In the first conference held at Coruña, after sir1811. Sept. Howard Douglas’s arrival, the junta, as the usual preliminary, demanded more money from England; but he advised, instead, a better management of their own resources, and pointed out the military measures requisite to render the army efficient. He recommended the adoption of the line of retreat upon Orense, rather than upon Lugo and Coruña; and he endeavoured to establish a permanent depôt in the island of Arosa, on the Vigo coast, as a secure resource in the event of defeat; he also furnished the soldiers with shoes and great-coats, the hospitals with blankets, and completed the firelocks of the army to twenty-five thousand. There were however abuses, which he could not remedy, and which would seem rather to belong to the army of an Asiatic despot, than to an European force fighting for independence. Innumerable baggage animals devoured all the forage, and the personal servants and cooks, who from custom never did duty, were above[Appendix, No. I.] Section 1. five thousand! a sixth part of the whole force! When the sick men were deducted, scarcely sixteen thousand infantry and three squadrons of cavalry remained for service. Then there was so little organization or arrangement that, although young, robust, patient, and docile to the greatest degree, the troops could scarcely be moved, even from one quarter to another, as a military body; and the generals, unable to feed them on the frontier, more than once, menaced, and in December did actually retire to Lugo, leaving the province open to invasion.
Abadia at first exerted himself with activity, and appeared to enter loyally into the ameliorations proposed. He gave the command of the troops to Portasgo, repaired to Coruña himself, and organized the province in seven military governments, under as many chiefs, one for each division of the army. Every government was to raise a reserve, and to supply and clothe the corresponding division on the frontier. But in a little time this activity relaxed; he entered into various intrigues, displayed jealousy, both of the peasantry and the English, and no real improvement took place, save in that select part of the army, which the Cadiz regency had destined for South America, and had ordered him to equip from the English stores. This was done at the very moment when a French army on the frontier was again preparing to invade Gallicia, and sir Howard Douglas vehemently opposed the disloyal proceeding; the junta also were really averse to it, and Abadia pretended to be so; but he had a personal interest in the colonies and secretly forwarded the preparations. The regency, to evade Mr. Wellesley’s reproaches, promised to suspend the embarkation of these troops, but the expedition sailed from Vigo, and the organization of another, three times its strength, including all the best artillery in the province, was immediately commenced, and also sailed a few months later. This then was the state of Gallicia in the latter end of 1811. She was without magazines, hospitals, or system, whether civil or military, and torn by faction, her people were oppressed, her governors foolish, her generals bad: she had no cavalry, and the infantry were starving, although the province easily supplied cattle for the allies in Portugal. As a natural consequence, those famished soldiers were too undisciplined to descend into the plains of Leon, and were consequently of little weight in the general contest.
Under these circumstances, sir Howard Douglas1811. Nov. had nothing to work upon, save the Guerilla leaders, whose activity he very considerably increased. His policy was to augment the number of chiefs, but to keep the force of each low, lest, growing proud of their command, they should consider themselves generals, and become useless, as indeed had already happened to Campillo, Longa, and Porlier, when they were made a part of the seventh army. Nevertheless the advantage of this policy may be doubted, for of all the numerous bands in the north, seven only were not supported entirely by robbery. Mina, Pastor, Salazar, Pinto, Amor, and the curate, whose united forces did not exceedMr. Stuart’s Papers. MSS. ten thousand men, were sustained by regular taxes, customs, convent revenues, and donations; Longa supported his from the produce of the salt-mines of Paza, but all the rest were bandits, whose extinction was one of the advantages expected from the formation of the seventh army.
It is now convenient to resume the narrative of military events.
