History of the war in the Peninsula and in the south of France from the year 1807 to the year 1814, vol. 6

by William Francis Patrick Napier

“Some of his muleteers he said were twenty-sixWellington’s Despatches. months in arrears, and recently, instigated by British merchants, they had become so clamorous that rather than lose their services he had given them bills on the treasury for a part of their claims, though he knew they would sell these bills at a discount to the sharks, who had urged them to be thus importunate and who were waiting at the ports to take advantage of the public distresses. A dangerous measure which he desired not to repeat.

“It might be true that the supply of one hundred thousand pounds a month had been even exceeded for some time past, but it was incontestible that the English army and all its departments, and the Spanish and Portuguese armies were at the moment paralyzed for want of money. The arrears of pay to the soldiers was entering the seventh month, the debt was immense, and the king’s engagements with the Spanish and Portuguese governments were not fulfilled. Indebted in every part of Spain he was becoming so in France, the price of all commodities was increasing in proportion to the delay of payment, to the difficulty of getting food at all, and the want of credit into which all the departments of the army had fallen. Of two hundred thousand dollars given to marshal Beresford for the pay of his troops on account of the Portuguese subsidy he had been forced to take back fifty thousand to keep the Spaniards together, and was even then forced to withhold ten thousand to prevent the British cavalry from perishing. Money to pay the Spaniards had sailed from Cadiz, but the vessel conveying it, and another containing the soldiers’ great coats, were by the admiralty arrangements obliged to go first to Corunna, and neither had arrived there in January although the money had been ready in October. But the ship of war designed to carry it did not arrive at Cadiz until the end of December. Sixteen thousand Spanish troops were thus rendered useless because without pay they could not be trusted in France.”

“The commissary-in-chief in England had been regularly informed of the state of the supplies of the military chest and of the wants and prospects of the army, but those wants were not attended to. The monthly hundred thousand pounds spoken of as the maximum, even if it had been given regularly, would not cover the ordinary expenses of the troops, and there were besides the subsidies other outlays requiring ready money, such as meat for the soldiers, hospital expenses, commissariat labourers, and a variety of minor engagements. The Portuguese government had been reduced to a monthly sum of two hundred thousand dollars out of a subsidy of two millions sterling. The Spanish government got what they could out of a subsidy of one million. And when money was obtained for the government in the markets of Lisbon and Cadiz, it came not in due time, because, such were the admiralty arrangements, there were no ships to convey the treasure to the north coast of Spain. The whole sum which had passed through the military chest during the past year was scarcely more than two millions four hundred thousand pounds, out of which part of the subsidies had been paid. This was quite inadequate, the Government had desired him to push his operations to the Garonne during the winter, he was prepared to do so in every point excepting money, and he knew the greatest advantages would accrue from such a movement but he could not stir. His posts were already so distant from the coast that his means of transport were daily destroyed by the journeys, he had not a shilling to pay for any thing in the country and his credit was gone. He had been obliged privately to borrow the expense of a single courier sent to general Clinton. It was not his duty to suggest the fitting measures for relief, but it was obvious that an immediate and large supply from England was necessary and that ships should be provided to convey that which was obtained at Lisbon and Cadiz to the army.”

Such was the denuded state of the victorious Wellington at a time when millions, and the worth of more millions were being poured by the English ministers into the continent; when every petty German sovereign, partizan, or robber, who raised a band, or a cry against Napoleon, was supplied to satiety. And all this time there was not in England one public salary reduced, one contract checked, one abuse corrected, one public servant rebuked for negligence; not a writer dared to expose the mischief lest he should be crushed by persecution; no minister ceased to claim and to receive the boasting congratulations of the tories, no whig had sense to discover or spirit to denounce the iniquitous system, no voice of reprehension was heard from that selfish faction unless it were in sneering contempt of the general whose mighty genius sustained England under this load of folly.

