The military operations in the South during the winter of 1811-12 were inconclusive, and only important in a negative way, as showing that the initiative of the French armies was spent in this direction. But it must not be forgotten that while Soult had been brought to a standstill, Suchet’s operations were still progressing: January, indeed, saw the last great Spanish disaster of the war, the fall of Valencia, so that the spirits of government and people still ran very low. It was not till the sudden irruption of Wellington into the kingdom of Leon had ended in the capture of Ciudad Rodrigo (January 19), that there was any great occasion for hopefulness. And for a long time after that event its importance was not fully understood. That the central turning-point of the war had come, that for the future the allies were to be on the offensive, and the French on the defensive, was not realized till Badajoz had fallen in April, a blow which shook the whole fabric of King Joseph’s power throughout the regions where he seemed to reign. Nor was it only the state of affairs in the Peninsula which, during the winter of 1811-12, seemed sufficiently gloomy both for the present and for the future. The news from the Spanish colonies in America grew steadily worse: in most of the viceroyalties of the Western world there was now a nucleus of trouble: the name of Ferdinand VII was still used by the insurgents as a rallying cry, except in Venezuela, where Miranda had proclaimed an independent republic in July 1811. But in La Plata and Chili lip-loyalty to the sovereign was accompanied by practical secession from the Spanish state: the Cabildos or Juntas paid no attention to orders received from Cadiz. In Mexico, though the capital and the greater part of the country were still in the hands of the constituted authorities, there was a lively insurrection on foot since September 1810, under the priest Hidalgo—he was captured and executed in 1812, but his death did not crush his faction. The Viceroyalty of Peru was almost the only part of Spanish America which still remained loyal. The Cortes at Cadiz made elaborate attempts to conciliate the Americans, but was unable to satisfy their expectations or to end their discontents. The deeply-rooted belief of the Creoles that they and their country were still being exploited for the benefit of Spain, could not be removed by any declaration that they were now to be Spanish citizens with full rights, or by giving them representation in the Cortes. The idea of autonomy was already abroad in Spanish America, and in every quarter ambitious men were quoting the precedent of the revolt of the Thirteen United Colonies from Great Britain in the previous generation. Truly Spain had committed an unwise act when she joined France in wrecking the British domination in North America. She revenged an old grudge successfully, but she taught her own colonists a lesson impossible to forget and easy to copy.
The Peninsular War had hitherto been maintained in no small degree by the money which kept flowing in from America: what would happen if the treasure-ships with their regular supply of silver dollars from the mines of Mexico and Peru ceased altogether to come in? Already affairs were looking so threatening that, despite of all the needs of the campaign at home, reinforcements were being sent out to the New World from Cadiz and from Corunna: the Army of Galicia, as we shall presently see, was nearly put out of action in the spring of 1812 by the dispatch of an over-great proportion of its trained artillerymen to America[137]. Some French observers of the situation formed the idea that the Spaniards, if pressed to a decision between the possible loss of their colonies and the chance of obtaining a free hand by peace with Napoleon, might make the choice for empire rather than freedom. By acknowledging Joseph Bonaparte as king, and coming into the Napoleonic system, they might be able to turn their whole strength against the discontented Americans. This idea had one fatal error: any Spaniard could see that submission to France meant war with Great Britain: and then the way across the Atlantic would be closed. The British government would be forced into an alliance with the colonists; it had already thought of this device in the old days before Napoleon’s invasion of the Peninsula. Whitelock’s unhappy Buenos Ayres expedition in 1807 had been sent out precisely to take advantage of the discontent of the Americans, and in the hope that they would rise against the mother country if promised assistance. The adventurer Miranda had spent much time in pressing this policy on the Portland cabinet. Whitelock’s descent on the Rio de la Plata, it is true, had been as disappointing in the political as in the military line: he had got no help whatever from the disaffected colonists. But feeling in America had developed into much greater bitterness since 1807: in 1812 actual insurrection had already broken out. British aid would not, this time, be rejected: the malcontents would buy it by the grant of liberal trading concessions, which the Cadiz government, even in its worst time of trouble, had steadily refused to grant. There was every chance, therefore, that a policy of submission to Napoleon would ensure the loss of America even more certainly and more rapidly than a persistence in the present war. It does not seem that any person of importance at Cadiz ever took into serious consideration the idea of throwing up the struggle for independence, in order to obtain the opportunity of dealing with the American question.
