After this the Regency at last ordered the removal of the rest of the French prisoners from Cadiz. The few remaining officers were sent to Majorca, and afterwards to England. Of the men part were dispatched to the Canaries, part to the Balearic Islands. But the islanders protested against the presence of so many French in their midst, raised riots, and killed some of the prisoners. Thereupon the Regency ordered 7,000 of them to be placed upon the desolate rock of Cabrera, where there were no inhabitants and no shelter save one small ruined castle. The wretched captives, without roofs or tents to cover them, and supplied with food only at uncertain intervals and in insufficient quantity, died off like flies. Once, when storms hindered the arrival of the provision ships from Majorca, many scores perished in a day of sheer starvation[371]. The larger half did not survive to see the peace of 1814, and those who did were for the most part mere wrecks of men, invalids for life. Even allowing for the desperate straits of the Spanish government, which could not feed its own armies, the treatment of the Cabrera prisoners was indefensible. They might at least have been exchanged for some of the numerous Spanish garrisons taken in 1810-11; but the Regency would not permit it, though Henry O’Donnell had arranged with Macdonald a regular cartel for prisoners in the neighbouring Catalonia. This is one of the most miserable corners of the history of the Peninsular War.
But to return to Andalusia. By the month of May the Regency at Cadiz had recovered a certain confidence, in view of the utter inefficacy of Victor’s attempt to molest their city. From that month began a systematic attempt to organize into a single system all the forces that could be turned to account against Soult. There were now in the Isla some 18,000 Spanish troops, as well as 8,000 British and Portuguese. This was a larger garrison than was needed, now that the defences had been put in order; and it was possible to detach small expeditionary corps to east and west, to stir up trouble in the coast-land of Andalusia, and serve as the nuclei round which the insurgents of the mountains might gather. For the insurrection in the remoter corners of the kingdom of Granada had never died down, despite of all the efforts of Sebastiani to quell it. The Regency had now determined that an effort should be made to extend it westward—the Sierra de Ronda being quite as well suited for irregular operations as the Alpujarras. At the other end of the line, too, there were opportunities in the Condado de Niebla and the lands by the mouth of the Guadiana, which the French had hardly touched: trifling detachments of the 5th Corps at Moguer and Niebla observed rather than occupied that region. By means of the large fleet always moored in Cadiz harbour, it was possible to transfer troops to any point of the coast, for the French could not guard every creek and fishing-village, and if an expedition failed it had a fair chance of escaping by sea. Moreover any force thrown ashore in the south had the option of retiring into Gibraltar if hard pressed, just as any force sent to the west might retire on Portugal.
In addition to the insurgents and the garrison of Cadiz there were two regular armies whose energies might be turned against Soult. The relics of Areizaga’s unfortunate host, which had fled into the kingdom of Murcia, and had been rallied by Blake, were now 12,000 strong, and since Suchet’s expedition against Valencia had failed, and there was no danger from the north, this force could be employed against Sebastiani and the French corps in the kingdom of Granada. It was in a deplorable condition, but was yet strong enough to render assistance to the insurgents of the Alpujarras, by demonstrating against Granada, and so forcing Sebastiani to keep his troops massed for a regular campaign. Whenever the French general was threatened from the east, he had to abandon his smaller posts, and to desist from hunting the guerrilleros, who thus obtained a free hand.
The Regency could also count to a certain extent upon aid from La Romana and the Army of Estremadura. The Marquis—it will be remembered—was now confronted in his own province by Reynier and the 2nd Corps[372], but he had thrust his flanking division, under Ballasteros, into the mountains of North-Western Andalusia, where it had been contending with Mortier’s corps in the direction of Araçena and Zalamea, as has already been recounted[373]. This outlying division was in communication with Cadiz, via Ayamonte and the lower Guadiana, and could always compel Soult to detach troops from Seville by descending into the plains. La Romana himself could, and occasionally did, provide further occupation for the 5th Corps by moving other troops southward, on the Seville high-road, when he was not too much engrossed by Reynier’s demonstrations in his front.
