CHAPTER II.
1813. Nothing could be more complicated than the political state of Portugal with reference to the situation of the English general. His object, as I have repeatedly shown, was to bring the whole resources of the country to bear on the war, but to effect this he had to run counter to the habits and customs, both of the people and of the government; to detect the intrigues of the subordinate authorities as well as those of the higher powers; to oppose the violence of factious men in the local government, and what was still more difficult, to stimulate the sluggish apathy and to combat the often honest obstinacy of those who were not factious. These things he was to effect without the power of recompensing or chastising, and even while forced to support those who merited rebuke, against the still more formidable intriguers of the court of Brazil; for the best men of Portugal actually formed the local government, and he was not foiled so much by the men as by the sluggish system which was national, and although dull for good purposes, vivacious enough for mischief. The dread of ultimate personal consequences attached, not to neglect of the war but to any vigorous exertions in support of it.
The proceedings of the court of Rio Janeiro were not less mischievous, for there the personal intrigues fostered by the peculiar disposition of the English envoy, by the weak yet dogged habits of the prince, and by the meddling nature and violent passions of the princess Carlotta, stifled all great national views. There also the power of the Souza’s, a family deficient neither in activity nor in talent, was predominant, and the object of all was to stimulate the government in Portugal against the English general’s military policy. To this he could, and had opposed, as we have seen, the power of the English government, with some effect at different times, but that resource was a dangerous one and only to be resorted to in extreme circumstances. Hence when to all these things is added a continual struggle with the knavery of merchants of all nations, his difficulties must be admitted, his indomitable vigour, his patience and his extraordinary mental resources admired, and the whole scene must be considered as one of the most curious and instructive lessons in the study of nations.
Wellington was not simply a general who with greater or less means, was to plan his military operations leaving to others the care of settling the political difficulties which might arise. He had, coincident with his military duties, to regenerate a whole people, to force them against the current of their prejudices and usages on a dangerous and painful course; he had to teach at once the populace and the government, to infuse spirit and order without the aid of rewards or punishments, to excite enthusiasm through the medium of corrupt oppressive institutions, and far from making any revolutionary appeal to suppress all tendency towards that resource of great minds on the like occasions. Thus only could he maintain an army at all, and as it was beyond the power of man to continue such a struggle for any length of time he was more than ever anxious to gather strength for a decisive blow, which the enemy’s situation now rendered possible, that he might free himself from the critical and anomalous relation in which he stood towards Portugal.
It may indeed be wondered that he so long bore up against the encreasing pressure of these distracting affairs, and certain it is that more than once he was like to yield, and would have yielded if fortune had not offered him certain happy military chances, and yet such as few but himself could have profited from. In 1810, on the ridge of Busaco, and in the lines, the military success was rather over the Portuguese government than the enemy. At Santarem in 1811 the glory of arms scarcely compensated for the destitution of the troops. At Fuentes Onoro and on the Caya, after the second unsuccessful siege of Badajos, the Portuguese army had nearly dissolved; and the astonishing sieges of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajos in 1812, were necessary to save the cause from dying of inanition and despair. Even then the early deliverance of Andalusia was frustrated, and time, more valuable than gold or life, in war, was lost, the enemy became the strongest in the field, and in despite of the victory of Salamanca, the bad effects of the English general’s political situation were felt in the repulse from Burgos, and in the double retreat from that place and from Madrid. Accumulated mischiefs were now to be encountered in Portugal.
It has been shown how obstinately the regency opposed Wellington’s plans of financial reform, how they disputed and complained upon every circumstance, whether serious or trivial on which a complaint could be founded; for thinking Portugal no longer in danger they were tired of their British allies, and had no desire to aid nor indeed any wish to see Spain delivered from her difficulties. They designed therefore to harass the English general, hoping either to drive him away altogether, or to force him, and, through him, his government, to grant them loans or new subsidies. But Wellington knew that Portugal could, and he was resolved it should find resources within itself, wherefore, after the battle of Salamanca, when they demanded a fresh subsidy he would not listen to them; and when they adopted that scheme which I have already exposed, of feeding, or rather starving their troops, through the medium of a treaty with the Spanish government, he checked the shameful and absurd plan, by applying a part of the money in the chest of aids intended for the civil service to the relief of the Portuguese troops. Yet the regency did not entirely fail in their object inasmuch as many persons dependent upon the subsidy were thus deprived of their payments, and their complaints hurt the British credit, and reduced the British influence with the people whose faithful attachment to the alliance no intrigues had hitherto been able to shake.
