While the main body of the Gallicians was still at Ponte Ferrada, a separate division had passed along the coast road into the Asturias, and in concert with part of the seventh army had harassed Bonet’s retreat from that kingdom; the French general indeed forced his way by the eastern passes, and taking post the 30th of June at Reynosa and Aguilar del Campo, chased the neighbouring bands away, but this movement was one of the great errors of the campaign. Napoleon and WellingtonKing’s papers captured at Vittoria, MSS. felt alike the importance of holding the Asturias at this period. The one had ordered that they should be retained, the other had calculated that suchWellington’s despatches, MSS. would be the case, and the judgment of both was quickly made manifest. For the Gallicians, who would not have dared to quit the Bierzo if Bonet had menaced their province by Lugo, or by the shore line, invested Astorga the moment he quitted the Asturias. And the Partidas of the north, who had been completely depressed by Mina’s defeat, recovering courage, now moved towards the coast, where Popham’s expedition, which had sailed on the 18th of June from Coruña, soon appeared, a formidable spectacle, for there were five sail of the line, with many frigates and brigs, in all twenty ships of war.
The port of Lesquito was immediately attacked on the sea-board by this squadron, on the land side by the Pastor, and when captain Bouverie got a gun up to breach the convent the Spanish chief assaulted but was repulsed; however the garrison, two hundred and fifty strong, surrendered to the squadron the 22d, and on the two following days Bermeo and Plencia fell. The Partidas failed to appear at Guetaria, but Castro and Portagalete, in the Bilbao river, were attacked the 6th of July, in concert with Longa, and though the latter was rebuffed at Bilbao the squadron took Castro. The enemy recovered some of their posts on the 10th, and on the 19th the attempt on Guetaria being renewed, Mina and Pastor came down to co-operate, but a French column beat those chiefs, and drove the British seamen to their vessels, with the loss of thirty men and two guns.
It was the opinion of general Carrol who accompanied this expedition, that the plan of operations was ill-arranged, but the local successes merit no attention, the great object of distracting the enemy was obtained. Caffarelli heard at one and the same time, that Palombini’s division had been called to Madrid; that Bonet had abandoned the Asturias; that a Gallician division had entered that province; that a powerful English fleet, containing troops, was on the coast, and acting in concert with all the Partidas of the north; that the seventh army was menacing Burgos, and that the whole country was in commotion. Trembling for his own districts he instantly arrested the march of the divisions destined for Marmont; and although the king, who saw very clearly the real object of the maritime expedition, reiterated the orders to march upon Segovia or Cuellar, with a view to reinforce either the army of the centre or the army of Portugal, Caffarelli delayed obedience until the 13th of July, and then sent but eighteen hundred cavalry, with twenty guns.
Thus Bonet’s movement which only brought a reinforcement of six thousand infantry to Marmont, kept away Caffarelli’s reserves, which were twelve thousand of all arms, uncovered the whole of the great French line of communication, and caused the siege of Astorga to be commenced. And while Bonet was in march by Palencia and Valladolid to the position of Tordesillas, the king heard of Marmont’s retreat from the Tormes, and that an English column menaced Arevalo; wherefore not being ready to move with the army of the centre, and fearing for Avila, he withdrew the garrison from that place, and thus lost his direct line of correspondence with the army of Portugal, because Segovia was environed by the Partidas. In this state of affairs neither Wellington nor Marmont had reason to fight upon the Duero. The latter because his position was so strong he could safely wait for Bonet’s and Caffarelli’s troops, and meanwhile the king could operate against the allies’ communications. The former because he could not attack the French, except at great disadvantage; for the fords of the Duero were little known, and that of Pollos was very deep. To pass the river there, and form within gun-shot of the enemy’s left, without other combinations, promised nothing but defeat, and the staff officers, sent to examine the course of the river, reported that the advantage of ground was entirely on the enemy’s side, except at Castro Nuño, half-way between Pollos and Toro.
While the enemy commanded the bridge at Tordesillas, no attempt to force the passage of the river could be safe, seeing that Marmont might fall on the allies’ front and rear if the operation was within his reach; and if beyond his reach, that is to say near Zamora, he could cut their communication with Ciudad Rodrigo and yet preserve his own with Caffarelli and with the king. Wellington therefore resolved to wait until the fords should become lower, or the combined operations of the Gallicians and Partidas, should oblige the enemy, either to detach men, or to dislodge altogether for want of provisions. In this view he urged Santocildes to press the siege of Astorga vigorously and to send every man he could spare down the Esla; and an intercepted letter gave hopes that Astorga would surrender on the 7th, yet this seems to have been a device to keep the Gallicians in that quarter for it was in no danger. Santocildes, expecting its fall, would not detach men, but the vicinity of D’Urban’s cavalry, which remained at Castromonte, so incommoded the French right, that Foy marched to drive them beyond the Esla. General Pakenham however crossed the ford of Pollos, with some of the third division, which quickly brought Foy back, and Marmont then endeavoured to augment the number and efficiency of his cavalry, by taking a thousand horses from the infantry officers and the sutlers.