Thus it was possible to harass the French troops in Andalusia on all sides. With the object of securing some sort of unity for their operations, the Regency made Blake Commander-in-Chief of the forces in Cadiz as well as of those in Murcia, declaring them parts of a single ‘Army of the Centre.’ Albuquerque’s separate charge had come to an end when, after many quarrels with the Cadiz Junta, he resigned the post of governor, and accepted that of Ambassador to the Court of St. James’s at the end of March. He died not long after his arrival in London, engaged to the last in a hot warfare of pamphlets and manifestos with the Junta, whose monstrous insinuations against his probity and patriotism are said to have driven him into the brain-fever which terminated his life. He was a man of unsullied honour and high personal courage, but not a lucky general, though his last military action, the direction of the Army of Estremadura on Cadiz, was a sound and meritorious piece of strategy. He and La Romana were the only Spanish officers with whom Wellington was able to work in concert without perpetual friction, but the British Commander-in-Chief had a greater respect for his allies’ hearts than for their heads as may be gathered from constant references in the Wellington Dispatches, as well as from the confidential conversations of the Duke’s later years[374].
Blake arrived in Cadiz on April 22, having turned over the temporary command of the Murcian army to General Freire, the ever-unlucky cavalry commander who had served under Venegas and Areizaga in the campaigns of Almonacid and Ocaña. He set himself to reorganize the various Estremaduran and other troops in Cadiz into one division of horse and three divisions of foot, which he numbered Vanguard, 2nd, and 4th of the Army of the Centre. The Murcian forces were distributed into the 1st, 3rd, and 5th infantry divisions of the same army, and two small cavalry divisions. This reorganization of the regular troops was followed by systematic attempts to foster the insurrection to right and left of Seville. General Copons was sent to Ayamonte, at the mouth of the Guadiana, with 700 men, round whom he collected a miscellaneous assemblage of peasantry, which often descended from the hills to worry the French garrisons of Moguer and Niebla. When chased by stronger forces detached from Mortier’s corps, he would retire into Portugal. When unmolested he joined hands with Ballasteros and the flanking division of the army of La Romana, or executed raids of his own in the central plain of the kingdom of Seville. Often chased, and sometimes dispersed, his bands were never completely crushed, and kept Western Andalusia, or ‘Spanish Algarve,’ as it was called in the old days when the boundaries of Castile and Portugal had only just been fixed, in a state of constant ferment.
The diversion which was prepared on the other flank by Blake and the Regency was far more important. Their intention was to wrest from the French the whole district of the Sierra de Ronda, the mountain region between Gibraltar and Malaga, and so to thrust in a wedge between Victor and Sebastiani. There was already the nucleus of an insurrection in this quarter; soon after King Joseph’s triumphal progress from Xeres by Ronda and Malaga to Granada, the first small bands had appeared. They were headed by local chiefs, such as Becerra, Ruiz, and Ortiz—better known as El Pastor—whose original followers were a party of the smugglers who, in times of peace and war alike, had been wont to ply a contraband trade with Gibraltar. In March and April they were not strong enough to do more than molest the convoys passing from Malaga and Seville to the French garrison of Ronda. But finding the enemy in their neighbourhood weak and helpless—the bulk of the 1st Corps was before Cadiz, and that of the 5th Corps was still watching La Romana on the roads north of Seville—they multiplied in numbers and extended their raids far afield. They asked for aid both from the British Governor of Gibraltar and from the Regency at Cadiz, promising that, if they were backed by regular troops, they would easily expel the French and master the whole country-side. Already their activity had produced favourable results, for Soult sent down from Seville Girard’s division of the 5th Corps, a detachment which left Mortier too weak for any serious operations on the side of Estremadura, and Sebastiani drew back from an expedition against Murcia, which might otherwise have proved most prejudicial to the Spanish cause.
