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

The provincial juntas were become universally odious. Some of the generals alone, who had suddenly risen to command under their rule, were favourable to them; but Palafox was independent, as a captain-general, whose power was confirmed by success; Castaños openly declared that he would no longer serve under their control, and Cuesta was prepared to put them down by force, and to re-establish the royal audienzas and the authority of the captains-general according to the old practice. In this state of affairs, the retreat of Bessieres’ army freed the communication with the southern parts, and removed all excuse for procrastination. The juntas of Gallicia, Castille, Leon, and the Asturias, gave way to the unceasing remonstrances of Mr. Stuart, and at his instance agreed to meet in cortez, at Lugo; Gallicia, however, first insisted upon a formal ratification of the treaty with Castille already mentioned.

When the moment of assembling arrived, the Asturians, without assigning any reason, refused to fulfil the engagement they had entered into, and the three remaining juntas held the session without them. The bishop of Orense, and the junta of Gallicia, were prepared to assert the supremacy of that province over the others, but the Baily Valdez of Castille, an able and disinterested man, being chosen president of the convocation, proposed, on the first day of assembly, that deputies should be appointed to represent the three provinces in a supreme junta, to be assembled in some central place, for the purpose of convoking the ancient cortez of the whole kingdom according to the old forms, and of settling the administration of the interior, and the future succession to the throne. This proposition was immediately carried by the superior number of the Castillians and Leonese; but the bishop of Orense protested against it, and the Gallician members strongly opposed an arrangement, by which their province was placed on the same footing as others, a glaring injustice (in their opinion) when the numbers of the Gallician army were taken into consideration; for the local feeling of ambition was uppermost, and the general cause disregarded. The other party answered, with great force, that the Gallician army was paid, armed, and clothed, by England, and fed by Castille and Leon.

Mr. Stuart’s Correspondence.

Meanwhile the influence of the council of Castille greatly increased, and the junta of Seville, quickened by fear, took the lead in directing what they could not prevent. The convocation of the cortez they knew would be fatal to their own existence; wherefore, in a public letter, addressed to the junta of Gallicia, dated one day previous to the circular of don Arias Mon, but evidently written after the receipt of the latter, they opposed the assembling of the cortez on the ground that it was “the prerogative of the king to convoke that body, and if it was called together by any other authority, the provinces would not obey.” “There would be no unanimity.” The futility of this argument is apparent. The question was not one of form, but of expediency. If the nation was in favour of such a step, (and after facts proved that the people were not opposed to it) the same necessity which constituted the right of the junta to declare war against the French, (another prerogative of the monarch) would have sufficed to legalize the convocation of the national assembly. But their sole object was to preserve their own power. They maintained that the juntas, being chosen by the nation, were the only legitimate depositaries of authority, and that to members of their own bodies only could any of that authority be delegated; and adopting thereupon the suggestion contained in the letter of Arias Mon, they proposed that two deputies from each supreme junta should repair, not to Madrid, but to Ciudad Real, or Almagro, and at the moment of meeting should be in fact constituted governors-general of the kingdom, and as such obeyed. Nevertheless, the local governments were, with due subordination to the central junta, to retain and exercise in their own provinces all the authority with which they had already invested themselves. Thus they had only to choose subservient deputies, and their power would be more firmly fixed than before.

This arrangement would, doubtless, have been readily adopted by the junta of Gallicia; but the rapidity with which Valdez carried his proposition, prevented that cause of discord from being added to the numerous disputes which already distracted the northern provinces. Mr. Stuart, impelled by the political tide, proceeded onward to Madrid, observing, wherever he passed, the same violence of local party feeling, and the general disgust occasioned by the conduct of the oligarchical provincial governments. Pride, vanity, corruption, and improvidence, were every where obtrusively visible.

The dispute between Blake and Cuesta, which was raging at the period of the battle of Rio Seco, a period when division was most hurtful to the military operations, was now allayed between the generals; but their political partizans waged war with more bitterness than ever, as if with the intent to do the greatest possible mischief, by continuing the feud among the civil branches of the government, when union was Stuart’s Correspondence. most desirable in that quarter. The seeds of division had taken deep root. The Baily Valdez chosen, as I have said, a deputy to the supreme junta, was obnoxious to general Cuesta, a man not to be offended with impunity when he had power to punish.

