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HISTORY
OF THE
WAR IN THE PENINSULA

AND IN THE

SOUTH OF FRANCE,

FROM THE YEAR 1807 TO THE YEAR 1814.

BY

W. F. P. NAPIER, C.B.

LT. COLONEL H. P. FORTY-THIRD REGIMENT.

VOL. II.

LONDON:

THOMAS AND WILLIAM BOONE, STRAND.

MDCCCXXIX.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

APPENDIX.

LIST OF PLATES.

NOTICE.

General Semelé’s journal, referred to in this volume, is only an unattested copy; the rest of the manuscript authorities quoted or consulted are original papers belonging to, and communications received from, the duke of Wellington, marshal Soult, marshal Jourdan, Mr. Stuart,[1] sir J. Cradock,[2] sir John Moore, and other persons employed either in the British or French armies during the Peninsular War.

The returns of the French army are taken from the emperor Napoleon’s original Muster Rolls.

The letter S. marks those papers received from marshal Soult.

HISTORY

OF THE

PENINSULAR WAR.

BOOK V.

CHAPTER I.

The effect produced in England by the unfortunate issue of sir John Moore’s campaign, was not proportionable to the importance of the subject. The people, trained to party politics, and possessing no real power to rebuke the folly of the cabinet, regarded disasters and triumphs with factious rather than with national feelings, and it was alike easy to draw the public attention from affairs of weight, and to fix it upon matters of little moment. In the beginning of 1809, the duke of York’s conduct being impeached, a parliamentary investigation followed; and to drag the private frailties of that prince before the world, was thought essential to the welfare of the country, when the incapacity which had caused England and Spain to mourn in tears of blood, was left unprobed. An insular people only, who are protected by their situation from the worst evils of war, may suffer themselves to be thus deluded; but if an unfortunate campaign were to bring a devastating enemy into the heart of the country, the honour of a general, and the whole military policy of the cabinet, would no longer be considered as mere subjects for the exercise of a vile sophist’s talents for misrepresentation.

It is true that the ill success of the British arms was a topic, upon which many orators in both houses of parliament expatiated with great eloquence, but the discussions were chiefly remarkable, as examples of acute debating without any knowledge of facts. The opposition speakers, eager to criminate the government, exaggerated the loss and distress of the retreat, and comprehending neither the movements nor the motives of sir John Moore, urged several untenable accusations against their adversaries. The ministers, disunited by personal feelings, did not all adopt the same ground of defence. Lord Castlereagh and lord Liverpool, passing over the errors of the cabinet by which the general had been left only a choice of difficulties, asserted, and truly, that the advantages derived from the advance to Sahagun more than compensated for the losses in the subsequent retreat. Both those statesmen paid an honourable tribute to the merits of the commander; but Mr. Canning, unscrupulously resolute to screen Mr. Frere, assented to all the erroneous statements of the opposition, and endeavoured with malignant dexterity to convert them into charges against the fallen general. Sir John Moore was, he said, answerable for the events of the campaign, whether the operations were glorious or distressful, whether to be admired or deplored, they were his own, for he had kept the ministers ignorant of his proceedings. Being pressed closely on that point by Mr. C. Hutchinson, Mr. Canning repeated this assertion. Not long afterwards, sir John Moore’s letters, written almost daily and furnishing exact and copious information of all that was passing in the Peninsula, were laid before the house.

The reverses experienced in Spain had somewhat damped the ardour of the English people; but a cause so rightful in itself, was still popular, and a treaty having been concluded with the junta, by which the contracting powers bound themselves to make common cause against France, and to agree to no peace except by mutual consent, the ministers appeared resolute to support the contest. But while professing unbounded confidence in the result of the struggle, they already looked upon the Peninsula as a secondary object; for the preparations of Austria, and the reputation of the archduke Charles, whose talents were foolishly said to exceed Napoleon’s, had awakened the dormant spirit of coalitions. It was more agreeable to the aristocratic feelings of the English cabinet, that the French should be defeated by a monarch in Germany, than by a plebeian insurrection in Spain. The obscure intrigues carried on through the princess of Tour and Taxis, and the secret societies of Germany emanating as they did from patrician sources, engaged all the attention of the ministers, and exciting their sympathy, nursed those distempered feelings, which led them to see weakness and disaffection in France when, throughout that mighty empire, few desired and none dared openly to oppose the emperor’s wishes, when even secret discontent was confined to some royalist chiefs and splenetic republicans, whose influence was never felt until after Napoleon had suffered the direst reverses.

Unable to conceive the extent of that monarch’s views, and the grandeur of his genius, the ministers attributed the results of his profound calculations to a blind chance, his victories to treason, to corruption, to any thing but that admirable skill, with which he wielded the most powerful military force that ever obeyed the orders of a single chief. And thus self-deluded, and misjudging the difficulties to be encountered, they adopted every idle project, and squandered their resources without any great or decided effort. While negotiating with the Spanish Junta for the occupation of Cadiz, they were also planning an expedition against Sicily; and while loudly asserting their resolution to defend Portugal, reserved their principal force for a blow against Holland; their preparations for the last object being, however, carried on with a pomp and publicity little suitable to war. With what a mortal calamity that pageant closed, shall hereafter be noticed; but at present it is fitting to describe the operations that took place in Spain, coincident with and subsequent to the retreat of sir John Moore.

It has been already stated, that when the capital surrendered to the Emperor, he refused to permit Joseph to return there, unless the public bodies and the heads of families would unite to demand his restoration, and swear, without any mental reservation, to be true to him. Registers had consequently Nellerto. been opened in the different quarters of the city, and twenty-eight thousand six hundred heads of families inscribed their names, and voluntarily swore, in presence of the host, that they were Azanza and O’Farril. sincere in their desire to receive Joseph. After this, deputations from all the councils, from the junta of commerce and money, the hall of the Alcaldes, and from the corporation, waited on the emperor at Valladolid, and being there joined by the municipality of that town, and by deputies from Astorga, Leon, and other places, presented the oath, and prayed that Joseph might be king. Napoleon thus entreated, consented that his brother should return to Madrid, and reassume his kingly functions.

It would be idle to argue from this apparently voluntary submission to the French emperor, that a change favourable to the usurpation had been produced in the feelings of the Spanish people; but it is evident that Napoleon’s victories and policy had been so far effectual, that in the capital, and many other great towns, the multitude as well as the notables were, either from fear or conviction, submissive to his will; and it is but reasonable to suppose, that if his conquests had not been interrupted by extraneous circumstances, this example would have been generally followed, in preference to the more glorious, but ineffectual, resistance made by the inhabitants of those cities, whose fortitude and whose calamities have forced from mankind a sorrowful admiration. The cause of Spain at this moment was in truth lost; if any cause depending upon war, which is but a succession of violent and sudden changes, can be called so; for her armies were dispersed, her government bewildered, and her people dismayed; the cry of resistance had ceased, and in its stead the stern voice of Napoleon, answered by the tread of three hundred thousand French veterans was heard throughout the land. But the hostility of Austria having arrested the emperor’s career in the Peninsula, the energy of the Spaniards revived at the abrupt cessation of his terrific warfare.

Joseph, escorted by his French guards, in number between five and six thousand, entered Madrid in state the 23d of January. He was, however, a king without revenues, and he would have been without even the semblance of authority, if he had not been likewise nominated the emperor’s lieutenant in Spain, by virtue of which title he was empowered to move the French army at his will. This power was one extremely unacceptable to the marshals, and he would have found it difficult to enforce it, even though he had restrained the exercise to the limits prescribed by his brother. But disdaining to separate the general from the monarch, King’s correspondence captured at Vittoria, MSS. he conveyed his orders to the French army, through his Spanish ministers, and the army in its turn disdained and resisted the assumed authority of men, who, despised for their want of military knowledge, were also suspected as favouring interests essentially differing from those of the troops.

The iron grasp that had compressed the pride and the ambitious jealousy of the marshals being thus relaxed, the passions that had ruined the patriots began to work among their enemies, producing indeed less fatal effects, because their scope was more circumscribed, but sufficiently pernicious to stop the course of conquest. The French army, no longer a compact body, terrible alike from its massive strength, and its flexible activity, became a collection of independent bands, each formidable in itself, but, from the disunion of the generals, slow to combine for any great object; and plainly discovering, by irregularities and insubordination, that they knew when a warrior, and when a voluptuous monarch was at their head; but these evils were only felt at a later period; and the distribution of the troops, when Napoleon quitted Valladolid, still bore the impress of his genius.

The first corps was quartered in La Mancha.

The second corps was destined to invade Portugal.

The third and fifth corps carried on the siege of Zaragoza.

The fourth corps remained in the valley of the Tagus.

The sixth corps, wanting its third division, was appointed to hold Gallicia.

The seventh corps continued always in Catalonia.

The imperial guards, directed on Vittoria, contributed to the security of the great communication with France until Zaragoza should fall, and were yet ready to march when wanted for the Austrian war.

General Dessolles, with the third division of the sixth corps, returned to Madrid. General Bonnet, with the fifth division of the second corps, remained in the Montagna St. Andero.

General Lapisse, with the second division of the first corps, was sent to Salamanca, where he was joined by Maupetit’s brigade of cavalry, which had crossed the Sierra de Bejar.

The reserve of heavy cavalry being broken up, was distributed, by divisions, in the following order:—

Latour Maubourg’s joined the first corps. Lorge’s and Lahoussaye’s were attached to the second corps. Lassalle’s was sent to the fourth corps. The sixth corps was reinforced with two brigades. Milhaud’s division remained at Madrid, and Kellerman’s guarded the lines of communication between Tudela, Burgos, and Palencia.

Thus, Madrid being still the centre of operations, the French were so distributed, that by a concentric movement on that capital, they could crush every insurrection within the circle of their positions; and the great masses, being kept upon the principal roads diverging from Madrid to the extremities of the Peninsula, intercepted all communication between the Provinces: while the second corps, thrust out, as it were, beyond the circumference, and destined, as the fourth corps had been, to sweep round from point to point, was sure of finding a supporting army, and a good line of retreat, at every great route leading from Madrid to the yet unsubdued provinces of the Peninsula. The communication with France was, at the same time, secured by the fortresses of Burgos, Pampeluna, and St. Sebastian; and by the divisions posted at St. Ander, Burgos, Bilbao, and Vittoria; and it was supported by a reserve at Bayonne.

The northern provinces were parcelled out into military governments, the chiefs of which corresponded with each other; and, by the means of moveable columns, repressed every petty insurrection. The third and fifth corps, also, having their base at Pampeluna, and their line of operations directed against Zaragoza, served as an additional covering force to the communication with France, and were themselves exposed to no flank attacks, except from the side of Cuença, where the duke of Infantado commanded; but that general was himself watched by the first corps.

All the lines of correspondence, not only from France but between the different corps, were maintained by fortified posts, having greater or lesser garrisons, according to their importance. Between Bayonne and Burgos there were eleven military stations. Between Burgos and Madrid, by the road of Muster-rolls of the French army, MSS. Aranda and Somosierra, there were eight; and eleven others protected the more circuitous route to the capital by Valladolid, Segovia, and the Guadarama. Between Valladolid and Zaragoza the line was secured by fifteen intermediate points. The communication between Valladolid and St. Ander contained eight posts; and nine others connected the former town with Villa Franca del Bierzo, by the route of Benevente and Astorga; finally, two were established between Benevente and Leon.

At this period, the force of the army, exclusive of Joseph’s French guards, was three hundred [Appendix, No. 1], section 1. and twenty-four thousand four hundred and eleven men, about thirty-nine thousand being cavalry.

Fifty-eight thousand men were in hospital.

The depôts, governments, garrisons, posts of correspondence, prisoners, and “battalions of march,” composed of stragglers, absorbed about twenty-five thousand men.

The remainder were under arms, with their regiments; and, consequently, more than two hundred and forty thousand men were in the field: while the great line of communication with France was (and the military reader will do well to mark this, the key-stone of Napoleon’s system) protected by above fifty thousand men, whose positions were strengthened by three fortresses and sixty-four posts of correspondence, each more or less fortified.

Having thus shewn to the reader the military state of the French, I shall now proceed with the narrative of their operations; following, as in the first volume, a local rather than a chronological arrangement of events.

OPERATIONS IN ESTREMADURA AND LA MANCHA.

The defeat of Galluzzo has been incidentally touched upon before. The duke of Dantzic having observed that the Spanish general, with six thousand raw levies, pretended to defend a line of forty miles, made a feint of crossing the Tagus, at Arzobispo, and then suddenly descending to Almaraz, forced a passage over that bridge, on the 24th of December, killed and wounded many Spaniards, and captured four guns: and so complete was the dispersion, that for a long time after, not a man was to be found in arms throughout Estremadura. [Appendix, No. 2], sections 2 and 3. The French cavalry were at first placed on the tracks of the fugitives; but intelligence of sir John Moore’s advance to Sahagun being received, Ibid. the pursuit ceased at Merida, and the fourth corps, which had left eight hundred and thirty men in garrison at Segovia, took post between Talavera and Placentia. The duke of Dantzic was then recalled to France, and general Sebastiani succeeded to the command of the fourth corps. It was at this period that the first corps (of which the division of Lapisse only had followed the emperor to Astorga) moved against Toledo, and that town was occupied without opposition. The French outposts were then pushed towards Cuença on the one side, and towards the Sierra Morena on the other.

Meanwhile, the central junta, changing its first design, retired to Seville, instead of Badajos; and being continually urged, both by Mr. Stuart and Mr. Frere, to make some effort to lighten the pressure on the English army, ordered Palafox and the duke of Infantado to advance; the one from Zaragoza towards Tudela, the other from Cuença towards Madrid. The marquis of Palacios, who had been removed from Catalonia, and was now at the head of five or six thousand levies in the Sierra Morena, was also directed to advance into La Mancha; and Galluzzo, deprived of his command, was constituted a prisoner, along with Cuesta, Castaños, and a number of other culpable or unfortunate officers, who, vainly demanding a judgement on their cases, were dragged from place to place by the government.

Cuesta was, however, so popular in Estremadura, that the central junta, although fearing and detesting him, consented to his being placed at the head of Galluzzo’s fugitives, part of whom had, when the pursuit ceased, rallied behind the Guadiana, and were now, with the aid of fresh levies, again taking the form, rather than the consistence, of an army. This appointment was an act of deplorable weakness and incapacity. The moral effect was to degrade the government by exposing its fears and weakness; and, in a military view, it was destructive, because Cuesta was physically and mentally incapable of command. Obstinate, jealous, and stricken in years, he was heedless of time and circumstances, of disposition and fitness. To punish with a barbarous severity, and to rush headlong into battle, constituted, in his mind, all the functions of a general.

[Appendix, No. 2], section 2d.

The president, Florida Blanca, being eighty-one years of age, died at Seville, and the marquis of Astorga succeeded him; but the character of the junta was in no manner affected by the change. Some fleeting indications of vigour had been produced by the imminence of the danger during the flight from Aranjuez, but a large remittance of silver, from South America, having arrived at Cadiz, Appendix, No. 13. Vol. I. the attention of the members was so absorbed, by this object, that the public weal was blotted from their remembrance, and even Mr. Frere, ashamed [Appendix, No. 2], section 2. of their conduct, appeared to acquiesce in the justness of sir John Moore’s estimate of the value of Spanish co-operation.

The number of men to be enrolled for the defence of the country had been early fixed at five hundred thousand, but scarcely one-third had joined their colours; nevertheless, considerable bodies were assembling at different points, because the people, especially those of the southern provinces, although dismayed, were obedient, and the local authorities, at a distance from the actual scene of war, rigorously enforced the law of enrolment, and sent the recruits to the armies, hoping thereby either to stave the war off from their own districts, or to have the excuse of being without fighting men, to plead for quiet submission.

The fugitive troops also readily collected again at any given point, partly from patriotism, partly because the French were in possession of their native provinces, partly that they attributed their defeats to the treachery of their generals, and partly that, being deceived by the gross falsehoods and boasting of the government, they, with ready vanity, imagined that the enemy had invariably suffered enormous losses. In fine, for the reasons mentioned in the commencement of this history, men were to be had in abundance; but, beyond assembling them and appointing some incapable person to command, nothing was done for defence.

The officers who were not deceived had no confidence either in their own troops or in the government, nor were they themselves confided in or respected by their men. The latter were starved, were misused, ill-handled, and they possessed neither the compact strength of discipline nor the daring of enthusiasm. 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 effect of those efforts nugatory.

Palacios, on the receipt of the orders above mentioned, advanced, with five thousand men, to Vilharta, in La Mancha, and the duke of Infantado, anticipating the instructions of the junta, was already in motion from Cuença. His army, reinforced by the divisions of Cartoajal and Lilli and by fresh levies, was about twenty thousand men, of which two thousand were cavalry. To check the incursions of the French horsemen, he had, a few days after the departure of Napoleon from Madrid, detached general Senra and general Venegas with eight thousand infantry and all the horse to scour the country round Tarancon and Aranjuez; the former halted at Horcajada, and the latter endeavoured to cut off a French detachment, but was himself surprised and beaten by a very inferior force.

Marshal Victor, however, withdrew his advanced posts, and, concentrating Ruffin’s and Villatte’s divisions of infantry and Latour Maubourg’s cavalry, at Villa de Alorna, in the vicinity of Toledo, left Venegas in possession of Tarancon. But, among the Spanish generals, mutual recriminations succeeded this failure: the duke of Infantado possessed neither authority nor talents to repress their disputes, and in this untoward state of affairs receiving the orders of the junta, he immediately projected a movement on Toledo, intending to seize that place and Aranjuez, to break down the bridges, and to maintain the line of the Tagus.

Quitting Cuença on the 10th, he reached Horcajada on the 12th, with ten thousand men, the remainder of the army, commanded by Venegas, being near Tarancon.

The 13th, the duke having moved to Carascosa, a town somewhat in advance of Horcajada, met a crowd of fugitives, and heard, with equal surprise and consternation, that the corps under Venegas was already destroyed, and the pursuers close at hand.

ROUT OF UCLES.

It appeared that Victor, uneasy at the movements of the Spanish generals, but ignorant of their situation and intentions, had quitted Toledo also on the 10th, and marched to Ocaña, whereupon Venegas, falling back from Tarancon, took a position at Ucles. The 12th, the French continued to advance in two columns, of which the one, composed of Ruffin’s division and a brigade of cavalry, lost its way, and arrived at Alcazar; but the other, commanded by Victor himself, and composed of Villatte’s division, the remainder of the cavalry, and the parc of artillery, took the road of Ucles, and came upon the position of Venegas early in the morning of the 13th.

This meeting was unexpected by either party, but the French attacked without hesitation, and the Spaniards, flying towards Alcazar, fell in with Ruffin’s division, and were totally discomfitted. Several thousands laid down their arms, and many, dispersing, fled across the fields; some, however, keeping their ranks, made towards Ocaña, where, coming suddenly upon the French parc of artillery, they received a heavy discharge of grape-shot, and dispersed. Of the whole force, a small party only, under general Giron, succeeded in forcing its way by the road of Carascosa, and so reached the duke of Infantado, who immediately retreated to Cuença, and without further loss, as the French cavalry were too fatigued to pursue briskly.

From Cuença the duke sent his artillery towards Valencia, by the road of Tortola; but himself, with the infantry and cavalry, marched by Chinchilla, and from thence to Tobarra, on the frontiers of Murcia.

At Tobarra he turned to his right, and made for Santa Cruz de Mudela, a town situated near the entrance to the defiles of the Sierra Morena. There he halted in the beginning of February, after a painful and circuitous retreat of more than two hundred miles, in a bad season. But all his artillery had been captured at Tortola, and his forces were, by desertion and straggling, reduced to a handful of discontented officers and a few thousand dispirited men, worn out with fatigue and misery.

Meanwhile, Victor, after scouring a part of the province of Cuença and disposing of his prisoners, made a sudden march upon Vilharta, intending to surprise Palacios, but that officer apprized of the retreat of Infantado had already effected his junction with the latter at Santa Cruz de Mudela. Whereupon the French marshal recalling his troops, again occupied his former position at Toledo. The prisoners taken at Ucles were marched to Madrid, those who were weak and unable to walk were Rocca’s Memoirs. (according to Mr. Rocca) shot by the orders of Victor, because the Spaniards had hanged some French prisoners. If so, it was a barbarous and a shameful retaliation, unworthy of a soldier; for what justice or honour is there in revenging the death of one innocent person by the murder of another.

When Victor withdrew his posts the duke of Infantado and Palacios proceeded to re-organize their forces under the name of the Carolina Army. The levies from Grenada and other parts were ordered up, and the cavalry, commanded by the duke of Alburquerque, endeavoured to surprise a French regiment of dragoons at Mora, but the latter getting together quickly, made a bold resistance and effected their retreat with scarcely any loss. Alburquerque having failed in this attempt retired to Consuegra and was attacked the next day by superior numbers, but retired fighting and got safely off. The duke of Infantado was now displaced, and the junta conferred the command on general Urbina Conde de Cartaojal, who applied himself to restore discipline, and after a time finding no enemy in front advanced to Ciudad Real, and taking post on the left bank of the Upper Guadiana opened a communication with Cuesta. At this period the latter’s force amounted to sixteen thousand men, of which three thousand were cavalry; for, as the Spaniards generally suffered more in their flights than in their battles, the horsemen escaped with little damage and were easily rallied again in greater relative numbers than the infantry.

The fourth corps having withdrawn, as I have already related, to the right bank of the Tagus, Cuesta advanced from the Guadiana and occupied the left bank of that river, on a line extending from the mountains in front of Arzobispo to the Puerto de Mirabete. The French, by fortifying an old tower, held the command of the bridge of Arzobispo, but Cuesta immediately broke down that of Almaraz, a magnificent structure, the centre arch of which was more than a hundred and fifty feet in height.

In these positions the troops on either side remained tranquil both in La Mancha and Estremadura, and so ended the exertions made to lighten the pressure upon the English army. Two French divisions of infantry and as many brigades of cavalry had more than sufficed to baffle them, and hence the imminent danger that menaced the south of Spain, when sir John Moore’s vigorous operations drew the emperor’s forces to the north, may be justly estimated.

CHAPTER II.

CONTINUATION OF THE OPERATIONS IN ARAGON.

From the field of battle at Tudela, all the fugitives of O’Neil’s, and a great part of those from Castaños’s army, fled to Zaragoza and with such speed as to bring the first news of their own disaster. With the troops, also, came an immense number of carriages and the military chests, for the roads were wide and excellent and the pursuit was slack.

The citizens and the neighbouring peasantry were astounded at this quick and unexpected calamity. They had, with a natural credulity, relied on the vain and boasting promises of their chiefs, and being necessarily ignorant of the true state of affairs never doubted that their vengeance would be sated by a speedy and complete destruction of the French. When their hopes were thus suddenly blasted; when they beheld troops, from whom they expected nothing but victory, come pouring into the town with all the tumult of panic; when the peasants of all the villages through which the fugitives passed, came rushing into the city along with the scared multitude of flying soldiers and camp followers; every heart was filled with consternation, and the date of Zaragoza’s glory would have ended with the first siege, if the success at Tudela had been followed up by the French with that celerity and vigour which the occasion required.

Appendix Vol. I.

Napoleon, foreseeing that this moment of confusion and terror would arrive, had with his usual prudence provided the means and given directions for such an instantaneous and powerful attack as would inevitably have overthrown the bulwark of the eastern provinces. But the sickness of marshal Lasnes, the difficulty of communication, the consequent false movements of Moncey and Ney, in fine, the intervention of fortune, omnipotent as she is in war, baffled the emperor’s long-sighted calculations, and permitted the leaders in the city to introduce order among the multitude, to complete the defensive works, to provide stores, and finally by a ferocious exercise of power to insure implicit obedience to their minutest orders. The danger of resisting the enemy appeared light, when a suspicious word or even a discontented gesture was instantaneously punished by a cruel death.

The third corps having thus missed the favourable moment for a sudden assault, and being reduced by sickness, by losses in battle, and by Muster roll of the French Army, MSS. detachments to seventeen thousand four hundred men, including the engineers and artillery, was too weak to invest the city in form, and, therefore, remained in observation on the Xalon river. Meanwhile, a battering train of sixty guns, with well furnished parcs, which had been by Napoleon’s orders previously collected in Pampeluna, were dragged by cattle to Tudela and embarked upon the canal leading to Zaragoza.

Marshal Mortier, with the fifth corps, was also directed to assist in the siege, and he was in march to join Moncey, when his progress also was arrested by sir John Moore’s advance towards Burgos. But the utmost scope of that general’s operation being soon determined by Napoleon’s counter-movement, Mortier resumed his march to reinforce Moncey, and, on the 20th of December, their united corps, forming an army of thirty-five thousand men of all arms, advanced against Zaragoza. Cavalhero.
Doyle’s Correspondence, MSS. At this time, however, confidence had been restored in that town, and all the preparations necessary for a vigorous defence were completed.

The nature of the plain in which Zaragoza is situated, the course of the rivers, the peculiar construction of the houses, and the multitude of convents have been already described, but the difficulties to be encountered by the French troops were no longer the same as in the first siege. At that time but little assistance had been derived from science, but now, instructed by experience and inspired as it were by the greatness of their resolution, neither the rules of art nor the resources of genius were neglected by the defenders.

Zaragoza offered four irregular fronts, of which the first, reckoning from the right of the town, extended from the Ebro to a convent of barefooted Carmelites, and was about three hundred yards wide.

The second, twelve hundred yards in extent, reached from the Carmelites to a bridge over the Huerba.

The third, likewise of twelve hundred yards, stretched from this bridge to an oil manufactory built beyond the walls.

The fourth, being on an opening of four hundred yards, reached from the oil manufactory to the Ebro.

The first front, fortified by an ancient wall and flanked by the guns on the Carmelite, was strengthened Rogniat’s Seige of Zaragoza.
Cavalhero’s Siege of Zaragoza. by some new batteries and ramparts, and by the Castle of Aljaferia, commonly called the Castle of the Inquisition, which stood a little in advance. This was a fort of a square form having a bastion and tower at each corner, and a good stone ditch, and it was connected with the body of the place by certain walls loop-holed for musketry.

The second front was defended by a double wall, the exterior one being of recent erection, faced with sun-dried bricks, and covered by a ditch with perpendicular sides fifteen feet deep and twenty feet asunder. The flanks of this front were derived from the convent of the Carmelites, from a large circular battery standing in the centre of the line, from a fortified convent of the Capuchins, called the Trinity, and from some earthen works protecting the head of the bridge over the Huerba.

The third front was covered by the river Huerba, the deep bed of which was close to the foot of the ramparts. Behind this stream a double entrenchment was carried from the bridge-head to the large projecting convent of Santa Engracia, a distance of two hundred yards. Santa Engracia itself was very strongly fortified and armed; and, from thence to the oil manufactory, the line of defence was prolonged by an ancient Moorish wall, on which several terraced batteries were raised, to sweep all the space between the rampart and the Huerba. These batteries, and the guns in the convent of Santa Engracia, likewise overlooked some works raised to protect a second bridge that crossed the river, about cannot-shot below the first.

Upon the right bank of the Huerba, and a little below the second bridge, stood the convent of San Joseph, the walls of which had been strengthened and protected by a deep ditch with a covered way and pallisade. It was well placed to impede the enemy’s approaches, and to facilitate sorties on the right bank of the river; and it was, as I have said, open, in the rear, to the fire of the works at the second bridge, and both were again overlooked by the terraced batteries, and by the guns of Santa Engracia.

The fourth front was protected by the Huerba, by the continuation of the old city wall, by new batteries and entrenchments, and by several armed convents and large houses.

Beyond the walls the Monte Torrero, which commanded all the plain of Zaragoza, was crowned by a large, ill-constructed fort, raised at the distance of eighteen hundred yards from the convent of San Joseph. This work was covered by the royal canal, the sluices of which were defended by some field-works, open to the fire of the fort itself.

On the left bank of the Ebro the suburb, built in a low marshy plain, was protected by a chain of redoubts and fortified houses. Finally, some gun-boats, manned by seamen from the naval arsenal of Carthagena, completed the circuit of defence. The artillery of the place was, however, of too small a Cavalhero. calibre. There were only sixty guns carrying more than twelve-pound balls; and there were but eight large mortars. There was, however, no want of small arms, many of which were English that had been supplied by colonel Doyle.

These were the regular external defences of Zaragoza, most of which were constructed at the time, according to the skill and means of the engineers; but the experience of the former siege had taught the people not to trust to the ordinary resources of art, and, with equal genius and resolution, they had prepared an internal system of defence infinitely more efficacious.

It has been already observed that the houses of Zaragoza were fire-proof, and, generally, of only two stories, and that, in all the quarters of the city, the numerous massive convents and churches rose like castles above the low buildings, and that the greater streets, running into the broad-way called the Cosso, divided the town into a variety of districts, unequal in size, but each containing one or more large structures. Now, the citizens, sacrificing all personal convenience, and resigning all idea of private property, gave up their goods, their bodies, and their houses to the war, and, being promiscuously mingled with the peasantry and the regular soldiers, the whole formed one mighty garrison, well suited to the vast fortress into which Zaragoza was transformed: for, the doors and windows of the houses were built up, and their fronts loop-holed; internal communications were broken through the party-walls, and the streets were trenched and crossed by earthen ramparts, mounted with cannon, and every strong building was turned into a separate fortification. There was no weak point, because there could be none in a town which was all fortress, and where the space covered by the city was the measurement for the thickness of the ramparts: nor in this emergency were the leaders unmindful of moral force.

The people were cheered by a constant reference to the former successful resistance; their confidence was raised by the contemplation of the vast works that had been executed; and it was recalled to their recollection that the wet, usual at that season of the year, would spread disease among the enemy’s ranks, and would impair, if not entirely frustrate, his efforts. Neither was the aid of superstition neglected: processions imposed upon the sight, false miracles bewildered the imagination, and terrible denunciations of the divine wrath shook the minds of men, whose former habits and present situation rendered them peculiarly susceptible of such impressions. Finally, the leaders were themselves so prompt and terrible in their punishments that the greatest cowards were likely to show the boldest bearing in their wish to escape suspicion.

To avoid the danger of any great explosion, the powder was made as occasion required; and this was the more easily effected because Zaragoza contained a royal depôt and refinery for salt-petre, and there were powder-mills in the neighbourhood, which furnished workmen familiar with the process of manufacturing that article. The houses and trees beyond the walls were all demolished and cut down, and the materials carried into the town. The public magazines contained six months’ provisions; the convents were well stocked, and the inhabitants had, likewise, laid up their own stores for several months. General Doyle also sent a convoy into the town from the side of Catalonia, and there was abundance of money, because, in addition to the resources of the town, the military chest of Castaños’s army, which had been supplied only the night before the battle of Tudela, was, in the flight, carried to Zaragoza.

Companies of women, enrolled to attend the hospitals and to carry provisions and ammunition to the combatants, were commanded by the countess Doyle’s Correspondence, M.S.
Cavalhero, Siege of Zaragoza. of Burita, a lady of an heroic disposition, who is said to have displayed the greatest intelligence and the noblest character during both sieges. There were thirteen engineer officers, and eight hundred sappers and miners, composed of excavators formerly employed on the canal, and there were from fifteen hundred to two thousand cannoneers.

The regular troops that fled from Tudela, being joined by two small divisions, which retreated, at the same time, from Sanguessa and Caparosa, formed a garrison of thirty thousand men, and, together with the inhabitants and peasantry, presented a mass of fifty thousand combatants, who, with passions excited almost to phrensy, awaited an assault amidst those mighty entrenchments, where each man’s home was a fortress and his family a garrison. To besiege, with only thirty-five thousand men, a city so prepared was truly a gigantic undertaking!

SECOND SIEGE OF ZARAGOZA.

The 20th of December, the two marshals, Moncey and Mortier, having established their hospitals and Rogniat. magazines at Alagon on the Xalon, advanced in three columns against Zaragoza.

The first, composed of the infantry of the third corps, marched by the right bank of the canal.

The second, composed of general Suchet’s division of the fifth corps, marched between the canal and the Ebro.

The third, composed of general Gazan’s division of infantry, crossed the Ebro opposite to Tauste, and from thence made an oblique march to the Gallego river.

The right and centre columns arrived in front of the town that evening. The latter, after driving back the Spanish advanced guards, halted at a distance of a league from the Capuchin convent of the Trinity; the former took post on both sides of the Huerba, and, having seized the aqueduct by which the canal is carried over that river, proceeded, in pursuance of Napoleon’s orders, to raise batteries, and to make dispositions for an immediate assault on Monte Torrero. Meanwhile general Gazan, with the left column, marching by Cartejon and Zuera reached Villa Nueva, on the Gallego river, without encountering an enemy.

The Monte Torrero was defended by five thousand Spaniards, under the command of general St. Marc; but, at day-break on the 21st, the French opened their fire against the fort, and one column of infantry having attracted the attention of the Spaniards, a second, unseen, crossed the canal under the aqueduct, and, penetrating between the fort and the city, entered the former by the rear, and, at the same time, a third column stormed the works protecting the great sluices. These sudden attacks, and the loss of the fort, threw the Cavalhero. Spaniards into confusion, and they hastily retired to the town, which so enraged the plebeian leaders that the life of St. Marc was with difficulty saved by Palafox.

It had been concerted among the French that general Gazan should assault the suburb, simultaneously with the attack on the Torrero; and that officer, having encountered a body of Spanish and Swiss troops placed somewhat in advance, drove the former back so quickly that the Swiss, unable to make good their retreat, were, to the number of three or four hundred, killed or taken. But, notwithstanding Rogniat. this fortunate commencement, Gazan did not attack the suburb itself until after the affair at Monte Torrero was over, and then only upon a single point, and without any previous examination of the works. The Spaniards, recovering from their first alarm, soon reinforced this point, and Gazan was forced to desist, with the loss of four hundred men. This important failure more than balanced the success against the Monte Torrero. It restored the shaken confidence of the Spaniards at a most critical moment, and checking in the French, at the outset, that impetuous spirit, that impulse of victory, which great generals so carefully watch and improve, threw them back upon the tedious and chilling process of the engineer.

The 24th of December the investment of Zaragoza was completed on both sides of the Ebro. General Gazan occupied the bridge over the Gallego with his left, and covered his front from sorties by inundations and cuts that the low, marshy plain where he was posted enabled him to make without difficulty.

General Suchet occupied the space between the Upper Ebro and the Huerba.

Morlot’s division of the 3d corps encamped in the broken hollow that formed the bed of that stream.

General Meusnier’s division crowned the Monte Torrero, and general Grandjean continuing the circuit to the Lower Ebro, communicated with Gazan’s posts on the other side. Several Spanish detachments that had been sent out to forage were thus cut off, and could never re-enter the town; and a bridge of boats being constructed on the Upper Ebro completed the circle of investment, and ensured a free intercourse between the different quarters of the army.

General Lacoste, an engineer of reputation, and aide-de-camp to the Emperor, directed the siege. His plan was, that one false and two real attacks should be conducted by regular approaches on the right bank of the Ebro, and he still hoped to take the suburb by a sudden assault. The trenches being opened on the night of the 29th of December, the 30th the place was summoned, and the terms dictated by Napoleon when he was at Aranda de Duero, were offered. The example of Madrid was also cited to induce a surrender. Palafox replied, that—If Madrid had surrendered, Madrid had been sold: Zaragoza would neither be sold nor surrender! On the receipt of this haughty answer the attacks were commenced; the right being directed against the convent of San Joseph; the centre against the upper bridge over the Huerba; the left, which was the false one, against the castle of Aljaferia.

The 31st Palafox made sorties against all the three attacks. From the right and centre he was beaten back with loss, and he was likewise repulsed on the left at the trenches: but some of his cavalry gliding between the French parallel and the Ebro surprised and cut down a post of infantry stationed behind some ditches that intersected the low ground on the bank of that river. This trifling success exalted the enthusiasm of the besieged, and Palafox gratified his personal vanity by boasting proclamations and orders of the day, some of which bore the marks of genius, but the greater part were ridiculous.

The 1st of January the second parallels of the true attacks were commenced. The next day Palafox caused the attention of the besiegers to be occupied on the right bank of the Ebro, by slight skirmishes, while he made a serious attack from the side of the suburb on general Gazan’s lines of contrevallation. This sally was repulsed with loss, but, on the right bank, the Spaniards obtained some success.

Marshal Moncey being called to Madrid, Junot assumed the command of the third corps, and, about the same time, marshal Mortier was directed to take post at Calatayud, with Suchet’s division of the fifth corps, for the purpose of securing the communication with Madrid. The gap in the circle of investment left by this draft of eight thousand men, being but scantily stopped by extending general Morlot’s division, a line of contrevallation was constructed at that part to supply the place of numbers.

The besieged, hoping and expecting each day that the usual falls of rain taking place would render the besiegers’ situation intolerable, continued their fire briskly, and worked counter approaches on to the right of the French attacks: but the season was unusually dry, and a thick fog rising each morning covered the besiegers’ advances and protected their workmen, both from the fire and from the sorties of the Spaniards.

The 10th of January, thirty-two pieces of French artillery being mounted and provisioned, the convent of San Joseph and the head of the bridge over the Huerba, were battered in breach, and, at the same time, the town was bombarded. San Joseph was so much injured by this fire that the Spaniards, resolving to evacuate it, withdrew their guns. Nevertheless, two hundred of their men made a vigorous sortie at midnight, and were upon the point of entering one of the French batteries, when they were taken in flank by two guns loaded with grape, and were, finally, driven back, with loss of half their number.

The 11th, the besiegers’ batteries continued to play on San Joseph with such success that the breach became practicable, and, at four o’clock in the evening, some companies of infantry, with two field-pieces, attacked by the right, and a column was kept in readiness to assail the front, when this attack should have shaken the defence. Two other companies of chosen men were directed to search for an entrance by the rear, between the fort and the river.

The defences of the convent were reduced to a ditch eighteen feet deep, and a covered way which, falling back by both flanks to the Huerba, was then extended along the banks of that river for some distance. A considerable number of men still occupied this covered way: but, when the French field-pieces on the right raked it with a fire of grape, the Spaniards were thrown into confusion, and crossing the bed of the river took shelter in the town. At that moment the front of the convent was assaulted; but, while the depth of the ditch and the Spanish fire checked the impetuosity of the assailants at that point; the chosen companies passed round the works, and finding a small bridge over the ditch crossed it, and entered the convent by the rear. The front was carried by escalade, almost at the same moment, and the few hundred Spaniards that remained were killed or made prisoners.

The French, who had suffered but little in this assault, immediately lodged themselves in the convent, raised a rampart along the edge of the Huerba, and commenced batteries against the body of the place and against the works at the head of the upper bridge, from whence, as well as from the town, they were incommoded by the fire that played into the convent.

The 15th, the bridge-head, in front of Santa Engracia, was carried with the loss of only three men; but the Spaniards cut the bridge itself, and sprung a mine under the works; the explosion, however, occasioned no mischief, and the third parallels being soon completed, and the trenches of the two attacks united, the defences of the besieged were thus confined to the town itself. They could no longer make sallies on the right bank of the Huerba without overcoming the greatest difficulties. The passage of the Huerba was then effected by the French, and breaching and counter-batteries, mounting fifty pieces of artillery, were constructed against the body of the place. The fire of these guns played also upon the bridge over the Ebro, and interrupted the communication between the suburb and the town.

Unshaken by this aspect of affairs, the Spanish leaders, with great readiness of mind, immediately forged intelligence of the defeat of the emperor, and, with the sound of music, and amidst the shouts of the populace, proclaimed the names of the marshals who had been killed; asserting, also, that Palafox’s brother, the marquis of Lazan, was already wasting France. This intelligence, extravagant as it was, met with implicit credence, for such was the disposition of the Spaniards throughout this war, that the imaginations of the chiefs were taxed to produce absurdities proportionable to the credulity of their followers; hence the boasting of the leaders and the confidence of the besieged augmented as the danger increased, and their anticipations of victory seemed realized when the night-fires of a succouring force were discerned blazing on the hills behind Gazan’s troops.

The difficulties of the French were indeed fast increasing, for while enclosing Zaragoza they were themselves encircled by insurrections, and their supplies so straightened that famine was felt in their camp. Disputes amongst the generals also diminished the vigour of the operations, and the bonds of discipline being relaxed, the military ardour of the troops naturally became depressed. The soldiers reasoned openly upon the chances of success, which, in times of danger, is only one degree removed from mutiny.

The nature of the country about Zaragoza was exceedingly favourable to the Spaniards. The town, although situated in a plain, was surrounded, at the distance of some miles, by strong and high mountains, and, to the south, the fortresses of Mequinenza and Lerida afforded a double base of operations for any forces that might come from Catalonia and Valencia. The besiegers drew all their supplies from Pampeluna, and consequently their long line of operations, running through Alagon, Tudela, and Caparosa, was difficult to defend from the insurgents, who, being gathered in considerable numbers in the Sierra de Muela and on the side of Epila, threatened Alagon, while others, descending from the mountain of Soria, menaced the important point of Tudela.

The marquis of Lazan, anxious to assist his brother, had drafted five thousand men from the Catalonian army, and taking post in the Sierra de Liciñena, or Alcubierre, on the left of the Ebro, drew together all the armed peasantry of the valleys as high as Sanguessa, and extending his line from Villa Franca on the Ebro to Zuera on the Gallego, hemmed in the division of Gazan, and even sent detachments as far as Caparosa to harass the French convoys coming from Pampeluna.

To maintain their communications and to procure provisions the besiegers had placed between two or three thousand men in Tudela, Caparosa, and Tafalla, and some hundreds in Alagon and at Montalbarra. Between the latter town and the investing army six hundred and fifty cavalry were stationed: a like number were posted at Santa Fé, to watch the openings of the Sierra de Muela, and sixteen hundred cavalry with twelve hundred infantry, under the command of general Wathier, were pushed towards the south as far as Fuentes, Wathier, falling suddenly upon an assemblage of four or five thousand insurgents that had taken post at Belchite, broke and dispersed them, and then pursuing his victory took the town of Alcanitz, and established himself there in observation for the rest of the siege. But Lazan still maintained himself in the Alcubierre.

In this state of affairs marshal Lasnes, having recovered from his long sickness, arrived before Zaragoza, and took the supreme command of both corps on the 22d of January. The influence of his firm and vigorous character was immediately perceptible; he recalled Suchets division from Calatayud, where it had been lingering without necessity, Rogniat. and, sending it across the Ebro, ordered Mortier to attack Lazan. At the same time a smaller detachment was directed against the insurgents in Zuera, and, meanwhile, Lasnes repressing all disputes, restored discipline in the army, and pressed the siege with infinite resolution.

The detachment sent to Zuera defeated the insurgents and took possession of that place and of the bridge over the Gallego. Mortier encountered the Spanish advanced guard at Perdeguera, and pushed it back to Nuestra Señora de Vagallar, where the main body, several thousand strong, was posted. After a short resistance, the whole fled, and the French cavalry took four guns; Mortier then spreading his troops in a half circle, extending from Huesca to Pina on the Ebro, awed all the country lying between those places and Zaragoza, and prevented any further insurrections.

A few days before the arrival of marshal Lasnes, the besieged being exceedingly galled by the fire from a mortar-battery, situated at some distance behind the second parallel of the central attack, eighty volunteers, under the command of Don Mariano Galindo, endeavoured to silence it. They surprised and bayonetted the guard in the nearest trenches, and passing on briskly to the battery, entered it, and were proceeding to spike the artillery, when unfortunately the reserve of the French arrived, and, the alarm being given, the guards of the first trenches also assembled in the rear of this gallant band, intercepting all retreat. Thus surrounded, Galindo, fighting bravely, was wounded and taken, and the greatest part of his comrades perished with as much honour as simple soldiers can attain.

The armed vessels in the river now made an attempt to flank the works raised against the castle of Aljaferia, but the French batteries forced them to drop down the stream again; and between the nights of the 21st and the 26th of January the besiegers’ works being carried across the Huerba, the third parallels of the real attacks were completed. The oil manufactory and some other advantageous posts, on the left bank of the above-named river, were also taken possession of and included in the works, and at the false attack a second parallel was commenced at the distance of a hundred and fifty yards from the castle of Aljaferia; but these advantages were not obtained without loss. The Spaniards made sallies, in one of which they spiked two guns and burnt a French post on the right.

The besiegers’ batteries had, however, broken the wall of the town in several places. Two practicable breaches were made nearly fronting the convent of San Joseph; a third was commenced in the convent of Saint Augustin, facing the oil manufactory. The convent of San Engracia was laid completely open to an assault; and, on the 29th, at twelve o’clock, the whole army being under arms, four chosen columns rushed out of the trenches, and burst upon the ruined works of Zaragoza.

On the right, the assailants twice stormed an isolated stone house that defended the breach of Saint Augustin, and twice they were repulsed, and finally driven back with loss.

In the centre, the attacking column, regardless of two small mines that exploded at the foot of the walls, carried the breach fronting the oil manufactory, and then endeavoured to break into the town; but the Spaniards retrenched within the place, opened such a fire of grape and musquetry that the French were content to establish themselves on the summit of the breach, and to connect their lodgement with the trenches by new works.

The third column was more successful; the breach was carried, and the neighbouring houses also, as far as the first large cross street; beyond that, the assailants could not penetrate, but they were enabled to establish themselves within the walls of the town, and immediately brought forward their trenches, so as to comprehend this lodgement within their works.

The assault of the fourth column, which was directed against San Engracia, was made with such rapidity and vigour that the Polish regiment of the Vistula not only carried that convent itself, but the one adjoining to it; and the victorious troops, unchecked by the fire from the houses, and undaunted by the simultaneous explosion of six small mines planted in their path, swept the ramparts to the left as far as the bridge over the Huerba; and, at that moment, the guards of the trenches, excited by the success of their comrades, broke forth, without orders, mounted the walls, pushed along the ramparts to the left, bayonetted the artillery-men at their guns in the Capuchin convent, and, continuing their career, endeavoured some to reach the semicircular battery and the Misericordia, and others to break into the town.

This wild assault was soon checked by grape from two guns planted behind a traverse on the ramparts, and by a murderous fire from the houses. As their ranks were thinned, the ardour of the French sunk, and the courage of their adversaries increased. The former were, after a little, driven back upon the Capuchins; and the Spaniards were already breaking into that convent in pursuit, when two battalions, detached by general Morlot from the trenches of the false attack, arrived, and secured possession of that point, which was moreover untenable by the Spaniards, inasmuch as the guns of the convent of Santa Engracia saw it in reverse. The French took, on this day, more than six hundred men. But general La Coste immediately abandoned the false attack against the castle, fortified the Capuchin convent and a house situated at an angle of the wall abutting upon the bridge over the Huerba, and then joining them by works to his trenches, the ramparts of the town became the front line of the French.

The walls of Zaragoza thus went to the ground, but Zaragoza herself remained erect; and, as the broken girdle fell from the heroic city, the besiegers started at the view of her naked strength. The regular defences had, indeed, crumbled before the skill of the assailants; but the popular resistance was immediately called, with all its terrors, into action; and, as if Fortune had resolved to mark the exact moment when the ordinary calculations of science should cease, the chief engineers on both sides were simultaneously slain. The French general, La Coste, a young man, intrepid, skilful, and endowed with genius, perished like a brave soldier; but the Spanish colonel, San Genis, died not only with the honour of a soldier, but the glory of a patriot; falling in the noblest cause, his blood stained the ramparts which he had himself raised for the protection of his native place.

CHAPTER III.

The war being now carried into the streets of Zaragoza, the sound of the alarm-bell was heard over all the quarters of the city; and the people, assembling in crowds, filled the houses nearest to the lodgements made by the French. Additional traverses and barricadoes were constructed across the principal streets; mines were prepared in the more open spaces; and the communications from house to house were multiplied, until they formed a vast labyrinth, of which the intricate windings were only to be traced by the weapons and the dead bodies of the defenders. The members of the junta, become more powerful from the cessation of regular warfare, with redoubled activity and energy urged the defence, but increased the horrors of the siege by a ferocity pushed to the very verge of phrenzy. Every person, without regard to rank or age, who excited the suspicions of these furious men, or of those immediately about them, was instantly put to death; and amidst the noble bulwarks of war, a horrid Cavalhero. array of gibbets was to be seen, on which crowds of wretches were suspended each night, because their courage had sunk beneath the accumulating dangers of their situation, or because some doubtful expression or gesture of distress had been misconstrued by their barbarous chiefs.

From the heights of the walls which he had conquered, marshal Lasnes contemplated this terrific Rogniat. scene; and, judging that men so passionate, and so prepared, could not be prudently encountered in open battle, he resolved to proceed by the slow, but certain process of the mattock and the mine: and this was also in unison with the emperor’s instructions. Hence from the 29th of January to the 2d of February, the efforts of the French were directed to the enlargement of their lodgements on the walls; and they succeeded, after much severe fighting and several explosions, in working forward through the nearest houses; but, at the same time, they had to sustain many counter-assaults from the Spaniards; especially one, exceedingly fierce, made by a friar on the Capuchins’ convent of the Trinity.

It has been already observed that the crossing of the large streets divided the town into certain small districts, or islands of houses. To gain possession of these, it was necessary not only to mine but to fight for each house. To cross the large intersecting streets, it was indispensable to construct traverses above or to work by underground galleries; because a battery raked each street, and each house was defended by a garrison that, generally speaking, had only the option of repelling the enemy in front or dying on the gibbet erected behind. But, as long as the convents and churches remained in possession of the Spaniards, the progress of the French among the islands of small houses was of little advantage to them, because the large garrisons in the greater buildings enabled the defenders not only to make continual and successful sallies, but also to countermine their enemies, whose superior skill in that kind of warfare was often frustrated by the numbers and persevering energy of the besieged.

To overcome these obstacles the breaching batteries opposite the fourth front fired upon the convents of Saint Augustin and Saint Monica, and the latter was assaulted on the 31st of January. At the same time a part of the wall in another direction being thrown down by a petard, a body of the besiegers poured in and taking the main breach in rear, cleared not only the convent but several houses around it. The Spaniards undismayed immediately opened a gallery from St. Augustin and worked a mine under Saint Monica, but at the moment of its being charged the French discovered and stifled the miners.

