When Bessieres retreated after the defeat of Baylen, Blake occupied Leon, Astorga, and the pass of Mansanal: farther into the plains he durst not venture without cavalry. At this time Cuesta, with one thousand five hundred dragoons, was at Arevalo, and the junta of Castille and Leon, having taken refuge at Ponteferrada, commanded him to transfer his horsemen to Blake’s army; but Cuesta, an arbitrary old man, exasperated by his defeat, and his mind rankling from his quarrel with Blake, instead of obeying retired Mr. Stuart’s Correspondence. to Salamanca, collected eight or ten thousand peasants, armed them, and then annulled the proceedings of the junta, and threatened the members with punishment for resisting his authority as captain-general. On the other hand Blake protected them, and while the generals disputed, three thousand French cavalry descending the Douero, scoured the plains, and raised contributions in the face of both their armies.
Blake finding that the obstinacy of Cuesta was invincible, quitted his cantonments early in September, and skirting the plains on the north-east, carried his Capt. Carrol’s letters. army by forced marches to the Montagna St. Ander, a small rugged district, dividing Biscay from the Asturias. The junta of the latter province had received enormous and very timely succours from England, but made no exertions answerable to the amount of the assistance granted, or to the strength and importance of the district. Eighteen thousand men were said to be in arms, but only ten thousand were promised to Blake, and but eight thousand joined his army.
In Catalonia the war was conducted by both sides without much connexion, or dependance on the movements of the main armies; and at this period it had little influence on the general plan of campaign.
Thus, it appears, that one month after the capitulation of Dupont, only nineteen thousand infantry without cavalry, and those under the command of more than one general, were collected at Madrid; that only sixteen thousand men were in line upon the Ebro, and that the remainder of the Spanish armies, (exclusive of that in Catalonia computed at eleven thousand men,) were many days’ march from the enemy, and from one another. The chiefs at discord with their respective juntas, and at variance among themselves, were inactive, or as in the case of Galluzzo, doing mischief.
The feeble and dilatory operations of the armies, were partly owing to the ineptitude of the generals; but the principal causes were the unbounded vanity, arrogance, and selfishness of the local governments, among whom the juntas of Gallicia and Seville were remarkable for their ambition. The time which should have been passed in concerting measures for pushing the victory of Baylen was spent by them in devising schemes to ensure the permanency of their own power, and the money and resources, both of England and Spain, were applied to further this pernicious object. In every part of the country a spirit of interested violence prevailed; the ardour of patriotism was chilled, and the exertions of sensible men were rendered nugatory, or served as a signal for their own destruction.
The argument to be drawn from this state of affairs is conclusive against the policy of Joseph’s retreat. Without drafting a man from the garrisons of Pampeluna, Tortosa, and St. Sebastian; without interfering with the moveable columns employed on the [Appendix, No. 6.] communications of Biscay and Navarre; that monarch drew together about fifty thousand good troops, in twenty days after he had abandoned his capital. At the head of such a force, or even of two-thirds of it, he might have bid defiance to the inactive, half-organized, and scattered Spanish armies. It was so necessary to have maintained himself in Madrid, that scarcely any disproportion of numbers should have induced him to abandon it without an effort; but the disaster of Dupont had created in Joseph’s mind a respect for Spanish prowess, while from his sagacious [Appendix, No. 4.] brother it drew the following observation: “The whole of the Spanish forces are not capable of beating twenty-five thousand French in a reasonable position.” The error of abandoning the capital would, if the Spaniards had been capable of pursuing any general plan of action, been fatal; but as if the stone of Cadmus had been cast among them, the juntas turned upon one another in hate, and forgot the common enemy.
Ferdinand was again proclaimed king of Spain, and the pomp and rejoicing attendant on this event put an end to all business, except that of intrigue. Castaños assumed the title of captain-general of Madrid. This step seems to have been taken by him, partly to forward his being appointed generalissimo, and partly with a view to emancipate himself from the injurious control of the Seville junta; for, although the authority of the captains-general had been superseded in most of the provinces by the juntas, it was not universally the case. Castaños expected, and with reason, to be appointed generalissimo of the Spanish armies; but he was of an indolent disposition, and it soon became manifest that until a central and supreme government was established, such a salutary measure would not be adopted. In the mean time the council of Castille, although not generally popular with the people, and hated by the juntas, was accepted as the provisional head of the state in the capital; but its authority was merely nominal, and the necessity of showing some front to the enemy seems to have been the only link of connexion between the Spanish armies.
The evil consequences flowing from this want of unity were soon felt. Scarcely had the French quitted Madrid, when the people of Biscay prepared to rise. Such an event, if prudently conducted and well supported, would have been of incalculable advantage; but the nicest arrangement, and the utmost prudence, were necessary to insure success, for the Biscayans had neither arms nor ammunition, the French were close to them, and the nearest Spanish force was the feeble Asturian levy. A previous junction of Blake’s army with the latter was indispensable; that once effected, and due preparation made, the insurrection of Biscay, protected by forty thousand regular troops, and supplied from the sea-board with money and stores, would have forced the French to abandon the Ebro or to fight a battle, which Blake might have risked with little danger, provided that the Andalusian, Murcian, Valencian, and Arragonese troops assembling about Tudela, were prepared to move at the same time against the left flank of the enemy. But in every point of view it was an event pregnant with important consequences, and the impatience of the Biscayans should have been restrained rather than encouraged; yet the duke of Infantado, colonel Doyle, and others, at Madrid, made strenuous efforts to hasten the explosion. The crude manner in which they conducted this serious affair is exposed in the following extracts from colonel Doyle’s despatches:
“I proposed to general Blake that he should send officers to Biscay to stir up the people there, and into the Asturias to beg that of their 15,000 men, 8,000 might be pushed into Biscay to Bilbao, to assist the people, who were all ready, and only waited for arms and ammunition, for both of which I wrote to Mr. Hunter at Gihon, and learned from him that he had sent a large supply of both, and some money to Bilbao, where already 14,000 men had enrolled themselves. The remainder of the Asturians I begged might instantly occupy the passes from Castille into the Asturias and Biscay, that is to say, from Reynosa in the direction of Bilbao.” Some days after he says,—“My measures in Biscay and Asturias have perfectly succeeded; the reinforcements of arms, ammunition, and men (5,000 stand of arms, and ammunition in proportion) have reached Bilbao in safety, and the Asturians have taken possession of the passes I pointed out, so that we are all safe in that part of the world.”