.♦

The allies moved in one column right in front upon Arroyo Molinos, till they were within half a mile of it: the column then closed in a bottom under cover of a low ridge, and divided into three, the enemy not having the slightest intimation of their approach. The left column, under Lieutenant-Colonel Stuart, marched direct upon the town; the right, under Major-General Howard, broke off to the right so as to turn the enemy’s flank, and having marched about the distance of a cannon-shot toward that flank, moved then in a circular direction upon the farther point of the mountain crescent. Penne Villemur, with the Spanish horse, advanced between these two columns, ready to act in front, or to move round either of them, as occasion might require; he had found a good road, but the English horse, owing to an error, which, in so dark and tempestuous a night, might easily have been more general, had gone astray, and were not yet come up. The French had had a piquet about a mile from the town, which would have given the alarm, if it had not retired just before the head of our column came to the spot; for Girard had ordered the troops to be in motion at an early hour. One brigade of his infantry had marched for Medellin an hour before daylight: and when the allies were close at hand, Girard was filing out upon the Merida road; the rear of his column, some of his cavalry and his baggage, being still in the town. A thick mist had come on, the storm was at its height, and the French general marched with as little precaution as if he had been in a friendly country. When he heard that an enemy was approaching in the mist, he laughed, and said, “the English were too fond of comfort to get out of their beds in such a morning; ... it could only be an advanced party of the Spaniards;” ... but while he was ordering his men to chastise these insurgents, the Highland bagpipes played “Hey, Johnny Coup, are ye waukin yet?” and the 71st and 92d charged into the town with three cheers. Their orders were not to load, nor to halt for prisoners; but to force through every obstacle between them and the enemy, without turning to the right or left.

A few of their men were cut down by the French cavalry, but they soon drove the enemy every where before them at the point of the bayonet. The enemy’s infantry, which had got out of the town, formed into two squares, with their cavalry on their left, between the Merida and Medellin roads, by the time our two regiments had forced their way to the end of the town. Their right square being within half musket-shot, the 71st promptly lined the garden walls, while the 92d filed out and formed in line on the right, perpendicularly to the enemy’s right flank, which was much annoyed by the well-directed fire of the 71st. Meantime, one wing of the 50th occupied the town and secured the prisoners, some of whom were surprised over their coffee; and the other wing, with a three-pounder, which was all the artillery the allies had brought, skirted the outside of the town, and fired with great effect upon the squares. General Howard’s column was moving round their left. Penne Villemur meantime engaged the enemy’s cavalry, till Sir W. Erskine came up and joined him; they then presently dispersed the French horse, and charged their infantry repeatedly, “passing through their lines,” said a serjeant, “just like herrings through a net.” The French were now in full retreat, when, to their utter dismay, General Howard’s column appeared, and cut off the road. There was no resource, but to surrender or disperse; all order was at an end ... the cavalry fled in all directions, the infantry threw down their arms, and clambered up the mountain, ... where, inaccessible as the way appeared, they were pursued by General Howard, till the British became so exhausted, and so few in number, that he was obliged to halt and secure his prisoners. Morillo, with the Spanish infantry, one English and one Portugueze battalion, having ascended by the Puerto de las Quebradas, in a more favourable direction, continued the pursuit farther, and met with more resistance; but they drove the enemy from every position which they attempted to take, and pursued them many leagues, till within sight of the village of St. Anna, when, being completely exhausted with their exertions, they returned, having counted in the woods and mountains upwards of 600 dead.

In this brilliant affair, General Brun, the Prince de Aremberg, two lieutenant colonels, thirty other officers, and 1400 men, were made prisoners. The British and Portugueze loss amounted only to seventy-one, that of the Spaniards was very trifling. The whole of the enemy’s artillery, baggage, and commissariat was taken, the magazines of corn which they had collected at Caceres and Merida, and the contribution of money which he had levied upon the former town. A panic was struck into the enemy, to such a degree, that Badajoz was shut for two days and nights, all the fords of the Guadiana were watched, and every detachment ordered to rendezvous at Seville.

This expedition was less important in itself, than as it was the first indication of a spirit of hopeful enterprise in the British army; it seemed as if that army had now become conscious of its superiority, and would henceforth seek opportunities of putting it to the proof. For the Spaniards it was a well-timed success, when all their own efforts tended only to evince more mournfully the inefficiency of their troops and the incompetence of their generals.

♦Marques del Palacio appointed to the command in Valencia.♦

The Marques del Palacio had been appointed captain-general of the kingdoms of Aragon, Valencia, and Murcia. He announced his coming in a proclamation from Alicante, of a very different character from those which had so greatly contributed to support the cause of Spain. “From the moment,” said he, “that I set foot in this country, and knew the fall of Tarragona, my spirit, far from being cast down, seemed as if it had taken fresh courage to run to danger as well as to victory. Do not hold me arrogant and vain, for my hopes are not rested upon the arm of flesh. From afar I see the walls of Valencia of burnished and impenetrable brass; and the more secure, inasmuch as the enemy cannot perceive them. I see also a cloud of protection over the whole kingdom, whereof that which for forty years protected the people of God was but a type and a figure. The brazen walls are the Valencian breasts, which have loyalty for their stamp and shield of arms; and the cloud which protects us is the Queen of Angels, ... she who is the general of the best appointed army, our adorable and generous Madre de desamparados, Mother of the helpless, with her omnipotent Son. Heaven itself has given the greatest proof of this truth, and of its predilection for the city and kingdom of Valencia. Is there any other capital in all Spain which has not been entered by some army of this Corsican robber, this impious tyrant? Is there any other province which has twice repelled the enemy from its centre, without walls and without armies? Heaven and this invincible Deborah, or Judith, have saved us, and will save us, if our conduct is not unworthy of her protection. Wonder not at this language from a soldier! I am a Christian; I am an old Spaniard; and I am persuaded that they are not earthly victories, but bolts from heaven which reach the wicked, such as the Corsican and his generals, whose principles are bad, and whose conduct is worse. I resign, therefore, my staff to this Sovereign Queen: she has been the general who has delivered the kingdom thus long: she it is who will deliver all that is placed under this staff, no longer mine but hers, and the Lord’s, who is the God of battles.”

It would be wronging the Marques to break off here, for in other parts of his address he spoke in the proper language of a Spaniard and a general. “This is a holy war,” said he, “in which we must fight like the Maccabees. Let him who feels for the public cause join us, and take arms, and offer himself as a sacrifice, and put forth his hand, and advance, and attack, and triumph. Confide in the Government, and it will confide in you. If there is conduct in the chiefs, there will be conduct in the people; moderation in the expenditure, and there will be plenty in the army; order in private families, and it will display itself in public actions; activity in individuals, and the army will be invincible. Let there be obedience, union, fidelity, justice, and truth, and God will fight with us.”

Unfortunately, there were many in Valencia upon whom the first part of this address was likely to have more effect than the second. A friar, preaching in the Plaza Catalina, said to his auditors, “If the Cortes think of abolishing our holy order, and that of our sisters the nuns, obey them not, ye armed Valencians, but oppose such mandates like lions. We are the servants of God, whom you must obey rather than man. The English themselves, though they have an excellent constitution, must eventually fall for want of the blessing of the Catholic faith. Ask not for cannon and gunpowder, but rather fly to your altars; and instead of any vain attempt to resist the victorious French by force of arms, implore the aid of Heaven, which alone can avert the heavy calamities that threaten you.” Zaragoza is as Catholic a city as Valencia, but it was not by such sermons as this that the heroism of the Zaragozans was excited and sustained!

♦Blake takes the command.♦

Zaragoza had defended itself without any other reliance than what the inhabitants placed in themselves. Valencia prepared for its defence under very different circumstances. The Regent, General Blake, embarking with all the force he could collect, had landed at Almeira to take the command in those provinces, which, since the fall of Tarragona, were so seriously menaced. From thence he proceeded to Valencia, with full powers, civil as well as military, and the whole strength of the executive authority, to carry into effect whatever measures he might think needful. The collected force under his command was more than equal in number to that of the invaders; one division of 6000 men, taking its name from the field of Albuhera, had attained discipline upon which the officers could rely, and reputation which every effort would be made to support. Some of the generals also stood high in public opinion; Lardizabal had distinguished himself in Lapeña’s expedition; and Zayas was thought by the English, as well as by his own countrymen, one of the best officers in the Spanish service. But Blake himself inspired no confidence wherever he went; he had the reputation of being an unfortunate general; and what credit he acquired in the battle of Albuhera had been lost by his subsequent movements in the Condado de Niebla. The Valencians, therefore, were unwilling to receive him, and would fain have persuaded the Marques del Palacio to retain the command, to which, in these times of insubordination, a popular election would have been considered as conferring a legitimate right; but the Marques had been bred in a better school, and though he had some reason to complain of the manner in which he was thus suddenly superseded, demeaned himself toward his successor with a frankness and cordiality deserving a better return than they obtained. In the course of more than thirty years’ service, it had been his good fortune never to incur the slightest disaster in any command which he had held; twice during the present war, having been appointed to armies which he found incomplete and ill-equipped, he had placed them upon a respectable footing; and being then removed from the command, they had presently under his successors been dispersed or destroyed; he was popular, therefore, because no miscarriage could be laid to his charge. Embarking from Cadiz for Alicante on the day that Tarragona was taken, he brought with him no supplies either in men, arms, or money, nor was any thing sent after him; it seemed as if the eastern provinces were left to their own resources; and Alicante and Orihuela, from whence he might have drawn supplies, were separated from his government. The Murcian army consisted nominally at this time of 20,000 foot and 5000 horse; he asked for 3000 of these men and 600 cavalry, and they were refused. The effect of this was, that feeling he had no external support to look for, he formed his plans for defence upon the nature of the country, and that moral resistance, in which the strength of the Spanish cause consisted: but Blake coming with the entire confidence of the executive Government, of which he was a member, had the Murcian forces at his command, and seemed to think his military means so fully sufficient, that he disregarded all other resources. The Marques would have defended the strong ground through which the enemy must pass before they could attack Murviedro. Between that town and Valencia is a labyrinth of water-courses, gardens, plantations, and deep narrow roads, through which no force could penetrate against the resistance of a determined people; ... and if that resistance had been overcome, he would have cut the dikes and inundated the country. These plans he communicated to Blake, who never bestowed a thought upon them, contemplating no measures which were not in the ordinary course of tactics, and thinking, that if the punctilios of his profession were correctly observed, nothing farther could be required on the score of honour or of duty.

♦Murviedro.♦

Murviedro is an open town twelve miles east of Valencia, but its fortress, called the Castle of San Fernando de Sagunto, was, both for its natural strength and artificial defences, a most formidable post. D. Luis Maria Andriani commanded there with a garrison of 3500 men, who had volunteered for its defence. The name which that fortress bore, and the knowledge of the resistance which upon that spot had been made against Hannibal, as it might well have given confidence to its defenders, induced Suchet to expect greater difficulty in its conquest than any which he had yet overcome. The Roman theatre here, which was one of the most perfect remains of the ancients, and the other antiquities of this sacred spot, were held in such proper estimation by the Spanish Government, that in 1785, under the ministry of the Conde d’Aranda, an officer was appointed to preserve them. When it was deemed necessary to fortify the place, the engineers condemned the theatre; the conservator appealed to the Cortes, and the Cortes unanimously agreeing that it would be a reproach to the nation if this precious monument should be destroyed, addressed the Regents, requiring them to give orders for its careful preservation: but such considerations could no longer be allowed, when the paramount interests of the nation were at stake, and instructions were given to make any demolition which might be required for the security of the place. Andriani entered upon his command there in the middle of September, and a few days afterwards the French from Tortosa and from Aragon began their march toward Valencia. Suchet had with

♦Suchet takes possession of the town.♦ him all the disposable troops from Aragon and Catalonia, ... withdrawing many of the less important garrisons and smaller detachments, in full confidence that there was neither energy enough in the general Government of Spain, nor union enough among the provincial authorities, to take advantage of the opportunity which was thus afforded them. He arrived before Murviedro on the 21st, and took possession of the town. Blake, who had advanced thither to see that the garrison was complete, and the place provided for defence, offered no resistance when the enemy approached, but retired within an intrenched camp, on the right of the Guadalaviar; it rested with its right upon the sea, and covered the city of Valencia; he had the Murcian army behind him in reserve. The divisions of Obispo and Villacampa, under Carlos O’Donnel, had been recalled from the frontiers of Castille and Aragon: these remained in the field and formed his left; 4000 men occupied Segorbe and Liria, and Bassecourt, with about 2000, was in Requeña and Utril: besides these forces the commander-in-chief had 1600 cavalry, part of them veteran troops.

Against such means of resistance Suchet would never have ventured to advance if he had not despised the Valencians. With an abundant population, brave and patriotic enough to offer themselves to any danger and submit to any sacrifices, ... and with resources greater than those of any other province from its redundant fertility, Valencia had scarcely made an effort in favour of its neighbours. When, at the earnest requisition of the British naval commander on that coast, a body of its troops had been detached into Catalonia, they were embarked without muskets, because there was an established regulation, that before they left the province their arms must be deposited in the arsenal. After arms had been provided for them, it was judged necessary to march them into Aragon; but they refused to enter that kingdom, because they had not been sent with that intention, and in consequence they returned to Valencia without having faced the enemy. Whenever, indeed, the Valencian army had faced them, some glaring misconduct had appeared, and some lamentable disaster been the necessary result. The spirit of provincialism ceased to paralyse them when the enemy was within their own territory, but Suchet still calculated upon want of discipline in the men, and want of skill in the leaders; some reliance, too, he placed upon those means of seduction by which France had triumphed as often as by her arms.

♦The French repulsed in an assault.♦

The day after he reached Murviedro, he assaulted the fort at two in the morning; in three places the escalade was attempted, but the French were repulsed at all points with the loss of their ladders, and of more than 400 killed and wounded. Suchet was induced to make this dangerous attempt by his engineers, who discovered two old breaches which had not

♦Mem. 2. 161.♦ been effectually repaired, and who were sensible of the great difficulties they should have to encounter in a regular siege. His men, too, he says, since their exploits at Tarragona, regarded it as pastime to march to an assault; but the way there had been prepared for them by corruption. They kept possession of the town, broke through the party walls of the houses, that they might communicate without exposing themselves

♦October.♦ to the garrison’s fire, barricadoed the streets, and planted guns in those houses which looked toward the fort. This was not effected without loss, and they had not yet brought up their battering train; it was to come from Tortosa, and the little fort of Oropesa in their rear commanded the road. Suchet gave directions for reducing this, and acted in the meantime against the troops in the field. Obispo was attacked on the 30th at Seneja, and driven back upon Segorbe; there he rallied, but reinforcements came to the enemy, which again gave them the superiority; they entered Segorbe in pursuit of his broken troops, put all who resisted to the sword, and drove him towards Liria. The next object of Suchet was to drive Carlos O’Donnel’s division beyond the Guadalaviar. On the night of October 1st he marched against it; the advanced guard was attacked and routed at Betero; the main body at Benaguacil. Little loss was sustained by the Spaniards in these actions, but they did not contribute to raise the character of the Valencian troops in the eyes of their enemies; and Suchet, who knew that the struggle would be with Blake, endeavoured to provoke that general into the field, by reproaching him for having remained idle in Valencia while two divisions of his army were defeated.

♦Oropesa taken by the enemy.♦

He had made himself, however, already so far master of the field, as to continue his operations against Murviedro without interruption. Oropesa surrendered on the 11th, after a cannonade of a few hours; Captain Eyre, in the Magnificent, had just arrived to assist it, but he came only in time to bring off the garrison of a tower about a mile distant. Artillery and tools could now be safely brought from Tortosa; and a week afterwards a practicable breach was effected. Twice in the course of a day and

♦Oct. 11.♦ night the French attempted to storm it, and were repulsed with great slaughter. The fort, though, according to the inveterate habit of procrastination which has for centuries been the reproach of Spanish policy, its works were incomplete, yet was capable of

♦A second assault repelled.♦ making a very formidable resistance; for it was so constructed as to form four parts, each of which might be defended after the others were taken. Blake calculated upon the impetuosity of the enemy, the steadiness of the garrison, and the patriotism of the governor; the two former did not deceive him: and he had laid down for himself a wise plan of operations; which was to abstain from battle, in hope that the French would weaken themselves in the siege, and might be compelled to retreat by movements upon their flank and on the side of Aragon.

♦Guerrilla movements in aid of Murviedro.♦

It was part of this plan to surprise the French in Cuenca, and thus cut off Suchet’s communication with Madrid: this expedition was committed to General Mahy, with whom the Conde de Montijo was to co-operate. The attempt proved ineffectual, and Mahy returned with his division to join the commander-in-chief. In Aragon the Spaniards were led by men of a different stamp, and their movements would have led to very different results, if the spirit of provincialism, and that insubordination which long habits of military independence can scarcely fail to produce, had not frustrated fair beginnings, and bright prospects of success. A decree of the Cortes had attached the guerrilla parties to the armies of their respective districts, and given rank to their leaders, leaving them to pursue their own system of warfare at their own discretion, but subjecting them thus to a military superior whenever they should be called upon. By virtue of this decree, Duran and the Empecinado, who commanded, the one in Soria, the other in Guadalaxara, each with the rank of brigadier, had been ordered by Blake to unite and enter Aragon, which Suchet had drained of troops for his expedition against Valencia. It was not easy to bring these irregular companies under any restraint of discipline: the Junta of Guadalaxara were not willing to part with the Empecinado’s band; the men themselves were not willing to leave what they considered as their own district; disputes broke out

♦Dispersion of the Empecinado’s troops.♦ among them when their leader was not present; they turned their arms upon each other at Villaconejos: after an affray in which some were killed and many wounded, the rest dispersed, were overtaken by the French, and suffered great loss; and

♦M. del Palacio, Traslado a la Nacion Espanolo, p. 19.♦

Cuenca was in consequence again entered by the enemy, who committed their usual enormities there. The Empecinado, however, was soon heard of again: he formed a junction with Duran, and their collected force was computed at about

♦His subsequent successes in conjunction with Duran.♦

4000 men. With the greater part of this force they appeared before the city of Calatayud, where the enemy had a garrison of between 800

♦Sept. 26.♦ and 900 men. Not expecting so bold a measure on the part of the guerrillas, the French upon sight of them sent out a detachment, who took post upon an eminence before the city, where there was a ruined castle. Of that detachment about fifty were killed, and as many made prisoners, not a man escaping. The garrison then, and all the persons connected with them, took shelter in the convent of the Mercenarios. This edifice had been fortified, and was one of those posts which gave them military possession of the country. The Spaniards had no artillery, and having in vain attempted to burn it, began to mine. This was a branch of warfare in which they had little skill and less experience: ... on the third day the mine was ready; it was exploded, and produced no effect; two others were immediately commenced. Meantime a reinforcement of 200 foot and fifty horse, the precursors of a larger force from Zaragoza, came to relieve the besieged; ... the Empecinado hastened to meet them, routed them, and chased them as far as Almunia, taking the colonel who commanded, and more than 200 of their muskets and knapsacks, which they threw away to disencumber

♦Oct. 3.♦ themselves in flight. On the sixth day of the siege, the match was laid to the second mine, which produced little more effect than the first: the third, however, was more successful; it brought down part of the wall of the church, and the French then capitulated, on condition that the officers should be sent to France on their parole. Five hundred men were made prisoners, and about 150 killed and wounded were found in the convent. There were found here provisions and money which had been collected by the intrusive government: the grain was sold at a fair price to the inhabitants of the district for seed: this Duran and the Empecinado thought necessary, that they might lessen as much as possible the evils arising from the state of waste to which that part of the country was abandoned. Soon afterwards more than 3000 French arrived, hoping to recover the plunder; but the Guerrilla chiefs gave them no opportunity of effecting this, and the next day the enemy returned into Navarre, whither they were recalled to resist Espoz y Mina.

♦A price set upon the heads of Mina and his officers.♦

General Reille, with two divisions, had used his utmost endeavours to destroy this most enterprising of the Guerrilla chiefs; and Mina, compelled once more to break up his little army into small bodies, had for three and fifty days eluded the enemy, by continual marches and countermarches among the mountains, suffering hunger, nakedness, and every kind of fatigue and privation, with that unconquerable spirit of endurance which is the characteristic virtue of the Spaniards. To effectuate his long-desired object, the French general, in the spirit of

♦Aug. 21.♦ the wicked government which he served, set a price upon the heads of these gallant men, offering 6000 dollars for that of Mina, 4000 for Cruchaga’s, and 2000 each for those of Gorriz, Ulzurrun, and Cholin. This detestable expedient failed also. A traitor, by name D. Joaquin Geronimo Navarro, then offered to treat with the Guerrilla chief, and win him over to the intruder’s cause; or, if he failed in this, to seize him at a conference. Mina obtained intelligence of this second part of the plot, and when he was invited to confer with Navarro upon matters which, it was said, nearly concerned his own interest, and that of his men, and the welfare of the kingdom, he replied, that Navarro must come and treat with him in person. The traitor accordingly appointed a meeting at the village of

♦Sept. 14.♦

Leoz, whither he came, accompanied by D. Francisco Aguirre Echechuri, D. Jose Pelon, and Sebastian Irujo de Irocin. Mina, with his adjutant Castillo, met them, partook of a supper which they had prepared, listened to their proposals; then, being beforehand in the intended surprisal, seized them, called in his assistants, and delivered them over to a council of war, by whose sentence they were put to death.

Lord Wellington’s movement upon Ciudad Rodrigo at this time compelled Marmont to withdraw his troops from Navarre. Immediately Mina reunited his men, and occupied Sanguesa. “Vengeance,” he cried, “for the victims who have been sacrificed because they performed their duty to their country! While some of these are at rest in the grave, others in dungeons, or led away into captivity in France, I will take vengeance for their wrongs. Arms and ammunition, arms and ammunition, ... I ask arms and ammunition of the nation and of all Europe, for public and for private vengeance. My division will carry on the war as long as a single individual belonging to it shall exist.” From Sanguesa he looked about him where to annoy the enemy with most effect: while Duran and the Empecinado were employed on the right bank of the Ebro, he thought he might act upon the left, by cutting off the French garrisons. The first which he assailed consisted of forty foot and seventy horse, at Egoa de los Caballeros, who kept close within their fort, in fear of such a visit. While he was mining the fort, the enemy during the night broke through the wall on the opposite side, and fled. The sudden cessation of their fire gave cause for suspecting what they had done: they were pursued, and twenty of the cavalry were all who effected their escape to Zaragoza.

♦Mina’s success at Ayerbe.
Oct. 16.♦

He then marched against Ayerbe, and began to mine a convent which the French had fortified there. While he was thus employed, 1100 French, with forty horse, came from Zaragoza to relieve the besieged, and cut off the Navarrese, who were only 900. Mina drew off his men as soon as he heard of their approach, and posted the infantry upon a height above the road; sending out parties to harass the enemy, and then fall back upon the main body. The French advanced, mocking the brigands, as they called them, and telling them to go to Valencia for bayonets, and they encouraged each other to attack with the bayonet, saying the brigands were without that weapon: but they were repulsed in their attempt to win the height, leaving nineteen dead and forty-nine wounded upon the field. They then proceeded to Ayerbe, received a supply of ammunition there, and being joined by twenty horse from the garrison, took the road to Huesca. Mina, though inferior in numbers, was superior in cavalry, having 200 horse, and of this superiority he made full use. With 160 horse he followed close upon the rear of the enemy, and impeded their march in the plain till his infantry came up. Part under Cruchaga got upon their left flank, another column under Barena menaced them in the rear, a flank company supported this movement, and on the right and in front Mina brought his cavalry. Unlike the French generals, who, whenever they boasted of victory, showed the baseness of their own nature by depreciating and vilifying their opponents, Mina bestowed the highest praise upon the courage and discipline of the enemy in this action. They formed themselves into a square, closing their files with the utmost coolness as fast as the men fell. Three times the Spaniards broke them, pouring in their fire within pistol-shot. They formed a fourth time; Cruchaga then, after pouring in a volley, attacked them with the bayonet; at the same moment they were assailed in the same manner by the rest of the infantry; they were again broken, and the cavalry began to cut them down. The commander, seventeen officers, and 640 men laid down their arms and were made prisoners. The French cavalry also surrendered; but thinking that they saw a favourable opportunity for escaping, they wounded some of the unsuspecting Spaniards, and rode off. This conduct met with its merited punishment; they were so closely pursued, that five only reached Huesca, and two of those were cut down at the gates; the remaining three were all who escaped of the whole detachment. Among the Spaniards Lizarraga fell, who commanded the cavalry that day. Mina, whose horse had been shot under him, immediately advanced to Huesca; the garrison had fled, leaving behind them some of their effects, and five Spanish officers, who thus received their liberty from the hero of Navarre.

♦Cruchaga carries off the enemy’s stores from Tafalla.♦

Mina was now embarrassed with his prisoners: he marched them to the coast, in hopes there to find means of embarking them for Coruña, and fortunately the Iris, Captain Christian, was in sight, and took 400 of them on board. While he was thus employed, Cruchaga learnt that the French had collected considerable stores of grain in Tafalla, relying in perfect security upon the fortifications, where they had mounted four pieces of cannon, and upon the situation of that city on the road to Zaragoza, within reach of succour from Pamplona and Caparrosa. From Sanguesa he watched the motions of the French. By a rapid march he reached S. Martin de Ujue, two short hours distant from the city, and he took such effectual means for keeping his movements secret, that no intelligence could be given to the enemy. At daybreak, he approached Tafalla with that silence which he said was peculiar to his troops: they surprised the guard, the French retired within their fort, Cruchaga entered with music before him, as in triumph, and loaded the grain upon beasts which he had brought with him for the purpose. It had not been his intention to attempt any thing against the enemy’s works: but his men heard that a priest, a number of peasants, and about thirty women, were confined in a fortified convent, because they had relations in the service of their country, or were suspected of favouring their country’s cause; and they attacked the convent. The French abandoned it, and fled to their other works, leaving good spoil behind them to the conquerors. They, however, rejoiced more in having delivered their countrymen from these oppressors, than in the important stores which they obtained by the day’s expedition; and before they left Tafalla, they drew up in the centre of the city, and the band played, to comfort, Cruchaga said, the hearts of the Spaniards!

