The day on which Carrera drove the enemy from Santiago Romana[17] landed at Ribadeo, and joined his army at Mondoñedo. Here he was informed of Soult’s arrival at Lugo, and apprehending immediately that an effort would be made by the two Marshals to enclose him, he marched by the Valle de Neyra to Orense, and there took up a defensive position, covered by the Minho and the Sil. The Conde de Noroña, D. Gaspar Maria da Nava, had just at this time arrived in Galicia, with the appointment of second military and political chief, and had taken the command at Santiago: him he directed to withdraw from that city and retire upon Pontevedra, and he applied to Silveira for assistance; but the Portugueze general could not move without orders from Marshal Beresford. It was believed by the Galician army, that if the Portugueze had continued the pursuit two days longer, even without the British, Soult’s men were in so helpless and miserable a state, that they would gladly have surrendered, Lugo must have fallen, and the remainder of the enemy have been shut up in Coruña. If the event was less advantageous to the common cause, it was more honourable to the Galicians.
♦Proceedings of Soult.♦
Soult had remained eight days at Lugo, and had sent off for France 1100 men, who were completely broken down by the sufferings of the campaign. Still his troops were in such a state that when he reached Monforte it was found necessary to give them some days more of rest. They were in one of the finest parts of Galicia, and in the most delightful season of the year; but there was the dreadful feeling for those whose hearts were not completely hardened, that every inhabitant of that country was their mortal foe. Into whatever town or village they entered, not a living soul was to be found, except those who from infirmity were unable to follow their countrymen. They who had arms were gone to join the army; the others, with the women and children, had taken refuge in the wild parts of that wild region, and were on the watch for every opportunity of weakening their invaders by putting a straggler to death. During the five days that they halted, the French suffered considerable loss; and when they attempted to cross the Sil, they found it not so practicable for them to effect a passage in the face of an enemy, as it had been for the English at Porto. That sort of war was kept up which, under the circumstances of Spain, tended to the sure destruction of the invaders. The Spaniards never exposed themselves, and never lost an opportunity of harassing the enemy. They availed themselves of their perfect knowledge of the country to profit by every spot that afforded cover to their marksmen; and leaving their fields to be ravaged, their property to be plundered, and their houses to be destroyed, they applied themselves, with a brave recklessness of every thing except their duty, to the great object of ridding the country of its invaders. Wherever the French bivouacked, the scene was such as might rather have been looked for in a camp of predatory Tartars than in that of a civilized people. Food, and forage, and skins of wine, and clothes and church vestments, books and guitars, and all the bulkier articles of wasteful spoil, were heaped together in their huts with the planks and doors of the habitations which they had demolished. Some of the men, retaining amid this brutal service the characteristic activity and cleverness of their nation, fitted up their huts with hangings from their last scene of pillage, with a regard to comfort ♦Naylies, 147.♦ hardly to have been expected in their situation, and a love of gaiety only to be found in Frenchmen. The idlers were contented with a tub, and if the tub were large enough, three or four would stow themselves in it.
♦Cruelties exercised by the French.♦
The utmost efforts of the French were ineffectual against the spirit which had now been raised in Galicia. It was in vain that detachments were sent wherever the Spaniards appeared in a body: accustomed as the invaders were to the work of destruction, they were baffled by a people who dispersed before a superior force could reach them, and assembled again as easily as they had separated. The task of burning villages, erecting gibbets, and executing, as if in justice, such Spaniards as fell into his hands, was assigned to Loison, who discharged it to the utmost of his power with characteristic remorselessness. But it is not upon Loison, however willing and apt an agent of such wickedness, and however much of the guilt he may have made his own, that the infamy of these measures must be charged; it was the system of the French government, and the French Marshals had consented to act upon it; and that they were as ready to have acted upon it toward the British army, if fortune had enabled them, as toward those whom they called the Spanish insurgents, was evinced by their putting to death ♦See vol. ii. p. 451.♦ a handful of stragglers near Talavera, and by the manner in which the bulletins announced an act as disgraceful to the army which permitted it, as it was repugnant to all the laws and usages of war.
