[4] I think it necessary to state, in addition to the authorities quoted in the margin, that I have derived my information from officers, some French, some Italian, who were present in the tumult of the 2d of May. On the veracity of my informants I have the firmest reliance; their accounts agreed well, and the principal facts were confirmed by the result of my personal inquiries at Madrid in the year 1812.
[5] Five sail of the line and one frigate.
[6] Forty-two thousand dollars.
[7] Tio Jorge and Tio Marin, which may be rendered goodman Jorge, and goodman Marin, were two of the real chiefs whose energy saved Zaragoza in the first siege.
[8] The late Lord Melville.
[9] This transaction furnishes an example of the imprudence of being precipitate in granting public honours. Lord Strangford’s despatch relative to the emigration was written (as it is confidently asserted) not at Lisbon, but at Salt Hill, in the presence of sir James Yeo. His lordship (unintentionally of course) impressed the ministers with an idea that to his personal exertions the emigration should be attributed; whereas the prince regent of Portugal, yielding to the vigorous negotiations of sir Sydney Smith, not only embarked on the 27th, before lord Strangford arrived at Lisbon, but actually sailed without his lordship’s having had any official interview with his royal highness, and consequently without having had any opportunity to advance or retard the emigration. The English ministers, eager to testify their satisfaction at that event, conferred the red riband, not upon sir Sydney Smith, who had succeeded, but upon lord Strangford, who had failed! a result that his lordship could not have anticipated, or he would undoubtedly have written his despatch at Lisbon when the facts were fresh on his mind, and when he could have more forcibly described the admiral’s share in the transaction.
[10] The coast of Portugal.
[11] This is a remarkable instance of ministerial confusion; the despatch from sir Hew Dalrymple referred to as giving this “assurance,” not only made no mention of a promise to the junta of Seville, but the junta itself was not in existence at the time his despatch was written.
[12] The occupation of Cadiz was a favourite project with the English government at this period. They were not discouraged by Spencer’s unsuccessful efforts to gain admittance, nor by the representations of sir Hew Dalrymple, who had grounds for believing that any attempt to introduce British troops there, would bring down the greater part of Castaños’ army to oppose it by force; nor by the consideration that in a political view such a measure would give a subject for misrepresentation to the enemy’s emissaries, and that, in a military view, the burthen of Cadiz would clog all general operations in Portugal.
[13] The ministers were so intent upon occupying Cadiz, and so little acquainted with the state of public feeling in Andalusia, that one of those generals carried with him his appointment as governor of that city.