♦Mina’s object in soliciting for military rank.♦

Mina had obtained military rank for himself and his officers, and was now colonel and commandant-general of the division of Navarre, under which appellation his troops were considered as attached to the seventh army under Mendizabal. Pre-eminent as were the services of this chief and his followers, they did not obtain this rank without repeated solicitations, and the direct interference of the Cortes; for the Regency at first would only concede them the title of urbanos31, or local militia. The fitness of this designation was well exposed by Sr. Terreros: “They,” said he, “who go among the mountains hunting the wild beasts of France, and bathing their weapons in French blood, are local militia! and they who live at home and drag their sabres at their heels in coffeehouses, are regulars and veterans!” ... Mina’s object in soliciting rank in the regular army was, that his men when they fell into the hands of the enemy might not be put to death as insurgents; but, like the Empecinado, and Manso, and Ballasteros, he found that men who were equally destitute of honour and humanity could only be made to observe the ordinary usages of war by the law of retaliation. Repeatedly and earnestly had he applied to the French generals, conjuring them to respect the laws of war; nor did he cease to remonstrate till farther forbearance would have been a crime. In the course of two days twelve peasants were shot by the French in Estella, sixteen in Pamplona, and thirty-eight of his soldiers, and four officers, were put to death: Mina then issued a decree for reprisals, exclaiming,

♦His decree for reprisals.♦ that the measure was full. He began his manifesto by contrasting his own conduct with that of these ferocious invaders; then declared war to the death and without quarter, without distinction of officers or soldiers, and especially including by name Napoleon Buonaparte. Wherever the French might be taken, with or without arms, in action or out of it, they were to be hung, and their bodies exposed along the highways, in their regimentals, and with a ticket upon each specifying his name. Every house in which a Frenchman should have been hidden should be burnt, and its inhabitants put to death. If from any village information were given to the enemy that there were volunteers there, such volunteers not amounting to eight in number, five hundred ducats should be levied upon that village, for the information; and if any volunteer in consequence should have fallen into the hands of the French, four of that village should be chosen by lot and put to death. Mina’s anxiety not to bring the inhabitants into danger is apparent in this decree; he seems to have thought that if as many as eight volunteers were in one village, the imminent hazard of concealing them might exempt the people from punishment for informing against them. He declared Pamplona in a state of siege, and the villages and buildings within a mile round the walls; within this line no person was to pass on pain of death; the parties who should be stationed to observe it were ordered to fire upon any one who trespassed beyond the bounds assigned, and if they apprehended him, wounded or unwounded, to hang him instantly upon the nearest tree. All persons who wished to leave that city should be received with the humanity of the Navarrese character; they were to present themselves to him in person; ... if a whole family came out, it was sufficient that the head should appear. Deserters of all ranks were invited by a promise that they might, at their own choice, either serve with him or go to England, or return to their own country; in either of which latter cases, he undertook to convey them to one of the ports on the coast; and he decreed the punishment of death against all who should kill or betray a deserter, or refuse him shelter and assistance. All persons were forbidden to go beyond the limits of their respective villages without a passport from the Alcalde or Regidor, signed by the parochial priest, or by some other inhabitant in places where no priest resided: whoever should be apprehended without one was to be shot: the innkeepers were charged to demand the passport from all their guests, and seize every person who could not produce one, and deliver him over to the first Guerrilla party. If any village should pay, or influence the payment of the forty pesatas per week, which the enemy had imposed upon the parents and relations of the volunteers, (the name by which Mina always designated his followers,) the property of the magistrates, priests, and influential persons of that village should be confiscated at discretion. And in requital for this imposition of the Intrusive Government, he imposed a weekly mulct of twice that sum upon the parents, brothers, and kinsmen, of those persons who were in the employ of the French at Pamplona. This decree was to be circulated in all the cities, towns, valleys, and cendeas (parochial, or district meetings) of Navarre; it was to be proclaimed every fifteen days, and to be read by the officiating priest in every church on the first and third Sundays of every month: wherever this duty was omitted, the magistrates, priests, escribanos, or town-clerks, and two of the influential inhabitants, were declared subject to military

♦Dec. 14.♦ punishment. He dated this decree from the field of honour in Navarre, and the Government ratified it by inserting it in the Regency’s Gazette.

♦Duran and the Empecinado separate.♦

The movements of the Guerrilla leaders on the Ebro, as well as in Navarre and Upper Aragon, made Suchet feel that he had placed himself in a situation in which every day that deferred his success increased his danger; nor was he without uneasiness on the side of Catalonia, where the Catalans carried on their warfare with such vigour, that the French could aim at nothing more than preserving and provisioning their fortified posts. His communication with Tortosa was interrupted by the armed peasantry; scarcity began to be felt in his camp, and he was obliged to detach 4000 men to protect a convoy going from Zaragoza. It was Blake’s hope that Duran, the Empecinado, and Mina, might threaten that city, and perhaps succeed in delivering it from its oppressors. The plan was well concerted, and if it had been executed, Suchet would hardly have ventured to maintain his ground in the kingdom of Valencia. The attempt, however, was not made; for some difference arose between Duran and the Empecinado, and instead of forming a junction with Mina, they separated from each other. By this time Murviedro was closely pressed, a battery of eight four-and-twenty pounders had been constructed, and the governor made signals of distress. The

♦Blake determines to give battle.♦

Spaniards were eager for battle; and Blake, foregoing his first and better resolution, consented to gratify them, in the hope that one victory, when victory certainly appeared attainable, and would be of such immense importance, might repay him for the many disasters which he had sustained. He advanced, therefore, on the 24th about noon, and took post for that night on the height of El Puig, his right resting on the sea, and his left upon Liria.

♦Battle of Murviedro.♦

The country between Valencia and Murviedro is like a closely-planted orchard, bounded by the sea on the right, and on the left terminating at some distance from the foot of the mountains which separate Valencia from La Mancha, Cuenca, and Aragon. Three great carriage roads cross this land of gardens; and by these three roads the attack was to be made; for though, from the nature of the ground, the left wing could not be united with the centre and the right, it was thought that this would be a less inconvenience than to leave open either of the three roads. It was of especial consequence to occupy the left road, that of Betera; for should Suchet, as might be expected, endeavour to anticipate the attack, he might otherwise send his main body in this direction, where the mountains would cover them, and the open country give free scope for his cavalry and for those manœuvres, in which Blake knew but too well the superiority of the enemy.

On the next morning the army was put in motion. Zayas commanded the right, Lardizabal the centre, Carlos O’Donnell the left, consisting of the Valencian division under Miranda, and the Aragonese under Villacampa: Mahy, with the Murcian division, was to support this wing; Blake, with another body of reserve, remained upon El Puig. The left wing was to begin the attack, relying upon the support which they would receive from the centre and the other wing, who were to accompany the movement and cover them on the right: this, it was thought, would be a resource in case of a want of firmness on their part, which would not have been the case had a different disposition been preferred. If there was an error in Blake’s disposition, it was in thus trusting the principal attack to that part of his army upon which he had least reliance.

Suchet, who desired nothing so much as an action, prepared to meet his antagonist, leaving six battalions to continue the siege. At eight in the morning his sharp-shooters were briskly driven back; and from that moment, he says, he knew that he had to contend with troops very unlike those of Valencia. Some strong columns outflanked him on the left, and his right, which was a league distant from the main body, was outflanked also by O’Donnell. Both armies began their movements at the same time: about half way between them on the left of the Spaniards, where the fate of the battle was to be decided, was a ridge of ground, which offered some advantage, and which both parties endeavoured to gain. The sharp-shooters of O’Donnell’s division running with eagerness towards this point, drove back that part of the French cavalry which covered the enemy’s advance: they got possession, and were supported by two battalions and some field-pieces; but their ardour had been inconsiderate, for they had separated too much from the columns, and the French, who knew how to avail themselves of every opportunity which was offered, speedily dislodged them by a well-supported charge.

This error was fatal; for the want of discipline was felt in leaving the ground, as it had been in winning it: one battalion after another, after a feeble resistance, was thrown into disorder, and abandoned the field. It was now that Mahy with the reserve should have endeavoured to support them and retrieve the day, but the order for him to attack did not arrive in time, and he did not advance in time without it: and seeing that the chief efforts of the enemy would now be directed against him, and that his cavalry abandoned him on their approach, he immediately commenced his retreat. While the fate of the left wing was thus decided, Suchet broke through the centre: not without a brave struggle on the part of the Spaniards. D. Juan Caro, the brother of Romana, who commanded a body of cavalry on the left of the centre, made a desperate charge against the enemy’s horse, though they were supported by artillery, and defended by a mud wall. The Spaniards leaped the wall, Colonel Ric of the grenadiers leading the way, and cut down the French at their guns. The enemy’s reserve came up, and the second line of the Spaniards, which should have supported them, having been unhappily detached to reinforce the vanguard, the guns were retaken, and Caro himself was made prisoner.

The centre of the Spanish army was now defeated: Lardizabal, however, supported the character which he had gained at Santi Petri, and collecting some cavalry, checked the enemy and covered the retreat of his troops. But it was on the right that the Spaniards displayed most resolution; and had all the army behaved like Zayas and the division of Albuhera, Blake’s highest hopes might have been accomplished. They, though unsupported on their left, cleared the road before them, and when the day was lost in the other part of the field, repeatedly repulsed the superior forces which were brought against them. By the account of Suchet himself, the action was maintained here with great slaughter: they covered their left with a battalion in mass, and stood their ground till their cartridges were consumed, ... Zayas then sent for more, but Blake ordered him to retreat. This movement was admirably executed, all the wounded were removed, and so little were the men dispirited, that twice they demanded to be allowed to charge with the bayonet. They occupied the houses in the village of Puchole, and fired from the roofs and windows; but here, by an error, for which the commandant of the imperialists of Toledo was suspended, the remains of the Walloon battalion were surrounded and made prisoners. When the fugitives had reached Tuna, the reserve was ordered to retreat, and Zayas brought them off in the face of the enemy.

This was the best action which had yet been fought by the Spaniards, but it was most unfortunate in its results, and the issue proved but too plainly that it ought not to have been hazarded. By the French account 4639 prisoners were taken, four stand of colours, and sixteen pieces of cannon; the killed and wounded were estimated at 2000 men; on their own part they acknowledged only 128 men killed and 596 wounded. Suchet was struck by a ball on the shoulder, General Harispe had two horses killed under him, and two others of the French generals were wounded: the manner in which they exposed themselves, and the number of officers of rank whose names appeared among the wounded, prove that the victory was not achieved without difficulty, nor without greater loss than the official account admitted.

♦Murviedro surrendered.♦

The garrison of Murviedro, when they saw the battle commence, threw their caps into the air with shouts of joy, calling to their countrymen to come on to victory. In the evening, Suchet, leaving his army a league from Valencia, returned to the camp: a breach had been made during the day, which was not yet practicable, but by the fire of some hours longer would have been rendered so; the French general had no inclination to assault the walls again; ... it was of consequence, he said, to profit by the victory which had been gained under the eyes of the garrison; ... and the governor’s want of constancy, or perhaps of integrity, enabled him to do this most effectually; for Andriani had no sooner satisfied himself that General Caro was really taken prisoner, than, as if the victory of the French had destroyed all hopes, he capitulated with more than 2500 men. “Thus,” said the French, “we became masters of a place which had so long resisted Hannibal.” Had Andriani been as true to the cause of his country as the soldiers under him, the second siege might possibly have become as famous as the first. A successful assault could only have put the enemy in possession of a fourth part of the fort, when there would have been three more breaches to make, and three more

♦Mémoires, 2. 191.♦ attacks. It was the governor’s duty to have resisted to the last extremity; but to that extremity he was not reduced. By Suchet’s own statement, the place was in no danger, and notwithstanding all the efforts of his engineers and all their skill, nothing could be less certain than the success of a new assault.

Blake, in the orders which he issued on the following day, said that he was dissatisfied with certain corps, and with some individuals, and that as soon as their cowardice was juridically proved, he would punish them with all the rigour of national justice. But in general he declared, that the conduct both of officers and men, and especially that of the division under Zayas, had been satisfactory. “For himself,” he said, “he was sufficiently accustomed to the vicissitudes of war, not to be surprised at the ill success of the action, and he was not the less confident of being able to repel the invasion of the enemy.” But Blake did not feel the confidence which he affected. He confessed afterwards, that after the fall of Tarragona, the loss of Valencia was to be apprehended; but that the brilliant manner in which the defence of Murviedro was begun, the forces which its defence gave time for assembling, and the spirit of the officers and troops, had given well-founded and flattering hopes, which continued till this battle extinguished them. From that moment, he said, nothing but what was gloomy presented itself; only some political revolution, or other extraordinary event, which should deprive Suchet of his expected reinforcements, could save Valencia; and his plan was to defend the lines which had been formed for its protection as long as possible, without entirely compromising the safety of his army.

♦Valencia.♦

Valencia stands in an open plain, upon the right bank of the Guadalaviar, about two miles from the sea. Its old ramparts were at this time in good preservation; but works of antiquity are of little use against the implements of modern war. They were thick walls of brick-work, flanked with round towers at equal distances, and without moats. The river flows at the foot of the walls the whole extent of the eastern side, separating the city from its suburbs; the suburbs, being of later date than the town, are more open and commodiously built, and contain a larger population; including them, the number of inhabitants is estimated at 82,000. The adjoining country is in the highest state of cultivation; and the city, from its history, its remains of antiquity, and the customs of the people, is one of the most interesting and curious in the whole Peninsula. In no part of Spain, nor perhaps of Christendom, were there so many religious puppet-shows exhibited; nowhere were the people more sunk in all the superstitions of Romish idolatry, and, if the reproaches of even the Spaniards themselves may be credited, there was as little purity of morals as of faith. It is a proverbial saying, that in Valencia the meat is grass, the grass water, the men women, and the women32 nothing. But if the Valencians were, as a censurer has said of them, light equally in mind and body, the cause has been wrongly imputed to their genial and delicious climate; the state of ignorance to which a double despotism had reduced the nation, and the demoralizing practices of the Romish church, sufficiently account for their degradation.

The Guadalaviar at Valencia is about a hundred yards wide; it is usually kept low, because its waters are drawn off by canals, which render the adjoining country like a rich garden; but in the rainy season the stream is so strong, that it has frequently swept away its bridges. There are five of these, fine structures, and so near each other, that all may be seen at once. Two had been broken down, and the other three were covered by têtes-de-pont. There had been ample time to provide for defence, and much labour and much cost had been bestowed upon the works which were deemed necessary. A small ditch filled with water was made round the wall, with a covered way; works also were constructed to defend the gates; but the Valencians chiefly relied upon their intrenched camp, which contained within its extensive line the city, and the three suburbs upon the right bank. These works were fortified with bastions, and mounted with 100 pieces of cannon; they extended from the sea to Olivette; but as the point in which they terminated was weak, because it could be attacked in the rear by the left bank, other interior works were commenced, for the purpose of insulating this from the rest of the line. The engineers relied also upon their command of the river, meaning to cover the approaches by inundations, and to fill the fosses of their camp, which might easily be done, the ground being a low plain intersected by numerous canals.

♦Suchet summons Valencia.♦

Suchet summoned the city the day after his victory, saying, that he had taken 8000 prisoners, many generals, and the greater part of Blake’s artillery, and calling upon the governor to save Valencia from the calamities and outrages which a vain resistance must inevitably draw upon it, and of which all the fortresses besieged and taken by the French presented terrible examples. He promised an amnesty for the past, offered the people his special protection, and assured them that the French would endeavour, by generous proceedings, to make them forget the evils of war, and the horrible anarchy in which they had so long been plunged. Blake published this summons, and did not think proper to reply to it; at the same time he appealed to the people as witnesses of the valour with which the troops had fought, and the good order in which they had effected their retreat, for the purpose of occupying their former position.

♦He establishes himself in the suburb, and in the port.♦

The enemy soon closed upon the city, and established themselves in the suburb called Serrano, on the left bank of the river, not, however, without considerable opposition. They won their way foot by foot, and carried the last house by sapping and mining. Had the spirit of which the people here gave proof been properly fostered and directed, Valencia would have been safe. Having gained the suburb, they formed a contravallation of three strong redoubts, having seven feet water in their ditches, with two fortified convents and some houses, to confine the besieged within their têtes-de-pont. The fire of the Spaniards was well directed to annoy them during these operations; but the loss inflicted upon the enemy by no means counterbalanced the advantage which they had gained, in possessing themselves of the fortified convents in the suburb. Next they occupied the Grao, which is the port of Valencia.

Suchet’s left was now at the Grao, his right at Liria, and his centre in the suburbs. Using every possible exertion to ensure success, he brought up in the course of December 100 four-and-twenty pounders, thirty mortars and howitzers; and when this formidable train was ready, and his reinforcements had arrived, he put the army in motion for decisive operations. On the night between the 25th and 26th of December, two bridges were rapidly constructed by the engineers, a league from Manisses, above all the sources of the different waters, in order that the troops might not be engaged in a labyrinth of canals. Blake had posted his infantry from the sea to Manisses, and his cavalry on more elevated ground above that village, to cover his left. He had fortified the villages of Mislata, Quarte, and Manisses, on the banks of the river, and connected them by lines with artillery. His great object was to keep possession of Quarte and S. Onofre; as long as that was done, and the cavalry retained its position, it would be in his power either to risk a general action, drawing from Valencia all the troops for that purpose; or to evacuate the city, and leaving only a small garrison for the purpose of capitulating, draw off and save the great body of the army. And even if the enemy should succeed in turning the left wing, and thus cut off his retreat by the great road, it was scarcely possible, he thought, that the two Cullera roads should be intercepted on both sides of the lake of Albufera.

The general’s hopes were, as usual, frustrated by the misconduct of those in whom he trusted, and by the

♦Dec. 26.♦ rapidity of Suchet’s movements. At daybreak the two bridges were completed, three divisions of infantry and the whole of the horse passed, and drove back the Spanish cavalry; and the French getting possession of the sluices, turned the waters of the canals into the river, and thus deprived Valencia of one means of defence on which she had relied. Another division crossed the river between Quarte and Mislata to occupy the Spaniards in front. Here Zayas again displayed that resolution, and that military skill, which made him more, perhaps, than any other man at this time the hope of the Spanish armies; but the troops on the left, where Mahy commanded, gave way, as they had done in the former action; they abandoned the intrenchments at S. Onofre, ... the vital points of the line, ... without even waiting for an attack, and retired from Manisses almost upon the first fire. Mahy, with about 5000 men, reached Alcira, abandoning the artillery; the rest of the division was unaccounted for; the loss in killed could have been little or none, and the French made no boast of the numbers which they had taken; they who were missing then must mostly have dispersed in their flight, the unavoidable consequence when men have lost all confidence in their leaders.

The investment of Valencia was completed before the close of the day; and Suchet, again turning against the Spaniards those advantages of which they had so little availed themselves, secured himself everywhere by the canals and fosses with which the ground was intersected. Still the lines remained which the Valencians had for three years been employed in constructing; but after the labour, and the cost which had been expended upon them, when the hour of need came they were found, or thought to be, untenable. Blake, with the troops who were without the city, might still have effected a retreat; but he wished to save as much of the army as possible, and to prepare the people for a catastrophe which they had never looked on to, and to which he perceived they would not be induced to submit, till they felt the uttermost necessity. Such, indeed, was their disposition, that men like Santiago Sass, and D. Pedro Maria Ric, and such women as the Countess Burita, would have protected them better than Blake with his army and all his lines and defences.

♦The army endeavours to escape.♦

A council of war was held, and it was agreed unanimously that the army should endeavour to effect its escape on the night of the 28th. They went through the gate of S. Jose; but before they had gone far, the advanced posts discovered them; about 300 men made their way to the mountains under favour of the darkness, about as many more were killed or drowned in the canals, and the rest withdrew within their intrenchments, having no confidence in the works, nor in their general; and their general having none in them, nor in himself, nor any hope from without or from

♦Xativa surrendered.♦ within. An event more discouraging than the surrender of Murviedro occurred the day after this attempt, for the town of St. Philippe, half way on the road to Alicante, was given up without opposition to Suchet’s advanced guard. This place had distinguished itself in the War of the Succession for its inflexible fidelity to the Austrian party. The inhabitants defended themselves, as Marshal Berwick relates, with unheard-of firmness, maintaining street by street and house by house, for eight days after his troops were within the walls; in revenge for which he razed the town; all the surviving inhabitants were removed to Castile, and forbidden on pain of death ever to return; and Philip, when a new town was erected on the ruins, abolished its old name of Xativa, and imposed upon it that of St. Philippe.... Even the new race of inhabitants felt this name as a reproach; and but a few months before this cowardly surrender, the Cortes, at their petition, had passed an edict restoring the old appellation. It was just restored in time to be disgraced. The French found a great quantity of provisions and a million of cartridges, ... hoarded there for this shameful end!

While the enemy succeeded thus, almost without opposition in every thing they attempted, Blake resolved to make a second trial at escape; but the people

♦Blake abandons the lines and retires into the city.♦ compelled him to give up this project, and remain in patient expectation of a fate which he no longer made an effort to avert. This he calls an inconsiderate popular movement; but the people, who saw their works as yet untouched, above 16,000 regular troops to defend them, including the best officers and artillerymen in the service, with artillery and military stores in abundance, and the population of the city ready and eager to bear their part in the defence, might have encouraged a general to hope, and ought to have inspired him with a more

♦1812.♦ heroic despair. Suchet opened his trenches on the first night of the new year; on the fourth they were advanced within fifty toises of the ditch. Blake then called another council, the result of which was, that the lines were abandoned, and the troops retired into the city, taking with them their field artillery, but leaving eighty pieces behind.

The French general says, that the astonishing desertion from the Spanish army induced Blake to abandon these vast and important works. Blake himself assigned no such cause, but the desertion must undoubtedly have been very great, ... a commander who feels no hope can excite none. The suburb of Quarte was immediately seized by the enemy, and Suchet bombarded the city during the whole of the fifth. The next morning he sent in a summons, “thinking,” he says, “that an army which had just abandoned works of such strength, mounted with eighty-one pieces of cannon, would call loudly for capitulation, now that they saw the effects of

♦The city a second time summoned.
January.♦ a bombardment upon a city which at that time contained no fewer than 200,000 souls.” The summons was in these words: ... “General, the laws of war assign a period to the sufferings of the people; this period has arrived. The imperial army is now within ten toises of the body of your fortress; in some hours several breaches may be effected; and then a general assault must precipitate the French columns into Valencia. If you wait for this terrible moment, it will no longer be in my power to control the fury of the soldiers, and you alone will have to answer to God and man for the evils which must overwhelm Valencia. The desire to spare the total ruin of a great city determines me to offer you an honourable capitulation: I engage to preserve to the officers their equipages, and to respect the property of the inhabitants. It is unnecessary for me to add, that the religion we profess shall be revered. I expect your reply in two hours, and salute you with very high consideration.”

Blake replied, “Yesterday, perhaps before noon, I might have consented to change the position of the army, and evacuate the city, for the sake of saving its inhabitants from the horrors of a bombardment; but the first twenty-four hours which your excellency has employed in setting it on fire have taught me how much I may depend upon the constancy of the people, and their resignation to every sacrifice which may be necessary, in order that the army may maintain the honour of the Spanish name. Your excellency may consequently continue your operations; and as to the responsibility before God and man, for all the misfortunes which the defence of the place occasions, and all those which war brings with it, it cannot attach to me.” This

♦Suchet expects a desperate resistance.♦ reply led Suchet to apprehend he should have to encounter a Zaragozan resistance. “The general,” said he in his dispatches, “is no longer the master; he is obliged to obey the decisions of a fanatical Junta, composed of seven persons, five of whom are Franciscan monks, and the other two butchers of Valencia; the same who, about three years ago, directed the massacre of 400 French families that were ordered out of the country. I therefore continue my operations with vigour against the place, which at this present moment counts a population of 200,000 souls. Five of the principal chiefs of the insurgents are now within its walls, with all their property, and whatever fanatics or madmen are yet left in Spain. The engineers will open their works under the walls. The artillery raises formidable batteries; and notwithstanding the rains, it will in a few days be able to make a breach in the last enclosure. The army is waiting with impatience for the attack, and if we should have to make a war of houses, as at Zaragoza, it will be rendered of short continuance, by the ability and rapidity of our miners.”

Had the Valencians resorted to this mode of defence, Suchet’s miners would have found themselves engaged in an extraordinary subterranean war, among the Roman sewers; but after relying so long upon the army, and a military defence, it was too late to organize the people for that better system, which, if it had been determined upon from the first, might have proved successful, and which, even in its most disastrous termination, would have added as much to the strength of Spain as to the honour of Valencia. But Blake had nothing of the heroic character which had been displayed so eminently in Zaragoza and Gerona. He was a soldier, skilful enough in his profession, to have held a respectable, perhaps a high rank, if he had commanded well-disciplined troops; and now at the last he performed all that

♦He bombards the city.♦ the code of military duty requires. Three days and nights Suchet bombarded the city, which was so utterly unprovided for such an attack, that the people had not even cellars in which to take shelter: the enemy continued their approaches, till they had effected a lodgement in the last houses of the suburbs, and placed mines under two of the principal gates. Blake then offered to give up the city, on condition that he might march out with the army. Such terms were of course rejected; a council of war was therefore held, and terms of capitulation proposed, to which Suchet agreed the more readily, because, according to the system of Buonaparte, he meant to be bound by them no farther than suited his interest, or his inclination. The troops were to be made prisoners of war, the inhabitants and their property protected, and no inquiry made into the conduct of those who had taken an active part in the war. In one point the Spanish general exceeded his powers; forgetting that he was no longer in a situation to act as one of the Regents, and that even his free and voluntary act would have required the consent and approbation of the other members of the executive, he agreed that the French prisoners in Majorca, Alicant, and Carthagena, should be exchanged.

This capitulation delivered into the hands of the enemy 16,131 effective troops of the line, besides about 2000 in the hospitals, 1800 cavalry and artillery horses, twenty-two generals, Zayas and Lardizabal among

♦Jan. 9.
Blake surrenders the city to the army.♦ them, 893 officers, and 374 pieces of cannon. The most irreparable loss was that of fifty good artillery officers, formed in the school of Segovia, nearly 400 sappers and miners, and 1400 old artillerymen. The battle of Ocaña drew after it more disastrous consequences, but the loss in itself had been far less severe. Thus terminated General Blake’s unfortunate career; his failure at Niebla was the only one of his many misfortunes which was disreputable, but all experience was lost upon him: often and severely as he had felt the want of discipline in his troops, his obstinacy was not to be overcome, and he never would consent that the Spanish army should be brought into an efficient state of discipline by the English, though he had seen that a similar measure had delivered Portugal, and must have known that it would as certainly deliver Spain. But though the loss of a general, thus incorrigible in error, and whose continual ill fortune was such as almost to deprive the army under him of all hope, could not be regretted for the sake of Spain, Blake himself, amid all his errors and misfortunes, maintained the character of a brave man, and it was not possible to read his last dispatch without some degree of respect as well as compassion. “I hope,” said he, “your highness will be pleased to ratify the exchange which has been agreed upon, and to transmit orders in consequence to Majorca. As to what concerns myself, the exchange of officers of my rank is so distant, that I consider the lot of my whole life as determined; and therefore, in the moment of my expatriation, which is equivalent to death, I earnestly entreat your highness, that if my services have been acceptable to my country, and I have never yet done anything to forfeit the claim, it will be pleased to take under its protection my numerous family.”

Suchet observed the capitulation like a Frenchman of the new system. He had promised that no man should be molested for the part which he had taken; but no sooner was he master of the city, than he sent 1500 monks and friars prisoners into France, and executed in the public square some of those who were most distinguished for their zeal in the national cause.

CHAPTER XL.
ATTEMPT ON ALICANTE. PENISCOLA BETRAYED. NEW REGENCY. TARIFA UNSUCCESSFULLY BESIEGED BY THE FRENCH. RECAPTURE OF CIUDAD RODRIGO AND BADAJOZ.

♦1812.♦

M. Suchet was rewarded for his services with the title of Duc d’Albufera, and with a grant of the revenues arising from the lake of that name near Valencia, and from the domains adjoining. He was told that he had now to obtain possession of Alicante and Carthagena, and then the only remaining points from which the war could be kept up on that side of Spain would be closed. It

♦January.
Attempt on Alicante.♦ was, indeed, considered at Cadiz, that Alicante might soon be expected to fall in consequence of the loss of Valencia; and Carthagena was regarded as so insecure, that the Conde de la Bisbal suggested the propriety of occupying the heights which command it by a British force. Before this precaution was taken, a premature demonstration against Alicante had the effect of putting the inhabitants upon their guard. To secure the success of Suchet’s operations against Valencia, Marshal Marmont, pursuant to Buonaparte’s instructions, had sent General Montbrun, with two divisions of infantry and one of horse, to co-operate with him, by manœuvring against the corps of Mahy and Freyre, which he was either to cut off or compel to return into Alicante; but his orders were, at all events, to rejoin the army of Portugal from which he had been detached by the twentieth of the month at latest. Montbrun reached Almanza on the day that Valencia capitulated; nevertheless, in opposition to Suchet’s advice, he persisted in advancing to Alicante, which he summoned to surrender, and then throwing in a few shells, commenced his return toward Madrid, having raised the spirits of the Spaniards by this unsupported and unsuccessful attempt, and afforded to a more vigilant enemy an opportunity which was not lost.

