♦Mr. Jacob;♦
Upon this, Mr. Jacob, who had recently returned from Spain, denied that France had any complete occupation of that country, either civil or military. In Catalonia, he said, it would be difficult to say, whether there were at that moment more Spanish towns besieged by the French, or towns occupied by French troops besieged by the Spaniards; and the communications were so completely cut off, that the French could not send a letter from Barcelona to Gerona, without an escort of at least 500 cavalry to protect it. Generally speaking, throughout the whole of Spain, those towns only were surrendered which were under the influence of the nobility and gentry of large estates; but the mass of the people were patriotic, and the villages were defended after the towns had been betrayed. And not only the villages, but the mountains, were still obstinately defended. He believed, that among the nobility and gentry, where there were two brothers, the man of great possessions was always for submitting to the enemy, while the other joined the patriotic standard. We had been accustomed to consider civil wars as the most horrible of all kinds of hostilities, but never was any civil war so horrible as that which was now raging in Spain. The massacre, the pillage, and the violence offered to women, were unparalleled. He had lately been witness to some of these atrocities. The town of Puerto Real had surrendered upon terms, and Victor, upon entering it, published a proclamation, promising the most perfect security to all the inhabitants. Nevertheless, he had hardly taken possession before he ordered the men, who were mostly artificers at the docks in Cadiz, to be imprisoned, and the females were marched down to St. Mary’s, to be violated by his army.
It might have been thought that such a statement as this could have produced but one effect, or at least that no man could have been found who would attempt to weaken its effect, by ♦Mr. Whitbread;♦ recriminating upon his own country. Mr. Whitbread, however, after observing that he believed Mr. Jacob had gone to Spain upon a mission, half commercial, half diplomatic, demanded of him whether he had been an eye-witness of these atrocities; and if he were, or if he were not, why he had detailed them, unless it was to inflame the house upon a question where their judgement only ought to decide? “Abuses, no doubt,” he said, “must have prevailed; but were gentlemen aware of none committed under circumstances of less provocation, when the clergy received the mandates of power to ascend their pulpits, and issue from them falsehoods not more rank than they were notorious?” Such is the language which Mr. Whitbread is reported to have uttered upon this occasion. He proceeded to ask, “Where was the spirit of the Spaniards? where were its effects? were they seen in suffering the French to pass over the face of their country, like light through an unresisting medium? We were gravely told that the post could not pass unmolested; no doubt this was a most serious calamity, and a conclusive proof of the energy of the popular spirit, ... only, unfortunately, we had the same proof in Ireland! Spain,” he averred, “had not done its duty ... no matter from what cause; the people had, however, some excuse, they had been under the selfish sway of an aristocracy, that only wanted to use them as an instrument for effecting their own narrow purposes; their implicit confidence had been abused by the blind bigotry of an intolerant priesthood, ... a priesthood that, whatever it preached, practised not the gospel; they had had the sword in their hands as often as the crosier, and they had had, he feared, in their hearts any thing but the meekness, humility, charity, and peace, that their blessed Master had inculcated by his pure precepts, enforced by the example of his spotless life, and sealed by the last sufferings of his all-atoning death. While,” said Mr. Whitbread, “I value those precepts and that example, I never can take pleasure in setting man against his fellow-man in a hopeless struggle. I think the present cause hopeless, and as such I never will consent to its being uselessly and cruelly protracted.”
Mr. Huskisson and Mr. Bathurst spoke like men in whom the principle of opposition was not the pole star of their political course. The ♦Mr. Huskisson;♦ question, Mr. Huskisson said, was, whether we were to withhold from his majesty’s ministers the means by which the contest might be rendered ♦Mr. Bathurst.♦ more likely to be successful. Mr. Bathurst said, it was enough for him to know that an alliance with Portugal had been concluded, and that Portugal, in virtue of that alliance, demanded our assistance. An amendment was moved by Mr. Tierney, tending to refuse the grant, and 142 members voted for it, over whom ministers had a majority of sixty-two. In the Lords, the numbers had been 94, and 124.
