The third or Santa Maria division of blockade, followed the sweep of the bay, and reckoning from the San Pedro, on the left, to the castle of Santa Catalina the extreme point of the outer harbour, on the right, was about five miles. The town of Santa Maria, built at the mouth of the Guadalete in the centre of this line, was entrenched and the ground about Santa Catalina was extremely rugged.
Besides these lines of blockade which were connected by a covered way, concealed by thick woods, and when finished armed with three hundred guns, the towns of Rota and San Lucar de Barameda were occupied. The first, situated on a cape of land opposite to Cadiz, was the northern point of the great bay or roadstead. The second commanded the mouth of Guadalquivir. Behind the line of blockade, Latour Maubourg, with a covering division, took post at Medina Sidonia, his left being upon the upper Guadalete, and his advanced posts watching the passes of the Sierra de Ronda. Such was the position of the first corps. I shall now relate the progress of events within the blockaded city.
The fall of the Central Junta, the appointment of the regency and the proclamation for convoking the national Cortes have been already touched upon. Albuquerque, hailed as a deliverer, elected governor, commander in chief, and president of the Junta, appeared to have unlimited power; but in reality, possessed no authority except over his own soldiers, and he did not meddle with the administration. The regency appointed provisionally and composed of men without personal energy or local influence, was obliged to bend and truckle to the Junta of Cadiz; and that imperious body without honour, talents, or patriotism, sought only to obtain the Albuquerque’s Manifesto.command of the public revenue for dishonest purposes, and meanwhile, privately trafficked with the public stores.
Private Correspondence of Officers from Cadiz. 1810. MSS.
Albuquerque’s troops were in a deplorable state; the whole had been long without pay, and the greater part were without arms, accoutrements, ammunition, or clothes. When he demanded supplies, the Junta declared that they could not furnish them; but the duke affirming this to be untrue, addressed a memorial to the Regency, and the latter, anxious to render the Junta odious, yet fearing openly to attack them, persuaded Albuquerque to publish his memorial. The Junta replied by an exposition, false as to facts, base and ridiculous in reasoning; for although they had elected the duke president of their own body, they accused him amongst other things, with retreating from Carmona too quickly; and they finished with an intimation, that, supported by the populace of Cadiz, they were able and ready to wreak their vengeance on all enemies. Matters being thus brought to a crisis, both Albuquerque and the Regency gave way, and the former being sent ambassador to England, died in that country some months after of a phrenzy brought on, as it is said, by grief and passion at the unworthy treatment he received.
But the misery of the troops, the great extent of the positions, the discontent of the seamen, the venal spirit of the Junta, the apathy of the people, the feebleness of the Regency, the scarcity of provisions, and the machinations of the French, who had many favourers and those amongst the men in power, all combined to place Cadiz in the greatest jeopardy; and this state of affairs would have led to a surrender, if England had not again filled the Spanish store-houses, and if the Regency had not consented to receive British troops into the city.
General Campbell’s Correspondence. MSS.
At the same time, general Colin Campbell (who had succeeded Sir John Cradock as governor of Gibraltar) performed a great service to his country, for, by persevering negotiation, he obtained that an English garrison should likewise enter Ceuta, and that the Spanish lines of San Roque, and the forts round the harbour of Algesiras should be demolished. Both measures were very essential to the present and permanent interests of England; but the first especially, because it cleared the neighbourhood of the fortress, and gave it a secure harbour. Gibraltar, at this time, contained a mixed and disaffected population of more than twelve thousand persons, and merchandize to the value of two millions sterling, which could have been easily destroyed by bombardment; and Ceuta which was chiefly garrisoned by condemned troops, and filled with galley-slaves, and its works miserably neglected, had only six days’ provisions, and was at the mercy of the first thousand French that could cross the streights. The possession of it would have availed the enemy in many ways, especially in obtaining provisions from Barbary, where his emissaries were exceedingly active.
General William Stewart arrived in Cadiz, on the 11th of February, with two thousand men, a thousand more joined him from Gibraltar, and the whole were received with an enthusiasm, that proved sir George Smith’s perception to have been just, and that Mr. Frere’s unskilful management of the Central Junta, had alone prevented a similar measure the year before. The 17th of February, a Portuguese regiment, thirteen hundred strong, was also admitted into the city, and Spanish troops came in daily in small bodies. Two ships of war, the Euthalion and Undaunted, arrived from Mexico with six millions of dollars; and another British battalion, a detachment of artillery, and more native troops, having joined the garrison, the whole Official Abstract of Operations at Cadiz. 1810. MSS.force assembled behind the Santi Petri, was not less than four thousand Anglo-Portuguese, and fourteen thousand Spaniards. Yet there was little of enthusiasm amongst the latter; and in all this time, not a man among the citizens had been enrolled or armed, or had volunteered, either to labour or to fight. The ships recovered at Ferrol, had been transferred to Cadiz, so there were in the bay, twenty-three men of war, of which four of the line and three frigates were British; and thus, money, troops, and a fleet, in fine, all things necessary to render Cadiz formidable, were collected, yet to little purpose, because procrastination, jealousy, ostentation, and a thousand absurdities, were the invariable attendants of Spanish armies and governments.
General Stewart’s first measure, was to recover Matagorda. In the night of the 22d, a detachment consisting of fifty seamen and marines, twenty-five artillery-men, and sixty-seven of the ninety-fourth regiment, the whole under the command of captain M’Lean, pushed across the channel during a storm, and taking possession of the dismantled fort, before morning effected a solid lodgement, and although the French cannonaded the work with field-artillery all the next day, the garrison, supported by the fire of Puntales, was immoveable.