History of the war in the Peninsula and in the south of France from the year 1807 to the year 1814, vol. 5

by William Francis Patrick Napier

CHAPTER I.

1812. While the armies were striving, the political affairs had become exceedingly complicated and unsteady. Their workings were little known or observed by the public, but the evils of bad government in England, Spain, and Portugal, the incongruous alliance of bigoted aristocracy with awakened democracy, and the inevitable growth of national jealousies as external danger seemed to recede, were becoming so powerful, that if relief had not been obtained from extraneous events, even the vigour of Wellington must have sunk under the pressure. The secret causes of disturbance shall now be laid bare, and it will then be seen that the catastrophe of Napoleon’s Russian campaign was absolutely necessary to the final success of the British arms in the Peninsula. I speak not of the physical power which, if his host had not withered on the snowy wastes of Muscovy, the emperor could have poured into Spain, but of those moral obstacles, which, springing up on every side, corrupted the very life-blood of the war.

If Russia owed her safety in some degree to the contest in the Peninsula, it is undoubted that the fate of the Peninsula was in return, decided on the plains of Russia; for had the French veterans who there perished, returned victorious, the war could have been maintained for years in Spain, with all its waste of treasures and of blood, to the absolute ruin of England, even though her army might have been victorious in every battle. Yet who shall say with certainty what termination any war will ever have? Who shall prophecy of an art always varying, and of such intricacy that its secrets seem beyond the reach of human intellect? What vast preparations, what astonishing combinations were involved in the plan, what vigour and ability displayed in the execution of Napoleon’s march to Moscow! And yet when the winter came, only four days sooner than he expected, the giant’s scheme seemed a thing for children to laugh at!

Nevertheless the political grandeur of that expedition will not be hereafter judged from the wild triumph of his enemies, nor its military merits from the declamation which has hitherto passed as the history of the wondrous, though unfortunate enterprise. It will not be the puerilities of Labaume, of Segur, and their imitators, nor even that splendid military and political essay of general Jomini, called the “Life of Napoleon,” which posterity will accept as the measure of a general, who carried four hundred thousand men across the Niemen, and a hundred and sixty thousand men to Moscow. And with such a military providence, with such a vigilance, so disposing his reserves, so guarding his flanks, so guiding his masses, that while constantly victorious in front, no post was lost in his rear, no convoy failed, no courier was stopped, not even a letter was missing: the communication with his capital was as regular and certain as if that immense march had been but a summer excursion of pleasure! However it failed, and its failure was the safety of the Peninsula.

In England the retreat from Burgos was viewed with the alarm and anger which always accompanies the disappointment of high-raised public expectation; the people had been taught to believe the French weak and dispirited, they saw them so strong and daring, that even victory could not enable the allies to make a permanent stand beyond the frontiers of Portugal. Hence arose murmurs, and a growing distrust as to the ultimate result, which would not have failed to overturn the war faction, if the retreat of the French from Moscow, the defection of Prussia, and the strange unlooked-for spectacle of Napoleon vanquished, had not come in happy time as a counterpoise.

When the parliament met, lord Wellesley undertook, and did very clearly show, that if the successes in the early part of the year had not been, by his brother, pushed to the extent expected, and had been followed by important reverses, the causes were clearly to be traced to the imbecile administration of Mr. Perceval and his coadjutors, whose policy he truly characterized as having in it “nothing regular but confusion.” With a very accurate knowledge of facts he discussed the military question, and maintained that twelve thousand infantry and three thousand cavalry, added to the army in the beginning of the year, would have rendered the campaign decisive, because the Russian contest, the incapacity of Joseph, and the dissentions of the French generals in Spain, had produced the most favourable crisis for striking a vital blow at the enemy’s power. The cabinet were aware of this, and in good time, but though there were abundance of soldiers idling at home, when the welfare of the state required their presence in the Peninsula, nay, although the ministers had actually sent within five thousand as many men as were necessary, they had, with the imbecility which marked all their proceedings, so contrived, that few or none should reach the theatre of war until the time for success had passed away. Then touching upon the financial question, with a rude hand he tore to pieces the minister’s pitiful pretexts, that the want of specie had necessarily put bounds to their efforts, and that the general himself did not complain. “No!” exclaimed lord Wellesley, “he does not complain because it is the sacred duty of a soldier not to complain. But he does not say that with greater means he could not do greater things, and his country will not be satisfied if these means are withheld by men, who having assumed the direction of affairs in such a crisis, have only incapacity to plead in extenuation of their failures.”

This stern accuser was himself fresh from the ministry, versed in state matters, and of unquestionable talents; he was well acquainted with the actual resources and difficulties of the moment; he was sincere in his opinions because he had abandoned office rather than be a party to such a miserable mismanagement of England’s power; he was in fine no mean authority against his former colleagues, even though the facts did not so clearly bear him out in his views.