The 1st of February the breach in Saint Augustin, also, became practicable, and the attention of the besieged being drawn to that side, the French sprung a mine which they had carried under the wall from the side of Saint Monica and immediately entered by the opening. The Spaniards thus unexpectedly taken in the rear, were thrown into confusion and driven out with little difficulty. They, however, rallied in a few hours after and attempted to retake the structure, but without success, and the besiegers animated by this advantage broke into the neighbouring houses and, at one push, carried so many as to arrive at the point where the street called the Quemada joined the Cosso, or public walk. The besieged rallied, however, at the last house of the Quemada, and renewed the combat with so much fury that the French were beaten from the greatest part of the houses they had taken, and suffered a loss of above a hundred men.

On the side of San Engracia a contest still more severe took place; the houses in the vicinity were blown up, but the Spaniards fought so obstinately for the ruins that the Polish troops were scarcely able to make good their lodgement—although two successive and powerful explosions had, with the buildings, destroyed a number of the defenders.

The experience of these attacks induced a change in the mode of fighting on both sides. Hitherto the play of the French mines had reduced the houses to ruins, and thus the soldiers were exposed completely to the fire from the next Spanish posts. The engineers, therefore, diminished the quantity of powder that the interior only might fall and the outward walls stand, and this method was found successful. Hereupon the Spaniards, with ready ingenuity, saturated the timbers and planks of the houses with rosin and pitch, and setting fire to those which could no longer be maintained, interposed a burning barrier which often delayed the assailants for two days, and always prevented them from pushing their successes during the confusion that necessarily followed the bursting of the mines. The fighting was, however, incessant, a constant bombardment, the explosion of mines, the crash of falling buildings, clamorous shouts, and the continued echo of musquetry deafened the ear, while volumes of smoke and dust clouded the atmosphere and lowered continually over the heads of the combatants, as hour by hour, the French with a terrible perseverance pushed forward their approaches to the heart of the miserable but glorious city.

Their efforts were chiefly directed against two points, namely that of San Engracia, which may be denominated the left attack, and that of Saint Augustin and Saint Monica which constituted the right attack. At San Engracia they laboured on a line perpendicular to the Cosso, from which they were only separated by the large convent of the Daughters of Jerusalem, and by the hospital for madmen, which was entrenched, although in ruins since the first siege. The line of this attack was protected on the left by the convent of the Capuchins, which La Coste had fortified to repel the counter assaults of the Spaniards. The right attack was more diffused, because the localities presented less prominent features to determine the direction of the approaches; and the French having mounted a number of light six-inch mortars, on peculiar carriages, drew them from street to street, and house to house, as occasion offered. On the other hand the Spaniards continually plied their enemies with hand grenades, which seem to have produced a surprising effect, and in this manner the never-ceasing combat was prolonged until the 7th of February, when the besiegers, by dint of alternate mines and assaults, had worked their perilous way at either attack to the Cosso, but not without several changes of fortune and considerable loss. They were, however, unable to obtain a footing on that public walk, for the Spaniards still disputed every house with undiminished resolution.

Meanwhile, Lasnes having caused trenches to be opened on the left bank of the Ebro, a battery of twenty guns played against an isolated structure called the Convent of Jesus, which covered the right of the suburb line. On the 7th of February this convent was carried by storm, and with so little difficulty that the French, supposing the Spaniards to be panic stricken, assailed the suburb itself, but were quickly driven back with loss; they, however, made good their lodgement in the convent.

On the town side the 8th, 9th, and 10th were wasted by the besiegers in vain attempts to pass the Cosso; they then extended their flanks. On the right with a view to reach the quay, and so connect this attack with that against the suburb, and on the left to obtain possession of the large and strongly built convent of Saint Francisco, in which after exploding an immense mine and making two assaults they finally established themselves.

The 11th and 12th, mines were worked under the university, a large building on the Spanish side of the Cosso, in the line of the right attack; but their play was insufficient to open the walls, and the storming party was beaten, with the loss of fifty men. Nevertheless, the besiegers continuing their labours during the 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, and 17th, passed the Cosso by means of traverses, and prepared fresh mines under the university, but deferred their explosion until a simultaneous effort could be combined on the side of the suburb.

At the left attack also, a number of houses, bordering on the Cosso being gained, a battery was established that raked that great thoroughfare above ground, while under it six galleries were carried, and six mines loaded to explode at the same moment; but the spirit of the French army was now exhausted; they had laboured and fought without intermission for fifty days; they had crumbled the walls with their bullets, burst the convents with their mines, and carried the breaches with their bayonets,—fighting above and beneath the surface of the earth, they had spared neither fire nor the sword, their bravest men were falling in the obscurity of a subterranean warfare; famine pinched them, and Zaragoza was still unconquered!

“Before this siege,” they exclaimed, “was it ever heard of, that twenty thousand men should besiege fifty thousand?” Scarcely a fourth of the Rogniat. town was won, and they, themselves, were already exhausted. “We must wait,” they said, “for reinforcements or we shall all perish among their cursed ruins, which will become our own tombs, before we can force the last of these fanatics from the last of their dens.”

Marshal Lasnes, unshaken by these murmurs and obstinate to conquer, endeavoured to raise the soldiers’ hopes. He pointed out to them that the losses of the besieged so far exceeded their own, that the Spaniards’ strength would soon be wasted and their courage must sink, and that the fierceness of their defence was already abated,—but if contrary to expectation they should renew the example of Numantia, their utter destruction must quickly ensue from the united effects of battle, misery, and pestilence.

These exhortations succeeded, and on the 18th, all the combinations being complete, a general assault took place. The French at the right attack, having opened a party-wall by the explosion of a petard, made a sudden rush through some burning ruins, and carried, without a check, the island of houses leading down to the quay, with the exception of two buildings. The Spaniards were thus forced to abandon all the external fortifications between Saint Augustin and the Ebro, which they had preserved until that day. And while this assault was in progress, the mines under the university containing three thousand pounds of powder were sprung, and the walls tumbling with a terrific crash,—a column of the besiegers entered the place, and after one repulse secured a lodgement. During this time fifty pieces of artillery thundered upon the suburb and ploughed up the bridge over the Ebro, and by mid-day opened a practicable breach in the great convent of Saint Lazar, which was the principal defence on that side. Lasnes, observing that the Spaniards seemed to be shaken by this overwhelming fire, immediately ordered an assault, and Saint Lazar being carried forthwith, all retreat to the bridge was thus intercepted, and the besieged falling into confusion, and their commander, Baron Versage, being killed, were all destroyed or taken, with the exception of three hundred men, who braving the terrible fire to which they were exposed, got back into the town. General Gazan immediately occupied the abandoned works, and having thus cut off above two thousand men that were stationed on the Ebro, above the suburb, forced them also to surrender.

This important success being followed on the 19th by another fortunate attack on the right bank of the Ebro, and by the devastating explosion of sixteen hundred pounds of powder, the constancy of the besieged was at last shaken. An aide-de-camp of Palafox came forth to demand certain terms, before offered by the marshal, adding thereto that the garrison should be allowed to join the Spanish armies, and that a certain number of covered carriages should follow them. Lasnes rejected these proposals, and the fire continued, but the hour of surrender was come! Fifty pieces of artillery on the left bank of the Ebro, laid the houses on the quay in ruins. The church of Our Lady of the Pillar, under whose especial protection the city was supposed to exist, was nearly effaced by the bombardment, and the six mines under the Cosso loaded with many thousand pounds of powder, were ready for a simultaneous explosion, which would have laid a quarter of the remaining houses in the dust. In fine, war had done its work, and the misery of Zaragoza could no longer be endured.

The bombardment which had never ceased since the 10th of January, had forced the women and children to take refuge in the vaults, with which the city abounded. There the constant combustion of oil, the closeness of the atmosphere, unusual diet, and fear and restlessness of mind, had combined to produce a pestilence which soon spread to the garrison. The strong and the weak, the daring soldier and the shrinking child fell before it alike, and such was the state of the atmosphere and the predisposition to disease that the slightest wound gangrened and became incurable. In the beginning of February the deaths were from four to five hundred daily; the living were unable to bury the dead, and thousands of carcases, scattered about the streets and court yards, or piled in heaps at the doors of the churches, were left to dissolve in their own corruption, or to be licked up by the flames of the burning houses as the defence became contracted.

The suburb, the greatest part of the walls, and one-fourth of the houses were in the hands of the French, sixteen thousand shells thrown during the bombardment, and the explosion of forty-five thousand pounds of powder in the mines had shaken the Cavalhero. Rogniat. Suchet. city to its foundations, and the bones of more than forty thousand persons of every age and sex, bore dreadful testimony to the constancy of the besieged.

Palafox was sick, and of the plebeian chiefs, the curate of St. Gil, the lemonade seller of the Cosso, and the Tios, Jorge, and Marin, having been slain in battle, or swept away by the pestilence, the obdurate violence of the remaining leaders was so abated, that a fresh junta was formed, and after a stormy consultation, the majority being for a surrender, a deputation waited upon marshal Lasnes on the 20th of February, to negotiate a capitulation.

They proposed that the garrison should march out with the honours of war; that the peasantry should not be considered as prisoners; and at the particular request of the clergy, they also demanded that the latter should have their full revenues guaranteed to them, and punctually paid. This article was rejected with indignation, and, according to the French writers, the place surrendered at discretion; but the Spanish writers assert, that Lasnes granted certain terms, drawn up by the deputation at the moment, the name of Ferdinand the 7th being purposely omitted in the instrument, which in substance run thus:—

The garrison to march out with the honours of war; to be constituted prisoners, and marched to France; the officers to retain their swords, baggage, and horses, the men their knapsacks; and persons of either class, wishing to serve Joseph, to be immediately enrolled in his ranks. The peasants to be sent to their homes. Property and religion to be guaranteed.

With this understanding the deputies returned to the city; but fresh commotions had arisen during their absence. The party for protracting the defence, although the least numerous, were the most energetic; they had before seized all the boats on the Ebro, fearing that Palafox and others, of whom they entertained suspicions, would endeavour to quit the town; and they were still so menacing and so powerful, that the deputies durst not pass through the streets, but retired outside the walls to the castle of Aljaferia, and from thence sent notice to the junta of their proceedings. The dissentient party would, however, have fallen upon the others the next day, if the junta had not taken prompt measures to enforce the surrender. The officer in command of the walls near the castle, by their orders, gave up his post to the French during the night, and on the 21st of February, from twelve to fifteen thousand sickly beings laid down those arms which they were scarcely able to support; and this cruel and memorable siege was finished.

Observations.—1º.—When the other events of the Spanish war shall be lost in the obscurity of time, or only traced by disconnected fragments, the story of Zaragoza, like some ancient triumphal pillar standing amidst ruins, will tell a tale of past glory; and already men point to the heroic city, and call her Spain, as if her spirit were common to the whole nation; yet it was not so, nor was the defence of Zaragoza itself the effect of unalloyed virtue. It was not patriotism, nor was it courage, nor skill, nor fortitude, nor a system of terror, but all these combined under peculiar circumstances that upheld the defence; and this combination, and how it was brought about, should be well considered; because it is not so much by catching at the leading resemblances, as by studying the differences of great affairs, that the exploits of one age can be made to serve as models for another.

Plate 1. to face Pa. 48.

Explanatory Sketch of the
SEIGE OF ZARAGOZA,
1808, 1809.

London. Published by T. & W. BOONE, July 1829.

2º.—The defence of Zaragoza may be examined under two points of view; as an isolated event, and as a transaction bearing on the general struggle in the Peninsula. With respect to the latter, it was a manifest proof, that neither the Spanish people, nor the government, partook of the Zaragozan energy. For it would be absurd to suppose that, in the midst of eleven millions of people, animated by an ardent enthusiasm, fifty thousand armed men could for two months be besieged, shut in, destroyed, they and their works, houses, and bodies, mingled in one terrible ruin, by less than thirty-five thousand adversaries, and that without one effort being made to save them!

Deprive the transaction of its dazzling colours, and the simple outline comes to this: Thirty-five thousand French, in the midst of insurrections, in despite of a combination of circumstances peculiarly favourable to the defence, reduced fifty thousand of the bravest and most energetic men in Spain. It is true, the latter suffered nobly; but was their example imitated? Gerona, indeed, although less celebrated, rivalled, and perhaps more than rivalled, the glory of Zaragoza; but elsewhere her fate spoke, not trumpet-tongued to arouse, but with a wailing voice, that carried dismay to the heart of the nation.

3d.—As an isolated transaction, the siege of Zaragoza is very remarkable; but it would be a great error to suppose, that any town, the inhabitants of which were equally resolute, might be as well defended. Fortitude and bravery will do much; but the combinations of science are not to be defied with impunity. There are no miracles in war! If the houses of Zaragoza had not been nearly incombustible, the bombardment alone would have caused the besieged to surrender, or to perish with their flaming city.

4th.—That the advantage offered by the peculiar structure of the houses, and the number of the convents and churches, was ably seized by the Spaniards, is beyond doubt. General Rogniat, Lacoste’s successor, indeed, treats his opponents’ skill in fortification with contempt; but colonel San Genis’ talents are not to be judged of by the faulty construction of a few out-works, at a time when he was under the control of a disorderly and ferocious mob. He knew how to adapt his system of defence to the circumstances of the moment, and no stronger proof of real genius can be given. “Do not consult me about a capitulation,” was his common expression. “I shall never be of opinion that Zaragoza can make no further defence.” But neither the talents of San Genis, nor the construction of the houses, would have availed, if the people within had not been of a temper adequate to the occasion; and to trace the passions by which they were animated to their true causes is a proper subject for historical and military research.

5th.—That they did not possess any superior courage is evident from the facts that the besieged, although twice the number of the besiegers, never made any serious impression by their sallies, and that they were unable to defend the breaches. In large masses, the standard of courage which is established by discipline may be often inferior to that produced by fanaticism, or any other peculiar excitement; but the latter never lasts long, neither is it equable, because men are of different susceptibility, following their physical and mental conformation. Hence a system of terror has always been the resource of those leaders who, engaged in great undertakings, have been unable to recur to discipline. Enthusiasm stalked in front of their bands, but punishment brought up the rear; and Zaragoza was no exception to this practice.

6th.—It may be said that the majority of the besieged, not being animated by any peculiar fury, a system of terror could not be carried to any great length; but a close examination explains this seeming mystery. The defenders were composed of three distinct parties,—the regular troops, the peasantry from the country, and the citizens; but the citizens, who had most to lose, were naturally the fiercest, and, accordingly, amongst them, the system of terror was generated. The peasantry followed the example, as all ignorant men, under no regular control, will do; the soldiers meddled but little in the interior arrangements, and the division of the town into islands of posts rendered it perfectly feasible for violent persons, already possessed of authority, to follow the bent of their inclinations: there was no want of men, and the garrison of each island found it their own interest to keep those in front of them to their posts, that the danger might be the longer staved off from themselves.

7th.—Palafox was only the nominal chief of Zaragoza, the laurels gathered in both sieges should adorn plebeian brows, but those laurels dripped with kindred as well as foreign blood. The energy of the real chiefs, and the cause in which that energy was exerted, may be admired; the acts perpetrated by this ruling band were, in themselves, atrocious; and Palafox, although unable to arrest their savage proceedings, can claim but little credit for his own conduct. For more than a month preceeding the surrender, he never came forth of a vaulted building, which was impervious to shells, and in which, there is too much reason to believe, he and others, of both sexes, lived in a state of sensuality, forming a disgusting contrast to the wretchedness that surrounded them.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE FRENCH OPERATIONS.

1º. Before the arrival of marshal Lasnes, the operations were conducted with little vigour. The want of unity, as to time, in the double attack of the Monte Torrero and the suburb, was a flagrant error, that was not redeemed by any subsequent activity; but, after the arrival of that marshal, the siege was pursued with singular intrepidity and firmness. General Rogniat appears to disapprove of Suchet’s division having been sent to Calatayud, yet it seems to have been a judicious measure, inasmuch as it was necessary,—

1st. To protect the line of correspondence with Madrid.

2d. To have a corps at hand, lest the duke of Infantado should quit Cuença, and throw himself into the Guadalaxara district, a movement that would have been extremely embarrassing to the king. Suchet’s division, while at Calatayud, fulfilled these objects, without losing the power of succouring Tudela, or, by a march on the side of Daroca, of intercepting the duke of Infantado if he attempted to raise the siege of Zaragoza; but, when the Spanish army at Cuença was directed on Ucles, and that of the marquis of Lazan was gathering strength on the left bank of the Ebro, it was undoubtedly proper to recall Suchet.

2º.—It may not be misplaced here to point out the errors of Infantado’s operations. If, instead of bringing on a battle with the first corps, he had marched to the Ebro, established his depôts and places of arms at Mequinenza and Lerida, opened a communication with Murcia, Valencia, and Catalonia, and joined the marquis of Lazan’s troops to his own, he might have formed an entrenched camp in the Sierra de Alcubierre, and from thence have carried on a methodical war with, at least, twenty-five thousand regular troops; the insurrections on the French flanks and line of communication with Pampeluna would then have become formidable; and, in this situation, having the fortresses of Catalonia behind him, with activity and prudence he might have raised the siege.

3º.—From a review of all the circumstances attending the siege of Zaragoza, we may conclude that fortune was extremely favourable to the French. They were brave, persevering, and skilful, and they did not lose above four thousand men; but their success was owing partly to the errors of their opponents, principally to the destruction caused by Rogniat. the pestilence within the town; for, of all that multitude said to have fallen, six thousand Spaniards only were slain in battle. Thirteen convents and churches had been taken; but, when the town surrendered, forty remained to be forced.

Such are the principal circumstances of this memorable siege. I shall now relate the contemporary operations in Catalonia.

CHAPTER IV.

OPERATIONS IN CATALONIA.

It will be remembered, that when the second siege of Gerona was raised, in August, 1808, general Duhesme returned to Barcelona, and general Reille to Figueras; after which, the state of affairs obliged those generals to remain on the defensive. Napoleon’s measures to aid them were as prompt as the occasion required. While the siege of Gerona was yet in progress, he had directed troops to assemble at Perpignan in such numbers, as to form with those already in Catalonia, an army of more than forty thousand men, to be called the “7th corps.” St. Cyr’s Journal of Operations. Then appointing general Gouvion St. Cyr to command it, he gave him this short but emphatic order: “Preserve Barcelona for me. If that place be lost, I cannot retake it with 80,000 men.”

The troops assembled at Perpignan were the greatest part but raw levies; Neapolitans, Etruscans, Romans, and Swiss: there were, however, some old regiments; but as the preparations for the grand army under the emperor absorbed the principal attention of the administration in France, general St. Cyr was straightened in the means necessary to take the field; and his undisciplined troops, suffering severe privations, were depressed in spirit, and inclined to desert.

The 1st of November, Napoleon, who was at Bayonne, sent orders to the “7th corps” to commence its operations; and St. Cyr, having put his divisions in motion on the 3d, crossed the frontier, and established his head-quarters at Figueras on the 5th.

In Catalonia, as in other parts of Spain, lethargic vanity, and abuses of the most fatal kind, had succeeded to the first enthusiasm, and withered the energy of the people. The local junta issued, indeed, abundance of decrees, and despatched agents to the supreme junta, and to the English commanders in the Mediterranean, and in Portugal, all charged with the same instructions, namely, to demand arms, ammunition, and money. And although the central junta treated their demands with contempt, the English authorities answered them generously and freely. Lord Collingwood lent the assistance of his fleet. From Malta and Sicily arms were obtained; and sir Hew Dalrymple having completely equipped the Spanish regiments released by the convention of Cintra, despatched them to Catalonia in British transports. Yet it may be doubted if the conduct of the central junta were not the wisest; for the local government established at Tarragona had already become so negligent, or so corrupt, that the arms thus supplied were, instead Lord Collingwood’s Correspondence. of being used in defence of the country, sold to foreign merchants! and such being the political state of Catalonia, it naturally followed that the military affairs should be ill conducted.

The count of Caldagues, who had relieved Gerona, returned by Hostalrich, and resumed the line of the Llobregat; and fifteen hundred men, drawn from Cabanes. the garrison of Carthagena, having reached Taragona, the marquis of Palacios, accompanied by the junta, quitted the latter town, and fixed his head-quarters at Villa Franca, within twenty miles of Caldagues. The latter disposed his troops, five thousand in number, at different points between Martorel and San Boy, covering a line of eighteen miles, along the left bank of the river.

General Duhesme rested a few days, and then marching from Barcelona with six thousand men in the night, arrived the 2d of September at day-break on the Llobregat, and immediately attacked Caldagues’ line in several points, but principally at San Boy and Molino del Rey. The former fort was carried, some guns and stores were captured, and the Spaniards were pursued to Vegas, a distance of seven or eight miles; but at Molino del Rey the French were repulsed, and Duhesme then returned to Barcelona.

It was the intention of the British ministers, that an auxiliary force should have sailed from Sicily about this period, to aid the Catalans; and doubtless it would have been a wise and timely effort: but Napoleon’s foresight prevented the execution; for he directed Murat to menace Sicily with a descent; and that prince, feigning to collect forces on the coast of Calabria, spread many reports of armaments being in preparation, and, as a preliminary measure, attacked and carried the island of Capri; upon which occasion sir Hudson Lowe first became known to history, by losing in a few days a post that, without any pretensions to celebrity, might have been defended for as many years. Murat’s demonstrations sufficed to impose upon sir John Stuart, and from ten to twelve thousand British troops were thus paralyzed at a most critical period: but such will always be the result of a policy which has no fixed and definite object in view. When statesmen cannot see their own way clearly, the executive officers will seldom act with vigour.

The Spanish army was now daily increasing; the tercios of Migueletes were augmented in number, and a regiment of hussars, that had been most absurdly kept in Majorca ever since the beginning of the insurrection, arrived at Taragona.

Mariano Alvarez, the governor of Gerona, was appointed to the command of the vanguard, composed of the garrisons of Gerona and Rosas, and of the corps of Juan Claros, and other partizans.

Francisco Milans and Milans de Bosch, with their Migueletes, kept the mountains to the northward and eastward of Barcelona; and while the latter hemmed in the French right, the former covered the district of El Vallés, and like a bird of prey watched the French foragers in the plain surrounding Barcelona.

Palacios remained at Villa Franca, and the count of Caldagues continued to guard the line of the Llobregat.

The little port of St. Felice de Quixols, near Palamos Bay, was filled with privateers, and the English frigates off the coast not only aided the Spaniards in all their enterprizes, but carried on a littoral warfare in the gulf of Lyons with great spirit and success.

During the month of September several petty skirmishes happened between the French marauding parties and the Migueletes about Barcelona; but on the 10th of October, Duhesme attacked and dislodged Francisco Milans from the mountains to the north of that city; and designing to forage the district of El Vallés, sent on the 11th a column of two thousand men along the sea coast towards Mattaro, with orders to turn from thence to the left, clear the heights beyond the Besos, of Migueletes, and push for Granollers on the route to Vich: this column he supported by a second of nearly equal strength, under general Millossewitz.

The first column reaching Granollers on the 12th, put the local junta of that district to flight, captured some provisions and other stores, and, finally, joined the second column, which was posted at Mollet. Millossewitz, leaving a part of his force at the pass of Moncada, then proceeded to San Culgat. Caldagues, hearing of this excursion, drew together three thousand infantry, a hundred and fifty cavalry, and six guns from his line on the Llobregat, and was in full march by the back of the mountains for the pass of Moncada, expecting to intercept the French in their return to Barcelona: Cabanes. but, falling in with them at San Culgat, a confused action ensued, and both sides claimed the victory; the French, however, retreated across the mountains to Barcelona without having foraged the district, and Caldagues returned to his former position, justly proud of this vigorous and soldier-like movement.

The 28th of October, Palacios quitted Catalonia to command the levies in the Sierra Morena. General Vives succeeded him, and the army was again reinforced by some infantry from Majorca. The Spanish regiments, released by the convention of Cintra, also arrived at Villa Franca, and seven or eight thousand Granadian levies were brought up to Tarragona by general Reding, and, at the same time, six thousand men drafted from the army of Aragon, reached Lerida, under the command of the marquis de Lazan.

The whole force, including the garrisons of Hostalrich, Gerona, and Rosas, was now not less than thirty-six thousand men; of which twenty-two St. Cyr.
Doyle’s Correspondence, MSS. thousand infantry, and twelve hundred cavalry, were in the neighbourhood of Barcelona, or in march for the Llobregat. This force, organized in six divisions, of which the troops in the Ampurdan formed one, took the name of the army of the right, and Vives seeing himself at the head of such a power, and in possession of all the hills and rivers encircling Barcelona, resolved to besiege that city.

The 3d of November, he transferred his head-quarters to Martorel; the 8th he commenced a series of trifling skirmishes, to drive the French posts back into the town: but they repulsed him; and, from that time until the blockade was raised, a warfare of the most contemptible nature was carried on by the Spaniards: the French, who were about ten thousand strong, always maintaining their outposts.

Notwithstanding this appearance of strength, Catalonia was a prey to innumerable disorders. Vives, a weak, indolent man, had been a friend of Godoy, and was not popular; he it was that, commanding in the islands, had retained the troops in them with such tenacity as to create doubts of his attachment to the cause; but, although the supreme junta privately expressed their suspicions, and Lord Collingwood’s Correspondence. requested lord Collingwood to force Vives to an avowal of his true sentiments, they, at the same time, wrote to the latter, publicly, in the most flattering terms, and, finally, appointed him captain-general of Catalonia. By the people, however, both he and others were vehemently suspected, and, as the mob governed throughout Spain, the authorities, civil and military, were more careful to avoid giving offence to the multitude than anxious to molest the enemy. Catalonia was full of strong places: but they were neither armed nor provisioned, and, like all other Spaniards, the Catalans were confident that the French only thought of retreating.

Such was the state of the province and of the armies, when Napoleon, being ready to break into the northern parts of Spain, general St. Cyr commenced his operations. His force (including a Muster rolls of the French army, MSS. German division of six thousand men, not yet arrived at Perpignan) amounted to more than thirty St. Cyr. thousand men, ill-composed, however, and badly provided; and St. Cyr himself was extremely discontented with his situation. The Emperor had given him discretionary powers to act as he judged fitting, only bearing in mind the importance of relieving Barcelona; but marshal Berthier neglected the equipment of the troops; and Duhesme declared that his magazines would not hold out longer than December.

To march directly to Barcelona was neither an easy nor an advantageous movement. That city could only be provisioned from France; and, until the road was cleared, by the taking of Gerona and Hostalrich, no convoys could pass except by sea, yet, to attack these places with prudence, it was essential to get possession of Rosas, not only to secure an intermediate port for French vessels passing with supplies to Barcelona, but to deprive the English of a secure harbour, and the Spaniards of a point from whence they could, in concert with their allies, intercept the communications of the French army: and even blockade Figueras, which, from the want of transport, could not be provisioned at this period. These considerations having determined St. Cyr to commence by the siege of Rosas, he repaired to Figueras, in person, the 6th of November; and, on the 7th, general Reille being charged to conduct the operation, after a sharp action, drove in the Spaniards before the place and completed the investment.

SIEGE OF ROSAS.

This town was but a narrow slip of houses built along the water’s edge, at the head of the gulph of the same name.

The citadel, a large irregular pentagon, stood on one side of the town, and, on the other, the mountains that skirt the flat and swampy plain of the Ampurdan, rose, bluff and rocky, at the distance of half a mile. An old redoubt was built at the foot of these hills, and, from thence to the citadel, an entrenchment had been drawn to cover the houses. Hence, Rosas, looking towards the land, had the citadel on the left hand, the mountains on the right, and the front covered by this entrenchment. The roadstead permitted ships of the line to anchor within cannon-shot of the place; and, on the right hand coming up the gulph, a star fort, called the Trinity, crowned a rugged hill about a mile and a quarter distant from the citadel, the communication between it and the town being by a narrow road carried between the foot of the hills and the water’s edge.

The garrison of Rosas consisted of nearly three thousand men, two bomb-vessels, and an English seventy-four (the Excellent), were anchored off the town, and captain West, the commodore, reinforced the garrisons of the Trinity and the citadel with marines and seamen from these vessels; but the damages sustained in a former siege had been only partially repaired; both places were ill-found in guns and stores, and the Trinity was commanded at the distance of pistol-shot from a point of the mountains called the Puig Rom.

The force under Reille, consisting of his own and general Pino’s Italian division, skirmished daily with the garrison; but the rain, which fell in torrents, having flooded the Ampurdan, the roads became impassable for the artillery, and delayed the opening of the trenches. Meanwhile, Souham’s division took post between the Fluvia and Figueras, to cover the operations of the siege on the side of Gerona, and an Italian brigade, under general Chabot, was posted at Rabos and Espollas, to keep the Somatenes down.

But, before Chabot’s arrival, Reille had detached a battalion to that side; and, being uneasy for its safety, sent three more to its assistance: this saved the battalion, which was in great danger; and two companies were actually cut off by the Somatenes. This loss, however, proved beneficial, as it enraged the Italians, and checked their disposition to desert; and St. Cyr, unwilling to pursue the system of St. Cyr. burning villages, and yet anxious to repress the insidious hostility of the peasants, in reprizal for the loss of his two companies, seized an equal number of villagers, and sent them prisoners to France.

The inhabitants of Rosas having embarked or taken refuge in the citadel, the houses, and the entrenchments covering them, were left to the French; but the latter were prevented, by the fire of the English ships, from effecting a permanent lodgement in the deserted town; and, after a few days, a detachment from the garrison, consisting of soldiers and townsmen, established a post there.

Captain West’s despatch.

The 8th captain West, in conjunction with the governor, made a sally, but was repulsed; and, on the 9th several yards of the citadel ramparts crumbled; but, with the assistance of the British seamen, the breach was repaired in the night before the enemy became aware of the accident.

The 15th an obstinate assault made on the Trinity was repulsed, the English seamen bearing a principal share in the success.

The 16th the roads being passable, the French battering-train was put in motion. The way leading up to the Puig Rom was repaired, and two battalions were posted there, on the point commanding the Trinity.

The 19th three guns were mounted against the Trinity, and the trenches were opened at the distance of four hundred yards from the citadel.

The 20th the fire of some French mortars obliged the vessels of war to anchor beyond the range of the shells. During this time, Souham was harassed by the Migueletes from the side of Gerona. The French cavalry, unable to find forage, were sent back to France; and Napoleon, rendered uneasy by the reports of general Duhesme, ordered the seventh corps to advance to Barcelona, so as to St. Cyr. arrive there by the 26th of November; but St. Cyr refused to abandon the siege of Rosas without a positive order.

The assistance afforded to the besieged by captain West was represented to the junta as an attempt of that officer to possess himself of the place. The junta readily believed this tale, and entered into an angry correspondence with don Pedro O’Daly, the governor, relative to the supposed treachery; but no measures were taken to raise the siege. During this correspondence, the Excellent sailed from Rosas, and was succeeded by the Fame, captain Bennet. This officer landed some men under the Trinity on the 23d, and endeavoured, but ineffectually, to take the battery opposed to that fort.

The 27th the besiegers assaulted the Spaniards, who, to the number of five hundred, had entrenched themselves in the deserted houses of the town. A hundred and sixty were taken, and fifty escaped into the citadel; the rest were slain. Breaching batteries were immediately commenced among the ruins of the houses, and the communication with the shipping rendered so unsafe, that Lazan, who had come from Lerida to Gerona with six thousand men, and had collected provisions and Doyle’s Correspondence, MSS. stores at the mouth of the Fluvia, with the intention of supplying Rosas by sea, abandoned his design. The ruinous condition of the front, exposed to the fire of the besiegers, now induced Reille to summon the place a second time; but the governor refused to surrender.

The 30th of November, the engineers reported that the breach in the Trinity was practicable, and an assault was ordered; although an Italian officer, appointed to lead the storming party of fifty men, and who had formerly served in the fort, asserted that the breach was not a true one. The Spanish commandant thought his post untenable; and two days before, the marines of the Fame had been withdrawn by captain Bennet: but at this time, lord Cochrane, a man of infinite talent in his profession, and of a courage and enterprise that have seldom, if ever, been surpassed, arrived in the Imperieuse frigate, and immediately threw himself, with eighty men, into the fort.

The Italian’s representations being unheeded, he advanced to the assault like a man of honour, and was killed, together with all his followers, excepting four, two of whom escaped back to their own side, the other two being spared by the English seamen, were drawn up with cords into the fort. The breach had, however, been practicable at first; but it was broken in an old gallery, which lord Cochrane immediately filled with earth and hammocks, and so cut off the opening. In the course of a few days, a second assault was made, but the French were again repulsed with loss. Meanwhile the breaching batteries opened against the citadel, and a false attack was commenced on the opposite side.

The 4th December the garrison made a sally, in the night, from the citadel, and with some success; but the walls were opened by the enemy’s fire, and the next day O’Daly, hopeless of relief, surrendered with about two thousand four hundred men, of which two hundred were wounded. Lord Cochrane, also, blew up the magazine, and abandoned Fort Trinity. General St. Cyr observes that the garrison of Rosas might have been easily carried off, at night, by the British shipping; but to embark two thousand five hundred men, in the boats of two ships, and under a heavy fire, whether by night or day, is not an easy operation; nevertheless, the censure seems well founded, because sufficient preparation might have been previously made.

The defence of Rosas (with the exception of lord Cochrane’s efforts) cannot be deemed brilliant, whether with relation to the importance of the place, the assistance that might have been rendered from the sea, or the number of the garrison compared with that of the besiegers. It held out, however, thirty days, and, if that time had been well employed by the Spaniards, the loss of the garrison would have been amply repaid; but Vives, wholly occupied with Barcelona, was indifferent to the fate of Rosas. A fruitless attack on Souham’s posts, by Mariano Alvarez, was the only effort made to interrupt the siege, or to impede the farther progress Doyle’s Correspondence, MSS. of the enemy. Lazan, although at the head of six or seven thousand men, could not rely upon more than three thousand; and his applications to Vives for a reinforcement were unheeded.

The fall of Rosas enabled St. Cyr to march to the relief of Barcelona, and he resolved to do so: yet the project, at first sight, would appear rather insane than hardy; for the roads, by which Gerona and Hostalrich were to be turned, being mere paths impervious to carriages, no artillery, and little ammunition, could be carried, and the country was full of strong positions. The Germans had not yet arrived at Perpignan; it was indispensable to leave Reille in the Ampurdan, to protect Rosas and Figueras; and, these deductions being made, less than eighteen thousand men, including the cavalry, which had been recalled from France, remained disposable for the operation.

But, on the Spanish side, Reding having come up, there were twenty-five thousand men in the camp before Barcelona, and ten thousand others, under Lazan and Alvarez, were at Gerona. All these troops were, however, exceedingly ill organized. Cabanes. Two-thirds of the Migueletes only carried pikes, and many were without any arms at all. There was no sound military system; the Spanish generals were ignorant of the French movements and strength; and their own indolence and want of vigilance drew upon them the contempt and suspicion of the people.

The 8th of December St. Cyr united his army on the left bank of the Fluvia. The 9th he passed that river, and, driving the Spaniards over the Ter, established his head-quarters at Mediñya, ten miles from Gerona. He wished, before pursuing his own march, to defeat Lazan, lest the latter should harass the rear of the army; but, finding that the marquis would not engage in a serious affair, he made a show of sitting down before Gerona on the 10th, St. Cyr. hoping thereby to mislead Vives, and render him slow to break up the blockade of Barcelona: and Cabanes. this succeeded; for the Spaniard remained in his camp, irresolute and helpless, while his enemy was rapidly passing the defiles and rivers between Gerona and the Besos.

The nature of the country between Figueras and Barcelona has been described in the first volume; referring to that description, the reader will find that the only carriage-routes by which St. Cyr could march were, one by the sea-coast, and one leading through Gerona and Hostalrich. The first, exposed to the fire of the English vessels, had also been broken up by lord Cochrane, in August; and, to use the second, it was necessary to take the fortresses, or to turn them by marching for three days through the mountains. St. Cyr adopted the latter plan, trusting that rapidity and superior knowledge of war would enable him to separate Lazan and Alvarez from Vives, and so defeat them all in succession.

The 11th, he crossed the Ter and reached La Bisbal; here he left the last of his carriages, delivered out four days’ biscuit and fifty rounds of ammunition to the soldiers, and with this provision, a drove of cattle, and a reserve of ten rounds of ammunition for each man, he commenced his hardy march the 12th of December, making for Palamos. On the route he encountered and beat some Migueletes that Juan Claros had brought to oppose him, and, when near Palamos, he suffered a little from the fire of the English ships; but he had gained a first step, and his hopes were high.

The 13th, he turned his back upon the coast, and, by a forced march, reached Vidreras and Llagostera, and thus placed himself between Vives and Lazan, for the latter had not yet passed the heights of Casa de Selva.

The 14th, marching by Mazanet de Selva and Martorel, he reached the heights above Hostalrich, and encamped at Grions and Masanas. During this day’s journey, his rear was slightly harassed by Lazan and Claros; but he was well content to find the strong banks of the Tordera undefended by Vives. The situation of the army was, however, extremely critical. Lazan and Claros had, the one on the 11th, the other on the 12th, informed Vives of the movement; hence the bulk of the Spanish force before Barcelona might be expected, at any moment, in some of the strong positions in which the country abounded, and the troops from Gerona were, as we have seen, close in the rear; the Somatenes were gathering thickly on the flanks, Hostalrich was in front, and the French soldiers had only sixty rounds of ammunition.

St. Cyr’s design was to turn Hostalrich, and get into the main road again behind that fortress. The smugglers of Perpignan had affirmed that there was no pathway, but a shepherd assured him that there was a track by which it could be effected; and, when the efforts of the staff-officers to trace it failed, St. Cyr himself discovered it, but nearly fell into the hands of the Somatenes during the search.

The 15th, at day-break, the troops being put in motion, turned Hostalrich and gained the main road. The garrison of that place, endeavouring to harass their rear, were repulsed; but the Somatenes on the flanks, emboldened because the French, to save ammunition, did not return their fire, became exceedingly troublesome; and, near San Celoni, the head of the column encountered some battalions of Migueletes, which Francisco Milans had brought up from Arenas de Mar, by the pass of Villa Gorguin.

Milans, not being aware of St. Cyr’s approach, was soon beaten, and his men fell back, part to Villa Gorguin, part to the heights of Nuestra Señora de Cordera: the French thus gained the defile of Treintapasos. But they were now so fatigued that all desired to halt, save St. Cyr, who insisted upon the troops clearing the defile, and reaching a plain on the other side: this was not effected before ten o’clock. Lazan’s troops did not appear during the day; but Vives’ army was in front, and its fires were seen on the hills between Cardadeu and Llinas.

Information of St. Cyr’s march, as I have already observed, had been transmitted to Vives on the 11th, and there was time for him to have carried the bulk of his forces to the Tordera before the French could pass that river; but intelligence of the battle of Tudela, and of the appearance of the French near Zaragoza, arrived at the same moment, Cabanes. and the Spanish general betrayed the greatest weakness and indecision, at one moment resolving to continue before Barcelona, at another designing to march against St. Cyr. He had, on Doyle’s Correspondence, MS. the 9th, sent Reding with six guns, six hundred cavalry, and one thousand infantry, to take the command in the Ampurdan; but, the 12th, after receiving Lazan’s report, he reinforced Reding, who was still at Granollers, and directed him upon Cardadeu.

The 14th, he ordered Francisco Milans to march by Mattaro and Arenas de Mar, to examine the coast road, and, if the enemy was not in that line, to repair also to Cardadeu.

The 15th, Milans, as we have seen, was beaten at St. Celoni; but, in the night, he rallied his whole division on the heights of Cordera, thus flanking the left of the French forces at Llinas.

A council of war was held on the 13th. Caldagues advised that four thousand Migueletes should be left to observe Duhesme, and that the rest of the army should march at once to fight St. Cyr. Good and soldier-like advice; but Vives was loth to abandon the siege of Barcelona, and, adopting half-measures, left Caldagues, with the right wing of the army, to watch Duhesme, and carried the centre and the left, by the route of Granollers, to the heights between Cardadeu and Llinas, where (exclusive of Milan’s division) he united, in the night of the 15th, about eight thousand regulars, besides several thousand Somatenes. Duhesme immediately occupied the posts abandoned by Vives, and thus separated him from Caldagues.

St. Cyr’s position, on the morning of the 16th, would have been dangerous, if he had been opposed by any but Spanish generals and Spanish troops. Vives and those about him, irresolute and weak as they were in action, were not deficient in boasting words; they called the French army, in derision, “the succour;” and, in allusion to the battle of Baylen, announced that a second “bull-fight,” in St. Cyr. which Reding was again the “matador,” would be exhibited. But Dupont and St. Cyr were men of a different stamp: the latter justly judging that the Spaniards were not troops to stand the shock of a good column, united his army in one solid mass, at day-break on the 16th, and marched straight against the centre of the enemy, giving orders that the head of the column should go headlong on, without either firing or forming line.

BATTLE OF CARDADEU.

The hills which the Spaniards occupied were high and wooded; the right was formed by Reding’s division, the left by Vives, and the Somatenes hung on the sides of a lofty ridge, which was only separated from the right of the position by the little river Mogent. The main road from Llinas led straight upon the centre, and there was a second road conducting to Mataro, which, branching off from the first, run between the Mogent and the right of Reding’s ground.

When the French commenced their march, the Somatenes galled their left flank, and general Pino, whose division headed the column of attack, instead of falling upon the centre, sent back for fresh instructions, St. Cyr. and meanwhile extended his first brigade in a line to the left. St. Cyr, who had reiterated the order to fight in column, was sorely troubled at Pino’s error, the ill effects of which were instantly felt, because, Reding advancing against the front and flank of the extended brigade, obliged it to commence a fire, which it was impossible to sustain for want of ammunition.

In this difficulty the French general acted with great ability and vigour: Pino’s second brigade was directed to do that which the first should have done. Two companies were sent to menace the left of the Spaniards, and St. Cyr, at the same time, rapidly carried Souham’s division, by the Mataro road, against Reding’s extreme right. The effect was instantaneous and complete, the Spaniards overthrown on their centre and right, and charged by the cavalry, were beaten and dispersed in every direction, leaving all their artillery and ammunition, and two thousand prisoners behind.

Vives, escaping on foot across the mountain, reached Mataro, where he was taken on board an English vessel. Reding fled on horseback by the main road; and the next day, having rallied some of the fugitives at Monmalo, retreated by the route of San Culgat to Molino del Rey. The loss of the French was six hundred men; but the battle, which lasted only one hour, was so complete, that St. Cyr resolved to push on to Barcelona immediately, without seeking to defeat Milans or Lazan, whom he judged too timid to venture an action: moreover, he hoped that Duhesme, who had been informed, on the 7th, of the intended march, and who could hear the sound of the artillery, would intercept and turn back the flying troops.

The French army had scarcely quitted the field of battle when Milans arrived; but, finding how matters stood, retired to Arenas de Mar, and gave notice to Lazan, who retreated to Gerona. St. Cyr’s rear was thus cleared; but Duhesme, heedless of what was passing at Cardadeu, instead of intercepting the beaten army, sent Lecchi to attack Caldagues. The latter general, however, concentrated his division on the evening of the 16th, repulsed Lecchi, and retired behind the Llobregat, but left behind some artillery and the large magazines which Vives had collected for the siege and accumulated in his camp.

St. Cyr reached Barcelona without encountering any of Duhesme’s troops, and, in his Memoirs of this campaign, represents that general as astonishingly negligent, seeking neither to molest the enemy nor to meet the French army; treating everything belonging to the service with indifference, making false returns, and conniving at gross malversation in his generals.

St. Cyr.

St. Cyr, now reflecting upon the facility with which his opponents could be defeated, and the difficulty of pursuing them, resolved to rest a few days at Barcelona, in hopes that the Spaniards, if unmolested, would re-assemble in numbers behind the Llobregat, and enable him to strike an effectual blow, for his design was to disperse their forces so as they should not be able to interrupt the sieges which he meditated; nor was he deceived in his calculations. Reding joined Caldagues, and rallied from twelve to fifteen thousand men behind the Llobregat, and Vives, having relanded at Sitjes, sent orders to Lazan and Milans to march likewise to that river by the district of Vallés. The arrival of the latter was, however, so uncertain that the French general, judging it better to attack Reding at once, united Chabran’s division to his own, on the 20th, and advanced to St. Felieu de Llobregat.

The Spaniards were drawn up on the heights behind the village of San Vincente; their position was lofty and rugged, commanding a free view of the approaches from Barcelona. The Llobregat covered the front, and the left flank was secure from attack, except at the bridge of Molino del Rey, which was entrenched, guarded by a strong detachment, and protected by heavy guns. Reding’s cavalry amounted to one thousand, and he had fifty pieces of artillery, the greatest part of which were in battery at the bridge of Molino del Rey; but his right was accessible, because the river was fordable in several places. The main road to Villa Franca led through this position, and, at the distance of ten or twelve miles in the rear, the pass of Ordal offered another post of great strength.

Vives was at San Vincente on the 19th, but returned to Villa Franca the same day; hence, when the French appeared on the 20th, the camp was thrown into confusion.

A council of war being held, one party was for fighting, another for retreating to Ordal: an officer Cabanes. was then sent to Vives for orders, but he returned with a message, that Reding might retreat if he could not defend his post. The latter, however, fearing that he should be accused, and perhaps sacrificed for returning without reason, resolved to fight, although he anticipated nothing but disaster. The season was extremely severe; snow was falling, and both armies suffered from the cold and wet. The Spanish soldiers were dispirited by past defeats, and the despondency and irresolution of their generals could not escape observation: but the French and Italian troops were confident in their commander, and flushed with success. In these dispositions the two armies passed the night before

THE BATTLE OF MOLINO DEL REY.

St. Cyr observing that Reding’s attention was principally directed to the bridge of Molino, ordered Chabran’s division to that side, with instructions to create a diversion, by opening a fire from some artillery, and then retiring, as if his guns could not resist the weight of the Spanish metal; in short, to persuade the enemy that a powerful effort would be made there; but when the centre and right of the Spaniards should be attacked, Chabran was to force the passage of the bridge, and assail the heights beyond it. This stratagem succeeded; Reding massed his troops on the left, and neglected his right, which was the real point of attack.

The 21st of December, Pino’s division crossed the Llobregat at daylight, by a ford in front of St. Felieu, and marched against the right of the Spanish position: Chabot’s division followed; and Souham’s, which had passed at a ford lower down, and then ascended by the right bank, covered Pino’s passage. The light cavalry were held in reserve behind Chabot’s division, and a regiment of cuirassiers was sent to support Chabran at Molino del Rey.

The Spanish position consisted of two mountain heads, separated by a narrow ravine and a torrent; and as the troops of the right wing were exceedingly weakened, they were immediately chased off their headland by the leading brigade of Pino’s division. Reding then seeing his error, changed his front, and drew up on the other mountain, on a new line, nearly perpendicular to the Llobregat; but he still kept a strong detachment at the bridge of Molino, which was thus in rear of his left. The French divisions formed rapidly for a fresh effort. Souham on the right, Pino in the centre, Chabot on the left. The latter gained ground in the direction of Villa Franca, and endeavoured to turn the Spaniards’ right, and cut off their retreat; while the light cavalry making way between the mountain and the river, sought to connect themselves with Chabran at Molino.

St. Cyr’s columns, crossing the ravine that separated them from the Spaniards, soon ascended the opposite mountain. The Catalans had formed quickly, and opposed their enemies with an orderly, but ill directed fire. Their front line then advanced, and offered to charge with an appearance of great intrepidity; but their courage sunk, and they turned as the hostile masses approached. The reserves immediately opened a confused volley upon both parties; and in this disorder, the road to Villa Franca being intercepted by Chabot, the right was forced upon the centre, the centre upon the left, and the whole pushed back in confusion upon Molino del Rey.

Meanwhile a detachment from Chabran’s division had passed the Llobregat above Molino, and so blocked the road to Martorel; and in this miserable situation the Spaniards were charged by the light cavalry, and scarcely a man would have escaped if Chabran had obeyed his orders, and pushing across the bridge of Molino had come upon their rear; but that general, at all times feeble in execution, remained a tranquil spectator of the action, until the right of Souham’s division reached the bridge; and thus the routed troops escaped, by dispersing, and throwing away every thing that could impede their flight across the mountains. Vives reached the field of battle just as the route was complete, and was forced to fly with the rest. The victorious army pursued in three columns; Chabran’s in the direction of Igualada, Chabot’s by the road of San Sadurni, which turned the pass of Ordal, and Souham’s by the royal route of Villa Franca, at which place the head-quarters were established on the 22d. The posts of Villa Nueva and Sitjes were immediately occupied by Pino, while Souham pushed the fugitives to the gates of Tarragona.

The loss of the Spaniards, owing to their swiftness, was less than might have been expected; not more than twelve hundred fell into the hands of the French, but many superior officers were killed or wounded; and, on the 22d, the count de Caldagues was taken, a man apparently pedantic in military affairs, and wanting in modesty, but evidently possessed of both courage and talent. The whole of the artillery, and vast quantities of powder, were captured, and with them a magazine of English muskets, quite new. Yet many of the Migueletes were unarmed, and the junta were unceasing in their demands for succours of this nature; but the history of any one province was the history of all Spain.

CHAPTER V.

Barcelona was now completely relieved, and the captured magazines supplied it for several months. There was no longer a Spanish army in the field; and in Tarragona, where some eight or nine thousand of the Spanish fugitives, from this and the former battle, had taken refuge, there was terrible disorder. Cabanes. The people rose tumultuously, broke open the public stores, and laying hands on all the weapons they could find, rushed from place to place, as if searching for something to vent their fury upon. The head of Vives was called for; and to save his life, he was cast into prison by Reding, who was proclaimed general-in-chief.

The regular officers were insulted by the populace, and there was as usual a general cry to defend the city, mixed with furious menaces against traitors, but there were neither guns, nor ammunition, nor provisions; and during the first moment of anarchy, St. Cyr. St. Cyr might certainly have rendered himself master of Tarragona by a vigorous effort. But the opportunity soon passed away; the French general sought only to procure subsistence, and occupied himself in forming a train of field artillery; while Reding, who had been almost without hope, proceeded to rally the army, and place the town in a state of defence.