♦Dénia surrendered.♦

Suchet followed up his success by sending a division against the little town and port of Dénia, which, though protected by a respectable fortress, was surrendered without resistance: he then sent General Severoli against Peniscola, a place so strong by nature, and so well secured by art, that it had obtained the name of Little Gibraltar, and was, in fact, impregnable

♦Peniscola betrayed by Garcia Navarro.♦ by any regular attack. But General Garcia Navarro commanded there: he had been taken prisoner in 1810, had escaped from France, was trusted with this important post, and now betrayed his trust, and entered the Intruder’s service, saying, he would rather share the fate of his country and submit to the French, than act under English orders. As this man was one of the basest traitors who deserted his country in its need, so was he the most unlucky in timing his treason; for so great a change was presently effected in the relative situation of the contending powers, as to make it apparent even to himself that he had taken the losing side, and would have only perpetual infamy for his reward. About the same time, but in a very

♦Carrera killed in Murcia.♦ different manner, the Spaniards lost General D. Martin de la Carrera, who had distinguished himself in the recovery of Galicia, and had borne throughout the war an honourable name. He now commanded the cavalry of the Murcian army: a French detachment from Granada under General Soult, the Marshal’s brother, had entered the city of Murcia and were raising contributions there, when Carrera attacked them with his advanced guard, gallantly, but unsuccessfully; for though he took them by surprise, their numbers were greater than he had expected to find, and he fell in the market-place, fighting bravely till the last. The French having sacked the city abandoned it during the night, and on the morrow Carrera was interred with all the honours which the inhabitants could bestow. On that day month his exequies were performed in the cathedral as a public solemnity, the General D. Jose O’Donnell, with Generals Mahy, Freyre, and other officers attending; the foundation of a monument to his memory was laid upon the spot where he fell; and O’Donnell and the other officers, touching the stains of his blood with their swords, swore like him to die for their country whenever the sacrifice of their lives should be called for, and added to that vow, one of perpetual hatred towards the French.

♦New constitution.♦

The Cortes, meantime, as if they were equally certain that the country would be delivered from its merciless invaders, and that no measures which they could take would accelerate the deliverance, employed themselves with unhappy diligence in forming a new constitution: a small but zealous minority succeeded in dictating this to their reluctant but less active colleagues; and in its details, as little regard was paid to the opinions and feelings of the people, as to the rights of the aristocracy and the fundamental principles of the government. The public were far more interested in a change of the Regency ... for the removal of

♦Change of Regency.♦

Blake after his manifold misfortunes was considered as a gain, even though accompanied with the loss of an army. The new Regency consisted of the Duque del Infantado, at that time ambassador in England; D. Joaquin Mosquera y Figueroa, who was one of the Council of the Indies; D. Juan Maria Villavicencio, a lieutenant-general in the navy; D. Ignacio Rodriguez de Rivas, of the royal council, and the Conde de la Bisbal. A new army was set on foot in Murcia, to supply the place of that which had been carried into captivity with Blake; and the national hopes were raised by successes in other quarters, as brilliant as they were at this time unlooked for.

♦Ballasteros retreats to the lines of St. Roque.♦

Ballasteros had been appointed to the command in Andalusia, following a system of war like that of the Guerrillas, which was best suited both to his own talents and the indiscipline and wretched equipment of his troops, he had inflicted more loss upon the enemy than they sustained from any of the regular Spanish armies. In vain did M. Soult boast repeatedly of defeating and putting him to flight; the men who dispersed to-day collected again on the morrow: and while the French were rejoicing for having routed him at one point, they heard that he had re-appeared in force at another, and made himself felt when he was least dreaded. In September he landed at Algeziras to act in aid of the mountaineers of Ronda: a movement was then planned by the enemy for cutting him off, and for getting possession of Tarifa, an important point which they had hitherto neglected, as if in full expectation that no measures for securing it would be thought of by the Spaniards and their allies till it should be too late. After some slaughter of the peasantry and some partial actions, General Godinot advancing with 5000 men from Prado del Rey, found Ballasteros well posted in front of Ximena: he retired to collect a stronger force, and having been joined by two columns under Generals Barroux and Semele advanced again with from 8 to 10,000 men, meaning to march upon St. Roque, occupy the coast, and get possession of Tarifa by a coup de main. Ballasteros, who had not half that

♦Oct. 10.♦ number in a state of discipline on which any reliance could be placed, fell back upon the heights of St. Roque, and took a position on the right of the town: four days afterwards the French appeared, and endeavoured to bring on an engagement; but Ballasteros knew his own weakness: he fell back upon the old Spanish lines, and all the inhabitants of St. Roque flying from their town, took shelter under the guns of Gibraltar. The French invited them to return to their houses, with promises of security and protection; but bitter experience had now taught the Spaniards what French protection meant, and they threw themselves upon the compassion of their allies. Rations were allotted both for them and the Spanish troops, and the reservoirs and tanks were emptied for their use.

So busy and so stimulating a scene had not been witnessed from Gibraltar since the last siege of the rock. The fugitives, without any other accommodation or means of subsistence than what charity could supply them, were scattered about in all directions near the bay-side barrier; the French occupied the heights, and Ballasteros, with his hardy and half-naked bands, remained under protection of the rock, waiting in hope that want would soon compel the enemy to retire, for previous arrangements had been made for annoying them in

♦Tarifa attempted by the French.♦ the rear and cutting off their supplies. Godinot was not more successful in his design of seizing Tarifa. Aware that such an attempt would be made, and warned by the example of Tarragona to take measures for resisting the enemy in time, the Spanish government dispatched a force under D. Francisco de Copons to garrison the town; and 1000 British infantry, with a detachment of artillery under Colonel Skerrett, embarked at the same time for the same service. This, it was supposed, would also operate as a diversion in favour of Ballasteros. The British troops landed on the very day that Ballasteros fell back under the rock; but a strong easterly gale delayed the Spanish part of the expedition. On the 18th about 1500 of the enemy advanced against Tarifa by the pass of La Pena; but the road could be commanded from the sea, and our vessels fired upon them with such effect that they turned back. Godinot meantime felt severely the want of supplies; for the mountaineers of Ronda, and the parties which Ballasteros had appointed for that purpose, intercepted his communications and cut off his detachments. Three days, therefore, after his ineffectual demonstration against Tarifa, he retreated by Ximena upon Ubrique. Ballasteros was soon at his heels, and falling upon the division which composed the rear-guard, put it to flight, pursued it for three leagues, and brought away prisoners, knapsacks, and arms in abundance. He soon obtained a more important advantage: dividing his army for the purpose of deceiving the enemy, he collected it by a

♦Nov. 5.♦ general movement from different directions to one point, in the village of Prado del Rey, and marching from thence by night, surprised Semele at daybreak. This general had taken his station at Bornos upon the right bank of the Guadalete, with 2000 foot, 160 horse, and three pieces of artillery. All the mules and baggage fell into the hands of the Spaniards; about 100 prisoners were taken, and the corps was put

♦Oct. 5.♦ to flight. This fresh misfortune proved fatal to Godinot, whom Soult recalled to Seville. On his arrival in the evening he went to rest; early the next morning he came out of his chamber, took the musket of the sentry unobserved, and blew out his own brains.

The plans of Marshal Soult, however, were not to be frustrated by partial reverses, though they were impeded by them. France has rarely or never had an abler man in her service than this general, nor one who might have attained a higher reputation, if his consummate abilities had not been devoted to the service of a tyrant, and sullied by cruelties which bring disgrace upon France and upon human nature. He had lost Tarifa by relying too confidently on the supineness and inattention of the allies. The French entered it when they first overran Andalusia; and having, as they thought, taken possession, passed on to other points of more immediate importance. The governor of Gibraltar, General Colin Campbell, seized the opportunity, and occupied it with about 250 men and thirty gunners under Major Brown of the 28th. A few weeks afterwards, a thousand French arrived to garrison it: the general hatred of the Spaniards prevented them from getting any information but what their own people, and the few traitors whom they had seduced, could supply; and their troops were under no little surprise when they found the gates closed against them. They drew up below the eastern hills, within musket-range, and poured their bullets into the town; and they entered the suburbs, where several of our men were killed; but they were without artillery, and seeing a detachment issue through the sea-gate to take possession of the south-east hills, and bring some guns to bear upon their flank, they hastily retired, and made no farther attempt to occupy the place, till this time.

♦Tarifa.♦

Tarifa is believed to have been a settlement of the Phœnicians. It derives its present name from Tarik, who first led the Moors into Spain, and who is said to have built the castle. The town had long· been declining, till the late wars in which Spain had been involved with England, in consequence of her unhappy connexion with France, gave it a new importance: for a little island which stands out boldly into the Straits off the town rendered it a favourable station for gun boats; and during the late war these boats inflicted greater losses upon the trade of Great Britain than it suffered from all the fleets of all her enemies. There were two half-moon batteries and a martello tower on the island; but when the Spaniards at the commencement of this dreadful struggle formed their alliance with Great Britain, these works, with the whole line of defence along the Straits, were dismantled, lest the French should at any time turn it against the best ally of Spain. The enemy occupied no point which in so great a degree commanded the straits; and Soult was now the more desirous of obtaining it, because he was at this time negotiating with Morocco, and the possession of Tarifa, which is only five leagues distant from Tangiers, would render it impossible for England with all her naval means to prevent him from receiving corn; and thus the difficulty of supplying the French armies would be greatly lessened, if not altogether removed.

♦Tarifa regarrisoned by the English.♦

The little garrison which had saved this important place was withdrawn for the expedition under Generals Lapeña and Graham, and when the latter re-entered the Isle of Leon, he left Tarifa uncovered; but General Colin Campbell a second time secured it, by sending thither the marines from the ships at Gibraltar. Soon after it was re-garrisoned, Major King of the 82nd was appointed to the command, and he and the Spanish governor, D. Manuel Daban, delayed not to take precautions against a danger, the approach of which now began to be apprehended. Piquets were placed at La Pena, at Facinas, and Port Alanca, and provisions were laid in for a siege. The first movement of the enemy indicated their ultimate object; D. Antonio Begines de los Rios, an officer who had distinguished himself daring General Lapeña’s expedition, and who was now stationed at Algeziras, made a representation of the approaching danger, and General Campbell directed that some field works should be thrown up on the island to secure a retreat, in case a retreat should be unavoidable. These works excited some jealousy in the governor; but Major King explained to him their use and necessity; and Ballasteros, who inspected them about the same time, expressed in animated terms his gratitude to the British nation, seeming at that time, like a brave and generous man, to feel no petty suspicions, or lingering of old prejudices, or resentment of false and ill-directed pride.

♦Col. Skerrett and Copons arrive there.♦

In the middle of October, Colonel Skerrett arrived with about 1200 men, and took the command of the garrison; and in a few days D. Francisco de Copons followed him with 900 Spaniards and about 100 cavalry. The Spanish general demanded that the keys of the town should be given up to him, and Colonel Skerrett would have acceded to this, if it had not been represented, that his predecessors had kept possession of the keys, first to guard against any treachery; secondly, because the brother of the governor was in the French service; and, thirdly, as it was more conformable to the honour of the British nation. The validity of the two former reasons had been but too often proved: the latter might well have been dispensed with; on the part of England there was no point of honour implicated, and the British officer acted as he did for the welfare and security of Spain. The question was referred by Colonel Skerrett to Governor Campbell’s decision; and the rapid approach of the enemy, and the hearty co-operation of the allies against him, removed all jealousies which otherwise might have arisen.

♦The French invest the town.♦

The French advanced in such superior numbers, that little attempt could be made to oppose or impede them. They took possession of the surrounding hills on the 19th of December, and lighted fires, which were supposed to be for the purpose of misleading our gun-boats; for these vessels annoyed them materially by keeping up a brisk fire upon the pass of La Pena and the hills near the beach. By the following night the town was closely invested, after a warm day’s work, in which the artillery on both sides played with destructive effect. One of the enemy’s shells killed an artillery driver and eight artillery horses; fourteen Spaniards were killed by another. The allies lost seventy-one in killed and wounded; the loss of the enemy was also great. Four ten-inch mortars on the island were seen to do terrible execution; one of their shells burst in the centre of a column, and towards evening, when the enemy were most heated and exposed themselves most, they were evidently checked by the unexpected resistance which they met with. The siege was now fairly commenced, and the cavalry and staff-horses, as no longer useful, were sent to the island, from thence to be embarked on the first opportunity. An account of the enemy’s force was obtained from a serjeant who was brought in prisoner; there were 11,000 men, he said, with eighteen pieces of cannon, long sixteen pounders, and two howitzers; Marshal Victor commanded. The prisoner entreated that he might not be given up to the Spaniards. When he was asked whether he thought the French would succeed in the siege, he replied, “That their Emperor Napoleon had given them positive orders to take the place, and he generally provided means adequate to the end in view.” The man appeared sensible and well informed; this confidence in the wisdom with which their operations were directed was probably common to the whole French army, and it constituted half their strength.

♦Doubts whether the town could be defended.♦

The allies were not equally confident that they should be able to defend the place; and the commanding-officer of the flotilla surveyed the coast of the island, to fix upon a spot for embarking the garrison, if they should be compelled to evacuate both posts. A precaution of this kind, if it had been publicly known, might have contributed, by disheartening the men, to produce the catastrophe which it seemed to anticipate; but it was the duty of the commanders to think of the worst result, while they hoped and acted for the best; and when they remembered what weak walls and insufficient works were opposed to a numerous enemy, experienced in all the arts of war, and more especially in the attack of fortified places, it was not without good reason that they thought it expedient to provide a place for embarkation. Hitherto, however, the defence had been well and fortunately conducted; and the fire of the gun boats and from the island was so well directed, that great part of the enemy’s stores and their heavy artillery had not yet been able to come through the pass of La Pena. By daybreak on the 24th, the French had brought their approaches within 400 yards, immediately opposite the north-east tower. That morning an express arrived from Cadiz, with orders for Colonel Skerrett to embark his brigade: a council of war was held, but not for the purpose for which such councils under such circumstances are usually convened; ... a right spirit prevailed among the British officers, and they determined that the place should not be abandoned. To go once in his life, as Colonel Skerrett had done, to the relief of a besieged town, and see its imminent distress, without bearing part in its defence, was sufficient grief for a brave and generous man; the French had insulted and vilified him for not having done at Tarragona what no want of will prevented him from doing; opportunity was now given him of showing them his real character, and he did not fail to improve it.

♦December.♦

On the night between Christmas eve and Christmas day, the French broke ground opposite the east tower at 400 yards distance, and on the following night they strengthened their approaches at all points, and advanced 150 yards nearer to the east and north-east towers. At both points they opened a fire from a number of wall-pieces, and fired musketry and wall-pieces through pyramids of earth-sacks from the summit of one of the hills. Thence they poured their bullets over the whole town, but the men were so well covered that little hurt was done. The fire of the garrison was equally brisk and more successful; ... it was not, however, possible to prevent the enemy from advancing in works, carried on upon the perfect rules of art; and in case it should be found impossible to maintain Tarifa, final arrangements were made for the order of retreat, and signals established with the island, to signify when the island was to fire on the breach, the suburbs, and on the town, so that our troops might be saved from any error in the possible confusion, and as much loss as possible inflicted on the assailants.

A heavy fire was opened on the 29th from two batteries; one bore upon the flotilla boats, which were then at anchor in the eastern bay, and they were fain to cut their cables and put to sea. This battery then threw shot and shells to almost every part of the island. The men received little hurt, for they were at work at the traverses; but two of the female inhabitants of the town, who had taken refuge there, were wounded, one losing a leg, and several horses and mules were killed. The other was a breaching battery planted in the valley, nearly opposite the Retiro tower, at three hundred yards distance. By the evening a breach about five feet wide was made to the right of this tower. The eastern tower was as yet untouched, but the enemy approached it by sap within fifty yards. Some of the inhabitants were killed and wounded in the course of the day retreating to the island. The men suffered little, for they were ordered to keep under cover. Their spirit was manifested upon an occasion which might have led to the worst consequences. One of our artillery officers spiked two guns; the troops were exceedingly indignant when it was whispered among them, and they expressed their discontent at the apprehension of being made to abandon the town, without having a fair set-to with the enemy. General Copons appeared highly enraged when he was informed of what had been done; and the temper which both Spaniards and English displayed at this circumstance taught them how well each might rely upon the other in this their common cause.

♦Dec. 30.
The garrison summoned.♦

The next day, by ten in the morning, the breach had been enlarged to three-and-twenty yards, and about noon a flag of truce arrived; ... it was a service of danger to carry it, the day being so foggy, that the flag could scarcely be seen. General Leval who commanded the besieging troops, summoned the governor, saying, “that the defence made by the fortress under his command had sufficiently established that fair name which is the basis of military honour: that in a few hours the breach would be practicable, and that the same honour which had prompted him to resistance, imposed it now as a duty upon him to spare the lives of a whole population, whose fate was in his hands, rather than see them buried amid the ruins of their town.” Copons answered in these words: “When you propose to the governor of this fortress to admit a capitulation, because the breach will shortly be practicable, you certainly do not know that I am here. When the breach shall be absolutely practicable, you will find me upon it, at the head of my troops to defend it. There we will negotiate.” After receiving his reply, the French renewed their fire upon the breach, but most of the balls passed through it into the houses which stood opposite.

♦The French repulsed in an assault.♦

Preparations were now made on both sides for the assault, and at eight on the following morning the enemy advanced from their trenches in every direction. 2000 of their men moved by the bed of the river in front of the breach; the 87th regiment flanked the breach to the north and south, leaving two companies in reserve to bayonet the assailants if they should leap the wall. This, however, was not much to be apprehended; for the town is built in a hollow, and in that part the wall on the inside was fourteen feet lower than on the out. The breach opened into a narrow street, which had been barricaded on each side, and was well flanked and secured with chevaux-de-frize, for which the iron balconies, commonly used in Spanish towns, furnished ready and excellent materials. When Colonel Gough saw them advancing, he drew his sword, threw away the scabbard, and ordered his band to strike up the Irish air of Garry-Owen. The men immediately cheered, and opened their fire. The 47th, who lined a wall which descended from the south-east tower, and flanked the enemy’s columns, did the same, and the carnage made among the enemy was such, that they halted for a moment, as if dismayed, then ran to the edge of the breach. This they saw was impracticable, and hurrying off under the wall, they made a dash at the portcullis. Here the barricade was impenetrable, and finding themselves in a situation where courage could be of no avail, and where they were brought down by hundreds, they fled. Colonel Gough seeing them fly, bade his band strike up St. Patrick’s Day, and the men were so inspirited, that it was scarcely possible to restrain them from pursuing the fugitives up to their very trenches33.

The enemy suffered severely in their flight; hand-grenades from the houses were thrown upon those who fled by the wall, in hope of security, and a six-pounder on the north-east tower flanked them. The two leading officers of the column remained under the wall, and were taken prisoners. A flag of truce was soon sent, to ask permission to bury the dead. About 500 had fallen; and it was a miserable sight to see the wounded crawling under the breach: about forty, many of whom were officers, were brought into the town. On the part of the garrison ten were killed and seventeen wounded.

♦January.
Effects of a storm on both parties.♦

The old year was now terminated with triumph and rejoicing at Tarifa, but the new one came in with mourning. A dreadful storm of wind and rain came on from the eastward, and two Spanish gun-boats, full of fugitives from the town, were wrecked under the guns of the island. Two-and-forty persons perished. The inhabitants who were hutted on the eastern side of the island, were overwhelmed by the surge, all lost their property and many of them their lives. Many more perished by the storm than had fallen in repelling the assault. The weather, however, brought with it some compensation to the Spaniards for this destruction; the few shells which the enemy threw during the day fell dead, giving proof that their ammunition had suffered, and neither that day nor the next did they make any farther attempt on the breach, nor move any of their guns to batter a more assailable point. During the night of the first, the wind blew up many of the tents on the island, and exposed the men to the storm. On the second, the rain increased, and the wind fell; in the course of the ensuing night, a party sallied, and found the lower trenches of the enemy so flooded by the rains, that their piquets had abandoned them. Some deserters now came in, and declared that two regiments had refused to assault the breach a second time; that the sufferings which they endured from the weather had excited a mutinous expression of discontent among the foreigners in their army and that Victor had, in consequence of these things, thought it necessary to send for Soult, who was arrived, and now at the convent of La Luz. Other deserters confirmed this account, and added, that there were about 1000 sick, and that the swelling of the rivers cut off their supplies, and was likely to cut off their retreat.

The besieged did not rely too confidently upon their good fortune, and these favourable tidings, which all appearances, as far as they could, seemed to corroborate. Ballasteros, with 2000 of his best troops, embarked at Algeziras, to assist in the defence of Tarifa; but the weather prevented him from sailing, and the commander seeing that the enemy were removing their guns higher up, and expecting that another breach would be made, applied to General Colin Campbell for a reinforcement. The light companies of the 9th regiment were immediately dispatched, and landed in the course of the day, and in the following night farther succours arrived. Toward evening, a column of the enemy was seen advancing from La Luz, and a deserter brought intelligence that they proposed to attack at the same time the town, the island, and St. Catalina, ... a conical hill on the land side of the isthmus, which was occupied as an outwork to the island; if they failed in these simultaneous attacks, they meant to raise the siege. About an hour after night had closed, they approached close to the eastern wall, and poured a fire of musketry into the town; the whole of the garrison immediately repaired to their alarm posts, and the guards on the wall returned their fire with good effect. It was intended only for a feint, and the enemy presently withdrew. About midnight, the garrison were again called out by a firing on all sides of the town; the firing suddenly ceased, and a little before daybreak it was discovered that the enemy had retreated during the darkness.

♦Jan. 4.♦

When morning opened, nothing but their rear guard was in sight; the light troops pursued them as far as the river Salado, ... memorable as the place where the Moors made their last great effort for the conquest of Spain, and where they received from the allied armies of Castille and Portugal one of the greatest and most important defeats which history has recorded.

The French buried their cannon and left behind them great part of their stores, and what they attempted to remove, the weather and the state of the roads compelled them to abandon upon the way. Their loss was computed at not less than 2500 men, ... a number exceeding that of the garrison. The siege had continued seventeen days; the wall in front of the town was but a yard thick, and incapable of bearing heavy artillery; a breach had been open in it for seven days. Here for the first time, the French learned in what manner Englishmen could defend stone walls, and Lord Wellington was about to show that they could attack them with the same spirit and the same success.

♦Gen. Hill occupies Merida.♦

General Hill, after his surprisal of the French at Arroyo Molinos, had returned to his cantonments in Alentejo, watching an opportunity for a second blow. Towards the end of December, he made a rapid movement upon Merida in the hope of surprising them there also, but this was in part frustrated by the accident of falling in with a detachment which was on a plundering excursion, and which retreating with great skill and bravery before our advanced guard, gave the alarm. Upon this the enemy evacuated the city, leaving unfinished the works which they were constructing for its defence, and abandoning a magazine of bread and a considerable quantity of wheat. The British general, then hearing that Drouet was collecting his troops at Almendralejo, marched upon that town: but the French had retired, leaving there also a magazine of flour; the state of the weather and of the roads, which were daily becoming worse, prevented General Hill from pursuing; having, therefore, cleared this part of Extremadura of the French (for they retreated to the south), he cantoned his troops in Merida and its vicinity, and waited for other opportunities and a fairer season.

♦Attempt to carry off Soult.♦

The Guerrillas failed about the same time in an attempt which, if it had proved successful, would in the highest degree have gratified the vindictive spirit of the Spaniards. Zaldivar laid an ambush for Marshal Soult, and if a goatherd had had not apprized him of his danger, that able commander would have been at the mercy of men as merciless as himself. A successful achievement by D. Julian Sanchez perhaps induced Zaldivar to undertake this well-planned, though less fortunate, adventure. That chieftain, soon after the relief of Ciudad Rodrigo, formed a scheme for driving off the cattle, which had been introduced into the city, and were driven out every morning to graze under the guns of the place. He not only succeeded in taking the greater part of them, but made the governor, Regnauld, prisoner, who with

♦Oct. 15.♦ a small escort had crossed the Agueda, thinking himself perfectly safe, within sight of the fort and under its guns. About the same time an accident occurred, which showed the gratitude as well as the enterprise of the Spaniards. Colonel Grant, of the Portugueze

♦Col. Grant rescued by the Guerrillas.♦ army, who had on many occasions distinguished himself, was surprised at El Aceuche, and made prisoner. D. Antonio Temprano, who commanded a squadron of hussars, obtained intelligence that he had passed through Oropesa, on the way to Talavera; “and because,” he said, “of the singular estimation in which this officer deserved to be held for his services,” he determined, if it were possible, to rescue him: for this purpose he placed an ambush within shot of Talavera during five successive days; and on the fifth, succeeded in delivering Colonel Grant and a Portugueze officer, his companion in misfortune, at a time when they both expected to be consigned to hopeless captivity.

♦State of feeling at Madrid.♦

That Temprano’s detachment should have remained five days so near a populous city like Talavera, and no information be given to the French garrison, is one of the many proofs which were daily occurring, how entirely the Spanish people hated the government which Buonaparte was endeavouring to force upon them. Meantime, even from Madrid, in spite of the vigilance of a French police, and the rigour of a military government, which, knowing itself to be detested, sought only to maintain itself by fear, the inhabitants found means of sending not only intelligence, but even supplies, to their brethren in arms. It is related in one of the Spanish journals, as a proof of the patriotism of the capital, and the confidence which the Spaniards there placed in each other, that a lady gave into the hands of a carrier, whom she met in the street, and had never seen before, a large bundle of lint and bandages, for the nearest military hospital of her countrymen, and it was accordingly delivered to the Junta of Leon, to be thus disposed of. Romana’s army was clothed by contributions from Madrid.

The ambition of the French government has been at all times well seconded by the activity and talents of its subjects, and by that lively interest, which more than any other people they feel for the glory of their country; but its policy has always been counteracted by other parts of the French character. While the Intrusive Government and the generals upon every occasion reminded the Spaniards that they were orthodox Roman catholics like themselves, and that the English were heretics endeavouring thus, by raising religious animosities, to excite disunion between them and their allies, they could not refrain from outraging the feelings of the Spaniards, by the grossest mockery of all things which were held sacred. Masquerades were given at Madrid on the Sundays in Lent, and the people were shocked at seeing masks in the characters of nuns, friars and clergy in their surplices, in the public places of promenade, and at the theatre. They were still more offended at beholding one in episcopal habits, and another with a cope, and the other habits of the altar. At Albarracin and Orihuela, the French gave balls, and exhibited a bull-fight on Holy Thursday, the cost of which they levied upon the villages round about. “The robbery,” said the Spaniards, “can surprise no one after our long experience of their insolence and rapacity; but that which wounds to the quick a feeling and pious soul, is the atrocious and sacrilegious insult which these wretches offer to human nature, and to the religion of that God whom they profess to adore. Common banditti commit murder after robbery, ... but to suck the blood of a victim, to expose him to a thousand torments, and to compel him after all to outrage religion, the only consolation and hope which he has left, and to make him with his last tears deplore the most sacrilegious of their excesses, this is peculiar to Buonaparte and his soldiers.”

