CHAPTER XIII. THE PENINSULAR WAR
[1808-1814 A.D.]
The Spaniards have boldly asserted the deliverance of the peninsula to be the work of their hands. This claim is unjust to the fame of Wellington, injurious to the glory of the British arms. The imbecility of Charles IV, the vileness of Ferdinand, the corruption imputed to Godoy, were undoubtedly the proximate causes of the calamities which overwhelmed Spain; but the primary, the historical cause, was the despotism springing from the union of a superstitious court and a sanguinary priesthood, a despotism which suppressed knowledge, contracted the public mind, sapped the foundation of military and civil virtue, and prepared the way for invasion. No foreign potentate would have attempted to steal into the fortresses of a great kingdom, if the prying eyes and clamorous tongues of a free press had been ready to expose his projects, and a disciplined army present to avenge the insult: Spain, destitute of both, was first circumvented by the wiles, and then ravaged by the arms of Napoleon. She was deceived and fettered because the public voice was stifled; she was scourged and torn because her military institutions were decayed.
When an English force took the field, the Spaniards ceased to act as principals in a contest carried on in the heart of their country and involving their existence as an independent nation. After the first burst of indignation the cause of independence created little enthusiasm. Horrible barbarities were exercised on French soldiers thrown by sickness or the fortune of war into the power of the invaded, and this dreadful spirit of personal hatred was kept alive by the exactions and severe retaliations of the invader; but no great general exertion to drive the latter from the soil was made, at least none was sustained with steadfast courage in the field; manifestoes, decrees, lofty boasts, like a cloud of canvas covering a rotten hull, made a gallant appearance, but real strength and firmness could nowhere be found.
Strange indeed was the spectacle presented—patriotism supporting a vile system of government, a popular assembly working to restore a despotic monarch, the higher classes seeking a foreign master, the lower armed in the cause of bigotry and misrule. The upstart leaders, secretly abhorring freedom though governing in her name, trembled at the democratic activity they excited; and while calling forth all the bad passions of the multitude repressed the patriotism that would regenerate as well as save. The country suffered the evils without enjoying the benefits of a revolution; tumults and assassinations terrified and disgusted the sensible part of the community; a corrupt administration of the resources extinguished patriotism; neglect ruined the armies. The peasant-soldier, usually flying at the first onset, threw away his arms and went home; or, attracted by the license of the partidas, joined the banners of men, the most part originally robbers, who were as oppressive to the people as the enemy; and these guerilla chiefs would in their turn have been quickly exterminated, had not the French, pressed by the British battalions, been compelled to keep in large masses: this was the secret of Spanish constancy. Copious supplies from England and the valour of the Anglo-Portuguese troops supported the war, and it was the gigantic vigour with which the duke of Wellington resisted the fierceness of France and sustained the weakness of three inefficient cabinets that delivered the peninsula.[b]
WAR DECLARED ON FRANCE
The slaughter of the 2nd of May at Madrid, and the treatment of Ferdinand at Bayonne were as the spark of fire to the mine, and the explosion, beginning in the original cradle of Spanish liberty, the Asturias, spread in the course of the month over all Spain. Juntas, or councils, composed of the most influential and generally of the most enlightened persons of their respective neighbourhoods, were formed in every province, and most large towns. Many excesses and crimes were committed; many persons fell sacrifices to the suspicions, justly or unjustly excited by their own conduct, of being agents and partisans of the French. When Seville, as next in importance to Madrid and Barcelona, and therefore first of the unsubdued cities of Spain, claimed for her junta the title of supreme, and a degree of authority over the others, the other juntas frankly acknowledged her pretensions. In the name of Ferdinand VII, the supreme junta of Seville, on the 6th of June, declared war against Napoleon and France. Orders were issued for enrolling the whole male population of Spain, combined with judicious instructions to the Spanish leaders to avoid risking their raw soldiers in pitched battles against the disciplined veterans of France; and fast-sailing vessels were sent to the colonies, to warn them against the designs of France and claim obedience to the supreme junta, as lawfully exercising the authority of Ferdinand.
JOSEPH BONAPARTE CHOSEN KING OF SPAIN
The crown of Spain Napoleon is said to have originally destined for Lucien Bonaparte, the ablest of his brothers. But Lucien was a republican upon principle; he had besides accumulated in the public service a large fortune, which he was enjoying at Rome in the pleasures of taste and literature; and, in addition to the sacrifice of his principles and his tastes, Napoleon required from him that of his affections. He would not comply with Napoleon’s desire that he should repudiate the mother of his children in order to wed a princess. He is believed to have refused the crown of Spain; and Napoleon assigned it to Joseph, already king of Naples.
A sort of Spanish assembly, meant as a substitute for the cortes, and called by the French name of the “notables,” was summoned to Bayonne, to meet and acknowledge Joseph, and to accept the new constitution to be conferred upon them with their new king. Many obeyed the call, some from believing resistance to the power of Napoleon impossible; some preferring reforms imposed by the hand of a foreign conqueror to the vices of their late government; and more from motives of personal interest.