Into every branch of government, however minute, the regency now infused their own captious and discontented spirit. They complained falsely that general Campbell had insulted the nation by turning some Portuguese residents publicly out of Gibraltar in company with Jews and Moors; they refused the wheat which was delivered to them by lord Wellington in lieu of their subsidy, saying it was not fit for food notwithstanding that the English troops were then living upon parcels of the same grain, that their own troops were glad to get it, and that no other was to be had. When a wooden jetty was to be thrown in the Tagus for the convenience of landing stores, they supported one Caldas, a rich proprietor, in his refusal to permit the trees, wanted for the purpose, to be felled, alledging the rights of property, although he was to be paid largely, and although they had themselves then, and always, disregarded the rights of property, especially when poor men were concerned, seizing upon whatever was required either for the public service, or for the support of their own irregularities, without any payment at all and in shameful violation both of law and humanity.
The commercial treaty, and the proceedings of the Oporto wine company, an oppressive corporation unfair in all its dealings, irresponsible, established in violation of that treaty, and supported without regard either to the interests of the prince regent or his British allies, furnished them with continual subjects for disputes, and nothing was too absurd or too gross for their interference. Under the management of Mr. Stuart who had vigorously enforced Wellington’s plans, their paper money had obtained a reasonable and encreasing circulation, and their custom-house resources had encreased, the expenses of their navy and of their arsenal had in some degree been reduced; and it was made evident that an extensive and vigorous application of the same principles would enable them to overcome all their financial difficulties; but there were too many personal interests, too much shameful profit made under the abuses to permit such a reform. The naval establishment instead of being entirely transferred, as Wellington desired, to the Brazils, was continued in the Tagus, and with it the arsenal as its natural appendage. The infamous Junta de Viveres had been suppressed by the prince regent, yet the government under the false pretext of paying its debts still disbursed above ten thousand pounds a month in salaries to men whose offices had been formally abolished.
About this time also the opening of the Spanish ports in those provinces from whence the enemy had been driven, deprived Lisbon of a monopoly of trade enjoyed for the last three years, and the regency observing the consequent diminution of revenue, with inexpressible effrontery insisted that the grain, imported by Wellington, by which their army and their nation had been saved from famine, and by which their own subsidy had been provided, should enter the public warehouses under specific regulations and pay duty for so doing. So tenaciously did they hold to this point that Wellington was forced to menace a formal appeal to the English cabinet, for he knew that the subordinate officers of the government, knavish in the extreme, would have sold the secrets of the army magazines to the speculators; and the latter, in whose hands the furnishing of the army would under the new plan of the English ministers be placed, being thus accurately instructed of its resources would have regulated their supplies with great nicety so as to have famished the soldiers, and paralyzed the operations at the greatest possible expense.
But the supply of the army under any system was now becoming extremely precarious, for besides the activity of the American privateers English ships of war used, at times, to capture the vessels secretly employed in bringing provision under licenses from Mr. Stuart and Mr. Forster. Nay the captain of a Scotch merchant vessel engaged in the same trade and having no letter of marque, had the piratical insolence to seize in the very mouth of the Tagus, and under the Portuguese batteries, an American vessel sailing under a license from Mr. Forster, and to carry her into Greenock, thus violating at once the license of the English minister, the independence of Portugal, and the general law of nations. Alarm immediately spread far and wide amongst the American traders, the indignation of the Portuguese government was strongly and justly excited, and the matter became extremely embarrassing, because no measure of punishment could be inflicted without exposing the secret of a system which had been the principal support of the army. However the Congress soon passed an act forbidding neutrals to ship flour in the American ports, and this blow, chiefly aimed at the Portuguese ships, following upon the non-importation act, and being combined with the illegal violence of the English vessels, nearly dried up this source of supply, and threw the army principally upon the Brazil trade, which by the negligence of the Admiralty was, as I have before noticed, exposed to the enterprize of the United States’ privateers.
During Wellington’s absence in Spain the military administration of Portugal was necessarily in the hands of the regency and all the ancient abuses were fast reviving. The army in the field received no succours, the field-artillery had entirely disappeared, the cavalry was in the worst condition, the infantry was reduced in numbers, the equipments of those who remained were scarcely fit for service, and the spirit of the men had waned from enthusiasm to despondency. There was no money in the military chest, no recruits in the dépôts, and the transport service was neglected altogether. Beresford’s severity had failed to check desertion, because want, the parent of crimes, had proved too strong for fear; the country swarmed with robbers, and as no fault civil or military was punished by the regency, every where knaves triumphed over the welfare of the nation.
