Every success at this time was of great importance in its moral effect. Men are usually alive to hope in proportion as their natures are generous; and the same cause, which throughout the war rendered it impossible to depress the Spaniards, made them easily elated. Of the patriotic journals which were published in every part of Spain, scarcely a number appeared that did not contain details of some skirmish, some guerrilla attack, some successful enterprise, or hair-breadth escape, ... more animating than success in the recital. These things, more even than signal victories, tended to excite a military spirit, when no other advantage accrued from them. But of the advantages which the Catalans at this time obtained, one was of considerable importance. An expedition of Spaniards and English, who in all were but a handful ♦Sept. 1.♦ of men, recovered the isles of Las Medas, which had been betrayed to the enemy the preceding year. Colonel Green, the British commissioner, and Baron de Eroles, commanded in this well-planned and well-executed attempt; and the crew of the Undaunted frigate, Captain Thomas, displayed that zeal and those resources in dragging guns up the rocks, by which British seamen have often made themselves dreaded upon their enemies’ shores. They found in the fort four guns and provisions for three months. Both officers perceived how important it was to retain possession of a place which at little expense might be rendered a second Gibraltar, ... for little was necessary to render it impregnable: here was a post where they could receive supplies, and here a depôt might be securely established. Eroles, therefore, dispatched orders for 500 men to come and garrison it. The French were equally aware of the advantage which the possession of this point would give their enemies. They brought down a considerable force to Estardit, a village on the opposite shore, and opened batteries against the island, which was within reach of shells. The succours which Eroles had gone to expedite did not appear; the force upon the island consisted only of 146 men, exhausted with the fatigues they had undergone; and Colonel Green reluctantly yielding to the representations of the officer ♦Sept. 4.♦ of the Undaunted, abandoned the works which he had begun, and with them the hopes which he had formed, and blew up the fort. The opportunity, however, was happily retrieved. Lacy, who felt the want of such a point to look to, embarked with 200 men from Arens de Mar in the Undaunted; and taking ♦Sept. 13.♦ with him labourers, tools, and stores in some transports, re-occupied the islands, giving them the names of the Isles of Restoration, because, he said, this might be considered as the first step to the recovery of the principality. Water was discovered there, a sufficient garrison established, and the fortifications commenced and carried on in sight of the enemy on the opposite shore, and in defiance of their batteries. Bomb-proofs for men and stores were soon made in a situation favourable for such works. The chief battery was named Lacy by the governor; but that general said he would not permit himself to receive this honour, it should be called Montardit, in honour of the last Catalan whom the French, having taken in arms, had put to death, in violation of the laws of war.
General Lacy, being unable to undertake any considerable attempt against the enemy, determined, in the right spirit of a soldier, to make activity and enterprise supply the want of numbers, and cut up the invaders in ♦Successful enterprise of Lacy and Eroles.♦ detail. They had formed a chain of fortified posts from Barcelona to Lerida. These he resolved to attack, and began by a rapid march upon Igualada, where the enemy had fortified a Capuchine convent. Four hundred men with two guns were to have joined him from Cardona; but he was disappointed of this aid, for no means of moving the guns, nor for making the road practicable for them, could be procured in time; all that could be done was to surprise the town, and cut off as many of the French as possible before they could take refuge in their fort. At three in ♦Oct. 4.♦ the morning the sentinels were put to the sword, the enemy surprised in their quarters, twenty-five prisoners were taken, and about 150 killed; the rest escaped into the convent, as they got out of their beds; and Lacy, seeing at daybreak that succours were coming to them from Monserrate and Casa-Masana, retired to Col de Gusem, satisfied with his success, and thence to Manresa. This made them suppose that he had desisted from offensive operations; and a convoy which, in fear of his movements, had been for some days detained at Cervera, ventured to move toward Igualada. Eroles with half the Catalan force got before it, and the commander-in-chief with the other half cut off its retreat. A column with artillery sallied from Igualada to its assistance, but came only to share in the defeat; ♦Oct. 7.♦ 200 were wounded and made prisoners, the killed were in proportion, and the whole convoy was taken.
