♦Marshal Soult retreats from Galicia.♦
These terrible examples were not lost upon the enemy: if they did not make them abate of their barbarities, they made them eager to get out of a province where the people were able and determined to take such vengeance as their invaders had provoked. Marshal Ney indeed would have endeavoured yet to make a stand, if Soult would have continued to co-operate with him; but even if there had been no[18] ill will between them, views of more extensive measures, and necessity also, would have induced that General to form a different determination. He had received neither succours of any kind, nor instructions, nor even intelligence from Madrid for five months, so well had the Spaniards and Portugueze cut off all communication. There was not a place in Galicia where he could rest and supply his troops, or leave his sick in security, except the two great ports; and there he well knew they would be shut up between the Galician force and the English ships. He therefore refused to concur in any further movements, and began his retreat from Val de Orras and Viana by the Portillas de la Cauda and Requejo to the Puebla de Sanabria. Ney, finding he was thus left to his own resources, immediately ♦Ferrol and Coruña evacuated by the French.♦ prepared to evacuate Coruña and Ferrol. He destroyed the magazines and stores of every kind, and the defences on the land side, spiked the guns, and completely disarmed both the place and the people. Ferrol was evacuated by the last division of the enemy on the 21st, Coruña on the following day, and Ney retreated through Lugo, Villafranca, and Astorga. He had formed an encampment between Betanzos and Lugo; and this, before his final retreat was known, kept the persons whom he had established in authority in fear or hope of his return, so that no communication was suffered with the British ships, except by flag of truce. The batteries and lines on the sea-side having been left uninjured, Captain Hotham of the Defiance, impatient of this conduct, landed a party of seamen and marines, and dismounted all the guns which bore upon the anchorage. When Noroña arrived a few days afterwards, he expressed some displeasure at this; but the propriety of the measure was so evident when the circumstances which occasioned it were explained, that this ♦June 26.♦ feeling was only momentary. Captain Hotham having thus opened a communication with Coruña, sent Captain Parker to Ferrol, where the joy of the people, at seeing an English officer in their streets, was manifested by the loudest acclamations, and by every possible mark of attachment. The Castle of S. Felipe was still held by a traitor whom Ney had appointed to the command. He had under him a legion which the French had raised while they were in possession of the two towns, and over these men he retained his authority as long as the real state of affairs could be concealed. This traitor gave orders to fire upon any English ships or boats that might attempt to pass: Captain Hotham, upon this, stood over to Ferrol in the Defiance, and landed the marines of that ship and of the Amazon, with a party of armed seamen under Captain Parker, who proceeded to attack the castle. But though the men who garrisoned it had been weak enough to suffer themselves to be enrolled in the Intruder’s service, they refused to obey their commander, now that it was in their power to deliver themselves, and joyfully welcomed the English, who entered preceded by the Spanish colours.
♦Marshal Soult complains of some of his officers.♦
The retreat of the French was conducted in what was now their usual manner. They are described by Romana as leaving every where marks of their atrocities, whole villages consumed by fire, victims of both sexes and all ages butchered, and committing enormities too dreadful to be recounted. The system had in reality been so wicked, that even some of the French themselves revolted at the course of crimes into which they had been led; and Marshal Soult, in a dispatch to the intrusive government, complained of what he called a moral debility in some of his generals. “In the kind of war which we carry on,” he said, “and with the sort of enemy whom we have to contend with, it is of great importance to the success of our operations that the chiefs who are at the head of the troops should be not only impassible, but that they possess a force of mind which places them in all circumstances above events even the most vexatious.” It was evident from this that there were officers who were shocked at the atrocities which they were called upon to order, and to witness, and to execute. The moral debility which was complained of meant a lingering of humanity, a return of honourable feeling, an emotion of conscience, a sense of the opprobrium that they were bringing upon their country, and of the guilt and infamy they were heaping upon themselves. For such a service officers were wanted who should be impassible, ... not merely unmoved at any effects, however horrible, of the system in which they were engaged, but incapable of any feeling whereby they could possibly be moved.
