The first corps contained twenty thousand; the fourth and fifth about eleven thousand each; the garrison of Badajos was five thousand; twenty thousand formed a disposable reserve, and the rest of the force consisted of “Escopeteros” and civic guards, who were chiefly employed in the garrisons and police. Upon pressing occasions, Soult could therefore take the field, at any point, with twenty-four or twenty-five thousand men, and in Estremadura, on very pressing occasions, with even a greater number of excellent troops well and powerfully organized. The manner in which this great army was paralysed in the latter part of 1811, shall now be shown.
In October, Drouet was in the Morena, and1811. October. Girard at Merida, watching Morillo, who was in Caceres, when Soult, who had just returned to Seville after his Murcian expedition, sent three thousand men to Fregenal, seemingly to menace the Alemtejo. General Hill therefore recalled his brigades from the right bank of the Tagus, and concentrated his whole corps behind the Campo Maior on the 9th.
The 11th Girard and Drouet advanced, the Spanish cavalry retired from Caceres, the French drove Morillo to Caza de Cantellaña, and every thing indicated a serious attack; but at this moment Soult’s attention was attracted by the appearance of Ballesteros in the Ronda, and he recalled the force from Fregenal. Drouet, who had reached Merida, then retired to Zafra, leaving Girard with a division and some cavalry near Caceres.
Ballesteros had disembarked at Algeziras on the 11th of September, and immediately marched with his own and Beguine’s troops, in all four thousand men, to Ximena, raising fresh levies and collecting the Serranos of the Ronda as he advanced. On the 18th he had endeavoured to succour the castle of Alcala de Gazules, where Beguines had a garrison, but a French detachment from Chiclana had already reduced that post, and after some skirmishing both sides fell back, the one to Chiclana, the other to Ximena.
At this time six thousand French were collected at Ubrique, intending to occupy the sea-coast, from Algeziras to Conil, in furtherance of a great project which Soult was then meditating, and by which he hoped to effect, not only the entire subjection of Andalusia, but the destruction of the British power in the Peninsula. But this design, which shall be hereafter explained more fully, required several preliminary operations, amongst the most important of which was the capture of Tarifa; for that place, situated in the narrowest part of the straits, furnished either a protection, or a dangerous point of offence, to the Mediterranean trade, following the relations of its possessor with England. It affected, as we have seen, the supplies of the French before the Isla; it was from its nearness, and from the run of the current, the most convenient and customary point for trading with Morocco; it menaced the security of Ceuta, and it possessed, from ancient recollections, a species of feudal superiority over the smaller towns, and ports along the coast, which would have given the French, if they had taken it, a moral influence of some consequence.
Soult had in August despatched a confidential officer from Conil to the African coast to negotiate with the Barbaric emperor, and the latter had agreed to a convention, by which he engaged to exclude British agents from his court; and to permit vessels of all nations to use the Moorish flag to cover their cargoes, while carrying to the French those supplies hitherto sent to the allies, provided Soult would occupy Tarifa as a depôt. This important convention was on the point of being ratified, when the opportune arrival of some unusually magnificent presents from England, turned the scale against the French: their agent was then dismissed, the English supplies were increased, and Mr. Stuart entered into a treaty for the purchase of horses to remount the allied cavalry.
Although foiled in this attempt, Soult, calculating on the capricious nature of barbarians, resolved to fulfil his part by the capture of Tarifa; hence it was, that when Ballesteros appeared at Ximena, he arrested the movement of Drouet against the Alemtejo, and sent troops from Seville by Ubrique against the Spanish general, whose position besides being extremely inconvenient to the first and fourth corps, was likely to affect the taking of Tarifa. Ballesteros, if reinforced, might also have become very dangerous to the blockade of Cadiz, by intercepting the supplies from the Campiña de Tarifa, and still more by menacing Victor’s communications with Seville, along the Guadalquivir. A demonstration by the allies in the Isla de Leon arrested the march of these French troops for a moment, but on the 14th eight thousand men under generals Godinot and Semélé advanced upon St. Roque and Algeziras. The inhabitants of those places immediately fled to the green island, and Ballesteros took refuge under Gibraltar, where his flanks were covered by the gun-boats of the place. The garrison was too weak to assist him with men, and thus cooped up, he lived upon the resources of the place, while efforts were therefore made to draw off the French by harassing their flanks. The naval means were not sufficient to remove his whole army to another quarter, but seven hundred were transported to Manilba, where the Serranos and some Partidas had assembled on the left of the French, and at the same time twelve hundred British troops with four guns, under colonel Skerrett, and two thousand Spaniards, under Copons, sailed from Cadiz to Tarifa to act upon the French right.
Copons was driven back by a gale of wind, but Skerrett arrived the 17th. The next day Godinot sent a detachment against him, but the sea-road by which it marched was so swept with the guns of the Tuscan frigate, aided by the boats of the Stately, that the French after losing some men returned. Then Godinot and Semélé being in dispute, and without provisions, retreated; they were followed by Ballesteros’ cavalry as far as Ximena, where the two generals separated in great anger, and Godinot having reached Seville shot himself. This failure in the south unsettled Soult’s plans, and was followed by a heavier disaster in Estremadura.