That England possessed the troops and that they were wanted by Wellington is undeniable. Even in September there were still between fifty and sixty thousand soldiers present under arms at home, and that any additional force could have been fed in Portugal is equally beyond doubt, because the reserve magazines contained provisions for one hundred thousand men for nine months. The only questionWellington’s Correspondence, MSS. then was the possibility of procuring enough of specie to purchase those supplies which could not be had on credit. Lord Wellington had indeed made the campaign almost without specie, and a small additional force would certainly not have overwhelmed his resources; but setting this argument aside, what efforts, what ability, what order, what arrangements were made by the government to overcome the difficulties of the time? Was there less extravagance in the public offices, the public works, public salaries, public contracts? The very snuff-boxes and services of plate given to diplomatists, the gorgeous furniture of palaces, nay the gaudy trappings wasted on Whittingham’s, Roche’s, and Downie’s divisions, would almost have furnished the wants of the additional troops demanded by lord Wellesley. Where were all the millions lavished in subsidies to the Spaniards, where the millions which South America had transmitted to Cadiz, where those sums spent by the soldiers during the war? Real money had indeed nearly disappeared from England, and a base paper had usurped its place; but gold had not disappeared from the world, and an able ministry would have found it. These men only knew how to squander.

The subsidy granted to Portugal was paid by the commercial speculation of lord Wellington and Mr. Stuart, speculations which also fed theStuart’s Correspondence, MSS. army, saved the whole population of Portugal from famine, and prevented the war from stopping in 1811; and yet so little were the ministers capable even of understanding, much less of making such arrangements, that they now rebuked their general for having adopted them and after their own imbecile manner insisted upon a new mode of providing supplies. Every movement they made proved their incapacity. They had permitted lord William Bentinck to engage in the scheme of invading Italy when additional troops were wanted in Portugal; and they suffered him to bid, in the money-market, against lord Wellington, and thus sweep away two millions of dollars at an exorbitant premium, for a chimera, when the war in the Peninsula was upon the point of stopping altogether in default of that very money which Wellington could have otherwise procured—nay, had actually been promised at a reasonable cost. Nor was this the full measure of their folly.

Lord Wellesley affirmed, and they were unable to deny the fact, that dollars might have been obtained from South America to any amount, if the government would have consented to pay the market-price for them; they would not do it, and yet afterwards sought to purchase the same dollars at a higher rate in the European markets. He told them, and they could not deny it, that they had empowered five different agents, to purchase dollars for five different services, without any controlling head; that these independent agents were bidding against each other in every money-market, and the restrictions as to the price were exactly in the inverse proportion to the importance of the service: the agent for the troops in Malta was permitted to offer the highest price, lord Wellington was restricted to the lowest. And besides this folly lord Wellesley shewed that they had, under their licensing system, permitted French vessels to bring French goods, silks and gloves, to England, and to carry bullion away in return. Napoleon thus paid his army in Spain with the very coin which should have subsisted the English troops.

Incapable however as the ministers were of making the simplest arrangements; neglecting, as they did, the most obvious means of supplying the wants of the army; incapable even, as we have seen, of sending out a few bales of clothing and arms for the Spaniards without producing the utmost confusion, they were heedless of the counsels of their general, prompt to listen to every intriguing adviser, and ready to plunge into the most absurd and complicated measures, to relieve that distress which their own want of ability had produced. When the war with the United States broke out, a war provoked by themselves, they suffered the Admiralty, contrary to the wishes of Mr. Stuart, to reduce the naval force at Lisbon, and to neglect Wellington’s express recommendation as to the stationing of ships for the protection of the merchantmen bringing flour and stores to Portugal. Thus the American privateers, being unmolested, run down the coast of Africa, intercepted the provision trade from the Brazils, which was one of the principal resources of the army, and then, emboldened by impunity, infested the coast of Portugal, captured fourteen ships loaded with flour off the Douro, and a large vessel in the very mouth of the Tagus. These things happened also when the ministers were censuring and interfering with the general’s commercial transactions, and seeking to throw the feeding of his soldiers into the hands of British speculators; as if the supply of an army was like that of a common market! never considering that they thus made it the merchant’s interest to starve the troops with a view to increase profits; never considering that it was by that very commerce, which they were putting an end to, that the general had paid the Portuguese subsidy for them, and had furnished his own military chest with specie, when their administrative capacity was quite unequal to the task.