♦He recommends a plan for securing Galicia.♦
The dispatch in which this memorable avowal was contained was intercepted by one of those guerilla parties which now began to show themselves in different parts of Spain. It was written from Sanabria, at a time when Soult was not acquainted with Marshal Ney’s intention to evacuate Galicia. The war in that province, he said, was become very murderous, and infinitely disagreeable, and its termination was far distant. The only means of bringing it to a good conclusion would be to fortify seven or eight important posts, each capable of containing a garrison of 500 or 600 men, an hospital, and provisions for four months; by this means the people might be kept in check, the principal passes closed, and points of support provided for the columns acting in the province, in whatever direction they moved, where they might receive assistance and deposit their sick. This, he said, was a very powerful consideration; for it was not to be concealed that the present circumstances had a great effect upon the minds of the soldiers, knowing as they did, that if they were wounded or seized with fever at a distance from a place of safety, they were liable to perish for want of assistance, or to be put to death by the peasantry. A million of French money would suffice to put Galicia in this state of defence, and no money could be employed to better purpose, especially as a smaller number of troops would then suffice to occupy it. Lugo should be fortified, three block-houses erected on the line of Villafranca in the Bierzo, and the fortifications of Tuy, Monforte, Monterey, Viana, and the Puebla de Sanabria restored, which might easily be done. A few other posts might be added if needful.
♦Romana summoned to take his place in the Central Junta.♦
Some of these measures, Marshal Soult said, he had persuaded Marshal Ney to undertake. But when that dispatch was written Ney was on his retreat, and so harassed by the Spaniards, that he did not feel himself safe till he had got beyond Astorga into the plain country. Soult on his part proceeded to Zamora, and Galicia was thus delivered from its invaders. That kingdom was left in a state of dreadful exhaustion, and the anarchy to which all things tended was thereby increased. Men who had done their part in driving out the enemy, having now no means of providing for themselves, roamed about in armed parties, and lived as freebooters, so that the condition of the helpless inhabitants was little better than when they were under the French yoke. Romana appointed military governors in every province, and was taking measures for making its resources available to the general cause, when the Junta superseded him in the command. The pretext was that they required his presence among them; for upon the demise of the Principe Pio he had been chosen to succeed him as one of the deputies for Valencia, his native province; but the real cause was the complaints which were made against him by Jovellanos and his colleagues, for his interference in Asturias. Romana regarded not their accusations, knowing that he had acted with the best intentions, and believing that he had done what was best for the country: but he said to his friends that the Junta had never taken so false a step as in removing him at that time.
♦He orders a monument to be erected to Sir John Moore.♦
Before he left Coruña he erected a[19] temporary monument, in the name of his country, to the memory of Sir John Moore and the brave ♦His farewell to the army.♦ men who had fallen with him. And he published a farewell address to the remnant of those faithful soldiers whom he had brought from the Baltic, and who had accompanied him through all his dangers and privations. “Neither the marches of the Carthaginians in former times,” said he, “nor of the French in latter, can be compared with those incessant ones which you have made among the mountains of Castille, Galicia, and Asturias, during six months of nakedness, hunger, and misery. You have fought no boasted battles, but you have annihilated one of the tyrant’s proudest armies; aiding the national spirit, keeping up its noble excitement, wearying the enemy’s troops, destroying them in petty actions, and circumscribing their command to the ground upon which they stood. You have fulfilled the highest duties of the soldier; and I owe to you the reward, which all my labours, and cares, and thoughts as a general have aspired to. Your country was long ignorant of your best services; but the actions of Villa Franca, Vigo, the fields of Lugo, Santiago, and San Payo, free you from all reproach for having avoided to engage in fatal battles, and will make you terrible to those enemies who have been conquered and driven out, wherever the superiority of their forces was not too great to be overcome. Brave Spaniards, I acknowledge this day the want of that composure which I have always felt at your head. I am no longer your General. The government calls me from you to take a place in the Supreme Central Junta. Nothing but its irresistible will should separate me from you, nor make me renounce the right I have to partake in your future welfare, under your new commander. Take, soldiers, the last farewell of your General, and reckon always upon the gratitude and paternal love of your compatriot and companion in arms.”