EXPEDITION OF FUENGIROLA.
General C. Campbell’s Correspondence. MSS.
On the 13th of October, captain Hope, in the Topaze, sailed from Ceuta, with a division of gun-boats and a convoy, containing a brigade of twelve-pounders, sixty-five gunners, a battalion of the eighty-ninth regiment, a detachment of foreign deserters, and the Spanish imperial regiment of Toledo, in all fifteen hundred men, including serjeants. Lord Blayney, commanding this force, was directed to make a false attack on Fuengirola, and should the enemy come out from Malaga, he was to sail against that place. A landing was effected the same day, and Sebastiani instantly marched, leaving only three hundred men in Malaga: lord Blayney was as instantly apprised of the success of the demonstration, yet he remained two days cannonading the castle with twelve-pounders, although the heavier metal of the gun-boats and of the frigate, had failed to make any impression on the walls; and during this time his dispositions betrayed the utmost contempt of military rules. Appendix, [No. XI.]On the second day, while he was on board a gun-boat himself, the garrison, which did not exceed two hundred men, having first descried Sebastiani’s column, made a sally, took the battery, and drove the British part of the investing force headlong towards the boats. Lord Blayney landed, rallied his men, and retook the artillery; but at this moment two squadrons of French cavalry came up, and his lordship, mistaking them for Spaniards, ordered the firing to cease. He was immediately made prisoner; his troops again fled to the beach, and would have been sabred but for the opportune arrival of the Rodney with the eighty-second regiment, the flank companies of which were immediately disembarked and first checked the enemy. The Spanish regiment, untouched by the panic, regained the ships regularly and without loss; but, of the British, two officers and thirty men were killed or wounded, and one general, seven inferior officers, and nearly two hundred serjeants and privates taken. Thus an expedition, well contrived and adequate to its object, was ruined by misconduct, and terminated in disaster and disgrace.
Scarcely was this affair finished, when Valdemoro and the marquis of Portasgo appeared in the Ronda, an insurrection commenced at Velez Malaga and in the neighbouring villages; and Blake, who had returned from Cadiz to the army in Murcia, advanced, with eight thousand men, towards Cullar on the side of Baza. General General Campbell’s Correspondence. MSS.Campbell immediately furnished money to Portasgo, and embarked a thousand stand of arms for the people of Velez Malaga. An English frigate was also sent to cruize along the coast, yet Sebastiani, relieved from the fear of a descent, soon quelled this insurrection; and then sending Milhaud on before with some cavalry, followed himself with reinforcements for general Rey, who was opposed to Blake. The latter, retiring behind the Almanzora river, was overtaken by Milhaud, and, being defeated on the 4th of November, his army dispersed: at the same time, a contagious fever, breaking out at Carthagena, spread along the coast to Gibraltar and Cadiz, and the Spanish operations on the side of Murcia ceased.
In the kingdom of Seville, the war turned chiefly upon the blockade of the Isla, and the movements of the Spanish armies in Estremadura. Provisions for Cadiz were principally drawn from the Condado de Neibla, and it has been seen that Copons, aided by descents from the ocean, endeavoured to secure this important resource; but neither his efforts, nor the descents, would have availed, if Ballasteros had not co-operated by constantly menacing Seville from Araceña and the Aroche mountains. Neither could Ballasteros have maintained the war there, were it not for the support of Badajos and Olivenza; under cover of which, Romana’s army protected his line of operation, and sent military supplies and reinforcements. On the possession of Badajos, therefore, the supply of Cadiz chiefly depended.
Seville was the French point of defence; Cadiz Estremadura and the Condado de Neibla their points of offence. The want of provisions, or the desire to cut off the Spanish convoys, or the sudden irruption of troops from Cadiz, threatening their posts at Moguer and Huelva, always drew them towards the coast; the enterprises of Ballasteros brought them towards Araceña; and, in like manner, the advance of Romana towards the mountains brought them to Estremadura; but Romana had wasted the greater part of the latter province, and as the fifth corps alone was disposable either for offensive movements, or for the defence of the country around Seville, Soult contented himself with such advantages as could be gained by sudden strokes; frequently, however, crossing the mountains to prevent the Spaniards from permanently establishing themselves on the frontier of Andalusia.