♦Defeat of the French at the bridge of S. Payo.♦
While Soult was thus employed in the interior of the province, laying it waste with fire and sword, always in pursuit, but always baffled, and harassed always by a people whom his cruelty served only to exasperate, Ney proceeded to execute his part of their concerted operations, with a force of 8000 foot and 2500 horse. Upon his approach the Conde de Noroña retreated from Pontevedra to the Bridge of S. Payo, where, immediately after the recovery of Vigo, Morillo had broken down two of the arches, and thrown up works for defending the passage. In this position, which had thus in ♦1809.
June.♦ good time been strengthened, Noroña resolved to make a stand for covering Vigo, from whence the Spaniards now received their stores. Boats were procured from Vigo and Redondela to form a bridge for the passage of the troops; enough could not be found to construct one in the usual form, and it was necessary to moor them broadside to the stream, fasten them together head and stern, and then lay planks along, torn from the neighbouring houses. The narrowness of this bridge considerably lengthened the time employed in passing, nevertheless the passage was effected before the enemy appeared. The troops were formed on the southern bank; they were now increased to between 6000 and 7000 men, besides 3000 who were without fire-arms; they had 120 horse, and nine field-pieces, and a battery of two eighteen-pounders planted on a height above the bridge. Captain M’Kinley, who was still in the port of Vigo, was informed of this on the evening of the 6th of June. Very early the following morning he went up in his barge to S. Payo, and while he was conferring with Carrera, the French appeared on the opposite bank. The Galician troops had undergone great fatigue, having been constantly exposed to continued and heavy rain: nothing, however, could exceed their spirit; it required all the efforts of their officers to prevent them from pushing across and attacking an enemy whom they had such cause to hate. Ney posted his troops in the houses on the right bank and in a wood a little below, and kept up his attack the whole day. During the night he erected a battery; some of his men also laid ladders upon the first breach, and got upon the brink of the second; but when daylight appeared they were soon driven back.
Captain M’Kinley passing safely within gunshot of the enemy’s field-pieces, returned to Vigo as soon as the action commenced: with the assistance of Colonel Carol, he provided for the security of that place, and the Spanish commodore sent up three gun-boats to assist in the defence. One of these Captain Wynter manned under charge of Lieutenant Jefferson. A Spanish schooner and a Portugueze one went also upon this service. At daybreak the French battery opened both upon the troops and the boats; but the latter, taking advantage of the tide, got near, and destroyed the battery. When the tide fell, the enemy made two desperate attempts with horse and foot to cross above the bridge; the Spaniards steadily resisted, and both times drove them back with great slaughter. Baffled here, a detachment went up the river, thinking to cross at the ford of Sotomayor; Morillo was sent to oppose them, and after they had vainly persevered in their attempt for an hour and half, compelled them to retire. They made another attack under cover of a thick fog; this also was as unsuccessful as the former, and Ney being thus defeated by a new-raised army of inferior numbers, nearly half of whom were unarmed, retreated during the night, leaving some of his wounded, and 600 dead.
♦The Spaniards retaliate upon the French.♦
Marshal Ney had acted upon the same infamous system of cruelty as his brother Marshals. The peasantry from the beginning repaid their inhumanities: and although it was long before the Spanish officers could resolve upon resorting to the dreadful principle of retaliation, they also were at length compelled to it. It was not to be supposed that they could see their countrymen murdered without using those means of prevention and punishment which were in their hands. At Lourizon thirty religioners and forty-nine of the principal inhabitants had been hung by the French, who then set the place on fire: in return for this barbarity 130 prisoners taken at the Bridge of S. Payo were put to death. Barrios, while he commanded, had repeatedly remonstrated with Ney upon the atrocious system of warfare which he pursued; his representations were treated with contempt, and at length he executed the threats with which he had vainly endeavoured to enforce them, and threw at one time 700 Frenchmen into the Minho.