Don Gregorio Cuesta was haughty and incredibly obstinate. He had been president of the council of Castille, and he was captain-general of Castille and Leon when the insurrection first broke out. Disliking all revolutionary movements, although as inimical to a foreign domination as any of his countrymen, he endeavoured to repress the public effervescence, and to maintain the tranquillity of the country at the risk of losing his life as a traitor. He was an honest man, insomuch as the Spanish and French interests being put in competition, he would aid the former, but, between his country’s cause and his own passions, he was not honest. He disliked, and with reason, the sway of the local juntas, and with consistency of opinion, he wished to preserve the authority of the captains-general and the royal audienzas, both of which had been overturned by the establishment of those petty governments; but, sullen and ferocious in his temper, he supported his opinion with an authority and severity which had no guide but his own will, and he was prepared, if an opportunity offered, to exercise military influence over the supreme, as well as over the subordinate juntas. He had himself appointed one for Leon and Castille as a sort of council, subordinate to the authority of captain-general; but, after the battle of Rio Seco, the members fled to Ponteferrada, assumed the supreme authority, and putting themselves under the protection of his enemy Blake, disregarded Cuesta’s orders, and presumed to command him, their superior, to deliver up his cavalry to the former general; wherefore he annulled all their proceedings at Ponteferrada, and now asserting that the election of Valdez and his colleagues was void, as being contrary to the existing laws, he directed new juntas to be assembled in a manner more conformable to existing usages, and a fresh election to be made.

His mandates were disregarded; Valdez and the other deputies proceeded in defiance of them towards the place appointed for the assembly of the central and supreme government, and Cuesta, in return, without hesitation, abandoned the operations of the campaign, which, in the council of war held at Madrid, he had promised to aid, and falling back to Segovia with twelve thousand men, seized the deputies, and shut up Valdez a close prisoner in the tower of that place, declaring his intention to try him by a military tribunal for disobedience; and such was the disorder of the times, that Cuesta was not without plausible arguments to justify this act of stubborn violence; for the original election of members to form the junta of Castille and Leon had been any thing but legal; several districts had been omitted altogether in the representation of those kingdoms, many deputies had been chosen by the city of Leon alone, and Valdez was named president, although neither a native nor a proprietor, and for those reasons ineligible to be a deputy at all. The kingdom of Leon also had appointed representatives for those districts in Castille which were under the domination of the French, and when the enemy retired, the Castillians in vain demanded a more equitable arrangement.

However, amidst all this confusion and violence, the plan of uniting to form a central government gained ground all over the kingdom. Seville, Catalonia, Arragon, Murcia, Valencia, and Asturias, appointed their deputies. Fresh disputes relative to the place of assembly now arose, but after some time it was agreed to meet at Aranjuez. This royal residence was chosen contrary to the wishes of many, and notably against the opinion of Jovellanos, an eloquent person, and of great reputation for integrity, but of a pertinacious temper, unsuitable to the times. He urged that the capital was the meetest spot; but he was answered, that the turbulent disposition of the inhabitants of Madrid would impede the formation of a government, and that the same objection would exist against the choice of any other large town. It is extraordinary that such an argument should be held in Spain at a moment when the people were, in all the official and public papers, represented as perfectly enthusiastic, and united in one common sacred pursuit, and in the British parliament were denominated the “universal Spanish nation!”

To seek thus for protection in a corner, instead of manfully and confidently identifying themselves with the people, and courting publicity, augured ill for the intentions of the deputies, nor was the augury belied by the event. The junta of Seville, who had so bitterly reviled the council of Castille, for having partially Cox’s Correspondence. submitted to the usurper, had, notwithstanding, chosen for their own deputies, don Vincente Hore, a known creature of the prince of peace, and the count de Tilly Gusman, who was under the stigma of a judicial sentence for robbery. Hore declined the appointment; but Tilly, braving the public disgust, repaired to Aranjuez, and his place as resident with the head-quarters of the Andalusian army was filled up by Miñiano, another member of the junta, who received an enormous salary for performing the mischievous duties of that office. The instructions given by the different provinces to the deputies were to confine their deliberations and votes to such subjects as they should, from time to time, receive directions from their constituents to treat of. Seville again took the lead in this fraudulent policy, and when public indignation and the remonstrances of some right-minded persons, obliged the juntas of that town and of Valencia to rescind these instructions, both substituted secret orders of the same tenor; in short the greater part of the deputies were the mere tools of the juntas; agents, watching over the interests of their employers, and (conscious of demerit) anxious to hide themselves from the just indignation of the public until they had consolidated their power; hence the dislike to large towns and the intrigues for fixing the government at Aranjuez.