Never was a government better served than the British government was by lord Wellington and Mr. Stuart. With abilities, vigilance, and industry seldom equalled, they had made themselves masters of all that related to the Portuguese policy, whether foreign or domestic, military, or civil, or judicial. They knew all the causes of mischief, they had faithfully represented them both to the Portuguese and British governments, and had moreover devised effectual remedies. But the former met them with the most vexatious opposition, and the latter, neglecting their advice, lent themselves to those foolish financial schemes which I have before touched upon as emanating from Mr. Villiers, Mr. Vansittart, and the count of Funchal. The first had been deficient as an ambassador and statesman, the second was universally derided as a financier, and the third, from his long residence in London, knew very little of the state of Portugal, had derived that little from the information of his brother, the restless Principal Souza, and in all his schemes had reference only to his own intrigues in the Brazils. Their plans were necessarily absurd. Funchal revived the old project of an English loan, and in concert with his coadjutors desired to establish a bank after the manner of the English institution; and they likewise advanced a number of minor details and propositions, most of which had been before suggested by Principal Souza and rejected by lord Wellington, and all of which went to evade, not to remedy the evils. Finally they devised, and the English cabinet actually entertained the plan, of selling the crown and church property of Portugal. This spoliation of the Catholic church was to be effected by commissioners, one of whom was to be Mr. Sydenham, an Englishman and a Protestant; and as it was judged that the pope would not readily yield his consent, they resolved to apply to his nuncio, who being in their power they expected to find more pliable.

Having thus provided for the financial difficulties of Portugal, the ministers turned their attention to the supply of the British army, and in the same spirit concocted what they called a modified system of requisitions after the manner of the French armies! Their speeches, their manifestoes, their whole scheme of policy, which in the working had nearly crushed the liberties of England and had plunged the whole world into war; that policy whose aim and scope was, they said, to support established religion, the rights of monarchs, and the independence of nations, was now disregarded or forgotten. Yes, these men, to remove difficulties caused by their own incapacity and negligence, were ready to adopt all that they had before condemned and reviled in the French; they were eager to meddle, and in the most offensive manner, with the catholic religion, by getting from the nuncio, who was in their power, what they could not get from the pope voluntarily; they were ready to interfere with the rights of the Portuguese crown by selling its property, and finally they would have adopted that system of requisitions which they had so often denounced as rendering the very name of France abhorrent to the world.

All these schemes were duly transmitted to lord Wellington and to Mr. Stuart, and the former had, in the field, to unravel the intricacies, to detect the fallacies, and to combat the wild speculations of men, who, in profound ignorance of facts, were giving a loose to their imaginations on such complicated questions of state. It was while preparing to fight Marmont that he had to expose the futility of relying upon a loan; it was on the heights of San Christoval, on the field of battle itself, that he demonstrated the absurdity of attempting to establish a Portuguese bank; it was in the trenches of Burgos that he dissected Funchal’s and Villiers’s schemes of finance, and exposed the folly of attempting the sale of church property; it was at the termination of the retreat that with a mixture of rebuke and reasoning he quelled the proposal to live by forced requisitions; and on each occasion he shewed himself as well acquainted with these subjects as he was with the mechanism of armies.

Reform abuses, raise your actual taxes with vigour and impartiality, pay your present debt before you contract a new one, was his constant reply to the propositions for loans. And when the English ministers pressed the other plans, which, besides the bank, included a recoinage of dollars into cruzados, in other words the depreciation of the silver standard, he with an unsparing hand laid their folly bare. The military and political state of Portugal he said was such that no man in his senses, whether native or foreigner, would place his capital where he could not withdraw it at a moment’s notice. When Massena invaded that country unreasonable despondency had prevailed amongst the ministers, and now they seemed to have a confidence as wild as their former fear; but he who knew the real state of affairs; he who knew the persons that were expected to advance money; he who knew the relative forces of the contending armies, the advantages and disadvantages attending each; he who knew the absolute weakness of the Portuguese frontier as a line of defence, could only laugh at the notion that the capitalists would take gold out of their own chests to lodge it in the chests of the bank and eventually in those of the Portuguese treasury, a treasury deservedly without credit. The French armies opposed to him in the field (he was then on San Christoval) were, he said, just double his own strength, and a serious accident to Ballesteros, a rash general with a bad army, would oblige the Anglo-Portuguese force to retire into Portugal and the prospects of the campaign would vanish; and this argument left out of the question any accident which might happen to himself or general Hill. Portugal would, he hoped, be saved but its security was not such as these visionaries would represent it.

But they had proposed also a British security, in jewels, for the capital of their bank, and their reasonings on this head were equally fallacious. This security was to be supported by collecting the duties on wines, exported from Portugal to England, and yet they had not even ascertained whether the existence of these duties was conformable to the treaty with England. Then came the former question. Would Great Britain guarantee the capital of the subscribers whether Portugal was lost or saved? If the country should be lost, the new possessors would understand the levying the duties upon wines as well as the old; would England make her drinkers of port pay two duties, the one for the benefit of the bank capitalists, the other for the benefit of the French conquerors? If all these difficulties could be got over, a bank would be the most efficacious mode in which England could use her credit for the benefit of Portugal; but all the other plans proposed were mere spendthrift schemes to defray the expenses of the war, and if the English government could descend to entertain them they would fail, because the real obstacle, scarcity of specie, would remain.

