♦Mr. Whitbread.♦
Mr. Whitbread now rose. “He should have been glad,” he said, “to have joined in the general expression of exultation when the vote of thanks was passed; ... he should have been glad to have added his mite to the general tribute in applause of the heroism of that day, and to have claimed the hero of that day as his much-valued friend. This he should have been glad to have done, if he could have had sufficient control over himself to have abstained from doing more. Mr. Perceval had spoken like the advocate of the Spaniards; they must be defended at all events, no matter how! And what was it that was attempted to be defended? The English army was on the point of being sacrificed ... the Spaniards were in sight of them, within twenty minutes quick march of them! and what did they? What were they? Why, just what they have been described by his honourable friend ... cold-blooded spectators of the battle! After coldly witnessing a band of heroes fighting and dying for their cause, General Lapeña tells our small army, exhausted with its unparalleled victory over numbers, that, forsooth, now was the time to push its success. What did this redoubted general mean? Was it insult, or treachery, or cowardice, ... each, or all? He did not mean to complain of the Spanish people, but of their officers. He should ever think of Barrosa as a day memorable for the glory of the Britons, and no less memorable for the infamy of the Spaniards. Was it to be endured, that our brave fellows should be so basely deserted, after an excessive night-march, the moment they entered the field, against a foe always formidable from discipline, and then doubly so from numbers? Why were the two battalions withdrawn from the heights of Barrosa? why was their position abandoned precipitately to the French? who gave this order but a Spanish officer? What! should not this excite a jealousy? Was this the first time a Spanish army had been cold-blooded spectators of British heroism? Did they want this to remind them of the stately indifference shown by Cuesta in the battle of Talavera? Was all sound in Cadiz? Was there no French party there? Were British armies never before betrayed till the battle of Barrosa? He said betrayed, for it was nothing less; the two battalions never came up till our army had repulsed the French, beaten them off, and was in hot pursuit of them as fast as our army could pursue ... as fast as their exhausted limbs could carry their noble hearts! Then what had been our allies?... At Talavera nothing ... at Barrosa nothing ... or rather at both perhaps worse than nothing. The allied force sailed from Cadiz ... the British fought ... the Spaniards looked on. The British conquered; and yet the siege was not raised. Again he asked, was all sound at Cadiz? Was it true that General Graham had been obstructed and foiled in all his plans ... that in the midst of the fight, while the British troops were doing feats which perhaps British troops alone could do, their allies were doing what, he hoped, such men alone were capable of ... plundering the British baggage? Was this true? It was not the Spanish people he complained of; he gave them every credit; but he gave their leaders none. If all this was so, or nearly so, were the British armies to be risked so worthlessly? Were they to be abandoned to treachery or cowardice? For in either or both must have originated the unnatural, ungrateful, and infamous treatment they had met with.”
♦Remarks on the failure of the expedition.♦
Whatever error of judgment General Lapeña might have committed, the charges thus brought against him and his army were as ill-founded as they were intemperately urged. Instead of being cold-blooded spectators of the battle, the main body of the Spaniards were four miles distant; there was a thick wood between them and the scene of action, and they were themselves actually engaged at the time. And it is worthy of remark, that while invectives, which had no other tendency than to produce a breach between England and Spain, were thus lavished upon the Spaniards, by those politicians who would have had us abandon Spain and Portugal to the tyrant’s pleasure, the French were endeavouring to excite discontent between the two countries by accusations which directly contradicted these aspersions. Marshal Victor affirmed in his official account, that when he determined to attack the heights, the Spaniards under Lapeña were at the time warmly engaged; the cannonade and the fire of the musketry were extremely brisk, he said; and with that falsehood which characterised the execrable system of his government, he added, that the English, according to their custom, had wished to place the Spaniards in the post of danger, and expose themselves as little as possible.
