Memoir of the early campaigns of the Duke of Wellington, in Portugal and Spain, / By an officer employed in his army

by Earl of John Fane Westmorland

On the 10th of September the French garrison evacuated Lisbon, and General Hope was appointed Governor.

The joy of the inhabitants, when the national flag was hoisted, is beyond any description; an universal shout re-echoed through the town; innumerable banners, emblems of a new life of liberty, were displayed from every corner of the capital. The ships in the river, decorated with the proud symbols of national independence, proclaimed the triumph of the day, by repeated discharges of artillery; and for nine nights the town was universally illuminated, in token of the joy of the inhabitants at their deliverance, and of hatred to the oppressors, who still witnessed from their transports the detestation which was manifested of them.

Thus was ended the campaign in Portugal. Parts of it are to be regretted, but the great object for which it was undertaken was accomplished. Portugal was freed from the enemy by the genius of Sir Arthur Wellesley, and the bravery of British troops. Those means have preserved it independent, and have since accomplished the deliverance of the Peninsula. The succession of general officers to the command of an army considerably advanced in the operations of a campaign, will rarely be attended with advantage; to cast any blame upon those who succeeded in this instance to the command of the British army in Portugal, would be unjust; but we may be permitted to observe, that the genius of a great commander was marked in the first operations of the campaign; whilst a cold calculating policy conducted it to its final issue. Sir Arthur Wellesley soon after embarked for England; Sir Hew Dalrymple and Sir Harry Burrard were recalled; and the British army was intrusted to the command of Sir John Moore.

The events of the campaign in Spain had been various, during the period of which we have been speaking.

When the revolution first broke out in that country, when the massacre of the 2d of May had roused every patriot to revenge the murder of his countrymen, the force of the French in Spain was unprepared to repress so universal an insurrection. A corps of 20,000 men was, however, soon despatched, under the orders of General Dupont, to relieve the French fleet at Cadiz, and to seize upon that important post. General Dupont was too late; the Governor Solano, suspected of some attachment to the French, was murdered by the people, and the revolution was organized throughout Andalusia. General Castanos was appointed Captain-General, and was invested with the command of all the troops in the south of Spain.

He had a considerable number of veteran regiments, besides the volunteers who had at that time hastened to enrol themselves under the banners of their country. With an army so composed, General Castanos marched to oppose the progress of General Dupont. This officer was waiting, at Cordova and Andujar, the junction of a corps under General Wedel, which was marching to his assistance from Madrid; for although General Dupont had not as yet been opposed by any regular force, yet the universal hostility he had met with from the peasants, as well as the loss he had sustained by their desultory warfare, made it dangerous for him to attempt a further advance into the country.

General Castanos resolved to meet the French force before it should receive its expected reinforcements; he arrived with rapidity upon the Guadalquivir, opposite Cordova, and advanced upon Andujar. At the same time he detached a considerable corps, under Generals Coupigni and Reding, to pass the river higher up, to place itself in rear of Dupont, and to intercept his communications with Madrid. This object was effected; the corps reached Baylen on the 19th of July, and was placed between the army of Dupont and the reinforcement of 6,000 men under General Wedel. General Dupont had on the same evening determined to break up from his position near Andujar, where he had suffered considerably from the hostility of the peasants, as well as from the army of Castanos, which was engaged in continual skirmishes with his troops. He marched during the whole night towards Baylen, and arrived there in the morning; he found, however, the Spanish corps in position to receive him. General Dupont made immediate dispositions for attack; but he was foiled in all his attempts to penetrate the Spanish lines. He expected the arrival of General Wedel; but being at last exhausted, and dreading an attack both in front and rear, (as the corps of Castanos was following him), he sent a flag of truce to the Spaniards about two o’clock in the afternoon, and desired to capitulate. While the terms were discussing, but after some advantages had been seized over General Dupont’s army, the corps of General Wedel began to appear in rear of the Spaniards; it soon after made an attack upon them, but was repulsed; and General Dupont was told, that unless General Wedel was ordered to desist, and unless his corps was included in the capitulation, the whole of his army would be put to the sword. General Dupont was obliged to agree, and General Wedel was ordered to remain quiet, and to consider his corps as a part of the army which was to surrender. General Wedel feigned obedience to this order, but finding his communication with Madrid was open, he moved off in the course of the night, and endeavoured to reach La Mancha. When his march was discovered, the Spaniards announced to Dupont, that his whole army should pay for the atrocities committed by the French throughout Spain, and be immolated in the morning, unless Wedel was brought back. General Dupont had no means of preventing the execution of so alarming a menace, but complying with the alternative; he sent a senior officer in quest of Wedel, and brought him back from Carolina, which he had already reached: the whole of the two corps laid down their arms the same day, in conformity to a capitulation entered upon for that purpose.

There never was a more singular extinction of an army of near 25,000 men than that which has been described. General Dupont was esteemed the best officer in the French army; yet he surrendered a most effective corps to an army but just formed, and in part composed of inexperienced officers and soldiers. The results were most fortunate for the Spaniards; the kingdoms of Andalusia were freed from enemies, and their armies rendered disposable for the other operations of the war.

About the time that Dupont had been detached to Cadiz, General Moncey had been sent with 8,000 men to reduce Valencia to obedience; he marched for that purpose from Madrid, and arrived without much opposition within sight of the town.

Valencia is an old Moorish capital, surrounded by a very high wall, and secure against a coup de main. Moncey determined to attack it; but, without a battering train, he was reduced to the necessity of storming, without having made any preparations for it. The assault was directed against the southern gate, where the Spaniards had placed two guns, and secured them by some works which were not easy to be carried; the troops advanced from one of the streets of the suburbs, along which the Spanish guns did great execution, and at last obliged Moncey to give up the attempt, and retire with a considerable diminution of his numbers. The Spanish corps that were without the town menaced his retreat and Moncey was forced to march with great rapidity towards Alcira and St. Philippe, to secure a passage by a different road from that by which he had entered the kingdom. He was continually harassed, but he succeeded in crossing the river Xucar, and afterwards retired to Madrid with about half the corps he had originally taken from it.