The idea, however, was in the air. This was the time at which King Joseph made his last attempt to open up secret negotiation with the patriots. His own condition was unhappy enough, as has been sufficiently shown in an earlier chapter: but he was well aware that the outlook of his enemies was no less gloomy. One of the numerous—and usually impracticable—pieces of advice which his brother had sent him was the suggestion that he should assemble some sort of a Cortes, and then, posing as a national king, try to open up communications with the Cadiz government, setting forth the somewhat unconvincing thesis that Great Britain, and not France, was the real enemy of Spanish greatness. The idea of calling a Cortes fell through: the individuals whom Joseph could have induced to sit in it would have been so few, so insignificant, and so unpopular, that such a body could only have provoked contempt[138]. But an attempt was made to see if anything could be done at Cadiz: the inducement which Joseph was authorized to offer to the patriots was that immediately on his recognition as a constitutional king by the Cortes—and a constitution was to be drawn up in haste at Madrid—the French army should retire from Spain, and the integrity of the realm should be guaranteed. Napoleon even made a half-promise to give up Catalonia, though he had practically annexed it to his empire in the previous year[139].
Joseph and his ministers had no confidence either in the Emperor’s sincerity in making these offers, or in the likelihood of their finding any acceptance among the patriots. He sent, however, to Cadiz as his agent a certain Canon La Peña, a secret Afrancesado, but a brother of Manuel La Peña, the incapable general who had betrayed Graham at Barrosa. This officer was on his trial at the moment for his misbehaviour on that occasion, and the canon pretended to have come to assist him in his day of trouble on grounds of family affection. It would seem that he sounded certain persons but with small effect. Toreno, who was present in Cadiz at the time, and well acquainted with every intrigue that was in progress, says that the Regency never heard of the matter, and that very few members of the Cortes knew what La Peña was doing. It seems that he had conversations with certain freemasons, who were connected with lodges in Madrid that were under French influence, and apparently with one member of the ministry. ‘I do not give his name,’ says the historian, ‘because I have no documentary proof to bear out the charge, but moral proof I have[140].’ Be this as it may, the labours of La Peña do not seem to have been very fruitful, and the assertion made by certain French historians, and by Napoleon himself in the Mémorial de Ste-Hélène, that the Cortes would have proceeded to treat with Joseph, but for Wellington’s astonishing successes in the spring of 1812, has little or no foundation. As Toreno truly observes, any open proposal of the sort would have resulted in the tearing to pieces by the populace of the man hardy enough to make it. The intrigue had no more success than the earlier mission of Sotelo, which has been spoken of in another place[141]. But it lingered on, till the battle of Salamanca in July, and the flight of Joseph from Madrid in August, proved, to any doubters that there may have been, that the French cause was on the wane[142]. One of the most curious results of this secret negotiation was that Soult, hearing that the King’s emissary was busy at Cadiz, and not knowing that it was at Napoleon’s own suggestion that the experiment was being made, came to the conclusion that Joseph was plotting to abandon his brother, and to make a private peace with the Cortes, on condition that he should break with France and be recognized as king. He wrote, as we shall presently see, to denounce him to Napoleon as a traitor. Hence came no small friction in the following autumn.
These secret intrigues fell into a time of keen political strife at Cadiz—the famous Constitution, which was to cause so much bickering in later years, was being drafted, discussed, and passed through the Cortes in sections, all through the autumn of 1811 and the winter of 1811-12. The Liberals and the Serviles fought bitterly over almost every clause, and during their disputes the anti-national propaganda of the handful of Afrancesados passed almost unnoticed. It is impossible in a purely military history to relate the whole struggle, and a few words as to its political bearings must suffice.
