CONNECTING CHAPTER.
Consequences of the embarkation.—Wretched position of Spanish affairs.—State of Portugal.—Memoir of the Guerillas.
The immediate consequence of the embarkation, was the surrender of Corunna on the second day from that on which the once proud army of England quitted the coast of Spain. Ferrol soon followed the example—and in both these places, an immense supply of stores and ammunition was obtained. All effective resistance was apparently at an end—and French dominion seemed established in Gallicia more strongly than it had ever been before.
In every part of Spain, the cause of freedom appeared hopeless. One campaign was closed, and never did one end more hopelessly;[73]—an unvarying scene of misfortune from the commencement, it seemed to have withered every national feeling that might have existed in Spanish breasts. Fortresses that should have held out, provisioned, garrisoned, and open to receive supplies from England, surrendered to a weak army, who could not command “a battering gun or siege store within four hundred miles.” In fact, Spanish resistance seemed a mockery. Their military force was now the ruins of Romana’s army, and some half-starved fugitives who occasionally appeared in Estremadura and La Mancha,—while the French had nearly two hundred thousand veteran troops covering the whole country,—and these too in masses, that set any hostile demonstration at defiance.
Portugal, in its military footing, was nearly on a par with Spain. A British corps, under Sir John Craddock, garrisoned Lisbon—and, that place excepted, there were no troops in the kingdom on which the slightest dependence could be placed. The appointment of Marshal Beresford to a chief command, produced in time a wonderful reformation. The English system of drill was successfully introduced,—and, before the war ended, the Portuguese, when brigaded with the British, were always respectable in the field, and sometimes absolutely brilliant. At this period, there was but one national force in the least degree formidable to the invaders—and that was the Spanish Guerillas.
The Spanish armies in the course of the Peninsular campaign had met so many and discouraging defeats, that their military reputation sunk below the standard of mediocrity. They were despised by their enemies, and distrusted by their allies, and whether from the imbecility of the government, the ignorance of their leaders, or some national peculiarity, their inefficiency became so notorious, that no important operation could be entrusted to them with any certainty of its being successful. As an organized force, the Spanish army was contemptible; while, in desultory warfare, the peasantry were invaluable. With few exceptions, the history of Spanish service would be a mere detail of presumption and defeat; while their neighbours, the Portuguese, merited the perfect approbation of their officers, and proved worthy of standing in the battle-field by the side of British soldiers.
The irregular bands, termed Partidas and Quadrillas, partly formed from peasant volunteers and smugglers, and enlisted and paid by government, were embodied originally by order of the Central Junta. At first their numbers were few, and their efficiency as military partisans not very remarkable—but as the Spanish armies declined in strength and reputation, the guerillas proportionately increased. The most determined spirits would naturally select a life of wild and desperate adventure[74]—and a love of country and religion, an unextinguishable hatred of oppression, inflamed the passions of a people proverbial for the intensity of feeling with which they regarded even an imaginary insult. They had now deep and heart-burning injuries to stimulate them to hatred and revenge,—and the ferocity with which they retaliated for past and present wrong, gained for these formidable partisans a name that made the boldest of their oppressors tremble.
A brief sketch of this wild and devoted confederacy, so connected with the Peninsular operations during that arduous struggle, will not be irrelevant.
“There was in the whole system of guerilla warfare a wild and romantic character, which, could its cruelty have been overlooked, would have rendered it both chivalrous and exciting—and men, totally unfitted by previous habits and education suddenly appeared upon the stage, and developed talent and determination, that made them the scourge and terror of the invaders.