Meanwhile all persons whose indolence or timidity led them to fly from the active defence of their country to the Brazils, were there received and cherished as martyrs to their personal affections for the prince; they were lauded for their opposition to the regency, and were called victims to the injustice of Beresford, and to the encroachments of the English officers. This mischief was accompanied by another of greater moment, for the prince continually permitted officers possessing family interest to retire from active service retaining their pay and rank, thus offering a premium for bad men to enter the army with the intent of quitting it in this disgraceful manner. Multitudes did so, promotion became rapid, the nobility whose influence over the poor classes was very great, and might have been beneficially employed in keeping up the zeal of the men, disappeared rapidly from the regiments, and the foul stream of knaves and cowards thus continually pouring through the military ranks destroyed all cohesion and tainted every thing as it passed.
Interests of the same nature, prevailing with the regency, polluted the civil administration. The rich and powerful inhabitants, especially those of the great cities, were suffered to evade the taxes and to disobey the regulations for drawing forth the resources of the country in the military service; and during Wellington’s absence in Spain, the English under-commissaries, and that retinue of villains which invariably gather on the rear of armies, being in some measure freed from the immediate dread of his vigilance and vigour, violated all the regulations in the most daring manner. The poor husbandmen were cruelly oppressed, their farming animals were constantly carried off to supply food for the army, and agriculture was thus stricken at the root; the breed of horned cattle and of horses had rapidly and alarmingly decreased, and butcher’s meat was scarcely to be procured even for the troops who remained in Portugal.
These irregularities, joined to the gross misconduct of the military detachments and convoys of sick men, on all the lines of communication, not only produced great irritation in the country but offered the means for malevolent and factious persons to assail the character and intentions of the English general; every where writings and stories were circulated against the troops, the real outrages were exaggerated, others were invented and the drift of all was to render Wellington, and the English, odious to the nation at large. Nor was this scheme confined to Portugal alone, agents were also busy to the same purpose in London, and when the enthusiasm, which Wellington’s presence at Lisbon had created amongst the people, was known at Cadiz, the press there teemed with abuse. Divers agents of the democratic party in Spain came to Lisbon to aid the Portuguese malcontents, writings were circulated accusing Wellington of an intention to subjugate the Peninsula for his own ambitious views, and, as consistency is never regarded on such occasions, it was diligently insinuated that he encouraged the excesses of his troops out of personal hatred to the Portuguese people; the old baseness of sending virulent anonymous letters to the English general was also revived. In fine the republican spirit was extending beyond the bounds of Spain, and the Portuguese regency, terrified at its approach, appealed to Mr. Stuart for the assistance of England to check its formidable progress. Neither were they wanting to themselves. They forbade the Portuguese newspapers to admit any observations on the political events in Spain, they checked the introduction of Spanish democratic publications, they ordered their diplomatists at Cadiz to encourage writings of an opposite tendency, and to support the election of deputies who were known for their love of despotism. This last measure was however baffled by the motion of Arguelles, already mentioned, which rendered the old Cortez permanent; and Mr. Stuart, judging the time unfavourable, advised the Portuguese government to reserve the exertion of its power against the democrats, until the military success which the state of the continent, and the weakness of the French troops in Spain, promised, should enable the victors to put down such doctrines with effect; advice which was not unmeaning as I shall have occasion hereafter to show.
All these malignant efforts Wellington viewed with indifference. “Every leading man,” he said, “was sure to be accused of criminal personal ambition, and, if he was conscious of the charge being false, the accusation did no harm.” Nevertheless his position was thereby rendered more difficult, and these intrigues were accompanied by other mischiefs of long standing and springing from a different source, but even of a more serious character, for the spirit of captious discontent had reached the inferior magistracy, who endeavoured to excite the people against the military generally. Complaints came in from all quarters of outrages on the part of the troops, some too true, but many of them false, or frivolous; and when the English general ordered courts-martial for the trial of the accused, the magistrates refused to attend as witnesses, because Portuguese custom rendered such an attendance degrading, and by Portuguese law a magistrate’s written testimony was efficient in courts-martial. Wellington in vain assured them that English law would not suffer him to punish men upon such testimony; in vain he pointed out the mischief which must infallibly overwhelm the country if the soldiers discovered they might thus do evil with impunity. He offered to send in each case, lists of Portuguese witnesses required that they might be summoned by the native authorities, but nothing could overcome the obstinacy of the magistrates; they answered that his method was insolent; and with a sullen malignity they continued to accumulate charges against the troops, to refuse attendance in the courts, and to call the soldiers, their own as well as the British, “licensed spoliators of the community.”