A nation desirous of establishing public credit should begin, he said, by acquiring a revenue equal to its fixed expenditure, and must manifest an inclination to be honest by performing its engagements with respect to public debts. This maxim he had constantly enforced to the Portuguese government, and if they had minded it, instead of trusting to the fallacious hope of getting loans in England, the deficiency of their revenue would have been made up, without imposing new taxes, and even with the repeal of many which were oppressive and unjust. The fair and honest collection of taxes, which ought to exist, would have been sufficient. For after protracted and unsparing exertions, and by refusing to accept their paper money on any other condition in his commissariat transactions, he had at last forced the Portuguese authorities to pay the interest of that paper and of their exchequer bills, called “Apolocies grandes,” and the effect had been to increase the resources of the government though the government had even in the execution evinced its corruption. Then showing in detail how this benefit had been produced he traced the mischief created by men whom he called the sharks of Lisbon and other great towns, meaning speculators, principally Englishmen, whose nefarious cupidity led them to cry down the credit of the army-bills, and then purchase them, to the injury of the public and of the poor people who furnished the supplies.

A plan of recoining the Spanish dollars and so gaining eight in the hundred of pure silver which they contained above that of the Portuguese cruzado, he treated as a fraud, and a useless one. In Lisbon, where the cruzado was current, some gain might perhaps be made; but it was not even there certain, and foreigners, Englishmen and Americans, from whom the great supplies were purchased, would immediately add to their prices in proportion to the deterioration of the coin. Moreover the operations and expenditure of the army were not confined to Lisbon, nor even to Portugal, and the cruzado would not pass for its nominal value in Spain; thus instead of an advantage, the greatest inconvenience would result from a scheme at the best unworthy of the British government. In fine the reform of abuses, the discontinuance of useless expenses, economy and energy were the only remedies.

Such was his reasoning but it had little effect on his persecutors; for when his best men were falling by hundreds, his brightest visions of glory fading on the smoky walls of Burgos, he was again forced to examine and refute anew, voluminous plans of Portuguese finance, concocted by Funchal and Villiers, with notes by Vansittart. All the old schemes of the Principal Souza, which had been so often before analyzed and rejected as impracticable, were revived with the addition of a mixed Anglo-Portuguese commission for the sale of the crown and church lands. And these projects were accompanied with complaints that frauds had been practised on the custom-house, and violence used towards the inhabitants by the British commissaries, and it was insinuated such misconduct had been the real cause of the financial distresses of Portugal. The patient industry of genius was never more severely taxed.

Wellington began by repelling the charges of exactions and frauds, as applied to the army; he showed that to reform the custom-house so as to prevent frauds, had been his unceasing recommendation to the Portuguese government; that he had as repeatedly, and in detail, shewed the government, how to remedy the evils they complained of, how to increase their customs, how to levy their taxes, how in fine to arrange their whole financial system in a manner that would have rendered their revenues equal to their expenses, and without that oppression and injustice which they were in the habit of practising; for the extortions and violence complained of, were not perpetrated by the English but by the Portuguese commissariat, and yet the troops of that nation were starving. Having exposed Funchal’s ignorance of financial facts in detail, and challenged him to the proof of the charges against the British army, he entered deeply into the consideration of the great question of the sale of the crown and church lands, which it had been proposed to substitute for that economy and reform of abuses which he so long, so often, and so vainly had pressed upon the regency. The proposal was not quite new. “I have already,” he observed, “had before me a proposition for the sale or rather transfer, to the creditors of the ‘Junta de Viveres’ of crown lands; but these were the uncultivated lands in Alemtejo, and I pointed out to the government the great improbability that any body would take such lands in payment, and the injury that would be done to the public credit by making the scheme public if not likely to be successful. My opinion is that there is nobody in Portugal possessed of capital who entertains, or who ought to entertain, such an opinion of the state of affairs in the Peninsula, as to lay out his money in the purchase of crown lands. The loss of a battle, not in the Peninsula even, but elsewhere, would expose his estate to confiscation, or at all events to ruin by a fresh incursion of the enemy. Even if any man could believe that Portugal is secure against the invasion of the enemy, and his estate and person against the ‘violence, exactions, and frauds’ (these were Funchal’s words respecting the allied army) of the enemy, he is not, during the existence of the war, according to the Conde de Funchal’s notion, exempt from those evils from his own countrymen and their allies. Try this experiment, offer the estates of the crown for sale, and it will be seen whether I have formed a correct judgment on this subject.” Then running with a rapid hand over many minor though intricate fallacies for raising the value of the Portuguese paper-money, he thus treated the great question of the church lands.

