Marshal Ney had still a predominant force in Galicia after Soult’s army was departed; there were garrisons in every town which was sufficiently important, either for its size or situation, to require one, and the French had military possession of the province. But they had yet to subdue the spirit of the people; and the Galicians, who had no longer an example of panic and disorder before their eyes, carried on the war in their own way. Captain M’Kinley in the Lively frigate, with the Plover sloop under his command, arrived off the coast to assist them. He discovered none of that apathy for their own country, none of that contented indifference who was to be their master, none of that sullen and ungrateful dislike of the English, of which the retreating army had complained so loudly; he heard from them only expressions of gratitude to the British government and praise of the British nation; he perceived in them the true feelings of loyalty and patriotism, and saw in all their actions honest, enthusiastic ardour, regulated by a cool and determined courage. The invaders attempted, by the most unrelenting severity, to keep them down. On the 7th of March a party of French entered the little towns of Carril and Villa Garcia, murdered some old men and women in the streets, set fire to the houses of those persons whom they suspected of being hostile to them, and then retreated to Padron. To lay waste villages with fire, abandon the women to the soldiery, and put to death every man whom they took in arms, was the system upon which the French under Marshals Ney and Soult proceeded. Such a system, if it failed to intimidate, necessarily recoiled upon their own heads; and the thirst of vengeance gave a character of desperation to the courage of the Galicians. About an hundred French were pillaging a convent, when Don Bernardo Gonzalez, with two-and-thirty Spaniards, fell upon them, and did such execution while the enemy were in disorder and encumbered with their plunder, that only sixteen escaped. During three days the French attempted to destroy the peasants of Deza and Trasdira; the men of Baños and Tabieros came to aid their countrymen, and the invaders at length retreated with the loss of 114 ♦March 9.♦ men. A party from Pontevedra entered Marin: here the Lively and the Plover opened their fire upon them, and as they fled from the English ships, their officers fell into the hands of the peasantry. In this kind of perpetual war the French were wasted; a malignant fever broke out among them, which raged particularly at their head-quarters in Santiago, and many who had no disease died of the fatigue which they endured from being incessantly harassed, and kept night and day on the alarm.
♦Barrios sent into Galicia.♦
D. Manuel Garcia de Barrios, who held the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, had arrived in Galicia early in March with credentials from the Central Junta authorising him to take such measures as he might deem expedient for its recovery, ... and this was all with which the government could furnish him. He had, however, two brave and able officers under him, D. Manuel Acuña and D. Pablo Morillo, then a young man, who had already distinguished himself ♦Vol. ii. p. 460.♦ upon the Tagus. These officers took the coast and the interior in this military mission, while Barrios took the southern part of the province; and they communicated with Romana and Silveira. Barrios was with the latter General when the French approached Chaves, and, being prevented by an accident from leaving the town with him, was shut in there during its short siege. Aware that if the enemy recognised him they would probably put him to death, or at best compel him to choose between imprisonment and taking the oaths to the Intruder, he escaped over the walls when they entered the place, and remained for some days secreted in a cottage, suffering severely from a fall and from want of food, and having lost every thing, even his papers. He made his way, however, to the Valle Real de Lobera, where he thought Romana would have taken some measures for raising men; and there he found the spirit which he expected. His report of himself and of his commission was believed, though he had no credentials to produce: a Junta was formed, volunteers were raised, and there, in a confined district, where they were half blockaded by the enemy, plans were laid for the deliverance of Galicia, Barrios having for his coadjutors the abbots of S. Mamed and Couto. Their communication with Romana was impeded by the French at Lugo; but they received tidings of co-operation in another quarter where they had not looked for it, and prepared with all alacrity to take advantage of the opportunity that offered.
♦The Portugueze and Galicians blockade Tuy.
March 10.♦
While Soult was before Chaves a party of Portugueze, under Alexandre Alberto de Serpa, crossed the Minho near its mouth, and were joined at Guardia by the peasantry; in a few days some thousand men had collected; the Mayorazgo, D. Joaquin Tenreyro, put himself at their head, and their parish priests acted as officers. The two Abbots, who had taken the title of Generals, and disputed which should be called Commander-in-chief of Galicia, compromised their difference by electing Barrios commandant-general of the province of Tuy and division of the Minho, and they set out with all the force they could muster to join one party of these insurgents who blockaded the French in Tuy, while Morillo and Acuña were directed to join the others, who, officered as they were, undisciplined and ill equipped, had proceeded to besiege the enemy’s garrison in Vigo. It had been Soult’s intention, neglecting all points of less importance, to concentrate in Tuy all the troops belonging to his army whom he had left in Galicia. But when a column of about 800 men, under the chef d’escadron Chalot, bringing with it the heavy baggage of the general officers and the military chest, was on the way thither from Santiago, General Lamartiniere ordered them to Vigo, where the resources were greater both for the men and horses.
♦Vigo.♦
The town of Vigo is situated in a bay, which is one of the largest, deepest, and safest in the whole coast of the peninsula. It is built upon a rock; but, notwithstanding the severe loss which the Spaniards, during the War of the Succession, suffered in that port, no care had been taken to fortify it; it had merely a wall, a fort flanked with four bastions on the land side, and an old castle, equally dilapidated, toward the sea. The neighbourhood of Ferrol has made it neglected as a naval station, and Galicia is too poor a country for foreign commerce. There was, however, a manufactory of hats there, which were exported to America; and a fishery was carried on so extensively as to afford employment for thirty mercantile houses. It derived some importance also from being the seat of government for the province of Tuy. The population amounted to 2500. Sir John Moore had at first fixed upon this port as the place of his embarkation, and ordered the transports there; and the delay occasioned by waiting till they came round Cape Finisterre to join him at Coruña gave time for the French to come up, and for that battle, which, while it redeemed the character of the army, proved fatal to himself.
♦The Spaniards appear before Vigo.♦
Captain Crawford, in the Venus frigate, was off the port, and he wrote to Captain M’Kinley, who was then at Villa Garcia, in the Lively, telling him how much the presence of his ship would contribute to the success of the Spaniards. Meantime Morillo arrived to examine the state of the siege. He learnt that a reinforcement of 1800 French were at this time in Pontevedra, about four leagues off. They had to cross the bridge of St. Payo, over a river which discharges itself into the head of the Bay of Vigo, and Morillo immediately took measures for defending the passage. From Don Juan Antonio Gago, an inhabitant of Marin, who was at the head of 500 peasants, he obtained two eight-pounders, and from the town of Redondella one twenty-four and two eighteen-pounders. With these means of defence he entrusted this position to Don Juan de O’Dogherty, a lieutenant in the Spanish navy, who had the command of three gun-boats. While he was taking these necessary measures, part of Romana’s army, which Soult boasted of having destroyed a fortnight before, drove the enemy back from Pontevedra, and took possession of the town. Morillo joined them; and being of opinion that the reduction of Vigo was the most important object which could then be undertaken, they proceeded to that place.
♦Recapture of that place.♦