To comment upon the language of the opposition in these debates would be superfluous. The ignorance which they displayed of the national character of the Spaniards and Portugueze, and of the nature of the seat of war, the contemptuous superiority which they assumed, and the tone in which they ridiculed and reviled our allies, were of little moment; but the debate was of main importance, because the party committed themselves completely upon the defence of Portugal, declaring, in the most confident and positive terms, that it was hopeless, and ought not to be attempted. Their journalists took up the subject in the same strain, and followed the unhappy pattern of prediction which had been set them. One of two things, they said, must necessarily happen to these 30,000 Portugueze troops; either they must fall into the hands of the French, or we must bring them out of Portugal. The possibility that, with a British army, they might be able successfully to defend their country, these men had neither wisdom, nor knowledge, nor virtue to contemplate. Could it be doubted for a moment, they said, that Spain would be subdued, from one extremity to the other, before the end of six months? They copied, too, as faithfully, the false and slanderous representations which were made of the Portugueze. A thousand Portugueze, they said, would fly before a single French company, just as so many gipsies would run away from a constable. We might raise a better legion in Norwood. Was there an English colonel who would give five shillings a dozen for such recruits, or a serjeant who would be at the expense of a bowl of punch for fourscore of them? The French and their partizans did not fail to make due use of what was thus advanced in their favour; but the Portugueze were too well acquainted with the real character and feelings of this nation to have their faith in British friendship shaken by the gross misrepresentations of a virulent party: and they knew, perhaps, that statesmen who take part against the government and against the allies of their country, and writers who pervert to the most wicked and perilous purposes the freedom of the press, are the concomitant evils of a free constitution like ours, under which both public and private libellers breed like vermin in a genial climate.
♦Reform of the Portuguese army.♦
Meantime the Portugueze army, which, under a system of complicated abuses, had been reduced to the lowest possible state of degradation, was reformed in all its branches by the indefatigable exertions of Marshal Beresford. He had to contend not only with the inveterate evils which had grown up during the long perversion of government, but with that spirit of insubordination which, at the outbreak of these troubles, the general anarchy had produced. The soldiers had begun to claim and exert the power of choosing their own officers; an end was immediately put to this ruinous license, and at the same time means were taken for removing the cause of complaint wherever it had originated, by recalling the officers as well as the men to a sense of their duty, and by introducing British officers in sufficient number to give the army consistence and effect till they might gradually be replaced by native Portugueze. Equal justice, which in that country had been as little known as liberty of conscience, was promised and administered; the troops were told that the Marshal was at all times ready to hear their complaints, through the proper channel; and that if any officer excused himself from forwarding the complaint of a soldier, the soldier might address it directly to the commander-in-chief. But the Marshal said it was his duty to be impartial, and the officers had as much right to justice as the soldiers. Severe penalties had been denounced against desertion, but with so little effect, that nearly seven hundred cases occurred during the month of April in this year; the punishment of death was then inflicted on one offender, and two others were degraded to Angola. At the same time the officers were not allowed to absent themselves from their duty under pretext of illness; certificates to this effect had been so greatly abused, that they were no longer to be regarded without such actual inspection as the Marshal might appoint; and one person of high family was dismissed the service for a subterfuge of this kind. Courts-martial were made to understand their proper functions by being reprimanded in general orders; and the Misericordia which had interfered to suspend the execution of an officer who had received money from the French, and entered their service, was informed that its privileges did not extend to these cases, and that the sentence must be carried into effect.
