[702] The whole of this story may be found in Londonderry (i. 272), Ormsby (ii. 140), James Moore (p. 190), as well as in Napier.
[703] General Orders (Lugo, Jan. 6, 1809).
[704] In defence of the unfortunate Galicians, whose patriotism and good faith has been impugned by so many English narrators of the retreat, it is only necessary to quote the reflections of two dispassionate eye-witnesses. Leith Hay (i. 132) writes: ‘To expect that the peasantry were to rush from their houses, and supply the wants of our soldiers with the only provision that they possessed for their own families—who might in consequence be left in the midst of the mountains, at midwinter, to starve—was imagining friendly feeling carried to an unnatural extent, and just as likely to happen as it would have been if, Napoleon having invaded Britain, an English yeoman should have earnestly requested one of our own soldiers to accept the last morsel of bread he had the means of obtaining for his children.’ Ormsby (ii. 162) says, to much the same effect: ‘As to their inhospitable reception of us, and the concealment of provisions, in candour I must be their apologist, and declare my conviction that the charge in many instances is unfounded and in others exaggerated. Do those who are most loud in their complaints honestly think that an army of 30,000 Spaniards would be better received in England than we were in Spain? I doubt it much. The people, dispirited and alarmed, began to look to self-preservation as the primary or sole object of their care. Add to this the horror and dismay which the excesses of our soldiers struck, and you will not be surprised that villages and houses were frequently deserted. Is it a matter of astonishment that the peasantry fled into the recesses of their mountains, intimidated by our presence and confounded by our crimes?’
[705] For instances of kindness shown by the peasantry see Ormsby (ii. 139). On the other hand the educated classes were often sulky, and even insolent, because they thought that Moore was deliberately abandoning Spain from cowardice. See in Ormsby the anecdotes of the Alcalde of Pinhalla (ii. 79) and the Alcalde of Villafranca (ii. 127), as also of the abuse which he got from a ‘furious canon of Lugo,’ on whom he was billeted (ii. 147, 148).
[706] Outside Betanzos Paget halted, stopped the marauding stragglers, and had them stripped of their plunder. Blakeney of the 28th saw 1,500 men searched. ‘It is impossible to enumerate the different articles of plunder which they had crammed into their packs and haversacks—brass candlesticks bent double, bundles of common knives, copper saucepans, every kind of domestic utensil, without regard to weight or value’ (p. 92).
[707] Adam Neale, p. 196. The same battalion could show 500 bayonets for the battle of Corunna, so the men were not far off, as it would seem.
[708] Le Noble (Campagne du Maréchal Soult, p. 24) says that Franceschi made a ‘charge’ here and took 500 prisoners. The number of prisoners is very probably correct, but it is hardly a ‘charge’ when isolated stragglers are picked up. The rearguard was never molested, and retired without having to fire a shot.
[709] This sergeant’s name was William Newman. He was rewarded by an ensign’s commission in the 1st West India Regiment.
[710] I think that it must be to this combat that one of the reminiscences of ‘T.S.’ of the 71st relates, though he is vague in his dates. ‘Sleep was stealing over me when I perceived a bustle around me. It was an advanced party of the French. Unconscious of my action I started to my feet, levelled my musket, which I still retained, fired and formed with the other stragglers. There were more of them than of us, but the action and the approach of danger in a shape which we could repel roused our downcast feelings.... While we ran they pursued, the moment we faced about they halted. We never fought but with success, never were attacked but we forced them to retire’ (p. 60).
[711] The stragglers’ battle in front of Betanzos is described by Adam Neale (p. 196), Blakeney (pp. 90, 91), and Steevens of the 20th (p. 70), as well as by Napier and the other historians. I find no account of it in Le Noble or the other French narrators, such as Naylies, St. Chamans, or Fantin des Odoards. Le Noble gives instead a wholly fictitious account of an engagement of Franceschi with English cavalry, in which the latter lost a thousand men and five guns (p. 34). As the cavalry had marched for Corunna before Franceschi came up, and lost only about 200 men in the whole campaign, I am quite at a loss to understand what can be the foundation of this romance.