Nor were these difficulties all that lord Wellington had to contend with. We have seen that the Portuguese regency withheld his reinforcements even when he had provided transports for their conveyance. The duke of York meanwhile insisted upon withdrawing his provisional battalions, which being all composed of old soldiers, the remains of regiments reduced by the casualties of war, were of more value in a winter campaign than three times their numbers of new men. With respect to the English militia regiments, he had no desire for them, because they possessed, he said, all the worst faults of the regulars and some peculiar to themselves besides. What he desired was that eight or ten thousand men should be drafted from them to fill up his ranks, he could then without much injury let his foreign battalions be taken away to reform a Hanoverian army on the continent; and this plan he was inclined to, because the Germans, brave and strong soldiers, were yet extremely addicted to desertion and in that particular set a bad example to the British: this suggestion was however disregarded, and other reinforcements were promised to him.

But the most serious of all the secondary vexations he endured sprung from the conduct of the Spanish authorities. His hospitals and depôts were for the most part necessarily in the Spanish territories and principally at Santander. To avoid inconvenience to the inhabitants he had caused portable wooden houses to be brought from England in which to shelter his sick and wounded men; and he paid extravagantly and regularly for every aid demanded from the natives. Nevertheless the natural arrogance or ill-will which produced the libels about St. Sebastian the insolence of the minister of war and the sullen insubordination of Morillo and other generals broke out here also. After much underhand and irritating conduct at different times, the municipality, resolute to drive the hospitals from their town, suddenly, and under the false pretext that there was a contagious fever, placed all the British hospitals with their officers and attendants under quarantine. This was in the middle of January. Thirty thousand men had been wounded since June in the service of Spain, and the return was to make those wounded men close prisoners and drive their general to the necessity of fixing his hospitals in England. Vessels coming from Santander were thus rendered objects of dread, and the municipalities of the other ports, either really fearing or pretending to fear the contagion, would not suffer them to enter their waters. To such a height did this cowardice and villainy attain that the political chief of Guipuscoa, without giving any notice to lord Wellington, shut all the ports of that province against vessels coming from Santander, and the alcalde of Fuenterabia endeavoured to prevent a Portuguese military officer from assisting an English vessel which was about to be and was afterwards actually cast away, because she came from Santander.

Now in consequence of the difficulties and dangers of navigating the Bay of Biscay in the winter and the badness of the ports near the positions of the army, all the stores and provisions coming by sea went in the first instance to Santander, the only good port, there to wait until favourable opportunities occurred for reaching the more eastern harbours. Moreover all the provision magazines of the Spanish army were there, but this blow cut them off, the army was reduced to the smaller magazines at Passages which could only last for a few days, and when that supply was expended lord Wellington would have had no resource but to withdraw across the Pyrenees! “Here,” he exclaimed, “here are the consequences of the system by which these provinces are governed! Duties of the highest description, military operations, political interests, and the salvation of the state, are made to depend upon the caprices of a few ignorant individuals, who have adopted a measure unnecessary and harsh without adverting to its objects or consequences, and merely with a view to their personal interests and convenience.”

They carried it into execution also with the utmost hardness caprice and injustice, regardless of the loss of ships and lives which must follow, and finally desired lord Wellington to relinquish the harbour and town of Santander altogether as a depôt! However his vigorous remonstrances stopped this nefarious proceeding in time to avert the danger which it menaced.

Be it remembered now, that these dangers and difficulties, and vexations, although related in succession, happened, not one after another, but altogether; that it was when crossing the Bidassoa, breaking through the mountain fortifications of Soult, passing the Nive, fighting the battles in front of Bayonne, and when still greater and more intricate combinations were to be arranged, that all these vials of folly and enmity were poured upon his head. Who then shall refuse to admire the undaunted firmness, the unwearied temper and vigilance, the piercing judgement with which he steered his gallant vessel and with a flowing sail, unhurt through this howling storm of passion this tumultuous sea of folly.