Joseph then selected his ministers, the great officers of his household, etc. Urquijo, who had succeeded to Saavedra under Charles IV, and been like him displaced by Godoy’s jealousy, was appointed secretary of state; Cevallos minister for foreign affairs; Jovellanos for the interior; Cabarrus of finance; Pinuela of justice; Azanza of the Indies; Mazarredo of the marine; O’Farrel of the war department. Jovellanos alone firmly and perseveringly refused to hold office under the intrusive king. But of those present some appear to have accepted the places offered them merely because they saw no other means of getting back to their own side of the Pyrenees.
The new king of Spain entered his allotted kingdom on the 9th of July, 1808, and issued proclamations inviting his subjects to submission by the fairest promises of good government. But he found it requisite to pause at Vitoria, until his imperial brother’s generals should make way for his progress to his capital. This did not seem likely to be an affair of any great difficulty, for the insurgents were as yet unsupported from abroad. The war between England and Spain was declared to be at an end. But the strength of England was then frittered away in various remote expeditions; and the only immediately disposable force consisted of about nine thousand men, who had been assembled at Cork for an attack upon South America. All hostile measures against the Spanish colonies were now out of the question; and Sir Arthur Wellesley [afterwards made duke of Wellington], to whom the command of this small body of men was given, was directed to proceed with it to the assistance of Spain and Portugal.
On the first symptoms of resistance, Murat had fortified the palace of Buen Retiro, nearly adjoining Madrid, made dispositions for defending the capital (which his successor, Savary, followed up), and sent generals of merited reputation, with considerable divisions of the army, in several directions, to suppress the rebellion, as it was termed, and control the country. The success of the adverse parties in these different situations had been various. At Cadiz, a French squadron had been compelled to surrender, and that nominally without the aid of the British fleet, which, however, lying off the mouth of the harbour, prevented Admiral Rosilly from escaping to sea. Moncey had been repulsed with considerable loss from before Valencia.[113]
But the greatest battle that had yet occurred in this war was now to be fought for the purpose of opening Joseph’s road to Madrid, whither Napoleon had enjoined him to repair with all speed. Cuesta, with the army of Castile, and Blake with that of Galicia, had united at Rio Seco, where their combined forces amounted to thirty thousand men. Bessières attacked them on the 14th of July with little more than fifteen thousand. The superior skill and discipline of the French very soon prevailed over their courage and numbers. They lost five or six thousand men, killed and wounded, and twelve hundred prisoners. The two generals threw the blame on each other, and separated in mutual disgust. This victory cost Bessières less than four hundred men. Joseph pursued his journey; and on the 20th made his triumphant entry into Madrid. Orders had been given that the streets through which the procession was to pass should be decorated, according to Spanish custom, by hanging tapestry, etc., from the windows, and that the church bells should be rung. The inhabitants obeyed; but the tapestry they hung out was old, dirty, and ragged, and the bells tolled as for a funeral. The meanest of the populace scorned to pick up the money scattered amongst them as the king passed, leaving it to the French soldiers; and the theatres, which were opened gratis in honour of the day, were filled only by Frenchmen. The council of Castile, which had previously seemed disposed to submit, refused to take the oath required of them to the new sovereign and constitution, alleging that both must first receive the sanction of the nation through the cortes; and the Spanish soldiers, who did duty jointly with the French, deserted by whole guards at a time, leaving not a single sentinel at his post. The first tidings received by Joseph at Madrid were in harmony with the character of his reception.
Dupont had advanced prosperously, defeating all who opposed him, as far as Cordova, which he took by storm, but almost without resistance. However, Castaños, an old soldier, attacked Dupont with about double his numbers, and gained a victory so complete that at Baylen, whither four days of engagement had drawn the French main body, and upon the very day of Joseph’s entrance into Madrid, Dupont, with nearly twenty thousand men, surrendered upon condition of being sent with his whole corps to France. The terms of the capitulation were afterwards broken by the vindictive rage of the peasantry, whom their generals could not control. Numbers were put to death, and the rest, instead of being sent to France, were confined in the hulks in the bay of Cadiz, where they suffered every kind of misery, and the greater part perished.[c] In its moral effects the battle of Baylen was one of those events which, insignificant in themselves, cause great changes in the affairs of nations. The defeat of Rio Seco, the preparations of Moncey for a second attack on Valencia, the miserable plight of Saragossa, the despondency of the ablest men of Spain, and the disgust and terror generally excited by the excesses of the populace, weighed heavy on the Spanish cause: one victory more, and the moral as well as the physical force of Spain would have been crushed. The victory of Baylen opened as it were a new crater for Spanish pride, vanity, and arrogance; the glory of past ages seemed to be renewed, every man thought himself a Cid, and, in the surrender of Dupont, saw, not the deliverance of Spain, but the immediate conquest of France. “We are obliged to our friends the English,” was a common phrase among them when conversing with the officers of Sir John Moore’s army; “we thank them for their good-will, we shall escort them through France to Calais, the journey will be pleasanter than a long voyage: they shall not have the trouble of fighting the French, and we shall be pleased to have them spectators of our victories.” This absurd confidence might have led to great things, but it was a voice—nothing more.[b]
Madrid, upon which the victorious Andalusian army could now advance unopposed, was no longer deemed a residence for Joseph; and on the 31st of July, after a residence of ten days, having summoned Bessières from the pursuit of Blake and Cuesta to protect his retreat, the king and his party evacuated the capital, and withdrew to Vitoria. Another triumph obtained soon afterwards by the Spaniards was the successful defence of Saragossa.[c]
On the morning of the 4th of August, after feigning an attack upon the Aljaferia and gate of Portillo, the formidable battery of San Engracia was suddenly set to work, twenty-six pieces simultaneously vomited fire upon the convent of this name, and nearly all the defenders of it perished in the ruins. At five o’clock all the batteries of Saragossa were levelled; the French, crossing the Huerva, precipitated themselves into the town by two wide breaches. Then followed fierce hand-to-hand fights, sustained with desperate valour among the dead bodies and ruins. At the fiercest moment of the fight, General Verdier caused the following brief message to be brought to Palafox: “Peace and capitulation?” “War and steel!” answered without hesitation the leader of the men of Saragossa. The bloody contest was continued; trampling on the dead the French advanced triumphantly. But the news of Baylen caused them to raise the siege.[e]
THE ENGLISH APPEAR
At this period of the war a new actor appeared upon the stage, upon whom thenceforward, the fortune of the peninsula mainly depended. On the 12th of July, 1808, the British expedition sailed from Cork; and its commander, Sir Arthur Wellesley, as soon as the whole was fairly under way, preceded it in a frigate, in order to gather the information requisite for regulating its destination. Landing was made in Mondego Bay. It was the 5th of August before all the troops were on shore. Spencer having arrived during the landing, his junction raised the numbers of the little army to thirteen thousand; and with them Sir Arthur began his march towards Lisbon.