♦State of the country.♦

The conduct of the French in other respects was such as heightened this feeling of abhorrence; everywhere the people groaned under their exactions, their cruelties, and their intolerable insolence. It seemed as if it were the wish of Buonaparte and his ferocious agents utterly to depopulate a country which they found it impossible to subdue. Dreadful as war always is, no ordinary war could have brought upon any nation such complicated miseries. It was impossible for those even who would have been contented to bow, like bulrushes, before the storm, to obtain security by any course of conduct; the orders of the Intrusive Government were met by counter orders from the legitimate authority; and they who obeyed that authority were, on the other hand, exposed to the penalties enacted in the Intruder’s name. Buonaparte and his wicked agents expected to govern Spain by terror, little thinking, when the plan of usurpation was laid, that the character of the nation would compensate for the imbecility of its rulers; that his system of terror would be met by counter terrors; and that the people for whom he proclaimed there was no safety but in obedience would, on their part, proclaim that obedience, when carried farther than mere passive and inevitable submission to immediate force, was a crime which would draw upon the temporizing and the timid the very evil they sought to avert. Nothing but that patient, persevering, obstinate, inflexible, and invincible spirit of local patriotism which for more than two thousand years has distinguished the Spaniards above all other nations, could have supported them through such a struggle; while the allies, by whom, under Providence, their deliverance was to be effected, were acquiring confidence in their own strength, and experience, and some of that wisdom in which at the beginning of the contest they were lamentably wanting. But, meantime, the sufferings of the Spaniards were of the severest kind, and as general as they were severe. There was scarcely a family in the Peninsula, from the highest to the lowest, of which some member had not been cut off by the sword. The affluent were deprived of their property; the industrious of their employment; men of letters were bereaved of the books and papers which had been the occupation and delight of their laborious, and honourable, and disinterested lives; and they who had grown grey in convents were driven out to beg for bread among those who were themselves reduced to want.

The Intruder, meantime, was in a condition which was truly pitiable, if one who had allowed himself to be made the ostensible cause of such wide-spreading misery and desolation had not forfeited all claim to pity. This phantom of a king had neither money to pay his ministers and dependents, nor authority over the armies which acted in his name. The Frenchified Spaniards who composed his ministry, and the French generals, agreed in despising him, ... this being almost the only point in which they agreed: on the part of Urquijo Azanza, and their colleagues, there was some commiseration mingled with their contempt; their object had been to effect a change of dynasty, under the protection of France, not to reduce Spain to the state of a province; and they could not perceive that Joseph Buonaparte was the mere puppet of his perfidious brother, without self-reproaches and unavailing regret. For their own sakes, therefore, they preserved the forms of respect toward him; but the generals were restrained by no such feeling; they set his orders at nought, and looked only to France for instructions. The object of the officers was to enrich themselves by pillage; that of the commanders was to carve out dukedoms, and provinces, and principalities, which they might govern by the sword while Buonaparte lived, and perhaps maintain for themselves by the same tenure after his death.

♦The Intruder goes to France.♦

Sick of his miserable situation, the Intruder went to France, to represent the deplorable state of Spain, and press upon Buonaparte the necessity of providing an adequate support for the government which he had established, if he could not send into the Peninsula such a force as should expel the English, and bear down all resistance. He himself perhaps would have rejoiced if Buonaparte would have executed his old threat of annexing Spain to the French empire, and treating it openly as a conquest, ... for Joseph had neither the talents nor the temper of an usurper: without virtue to refuse obedience to his tyrannical brother, and yet without those vices which would make him heartily enter into his plans, his only resource was in sensualities, for his criminal compliance had left him no other consolation. This propensity he would far rather have indulged in retirement and security: but the views and wishes of his ministers were widely different: the direct usurpation of Spain by Buonaparte would have reduced them at once to insignificance, and placed them upon a level with Godoy, whom they, perhaps, as well as their worthier countrymen, regarded as a traitor; for certain it is, that among these unhappy men there were some who began their career with good feelings, and a sincere love of their country, and who were betrayed by error and presumptuousness, and their connexion with France, into guilt and infamy. They dreaded nothing so much as Joseph’s retirement, and rejoiced in his return to Spain as at a triumph.

♦Distress both of the Intrusive and Legitimate Government.♦

It suited not the immediate policy of Buonaparte to displace his brother. Moscow instead of Madrid occupied at this time his ambitious thoughts, and supplying with men the Intrusive Government, he left it to shift as it could for means. So distressed was Joseph for money, that the plate of the royal chapel at Madrid was sent to the mint, though such an act would make him at once odious for sacrilege, and contemptible for poverty, in the eyes of the people. In want of other funds for his emissaries to America, he sent a large quantity of quicksilver to be sold at Alicante: the governor there discovered for what use the produce was designed, and seized 1700 arrobas, and the agents who had it in charge. A great effort was made to pay some of the public arrears on Buonaparte’s birthday, the fifteenth of August, for which day St. Napoleone had been foisted into the Spanish calendar. 100,000 reales de vellon were paid on this anniversary to the ministers. Lledo, the comedian, received 18,000, and 100 each were distributed to some ladies of rank, who were reduced to petition the Intruder for bread! A bull-fight was given at Madrid on this day, at which all the bulls were white; long preparation therefore must have been necessary for collecting them: D. Damaso Martin, the Empecinado’s brother, carried off from the meadows of Puente de Viveros 300, which had been destined for these ferocious sports in the capital.

The legitimate government, meantime, was not less distressed than that of the Intruder: as far as the contest lay between them, it was carried on on both sides almost without any certain revenue on which either could rely. The chief resources of the Spaniards, at the commencement of the struggle, had been in America, and these had been cut off by a series of deplorable events, in which it is difficult to say which of the opposite parties was most culpable. This was now the fourth year of the war; the spirit of the people, and the defects of their military system, had been abundantly proved; nothing was wanting but to remedy those defects by raising an army under the direction of Lord Wellington, who had delivered Portugal, and might by similar means speedily and certainly have delivered Spain. Many causes prevented this; one is to be found in a jealousy or rather dislike of England, which had grown up in the liberal party with their predilection for republican France, and which continued with other errors from the same source, still to actuate them. The pride of the Spanish character was another and more widely influencing cause: the Spaniards remembered that their troops had once been the best in the world; and this remembrance, which in the people so greatly contributed to keep up their spirit, in the government produced only a contented and baneful torpor which seemed like infatuation. The many defeats, in the course of four years, which they had sustained, from that at Rio Seco to the last ruinous action before Valencia, brought with them no conviction to the successive governments of their radical weakness and their radical error. After Lord Wellington had driven Massena out of Portugal, it was proposed that the command of the frontier provinces should be given him, and that an army should be raised there under him: it was debated in a secret sitting, and rejected by an hundred voices against thirty.

“There are three classes of men,” said Dueñas, “who will break up the Cortes, unless the Cortes breaks down them: they who refuse to acknowledge the sovereignty of the nation, calling it a mere chimera, and saying there is no sovereignty except that of the king; they who distrust our cause, and say that the few millions who inhabit Spain cannot make head against all Europe; and, lastly, they who imagine, that as the French have conquered while they despise God, we may do the same.” The deputy’s fears of the first and third of these classes were groundless, and there were but few of the second, ... but few Spaniards who despaired of Spain. Nothing, however, could tend so much to increase their number as the conduct of the government; it might well be feared that a system, if system it could be called, which trusted to its allies, and to the events that time and chance might bring forth, would at length exhaust the hopes and the constancy, as well as the blood,

♦Schemes for strengthening the government.♦ of the Spaniards. All considerate persons could not but perceive that the present government was in no respect more efficient than that of the Central Junta had been, which, for its inefficiency, would have been broken up by an insurrection, if it had not prevented such a catastrophe by a timely abdication. As a remedy for this evil, the Cortes thought at one time of taking the executive into their own hands, and administering it by a committee chosen from their own members; but the resemblance which this bore to the system pursued by the French National Convention, during the worst stage of the revolution, deterred those who favoured it from bringing forward a proposal that would reasonably have alarmed the greater part of the assembly, and have disgusted the nation. They who were of opinion that the Regency would be more effective if vested in a single person than in three or five, knew not where that person was to be found who should unite

♦Cardinal Bourbon.♦ legitimate claims with individual qualifications. Cardinal Bourbon occurred to them, but as one who had neither the personal respectability, nor the

♦The Infante D. Carlos.♦ capacity desired. The Infante D. Carlos was supposed to possess sufficient strength of character, and it was not doubted, that if opportunity of attempting to escape could be offered him, he would be not less desirous to avail himself of it than Ferdinand had, luckily for himself, been found of shrinking from the danger; but the failure in Ferdinand’s case had greatly increased both the difficulties and dangers of

♦The Princess of Brazil.♦ such an attempt. There remained the princess of Brazil, whose right to the Regency, under existing circumstances, was admitted by the Council of Castille. She had spirit and abilities equal to the charge; but, on the other hand, she was known to be of an intriguing and dangerous disposition, ... one who, being, by reason of her station, sure of impunity in this world for any thing which she might be inclined to commit, believed that her father-confessor could at all times make her equally secure in the next, and was notoriously disposed to make full use of these convenient privileges whenever any personal inclination was to be gratified or any political object to be brought about. Yet with this knowledge of her character, those British statesmen who were best acquainted with the affairs of the Peninsula at that time, and with what advantages we might carry on the war there, if it were vigorously pursued, and what were the impediments which in far greater degree than the entire force of the enemy impeded our progress, agreed in opinion, that it should be the true policy of England to support her claim, regarding the possible consequences in Portugal, of her appointment to the Spanish Regency, as a consideration of inferior moment. There would yet be a difficulty concerning the place to be fixed on for her residence: Lisbon it could not be: ... pre-eminently fitted as that city was to be the capital of the united governments, the ill-will between the Portugueze and Spaniards, which the circumstances of the present war unhappily had not tended to diminish, rendered this impossible; and, for the same reason, Cadiz was hardly less objectionable. It was thought, therefore, that the princess might best reside at Madeira, and govern in Spain through a Vice-Regent. The conduct of the Cortes in arrogating the title of Majesty, and exercising, as, in fact they did, the executive government through successive Regencies, which they nominated and dissolved at pleasure, made persons who were otherwise averse to it accede to this scheme as involving fewer inconveniences than any other which could be proposed.

♦State of the Portugueze government.♦

Some change also, and of the same kind, appeared to be not less desirable in Portugal. The arrangement which placed the Portugueze army under a British general, introducing at the same time a large proportion of British officers into that army, and that which placed the whole military establishment under a British commander-in-chief, had been necessary, and the Portugueze themselves were sensible that it was so. But it was not wisely done to put the Portugueze fleet under a British admiral, nor to make the British ambassador a member of the Regency: in the first instance, a great expense was incurred in time of extreme want; in both, some offence was given to national feeling; and in neither was there any advantage gained. Sir Charles Stuart was in no enviable situation; there was a constant opposition between him and the Souzas, who had great influence at the court of the Rio, whose intentions were not to be suspected, and whose abilities were of no common order, but whose deep prepossessions prevented them from adapting their views to the actual circumstances of the country. When he exerted himself to rectify habitual disorders, and provide for demands which were continually recurring, and which it was ruinous to neglect, the whole host of intriguers was in action against him, and he incurred the dislike of the prince, of whose ear his opponents had possession: on the other hand, the repeated complaints from head-quarters against the misconduct of the Portugueze government under which the native army was mouldering away more rapidly than it had been formed, seemed to include him of course among the persons upon whom the blame was laid. Yet his colleagues, as well as he, were more to be pitied than condemned, for what they left undone. The whole revenues of the house of Braganza were at this time remitted to Brazil, ... no unfit arrangement, as the family was there to be supported. But the court received also the revenues from Madeira and the Western Isles, and the establishments in Africa, and yet called for money from Portugal! It had left so great a part of the old court establishment there that the expenses of that part exceeded the whole produce of the crown lands; and it was continually sending persons from Brazil, to be provided for at home; ... this, at a time when Portugal with only half its former revenues, and with a ruined people, had to support an army fourfold more numerous than in its days of prosperity!

The prince of Brazil was jealous of his prerogative; ... and there were those about him who lost no opportunity of insinuating that England aimed at establishing a permanent influence over the government of Portugal. This was so old an art of faction, that even from new circumstances it could derive no strength; and although, if he were at Lisbon, he would be within reach of the insidious proposals of the French, who would have no difficulty in finding intriguers to second them, yet, on the whole, those persons whose opinions carried most weight thought it desirable that he should be urged to return, his presence nearer Lisbon being as necessary as that of the princess was deemed to be at Cadiz. But the statesmen who advised this seem to have overlooked the circumstances of Brazil, where at that time the presence of the court was the only check upon the revolutionary spirit which was then gathering strength: that consideration alone must have detained the prince there; and if the claim of the princess had been more popular than it was at Cadiz, the conduct of the Portugueze diplomatists on this occasion was sufficient to ruin it.

♦M. Wellesley’s views.♦

Marquis Wellesley, whose views were always comprehensive, thought that nothing of importance could be done in the field, unless an efficient Spanish army were raised of 30 or 40,000 men. To expect any thing from it under its present establishment, he argued, would be to deceive ourselves; ... any thing short of a thorough reform under a British commander and British officers, Great Britain providing also for the pay and subsistence of the whole, would be fruitless; and this we could not afford. But we might take into our pay an army of 30,000 men, and assist Spain with a loan of five or six millions for raising another: a much larger sum would be saved by this expenditure if it shortened the war a single year; and that it might be so shortened, no one who had faith in British courage, and knew the capacity of the British commander, could doubt. But Marquis Wellesley had not that ascendancy in the cabinet to which in the opinion of his admirers he was entitled, and which, perhaps, he had expected to assert. His colleagues might have acted with more vigour, if their tenure of the government had been more secure; the sense of that insecurity, and the constant struggle wherein they were engaged at home, made them regard difficulties as insuperable, which would have disappeared if they had had sufficient confidence in themselves.

This want of energy must have been fatal, if Lord Wellington had not been eminently qualified for the arduous situation in which he was placed. Both his mind and body were equal to all that was required from them. He rose about four, and after a slight breakfast was usually on horseback from daylight till about the hour of noon. He was then employed till three, in transacting business with the officers of the army, or in writing his orders and letters, answering every dispatch and letter as it was brought before him. At three he dined, was on horseback again at five, till evening closed, and was then employed in business till ten, when he retired to rest. Mortifying as it was, having in himself glorious anticipations of what he could effect with adequate means, at the same time to feel himself crippled for want of them; no embarrassments ever had the effect of perplexing his judgment, or leading him to despond; but making his preparations with long forethought, he waited the opportunity for attempting whatever his means allowed him to undertake.

♦Lord Wellington prepares for the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo.♦

The force with which he intended to besiege Ciudad Rodrigo consisted of 17,000 British, and 14,000 Portugueze, ... so inferior to what Marmont might bring into the field against him, that every thing depended upon secrecy in his plans, and celerity in their execution. That he would undertake the siege was what every officer who reasoned, or talked about the ensuing campaign, could not but conclude; but when it was his intention was not communicated even to those persons in whom he placed most confidence, and of whom he entertained the34 highest opinion. The works of Almeida which Brennier had demolished, when with so much credit to himself he abandoned the place, were restored; British and Portugueze troops in equal numbers being employed upon them, and receiving working money, and such of them as were bricklayers or stonemasons, and acted as artificers, double pay. This, which the French might consider a defensive measure, was for the purpose of providing a safe depôt for the battering train. That train was conveyed up the Douro forty miles, farther than the boats of the country had navigated the river before, our engineers having removed the impediments which rendered it innavigable. There had been such difficulty in obtaining means of transport, that for this reason alone, Lord Wellington had been obliged to undertake feeding all the Portugueze troops that were incorporated in the British divisions. The system of the Portugueze commissariat was to embargo carts and cattle for this service, ... a grievous evil to the owners, who knew that they were likely never to be paid, and that their beasts would probably be worked to death; unless, therefore, they were closely watched, they, as might be expected, deserted, and left the supplies to take their chance. Nor, when British faith was pledged for payment of the commissariat accounts, was there any perceptible amendment, so long as the means of transport were to be supplied by the local authorities: these authorities showed little alacrity in executing the orders of government, and the people as little in obeying their requisitions; for the magistrates being delivered from immediate danger had relapsed into that apathy which had long pervaded every department of the body politic. There were 20,000 carts in Alentejo, and yet, when Lord Wellington was on that frontier, it was with difficulty that 600 could be procured for the service of the army. The institutions of the country were excellent; but government could not enforce the laws, and the magistrates would not: the British were the only persons who observed them, and by that observance, subjected themselves to serious inconvenience; they depended upon the civil magistrate, who neglected his duty, and they were then left to shift for themselves. To prevent this evil, a waggon train was now attached to the British commissariat, and upwards of 600 carts, each capable of carrying eight hundred weight, and upon a better construction than the primitive carts of the country, were built at Lisbon, Porto, and Almeida. To this latter place the battering train was conveyed towards the close of November; and when relying upon Lord Wellington’s comparative weakness, and the improbability of his attempting any serious operation at that season, Marmont had detached Montbrun to the eastern coast, and Dorsenne had ordered two other divisions to Asturias and the Montaña: the allied troops began to make fascines and gabions at their respective head-quarters on the 27th of December; and the 6th of January was fixed for the investment of Ciudad Rodrigo.

♦1812.
January.♦

The time of year, and the exhausted state of the country, contributed to deceive the French: they did not suppose that Lord Wellington would, in the depth of winter, undertake an operation of such importance, nor that his army could long endure the privations to which they must be exposed. Every thing which could serve for the support of man or beast had been consumed for miles and miles around; and on that part of the frontier there was little grain at any time, the tract for corn commencing at Salamanca and its neighbourhood, where the enemy were cantoned. The allied troops were four days together without bread; and the officers purchased it at the rate of three shillings the quartern loaf, and at one time five. The horses, though hardy as if they had never stood in a stable, and rough as if never groom had laid his hand upon their coats, began to fail; all the straw having been consumed, they had nothing to subsist on except coarse long grass pulled up from under the trees, and so thoroughly sun-dried that little nourishment was left in it. Because of this scarcity, the three brigades of cavalry took the outpost duty in rotation, ... and the regiments lost about fifty horses each by starvation.

A heavy rain fell on the first night of the new year; and the weather continued so inclement till the fifth, that the investment was necessarily deferred till two days later than the time originally fixed. General Mackinnon’s brigade marching from Aldea da Ponte to Robledo, six-and-twenty miles through a continued oak forest, had in many places to make their way knee-deep in snow; between 300 and 400 men were left on the road, of whom some died on the march, several afterwards of fatigue. There was no camp-equipage with the army, nor cover near the town; the troops were therefore cantoned in the nearest villages, and it was regulated, that the light, first, and third divisions, should alternately take the duties of the siege, each remaining four-and-twenty hours on the ground.

♦Ciudad Rodrigo.♦

Ciudad Rodrigo stands in the middle of a plain some sixteen miles in circumference, surrounded by hills, which rise gradually, ridge behind ridge above each other on every side, far as the eye can reach. From those heights, at a distance of ten or twelve miles, the movement of the British army might be perceived; but the enemy seem at this time to have exercised no vigilance, and voluntary information was never given them by the Spaniards. The city is on a rising ground, on the right bank of the Agueda, which in that part of its course forms many little islets. The citadel standing on a high mount has been likened, for its situation, to Windsor Castle. The works were old, and in many respects faulty; and the suburbs, which are about three hundred yards from the town on the west, had no other defence, at the time of the former siege, than a bad earthen intrenchment hastily thrown up; but the French had made strong posts of three convents, one in the centre of the suburbs, and one on either flank; and they had converted another convent just beyond the glacis on the north-west angle of the place into an infantry post. Being thus supported, the works of the suburbs, bad as they were, were thought fully capable of resisting a

♦Colonel Jones’s Journal of the siege, pp. 82–3.♦ coup de main. The ground is every where flat and rocky except on the north, where there are two pieces of rising ground, one at the distance of six hundred yards from the works, being about thirteen feet higher than the ramparts, the other at less than a third of that distance, nearly on a level with them: the soil here is very stony, and in the winter season water rises at the depth of half a foot below the surface. The enemy had provided against an attack on this side, by erecting a redoubt upon the higher ground, which was supported by two guns, and a howitzer in battery on the fortified convent of S. Francisco at four hundred yards distance; and a large proportion of the artillery of the place was in battery to fire upon the approach from the hill.

On this side, however, it was deemed advisable to make the attack, because of the difficulty of cutting trenches in a rocky soil, and the fear of delay in winning the suburbs, ... the garrison being sure of relief if they could gain even but a little time. On this side, too, it was known, by Massena’s attack, that the walls might be breached at a distance from the glacis; whereas, on the east and south it was doubtful, because of a fall in the ground, whether this could be done without erecting batteries on the glacis: but here a small ravine at the foot of the glacis and its consequent steepness, would conceal the workmen during their operations for blowing in the counterscarp, a circumstance which had great

♦Colonel Jones’s Journal, 84.♦ weight in forming the plan of an attack, where not a single officer had ever seen such an operation performed.

Time was of such importance, and such preparations had been made before the army moved from its quarters, that ground was broken on the very night of the investment. At nine that night, a detachment under Lieutenant

♦A redoubt carried.♦

Colbourne of the 52nd attacked the redoubt on the upper teson or hill. Lieutenant Thomson (of the Royal engineers) preceded the detachment with a party of men carrying ladders, fascines, axes, &c.: he found the palisades to be within three feet of the counterscarp, and nearly of the same height: fascines were immediately laid from the one to the other, by which, as by a bridge, part of the storming party walked over. When they came to the escarpe, which was not revêted, the men scrambled up, some of them sticking their bayonets into the sods, and so entered the work; while another party went round to the gorge, where there was no ditch, and forced the gate. Only four of the garrison escaped into the town, and only three were killed; two officers and forty-three men were made prisoners; the loss of the assailants was six men killed, three officers and sixteen men wounded. A lodgment was then made on the hill near the redoubt, and with little loss, because the enemy directed their fire chiefly into the work; and a communication was opened to it.

The siege was carried on with extraordinary vigour; and Lord Wellington calculating upon intelligence which he received, that Marmont would advance to relieve the place even before the rapid plan of operations on which he had determined could be carried through, resolved to form a breach, if possible, from the first batteries, and storm the place with the counterscarp entire, if he could not wait until it should be blown up. The weather increased the difficulties of the undertaking: while the frost continued, men could not work through the night; and when it broke, they who were employed in the sap worked day and night up to their knees in water, under the declivity of a hill down which the rain had poured. Of 250 mules attached to the light division, fifty died in conveying ammunition to the breaches, ... destroyed by being overworked, and by want of needful rest and sufficient food. The garrison were encouraged, not only by the confident expectation of relief, (for they knew Marmont was strong enough to effect it, and could not suppose that, for want of foresight, he had disabled himself for attempting it in time,) but also by the failure of the allies at Badajoz, and the inferiority of our engineering department. They omitted no means of defence, and neglected no opportunity which presented itself. On the night, between the 13th and 14th, the convent of

♦Convent of Santa Cruz taken.♦

Santa Cruz, in which they kept a strong guard, was attacked and taken. From the steeple of the cathedral which commanded the plain, and where there was always an officer on the look-out, they noticed a careless custom, that when the division to be relieved saw the relieving division advancing, the guards and workmen were withdrawn from the trenches to meet it; sore weariness and pinching cold were present and pressing evils, which made them overlook the danger of leaving the works unguarded at such intervals. Profiting by this, some 500 men made a sortie at the right point of time, upset most of the gabions which during the preceding night had been placed in advance of the

♦January 14.♦ first parallel, penetrated some of them into the right of that parallel, and would have pushed into the batteries and spiked the guns, had it not been for the steady conduct of a few workmen, whom an officer of engineers collected into a body; on the approach of part of the first division, they retired into the town.

♦Captain Ross killed.♦

Captain Ross of the engineers, one of the directors, was killed by a chain shot from St. Francisco’s: he was brother to that excellent officer who afterward fell at Baltimore, and was himself a man of great professional promise, uniting with military talents, a suavity of manners, and a gentleness of disposition, especially to be prized in a profession where humanity is so greatly needed. His friend and comrade, Lieutenant Skelton, was killed at the same time, and buried with him, in the same grave, in a little retired valley, not far from the spot where they fell. Colonel (then Captain) Jones, (to whose history of the war, and more especially, to whose Journal of the Sieges this work is greatly indebted,) placed a small pedestal with an inscription to mark the grave, and with prudent as well as christian feeling, surmounted it with a cross. That humble monument has, because of its christian symbol, been respected; ... Spaniards have been seen kneeling there, and none pass it without uncovering their heads.

A howitzer placed in the garden of St. Francisco’s convent so as to enfilade one of the batteries, had caused many casualties and impeded the progress of the work. The convent also looked into the rear of the second parallel. Two guns which were opened upon this edifice on the 14th, at the same time that twenty-five were opened against the walls of the place, did not drive the enemy from their advantageous post; a party, therefore, of the 40th regiment was ordered to force into it at dusk, and as soon as they had escaladed

♦St. Francisco’s taken and the suburbs.♦ the outer wall, the French, leaving their artillery, retired into the town, not from the convent only, but from the suburbs, which were immediately occupied by the 40th.

The batteries had injured the wall so much on the second day, as to give hopes of speedily bringing it down. A fog compelled them to cease firing on the 16th; the engineers took advantage of the cover which the fog afforded them, and placed fifty gabions in prolongation of the second parallel. That parallel was pushed to its proper extent on the left in the course of the night, and the lower teson crowned by it. The sappers also broke out the head of the sap: but they could do nothing on the hill, and but little in the sap, because of their inexperience, and because the enemy’s artillery knocked over their gabions, nearly as fast as they could be

♦Col. Jones’s Journal of Sieges, 102.♦ replaced. Yet, the assistance which the engineers derived from the men of the third division, who had been instructed in sapping during the summer, was invaluable, and enabled them to push the approaches three hundred yards nearer than at the attack of Badajoz, under a much heavier fire. An unusual length of time was nevertheless required for throwing up the batteries, owing to the small front of the work, against which the enemy directed an incessant fire of shell; they fired during the siege 11,000 shells and nearly 10,000 shot upon the approaches: their practice was remarkably accurate, and not one shot was fired at them in return. “It was not unfrequent to have three or four large shells in the course of an hour explode in the middle of the parapet of a battery, each having the effect of a small mine, and scattering the

♦Col. Jones’s Journal of Sieges, 103.♦ earth in every direction. In consequence of this dire destruction, the parapets were of necessity made of a great thickness.” But on the other hand, a confidence was felt both by the officers and men, which they had not partaken at either of the former sieges; the officers had sufficient means at their disposal, and the men seemed, to perceive that the operations were differently conducted. The artillery was excellent, as well as ample in quantity, and its effect was materially improved by a circumstance in which accident corrected an actual defect of science. There happened to be a considerable quantity of shot in the fortress at Almeida, and of all calibres; when there was such want of transport for bringing shot from the rear, it became of great importance to take as many of these as could be made serviceable: shot of a larger size than what are commonly employed were thus accidentally brought into use, and some 2000 or 3000 of what are termed very high shot were brought forward during the latter days of the

♦Sir H. Dickson, in Sir Howard Douglas’s Treatise on Naval Gunnery, p. 84.♦ siege. The consequence was, that because the windage was thus diminished, the firing became so singularly correct, that every shot seemed to tell on the same part of the wall as the preceding one; whereas, when shot of the ordinary size were fired at the same distance, some struck high and others low, although the pointing was carefully the same.