First, as in the case of crown lands, there would be no purchasers, and as nothing could render the measure palatable to the clergy, the influence of the church would be exerted against the allies, instead of being, as hitherto, strongly exerted in their favour. It would be useless if the experiment of the crown lands succeeded, and if that failed the sale of church lands could not succeed; but the attempt would alienate the good wishes of a very powerful party in Spain, as well as in Portugal. Moreover if it should succeed, and be honestly carried into execution, it would entail a burthen on the finances of five in the hundred, on the purchase-money, for the support of the ecclesiastical owners of the estates. The best mode of obtaining for the state eventually the benefit of the church property, would be to prevent the monasteries and nunneries from receiving novices, and thus, in the course of time, the pope might be brought to consent to the sale of the estates, or the nation might assume possession when the ecclesiastical corporations thus became extinct. He however thought that it was no disadvantage to Spain or Portugal, that large portions of land should be held by the church. The bishops and monks were the only proprietors who lived on their estates, and spent the revenues amongst the labourers by whom those revenues had been produced; and until the habits of the new landed proprietors changed, the transfer of the property in land from the clergy to the laymen would be a misfortune.

This memoir, sent from the trenches of Burgos, quashed Funchal’s projects; but that intriguer’s object was not so much to remove financial difficulties, as to get rid of his brother’s opponents in the regency by exciting powerful interests against them; wherefore failing in this proposal, he ordered Redondo, now marquis of Borba, the minister of finance, to repair to the Brazils, intending to supply his place with one of his own faction. Wellington and Stuart were at this time doggedly opposed by Borba, but as the credit of the Portuguese treasury was supported by his character for probity, they forbade him to obey the order, and represented the matter so forcibly to the prince regent, that Funchal was severely reprimanded for his audacity.

It was amidst these vexations that Wellington made his retreat, and in such destitution that he declared all former distress for money had been slight in comparison of his present misery. So low were the resources, that British naval stores had been trucked for corn in Egypt; and the English ministers, finding that Russia, intent upon pushing her successes, was gathering specie from all quarters, desired Mr. Stuart to prevent the English and American captains of merchant vessels from carrying coin away from Lisbon; a remedial measure, indicating their total ignorance of the nature of commerce. It was not attempted to be enforced. Then also they transmitted their plan of supplying the English army by requisitions on the country, a plan the particulars of which may be best gathered from the answers to it.

Mr. Stuart, firm in opposition, shortly observed that it was by avoiding and reprobating such a system, although pursued alike by the natives and by the enemy, that the British character, and credit, had been established so firmly as to be of the greatest use in the operations of the war. Wellington entered more deeply into the subject.

Nothing, he said, could be procured from the country in the mode proposed by the ministers’ memoir, unless resort was also had to the French mode of enforcing their requisitions. The proceedings of the French armies were misunderstood. It was not true, as supposed in the memoir, that the French never paid for supplies. They levied contributions where money was to be had, and with this paid for provisions in other parts; and when requisitions for money or clothing were made, they were taken on account of the regular contributions due to the government. They were indeed heavier than even an usurping government was entitled to demand, still it was a regular government account, and it was obvious the British army could not have recourse to a similar plan without depriving its allies of their own legitimate resources.

The requisitions were enforced by a system of terror. A magistrate was ordered to provide for the troops, and was told that the latter would, in case of failure, take the provisions and punish the village or district in a variety of ways. Now were it expedient to follow this mode of requisition there must be two armies, one to fight the enemy and one to enforce the requisitions, for the Spaniards would never submit to such proceedings without the use of force. The conscription gave the French armies a more moral description of soldiers, but even if this second army was provided, the British troops could not be trusted to inflict an exact measure of punishment on a disobedient village, they would plunder it as well as the others readily enough, but their principal object would be to get at and drink as much liquor as they could, and then to destroy as much valuable property as should fall in their way; meanwhile the objects of their mission, the bringing of supplies to the army and the infliction of an exact measure of punishment on the magistrates or district would not be accomplished at all. Moreover the holders of supplies in Spain being unused to commercial habits, would regard payment for these requisitions by bills of any description, to be rather worse than the mode of contribution followed by the French, and would resist it as forcibly. And upon such a nice point did the war hang, that if they accepted the bills, and were once to discover the mode of procuring cash for them by discounting high, it would be the most fatal blow possible to the credit and resources of the British army in the Peninsula. The war would then soon cease.

