Lord Wellington, a few days since, said that he hoped the Spaniards were in many respects getting on much better; that there was a numerous body now well clothed at least, and armed and tolerably disciplined; that he was always ordering the drills to go on with spirit, and by perseverance he thought they were much improving; that he never interfered with the mode, but asked what their military rules and laws were, and then said, “Well, that is very good; now mind and see that they are put in force, and, remember, it is not I but your law orders this; I have only to see your laws executed, which are very good, and they must be obeyed.” He said, the Staff here seemed well satisfied.
The artillery is what Lord Wellington rails at most. They cannot get on so well as he thinks they ought, or at least as he wants them to do. I do not mean in particular at this moment, but generally. The officers commanding this part of the army are rather heavy and slow, or, as Lord Wellington said himself one day of a late commander, “I took care to let him feel that I thought him very stupid.” “That must have been,” General Murray said privately, “by telling him so in plain terms, I have no doubt.” Colonel F——, who commanded the artillery at the battle of Salamanca, and who is very well spoken of by every one, but at times, I believe, is slow, was once with Lord Wellington at an audience when things went wrong, and Lord Wellington got irate, who told him pretty nearly that his friend concerning whom he was inquiring “might go to h—.” Colonel F—— came muttering out, “I’ll go, Sir, to the Quarter-Master-general for a route,” which Lord Wellington heard, and laughed at well.
General Murray says that on hunting-days he could get almost anything done, for Lord Wellington stands whip in hand ready to start, and soon despatches all business. Some of the Generals, Lord Wellington observed one day, used to come and hunt and then get on business, and get him to answer things in a hasty way, which he did not intend, but which they acted upon. “Oh, d—— them,” said he, “I won’t speak to them again when we are hunting.” Colonel F——’s friend on his route to his destination would have found plenty of fuel but less green forage than we have here.
By all accounts the first day after we were in Badajoz, the scene was very shocking in every way. Nothing but dead and wounded on all sides, and drunkenness and plunder in all directions. Even Lord Wellington, when in the street with his staff, was followed by drunken soldiers, continually firing feux-de-joie over his head with ball-cartridges, and never thinking where the balls went.
The Portuguese Government have got bolder, and have tried some of our people by their laws, when caught in the act, and have sent two or three of them to the coast of Africa. If this were generally known, it would do more good, I believe, than our flogging. Lord Wellington said formerly, that their government always declined trying our people themselves, but now they generally accepted the offer when made. Lieutenant K——, of the Guards, who was tried and acquitted last week of ordering a sentry to fire and killing a native, was very much alarmed lest the Portuguese should try him, as it was at first agreed. It was a hasty act on his part, but there was a slight riot, and I think in law he was properly acquitted, for he was struck with a stone by some one in the mob which was collected.
My cases are now rather increasing again, I think, and will probably continue until we march. I have had two very blackguard officers to try in the Royal Drivers’ corps. Sheep-stealing has now succeeded to pig-shooting, as pork is out of season. The horses are now like mad when turned out, and are scampering all over the country.
I had a long conversation with Lord Wellington yesterday. After discussing our business up and down the market-place, he said that “the want of rain began to be very alarming; but that as soon as the pontoons arrived he would be off. The heavy artillery have started two or three days since from Castello Branco, and will be here by the 31st. The pontoons are stuck somewhere on the road.” He discussed the war here, and in the North, with me: observing that, “a country ought to think well before it undertook to do what Spain did; that, certainly, Spain and Portugal were the fittest places to try the experiment of a battle for the mere soil, because in general there was nothing else in the country much worth fighting for, or which could be much damaged.”
“As, for instance,” he added, “what is this village worth? burn it, and a few hundreds would make it as good as ever with a little labour; but now,” he continued, “he believed that a great portion of the Spaniards began to be very anxious to bring the business to a close; they had rather that we should beat out the French and be off, but, next to that, they had sooner the French beat us out, and had quiet possession, than that such a war as that of the last three years should be continued.” He said “he thought the Cortes were going on ill; that they were unpopular, knew it, and did not know how to set about becoming otherwise; that he disapproved of their meddling with the royal feudal tithes, or church property, and particularly with the elections of the next assembly, with which he thought they had nothing to do. They have declared the elections of one district all void, from some informality, and as the new elections have run much upon priests, they have been trying to make these void, as being within the clause concerning placemen in their constitution—‘that no placeman was to be elected for his own district.’ However,” he continued, “in the present state of things all the real and urgent business, and what is now the most material, namely, all relating to the army and the war, is done here, at Frenada, and let them squabble at Cadiz; if they will leave us alone, I don’t care. Portugal is for some time quite safe and out of the scrape, and if things go on well I think Spain will be out of the scrape also.” “But,” he added, “he should be almost sorry to see such a war as this has been carried on all over Germany, where there is so much to destroy, and to be lost.”
In spite of the poverty of the country and the difficulty as to obtaining bullocks, we have somehow or other collected one thousand here to begin the campaign with: I hear one hundred and fifty fine ones for the artillery.
April 26th.—I am kept going to the last minute. A number of new cases are come in, and I am very busy again; the more so, as the time is so short, and so uncertain when all my Courts are to break up. I cannot get below a dozen cases in hand, for new ones arise faster than I try the old ones.