Doyle’s Correspondence, MSS.

The 1st of January eleven thousand infantry and eight hundred cavalry were re-assembled at Tarragona and Reus; and a Swiss regiment from Majorca and two Spanish regiments from Granada, increased this force. Three thousand four hundred men arrived from Valencia on the 5th, and from thence also five thousand muskets, ammunition in proportion, and ten thousand pikes which had just been landed from England, were forwarded to Tarragona. A supply of money, obtained from the British agents at Seville, completed the number of fortuitous and fortunate events that combined to remedy the disaster of Molino del Rey. These circumstances, and the inactivity of St. Cyr, who seemed suddenly paralyzed, restored the confidence of the Catalonians, but their system remained unchanged; for confidence among the Spaniards always led to insubordination, but never to victory.

Meanwhile, a part of the troops flying from Molino had taken refuge at Bruch, and being joined by the Somatenes, chose major Green, one of the English military agents, for their general, thinking to hold that strong country, which was considered as impregnable ever since the defeats of Chabran and Swartz. St. Cyr, glad of this opportunity to retrieve the honour of the French arms, detached Chabran himself, on the 11th of January, to take his own revenge; but that general was still depressed by the recollection of his former defeat. St. Cyr. To encourage him, Chabot was directed from San Sadurni upon Igualada, by which the defile of Bruch was turned, and a permanent defence rendered impossible. The Spaniards, however, made little or no resistance; and eight guns were taken, and a considerable number of men killed. The French pursued to Igualada; and a detachment, without orders, even assailed and took Montserrat itself, and afterwards rejoined the main body without loss. Chabot was then recalled to San Sadurni, and Chabran was quartered at Martorel.

While these events were passing beyond the Llobregat, the marquis of Lazan was advancing, with seven or eight thousand men, towards Castellon de Ampurias. The 1st of January he drove back a battalion of infantry upon Rosas with considerable loss; but the next day general Reille, having assembled about three thousand men, intercepted Lazan’s communications, and attacked him in his position behind the Muga. The victory seems to have been undecided; but in the night, Lazan regained his communications, and returned to Gerona.

The battle of Molino del Rey checked, for a time, the ardour of the Catalans, and Reding at first avoided serious actions, leaving the Somatenes to harass the enemy. This plan being followed during the months of January and February, was exceedingly troublesome to St. Cyr, because he was obliged to send small parties continually to seek for subsistence, and the country people, hiding their provisions with great care, strove hard to protect their scanty stores. But in the beginning of February the country between the Llobregat and Tarragona was almost exhausted of food. The English ships continued to vex the coast-line; and the French, besides deserters, lost many men, killed and wounded, in the innumerable petty skirmishes sustained by the marauding parties. Still St. Cyr maintained his positions; and the country people, tired of a warfare in which they were the chief sufferers, clamoured against Reding, that he, with a large regular force, should look calmly on, until the last morsel of food was discovered, and torn from their starving families. The townspeople, also feeling the burthen of supporting the troops, impatiently urged the general to fight; nor was this insubordination confined to the rude multitude.

Lazan, although at the head of nine thousand men, had remained perfectly inactive after the skirmish at Castellon de Ampurias; but when Reding required him to leave a suitable garrison in Gerona, and bring the rest of his troops to Igualada, he would not obey; and this difference was only terminated by Lazan’s marching, with five thousand men, to the assistance of Zaragoza. The result of his operations there has been already related in the narrative of that siege.

The army immediately under Reding was, however, very considerable: the Swiss battalions were numerous and good, and some of the most experienced of the Spanish regiments were in Catalonia. Every fifth man of the robust population had been called out after the defeat of Molino del Rey; and, although the people, averse to serve as regular soldiers, did not readily answer the call, the forces under Reding were so augmented that, in the beginning of February, it was not less than twenty-eight thousand men. The urban guards were also put in activity, and above fifteen thousand Somatenes assisted the regular troops; but there was more show than real power, for Reding was incapable of wielding the regular troops skilfully; and the Migueletes being ill armed, without clothing and insubordinate, devastated the country equally with the enemy.

The Somatenes, who only took arms for local interests, would not fight, except at the times and in the manner and place that suited themselves; and not only neglected the advice of the regular officers, but reviled all who would not adopt their own views; causing many to be removed from their commands; and, with all this, the Spanish generals never obtained good information of the enemy’s movements, yet their own plans were immediately made known to the French; because, at Reding’s head-quarters, as at those of Castaños before the battle of Tudela, every project was openly and ostentatiously discussed. Reding himself was a man of no military talent; his activity was of body, not of mind, but he was brave and honourable, and popular; because, being without system, arrangement, or deep design, and easy in his nature, he thwarted no man’s humours, and thus floated in the troubled waters until their sudden reflux left him on the rocks.

The Catalonian army was now divided into four distinct corps.

Alvarez, with four thousand men, held Gerona and the Ampurdan.

Lazan, with five thousand, was near Zaragoza.

Don Juan Castro, an officer, accused by the Spaniards of treachery, and who afterwards did attach himself to Joseph’s party, occupied, with sixteen thousand men, a line extending from Olesa, on the Upper Llobregat, to the pass of San Cristina, near Tarragona, and this line running through Bruch, Igualada, and Llacuna, was above sixty miles long. The remainder of the army, amounting to ten or twelve thousand men under Reding himself, were quartered at Tarragona, Reus, and the immediate vicinity of those places.

The Spaniards were fed from Valencia and Aragon, (the convoys from the former being conveyed in vessels along the coast). Their magazines were accumulated on one or two points of the line, and those points being chosen without judgement fettered Reding’s movements and regulated those of the French, whose only difficulty, in fact, was to procure food.

Early in February, St. Cyr, having exhausted the country about him, and having his communications much vexed by the Somatenes and by descents from the English ships, closed his posts and kept his divisions in masses at Vendril, Villa Franca, San Sadurni, and Martorel. The seventh corps at this period having been reinforced by the [Appendix No. 1], section 6. German division, and by some conscripts, amounted to forty-eight thousand men, of which forty-one thousand were under arms; but the force immediately commanded by St. Cyr did not exceed twenty-three thousand of all arms.

The relative position of the two armies was, however, entirely in favour of the French general, his line extending from Vendril, by Villa Franca, to Martorel, was not more than thirty miles, and he had a royal road by which to retreat on Barcelona. The Spanish posts covering, as I have said, an extent of above sixty miles, formed a half-circle round the French line, and their communications were more rugged than those of St. Cyr. Nevertheless, it is not to be doubted that, by avoiding any serious action, the Catalans would have obliged the French to abandon the country, between the Llobregat and Tarragona. Famine and the continued drain of men, in a mountain warfare, would have forced them away; nor could they have struck any formidable blow to relieve themselves, seeing that all the important places were fortified towns requiring a regular siege. The never-failing arrogance of the Spanish character, and the unstable judgement of Reding, induced him to forego these advantages. The closing of the French posts and some success in a few petty skirmishes were magnified, the last into victories and the first into a design on the part of the enemy to fly.

An intercourse opened with some of the inhabitants of Barcelona likewise gave hopes of regaining that city by means of a conspiracy within the walls. The Catalans had before made proposals to general Lecchi to deliver up the citadel of that place, nor is there any thing that more strongly marks the absurd self-sufficiency of the Spaniards, during this war, than the repeated attempts they made to corrupt the French commanders. As late as the year 1810, Martin Carrera, being at the head of about two thousand ragged peasants, half-armed, and only existing under the protection of the English outposts, offered to marshal Ney, then investing Ciudad Rodrigo, rank and honours in the Spanish army if he would desert!

Reding, swayed by the popular clamour, resolved to attack, and in this view he directed Castro to collect his sixteen thousand men and fall upon the right flank and rear of St. Cyr, by the routes of Llacuna and Igualada, and to send a detachment to seize the pass of Ordal, and thus cut off the French line of retreat to Barcelona. Meanwhile, advancing with eight thousand by the road of Vendril and St. Cristina; Reding, himself, was to attack the enemy in front. All the Migueletes and Somatenes between Gerona and the Besos were to aid in these operations, the object being to surround the French, a favourite project with the Spaniards at all times; and as they publicly announced this intention, the joy was universal, and the destruction of the hostile army was as usual anticipated with the utmost confidence.

The Catalans were in motion on the 14th of February, but St. Cyr kept his army well in hand until the Spaniards being ready to break in upon him, he judged it politic to strike first. Souham’s division remained at Vendril, to keep Reding in check, but on the 16th St. Cyr marched from Villa Franca, with Pino’s division, and overthrew Castro’s advanced posts which were at Lacuña and Saint Quinti. The Spanish centre thus pierced, and their wings completely separated, Castro’s right was thrown back upon Capellades.

The 17th, St. Cyr, continuing his movement with Pino’s division, reached Capellades, where he expected to unite with Chabot and Chabran, who had orders to concentrate there,—the one from San Sadurin, the other from Martorel. By this skilful movement the French general avoided the pass of Bruch, and massed three divisions on the extreme right of Castro’s left wing and close to his magazines, which were at Igualada.

Chabot arrived the first, and, being for a little time unsupported, was attacked and driven back with loss, but when the other divisions came up, the action was restored, and the Spaniards put to flight; they rallied again at Pobla de Claramunt, between Capellades and Igualada, a circumstance agreeable to St. Cyr, because he had sent Mazzuchelli’s St. Cyr. brigade from Llacuna direct upon Igualada, and if Chabot had not been so hard pressed, the action at Capellades was to have been delayed until Mazzuchelli had got into the rear; but scarcely was the head of that general’s column descried, when Castro, who was at Igualada with his reserves, recalled the troops from Pobla de Claramunt. The French being close at their heels, the whole passed through Igualada, fighting and in disorder, after which, losing all courage, the Spaniards broke, and, throwing away their arms, fled by the three routes of Cervera, Calaf, and Manresa. They were pursued all the 17th, and the French returned the next day, but with few prisoners, because, says St. Cyr, “the Catalans are endowed by nature with strong knees.”

Having thus broken through the centre of the Spanish line, defeated a part of the left wing and taken the magazines, St. Cyr posted Chabot and Chabran, at Igualada, to keep the beaten troops in check, but himself, with Pino’s division, marched the 18th to fall upon Reding, whose extreme left was now at St. Magi. Souham had been instructed, when by preconcerted signals he should know that the attack at Igualada had succeeded, to force the pass of Cristina, and push forward to Villa Radoña, upon which town St. Cyr was now marching.

The position of St. Magi was attacked at four o’clock in the evening of the 18th, and carried without difficulty, but it was impossible to find a single peasant to guide the troops, on the next day’s march to the abbey of Santa Creus. In this perplexity, a wounded Spanish captain, who was prisoner, demanded to be allowed to go to Tarragona. St. Cyr. St. Cyr assented and offered to carry him to the Creus, and thus the prisoner unconsciously acted as a guide to his enemies. The march being long and difficult, it was late ere they reached the abbey. It was a strong point, and being occupied in force by the troops that had been beaten from San Magi the evening before, the French, after a fruitless demonstration of assaulting it, took a position for the night. Meanwhile, Reding hearing of Castro’s defeat, had made a draft of men and guns from the right wing, and marched by Pla and the pass of Cabra, intending to rally his left. His road being just behind St. Creus, he was passing at the moment when the French appeared before that place, but neither general was aware of the other’s presence, and each continued his particular movement.

The 20th St. Cyr crossed the Gaya river under a fire from the abbey, and continued his rapid march upon Villa Radoña, near which place he dispersed a small corps; but finding that Souham was not come up, he sent an officer, escorted by a battalion, to hasten that general, whose non-arrival gave reason to believe that the staff-officers and spies, sent with the previous instructions, had all been intercepted. This caused the delay of a day and a half, which would otherwise have sufficed to crush Reding’s right wing, surprised as it would have been, without a chief, in the plain of Tarragona.

While St. Cyr rested at Villa Radoña, Reding pursued his march to St. Coloma de Querault, and having rallied many of Castro’s troops, the aspect of affairs was totally changed; for the defile of San Cristina being forced by Souham, he reached Villa Radoña on the 21st, and, at the same time, all the weakly men, who had been left in charge of the head-quarters at Villa Franca, also arrived. Thus more than two-thirds of the whole French army were concentrated at that town at the moment when the Spanish commander, being joined by the detachment beaten from San Cristina and by the battalion at the abbey, also rallied the greatest part of his forces, at St. Coloma de Querault. Each general could now, by a rapid march, overwhelm his adversary’s right wing; but the troops left by Reding, in the plain of Tarragona, might have retired upon that fortress, while those left by St. Cyr, at Igualada, were without support. Hence, when the latter commander, continuing his movement on Tarragona, reached Valls the 22d, and heard of Reding’s march, he immediately carried Pino’s division to Pla and the pass of Cabra, resolved, if the Spanish general should advance towards Igualada, to follow him with a sharp spur.

The 23d the French halted: Souham at Valls to watch the Spanish troops in the plain of Tarragona; Pino’s division at Pla and Cabra, sending, however, detachments to the abbey of Creus and towards Santa Coloma to feel for Reding. In the evening these detachments returned with some prisoners; the one from Creus reported that the abbey was abandoned; the other that the Spanish general was making his way back to Tarragona, by the route of Sarreal and Momblanch. Hereupon St. Cyr, remaining in person with Pino’s division at Pla, pushed his advanced posts on the right to the abbey of San Creus, and in front to the defile of Cabra, designing to encounter the Spaniards, if they returned by either of those roads. Souham’s division took a position in front of Valls, with his left on the Francoli river, his right towards Pla, and his advanced guard at Pixa Moxons, watching for Reding by the road of Momblanch.

The 24th the Spanish general, being at St. Coloma, called a council of war, at which colonel Doyle, the British military agent, assisted. One party was for fighting St. Cyr, another for retreating to Lerida, a third for attacking Chabran, at Igualada, a fourth for regaining the plain of Tarragona. There were many opinions, but neither wisdom nor resolution; and finally, Reding, leaving general Wimpfen, with four thousand men, at San Coloma, decided to regain Tarragona, and took the route of Momblanch with ten thousand of his best troops, following the Spanish accounts, but St. Cyr says with fifteen thousand. Reding knew that Valls was occupied, and that the line of march was intercepted, but he imagined the French to be only five or six thousand, for the exact situation and strength of an enemy were particulars that seldom troubled Spanish generals.

The 25th of February the head of Reding’s column was suddenly fired upon, at daybreak, by Souham’s detachment, at Pixa Moxons. The French were immediately driven back upon the main body, and, the attack being continued, the whole division was forced to give way. During the fight the Spanish baggage and artillery passed the Francoli river; and the road to Tarragona being thus opened, Reding might have effected his retreat without difficulty, but he continued to press Souham until St. Cyr, who had received early intelligence of the action, came down in all haste, from Pla, upon the left flank of the Spaniards, and the latter seeing the French dragoons, who preceded the infantry, enter in line, retired in good order across the Francoli, and took a position behind that river. From this ground Reding proposed to retreat in the evening; but St. Cyr obliged him to fight there.

BATTLE OF VALLS.

It was three o’clock when, Pino’s division being come up, St. Cyr’s recommenced the action. The banks of the Francoli were steep and rugged, and the Spanish position strong and difficult of access; but the French general, as he himself states, wishing to increase the moral ascendancy of his soldiers, forbad the artillery, although excellently placed for execution, to play upon Reding’s battalions, fearing that otherwise the latter would fly before they could be attained by the infantry, and, under this curious arrangement, the action was begun by the light troops.

The French, or rather the Italians, were superior in numbers to the Spaniards, and the columns, covered by the skirmishers, passed the river with great alacrity, and ascended the heights under an exceedingly regular fire, which was continued until the attacking troops had nearly reached the summit of the position; but then both Swiss and Catalans began to waver, and, ere the assailants could close with them, broke, and were charged by the French cavalry. Reding, after receiving several sabre wounds, saved himself at Tarragona, where the greatest number of the vanquished also took refuge, but the remainder fled in the greatest disorder on the routes of Tortosa and Lerida.

The count of Castel d’Orius, general of the cavalry, many superior officers, and the whole of the artillery and baggage were taken, and four thousand men were killed or wounded; the loss of the French was about a thousand; and, during all these movements and actions, Reding received no assistance from the Somatenes; nor is this surprising, for it may be taken as an axiom in war, that armed peasants are only formidable to stragglers. When the regular forces engage, the peasant, sensible of his own weakness, gladly quits the field.

The 26th Souham’s division, descending into the plain of Tarragona, took possession of the large and rich town of Reus, from which, contrary to the general custom, the inhabitants had not fled. Pino’s division occupied Pla, Alcover, and Valls; detachments were sent to Salou and Villaseca, on the sea-coast, west of Tarragona; and Chabot, being recalled from Igualada, was posted at the abbey of Santa Creus, to watch the troops under Wimpfen, who was still at St. Coloma de Querault.

The battle of Valls finished the regular warfare in Catalonia. Those detachments, which by the previous movements had been cut off from the main body of the army, joined the Somatenes, and, acting as partizan corps, troubled the communications of the French; but St. Cyr had no longer a regular army to deal with in the field; and Tortosa, which was in a miserably defenceless condition, and without provisions, must have fallen, if after the battle any attempt had been made against it. But the whole country was filled with confusion; nor was the disorder momentary; for although Lazan, after his defeat near Zaragoza, carried a few men to Tortosa, he declared himself independent of Reding’s command. The fall of Zaragoza, also, had stricken terror far and wide; and the neighbouring provinces feared and acted each for its own safety, without regard to any general plan.

The fugitives from Valls, joined to the troops already in Tarragona, crowded the latter place; and an infectious disorder breaking out, a great mortality ensued.

St. Cyr, satisfied that sickness should do the work of the sword, begirt the city, and resolved to hold his positions while food could be procured. In this policy he remained stedfast until the middle of March, although Wimpfen attacked and drove Chabran in succession from Igualada, Llacuna, and St. Quinti, to Villa Franca; and although the two Milans and Claros, acting between the Besos and the Llobregat, cut the communication with Barcelona, and in conjunction with the English squadron, renewed the blockade of that city. This plan was injudicious; for notwithstanding the sickness in Tarragona, the subjugation of Catalonia was retarded by the cessation of active hostilities. The object of the French general should have been, while the terror of his victories was fresh, to gain secure posts, such as Tortosa, Tarragona, Gerona, or Lerida, from whence he could issue out, and clear the country, from time to time, of the bands that might be assembled. His inactivity after the battle of Molino del Rey, and at this period, enabled the Catalonians to recover from their fears, and to put these towns in a state of defence.

Towards the middle of March the resources of the country being all exhausted, St. Cyr at last determined to abandon the plains of Tarragona, and take some position where he could feed his troops, cover the projected seige of Gerona, and yet be at hand to relieve Barcelona. The valleys about Vich alone offered all these advantages; but as Claros and the Milans were in force at Molino del Rey, he ordered Chabran to drive them from that point, that the sick and wounded men might be first transferred from Valls to Barcelona.

The 10th of March, Chabran sent a battalion with one piece of artillery on that service. The Migueletes thinking it was the advanced guard of a greater force, abandoned the post; but being undeceived, returned, beat the battalion, and took the gun. The 12th, Chabran having received orders to march with his whole division, consisting of eight battalions and three squadrons, reached the bridge, St. Cyr. but returned without daring to attack. St. Cyr repeated his orders, and on the 14th the troops, apparently ashamed of their general’s irresolution, fell on vigorously, and, having carried the bridge, established themselves on the heights on both sides of the river.

The communication thus opened, it was found that Duhesme, pressed by the Migueletes without, was also extremely fearful of conspiracies within the St. Cyr. walls: that his fears, and the villainous conduct of his police, had at last excited the inhabitants to attempt that which their enemies seemed so much to dread; and in March, an insurrection being planned in concert with the Migueletes and with the English squadron, the latter came close in and cannonaded the town on the 10th, expecting that Wimpfen, the Milans, and Claros would have assaulted the gates, which was to have been the signal for the insurrection within.

The inhabitants were the more sanguine of success, because there were above two thousand Spanish prisoners in the city; and outside the walls there were two tercios secretly recruited and maintained by the citizens: these men being without uniforms, constantly passed in and out of the town, and Duhesme was never able to discover or to prevent them. This curious circumstance is illustrative of the peculiar genius of the Spaniards, which in all matters of surprise and stratagem is unrivalled. The project was, however, baffled by Chabran’s action at Molino del Rey, on the 14th, which dispersed the partizan corps outside the walls; and the British squadron being exposed to a heavy gale, and disappointed in the co-operation from the land, sailed away on the 11th.

St. Cyr intended to commence his retrograde movement on the 18th; but on the 17th a cannonade was heard on the side of Momblanch, which was ascertained to proceed from a detachment of six hundred men, with two guns, under the command of Colonel Briche. This officer being sent by Mortier to open the communication with St. Cyr, after the fall of Zaragoza, had forced his way through the Spanish partizan corps. To favour his return the army halted two days; but the enterprize, after a trial, appeared so dangerous, that he relinquished it, and attached himself to the seventh corps.

The inactivity that succeeded the battle of Valls, and the timidity displayed by Chabran in the subsequent skirmishes, having depressed the spirits of the troops, they contemplated the approaching retreat with great uneasiness; and many officers, infected with panic doubt, advised the general to hide his movements from the enemy: but he, anxious to restore their confidence, took the part of giving the Spaniards a formal notice of his intentions; and desired of Reding that he would send proper officers to take over the hospitals which had been fitted up at Valls, as well as some of the French, wounded, that could not be moved. This done, the army commencing its retreat, reached Villa Franca the 21st of March; and the 22d passed the Llobregat, followed, but not molested, by some feeble Spanish detachments.

The 23d, general Pino attacked and defeated Wimpfen, who having rallied the corps of Claros and the Milans, after the affair on the 24th, had taken a position at Tarrasa. Pino pursued him to the vicinity of Manresa, foraged that country, and returned with sufficient provisions to feed the army, without drawing on the magazines of Barcelona.

During these proceedings, Reding died in Tarragona of his wounds. He had been received there with great dissatisfaction after the battle of Valls, and the interference of the British consul was necessary to save him from the first fury of the populace, who were always ready to attribute a defeat to the treachery of the general. His military conduct was, by his own officers, generally and justly condemned; but although his skill in war was slight, his courage and honesty were unquestionable; and he was of distinguished humanity; for, at this unhappy period, when the French prisoners in every part of Spain were tortured with the most savage cruelty; when to refrain from such deeds was to incur suspicion, Reding had the manliness, not only to repress all St. Cyr. barbarities within the range of his command, but even to conclude a convention with St. Cyr, under which the wounded men on both sides were to receive decent treatment, and to be exchanged as soon as their hurts were cured.

In his last moments Reding complained that he had been ill-served as a general; that the Somatenes had not supported him; that his orders were neglected; his plans disclosed to the enemy; and that he could never get true intelligence; complaints which the experience of Moore, Baird, Cradock, Murray, and, above all, of Wellington, proved to be applicable to every part of Spain, and every period of the war.

Coupigny succeeded Reding, but he was soon superseded by general Blake, who, for reasons hereafter to be mentioned, was appointed captain-general of the “Coronilla,” or Little Crown, a title given to the three provinces of Valencia, Aragon, and Catalonia, when united; and, as the warfare in Aragon thus became immediately connected with that in Catalonia, I shall here give a short account of what was passing in the former province.

When Zaragoza fell, marshal Lasnes was recalled to France; Mortier, who succeeded him in the command, sent detachments against Jaca and Monzon; and threatened Mequinenza and Lerida. The Fort of Monzon, commanding a passage over the Cinca river, was abandoned by the Spaniards, and the town and citadel of Jaca surrendered: whereby the French opened a new and important communication with France. But, Lerida being fruitlessly summoned, and some slight demonstrations made against Mequinenza having failed, Mortier cantoned his troops on both sides of the Ebro, from Barbastro to Alcanitz, and despatched colonel Briche, as we have seen, to open a communication with the seventh corps; but, in April, the fifth corps marched for Castile, and general Junot was left with a part only of the third corps to maintain Aragon.

Many of the French artillery-men and non-commissioned Suchet’s Memoirs. officers had been withdrawn from Spain to serve in Germany. One brigade of the third corps also was employed to protect the communications on the side of Navarre, and another was detached to escort the prisoners from Zaragoza to Bayonne. These drafts, added to the loss sustained during the siege, reduced the number of troops in Aragon to about twelve thousand disposable men under arms.

Junot, being sick, returned to France, and general Suchet succeeded him. The weakness of the army gave great uneasiness to the new general,—an uneasiness which was not allayed by finding that men and officers were, from various causes, discontented and dispirited. Suchet was, however, no ordinary man; and, with equal prudence and vigour, he commenced a system of discipline in his corps, and of order in his government, that afterwards carried him, with scarcely a check, from one success to another, until he obtained the rank of marshal for himself, and the honour for his corps of being the only one in Spain that never suffered any signal reverse.

Suchet hoped that the battle of Valls, and other defeats sustained by the Spaniards at this period, would give him time to re-organize his troops in tranquillity—but this hope soon vanished. The peasantry, observing the weakness of the third corps, only waited for a favourable opportunity to rise, and the Migueletes and Somatenes of the mountains about Lerida and Mequenenza were, under the command of colonel Pereña and colonel Baget, already in activity.

While the duke of Abrantes yet held the command Blake’s appointment took place; and that general drawing troops from Valencia and Tarragona, and, being joined by Lazan, fixed his quarters at Morella, on the frontier of Aragon. Designing to operate in that province rather than in Catalonia, he endeavoured to re-kindle the fire of insurrection; nor was fortune adverse to him. A part of the garrison of Monzon having made an unsuccessful marauding excursion beyond the Cinca, the citizens fell upon those who remained, and obliged them to abandon that post, which was immediately occupied by Pereña. The duke of Abrantes sent eight companies of infantry and thirty cuirassiers to retake the place: but Baget having reinforced Pereña, the French were repulsed, and the Cinca suddenly overflowing behind them, cut off their retreat. The cavalry, plunging with their horses into the river, escaped by swimming; but the infantry finding the lower passages guarded by the garrison of Lerida, and the upper cut off by the partizan corps, after three days’ marching and skirmishing, surrendered to Pereña and Baget. The prisoners were carried to Tarragona, and soon afterwards exchanged, in pursuance of a convention made by Reding and St. Cyr.

This little success was, as usual, sufficient to excite the most extravagant hopes, and the garrison of Mequinenza having, about the same time, burnt a bridge of boats which the French had thrown over the Ebro at Caspe, Blake immediately advanced, and, driving back the French from Beceyta and Val de Ajorfa, entered Alcanitz. The beaten troops retired in haste and with loss to Samper and Ixar; and it was at this moment, when the French were harassed on both banks of the Ebro, and their wings separated by the destruction of the bridge at Caspe, that Suchet arrived to take the command of the third corps. Seeing his divisions disseminated over a great tract of country, and in danger of being beaten in detail, he immediately ordered general Habert to abandon the left bank of the Ebro, cross that river at Fuentes, and follow in reserve upon Ixar, where Suchet himself rallied all the rest of the troops, with the exception of a small garrison left in Zaragoza.

BATTLE OF ALCANITZ.

The French battalions were fearful and disorderly: but the general, anxious to raise their spirits, marched towards Blake on the 23d of May. The Suchet’s Memoirs. latter was in position in front of Alcanitz, a bridge over the Guadalupe was immediately behind his centre, which was covered by a hill; his left was well posted near some pools of water, but his right was rather exposed. The French had about eight thousand infantry and seven hundred cavalry in the field, and the Spaniards about twelve thousand of all arms.

Suchet, observing Blake’s dispositions, judged that if he could carry the hill in the centre, and so separate the Spanish wings, the latter would be cut off from the bridge of Alcanitz, and obliged to surrender. In this design he directed a column against each wing, to draw Blake’s attention to his flanks: but, when the skirmishers were well engaged, three thousand men, pushing rapidly along the main road, attacked the hillock. A brisk fire of musketry and artillery, however, checked their progress; the Spaniards stood firm, and the French, after a feeble effort to ascend the hill, began to waver, and, finally, fled outright. Suchet, who was himself slightly wounded, rallied them in the plain, and remained there for the rest of the day, but without daring to renew the action. In the night, he retreated; and, although not pursued, his troops were seized with panic, and, at day-light, came pouring into Samper with all the tumult and disorder of a rout. Blake’s inactivity enabled Suchet to restore order; he caused the man who first commenced the alarm to be shot; and then, encouraging the troops that they might not seem to fly, he rested in position two whole days, after which he retreated to Zaragoza.

This action at Alcanitz was a subject of triumph and rejoicing all over Spain. The supreme junta conferred an estate upon Blake; the kingdom of Murcia was added to his command; his army rapidly augmented; and he himself greatly elated and confirmed in a design he had formed to retake Zaragoza, turned his whole attention to Aragon, and totally neglected Catalonia, to which province it is time to return.

St. Cyr remained in Barcelona for a considerable period, during which he endeavoured to remedy the evils of Duhesme’s government, and to make himself acquainted with the political disposition of the inhabitants. He filled the magazines with three months’ provisions; and, as the prisoners within the walls were an incumbrance, on account of their subsistence, and a source of uneasiness from their numbers, he resolved to send them to France. The 15th of April, having transferred his sick and weakly men to the charge of Duhesme, and exchanged Chabran’s for Lecchi’s division, he recommenced his march, and reached Granollers, giving out that he was returning to the frontier of France, lest the Catalans should remove their provisions from Vich, and thus frustrate his principal object.

The Migueletes, under the two Milans and Claros, were, however, on the watch to harass the army, and had taken post beyond Garriga on each side of a long and narrow defile in the valley of the Congosto. This pass of surprising natural strength was barricadoed with trees and pieces of rock, and mined in several places; and Wimpfen also held his corps at a little distance, ready to join Claros at the first alarm. The 16th Lecchi’s division, escorting two thousand prisoners, appeared at the head of this defile, and an action commenced, but in an hour the Migueletes fled on all sides; for St. Cyr, fully aware of the strength of the position, had secretly detached Pino to attack Wimpfen; and, while Lecchi was engaged at the entrance, Souham and Chabot, traversing the mountain, arrived, the one upon the flank, and the other at the further end of this formidable pass.

The 18th the army was established in the valley and town of Vich; but the inhabitants, with the exception of the bishop and a few old men, fled to the mountains with their effects, leaving, however, their provisions behind. St. Cyr then posted Chabot’s and Pino’s divisions at Centellas, San Martin, Tona, and Collespino, to guard the entrance into the valley. Souham remained at Vich, his right being at Roda and Manlieu on the Ter, and his advanced posts at Gurp, St. Sebastian, and St. Eularia. The 24th Lecchi marched, with the prisoners, by Filieu de Pallerols to Besalu on the Fluvia; he was attacked several times on the route, but succeeded in delivering his charge to general Reille, and then returned with the first information received by St. Cyr of Napoleon’s arrival in Paris, and the certainty of a war with Austria. To balance this, a moveable column sent to Barcelona brought back the pleasing intelligence that rear-admiral Comaso, with a French squadron, having baffled the extreme vigilance of lord Collingwood, had reached that city with ample supplies. Thus what may be called the irregular movements in Catalonia terminated, and the more methodical warfare of sieges commenced; but this part was committed to other hands. General Verdier had succeeded Reille in the Ampurdan, and marshal Augereau was on the road to supersede St. Cyr.

Plate 2. to face Pa. 102.

Sketch Explanatory of the
OPERATIONS IN CATALONIA
in 1808 and 1809.

London. Published by T. & W. BOONE, July 1829.

Observations.—1º. General St. Cyr’s marches were hardy, his battles vigorous and delivered in right time and place; but his campaign, as a whole, may be characterised as one of great efforts without corresponding advantages. He himself attributes this to the condition of the seventh corps, destitute and neglected, because the emperor disliked and wished to ruin its chief; a strange accusation, and unsustained by reason or facts. What! Napoleon wilfully destroy his own armies! sacrifice forty thousand men, that a general, who he was not obliged to employ at all, might be disgraced! General St. Cyr acknowledges, that when he received his instructions from the emperor, he observed the affliction of the latter at the recent loss of Dupont’s force; yet he would have it believed, that, in the midst of this regret, that monarch, with a singular malice, was preparing greater disasters for himself, merely to disgrace the general commanding the seventh corps, and why? because the latter had formerly served with the army of the Rhine! Yet St. Cyr met with no reverses in Catalonia, and was afterwards made a marshal by this implacable enemy.

2º.—That the seventh corps was not well supplied, and that its commander was thereby placed in a difficult situation, is not to be disputed in the face of the facts stated by general St. Cyr; but if war were a state of ease and smoothness, the fame which attends successful generals would be less. Napoleon selected general St. Cyr because he thought him a capable commander; in feeble hands, he knew the seventh corps would be weak, but, with St. Cyr at its head, he judged it sufficient to overcome the Catalonians; nor was he much mistaken. Barcelona, the great object of solicitude, was saved; Rosas was taken; and if Tarragona and Tortosa did not also fall, the one after the battle of Molino del Rey, the other after that of Valls, it was because the French general did not choose to attack them. Those towns were without the slightest preparation for defence, moral or physical, and must have surrendered; nor can the unexpected and stubborn resistance of Gerona, Zaragoza, and Valencia be cited against this opinion. The latter cities were previously prepared and expectant of a siege; and yet, in every instance, except Valencia, there was a moment of dismay and confusion, not fatal, only because the besieging generals wanted that ready vigour which is the characteristic of great commanders.

3º.—General St. Cyr, aware that a mere calculation of numbers and equipment is but a poor measure of the strength of armies, exalts the enthusiasm and the courage of the Catalans, and seems to tremble at the danger which, owing to Napoleon’s suicidal jealousy, menaced, at that period, not only the seventh corps but even the south of France. In answer to this, it may be observed that M. de St. Cyr did not hesitate, with eighteen thousand men having no artillery, and carrying only sixty rounds of musket-ammunition, to plunge into the midst of those terrible armies, to march through the mountains for whole weeks, to attack the strongest positions with the bayonet alone, nay, even to dispense with the use of his artillery, when he did bring it into action, lest his men should not have a sufficient contempt for their enemies. And who were these undaunted soldiers, so high in courage, so confident, so regardless of the great weapon of modern warfare? Not the select of the imperial guards, the conquerors in a hundred battles, but raw levies, the dregs and scrapings of Italy, the refuse of Naples and of Rome, states which to name as military was to ridicule.

4º.—With such soldiers, the battles of Cardadeu, Molino, Igualada, and Valls, were gained; yet general St. Cyr does not hesitate to call the Migueletes, who were beaten at those places, the best light troops in the world. The best light troops are neither more nor less than the best troops in the world; but if, instead of fifteen thousand Migueletes, the four thousand men composing Wellington’s light division had been on the heights of Cardadeu—general St. Cyr’s sixty rounds of ammunition would scarcely have carried him to Barcelona. The injurious force with which personal feelings act upon the judgement are well known, or it might excite wonder that so good a writer and so able a soldier should advance such fallacies.

5º.—General St. Cyr’s work, admirable in many respects, bears, nevertheless, the stamp of carelessness. Thus, he affirms that Dupont’s march to Andalusia encouraged the tumults of Aranjues; but the tumults of Aranjues happened in the month of March, nearly three months previous to Dupont’s movement, which took place in May and June. Again, he says, that, Napoleon, to make a solid conquest in the Peninsula, should have commenced with Catalonia, instead of over-running Spain by the northern line of operations; an opinion quite unsustainable. The progress of the seventh corps was impeded by the want of provisions, not by the enemy’s force. Twenty thousand men could beat the Spaniards in the field, but they could not subsist. What could three hundred thousand men have done? Would it have given a just idea of Napoleon’s power to employ the strength of his empire against the fortified towns in Catalonia? In what would the greater solidity of this plan have consisted? While the French were thus engaged, the patriots would have been organizing their armies; England would have had time to bring all her troops into line, and two hundred thousand men placed between Zaragoza and Tortosa, or breaking into France by the western Pyrenees, while the Austrians were advancing to the Rhine, would have sorely shaken the solidity of general St. Cyr’s plan.

6º.—The French emperor better understood what he was about; he saw a nation intrinsically powerful and vehemently excited, yet ignorant of war, and wanting the aid which England was eager to give. All the elements of power existed in the Peninsula, and they were fast approximating to a centre, when Napoleon burst upon that country, and as the gathering of a water-spout is said to be sometimes prevented by the explosion of a gun, so the rising strength of Spain was dissipated by his sudden and dreadful assault. If the war was not then finished, it was because his lieutenants were tardy and jealous of each other.

7º.—St. Cyr appears to have fallen into an error, common enough in all times, and one very prevalent among the French generals in Spain. He considered his task as a whole in itself, instead of a constituent part of a greater system. He judged very well what was wanting for the seventh corps, to subjugate Catalonia in a solid manner, but he did not discern that it was fitting that the seventh corps should forget Catalonia, to aid the general plan against the Peninsula. Rosas surrendered at the very moment when Napoleon, after the victories of Baylen, Espinosa, Tudela, and the Somosierra, was entering Madrid as a conqueror. The battles of Cardadeu and Molino del Rey may, therefore, be said to have completely prostrated Spain, because the English army was isolated, the Spanish army destroyed, and Zaragoza invested. Was that a time to calculate the weight of powder and the number of pick-axes required for a formal siege of Tarragona? The whole Peninsula was shaken to the centre, the proud hearts of the Spaniards sunk with terror, and in that great consternation, to be daring, was, on the part of the French generals, to be prudent. St. Cyr was not in a condition to besiege Tarragona, formally, but he might have assaulted it with less danger than he incurred by his march to Barcelona. The battle of Valls was another epoch of the same kind; the English army had re-embarked, and the route of Ucles had taken place. Portugal was invaded and Zaragoza had just fallen. That was a time to render victory fruitful, yet no attempt was made against Tortoza.

8º.—St. Cyr, who justly blames Palacios and Vives for remaining before Barcelona instead of carrying their army to the Ter and the Fluvia, seems inclined to applaud Reding for conduct equally at variance with the true principles of war. It was his own inactivity after the battle of Molino that produced the army of Reding, and the impatient folly of that army, and of the people, produced the plan which led to the route of Igualada and the battle of Valls. But, instead of disseminating his thirty thousand men on a line of sixty miles, from Tarragona to the Upper Llobregat, Reding should have put Tarragona and Tortosa into a state of defence, and, leaving a small corps of observation near the former, have made Lerida the base of his operations. In that position, and keeping the bulk of his force in one mass, he might have acted on St. Cyr’s flanks and rear effectually, by the road of Cervera—and without danger to himself; nor could the French general have attempted aught against Tarragona.

But it is not with reference to the seventh corps alone that Lerida was the proper base of the Spanish army. Let us suppose that the supreme junta had acted for a moment upon a rational system; that the Valencian troops, instead of remaining at Morella, had been directed on Mequinenza and that the duke of Infantado’s force had been carried from Cuença to the same place instead of being routed at Ucles. Thus, in the beginning of February, more than fifty thousand regular troops would have been assembled at Lerida, encircled by the fortresses of Monzon, Balaguer, Mequinenza, Tarragona, and Tortoza. Its lines of operations would have been as numerous as the roads. The Seu d’Urgel, called the granary of Catalonia, would have supplied corn, and the communication with Valencia would have been direct and open. On this central and impregnable position such a force might have held the seventh corps in check, and also raised the siege of Zaragoza; nor could the first corps have followed Infantado’s movements without abandoning the whole of the emperor’s plans against Portugal and Andalusia.

9º.—St. Cyr praises Reding’s project for surrounding the French, and very gravely observes that the only method of defeating it was by taking the offensive himself. Nothing can be juster; but he should have added that it was a certain method; and, until we find a great commander acting upon Reding’s principles, this praise can only be taken as an expression of civility towards a brave adversary. St. Cyr’s own movements were very different; he disliked Napoleon personally, but he did not dislike his manner of making war. Buonaparte’s campaign in the Alps against Beaulieu was not an unheeded lesson. There is, however, one proceeding of St. Cyr’s for which there has been no precedent, and which it is unlikely will ever be imitated, St. Cyr. namely, the stopping of the fire of the artillery when it was doing infinite execution, that a moral ascendancy over the enemy might be established. It is impossible to imagine a more cutting sarcasm on the courage of the Catalans than this fact; yet, general St. Cyr states that his adversaries were numerous, and fought bravely. Surely he could not have commanded so long without knowing that there is in all battles a decisive moment, when every weapon, every man, every combination of force that can be brought to bear, is necessary to gain the victory.

10º.—If general St. Cyr’s own marches and battles did not sufficiently expose the fallacy of his opinions relative to the vigour of the Catalans, lord Collingwood’s correspondence would supply the deficiency. That able and sagacious man, writing at this period says,—

“In Catalonia, every thing seems to have gone wrong since the fall of Rosas. The Spaniards are in considerable force, yet are dispersed and panic-struck whenever the enemy appears.”—“The applications for supplies are unlimited; they want money, arms, and ammunition, of which no use appears to be made when they get them.”—“In the English papers, I see accounts of successes, and convoys cut off, and waggons destroyed, which are not true. What has been done in that way has been by the boats of our frigates, which have, in two or three instances, landed men and attacked the enemy with great gallantry. The Somatenes range the hills in a disorderly way, and fire at a distance, but retire on being approached.”—“The multitudes of men do not make a force.”

Add to this the Spanish historian Cabane’s statements that the Migueletes were always insubordinate, detested the service of the line, and were many of them armed only with staves, and we have the full measure of the Catalans’ resistance.

11º.—It was not the vigour of the Catalans, but of the English, that in this province, as in every part of the Peninsula, retarded the progress of the French. Would St. Cyr have wasted a month before Rosas? Would he have been hampered in his movements by his fears for the safety of Barcelona? Would he have failed to besiege and take Tarragona and Tortosa, if a French fleet had attended his progress by the coast, or if it could even have made two runs in safety? To lord Collingwood, who, like the Roman Bibulus, perished of sickness on his decks rather than relax in his watching,—to his keen judgement, his unceasing vigilance, the resistance made by the Catalans was due. His fleet it was that interdicted the coast-line to the French, protected the transport of the Spanish supplies from Valencia, assisted in the defence of the towns, aided the retreat of the beaten armies; in short, did that which the Spanish fleets in Cadiz and Carthagena should have done. But the supreme junta, equally disregarding the remonstrances of lord Collingwood, the good of their own country, and the treaty with England, by which they were bound to prevent their ships from falling into the hands of the enemy, left their fleets to rot in harbour, although money was advanced, and the assistance of the British seamen offered, to fit them out for sea.

Having now related the principal operations that took place in the eastern and central provinces of Spain, which were so suddenly overrun by the French emperor; having shown that, however restless the Spaniards were under the yoke imposed upon them, they were unable to throw it off; I shall turn to Portugal, where the tide of invasion still flowing onward, although with diminished volume, was first stayed, and finally overpowered and forced back, by a counter flood of mightier strength.

BOOK VI.

CHAPTER I.

TRANSACTIONS IN PORTUGAL.

When sir John Moore marched from Portugal, the regency, established by sir Hew Dalrymple, nominally governed that country; but the weak characters of the members, the listless habits engendered by the ancient system of misrule, the intrigues of the Oporto faction, and the general turbulence of the people soon produced an alarming state of anarchy. Private persons usurped the functions of government, justice was disregarded, insubordination and murder were hailed as indications of patriotism. War was the universal cry, but military preparations were wholly neglected; [Appendix, No. 3], section 1. for the nation, in its foolish pride, believed that the French had neither strength nor spirit for a second invasion.

In Lisbon there was a French faction. The merchants were apprehensive, the regency was unpopular, the public mind unsettled; and, in Oporto, the violence of both people and soldiers was such, that sir Harry Burrard sent two British regiments there, by sea, to preserve tranquillity; in fine, the seeds of disorder were widely cast and sprouting vigorously before the English cabinet thought fit to accredit a responsible diplomatist near the government, or to place a permanent chief at the head of the forces left by sir John Moore. The convention of Cintra was known in England in September. The regency was established and the frontier fortresses occupied by British troops in the same month; yet it was not until the middle of December that Mr. Villiers and sir John Cradock, charged with the conduct of the political and military proceedings in Portugal, reached Lisbon, and thus the important interval, between the departure of Junot and their arrival, was totally neglected by the English cabinet.

Sir Hew Dalrymple, who had nominated the regency; sir Arthur Wellesley, who, to local knowledge and powerful talents, added the influence of a victorious commander; Burrard, Spencer, were all removed from Portugal at the very moment when the presence of persons acquainted with the real state of affairs was essential to the well-being of the British interests in that country; and this error was the offspring of passion and incapacity; for, if the convention of Cintra had been rightly understood, the ministers, appreciating the advantages of that treaty, would have resisted the clamour of the moment, and the generals would not have been withdrawn from the public service abroad to meet unjust and groundless charges at home.

It may be disputed whether Portugal was the fittest theatre for the first operations of a British army; but, when that country was actually freed from the presence of an enemy; when the capital and the frontier fortresses were occupied by English troops; when sir John Moore leaving his hospitals, baggage, and magazines there, as in a place of arms, had marched to Spain, the question was no longer doubtful. The ancient relations between England and Portugal, the greatness of the port of Lisbon, the warlike disposition of the Portuguese, and, above all, the singularly-happy circumstance that there was neither court nor monarch to balance the English influence, and that even the nomination of the regency was the work of an English general, offered such great and obvious advantages as could no where else be obtained. It was a miserable policy that, neglecting such an occasion, retained sir Arthur Wellesley in England, while Portugal, like a drunken man, at once weak and turbulent, was reeling on the edge of a precipice.

The 5th of December sir John Cradock, being on his voyage to Lisbon, touched at Coruña. Fifteen hundred thousand dollars had just arrived there in the Lavinia frigate; but, sir John Moore’s intention to retreat upon Portugal being known, Cradock divided this sum, and carried away eight hundred thousand dollars, proposing to leave a portion at Oporto, and to take the remainder to Lisbon, that Moore might find, on whatever line he retreated, a supply of money.

From Coruña he proceeded to Oporto, and landed to gather information of the state of affairs. Here he found that sir Robert Wilson had succeeded in organizing, under the title of the Lusitanian Legion, about thirteen hundred men, and that others were [Appendix, No. 3], section 2. on their way to reinforce him; but, this excepted, nothing at Oporto, civil or military, bespoke either arrangement or common sense. The bishop, still intent upon acquiring supreme rule, was deeply engaged with secret intrigues, and, under him, a number of factious and designing persons instigated the populace to violent actions, with a view to profit from their excesses.

The formation of the Lusitanian Legion was originally a project of the chevalier da Souza, the Portuguese minister in London. Souza was one of the bishop’s faction, and the prelate calculated upon this force not so much to repel the enemy as to give weight to his own party against the government. The men were promised higher pay than any other Portuguese soldiers, to the great discontent of the latter, and they were clad in uniforms differing in colour from the national troops. The regency, who dreaded the machinations of the turbulent priest, entertained the utmost jealousy of the legion, which, in truth, was a most anomalous force, and, as might be expected from its peculiar constitution, was productive of much embarrassment.

Sir John Cradock left three hundred thousand dollars at Oporto, and having directed the two British battalions which were in that neighbourhood to march to Almeida, he took on board a small detachment of German troops, and set sail for Lisbon; but, before his departure, he strongly advised sir Robert Wilson to move such of his legionaries as were sufficiently organized to Villa Real, in Tras os Montes, a place appointed by the regency for the [Appendix, No. 6], section 1. assembly of the forces in the north. Sir Robert, tired of the folly and disgusted with the insolence and excesses of the ruling mob, readily adopted this advice, so far as to quit Oporto, but, having views of his own, took the direction of Almeida instead of Villa Real.

The state of the capital was little better than that of Oporto. There was arrangement neither for present nor for future defence, and the populace, [Appendix, No. 3], section 5. albeit less openly encouraged to commit excesses, were quite uncontrolled by the government. The regency had a keener dread of domestic insurrection than of the return of the French, whose operations they regarded with even less anxiety than the bishop did, as being further removed than he was from the immediate theatre of war. Their want of system and vigilance, evinced by the following fact, was truly surprising. Sattaro and another person, having contracted for the supply of the British troops, demanded, in the name of the English general, all the provisions in the public stores of Portugal, and then sold them to the English commissaries for his own profit.

Sir John Cradock’s instructions directed him to reinforce sir John Moore’s army, and, if the course of events should bring that general back to Portugal, he was not to be interfered with. In fact, Cradock’s operations were limited to the holding of Elvas, Almeida, and the capital; for, although he was directed to encourage the formation of a native army upon a good and regular system, and even to act in concert with it on the frontier, he was [Appendix, No. 4], section 1. debarred from political interference; and even his relative situation, as to rank, was left unsettled until the arrival of Mr. Villiers, to whose direction all political and many military arrangements were entrusted.

It is evident that the influence of a general thus fettered, and commanding only a small force, which was moreover much scattered, must be feeble and insufficient to produce any real amelioration in the military situation of the country. But the English ministers, attentive to the false information obtained from interested agents, still imagined that not only the Spanish, but the Portuguese armies were numerous, and to be relied upon; and they confidently expected, that the latter would be able to take an active part in the Spanish campaign.

Cradock, feeling the danger of this illusion, made it his first object to ascertain, and to transmit home, exact information of the real strength and efficiency of the native regular troops. They were nominally twenty thousand; but Miguel Percira Forjas, military secretary to the regency, and the ablest public man Portugal possessed, acknowledged that this force was a nullity, and that there were not more Cradock’s Correspondence, MSS. than ten thousand stand of serviceable arms in the kingdom, the greatest part of which were English. The troops themselves were undisciplined and unruly; and the militia and the “ordenanza,” or armed peasantry, animated rather by a spirit of outrage than of enthusiasm, evinced no disposition to submit to regulation, neither was there any branch of administration free from the grossest disorder.