The memoir asserted that sir John Moore had been well furnished with money, and that nevertheless the Spaniards would not give him provisions; and this fact was urged as an argument for enforcing requisitions. But the assertion that Moore was furnished with money, which was itself the index to the ministers’ incapacity, Wellington told them was not true. “Moore,” he said, “had been even worse furnished than himself; that general had borrowed a little, a very little money at Salamanca, but he had no regular supply for the military chest until the army had nearly reached Coruña; and the Spaniards were not very wrong in their reluctance to meet his wants, for the debts of his army were still unpaid in the latter end of 1812.” In fine there was no mode by which supplies could be procured from the country without payment on the spot, or soon after the transaction, except by prevailing on the Spanish government to give the English army a part of the government contributions, and a part of the revenues of the royal domains, to be received from the people in kind at a reasonable rate. This had been already done by himself in the province of Salamanca with success, and the same system might be extended to other provinces in proportion as the legitimate government was re-established. But this only met a part of the evil, it would indeed give some supplies, cheaper than they could otherwise be procured, yet they must afterwards be paid for at Cadiz in specie, and thus less money would come into the military chest, which, as before noticed, was only supported by the mercantile speculations of the general.

Such were the discussions forced upon Wellington when all his faculties were demanded on the field of battle, and such was the hardiness of his intellect to sustain the additional labour. Such also were the men calling themselves statesmen who then wielded the vast resources of Great Britain. The expenditure of that country for the year 1812, was above one hundred millions, the ministers who controuled it, were yet so ignorant of the elementary principles of finance, as to throw upon their general, even amidst the clangor and tumult of battle, the task of exposing such fallacies. And to reduce these persons from the magnitude of statesmen to their natural smallness of intriguing debaters is called political prejudice! But though power may enable men to trample upon reason for a time with impunity, they cannot escape her ultimate vengeance, she reassumes her sway and history delivers them to the justice of posterity.

Perverse as the proceedings of the English ministers were, those of the Portuguese and Spanish governments were not less vexatious; and at this time the temper of the Spanish rulers was of infinite importance because of the misfortunes which had befallen the French emperor. The opportunity given to strike a decisive blow at his power in the Peninsula demanded an early and vigorous campaign in Spain, and the experience of 1812 had taught Wellington, that no aid could be derived from the Spaniards unless a change was made in their military system. Hence the moment he was assured that the French armies had taken winter-quarters, he resolved before all other matters, in person to urge upon the Cortez the necessity of giving him the real as well as the nominal command of their troops, seeing that without an immediate reformation the Spanish armies could not take the field in due season.

During the past campaign, and especially after the Conde de Abispal, indignant at the censure passed in the Cortez on his brother’s conduct at Castalla, had resigned, the weakness of the Spanish government had become daily more deplorable; nothing was done to ameliorate the military system; an extreme jealousy raged between the Cortez and the regency; and when the former offered lord Wellington the command of their armies, Mr. Wellesley advised him to accept it, not so much in the hope of effecting any beneficial change, as to offer a point upon which the Spaniards who were still true to the English alliance and to the aristocratic cause might rally in case of reverse. The disobedience of Ballesteros had been indeed promptly punished; but the vigour of the Cortez on that occasion, was more the result of offended pride than any consideration of sound policy, and the retreat of the allies into Portugal was the signal for a renewal of those dangerous intrigues, which the battle of Salamanca had arrested without crushing.

Lord Wellington reached Cadiz on the 18th of December, he was received without enthusiasm, yet with due honour, and his presence seemed agreeable both to the Cortes and to the people; the passions which actuated the different parties in the state subsided for the moment, and the ascendency of his genius was so strongly felt, that he was heard with patience, even when in private he strongly urged the leading men to turn their attention entirely to the war, to place in abeyance their factious disputes and above all things not to put down the inquisition lest they should drive the powerful church party into the arms of the enemy. His exhortation upon this last point, had indeed no effect save to encourage the Serviles to look more to England, yet it did not prevent the Cortez yielding to him the entire controul of fifty thousand men which were to be paid from the English subsidy; they promised also that the commanders should not be removed, nor any change made in the organization or destination of such troops without his consent.

A fresh organization of the Spanish forces now had place. They were divided into four armies and two reserves.

The Catalans formed the first army.

Elio’s troops including the divisions of Duran, Bassecour, and Villa Campa, received the name of the second army.

The forces in the Morena, formerly under Ballesteros, were constituted the third army, under Del Parque.

The troops of Estremadura, Leon, Gallicia, and the Asturias, including Morillo’s, Penne Villemur’s, Downie’s, and Carlos d’España’s separate divisions, were called the fourth army, and given to Castaños, whose appointment to Catalonia was cancelled, and his former dignity of captain-general in Estremadura and Gallicia restored. The Partidas of Longa, Mina, Porlier, and the other chiefs in the northern provinces were afterwards united to this army as separate divisions.

