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Title: History of the Peninsular War Volume V (of 6)
Author: Southey, Robert
Language: English
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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 Moors[1] 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 appropriate[2] 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 any[3] 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 stores[4], 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, amused[5] 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 the[6]festival 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 expectation[7] 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 fight[8] 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 charge[9].
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
war[10], 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 skirmishes[11],
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
ears[12] 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 bodies[13] 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
appearance[14] 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 tremendous[15] 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 outnumbering[16]
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 sudden[17] 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 it[18]. 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 prepare[19] 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
horse[20]. 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 ancestors[21].
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.♦
100,000_l._ 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
80,000_l._ 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’s[22] 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 he[23]
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
Christ[24]! 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 and[25] 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 nuts[26] 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 money[27] 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
Olivo[28]. 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 terrorists[29]; 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 in[30] 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 _urbanos_[31],
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 women[32] 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 trenches[33].
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 the[34]
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 2000_l._
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
5000_l._ 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, 5000_l._ a year had been offered him,
and 7000_l._ 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 600,000_l._ 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?”
_Albemarle Street._
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HISTORY of the LATE WAR in SPAIN and PORTUGAL. By ROBERT SOUTHEY, LL.D.
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TRAVELS in ARABIA.--1. In the Province of OMAN. 2. In the Peninsula of
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Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant
preference was found in this book. Simple typographical errors were
corrected and some unbalanced quotation marks were remedied. Other
errors of these types were not changed because the corrections were not
obvious to the Transcriber.
Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained; occurrences
of inconsistent hyphenation have been changed only when there was a
predominant preference throughout the book.
The source book used many Sidenotes, printed in italics. Most match
entries in the Table of Contents, but some are either dates or
citations. To preserve proximity with the original text, if they were
printed mid-paragraph, that is where they appear here. Depending on
the format in which you are reading this eBook, Sidenotes may be
distinguished from regular text by being shown in some combination
of italics, boldface, UPPER-CASE, enclosed in ♦DIAMOND SYMBOLS♦,
being offset into the left-margin, or in a rectangular area within
the regular text. Due to limitations of some eReaders, some sidenotes
may appear next to or below each other, depending on the width of the
screen.
The original Table of Contents used “ib.” when the page number was the
same as the one in the previous entry. This eBook uses the actual page
numbers.
The years in which events occurred were printed in the running heads.
In this eBook, the first occurrence of each new year has been added
to the Sidenotes by the Transcriber. Sidenote dates also have been
added at the beginning of each chapter. This does not form an unbroken
timeline, as the years in the running heads sometimes went back and
forth.
Page 254: “E’tat-major” appears to have been printed that way; should
be “État-major”.
Page 475: No opening quotation mark found to match the closing mark
after “in the ensuing session.”
Page 483: No closing quotation mark found to match the opening mark
before “on which Mr. Stuart Wortley’s motion”.
All six volumes of this work are available at no cost at Project
Gutenberg. Some of these volumes reference each other, but some of the
references do not seem to match the text.
Volume I: LibraryBlog eBook number 60386
Volume II: LibraryBlog eBook number 60387
Volume III: LibraryBlog eBook number 60388
Volume IV: LibraryBlog eBook number 60389
Volume V: LibraryBlog eBook number 60390
Volume VI: LibraryBlog eBook number 60391
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "History of the Peninsular War Volume V (of 6)" ***
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