In October, Romana entered the Lines of Torres Vedras, and Mendizabal, who remained with two divisions, finding that Mortier, unconscious of Romana’s absence, had retired across the mountains, occupied Merida. He would also have established himself in the yet unwasted country about Llerena; but the appearance of a moveable column on the frontier of La Mancha, sent him back to Badajos, and, on the 20th of November, he united with Ballasteros. The French then fortified Gibraleon and other posts in the Condado de Neibla; Girard’s division re-appeared at Guadalcanal, and being joined by the column from La Mancha, foraged the country towards Llerena: whereupon Mendizabel took post at Zafra with nine thousand infantry and two thousand cavalry, including Madden’s Portuguese brigade. Meanwhile, Copons, who had four thousand men, was totally defeated at Castillejos by D’Aremberg, and retired to Puebla de Gusman.
At Cadiz, no change or military event had occurred after the affair of Matagorda, save the expeditions against Moguer already noticed, and a slight attempt of the Spaniards against the Chiclana works in September; but all men’s hopes and expectations had been wonderfully raised by political events which it was fondly hoped would secure both independence and a good constitution to Spain. After two years of intrigues and delay, the National Cortes was assembled, and the long suppressed voice of the people was at last to be heard. Nevertheless the members of the Cortes could not be duly and legally chosen in the provinces possessed by the enemy; and as some members were captured by the French on their journey to Cadiz, many persons unknown, even by name, to their supposed constituents, were chosen: a new principle of election, unknown to former Cortes, was also adopted; for all persons twenty-five years old, not holding office or pension under the government, nor incapacitated by crime, nor by debts to the state, nor by bodily infirmity, were eligible to sit if chosen. A supplement of sixty-eight members was likewise provided to supply accidental vacancies; and it was agreed that twenty-six persons then in Spain, natives of the colonies, should represent those dependencies.
Towards the latter end of September this great assembly met, and immediately took the title of Majesty: it afterwards declared the press free in respect of political, but not of religious matters, abolished some of the provincial juntas, re-appointed captains-general, and proceeded to form a constitution worded in the spirit of republican freedom. These things, aided by a vehement eloquence, drew much attention to the proceedings of the Cortes, and a fresh impulse seemed given to the war: but men brought up under despotism do not readily attain the fashions of freedom. The Provincial Junta, the Central Junta, the Junta of Cadiz, the Regency, had all been, in succession, violent and tyrannical in act, while claiming only to be popular leaders, and this spirit did not desert the Cortes. Abstract principles of liberty were freely promulgated, yet tyrannical and partial proceedings were of common occurrence; and the reformations, by outstripping the feelings and understandings of the nation, weakened the main springs of its resistance to the French. It was not for liberty, but for national pride and from religious influence, that the people struck. Freedom had no attractions for the nobles, nor for the monastics, nor even for the merchants; and the Cortes, in suppressing old establishments and violating old forms and customs, wounded powerful interests, created active enemies, and shocked those very prejudices which had produced resistance to Napoleon.
In the administration of the armies, in the conduct of the war, in the execution of the laws, and the treatment of the colonies, there was as much of vanity, of intrigue, of procrastination, negligence, folly, and violence as before. Hence the people were soon discontented; and when the power of the religious orders was openly attacked by a proposition to abolish the inquisition, the clergy became active enemies of the Cortes. The great cause of feudal privileges being once given up, the natural tendency of the Cortes was towards the enemy. A broad line of distinction was thus drawn between the objects of the Spanish and English governments in the prosecution of the war; and, ere the contest was finished, there was a schism between the British cabinet and the Spanish government, which would inevitably have thrown the latter into Napoleon’s hands, if fortune had not, at the moment, betrayed him in Russia.