The conde d’Abispal, made captain-general of Andalusia, commanded the first reserve, and Lacy recalled from Catalonia, where he was replaced by Copons, was ordered to form a second reserve in the neighbourhood of San Roque. Such were the new dispositions, but when Wellington had completed this important negociation with the Spanish government some inactivity was for the first time discovered in his own proceedings. His stay was a little prolonged without apparent reason, and it was whispered that if he resembled Cæsar, Cadiz could produce a Cleopatra; but whether true or not, he soon returned to the army, first however visiting Lisbon where he was greeted with extraordinary honours, and the most unbounded enthusiasm, especially by the people.

His departure from Cadiz was the signal for all the political dissentions to break out with more violence than before; the dissentions of the liberals and serviles became more rancorous, and the executive was always on the side of the latter, the majority of the cortez on the side of the former; neither enjoyed the confidence of the people nor of the allies, and the intrigues of Carlotta, which never ceased, advanced towards their completion. A strong inclination to make her sole regent was manifested, and sir Henry Wellesley, tired of fruitless opposition remained neuter, with the approbation of his brother. One of the principal causes of this feeling for Carlotta, was the violence she had shewn against the insurgents of Buenos Ayres, and another was the disgust given to the merchants of Cadiz, by certain diplomatic measures which lord Strangford had held with that revolted state. The agents of the princess represented the policy of England towards the Spanish colonies as a smuggling policy, and not without truth, for the advice of lord Wellington upon that subject had been unheeded. Lord Castlereagh had indeed offerred a new mediation scheme, whereby the old commission was to proceed under the Spanish restriction of not touching at Mexico, to which country a new mission composed of Spaniards was to proceed, accompanied by an English agent without any ostensible character. This proposal however ended as the others had done, and the Spanish jealousy of England increased.

1813. March. In the beginning of the year 1813, Carlotta’s cause ably and diligently served by Pedro Souza, had gained a number of adherents even amongst the liberals in the cortez. She was ready to sacrifice even the rights of her posterity, and as she promised to maintain all ancient abuses, the clergy and the serviles were in no manner averse to her success. Meanwhile the decree to abolish the inquisition which was become the great test of political party, passed on the 7th of March, and the regency were ordered to have it read in the churches. The clergy of Cadiz resisted the order, and intimated their refusal through the medium of a public letter, and the regency encouraged them by removing the governor of Cadiz, admiral Valdez, a known liberal and opponent of the inquisition, appointing in his stead general Alos, a warm advocate for that horrid institution. But in the vindication of official power the Spaniards are generally prompt and decided. On the 8th Augustin Arguelles moved, and it was instantly carried, that the sessions of the extraordinary cortez should be declared permanent, with a view to measures worthy of the nation, and to prevent the evils with which the state was menaced by the opposition of the regency and the clergy to the cortes. A decree was then proposed for suppressing the actual regency, and replacing it with a provisional government to be composed of the three eldest councillors of state. This being conformable to the constitution, was carried by a majority of eighty-six to fifty-eight, while another proposition, that two members of the cortez, publicly elected, should be added to the regency, was rejected as an innovation, by seventy-two against sixty-six. The councillors Pedro Agar, Gabriel Ciscar, and the cardinal Bourbon, archbishop of Toledo, were immediately installed as regents.

A committee which had been appointed to consider of the best means of improving a system of government felt by all parties to be imperfect, now recommended that the cardinal archbishop, who was of the blood royal, should be president of the regency, leaving Carlotta’s claims unnoticed, and as Ciscar and Agar had been formerly removed from the regency for incapacity, it was generally supposed that the intention was to make the archbishop in fact sole regent. Very soon however Carlotta’s influence was again felt, for a dispute having arisen in the cortez between what were called the Americans and the Liberals, about the annual Acapulco-ship, the former to the number of twenty joined the party of the princess, and it was resolved that Ruiez Pedron, a distinguished opponent of the inquisition, should propose her as the head of the regency. They were almost sure of a majority, when the scheme transpired, and the people, who liked her not, became so furious that her partizans were afraid to speak. Then the opposite side, fearing her power, proposed on the instant that the provisional regency should be made permanent which was carried. Thus, chance rather than choice ruling, an old prelate and two imbecile councillors were entrusted with the government, and the intrigues and rancour of the different parties exploded more frequently as the pressure from above became slight.

May. More than all others the clergy were, as might be expected, violent and daring, yet the Cortez was not to be frightened. Four canons of the cathedrals were arrested in May, and orders were issued to arrest the archbishop of St. Jago and many bishops, because of a pastoral letter they had published against the abolition of the inquisition; for according to the habits of their craft of all sects, they deemed religion trampled under foot when the power of levying money and spilling blood was denied to ministers professing the faith of Christ. Nor amidst these broils did the English influence fail to suffer; the democratic spirit advanced hastily, the Cadiz press teemed with writings, intended to excite the people against the ultimate designs of the English cabinet, and every effort was made to raise a hatred of the British general and his troops. These efforts were not founded entirely on falsehoods, and were far from being unsuccessful, because the eager desire to preserve the inquisition displayed by lord Wellington and his brother, although arising from military considerations, was too much in accord with the known tendency of the English cabinet’s policy, not to excite the suspicions of the whole liberal party.