On the 17th, a breach had been made, and the guard in the second parallel kept up a continued fire through the night, to prevent the garrison from clearing it. At daylight following, a battery of seven twenty-four pounders opened upon an old tower; and next day when this tower had nearly been brought down, and the

♦Jan. 19.♦ main breach appeared practicable, Lord Wellington, after a close reconnoissance, resolved upon giving the assault at seven o’clock that evening. The enemy were perfectly prepared; they had constructed intrenchments on the ramparts near the breach, by means of cuts through the terre-plein, perpendicular to the parapet, with a breast-work in rear of them, to enfilade and rake the whole: so that if the assailants gained the summit of the breach, their alternative must be either to force the intrenchments, or get down a wall sixteen feet in depth, at the bottom of which impediments of every kind had been arrayed.

♦The place taken by assault.♦

At dusk the columns of attack were formed, and they moved forward at the rising of the moon: 150 sappers, under the direction of Captains M’Leod and Thomson, royal engineers, and Captain Thompson of the 74th, advanced from the second parallel to the edge of the ditch, each man carrying two bags filled with hay, which they threw into the ditch, reducing its depth thus from nearly fourteen feet to eight. Major-General Mackinnon followed close with his brigade, consisting of the 45th, 74th, and 88th, ... the men jumped into the ditch upon the bags; the enemy, though not yet wanting in heart, wanted the coolness of deliberate courage: they had accumulated shells and combustibles upon the breach, and at the foot of it, but they fired them too soon, so that the tremendous discharge was mostly spent before the troops reached their point of action. Ladders were instantly fixed upon the bags; they were not sufficient in number, the breach being wide enough for a hundred men abreast; but the short delay that this occasioned produced no evil, for the 5th arrived from the right to take part in the assault, and their eventual success was facilitated by the speedier progress of the light division on the left. That division moved simultaneously with Mackinnon’s column from behind the convent of St. Francisco against the little

♦Craufurd mortally wounded.♦ breach, under a heavy fire of musketry from the ramparts, by which Major-General Craufurd, who commanded, and was considerably in front, animating his men and leading them on, was mortally wounded. The counterscarp here was not so deep, the breach was not obstinately defended, and no interior defence had been prepared, so that the assailants carried it without much difficulty, and began to form on the ramparts. Meantime Major-General Mackinnon’s brigade, aided by the 5th, after a short but severe struggle gained the summit of the great breach. Giving up the breach, where first one mine was sprung and then a smaller, though neither with much effect, the enemy retired behind a retrenchment, where they stood their ground resolutely, and a severe contest ensued. But Brigadier-General Pack, who had been ordered with his brigade to make a false attack upon the southern face of the fort, converted it into a real one; and his advanced guard under Major Lynch, following the enemy’s troops from the advanced works into the fausse braye, made prisoners of all opposed to them: and while the garrison was thus disheartened on one side, the success of the light division on the other took from them all hope as soon as it was known; they gave way at once, and the retrenchment was carried. The brigade then dividing to the right and left, General Mackinnon said to Ensign Beresford, “Come, Beresford, you are a fine lad, we will go together!” ... these were the last words which he was heard to utter, for presently some powder exploded; Beresford was blown up, but fell without much injury into the arms of Mackinnon’s aide-de-camp

♦Mackinnon killed.♦

Captain Call. Mackinnon himself was among the many brave men killed by the explosion, and in him the nation lost an officer of the highest promise in the British army.

The enemy were now driven at the point of the bayonet into the great square, and were pursued from house to house, till they threw down their arms and called for quarter; and this was granted them, in the first heat of the onslaught, when, as they afterwards confessed, judging from what they themselves would have done, they expected nothing else than to be massacred. The place was won about nine at night: the troops, British and Portugueze, spread themselves all over the town, and got at the stores; but fortunately a guard was placed in time over the spirit-magazine, in which fifty pipes of good cogniac were found: had the men got at these, the amount of deaths would have been increased. It was a scene of wild disorder till daylight. The night was miserably cold, and the men crowded into the ruined houses to make fires: these rotten edifices soon caught the flames, and the conflagration became dreadful. Very little booty was to be gained in a town which the French had sacked, and which, indeed, had been deserted before they occupied it upon their conquest; what the men found was wholesome as well as welcome after their late hard fare, and they were seen each carrying three or four loaves stuck upon his bayonet. The enemy had pulled down many of the houses for firewood, and those which were nearest the ramparts had been demolished by our guns, though especial care had been taken to spare the town by battering it only in breach.

The governor, General Banier, was made prisoner, with seventy-eight officers and 1700 soldiers. Great quantities of ammunition and stores were found, a well-filled armoury, and an arsenal abundantly supplied; 109 pieces of ordnance mounted on the ramparts; and moreover, the battering-train of Marmont’s army, consisting of forty-four guns with their carriages. The loss of the allies consisted of three officers and seventy-seven men killed, twenty-four wounded and 500 during the siege; six officers and 140 men killed, sixty and 500

♦General Craufurd.♦ wounded, in storming the breaches. Craufurd’s wound, though severe, was not thought dangerous, but it proved fatal on the fifth day. He had entered the army at the age of fifteen, and in the course of two-and-thirty years few officers had seen so much or such varied service. Early in life his abilities and professional zeal were noticed by his then colonel, Sir Charles Stuart, than whom no man was better qualified to appreciate them. During peace he pursued the study of his profession in all its branches upon the continent for three years, then went to India, and there distinguished himself in two campaigns under Lord Cornwallis. He was employed on a military mission with the Austrian armies during the years 1795, 1796, and 1797, and again in 1799; was made prisoner in the ill-planned and not more happily executed expedition against Buenos Ayres; and afterwards commanded the light division of Sir John Moore’s army in Spain. With that miserable retreat his course of ill fortune terminated. He joined Sir Arthur Wellesley the day after the battle of Talavera; sustained a severe attack from very superior numbers and in a perilous position upon the Coa; signalized himself at Busaco; rejoined his division after a short absence, when the troops were drawn up for action at Fuentes d’Onoro, and was saluted by them with three cheers in presence of the enemy. “I cannot report his death,” said Lord Wellington in his dispatch, “without expressing my sorrow and regret that his Majesty has been deprived of the services, and I of the assistance of an officer of tried talents and experience, who was an ornament to his profession, and was calculated to render the most important services to his country.” He was buried with all military honours in the breach before which he received his mortal wound.

♦General Mackinnon.♦

Mackinnon also had been interred in the breach which he had won; but this was done hastily, by some pioneers under General Picton’s orders, and the officers of the Coldstream guards, in which regiment he had long served, removed his body to Espeja, and there deposited it with due honours. In Craufurd the army lost one of its most experienced officers; in Mackinnon one of the greatest promise, in whom were united all the personal accomplishments, intellectual endowments, and moral virtues which in their union constitute the character of a perfect soldier. He was one of those men whom the dreadful discipline of war renders only more considerate for others, more regardless of themselves, more alive to the sentiments and duties of humanity. He was born near Winchester in 1773, but his father was chief of a numerous clan in the Hebrides. His military education was commenced in France, his family having removed to Dauphiny because of his elder brother’s state of health; and Buonaparte, then a military student, was a frequent visitor at their house. It is one of the redeeming parts of Buonaparte’s character, that he never forgot his attachment to that family; that during the peace of Amiens he invited them to France, where they might receive proofs of it; and that when he heard of General Mackinnon’s death, he manifested some emotion. He entered the army in his 15th year, served three years as a subaltern in the 43rd, was employed at the commencement of the war in raising an independent company, and then exchanged into the Coldstream guards. During the Irish rebellion, he was attached to the staff as major of brigade to Sir George Nugent; and distinguishing himself greatly in that horrible service, was distinguished also for his humanity. He was in the expedition to the Helder, volunteered to Egypt, and was at the siege of Copenhagen. In 1809 he joined the army in Portugal, was at the passage of the Douro, and had two horses killed under him at Talavera; how ably he conducted himself when left in the charge of the wounded after that action has been related in its proper place. At Busaco he displayed so much skill and promptitude, that Sir Arthur, immediately after the battle, returned him thanks in person. He distinguished himself also on many occasions during Massena’s retreat, and led that last charge against the French at Fuentes d’Onoro which drove them finally from the ground. The unwholesome heat in the vicinity of Badajoz induced some recurrence of a disease with which he had been attacked in Egypt, and he returned for a few weeks to England there to recruit his health. In 1804 he had married a daughter of Sir John Call: she planted in his garden a laurel for every action in which her husband was engaged; and when in his last visit she took him into the walk where they were flourishing, he said to her, that she would one day have to plant a cypress at the end. Perhaps this country has never sustained so great a loss since the death of Sir Philip Sidney.

♦Marmont’s movements during the siege.♦

Without delay the approaches were destroyed and the works repaired. On the 27th the place had been again rendered defensible. Marmont was at Toledo when he received the first tidings of its investment. Hastening to Valladolid, he stated in his dispatches to France on the 16th, that he had collected five divisions for the purpose of throwing supplies into Ciudad Rodrigo, but finding that force inadequate, he had been fain to recall two divisions from the army of the north: with these he should have 60,000 men, and events might then be looked for as momentous in their results as they would be glorious for the French arms. Massena had been a month in reducing that fortress; the calculation was, that it might hold out against a regular siege, to which there should be no interruption from without, four or five-and-twenty days; Marmont expected to be in good time if he came to its relief on the 29th; ... but his army was not collected at Salamanca till the 24th; and when he announced to his own government the loss of the place, in which he said there was something so incomprehensible that he would not allow himself to make any observation upon it, it was too late to make any movement for its recovery. The weather, which had so often been unfavourable to the allies, favoured them on this occasion; heavy rains, which cut off their communications, and which would have rendered it impossible to fill in the trenches and close the breaches, did not commence till four days after the place had been rendered secure against a sudden attack; and Marmont, whose battering-train had been captured with it, could attempt nothing more.

Castaños was present at the siege, and to him as Captain-General of that province the place was given up. Before its capture, the Alcaldes of 230 pueblos had repaired to his head-quarters, to testify their own fidelity and that of their respective communities. Lord Wellington bore testimony in his dispatches as well to the loyalty and general good-will of the Spaniards in those parts, as to the assistance he had derived from Brigadier Alava; and from Julian Sanchez and D. Carlos de España, who with their two bands had watched the enemy on the other side the Tormes. A thanksgiving-service for the reconquest was performed with all solemnity at Cadiz; and the Cortes, in conformity with the proposal of the Regency, conferred upon Lord Wellington

♦Lord Wellington made Duque de Ciudad Rodrigo.♦ the rank of a Grandee of the first class, and the title of Duque de Ciudad Rodrigo. The tidings could not have been more unexpected by Buonaparte himself, than it was by the opponents of administration in England. At the commencement of the session, they, in their old tone of dismay, had repeated their denunciations of discomfiture and utter failure: ministers were again arraigned by them for their obstinate blindness, ... for their wanton waste of money and of the public strength, and for persisting in flattering and fallacious language when they had brought the nation to the very brink of ruin! Sir

♦Speeches of Sir F. Burdett and Mr. Whitbread.♦

Francis Burdett said, that whatever had been done by England for the rights of the King of Spain (who had resigned his whole pretensions to Buonaparte), nothing had been done for the Spanish people; that even if the cause of Spain had been honourably undertaken by the British government, it had now become perfectly hopeless; our victories were altogether barren, and the French were making regular and rapid strides towards the subjugation of the Peninsula: but these evils, he said, arose from the system of corruption which an oligarchy of boroughmongers had established; and as things now were, the progress of France was more favourable to liberty than the success of England would be! With more curious infelicity in his croakings, Mr. Whitbread observed, that Lord Wellington after pursuing Massena to the frontiers had been obliged to fall back; that his attempt upon Ciudad Rodrigo had proved abortive; that every thing which we could do for Spain had already been done; and though the first general of the age and the bravest troops in the world had been sent to her assistance, nothing had been accomplished, and, in short, the French were in military possession of Spain. A month had not elapsed after the delivery of these opinions,

♦Vote of thanks to Lord Wellington. He is created an Earl.♦ before the thanks of Parliament were voted to Lord Wellington for the recovery of Ciudad Rodrigo, he was created an Earl of the United Kingdom, and an additional annuity of 2000l. granted to him in consideration of his signal services. In the course of the debate, Mr. Canning took occasion to state that a revenue of 5000l. a year had been granted to Lord Wellington by the Portugueze government when they conferred upon him the title of Conde de Vimeiro; that as Captain-General of Spain, 5000l. a year had been offered him, and 7000l. as Marshal in the Portugueze service; all which he had declined, saying, he would receive nothing from Spain and Portugal in their present state; he had only done his duty to his country, and to his country alone he would look for reward.

♦Preparations for the siege of Badajoz.♦

The Earl of Wellington was already preparing for a more arduous siege. Eighteen 24-pounders had been reserved at Lisbon for this service, when the battering-train intended for Ciudad Rodrigo was sent from the Tagus to the Douro. These, with some iron guns which the Russian fleet had left there, and with the engineers’ stores, were embarked at Lisbon in large vessels, as if for some remote destination, then transhipped at sea into smaller craft, and conveyed up the Sadam to Alcacere do Sal. Fascines and gabions were prepared at Elvas. The line of supply was changed from the Douro to the Tagus; and as the Beira frontier must for awhile be left open to the enemy’s incursions, directions were given for forming a temporary depôt at Celorico, the nearest point where it could be deemed safe, and a grand magazine beyond the Douro. Ciudad Rodrigo was in some degree provisioned, as well as rendered thoroughly defensible against any attack that the French had means of making; and the troops were then put in motion, glad to remove from an exhausted country, where the labour of procuring forage amounted to constant occupation for the cavalry, none being to be found except the straw which the peasants had reserved and endeavoured to conceal, as the only subsistence left for their remaining cattle. Corn was so scarce that the very few officers who could afford such an expenditure paid the enormous price of fourteen dollars the fanega for it, in prudence, as well as in mercy to their beasts; and the owner, loading his horse with his own precious provender, performed the march himself on foot. One division of infantry remained on the Agueda, covered by a few cavalry posts. The main body proceeding by rapid marches to the Tagus crossed it, some at Abrantes, some at Villa Velha. Lord Wellington having completed his arrangements at Ciudad Rodrigo, and given it finally over to the Spaniards, set out for Alemtejo on the 5th of March, and on the 11th his head-quarters were fixed at Elvas. On the 16th, the preparations being completed, a pontoon bridge was thrown across the Guadiana about a league below Badajoz; and the light, 3rd, and 4th divisions, under Lieutenant-Colonel Barnard, Generals Picton and Colville, crossed and invested the place without opposition. General Graham, with the 1st, 6th, and 7th divisions of infantry, and Generals Slade and Le Marchant’s brigades of cavalry, advanced to Los Santos, Zafra, and Llerena, to oppose any movements on the part of Marshal Soult; while Sir Rowland Hill with the 2nd division, General Hamilton’s Portugueze division, and a brigade of cavalry, moved from their cantonments near Alburquerque to Merida and Almendralejo, thus interposing between Soult and Marmont, if the latter should march from Salamanca with the intention of forming a junction as in the preceding year.

♦Preparations for its defence.♦

The governor, G. Baron Philippon, had obtained intelligence from his spies of the preparations which were making at Elvas, and had apprised Soult accordingly that there was probably an intention of again besieging Badajoz; but it was not till the day before Lord Wellington arrived at Elvas that he knew a battering-train had been collected there, and that the allies were concentrating their forces near the Alemtejo frontier. He had before this applied for a supply of powder and shells, a convoy of which was twice sent from Seville, and twice by Sir Rowland Hill’s movements forced to put back, though the Comte d’Erlon, General Drouet, had been charged to protect it. The place had been greatly strengthened since the last unsuccessful siege, especially on the side which had then been attacked. Upon the spot where the allies had planted their breaching-battery against Fort St. Christoval, a lunette had been constructed by Marshal Soult’s orders: its ditches were cut in the rock to the depth of 14½ feet below the Berme: a powder-magazine and a bomb-proof for fifty men had been constructed there, and every means taken for securing it against a coup-de-main. The Tête-de-Pont also had been strengthened, and its communication with Fort St. Christoval repaired, so that on that side the place presented a most formidable appearance. The Pardaleras too had been repaired and strengthened, and magazines established in the castle, into which, and into the citadel, it was the governor’s intention to retire if the place should be rendered no longer tenable. The enemy had also formed galleries and trenches at each salient of the counterscarp in front of what they supposed would be the point of attack, that they might form mines under the breaching-batteries, and afterwards sink shafts for other mines, whereby to destroy the works in proportion as the assailants should gain them, and thus leave only a heap of ruins if the place should be taken. No foresight indeed had been wanting on the governor’s part. The peasantry having taken flight at the first siege and left their lands uncultivated, he had given directions for ploughing them with the oxen which were intended for slaughter, and they were sown by the soldiers within a circle of 3,000 yards: the kitchen gardens had also been distributed among the different corps and the officers of the staff, and in these they had a valuable resource. Wood was wanting for blinds and for palisades, for these had been almost wholly destroyed during the former siege: they had no means of transport for it, and it could only have been procured from a dangerous distance: to make charcoal, they were fain to dig up the root of olive-trees which had been burnt. A convoy of some threescore mules laden with flour arrived a few days before the investment, when the garrison had about five weeks’ provisions in store. The miserable townspeople were worse provided: most of those who could remove without exposing themselves to extreme distress had left the city before it was first attacked; others forsook it now, who had experienced the horrors of two former sieges, ... old men, women, and children, carrying what little had been left them, were on the road in every direction, flying from a renewal of these horrors. The population was reduced from 16,000 to little more than a fourth of that number, who thought better to abide the worst where they had a place wherein to lay their heads, than to perish as wanderers.

Though the allied army had now no want of means as in the former siege, they had no miners, nor was there any person there who had ever seen such duty performed; the sappers too had had very little experience. The only course which could be pursued was to batter from a distance the Trinidad bastion where the counterguard in its front had not been finished: this could be done from the hill on which the Picurina redoubt stands; and that redoubt must be carried and connected with the first parallel. The plan was so hazardous, and so little according to rule, that “it never was for a moment

♦Colonel Jones’s Journals, 298.♦ approved by any one employed in drawing it up, or in the execution of it.” No one doubted its success more than Lord Wellington himself; but it was deemed necessary to reduce Badajoz, and there was no chance of reducing it by any other course.

♦Siege of Badajoz.♦

On the night of the 16th the besiegers broke ground during a storm of wind, with heavy and uninterrupted rain. It was so dark that nothing could be seen by the enemy, and the tempest prevented them from hearing the working parties, who under these favourable circumstances were not discovered till daylight, although only 160 yards from the covered way of the fort. The ensuing night also was well employed. The weather continued so rainy that the trenches were knee-deep in mud and water. Had the soil been heavier, it would not have been possible to bring up the heavy artillery; manual assistance, as well as sixteen bullocks, being required to draw along each piece. It was a severe service for the three divisions, who had to go through more than double the work which had occupied four at Ciudad Rodrigo; and their tents were far from being proof against such rain. On the 18th the garrison made a sally with 1500 infantry and forty horse: they formed unobserved in the communication from the lunette S. Roque to the Picurina, then pushed forward, and were in the parallel before the workmen could stand to their arms; at the same moment the cavalry came round the right flank of the parallel at a hand gallop, and were presently in the depôts, a thousand yards in the rear of the trenches. There they made great confusion among the unarmed men, but retired on the appearance of troops before they could destroy any thing. They took two or three officers prisoners, tied them to their saddles, and cantered off with them some hundred yards, but on their falling from fatigue let them go. The infantry meantime filled in a small part of the parallel before the coverers came to the relief of the working parties: they were then driven back in great confusion, carrying off about 200 intrenching tools. But this sortie cost the allies about 150 men in killed and wounded; the commanding engineer, Lieutenant-Colonel Fletcher, being among the latter.

The weather, which had at first covered the operations of the allies, continued now so rainy as to impede them: the trenches were filled with water, and there was no possibility of draining them, the ground being a dead level; it was necessary to empty them and make an artificial bottom of fascines. On the 21st the enemy advanced two field-pieces on the right of the Guadiana to enfilade the parallel: such an intention having been apprehended on the preceding day, the parallel had been thrown back during the night; these guns, therefore, did little mischief, and they were compelled to withdraw them by a few riflemen posted on the banks of the river. But on the following night they threw up cover for three field-pieces there, brought them out soon after daybreak, and kept up a very destructive fire throughout the day, their shot pitching into the parallel at a range of 1400 yards. The inconvenience of having left the place open on that side was then felt, and the 5th division was ordered from Campo-mayor to invest it. That evening the trenches were again filled by one of those showers in which the rain seems rather to pour down in streams than to fall in drops: the pontoon bridge was carried away by the rise of the Guadiana, and the current of that river became so rapid that the flying bridges could with difficulty work: it became doubtful, therefore, whether the army could be supplied with provisions, and whether guns and ammunition could be brought over for the attack; and it began to be seriously apprehended, that if the weather continued thus to favour the enemy the siege must be raised.

An immediate improvement relieved that apprehension: the trenches were rendered passable during the night; the morning was fine: it was apparent that the enemy had mistaken the intended point of attack, for they had large parties employed in strengthening places against which nothing was designed: the batteries were so advanced that there seemed no doubt of their opening on the morrow, when at three in the afternoon the skies again began to pour down; every part of the trenches was again filled with rain: no advance could be made next day, the ground being so completely saturated that the water stood everywhere in pools, ... the earth was too wet to retain any form, the revetements of the batteries fell, no solid foundation upon which to lay the platforms could be obtained, and the guns could not be brought across the fields. But on the following afternoon the weather became fine; the batteries were completed in the course of the night; they opened on the forenoon of the 25th; and being now secured by a good parallel, and the batteries enfilading all the faces and flanks of the place which bore on Fort Picurina, it was determined to assault that fort that night.

The enemy, as soon as they perceived what point was immediately threatened, took every means for strengthening it, and abandoning their works on the right bank deepened the ditch of the Picurina, and strengthened the gorge with a second row of palisades: they also formed galleries communicating with each other, and brought a reverse fire to flank the ditches. Under the three angles of the glacis they placed fougasses, and arranged upon the parapets loaded shells and barrels of combustibles, which were to be rolled among the assailants at the moment of assault; and that each man might have several pieces to discharge, 200 loaded muskets were ranged along the interior crest of the parapet. With these preparations the governor calculated upon a good defence. Six batteries played upon the fort and the town, and were answered from a greater number of guns: the Portugueze gunners stood to their cannon with as much coolness, and directed them with as much precision, as the British: it was impossible to say whether the guns of the besiegers or of the besieged were best served, and this uninterrupted roar of artillery was continued till sunset with great destruction on both sides. Captain Mulcaster of the engineers, an officer of great ability, was killed in the parallel by a cannon-shot.

Major-General Kempt, who commanded in the trenches, directed the assault of the fort. Two detachments of 200 men each were formed in the parallel: both were to quit it at the same time by signal; the one under Lieutenant Stanway, on the extreme left, to move round the right flank of the work and endeavour to force the gorge; the other under Lieutenant Gipps, from an opening about the middle of the parallel, to move direct upon the communication from the town to the fort, leave 100 men there to prevent succour from being sent, and with the other hundred to march upon the work with the twofold purpose, of aiding the left detachment in forcing the gorge, and of preventing the garrison from escaping. Another 100 men under Captain Holloway, R. E., were formed in one of the batteries to assist the others by a front attack, if they should find much difficulty in forcing in at the gorge. About ten o’clock the signal was made: the left party reached the gorge undiscovered; but when they attempted to cut down and force over the palisades, so heavy a fire of musketry was opened upon them that none could effect it. That half of the right detachment which proceeded to the gorge was received also with such a fire, that their attempts to get over the palisade were fruitless: instead of persevering in the desperate endeavour, they drew round to the left flank of the work where the ditch was not flanked, fixed their ladders against the escarpe, and were presently on the top of the parapet overlooking the enemy, who defended the rear: at the same moment Captain Holloway’s party from the battery forced in at the salient angle, ... but both that officer and Lieutenant Gipps were wounded. The garrison seeing the assailants within the works ran into a guard-house, and there barricadoed themselves: the troops were not prepared to dislodge them; they had lost their leaders; and while they were uncertain how to proceed, a report arose that a large detachment was coming from the town to relieve the fort. It seemed in their confusion as if they were on the point of abandoning the place; and the garrison supposing this to be the case, came out of the guard-house. But at that critical moment General Kempt by great exertions restored their confidence: they turned upon the enemy, and of the 300 who composed the garrison scarcely any escaped. They fought resolutely to the very last, their officer setting them a brave example: several threw themselves into the water and were drowned, about 70 only were made prisoners. The loss of the assailants was greater: four officers and 50 men were killed, 15 officers and 250 men wounded. It was found, upon inspecting the fort, that the batteries had done very little to facilitate its capture; and the engineers said, that had they been aware how little it was injured, they would not have recommended the escalade so soon. The advantage which had been gained was of great importance; but those successes are dangerous in their consequences, as well as dearly bought at the time, in which courage performs what ought to be the effect of skill.

The enemy, who undervalued the skill of our engineers, and had such an opinion of British valour that they thought nothing too rash or too desperate for it to undertake, supposed that a general assault was intended. And about the time when the Picurina had been carried, the alarm-bell rang in the town, rockets were thrown up, and a random fire of musketry and cannon was opened from every part of the works. Presently, the alarm of a sortie was given by a drum beating in the lunette of S. Roque; the guard of the trenches commenced a heavy fire, this occasioned a heavier firing from the town, which again increased that from the trenches, and it was not till long after midnight that the vain alarm on both sides subsided. It had not been without some cause; a battalion had been ordered out to succour the fort, but so late as to sustain a heavy fire from it, which compelled them to retire with the loss of twenty men. A lodgement was then formed on the terre-plein of the fort, which lodgement was knocked to pieces in the course of the following day, by a constant and very heavy fire from the town; but before night the sappers completed a fresh one. Other batteries were now constructed, and the enemy then perceiving that the Trinidad and Santa Maria bastions were the objects of attack, used all possible means for strengthening them.

The enemy imputed the loss of the Picurina to the misconduct of its garrison; the captain of artillery had been wounded in the course of the day, and relieved by one who was thought not to have shown equal courage: no use had been made of the loaded shells and combustibles; but if the fort had been well defended, the governor thought the allies would have failed, as they did in their assault during the former siege. A singular stratagem was now practised by the commanding officer of the engineers, Colonel Lamarre, which, if accident had not frustrated it, would have cost the allies dear. Captain Ellicombe, going at dusk to adjust the lines of direction of the sap for the night, found those returns which were already begun, in a good line, clear of enfilade, but that which was marked by the white line and not yet commenced, fell in the direct enfilade of three guns: this he mentioned as a lucky discovery, and it was supposed to have been the effect of accident, the line it was thought having, at the time of laying it down, caught unobserved in the dark against some stone or bush. But it was afterwards ascertained that a soldier had been sent out from the place just as evening closed, to remove it, and bring it directly under fire.

It was against the lunette of S. Roque that these works were intended; could the enemy be driven thence, a dam which retained the waters of an inundation might be broken down, and the works might then be pushed much nearer to the place. More skill and more courage could not have been displayed than were manifested by the garrison, animated as they were by former success, and by the expectation of being speedily relieved. On the other hand, Lord Wellington was not without cause to apprehend that a second battle of Albuhera might be to be fought. On the 30th of March it was understood that Soult was advancing, and the 5th division was therefore withdrawn from before St. Christoval and marched to the front, some Portugueze cavalry being stationed to watch the town on that side. Two breaching batteries opened next day on the Trinidad bastion, but these produced no considerable effect, and the sappers had made little progress against

♦April 4.♦

S. Roque’s, when Marshal Soult advanced to Llerena. It was then intended to leave ten thousand men for guarding the trenches, and to give him battle with the remainder of the army: the covering army was about to fall back on Talavera la Real. But at noon on the 5th, Lord Wellington reconnoitred the trenches and thought they might immediately be assaulted: in the afternoon he determined to defer the assault till the following day, and meantime endeavour to break the curtain between the Trinidad counterguard and an unfinished ravelin. Fourteen guns opened upon

♦April 6.♦ this curtain at daylight; in two hours the walls were brought down, and by four so practicable a breach, as it appeared, was formed, that the assault was ordered for ten o’clock that night. The attack was to be at three points: that of the castle by escalade; those of the Trinidad and S. Maria bastions by storming the breaches. The castle was to be assailed by the 3rd division under Major-General Picton; La Trinidad by the 4th under Major-General Colville, and Santa Maria by the left under Lieutenant-Colonel Barnard. At the same time, S. Roque’s was to be assaulted by a party from the trenches, and the 5th division to alarm the enemy by threatening the Pardaleras and the works towards the Guadiana.