The Spanish dollar had a general acceptance in Portugal. The regency, under the pretence that a debased foreign coin would drive the Portuguese coin out of circulation, deprived the dollar of its current value. This regulation, true in principle, and applicable, as far as the Portuguese gold coin (which is of peculiar fineness) was concerned, had, however, a most injurious effect. The Spanish dollar was in reality finer than the Portuguese silver cruzado-nova, and would finally have maintained its value, notwithstanding this decree. But a slur being thus thrown upon it by the government, the money changers contrived to run its value down for the moment, a matter of infinite importance; for the English soldiers and sailors being all paid in these dollars, at four shillings and sixpence, which was the true value, were thus suddenly mulcted four-pence in each, by the artificial depreciation of the moment. The men attributed this to fraud in the shopkeepers; the retail trade of Lisbon was interrupted, and quarrels between the tradesmen and the soldiers took place hourly.

To calm this effervescence, a second decree was promulgated, directing that the dollar should be received at the mint and in the public offices at its real value. It then appeared that the government could profit by coining the dollar of four shillings and sixpence into cruzado-novas, a circumstance which gave the whole affair the appearance of an unworthy trick to recruit the treasury. This happened in October; and as the financial affairs were ill managed, and the regency destitute of vigour or capacity, the taxes were unpaid, the hard cash exhausted, and the treasury paper at a heavy discount when Cradock arrived. Upon the scroll thus unfolded he could only read confusion, danger, and misfortune; for such being the fruits of victory, what could be expected from disaster; and at this period (the middle of December) sir John Moore was supposed to be in full retreat upon Portugal, followed by the emperor with one French army, while another threatened Lisbon by the line of the Tagus. The English troops in the kingdom did not amount to ten thousand men, including the sick, and they were ill equipped and scattered; moreover, the capital was crowded with women and children, with baggage and non-combatants, belonging as well to the army in Spain as to that in Portugal.

There were in the river three Portuguese ships of the line, two frigates, and eight other smaller vessels of war; but none were in a state for sea, and the whole likely to fall into the hands of the enemy: for in the midst of this confusion sir Charles Cotton was recalled, without a successor being appointed; and although the zeal and talents of captain Halket, the senior officer on the station, amply compensated for the departure of the admiral, as far as professional duties were concerned, he could not aid the general, nor deal with the regency as vigorously as an officer of higher rank, and formally accredited, could have done.

Sir John Cradock, although fully sensible of his own difficulties, with a very disinterested zeal, resolved to make the reinforcing of sir John Moore’s army his first care; but his force at this time was, as I have already said, less than ten thousand men of all arms. It consisted of eight British and four German battalions of infantry, four troops of dragoons, and thirty pieces of artillery, of which, however, only Sir J. Cradock’s Papers, MSS. six were horsed so as to take the field. There was, also, a battalion of the 60th regiment, but it was composed principally of Frenchmen, recruited from the prison ships, and had been sent back from Spain, as the soldiers could not be trusted near their countrymen.

Of these thirteen battalions two were in Abrantes, one in Elvas, three at Lamego on the Duero, one in Almeida, and the remaining six at Lisbon. Three of the four battalions in the north were immediately directed to join sir John Moore by the route of Salamanca; and of those in the south, two, accompanied by a demi-brigade of artillery, were sent to him from Abrantes, by the road of Castello Branco and Ciudad Rodrigo.

The 19th of December, Mr. Villiers having arrived, sir John Cradock forwarded to the regency a strong representation of the dangerous state of Portugal. He observed that there was neither activity in the government nor enthusiasm among the people; that the army, deficient in numbers, and still more so in discipline, was scattered and neglected; and, notwithstanding that the aspect of affairs was so threatening, the regency were apparently without any Sir J. Cradock’s Correspondence, MSS. system, or fixed principle of action. He proposed, therefore, that a general enrolment of all the people should take place; and from the British stores he offered a supply of a thousand muskets and ten thousand pikes. This giving of pikes to the people appears to have been in compliance with Mr. Villiers’ wishes, and betrayed more zeal than prudence; for certainly a general levy and arming with pikes of the turbulent populace of a capital city, at such a conjuncture, was more likely to lead to confusion and mischief than to any effectual defence. But the main objects pressing upon the general’s attention were sufficiently numerous and contradictory to render it difficult for him to avoid errors.

It was a part of his instructions, and of manifest importance, to send reinforcements to sir John Moore. But it was equally necessary to keep a force towards the frontier on the line of the Tagus, seeing that the fourth French corps had just passed [Appendix, No. 2], section 1. that river at Almaraz, had defeated Galluzzo’s army and menaced Badajos, which was without arms, ammunition, or provisions; and, moreover, the populace there were in commotion, and slaying the chief persons. Now, sir John Cradock’s instructions directed him to keep his troops in a position that would enable him to abandon Portugal, if a very superior force should press him; but as, in such a case, he was to carry off not only the British army, but the Portuguese navy and stores, to destroy what he could not remove, and to receive on board his [Appendix, No. 4], section 1. ships all the natives who might be desirous of escaping, it was of pressing necessity to ship the women, children, and baggage, in fine, all the encumbrances belonging to Moore’s army, immediately, that his own rear might be clear for a sudden embarkation. In short, he was to send his troops to Spain, and yet defend Portugal; to excite confidence in the Portuguese, and yet openly to carry on the preparations for abandoning that country.

The populace of Lisbon were, however, already uneasy at the rumours of an embarkation, and it was doubtful if they would permit even the British non-combatants to get on board quietly, much less suffer the forts to be dismantled, and the ships of war to be carried off, without a tumult, which, at such a conjuncture, would have been fatal to all parties. Hence it was imperative to maintain a strong garrison in Lisbon and in the forts commanding the mouth of the river; and this draft, together with the troops absorbed by the fortresses of Almeida and Elvas, reduced the fighting men in the field to insignificance.

The regency, knowing the temper of the people and fearing to arm them, were not very eager to enforce the levy; yet, anxious to hide their weakness, they promised, at the urgent solicitations of the English general, to send six thousand troops to Alcantara, on the Spanish frontier, with a view to observe the march of the fourth corps,—a promise which they never intended, and indeed were unable, to perform. Forjas, who was supposed to be very inimical to the British influence, frankly declared Sir J. Cradock’s Correspondence, MSS. that they neither could nor would move without an advance of money, and sir John Cradock, although he recommended that this aid should be given, had no power to grant it himself.

Letters from sir John Moore, dated at Salamanca, now reached Lisbon: they increased the anxiety to reinforce the army in Spain; but, as they clearly showed that reverses were to be expected, Cradock, although resolved to maintain himself in Portugal as long as it was possible to do so without a breach of his instructions, felt more strongly that timely preparation for an embarkation should be made, especially as the rainy season, in which south-west winds prevail, had set in, and rendered the departure of vessels from the Tagus very uncertain. Meanwhile the internal state of Portugal was in no wise amended, or likely to amend.

The government had, indeed, issued a decree, on the 23d of December, for organizing the population of Lisbon in sixteen legions, but only one battalion each was to parade at the same moment for exercise, and those only on Sundays, nor were the legions, at any time, to assemble without the order of the general commanding the province; and this regulation, which rendered the whole measure absurd, was dictated by the fears of the regency.

A proposal to prepare the Portuguese vessels for sea was acceded to, without any apparent dissatisfaction; but the government, secretly jealous of their allies, fomented or encouraged discontent and suspicion among the people. No efforts were made to improve the regular force, none to forward the march of troops to Alcantara; and so inactive or so callous were the regency to the rights of humanity, that a number of French prisoners, captured [Appendix, No. 3], section 4. at various periods by the Portuguese, and accumulated at Lisbon, were denied subsistence. Sir John Cradock, after many fruitless representations, was forced to charge himself with their supply, to avert the horrors of seeing them starved to death. The [Appendix, No. 3], section 5. provisions necessary for Fort La Lippe were also withheld, and general Leite, acting upon the authority of the regency, strenuously urged that the British troops should evacuate that fortress.

The march of the reinforcements for sir John Moore left only three hundred dragoons and seven battalions available for the defence of Portugal, of which four were necessarily in garrison, and the remainder were unable to take the field, in default of mules, of which animal the country seemed bereft; yet, at this moment, as if in derision, Mr. Frere, the central junta, the junta of Badajos, and the regency of Portugal, were, with common and Sir J. Cradock’s Correspondence, MSS. characteristic foolishness, pressing sir John Cradock to march into the south of Spain, although there was scarcely a Spanish soldier there in arms to assist him; and such a movement, if it had been either prudent or practicable, was directly against his instructions.

Towards the end of December, the communication with sir John Moore was suddenly interrupted, and the line of the Tagus acquired greater importance. The troops going from Elvas to the army in Spain were, therefore, directed to halt at Castello Branco, and general Richard Stewart, who commanded them, being reinforced with two hundred cavalry, was ordered, for the moment, to watch the Sir J. Cradock’s Correspondence, MSS. roads by Salvatierra and the two Idanhas, and to protect the flying bridges at Abrantes and Vilha Velha from the enemy’s incursions. At the same time, a promise was obtained from the regency that all the Portuguese troops in the Alemtejo should be collected, at Campo Mayor and Portalegre.

Sir John Cradock fixed upon Sacavem as the position in which his main body should be concentrated, intending to defend that point as long as he could with so few troops; and, as he knew that Almeida, although full of British stores, and important in every way, was, with respect to its own defence, utterly neglected by the regency, and that even the presence of a British force there was viewed with jealousy, he sent brigadier-general A. Cameron, with instructions to collect the convalescents of Moore’s army, to unite them with the two battalions still at Almeida, and then to make his way to the army in Spain; but if the attempt should be judged too dangerous, Cameron was to return to Lisbon. In either case, the stores and the sick men lying at Almeida were to be directed upon Oporto.

The paucity of cavalry was severely felt on the frontier. It prevented the general from ascertaining the real strength and objects of the enemy’s parties, and the Portuguese reports were notoriously contradictory and false. The 14th dragoons, seven hundred strong, commanded by major-general Cotton, had been disembarked since the 22d of December, Sir J. Cradock’s Correspondence, MSS. and were destined for the army in Spain; but such was the penury of the country, or the difficulty of drawing forth its resources, that the commissary-general doubted if he could forward that small body, even by detachments. Nor is this surprising, for many of the debts left by Moore’s army were yet unpaid, and sufficient confidence was not established among the peasantry to induce them to bring forward the necessary supplies upon credit.

Rumours of reverses in Spain were now rife, and acquired importance, when it became known that four thousand infantry, and two thousand cavalry, the advanced guard of thirty thousand French troops, were actually at Merida, on the road to Badajos, which town, as I have already said, was not only in a state of anarchy, but destitute of provisions, arms, and ammunition. If, at this time, the Portuguese force had been assembled at Alcantara, sir John Cradock would have supported them with the British brigades, at Abrantes and Castello Branco; but not a man had been put in motion, and he, feeling no confidence either in the troops or in the promises of the regency, resolved to concentrate his own army near Lisbon. General Stewart was, therefore, directed to destroy the bridges of Vilha Velha and Abrantes, and to fall back to Sacavem.

Meanwhile, the Lisbon populace, supposing that the English general designed to abandon them without necessity, were violently excited. The regency, either from fear or folly, made no effort to preserve tranquillity, and the people, feeling their own strength, proceeded from one excess to another, until it become evident that, in a forced embarkation, the British would have to fight their allies as well as their enemies. At this gloomy period when ten marches would have brought the French to Lisbon, when a stamp of Napoleon’s foot would have extinguished that spark of war which afterwards blazed over the Peninsula, sir John Moore made his daring movement upon Sahagun; and Portugal, gasping as in a mortal agony, was instantly relieved.

CHAPTER II.

It was the advanced guard of the fourth corps that had approached Merida with the intention of proceeding to Badajos, and the emperor was, as we have seen, preparing to follow: but, in the night of the 26th of December, an officer carrying [Appendix, No. 2], sections 1 and 2. the intelligence of Moore’s movement, reached Merida, and, next morning, the French fell back, and marching hastily to the Tagus, crossed it, and rejoined their main body, from which another powerful detachment was immediately directed upon Placentia. This retrograde movement obviated the immediate danger; and sir John Cradock endeavoured to pacify the people of Lisbon.

He ordered general Stewart’s brigade, strengthened by two German battalions, to halt at Santarem. He explained his own motives to the Portuguese, and urged the regency to a more frank and vigorous system than they had hitherto followed; for, like the Spanish juntas, they promised every thing, and performed nothing; neither would they, although [Appendix, No. 3], section 5. consenting, verbally, to all the measures proposed, ever commit themselves by writing, having the despicable intention of afterwards disclaiming that which might prove disagreeable to the populace, or even to the French. Sir John Cradock, however, had no power beyond his own personal influence to enforce attention to his wishes. No successor to sir Charles Cotton had yet arrived, and Mr. Villiers seems to have wanted the decision and judgement required to meet such a momentous crisis.

In the north general Cameron, having sent the sick men and part of the stores from Almeida towards Oporto, gave up that fortress to sir Robert Wilson; and, on the 5th of January, marched, with two British battalions and a detachment of convalescents, by the Tras os Montes to join the army in Spain. On the 9th, hearing of sir John Moore’s retreat to Coruña, he would have returned to Almeida, but Lapisse, who had taken Zamora, threatened to intercept the line of march; wherefore, Cameron turned towards Lamego, giving notice of his movement to sir Robert Wilson, and advising him also to retire to the same place. Colonel Blunt, with seven companies of the 3d regiment, escorting a convoy for sir John Moore’s army, was likewise forced to abandon his route, and take the road to Oporto, on which town every thing British in the north of Portugal was now directed.

Notwithstanding the general dismay, sir Robert Wilson rejected Cameron’s advice, and, being reinforced by some Spanish troops, Portuguese volunteers, and straggling convalescents, belonging to Moore’s army, proceeded to put in practice all the arts of an able partizan. Issuing proclamations, enticing the French to desert, spreading false reports of his numbers, and, by petty enterprizes and great activity, arousing a spirit of resistance throughout the Ciudad Rodrigo country.

The continued influx of sick and stores at Oporto, together with the prospect of general Cameron’s arrival there, became a source of uneasiness to sir John Cradock. Oporto, with a shifting-bar and shoal water is the worst possible harbour for vessels to clear out, and one of the most dangerous for vessels to lie off, at that season of the year; hence, if the enemy advanced in force, a great loss, both of men and stores, was to be anticipated.

The departure of sir Charles Cotton had diminished the naval means at captain Halket’s disposal, and, for seventeen successive days, such was the state of Sir John Cradock’s Correspondence, MSS. the wind that no vessel could leave the Tagus; he, however, contrived at last to send tonnage for two thousand persons, and undertook to keep a sloop of war off Oporto. Sir Samuel Hood also despatched some vessels from Vigo, but the weather continued for a long time so unfavourable that these transports could not enter the harbour of Oporto, and the encumbrances hourly increasing, at last produced the most serious embarrassments.

Sir John Moore having now relinquished his communications with Portugal, sir John Cradock had to consider how, relying on his own resources, he could best fulfil his instructions and maintain his hold of that country, without risking the utter destruction of the troops intrusted to his care.

For an inferior army Portugal has no defensible frontier. The rivers, generally running east and west, are fordable in most places, subject to sudden rises and falls, offering but weak lines of resistance; and with the exception of the Zezere, presenting no obstacles to the advance of an enemy penetrating by the eastern frontier. The mountains, indeed, afford many fine and some impregnable positions, but such is the length of the frontier line and the difficulty of lateral communications, that a general who should attempt to defend it against superior forces would risk to be cut off from the capital, if he concentrated his troops; and if he extended them his line would be immediately broken.

The possession of Lisbon constitutes, in fact, the possession of Portugal, south of the Duero, and an inferior army can only protect Lisbon by keeping close to that capital. Sensible of this truth, sir John Cradock adopted the French colonel Vincente’s views for the defence of Lisbon; and proceeded, on the 4th of January, with seventeen hundred men to occupy the heights behind the creek of Saccavem—leaving, however, three thousand men in the forts and batteries at Lisbon.

At the earnest request of the regency, who in return promised to assemble the native troops at Thomar, Abrantes, and Vilha Velha, general Stewart’s brigade, two thousand seven hundred strong, Sir J. Cradock’s Correspondence, MSS. was ordered to halt at Santarem. But it had been marching incessantly for a month, and in the rain, the men’s clothes were worn out, their accoutrements nearly destroyed, and in common with the rest of the army, they were suffering severely from the want of shoes.

Thus, Cameron being on the Douro, the main body between Santarem and Lisbon, and colonel Kemmis at Elvas, with the fortieth regiment, an army of ten thousand men—with the encumbrances of an army of forty thousand—was placed on the three points of a triangle, the shortest side of which was above a hundred and fifty miles. The general commanding could not bring into the field above five thousand men; nor could that number be assembled in a condition for service at any one point of the frontier, under three weeks or a month; moreover, the uncertainty of remaining in the country at all, rendered it difficult to feed the troops, for the commissaries being unable to make large contracts for a fixed time, were forced to carry on, as it were, a retail system of supply.

Mr. Frere, however, with indefatigable folly, was urging sir John Cradock to make a diversion in Spain; and while Mr. Frere was calling for troops in the south, Mr. Villiers was as earnest that a force might be sent by sea to Vigo. The minister’s instructions prescribed the preservation of Lisbon, Elvas, and Almeida; the assembling, in concert with the Portuguese government, a combined force on the frontier, and the sending succours of men to Moore; but although sir John Cradock’s means were so scanty that the fulfilment of any one of these objects was scarcely possible, Mr. Canning writing officially to Mr. Villiers at this epoch, as if a mighty and well supplied army was in Portugal, enforced the “necessity of continuing to maintain possession of Portugal, as long as could be done with the force intrusted to sir John Cradock’s command, remembering always that not the defence of Portugal alone, but the employment of the enemy’s military force, and the diversion which would be thus created in favour of the south of Spain, were objects not to be abandoned, except in case of the most extreme necessity.” The enemy’s military force! It was three hundred thousand men, and this despatch was a pompous absurdity; but the ministers and their agents, eternally haunted by the phantoms of Spanish and Portuguese armies, were incapable of perceiving the palpable bulk and substance of the French hosts. The whole system of the cabinet was one of shifts and expedients; every week produced a fresh project,—minister and agent, alike, followed his own views, without reference to any fixed principle: and the generals were the only persons not empowered to arrange military operations.

The number of officers despatched to seek information of the French movements enabled sir John Cradock, notwithstanding the direct communications were cut off, to obtain intelligence of Moore’s advance towards Sahagun, and being still anxious to assist that general, he again endeavoured to send a reinforcement into Spain, by the route of Almeida; but the difficulty of obtaining supplies finally induced him to accede to Mr. Villiers’ wishes, and he shipped six hundred cavalry, and Sir J. Cradock’s Correspondence, MSS. thirteen hundred infantry, on the 12th of January, meaning to send them to Vigo; the vessels were, however, still in the river, when authentic intelligence of sir John Moore’s retreat upon Coruña with the intention of embarking there, was received, and rendered this project useless.

The 14th of January the Conqueror line-of-battle-ship, having admiral Berkeley on board, reached the Tagus, and for the first time since sir John Cradock’s Paper, MSS. Cradock took the command of the troops in Portugal, he received a communication from the ministers in England.

It now appeared that their thoughts were less intently fixed upon the defence of Portugal, than upon getting possession of Cadiz. Their anxiety upon this subject had somewhat subsided after the battle of Vimeira, but it revived with greater vigour when sir John Moore, contemplating a movement in the south, suggested the propriety of securing Cadiz as a place of arms; and in January an expedition was prepared to sail for that town, with the design of establishing a new base of operations for the English army. The project failed, but the transaction deserves notice, as affording proof of the perplexed and unstable policy of the day.

NEGOTIATION FOR THE OCCUPATION OF CADIZ.

Papers laid before Parliament, 1810.

While it was still unknown in England that the supreme junta had fled from Aranjuez, sir George Smith, who had conducted Spencer’s negotiation in 1808, was sent to Cadiz to prepare the way for the reception of an English garrison. Four thousand men destined for that service were soon afterwards embarked at Portsmouth, under the command of general Sherbrooke, but this officer’s instructions were repeatedly altered. He was first directed to touch at Lisbon in his way to Cadiz; he was afterwards commanded to make for Coruña, to receive orders from sir John Moore, but, on the 14th of January, his force being increased to five thousand men, he sailed under his first instructions; and Mr. Frere was directed to negotiate for the admission of these troops into Cadiz, as the only condition upon which a British army could be employed to aid the Spanish cause in that part of the Peninsula.

When the reverses in the north of Spain became known, the importance of Cadiz increased, and the importance of Portugal decreased in the eyes of the English ministers. Sir John Cradock was [Appendix, No. 8]. then made acquainted with Sherbrooke’s destination; he was himself commanded to obey any requisition for troops that might be made by the [Appendix, No. 5]. Spanish junta; and so independent of the real state of affairs were the ministerial arrangements, that Cradock, whose despatches had been one continued complaint of his inability to procure horses for his own artillery, was directed to furnish them for Sherbrooke’s.

Sir George Smith, a man somewhat hasty, but of remarkable zeal and acuteness, left England about the middle of December; and, on his arrival at Cadiz, at once discovered that there, as in every other part of the Peninsula, all persons being engaged in theories or intrigues, nothing useful for defence was executed. The ramparts of the city were in tolerable condition, but scarcely any guns were mounted; and yet, two miles in front of the town, an outwork had been commenced upon such a scale that it could not possibly be finished under four months; and, after the slow mode of Spanish proceedings, would have taken as many years to complete.

For a solid defence of all the fortifications, sir George Smith judged that twenty thousand good troops would be requisite, but that ten thousand would suffice for the city. There were, however, only five thousand militia and volunteers in the place, and not a regular soldier under arms, neither any within reach. The number of guns mounted and to be mounted exceeded four hundred; to serve them, two hundred and fifty peasants and volunteers were enrolled, and, being clothed in uniforms, were called artillery-men.

Knowing nothing of sir John Moore’s march to Sahagun, sir George Smith naturally calculated upon the immediate approach of the French; and seeing the helpless state of Cadiz, and being assured that the people would willingly admit an English garrison, he wrote to sir John Cradock for troops. The latter, little thinking that, at such a conjuncture, the supreme junta would be more Sir J. Cradock’s Correspondence, MSS. jealous of their allies than fearful of their enemies; and judging also, from the tenor of his latest instructions, that obedience to this requisition would be consonant to the minister’s wishes, immediately ordered colonel Kemmis to proceed from Elvas with the fortieth regiment, by the route of Seville, and, at the same time, embarked about three thousand of the best troops at Lisbon, and sent them to Cadiz. This force, commanded by major-general Mackenzie, sailed the 2d February, and reached their destination the 5th of the same month.

Parl. Papers, 1810.

Meanwhile, Mr. Frere, although acquainted with the sailing of Mackenzie’s armament, was ignorant that sir George Smith had applied to the governor of Cadiz for permission to take military possession of that town, for Smith had no instructions to correspond with Mr. Frere; and the latter had opened a separate negotiation with the central [Appendix, No. 9]. junta at Seville, in which he endeavoured to pave the way for the occupation by proposing to have the troops admitted as guests, and he sent Mr. Stuart to arrange this with the local authorities.

Mr. Frere had, however, meddled much with the personal intrigues of the day: he was, moreover, of too slender a capacity to uphold the dignity and just influence of a great power on such an occasion; and the flimsy thread of his negotiation snapped under the hasty touch of sir George Smith. The supreme junta, averse to every thing that threatened to interrupt their course of sluggish indolence, had sent the marquis de Villel, a member of their own body, to Cadiz, avowedly to prepare the way for the admission of the troops, but, in reality, to thwart that measure. The circumstance of Mackenzie’s arrival, with an object different from that announced by Mr. Frere, was instantly taken advantage of to charge England with treachery. For the junta, knowing Mr. Frere to be their own dupe, Parl. Papers, 1810. believed, or affected to believe, that he was also the dupe of the English minister; and that the whole transaction was an artifice, on the part of the latter, to get possession of the city with a felonious intent.

[Appendix, No. 9].

The admission of the British troops was nevertheless earnestly desired by the inhabitants of Cadiz, and of the neighbouring towns; and this feeling was so well understood by Mr. Stuart and sir George Smith, that they would, notwithstanding the reluctance of the supreme junta, have brought the affair to a good conclusion; but, at the most critical period of the negotiation, the former was sent on a secret mission to Vienna, by the way of Trieste, and the latter, who was in bad health, dying about the same period, the negotiation failed for want of a head to conduct it.

General Mackenzie, like sir George Smith, thought that the object might be attained: he observed, indeed, that the people, far from suspecting any danger, were ignorant of, or incredulous of the reverses in the north; that nothing had been done towards equipping the fleet for sea; and that, notwithstanding the earnest remonstrances of admiral Purvis and Mr. Stuart, the Spaniards would neither work themselves nor permit the English sailors to work for them. Still the general feeling was favourable to the British army, and the good wishes of the inhabitants were openly avowed: Mackenzie had, however, only a negative power, the affair being in the hands of Mr. Frere.

In the course of the negotiations carried on by that minister, the supreme junta proposed,

1º.—That the troops should land at Port St. Mary’s, and be quartered there and in the neighbouring towns.

2º.—That they should join Cuesta’s army.

3º.—That they should go to Catalonia.

4º.—That they should be parcelled out in small divisions, and attached to the different Spanish armies.

Nay, untaught by their repeated disasters, and pretending to hold the English soldiery cheap, these self-sufficient men proposed that the British should garrison the minor fortresses on the coast, in order to release an equal number of Spaniards for the field.

[Appendix, No. 9].

Mr. Frere wished to accept the first of these proposals, but general Mackenzie, sir George Smith, and Mr. Stuart agreed that it would be injurious for many reasons; not the least urgent of which was, that as the troops could not have been embarked again without some national dishonour, they must have marched towards Cuesta, and thus have been involved in the campaign without obtaining that which was their sole object, the possession of Cadiz as a place of arms.

Mr. Frere then suggested a modification of the second proposal, namely, to leave a small garrison in Cadiz, and to join Cuesta with the remainder of the troops. Sir G. Smith was dead; Mr. Stuart had embarked for Trieste; and general Mackenzie, reluctant to oppose Mr. Frere’s wishes, consented to march, if the necessary equipments for his force could be procured; but he observed, that the plan was contrary to his instructions, and to the known wishes of the English government, and liable, in part, to the objections against the first proposition.

His letter was written the 18th of February, and on the 22d a popular tumult commenced in Cadiz.

The supreme junta, to prove that that city did not require an English garrison, had ordered two regiments, composed of Poles, Germans, and Swiss, prisoners or deserters from the French, to march there. The people, aware that the junta disliked and intended to disarm the volunteers, were offended that deserters should be trusted in preference to themselves. They arose, and stopped the courier, with despatches from Seville, and imprisoned the marquis of Villel, who was obnoxious, because, while mild to persons suspected of favouring the French, he had been harsh, or rather brutal, in his conduct to some ladies of rank in Cadiz.

The populace, proceeding from one violence to another, endeavoured to kill the state prisoners; and being prevented in this bloody object, committed several excesses, and murdered don Joseph Heredia, the collector of the public rents. During the tumult, which lasted two days, the disembarkation of the English troops was repeatedly called for by the mob; and two British officers being sent on shore as mediators, were received with enthusiasm, and obeyed with respect, a manifest proof of the correct view taken by sir George Smith.

The 24th, tranquillity was restored; and the 25th, general Mackenzie, not having received from Mr. Frere an answer to his letter of the 18th, suggested, that of the three English battalions then in the harbour, [Appendix, No. 9]. two should be placed in Cadiz; and that the third, proceeding to Seville, should there unite with the 40th regiment, and both together march to join Cuesta.

Mr. Frere, however, instead of addressing the junta with an authority and dignity becoming the representative of a great nation, on whose support the independence of the whole Peninsula rested, had been endeavouring to gain his end by subtlety. The object was one that England had a right to seek, and the Spanish rulers no right to refuse; for the people wished to further it, and the threat of an appeal to them would soon have silenced the feeble negative of such a despicable and suspected government; but Mr. Frere, incapable of taking a single and enlarged view, was pressing and discussing, with the secretary of the junta, a variety of trifling points, as if to shew his epistolary dexterity; and, finally, when his opponent had conceded the point of admitting troops at all, broke off the negotiation, upon the question, as to whether the number to be admitted should be one or two thousand men, as if the way to drive a wedge was with the broad end foremost.

Self baffled in that quarter, the British plenipotentiary, turning towards Cuesta, the avowed enemy of the junta, and one much feared by them, sought to secure his assistance by holding out the lure of having a British force added to his command, but the sarcastic old general derided the diplomatist. “Although I do not,” said he, “discover any great difficulty in the actual state of things, which should Parl. Papers, 1810. prevent his British majesty’s troops from garrisoning Cadiz under such terms, and for the purpose which your excellency proposes; I am far from supposing that the supreme junta, which is fully persuaded of the importance of our union with England, is not grounded in its objections; and your excellency knows that it is sufficient that they should have them, to prevent my giving any opinion on so important a measure, unless they should consult me. With regard to the 4,300 men, which your excellency is pleased to mention, there is no doubt that I stand in need of them; but I flatter myself, England, sensible of the importance of Estremadura, will even lend me much greater assistance, particularly if, from any change of circumstances, the supreme junta should no longer manifest the repugnance we speak of.”

This answer having frustrated the projected intrigue, Mr. Frere, conscious perhaps of diplomatic incapacity, returned with renewed ardour to the task of directing the military affairs, in every part of the Peninsula. He had seen an intercepted letter of Soult’s, addressed to the king, in which the project of penetrating into Portugal was mentioned; and immediately concluding that general Mackenzie’s troops would be wanted for the defence of that kingdom, counselled him to abandon Cadiz and return to Lisbon; but the general, who knew that, even should he return, a successful defence of Portugal with so few troops would be impossible, and that every precaution was already taken for an embarkation in the last extremity, observed, that “the danger of Lisbon rendered the occupation of Cadiz more important.”

General Mackenzie’s reply was written the 26th of February. On the 3d of March he received another despatch from Mr. Frere. Cadiz, and the [Appendix, No. 9]. danger of Portugal, seemed to have passed from the writer’s mind, and were unnoticed; but entering into a minutely inaccurate statement of the situation of the French and Spanish armies, he observed, that Soult having failed in an attempt to penetrate Portugal by the Minho, it was impossible, from the position of the Spanish forces, assisted as they were by the Portuguese, that he could persevere in his plan. Wherefore, he proposed that the British force then in the harbour of Cadiz should proceed immediately [Appendix, No. 8]. to Tarragona, to aid Reding; and this wild scheme was only frustrated by an unexpected despatch from sir John Cradock, recalling the troops to Lisbon.

They arrived there on the 12th of March; and thus ended a transaction clearly indicating an unsettled policy, shallow combinations, and a bad choice of agents on the part of the English cabinet, and a most unwise and unworthy disposition in the supreme junta. General Mackenzie attributed the jealousy of the latter to French influence; Mr. Frere to the abrupt proceedings of sir George Smith, and to fear, lest the junta of Seville, who were continually on the watch to recover their ancient power, should represent the admission of the British troops as a treasonable proceeding on the part of the supreme government. It is, however, evident that the true cause was the false position in which the English ministers had originally placed themselves, by inundating Spain with arms and money, without at the same time asserting a just influence, and making their assistance the price of good order and useful exertion.

CHAPTER III.

The effort made to secure Cadiz was an act of disinterested zeal on the part of sir John Cradock. The absence of his best troops exposed him to the most galling peevishness from the regency, and to the grossest insults from the populace. With his reduced force, he could not expect to hold even a contracted position at the extremity of the rock of Lisbon against the weakest army likely to invade Portugal; and, as there was neither a native force nor a government to be depended upon, there remained for him only the prospect of a forced and, consequently, disgraceful embarkation, and the undeserved obloquy that never fails to follow disaster.

In this disagreeable situation, as Elvas and Almeida no longer contained British troops, the general’s attention was necessarily fixed upon Lisbon and Oporto. The violence of the gales rendered the latter a sealed port; but the hospitals and magazines of Almeida, and even of Salamanca, being evacuated upon Lamego, that town was crowded with fifteen hundred sick men, besides escorts, and the hourly accumulating stores. The river had overflowed its banks, the craft could not ply; and one large boat, attempting to descend, was overset, and eighty persons, soldiers and others, perished.

General Cameron, hearing of this confusion, relinquished the idea of embarking his detachment at Oporto, and, re-crossing the Douro, made for Lisbon, where he arrived the beginning of February with about two thousand men; but they were worn down by fatigue, having marched eight hundred miles under continued rains.

Sir Robert Wilson sent his guns to Abrantes, by the road of Idanha Nova; but, partly from a spirit [Appendix, No. 6], sect. 1. of adventure, partly from an erroneous idea that sir John Cradock wished him to defend the frontier, he remained with his infantry in the neighbourhood of Ciudad Rodrigo. His force had been increased by a Spanish detachment under don Carlos d’España, and by some volunteers; but it was still weak, and his operations were necessarily confined to a few trifling skirmishes: yet, like many others, his imagination [Appendix, No. 6], sect. 1. so far outstripped his judgement that, when he had only felt the advanced post of a single division, he expressed his conviction that the French were going to abandon Spain altogether.

Sir John Cradock entertained no such false expectations; he was informed of the battle of Coruña and the death of Moore; he knew too well the vigour and talent of that general to doubt that he had been oppressed by an overwhelming force; he knew that Zaragoza had fallen, and that twenty-five thousand French troops were thus free to act in other quarters; he knew that Soult, with at least twenty thousand men, was on the Minho; that Romana was incapable of making any head, that Portugal was one wide scene of helpless confusion, and that a French army was again in the neighbourhood of Merida, threatening Lisbon by the line of the Tagus; in fine, that his own embarrassments were hourly increasing, and that the moment was arrived when the safety of his troops must become the chief consideration.

The tenor of the few despatches he had received from England led him to suppose that the ministers [Appendix, No. 10], sect. 1. designed to abandon Portugal; but, as their intentions on that head were never clearly explained, he resolved to abide by the literal interpretation of his first instructions, and to keep his hold of the country as long as it was possible to do so without risking the utter destruction of his army. To avoid that danger, he put every incumbrance at Lisbon on board the transports in the Tagus, proceeded to dismantle the batteries at the mouth of the river, and, in concert with the admiral, made preparations for carrying away or destroying the military and naval stores in the arsenal. At the same time, he renewed his efforts to embark the sick men and stores at Oporto; but the weather continued so unfavourable that he was finally obliged to remove the invalids and many stores by land, yet he could not procure carriages for the whole.

After the arrival of Cameron’s detachment, the effective British force under arms, including convalescents and fifteen hundred stragglers from sir John [Appendix, No. 11]. Moore’s army, was about eight thousand men; but, when the security of the forts and magazines, and the tranquillity of Lisbon, was provided for, only five thousand men, and those not in the best order, could be brought into the field. As this force was infinitely too weak to cover such a town as Lisbon, the general judged that it would be unwise to take up a position in advance, whence he should be obliged to retreat through the midst of a turbulent and excited population, which had already given too many indications of ill-temper to leave any doubt of its hostility under such circumstances. He, therefore, came to the resolution of withdrawing from Saccavem and Lisbon, and concentrating his whole force on a position at Passa D’Arcos, near the mouth of the [Appendix, No. 10], sect. 2 and 3. river, where he could embark with least danger, and where he had the best chance of defending himself, if necessary, against superior numbers.

This reasoning was sound, and Cradock’s intention was, undoubtedly, not to abandon the country, unless driven from it by force, or in pursuance of orders from England: but his arrangements seem to have carried more the appearance of alarm than was either politic or necessary; for the position of Passa D’Arcos might have been prepared, and the means necessary for an embarkation secured, and yet the bulk of the troops kept in advance until the last moment. To display a bold and confident front in war is, of all things, the most essential, as well to impose upon friends as upon enemies; and sir John Cradock did not fail to experience the truth of this maxim.

The population of Lisbon, alarmed by the reverses in Spain, and yet, like all the people in the Peninsula, confident in their own prowess and resolution until the very moment of attack, became extremely exasperated; and the regency, partly from their natural folly and insincerity, but more from the dread of the lower orders, countenanced, if they did not instigate, the latter to commit excesses, and to interrupt the proceedings of the British naval and military authorities.

[Appendix, No. 3], sect. 5.

Although the measures of precaution relative to the forts had originated with the regency, they now formally protested against them; and, with a view to hamper the general, encouraged their subalterns to make many false and even ridiculous charges against the British executive officers; and it would appear that the remonstrances of the admiral and generals were but imperfectly supported by Mr. Villiers.

In this manner the people’s violence was nourished until the city was filled with tumult; mobs, armed with English pikes and muskets, collected night and [Appendix, No. 3], section 6. day in the streets and on the high-roads, and, under the pretext of seeking for, and killing, Frenchmen, attacked, indiscriminately, all foreigners, even those in the British service and wearing the British uniform. The guards, who endeavoured to protect the victims of this ferocity, were insulted. Couriers, passing with despatches, were intercepted and deprived of their papers; English officers were outraged in the streets; and such was the audacity of the people that the artillery was placed in the squares, in expectation of an affray. In fine, the state of Lisbon was similar to what it had been at the period of Junot’s convention; and, if the British had abandoned the country at this time, they would have been assailed with as much obloquy by the Portuguese, for, such has been, and will be, the fate of all unsuccessful auxiliaries: a reflection that should render historians cautious of adopting accusations upon the authority of native writers on the like occasions.

This spirit was not confined to Lisbon. In Oporto the disposition to insult the British was more openly encouraged than in the capital, and the government of the multitude was more decidedly [Appendix, No. 3], section 6. pronounced. From the cities it spread to the villages. The people of the Alemtejo frontier were, indeed, remarkably apathetic; but, from the Minho to the Tagus, the country was in horrible confusion; [Appendix, No. 3], section 6. the soldiers were scattered, without regard to military system, and, being unpaid, lived at free quarters; the peasantry of the country assembling in bands, and the populace of the towns in mobs, intercepted the communications, appointed or displaced the generals at their pleasure, and massacred all persons of whom they were suspicious. The ammunition which had been supplied from England was wasted, by constant firing in token of insubordination; and, as if the very genius of confusion was abroad, some of the British troops, [Appendix, No. 6], section 2. principally malingerers,[3] of sir John Moore’s army, added their quota of misconduct, to increase the general distress.

The leading instigator of the excesses at Oporto was one Raymundo, a coadjutor and creature of the bishop’s, a turbulent and cruel fellow, who, by taking a share in the first insurrection against the French, obtained a momentary influence, and has since been elevated, by a very credulous writer, into a patriotic hero. He was, however, a worthless coward, fitted for secret villany, but incapable of a noble action.

This state of affairs, productive of so much misery and danger, continuing, without intermission, caused many of the upper classes to despair of their country’s safety by war, and increased the number of those who, wishing to attach themselves to the fortune of France, were ready to accept of a foreign prince for their sovereign, if, with him, they could obtain tranquillity and an ameliorated constitution; and when, soon afterwards, the edge of the enemy’s sword, falling upon the senseless multitude, filled the streets of Oporto with blood, there was a powerful French party already established in Portugal. The bulk of the people were, however, stanch in their country’s cause; they were furious and disorderly, but imbued with hatred of the French; ready at the call of honour; and susceptible of discipline, without any loss of energy.

The turbulence of the citizens, the remonstrances of the regency, and the representations of Mr. Villiers, who was in doubt for the personal safety of the British subjects residing in Lisbon, convinced sir John Cradock that political circumspection and adroitness were as important as military arrangement, to prevent a catastrophe at this critical period; and, as contrary to what might have been expected, the enemy had not yet made any actual movement across the frontier, he was induced to suspend his design of falling back to Passa D’Arcos; and in this unsettled state affairs remained until March, when intelligence arriving that the French fleet was at sea, two of the line-of-battle ships in the Tagus were despatched to reinforce sir Thomas Duckworth’s squadron, and the batteries at the mouth of the river were again armed.

Meanwhile, Soult was making progress in the north; the anarchy at Oporto was continually increasing, and the English government had certainly come to the resolution of abandoning Portugal if the enemy advanced; for, although sir John Cradock was not informed of their views, an officer in England, well acquainted with Portuguese customs, actually received orders, and was embarking, to aid the execution of this measure, when, suddenly, the policy of the cabinet once more changed, and it was resolved to reinforce the army. This resolution, which may be attributed partly to the Austrian war, partly to the failure at Cadiz, and partly to the necessity of satisfying public opinion in England, was accompanied by a measure judicious in principle and of infinite importance, inasmuch as it formed the first solid basis on which to build a reasonable hope of success.

The Portuguese government, whether spontaneously or brought thereto by previous negotiation, [Appendix, No. 6]. had offered the command of all the native troops to an English general,—with power to alter and amend the military discipline, to appoint British officers to the command of the regiments, and to act, without control, in any manner he should judge fitting to ameliorate the condition of the Portuguese army; and this was the more important, because the military polity of Portugal, although fallen into neglect, was severe, precise, and admirably calculated to draw forth the whole strength of the kingdom, for the regular army could be completed by coercion, and the militia were bound to assemble in regiments, numbered, clothed, and armed like the regulars, but only liable to serve within the frontier. The whole of the remaining population, capable of bearing arms, were enrolled under the name of ordenanças, numbered by battalions in their different districts and obliged, under very severe punishments, to assemble at the order of the local magistrates either to work, to fight, or to assist the operations of the other forces.

The English government, accepting of this offer, agreed to supply arms, ammunition, and other succours, granted a subsidy for the payment of the regular forces, and thus obtained, for the first time, a firm hold of the military resources of Portugal, and a position in the Peninsula suitable to the dignity of England and to the great contest in which she was engaged.

The Portuguese government wished that sir Arthur Wellesley should be their general; and the English cabinet offered the situation to him, but he refused it; and it is said, that sir John Doyle, sir John Murray, (he who afterwards failed at Tarragona,) general Beresford, and even the marquis of Hastings, then earl of Moira, sought for the appointment. The last was, undoubtedly, a man well fitted by his courtly manners, his high rank, and his real talents, both in the cabinet and in the field, for such an office; but powerful parliamentary interest prevailing, major-general Beresford was appointed, to the great discontent of many officers of superior rank, who were displeased that a man, without any visible claim to superiority, should be placed over their heads.

Information of this change was instantly conveyed to sir John Cradock, and general Sherbrooke was ordered to put into Lisbon. The latter was overtaken at the mouth of Cadiz harbour; and his and general Mackenzie’s divisions arriving in the Tagus together, on the 12th of March, gave a new turn to the affairs of Portugal. But if Mr. Frere’s plan had been pursued—If general Sherbrooke’s troops had not [Appendix, No. 8]. been detained by bad weather at sea—If the first had proceeded to Tarragona, and nothing but a foul wind prevented it—If the second sailing from port to port without any artillery had, as was most probable, been engaged in some other enterprise—If Victor, obeying his orders, had marched to Abrantes—If any one of these events had happened, sir John Cradock must have abandoned Portugal; and then how infinitely absurd these proceedings of the English ministers would have appeared, and how justly their puerile combinations would have been the scorn of Europe.

Marshal Beresford arrived at Lisbon the beginning of March; and having received the confirmation of his power from the regency, fixed his head-quarters at Thomar, collected the Portuguese troops in masses, and proceeded to recast their system on the model of the British army; commencing, with stern but wholesome rigour, a reform that, in process of time, raised out of chaos an obedient, well disciplined, and gallant army, worthy of a high place among the best in Europe; for the Portuguese people, though easily misled and excited to wrath, are of a docile and orderly disposition, and very sensible of a just and honourable conduct in their officers. But this reform was not effected at once, nor without many crosses and difficulties being raised by the higher orders and by the government—difficulties that general Beresford could never have overcome, if he had not been directed, sustained, and shielded, by the master spirit under whom he was destined to work.

The plan of giving to English officers the command of the Portuguese troops was at first proceeded on with caution; but after a time, the ground being supposed safe, it was gradually enlarged, until almost all the military situations of emolument and importance were held by Englishmen; and this, combined with other causes, gave rise to numerous intrigues, not entirely confined to the natives, and as we shall find, in after times, seriously threatening the power of the marshal, the existence of the British influence, and the success of the war.

Sir John Cradock’s situation was now materially alleviated. The certainty of the Austrian war produced a marked change in the disposition of the regency. The arrival of Sherbrooke’s and Mackenzie’s divisions having increased the British force to fourteen thousand men, the populace became more cautious of offering insults; and, about the middle of March, two thousand men being left to maintain tranquillity in Lisbon, the remainder of the army was encamped at Lumiar and Saccavem; and while these things were passing at Lisbon, the aspect of affairs changed also in other parts of the kingdom. For, the bulk of the Portuguese regular troops, amounting to ten or twelve thousand men, was collected by marshal Beresford, between the Tagus and the Mondego.

Beyond the valley of the Mondego, colonel Trant commanded a small corps of volunteers, students from the university; and general Vittoria was at the head of two regular battalions in Upper Beira.

The bishop of Oporto was preparing to defend that town, with a mixed, but ferocious and insubordinate multitude. General Sylveira, with four or five thousand men, had taken post in the Tras os Montes; and Romana, who had collected seven or eight thousand at Monterey, was in communication with him.

Sir Robert Wilson was at the head of about three thousand men; he had withdrawn the legion from Almeida, sent a detachment to Bejar, and remained himself on the Agueda, watching the advanced posts of Lapisse. A few Portuguese regiments were extended from Salvatierra and Idanha to Alcantara. There was a permanent bridge of boats over the Tagus at Abrantes, and there were small garrisons in that town and at Elvas.

But all these forces united would not, with the exception of the British, have been capable of sustaining the shock of ten thousand French soldiers for half an hour; and the whole mass of the latter, then hanging on the frontier of Portugal, was above fifty thousand. Gathering like clouds on the horizon, they threatened many points, but gave no certain indication of where the storm would break. Soult, indeed, with about twenty thousand men, was endeavouring to pass the Minho; but Lapisse, although constantly menacing Ciudad Rodrigo, kept his principal masses at Salamanca and Ledesma; while Victor had concentrated his between the Alberche and the Tietar.

Thus Lapisse might join either Soult or Victor; and the latter could march by Placentia against Ciudad Rodrigo, while Soult attacked Oporto; or he might draw Lapisse to him, and penetrate Portugal by Alcantara. He might pass the Tagus, attack Cuesta, and pursue him to Seville; or, after defeating him, he might turn short to the right, and enter the Alemtejo.

In this uncertainty, sir John Cradock, keeping the British concentrated at Lumiar and Saccavem, waited for the enemy to develop his plans, and, in the mean time, endeavoured to procure the necessary equipments for an active campaign. He directed magazines to be formed at Coimbra and Abrantes; urged the regency to exertion; took measures to raise money, and despatched officers to Barbary to procure mules. But while thus engaged, intelligence arrived that Victor had suddenly forced the passage of the Tagus at Almaraz, and was in pursuit of Cuesta on the road to Merida; that Soult, having crossed the Minho, and defeated Romana and Sylveira, was within a few leagues of Oporto; and that Lapisse had made a demonstration of assaulting Ciudad Rodrigo.

The junta of Oporto now vehemently demanded aid from the regency, and the latter, although not much inclined to the bishop’s party, proposed that sir John Cradock should unite a part of the British Sir J. Cradock’s Correspondence, MSS. forces to the Portuguese troops under marshal Beresford, and march to the succour of Oporto. Beresford was averse to trust the Portuguese under his immediate command, among the mutinous multitude in that city, but he thought the whole of the British army should move in a body to Leiria, and from thence either push on to Oporto, or return, according to the events that might occur in the latter town, and he endeavoured to persuade Cradock to follow this plan.

It was doubtful, he said, if Victor and Soult intended to co-operate in a single plan; but, on the [Appendix, No. 12], section 1. supposition that it was so, he considered it essential to drive back or to overcome one before the other could come to his assistance. Victor was then in pursuit of Cuesta; if he continued that pursuit, it must be to enter Seville, or to cripple his opponent previous to the invasion of Portugal; in either case he would be in the Sierra Morena before he could hear of the march from Leiria, and, as Cradock had daily intelligence of Victor’s movements, there would be full time to relieve Oporto, and to return again to the defence of Lisbon. If, however, Soult depended on the co-operation of Victor, he would probably remain on the right of the Duero until the other was on the Tagus, and Lapisse also would be contented for the present with capturing Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida.

This reasoning, so evidently unsound, did not weigh with sir John Cradock, who resolved to preserve his central position, covering the capital at such a distance as to preclude the danger of being cut off from it by one army while he was engaged [Appendix, No. 12], section 2. with another. Lisbon and Oporto, he observed, were the enemy’s objects; the former was of incomparably greater importance than the latter. Portugal was in a state of anarchy equally incompatible with firm resistance and rapid movements. The peasantry were tumultuous and formidable to everybody but the enemy; and Beresford himself acknowledged that the regular forces were mutinous, disregarding their officers, choosing when and where to rest; when to fight, and when to remain in quarters; and altogether unfit to be trusted within the circle of the Oporto mischief. The British troops, therefore, were the only solid resource; but they were too few to divide, and must act in a body, or not at all.

Was it most desirable to protect Lisbon or Oporto? The first was near, the second two hundred miles off; and, although the utmost exertions had been made, the army was not yet equipped for an active campaign. The troops were ill-clothed, and wanted shoes; the artillery was unhorsed; the commissariat possessed only a fourth part of the transport necessary for the conveyance of provisions and ammunition, and no activity could immediately supply these deficiencies, inasmuch as some of the articles required were not to be had in the country, and, to obtain others, the interference of the regency was necessary, but hitherto all applications to that quarter had been without any effect. Was it wise to commence offensive operations in the north? Soult and Lapisse together were estimated at thirty thousand men, of which above five thousand were cavalry, and he himself could only bring fifteen guns and twelve thousand men, of all arms, into the field; yet, if the British army, marched with the avowed intention of relieving Oporto, it must accomplish it, or be dishonoured!