For a time the generous nature of the poor people, resisted all these combining causes of discontent; neither real injuries nor the exaggerations, nor the falsehoods of those who attempted to stir up wrath, produced any visible effect upon the great bulk of the population; yet by degrees affection for the British cooled, and Wellington expressed his fears that a civil war would commence between the Portuguese people on the one hand, and the troops of both nations on the other. Wherefore his activity was redoubled to draw, while he could still controul affairs, all the military strength to a head, and to make such an irruption into Spain as would establish a new base of operations beyond the power of such fatal dissensions.
March. These matters were sufficiently vexatious and alarming, but what made him tremble, was, the course, which the misconduct of the Portuguese government, and the incapacity of the English cabinet, had forced upon the native furnishers of the supplies. Those persons, coming in the winter to Lisbon to have their bills on the military chest paid, could get no money, and in their distress had sold the bills to speculators, the Portuguese holders, at a discount of fifteen, the Spanish holders at a discount of forty in the hundred. The credit of the chest immediately fell, prices rose in proportion, and as no military enterprize could carry the army beyond the flight of this harpy, and no revenues could satisfy its craving, the contest must have ceased, if Mr. Stuart had not found a momentary and partial remedy, by publicly guaranteeing the payment of the bills and granting interest until they could be taken up. The expense was thus augmented, but the increase fell far short of the enhanced cost of the supplies which had already resulted even from this restricted practice of the bill-holders, and of two evils the least was chosen. It may seem strange that such transactions should belong to the history of the military operations in the Peninsula, that it should be the general’s instead of the minister’s task, to encounter such evils, and to find the remedy. Such however was the nature of the war, and no adequate notion of lord Wellington’s vigorous capacity and Herculean labours can be formed, without an intimate knowledge of the financial and political difficulties which oppressed him, and of which this work has necessarily only given an outline.
The disorders of the Portuguese military system had brought Beresford back to Lisbon while the siege of Burgos was still in progress, and now, under Wellington’s direction, he strained every nerve to restore the army to its former efficient state. To recruit the regiments of the line he disbanded all the militia men fit for service, replacing them with fathers of families; to restore the field-artillery, he embodied all the garrison artillery-men, calling out the ordenança gunners to man the fortresses and coast-batteries; the worst cavalry regiments he reduced to render the best more efficient, but several circumstances prevented this arm from attaining any excellence in Portugal. Meanwhile Lord Wellington and Mr. Stuart strenuously grappled with the disorders of the civil administration and their efforts produced an immediate and considerable increase of revenue. But though the regency could not deny this beneficial effect, though they could not deny the existence of the evils which they were urged to remedy, though they admitted that the reform of their custom-house system was still incomplete, that their useless navy consumed large sums which were wanted for the army, and that the taxes especially the “Decima,” were partially collected, and unproductive, because the rich people in the great towns, who had benefited largely by the war, escaped the imposts which the poor people in the country, who had suffered most from the war, paid; though they acknowledged that while the soldiers’ hire was in arrears, the transport service neglected, and all persons, having just claims upon the government, suffering severe privations, the tax-gatherers were allowed to keep a month’s tribute in their hands even in the districts close to the enemy; though all these things were admitted, the regency would not alter their system, and Borba, the minister of finance, combatted Wellington’s plans in detail with such unusual obstinacy, that it became evident nothing could be obtained save by external pressure. Wherefore as the season for military operations approached, Mr. Stuart called upon lord Castlereagh to bring the power of England to bear at once upon the court of Rio Janeiro; and Wellington, driven to extremity, sent the Portuguese prince-regent one of those clear, powerful, and nervous statements, which left those to whom they were addressed, no alternative but submission, or an acknowledgement that sense and justice were to be disregarded.
