♦Difficulties in bringing the Spanish armies into the field.♦
A full sense of their danger, when the whole wrong which was intended them was avowed, had roused the Spaniards to their first great and successful exertions. After their victorious troops had entered Madrid, they were less alive to the danger, and more sensible of the embarrassments of their situation. Sudden efforts, directed by the emergency which called them forth, would no longer avail. Foresight and combination were required for extensive operations; and these were thwarted by selfish views, and still more by capricious or obstinate tempers, which in this state of general insubordination there was nothing to restrain. The Galician army under Blake, having the plains of Castille before them, could not advance without cavalry in the face of an enemy who had from three to five thousand dragoons; and Cuesta would not send his cavalry to act under Blake, because of his quarrel with that General and with the Junta of Galicia. The Extremaduran army, from a similar feeling of pride, was kept vapouring before Elvas, while it was called for by all the authorities at Madrid. A more vexatious impediment was interposed by the Junta of Seville. That Board had thought proper, when the army in Andalusia was first raised, for one of its members to accompany the Commander-in-chief, that no injury might arise from delay in consulting the civil authority, and perhaps also to rid themselves of Tilly, who was the person appointed. When, to their disgrace, they elected this man to the Central Junta, D. Andres Miñano was deputed to the army in his stead, with a salary of a thousand dollars per month; but public opinion at Seville was so strongly expressed against this misapplication of the public money, and supported by so many members, especially by the Archbishop, that the allowance was reduced one half. The whole was a needless expense, for the Junta was still so tenacious of their authority, that this representative was a mere agent to execute their pleasure, and not to determine upon his own judgement. They sent positive orders that the army of Andalusia should not advance beyond Madrid; and knowing that Castaños had delivered his opinion strongly upon the impropriety of regarding any army as belonging to its own province instead of the kingdom at large, they let him know, that if these instructions were disobeyed he should not be supplied with money. At this time the French had driven the Spaniards from Tudela, and pushed forward to Borja; the troops which were opposed to them in that quarter falling back upon Zaragoza. Pressing demands for support came from Palafox: the Generals who were at Madrid saw that the Andalusian army ought to advance without delay, and this it could not do without money. This matter was taken up warmly by the British agents at Madrid and Seville; and as the Junta of that city had received two millions of dollars from the British Government, a strong remonstrance was presented to them upon their present conduct, and they were called upon to apply it to the public service without delay. Their reply, which, like all their papers, was written with great ability, would have been satisfactory, if they had not passed over in silence their orders that Castaños should not advance. They argued, that after all that Andalusia had done, it was to be expected that La Mancha and the other provinces which the Andalusian army was gone to protect, would provide for it while it was employed in their service. The sums which they had received from Great Britain had been sent expressly to them, as other sums had to the Juntas of Galicia and Asturias, who had neither incurred such expenses, nor contributed such aid to other parts of Spain. But upon this matter they waived all discussion; ... they answered the bills which an English agent at Madrid had negotiated for the use of their army, authorized Castaños to draw on them according to his wants, and immediately sent forward 200,000 dollars. This was just before the meeting of the Central Junta: the Andalusian army was then advanced to Soria, the Valencian under General Llamas moved to Zaragoza, and Blake toward Miranda upon the Ebro.
♦The Marques de la Romana.♦
One of the first things which Castaños had requested after he had opened a communication with Gibraltar was, that dispatches might be forwarded to Romana, who commanded the Spanish troops in the Baltic. He expressed the greatest anxiety concerning him and his army, who had been thus treacherously removed to so great a distance from their own country, but at the same time the fullest confidence in them and their Commander. He judged of the men as Spaniards, of the General by his individual character. D. Pedro Caro y Sureda, Marques de la Romana, was a man whose happy nature had resisted all the evil and debilitating influences of the age and country and rank in which he was born. His public career was begun in the navy; but having attained the rank of Capitan de Fragata, he quitted that profession for the land service, a change not unfrequent in Spain. During the French revolutionary war he served under his uncle, D. Ventura Caro, who commanded on the Biscayan frontier; and having distinguished himself there, was made General of division in the army of Catalonia, under Urrutia, where he continued to be conspicuous for his good conduct. When that miserably misconducted war was concluded by a scandalous peace, Romana devoted part of his leisure to the theory of his profession, which he was the better able to study as having received an excellent education, and made the best use of it. And so evenly did he steer his course, that without in the slightest degree courting the favour of Godoy, or sullying himself by any condescension, he never became an object of his persecution; a singular instance of good fortune in those disgraceful times, or rather of what may be effected by undeviating rectitude and good sense. For he possessed a rare union of frankness and perfect prudence; and while his own breast wore no disguise, and needed none, could read with unerring intuition the characters of others. There was in his manners that simplicity which is the sure indication of generosity and goodness, and which wins confidence while it commands respect. Spain, where honour is the characteristic virtue of the nation, where so many heroic and illustrious men have arisen, has never produced a man more excellently brave, more dutifully devoted to his country, more free from all taint of selfishness, more truly noble than Romana.