Was it consistent with reason to march two hundred miles in search of a combat, which the very state of Oporto would render it almost impossible to gain, and for an object perhaps already lost? Suspicion was alive all over the country: if Oporto was already taken, the army must come back; that would be the signal for fresh tumults—for renewed cries that the country was to be abandoned; Lisbon would instantly be in a state of insurrection, and would be even more formidable to the British than the enemy; besides, it was impossible to reckon upon Cuesta’s aid in keeping Victor employed. He was personally inimical to the English, and his principal object was to gain time for the increase and discipline of his own force.

Victor was apparently pursuing Cuesta, but his parties had already appeared in the neighbourhood of Badajos, and there was nothing but a weak Portuguese garrison in Elvas to impede his march through the Alemtejo. To cover Lisbon and the Tagus was the wisest plan: fixed in some favourable position, at a prudent distance from that capital, he could wait for the reinforcements he expected from England. He invited the Portuguese troops to unite with him; a short time would suffice to establish subordination, and then the certainty that the capital could not be approached, except in the face of a really-formidable army, would not only keep the enemy in check, but, by obliging him to collect in greater numbers for the attempt, would operate as a diversion in favour of Spain.

The general soundness of this reasoning is apparent, and it must not be objected to sir John Cradock that he disregarded the value of a central position, which might enable him to be beforehand with the enemy in covering Lisbon, if the latter should march on his flank. The difficulty of obtaining true intelligence from the natives and his own want of cavalry rendered it utterly unsafe for him to divide his army, or to trust it any distance from the capital.

Marshal Beresford’s plan, founded on the supposition that Cradock could engage Soult at Oporto, and yet quit him, and return at his pleasure to Lisbon, if Victor advanced, was certainly fallacious; the advantages rested on conjectural, the disadvantages on positive data: it was conjectural that they could relieve Oporto; it was positive that they would endanger Lisbon; the proposition was, however, not made upon partial views. But, at this period, other men, less qualified to advise, pestered sir John Cradock with projects of a different stamp, yet deserving of notice, as showing that the mania for grand operations, which I have before marked as the malady of the time, was still raging.

To make a suitable use of the British army was the object of all these projectors, but there was a marvellous variety in their plans. While the regency desired that the Portuguese and English troops should, without unfurnishing Lisbon, co-operate for the relief of Oporto, and while marshal Beresford recommended that the latter only should march, the bishop was importunate to have a detachment of the British army placed under his command, and he recalled Sir Robert Wilson to the defence of Oporto. It appeared reasonable that the legion should defend the city in which it was raised; but Mr. Frere wrote from Seville that sir Robert could do better where he was; and the latter dreading the anarchy in Oporto, accepted Spanish rank, and refused obedience to the prelate’s orders, yet retained his troops. The regency, however, adopted the Lusitanian legion as a national corps, Cradock’s Correspondence, MSS. and approved of sir Robert’s proceedings. Meanwhile Romana was earnest with sir John Cradock for money, and that a thousand British soldiers might be sent to aid the insurrection at Vigo; and at the same time Mr. Frere and colonel D’Urban, a corresponding officer placed at Cuesta’s head-quarters, proposed other plans of higher pretensions.

Zaragoza, said the latter, has fallen; and ten thousand French troops being thus released, are marching towards Toledo; this is the moment to give a fatal blow to Marshal Victor! It is one of those critical occasions that seldom recur in war! Cradock’s Correspondence, MSS. In a day or two sir Robert Wilson will be on the Tietar with two thousand five hundred men; augment his force with a like number of Portuguese, who may be drawn from Sobreira, Idanha, and Salvatierra. He shall thus turn the right and rear of Victor’s army, and his movement cannot be interrupted by the French force now at Salamanca and Alva; because the communication from thence to the Tagus by the passes of Baños and Tornevecas is sealed up; and while sir Robert Wilson thus gets in the rear of Victor with five thousand men, Cuesta, with twelve thousand infantry and two thousand cavalry, shall attack the latter in front, matter of easy execution; because Cuesta can throw a pontoon bridge over the Tagus, near Almaraz, in an hour and a half; and the Conde de Cartoajal, who is at Manzanares in La Mancha, with ten thousand infantry and two thousand horse, will keep Sebastiani in check. The hope is great, the danger small; and if a few British troops can be added to the force on the Tietar, the success will be infallible.

There were, however, some grave objections to this infallible plan. General Cuesta was near Almaraz; sir John Cradock was at Lisbon, and sir Robert Wilson was at Ciudad Rodrigo. This circuitous line of correspondence being above four hundred miles long, it is not very clear how the combination was to be effected with that rapidity, which was said to be essential to the success. Neither is it very evident, that operations to be combined at such a distance, and executed by soldiers of different nations, would have been successful at all. On the one side, twenty thousand Portuguese and Spanish recruits were to act on double external lines of operation; on the other, twenty-five thousand French veterans waited in a central position, with their front and flanks covered by the Tagus and the Tietar. In such a contest it is possible to conceive a different result from that anticipated by colonel D’Urban.

Mr. Frere’s plans were not less extensive, and he was equally sanguine. When his project for assisting Catalonia had been frustrated, by the recall of general Mackenzie from Cadiz, he turned his attention [Appendix, No. 7]. to the north. Soult, he wrote to sir John Cradock, tired of the resistance he has met with, will probably desist from his “unaccountable project of entering Portugal, and occupying Gallicia at the same time.” Let the British army, therefore, make a push to drive the enemy out of Salamanca, and the neighbouring towns; while the Asturians, on their side, shall take possession of Leon and Astorga, and thus open the communication between the northern and southern provinces.

Fearing, however, that if this proposal should not be adopted, the English general might be at a loss for some enterprise, Mr. Frere also recommended that the British army should march to Alcantara; and that the fortieth regiment, which hitherto he had retained at Seville, contrary to sir John Cradock’s wishes, should join it at that place; and then, the whole operating by the northern bank of the Tagus, might, in concert with Cuesta, “beat the French out of Toledo, and consequently out of Madrid.”

Now, with respect to the first of these plans, Soult never had the intention of holding Gallicia, which was Marshal Ney’s province; but he did propose to penetrate into Portugal, and he was not likely to abandon his purpose; because, the only army capable of opposing him was quitting that kingdom, and making a “push” of four hundred miles to drive Lapisse out of Salamanca; moreover, Muster Rolls of the French Army, MSS. the Asturians were watched by general Bonnet’s division on one side, and by Kellerman on the other; and the fifth corps, not ten, but fifteen thousand strong, having quitted Zaragoza, were at this time in the Valladolid country, and therefore close to Leon and Astorga.

With respect to the operations by the line of the Tagus, which were to drive Joseph out of Madrid, and consequently to attract the attention of all the French corps, it is to be observed, that sir John Cradock could command about twelve thousand men, Cuesta sixteen thousand, Cartoajal twelve thousand, making a total of forty thousand. Now, Soult had twenty-three thousand, Lapisse nine thousand, Victor was at the head of twenty-five thousand, Sebastiani could dispose of fifteen thousand, Mortier of a like number, the King’s guards and the garrison of Madrid were twelve thousand, making a total of nearly a hundred thousand men.

But while Mr. Frere and colonel D’Urban, confiding in Soult’s inactivity, were thus plotting the destruction of Victor and Sebastiani, the first marshal stormed Oporto; the second, unconscious of his danger, crossed the Tagus, and defeated Cuesta’s army at Medellin, and at the same moment Sebastiani routed Cartoajal’s at Ciudad Real.

BOOK VII.

CHAPTER I.

Having described the unhappy condition of Portugal and given a general view of the transactions in Spain, I shall now resume the narrative of Soult’s operations, thus following the main stream of action, for the other marshals were appointed to tranquillize the provinces already overrun by the emperor, or to war down the remnants of the Spanish armies; but the duke of Dalmatia’s task was to push onward in the course of conquest. Nor is it difficult to trace him through the remainder of a campaign in which traversing all the northern provinces, fighting in succession the armies of three different nations, and enduring every vicissitude of war, he left broad marks of his career and certain proofs that he was an able commander, and of a haughty resolution in adversity.

It has been observed, in a former part of this work, that the inhabitants of Coruña honourably maintained their town until the safety of the fleet which carried sir John Moore’s army from the Spanish shores was secure; but they were less faithful to their own cause. Coruña, although weak against a regular siege, might have defied irregular operations, and several weeks must have elapsed before sufficient battering train could have been brought up to that corner of the Peninsula. Yet, a short negotiation sufficed to put the French in possession of the place on the 19th of January, and the means of attacking Ferrol were immediately organized from the resources of Coruña.

The harbour of Ferrol contained eight sail of the line, and some smaller ships of war. The fortifications were regular, there was an abundance of artillery and ammunition and a garrison of seven or eight thousand men, composed of soldiers, sailors, citizens, and armed countrymen, but their chiefs were treacherous. After a commotion in which the admiral Obregon was arrested, his successor Melgarejo surrendered the 26th upon somewhat better terms than those granted to Coruña; and thus in ten days two regular fortresses were reduced, that with more resolution might have occupied thirty thousand men for several months.

S.
MSS.

While yet before Ferrol the duke of Dalmatia received the following despatch, prescribing the immediate invasion of Portugal:—

“Before his departure from this place, (Valladolid,) the emperor foreseeing the embarkation of the English army, drew up instructions for the ultimate operations of the duke of Elchingen and yourself. He orders that when the English army shall be embarked you will march upon Oporto with your four divisions, that is to say, the division of Merle, Mermet, Delaborde, and Heudelet, the dragoons of Lorge, and La Houssaye, and Franceschi’s light cavalry, with the exception of two regiments that his majesty desires you to turn over to the duke of Elchingen, in order to make up his cavalry to four regiments.”

“Your ‘corps d’armée,’ composed of seventeen regiments of infantry and ten regiments of cavalry, is destined for the expedition of Portugal, in combination with a movement the duke of Belluno is going to effect. General Loison, some engineers, staff and commissiarat officers, and thirteen Portuguese, all of whom belonged to the army formerly in Portugal, under the duke of Abrantes, have received instructions to join you immediately, and you can transmit your orders for them to Lugo. This is the 21st of January, and it is supposed you cannot be at Oporto before the 5th of February, or at Lisbon before the 16th. Thus, at that time, namely, when you shall be near Lisbon, the ‘corps d’armée’ of the duke of Belluno, composed of his own three divisions, of the division Leval, and of ten or twelve regiments of cavalry, forming a body of thirty thousand men, will be at Merida to make a strong diversion in favour of your movement, and in such a mode as that he can push the head of a column upon Lisbon, if you find any great obstacles to your entrance, which it is, however, presumed will not be the case.”

“General Lapisse’s division of infantry, which is at this moment in Salamanca, and general Maupetit’s brigade of cavalry, will, when you shall be at Oporto, receive the duke of Istria’s orders to march upon Ciudad Rodrigo and Abrantes, where this division will again be under the command of the duke of Belluno, who will send it instructions to join him at Merida, and I let you know this that you may be aware of the march of Lapisse, on your left flank, as far as Abrantes. Such are the last orders I am charged to give you in the name of the emperor; you will have to report to the king and to receive his orders for your ulterior operations. The emperor has unlimited confidence in your talents for the fine expedition that he has charged you with.”

ALEXANDER,
Prince of Neufchatel, &c.

It was further intended, by Napoleon, that when Lisbon fell, marshal Victor should invade Andalusia, upon the same line as Dupont had moved the year before, and like him, also, he was to have been assisted by a division of the second corps, which was to cross the Guadiana and march on Seville. Meanwhile, the duke of Elchingen, whose corps, reinforced by two regiments of cavalry and the arrival of stragglers, amounted to near twenty thousand men, was to maintain Gallicia, confine the Asturians within their own frontier line, and keep open the communication with the second corps.

Thus, nominally, eighty thousand, and in reality sixty thousand men, were disposed for the conquest of Lisbon, and in such a manner that forty thousand would, after that had been accomplished, have poured down upon Seville and Cadiz, and at a time when neither Portugal nor Andalusia were capable of making any resistance. It remains to shew from what causes this mighty preparation failed.

Muster-rolls of the French army, MSS.

The gross numbers of the second corps amounted to forty-seven thousand, but general Bonnet’s division remained always at St. Ander, in observation of the eastern Asturian frontier; eight thousand were detached for the service of the general communications, and the remainder had, since the 9th of November, been fighting and marching incessantly among barren and snowy mountains; hence, stragglers were numerous, and twelve thousand men were in hospital. The force, actually under arms, did not exceed twenty-five thousand men, worn S.
Journal of Operations of the second corps, MSS. down with fatigue, barefooted, and without ammunition. They had outstripped their commissariat, the military chest was not come up, the draft animals were reduced in number, and extenuated by fatigue, the gun-carriages were shaken by continual usage, and the artillery parc was still in the rear; and as the sixth corps had not yet passed Lugo, two divisions of the second were required to hold Coruña and Ferrol. Literally to obey the emperor’s orders was consequently impossible, and Soult fixing his head-quarters at St. Jago di Compostella, proceeded to re-organize his army.

Ammunition was fabricated from the loose powder found in Coruña; shoes were obtained partly by requisition, partly from the Spanish magazines, filled as they were with stores supplied by England. The artillery was soon refitted, and, the greatest part of the stragglers being rallied, in six days, the marshal thought himself in a condition to obey his orders, and, although his troops were still suffering from fatigue and privation, he marched, on the 1st of February, with nineteen thousand infantry, four thousand cavalry, and fifty-eight pieces of artillery. But, before I narrate his operations, it is necessary to give some account of the state of Gallicia at this period, and to trace the movements of the marquis de Romana.

When the Spanish army, on the 2d of January, crossed the line of sir John Moore’s march, it was already in a state of disorganization. Romana, with the cavalry, plunged at once into the deep valleys of the Syl and the Minho; but the artillery and a part of his infantry were overtaken and cut up by Franceschi’s cavalry. The remainder wandered in bands from one place to another, or dispersed to seek food and shelter among the villages in the [Appendix, No. 6]. mountains. General Mendizabel, with a small body, halted in the Val des Orres, and, placing guards at the Puente de Bibey, a point of singular strength for defence, proposed to cover the approaches to Orense on that side; but Romana himself, after wandering for a time, collected two or three thousand men, and took post, on the 15th, at Toabado, a village about twenty miles from Lugo.

Marshal Ney, while following the route of the 2d corps to Lugo with the main body of his troops, detached some cavalry from Villa Franca to scour the valleys on his left, and ordered a division of infantry to march by the road of Orense and St. Jago to Coruña. General Marchand, who commanded it, overthrew and dispersed Mendizabel’s troops on the 17th, and, having halted some days at Orense, to patrole the neighbourhood for information and to establish an hospital, continued his march to St. Jago.

The defeat of Mendizabel and the subsequent movements of Marchand’s division completed the dispersion of Romana’s army; the greatest part throwing away their arms, returned to their homes, and he himself, with his cavalry, and the few infantry that would follow him, crossed the Minho, passed the mountains, and, descending into the valley of the Tamega, took refuge, on the 21st, at Oimbra, a place on the frontier of Portugal, and close to Monterey, where there was a small magazine, collected for the use of sir John Moore’s army.

In this obscure situation, unheeded by the French, he entered into communication with the Portuguese general, Sylveira, and, with sir John Cradock, demanding money and arms from the latter, and endeavouring to re-assemble a respectable body of troops. But Blake and other officers deserted him, and these events and the general want of patriotic spirit drew from Romana the following observation:—“I know not wherein the patriotism, so loudly vaunted, consists; any reverse, any mishap prostrates the minds of these people, and, thinking only of saving their own persons, they sacrifice their country and compromise their commander.”

The people of Gallicia, poor, scattered, living hardly, and, like all mountaineers, very tenacious of the little property they possess, disregarded political events which did not immediately and visibly affect their interests, and were, with the exception of those of the sea-port towns, but slightly moved by the aggression of the French, as long as that aggression did not extend to their valleys; hence, at first, they treated the English and French armies alike.

Sir David Baird’s division, in its advance, paid for the necessary supplies, and it was regarded with jealousy and defrauded. Soult’s and Moore’s armies, passing like a whirlwind, were beheld with terror, and the people fled from both. The British and German troops that marched to Vigo were commanded without judgement, and licentious, and their stragglers were often murdered; their numbers were small, and the people showed their natural hatred of strangers without disguise. On several occasions the parties, sent to collect cars for the conveyance of the sick, had to sustain a skirmish before the object could be obtained, and five officers, misled by a treacherous guide, were scarcely saved from death by the interference of an old man, whose exertions, however, were not successful until one of the officers had been severely wounded in the head. On the other hand, general Marchand discovered so little symptoms of hostility, during his march to Orense, that he left his hospital at that town without a guard, and under the joint care of Spanish and French surgeons, and the duties of humanity were faithfully discharged by the former without hindrance from the people.

But this quiescence did not last long: the French generals were obliged to subsist their troops by requisitions extremely onerous to a people whose property chiefly consisted of cattle. The many abuses and excesses which always attend this mode of supplying an army soon created a spirit of hatred that Romana laboured incessantly to increase, and he was successful; for, although a bad general, he possessed intelligence and dexterity suited to the task of exciting a population. Moreover, the monks Romana’s Manifesto. and friars laboured to the same purpose; and, while Romana denounced death to those who refused to take arms, the clergy menaced eternal perdition; and all this was necessary, for the authority of the supreme junta was only acknowledged as a matter of necessity—not of liking.

Gallicia, although apparently calm, was, therefore, ripe for a general insurrection, at the moment when the duke of Dalmatia commenced his march from St. Jago di Compostella.

From that town several roads lead to the Minho, the principal one running by the coast line and crossing the Ulla, the Umia, the Vedra, and the Octaven, passes by Pontevedra and Redondela to Tuy, a dilapidated fortress, situated on the Spanish side of the Minho. The second, crossing the same rivers nearer to their sources, passes by the Monte de Tenteyros, and, entering the valley of the Avia, follows the course of that river to Ribidavia, a considerable town, situated at the confluence of the Avia with the Minho, and having a stone bridge over the former, and a barque ferry on the latter river. The third, turning the sources of the Avia, connects St. Jago with Orense, and from Orense another road passes along the right bank of the Minho, and connects the towns of Ribidavia, Salvatierra, and Tuy, ending at Guardia, a small fortress at the mouth of the Minho.

As the shortest route to Oporto, and the only one convenient for the artillery, was that leading by Redondela and Tuy, and from thence by the coast, the duke of Dalmatia formed the plan of passing the Minho between Salvatierra and Guardia.

S.
Journal of Operations, MSS.

On the 1st of February Franceschi, followed by the other divisions in succession, took the Pontevedra road. At Redondela he encountered and defeated a small body of insurgents, and captured four pieces of cannon; after which Vigo surrendered to one of his detachments, while he himself marched upon Tuy, and took possession of that town and Guardia. During these operations La Houssaye’s dragoons, quitting Mellid, had crossed the Monte de Tenteyro, passed through Ribidavia, and taken possession of Salvatierra, on the Minho; and general Soult, the marshal’s brother, who had assembled three thousand stragglers and convalescents, between Astorga and Carrion, received orders to enter Portugal by Puebla de Senabria, and thus join the main body.

The rainy season was now in full torrent, and every stream and river was overflowing its banks. The roads were deep, and the difficulty of procuring provisions was great. These things, and the delivering over to marshal Ney the administration of Ferrol and Coruña, where the Spanish government and Spanish garrisons were not only retained but paid by the French, delayed the rear of the army so long that it was not until the 15th or 16th that the whole of the divisions were assembled on the Minho, between Salvatierra, Guardia, and Redondela.

The Minho, from Melgaço to the mouth, forms the frontier of Portugal, the banks on both sides being guarded by a number of fortresses, originally of considerable strength, but at this time all in a dilapidated condition. The Spanish fort of Guardia fronted the Portuguese fort of Caminha; Tuy was opposed by Valença; and this last was garrisoned, and the works in somewhat a better condition than the rest; Lapella, Moncao, and Melgaço, completed the Portuguese line. But the best defence at this moment was the Minho itself, which, at all times a considerable river, was now a broad and raging flood, and the Portuguese ordenanzas and militia were in arms on the other side, and had removed all the boats.

Soult, after examining the banks with care, decided upon passing at Campo Saucos, a little village where the ground was flatter, more favourable, and so close to Caminha, that the army, once across, could easily seize that place, and, the same day reach Viana, on the Lima, from whence to Oporto was only three marches. To attract the attention of the Portuguese; La Houssaye, who was at Salvatierra, spread his dragoons along the Minho, and attempted to push small parties across that river, above Melgaço, but the bulk of the army was concentrated in the neighbourhood of Campo Saucos, and a detachment seized the small sea-port of Bayona, in the rear.

A division of infantry, and three hundred French marines released at Coruña, and attached to the second corps, were then employed to transport some large fishing boats and some heavy guns from the harbour and fort of Guardia overland to Campo Saucos. This was effected by the help of rollers over more than two miles of rugged and hilly ground. It was a work of infinite labour, and, from the 11th to the 15th, the troops toiled unceasingly; the craft was, however, at last, launched in a small lake at the confluence of the Tamuga river with the Minho.

The heavy guns being mounted in battery on the night of the 15th, three hundred soldiers were embarked, and the boats, manned by the marines, dropped silently down the Tamuga into the Minho, and endeavoured to reach the Portuguese side of the latter river during the darkness; but, whether from the violence of the flood, or want of skill in the men, the landing was not effected at day-break, and the ordenanza fell with great fury upon the first who got on shore: and now, the foremost being all slain, the others pulled back, and regained their own side with great difficulty. This action was infinitely creditable to the Portuguese, and it had a surprising influence on the issue of the campaign.

It was a gallant action, because it might reasonably have been expected that a tumultuous assemblage of half-armed peasants, collected on the instant, would have been dismayed at the sight of many boats filled with soldiers some pulling across, others landing under the protection of a heavy battery that thundered from the midst of a multitude of troops, clustering on the heights, and thronging to the edge of the opposite bank in eager expectation.

It was an event of leading importance, inasmuch as it baffled an attempt that, being successful, would have ensured the fall of Oporto by the 21st of February, which was precisely the period when general Mackenzie’s division being at Cadiz, sir John Cradock’s troops were reduced to almost nothing; when the English ministers only waited for an excuse to abandon Portugal; when the people of that country were in the very extremity of disorder; when the Portuguese army was a nullity; and when the regency was evidently preparing to receive the French with submission. It was the period, also, when Soult was expected to be at Lisbon, following the Emperor’s orders, and, consequently, Lapisse and Victor could not have avoided to fulfil their part of the plan for the subjugation of Portugal.

See [Plan 4].

The duke of Dalmatia’s situation was now, although not one of imminent danger, extremely embarrassing, and more than ordinary quickness and vigour were required to conduct the operations with success. Posted in a narrow, contracted position, he was hemmed in on the left by the Spanish insurgents, who had assembled immediately after La Houssaye passed Orense, and who, being possessed of a very rugged and difficult country, were, moreover, supported by the army of Romana, which was said to be at Orense and Ribidavia.

In the French general’s front was the Minho, broad, raging, and at the moment impassable, while heavy rains forbad the hope that its waters would decrease. To collect sufficient means for forcing a passage would have required sixteen days, and, long before that period, the subsistence for the army would have entirely failed, and the Portuguese, being alarmed, would have greatly augmented their forces on the opposite bank. There remained then only to retrace his steps to St. Jago, or break through the Spanish insurgents, and, ascending the Minho, to open a way into Portugal by some other route.

The attempt to pass the river had been baffled on the 15th of February; on the 16th the army was in full march towards Ribidavia, upon a new line of operations, and this promptitude of decision was supported by an equally prompt execution. La Houssaye, with his dragoons, quitted Salvatierra, and, keeping the edge of the Minho, was galled by the fire of the Portuguese from the opposite bank; but, before evening, he twice broke the insurgent bands, and, in revenge for some previous excesses of the peasantry, burnt the villages of Morentan and Cobreira. Meanwhile the main body of the army, passing the Tea river, at Salvatierra and Puente d’Arcos, marched, by successive divisions, along the main road from Tuy to Ribidavia.

Between Franquera and Canizar the route was cut by the streams of the Morenta and Noguera rivers; and, behind those torrents, eight hundred Gallicians, having barricadoed the bridges and repulsed the advanced parties of cavalry, stood upon their defence. The 17th, at daybreak, the leading brigade of Heudelet’s division forced the passage, and pursued the Spaniards briskly; but, when within a short distance of Ribidavia, the latter rallied upon eight or ten thousand insurgents, arrayed in order of battle, on a strong hill, covering the approaches to that town.

At this sight the advanced guard halted until the remainder of the division and a brigade of cavalry were come up, and then, under the personal direction of Soult, the French assailed, and drove the Gallicians, fighting, through the town and across the Avia. The loss of the vanquished was very considerable, and the bodies of twenty priests were found amongst the slain; but, either from fear or patriotism, every inhabitant had quitted Ribidavia.

The 18th one brigade of infantry scoured the valley of the Avia, and dispersed three or four thousand of the insurgents, who were disposed to make a second stand on that side. A second brigade, pushing on to Barbantes, seized a ferry-boat on the Minho, close to that place; they were joined, the same evening, by the infantry who had scoured the valley of the Avia the day before, and by Franceschi’s cavalry, and, on the 19th, they entered Orense in time to prevent the bridge over the Minho from being cut. La Houssaye’s dragoons then took post at Maside, and the same day the remainder of the horse and Laborde’s infantry were united at Ribidavia; but the artillery were still between Tuy and Salvatierra, under the protection of Merle’s and Mermet’s divisions. Thus, in three days, the duke of Dalmatia had, with an admirable celerity and vigour, extricated his army from a contracted unfavourable country, strangled a formidable insurrection in its birth, and at the same time opened a fresh line of communication with St. Jago, and an easy passage into Portugal.

The 20th a regiment being sent across the Minho, by the ferries of Barbantes and Ribidavia, defeated the insurgents of the left bank, advanced to the Arroyo river, and took post on the heights of Merea. The army, with the exception of the division guarding the guns, was the same day concentrated at Orense. But the utmost efforts of the artillery-officers had been baffled by the difficulties of the road between Tuy and Ribidavia; and this circumstance, together with the precarious state of the communications, the daily increasing sick-list, and the number of petty detachments necessary to protect the rear of the army, seemed to render the immediate invasion of Portugal hopeless.

To men of an ordinary stamp it would have been so; but the duke of Dalmatia, with a ready boldness, resolved to throw the greatest part of his artillery and the whole of his other incumbrances into Tuy, as a place of arms, and then relinquishing all communication with Gallicia, for the moment, to march in one mass directly upon Oporto; from whence, if successful, he proposed to re-open his communication with Tuy, by the line of the coast, and then, recovering his artillery and parcs, to re-establish a regular system of operations.

In pursuance of this resolution, sixteen of the lightest guns and six howitzers, together with a proportion of ammunition-waggons, were, with infinite labour and difficulty, transported to Ribidavia, but the remaining thirty-six pieces and a vast parc of carriages, carrying ammunition and hospital and S.
Journal of Operations MSS. commissariat stores, were put into Tuy. General La Martiniere was left there with an establishment of artillery and engineer officers, a garrison of five hundred men fit to carry arms, and nine hundred sick. All the stragglers, convalescents, and detachments, coming from St. Jago, and the military chest, which was still in the rear, guarded by six hundred infantry, were directed upon Tuy, and the gates being then shut, La Martiniere was abandoned to his own resources.

The men in hospital at Ribidavia were now forwarded to Orense, and the marshal’s quarters were established at the latter town on the 24th; but many obstacles were yet to be vanquished before the army could commence the march into Portugal. The gun-carriages had been so shaken in the transit from Tuy to Ribidavia that three days were required to repair them. It was extremely difficult to obtain provisions, and numerous bands of the peasants were still in arms; nor were they quelled until combats had taken place at Gurzo, on the Monte Blanco, in the Val d’Ornes, and up the valley of Avia, by which the French wasted time, lost men, and expended ammunition that could not be replaced.

Marshal Soult endeavoured to soften the people’s feelings by kindness and soothing proclamations; [Appendix, No. 13]. and as he enforced a strict discipline among his troops, his humane and politic demeanour joined to the activity of his moveable columns, soon abated the fierceness of the peasantry. The inhabitants of Ribidavia returned to their houses; those of Orense had never been very violent, and now became even friendly, and lent assistance to procure provisions. It was not, however, an easy task to restrain the soldiers within the bounds of humanity: the frequent combats, the assassination and torturing of isolated men, and the privations endured, had so exasperated the French troops, that the utmost exertions of their general’s authority could not always control their revenge.

While the duke of Dalmatia was thus preparing for a formidable inroad, his adversaries were a prey to the most horrible anarchy. The bishop, always intent to increase his own power, had assembled little short of fifty thousand armed persons in Oporto; and he had also commenced a gigantic line of entrenchments on the hills to the northward of that city. This worse than useless labour so completely occupied all persons, that the defence of the strong country lying between the Duero and the Minho was totally neglected; and when the second corps appeared on the bank of the latter river, the northern provinces were struck with terror. Then it was that the people, for the first time, understood the extent of their danger; and that the bishop, aroused from his intrigues, became sensible that the French were more terrible enemies than the regency. Once impressed with this truth, he became clamorous for succour. He recalled sir Robert Wilson from the Agueda; he hurried on the labours of the entrenchments; and he earnestly pressed sir John Cradock for assistance, demanding arms, ammunition, and a reinforcement of British soldiers.

Sir Robert Wilson, as I have already related, disregarded his orders; and the British general [Appendix, No. 3], section 6. refused to furnish him with troops, but supplied him with arms, very ample stores of powder, and sent artillery and engineer officers to superintend the construction of the defensive works, and to aid in the arrangements for a reasonable system of operations. The people were, however, become too headstrong and licentious to be controlled, or even advised, and the soldiers being drawn into the vortex of insubordination, universal and hopeless confusion prevailed.

Don Bernadim Freire was the legal commander-in-chief of the Entre Minho e Douro, but all the [Appendix, No. 3], section 1. generals claimed an equal and independent authority each over his own force; and this was, perhaps, a matter of self-preservation, for general and traitor were, at that period, almost synonymous; and to obey the orders of a superior against the momentary wishes of the multitude was to incur instant death: nor were there wanting men who found it profitable to inflame the passions of the mob, and to direct their blind vengeance against innocent persons; for the prelate’s faction, although the most powerful, was not without opponents even in Oporto.

Such was the unhappy state of affairs when the undisciplined gallantry of the peasants, baffling the efforts of the French to cross the Minho at Campo Saucos, obliged Soult to march by Orense. A part of the regular troops were immediately sent forward to the Cavado river, where they were joined by the ordenanzas and the militia of the district, but all in a state of fearful insubordination; and there were not any arrangements made for the regular distribution of provisions, or of any one necessary supply.

Among the troops despatched from Oporto was the second battalion of the Lusitanian legion, nine hundred strong, well armed and well equipped; they were commanded by baron Eben, a native of Prussia, who, without any known services to recommend him, had suddenly attained the rank of major in the British service. This man, destined to act a conspicuous part in Portuguese tragedy, had been left by sir Robert Wilson in Oporto, when that officer marched to Almeida. Eben’s orders were to follow with the second battalion of the legion, when the men’s clothing and equipment should be completed; but he, retaining the troops, remained, to push his own fortune under the prelate’s auspices.

General Freire having reached the Cavado, with a small body of regular troops, was immediately joined by fourteen or fifteen thousand militia and ordenanzas. Fixing his head-quarters at Braga, he sent detachments to occupy the posts of Salamonde and Ruivaens in his front; and, unfortunately for himself, endeavoured to restrain his [Appendix, No. 3], section 6. troops from wasting their ammunition by wanton firing in the streets and on the roads. This exertion of command was heinously resented; for Freire, being willing to uphold the authority of the regency, had been for some time obnoxious to the bishop’s faction, and already he was pointed to as a suspected person; and the multitude were inimically disposed towards him.

Meanwhile, general Sylveira, assuming the command of the Tras os Montes, advanced to Chaves, and put himself in communication with the marquis of Romana, who, having remained tranquil at Oimbra and Monterey since the 21st of January, had been joined by his dispersed troops, and was again at the head of nine or ten thousand men. Sylveira’s force consisted of about two thousand regulars and as many militia, and his army was accompanied by many of the ordenanzas; but here, as elsewhere, the Portuguese were licentious, insubordinate, and disdainful of their general; and the national enmity between them and the Spaniards overcoming the sense of a common cause and [Appendix, No. 6], section 3. common danger, the latter were evilly entreated, both officers and men; and a deadly feud subsisted between the two armies.

The generals, however, agreed to act in concert, offensively and defensively; but neither of them were the least acquainted with the numbers, intention, or even the position of their antagonists: and it is a proof of Romana’s unfitness for command that he, having the whole population at his disposal, was yet ignorant of every thing relating to his enemy that it behoved him to know. The whole of the French force in Gallicia, at this period, was about forty-five thousand men, Romana estimated it at twenty-one thousand. The number under Soult was above twenty-four thousand, Romana supposed it to be twelve thousand; and among these he included general Marchand’s division of the sixth corps, which he always imagined to be a part of the duke of Dalmatia’s army.

The Spanish general was so elated at the spirit of the peasants about Ribidavia, that he anticipated nothing but victory. He knew that on the Arosa, an estuary, running up towards St. Jago de Compostella, the inhabitants of Villa Garcia had also risen, and, being joined by all the neighbouring districts, were preparing to attack Vigo and Tuy; and partly from his Spanish temperament, partly from his extreme ignorance of war, he was convinced that the French [Appendix, No. 6], section 3. only thought of making their escape out of Gallicia, and that even in that they would be disappointed. But to effect their destruction more certainly, he also, Cradock’s Correspondence, MSS. as we have seen, pestered sir John Cradock for succours in money and ammunition, and desired that, the insurgents on the Arosa might be assisted with a thousand British soldiers. Cradock anxious to support the cause, although he refused the troops, sent ammunition, and five thousand pounds in money; but, before it arrived, Romana was beaten and in flight.

The combined Spanish and Portuguese forces, amounting to sixteen thousand regulars and militia, besides ordenanzas, were posted in a straggling unconnected manner along the valley of the Tamega, and extended from Monterey, Verim, and Villaza, to near Chaves, a distance of more than fifteen miles. This was the first line of defence for Portugal.

Freire and Eben, with fourteen guns and twenty-five thousand men, were at Braga, in second line, their outposts being on the Cavado, and at the strong passes of Ruivaens and Venda Nova: but of these twenty-five thousand men, only six thousand were armed with muskets; and it is to be observed that the militia and troops of the line differed from the armed peasantry only in name, save that their faulty discipline and mutinous disposition rendered them less active and intelligent as skirmishers, without making them fitter for battle.

The bishop, with his disorderly and furious rabble, formed the third line, occupying the entrenchments that covered Oporto.

Such was the state of affairs, and such were the dispositions made to resist the duke of Dalmatia; but his army, although galled and wearied by continual toil, and when halting, disturbed and vexed by the multitude of insurrections, was, when in motion, of a power to overthrow and disperse these numerous bands, even as a great ship feeling the wind, breaks through and scatters the gun-boats that have gathered round her in the calm.

CHAPTER II.

SECOND INVASION OF PORTUGAL.

The Entre Minho e Douro and the Tras os Montes lying together, form the northern part of Portugal, the extreme breadth of either, when measured from the frontier to the Douro, does not exceed seventy miles.

The river Tamega, running north and south, and discharging itself into the Douro, forms the boundary line between them; but there is, to the west of this river, a succession of rugged mountain ridges, which, under the names of Sierra de Gerez, Sierra de Cabrera, and Sierra de Santa Catalina, form a second barrier, nearly parallel to the Tamega; and across some part of these ridges any invader, coming from the eastward, must pass to arrive at Oporto.

Other Sierras, running also in a parallel direction with the Tamega, cut the Tras os Montes in such a manner, that all the considerable rivers flowing north and south tumble into the Douro. But as the western ramifications of the Sierras de Gerez and Cabrera shoot down towards the sea, the rivers of the Entre Douro e Minho discharge their waters into the ocean, and consequently flow at right angles to those of Tras os Montes. Hence it follows, that an enemy penetrating to Oporto, from the north, would have to pass the Lima, the Cavado, and the Ave, to reach Oporto; and, if coming from the east, he invaded the Tras os Montes, all the rivers and intervening ridges of that province must be crossed before the Entre Minho e Douro could be reached.

The duke of Dalmatia was, however, now in such a position, near the sources of the Lima and the Tamega rivers, that he could choose whether to penetrate by the valley of the first into the Entre Minho e Douro, or by the valley of the second into the Tras os Montes: and there was also a third road, leading between those rivers through Montalegre upon Braga; but this latter route, passing over the Sierra de Gerez, was impracticable for artillery.

The French general had, therefore, to consider—

1º. If, following the course of the Lima, he should attack and disperse the insurgents between that river and the Minho, and then recovering his artillery from Tuy, proceed against Oporto by the main road leading along the sea coast.

2º. If he should descend the Tamega, take Chaves, and then decide whether to continue his route to Villa Real, near the Douro, and so take the defences of Tras os Montes in reverse, or, turning to his right, and crossing the Sierra de Cabrera by the pass of Ruivaens, enter Braga, and thus operate against Oporto.

The first project was irregular and hazardous, inasmuch as Romana and Sylveira’s troops might have fallen upon the flank and rear of the French during their march through a difficult country; but S.
Journal of Operations, MSS. as the position of those generals covered the road to Chaves, to beat them was indispensable, as a preliminary measure to either plan; and this was immediately executed.

The 4th of March the French movement commenced. The 5th, the van being at Villa Real and Penaverde, Soult sent a flag of truce to Romana, with a letter, in which, exposing fully the danger of the latter’s situation, he advised him to submit: but no answer was returned; nor would the bearer Sir J. Cradock’s Papers, MSS. have been suffered to pass the outposts, but that Romana himself was in the rear, for he dreaded that such an occurrence would breed a jealousy of his conduct, and, perhaps, cause his patriotism to be undervalued.

This failing, three divisions of infantry and one of cavalry marched the next morning against Monterey; while La Houssaye’s dragoons, taking the road of Laza, covered the left flank, and pushed parties as far La Gudina, on the route to Puebla de Senabria. The fourth division of infantry remained at Villa del Rey, to cover the passage of the sick and wounded men from Orense; for the duke of Dalmatia, having no base of operations, transported his hospitals, and other incumbrances, from place to place as the army moved, acting in this respect after the manner of the Roman generals, when invading a barbarous country.

As the French advanced, the Spaniards abandoned their positions in succession, spiked the guns in the S.
Journal of Operations, MSS. dilapidated works of Monterey, and after a slight skirmish at Verim, took the road to Puebla de Senabria; but Franceschi followed close, and overtaking two or three thousand as they were passing a rugged mountain, he assailed their rear with a battalion of infantry, and at the same time leading his horsemen round both flanks, headed the column, and obliged it to halt.

The Spaniards, trusting to the rough ground, drew up in one large square and awaited the charge. Franceschi had four regiments of cavalry; each regiment settled itself against the face of a square, and then the whole, with loud cries, bore down swiftly upon their opponents; the latter unsteady and dismayed, shrunk together from the fierce assault, and were instantly trampled down in heaps. Those who escaped the horses’ hoofs and the edge of the sword became prisoners, but twelve hundred bodies were stretched lifeless on the field of battle, and Franceschi continued his movements on La Gudina.

Romana was at Semadems, several miles in the rear of Verim, when his vanguard was attacked, and there was nothing to prevent him from falling back to Chaves with his main body, according to a plan before agreed upon between him and Sylveira, but [Appendix, No. 6], section 3. either from fear or indignation at the treatment his soldiers had received at the hands of the Portuguese, he left Sylveira to his fate, and made off with six or seven thousand men towards Bragança; from thence passing by Puebla de Senabria, he regained the valley of the Syl. Meanwhile, two thousand Portuguese infantry, with some guns, issuing from the side of Villaza, cut the French line of march at the moment when Franceschi and Heudelet having passed Monterey, Laborde was approaching that place. In the slight combat that ensued the Portuguese lost their guns and were driven, fighting, down the valley of the Tamega as far as the village of Outeiro, within their own frontier.

S.
Journal of Operations MSS.

The defeat and flight of Romana had such an effect upon the surrounding districts that the Spanish insurgents returned in crowds to their habitations and delivered up their arms. Some of the clergy, also, changing their opinions, exhorted the people to peace, and the prisoners taken on the 6th, being dissatisfied with Romana’s conduct, and moved by their hatred of the Portuguese, entered the French service. These affairs occupied Soult until the 9th, during which period his outposts were pushed towards Chaves, Montalegre, and La Gudina, but the main body remained at Verim to cover the arrival of the sick, at Monterey.

Sylveira, thus beaten at Villaza, and deserted by Romana, fell back on the 7th to a strong mountain position, one league behind Chaves, from whence he could command a view of all the French movements as far as Monterey. His ground was advantageous, but his military talents were moderate, his men always insubordinate, were now become mutinous, and many of the officers were disposed to join the French. The general wished to abandon Chaves, the troops resolved to defend it, and three thousand five hundred men actually did throw themselves into that town, in defiance of Sylveira, who was already, according to the custom of the day, pronounced [Appendix, No. 6], section 3. a traitor and declared worthy of that death which he would inevitably have suffered, but that some of his troops still continued to respect his orders.

S.
Journal of Operations MSS.

The 10th, the convoy of French sick was close to Monterey, and as Romana’s movement was known to be a real flight, and not made with a design to create fresh insurrections in the rear, the French troops were again put in motion towards Chaves; but Merle’s division remained at Verim to protect the hospital, and Franceschi’s took the road of La Gudina, as if he had been going towards Salamanca. A report that he had actually entered that town reached Lisbon, and was taken as an indication that Soult would not pass the Portuguese frontier at Chaves, but Franceschi quickly returned, by Osonio and Feces de Abaxo, and being assisted by Heudelet’s division, invested Chaves on the left bank of the Tamega, while Laborde, Mermet, La Houssaye, and Lorge, descending the right bank, beat the Portuguese outposts, and getting possession of a fort close under the walls of Chaves completed the investment of that town.

The place was immediately summoned to surrender, but no answer was returned, and the garrison, like men bereft of their wits, and fighting with the air, kept up a continual and heavy fire of musketry and artillery until the 12th, when they surrendered on receiving a second summons, more menacing than the first. The 13th the French entered the town, and Sylveira retired to Villa Real.

The works of Chaves were in a bad state, and few of the fifty guns mounted on the ramparts were fit for service; but there was a stone-bridge, and the town being in many respects more suitable for a place of arms than Monterey, the sick were brought down from the latter place, and an hospital was established for twelve hundred men, the number now unfit to carry arms. The fighting men were reduced to twenty-one thousand, and Soult, partly from the difficulty of guarding his prisoners, partly from a desire to abate the hostility of the Portuguese, permitted the militia and ordenanza to return to their homes, after taking an oath not to resume their arms. To some of the poorest he gave money and clothes, and he enrolled, at their own request, the few regular troops taken in Chaves.

Noble’s Campaign de Galice.

This wise and gentle proceeding was much blamed, by some of his officers, especially by those who had served under Junot. They desired that Chaves might be assaulted, and the garrison put to the sword, for they were embued with a personal hatred of the Portuguese, and being averse to serve in the present expedition endeavoured, as it would appear, to thwart their general; but the prudence of his conduct was immediately visible in the softened feelings of the country people. The scouting parties being no longer molested spread themselves, some on the side of Bragança Journal of Operations MSS. and Villa Real, others in the Entre Minho e Douro. The former reported that there was no enemy in a condition to make head in the Tras os Montes, but the latter fell in with the advanced guard of Freire’s army at Ruivaens, on the road to Braga, and this determined the further proceedings of the army.

Journal of Operations MSS.

The possession of Chaves enabled the duke of Dalmatia to operate against Oporto, either by the Tras os Montes or the Entre Minho e Douro. He decided on the latter; first, because the road, though crossed by stronger positions, was more direct, and more practicable for artillery, than that running through the valley of the Tamega; secondly, because a numerous Portuguese army was at Braga; and, thirdly, because he could the sooner remove his communication with Tuy.

The road from Chaves to Braga enters a deep and dangerous defile, or rather a succession of defiles, that extend from Venda Nova to Ruivaens, and re-commence after passing the Cavado river. Friere’s advanced guards, composed of ordenanza, occupied those places; and he had also a detachment under Eben on the road of Montalegre; but he recalled the latter on the 14th.

The 16th Franceschi forced the defile of Venda Nova, and the remainder of the troops being formed in alternate masses of cavalry and infantry, began to pass the Sierra de Cabrera. Lorge’s dragoons, however, descending the Tamega, ordered rations for the whole army along the road to Villa Real; and then, suddenly retracing their steps, rejoined the main body.

The 17th, Franceschi, being reinforced with some infantry, won the bridge of Ruivaens, and entered Salamonde. The Portuguese, covered by Eben’s detachment, which had arrived at St. Joa de Campo, then fell back on the Pico de Pugalados, close to Braga; and the French took post at Carvalho Este, two leagues in front of that city.

Soult now expected to reach Braga without further opposition, and caused his artillery, guarded by Laborde’s division, to enter the pass of Venda Nova; but the ordenanza, reinforced by some men from the side of Guimaraens, immediately re-assembled, and, clustering on the mountains to the left of the column of march, attacked it with great fierceness and subtlety.

The peasants of the northern provinces of Portugal, unlike the squalid miserable population of Lisbon and Oporto, are robust, handsome, and exceedingly brave. Their natural disposition is open and obliging; and they are, when rightly handled as soldiers, docile, intelligent, and hardy. They are, however, vehement in their anger; and being now excited by the exhortations and personal example of their priests, they came rushing down the sides of the hills; and many of them, like men deprived of reason, broke furiously into the French battalions, and were there killed. The others, finding their efforts unavailing, fled, and were pursued a league up the mountain by some battalions sent out against them, but they were not yet S.
Journal of Operations MSS. abashed; for, making a circuit behind the hills, they fell upon the rear of the line of march, killed fifty of the stragglers, and plundered the baggage; and, thus galled, the French slowly, and with much trouble, passing the long defiles of Venda Nova, Ruivaens, and Salamonde, gathered by degrees in front of Freire’s position.

That general was no more; and his troops, reeking from the slaughter of their commander, were raging, like savage beasts, at one moment congregating near the prisons to murder some wretch within, at another rushing tumultuously to Eben’s Report, MSS.
Sir J. Cradock’s Paper. the outposts, with a design to engage the enemy. The ordenanzas of the distant districts also came pouring into the camp, dragging with them suspected persons, and adding to the general distraction.

It appears that the unfortunate Friere, unable to establish order in his army, had resolved to retreat; and, in pursuance of that design, recalled Eben on the 14th, and gave directions to the officers at the different outposts in front of Braga to retire at the approach of the enemy. This, and his endeavour to prevent the waste of ammunition, gave effect to a plan which had been long prepared by the bishop’s faction for his destruction. In passing through Braga, he was openly reviled in the streets by some of the ordenanzas; and, as the latter plainly discovered their murderous intention, he left the army; but he was seized on the 17th, at a village behind Braga, and brought back: what followed is thus described by baron Eben, in his official report to sir John Cradock:—

“I did not reach Braga until nine o’clock in the morning of the 17th. I found every thing in the greatest disorder; the houses shut, the people flying in all directions, and part of the populace armed with guns and pikes. Passing through the streets, I was greeted with loud vivas. Though the people knew me, I could not guess the meaning of this: at the market-place, I was detained by the rapidly-increasing populace, who took the reins of my horse, crying out loudly, that they were ready to do any thing to defend the city; requesting me to assist them, and speaking in the lowest terms of their general. I promised them to do all in my power to aid their patriotic zeal; but said that I must first speak to him. Upon this, they suffered me to proceed, accompanied by about a hundred of them: but I had not got far on my way to his quarters, when I saw him on foot, conducted by a great armed multitude, who suffered no one to pass, and, on my attempting it, threatened to fire. I was, therefore, obliged to turn my horse; and this the people applauded. Two men had hold of the general’s arms, his sword was taken from him, and the people abused him most vehemently. On my way back to the market-place, they wanted to shoot me, taking me for general Friere; but I was saved by a soldier of the legion, who explained the mistake. When I reached the market-place, I found about a thousand men drawn up: I communicated to them my determination to assist them in their laudable endeavours to defend themselves, provided they would first permit me to speak to the general, for whose actions I promised to be answerable as long as I should be with him. I had ordered a house to be got ready for my reception, where the general arrived, accompanied as before; I saluted him with respect, at which they plainly discovered their disapprobation. I repeated my proposal, but they would not listen to it. I perceived the danger of the general, and proposed to take him to my quarters. My adjutant offered him his arm: when I spoke to him, he only replied, ‘save me!’”

“At the entrance of my house, I was surrounded by thousands, and heard the loud cry of ‘kill! kill!’ I now took hold of him, and attempted to force my way into the house, and a gentleman slightly wounded him with the point of his sword, under my arm. He collected all his strength, and rushed through them, and hid himself behind the door of the house. The people surrounded me, and forced me from the house. To draw the attention of the people from the general, I ordered the drummers to beat the alarm, and formed the ordenanzas in ranks; but they kept a constant fire upon my house, where the general still was. As a last attempt to save him, I now proposed that he should be conducted to prison, in order to take a legal trial; this was agreed to, and he was conducted there in safety. I now hoped that I had succeeded, as the people demanded to be led against the enemy, now rapidly advancing, in number about two thousand. I again formed them, and advanced with them; but soon after, I heard the firing again, and was informed that the people had put the general to death with pikes and guns. I was now proclaimed general.”

When this murder was perpetrated, the people seemed satisfied, and Eben announcing the approach of a British force from Oporto, sent orders to the outposts to stand fast, as he intended to fight; but another tumult arose, when it was discovered that Eben’s Reports, MS. an officer of Freire’s staff, one Villaboas, was in Eben’s quarters. Several thousand ordenanzas instantly gathered about the house, and the unhappy man was haled forth and stabbed to death at the door, the mob all the time shouting and firing volleys in at the windows. Yet, when their fury was somewhat abated, they obliged their new general to come out and show that he had not been wounded, and expressed great affection for him.