April. “I call your highness’s attention,” he said, “to the state of your troops and of all your establishments; the army of operations has been unpaid since September, the garrisons since June, the militia since February 1812. The transport service has never been regularly paid, and has received nothing since June. To these evils I have in vain called the attention of the local government, and I am now going to open a new campaign, with troops to whom greater arrears of pay are due than when the last campaign terminated, although the subsidy from Great Britain, granted especially for the maintenance of those troops, has been regularly and exactly furnished; and although it has been proved that the revenue for the last three months has exceeded, by a third, any former quarter. The honour of your highness’s arms, the cause of your allies, is thus seriously affected, and the uniform refusal of the governors of the kingdom to attend to any one of the measures which I have recommended, either for permanent or temporal relief, has at last obliged me to go as a complainant into your royal highness’s presence, for here I cannot prevail against the influence of the chief of the treasury.
“I have recommended the entire reform of the customs system, but it has only been partially carried into effect. I have advised a method of actually and really collecting the taxes, and of making the rich merchants, and capitalists, pay the tenth of their annual profits as an extraordinary contribution for the war. I declare that no person knows better than I do, the sacrifices and the sufferings of your people, for there is no one for the last four years has lived so much amongst those people; but it is a fact, sir, that the great cities, and even some of the smallest places, have gained by the war and the mercantile class has enriched itself; there are divers persons in Lisbon and Oporto who have amassed immense sums. Now your government is, both from remote and recent circumstances, unable to draw resources from the capitalists by loans; it can only draw upon them by taxes. It is not denied that the regular tributes nor the extraordinary imposts on the mercantile profits are evaded; it is not denied that the measures I have proposed, vigorously carried into execution, would furnish the government with pecuniary resources, and it remains for that government to inform your highness, why they have neither enforced my plans, nor any others which the necessity of the times calls for. They fear to become unpopular, but such is the knowledge I have of the people’s good sense and loyalty, such my zeal for the cause, that I have offered to become responsible for the happy issue, and to take upon myself all the odium of enforcing my own measures. I have offered in vain!
“Never was a sovereign in the world so ill served as your highness has been by the ‘Junta de Viveres,’ and I zealously forwarded your interests when I obtained its abolition; and yet, under a false pretext of debt, the government still disburse fifty millions of reis monthly on account of that board. It has left a debt undoubtedly, and it is of importance to pay it, although not at this moment; but let the government state in detail how these fifty millions, granted monthly, have been applied; let them say if all the accounts have been called in and liquidated? who has enforced the operation? to what does the debt amount? has it been classified? how much is really still due to those who have received instalments? finally, have these millions been applied to the payment of salaries instead of debt? But were it convenient now to pay the debt, it cannot be denied that to pay the army which is to defend the country, to protect it from the sweeping destructive hand of the enemy, is of more pressing importance; the troops will be neither able nor willing to fight if they are not paid.”
Then touching upon the abuse of permitting the tax-gatherers to hold a month’s taxes in their hands, and upon the opposition he met with from the regency, he continued,
“I assure your royal highness that I give my advice to the governor of the kingdom actuated solely by an earnest zeal for your service without any personal interest. I can have none relative to Portugal, and none with regard to individuals, for I have no private relation with, and scarcely am acquainted with those who direct, or would wish to direct your affairs. Those reforms recommended by me, and which have at last been partially effected in the custom-house, in the arsenal, in the navy, in the payment of the interest of the national debt, in the formation of a military chest, have succeeded, and I may therefore say that the other measures I propose would have similar results. I am ready to allow that I may deceive myself on this point, but certainly they are suggested by a desire for the good of your service; hence in the most earnest and decided manner, I express my ardent wish, and it is common to all your faithful servants, that you will return to the kingdom, and take charge yourself of the government.”
These vigorous measures to bring the regency to terms succeeded only partially. In May they promulgated a new system for the collection of taxes which relieved the financial pressure on the army for the moment, but which did not at all content Wellington, because it was made to square with old habits and prejudices, and thus left the roots of all the evils alive and vigorous. Every moment furnished new proofs of the hopelessness of regenerating a nation through the medium of a corrupted government; and a variety of circumstances, more or less serious, continued to embarrass the march of public affairs.
