History of the war in the Peninsula and in the south of France from the year 1807 to the year 1814, vol. 1

by William Francis Patrick Napier

Gallicia seemed to hold back for a moment; but the example of Leon, and the arrival of an agent from the Asturias, where the insurrection was in full force, produced a general movement. Filanghieri, the governor of Coruña, an Italian by birth, was by a tumultuous crowd called upon to exercise the rights of sovereignty, and to declare war in form against the French: like every man of sense in Spain, he was unwilling to commence such an important revolution upon such uncertain grounds; the impatient populace instantly attempted his life, which was then saved by the courage of an officer of his staff; but his horrible fate was only deferred. He was a man of talent, sincerely attached to Spain, and he exerted himself with success in establishing a force in the province: no suspicion of guilt seems to have attached to his conduct, and his death marks the temper of the times and the inherent ferocity of the people. A part of the regiment of Navarre seized him at Villa Franca del Bierzo, planted the ground with their bayonets, and then tossing him in a blanket, let him fall on the points thus disposed, and there leaving him to struggle, they dispersed and retired to their own homes.

The Asturians were the first who proclaimed their indefeasible right of choosing a new government when the old one ceased to afford them protection. Having established a local junta, and invested it with all the functions of royalty, they declared war against the French, and despatched deputies to England to solicit assistance.

In Biscay and the Castiles, fifty thousand bayonets overawed the great towns; but the peasantry commenced a war in their own manner against the stragglers and the sick, and thus a hostile chain surrounding the French army was completed in every link.

This universal and nearly simultaneous effort of the Spanish people was beheld by the rest of Europe with astonishment and admiration: astonishment at the energy thus suddenly put forth by a nation hitherto deemed unnerved and debased; admiration at the devoted courage of an act, which, seen at a distance, and its odious parts unknown, appeared with all the ideal beauty of Numantian patriotism. In England the enthusiasm was unbounded; dazzled at first with the splendour of such an agreeable, unlooked-for spectacle, men of all classes gave way to the impulse of a generous sympathy, and forgot, or felt disinclined to analyse, the real causes of this apparently magnanimous exertion. But without wishing to detract from the merit of the Spanish people, and certainly that merit was very great, it may be fairly doubted if the disinterested vigour of their character was the true source of their resistance. Constituted as modern states are, with little in their systems of government or education which conduces to nourish intense feelings of patriotism, it would be miraculous indeed if such a result was obtained from the pure virtue of a nation, which for two centuries had groaned under the pressure of civil and religious despotism. It was, in fact, produced by several co-operating causes, many of which were any thing but commendable.

The Spanish character, with relation to public affairs, is distinguished by inordinate pride and arrogance. Dilatory and improvident, the individual as well as the mass, all possess an absurd confidence that every thing is practicable which their heated imagination suggests; once excited, they can see no difficulty in the execution of a project, and the obstacles they encounter are attributed to treachery; hence the sudden murder of so many virtuous men at the commencement of this commotion. Kind and warm in his attachments, but bitter in his anger, the Spaniard is patient under privations, firm in bodily suffering, prone to sudden passion, vindictive, bloody, remembering insult longer than injury, and cruel in his revenge. With a strong natural perception of what is noble, his promise is lofty, but as he invariably permits his passions to get the mastery of his reason, his performance is mean.

In the progress of this war the tenacity of vengeance peculiar to the nation supplied the want of cool, persevering intrepidity; but it was a poor substitute for that essential quality, and led rather to deeds of craft and cruelty than to daring acts of patriotism. Now the abstraction of the royal family, and the unexpected pretension to the crown, so insultingly put forth by Napoleon, aroused all the Spanish pride. The tumults of Madrid and Aranjuez had agitated the public mind, and prepared it for a violent movement, and the protection afforded by the French to the obnoxious Godoy increased the ferment of popular feeling: a dearly cherished vengeance was thus frustrated at the moment of its expected accomplishment, and the disappointment excited all that fierceness of anger which with Spaniards is, for the moment, uncontrollable. Just then the tumult of Madrid, swollen and distorted, wrought the people to frenzy, and they arose with one accord, not to meet a danger the extent of which they had calculated, and were prepared, for the sake of independence, to confront, but to gratify the fury of their hearts, and to slake their thirst of blood.