In the course of the night the legion marched in from Pico de Pugalados, and the following morning a reinforcement of six thousand ordenanzas came up in one mass. Fifty thousand dollars also arrived in the camp from Oporto; for the Portuguese, like the Spaniards, commonly reversed the order of military arrangements, leaving their weapons in store, and bringing their encumbrances to the field of battle.

In the evening the corregidor and two officers of rank, together with many persons of a meaner class, were brought to the town as prisoners and put in jail, the armed mob being with difficulty restrained from slaying them on the way thither; and in this distracted manner they were proceeding when Franceschi arrived at Carvalho on the 17th, and, surely, if that bold and enterprising soldier could have obtained a glimpse of what was passing, or known the real state of affairs, he would have broke into the midst of them with his cavalry; for, of the twenty-five thousand men composing the whole of the Portuguese force, eighteen thousand were only S.
Journal of Operations MS. armed with pikes, the remainder had wasted the greatest part of their ammunition, and the powder in store was not made up in cartridges. But Braga, situated in a deep hollow, was hidden from him, and the rocky and wooded hills surrounding it were occupied by what appeared a formidable multitude. Hence Franceschi, although reinforced by a brigade of infantry, was satisfied by feints and slight skirmishes to alarm his opponents, and to keep them in play until the other divisions of the French army could arrive.

While these events were passing at Braga, Sylveira had again collected a considerable force of militia and ordenanzas in the Tras os Montes, and captain Arentchild, one of the officers sent by sir John Cradock to aid the bishop, rallied a number of fugitives at Guimaraens and Amarante. In Oporto, however, the multitude, obeying no command, were more intent upon murder than upon defence.

Eben’s posts extended from Falperra, on the route of Guimaraens to the Ponte Porto, on the Cavado river; but the principal force was stationed on a lofty ridge called the Monte Adaufé, which, at the distance of six or seven miles from Braga, crossed the road to Chaves.

The left, or western, end, which overhangs the river Cavado, covered the detachment guarding the Ponte Porto.

The right rested on a wood and on the head of a deep ravine, and beyond this wood the ridge, taking a curved and forward direction, was called the Monte Vallonga, and a second mass of men was posted there, but separated from those on the Monte Adaufé by an interval of two miles, and by the ravine and wood before mentioned.

A third body, being pushed still more in advance, crowned an isolated hill, flanking the Chaves road, being prepared to take the French in rear when the latter should attack the Monte Adaufé.

Behind the Monte Vallonga, and separated from it by a valley three miles wide, the ridge of Falperra was guarded by detachments sent both from Guimaraens and from Braga.

The road to Braga, leading directly over the centre of the Monte Adaufé, was flanked on the left by a ridge shooting perpendicularly out from that mountain, and ending in a lofty mass of rocks which overhangs Carvalho Esté. The Portuguese neglected to occupy either these rocks or the connecting ridge, and Franceschi seized the former on the 17th.

The 18th, Soult arrived in person, and, wishing to prevent a battle, released twenty prisoners, and sent them in with a proclamation couched in conciliatory language, and offering a capitulation; but the trumpeter who accompanied them was detained, and the prisoners were immediately slain.

The 19th, Eben brought up all his reserves to the Adaufé, and the Portuguese on the isolated hill in front of Monte Vallonga took possession of Lanhoza, a village half way between that hill and the rocky height occupied by Franceschi on the 17th. But two divisions of French infantry being now up, Soult caused one of them and the cavalry to attack Lanhoza, from whence the Portuguese were immediately driven, and, being followed closely, lost their own hill also. The other French division took post, part in Carvalho, part on the rocky headland, and six guns were carried to the latter during the night. In this position the French columns were close to the centre of the Portuguese, and could, by a slight movement in advance, separate Eben’s wings. The rest of the army was at hand, and a general attack was arranged for the next morning.

BATTLE OF BRAGA.

The 20th, at nine o’clock, the French were in motion: Franceschi and Mermet, leaving a detachment on the hill they had carried the night before, endeavoured to turn the right of the people on the Monte Vallonga.

S.
Journal of Operations MSS.

Laborde, supported by La Houssaye’s dragoons, advanced against the centre by the ridge connecting Carvalho with the Monte Adaufé.

Heudelet, with a part of his division and a squadron of cavalry, attacked the left, and made for the Ponte Porto.

The Portuguese immediately opened a straggling fire of musketry and artillery in the centre; but, after a few rounds, the bursting of a gun created some confusion, from which Laborde’s rapidly-advancing masses gave them no time to recover; and Eben’s Report, MS. by ten o’clock the whole of the centre was flying in disorder down a narrow wooded valley leading from the Adaufé to Braga.

The French followed hard, and in the pursuit, discovering one of their voltigeurs, who had been a prisoner, still alive, but mutilated in the most S.
Journal of Operations MS. horrible manner, they gave little or no quarter. Braga was abandoned, and the victorious infantry passing through, took post on the other side; but the cavalry continued the havoc for some distance 011 the road to Oporto; yet, so savage was the temper of the fugitives that, in passing through Braga, they stopped to murder the corregidor and other prisoners in the jail, then, casting the mangled bodies into the street, continued the flight. Meanwhile, Heudelet, breaking over the left of the Monte Adaufé descended upon Ponte Porto, and, after a sharp skirmish, carried that bridge and the village on the other side of the Cavado.

Franceschi and Mermet found considerable difficulty in ascending the rugged sides of the Monte Vallonga, but having, at last, attained the crest, the whole of their enemies fled. The two generals then crossed the valley to gain the road of Guimaraens, and cut off that line of retreat, but fell in with the three thousand Portuguese posted above Falperra. These men, seeing the cavalry approach, drew up with their backs to some high rocks, and opened a fire of artillery. But Franceschi, placing his horsemen on either flank, and a brigade of infantry against the front, as at Verim, made all charge together, and strewed the ground with the dead. Nevertheless, the Portuguese fought valiantly at this point, and Franceschi acknowledged it.

The vanquished lost all their artillery and above four thousand men, of which four hundred only were made prisoners. Some of the fugitives crossing the Cavado river, made for the Ponte de Lima, others retired to Oporto, but the greatest number took the road of Guimaraens, during the fight at Sir J. Cradock’s papers, MSS. Falperra. Eben appears, by his own official report, to have been at Braga when the action commenced, and to have fled among the first; for he makes no mention of the fight at Falperra, nor of the skirmish at Ponte Porto, and his narrative bears every mark of inaccuracy.

When the French outposts were established in front of Braga, general Lorge crossed the Cavado and entered Bacellos; and the corregidor received him well, for which he was a few days after put to death by the Portuguese general, Bonteilho, who commanded between the Lima and the Minho.

Braga itself had been at first abandoned by the inhabitants, but they were induced to return the next day; and some provisions and a large store of powder being found in the magazines, the latter was immediately made up into cartridges, for the use of the troops. The gun-carriages and ammunition-waggons were again repaired, and an hospital was established for eight hundred sick and wounded: from whence it may be judged that the loss sustained in action, since the 15th, was not less than six hundred men.

The French general, having thus broken through the second Portuguese line of defence, was in a situation either to march directly against Oporto, or to recover his communication with the depôt at Tuy. He knew, through the medium of his spies and by intercepted letters, that general La Martiniere, although besieged, was in no distress; that he made successful sorties; and that his artillery commanded that in the fortress of Valença. On the other hand, information was received that sixty thousand troops of the line, militia, and ordenanza, were assembled at the entrenched camp covering Oporto, and the scouts reported that the Portuguese were also in force at Guimaraens, and had cut the bridges along the whole course of the Ave.

Meanwhile, Sylveira struck a great blow; for, being reinforced from the side of Beira, he remounted the Tamega, invested the French in Chaves on the 20th, and, in eight days, obliged the garrison, consisting of a hundred fighting men, and twelve hundred sick, to capitulate; after which he took post at Amarante. But Soult, ignorant of this event, left Heudelet’s division at Braga, to protect the hospitals from Bonteilho, and then continued his own movement against Oporto in three columns.

The first, composed of Franceschi’s and Mermet’s divisions, marched by the road of Guimaraens and San Justo, with orders to force the passage of the Upper Ave, and scour the country towards Pombeiro.

The second, which consisted of Merle’s, Laborde’s and La Houssaye’s divisions, was commanded by Soult, in person, and moved upon Barca de Trofa, while general Lorge, quitting Bacellos, made way by the Ponte d’Ave.

The passage of the Ave was fiercely disputed. The left column was fought with in front of Guimaraens, and at Pombeiro, and again at Puente Negrellos. The last combat was rough, and the French general Jardon was killed.

The march of the centre column was arrested at Barca de Trofa, by the cutting of the bridge, and the marshal, observing the numbers of the enemy, ascended the right bank, and forced the passage at San Justo: but not without the help of Franceschi, who came down the opposite side of the river, after the fight at Ponte Negrellos.

When the left and centre had thus crossed, colonel Lallemand was detached with a regiment of dragoons to assist Lorge, who was still held in check at the Ponte d’Ave; Lallemand was at first beaten back, but, being reinforced with some infantry, finally succeeded; and the Portuguese, enraged at their defeat, brutally murdered their commander, general Vallonga, and then dispersed.

The whole French army was now in communication on the left bank of the Ave; the way to Oporto was opened, and, on the 27th, the troops were finally concentrated in front of the entrenchments covering that city.

The action of Monterey, the taking of Chaves, and the defeat at Braga, had so damped the bishop’s ardour that he was, at one time, inclined to abandon the defence of Oporto; but this idea was relinquished when he considered the multitudes he had drawn together, and that the English army was stronger than it had been at any previous period since Cradock’s arrival; Beresford, also, was at the head of a considerable native force behind the Mondego; and, with the hope of their support, the bishop resolved to stand the brunt.

He had collected, in the entrenched camp, little short of forty thousand men; and among them were many regular troops, of which two thousand had lately arrived under the command of general Vittoria. This general was sent by Beresford to aid Sylveira: but when Chaves surrendered, he entered Oporto.

The hopes of the people, also, were high, for they could not believe that the French were a match for them; the preceding defeats were attributed each to its particular case of treason, and the murder of some innocent persons had followed as an expiation. No man but the bishop durst thwart the slightest caprice of the mob; and he was little disposed to do so, while Raymundo, and others of his stamp, fomented their fury, and directed it to gratify personal enmities. Thus, the defeat of Braga being known in Oporto, caused a tumult on the 22d; and Louis D’Olivera, a man of high rank, who had been cast into prison, was, with fourteen other persons, haled forth, and despatched with many stabs; the bodies were then mutilated, and dragged in triumph through the streets.

See [Plan 5].

The entrenchments extending, as I have said, from the Douro to the coast, were complete, and armed with two hundred guns. They consisted of a number of forts of different sizes, placed on the top of a succession of rounded hills; and where the hills failed, the defences were continued by earthen ramparts, loop-holed houses, ditches, and felled trees. Oporto itself is built in a hollow; a bridge of boats, nearly three hundred yards in length, formed the only communication between the city and the suburb of Villa Nova; and this bridge was completely commanded by batteries, mounting fifty guns, planted on the bluff and craggy heights that overhang the river above Villa Nova, and overlooked, not only the city, but a great part of the entrenched camp beyond it. Within the lines, tents were pitched for even greater numbers than were assembled; and the people ran to arms, and quickly manned their works with great noise and tumult, when the French columns, gathering like heavy thunder clouds, settled in front of the camp.

The duke of Dalmatia arrived on the 27th. While at Braga he had written to the bishop, calling on him to calm the popular effervescence; and now, beholding the extended works in his front, and reading their weakness even in the multitudes that guarded them, he renewed his call upon the prelate, to spare this great and commercial city the horrors of a storm. A prisoner, employed to carry the summons, would have been killed, but that it was pretended he came with an offer from Soult to surrender his army; and notwithstanding this ingenious device, and that the bishop commenced a negotiation, which was prolonged until evening, the firing from the entrenchments was constant and general during the whole of the 28th.

The parley being finally broken off, Soult made dispositions for a general action on the 29th. To facilitate this, he caused Merle’s division to approach the left of the entrenchments in the evening of the 28th, intending thereby to divert attention from the true point of attack: a prodigious fire was immediately opened from the works; but Merle, having pushed close up, got into some hollow roads and enclosures, and maintained his ground. At another part of the line, however, some of the Portuguese pretending a wish to surrender, general Foy, with a single companion, imprudently approached them; the latter was killed, and Foy himself made prisoner, and carried into the town. He was mistaken for Loison, and the people called out to kill “Maneta,” but with great presence of mind he held up his hands; and the crowd, convinced of their error, suffered him to be cast into the jail.

The bishop, having brought affairs to this awful crisis, had not resolution to brave the danger himself. Leaving generals Lima and Pareiras to command the army, he, with an escort of troops, quitted the city, and, crossing the river, took his station in Sarea, a convent, built on the top of the rugged hill which overhangs the suburb of Villa Nova, from whence he beheld in safety the horrors of the next day.

The bells in Oporto continued to ring all night; and about twelve o’clock a violent thunder storm arising, the sound of the winds was mistaken in the camp for the approach of enemies. At once the whole line blazed with a fire of musketry; the roar of two hundred pieces of artillery was heard above the noise of the tempest, and the Portuguese calling to one another with loud cries, were agitated at once with fury and with terror. The morning, however, broke serenely; and a little before seven o’clock the sound of the Frenchmen’s trumpets and drums, and the glitter of their arms, gave notice that the whole army was in motion for the attack.

BATTLE AND STORMING OF OPORTO.

S.
Journal of Operations MS.

The feint made the evening before against the left, which was the weakest part of the line, had perfectly succeeded, and the Portuguese generals placed their principal masses on that side; but the duke of Dalmatia was intent upon the strongest points of the works, being resolved to force his way through the town, and to seize the bridge during the fight, that he might secure the passage of the river.

His army was divided into three columns; of which the first, under Merle, attacked the left of the Portuguese centre; the second, under Franceschi and Laborde, assailed their extreme right; the third, composed of Mermet’s division, sustained by a brigade of dragoons, was in the centre. General Lorge was appointed to cut off and attack a body of ordenanza, who were posted with some guns in front of the Portuguese left, and beyond the works on the road of Villa de Conde.

The battle was commenced by the wings; for Mermet’s division was withheld, until the enemy’s generals believing the whole of the attack was developed, had weakened their centre to strengthen their flanks. Then the French held in reserve, rushing violently forwards, broke through the entrenchments, and took the two principal forts, entering by the embrasures, and killing or dispersing all within them. Soult instantly rallied this division, and sent two battalions to take the Portuguese left wing in the rear; while two other battalions were ordered to march straight into the town, and make for the bridge.

The Portuguese army, thus cut in two, was soon beaten on all points. Laborde carried in succession a number of forts, took fifty pieces of artillery, and reaching the edge of the city, halted until Franceschi, who was engaged still more to the left, could join him. By this movement a large body of Portuguese were driven off from the town, and forced back to the Douro, being followed by a brigade under general Arnaud. And now Merle, seeing that the success of the centre was complete, brought up his left flank, and carrying all the forts to his right in succession, killed a great number of the defenders, and drove the rest towards the sea. These last dividing, fled for refuge, one part to the fort of St. Joa, the other towards the mouth of the Douro; where, maddened by terror, as the French came pouring down upon them, they strove, some to swim across, others to get over in small boats; and when their general, Lima, called out against this hopeless attempt, they turned and murdered him, within musket shot of the approaching enemy; and then renewing the attempt to cross, nearly the whole perished.

The victory was now certain, for Lorge had dispersed the people on the side of Villa de Conde and general Arnaud had hemmed in those above the town and prevented them from plunging into the river also, as in their desperate mood they were going to do. But the battle continued within Oporto, for the two battalions sent from the centre having burst the barricadoes at the entrance of the streets, had penetrated, fighting, to the bridge, and here all the horrid circumstances of war seemed to be accumulated, and the calamities of an age compressed into one doleful hour.

More than four thousand persons, old and young and of both sexes, were seen pressing forward with wild tumult, some already on the bridge, others striving to gain it, and all in a state of phrenzy. The batteries on the opposite bank opened their fire when the French appeared, and at that moment a troop of Portuguese cavalry flying from the fight came down one of the streets, and remorseless in their fears, bore, at full gallop, into the midst of the miserable helpless crowd, and trampled a bloody pathway to the river. Suddenly the nearest boats, unable to sustain the increasing weight, sunk and the foremost wretches still tumbling into the river, as they were pressed from behind, perished, until the heaped bodies rising above the surface of the waters, filled all the space left by the sinking of the boats.

The first of the French that arrived, amazed at this fearful spectacle, forgot the battle, and hastened to save those who still struggled for life—and while some were thus nobly employed, others by the help of planks, getting on to the firmer parts of the bridge, crossed the river and carried the batteries on the heights of Villa Nova. The passage was thus secured.

But this terrible destruction did not complete the measure of the city’s calamities; two hundred men, who occupied the bishop’s palace, fired from the windows and maintained that post until the French, gathering round them in strength, burst the doors, and put all to the sword. Every street and house now rung with the noise of the combatants and the shrieks of distress; for the French soldiers, exasperated by long hardships, and prone like all soldiers to ferocity and violence during an assault, became frantic with fury, when, in one of the principal squares, they found several of their comrades who had been made prisoners, fastened upright, and living, but with their eyes bursted, their tongues torn out, and their other members mutilated and gashed. Those that beheld the sight spared none who fell in their way.

It was in vain that Soult strove with all his power to stop the slaughter; it was in vain that hundreds of officers and soldiers opposed, at the risk of their lives, the vengeance of their comrades, and by their generous exertions rescued vast numbers that would otherwise have fallen victims to the anger and brutality of the moment. The frightful scene of rape, pillage, and murder, closed not for many S.
Journal of Operations MS. hours, and what with those who fell in battle, those who were drowned, and those sacrificed to revenge, it is said that ten thousand Portuguese died in that unhappy day! The loss of the French did not exceed five hundred men.

CHAPTER III.

The dire slaughter at Oporto was followed up by a variety of important operations, but before these are treated of, it is essential to narrate the contemporaneous events on the Tagus and the Guadiana, for the war was wide and complicated, and the result depended more upon the general combinations than upon any particular movements.

OPERATIONS OF THE FIRST AND FOURTH CORPS.

It has been already related that marshal Victor, after making a futile attempt to surprize the marquis of Palacios, had retired to his former quarters at Toledo, and that the conde de Cartoajal, who succeeded the duke of Infantado, had advanced to Ciudad Real with about fourteen thousand men. Cuesta, also, having rallied the remainder of Galluzzo’s army, and reinforced it by levies from Grenada, and regular troops from Seville, had fixed his head-quarters at Deleytosa, broken down the bridge of Almaraz, and with fourteen thousand infantry and two thousand five hundred cavalry, guarded the line of the Tagus. The fourth corps remained at Talavera and Placentia, but still holding the bridge of Arzobispo.

Imperial Muster-rolls, MSS.

The reserve of heavy cavalry was now suppressed, and the regiments were dispersed among the corps d’armée, but the whole army, exclusive of the king’s guards, did not exceed two hundred and seventy thousand men, and forty thousand horses, shewing a decrease of sixty-five thousand men since the 15th of November. But this number includes the imperial guards, the reserve of infantry, and many detachments drafted from the corps;—in all forty thousand men, who had been struck off the rolls of the army in Spain, with a view to the war in Germany; hence the real loss of the French by sword, sickness, and captivity, in the four months succeeding Napoleon’s arrival in the Peninsula, was about twenty-five thousand—a vast number, but not incredible, when it is considered that two sieges, twelve pitched battles, and innumerable combats had taken place during that period.

Such was the state of affairs when the duke of Belluno, having received orders to aid Soult in the invasion of Portugal, changed places with the fourth corps. Sebastiani was then opposed to Cartoajal, and Victor stood against Cuesta. The former fixed his head-quarters at Toledo, the latter at Talavera de la Reyna, the communication between them being kept up by Montbrun’s division of cavalry, while the garrison of Madrid, composed of the king’s guards, and Dessolle’s division, equally supported both. But to understand the connection between the first, second, and fourth corps, and Lapisse’s division, it is necessary to have a clear idea of the nature of the country on both sides of the Tagus.

That river, after passing Toledo, runs through a deep and long valley, walled up on either hand by lofty mountains. Those on the right bank are always capped with snow, and, ranging nearly parallel with the course of the stream, divide the valley of the Tagus from Old Castile and the Salamanca country. The highest parts are known by the names of the Sierra de Gredos, Sierra de Bejar, and Sierra de Gata; and in these sierras the Alberche, the Tietar, and the Alagon, take their rise, and, ploughing the valley in a slanting direction, fall into the Tagus.

The principal mountain on the left bank is called the Sierra de Guadalupe; it extends in a southward direction from the river, and divides the upper part of La Mancha from Spanish Estremadura. The communications leading from the Salamanca country into the valley of the Tagus are neither many nor good; the principal passes are—

1st. The rout of Horcajada, an old Roman road, which, running through Pedrahita and Villa Franca, crosses the Sierra de Gredos at Puerto de Pico, and then descends by Montbeltran to Talavera.

2d. The pass of Arenas, leading nearly parallel to, and at a short distance from, the first.

3d. The pass of Tornevecas, leading upon Placentia.

4th. The route of Bejar, which, crossing the Sierra de Bejar at the pass of Baños, descends likewise upon Placentia.

5th. The route of Payo or Gata, which crosses the Sierra de Gata by the pass of Perales, and afterwards dividing, sends one branch to Alcantara, the other to Coria and Placentia. Of these five passes the two last only are, generally speaking, practicable for artillery.

The royal roads, from Toledo and Madrid to Badajos, unite near Talavera, and follow the course of the Tagus by the right bank as far Naval Moral, but then, turning to the left, cross the river at the bridge of Almaraz. Now, from Toledo, westward, to the bridge of Almaraz, a distance of above fifty miles, the left bank of the Tagus is so crowded by the rugged shoots of the Sierra de Guadalupe, that it may be broadly stated as impassable for an army, and this peculiarity of ground gives the key to the operations on both sides. For, Cuesta and Cartoajal, by reason of this impassable Sierra de Guadalupe, had no direct military communication: but Victor and Sebastiani, occupying Toledo and Talavera, could, by the royal roads above mentioned, concentrate their masses, at pleasure, on either line of operations.

The rallying point of the French was Madrid, and their parallel lines of defence were the Tagus, the Alberche, and the Guadarama.

The base of Cartoajal’s operations was the Sierra de Morena.

Cuesta’s first line was the Tagus, and his second the Guadiana, from whence he could retreat by a flank march to Badajos, or by a direct one to the defiles of Monasterio in the Sierra Morena.

The two Spanish armies, if they had been united, would have furnished about twenty-six thousand infantry, and five thousand cavalry, and they had no reserve. The two French corps, united, would have exceeded thirty-five thousand fighting-men, supported by the reserve under the king. The French, therefore, had the advantage of numbers, position, and discipline.

Following the orders of Napoleon, marshal Victor should have been at Merida before the middle of February. In that position he would have confined Cuesta to the Sierra Morena; and with his twelve regiments of cavalry he could easily have kept all the flat country, as far as Badajos, in subjection. That fortress itself had no means of resistance, and, certainly, there was no Spanish force in the field capable of impeding the full execution of the emperor’s instructions, which were also reiterated by the king. Nevertheless, the duke of Belluno remained inert at this critical period, and the Spaniards, attributing his inactivity to weakness, endeavoured to provoke the blow so unaccountably withheld; for Cuesta was projecting offensive movements against Victor, and the duke of Albuquerque was extremely anxious to attack Toledo from the side of La Mancha.

Cartoajal opposed Albuquerque’s plans, but offered him a small force with which to act independently. The duke complained to the junta of Cartoajal’s proceedings, and Mr. Frere, whose traces are to be found in every intrigue, and every absurd project broached at this period, having supported Albuquerque’s complaints, Cartoajal was directed by the junta to follow the duke’s plans: but the latter was himself ordered to join Cuesta, with a detachment of four or five thousand men.

ROUT OF CIUDAD REAL.

Cartoajal, in pursuance of his instructions, marched with about twelve thousand men, and twenty guns, towards Toledo; and his advanced guard attacked a regiment of Polish lancers, near Consuegra: but the latter retired without loss. Hereupon, Sebastiani, with about ten thousand men, came up against him, and the leading divisions encountering at Yebenes, the Spaniards were pushed back to Ciudad Real, where they halted, leaving guards on the river in front of that town. The French, however, forced the passage, and a tumultuary action ensuing, Cartoajal was totally routed, with the loss of all his guns, a thousand slain, and several thousand prisoners. The vanquished fled by Almagro; and the French cavalry pursued even to the foot of the Sierra Morena.

This action, fought on the 27th of March, and commonly called the battle of Ciudad Real, was not followed up with any great profit to the victors. Sebastiani gathered up the spoils, sent his prisoners to the rear, and, holding his troops concentrated on the Upper Guadiana, awaited the result of Victor’s operations: thus enabling the Spanish fugitives to rally at Carolina, where they were reinforced by levies from Grenada and Cordova.

While these events were passing in La Mancha, Estremadura was also invaded; for the king having received a despatch from Soult, dated Orense and giving notice that the second corps would be at Oporto about the 15th of March, had reiterated the orders that Lapisse should move to Abrantes, and that the duke of Belluno should pass the Tagus, and drive Cuesta beyond the Guadiana.

Victor, who appears for some reason to have been averse to aiding the operations of the second corps, remonstrated, and especially urged that the order to Lapisse should be withdrawn, lest his division should arrive too soon, and without support, at Abrantes. This time, however, the king was firm, and, on the 14th of March, the duke of Belluno, having collected five days’ provisions, made the necessary dispositions to pass the Tagus.

The amount of the Spanish force immediately on that river was about sixteen thousand men; but Cuesta had several detachments and irregular bands General Semelé’s Journal of Operations, MS. in his rear, which may be calculated at eight thousand more. The Duke of Belluno, however, estimated the troops in position before him at thirty thousand, a great error for so experienced a commander to make.

But, on the other hand, Cuesta was as ill informed; for this was the moment when, with his approbation, colonel D’Urban proposed to sir John Cradock, that curiously combined attack against Victor, already noticed; in which, the Spaniards were to cross the Tagus, and sir Robert Wilson was to come down upon the Tietar. This, also, was the period that Mr. Frere, apparently ignorant that there were at least twenty-five thousand fighting men in the valley of the Tagus, without reckoning the king’s or Sebastiani’s troops, proposed that the twelve thousand British, under sir John Cradock, should march from Lisbon to “drive the fourth French corps from Toledo,” and “consequently,” as he phrased it, “from Madrid.” The first movement of marshal Victor awakened Cuesta from these dreams.

The bridges of Talavera and Arzobispo were, as we have seen, held by the French; and their advanced posts were pushed into the valley of the Tagus, as far as the Barca de Bazagona.

Cuesta’s position extended from Garbin, near the bridge of Arzobispo, to the bridge of Almaraz. His centre being at Meza d’Ibor, a position of surprising strength, running at right angles from the Tagus to the Guadalupe. The head-quarters and reserves were at Deleytosa; and a road, cut by the troops, afforded a communication between that place and Meza d’Ibor.

On the right bank of the Tagus there was easy access to the bridges of Talavera, Arzobispo, and Almaraz; but on the left bank no road existed, except from Almaraz, by which artillery could pass the mountains, and even that was crossed by the ridge of Mirabete, which stretching on a line parallel to the river, and at the distance of four or five miles, affords an almost impregnable position.

The duke of Belluno’s plan was, to pass the Tagus at the bridges of Talavera and Arzobispo, with his infantry and a part of his cavalry, and to operate in the Sierra de Guadalupe against the Spanish right; while the artillery and grand parc, protected Journal of Operations of the First Corps MS. by the remainder of the cavalry, were united opposite Almaraz, having with them a raft bridge to throw across at that point, a project scarcely to be reconciled with the estimate made of Cuesta’s force; for surely nothing could be more rash than to expose the whole of the guns and field stores of the army, with no other guard than some cavalry and one battalion of infantry, close to a powerful enemy, who possessed a good pontoon train, and who might, consequently, pass the river at pleasure.

The 15th, Laval’s division of German infantry, and Lasalle’s cavalry, crossed at Talavera, and, turning to the right, worked a march through the rocky hills; the infantry to Aldea Nueva, on a line somewhat short of the bridge of Arzobispo; the cavalry higher up the mountain towards Estrella.

The 16th, when those troops had advanced a few miles to the front, the head-quarters, and the other divisions of infantry, passed the bridge of Arzobispo; while the artillery and the parcs, accompanied by a battalion of grenadiers, and the escorting cavalry, moved to Almaraz, with orders to watch, on the 17th and 18th, for the appearance of the army on the heights at the other side, and then to move down to the point before indicated, for launching the raft bridge.

Alarmed by these movements, Cuesta hastened in person to Mirabete; and directing general Henestrosa, with eight thousand men, to defend the bridge of Almaraz, sent a detachment to reinforce his right wing, which was posted behind the Ibor, a small river, but at this season running with a full torrent from the Guadalupe to the Tagus.

The 17th, the Spanish advanced guards were driven, with some loss, across the Ibor. They attempted to re-form on the high rocky banks of that river; but, being closely followed, retreated to the camp of Meza d’Ibor, the great natural strength of which was increased by some field works.

Their position could only be attacked in front; and, this being apparent at the first glance, Laval’s division was instantly formed in columns of attack, which pushed rapidly up the mountain; the inequalities of ground covering them in some sort from the effects of the enemy’s artillery. As they arrived near the summit, the fire of musketry and grape became murderous; but, at the instant when the Spaniards should have displayed all their vigour, they broke and fled to Campillo, leaving behind them baggage, magazines, seven guns, and a thousand prisoners, besides eight hundred killed and wounded. The French had seventy killed, and near five hundred wounded.

While this action was taking place at Meza d’Ibor, Villatte’s division, being higher up the Sierra, to the left, overthrew a smaller body of Spaniards at Frenedoso, making three hundred prisoners, and capturing a large store of arms.

The 18th, at day-break, the duke of Belluno, who had superintended in person the attack at Meza d’Ibor, examined from that high ground all the remaining position of the Spaniards. Cuesta, he observed, was in full retreat to Truxillo; but Henestrosa was still posted in front of Almaraz. Hereupon Villatte’s division was detached after Cuesta, to Deleytosa; but Laval’s Germans were led against Henestrosa; and the latter, aware of his danger, and already preparing to retire, was driven hastily over the ridge of Mirabete.

In the course of the night, the raft bridge was thrown across the Tagus; and the next day the dragoons passed to the left bank, the artillery followed, and the cavalry immediately pushed forward to Truxillo, from which town Cuesta had already fallen back to Santa Cruz, leaving Henestrosa to cover the retreat.

The 20th, after a slight skirmish, the latter was forced over the Mazarna; and the whole French army, with the exception of a regiment of dragoons (left to guard the raft bridge) was poured along the road to Merida.

The advanced guard, consisting of a regiment of light cavalry, under general Bordesoult, arrived in front of Miajadas on the 21st. Here the road dividing, sends one branch to Merida, the other to Medellin. A party of Spanish horsemen were posted near the town; they appeared in great alarm, and by their hesitating movements invited a charge. The French incautiously galloped forward; and, in a moment, twelve or fourteen hundred Spanish cavalry, placed in ambush, came up at speed on both flanks. General Lasalle, who from a distance had observed the movements of both sides, immediately rode forward with a second regiment; and arrived just as Bordesoult had extricated himself from a great peril, by his own valour, but with the loss of seventy killed and a hundred wounded.

After this well-managed combat, Cuesta retired to Medellin without being molested, and Victor spreading his cavalry posts on the different routes to gain intelligence and to collect provisions, established Journal of Operations MSS. his own quarters at Truxillo, a town of some trade and advantageously situated for a place of arms. It had been deserted by the inhabitants and pillaged by the first French troops that entered it, but it still offered great resources for the army, and there was an ancient citadel, capable of being rendered defensible, which was immediately armed with the Spanish guns, and provisioned from the magazines taken at Meza d’Ibor.

The flooding of the Tagus and the rocky nature of its bed had injured the raft-bridge near Almaraz, and delayed the passage of the artillery and stores; to remedy this inconvenience the marshal issued directions to have a boat-bridge prepared, and caused a field-fort to be constructed on the left bank of the Tagus, which he armed with three guns, and garrisoned with a hundred and fifty men to protect his bridge. These arrangements and the establishment of an hospital for two thousand men at Truxillo, delayed the first corps until the 24th of March.

Meanwhile, the light cavalry reinforced by twelve hundred voltigeurs were posted at Miajadas, and having covered all the roads branching from that central point with their scouting parties, reported that a few of Cuesta’s people had retired to Medellin, that from five to six thousand men were thrown into the Sierra de Guadalupe, on the left of the French; that four thousand infantry and two thousand cavalry were behind the river Guadiana, in front of Medellin, but that every thing else was over the Guadiana.

The line of retreat chosen by Cuesta uncovered Merida, and, consequently, the great road between Badajos and Seville was open to the French; but Victor was not disposed to profit from this, for he was aware that Albuquerque was coming from La Mancha to Cuesta, and believing that he brought nine thousand infantry and two thousand cavalry—feared that Cuesta’s intention was either to draw him into a difficult country, by making a flank march to join Cartoajal in La Mancha, or by crossing the Guadiana, above Naval Villar, where the fords are always practicable, to rejoin his detachments in the Sierra de Guadalupe, and so establish a new base of operations on the left flank of the French army.

This reasoning was misplaced; neither Cuesta nor his army were capable of such operations, his line of retreat was solely directed by a desire to join Albuquerque, and to save his troops, by taking to a rugged instead of an open country, and the duke of Belluno lost the fruits of his previous success, by over rating his adversary’s skill; for, instead of following Cuesta with a resolution to break up the Spanish army, he, after leaving a brigade at Truxillo and Almaraz, to protect the communications, was contented to advance a few leagues on the road to Medellin with his main body, sending his light cavalry to Merida, and pushing on detachments towards Badajos and Seville, while other parties explored the roads leading into the Guadalupe.

The 27th, however, he marched in person to Medellin, at the head of two divisions of infantry, and a brigade of heavy cavalry. Eight hundred Spanish horse posted on the right bank of the Guadiana, retired at his approach, and crossing that river, halted at Don Benito, where they were reinforced by other squadrons, but no infantry were to be discovered. The duke of Belluno then passed the river and took post on the road leading to Mengabril and Don Benito; hence, the situation of the French army in the evening was as follows:—

The main body, consisting of two divisions of infantry, and one incomplete brigade of heavy cavalry in position, on the road leading from Medellin to Don Benito and Mingabril.

The remainder of the dragoons, under Latour Maubourg, were at Zorita, fifteen miles on the left, watching the Spaniards in the Guadalupe.

The light cavalry was at Merida, eighteen miles to the right, having patrolled all that day on the roads to Badajos, Seville, and Medellin.

Ruffin’s division was at Miajadas eighteen miles in the rear.

In the course of the evening Victor received intelligence, that Albuquerque was just come up with eight thousand men, that the combined troops, amounting to twenty-eight thousand infantry and seven thousand cavalry, were in position on the table land of Don Benito, and that Cuesta, aware of the scattered state of the French army, was preparing to attack the two divisions on their march the next day.

Upon this, the duke of Belluno, notwithstanding the strength of the Spanish army, resolved to fight, and immediately sent orders to Lasalle, to Ruffin, and to Latour Maubourg, to bring their divisions down to Medellin; but the latter was directed to leave a detachment at Miajadas to protect the route of Merida, and a brigade at Zorita, to observe the Spaniards in the Sierra de Guadalupe.

Cuesta’s numbers were, however, greatly exaggerated; that general blaming every body but himself for his failure on the Tagus—had fallen back to Campanarios—rallied all his scattered detachments, and then returned to Villa Nueva de Serena, where he was joined, on the 27th, by Albuquerque, who brought up not a great body of infantry and cavalry as supposed, but less than three thousand infantry and a few hundred horse. This reinforcement, added to some battalions drawn from Andalusia, increased Cuesta’s army to about twenty-five thousand foot, four thousand horse, and eighteen or twenty pieces of artillery; and, with this force, he, fearing for the safety of Badajos, retraced his steps and rushed headlong to destruction.

Medellin, possessing a fine stone-bridge, is situated in a hollow on the left bank of the Guadiana, and just beyond the town is a vast plain or table land, the edge of which, breaking abruptly down, forms the bed of the river. The Ortigosa, a rapid torrent, rushing perpendicularly to the Guadiana, and having steep and rugged banks, yet in parts passable for artillery, cuts their plain, which is also traversed by two roads, the one leading to Mingrabil on the right, the other to Don Benito on the left, those places being about five miles apart, and forming with Medellin an irregular triangle.

The French army, with the exception of the troops left to cover the communications and those at Zorita, was concentrated in the town at ten o’clock; and, at one, about fourteen thousand infantry, two thousand five hundred cavalry, and forty-two pieces of artillery, went forth to fight the

BATTLE OF MEDELLIN.

The plain on the side of Don Benito was bounded by a high ridge of land, behind which Cuesta kept the Spanish infantry concealed, showing only his cavalry and some guns in advance. To make him display his lines of infantry the French general sent Lasalle’s light cavalry, with a battery of six guns and two battalions of German infantry, towards Don Benito, while Latour Maubourg, with five squadrons of dragoons, eight guns, and two other battalions, keeping close to the Ortigosa, advanced towards the point of the enemy’s ridge called the Retamosa. The rest of the army was kept in reserve; the division of Villatte and the remainder of the Germans, being one-half on the road of Don Benito, the other half on the road of Mengabril. Ruffin’s division was a little way in rear of the other, and a battalion was left to guard the baggage at the bridge of Medellin.

As the French squadrons advanced, the artillery on both sides opened, and the Spanish cavalry guards in the plain retired slowly to the higher ground. Lasalle and Latour Maubourg then pressed forward; but as the latter, who had the shortest distance to traverse, approached the enemy’s position, the whole Spanish line of battle was suddenly descried in full march over the edge of the ridge, and stretching from the Ortijos to within a mile of the Guadiana,—a menacing but glorious apparition.

Cuesta, Henestrosa, and the duke del Parque, with the mass of cavalry, were on the left; Francisco Frias, with the main body of infantry, in the centre; Equia and the marquis of Portazzo on the right; and, from thence to the bank of the Guadiana, Albuquerque, with some scattered squadrons, flanked the march of the whole host as it descended, with a rapid pace, into the plain. Cuesta’s plan was now disclosed; his line overlapped the French left, and he was hastening to cut their army off from Medellin, but his order of battle was on a front of three miles, and he had no reserve.

The Duke of Belluno, seeing this, instantly brought his centre a little forward, and then, reinforcing Latour Maubourg with ten guns and a battalion of grenadiers, and detaching a brigade of infantry as a support, ordered him to fall boldly in on the advancing enemy. But at the same time Lasalle, who was giving way under the pressure of his antagonists, was directed to retire towards Medellin, always refusing his left.

The Spaniards marched briskly forward into the plain, and a special body of cavalry, with three thousand infantry, advancing from their left, met Latour Maubourg in front, while a regiment of hussars fell upon the French columns of grenadiers and guns in his rear. The hussars, received with grape and a pelting fire of musketry, and charged in flank by some dragoons, were beaten at once, but the Spanish infantry, closely followed by the rest of their own cavalry, came boldly up to Latour Maubourg’s horsemen, and, with a rough discharge, forced them back in disorder. The French, however, soon rallied, and smashing the Spanish ranks with artillery, and fighting all together, broke in and overthrew their enemies, man and horse. Cuesta was wounded and fell, but, being quickly remounted, escaped.

While this was passing on the French right, Lasalle’s cavalry, continually refusing their left, were brought fighting close up to the main body of the French infantry, which was now disposed on a new front, having a reserve behind the centre. Meanwhile Latour Maubourg’s division was being re-formed on the ridge from whence the Spaniards had first descended, and the whole face of the battle was changed; for the Spanish left being put to flight, the French right wing overlapped the centre of their antagonists, and the long attenuated line of the latter wavering, disjointed, and disclosing wide chasms, was still advancing without an object.

The duke of Belluno, aware that the decisive moment of the battle had arrived, was on the point of commanding a general attack, when his attention was arrested by the appearance of a column coming down on the rear of his right wing from the side of Mingabril. A brigade from the reserve, with four guns, was immediately sent to keep this body in check, and then Lasalle’s cavalry, taking ground to its left, unmasked the infantry in the centre, and the latter, immediately advancing, poured a heavy fire into the Spanish ranks; Latour Maubourg, sweeping round their left flank, fell on the rear, and, at the same moment, Lasalle also galloped in upon the dismayed and broken bands. A horrible carnage ensued, for the French soldiers, while their strength would permit, continued to follow and strike, until three-fifths of the whole Spanish army wallowed in blood.

Six guns and several thousand prisoners were taken. General Frias, deeply wounded, fell into the hands of the victors; and so utter was the discomfiture that, for several days after, Cuesta could not rally a single battalion of infantry, and his cavalry was only saved by the speed of the horses.

Following general Semelé’s journal,[4] the French loss did not exceed three hundred men, a number so utterly disproportionate to that of the vanquished as to be scarcely credible, and, if correct, discovering a savage rigour in the pursuit by no means commendable; for it does not appear that any previous cruelties were perpetrated by the Spaniards to irritate the French soldiers. The right to slaughter an enemy in battle can neither be disputed nor limited; but a brave soldier should always have regard to the character of his country, and be sparing of the sword towards beaten men.

The main body of the French army passed the night of the 28th near the field of battle; but Latour Maubourg marched with the dragoons by the left bank of the Guadiana to Merida, leaving a detachment at Torre Mexia to watch the roads of Almendralego and Villa Franca, and to give notice if the remains of Cuesta’s army should attempt to gain Badajos, in which case the dragoons had orders to intercept them at Loboa.

The 29th, Villatte’s division advanced as far as Villa Nueva de Serena, and the light cavalry were pushed on to Campanarios. But, as all the reports agreed that Cuesta, with a few horsemen, had taken refuge in the Sierra Morena, and that the remnants of his army were dispersed and wandering through the fields and along the bye-roads, without any power of re-uniting, the duke of Belluno relinquished the pursuit. Having fixed his head-quarters at Merida, and occupied that place and Medellin with his infantry, he formed with his cavalry a belt extending from Loboa on the right to Mingrabil on the left; but the people had all fled from the country, and even the great towns were deserted.

Merida, situated in a richly-cultivated basin, possesses a fine bridge and many magnificent remains of antiquity, Roman and Moorish; amongst others, a castle built on the right bank of the river, close to the bridge, and so perfect that, in eight days, it was rendered capable of resisting any sudden assault; and six guns being mounted on the walls, and an hospital for a thousand men established there, a garrison of three hundred men, with stores and provisions for eight hundred, during two months, was put into it.

The king now repeated his orders that the duke of Belluno should enter Portugal, and that general Lapisse should march upon Abrantes; but the former again remonstrated, on the ground that he could not make such a movement and defend his communications with Almaraz, unless the division of Lapisse was permitted to join him by the route of Alcantara. But as Badajos, although more capable of defence than it had been in December, when the fourth corps was at Merida, was still far from being secure; and that many of the richer inhabitants, disgusted and fatigued with the violence of the mob government, were more inclined to betray the gates to the French than to risk a siege; Victor, whose battering train (composed of only twelve pieces, badly horsed and provided) was still at Truxillo, opened a secret communication with the malcontents.

The parties met at the village of Albuera, and everything was arranged for the surrender, when the peasants giving notice to the junta that some treason was in progress, the latter arrested all the Journal of Operations MS. persons supposed to be implicated, and the project was baffled. The duke of Belluno then resigned all further thoughts of Badajos, and contented himself with sending detachments to Alcantara, to get intelligence of general Lapisse, of whose proceedings it is now time to give some account.

Plate 3. to face Pa. 226.

Sketch Explanatory of
M^L. VICTOR’S OPERATIONS
AGAINST CUESTA
in March 1809.

London. Published by T. & W. BOONE, July 1829.

OPERATIONS OF GENERAL LAPISSE.

This general, after taking Zamora in January, occupied Ledesma and Salamanca, where he was joined by general Maupetit’s brigade of cavalry, and as sir Robert Wilson’s legion and the feeble garrisons in Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida were the only bodies in his front, universal terror prevailed. Yet he, although at the head of at least ten thousand men, with a powerful artillery, remained inactive from January to the end of March, and suffered sir Robert, with a few hundred Portuguese, to vex his outposts, to intercept his provisions, to restrain his patroles, and even to disturb his infantry in their quarters. This conduct brought him into contempt, and enabled Wilson to infuse a spirit into the people which they were far from feeling when the enemy first appeared.

Don Carlos d’España, with a small Spanish force, being after a time placed under sir Robert’s command, the latter detached two battalions to occupy the pass of Baños, and Lapisse was thus deprived of any direct communication with Victor. In this situation the French general remained without making any vigorous effort either to clear his front or to get intelligence of the duke of Dalmatia’s march upon Oporto until the beginning of April, when he advanced towards Bejar, but, finding the passes occupied, turned suddenly to his right, dissipated Wilson’s posts on the Ecla, and forced the legion, then commanded by colonel Grant, to take refuge under the guns of Ciudad Rodrigo. He summoned that town to surrender on the 6th, and, after a slight skirmish close to the walls, took a position between the Agueda and Ledesma.

This event was followed by a general insurrection from Ciudad Rodrigo to Alcantara and from Tamames to Bejar. For Lapisse, who had been again ordered by the king to fulfil the emperor’s instructions, and advance to Abrantes, instead of obeying, suddenly quitted his positions on the Agueda, and, without regarding his connexion with the second corps, abandoned Leon, and made a rapid march, through the pass of Perales, upon Alcantara, followed closely by sir Robert Wilson, don Carlos d’España, the two battalions from Bejar, and a multitude of peasants, both Portuguese and Spanish.

At Alcantara, a corps of Spanish insurgents endeavoured to defend the passage of the river, but the French broke through the entrenchments on the bridge, and, with a full encounter carried the town, and pillaged it, after which they abandoned the place, and joined the first corps, at Merida, on the 19th of April.

This false movement greatly injured the French cause. From that moment the conquering impulse given by Napoleon was at an end, and his armies, ceasing to act on the offensive, became stationary or retrograded, and the British, Spanish, and Portuguese once more assumed the lead. The duke of Dalmatia, abandoned to his own resources, and in total ignorance of the situation of the corps by which his movements should have been supported, was forced to remain in Oporto; and at the moment, when the French combinations were thus paralyzed, the arrival of English reinforcements at Lisbon and the advance of sir John Cradock towards Leiria gave a sudden and violent impetus both to the Spaniards and Portuguese along the Beira frontier. Thus the insurrection, no longer kept down by the presence of an intermediate French corps, connecting Victor’s and Soult’s forces, was established in full activity from Alcantara, on the Tagus, to Amarante, on the Tamega.

Meanwhile Cuesta was gathering another host in the Morena; for, although the simultaneous defeat of the armies in Estremadura and La Mancha had at first produced the greatest dismay in Andalusia, the Spaniards, when they found such victories as Ciudad Real and Medellin only leading to a stagnant inactivity on the part of the French, concluded that extreme weakness was the cause, and that the Austrian war had or would oblige Napoleon to abandon his projects against the Peninsula. This idea was general, and upheld not only the people’s spirit but the central junta’s authority, which could not otherwise have been maintained after such a succession of follies and disasters.

The misfortunes of the two Spanish generals had been equal; but Cartoajal, having no popular influence, was dismissed, while Cuesta was appointed to command what remained of both armies; and the junta, stimulated for a moment by the imminent danger in which they were placed, drew together all the scattered troops and levies in Andalusia. To cover Seville, Cuesta took post in the defiles of Monasterio, and was there joined by eight hundred horse and two thousand three hundred infantry, drafted from the garrison of Seville; these were followed by thirteen hundred old troops from Cadiz; and finally, three thousand five hundred Grenadian levies, and eight thousand foot, and two thousand five hundred horsemen, taken from the army of La Mancha, contributed to swell his numbers, until, in the latter end of April, they amounted to twenty-five thousand infantry, and about six thousand cavalry. General Venegas, also, being recalled from Valencia, repaired to La Carolina, and proceeded to organize another army of La Mancha.

King Joseph, justly displeased at the false disposition made of Lapisse’s division, directed that Alcantara should be immediately re-occupied; but as this was not done without an action, which belongs to another combination, it shall be noticed hereafter. It is now proper to return to the operations on the Douro, so intimately connected with those on the Guadiana, and yet so differently conducted.

CHAPTER IV.

When the bishop of Oporto beheld, from his station at Sarea, the final overthrow of his ambitious schemes in the north of Portugal, he fled to Lisbon. There he reconciled himself to the regency, became a member of that body, and was soon after created patriarch; and, as I shall have occasion to shew, used his great influence in the most mischievous manner; discovering, on every occasion, the untamed violence and inherent falseness of his disposition.

Meanwhile, the fall of Oporto enabled marshal Soult to establish a solid base of operations, and to commence a regular system of warfare. The immediate fruit of his victory was the capture of immense magazines of powder, and a hundred and ninety-seven pieces of artillery, every gun of which had been used in the action. Thirty English vessels, wind-bound in the river, and loaded with wine and provisions for a month, also fell into his hands.

Having repressed the disorders attendant on the battle, he adopted the same conciliatory policy [Appendix, No. 13]. which had marked his conduct at Chaves and Braga; and endeavoured to remedy, as far as it was possible, the deplorable results of the soldiers’ fury. Recovering and restoring a part of the plunder, he caused the inhabitants remaining in the town to be treated with respect; and invited, by proclamation, all those who had fled to return. He demanded no contribution; and, restraining with a firm hand the violence of his men, contrived, from the captured public property, to support the army, and even to succour the poorest and most distressed of the population.

Soult’s ability in the civil and political administration of the Entre Minho e Douro produced an effect which he was not prepared for. The prince regent’s desertion of the country was not forgotten. The national feeling was as adverse to Portugal being a dependency on the Brazils as it was to the usurpation of the French, and the comparison between Soult’s government and the horrible anarchy which preceded it was all in favour of the former. His victories, and the evident vigour of his character, contrasted with the apparent supineness of the English, promised permanency for the French power; and the party, formerly noticed as being inimical to the house of Braganza, revived.