The Constitution was a strange amalgam of ancient Spanish national tradition, of half-understood loans from Great Britain and America, and of political theory borrowed from France. Many of its framers had obviously studied the details of the abortive ‘limited monarchy’ which had been imposed on Louis XVI in the early days of the French Revolution. From this source came the scheme which limited within narrow bounds the sovereign’s power in the Constitution. The system evolved was that of a king whose main constitutional weapon was that right of veto on legislation which had proved so unpopular in France. He was to choose ministers who, like those of the United States of America, were not to sit in parliament, nor to be necessarily dependent on a party majority in the house, though they were to be responsible to it. There was to be but one Chamber, elected not directly by the people—though universal suffrage was introduced—but by notables chosen by the parishes in local primary assemblies, who again named district notables, these last nominating the actual members for the Cortes.
The right of taxation was vested in the Chamber, and the Ministry was placed at its mercy by the power of refusing supply. The regular army was specially subjected to the Chamber and not to the King, though the latter was left some power with regard to calling out or disbanding the local militia which was to form the second line in the national forces—at present it was in fact non-existent, unless the guerrillero bands might be considered to represent it.
The most cruel blows were struck not only at the King’s power but at his prestige. A clause stating that all treaties or grants made by him while in captivity were null and void was no doubt necessary—there was no knowing what documents Napoleon might not dictate to Ferdinand. But it was unwise to formulate in a trenchant epigram that ‘the nation is free and independent, not the patrimony of any family or person,’ or that ‘the people’s obligation of obedience ceases when the King violates the laws.’ And when, after granting their sovereign a veto on legislation, the Constitution proceeded to state that the veto became inoperative after the Cortes had passed any act in three successive sessions, it became evident that the King’s sole weapon was to be made ineffective. ‘Sovereignty,’ it was stated, ‘is vested essentially in the nation, and for this reason the nation alone has the right to establish its fundamental laws.’ But the most extraordinary attack on the principle of legitimate monarchy was a highhanded resettlement of the succession to the throne, in which the regular sequence of next heirs was absolutely ignored. If King Ferdinand failed to leave issue, the crown was to go to his brother Don Carlos: if that prince also died childless, the Constitution declared that the infante Don Francisco and his sister the Queen of Etruria were both to be passed over. No definite reasons were given in the act of settlement for this astonishing departure from the natural line of descent. The real meaning of the clause concerning Don Francisco was that many suspected him of being the son of Godoy and not of Charles IV[143]. As to the Queen of Etruria, she had been in her younger days a docile tool of Napoleon, and had lent herself very tamely to his schemes. But it is said that the governing cause of her exclusion from the succession was not so much her own unpopularity, as the incessant intrigues of her sister Carlotta, the wife of the regent João of Portugal, who had for a long time been engaged in putting forward a claim to be elected as sole regent of Spain. She had many members of the Cortes in her pay, and their influence was directed to getting her name inserted in the list above that of her brother in the succession-roll, and to the disinheritance of her sister also. Her chance of ever reaching the throne was not a very good one, as both Ferdinand and Carlos were still young, and could hardly be kept prisoners at Valençay for ever. It is probable that the real object of the manœvres was rather to place her nearer to the regency of Spain in the present crisis, than to seat her upon its throne at some remote date. For the regency was her desire, though the crown too would have been welcome, and sometimes not only the anti-Portuguese party in the Cortes, but Wellington and his brother Henry Wellesley, the Ambassador at Cadiz, were afraid that by patience and by long intrigue her partisans might achieve their object.
Wellington was strongly of opinion that a royal regent at Cadiz would be most undesirable. The personal influences of a camarilla, surrounding an ambitious but incapable female regent, would add another difficulty to the numerous problems of the relations between England and Spain, which were already sufficiently tiresome.
This deliberate humiliation of the monarchy, by clauses accentuated by phrases of insult, which angered, and were intended to anger, the Serviles, was only accomplished after long debate, in which protests of the most vigorous sort were made by many partisans of the old theory of Spanish absolutism. Some spoke in praise of the Salic Law, violated by the mention of Carlotta as heiress to the throne, others (ignoring rumours as to his paternity) defended Don Francisco, as having been by his youth exempted from the ignominies of Bayonne, and dwelt on the injustice of his fate. But the vote went against them by a most conclusive figure.