It was necessary to raise the military character in the opinion of the soldiers themselves, as well as of the nation. But before this could be done, the sense of cleanliness and decency was to be restored: for the troops, in that sullen state of self-neglect which discomfort and hopelessness produce, had well-nigh lost all sense of either. The Commander-in-chief told them that many of the evils which the army suffered were occasioned by the want of cleanliness; that health could not be preserved without it, that the soldiers must wash themselves frequently, and that it grieved him to say, he must require the officers to set them an example; that fatigue was no excuse for neglecting this essential duty, for after a long march nothing was so refreshing; that every officer must be responsible for the cleanliness of the men under his command, and that he himself would never excuse any officer whom he should see dirty. He gave orders that the men should be provided with soap, brushes, and combs; that they should brush their clothes and clean their shoes every day, and be punished if they neglected this; and as the summer approached, he required the officers, whenever an opportunity occurred, to make the men bathe by companies. The Portugueze soldiers, it was said, like those of every other country, desired to appear with a military air, and with that propriety which belongs to the military character, and the men who most affected this appearance were always the best soldiers; it was the business of the officers, therefore, to see that they were provided with every thing necessary for maintaining it. While this indispensable attention to cleanliness was exacted, every possible provision was made both for their health[11] and comfort. A dispensation was obtained from the Pope’s Legate, allowing the troops the use of meat while on service, every day in the year, except on Ash-Wednesday and Good-Friday. The huge regimental kettles, which, after the Mahommedan custom, were still used in the Portugueze army, and which, from the inconvenience of carrying them, frequently did not come up with the troops till long after they were wanted, were laid aside, and light tin vessels substituted, which might be always at hand. An injurious custom of marching in their cloaks when it rained, and even using the blanket at such times as an additional covering, was prohibited; the men, they were told, knew by experience, that no clothing could protect them against the rain during a wet march, and therefore they were ordered to keep cloak and blanket dry for their own comfort when they reached the journey’s end. The officers and non-commissioned officers were in the habit of kicking and striking the soldiers; wherever British officers commanded this was immediately forbidden, and their example, with the decided opinion of Marshal Beresford, nearly, or altogether, put a stop to the unmanly practice. The ordinary punishment, though less disgraceful and severe than the abominable system of flogging, proved more frequently fatal; it consisted in striking the soldier on the back, across the shoulders, with the broad side of a sword. The number of strokes, or pancadas, never exceeded fifty; but men have not unfrequently been known to drop down dead after receiving thirty, from a rupture of the aorta. Marshal Beresford ordered a small cane to be used instead of the sword; and thus, without altering the national manner of punishment, rendered it no longer dangerous.
There were other evils which were beyond his power. When the troops of the line were recruited, it was neither done by ballot nor by bounty: a certain number were demanded from each district; the captain of that district picked whom he chose, sent them to prison till he had collected the whole number, then marched them to join their regiment. The Marshal introduced the easy improvement of sending them to a recruiting depôt, to be drilled before they joined; but he fixed upon the peninsula of Peniche, a swampy and unwholesome spot, which proved fatal to many, acting with double effect upon the depressed, half-starved, and ill-treated peasants, who were sent thither. The sick, the lame, and the lazy, were crowded into the same dungeon when recruited by the Capitam Mor; contagion was thus generated, and very often those, and those especially, who were fit for the service, were carried off by disease. The depôt was afterwards removed to Mafra, which is a healthy situation.
Over the method of levying troops Marshal Beresford had no control. But the hospitals, which were infinitely more destructive to the army than the sword of the enemy, and would have destroyed it much faster than it could have been recruited, were greatly improved under a British inspector, though the government would not permit his regulations to be carried into effect to their full extent. Still a great and material improvement was accomplished. The commissariat had been so conducted, as to be at once inefficient for the army, and oppressive for the people. A board of administration at Lisbon had its intendants in every province, and its factors in every town. Government contracted for provisions and forage, at fixed prices, with the board, and the board directed its agents to purchase what might be required for the troops on the spot. Payment was made by bills upon the board, which in the best times were seldom taken up till twelve months after they became due, and in the present state of things were considered to be worth nothing. The farmer, therefore, naturally concealed his grain; it was seldom that magazines were formed, or any provision made against scarcity; and what the farmer could not or would not sell at the disadvantageous rate which the factors offered, was usually taken, when it could be found, by force. Marshal Beresford got commissaries appointed to the different brigades, but he could not get money for them, and therefore they were of little use. To reform the civil establishments of the army was almost as difficult as it would have been to reform the government; the utmost exertions of the Marshal, aided as they were by Lord Wellington’s interference, availed nothing, ... being opposed by every species of low cunning and court intrigue. For the old corruptions existed in full vigour, notwithstanding the removal of the court to Brazil; and the body politic continued to suffer under its inveterate disease, a morbus pediculosus, from which nothing but a system of reform, wisely, temperately, firmly, and constitutionally pursued, could purify it, and restore it to health and strength.