♦Address of the Central Junta to the Galicians.♦
The Central Junta, upon the deliverance of Galicia, addressed one of their animated proclamations to the inhabitants. “People of Galicia,” they said, “upon seeing you fall into the power of the enemy without resistance, your naval ports and arsenals occupied by them, and so powerful and important a province subjected from sea to sea, indignation and grief made your country break out in cries of malediction and reproach, like a mother who complains to heaven and earth of the degradation of a daughter in whom alone she had confided. At that time reverses followed each other, as successes had done before. After the battles of Espinosa, and Burgos, and Tudela, came the passage of the Somosierra, the capture of Madrid, and the rout at Ucles, and then, to afflict the heart of the country, the ruin of Zaragoza, the defeat in Catalonia, and at Medellin. In all these memorable events, though fortune failed, our reputation was not lost, and Spain, suffering as she did, retained her confidence. But Galicia ... Galicia, entered without resistance, subdued without opposition, and bearing tranquilly the yoke of servitude, ... Galicia deranged all calculations of prudence, and was destroying the country by destroying hope. Who then in that night of misfortunes would have looked to Galicia for the first day-spring of joy? More glorious in your rise, than you had seemed weak in your fall, magnanimous Galicians! despair itself made you feel the strength of which you had not before been conscious. The cry of independence and vengeance was heard in your highways, your villages, your towns; the conquerors in their turn began to fear they should be conquered, and retired into their strong places; there they were pursued, and assaulted, and taken. Vigo delivered itself up with its oppressors, and Galicia, sending these prisoners to the other side of the sea, gave a proof as authentic as it was great, that the Spaniards had not wholly forgotten the art of subduing and binding the French. This was the first day of good fortune that rose on Spain after five months of disasters, ... others followed. In vain did Soult, hardly escaping from our allies at Porto, come with the relics of his beaten division to succour the weakened Ney. Harassed in their marches, decimated in their parties, cut off in their communications, and baffled in their hope of fighting great actions, these arrogant Generals despair of conquest, and execrate a war in which their men are consumed without glory. Weary of struggling against a physical force which every day strengthened, and a moral resistance which had made itself invincible, they fled at last from your soil in a state of miserable exhaustion, giving to Castille a new and great example that it is not possible to force the yoke upon a people who are unanimous in resisting it.
“The Spaniards do not yet know what war is, said those traitors to their country, who under the mask of a false prudence concealed their guilty selfishness. With such disheartening language they endeavoured to repress the generous impulses of loyalty. Base and pusillanimous men, we know what war is now! this terrible lesson is written upon our soil with the finger of desolation, it is engraved in our hearts with the dagger of vengeance. The execrable criminals whose instruments you have made yourselves have in their atrocities exceeded all that your perfidious mind could have foreseen, all that your terrified imagination could have foreboded. Transport yourselves to Galicia, if ye dare do it, ye miserable men, and there learn what is the standard of the true Spanish character! The blood which has there been shed is still steaming to heaven, the houses which have been burnt are still smoking, and the frightful silence of depopulation prevails over a country which was lately covered with villages and hamlets. But ask those families who, wandering among the mountains, chose rather to live with wild beasts, than communicate with the assassins to whom you had sold them: ask them if they repent of their resolution; seek among them one voice that shall follow you, one vote that shall exculpate you!
“People of Galicia, you are free! and your country, in proclaiming it, effaces with her tears of admiration and tenderness the mournful words wherein, in other times, she complained of you. You are free, and you owe your freedom to your exaltation of mind, to your courage, to your constancy. You are free, and Spain and all Europe congratulate you the more joyfully in proportion as your case had appeared desperate. All good men bless your name; and in holding you up as a model to the other provinces, we regard the day of your deliverance as a fortunate presage for the country.”
CHAPTER XXIII.
CATALONIA. BATTLE OF VALLS. DEATH OF REDING. BLAKE APPOINTED TO THE COMMAND. BATTLE OF ALCANIZ. FLIGHT OF THE SPANIARDS AT BELCHITE. COMMENCEMENT OF THE GUERILLAS.
♦1809.
February.♦
Three circumstances had materially contributed to the success of the Galicians: the aid and confidence which they derived from the British ships, whereby they were assisted first in recovering Vigo, and afterwards at the bridge of S. Payo; the rare virtues of Romana, whose single thought was how to serve his country, and who for that object, shrinking neither from responsibility nor obloquy, acted always with promptitude and decision upon his own judgement; and, lastly, the very condition, or rather destitution of his army: its name and presence had a powerful effect in rousing and encouraging the people, while the troops themselves felt and understood their utter inability for any other mode of warfare than that which their leader was pursuing, and thus derived strength from the very knowledge of their weakness. In Catalonia the people were not less brave and patriotic; there was a stronger British squadron off the coast; and the army was respectable for numbers, sufficiently equipped, and in a state of discipline not to be despised. But the Generals in succession were deficient either in military skill or natural talent, or that vigour of mind without which all other qualifications in a commander are of no avail.
♦Proceedings of the French after the fall of Zaragoza.♦