During Godoy’s administration the property of the church had been trenched upon, and it was evident, from the example of France and Italy, that, under the new system, that operation would be repeated. This was a matter that involved the interests, and, of course, stimulated the activity of a multitude of monks and priests, who found no difficulty in persuading an ignorant and bigoted people that the aggressive stranger was also the enemy of religion and accursed of God; hence processions, miracles, prophecies, distribution of reliques, and the appointment of saints to the command of the armies, were freely employed to fanaticize the mass of the patriots. In every part of the peninsula the clergy were distinguished for their active zeal, and monks or friars were leaders in the tumults, or at the side of those who were instigating them to barbarous actions. Napoleon’s Memoires, Campagne d’Italie, Venise. Buonaparte found the same cause produce similar effects during his early campaigns in Italy; and if the shape of that country had been as favourable for protracted resistance, and that a like support had been afforded to them by Great Britain, the heroes of Spain would have been rivalled by modern Romans!

The continental system of mercantile exclusion was another spring of this complicated machinery. It threatened to lessen the already decayed commerce of the maritime towns; but the contraband trade, which has always been carried on in Spain to an incredible extent, was certain of destruction; and with that trade [Appendix, No. 9.] the fate of one hundred thousand excise and custom-house officers was involved. It required but a small share of penetration to perceive, that a system of armed revenue officers, organized after the French manner, and stimulated by a vigorous administration, would quickly put an end to the smuggling, which was, in truth, only a consequence of the monopolies and internal restrictions upon the trade of one province with another—vexations abolished by the constitution of Bayonne: hence all the activity and intelligence of the merchants engaged in foreign trade, and all the numbers and lawless violence of the smugglers, were enlisted in the cause of the country, and swelled the ranks of the insurgent patriots; and hence also the readiness of the Gibraltar merchants to advance the loan before spoken of.

The state of civilisation in Spain was likewise exactly suited to an insurrection: if the people had been a little more enlightened, they would have joined the French; if very enlightened, the invasion could not have happened at all; but, in a country where the comforts of civilized society are less needed, and therefore less attended to than in any other part of Europe, where the warmth and dryness of the climate render it no sort of privation or even inconvenience to sleep for the greatest part of the year in the open air, and where the universal custom is to go armed, it was not difficult for any energetic man to assemble and keep together large masses of the credulous peasantry. No story could be too gross for their belief, if it agreed with their wishes. “Es verdad, los dicen,” “It is true, they say it,” is the invariable answer of a Spaniard if a doubt is expressed of the truth of an absurd report. Of temperate habits, possessing little furniture, and generally hoarding all the gold he can get, the Spanish peasant is less concerned for the loss of his house than the inhabitant of another country would be: the effort that he makes in relinquishing his abode must not be measured by the scale of an Englishman’s exertion in a like case; and once engaged in an adventure, the lightness of his spirits, and the brilliancy of his sky, make it a matter of indifference to the angry Spanish peasant whither he wanders.

The evils which had afflicted the country previous to the period of the French interference was another cause which tended to prepare the Spaniards for violence, and aided in turning that violence against the intruders. Famine, oppression, poverty, and disease, Historia de la Guerra contra Napoleon. the loss of commerce, and unequal taxation, had pressed sorely upon them; for such a system the people could not be enthusiastic; but they were taught to believe, that Godoy was the sole author of the misery they suffered, and that Ferdinand would redress their grievances; and as the French were the strenuous protectors of the former, and the oppressors of the latter, it was easy to add this bitterness to their natural hatred of the domination of a stranger; and it was so done.