Meantime the French were indefatigable in preparing for defence. They imputed it as a gross fault to the British engineers that they had not destroyed the counterscarps, an operation which there was no time for performing, even if it had been possible to perform it without men more accustomed to such labours than any in the allied army: but because this had been impossible, the enemy were enabled to form at the foot of their counterscarps, and behind the breaches the most formidable obstructions which destructive ingenuity could devise. Night and day they were employed in clearing away the rubbish, destroying the ramps of the covered way, and making retrenchments behind the trenches. The fallen parapets were replaced with fascines, sandbags, and wool-packs; casks filled with tarred straw, powder, and loaded grenades, were arranged along the trenches, and large shells with them. Immediately in front of the breaches at the foot of the counterscarp, sixty fourteen-inch shells were placed in a circular form, about four yards apart, and covered with some four inches of earth, and a communication formed to them with powder hoses placed between tiles in the manner of mine-tubes. Chevaux-de-frise were formed of sabre blades; ... all the artillery stores were turned to account; even a large boat was lowered into the ditch and filled with soldiers to flank one of the breaches, where it was of great use.

An extraordinary circumstance, which might be called accidental, contributed greatly to the terrible effect of these formidable preparations. The Spaniards at some former time intending to have strengthened Badajoz, had commenced their improvements, as usual with them, upon a great scale, and, as usual also, left them unfinished. Thus they had so greatly widened the ditch as to include within it the covered way and part of the glacis of the original trace; designing to build a ravelin to this front, this old glacis and covered way in the space which was to be occupied by that work were not removed, and they remained in the ditch like an ill-shapen rock. The interior of this being the old counterscarp, the front of it, where it had been cut down to admit of building the new one, was very steep and difficult of ascent. The light and 4th divisions, at the hour appointed, entered the covered way without difficulty; bags of hay were then thrown down, and ladders placed down the counterscarp: they descended readily, and the ditch was presently filled with men. The 4th division, which was on the right, mistook these old works in the ditch for the breach, cheered each other up, and mounted with alacrity; but when they had reached the summit they found themselves there exposed to the fire of the whole front, with a difficult descent before them, the space between them and the foot of the breaches appearing like a deep ditch; there were in reality very deep excavations in many parts of it, sufficiently extensive to prevent an indiscriminate rush forwards: and water had been introduced along the counterscarp, by means of which all approach to the breach either in the face or curtain was precluded, except by passing over the seeming rock, between which and the foot of the breach the space was so restricted that a body of men could advance in only a very small front. The night was very dark, and this it was felt would render any confusion irremediable; but confusion presently arose, for the engineer who led the light division was killed before he got to the ditch, and being the only person who knew the way to the breach which they were to have assaulted, they were directed too much to the right, and got upon the same summit where the 4th stood hesitating and perplexed, and thus the confusion was increased, and both crowded towards the great breach, instead of taking each its own. They had only five or six ladders to descend by, which could take only four at once, and this close under the main force of the garrison, selected and placed there as at the post of danger, and most of them having three spare muskets, with people to load them in the rear as fast as they could be discharged. The assailants were so thickly crowded on the glacis and in the ditch, that it was not necessary to aim at them; but fire-balls were cast among them, which effected the double mischief of increasing their confusion, and rendering all their movements as distinctly visible as if it had been noon-day; the oldest soldiers declared that they had never before been exposed to so rapid and murderous a fire. Major-General Colville fell among the first, severely wounded in the thigh, ... the last sound which he heard before he fainted was the voice of Captain Nicholas of the engineers, exhorting his men in the ditch. That young and excellent officer, whose charge it was to lead the 4th division to the breach, after twice essaying to reach the top, fell wounded by a musket which grazed his knee-pan, a bayonet thrust in the great muscle of his right leg, his left arm broken, and his wrist wounded by musket-shot; ... yet, in that state, seeing his old friends and comrades, Colonel Macleod and Captain James, fall, and hearing the men ask who should lead them to the third onset, he rallied, and ordered two of his men to bear him up in their arms. Two brave fellows attempted this most perilous service; they had just reached the top when one of them was killed, and at the same moment, Nicholas received a musket-ball, which passed through the chest, breaking two of his ribs upon the way, upon which he fell from the top to the bottom of the breach mortally hurt, and receiving further injury from bruises in his fall.

Never were brave men exposed to slaughter under more frightful circumstances. The breach would not admit of more than fifteen abreast: the assailants repeatedly reached the summit, though the slope was covered with planks full of spikes. There they found the entrance closed with chevaux-de-frise which it was neither possible to break down nor to cut away, nor to get over. Many gashed their hands in attempting to pull them down at the muzzle of the enemy’s muskets, from which a new species of shot, which the soldiers called musket-grape, was poured in upon them in one continuous discharge; ... it consisted of slugs fastened together, and resembled grape-shot in miniature. Under this incessant fire, shells, hand-grenades, bags of powder, and every destructive form of missile or combustible that ingenuity could invent, were hurled into the ditch. Gunpowder, it is said, had never, since the hour of its discovery, been employed with more terrific and terrible effect. The explosions frequently created a light more vivid than broad day, which for a moment was succeeded by utter darkness, ... and then again the whole ground seemed to be vomiting fire under their feet and every where around them, while they had no possible means either of defending themselves or of retaliating. The officers led their men so close to the enemy’s guns, that they felt the wadding as well as the ball; when one fell another took his place; but as it had been impossible to recover from the first confusion, the men could not be moved like a machine in collective strength; individual efforts were all that could be made, and these, though made with devoted courage, were necessarily vain, the best and bravest putting themselves forward, and sacrificing themselves; till at length the troops, knowing it hopeless to make any farther effort, and yet too high spirited to retreat, stood patiently in the ditch to be slaughtered. It was not till more than two hours after the commencement of this carnage, that Lord Wellington, being made acquainted with their situation, ordered these two divisions to be withdrawn and to be formed a little before daylight for a fresh assault. He might well indeed conclude, that after the blood which had already been shed there, success was to be purchased at any cost; and certainly there would have been much more chance of success in the second attempt than in the first, when it might be made in good order, and when the enemy’s trains had been fired, and their combustible preparations expended.

This might probably have been his determination, if no advantage had been obtained in any other part; but immediately before he gave this order, he received intelligence, that the 3rd division was in possession of the castle. Major-General Kempt, who led this attack, was wounded in crossing the river Rivellas below the inundation, a fire having been opened upon them from the whole of the eastern works, as soon as they reached that stream. It was General Philippon’s intention, if the breaches should be forced, to retire into the castle, which had the strength of a citadel: with this and the tête-du-pont, and Fort Christoval, he might yet have held out some days, and give time thereby for those movements which he supposed would again be made for his relief. With this view he had strengthened and stored it; all its gates had been built up, and the ramparts were covered with large Spanish shells, stones, beams, and whatever could be thrown upon the heads of the assailants. By means of these preparations, a most obstinate resistance was opposed to the escalade, and for a considerable time all who attempted to rear the ladders were destroyed. At length an entrance was forced up one ladder at an embrasure; the defence immediately slackened, and other ladders were quickly reared, with that alacrity which the feeling of success inspires. An officer of the German Legion, Girsewald by name, who was remarkable for his bodily strength, was one of the first who mounted. A French soldier fired at and missed him, then made a thrust with the bayonet; Girsewald, with his left hand, parried the bayonet and seized it, and held it so firmly, that the exertions which the Frenchman made for recovering his weapon, assisted him in mounting, till he got high enough to aim a blow in his turn, with which he severed his antagonist’s head from his shoulders. A false report having been made to Philippon that one of the bastions had been entered by the assailants, the falsehood of that intelligence made him doubt and hesitate when he heard they were escalading the castle. Two companies which he intended to order thither, by some mistake either in giving or understanding the order, went to the breaches instead, where they were not wanted; and four others, which took the right direction, arrived too late: the castle had been taken; they were received by a heavy fire of musketry, and dispersed with loss. One of the last shots which were fired struck Girsewald on the knee; he would not let the limb be amputated, and therefore the wound proved fatal.

The 5th division were not less successful, though the party with the scaling ladders lost their way, and Lieutenant-General Leith could not, in consequence, move till it was after eleven o’clock. The bastion of S. Vicente which he attacked was fully prepared for defence, and the troops were discovered when on the glacis; yet they forced in by escalade. Major-General Walker then advanced along the ramparts to fall on the rear of the enemy who were defending the breaches; the troops, when driving the French before them, were opposed by a single field-piece placed on the terre-plein of the curtain; the gunner lighted a port fire as they approached: at the sudden blaze of light, one who was among the foremost in pursuit cried out “A mine!” That fearful word ran through the line of pursuers; the very men who had so bravely won the bastion, as if their nature had been suddenly changed, took panic, and in spite of their general’s efforts, who was severely wounded while endeavouring to rally them, were driven back by the bayonet to the place whereat they had entered: but by this time the reserve had formed there, the pursuers in their turn were checked, and the British marched immediately to the breaches, from which the defenders then dispersed, seeing that all was lost. This attack might have been spared if any signals had been agreed upon by which Picton’s success should have been made known; for want of such concertment, General Leith’s attack was made after the escalade had succeeded; he met with the same opposition as if the fate of the place had not been decided in another quarter,

♦Col. Jones’s Sieges, 303.♦ and thus Badajoz may be said to have been twice carried that night. Philippon with his staff retired into Fort Christoval, and surrendered in the morning.

The place was plundered during the remainder of the night and on the following day, nor could order be restored till the day afterwards. The doors were forced by firing through the locks, and most of the inhabitants had placed a table immediately in the entrance of their houses, with a candle and a bottle of brandy, supposing that this would content the soldiers: the consequence was that, excited as they already were, they became half mad with the fiery spirit. But whatever excesses they committed, their excitement took the form of good fellowship toward their defeated enemies; and they were seen walking about with the French soldiers, arm in arm, inviting them to drink, and taking every care of them. As soon as fresh troops could be brought up from the corps of observation, they were marched in, and order was then restored. 59 officers and 744 men were killed on the night of the assault; 258 officers wounded and 2600 men; the total number of killed and wounded during the siege was 5000. The garrison consisted of nearly 5000, of whom about 3500 were made prisoners.

♦Soult advances to relieve the place, ... and retreats.♦

On this occasion the French Marshals had been less alert than during the former siege, and they had not acted so well in concert. Marshal Soult left Seville on the 1st, with all the force he could collect. On the 4th he reached Llerena; and having arrived at Villa-Franca, two marches only from Badajoz, on the 8th, he there learned that the city had been taken on the night of the 6th. The inhabitants reported, that his chagrin at this intelligence was manifested in fits of intemperate anger, and that he broke nearly all the plates and dishes within his reach. Before daylight he commenced his retreat; the allied cavalry immediately followed his march, and on the 11th, attacked his rear guard (consisting of General Drouet’s cavalry, 2500 in number) at Usagre, and drove them to Llerena, killing many, and bringing away about 150 prisoners, and nearly as many horses. It was believed throughout this part of the country, that Ballasteros had entered Seville; and the people giving, with their characteristic credulity, implicit belief to the idle rumour, made rejoicings everywhere for the supposed success, and seemed wholly to disregard the recapture of Badajoz.

If Ciudad Rodrigo had been provisioned at this time as it ought to, and as Lord Wellington expected it would have been, his intention was immediately after the capture of Badajoz to have advanced upon Seville with 40,000 men; that movement would instantly have raised the siege of Cadiz, and Soult might probably have been obliged to withdraw from Andalusia, and take up a defensive position on the Tagus. But the British Commander’s operations were still crippled by the insufficiency of his means; the Spaniards were not to be relied on for any exertions, however necessary, for their own deliverance; the Portugueze were paralysed by the poverty to which the government and the nation were reduced; and the British ministry were not yet sufficiently encouraged by success and by popular opinion, to increase their efforts and therewith an expenditure

♦Marmont enters Beira.♦ already unexampled in amount. Marshal Marmont, meantime, supposing that Soult would be able to raise the siege of Badajoz, thought the opportunity favourable for an attempt upon the Beira frontier. Lord Wellington had foreseen this, and had

♦Arrangement for the defence of that frontier.♦ little means of providing against it. Relying, however, upon the officers whom he had left in command at Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida, for all that could be done by vigilance and sound judgment, he had directed General Bacellar to collect the Portugueze militia corps and march thither, ... Sylveira to protect the Tras-os-Montes, and Brigadier-Generals Sir Nicholas Trant and Sir John Wilson to cover that part of Beira extending from the Douro along the Coa to Sabugal, with especial orders to look to the safety of a considerable magazine of ammunition at Celorico. Bacellar fixed his head-quarters at Lamego; the two Anglo-Portugueze Brigadiers had about 3500 men, but only a single squadron of dragoons between them, and but a small proportion of the men had served with them in the former campaigns. In Portugal, the militia is a service in which no man willingly either enters or continues, for they receive only half the pay of the regular soldier, and half the ration of provisions, and are clothed at their own expense. This body is composed wholly of married men, or of widowers having children, these being the only persons exempted from the conscription: such men were naturally anxious and desirous of returning home, whenever, by means of favour or of corruption, they could obtain leave; in the interval of the campaign, their places were supplied by others of the same class; two-thirds at least of the whole number consisted of such raw recruits, and the others had not been exercised one day since they were disbanded in the spring of the preceding year.

♦Marmont deterred by a feint from assaulting Almeida.♦

Marmont did not know how weak a force could be brought into the field rather to observe his movements than to oppose them; but he knew that Ciudad Rodrigo was ill-stored with provisions, and that the injury which Brennier had done to the fortifications of Almeida when he abandoned that place had been insufficiently repaired. Advancing, therefore, from Salamanca with about 20,000 men, including 1200 cavalry, he summoned Ciudad Rodrigo: the Spaniards had made so little progress in repairing the works, that he might probably have carried it by escalade; but the French had now lost something of their confidence; he was afraid of committing himself, and leaving one division to blockade it, proceeded with the rest of his army towards Almeida. Colonel Le Mesurier commanded in that fortress, and its safety depended much more upon the character of its commander than upon its own strength or that of the garrison, which consisted entirely of militia. Trant, arriving with his division upon the Coa just at this time, and receiving intelligence there of the enemy’s movements, proceeded without delay to occupy the position of the Cabeço Negro, which Lord Wellington had occupied during Massena’s operations against Almeida: the French were already arriving before that place, and it was with difficulty that a corps of between 7 and 800 Spaniards under D. Carlos d’España escaped their close pursuit and effected a junction with this body of Portugueze. It was of great consequence to communicate with Colonel Le Mesurier now. Trant, though exposed to the fire of the French advanced posts, effected this, and during a short interview, they agreed upon the course to be pursued in case Almeida should be seriously threatened; and also, that during the night an attempt should be made to impose upon the French by making show as of a considerable force upon the left bank of the Coa. Accordingly, fires were kindled to the right and left of the position; and the enemy, deceived by this easy stratagem into a belief that a corps of British troops was present, gave up their intention of assaulting the fortress; they only threw forward a reconnoitring party upon the glacis, which the Governor drove back with loss.

Had Marmont assaulted the place, he might probably have captured it, and would have found there a battering-train, which would have enabled him to break ground before Ciudad Rodrigo. On the following morning he withdrew, and leaving Almeida in the rear proceeded to Sabugal, where he established his head-quarters: it was now at his option either to advance upon the Tagus by Castello Branco, or by Guarda upon the Mondego and Celorico; but his operations had neither been

♦Advance of the French to Castello Branco and their retreat.♦ well concerted, nor were they vigorously pursued. His advanced guard followed the first hussars, who had been left under Major-General Alten in front of Ciudad Rodrigo, through Lower Beira, but at a distance; and they entered Castello Branco, that officer having fallen back thither, and retiring from thence before them with Brigadier-General Le Cor’s brigade of militia which had been stationed there. The hospital and the stores were removed beyond the Tagus. The enemy did not cross the river in pursuit, and when Alten and Le Cor recrossed, the French retreated, evacuating the city two days after they had taken possession of it.

♦Marmont attempts to surprise the Portugueze at Guarda.♦

Meantime Bacellar, who had removed his head-quarters to Celorico, instructed Trant and Wilson to occupy Guarda, relying upon Dumouriez’ erroneous opinion of the advantages of a position which Lord Wellington afterwards pronounced to be the most treacherous one in Portugal. They, though they were not at that time aware of the defects of the ground which they were ordered to take, would far rather have moved behind the Mondego, from whence the magazines at Celorico might have been better protected. The French were dispersed over a large extent of country for the purpose of procuring provisions, and for plunder; but Marmont, having collected about 10,000 of his men and half his cavalry, on the evening of the day on which his advanced guard retired from Castello Branco, advanced upon Guarda, expecting to surprise the Portugueze divisions there. A hundred men under a Captain and two Lieutenants had been stationed about half a mile in front of the town, on the Sabugal road. Marmont himself advancing with 500 cavalry, surprised and captured the out-piquet of the party, and pushed on within 200 yards of the city, but hearing the drums beat to arms, and being unsupported by infantry, he thought it prudent to fall back upon his main force. The Portugueze, who at that moment could have offered little resistance even to a less formidable enemy, soon drew up on the outside of the town, towards the danger; it was just at daybreak, and they ascertained the great superiority of the French in time to commence their retreat. Guarda being untenable, and the troops having only rations for the present day, and depending upon Celorico for supplies which would now be cut off, Trant, therefore, in concurrence with Wilson’s opinion, resolved to retire behind the Mondego, which was about six miles distant. Two battalions were continued in position, while the remainder retired through the town, and took up ground in its rear unobserved by the enemy; but no sooner were the whole set in motion than the French cavalry followed, threatening to charge the columns. The ground for about five miles was entirely open; but a regiment was successively halted in echelle for the protection of the troops in march, and by this means the movement went on in perfect order, till the moment when all danger seemed to be at an end.

♦Flight of the Portugueze militia by the Mondego.♦

Immediately before the road to Celorico reaches the Mondego, it descends a sloping ground, much broken and covered with wood. The enemy’s horse was by this time pressing them close; Trant, therefore, halted his rear-guard of one battalion within the wood, about a hundred yards from the summit of the hill, where they could not be attacked by cavalry, and where by making a stand, they might have gained time for the rest of the troops to ford the river and form on the opposite side. But it had not ceased raining for some hours, and when they were ordered to fire upon some of the French who dismounted, and were firing their carabines upon them, very few of the firelocks went off; the men instantly lost confidence, and every one thought to escape unnoticed by favour of the ground. Trant presently found himself with not more than a hundred men besides the officers of his staff and of the regiment. The panic which these fugitives spread was increased by the small party of Portugueze cavalry, which having been employed thus far in watching the enemy, retreated with too much precipitation through the rear-guard, glad to find themselves in comparative safety among the trees; and some of them escaping to the main body, it was supposed from their report that the whole of the rear-guard had been cut off. All efforts of the officers were in vain; they took to flight; the enemy’s cavalry descended the hill unopposed, and made about two hundred prisoners without killing or wounding a single man. Five colours were lost in this rout, the bearers having either hid them in the wood, or thrown them into the Mondego; and a few men were drowned in hurrying over the river. Some of the fugitives hastened to Celorico, declaring that the enemy were in full pursuit, and continuing their flight, they spread the same report all the way to Coimbra. It had this ill effect at Celorico that the officer in charge of the depôt there set it on fire, concluding hastily, that what these persons reported as eye-witnesses, must to its

♦Marmont retreats.♦ whole extent be true. But night had closed opportunely for the Portugueze; their officers succeeded in rallying them beyond the river, and the French did not attempt to pass, waiting till the morning: during the night Marmont received unwelcome tidings that Badajoz had fallen, and that Lord Wellington was on his way to the north; he therefore retraced his steps towards Sabugal, concentrated his army there, and then commenced his retreat upon Salamanca, raising the blockade of Ciudad Rodrigo. The enemy in this expedition had robbed and murdered the inhabitants as usual; but they derived no advantage from it whatever, having attempted more than they could execute, and leaving unattempted what they might have achieved.

Marshal Beresford noticed the conduct of the militia in the severest terms; and it is worthy of remark, that the order which contained this censure found its way into the Moniteur, ... of so much consequence was it deemed at Paris to depreciate the Portugueze soldiers now when the French had begun to find them formidable. An alferes and two serjeants were brought to trial at Coimbra, for cowardice, and for spreading fearful and false reports upon their flight: they were condemned to death and executed. The Porto militia regiment in which the panic had begun was deprived of its colours till it should recover its character in the presence of the enemy; two other regiments which had lost theirs were not to have them restored till, in like manner, they had effaced the stain of their late conduct; and the Penafiel militia, which had lost one and preserved the other, was ordered to deposit that other with the Camara of their town till they should have approved themselves worthy to be intrusted with it again. As this was the only instance in which the Portugueze had disgraced themselves since their military establishment had been reformed, it was treated with the greatest severity.

♦Lord Wellington retires to Beira.♦

Lord Wellington, as soon as he heard of Soult’s retreat, had put his army in motion toward the Beira frontier. He established his head-quarters at Fuente Guinaldo; the troops were cantoned between the Agueda and the Coa; and though the magazines at Celorico had been destroyed, those beyond the Douro sufficed for their supply. Here, therefore, they rested awhile to recruit their strength. Their means of transport were employed in provisioning Badajoz, and Lord Wellington prepared to follow up the brilliant successes of the campaign.

CHAPTER XLI.

MARQUIS WELLESLEY RESIGNS OFFICE. OVERTURES OF PEACE. MURDER OF MR. PERCEVAL. NEGOTIATIONS FOR FORMING A NEW ADMINISTRATION. SIR ROWLAND HILL’S SUCCESS AT ALMARAZ. BATTLE OF SALAMANCA.

♦1812.♦

The year which had commenced thus auspiciously for the British arms was distinguished also by important events both at home and on the continent, ... events which materially affected the conduct and the issue of

♦Marquis Wellesley resigns office.♦ the war. Early in the year Marquis Wellesley resigned the seals of his office: he could not prevail upon his colleagues in the cabinet to place such means at the disposal of Lord Wellington as might enable him to follow up his advantages with every human certainty of complete success; and he was impatient of continuing in a subordinate station to Mr. Perceval, whom he seems to have estimated far below the standard of his worth. The seals were put into the Earl of Liverpool’s hands till a successor should be appointed.

♦Restrictions on the Regency expire.
Feb. 13.♦

At this time the restrictions on the Regency were about to expire, and the Prince addressed a letter to his brother the Duke of York, saying how much it would gratify him if some of those persons with whom the habits of his public life had been formed would strengthen his hands and constitute a part of his government; and authorizing him to communicate his wishes to Lord Grey, who would make them known to Lord Grenville. “The national faith,” said the Prince, “has been preserved inviolate towards our allies; and if character is strength, as applied to a nation, the increased and increasing reputation of his Majesty’s arms will show to the nations of the continent how much they may still achieve when animated by a glorious spirit of resistance to a foreign yoke. In the critical situation of the war in the Peninsula, I shall be most anxious to avoid any measure which can lead my allies to suppose that I mean to depart from the present system. Perseverance alone can achieve the great object in question; and I cannot withhold my approbation from those who have honourably distinguished themselves in the support of it. I have no predilections to indulge, ... no resentments to gratify, ... no objects to attain but such as are common to the whole empire.”

♦Communication from the Prince to the leaders of Opposition.
January 7.♦

It was not likely that this communication to the two joint leaders of the Opposition would bring them to act in concert with Mr. Perceval, whom having tried and proved, the Prince would not now have abandoned. Earl Grey had said in the debate on the address, “he should feel unhappy if he departed from that House without declaring that he retained all the opinions which he before held on subjects of great magnitude, ... opinions confirmed by experience and the evidence of facts, ... opinions which he should ever be ready to maintain and defend, the system that had been adopted having been, in fact, the source of almost all our present and impending calamities.” Lord Grenville’s language on the same occasion had been to the same purport: “The framers of the Prince Regent’s speech,” he said, “were the very men who by their obstinate blindness had brought the country to the brink of ruin, and who, in the midst of the distresses they themselves had occasioned, still held the same flattering and fallacious language. He would protest against a continuance of those measures which had brought such calamities on the country, ... calamities so real and momentous, that they must soon press themselves with irresistible force on their lordships’ attention, whether or not they were willing to give them the consideration they deserved. People might choose to close their eyes, but the force of truth must dispel the wilful blindness; they might choose to shut their ears, but the voice of a suffering nation must sooner or later be heard. He still retained his objections to every part of the system which he had so often condemned; he still deprecated that wanton waste of money and of all the public resources, when it was more necessary than ever to husband them with the most provident care.”

♦Reply of Lords Grey and Grenville.♦

The two lords framed their reply to the Duke of York’s communication in conformity with these declared opinions: “No sacrifice,” they said, “except those of honour and duty, could appear to us too great to be made, for the purpose of healing the divisions of our country, and uniting both its government and its people. All personal exclusion we entirely disclaim; we rest on public measures; and it is on this ground alone that we must express, without reserve, the impossibility of our uniting with the present government. Our differences of opinion are too many and too important to admit of such an union: ... they embrace almost all the leading features of the present policy of the empire.” Then touching upon the state of Ireland, “We are firmly persuaded,” they said, “of the necessity of a total change in the present system of government in that country.”

The great body of the nation dreaded at this time nothing so much as any change in the ministry which would bring the despondents into office; they therefore regarded this refusal of the Prince Regent’s overture with the greatest satisfaction; but it gave offence to others of that party, who looked upon themselves with some reason as having been included in the overtures, and were of opinion that they ought to have been consulted before such an answer was returned; there might have been a distribution of loaves and fishes; and though the two lords were not hungry, they were: ... this

♦March.♦ the public learned from their complaints. The seals of the foreign department were now accepted by Lord Castlereagh, who while out of office, instead of entering into opposition, had supported the measures of a cabinet whose general course of policy he approved, and in whom the ministry, if they gained little accession of strength in public opinion, obtained an active and useful colleague, on whose intrepidity and honour and straightforward integrity they could rely.