Lapeña prayed that an immediate inquiry should be instituted, that the inquiry should be made public, and that he should be punished if he were found culpable. The inquiry was made, and the result was an honourable acquittal. The proceedings were not published; and unhappily the good opinion of the Spanish Government afforded no proof, scarcely a presumption, of the deserts of those on whom it was bestowed. At this very time they appointed Mahy, who had done nothing in Galicia, but oppress the inhabitants and paralyse the efforts of a brave and willing population, to another command; and Mendizabal, by whose misconduct their best army had been destroyed, was sent to command in the North. But though it cannot be inferred that General Lapeña was not worthy of censure, because he was pronounced free from fault, little investigation may suffice to show that the outcry raised against him was intemperate, if not altogether unjust, and that the failure of the expedition was owing to the disagreement between the British and Spanish generals, more than to any misconduct on the part of the latter. Whether prudently or not, General Graham had consented to act under Lapeña; and whether the plan of operations was well concerted or not, he had assented to it. That plan was, that the allies should open a communication with the Isle of Leon, by breaking through the left of the enemy’s line; this being done, they would receive supplies and reinforcements, and might proceed to farther successes. It had never been intended in this plan that the British should turn back to attack a part of the French army, whose numbers were, to their own, in the proportion of two to one, and who had every advantage of ground; nor that they should cripple themselves by fighting upon ground, where mere honour was all that could be gained. The memorial which Lapeña addressed to the Cortes, praying for an inquiry into his conduct, contains his justification. “He had assured General Graham,” he says, “on the evening after the battle, that the troops from the isle should come out, and that provisions should be sent to the English; and it was with extreme surprise he learned that they had retreated without his knowledge.” The cause of this movement is perfectly explicable; the Spaniards in Cadiz and the island, never very alert in their movements, were not ready with an immediate supply of provisions, and the British troops after the battle were neither in a humour, nor in a state, nor in a situation to wait patiently till it should arrive. From this moment all co-operation was at an end. When the Spanish general applied to his own Government, and to General Graham, respecting farther operations, the former told him that they had written to the British ambassador, and were waiting for his answer; the latter that he was not in a condition to come out of the isle again, but that he would cover the points of the line of defence. Lapeña thus found himself deprived of that part of the allied force upon whose skill and discipline his best hopes of success must have been founded; “had he acted for himself,” he said, “he would have pursued the enemy with the Spanish troops alone, but he was under the necessity of consulting the Government which was so close at hand.” This alone would have occasioned delay; but Lapeña was at that moment under a charge of misconduct preferred against him by the British, and echoed by the people and the Cortes; and thus in delays, formalities, and examinations, the irrecoverable hours were lost.
♦Death of Alburquerque.♦
It must have added to the grief of the true Spaniards in Cadiz upon this occasion, when they remembered that they might at this day have had a general who had every claim to the confidence of his men, his government, and his allies, that distinguished services, unbounded sacrifices, enterprise, talents, and devoted patriotism could give. That general, the Duque de Alburquerque, whose name will ever be regarded as the most illustrious of his illustrious line, had just at this time fallen a victim to the malignity of the Junta of Cadiz. After remaining in England eight months in a state of exile, intolerable to one who was as capable as he was desirous of serving his country in the field, he printed a statement of his conduct and case, which he had withheld as long as any possible injury could be apprehended from its publication. This he sent to the Cortes; it was received as the merits of its author deserved; eulogiums never more justly merited were heard from all sides; the Cortes declared that the duke and his army had deserved well of their country, particularly for preserving the Isle of Leon and Cadiz, and they desired that the Regency would recall him from England that he might again be actively employed. In consequence of this, he was appointed to the command in Galicia. The Junta of Cadiz, however, acting as they had done in other cases, even of greater importance, in contempt of the Government, drew up a reply to his statement; it was addressed to the duke, and with insolence equal to their ingratitude, and falsehood if possible surpassing both, they called him, in direct terms, an impudent calumniator and an enemy to his country. Each of the members of this body signed it individually; it was printed as a hand-bill, and a copy of it was sent to London by some private hand, and reached Alburquerque through the twopenny post, that no possible mark of insult might be wanting to the transaction.
Alburquerque ought to have despised any attack from that quarter, and more especially one which, by its intemperance and scurrility, so plainly showed in what vile passions it had originated. But he wore his heart for daws to peck at, and his enemies knew but too well the infirmity of his nature. At first he endeavoured to repress or to conceal his feelings, and drew up a short and dignified representation to the Cortes; but this did not satisfy him; notwithstanding the earnest dissuasions of his friends, he determined upon replying to the Junta, and he devoted himself to this composition with an earnestness which made him forgetful both of food and of sleep. Three days were thus employed in a state of restless and feverish anxiety. The wound all this while was rankling, and the venom of the Junta did its work. On the fourth day a frenzy-fever seized him; he felt the approach of the disease, and was perfectly sensible of the cause, for having sent for D. J. M. Blanco White, he took from his pocket, as soon as he saw him, a strip of paper on which he had written, “como calumniador y enemigo de la patria,” ... the words which had stung him to the heart, ... and said, “When they ask why I have lost my senses, this paper will answer for me.” ... A dreadful scene ensued; fits of tears were followed by paroxysms of rage, and on the third day of his illness he expired: happily in the course of the disease the sense of his own wrongs, intolerable and fatal as it had proved, gave way to a deeper feeling: he forgot himself in thinking of his country: his repeated exclamations of vengeance upon Napoleon Buonaparte were so vehement and loud that they were distinctly heard by the passers in the street; and his last breath was spent in imprecations upon the tyrant whose wickedness had caused all the unutterable miseries of Spain. Every public honour which the British Government could bestow was paid to the remains of this illustrious man, and his body was deposited in that same vault in Henry VII.’s chapel wherein Marlborough’s had formerly been laid, till it could be sent home, to rest with his ancestors[21].