The general finding now that his presence was necessary in the Junta, to forward the formation and organization of the army, left Eroles, his second in command, to complete the plan, which had already so far succeeded that the French, dreading a second attack, and weakened by this last loss, retired precipitately from Igualada, Monserrate, and Casa-Masana, to Barcelona. Eroles no sooner knew that Igualada had been evacuated ♦Oct. 10.♦ than he marched against Cervera. The French, when they saw him approaching, withdrew from the city into the university, which they had fortified; and a body of 500 foot and thirty horse, which had just arrived from Lerida to their support, turned back to provide for its own safety. D. Luis de Creeft and D. Jose Casas were sent to pursue them, while Eroles with one ten-pounder prepared to attack buildings which had been designed by their founders for far other purposes than those of war. This single gun threw down part of the house in which it was planted; but Eroles turned the accident to advantage; for while he affected to be replacing it, in order to deceive the enemy, the gun was moved to another situation, from whence it opened its fire, anew, and its carriage was rattled along so as to make them believe that more artillery was about to be brought to bear. Their commandant soon hung out the white flag, and 630 men were made prisoners of war, at an expense to the Catalans of only ten in killed and wounded.
♦Corregidor of Cervera taken and punished.♦
This conquest set free a considerable territory, which, ever since the loss of Tarragona, had been at the enemy’s mercy. Creeft, meantime, with a force inferior to that he was pursuing, followed the column which was retreating to Lerida, and which on its way was joined by the garrison of Tarrega, another post abandoned by the French in their alarm. In this pursuit the corregidor of Cervera was taken attempting to escape with the enemy; a man who had joined the French, and, with the malevolence of a traitor, persecuted his own countrymen. He had invented a cage in which to imprison those who did not pay their contributions, or were in any way obnoxious to him: it was so constructed as to confine the whole body, leaving the head exposed to be buffeted and spit upon; and sometimes this devilish villain anointed the face of his victim with honey to attract the flies and wasps. “Tomorrow,” said Eroles in his dispatches, “the señor corregidor will go out to parade the streets in this same cage, where the persons who have suffered this grievous torment may behold him: Discite justitiam moniti, et non temnere Divos!” The capture of this man was worth as much, in the feelings of the people, as all the preceding success.
♦Eroles enters France and levies contributions.♦
Eroles, with the rest of his division, now hastened to Bellpuig, where Creeft had blockaded about 400 French in the old palace of the Dukes of Sesa, a castle of the fifteenth century, which they had fortified, and which commanded the town. The besiegers had only one ten-pounder, and the walls were more than seven feet thick. They had no time to lose, for Latour, with the troops who had escaped from Igualada, and the garrisons of the other evacuated posts, was preparing, in concert with the enemies from Lerida and Balaguer, to march against them. Unused as they were to such operations, and, as Eroles said, without any other engineers than ingenuity and strong desire, they made three mines which reduced ♦Oct. 14.♦ the castle almost to a heap of ruins: 184 prisoners were taken, the rest of the garrison perished. This success completed Lacy’s plan, and set free the whole of the country between Lerida and Barcelona. Eroles then, by a movement as judicious as it was unexpected, while the French commanders were concerting plans against him, marched by the Seu de Urgel to Puigcerda, where he routed all the force that the enemy could bring against him: then having occupied the pass of the Valle de Luerol, he entered France, and levied contributions in Languedoc. It was the earnest wish of Baron de Eroles that his troops in this expedition should be as much distinguished by their good order, moderation, and humanity, as the French in Spain were for their crimes. In every place, except one, this object was effected; but in the little town of Marens, the only place where resistance was made by the inhabitants and an armed force, a soldier, in violation of his orders, set fire to one of the houses: the wind was high, the flames spread, notwithstanding the efforts which were made to stop them, and the whole place was burnt. Villamil, governor of Seu de Urgel, who commanded this division of Eroles’ army, expressed his regret for what had happened; “But, perhaps,” he said, “the furious hand which committed the evil had been impelled by divine justice, that France might behold an image of Manresa.” Every where else the orders of the commander were rigidly observed; and the French, admiring the humanity of an enemy who had been so grievously wronged, in many places where they paid the required contribution, acknowledged the justice of this retaliation. Some thousand sheep and corn, and specie to the amount of 50,000 dollars, were the fruits of this first inroad of the Spaniards into France.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE FRENCH ENTER GALICIA. LORD WELLINGTON THREATENS CIUDAD RODRIGO, WHICH IS RELIEVED BY MARMONT. GENERAL HILL SURPRISES THE ENEMY AT ARROYO MOLINOS. SIEGE OF MURVIEDRO. DEFEAT OF BLAKE, AND CAPTURE OF VALENCIA.