♦Lord Boringdon’s motion.
Mar. 19.♦

Lord Boringdon, however, thought proper to move in the House of Lords for an address to the Prince Regent, requesting that he would endeavour to form a cabinet which might effectually call forth the resources of the empire. “The motion was founded,” he said, “on his deep sense of the alarming evils which threatened the safety of the nation, and on the imperative necessity of obtaining an efficient administration capable of averting them; ... for the darkest and most gloomy prospects now surrounded us; dangers were pressing upon us on every side, and at this same time the means of averting them were weakened.” The Catholic question was largely introduced in the ensuing debate; a party in Parliament using that question as a means for harassing the administration, while men of worse intentions but far greater foresight employed it as an engine by which they expected to separate Ireland from England, eradicate the Protestant Church in one country, and finally subvert the constitution of the other. But the public looked with much more interest to the opinions concerning the war expressed by those who, notwithstanding their late refusal of office, were supposed to be expectant of it; and upon this point Earl Grey’s sentiments seemed to have undergone some modification. “Certainly,” he said, “he was not prepared to affirm that it was expedient to recall our troops immediately home, but certainly he did not wish to proceed in that expensive mode of warfare without having some military authority as to the result of it. He

♦Speech of Earl Grey.♦ thought, and most decidedly, that a reduction of our expenditure was called for by reflections of the most urgent and powerful kind, ... but if any thing like a certainty of success could be shown in the schemes that were devised, then all his hesitations would be removed, and he should consider even the most extensive scale of foreign operations as recommended by the principles of economy itself. He felt warmly the justice of that cause which we were maintaining in the Peninsula. No cause related in the annals of mankind ever rested more entirely on sentiments of the most honourable feeling, or was more connected (if circumstances were favourable) with principles of national advantage. The spectacle exhibited was the most interesting that could engage the sympathies or the attention of the world; and it was impossible not to wish to afford assistance to the noble struggle of a free people, against the most unparalleled treachery, the most atrocious violence, that ever stained or degraded the ambition of despotic power. But those principles upon which the prosecution of that war could be defended must be reduced to a mere speculative theory, unless supported by adequate exertions from the Spanish people and the Spanish government. Without that necessary co-operation, all our efforts must prove useless. The success of our arms during the last two years had been called complete: he could coincide in no such declaration, knowing, as every other man knew, that the defence of Portugal must be impracticable after Spain should be entirely subdued. We had unquestionably achieved much, and in the capture of Cuidad Rodrigo he concurred in the admiration justly due to the great commander who conducted that important enterprise. But when he looked to another part of that kingdom, and saw Badajoz in possession of the enemy, ... when he looked to Catalonia, Valencia, Murcia, ... he was at a loss to discover what new prospects of success had dawned upon the Spaniards. Those conquests opened to the enemy a free communication between all their divisions, and they would soon be enabled by that circumstance to bring the whole weight of their united forces against the British. He did think, too, that ministers had been culpably negligent in not having exerted in that quarter the means actually in their power, by employing a considerable naval force for the purpose of lending our allies more effectual succour. Such a system, if properly conducted, would in all probability have enabled the Catalans to expel their invaders. Where then were the symptoms of this boasted success? Lord Wellington, at the head of 62,000 as effective men as were ever led into the field, had been compelled to remain on the defensive! With a force greater than that commanded by the Duke of Marlborough at the most splendid era of our military history, Lord Wellington had found himself limited to the pursuit of a defensive system!”

♦Overture from the French government.♦

Lord Boringdon’s motion met with little support, and the tidings of Lord Wellington’s success at Badajoz contributed to confirm the confidence which the great majority of the public felt in the existing administration. The fall of that fortress was so decisive a proof of British enterprise and courage, that Buonaparte would not allow it to be mentioned in the French newspapers; and under his vigilant despotism the French people could know nothing more of public affairs than he thought proper to communicate. At this time he was preparing for an expedition upon a greater scale than any which he had before undertaken, and to a greater distance than he had yet advanced in his career of conquest. An overture for peace to the British Government, upon grounds which he knew to be inadmissible, served now, as on former occasions, for a prelude to this new drama of his ambition. “His Majesty the Emperor,” the Duc de Bassano said in a

♦April 17.♦ communication to Lord Castlereagh, “being constantly actuated by sentiments friendly to moderation and peace, and moved by the awful circumstances in which the world is at present placed, is pleased again to make a solemn and sincere attempt for putting an end to the miseries of war. Many changes have taken place in Europe during the last ten years, which have been the necessary consequence of the war between France and England, and many more changes will be effected by the same cause. The particular character which the war has assumed may add to the extent and duration of these results. Exclusive and arbitrary principles cannot be combated but by an opposition without measure or end; and the system of preservation and resistance must have the same character of universality, perseverance, and vigour. This might have been prevented if the peace of Amiens had been observed.” Having referred then to the overtures which Buonaparte had made in the years 1805, 1808 and 1810, the French minister proceeded thus: ... “I will express myself, Sir, in a manner which your excellency will find conformable to the sincerity of the step that I am authorized to take; and nothing will better evince the sincerity and sublimity of it than the precise terms of the language which I have been instructed to use. What motives should induce me to envelope myself in formalities suitable to weakness, which alone can find its interest in deceit?... The affairs of the Peninsula and of the Two Sicilies are the points of difference which appear least to admit of being adjusted.... I am authorized to propose an arrangement of them on the following basis: ... The integrity of Spain shall be guaranteed. France shall renounce all intention of extending her dominions beyond the Pyrenees. The present dynasty shall be declared independent, and Spain shall be governed by a national constitution of her Cortes. The independence and integrity of Portugal shall also be guaranteed, and the house of Braganza shall have the sovereign authority. The kingdom of Naples shall remain in possession of the present monarch, and the kingdom of Sicily shall be guaranteed to the present family of Sicily. As a consequence of these stipulations, Spain, Portugal and Sicily shall be evacuated by the French and English land and naval forces. With respect to the other subjects of discussion, they may be negotiated upon this basis, that each power shall retain that of which the other could not deprive it by war. Such, Sir, are the grounds of conciliation offered by his Majesty to his Royal Highness the Prince Regent. His Majesty, the Emperor and King, in taking this step, does not look either to the advantages or losses which this empire may derive from the war, if it should be prolonged: he is influenced simply by considerations of the interests of humanity, and the peace of his people. And if this fourth attempt, like those which have preceded it, should not be attended with success, France will at least have the consolation of thinking that whatever blood may yet flow, will be justly imputable to England alone.”

♦Lord Castlereagh’s reply.♦

This overture was answered as it deserved; Lord Castlereagh was instructed, before he entered into any explanations, to ascertain the precise meaning attached by the French Government to its proposal concerning the actual dynasty and government of Spain. “If,” said he, “as His Royal Highness fears, the meaning of this proposition is, that the royal authority of Spain and the government established by the Cortes shall be recognised as residing in the brother of the head of the French Government, and the Cortes formed under his authority, not in the legitimate sovereign Ferdinand VII., and his heirs, and the extraordinary assembly of the Cortes, now invested with the power of the government in that kingdom, in his name and by his authority, I am commanded frankly and explicitly to declare, that the obligations of good faith do not permit His Royal Highness to receive a proposition for peace founded on such a basis. But if the expressions apply to the actual government of Spain, which exercises the sovereign authority in the name of Ferdinand VII., upon an assurance of your Excellency to that effect, the Prince Regent will feel himself disposed to enter into a full explanation upon the basis which has been transmitted; it being his most earnest wish to contribute, in concert with his allies, to the repose of Europe; and to bring about a peace which may be at once honourable not only for Great Britain and France, but also for those states which are in amity with each of these powers. Having made known, without reserve, the sentiments of the Prince Regent with respect to a point on which it is necessary to have a full understanding previous to any ulterior discussion, I shall adhere to the instructions of his Royal Highness, by avoiding all superfluous comment and recriminations on the accessary objects of your letter. I might, advantageously for the justification of the conduct observed by Great Britain at the different periods alluded to by your Excellency, refer to the correspondence which then took place, and to the judgment which the world has long since formed of it. As to the particular character the war has unhappily assumed, and the arbitrary principles which your Excellency conceives to have marked its progress, denying as I do, that these evils are attributable to the British Government, I at the same time can assure your Excellency, that it sincerely deplores their existence, as uselessly aggravating the calamities of war; and that its most anxious desire, whether at peace or at war with France, is to have the relations of the two countries restored to the liberal principles usually acted upon in former times.”

No answer was attempted to this unanswerable reply; and the signal success of the British arms since the commencement of the year had so far raised the public spirit, that no attempt was made in Parliament to ground upon the failure of these overtures any accusation against the ministers for wantonly prolonging the war. With a great majority in both Houses, and a still greater in the nation, with the confidence also of the Prince Regent, which was now no longer doubtful, the administration seemed, for the first time since the king’s

♦Mr. Perceval murdered.
May 11.♦ malady, to be firmly established, when Mr. Perceval was shot through the heart, in the lobby of the House of Commons, by a madman. The murderer was a person who, having failed in some mercantile speculations at Archangel, and having been thrown into prison there, imagined himself wronged by the Russian Government, and by the British Government, because it had not taken up his cause, concerning which he had molested both governments, with repeated and groundless memorials; for the business was entirely of a private nature, in which they could not interfere. He made no attempt to escape. “My name,” he said, “is Bellingham; it is a private injury; it was a denial of justice on the part of government. I know what I have done. They have driven me to despair by telling me at the public offices that I might do my worst. I have obeyed them: I have been watching more than a fortnight for a favourable opportunity; I have done my worst, and I rejoice in the deed!” He had no personal enmity to Mr. Perceval, with whom, as it happened, he had not at any time communicated; and he would rather have had Lord Levison Gower for his victim, who, having been ambassador in Russia, ought, according to his opinion, to have interfered.

Bellingham was insane on the single point of his own imagined injuries; but his insanity was of a kind which, for the sake of society, must not be pleaded in bar of justice before an earthly tribunal. The murder was committed on a Monday, and as the sessions had commenced at the Old Bailey, he was brought to trial on the Friday, and executed on the Monday following. On this occasion, it was seen to what a degree seditious journalists, the most nefarious that ever were allowed to make a free press their engine for mischief, had succeeded in corrupting no small portion of the ignorant and deluded multitude. When he was conveyed from the House of Commons to Newgate, in a carriage

♦Conduct of the populace.♦ and under an escort, an attempt was made to rescue him, and the soldiers were hooted. The mob which collected next day in Palace-Yard uttered the most atrocious exclamations. Before it was known that Bellingham was an object of commiseration as well as horror, he was extolled in pot-houses as a friend to the people, who had done them good service in killing a prime minister; exulting anticipations were expressed that this was but the beginning, and that more such examples would follow; healths were drunk to those members of Parliament, whose language at various times (whatever their intentions may have been) had been mischievous enough to bring upon them the stigma of such popularity: and in certain manufacturing places public rejoicings were made for the murder of a minister, who both in private and in public life was absolutely without reproach. In public life he was without fear also: this kingdom was never blest with a more intrepid nor a more upright minister; he feared God, and therefore he had no fear of man. There were persons who upon his elevation alluded to the Knight of the Round Table, from whom his family derive their descent, and said that Sir Perceval was not the man who could sit in the “Siege Perilous.” That seat, however, he took, and filled it worthily; and like his ancestor in the romance, he was qualified to do this by the purity as well as by the strength of his character. A sense of religious duty was the key-stone which crowned his virtues and his talents, and kept them firm.

A grant of £50,000 for the twelve children of Mr. Perceval was voted by Parliament, with a pension of £2000 to his widow, and to the eldest son, whose reversion was subsequently commuted for one of those sinecures, against which, if they were always thus properly bestowed, no voice would be raised. The loss of the murdered minister was thus repaired to his family, as far as it was reparable; but how was his place in the

♦Overtures from the ministry to M. Wellesley and Mr. Canning.
May 17.♦ cabinet to be supplied? Overtures were made to Mr. Canning and Marquis Wellesley, as persons who were understood to act in unison, and who in their views of foreign policy differed in no respect from the existing ministers. They were informed that the Prince naturally looked to them, because he was desirous of continuing his administration upon its present basis, and also of strengthening it as much as possible by associating to it such persons in public life as agreed most nearly and generally in the principles upon which public affairs had been conducted. Lord Liverpool, by whom this communication was made, stated that his colleagues wished him to be appointed First Lord of the Treasury, and that their wish was known to the Prince, when His Royal Highness charged him with this negotiation; he added also, that Lord Castlereagh was to retain his office, and act as leader in the House of Commons.

It is probable that Mr. Canning was offended at this latter intimation, though he manifested no such displeasure: it is probable that he thought himself disparaged when that part of the business of the House of Commons for which he could not but be conscious that he was pre-eminently qualified, was assigned to a person who was in oratorical powers greatly his inferior. Marquis Wellesley may also be supposed to have felt a kindred disappointment; he could number few followers in Parliament, but he had other friends, who for some time had been endeavouring with more zeal and activity than discretion, to persuade the nation that he was the only statesman capable of conducting the government at a crisis when the interests of all Europe were at stake. But in this, though they appealed to his vigorous and splendid administration in India, they altogether failed. No doubt was entertained of his surpassing abilities, nor of his comprehensive views, nor of the energy with which he was capable of acting upon them. But that was wanting on which the British people in the healthy and natural state of public feeling were accustomed to rely; he had to a certain degree their admiration, but not their confidence. And while his merits as an Indian governor were understood by those only who were conversant with Indian affairs, the villanous calumnies with which he had been assailed for his conduct in that distant country were more widely known, and were moreover fresher in remembrance.

♦M. Wellesley’s reasons for declining them.♦

He gained no ground in public opinion by his conduct in the negotiation. The difference upon the Roman Catholic question between himself and the cabinet which he was invited to join, “was of the utmost importance,” he said, “and would alone compel him to decline the proposition.” But that question, though in its consequences more mischievous than any by which these kingdoms have been agitated since the Restoration, was of no pressing importance at that time, nor could all the arts and efforts of those who promoted it induce the nation to think it so. He asked also, whether all those persons designated by the name of the opposition were to be excluded from the proposed scheme of administration; “an inquiry which,” he said, “originated in his sincere conviction (founded upon an attentive observation of the general state of public opinion, and of the condition of the empire) that no administration which should not comprise some of those persons, could prove advantageous to the Prince Regent, conciliatory towards Ireland, and equal to the conduct of the war, on a scale of sufficient extent.” Marquis Wellesley must have been strangely deceived when he supposed that public opinion supported him in this notion: and it is even more remarkable that he should have expected those persons to co-operate with him in his vigorous plans for prosecuting the war, knowing as he did, that from the beginning they had considered it as hopeless, and had not less repeatedly than confidently predicted its total failure. Farther, the Marquis stated that the considerations which had induced him to resign office had since acquired additional force, and would constitute an insuperable obstacle to his acceptance of any station in the present administration. He had withdrawn from Mr. Perceval’s because his general opinions on various important questions had not sufficient weight in that cabinet to justify him towards the public, or towards his own character in continuing in office. “My objection,” said he, “to remaining in that cabinet arose, in a great degree, from the imperfect scale on which the efforts in the Peninsula were conducted. It was always stated to me that it was impracticable to enlarge that system. I thought it was perfectly practicable; and that it was neither safe nor honest towards this country or the allies to continue the present inadequate scheme. Since my resignation it has been found practicable to make some extension; but it is still intimated, that my views are more extensive than the resources of the country can enable the government to reduce to practice. I, however, still entertain the same views and opinions, without diminution or alteration; and I am convinced that a considerable extension of the scale of our operations in the Peninsula, and also an effectual correction of many branches of our system in that quarter, are objects of indispensable necessity and of easy attainment. With such a decided difference of opinion in relation to the conduct and management of the war, my return into a cabinet composed as the present is, would offer to me no better prospect than the renewal of discussions which have hitherto proved unavailing.”

♦Mr. Canning’s.♦

Mr. Canning rested his refusal of office solely upon the Catholic question: “To accept it,” he said, “would be to lend himself to the defeating of his own declared opinions on that most important question; opinions which were as far as those of any man from being favourable to precipitate an unqualified concession. But by entering into the administration while all consideration of that question was to be resisted, I should incur,” said he, “such a loss of personal and public character as would disappoint the object which His Royal Highness the Prince Regent has at heart, and must render my accession to his government a new source of weakness rather than an addition of strength.” Lord Liverpool had stated to Mr. Canning, that Lord Castlereagh had from motives of delicacy absented himself from the cabinet when the grounds on which the overture was to be made were discussed; and that he would be no obstacle in the way of arrangement. This was consistent with the manliness and generosity of Lord Castlereagh’s character, and it was received in a corresponding spirit by Mr. Canning. “After the expressions,” said he to Lord Liverpool, “with which you were charged on the part of all your colleagues, I should not be warranted in omitting to declare that no objection of a personal sort should have prevented me from uniting with any or all of them, if I could have done so with honour.... I cannot deny myself the satisfaction of adding, that the manner of your communication with us has entirely corresponded with the habits and sentiments of a friendship of so many years; a friendship which our general concurrence on many great political principles has strengthened, and which our occasional differences have in no degree impaired.”

♦M. Wellesley’s statement.♦

If the failure of this overture disappointed the hopes which ministers had reasonably entertained of strengthening themselves by the accession of the two persons who were most in accord with them upon all points of foreign policy, it had no tendency to widen their differences; but just as it terminated, a statement of the causes which had induced Marquess Wellesley to resign found its way into the newspapers through the indiscretion of some of his friends. It spoke in no measured terms of his late colleagues: in his judgment, it was said, the cabinet neither possessed ability and knowledge to devise a good plan, nor temper and discernment to adopt what was recommended to them: ... it said also that Marquis Wellesley could not pay any deference to Mr. Perceval’s judgment and attainments without injury to the public service: that if his own opinions had been adopted, he might have been willing to have served with him, but would never have consented to serve under him in any circumstances: that he had offered to act under Earl Moira or Lord Holland, and made no exception to any person as prime minister but Mr. Perceval, whom he considered incompetent to fill that office, although sufficiently qualified for inferior stations. The publication of this statement would have been indiscreet at any time; but being published a few days only after the murder of Mr. Perceval, it excited a strong feeling of displeasure. Just at this juncture, Mr. Stuart Wortley

♦Mr. Stuart Wortley’s motion.♦ moved in the House of Commons, that an address should be presented to the Prince, praying him to take measures for forming a strong and efficient government. This ill-judged motion was carried by a small majority; and the Prince in consequence sent for Marquis Wellesley, and desired him to form a plan of an administration. The Marquis requested Mr. Canning, as the channel which might be

♦May 23.
M. Wellesley charged to form an administration.♦ most agreeable to Lord Liverpool, to inquire whether he and all or any of his colleagues would form part of a ministry constituted upon the principles of taking the Catholic question into early consideration, with a view to its final and satisfactory settlement, and of prosecuting the war in the Peninsula with the best means of the country. There was the strongest wish, it was added, to comprehend in the arrangement, without any individual or party exclusion whatever, as many as possible of such persons as might be able to agree in giving their public service to the country upon these two principles. With regard to the distribution of offices nothing was stipulated; every thing, therefore, was open to be arranged

♦The ministers refuse to act with him.♦ to the honour and satisfaction of all parties. An immediate answer was returned by Lord Liverpool, for himself and his colleagues, saying, that it was not necessary for them to enter into any discussion of the two principles, because they all felt themselves bound, particularly after what had recently passed, to decline the proposal of becoming members of an administration to be formed by Marquis Wellesley.

♦Lords Grey and Grenville also decline.♦

Marquis Wellesley made a similar communication to Lords Grey and Grenville, and through them to their friends, observing, that he neither claimed nor desired for himself any place in the new arrangement, looking upon himself merely as the instrument of executing the Prince’s commands in this instance. Lords Grey and Grenville professed in reply, that they felt it to be the duty of all public men at such a moment; both by frank and conciliatory explanations of principle, and by the total abandonment of every personal object, to facilitate the means of giving effect to the late vote of the House of Commons, and of averting the imminent and unparalleled dangers of the country. They cordially agreed with him upon the Catholic question. As to the second point, “No person,” they said, “feels more strongly than we do the advantages which would result from a successful termination of the present contest in Spain; but we are of opinion, that the direction of military operations in an extensive war, and the more or less vigorous prosecution of those operations, are questions not of principle but of policy; to be regulated by circumstances in their nature temporary and fluctuating, and in many cases known only to persons in official stations; by the engagements of the country, the prospect of ultimate success, the extent of the exertions necessary for its attainment, and the means of supporting those efforts without too great a pressure on the finances and internal prosperity of the country. On such questions, therefore, no public men, either in or out of office, can undertake for more than a deliberate and dispassionate consideration, according to the circumstances of the case as it may appear, and to such means of information as may then be within their reach. But we cannot in sincerity conceal from Marquis Wellesley, that in the present state of the finances we entertain the strongest doubts of the practicability of an increase in any branch of the public expenditure.” Lords Lansdowne and Holland concurred in this answer of the two opposition leaders. Earl Moira’s reply was, “That a plan of government on the basis proposed would have his most cordial wishes; but that this declaration was not to imply any engagement on his part to accept office.” In the subsequent correspondence, Marquis Wellesley and Mr. Canning said respecting the Catholic question, that they did not conceive any farther parliamentary proceeding to be necessary or practicable that session, than such as might be sufficient to ensure, either by compulsion upon a hostile administration, or by pledge from a friendly one, the consideration of the question during the recess, with a view to its being brought before Parliament by the recommendation of the Crown early in the ensuing session.” Earl Grey replied to this, “That he should very reluctantly abandon the hope of passing a bill even during the present session for the repeal of the disabilities whereof the Catholics complained; but if this could not be done, he held it indispensable that the most distinct and authentic pledge should be given of the intention both of the executive government and of Parliament to take the matter up as one of the first measures of the next.” Touching the conduct of the war, “It is impossible,” said he, “to reduce a question of this nature to any fixed principle. Whatever we can say with our present means of information must necessarily be general and inconclusive. I can have no hesitation in subscribing to the proposition, that if it shall be found expedient to continue the exertions we are now making in the Peninsula, they should be conducted in the manner best calculated to answer their end.”

♦M. Wellesley receives fuller powers.
June 1.♦

Here Marquis Wellesley’s commission ended: but the ministers considered themselves as holding office only till their successors should be appointed; and in a few days the Marquis received full authority to form an administration on the two principles which he had laid down, and he was specially instructed to communicate with Lords Grey and Grenville. The Prince signified his pleasure that Marquis Wellesley should conduct the formation of the administration in all its branches, and should be first Commissioner of the Treasury; and that Earl Moira, Lord Erskine, and Mr. Canning should be members of the cabinet. A cabinet formed on an enlarged basis must be extended to the number of twelve or thirteen members; and the Prince wished Lords Grey and Grenville to recommend four persons if it consisted of twelve, five if it should consist of thirteen; these persons to be selected by the two lords without any exception or personal exclusion, and to be appointed by His Royal Highness to such stations as might hereafter be arranged. It was added, that entire liberty had been

♦The two Lords persist in their reply.
June 3.♦ granted to Marquis Wellesley to propose for the Prince’s approbation the names of any persons then occupying stations in His Royal Highness’s councils, or of any other persons. In reply, the two lords repeated their declaration, that no sense of the public distress and difficulty, no personal feelings of whatever description, would have prevented them from accepting with dutiful submission any situations in which they could have hoped to serve His Royal Highness usefully and honourably; “But the present proposal,” they said, “could not justify any such expectation. We are invited,” they pursued, “not to discuss with your lordship, or with any other public men, according to the usual practice in such cases, the various and important considerations, both of measures and of arrangements, which belong to the formation of a new government in all its branches; but to recommend to His Royal Highness a number, limited by previous stipulation, of persons willing to be included in a cabinet of which the outlines are already definitively arranged. To this proposal we could not accede without the sacrifice of the very object which the House of Commons has recommended, ... the formation of a strong and efficient administration.... It is to the principle of disunion and jealousy that we object; ... to the supposed balance of contending interests in a cabinet so measured out by preliminary stipulation. The times imperiously require an administration united in principle and strong in mutual reliance; possessing also the confidence of the Crown, and assured of its support in those healing measures which the public safety requires, and which are necessary to secure to the government the opinion and affections of the people. No such hope is presented to us by this project, which appears to us equally new in practice and objectionable in principle. It tends, as we think, to establish within the cabinet itself a system of counteraction inconsistent with the prosecution of any uniform and beneficial course of policy. We must therefore request permission to decline all participation in a government constituted upon such principles, satisfied as we are that the certain loss of character which must arise from it to ourselves could be productive only of disunion and weakness in the administration of the public interests.”

♦Earl Moira’s letter to Earl Grey.♦

This called forth an explanatory letter to Earl Grey from Earl Moira, who thought that the answer of the two lords conveyed an oblique imputation upon him, as a party involved in the procedure. “You represent the proposition,” said he, “as one calculated to found a cabinet upon a principle of counteraction. When the most material of the public

♦June 3.♦ objects which were to be the immediate ground of that cabinet’s exertion had been previously understood between the parties, I own it is difficult for me to comprehend what principle of counteraction could be introduced.... With regard to the indication of certain individuals, I can assert, that it was a measure adopted through the highest spirit of fairness to you and your friends. Mr. Canning’s name was mentioned because Marquis Wellesley would have declined office without him, and it was a frankness to apprize you of it; and Lord Erskine’s and mine were stated with a view of showing, that Marquis Wellesley, so far from having any jealousy to maintain a preponderance in the cabinet, actually left a majority to those who had been accustomed to concur upon most public questions; and he specified Lord Erskine and myself, that you might see the number submitted for your exclusive nomination was not narrowed by the necessity of advertence to us. The choice of an additional member of the cabinet left to you must prove how undistinguishable we consider our interests and yours, when this was referred to your consideration as a mere matter of convenience, the embarrassment of a numerous cabinet being well known. The reference to members of the late cabinet, or other persons, was always to be coupled with the established point, that they were such as could concur in the principles laid down as the foundation for the projected ministry; and the statement was principally dictated by the wish to show that no system of exclusion could interfere with the arrangements which the public service might demand. On the selection of those persons, I aver, the opinions of you, Lord Grenville, and the others whom you might bring forward as members of the cabinet, were to operate as fully as our own; and this was to be the case also with regard to subordinate offices. The expression that this was left to be proposed by Marquis Wellesley was intended to prove that His Royal Highness did not, even in the most indirect manner, suggest any one of those individuals. It is really impossible that the spirit of fairness can have been carried further than has been the intention in this negotiation. I therefore lament most deeply that an arrangement, so important for the interests of the country, should go off upon points which I cannot but think wide of the substance of the case.”

This frank and manly remonstrance produced no effect upon the determination of the two lords. The objections stated in their joint letter “could not,” they said, “be

♦June 4.♦ altered by a private explanation, which, though it might lessen some obvious objections to a part of the detail, still left the general character of the proceeding unchanged. They were, however, happy to receive it as an expression of personal regard, and of that desire which they readily acknowledged in Lord Wellesley and Moira, and which was reciprocal on their own part, that no difference of opinion on the matter in question should produce on either side any personal impression which might obstruct the renewal of a conciliatory intercourse whenever a more favourable opportunity

♦M. Wellesley resigns his commission.♦ shall be afforded for it.” Marquis Wellesley then thought it indispensably necessary for his public and private honour to declare in parliament that he had resigned the commission with which the Prince had charged him. Something he lost in public opinion through the indiscretion of his friends, which had rendered it impossible for his former colleagues ever again cordially to unite with him; something on the other hand he gained by the unavoidable comparison which was drawn between the fair and explicit straight-forwardness of his overtures to the two lords, and the captious manner in which they had been received.

♦Negotiation with Earl Moira.
June 5.♦

Earl Moira now, after conferring with the Duke of Bedford, addressed a note to the two lords. “Venturing, as being honoured,” he said, “with the Prince Regent’s confidence to indulge his anxiety that an arrangement of the utmost importance to the country should not go off on any misunderstanding, he entreated them to advert to his explanatory letter, and desired an interview with them, if they thought the disposition expressed in that letter were likely to lead to any co-operation. Should the issue of the interview be according to his hope, he would then solicit the Prince’s permission to address them formally: the present mode he had adopted for the sake of precluding all difficulties in the outset.” The two lords replied, “That they were highly gratified by the kindness of the motive on which Earl Moira acted; that personal communication with him would always be acceptable and honourable to them, but they hoped he would be sensible that no advantage was likely to result from pursuing this subject by unauthorized discussion, and in a course different from the usual practice. Motives of obvious delicacy,” they said, “must prevent their taking any step toward determining the Prince to authorize Earl Moira to address them personally. They should always receive with dutiful submission His Royal Highness’s commands, in whatever manner and through whatever channel he might be pleased to signify them; but they could not venture to suggest to His Royal Highness, through any other person, their opinions on points on which His Royal Highness was not pleased to require their advice.”

