‘It is indeed clear to any person who is acquainted with the present state of Spain, that the Spaniards are incapable of forming either a good government or a good army.’... ‘With respect to the army there are certainly in Spain abundant materials for good common soldiers. But where is one general of even moderate skill and talents? I know nothing of Lacy and Sarzfield, but assuredly a good general is not to be found amongst Castaños, Ballesteros, Palacios, Mendizabal, Santocildes, Abadia, Duque del Parque, La Pena, Elio, Mahy, or Joseph O’Donnel.’... ‘You cannot make good officers in Spain.’
If to this the reader will add what I have set forth in my history about Vives, Imas, Contreras, Campo Verde, Cuesta, and Areyasaga, and that he is not yet satisfied, I can still administer to his craving. In 1809 Wellington speaks with dread of ‘Romana’s cormorants flying into Portugal,’ and says, ‘that foolish fellow the Duque del Parque has been endeavouring to get his corps destroyed on the frontier.’ Again—
‘The Duque del Parque has advanced, because, whatever may be the consequences, the Spaniards always think it necessary to advance when their front is clear of an enemy.’
‘There never was anything like the madness, the imprudence, and the presumption of the Spanish officers in the way they risk their corps, knowing that the national vanity will prevent them from withdrawing them from a situation of danger, and that if attacked they must be totally destroyed. A retreat is the only chance of safety for the Duque del Parque’s corps; but instead of making it he calls upon you for cavalry.’... ‘I have ordered magazines to be prepared on the Douro and Mondego to assist in providing these vagabonds if they should retire into Portugal, which I hope they will do as their only chance of salvation.’
Again in 1811, defending himself from an accusation, made by the Spaniards, that he had caused the loss of Valencia, he says, ‘the misfortunes of Valencia are to be attributed to Blake’s ignorance of his profession and to Mahy’s cowardice and treachery.’
Now if any passage in my history can be pointed out more disparaging to the Spaniards than the expressions of lord Wellington and the other persons quoted above, I am content to be charged with an ‘unnatural bias’ against that people. But if this cannot be done, it is clear that the reviewer has proved, not my unnatural bias to the French but his own natural bias to calumny. He has indeed a wonderful aversion to truth, for close under his eye, in my second volume which he was then reviewing, was the following passage; and there are many of a like tendency in my work relative to the Spaniards which he leaves unnoticed.
‘Under such a system it was impossible that the peasantry could be rendered energetic soldiers, and they certainly were not active supporters of their country’s cause; but with a wonderful constancy they suffered for it, enduring fatigue and sickness, nakedness and famine with patience, and displaying in all their actions and in all their sentiments a distinct and powerful national character. This constancy and the iniquity of the usurpation, hallowed their efforts in despite of their ferocity and merits respect, though the vices and folly of the juntas and the leading men rendered the effects nugatory.’—History, vol. ii. chap. 1.
I would stop here, but the interests of truth and justice, and the interests of society require that I should thoroughly expose this reviewer. Let the reader therefore mark his reasoning upon Soult’s government of Oporto and the intrigue of the Anti-Braganza party. Let him however look first at the whole statement of these matters in my book, and not trust the garbled extracts made by the reviewer. Let him observe how Heudelet’s expedition to Tuy is by this shameless writer, at one time made to appear as if it took place after Soult had received the deputations and addresses calling for a change of dynasty; and this to show that no beneficial effect had been produced in the temper of the people, as I had asserted, and of which I shall presently give ample proof. How at another time this same expedition of Heudelet is used as happening before the arrival of the addresses and deputations, with a view to show that Soult had laboured to procure those addresses, a fact which, far from denying, I had carefully noticed. Let him mark how an expression in my history, namely, that Soult was unprepared for one effect of his own vigorous conduct, has been perverted, for the purpose of deceit; and all this with a spirit at once so malignant and stupid, that the reviewer is unable to see that the garbled extracts he gives from Heudelet’s and Riccard’s Registers, not only do not contradict but absolutely confirm the essential point of my statement.
Certainly Soult was not unprepared for the submission of the Portuguese to the French arms because it was the object and bent of his invasion to make them so submit. But there is a great difference between that submission of which Heudelet and Riccard speak, and the proposal coming from the Portuguese for the establishment of a new and independent dynasty; a still greater difference between that and offering the crown to Soult himself; and it was this last which the word unprepared referred to in my history. So far from thinking or saying that Soult was unprepared for the deputations and addresses, I have expressly said, that he ‘encouraged the design,’ that he ‘acted with great dexterity,’ and I called the whole affair an ‘intrigue.’ But if I had said that he was unprepared for the whole affair it would have been correct in one sense. He was unprepared to accede to the extent of the Anti-Braganza party’s views. He had only received authority from his sovereign to conquer Portugal, not to establish a new and independent dynasty, placing a French prince upon the throne; still less to accept that throne for himself. These were dangerous matters to meddle with under such a monarch as Napoleon; but the weakness of Soult’s military position made it absolutely necessary to catch at every aid, and it would have been a proof that the duke of Dalmatia was only a common man and unsuited for the great affairs confided to his charge if he had rejected such a powerful auxiliary to his military operations: wisely, therefore, and even magnanimously did he encourage the Anti-Braganza party, drawing all the military benefit possible from it, and trusting to Napoleon’s sagacity and grandeur of soul for his justification. Nor was he mistaken in either. Yet I am ready to admit that all this must appear very strange to Quarterly Reviewers and parasites, whose knowledge of the human mind is confined to an accurate measure of the sentiments of patrons, rich and powerful, but equally with themselves incapable of true greatness and therefore always ready to ridicule it.
The facts then stand thus. Heudelet’s expedition through the Entre Minho e Douro took place between the 5th of April and the 27th of that month, and the country people being then in a state of exasperation opposed him vehemently; in my history the combats he sustained are mentioned, and it is said that previous to the Anti-Braganza intrigue the horrible warfare of assassinations had been carried on with infinite activity. But the intrigue of the malcontents was not completed until the end of April, and the good effect of it on the military operations was not apparent until May, consequently could not have been felt by Heudelet in the beginning of April. In my history the difference of time in these two affairs is expressly marked, inasmuch as I say that in treating of the intrigue I have anticipated the chronological order of events. Truly if Mr. Lockhart has paid for this part of the Review as criticism Mr. Murray should disallow the unfair charge in his accounts.