This raid deserves a word of notice: just after Blake had left Murcia for Cadiz, Sebastiani (who had for the moment got the better of the insurgents in the Alpujarras) assembled at Baza, in the eastern extremity of the kingdom of Granada, the greater part of the 4th Corps, and marched with 7,000 men on Lorca. Freire, distrusting his troops, refused to fight, threw 4,000 men into the impregnable harbour-fortress of Cartagena, and retired with the rest of his army to Alicante, within the borders of Valencia. Thus, the rich city of Murcia, along with the whole of the rest of its province, which had never seen the French before, was exposed undefended to Sebastiani. He entered it on April 23, and commenced by fining the corporation 50,000 dollars for not having received him with a royal salute and the ringing of the bells of their churches. The rest of his behaviour was in keeping: he entered the cathedral while mass was in progress, and interrupted the service to seize the plate and jewels. He confiscated the money and other valuables in all the monasteries, hospitals, and banks. He permitted his officers to blackmail many rich inhabitants, and his rank and file to plunder houses and shops. Two days after his entry he retraced his footsteps, and retreated hastily towards Granada, leaving a ruined city behind him[375]. The cause of his sudden departure was the news that the insurgents of the Alpujarras, whom he had vainly imagined that he had crushed, were beleaguering all his small garrisons, and that Malaga itself had been seized by a large band of the Serranos, and held for a short space, though General Perreymond had afterwards succeeded in driving them out. But the whole of the Alhama and Ronda Sierras were up in arms, no less than the more eastern hills where the rising had begun. It would have been absurd for Sebastiani to proceed any further with the offensive campaign in Murcia, when Southern Andalusia was being lost behind his back.
Throughout the month of May Girard and Sebastiani, with some small assistance from Dessolles, who spared a few battalions from the kingdom of Cordova, were actively engaged in endeavouring to repress the mountaineers. The larger bands were dispersed, not without severe fighting—Girard’s men had hot work at Albondonates on May 1, and at Grazalema on May 3[376]. But just as the main roads had been reopened, and the blockade of the French garrison of Ronda raised, the whole situation was changed by the landing at Algeciras of General Lacy, with a division of 3,000 regulars sent from Cadiz by the Regency (June 19). His arrival raised the spirits of the insurgents, and they thronged in thousands to his aid, when he announced his intention of marching against Ronda. Lacy, however, was both irresolute and high-handed—as he afterwards showed on a larger stage when he became Captain-General of Catalonia. On arriving before Ronda he judged the rocky stronghold too formidable for him to meddle with, and turned aside to Grazalema, to the disgust of his followers. He then fell into a quarrel with the Serranos, dismissed many of them—smugglers and others—from his camp, as unworthy to serve alongside of regular soldiers, and even imprisoned some of the more turbulent chiefs. At this moment Girard from the north and Sebastiani from the east began to close in upon him. Uneasy at their approach, Lacy fell back towards the coast, and after some insignificant skirmishes re-embarked his force at Estepona and Marbella, from whence he sailed round to Gibraltar and landed at the Lines of San Roque, under the walls of that fortress (July 12)[377]. Almost the only positive gain produced by his expedition had been the occupation of Marbella, where he left a garrison which maintained itself for a considerable time. It was no doubt something to have detained Girard and Sebastiani in the remote mountain of the south for a full month, when they were much needed by Soult in other directions. Yet the evil results of Lacy’s timid manœuvres and hasty flight upon the morale of the insurgents might have been sufficiently great to counterbalance these small advantages, if the Serranos had been less tough and resolute. It is surprising to find that they did not lose courage, but kept the rising afoot with undiminished energy, being apparently confirmed in their self-confidence by the poor show made by the regular army, rather than disheartened at the ineffective succour sent them from Cadiz. Despite of all the efforts of Soult’s flying columns, they could not be entirely dispersed, though they were hunted a hundred times from valley to valley. The power of the viceroy of Andalusia stopped short at the foot-hills, though his dragoons kept the plains in subjection. Every time that Ronda and the other isolated garrisons in the mountains had to be revictualled, the convoy had to fight its way to its destination through swarms of ‘sniping’ insurgents[378].
The Regency had not yet done with Lacy and his expeditionary force. After they had lain for some time under the walls of Gibraltar, they were re-embarked and taken back to Cadiz, from where a short time after they were dispatched for a raid in the Condado de Niebla. In this region, where Copons was already in arms, the French forces, under Remond and the Duke of Aremberg, were so weak that the Junta believed that Lacy’s division would easily clear the whole country-side of the enemy. Its liberation would be most valuable, because Cadiz was wont to draw both corn and cattle from the lands between the Rio Tinto and Guadiana, and had felt bitterly the want of its accustomed supplies since the war had been carried thither.