Earl Moira reported this to the Prince, and being then provided with the required formalities, he renewed his overture, but with diminished hope. “Discouraged,” he said, “as he must be, he could not reconcile it to himself to leave any effort untried, and he had therefore adopted the principle of the two lords for an interview, though doubting whether the desired conclusion could be so well advanced by it as by the mode which he had suggested. He had now the Prince’s instructions to take steps for the formation of a ministry, and was specially authorized to address himself to Lords Grey and Grenville, with whom, therefore, in company with Lord Erskine, he requested an interview.” It was one characteristic of these remarkable negotiations, that whatever passed in conversation between the parties was minuted, and that publicity was given to those minutes and to all the notes which were interchanged ... a mode of proceeding neither prudent in itself nor as a precedent. At this meeting, what Earl Moira considered the preliminary points were satisfactorily disposed of; the two lords, it was declared, might pursue their own course of policy both with regard to Ireland and to the United States of America, and the majority which they were to have in the cabinet assured them the same preponderance upon other questions. There was, however, another preliminary which appeared to them of great importance, and which they thought it necessary to bring forward immediately, lest farther inconvenient and embarrassing delay might be produced, if this negotiation should be broken off in a more advanced state: no restriction was laid on their considering any points which they might deem useful for the Prince’s service; they asked, therefore, whether this full liberty extended to the consideration of new appointments to those great offices of the household which have usually been included in the political arrangements made on a change of administration; and they intimated their opinion, that it would be necessary to act on the same principle now. Earl Moira answered, “that the Prince had laid no restriction upon him in that respect, and had never pointed in the most distant manner at the protection of those officers from removal” but he added, “that it would be impossible for him to concur in making the exercise of this power positive and indispensable in the formation of the administration, because he should deem it on public grounds peculiarly objectionable.” To this Lords Grey and Grenville replied, “That they also acted on public grounds alone, and with no other feeling whatever than that which arose from the necessity of giving to a new government that character of efficiency and stability, and those marks of the constitutional support of the Crown, which were required for enabling it to act usefully for the public service; and that on these grounds it appeared indispensable that the connexion of the great offices of the court with the political administration should be clearly established in its first arrangement.” This decided difference having been thus expressed on both sides, the conversation ended here, with mutual declarations of regret: and here also, to the great satisfaction of the public, ended all negotiations with the two leaders of Opposition, at the very time when, but for their own marvellous mismanagement, the government would have been delivered into their hands.

♦The old ministry is re-established.
June 8.♦

On the second day after this decisive interview, Lord Liverpool informed the House of Lords that the Prince had been pleased to appoint him first Commissioner of the Treasury, and had authorized him to complete the other arrangements of the administration. This led to a conversation, in which Earl Moira stated what his views had been in these transactions ... and declared his determination to support the ministry, so far as they might act consistently with the principles which had guided his political life. He had

♦M. Wellesley’s explanation.♦ called upon Marquis Wellesley to explain what he meant by asserting that dreadful personal animosities had manifested themselves in the course of the negotiation. The Marquis replied, “That he had used the words advisedly; and no better proof of the charge could be required than the language of Lords Liverpool and Melville, one of whom had expressly declined to be a member of any administration formed by him, and the other had stated his objection as a matter of personal feeling.” Lord Harrowby made answer to this: ... “On the very day,” he said, “on which Mr. Stuart Wortley’s motion was carried, he and his friends had agreed to form part of an administration of which Marquis Wellesley was to have had the lead; but subsequent circumstances had made them alter that determination. The statement in which the Marquis accused his late colleagues of incapacity to conduct the government had wounded them through the memory of him who had just fallen by the hand of an assassin, whom they had considered as the life and soul of their cabinet, and whom they in the highest degree respected and esteemed; ... a man of unimpeachable integrity, who never wanted defence in the eyes of those who knew his value. That statement had produced feelings in himself and his friends which rendered it impossible for them cordially to unite with the Marquis in any administration. Marquis Wellesley replied, “That what had been just said confirmed the truth of his assertion, but he acquitted himself of any part in the publication of the statement. As soon as his resignation was known, some of his friends,” he said, “took down in writing his account of it in the expressions which fell from him in the heat of conversation: though they had often been solicited to publish this, they had uniformly refused, and he himself was horror-struck when he saw it in the public newspapers: for the statement,” he said, “was not his; it contained expressions which he would not have used in a document intended for the public eye, more especially at a moment when the country had just lost a man of the most irreproachable character, of the most perfect integrity, of the mildest heart, of the most amiable qualities, having, indeed, been distinguished by every private virtue. But it was no reproach to any man to be thought unfit for the supreme direction of government; and though he looked upon the act which deprived Mr. Perceval of his life as a stain on humanity, he never considered him, when living, as a fit person to lead the councils of this great empire. He admitted that he had never formally dissented in the cabinet from the opinions of his colleagues, though he had frequently put them in full possession of his own: he declared also, that there were many of their measures which he highly approved, and that he would give them his cordial support, as far as that could be done consistently with the deliberate opinion which he had formed on the great points of national policy: but he concluded by repeating, that they had opposed obstacles to the establishment of an efficient administration, and that those obstacles originated in personal feelings.”

There was no tendency in this speech to conciliate, but it was not likely farther to displease those whom Marquis Wellesley had already wounded, nor to wound

♦Earl Grey.♦ others. Earl Grey then rose to make his explanation and his charges. “For himself,” he said, “no man could be more anxious than he was, even as far as was consistent with his honour, to outstretch a feeble but a ready hand to save a sinking nation. But a strong suspicion had operated on his mind throughout the recent negotiations, that he and his friends were either not to be admitted into the cabinet at all, or, if admitted, to be bound down in such a manner that the public should be secured against the influence of the principles and measures to which, during their whole parliamentary existence, they had been pledged.” Alluding then to Marquis Wellesley and Earl Moira, he said, “that though in his late intercourse with them he could discover nothing but an unceasing and earnest desire to conciliate, and a laudable anxiety for the general good, he nevertheless suspected that they themselves had been deceived, and were not aware of the secret management of which they had been made the instrument.”

♦Earl Moira’s reply.♦

Earl Moira replied with becoming warmth to the imputation, solemnly declaring, “that he had undertaken the negotiation without a single particle of reservation in the authority with which he was intrusted; that he had stated to Lords Grey and Grenville, beyond the possibility of misapprehension, that his instructions were of the most liberal and unlimited nature, and that the transaction from beginning to end had been conducted with a severity of fairness, if he might use the expression, which was perfectly unparalleled. I claim,” said he, “of the noble Earl a statement of the particular circumstances to which he alludes, that I may repel the assertion in as haughty a tone as he has ventured to make it. My lords, I feel that I have not deserved this reproach: it is a disgrace which I do not merit, and which I cannot bear. If he can bring forward but the shadow of a proof that even unknowingly I submitted to be made such an instrument, I shall bow my head to his reproof, and to the degradation which must ensue. If he cannot, I shall repel the imputation as proudly as it was made. There was never in the most insignificant point the slightest reservation or hint of reservation: the powers given to me were complete and ample; and whenever limited, they were limited only by me from a sense of what was due to the public. I now call upon the noble Earl more satisfactorily to explain his meaning.” But Earl Grey contented himself with hinting that he might find some future opportunity for a more distinct explanation; and he let it appear that he himself was the person to whom the authority for forming an administration ought, in his opinion, to have been intrusted. Lord Grenville, with more judgment, avoided all offensive topics in his speech; the points which Earl Grey and he had refused to concede were, he averred, of material and fundamental importance, and they never would consent to become members of a ministry founded on a principle which, in their deliberate opinion, was calculated to overthrow the practice of the constitution.

♦Mr. Stuart Wortley’s second motion.♦

But it was in the House of Commons that it was made known with what hasty imprudence the two lords had broken off their negotiation with Earl Moira. Mr. Stuart Wortley, who ought to have learned from the result of his former motion how bootless the repetition of such an experiment must prove, moved for a second address to the Prince, regretting that the first had not led to its expected consequences, and expressing the anxiety of the House that the arrangements for establishing an efficient administration should speedily be brought to a close. But the House was not disposed a second time to entertain such a motion. The temper in which Earl Moira’s overtures had been rejected drew forth severe comments in the course of the debate; and a statement which

♦Lord Yarmouth’s statement.♦

Lord Yarmouth made on the part of the household produced a strong impression both in and out of Parliament. “With respect to the household,” he said for himself and his friends, “that it was their intention to resign their situations before the new administration should enter upon office. This intention,” he affirmed, “was well known: they had taken every means of stating it in quarters whence it was likely to reach the interested parties, and in particular they had communicated it to one who took an active part in the negotiation, and with whom all who knew him confessed it was a happiness to spend their private hours.” Mr. Sheridan, who was the person intended, confirmed this statement. “They took every means short of resignation,” Lord Yarmouth continued, “to show that they never wished to have any connexion with the noble lords; and their intention originated in a wish to save the Prince from the humiliation which he must have experienced at seeing them turned out of office, ... a humiliation which could only serve to convey an unfavourable impression against the government throughout the country. He did not speak in the name of one or two, but of all the officers of the household: they stated expressly to his Royal Highness that they wished to resign, and not to be turned out; and all they requested was, that they might know ten minutes before certain gentlemen received the seals that such a circumstance was to take place: before God he declared that this had been their intention, and that the only principle by which they were actuated was to save the Prince from humiliation; for they could not but consider the attempt at making this change in the household a preliminary to entering upon the negotiation as calculated to humiliate his Royal Highness in the eyes of the country.”

The party who were in opposition seemed to think it preposterous that the existing ministers should presume to hold their offices. “It was monstrous,” Lord Milton said, “to see men who were held up repeatedly to scorn and ridicule brave public opinion and return into power!”

♦Lord Castlereagh’s speech.♦

Lord Castlereagh defended himself and his colleagues with considerable address, and ably performed the not very difficult task of contrasting their conduct with that of their assailants. “The proposed address,” he said, “contained no expressions to which he could hesitate in becoming a party, neither should he to the further expression of a hope that the Prince would avail himself of any opportunity for strengthening the present administration: ... but such an address was uncalled for by any message from the Crown: it could lead to no practical result; its obvious import was to insinuate that the administration was not likely to possess the confidence of the country; and this insinuation was founded upon its structure, not upon its conduct: he could not then think it possible that the House would sanction it for no other purpose but to disqualify the government from the arduous task in which it was engaged. The late transactions would induce the House not again to push the principle which they had so strongly asserted. A proceeding so sudden was not to be found in English history as that which they had lately seen, when the House decided, not against a ministry who had proved themselves unworthy of confidence, but against an administration the formation of which was but in progress. This precedent he hoped future Parliaments would never follow; for those must be blind who could not see the calamitous consequences which the occurrences of the last three weeks were calculated to produce on our foreign and domestic relations. Three or four distinct negotiations had failed, and the Crown was obliged to call on the present cabinet to charge itself with the affairs of the country. It was his consolation to think, that while on the one hand he and his colleagues had never stood between the Crown and the people, so on the other hand they had never shown a disposition to shrink from the discharge of public duties, deterred as they otherwise might be by the accumulated difficulties which the late transactions had occasioned. For he could not help thinking that the course which had been pursued was most injurious, and might be fatal to the interests of the public. Never in former times had a negotiation between public men been exhibited to the eyes of Parliament and the country at large, and exposed to all the invidious comments which the malignity and the ignorance of mankind might pass upon them. For his part, he could never augur well of any negotiation in which two men could not approach each other in a private room, although on public principles, without coming armed with pen and ink, and prepared to let every thing they might utter go forth immediately for the judgment of the public! The consequences in this instance would, he trusted, have the effect of preventing the recurrence of such scenes for the time to come.... It was a painful task for him to speak of the overtures from Marquis Wellesley, though he disclaimed any thing like personal animosity to him. The paper which had appeared he understood to have been published without the noble Marquis’s consent; but after such a statement had appeared, describing as it had described Mr. Perceval and those who acted with him, he appealed to the House whether gentlemen situated as his colleagues were could without degradation meet such an overture in any other way than that in which it had been met? He entertained the sincerest respect for Marquis Wellesley, with the highest admiration for his accomplishments and his talents; and those feelings were heightened by the consideration that he was the brother of the greatest soldier this country had produced. For him, therefore, it was peculiarly painful to be called on to decide on such an occasion; but when one answer only could be given by his colleagues, thinking as he did, though not included in it, that the description which had been given of them was unjust, he must have abandoned every sense of duty if he had not been anxious to repel the charge.” Having then touched upon Earl Moira’s negotiation with the two lords, and observed that the question concerning the household had been taken up in a tone which the country would never countenance in those who approached the throne, he concluded thus: ... “And now all I have to say for ministers is, that they claim the constitutional support of Parliament till their actions seem to speak them unworthy of it; and though the present government may not possess within itself all those attributes which we have heard given to broad and extended administrations, they have at least one recommendation to public confidence (and it is not a small one), that they have no disunion among themselves. We have no private ends to answer; we are anxious to serve our country, to do our best, and to submit our conduct to the judgment of Parliament.”

With these remarkable circumstances was that ministry formed, under whose administration the French were beaten out of Spain, and Buonaparte’s empire overthrown. For the second time since the commencement of the war it had rested with the leaders of opposition whether or not they should take the government into their own hands; and for the second time, by an overweening opinion of their own importance, and a most undue depreciation of those whom they expected to displace, they disappointed their own hopes, and in an equal degree the apprehensions of the nation. The sound part of the public, and they were a large majority, regarded the result with as much satisfaction as they had felt upon the recapture of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz; they looked upon it as tantamount to a great victory over the enemy, and the enemy would indeed have seen in a contrary result the surest presage of their own success; for what more could the French ministers desire than that the British government should be conducted by men who from the beginning of the war in

♦May.♦

Spain up to this crisis had pronounced their own cause to be hopeless? That danger was no longer to be feared; and although the cabinet had lost its ablest member in Mr. Perceval ... the only member who united in himself powerful ability with sound judgment, and strength of character with strength of principle, and who commanded in an equal degree the respect of his opponents and the confidence of his friends, the opposition had lost more in the exposure of their temper and the total frustration of their hopes, which was as much the proper as the necessary consequence.

The only unfortunate circumstance in these transactions was, that Marquis Wellesley should have been excluded, or rather should have excluded himself, from a place in the ministry: whatever his own expectations might have been, his friends had expected to see him at its head; and had Lord Wellington been supplied with such reinforcements as in that event might have been looked for, it was believed in the army that in the course of the year he would have driven the French out of Spain. The Spanish Government was at this time

♦Pecuniary assistance to the Spaniards.♦ little satisfied with Great Britain, because greater pecuniary assistance was not afforded them from resources which they supposed to be infinite. It was indeed the opinion of those whose opportunities of information enabled them to form a just opinion upon the subject, that the Spaniards could make no efficient exertion unless they were aided with two millions a year in money and one in provisions, which might be procured at Cadiz from America and from the Mediterranean by bills on England: but the British Government consented only to give 600,000l. in the course of the current year, with arms and clothing for 100,000 men; at length it agreed that the money should be one million. The Spaniards did not remember with how little wisdom and effect the large supplies which they had hitherto received had been expended; and in England sufficient allowance was not made for the peculiar difficulties in which Spain was placed: and while the errors of its successive governments were strongly perceived, sufficient credit was not given for the national spirit which had displayed itself with such unexampled and invincible endurance.

♦Proposal concerning Spanish troops.♦

Some persons there were who were of opinion that no sure progress could be made towards the deliverance of Spain, unless a Spanish army were created on whose operations Lord Wellington could calculate and rely. But the opinion was abandoned upon farther knowledge of the Spaniards: the officers, with some rare and noble exceptions, were too ignorant, too idle, too prejudiced, and too proud, to receive instruction from their allies; and British officers could not be introduced in any useful number, for this would have offended the national pride. It was suggested by Mr. Tupper, who in his station as consul at Valencia had acted with great zeal and ability in the common cause, that the foreign regiments in the Spanish service might be taken into English pay, and officered by British officers. They still retained their foreign names, and were under foreign officers, but were chiefly composed of Spanish recruits: this, therefore, he argued, might be done without wounding the pride of the Spaniards, offending their prejudices, or injuring the interests of any class of men; whereas to place the Spanish army under the same subordination as the Portugueze, though the people, and especially the soldiers themselves, might like it, must be impossible, so great would be the opposition of the officers and of all the higher classes. This suggestion, for whatever reason, was either not entertained, or not found practicable; and the only arrangement made at this time was, that the Spaniards allowed 5000 men to be enlisted and incorporated with the allies. Some hope, however, was entertained from a diversion to be made on the eastern coast by a British force from Sicily in conjunction with

♦Plan of a diversion from Sicily.♦ a Spanish division, which by General Whittingham’s recommendation had been formed in Majorca, and trained there under his directions. This force it was thought, if its operations were well planned and vigorously pursued, might compel the French to withdraw from the southward; and engaged as it was now evident that Buonaparte would be in his Russian war, the deliverance of Spain might be hoped for as now not long to be delayed.

END OF VOL. V.

Printed by William Clowes and Sons, Stamford Street.

FOOTNOTES

1 The importance which was at that time attached to it led the Archbishop Pierre de Marca to remark cujus momenti sit Dartosa in bello Hispaniensi; quæ cum sita sit in trajectu Iberi, latam aperit viam ad faciendam irruptionem in reliquas Hispaniarum regiones, unde ex hujus urbis deditione ingens Maurorum Sarracenorumque metus. Marca Hispanica, 294.

2 On the one side La España reconocida a la intrepidez Britanica, on the other Alianza eterna.

3 They gave four dollars for the measure of rice (for example), which at Port Mahon would have produced only half a dollar.

4 When this practice was discovered, and some of them searched in consequence, a mortar was found in one of them. These boats had forfeited all claim to indulgence, in the first year of the war, when they boarded a British prize, and carried her in.

5 Se preciaba de buen tirador, y se divertia en esto. Diario de Tortosa.

6 Major Von Staffe (340–2) dates this affair in November, instead of the following month. If there could be any doubt between his authority and that of Eroles’s dispatch, this circumstance would determine it.

7 No era imaginable frustrase mis calculos, atendida la circumspeccion con que se formaron, la exactitud de los datos, y el valor de la tropas; pero casualidades funestas, que no pueden entrar en la prevision de un gefe superior, que fia una parte de sus esperanzas á la suerte, y á manos subalternos, hicieron inutiles mis tareas. Thus he expresses himself in his official dispatch.

8 The French officers, who went on board the frigate after this affair to propose an exchange, walked along the main deck, where some of the wounded were lying between the guns for the sake of the air, and with a spirit perfectly worthy of the cause in which they were engaged, and the character they had acquired in it, asked them insultingly when they would be pleased to pay them another visit on shore!

9 No account (as far as I can discover) of this disgraceful action was published by the Spanish Government. There was no longer the same magnanimity in relating its misfortunes as in the days of the Central Junta.

10 Guerra de Moros contra estos infideles.

11 Escaramuzas, celadas, rebatos, ardides,—son nombres castellanos de la antigua milicia, la mas necessaria en la guerra domestica.

12 The Chaleco states this fact himself in the Relacion de sus Meritos, which he published at the end of the war!

13 Lord Blayney saw them there; victims of retaliation he calls them, and says that the French General and his officers, who were conducting him prisoner to Madrid, could not help expressing their detestation of the barbarous manner in which the war was carried on.

14 Thus this Merino is described as el terror de la comarca; y su caracter feroz está indicado en lo fiero de su semblante, y en lo membrudo y velloso de su cuerpo. Este es el Cura decantado. But it should be added, that the man who is thus described spared his prisoners, and conducted them to Alicant. The general appearance of the guerrillas is described by a British officer as “horribly grotesque; any thing of a jacket, any thing of a cap, any thing of a sword, pistol, or carbine, and any thing of a horse.”

15 Sea la España toda otra Numancia o Sagunto; y veremos desde el empireo, si estos impios espiritos fuertes se atreven a pasearse tranquilos por la silenciosa morada da nuestros tremendos manes.—Diario de las Cortes, T. 2. 172.

16 An intercepted despatch from Berthier to Massena had informed him, on the authority of the English newspapers, that the British army did not amount to more than 23,000 men; that a reinforcement of 3000 had reached Lisbon; and, therefore, he had little to apprehend from their resistance; the Portugueze were about as many, and his force was fully sufficient to ensure success.

17 A small edition of Pindar, which he had brought from the north, was in his pocket when he died. It is now in the possession of my friend Mr. Locker.

18 An officer whose journal is before me, and who entered Alcobaça on the 7th, describes what were supposed to be the bodies of Pedro and Ignez as having been well embalmed, and having each a great deal of hair still attached to the head.

19 A French orderly book was found near Batalha, in which it appeared what number of men were daily ordered upon the service of destroying, as far as they could, that beautiful edifice, one of the finest in Europe.

20 Marshal Victor, in his official account, affirmed, as positively as falsely, that there were 22,000 men, among whom were at least 8000 of the best English troops; thus, according to the system of his government, doubling the number of his opponents.

21 The following epitaph upon Alburquerque, worthy of the author and of the subject, is the composition of Mr. Frere:—

“Impiger, impavidus, spes maxima gentis Iberæ,
Mente rapax, acerque manu bellator, avita
Institui monumenta novis attollere factis;
Fortunâ comite, et virtute duce, omnia gessi;
Nullâ in re, nec spe, mea sors incœpta fefellit.
Gadibus auxilium tetuli, patriamque labentem
Sustentavi; hæc meta meis fuit ultima factis,
Quippe iras hominum meritis superare nequivi.
Hic procul a patriâ vitæ datus est mihi finis,
Sed non laudis item; gliscit nova fama sepulto,
Anglorum quod testantur proceres populusque,
Magno funus honore secuti, mœstitiâque
Unanimes. Æterna, pater, sint fœdera, faxis,
Quæ pepigi. Nec me nimium mea patria adempto
Indigeat, nec plus æquo desideret unquam.
Sint fortes alii ac felices, qui mea possint
Facta sequi, semperque benignis civibus uti.”

22 This lady is known with her own hand and that of her waiting woman, to have vaccinated above 12,000 persons. The Royal Academy of Sciences at Lisbon presented her with a medal in acknowledgment and commemoration of the services which, in public and private, she was continualy rendering to humanity.

23 The dispatch, however, like other falsehoods of the same kind, carried with it its own confutation; for it stated that the allies made no prisoners except two or three hundred wounded, who were left on the field; but the same dispatch said, that the French kept the field for two days, retaining the position they had won, ... how then could the wounded who were left upon the field have fallen into the hands of the allies? But throughout this war the remark made some three centuries ago by the Flemish historian Meyer was verified, that res suas Galli non majore solent SCRIBERE fide, quam GERERE.

24 Diario de Manresa, April 20.

25 Voilà qui est militaire was the phrase in which Buonaparte expressed his approbation.

26 Sixty thousand bushels, from the woods at the foot of the western mountains, were shipped in the year 1775.—Swinburne.

27 This, which was suspected at the time, I happen to know.

28 Contreras insinuates as much in his account of the siege. I have heard it asserted as a thing believed by those who had the best opportunity of forming a true opinion; but the assertion was not supported by direct evidence, as in the case of Fort Olivo.

29 There was a town called Bedouin in the department of Vaucluse, which contained about 500 houses and some 2000 inhabitants: they had a good trade in silk, and the place was flourishing. In the month of May, 1794, the tree of liberty which had been planted without this town was cut down during the night. Fearing in those dreadful times the consequence of this act of individual indiscretion, the townsmen themselves informed the deputy Maignet of it, an ex-priest, who was then upon a Robespierrean mission in the department. This availed nothing in their favour: he issued a decree proscribing not only the people of Bedouin, but of the surrounding communes also, and condemned the town to be burnt. An officer, by name Suchet, commanded the battalion which accompanied Maignet’s commission to execute this decree. Sixty fathers of families, after the mockery of a revolutionary trial, were put to death, those who were spared being placed at the foot of the scaffold during the execution. Suchet then gave the word for setting fire to the town, and it was burnt to the ground. The church was the only building which was not destroyed by the flames, and that was demolished by means of gunpowder. Such of the inhabitants as had fled were hunted out in their retreats by the soldiers of the detachment, and shot like wild beasts. The answer of Robespierre’s Committee of Public Safety to the report of this transaction was, Le Comité est satisfaite de la conduite de Maignet.

Prud’homme, Hist. des Erreurs, des Fautes, et des Crimes commis pendant la Revolution Française, t. 2. 170–176.

I know not whether the Suchet of Tarragona was the Suchet of Bedouin. If he was not, then has France produced two monsters of the name instead of one.

30 One of the first acts of the provisional government upon the overthrow of this tyrant, was to give orders for the liberation of those injured Catalans, and their removal to Spain; considering, they said, that the violence committed upon men, whose only offence was that of having fought in defence of their country, outraged humanity, and the laws which were consecrated by the nations of Europe.

31 Por Urbano se debe entender en mi concepto, said Sr. Aner in the debates upon this subject, aquel que se halle armado para conservar la tranquilidad de los pueblos, y quando mas para La defensa interior de una provincia, sin tener que salir jamas de ella. Diario de las Cortes. T. 4. p. 103.

32

La carne es yerva, la yerva agua,
Los hombres mugeres, las mugeres nada.

33 “Colonel,” said one of the 87th, the regiment which took the eagle at Barrosa, “Colonel, I only want to taich ’em what it is to attack the Aiglers.”

34 One of those friends obtained leave to go to England at the beginning of the winter. Upon rejoining the army after the capture of the place, he expressed his sorrow to Lord Wellington that his request should have been granted at a time when an enterprise of such importance was contemplated. Lord Wellington replied to this effect: “Perhaps, ... you did me better service by your absence, than you could have rendered had you been on the spot. Have you never said that your presence was required at home for your own family affairs, and that it was your intention to ask leave as soon as the campaign was over and nothing more was to be done? And do you suppose that Marmont had not heard this, and known of your departure?”

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Transcriber’s Notes

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Table of Contents

- HISTORY OF THE PENINSULAR WAR.

- CONTENTS OF THE FIFTH VOLUME.

- HISTORY OF THE PENINSULAR WAR.

- CHAPTER XXXIII. CATALONIA. MEQUINENZA AND TORTOSA TAKEN. EXPEDITIONS ON THE COASTS OF BISCAY AND OF ANDALUSIA. GUERRILLAS.

- CHAPTER XXXIV. THE CORTES. PLAN WHICH THE JUNTA HAD ADOPTED ALTERED BY THE REGENCY. FIRST PROCEEDINGS OF THE CORTES. NEW REGENCY.

- CHAPTER XXXV. AFFAIRS OF PORTUGAL. ROMANA’S DEATH. BADAJOZ TAKEN BY THE FRENCH. MASSENA’S RETREAT.

- CHAPTER XXXVI. CADIZ. BATTLE OF BARROSA. DEATH OF ALBURQUERQUE.

- CHAPTER XXXVII.

- CHAPTER XXXVIII.

- CHAPTER XXXIX.

- CHAPTER XL. ATTEMPT ON ALICANTE. PENISCOLA BETRAYED. NEW REGENCY. TARIFA UNSUCCESSFULLY BESIEGED BY THE FRENCH. RECAPTURE OF CIUDAD RODRIGO AND BADAJOZ.

- CHAPTER XLI.
- FOOTNOTES
- Transcriber’s Notes
- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE