O'Donnel, "whose energy and military talents," says Napier, "were superior to all his predecessors," now sent Caro with 6000 men against the French at Villa Franca, where unfortunately they were all killed or captured; and being wounded, he was compelled for a time to resign the command to General Gasca.
On the 6th April, he harassed the French, then retreating from Tarragona towards Barcelona; and after retiring from Vich with an army discomfited by only 5000 Frenchmen, with the same discomfited men he baffled Augereau, who led 20,000 bayonets; forced him to abandon Lower Catalonia, and to retreat in disgrace to Gerona, where Marshal Macdonald, a Scotsman, was sent by Napoleon to succeed him. During the investment of Hostalric by the French, Henry O'Donnel collected many convoys for its relief; he attacked the blockade at several points with the Miguelets, and particularly distinguished himself in a noble and dashing attempt to relieve the brave Julian Estrada, on the night of the 12th May, when this strong citadel fell. During the siege of Lerida by Suchet, O'Donnel collected two divisions of 4000 each; with these and 600 cavalry he skilfully passed the defile of Momblanch, and fought the contest of Margalef, where his troops were defeated; but he rallied, and led them again upon the columns of the Duc d'Albufera. The struggle was terrible; but he was forced to retreat through the passes, leaving one general, eight colonels, 5000 men, and three guns in the hands of the foe. His force was now 1400 strong, well supplied by the active Miguelets; and by the bravery of his soldiers and his own unwearying zeal he long prevented the siege of Tortoza, and found full employment for the enemy during the remainder of the year.
"After the battle of Margalef, Henry O'Donnel re-united his forces, and being of a stern, unyielding disposition, not only repressed the discontents occasioned by that defeat, but forced the reluctant (and lawless) Miguelets to supply his ranks and submit to discipline." Thus, in July he had twenty-two thousand men when Marshals Macdonald and Suchet combined to crush him, and when Napoleon's order to invest Tortoza arrived. On this O'Donnel, after making a skilful feint towards Trivisa, suddenly threw himself with ten thousand men into the fated city, from whence, upon the noon of the 3rd July, he fell furiously upon the French entrenchments, and made a fearful slaughter of the troops of Laval. After this he retired to Tarragona. Having cut off Macdonald's communication with the walled city of Ampurias, he now conceived and executed the most skilful and vigorous plan which had yet graced the Spanish arms.
Leaving Campo Verde in the valley of Aro, on the 14th, he marched rapidly down from Casa de Silva upon Abispal, where the French, under Swartz, were entrenched. He attacked them, slew two hundred, and, taking the rest, embarked them for Tarragona, whither he retired soon after, to take a little repose, being troubled by his last wound; yet in January, 1811, we find him again in arms, directing the movements of the army, and harassing Marshals Macdonald and Suchet, though unable to ride or appear in the field; and on his being created Conde de Abispal, he resigned the command of his Catalonians, three thousand in number, to Campo Verde, being so disabled by wounds that he was quite unable to conduct the siege of Tortoza.
In October, 1812, he was appointed to that situation, which several Irish soldiers of fortune have held—Captain-General of Andalusia,—and on Wellington reaching Cadiz in December of that year, after the retreat from Burgos, on his making a complete re-organization of the Spanish forces, the first reserve corps was given to the Conde de Abispal, and the second reserve to Lacy. Thus they both served in the new campaign which ended so gloriously on the field of Vittoria. After this signal victory, the task of reducing the forts near the tremendous pass of Pancorbo, which secured the approach to the Ebro, was given to the Irish Conde and his Andalusians, to whom they fell partly by storm and partly by capitulation.
On the 14th July, 1813, to O'Donnel and his reserve of five thousand was permanently entrusted the important duty of blocking up the French garrison in Pampeluna, now almost the last stronghold of Napoleon in Spain. This task he conducted with great vigour, while Wellington secured the passes of the Pyrenees and pushed the siege of San Sebastian; but on Soult forcing the passes on the 25th July, such an alarm reached Pampeluna, that the Conde de Abispal spiked some of his cannon, blew up his magazines, abandoned the trenches, and but for Picton's victorious stand at Huarte, was prepared to retreat. On the fortunate arrival of a small Spanish division under Don Carlos d'Espana, the blockade was resumed and the siege pressed with renewed vigour.
O'Donnel was posted on the right of Marshal Murillo at the great and decisive battle of Pampeluna, so absurdly and obstinately styled by the British the battle of the Pyrenees, from which it is nearly thirty miles distant. Soult was completely overthrown, and in August O'Donnel reinforced the seventh division in occupying the important passes of Exhallar and Zugaramurdi. After this, being again troubled by old wounds, he fell ill and resigned his command for a time to Giron. In November he resumed it again, and occupied the beautiful valley of the Bastan, prior to the invasion of France under Wellington.
In February, 1814, he led six thousand men at the passage of the Gaves, and was engaged in all the operations on the Lower Pyrenees with the Spaniards under the Prince of Anglona. He served in that victorious campaign which terminated at the blood-stained hill of Toulouse, where, as General Napier so pithily remarks, "the war terminated, and with it all remembrance of the veterans' services."
In the Constitutional war which ensued in Spain nine years after, and during the invasion of that country by monarchical France in 1823, the O'Donnels bore a prominent part, and adhered to Ferdinand VII. The Conde de Abispal was appointed a field-marshal, with the office of governor and political chief at Madrid, and on the 25th March he issued a proclamation announcing that the amnesty granted by the Cortes to those in arms against the king was about to expire, and concluded by a brief warning to the factious and the Constitutionalists to lay down their arms. On the 17th April he published his able orders and propositions to the militia of the capital, together with the following declaration of his political principles:—
"Don Henry O'Donnel, Knight Grand Cross, &c., General
of the 3rd Corps, &c."Having learned that some ill-disposed persons have confounded my private opinion with those sacred obligations which my oath and duty impose upon me, and have given out that I am unwilling to support the Constitution of 1812 even to the last extremity, and until the national representation, lawfully constituted, should have made certain changes therein; I do declare that I am resolved to defend it, according to my oath, until it shall be altered by those means which the Constitution itself prescribes, and that I deem as traitors all Spaniards who, deviating from the path of duty traced out by law, shall cease to obey the same. Such were my sentiments when, in answer to an address from M. Montijo, I wrote a letter which they charge me with having published, and such will ever be my sentiments. But my opinion as an individual shall never prevent me from fulfilling my duty as a general and a citizen of Spain.
"Madrid, 17th May, 1823."