The leaders, thinking this a favourable opportunity to execute their intention, waited upon the duke of Dalmatia, and expressed their desire for a French prince and an independent government. They even intimated their good wishes towards the duke himself, and demanded his concurrence and protection; while, in the name of the people, they declared that the Braganza dynasty was at an end.

Although unauthorized by the emperor to accede to this proposition, Soult was yet unwilling to reject a plan from which he could draw such immediate and important military advantages. Napoleon was not a man to be lightly dealt with on such an occasion; but the marshal, trusting that circumstances would justify him, encouraged the design, and, appointing men to civil employments, raised a Portuguese legion of five battalions. He acted with so much dexterity [Appendix, No. 13]. that, in fifteen days, the cities of Oporto and Braga, and the towns of Bacellos, Viana, Villa de Conde, Povoa de Barcim, Feira, and Ovar, sent addresses, containing the expression of their sentiments, and bearing the signatures of thirty thousand persons, as well of the nobles, clergy, and merchants, as of the people.

These addresses were burnt when the French retreated from Oporto; but the fact that such a project was in agitation has never been denied. The regency even caused inquest to be made on the matter; and it was then asserted that very few persons were found to be implicated. That many of the signatures were forged by the leaders may readily be believed; but the policy of lessening the importance of the affair is also evident; and the inquisitors, if willing, could not have probed it to the bottom.

This transaction formed the ground-work of a tale generally credited, even by his own officers, that Soult perfidiously aimed at an independent crown; and the circumstances were certainly such as might create suspicion. That the conclusion was false, is, however, proved, by the mode in which Napoleon treated both the rumour and the subject Rovigo’s Memoirs. of it. Slighting the former, he yet made known to his lieutenant that it had reached his ears, adding, “I remember nothing but Austerlitz,”[5] and at the same time largely increased the duke of Dalmatia’s command.

S.
Journal of Operations MSS.

The policy of Soult’s conduct on this occasion, and the great influence, if not the numbers of the Portuguese malcontents, were abundantly proved by the ameliorated relations between the army and the peasantry. The fierceness of the latter subsided; and even the priests abated of their hostility in the Entre Minho e Douro. The French soldiers were no longer assassinated in that province; whereas, previous to this intrigue, that cruel species of warfare had been carried on with infinite activity, and the most malignant passions called forth on both sides.

Among other instances of Portuguese ferocity, and of the truculent violence of the French soldiers, the death of colonel Lameth, and the retaliation which followed, may be cited. That young officer, when returning from the marshal’s quarters to his own, was waylaid, near the village of Arrifana, and murdered; his body was then stripped, and mutilated in a shocking manner. This assassination, committed within the French lines, and at a time when Soult enforced the strictest discipline, was justifiable neither by the laws of war nor by those of humanity. No general could neglect to punish such a proceeding. The protection due to the army, and even the welfare of the Portuguese within the French jurisdiction, demanded a severe example, for the violence of the troops had hitherto been with difficulty restrained by their commander; and if, at such a moment, he had appeared indifferent to their individual safety; his authority would have been set at naught, and the unmeasured and indiscriminating vengeance of an insubordinate army executed.

Impressed with this feeling, and afflicted at the unhappy death of a personal friend, Soult directed general Thomieres to march, with a brigade of infantry, to Arrifana, and punish the criminals. Thomieres was accompanied by a Portuguese civilian; and, after a judicial inquiry, he shot five or six persons whose guilt was said to have been proved; but it is also certain that the principal actor, a Portuguese major of militia, and some of his accomplices, escaped across the Vouga to colonel Trant; and the latter, disgusted at their conduct, sent them to marshal Beresford. It would also appear, from the statement of a peasant, that Thomieres, or those under him, exceeded Soult’s orders; for, in that statement, attested by oath, it is said that twenty-four innocent persons were killed, and that the soldiers, after committing many atrocious excesses, burnt the village.

These details have been related partly because they throw a light upon the direful nature of this contest, but chiefly because the transaction has been adduced by other writers as proof of cruelty in Soult, a charge not sustained by the facts of [Appendix, No. 13]. this case, and belied by the general tenor of his conduct, which even his enemies, while they attributed it to an insidious policy, acknowledged, at the time, to be mild and humane. And now, having finished this political digression, in which the chronological order of events has been anticipated, I shall resume the narrative of military operations at that part where the disorders attendant on the battle of Oporto having been repressed, a fresh series of combinations were commenced, not less important than those which brought the French army down to the Douro.

The heavy blow struck on the 29th of March was followed up with activity. The boat-bridge was restored during the night; and the next day, the forts of Mazinho and St. Joa de Foz having surrendered, Franceschi’s cavalry crossed the Douro, took post ten miles in advance on the Coimbra road, and pushed patroles as far as the Vouga river. To support this cavalry, general Mermet occupied a position somewhat beyond the suburb of Villa Nova. Oporto itself was held by three brigades. The dragoons of Lorge were sent to Villa da Conde, a walled town, situated at the mouth of the Ave; and general Caulaincourt was detached up the Douro to Penafiel, with a brigade of cavalry, having orders to clear the valley of the Tamega. Another brigade of cavalry was posted on the road leading to Barca de Trofa, to protect the rear of the army; and general Heudelet was directed to forward the hospitals from Braga to Oporto, but to hold himself in readiness to open the communication with Tuy.

These dispositions made, Soult had leisure to consider his general position. The flight of the bishop had not much abated the hostility of the people, nor relieved the French from their difficulties. The communication with the Minho was still intercepted; the Tras os Montes was again in a state of insurrection; and Sylveira, with a corps of eight thousand men, not only commanded the valley of the Tamega, but had advanced, after re-taking Chaves, into the Entre Minho e Douro, and was posted between the Sierra de Catalina and the Douro.

Lisbon, the ultimate object of the campaign, was two hundred miles distant, and covered by a British army, whose valour was to be dreaded, and whose numbers were daily increasing. A considerable body of natives were with Trant upon the Vouga, and Beresford’s force between the Tagus and the Mondego: its disorderly and weak condition being unknown, appeared formidable at a distance.

The day on which the second corps, following the emperor’s instructions, should have reached Lisbon was overpassed by six weeks; and, as the line of correspondence with Victor was uncertain, his co-operation could scarcely be calculated upon. Lapisse’s division was yet unfelt as an aiding force; nor was it even known to Soult that he still remained at Salamanca: finally, the three thousand men expected from the Astorga country, under the conduct of the marshal’s brother, had not yet been heard of.

On the other hand, the duke of Dalmatia had conquered a large and rich city: he had gained the military command of a very fertile country, from whence the principal supplies of the British army and of Lisbon were derived: he had obtained a secure base of operations and a prominent station in the kingdom; and if the people’s fierceness was not yet quelled, they had learned to dread his talents, and to be sensible of their own inferiority in battle.

In this state of affairs, judging that the most important objects were to relieve the garrison of Tuy and to obtain intelligence of Lapisse’s division, Soult entrusted the first to Heudelet and the second to Franceschi. The last-named general had occupied Feira and Oliveira, and spread his posts along the Vouga; but the inhabitants fled to the other side of that river, and the rich valleys beyond were protected by colonel Trant.

This officer, well known to the Portuguese as having commanded their troops at Roriça and Vimiero, was at Coimbra when intelligence of the defeat at Braga arrived, and he immediately took the command of all the armed men in that town, among which was a small body of volunteers, students at the university. The general dismay and confusion being greatly increased by the subsequent catastrophe at Oporto, the fugitives from that town and other places, accustomed to violence, and attributing every misfortune to treachery in the generals, flocked to Trant’s standard; and he, as a foreigner, was enabled to assume an authority that no native of rank durst either have accepted or refused without imminent danger.

He advanced, at first, with about eight hundred men to Sardao and Aveiro, where he was joined by the conde Barbaceña with some Portuguese cavalry, and by generals Victoria and Eben; but the people regarded these officers with suspicion, and Trant [Appendix, No. 3], section 6. continued in the command, his force daily increasing by the arrival of ordenanzas, and even by regular troops, who, quitting their quarters, abandoned Beresford’s army to join him.

When Franceschi advanced, Trant sent a detachment by Castanheira to occupy the bridge of the Vouga; but the men, seized with a panic, dispersed, and this was followed by the desertion of many thousand ordenanzas,—a happy circumstance, for the numbers that had at first collected behind the Vouga exceeded twelve thousand men, and their extreme violence and insubordination excited the utmost terror, and impeded the measures necessary for defence. Trant, finally, retained about four thousand men, with which he imposed upon the French, and preserved a fruitful country from their incursions; but he was greatly distressed for money, because the bishop of Oporto, in his flight, laid hands on all that was at Coimbra and carried it to Lisbon.

Franceschi, although reinforced with a brigade of infantry, contented himself with chasing some insurgents that infested his left flank, while his patroles and scouts, sent forward on the side of Viseu, endeavoured to obtain information of Lapisse’s division; but that general, as we have seen, was still beyond the Agueda, and while Franceschi was thus employed in front of the French army, Caulaincourt’s cavalry on the Tamega was pressed by the Portuguese, and Loison marched with a brigade of infantry to his assistance on the 9th of April.

Sylveira, however, was too strong for both; and, on the 12th, advancing from Canavezes, obliged Loison, after a slight action, to take post behind the Souza.

Meanwhile, Heudelet was hastening towards Tuy to recover the artillery and depôts, from which the army had now been separated forty days.

The 6th of April, general Lorge, who had taken Villa de Conde and cleared the coast, joined Heudelet at Bacellos. The 7th they marched to Ponte de Lima; but the Portuguese resisted the passage vigourously, and it was not forced until the 8th.

The 10th the French arrived in front of Valença, on the Minho; this fortress had been maltreated by the fire from Tuy, and the garrison, amounting to two hundred men, having only two days’ provisions, capitulated, on condition of being allowed to retire to their homes; but, before the French could take possession, the capitulating troops disbanded and the town was deserted.

The garrison in Tuy, never having received the slightest intelligence of the army since the separation at Ribidavia, marvelled that the fire from Valença was discontinued; and their surprise was extreme when they beheld the French colours flying in that fort, and observed French videttes on the left bank of the Minho.

La Martiniere’s garrison, by the arrival of stragglers and a battalion of detachments that followed the army from St. Jago, had been increased to three thousand four hundred men; but twelve hundred were in hospital, and two-thirds of the artillery-horses had been eaten in default of other food. The Portuguese had passed the Minho, and, in conjunction with the Spaniards, attacked the place on the 15th of March; but the French general, by frequent sallies, obliged them to keep up a distant blockade, and his fire mastered that from Valença.

The 22d of March, the defeat at Braga being known, the Portuguese repassed the Minho, the Spaniards dispersed, and La Martiniere immediately sent three hundred men to bring off the garrison of Vigo; but it was too late, that place was taken, and the detachment with difficulty regained Tuy.

The peasants on the Arosa Estuary had, as I have before noticed, risen, the 27th of February, while Soult was still at Orense; they were headed, at first, by general Silva and by the count de Mezeda, and, finally, a colonel Barrois, sent by the central junta, took the command. As their numbers were very considerable, Barrois with one part attacked Tuy; and Silva assisted by the Lively and Venus, British frigates on that station, invested Vigo.

The garrison of the latter place was at first small; but the paymaster-general of the second corps, instead of proceeding to Tuy, entered Vigo, with the military chest and an escort of eight hundred men, and was blockaded there. After some slight attacks had been repulsed, the French governor negotiated for a capitulation on the 23d of March; but, distrustful of the peasantry, he was still undecided on the 26th. Meanwhile, some of Romana’s stragglers coming from the Val des Orres, collected between Tuy and Vigo; and don Pablo Murillo, a regular officer, assembling fifteen hundred retired soldiers, joined the blockading force, and, in concert with Captain Mackinley, of the Lively, obliged the garrison to surrender on terms.

Captain Mackinley’s Despatch.

The 27th, thirteen hundred men and officers, including three hundred sick, marched out with the honours of war; and, having laid down their arms on the glacis, were embarked for an English port, according to the articles agreed upon. Four hundred and forty-seven horses, sixty-two covered waggons, some stores, and the military chest, containing five thousand pounds, fell into the victor’s hands; and this affair being happily terminated, the Spaniards renewed their attack on Tuy: the Portuguese once more crossed the Minho, and the siege continued until the 10th of April, when the place was relieved by Heudelet. The depôts and the artillery were immediately transported across the river, and directed upon Oporto.

The 12th, general Maucune, with a division of the sixth corps, arrived at Tuy, with the intention of carrying off the garrison, but seeing that the place was relieved, returned the next day. Heudelet, having taken Viana, and the fort of Insoa, at the mouth of the Minho, placed a small garrison in the former; and then blowing up the works of Valença, retired to Braga and Bacellos, sending Lorge again to Villa de Conde.

The sick men were transported in boats along shore, from the mouth of the Minho to Viana, Villa de Conde, and thence to Oporto; and while these transactions were taking place on the Minho, La Houssaye, with a brigade of dragoons and one of infantry, scoured the country between the Lima and the Cavado, and so protected the rear of Heudelet.

All resistance in the Entre Minho e Douro now ceased; for, at this period, the influence of the Anti-Braganza party was exerted in favour of the French. But on the Tras os Montes side, Sylveira being joined by general Boteilho, from the Lima, was advancing, and boasted that he would be in Oporto the 15th: and now, also, intelligence of the recapture of Chaves reaching Soult, not only explained Sylveira’s boldness, but shewed, that, while the latter was in arms, the tranquillity of the Entre Minho e Douro could be only momentary. Wherefore, Laborde, with a brigade of infantry, was ordered to join Loison, and attack Amarante; while La Houssaye pushed through Guimaraens upon the same point.

The 15th, Laborde reached Penafiel; and Sylveira, hearing of La Houssaye’s march, retired to Villamea. The 18th, Laborde drove back the Portuguese without difficulty; and their retreat soon became a flight. Sylveira himself passed the Tamega at Amarante, and was making for the mountains, without a thought of defending that town; but colonel Patrick, a British officer in the Portuguese service, encouraging his battalion, faced about, and rallying the fugitives, beat back the foremost of the enemy. This becoming act obliged Sylveira to return; and while Patrick defended the approaches to the bridge on the right bank with obstinate valour, the former took a position, with five or six thousand men, on the heights overhanging the suburb of Villa Real, on the left bank of the river.

The 19th, La Houssaye arrived; and the French renewing their attack on the town, Patrick again baffled their efforts; but when that gallant man fell mortally wounded, and was carried across the bridge, the defence slackened, and the Portuguese went over the Tamega: the passage of the river was, however, still to be effected.

The bridges of Mondin and Cavez above, and that of Canavezas below Amarante, were destroyed: the Tamega was in full flood, and running in a deep rocky bed; and the bridge in front of the French was mined, barred with three rows of pallisades, and commanded by a battery of ten guns. The Portuguese were in position on the heights behind; from whence they could discern all that was passing at the bridge, and could reinforce at will the advanced guard, which was posted in the suburb.

PASSAGE OF THE TAMEGA, AT AMARANTE.

The 20th, the first barricade was reached by the flying sap; but the fire of the Portuguese was so deadly, that Laborde abandoned the attack, and endeavoured to construct a bridge on tressels half a mile below: this failed, and the efforts against the stone bridge were of necessity renewed. The mine at the other side was ingeniously formed; the muzzle of a loaded musket entered the chamber, and a string being tied at one end to the trigger, the other end was brought behind the entrenchments, so that an explosion could be managed with the greatest precision as to time.

Noble’s Campagne de Galice.

The 27th, the centre barricade was burnt by captain Brochard, an engineer officer, who devised a method of forcing the passage, so singularly bold, that all the generals, and especially general Foy, were opposed to it. The plan was, however, transmitted to Oporto; and Soult sent general Hulot, his first aide-de-camp, to report if the project was feasible. Hulot approved of Brochard’s proposal, and the latter commenced his operations on the 2d of May.

The troops were under arms, and disposed in the most convenient manner, as near the head of the bridge as the necessity of keeping them hidden would permit; and at eight o’clock, all being prepared, and the moon shining bright, twenty men were sent a little below the bridge, and directed to open an oblique fire of musketry against the entrenchments. This being replied to, and the attention of the Portuguese attracted, a sapper, dressed in dark grey, crawled out, and pushed with his head a barrel of powder, which was likewise enveloped in grey cloth to deaden the sound, along that side of the bridge which was darkened by the shadow of the parapet: when he had placed his barrel against the entrenchment covering the Portuguese mine, he retired in the same manner. Two others followed in succession, and retired without being discovered; but the fourth, after placing the barrel, rose on his feet and ran back, but was immediately shot at and wounded.

The fire of the Portuguese was now directed on the bridge itself; but as the barrels were not discovered, after a time it ceased; and a fifth sapper advancing like the others, attached a sausage seventy yards long to the barrels. At two o’clock in the morning the whole was completed; and as the French kept very quiet, the Portuguese remained tranquil and unsuspicious.

Brochard had calculated that the effect of four barrels exploding together would destroy the Portuguese entrenchments, and burn the cord attached to their mine. The event proved that he was right; for a thick fog arising about three o’clock, the sausage was fired, and the explosion made a large breach. Brochard, with his sappers, instantly jumped on to the bridge, threw water into the mine, cut away all obstacles, and, followed by a column of grenadiers, was at the other side before the smoke cleared away. The grenadiers being supported by other troops, not only the suburb, but the camp on the height behind were carried without a check, and the Portuguese dispersing, fled over the mountains.

The execution of captain Brochard’s bold, ingenious, and successful project, cost only seven or eight men killed; while in the former futile attempts above a hundred and eighty men, besides many engineer and artillery officers, had fallen. It is, however, a singular fact that there was a practicable ford near the bridge, unguarded, and apparently unknown to both sides.

A short time after the passage of the Tamega, general Heudelet, marching from Braga by Guimaraens, entered Amarante. Laborde occupied the position abandoned by Sylveira, and detachments were sent up the left bank of the river to Mondin: but Loison pursued the fugitives to the heights of Villa Real and Mezamfrio. The Portuguese guarding the passage at Canavezas, hearing of the action, destroyed their ammunition, and retired across the Douro without being overtaken.

The 6th of May, the French were near Villa Real and Mezamfrio, but all the inhabitants had crossed the Douro. This being made known to Soult, he reinforced Loison, and directed him to scour the right bank of the Douro as high as Pezo de Ragoa; to complete the destruction of Sylveira’s army, and to send patroles towards Braganza, with the view of subduing the Tras os Montes, and of ascertaining if any French troops had made their appearance there; for Bessieres had been requested to make a diversion on that side. Bessieres himself had returned to France, but the reply of his successor Kellerman being intercepted, it appeared that he was unable or unwilling to afford any aid.

General Laborde was now recalled, with two regiments of infantry, to Oporto; and the communication between that town and Amarante was guarded by a brigade of dragoons, and a regiment of infantry. Meanwhile, Loison felt the Portuguese at Pezo de Ragoa, on the 7th of May; but, meeting resistance, and observing a considerable movement on the opposite bank of the Douro, he became alarmed, and fell back the same day to Mezamfrio. The next morning he returned to Amarante, his march being harassed by the peasantry, who came on with a boldness shewing that some extraordinary support was at hand; and, in truth, a new actor had appeared upon the scene; the whole country was in commotion; and Soult, suddenly checked in his career, was pushed backward by a strong and eager hand.

OBSERVATIONS.—SPANISH OPERATION.

1º.—The great pervading error of the Spaniards in this campaign was the notion that their armies were capable of taking the lead in offensive movements, and fighting the French in open countries; whereas, to avoid general actions should have been a vital principle.

2º.—The resolution to fight the French having, however, been adopted, the second great error was the attaching equal importance to the lines of operation in La Mancha and Estremadura; the one should have been considered only as an accessory; and it is evident that the first rank belonged to La Mancha, because it was in a more open country; because it more immediately threatened Madrid; and because a defeat there endangered Seville more than a defeat in Estremadura would have done. In La Mancha the beaten army must have fallen back upon Seville: but in Estremadura it might retire upon Badajos. But, the latter place being to the Spaniards of infinitely less importance than Madrid was to their opponents, the lead in the campaign must always have belonged to the army of La Mancha, which could, at any time, have obliged the French to fight a battle in defence of the capital.

The army of Estremadura might, therefore, have been safely reduced to fifteen thousand men, provided the army of La Mancha had been increased to forty or fifty thousand: and it would appear that, with a very little energy, the junta could have provided a larger force. It is true that they would have been beaten just the same: but that is an argument against fighting great battles, which was, certainly, the worst possible plan for the Spaniards to pursue.

3º.—The third great error was the inertness of Valencia and Murcia, or rather their hostility: for they were upon the verge of civil war with the supreme junta. Those provinces, so rich and populous, had been unmolested for eight months; they had suffered nothing from Moncey’s irruption; and they had received large succours from the English government. Valencia had written her pretensions to patriotism in the bloody characters of assassination; but, were it not for the force under Llamas which, after the defeat of Tudela, helped to defend Zaragoza, Valencia and Murcia might have been swallowed up by the ocean without any sensible effect upon the general cause. Those countries were, however, admirably situated to serve as a support to Aragon, Catalonia, Andalusia, and La Mancha, and they could, at this time, have paralyzed a large French force, by marching an army to San Clemente.

It was the dread of their doing so that made the king restrain Sebastiani from pursuing his victory Parl. Papers, 1810. at Ciudad Real; and, assuredly, the Valencians should have moved; for, it is not so much in their numbers as in the variety of their lines of operation that a whole people find their advantage in opposing regular armies. This, the observation of that profound and original writer, general Lloyd, was confirmed by the practice of Napoleon, in Spain.

FRENCH OPERATIONS.

1º.—To get possession of Seville and Cadiz was certainly as great an object to Napoleon as to seize Lisbon: but the truth of the maxim quoted above regulated the emperor’s proceedings. If Victor had been directed at once upon Andalusia, the Portuguese and Valencians could have carried their lines of operations directly upon his flanks and rear. If Badajos and Lisbon had been the objects of his march, the Andalusians could have fallen on his left flank and cut his communications. But all such dangers were avoided by the march of Soult and Lapisse; their direction was not only concentric, but a regular prolongation of the great line of communication with France. Ney protected the rear of one; Bessieres the rear of the other; and those two marshals, at the same time, separated and cut off the Asturias from the rest of Spain; thus, all that was formidable was confined to the south of the Tagus.

For the same reason the course of conquest was to have proceeded from Portugal to Andalusia, which would then have been assailed in front and flank at one moment, while the fourth corps held the Valencians in check. By this plan the French would never have lost their central position, nor exposed their grand line of communication to an attack.

2º.—That this plan, so wisely conceived in its general bearing, should fail without any of the different corps employed having suffered a defeat, nay, when they were victorious in all quarters is surprising, but not inexplicable. It is clear that Napoleon’s orders were given at a time when he did not expect that a battle would have been fought at Coruña, or that the second corps would have suffered so much from the severity of the weather, and the length of the marches, neither did he anticipate the resistance that was made by the Portuguese, between the Minho and the Douro. The last error was a consequence of the first, for his plans were calculated upon the supposition that the rapidity of Soult’s movements would forestall all defence; yet the delay cannot be charged as a fault to that marshal whose energy was conspicuous.

3º.—Napoleon’s attention, divided between Austria and Spain, must have been somewhat distracted by the multiplicity of his affairs. He does not seem to have made allowance for the very rugged country through which Soult had to march, at a time when all the rivers and streams were overflowing, from the constant rains; and as the combinations of war are continually changing, the delay thus occasioned rendered Lapisse’s instructions faulty: for, although it be true, that if the latter had marched by Guardia, upon Abrantes, while Soult advanced to Lisbon, by Coimbra, and that Victor entered the Alemtejo, Portugal would have been conquered without difficulty; yet the combination was so wide, and the communications so uncertain, that unity of action could not be insured. Soult, weakened by the obstacles he encountered, required reinforcements after the taking of Oporto; and Lapisse should have considered himself as rather belonging to Soult than Victor, and have marched upon Viseu; the duke of Dalmatia would then have been strong enough to fight his own battle without regard to the operations in the Alemtejo.

4º.—The first error of the French, if the facts are correctly shewn, must, therefore, be attributed to Napoleon, because he overlooked the probable chances of delay, combined the operations on too wide a scale, and gave Ciudad Rodrigo and Abrantes, instead of Lamego and Viseu, for the direction of Lapisse’s march. I say, if the facts are correctly shewn, for it is scarcely discreet to censure Napoleon’s military dispositions, however erroneous they may appear to have been, and it is certain that, in this case, his errors, if errors they were, although sufficient to embarrass his lieutenants, will not account for their entire failure. Above sixty thousand men were put in motion by him, upon good general principles, for the subjugation of Lisbon; and we must search in the particular conduct of the generals for the reason why a project of Napoleon’s, to be executed by sixty thousand French veterans, should have ended as idly and ineffectually as if it had been concocted by the Spanish junta.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE SEPARATE OPERATIONS OF LAPISSE, VICTOR, SOULT, ROMANA, SYLVEIRA, AND CUESTA.

LAPISSE.

1º.—An intercepted letter of general Maupetit, shews the small pains taken by Lapisse to communicate with Soult. He directs that even so many as three hundred men should patrole towards Tras os Montes, to obtain information of the second corps, at a time when the object was so important that his whole force should have moved in mass rather than have failed of intelligence.

2º.—The manner in which he suffered sir Robert Wilson to gather strength and to insult his outposts was inexcusable. He might have marched straight upon Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida, and dispersed every thing in his front; one of those fortresses would probably have fallen, if not both, and from thence a strong detachment pushed towards Lamego would not only have ascertained the situation of the second corps, but would have greatly aided its progress by threatening Oporto and Braga. It cannot be urged that Salamanca required the presence of a large force, because, in that open country, the people were at the mercy of Bessiere’s cavalry; and so sensible were the local junta of this, that both Salamanca and Ledesma refused assistance from Ciudad Rodrigo, when it was offered, and preferred a quiet submission.

3º.—When, at last, the king’s reiterated orders obliged Lapisse to put his troops in motion, he made a demonstration against Ciudad Rodrigo, so feeble that it scarcely called the garrison to the ramparts, and then as if all chance of success in Portugal was at an end, breaking through the pass of Perales, he reached Alcantara and rejoined the first corps; a movement equally at variance with Napoleon’s orders and with good military discretion; for the first directed him upon Abrantes, and the second would have carried him upon Viseu. The march to the latter place, while it insured a junction with Soult, would not have prevented an after movement upon Abrantes: the obstacles were by no means so great as those which awaited him on the march to Alcantara, and the great error of abandoning the whole country, between the Tagus and the Douro, to the insurgents would have been avoided.

Here then was one direct cause of failure; but the error, although great, was not irreparable. If Soult was abandoned to his own resources, he had also obtained a firm and important position in the north, while Victor, reinforced by ten thousand men, was enabled to operate against Lisbon, by the Alemtejo, more efficaciously than before. But Victor seems to have been less disposed than Lapisse to execute his instructions.

VICTOR.

1º.—The inactivity of this marshal after the rout of Ucles has been already mentioned. It is certain that if the fourth and first corps had been well handled, neither Cuesta nor Cartoajal could have ventured beyond the defiles of the Sierra Morena, much less have bearded the French generals and established a line of defence along the Tagus. Fifty thousand French troops should, in two months, have done something more than maintain fifty miles of country on one side of Madrid.

2º.—The passage of the Tagus was successful, but can hardly be called a skilful operation, unless the duke of Belluno calculated upon the ignorance of his adversary. Before an able general and a moveable army, possessing a pontoon train, it would have scarcely answered to separate the troops in three divisions on an extent of fifty miles, leaving the artillery and parc of ammunition, protected only by some cavalry and one battalion of infantry, within two hours march of the enemy, for three days. If Cuesta had brought up all his detachments, the Meza d’Ibor might have been effectually manned, and yet ten thousand infantry, and all the Spanish cavalry, spared to cross the Tagus at Almaraz, on the 17th; in this case Victor’s artillery would probably have been captured, and his project certainly baffled.

3º.—The passage of the Tagus being, however, effected, Victor not only permitted Cuesta to escape, but actually lost all traces of his army, an evident fault not to be excused by pleading the impediments arising from the swelling of the river, the necessity of securing the communications, &c. If Cuesta’s power was despised before the passage of the river, when his army was whole and his position strong, there could be no reason for such great circumspection after his defeat, a circumspection, too, not supported by skill, as the dispersed state of the French army, the evening before the battle of Medellin, proves.

4º.—That Victor was enabled to fight Cuesta, on the morning of the 28th, with any prospect of success, must be attributed rather to fortune than to talent. It was a fault to permit the Spaniards to retake the offensive after the defeat on the Tagus; nor can the first movement of the duke of Belluno in the action be praised. He should have marched into the plain in a compact order of battle. The danger of sending Lassalle and Latour Maubourg to such a distance from the main body I shall have occasion to show in my observations on Cuesta’s operations; but, the after-movements of the French in this battle were well and rapidly combined and vigorously executed, and the success was proportionate to the ability displayed.

5º.—The battles of Medellin and Ciudad Real, which utterly destroyed the Spanish armies and laid Seville and Badajos open; those battles, in which blood was spilt like water, produced no result to the victors, for the French generals, as if they had struck a torpedo, never stretched forth their hands a second time. Sebastiani, indeed, wished to penetrate the Sierra Morena; but the king, fearful of the Valencians, restrained him. On the other hand, Joseph urged Victor to invade the Alemtejo, yet the latter would not obey, even when reinforced by Lapisse’s division. This was the great and fatal error of the whole campaign, for nearly all the disposable British and Portuguese troops were thus enabled to move against the duke of Dalmatia, while the duke of Belluno contrived neither to fulfil the instructions of Napoleon, nor the orders of the king, nor yet to perform any useful achievement himself.

He did not assist the invasion of Portugal, he did not maintain Estremadura, he did not take Seville, nor even prevent Cuesta from twice renewing the offensive; yet he remained in an unhealthy situation until he lost more men, by sickness, than would have furnished three such battles as Medellin. Two months so unprofitably wasted by a general, at the head of thirty thousand good troops, can scarcely be cited. The duke of Belluno’s reputation has been too hardly earned to attribute this inactivity to want of talent. That he was averse to aid the operations of marshal Soult is evident, and, most happily for Portugal, it was so; but, whether this aversion arose from personal jealousy, from indisposition to obey the king, or from a mistaken view of affairs, I have no means of judging.

CUESTA.

Cuesta’s peculiar unfitness for the lead of an army has been remarked more than once. It remains to show that his proceedings, on this occasion, continued to justify those remarks.

1º.—To defend a river, on a long line, is generally hopeless, and especially when the defenders have not the means of passing freely, in several places, to the opposite bank. Alexander, Hannibal, Cæsar, Gustavus, Turenne, Napoleon, Wellington, and hundreds of others have shown how the passage of rivers may be won. Umenes, who prevented Antigonus from passing the Coprates, is, perhaps, the only example of a general baffling the efforts of a skilful and enterprising enemy in such an attempt.

2º.—The defence of rivers having always proved fruitless, it follows that no general should calculate upon success, and that he should exert the greatest energy, activity, and vigilance to avoid a heavy disaster; that all his lines of retreat should be kept free and open, and be concentric; and that to bring his magazines and depôts close up to the army, in such a situation, is rashness itself. Now Cuesta was inactive, and, disregarding the maxim which forbids the establishment of magazines in the first line of defence, brought up the whole of his to Deleyton and Truxillo. His combinations were ill-arranged; he abandoned Mirabete without an effort, his depôts fell into the hands of the enemy, and his retreat was confused and eccentric, inasmuch as part of his army retired into the Guadalupe, while others went to Merida, and he himself to Medellin.

3º.—The line of retreat upon Medellin and Campanarios, instead of Badajos, being determined by the necessity of uniting with Albuquerque, cannot be blamed, and the immediate return to Medellin was bold and worthy of praise, but its merit consisted in recovering the offensive immediately after a defeat; wherefore, Cuesta should not have halted at Medellin, thus giving the lead again to the French general; he should have continued to advance, and have fallen upon the scattered divisions of the French army, endeavouring to beat them in detail, and to rally his own detachments in the Sierra de Guadalupe. The error of stopping short at Medellin would have been apparent, if Victor, placing a rear-guard to amuse the Spanish general, had taken the road to Seville by Almendralejos and Zafra.

4º. Cuesta’s general design for the battle of Medellin was well imagined, that is, it was right to hide his army behind the ridge, and to defer the attack until the enemy had developed his force and order of battle in the plain, but the execution was on the lowest scale. If, instead of advancing in one long and weak line, without a reserve, Cuesta had held the greatest part of his troops in solid columns, and thrust them between Lassalle and Latour Maubourg’s divisions, which were pushed out like horns from the main body of the French, those generals would have been cut off, and the battle commenced by dividing the French army into three unconnected masses, while the Spaniards would have been compact, well in hand, and masters of the general movements. Nothing could then have saved Victor, except hard fighting; but Cuesta’s actual dispositions rendered it impossible for the Spaniards to win the battle by courage, or to escape the pursuit by swiftness.

5º. It is remarkable that the Spanish general seems never to have thought of putting Truxillo, Guadalupe, Merida, Estrella, or Medellin in a state of defence, although most if not all those places had some castle or walls capable of resisting a sudden assault. There was time to do it, for Cuesta remained unmolested, on the Tagus, from January to the middle of March; and every additional point of support thus obtained for an undisciplined army would have diminished the advantages derived by the French from their superior facility of movement. The places themselves might have been garrisoned by the citizens and peasantry, and a week’s, a day’s, nay, even an hour’s, delay was of importance to a force like Cuesta’s, which, from its inexperience, must have always been liable to confusion.

SOULT.

1º. The march of this general in one column, upon Tuy, was made under the impression that resistance would not be offered; otherwise, it is probable that a division of infantry and a brigade of cavalry would have been sent from St. Jago or Mellid direct upon Orense, to insure the passage of the Minho; and it seems to have been an error in Ney, arising, probably, from the same cause, not to have kept Marchand’s division of the sixth corps at Orense until the second corps had effected an entrance into Portugal.

2º. Soult’s resolution to place the artillery and stores in Tuy, and march into Portugal, trusting to victory for re-opening the communication, would increase the reputation of any general. Three times before he reached Oporto he was obliged to halt, in order to fabricate cartridges for the infantry, from the powder taken in battle; and his whole progress from Tuy to that city was energetic and able in the extreme.

3º. The military proceedings, after the taking of Oporto, do not all bear the same stamp. The administration of the civil affairs appears to have engrossed the marshal’s attention; and his absence from the immediate scene of action sensibly affected the operations. Franceschi shewed too much respect for Trant’s corps. Loison’s movements were timid and slow; and even Laborde’s genius seems to have been asleep. The importance of crushing Sylveira was obvious. Now, there is nothing more necessary in war than to strike with all the force you can at once; but here Caulaincourt was first sent, and being too weak, Loison reinforced him, and Laborde reinforced Loison; and all were scarcely sufficient at last to do that which half would have done at first; but the whole of these transactions are obscure. The great delay that took place before the bridge of Amarante; the hesitation and frequent recurrence for orders to the marshal, indicate want of zeal, and a desire to procrastinate, in opposition to Soult’s wishes. Judging from Mr. Noble’s history of the campaign, this must be traced to a conspiracy in the French army, which shall be touched upon hereafter.

4º. The resistance made by the Portuguese peasantry was infinitely creditable to their courage; but there cannot be a stronger proof of the inefficacy of a like defence, when unsupported by good troops. No country is more favourable to such a warfare than the northern provinces of Portugal; the people were brave, and they had the assistance of the organized forces under Romana, Sylveira, Eben, and the bishop: yet we find, that Soult, in the very worst season of the year, overcame all resistance, and penetrated to Oporto, without an actual loss, in killed, wounded, and prisoners, of more than two thousand five hundred men, including the twelve hundred sick, captured at Chaves.

ROMANA.

1º. Romana remained at Oimbra and Monterey, unmolested, from the 21st of January to the 6th of March; he had, therefore, time to reorganise his forces, and he had, in fact, ten thousand regular troops in tolerable order. He knew, on the 11th or 12th, that Soult was preparing to pass the Minho, between Tuy and Guardia. He knew, also, that the people of Ribidavia and Orense were in arms; that those on the Arosa were preparing to rise; and that, consequently, the French must, were it only from want of food, break out of the contracted position they occupied, either by Ribidavia and Orense, or by crossing the Minho, or by retreating to St. Jago.

With these guides, the path of the Spanish general was as plain as the writing on the wall; he was at the head of ten thousand regular troops; two marches would have brought him to Ribidavia, in front of which town he might have occupied a position close on the left flank of the French, rallied all the insurgents about him, and have organized a formidable warfare. The French durst not have attempted the passage of the Minho while he was in front of Ribidavia; and if they turned against him, the place was favourable for battle, and the retreat open by Orense and Monterey; while the difficulty of bringing up artillery would hamper the pursuit. On the other hand, if Soult had retreated, that alone would have been tantamount to a victory; and Romana would have been well placed to follow upon the rear of the French, connecting himself with the English vessels of war upon that coast as he advanced.

2º. So far from contemplating operations of this nature, Romana did not even concentrate his force; but keeping it extended, in small parties, along fifteen miles of country, indulged himself in speculations about his enemy’s weakness, and the prospect of their retreating altogether from the Peninsula; until he was roused from his reveries, by finding his divisions beaten in detail, and himself forced either to join the Portuguese with whom he was quarrelling, or to break his promises to Sylveira and fly by cross roads over the mountain on his right: he adopted the latter, thus proving, that whatever might be his resources for raising an insurrection, he could not direct one; and that he was, although brave and active, totally destitute of military talent. At a later period of the war, the duke of Wellington, after a long and fruitless military discussion, drily observed, that either Romana or himself had mistaken their profession. Time has since shewn which.

SYLVEIRA.

1º. This Portuguese general’s first operations were as ill conducted as Romana’s; his posts were too extended; he made no attempt to repair the works of Chaves, none to aid the important insurrection of Ribidavia; but these errors cannot be fairly charged upon him, as his officers were so unruly, that they held a council of war per force, where thirty voted for fighting at Chaves, and twenty-nine against it; the casting voice being given by the voter calling on the troops to follow him.

2º. The after-movement, by which Chaves was recaptured, whether devised by Sylveira himself, or directed by marshal Beresford, was bold and skilful; but the advance to Penafiel, while La Houssaye and Heudelet could from Braga pass by Guimaraens, and cut him off from Amarante, was as rash as his subsequent flight was disgraceful. Yet, thanks to the heroic courage of colonel Patrick, Sylveira’s reputation as a general was established among his countrymen, by the very action which should have ruined him in their estimation.

BOOK VIII.

CHAPTER I.

It will be remembered that the narrative of sir John Cradock’s proceedings was discontinued at the moment when that general, nothing shaken by the importunities of the regency, the representations of marshal Beresford, or the advice of Mr. Frere, resolved to await at Lumiar for the arrival of the promised reinforcements from England. While in this position, he made every exertion to obtain [Appendix, No. 5]. transport for the supplies, remounts for the cavalry, and draught animals for the artillery; but the Portuguese government gave him no assistance, and an attempt to procure horses and mules in Morocco proving unsuccessful, the army was so scantily furnished that, other reasons failing, this alone would have prevented any advance towards the frontier.

Sir J. Cradock’s Correspondence, MSS.

The singular inactivity of Victor surprised Cradock, but did not alter his resolution; yet, being continually importuned to advance, he, when assured that five thousand men of the promised reinforcements were actually off the rock of Lisbon, held a council of war. All the generals were averse to marching on Oporto, except Beresford, and he admitted that its propriety depended on Victor’s movements. Meanwhile, that marshal approached Badajos; Lapisse came down upon the Agueda, and Soult, having stormed Oporto, pushed his advanced posts to the Vouga.

[Appendix, No. 4], section 1.

A cry of treason then became general in Portugal, and both the people and the soldiers evinced a spirit truly alarming. The latter, disregarding the authority of Beresford, and menacing their own officers, declared that it was necessary to slay a thousand traitors in Lisbon; and the regiments in Abrantes even abandoned that post, and marched to join Trant upon the Vouga. But, when these disorders were at the worst, and when a vigorous movement of Victor and Lapisse would have produced fatal consequences, general Hill landed with about five thousand men and three hundred artillery horses. Cradock, then, resolved to advance, moved thereto chiefly by the representations of Sir J. Cradock’s Correspondence, MSS. Beresford, who thought such a measure absolutely necessary to restore confidence, to ensure the obedience of the native troops, and to enable him to take measures for the safety of Abrantes.

Thus, about the time that Tuy was relieved by the French, and that Sylveira was attacked at Penafiel by Laborde, the English army was put in motion, part upon Caldas and Obidos, part upon Rio Mayor; and the campaign was actually commenced by Cradock, when that general, although his measures had been all approved of by his government, was suddenly and unexpectedly required to surrender his command to sir Arthur Wellesley, and to proceed himself to Gibraltar.

Lord Londonderry’s Narrative.

It would appear that this arrangement was adopted after a struggle in the cabinet, and, certainly, neither the particular choice nor the general principle of employing men of talent without regard to seniority can be censured; nevertheless, sir John Cradock was used unworthily. A general of his rank would never have accepted a command on such terms; and it was neither just nor decent to expose him to an unmerited mortification.

Before the arrival of his successor, Cradock assembled the army at Leiria, and established his magazines at Abrantes, Santarem, and Peniché; but as the admiral fearing the difficult navigation at that season, would not send victuallers to the latter place, the magazines there were but scantily supplied. Meanwhile Lapisse made way by Alcantara to Merida, the re-capture of Chaves became known, and the insurrection in Beira and Tras os Montes took its full spring. Trant’s force also increased on the Vouga, and Beresford, who had succeeded in restoring order among the Portuguese battalions, was more than ever urgent for an attack upon Soult; but Cradock, unprovided with a due proportion of cavalry, unable to procure provisions or forage, and fearful for the safety of Lisbon, refused; and the 24th of April, hearing that his successor had arrived, he resigned the command and repaired to Gibraltar.

Sir Arthur Wellesley landed the 22d of April, and, on the 24th, signified to the British ministers [Appendix, No. 15]. that, affairs being in the condition contemplated by them, it was his intention to assume the command of the army; a circumstance worthy of attention, as indicating that the defence of Portugal was even then considered a secondary object, and of uncertain promise. The deliverance of the Peninsula was never due to the foresight and perseverance of the English ministers, but to the firmness and skill of the British generals, and to the courage of troops whom no dangers could daunt and no hardships dishearten, while they remedied the eternal errors of the cabinet.

The unexpected arrival of a man known only as a victorious commander created the greatest enthusiasm in Portugal. The regency immediately nominated him marshal-general of their troops. The people, always fond of novelty, hailed his presence with enthusiasm; and all those persons, whether Portuguese or British, who had blamed sir John Cradock’s prudent caution, now anticipating a change of system, spake largely and confidently of the future operations: in truth, all classes were greatly excited, and an undefined yet powerful sentiment that something great would soon be achieved pervaded the public mind.

[Appendix, No. 16].

Sir Arthur’s plans were, however, neither hastily adopted nor recklessly hurried forward; like Cradock, he felt the danger of removing far from Lisbon while Victor was on the Alemtejo frontier, and he anxiously weighed his own resources against those at the enemy’s disposal. Not that he wavered between offensive and defensive movements, for a general of his discernment could not fail to perceive that, if the French were acting upon any concerted plan, the false march of Lapisse to Merida had marred their combinations, by placing a whole nation, with all its fortresses and all its forces, whether insurgents, regular troops, or auxiliaries, between the armies of Victor and Soult, and that neither concert nor communication could longer exist between those marshals.

Soult’s offensive strength, also, was evidently exhausted; he might establish himself firmly in the provinces beyond the Douro, but he could not, alone, force his way to Lisbon, a distance of two hundred miles, in a season when the waters were full, and through a country tangled with rivers, mountains, and defiles. He could not hope, with twenty-four thousand men, to beat a whole people in arms, assisted by an auxiliary army of as high reputation, and nearly as numerous as his own; and, moreover, there were discontents and conspiracy in his camp; and of this sir Arthur was aware.

Soult alone, then, was no longer formidable to the capital; but that which weakened him increased the offensive power of Victor, who was now at the head of thirty thousand men, and might march straight upon Lisbon, and through an open country, the only barrier being the Tagus, a river fordable in almost all seasons. Such a movement, or even the semblance of it, must perforce draw the British and native armies to that side; and then Soult, coming down to the Mondego, might, from thence, connect his operations with Victor’s by the line of the Zezere, or advance at once on Lisbon as occasion offered.

Now, to meet the exigencies of the campaign, the military resources of the English general were,—

1º. His central position.

2º. His own British and German troops, about twenty-six thousand in number; of which the present under arms, including sergeants,[6] amounted to twenty-two thousand, with three thousand seven hundred horses and mules.

3º. The Portuguese troops of the line; of which there might be organised and armed about sixteen thousand.

Nearly all these troops were already collected, or capable of being collected in a short time, between the Tagus and Mondego; and beyond the latter river, Trant and Sylveira commanded separate corps; the one upon the Vouga, the other on the Tamega.

4º. The militia and the ordenanzas, which may be denominated the insurgent force.

5º. The fortresses of Almeida, Ciudad Rodrigo, Elvas, Abrantes, Peniché, and Badajos.

6º. The English fleet, the Portuguese craft, and the free use of the coast and river navigation for his supplies.

7º. The assistance of Cuesta’s army, which amounted to thirty thousand infantry and six thousand cavalry; of which twenty-five thousand were actually at or in front of the defile of Monasterio, close to Victor’s posts. Sir Arthur Wellesley’s moral resources were the high courage of his own troops; his personal popularity; the energy of an excited people; a favourable moment; the presentiment of victory; and a mind equal to the occasion.

In a strategic point of view, to fall upon Victor was best, because he was the most dangerous neighbour to Portugal; because his defeat would prove most detrimental to the French, most advantageous to the Spaniards; and because the greatest body of troops could be brought to bear against him.

On the other hand, Soult held a rich province, from whence the chief supply of cattle for the army was derived; he was in possession of the second city in the kingdom, where he was forming a French party; the feelings of the regency and the people were greatly troubled by the loss of Oporto; and their desire to regain it was strongly expressed.

To attack Victor, it was indispensable to concert operations with Cuesta; but that general was ill disposed towards the British, and to insure his co-operation would have required time, which could be better employed in expelling Soult. For these reasons, sir Arthur Wellesley determined to attack the last-named marshal without delay; intending, if successful, to establish a good system of defence in the northern provinces: and then, in conjunction with Cuesta, to turn his arms against Victor, hoping thus to relieve Gallicia more effectually than by following the French into that province.

The security of Lisbon being the pivot of the operations against Soult, time was the principal object to be gained. If Victor came fiercely on, he could not be stopped, but his course might be impeded; his path could not be blocked, but it might be planted with thorns: and to effect this, eight or ten thousand Portuguese troops were immediately directed upon Abrantes and Santarem, and two British battalions and two regiments of cavalry just disembarked, marched to the same places, where they were joined by three other battalions drafted from the army at Leiria.

A body of two thousand men, composed of a militia regiment and of the Lusitanian legion, which remained near Castello Branco after Lapisse had crossed the Tagus, were placed under the command of colonel Mayne, and directed to take post at the bridge of Alcantara, having orders to defend the passage of the river, and, if necessary, to blow up the structure. At the same time, the flying bridges at Villa Velha and Abrantes were removed, the garrison of the latter place was reinforced, and general Mackenzie was appointed to command all the troops, whether Portuguese or British, thus distributed along the right bank of the Tagus.

These precautions appeared sufficient, especially as there was a general disposition to believe the French weaker than they really were. Victor could not, by a mere demonstration, shake the line of defence. If he forced the bridge of Alcantara, and penetrated by the sterile and difficult route formerly followed by Junot, it would bring him, without guns, upon Abrantes; but Abrantes was already capable of a short resistance, and Mackenzie would have had time to line the rugged banks of the Zezere.

If, leaving Badajos and Elvas behind him, Victor should pass through the Alemtejo, and cross the Tagus between Abrantes and Lisbon, he was to be feared; but Cuesta had promised to follow closely in the French general’s rear, and it was reasonable to suppose that Mackenzie, although he might be unable to prevent the passage of the river, would not suffer himself to be cut off from the capital, where, having the assistance of the fleet, the aid of the citizens, and the chance of reinforcements from England, he might defend himself until the army could return from the Douro. Moreover, Victor was eighteen marches from Lisbon; it was only by accident that he and Soult could act in concert, while the allied army, having a sure and rapid mode of correspondence with Cuesta, was already within four marches of Oporto.

The main body of the allies was now directed upon Coimbra; and four of the best Portuguese battalions were incorporated in the British brigades. Marshal Beresford retained, under his personal command, about six thousand native troops; Trant remained stedfast on the Vouga; Sylveira on the Tamega; and sir Robert Wilson, quitting the command of the legion, was detached, with a small Portuguese force, to Viseu, where, hanging upon Franceschi’s left flank, he also communicated with Sylveira’s corps by the way of Lamego.

The difficulty of bringing up forage and provisions, which had pressed so sorely on sir John Cradock, was now somewhat lessened. The land transport was still scanty; and the admiral, dreading the long shore navigation for large vessels, was without the small craft necessary for victualling the troops by the coast; but the magazines at Caldas were partly filled, and twenty large country-boats being loaded with provisions, and the owners induced, by premiums, to make the run, had put safely into Peniché and the Mondego. In short, the obstacles to a forward movement, although great, were not insurmountable.

Sir Arthur Wellesley reached Coimbra the 2d of May. His army was concentrated there on the 5th, in number about twenty-five thousand sabres and bayonets; of which nine thousand were Portuguese, three thousand Germans, and the remainder British. The duke of Dalmatia was ignorant that the allies were thus assembled in force upon the Mondego, but many French officers knew it, and were silent, being engaged in a plot of a very extraordinary nature, and which was probably a part of the conspiracy alluded to in the first volume of this work, as being conducted through the medium of the princess of Tour and Taxis.