♦Distribution of his troops in the Baltic.♦
The force under his command consisted of about 14,000 men. They were marched to Hamburgh in Aug. 1807, and quartered there, along the Elbe and at Lubeck, as part of the army under Marshal Bernadotte, then Prince of Ponte Corvo. It was reported that this army was to invade Sweden, in conjunction with the Danes, and the Spanish division was put in motion accordingly about the middle of March. But when the van-guard, having safely crossed the Little Belt to the Isle of Funen, was preparing for the passage of the Great Belt, they were prevented by the appearance of an English frigate and brig between Nyeborg and Corsoer, at a season when it was thought no enemy’s vessels would venture into those seas. The remainder of the troops therefore were of necessity ordered to halt, and were quartered in Sleswic, till they should be able to effect the passage. The Prince Christian Frederick, of seventy-four guns, was sent to clear the Great Belt of these enemies, but falling in with the Stately and the Nassau, was captured, after a severe action, close to the shore of Zeeland. Bernadotte, who had crossed to that island a few hours only before the English cruisers appeared, was now, in order to return to his head-quarters at Odensee, obliged to go round the Isles of Falster and Laland, land in Sleswic, travel to Kolding, and from thence cross the Little Belt. Watching their opportunity, as they could during the months of April, May, and June, some of these troops got to the Isle of Langeland; and some succeeded in effecting by night the passage of the Great Belt from Funen to Zeeland, the greater number still remaining in Funen, or upon the coast of Jutland.
♦Their conduct when the oath of allegiance to Joseph was proposed.♦
The French journals affirmed that these troops had taken the oath of allegiance to the Intruder with unanimous enthusiasm. No man who knew the Spanish character believed this falsehood. They were in a situation where they were cut off from all communication with their own country, and where no intelligence could reach them but what came through the French press, or other channels equally under the control of the French government. Nevertheless in these garbled and falsified accounts they saw enough to convince them that their countrymen were not submitting to a foreign dominion so easily as the tyrant endeavoured to represent. This opinion was confirmed when a dispatch arrived from Urquijo to Romana, requiring the army to take the oath to the Intrusive King, that dispatch being the only paper which the courier brought; ... it was plain, therefore, that private letters were intercepted, and that something must have occurred of which it was important that they should be kept in ignorance. When the oath was proposed, it was taken without much demur by the troops in Jutland under D. Juan Kindelan, the second in command. Those in Funen, with the Commander, refused it vehemently at first, but took it at length conditionally, that is to say, with a protestation that it was to be null if the changes which had occurred in Spain were not confirmed by the general consent of the nation. The regiments of Asturias and Guadalaxara, which were in Zeeland, were less placable; being under the immediate command of a Frenchman, General Frerion, they attacked his house, killed one of his aids-de-camp, and wounded another, and he himself only escaped with life by disguising himself, and flying to Copenhagen. The men then planted their colours, knelt round them, and swore to be faithful to their country.
♦An agent sent to communicate with him.♦
The British Government meantime had not been inactive. The first difficulty was how to communicate with the Spanish Commander. A Roman-catholic priest, by name Robertson, was found willing to undertake this dangerous service, and qualified for it by his skill as a linguist. One Spanish verse was given him; to have taken any other credentials might probably have proved fatal, and there was an anecdote connected with this which would sufficiently authenticate his mission. During Mr. Frere’s residence as ambassador in Spain, Romana, who was an accomplished scholar, had recommended to his perusal the Gests of the Cid, as the most animated and highly poetical, as well as the most ancient and curious poem in the language. One day he happened to call when Mr. Frere was reading it, and had just made a conjectural emendation in one of the[35]lines; Romana instantly perceived the propriety of the proposed reading, and this line, therefore, when he was reminded of it, would prove that Mr. Robertson had communicated with his friend the British Ambassador. Mr. Mackenzie was sent with Robertson to Heligoland, there to provide means for landing him on the continent, and to make farther arrangements as circumstances might direct.