The bishops of Logroño, Mondonedo, Astorga, Lugo, and Salamanca, and the archbishop of St. Jago were arrested, but several bishops escaped into Portugal, and were there protected as martyrs to the cause of legitimacy and despotism. The bishop of Orense and the ex-regent Lardizabal had before fled, the latter to Algarve, the former to the Tras os Montes, from whence he kept up an active intercourse with Gallicia, and the Cortez were far from popular there; indeed the flight of the bishops created great irritation in every part of Spain, for the liberal party of the Cortez was stronger in the Isla than in other parts, and by a curious anomaly the officers and soldiers all over Spain were generally their partizans while the people were generally the partizans of the clergy. Nevertheless the seeds of freedom, though carelessly sown by the French on one side, and by the Cortez on the other, took deep root, and have since sprung up into strong plants in due time to burgeon and bear fruit.

When the bishops fled from Spain, Gravina, the pope’s Nuncio assumed such a tone of hostility, that notwithstanding the good offices of sir Henry Wellesley, which were for some time successful in screening him from the vengeance of the Cortez, the latter, encouraged by the English newspapers, finally dismissed him and sequestered his benefices. He also took refuge in Portugal, and like the rest of the expelled clergy, sought by all means to render the proceedings of the Cortez odious in Spain. He formed a strict alliance with the Portuguese nuncio, Vicente Machiechi, and working together with great activity, they interfered, not with the concerns of Spain only, but with the Catholics in the British army, and even extended their intrigues to Ireland. Hence, as just and honest government had never formed any part of the English policy towards that country, alarm pervaded the cabinet, and the nuncio, protected when opposed to the Cortez, was now considered a very troublesome and indiscreet person.

Such a state of feud could not last long without producing a crisis, and one of a most formidable and decisive nature was really at hand. Already many persons in the Cortez held secret intercourse with Joseph, in the view of acknowledging his dynasty, on condition that he would accede to the general policy of the Cortez in civil government; that monarch had as we have seen organized a large native force, and the coasts of Spain and Portugal swarmed with French privateers manned with Spanish seamen. The victory at Salamanca had withered these resources for the moment, but Wellington’s failure at Burgos and retreat into Portugal again revived them, and at the same time gave a heavy shock to public confidence in the power of England, a shock which nothing but the misfortunes of Napoleon in Russia could have prevented from being fatal.

The Emperor indeed with that wonderful intellectual activity and energy which made him the foremost man of the world, had raised a fresh army and prepared once more to march into the heart of Germany, yet to do this he was forced to withdraw such numbers of old soldiers from Spain that the French army could no longer hope permanently to act on the offensive. This stayed the Peninsula cause upon the very brink of a precipice, for in that very curious, useful, and authentic work, called “Bourrienne and his errors,” it appears that early in 1813, the ever factious Conde de Montijo, then a general in Elio’s army, had secretly made proposals to pass over, with the forces under his command, to the king; and soon afterwards the whole army of Del Parque, having advanced into La Mancha, made offers of the same nature.

They were actually in negociation with Joseph, when the emperor’s orders obliged the French army to abandon Madrid, and take up the line of the Duero. Then the Spaniards advertised of the French weakness, feared to continue their negociations, Wellington soon afterwards advanced, and as this feeling in favour of the intrusive monarch was certainly not general, the resistance to the invaders revived with the successes of the British general. But if instead of diminishing his forces, Napoleon, victorious in Russia, had strengthened them, this defection would certainly have taken place, and would probably have been followed by others. The king at the head of a Spanish army would then have reconquered Andalusia, Wellington would have been confined to the defence of Portugal, and it is scarcely to be supposed that England would have purchased the independence of that country with her own permanent ruin.

This conspiracy is not related by me with entire confidence, because no trace of the transaction is to be found in the correspondence of the king taken at Vittoria. Nevertheless there are abundant proofs that the work called “Bourrienne and his errors,” inasmuch as it relates to Joseph’s transactions in Spain, is accurately compiled from that monarch’s correspondence. Many of his papers taken at Vittoria were lost or abstracted at the time, and as in a case involving so many persons’ lives, he would probably have destroyed the proofs of a conspiracy which had failed, there seems little reason to doubt that the general fact is correct. Napoleon also in his memoirs, speaks of secret negociations with the Cortez about this time, and his testimony is corroborated by the correspondence of the British embassy at Cadiz, and by the continued intrigues against the British influence. The next chapter will show that the policy of Spain was not the only source of uneasiness to Lord Wellington.