On the 8th Bonet arrived, and the French marshal immediately extending his right to Toro, commenced repairing the bridge there. Wellington, in like manner, stretched his left to the Guarena, yet kept his centre still on the Trabancos, and his right at Rueda, with posts near Tordesillas and the ford of Pollos. In this situation the armies remained for some days. Generals Graham and Picton went to England in bad health, and the principal powder magazine at Salamanca exploded with hurt to many, but no other events worth recording occurred. The weather was very fine, the country rich, and the troops received their rations regularly; wine was so plentiful, that it was hard to keep the soldiers sober; the caves of Rueda, either natural or cut in the rock below the surface of the earth, were so immense and so well stocked, that the drunkards of two armies failed to make any very sensible diminution in the quantity. Many men of both sides perished in that labyrinth, and on both sides also, the soldiers, passing the Duero in groups, held amicable intercourse, conversing of the battles that were yet to be fought; the camps on the banks of the Duero seemed at times to belong to one army, so difficult is it to make brave men hate each other.
To the officers of the allies all looked prosperous, their only anxiety was to receive the signal of battle, their only discontent, that it was delayed; and many amongst them murmured that the French had been permitted to retreat from Christoval. Had Wellington been finally forced back to Portugal his reputation would have been grievously assailed by his own people, for the majority, peering through their misty politics, saw Paris in dim perspective, and overlooked the enormous French armies that were close at hand. Meanwhile their general’s mind was filled with care and mortification, and all cross and evil circumstances seemed to combine against him.
The mediation for the Spanish colonies had just failed at Cadiz, under such circumstances, as left no doubt that the English influence was powerless and the French influence visibly increasing in the Cortez. Soult had twenty-seven gun-boats in the Trocadero canal, shells were cast day and night into the city, and the people were alarmed; two thousand French had marched from Santa Mary to Seville, apparently to reinforce Drouet in Estremadura; Echevaria had effected nothing in the kingdom of Cordoba, and a French division was assembling at Bornos, to attack Ballesteros, whose rashness, inviting destruction, might alone put an end to the campaign in Leon and bring Wellington back to the Tagus. In the north of Spain also affairs appeared equally gloomy, Mina’s defeats, and their influence upon the other Partidas, were positively known, but the effect of Popham’s operations was unknown, or at least doubtful. Bonet’s division had certainly arrived, and the Gallicians who had done nothing at Astorga were already in want of ammunition. In Castile the activity of the Partidas instead of increasing, had diminished after Wellington crossed the Tormes, and the chiefs seemed inclined to leave the burthen of the war entirely to their allies. Nor was this feeling confined to them. It had been arranged, that new corps, especially of cavalry, should be raised, as the enemy receded in this campaign, and the necessary clothing and equipments, supplied by England, were placed at the disposal of lord Wellington, who to avoid the burthen of carriage had directed them to Coruña; yet now, when Leon and the Asturias were in a manner recovered, no man would serve voluntarily. There was great enthusiasm, in words, there had always been so, but the fighting men were not increased, and even the juramentados, many of whom deserted at this time from the king, well clothed and soldier-like men, refused to enter the English ranks.
Now also came the news that lord William Bentinck’s plans were altered, and the intercepted despatches shewed that the king had again ordered Drouet to pass the Tagus, but Soult’s resistance to this order was not known. Wellington therefore at the same moment, saw Marmont’s army increase, heard that the king’s army, reinforced by Drouet, was on the point of taking the field; that the troops from Sicily, upon whose operations he depended to keep all the army of Aragon in the eastern part of Spain, and even to turn the king’s attention that way, were to be sent to Italy; and that two millions of dollars, which he hoped to have obtained at Gibraltar, had been swept off by lord William Bentinck for this Italian expedition, which thus at once deprived him of men and money! The latter was the most serious blow, the promised remittances from England had not arrived, and as the insufficiency of land-carriage rendered it nearly impossible to feed the army even on the Duero, to venture further into Spain without money would be akin to madness. From Gallicia, where no credit was given, came the supply of meat, a stoppage there would have made the war itself stop, and no greater error had been committed by the enemy, than delaying to conquer Gallicia, which could many times have been done.
To meet the increasing exigences for money, the English general had, for one resource, obtained a credit of half a million from the Treasury to answer certain certificates, or notes of hand, which his Spanish correspondents promised to get cashed; but of this resource he was now suddenly deprived by the English ministers, who objected to the irregular form of the certificates, because he, with his usual sagacity, had adapted them to the habits of the people he was to deal with. Meanwhile his troops were four, his staff six, his muleteers nearly twelve months in arrears of pay, and he was in debt every where, and for every thing. The Portuguese government had become very clamorous for the subsidy, Mr. Stuart acknowledged that their distress was very great, and the desertion from the Portuguese army, which augmented in an alarming manner, and seemed rather to be increased than repressed by severity, sufficiently proved their misery. The personal resources of Wellington alone enabled the army to maintain its forward position, for he had, to a certain extent, carried his commercial speculations into Gallicia, as well as Portugal; and he had persuaded the Spanish authorities in Castile to give up a part of their revenue in kind to the army, receiving bills on the British embassy at Cadiz in return. But the situation of affairs may be best learned from the mouths of the generals.