In the Asturias, previous to Mendizabal’s arrival, and when Bonet had marched to the Orbijo, Porlier surprised Santander, and plundered some houses; but being followed by general Caucault, a very active officer, he retired again to his strong-hold of Liebana. The British cruizers, in concert with whom he acted, then destroyed several coast-batteries, and the Iris frigate having arms on board, came to the Bay of Biscay for the purpose of arranging an intercourse with the Partidas of that province. But this was the period when Reille and Caffarelli, were, as I have before noticed, chasing Mina and Longa, whom they drove from the coast, into the mountains of Leon, and thus marred the object of the Iris. Nevertheless, when Mina was reinforced by the Valencians and other fugitives from Catalonia, he returned to Navarre, and there performed very considerable exploits, which, as belonging to other combinations of the war, will be hereafter noticed.
While Caffarelli and Reille thus scoured the line of communication, Dorsenne having the invasion of Gallicia in view, relieved Bonet on the Esla, and sent him early in November, with eight thousand men to re-occupy the Asturias as a preliminary measure. The Gallicians foreseeing this, had detached Moscoso with three thousand five hundred men to reinforce San Pol, who was at Pagares, below the passes leading from Leon; and on the other hand Mendizabal uniting the bands of Porlier and other chiefs, concentrated five thousand men to the eastward on the Xalon. Eleven thousand men were therefore ready to oppose the entrance of Bonet, but with the usual improvidence of the Spaniards, the passes of Cubillas and Ventana, to the westward of Pagares, were left unguarded. By these roads, Bonet, an excellent officer, turned Moscoso, and drove him down the Lena with loss and disgrace; then turning upon Mendizabal, he chased him also in disorder from Lanes into the Liebana.
All the civil authorities immediately fled to Castropol, the Spanish magazines fell into the hands of the French, and Bonet having resumed his old positions at Oviedo, Gihon, and Grado, fortified several posts in the passes leading to Leon, raised contributions, and effectually ruined all the military resources of the Asturias. The organization of the seventh army was thus for the time crushed, and in Gallicia great mischief ensued. For the return of Moscoso’s division and the want of provisions in the Bierzo, which had obliged Abadia to retire to Lugo, while Dorsenne was menacing the frontier, had thrown that kingdom into a ferment, which was increased by the imposition of the new contributions. The people became exceedingly exasperated and so unfavourably disposed, that it was common to hear themSir H. Douglas’s Correspondence, MSS. say, “the exactions of a French army were a relief in comparison to the depredations of the Spanish troops.”
During these transactions in the north, Drouet had joined Girard at Merida, and menaced the allies in the Alemtejo, hoping thus to draw Wellington from the Coa; but the demonstration was too feeble, and the English general thought it sufficient to reinforce Hill with his own brigade from Castello Branco. These movements were undoubtedly part of a grand plan for invading Portugal, if the emperor could have arranged his affairs peaceably with Russia. For to move once more against Lisbon, by Massena’s route, was not promising, unless the northern provinces of Portugal were likewise invaded, which required the preliminary occupation of Gallicia, at least of the interior. In the south also, it was advisable to invade Alemtejo, simultaneously with Beira; and the occupation of Valencia and Murcia was necessary to protect Andalusia during the operation. The plan was vast, dangerous, and ready for execution; for though the wet season had set in, an attack on the northern parts of Portugal, and the invasion of Gallicia, were openly talked of in Dorsenne’s army, Caffarelli was to join in the expedition, and Monthion’s reserve, which was to replace Caffarelli’s on the line of communication, was already six thousand strong. Ney or Oudinot were spoken of to command the whole, and a strong division was already in march to reinforce the army of the south, arrangements which could have reference only to Napoleon’s arrival; but the Russian war soon baulked the project, and Wellington’s operations, to be hereafter noticed, obliged Dorsenne to relinquish the invasion of Gallicia, and caused Bonet once more to abandon the Asturias.
Thus, with various turns of fortune, the war was managed in the northern provinces, and no great success attended the French arms, because the English general was always at hand to remedy the faults of the Spaniards. It was not so on the eastern line of invasion. There Suchet, meeting with no opponent capable of resisting him, had continued his career of victory, and the insufficiency of the Spaniards to save their own country was made manifest; but these things shall be clearly shewn in the next chapter, which will treat of the conquest of Valencia.