May. In the Madeiras the authorities vexatiously prevented the English money agents from exporting specie, and their conduct was approved of at Rio Janeiro. At Bisao, in Africa, the troops had mutinied for want of pay, and in the Cape de Verde Islands disturbances arose from the over-exaction of taxes; for when the people were weak, the regency were vigorous; pliant only to the powerful. These commotions were trifling and soon ended of themselves, yet expeditions were sent against the offenders in both places, and the troops thus employed immediately committed far worse excesses, and did more mischief than that which they were sent to suppress. At the same time several French frigates finding the coast of Africa unguarded, cruized successfully against the Brazil trade, and aided the American privateers to contract the already too straitened resources of the army.
Amidst all these difficulties however the extraordinary exertions of the British officers had restored the numbers, discipline, and spirit of the Portuguese army. Twenty-seven thousand excellent soldiers were again under arms and ready to commence the campaign, although the national discontent was daily increasing; and indeed the very feeling of security created by the appearance of such an army rendered the citizens at large less willing to bear the inconveniences of the war. Distant danger never affects the multitude, and the billetting of troops, who, from long habits of war, little regarded the rights of the citizens in comparison with their own necessities, being combined with requisitions, and with a recruiting system becoming every year more irksome, formed an aggregate of inconveniences intolerable to men who desired ease and no longer dreaded to find an enemy on their hearth-stones. The powerful classes were naturally more affected than the poorer classes, because of their indolent habits; but their impatience was aggravated because they had generally been debarred of the highest situations, or supplanted, by the British interference in the affairs of the country, and, unlike those of Spain, the nobles of Portugal had lost little or none of their hereditary influence. Discontent was thus extended widely, and moreover the old dread of French power was entirely gone; unlimited confidence in the strength and resources of England had succeeded; and this confidence, to use the words of Mr. Stuart, “being opposed to the irregularities which have been practised by individuals, and to the difference of manners, and of religion, placed the British in the singular position of a class whose exertions were necessary for the country, but who, for the above reasons, were in every other respect as distinct from the natives as persons with whom, from some criminal cause, it was necessary to suspend communication.”—Hence he judged that the return of the prince-regent would be a proper epoch for the British to retire from all situations in Portugal not strictly military, for if any thing should delay that event, the time was approaching when the success of the army and the tranquillity of the country would render it necessary to yield to the first manifestations of national feeling. In fine, notwithstanding the great benefits conferred upon the Portuguese by the British, the latter were, and it will always be so on the like occasions, regarded by the upper classes as a captain regards galley-slaves, their strength was required to speed the vessel, but they were feared and hated.
The prince-regent did not return to Portugal according to Wellington’s advice, but Carlotta immediately prepared to come alone; orders were given to furnish her apartments in the different palaces, and her valuable effects had actually arrived. Ill health was the pretext for the voyage, but the real object was to be near Spain to forward her views upon the government there; for intent upon mischief, indefatigable and of a violence approaching insanity, she had sold even her plate and jewels to raise money wherewith to corrupt the leading members of the cortez, and was resolved, if that should not promise success, to distribute the money amongst the Spanish partidas, and so create a powerful military support for her schemes. Fortunately the prince dreading the intriguing advisers of his wife would not suffer her to quit Rio Janeiro until the wish of the British cabinet upon the subject was known, and that was so decidedly adverse, that it was thought better to do without the prince himself than to have him accompanied by Carlotta; so they both remained in the Brazils, and this formidable cloud passed away, yet left no sunshine on the land.
It was at this period that the offer of a Russian auxiliary force, before alluded to, being made to Wellington by admiral Grieg, was accepted by him to the amount of fifteen thousand men, and yet was not fulfilled because the Russian ambassador in London declared that the emperor knew nothing of it! Alexander however proposed to mediate in the dispute between Great Britain and America, but the English ministers, while lauding him as a paragon of magnanimity and justice, in regard to the war against Napoleon, remembered the armed neutrality and quadruple alliance, and wisely declined trusting England’s maritime pretensions to his faithless grasping policy. Neither would they listen to Austria, who at this time, whether with good faith or merely as a cloak I know not, desired to mediate a general peace. However, amidst this political confusion the progress of the military preparations was visible; and contemporary with the Portuguese, the Spanish troops under Wellington’s influence and providence acquired more consistence than they had ever before possessed; a mighty power was in arms; but the flood of war with which the English general finally poured into Spain, and the channels by which he directed the overwhelming torrent, must be reserved for another place. It is now time to treat of the political situation of king Joseph, and to resume the narrative of that secondary warfare which occupied the French armies while Wellington was uninterruptedly as far as the enemy were concerned, reorganizing his power.