The Castle of Scylla was very differently defended. As a point of communication with the Calabrese, the British General had determined to hold it to the last,—and such were the instructions given to Colonel Robertson, and the orders were admirably fulfilled. As the fortress, seaward, was open to the fleet, a flight of steps was cut in the rock to the water’s edge, and this outlet to the sea was not visible from any ground occupied by the enemy. When Scylla was literally reduced to a heap of ruins, and the French in the very act of entering a breach so extensively ruined as to be totally indefensible, the garrison, during a lull in a gale that had been blowing for two preceding days, were cleverly brought off.
On the morning of the 15th, Colonel Robertson announced by telegraph to Sir Sydney Smith that the works were nearly destroyed, and his guns dismounted or disabled. When the gale moderated on the 19th, the Admiral instantly gave orders to rescue the soldiers,—and the men-of-war boats pulled right across the bay under a tremendous fire, and relieved the brave garrison with a loss comparatively trifling. The French were actually in the fort, their batteries maintaining a sweeping fire of grape-shot and shells, and yet in this bold and successful effort, the united casualties of both services did not amount to more than twenty men.
Although military achievements, on a minor scale, have been eclipsed by the more brilliant conquests obtained by British armies in subsequent campaigns, still Maida was not only a glorious, but, in its results, a most important victory. Independently of humbling a presumptuous enemy, raising the depressed reputation of the British army, and converting the distrusting population of Sicily into grateful admirers,[44] the positive results of Sir John Stuart’s expedition were the destruction of all the military and naval resources of Calabria, and the occupation of a post which for eighteen months secured the navigation of the Straits of Messina, and, in a great degree, occasioned the meditated descent on Sicily to fail.
OPENING OF PENINSULAR WAR.
BATTLE OF ROLICA.
British troops sent to the Continent.—Failure of the expedition to Gottenburgh.—State of Portugal.—An army despatched to assist in its deliverance.—Lands in Mondego bay.—Advance of the British.—Movements of the French.—Village of Rolica.—Battle.—Anecdotes and death of Colonel Lake.—Arrival of reinforcements.
The employment of a British army to assist in the liberation of Portugal appears only to have been decided upon, after the wildest design which ever crossed the imagination of a blundering statesman, had been found too absurd even to admit of an experimental trial. It had been considered advisable to turn a military force against the over-weening influence of Napoleon on the Continent; and an army of ten thousand men, under the command of Sir John Moore, was accordingly despatched, in May, 1808, to assist Sweden in defending herself against the united powers of Russia, France, and Denmark. On reaching Gottenburgh, the British regiments were not even permitted to debark; but men and horses, after a tedious voyage, were left by their inhospitable ally “tossing in the anchorage.” Though reduced to a pitiable state of weakness, the Swedish monarch was actually dreaming of conquest; and, a power politically impotent, demanded of those despatched to assist in his defence, that they should join him in aggression. A descent on the island of Zealand, in face of armed fortresses and a superior force, was first propounded, and, of course, rejected. “It was next proposed that the British alone should land in Russian Finland, storm a fortress, and take a position there.” This notion was still more preposterous than the former; and Sir John Moore endeavoured to prove that “ten thousand British soldiers were insufficient to encounter the undivided force of the Russian empire, which could be quickly brought against them, at a point so near St. Petersburgh.”[45] Some other projects, equally impracticable, were declined—and this ill-advised expedition ended as might have been expected. After being exposed to the indignity of an arrest, the British general returned to England with his army, “leaving Sweden,” in Napoleon’s words, “to fulfil her destinies.”
Spain had in the mean time been overrun by the French armies,—the capital was occupied, the dynasty changed, and the kingdom prostrate at the feet of Napoleon. Yet in this gloomy hour, when trodden to the earth, the national spirit remained unbroken—and the flame of popular discontent was not quenched, but smouldering. Cruelty and oppression had roused the Spaniards into action—a desultory war raged in several provinces—and every day it became more formidable and fierce.
Nor was this hostility to foreign domination confined to Spain; it had spread itself to Portugal, and Junot’s arbitrary measures roused a spirit of resistance that wanted but an opportunity to display itself. A recurrence to terrorism by the French lieutenant only provoked retaliation. Oporto revolted, and deforced the garrison—a rising in the north, and the establishment of a provisional government succeeded—while, simultaneously, the insurrection broke out in the opposite extremity of the kingdom; and the French, after an unsuccessful attempt to suppress it, were driven from Algarve.
Junot, at first, endeavoured to conciliate and gain time, should no other object be achieved—but the Portuguese saw clearly his designs, and would no longer permit themselves to be deluded by the hollow professions of one, whom they justly looked upon as the enslaver of their country. Risings became general; and to repress this spirit of insubordination, the French resorted to severity. It was decreed, that resistance to the troops should be punished by the destruction of the town or village where it occurred; and that individuals taken in arms should be shot, their property pillaged, and their houses levelled to the earth. These were no idle threats—on the contrary, they were carried into ferocious execution. Leyria was destroyed by Margaron—and Loison’s treatment of the inhabitants of Evora and Guardo is indelibly branded on the revengeful memories of the Portuguese. These towns were razed and plundered, numbers of their citizens and priests put to the sword, the women violated, and to neither sex nor age was mercy extended. To crown the whole, excessive contributions were laid upon an impoverished people—and inability to pay made a pretext for spoliation. Could it then be wondered at that a terrible reaction ensued—that the country should be overrun by guerillas[46]—and that vengeance, when it could be obtained, was most unmercifully exacted?