The French soldiers were impatient and murmuring; their attachment to Napoleon himself was deep and unshaken, but human nature shrinks from perpetual contact with death; and they were tired of war. This feeling induced some officers of high rank, serving in Spain, to form a plan for changing the French government. Generally speaking, these men were friendly to Napoleon personally; but they were republicans in their politics, and earnest to reduce the power of the emperor. Their project, founded upon the discontent of the troops in the Peninsula, was to make a truce with the English army, to elect a chief, and march into France with the resolution to abate the pride of Napoleon, or to pull him from his throne. The conspirators at first turned their eyes upon marshal Ney, but finally resolved to choose Gouvion St. Cyr for their leader. Yet it was easier to resolve than to execute. Napoleon’s ascendancy, supported by the love and admiration of millions, was not to be shaken by the conspiracy of a few discontented men: and, although their hopes were not entirely relinquished until after Massena’s retreat from Portugal in 1810, long before that period they discovered that the soldiers, tired as they were of war, were faithful to their great monarch, and would have slain any who openly stirred against him.

The foregoing facts are stated on the authority of a principal mover of the sedition; but many minor plots had cotemporary existence, for this was the spring time of folly. In the second corps, the conspirators were numerous, and, by their discourses and their slow and sullen execution of orders, had continually thwarted the operations of marshal Soult, yet without exciting his suspicions; but, as he penetrated into Portugal, their counteractions increased, and, by the time he arrived at Oporto, their design was ripe for execution.

In the middle of April, John Viana, the son of an Oporto merchant, appeared at marshal Beresford’s head-quarters, with proposals from the French malcontents. The latter desired to have an English officer sent to them, to arrange the execution of a plan, which was to be commenced by seizing their general, and giving him over to the British outposts: a detestable project, for it is not in the field, and with a foreign enemy, that soldiers should concert the overthrow of their country’s institutions, and although it would be idle and impertinent in a foreigner to say how much and how long men shall bear with what they deem an oppressive government, there is a distinct and especial loyalty due from a soldier to his general in the field; a compact of honour, which it is singularly base to violate; and so it has in all ages been considered. When the Argyraspides, or silver-shields of the Macedonians, delivered their general, Eumenes, in bonds, to Antigonus, the latter, although he had tempted them to the deed, and scrupled not to slay the hero, reproached the treacherous soldiers for their conduct, and, with the approbation of all men, destroyed them. Yet Antigonus was not a foreign enemy, but of their own kin and blood.

An English lieutenant-colonel attached to the Portuguese service reluctantly undertook the duty of meeting the conspirators, and penetrated, by night, but in uniform, behind the French outposts, by the lake of Aveiro or Ovar. He had previously arranged that one of the malcontents should meet him on the water; the boats unknowingly passed each other in the dark, and the Englishman returned to Aveiro; but he there found John Viana, in company with the adjutant-major, D’Argenton. The latter confirmed what Viana had declared at Thomar; he expressed great respect for Soult, but dwelt upon the necessity of removing him before an appeal could be made to the soldiers; and he readily agreed to wait, in person, upon Beresford, saying he was himself too strongly supported in the French army to be afraid.

Marshal Beresford was then at Lisbon, and thither D’Argenton followed; and, having seen him and sir Arthur Wellesley, and remained five days in that capital, returned to Oporto. While at Lisbon, he, in addition to his former reasons for this conspiracy, stated that Soult wished to make himself king of Portugal; an error into which he and many others naturally fell, from circumstances that I have already noticed.

When sir Arthur Wellesley arrived at Coimbra, D’Argenton appeared again at the English head-quarters; but this time, by the order of sir Arthur, he was conducted through bye-paths, and returned convinced, from what he had seen and heard, that although the allies were in force on the Mondego, many days must elapse before they could be in a condition to attack Oporto. During his absence, D’Argenton was denounced by general Lefebre, who was falsely imagined to be favourable to the conspiracy; passports, signed by admiral Berkely, which this unfortunate man, contrary to sir A. Wellesley’s urgent recommendation, had insisted upon having, completely proved his guilt; and Soult, until that moment, without suspicion, beheld with amazement the abyss that yawned beneath his feet: his firmness, however, did not desert him. He offered D’Argenton pardon, and even reward, if he would disclose the names of the other conspirators and relate truly what he had seen of the English and Portuguese armies. The prisoner, to save his life, readily told all that he knew of the British, but sir A. Wellesley’s foresight had rendered that tale useless; and with respect to his accomplices D’Argenton was immoveable. Exaggerating the importance of the conspiracy, he even defied the marshal’s power, and advised him, as the safest course, to adopt the conspirators’ sentiments; nor was this boldness fatal to him at the moment, for Soult, anxious to ascertain the extent of the danger, delayed executing him, and he effected his escape during the subsequent operations.

He was not the only person who communicated secretly with the British general; colonel Donadieu and colonel Lafitte were engaged in the conspiracy. The latter is said to have had an interview with sir Arthur, between the outposts of the two armies, and from the first the malcontents were urgent that the movements of the allied forces should be so regulated as to favour their proceedings; but sir Arthur Wellesley, having little dependence upon intrigue, sternly intimated that his operations could not be regulated by their plots, and hastened his military measures.

Under the impression that Sylveira was successfully defending the line of the Tamega, the British general at first resolved to reinforce him by sending Beresford’s and sir Robert Wilson’s corps across the Douro at Lamego, by which he hoped to cut Soult off from Tras os Montes, intending, when their junction was effected, to march with his own army direct upon Oporto, and to cross the Douro near that town, by the aid of Beresford’s corps, which would then be on the right bank. This measure, if executed, would, including Trant’s, Wilson’s, and Sylveira’s people, have placed a mass of thirty thousand troops, regulars and irregulars, between the Tras os Montes and Soult, and the latter must have fought a battle under very unfavourable circumstances, or have fallen back on the Minho, which he could scarcely have passed at that season while pressed by the pursuing army. But the plan was necessarily abandoned when intelligence arrived that the bridge of Amarante was forced, and that Sylveira, pursued by the enemy, was driven over the Douro.

The news of this disaster only reached Coimbra the 4th of May; on the 6th, a part of the army was already in motion to execute a fresh project, adapted to the change of affairs; and as this eagerness to fall on Soult may appear to justify those who censured sir J. Cradock’s caution, it may here be well to shew how far the circumstances were changed.

When Cradock refused to advance, the Portuguese troops were insubordinate and disorganized; they were now obedient and improved in discipline.

Sir John Cradock had scarcely any cavalry; four regiments had since been added.

In the middle of April, Cuesta was only gathering the wrecks of his forces after Medellin; he was now at the head of thirty-five thousand men.

The intentions of the British government had been doubtful; they were no longer so. Sir John Cradock’s influence had been restricted; but the new general came out with enlarged powers, the full confidence of the ministers, and with Portuguese rank. His reputation, his popularity, and the disposition of mankind always prone to magnify the future, whether for good or bad, combined to give an unusual impulse to public feeling, and enabled him to dictate at once to the regency, the diplomatists, the generals, and the people; to disregard all petty jealousies and intrigues, and to calculate upon resources from which his predecessor was debarred. Sir Arthur Wellesley, habituated to the command of armies, was moreover endowed by nature with a lofty genius, and a mind capacious of warlike affairs.

CHAPTER II.

CAMPAIGN ON THE DOURO.

After the victory at Amarante, Laborde was recalled to Oporto, but a brigade of cavalry and a regiment of infantry were left to keep up the communication with Loison; and as the insurgent general Bonthielo had reappeared on the Lima, general Lorge’s dragoons were directed on that side. Mermet’s division was then pushed towards the Vouga, and thus the French army was extended by detachments from that river to the Tamega; and the wings separated by the Douro and occupying two sides of a triangle, were without communication, except by the boat-bridge of Oporto. It required three days, therefore, to unite the army on its centre, and five days to concentrate it on either extremity.

The situation of the allies was very different;—sir Arthur Wellesley having, unknown to Soult, assembled the bulk of the troops at Coimbra, commanded the choice of two lines of operation; the one through Viseu and Lamego, by which, in four or five marches, he could turn the French left, and cut them off from Tras os Montes; the other by the roads leading upon Oporto, by which, in two marches, he could throw himself unexpectedly, and in very superior numbers, upon the enemy’s right, with a fair prospect of crushing it between the Vouga and the Douro.

In taking the first of these two lines, which were separated by the lofty ridges of the Sierra de Caramula, the march could be covered by Wilson’s corps, at Viseu, and by Sylveira’s, near Lamego. Along the second the movement could be screened by Trant’s corps on the Vouga.

The duke of Dalmatia’s dispositions were made in ignorance of sir Arthur Wellesley’s position, numbers, and intentions. He was not even aware of the vicinity of such an antagonist, but sensible that to advance directly upon Lisbon was beyond his own strength, he already meditated to cross the S.
Journal of Operations MSS. Tamega, and then covered by that river and the Douro, to follow the great route of Bragança, and so enter the Salamanca country. It was in this view that Loison had been directed to get possession of Mezamfrio and Pezo de Ragoa, and the march of Mermet was only intended to support Franceschi’s retreat, when the army should commence its movement towards the Tamega.

The 9th of May, D’Argenton was arrested; the film fell from Soult’s eyes, and all the perils of his position broke at once upon his view. Treason in his camp, which he could not probe, a powerful enemy close in his front, the insurgents again active in his rear, and the French troops scattered from the Vouga to the Tamega, and from the Douro to the Lima, and commanded by officers, whose fidelity was necessarily suspected, while the extent of the conspiracy was unknown.

Appalling as this prospect was, the duke of Dalmatia did not quail at the view. The general officers assured him of the fidelity of the troops; and Loison was immediately ordered to keep Mezamfrio and Ragoa, if he could, but, under any circumstances, to hold Amarante fast. The greatest part of the guns and stores at Oporto were at the same time directed upon the Tamega, and the ammunition that could not be removed was destroyed. General Lorge was commanded to withdraw the garrison from Viana, and to proceed likewise to Amarante, and, while D’Argenton was closely, although vainly, pressed to discover the names of the conspirators, Soult prepared to execute his intended movement through the Tras os Montes. But the war was coming on with a full and swift tide; Loison, upon whose vigour the success of the operation depended, was already giving way; sir Arthur Wellesley was across the Vouga, and Franceschi and Mermet were struggling in his grasp.

The English general resolved to operate along both the routes before spoken of, but the greater facility of supplying the troops by the coast-line, and, above all, the exposed position of the French right wing, so near the allies and so distant from succour, induced him to make the principal attack by the high road leading to Oporto.

The army was formed in one division of cavalry and three of infantry, exclusive of Beresford’s separate corps.

The first division, consisting of two brigades of infantry and twelve guns, was commanded by lieut.-general Paget.

The second, consisting of three brigades of infantry and six guns, by lieut.-general Sherbrooke.

The third, consisting of two brigades of infantry and six guns, by major-general Hill.

The cavalry by lieut.-general Payne.

The whole amounted to about fourteen thousand five hundred infantry, fifteen hundred cavalry, and twenty-four guns, of which six were only three-pounders.

The 6th of May, Beresford, with six thousand Portuguese, two British battalions, five companies of riflemen, and a squadron of heavy cavalry, marched upon Lamego by the road of Viseu.

The 7th, the light cavalry and Paget’s division advanced towards the Vouga by the Oporto road, but halted, on the 8th, to give Beresford time to reach the Upper Douro, before the attack on the French right should commence.

The 9th, they resumed their march for the bridge of Vouga, and, at the same time, Hill’s division, taking the Aveiro road, the whole reached the line of the Vouga river that evening; but Paget’s division was not brought up until after dark, and then with caution, to prevent the enemy’s guards from seeing the columns, the intent being to surprise Franceschi the next morning.

That general, with all his cavalry, a regiment of Mermet’s division, and six guns, occupied a village, about eight miles beyond Vouga bridge, called Albergaria Nova; the remainder of Mermet’s infantry were at Grijon, one march in the rear, and on the main road to Oporto. Franceschi had that day informed Soult that the allied forces were collecting on the Mondego, and that Trant’s posts had closed upon the Vouga; but he was far from suspecting that the whole army was upon the last river, although, from the imprudent conversation of an English officer, bearing a flag of truce, he had reason to expect an attack of some kind.

Sir Arthur Wellesley’s plan was partly arranged upon the suggestion of the field-officer who had met D’Argenton. He had observed, during his intercourse with the conspirators, that the lake of Ovar was unguarded by the French, although it extended twenty miles behind their outposts, and that all the boats were at Aveiro, which was in possession of the allies. On his information it was decided to turn the enemy’s right by the lake.

Accordingly, general Hill embarked, the evening of the 9th, with one brigade, the other being to follow him as quickly as possible. The fishermen looked on at first with surprise; but, soon comprehending the object, they voluntarily rushed in crowds to the boats, and worked with such a will that the whole flotilla arrived at Ovar precisely at sunrise on the 10th, and the troops immediately disembarked. That day, also, marshal Beresford, having rallied Wilson’s corps upon his own, reached Pezo de Ragoa, and he it was that had repulsed Loison, and pursued him to Amarante.

Both flanks of the French army were now turned, and at the same moment sir Arthur, with the main body, fell upon Franceschi, for, while the flotilla was navigating the lake of Ovar, the attempt to surprise that general, at Albergaria Nova, was in progress. Sherbrooke’s division was still in the rear; but general Cotton, with the light cavalry, crossing the Vouga, a little after midnight, endeavoured to turn the enemy’s left, and to get into his rear; the head of Paget’s division, marching a little later, was to pass through the defiles of Vouga, directly upon Albergaria, and Trant’s corps was to make way between Paget’s division and the lake of Aveiro.

This enterprise, so well conceived, was baffled by petty events, such as always abound in war. Sir Arthur Wellesley did not perfectly know the ground beyond the Vouga; and, late in the evening of the 9th, colonel Trant, having ascertained that an impracticable ravine, extending from the lake to Oliveira de Azemis, would prevent him from obeying his orders, passed the bridge of Vouga, and carried his own guns beyond the defiles, in order to leave the bridge clear for the British artillery and for general Richard Stewart’s brigade.

Stewart was charged to conduct the guns through the defile; but the task was difficult, several carriages broke down, and Trant’s corps thus took the lead of Paget’s column, the march of which was impeded by the broken gun-carriages. Meanwhile the cavalry, under Cotton, were misled by the guides, and came, in broad daylight, upon Franceschi, who, with his flank resting upon a wood, garnished with infantry, boldly offered a battle that Cotton durst not, under such circumstances, accept. Thus, an hour’s delay, produced by a few trifling accidents, marred a combination that would have shorn Soult of a third of his infantry and all his light cavalry, for it is not to be supposed that, when Franceschi’s horsemen were cut off, and general Hill at Ovar, Mermet’s division could have escaped across the Douro.

When sir Arthur Wellesley came up to Albergaria with Paget’s infantry, Franceschi was still in position, skirmishing with Trant’s corps, and evidently ignorant of what a force was advancing against him. Being immediately attacked, and his foot dislodged from the wood, he retreated along the road to Oliveira de Azemis, and was briskly pursued by the allied infantry; but, extricating himself valiantly from his perilous situation, he reached Oliveira without any serious loss; and continuing his march during the night, by Feria, joined Mermet the next morning at Grijon.

Franceschi, in the course of the 10th, could see the whole of the English army, including the troops with Hill; and it may create surprise that he should pass so near the latter general without being attacked: but Hill was strictly obedient to his orders, which forbade him to act on the enemy’s rear; and those orders were wise and prudent, because the principle of operating with small bodies on the flanks and rear of an enemy is vicious; and, while the number of men on the left of the Douro was unknown, it would have been rash to interpose a single brigade between the advanced-guard and the main body of the French. General Hill was sent to Ovar, that the line of march might be eased, and the enemy’s attention distracted, and that a division of fresh soldiers might be at hand to follow the pursuit, so as to arrive on the bridge of Oporto pell mell with the flying enemy. The soldier-like retreat of Franceschi prevented the last object from being attained.

General Paget’s division and the cavalry halted the night of the 10th at Oliveira; Sherbrooke’s division passed the Vouga later in the day, and remained in Albergaria. But the next morning the pursuit was renewed, and the men, marching strongly, came up with the enemy at Grijon, about eight o’clock in the morning.

COMBAT OF GRIJON.

The French were drawn up on a range of steep hills across the road. A wood, occupied with infantry, covered their right flank; their front was protected by villages and broken ground, but their left was ill placed. The British troops came on briskly in one column, and the head was instantly and sharply engaged. The 16th Portuguese regiment, then quitting the line of march, gallantly drove the enemy out of the wood covering his right, and, at the same time, the Germans, who were in the rear, bringing their left shoulders forward, without any halt or check, turned the other flank of the French. The latter immediately abandoned the position, and, being pressed in the rear by two squadrons of cavalry, lost a few killed and about a hundred prisoners. The heights of Carvalho gave them an opportunity to turn and check the pursuing squadrons; yet, when the British infantry, with an impetuous pace, drew near, they again fell back; and thus, fighting and retreating, a blow and a race, wore the day away.

During this combat, Hill was to have marched by the coast-road towards Oporto, to intercept the enemy’s retreat; but, by some error in the transmission of orders, that general, taking the route of Feria, crossed Trant’s line of march, and the time lost could not be regained.

The British halted at dark, but the French, continuing their retreat, passed the Douro in the night, and at two o’clock in the morning the bridge was destroyed. All the artillery and baggage still in Oporto were immediately directed along the road to Amarante, and Mermet’s division without halting at Oporto followed the same route as far as Vallonga and Baltar, having instructions to secure all the boats, and vigilantly to patrole the right bank of the Douro. Loison, also, whose retreat from Pezo de Ragoa was still unknown, once more received warning to hold on by the Tamega without fail, as he valued the safety of the army. Meanwhile the duke of Dalmatia commanded all the craft in the river to be secured, and, having placed guards at the most convenient points, proposed to remain at Oporto during the 12th, to give time for Lorge’s dragoons and the different detachments of the army to concentrate at Amarante.

Soult’s personal attention was principally directed to the river in its course below the city; for the reports of his cavalry led him to believe that Hill’s division had been disembarked at Ovar from the ocean, and he expected that the vessels would come round, and the passage be attempted at the mouth of the Douro. Nevertheless, thinking that Loison still held Mesamfrio and Pezo with six thousand men, and knowing that three brigades occupied intermediate posts between Amarante and Oporto, he was satisfied that his retreat was secured, and thought there was no rashness in maintaining his position for another day.

The conspirators, however, were also busy; his orders were neglected, or only half obeyed, and false reports of their execution transmitted to him; and, in this state of affairs, the head of the British columns arrived at Villa Nova, and, before eight o’clock in the morning of the 12th, they were concentrated in one mass, but covered from the view of the enemy by the height on which the convent of Sarea stands.

The Douro rolled between the hostile forces. Soult had suffered nothing by the previous operations, and in two days he could take post behind the Tamega, from whence his retreat upon Bragança would be certain, and he might, in passing, defeat Beresford, for that general’s force was feeble as to numbers, and in infancy as to organization; and the utmost that sir Arthur expected from it was that, vexing the French line of march, and infesting the road of Villa Real, it would oblige Soult to take the less accessible route of Chaves, and so retire to Gallicia instead of Leon; but this could not be, unless the main body of the allied troops followed the French closely. Now, Soult, at Salamanca, would be more formidable than Soult at Oporto, and hence the ultimate object of the campaign, and the immediate safety of Beresford’s corps, alike demanded that the Douro should be quickly passed. But, how force the passage of a river, deep, swift, and more than three hundred yards wide, while ten thousand veterans guarded the opposite bank? Alexander the Great might have turned from it without shame!

The height of Sarea, round which the Douro came with a sharp elbow, prevented any view of the upper river from the town; but the duke of Dalmatia, confident that all above the city was secure, took his station in a house westward of Oporto, whence he could discern the whole course of the lower river to its mouth. Meanwhile, from the summit of Sarea, the English general, with an eagle’s glance, searched all the opposite bank and the city and country beyond it. He observed horses and baggage moving on the road to Vallonga, and the dust of columns as if in retreat, and no large body of troops was to be seen under arms near the river. The French guards were few, and distant from each other, and the patroles were neither many nor vigilant; but a large unfinished building standing alone, yet with a short and easy access to it from the river, soon fixed sir Arthur’s attention.

This building, called the Seminary, was surrounded by a high stone wall, which coming down to the water on either side, enclosed an area sufficient to contain at least two battalions in order of battle; the only egress being by an iron gate opening on the Vallonga road. The structure itself commanded every thing in its neighbourhood, except a mound, within cannon-shot, but too pointed to hold a gun. There were no French posts near, and the direct line of passage from the height of Sarea, across the river to the building, being to the right hand, was of course hidden from the troops in the town. Here, then, with a marvellous hardihood, sir Arthur resolved, if he could find but one boat, to make his way, in the face of a veteran army and a renowned general.

PASSAGE OF THE DOURO.

A boat was soon obtained; for a poor barber of Oporto, evading the French patroles, had, during the night, come over the water in a small skiff; this being discovered by colonel Waters, a staff officer, of a quick and daring temper, he and the barber, and the prior of Amarante, who gallantly offered his aid, crossed the river, and in half an hour returned, unperceived, with three or four large barges. Meanwhile, eighteen or twenty pieces of artillery were got up to the convent of Sarea; and major-general John Murray, with the German brigade, some squadrons of the 14th dragoons, and two guns, reached the Barca de Avintas, three miles higher up the river, his orders being to search for boats, and to effect a passage there also, if possible.

Some of the British troops were now sent towards Avintas, to support Murray; while others came cautiously forwards to the brink of the river. It was ten o’clock; the enemy were tranquil and unsuspicious; and an officer reported to sir Arthur Wellesley that one boat was brought up to the point of passage, “Well, let the men cross,” was the reply; and upon this simple order, an officer and twenty-five soldiers, of the Buffs, entered the vessel, and in a quarter of an hour were in the midst of the French army.

The Seminary was thus gained without any alarm being given, and every thing was still quiet in Oporto: not a movement was to be seen; not a hostile sound was to be heard: a second boat followed the first, and then a third passed a little higher up the river; but scarcely had the men from the last landed, when a tumultuous noise of drums and shouts arose in the city; confused masses of the enemy were seen hurrying forth in all directions, and throwing out clouds of skirmishers, who came furiously down upon the Seminary. The citizens were descried gesticulating vehemently, and making signals from their houses; and the British troops instantly crowded to the bank of the river; Paget’s and Hill’s divisions at the point of embarkation, and Sherbrooke’s where the old boat-bridge had been cut away from Villa Nova.

Paget himself passed in the third boat, and, mounting the roof of the Seminary, was immediately struck down, severely wounded. Hill took Paget’s place; the musketry was sharp, voluble, and increasing every moment as the number accumulated on both sides. The enemy’s attack was fierce and constant; his fire augmented faster than that of the British, and his artillery, also, began to play on the building. But the English guns, from the convent of Sarea, commanded the whole enclosure round the Seminary, and swept the left of the wall in such a manner as to confine the French assault to the side of the iron gate. Murray, however, did not appear; and the struggle was so violent, and the moment so critical, that sir Arthur would himself have crossed, but for the earnest representations of those about him, and the just confidence he had in general Hill.

Some of the citizens now pushed over to Villa Nova with several great boats; Sherbrooke’s people begun to cross in large bodies; and, at the same moment, a loud shout in the town, and the waving of handkerchiefs from all the windows, gave notice that the enemy had abandoned the lower part of the city; and now, also, Murray’s troops were seen descending the right bank from Avintas. By this time three battalions were in the Seminary; and Hill, advancing to the enclosure wall, opened a destructive fire upon the French columns as they passed, in haste and confusion, by the Vallonga road. Five pieces of French artillery were coming out from the town on the left; but, appalled by the line of musketry to be passed, the drivers suddenly pulled up, and while thus hesitating, a volley from behind stretched most of the artillery-men on the ground; the rest, dispersing among the enclosures, left their guns on the road. This volley was given by a part of Sherbrooke’s people, who, having forced their way through the streets, thus came upon the rear. In fine, the passage was won; and the allies were in considerable force on the French side of the river.

To the left, general Sherbrooke, with the brigade of guards, and the 29th regiment, was in the town, and pressing the rear of the enemy, who were quitting it. In the centre, general Hill, holding the Seminary and the wall of the enclosure, with the Buffs, the 48th, the 66th, the 16th Portuguese, and a battalion of detachments, sent a damaging fire into the masses as they passed him; and his line was prolonged on the right, although with a considerable interval, by general Murray’s Germans, and two squadrons of the 14th dragoons. The remainder of the army kept passing the river at different points; and the artillery, from the height of Sarea, still searched the enemy’s columns as they hurried along the line of retreat.

If general Murray had then fallen boldly in upon the disordered crowds, their discomfiture would have been complete; but he suffered column after column to pass him, without even a cannon shot, and seemed fearful lest they should turn and push him into the river. General Charles Stewart and major Hervey, however, impatient of this inactivity, charged with the two squadrons of dragoons, and rode over the enemy’s rear-guard, as it was pushing through a narrow road to gain an open space beyond. Laborde was unhorsed, Foy badly wounded; and, on the English side, major Hervey lost an arm; and his gallant horsemen, receiving no support from Murray, were obliged to fight their way back with loss.

This finished the action; the French continued their retreat, and the British remained on the ground they had gained. The latter lost twenty killed, a general and ninety-five men wounded; the former had about five hundred men killed and wounded, and five pieces of artillery were taken in the fight; a considerable quantity of ammunition, and fifty guns (of which the carriages had been burnt) were afterwards found in the arsenal, and several hundred men were captured in the hospitals.

Plate 4. to face Pa. 290.

Sketch Explanatory
OF THE PASSAGE OF THE RIVER DOURO,
by SIR ARTHUR WELLESLEY,
May 12^th, 1809,
AND OF THE STORMING OF OPORTO,
by MARSHAL SOULT,
March 1809.

London. Published by T. & W. BOONE, July 1829.

Napoleon’s veterans were so experienced, so inured to warfare that no troops in the world could more readily recover from such a surprise, and before they reached Vallonga their columns were again in order, with a regular rear guard covering the retreat. A small garrison at the mouth of the Douro was cut off, but, guided by some friendly Portuguese, it rejoined the army in the night; and Soult, believing that Loison was at Amarante, thought he had happily escaped a great danger and was still formidable to his enemies.

Sir Arthur Wellesley employed the remainder of the 12th, and the next day, in bringing over the rear of the army, together with the baggage, the stores, and the artillery. General Murray’s Germans, however, pursued, on the morning of the 13th, but not further than about two leagues on the road of Amarante. This delay has been blamed as an error in sir Arthur; it is argued that an enemy once surprised should never be allowed to recover, and that Soult should have been followed up, even while a single regiment was left to pursue. But the reasons for halting were, first, that a part of the army was still on the left bank of the Douro;—secondly, that the troops had out marched provisions, baggage, and ammunition, and having passed over above eighty miles of difficult country in four days, during three of which they were constantly fighting, both men and animals required rest; thirdly, that nothing was known of Beresford, whose contemporary operations it is time to relate.

The moment of his arrival on the Douro was marked by the repulse of Loison’s division, which immediately fell back, as I have already related, to Mezamfrio, followed by the Portuguese patroles only, for Beresford halted on the left bank of the river, because the British regiments were still in the rear. This was on the 10th. Sylveira, who was at Villa Real, had orders to feel towards Mezamfrio for the enemy, and the marshal’s force was thus, with the assistance of the insurgents, in readiness to turn Soult from the route of Villa Real to Bragança.

The 11th, Loison continued his retreat, and Beresford finding him so timid, followed, skirmishing with his rear guard, and at the same time Sylveira advanced from Villa Real. On the 12th, the French outposts, in front of Amarante were driven in, and the 13th Loison abandoned that town, and took the route of Guimaraens.

These events were unknown to sir Arthur Wellesley on the evening of the 13th, but he heard that Soult, after destroying his artillery and ammunition, near Penafiel, had passed over the mountain towards Braga; and judging this to arise from Beresford’s operations on the Tamega, he reinforced Murray with some cavalry, ordering him to proceed by Penafiel, and if Loison still lingered near Amarante, to open a communication with Beresford. The latter was at the same time directed to ascend the Tamega, and intercept the enemy at Chaves.

Meanwhile, the main body of the army marched in two columns upon the Minho, the one by the route of Barca de Troffa and Braga, the other by the Ponte d’Ave and Bacellos. But, on the evening of the 14th, the movements of the enemy about Braga gave certain proofs that not Valença and Tuy, but Chaves or Montalegre, would be the point of his retreat. Hereupon, the left column was drawn off from the Bacellos road and directed upon Braga, and Beresford was instructed to move by Monterey, upon Villa del Rey, if Soult took the line of Montalegre.

The 15th, sir Arthur reached Braga. Murray was at Guimaraens on his right, and Beresford, who had anticipated his orders, was near Chaves, having sent Sylveira towards Salamonde, with instructions to occupy the passes of Ruivaens and Melgassy. But at this time Soult was fifteen miles in advance of Braga, having, by a surprising effort, extricated himself from one of the most dangerous situations that a general ever escaped from. To understand this, it is necessary to describe the country through which his retreat was effected.

I have already observed that the Sierra de Cabreira and the Sierra de Catalina line the right bank of the Tamega; but, in approaching the Douro, the latter slants off towards Oporto, thus opening a rough but practicable slip of land, through which the road leads from Oporto to Amarante. Hence, the French in retreating to the latter town had the Douro on their right hand and the Sierra de Catalina on their left.

Between Amarante, and Braga which is on the other side of the Catalina, a route practicable for artillery, runs through Guimaraens, but it is necessary to reach Amarante to fall into this road. Thus, Soult, as he advanced along the narrow pass between the mountains and the Douro, rested his hopes of safety entirely upon Loison’s holding Amarante. Several days, however, had elapsed since that general had communicated, and an aide-de-camp was sent on the morning of the 12th to ascertain his exact position. Colonel Tholosé, the officer employed, found Loison at Amarante, but neither his remonstrances, nor the after coming intelligence that Oporto was evacuated, and the army in full retreat upon the Tamega, could induce that general to remain there, and, as we have seen, he marched towards Guimaraens, on the 13th, abandoning the bridge of Amarante, without a blow, and leaving his commander and two-thirds of the army to what must have appeared inevitable destruction.

The news of this unexpected calamity reached Soult at one o’clock on the morning of the 13th, just as he had passed the rugged banks of the Souza river, the weather was boisterous, the men were fatigued, voices were heard calling for a capitulation, and the whole army was stricken with dismay. Then it was that the duke of Dalmatia justified, by his energy, that fortune which had raised him to his high rank in the world. Being, by a Spanish pedlar, informed of a path that, mounting the right bank of the Souza, led over the Sierra de Catalina to Guimaraens, he, on the instant, silenced the murmurs of the treacherous or fearful in the ranks, destroyed the artillery, abandoned the military chest and baggage, and loading the animals with sick men and musket ammunition, repassed the Souza, and followed his Spanish guide with a hardy resolution.

The rain was falling in torrents, and the path was such as might be expected in those wild regions, but the troops made good their passage over the mountains to Pombeira, and, at Guimaraens, happily fell in with Loison. During the night they were joined by Lorge’s dragoons from Braga, and thus, almost beyond hope, the whole army was concentrated.

If Soult’s energy in command was conspicuous on this occasion, his sagacity and judgement were not less remarkably displayed in what followed. Most generals would have moved by the direct route upon Guimaraens to Braga; but he, with a long reach of mind, calculated, from the slackness of pursuit after he passed Vallonga, that the bulk of the English army must be on the road to Braga, and would be there before him; or that, at best, he should be obliged to retreat fighting, and must sacrifice the guns and baggage of Loison’s and Lorge’s corps in the face of an enemy—a circumstance that might operate fatally on the spirit of his soldiers, and would certainly give Noble’s Campagne de Galice. opportunities to the malcontents; and already one of the generals (apparently Loison) was recommending a convention like Cintra.

But, with a firmness worthy of the highest admiration, Soult destroyed all the guns and the greatest part of the baggage and ammunition of Loison’s and Lorge’s divisions; then, leaving the high road to Braga on his left, and once more taking to the mountain paths, he made for the heights of Carvalho d’Este, where he arrived late in the evening of the 14th, thus gaining a day’s march, in point of time. The morning of the 15th he drew up his troops in the position he had occupied just two months before at the battle of Braga; and this spectacle, where twenty thousand men were collected upon the theatre of a former victory, and disposed so as to produce the greatest effect, roused all the sinking pride of the French soldiers. It was a happy stroke of generalship, an inspiration of real genius!

Soult now re-organised his army; taking the command of the rear-guard himself, and giving that of the advanced guard to general Loison. Noble, the French historian of this campaign, says “the whole army was astonished;” as if it was not a stroke of consummate policy that the rear, which was pursued by the British, should be under the general-in-chief, and that the front, which was to fight its way through the native forces, should have a commander whose very name called up all the revengeful passions of the Portuguese. Maneta durst not surrender; and the duke of Dalmatia dextrously forced those to act with most zeal who were least inclined to serve him: and, in sooth, such was his perilous situation, that all the resources of his mind and all the energy of his character were needed to save the army.

From Carvalho he retired to Salamonde, from whence there were two lines of retreat. The one through Ruivaens and Venda Nova, by which the army had marched when coming from Chaves two months before; the other, shorter, although more impracticable, leading by the Ponte Nova and Ponte Miserella into the road running from Ruivaens to Montalegre. But the scouts brought intelligence that the bridge of Ruivaens, on the little river of that name, was broken, and defended by twelve hundred Portuguese, with artillery; and that another party had been, since the morning, destroying the Ponte Nova on the Cavado river.

The destruction of the first bridge blocked the road to Chaves; the second, if completed, and the passage well defended, would have cut the French off from Montalegre. The night was setting in, the soldiers were harassed, barefooted, and starving; the ammunition was damp with the rain, which had never ceased since the 13th, and which was now increasing in violence, accompanied with storms of wind. The British army would certainly fall upon the rear in the morning; and if the Ponte Nova, where the guard was reported to be weak, could not be secured, the hour of surrender was surely arrived.

In this extremity, Soult sent for major Dulong, an officer justly reputed for one of the most daring in the French ranks. Addressing himself to this brave man, he said, “I have chosen you from the whole army to seize the Ponte Nova, which has been cut by the enemy. Do you choose a hundred grenadiers and twenty-five horsemen; endeavour to surprise the guards, and secure the passage of the bridge. If you succeed, say so, but send no other report; your silence will suffice.” Thus exhorted, Dulong selected his men, and departed.

Favoured by the storm, he reached the bridge unperceived of the Portuguese, killed the centinel before any alarm was given, and then, followed by twelve grenadiers, began crawling along a narrow slip of masonry, which was the only part of the bridge undestroyed. The Cavado river was in full flood, and roaring in a deep channel; one of the grenadiers fell into the gulph, but the noise of the storm and the river was louder than his cry; Dulong, with the eleven, still creeping onwards, reached the other side, and falling briskly on the first posts of the peasants, killed or dispersed the whole. At that moment, the remainder of his men advanced close to the bridge; and some crossing, others mounting the heights, shouting and firing, scared the Portuguese supporting-posts, who imagined the whole army was upon them; and thus the passage was gallantly won.

At four o’clock, the bridge being repaired, the advanced guards of the French commenced crossing; but as the column of march was long, and the road narrow and rugged, the troops filed over slowly; and beyond the Ponte Nova there was a second obstacle still more formidable. For the pass in which the troops were moving being cut in the side of a mountain, open on the left for several miles, at last came upon a torrent called the Misarella, which, breaking down a deep ravine, or rather gulph, was only to be crossed by a bridge, constructed with a single lofty arch, called the Saltador, or leaper; and so narrow that only three persons could pass abreast. Fortunately for the French, the Saltador was not cut, but entrenched and defended by a few hundred Portuguese peasants, who occupied the rocks on the S.
Journal of Operations MS. farther side; and here the good soldier Dulong again saved the army: for, when a first and second attempt had been repulsed with loss, he carried the entrenchments by a third effort; but, at the same instant, fell deeply wounded himself. The head of the column now poured over, and it was full time, for the English guns were thundering in the rear, and the Ponte Nova was choked with dead.

Sir Arthur Wellesley, quitting Braga on the morning of the 16th, had come, about four o’clock, upon Soult’s rear-guard, which remained at Salamonde to cover the passage of the army over the bridges. The right was strongly protected by a ravine, the left occupied a steep hill; and a stout battle might have been made, but men thus circumstanced, and momentarily expecting an order to retreat, will seldom stand firmly; and, on this occasion, when some light troops turned the left, and general Sherbrooke, with the guards, mounting the steep hill, attacked the front, the French made but one discharge, and fled in confusion to the Ponte Nova. As this bridge was not on the direct line of retreat, they were for some time unperceived, and gaining ground of their pursuers, formed a rear-guard; but, after a time, being discovered, some guns were brought to bear on them; and then man and horse, crushed together, went over into the gulph; and the bridge, and the rocks, and the defile beyond were strewed with mangled bodies.

This was the last calamity inflicted by the sword upon the French army in this retreat; a retreat attended by many horrid as well as glorious events; for the peasants in their fury, with an atrocious cruelty, tortured and mutilated every sick man and straggler that fell into their power; and on the other hand, the soldiers, who held together in their turn, shot the peasants; while the track of the columns might be discovered from afar by the smoke of the burning houses.

The French reached Montalegre on the 17th; and an English staff-officer, with some cavalry, being upon their rear, as far as Villella, picked up some stragglers; but sir Arthur, with the main body of the army, halted that day at Ruivaens. The 18th he renewed the pursuit, and a part of his cavalry passed Montalegre, followed by the guards; the enemy was, however, drawn up behind the Salas in force, and no action took place. Sylveira, indeed, had entered Montalegre, from the side of Chaves, before the British came up from Ruivaens; but instead of pursuing, he put his men into quarters; and a Portuguese officer of his division, who was despatched to marshal Beresford with orders to move from Villa Perdrices upon Villa del Rey, loitered on the road so long, that all chance of intercepting the French line of march was at an end; for though Beresford, on the 19th, pushed colonel Talbot with the 14th dragoons as far as Ginjo, Franceschi turned in force, and obliged that officer to retire; and thus the pursuit terminated, with the capture of a few stragglers on the Salas.

Soult himself crossed the frontier by Allaritz on the 18th; and on the 19th entered Orense, but without guns, stores, ammunition, or baggage; his men exhausted with fatigue and misery, the greatest part being without shoes, many without accoutrements, and in some instances even without muskets. He had quitted Orense seventy-six days before, with about twenty-two thousand men, and three thousand five hundred had afterwards joined him from Tuy. He returned with nineteen thousand five hundred, having lost by the sword and sickness, by assassination and capture, six thousand good soldiers; of which number above three thousand were taken in hospitals,[7] and about a thousand were killed by the Portuguese, or had died of sickness, previous to the retreat. The remainder were captured, or had perished within the last eight days. He had carried fifty-eight pieces of artillery into Portugal, and he returned without a gun; yet was his reputation as a stout and able soldier no wise diminished.

Plate 5. to face Pa. 300.

Sketch Explanatory of the
OPERATIONS
between the
MINHO & DOURO,
1809.

London. Published by T. & W. BOONE, July 1829.

OBSERVATIONS.

The duke of Dalmatia’s arrangements being continually thwarted by the conspirators, his military conduct cannot be fairly judged of. Nevertheless, the errors of the campaign may, without injustice, be pointed out, leaving to others the task of tracing them to their true sources.

1º. The disposition of the army, on both sides of the Douro, and upon such extended lines, when no certain advice of the movements and strength of the English force had been received, was rash. It was, doubtless, right, that to clear the front of the army, and to gather information, Franceschi should advance to the Vouga; but he remained too long in the same position, and he should have felt Trant’s force more positively. Had the latter officer (whose boldness in maintaining the line of the Vouga was extremely creditable) been beaten, as he easily might have been, the anarchy in the country would have increased; and as Beresford’s troops at Thomar wanted but an excuse to disband themselves, the Portuguese and British preparations must have been greatly retarded.

2º. That Soult, when he had secured, as he thought, all the boats on an unfordable river three hundred yards wide, should think himself safe from an attack for one day, is not wonderful. The improbability that such a barrier could be forced in half an hour might have rendered Fabius careless; but there were some peculiar circumstances attending the surprise of the French army which indicate Noble’s Campagne de Galice. great negligence. The commanding officer of one regiment reported, as early as six o’clock, that the English were crossing the river; the report was certainly premature, because no man passed before ten o’clock; but it reached Soult, and he sent general Quesnel, the governor of Oporto, to verify the fact. Quesnel stated, on his return, and truly, that it was an error, and Soult took no further precaution. The patroles were not increased; no staff-officers appear to have been employed to watch the river, and no signals were established; yet it was but three days since D’Argenton’s conspiracy had been discovered, and the extent of it was still unknown. This circumstance alone should have induced the duke of Dalmatia to augment the number of his guards and posts of observation, that the multiplicity of the reports might render it impossible for the malcontents to deceive him. The surprise at Oporto must, therefore, be considered as a fault in the general, which could only be atoned for by the high resolution and commanding energy with which he saved his army in the subsequent retreat.

3º. When general Loison suffered marshal Beresford to drive him from Pezo de Ragoa and Mezamfrio, he committed a grave military error; but when he abandoned Amarante, he relinquished all claim to military reputation, as a simple statement of facts will prove. The evening of the 12th he wrote to Soult that one regiment had easily repulsed the whole of the enemy’s forces; yet he, although at the head of six thousand men, cavalry, infantry, and artillery, that night and without another shot being fired, abandoned the only passage by which, as far as he knew, the rest of the army could escape from its perilous situation with honour. It was not general Loison’s fault if England did not triumph a second time for the capture of a French marshal.

MOVEMENTS OF THE BRITISH GENERAL.

1º. If sir Arthur Wellesley’s operation be looked at as a whole, it is impossible to deny his sagacity in planning, his decision and celerity in execution. When he landed at Lisbon, the nation was dismayed by previous defeats, distracted with anarchy, and menaced on two sides by powerful armies, one of which was already in possession of the second city in the kingdom. In twenty-eight days he had restored public confidence; provided a defence against one adversary; and having marched two hundred miles through a rugged country, and forced the passage of a great river—caused his other opponent to flee over the frontier, without artillery or baggage.

2º.—Such being the result, it is necessary to show that the success was due, not to the caprice of fortune, but to the talents of the general; that he was quick to see, and active to strike; and, first, the secresy and despatch with which the army was collected on the Vouga belongs entirely to the man; for, there were many obstacles to overcome; and D’Argenton, as the sequel proved, would, by his disclosures, have ruined sir Arthur’s combinations, if the latter had not providently given him a false view of affairs. The subsequent march from the Vouga to the Douro was, in itself, no mean effort, for, it must be recollected, that this rapid advance against an eminent commander, and a veteran army of above twenty thousand men, was made with a heterogeneous force, of which only sixteen thousand men were approved soldiers, the remainder being totally unformed by discipline, untried in battle, and, only three weeks before, were in a state of open mutiny.

3º.—The passage of the Douro, at Oporto, would, at first sight, seem a rash undertaking; but, when examined closely, it proves to be an example of consummate generalship, both in the conception and the execution. The careless watch maintained by the French may, indeed, be called fortunate, because it permitted the English general to get a few men over unperceived; but it was not twenty-five, nor twenty-five hundred, soldiers that could have maintained themselves, if heedlessly cast on the other side. Sir Arthur, when he so coolly said—“let them pass,” was prepared to protect them when they had passed. He did not give that order until he knew that Murray had found boats at Avintas, to ferry over a considerable number of troops, and, consequently, that that general, descending the Douro, could cover the right flank of the Seminary, while the guns planted on the heights of Sarea could sweep the left flank, and search all the ground enclosed by the wall round the building. If general Murray’s troops only had passed, they would have been compromised; if the whole army had made the attempt at Avintas, its march would have been discovered; but in the double passage all was secured: the men in the Seminary by the guns, by the strength of the building, and by Murray’s troops; the latter by the surprise on the town, which drew the enemy’s attention away from them. Hence, it was only necessary to throw a few brave men into the Seminary unperceived, and then the success was almost certain; because, while that building was maintained, the troops in the act of passing could neither be prevented nor harmed by the enemy. To attain great objects by simple means is the highest effort of genius!

4º.—If general Murray had attacked vigorously, the ruin of the French army would have ensued. It was an opportunity that would have tempted a blind man to strike; the neglect of it argued want of military talent and of military hardihood; and how would it have appeared if Loison had not abandoned Amarante? If Soult, effecting his retreat in safety, and reaching Zamora or Salamanca in good order, had turned on Ciudad Rodrigo, he would have found full occupation for sir Arthur Wellesley in the north; and he would have opened a free communication with the duke of Belluno. The latter must, then, have marched either against Seville or Lisbon; and thus the boldness and excellent conduct of the English general, producing no adequate results, would have been overlooked, or, perhaps, have formed a subject for the abuse of some ignorant, declamatory writer.

5º.—Sir Arthur Wellesley’s reasons for halting at Oporto, the 13th, have been already noticed, but they require further remarks. Had he followed Soult headlong, there is no doubt that the latter would have been overtaken on the Souza river, and destroyed; but this chance, arising from Loison’s wretched movements, was not to be foreseen. Sir Arthur Wellesley knew nothing of Beresford’s situation; but he naturally supposed that, following his instructions, the latter was about Villa Real; and that, consequently, the French would, from Amarante, either ascend the Tamega to Chaves, or taking the road to Guimaraens and Braga, make for the Minho. Hence, he remained where he could command the main roads to that river, in order to intercept Soult’s retreat and force him to a battle; whereas, if he had once entered the defile formed by the Douro and the Sierra de Catalina, he could only have followed his enemy in one column by a difficult route, a process promising little advantage. Nevertheless, seeing that he detached general Murray by that route at last, it would appear that he should have ordered him to press the enemy closer than he did; but there a political difficulty occurred.

The English cabinet, although improvident in its preparations, was very fearful of misfortune, and the general durst not risk the safety of a single brigade, except for a great object, lest a slight disaster should cause the army to be recalled. Thus, he was obliged to curb his naturally enterprising disposition, and to this burthen of ministerial incapacity, which he bore even to the battle of Salamanca, may be traced that over-caution which has been so often censured as a fault, not only by military King Joseph’s captured Correspondence, MS. writers, but by Napoleon, who, judging from appearances, erroneously supposed it to be a characteristic of the man, and often rebuked his generals for not taking advantage thereof.

6º.—The marches and encounters, from the 14th to the 17th, were excellent on both sides. Like the wheelings and buffeting of two vultures in the air, the generals contended, the one for safety, the other for triumph; but there was evidently a failure in the operations of marshal Beresford. Soult did not reach Salamonde until the evening of the 15th, and his rear guard was still there on the evening of the 16th. Beresford was in person at Chaves on the 16th, and his troops reached that place early on the morning of the 17th. Soult passed Montalegre on the 18th, but from Chaves to that place is only one march.

Again, marshal Beresford was in possession of Amarante on the 13th, and as there was an excellent map of the province in existence, he must have known the importance of Salamonde, and that there were roads to it through Mondin and Cavez, shorter than by Guimaraens and Chaves. It is true that Sylveira was sent to occupy Ruivaens and Melgacy; but he executed his orders slowly, and Misarella was neglected. Major Warre, an officer of the marshal’s staff, endeavoured, indeed, to break down the bridges of Ponte Nova and Ruivaens; and it was by his exertions that the peasants, surprised at the former, had been collected; but he had only a single dragoon with him, and was without powder to execute this important task. The peasantry, glad to be rid of the French, were reluctant to stop their retreat, and still more to destroy the bridge of Misarella, which was the key of all the communications, and all the great markets of the Entre Minho e Douro; and therefore sure to be built up again, in which case the people knew well that their labour and time would be called for without payment. It is undoubted that Soult owed his safety to the failure in breaking those bridges; and it does appear that if major Warre had been supplied with the necessary escort and materials he would have effectually destroyed them.

Sylveira did not move either in the direction or with the celerity required of him by Beresford, there seems to have been a misunderstanding between them; but allowance must be made for the numerous mistakes necessarily arising in the transmission of orders by officers speaking different languages; and for the difficulty of moving troops not accustomed, or perfectly willing to act together.

CHAPTER III.

S.
Journal of Operations MS.

The duke of Dalmatia halted at Orense the 20th, but on the 21st put his troops in motion upon Lugo, where general Fournier, of the 6th corps, with three battalions of infantry and a regiment of dragoons, was besieged by twelve or fifteen thousand Spaniards, under the command of general Mahi. But to explain this it is necessary to relate Romana’s operations, after his defeat at Monterey on the 6th of March.

Having re-assembled the fugitives at Puebla de Senabria, on the borders of Leon, he repaired his losses by fresh levies, and was soon after joined by three thousand men from Castile, and thus, unknown to Ney, he had, as it were, gained the rear of the sixth corps. Villa Franca del Bierzo was, at this time, occupied by two weak French battalions, and their nearest support was at Lugo: Romana resolved to surprise them, and, dividing his forces, sent Mendizabel with one division by the valley of the Syl to take the French in rear, and marched himself by the route of Calcabellos. The French, thus surrounded in Villa Franca, after a short skirmish, in which the Spaniards lost about a hundred men, surrendered, and were sent into the Asturias.

Romana then detached a part of his forces to Orense and Ponte Vedra, to assist Morillo and the insurrection in the western parts of Gallicia, where, with the aid of the English ships of war, and notwithstanding the shameful neglect of the supreme central junta, the patriots were proceeding vigorously. The moveable columns of the sixth corps daily lost a number of men; some in open battle, but a still greater number by assassinations, which were rigorously visited upon the districts where they took place; and thus, in Gallicia, as in every other part of Spain, the war hourly assumed a more horrid character. Referring to this period, colonel Barios afterwards told Mr. Frere that, to repress the excesses of marshal Ney’s troops, Parl. Papers, 1810. he, himself, had, in cold blood, caused seven hundred French prisoners to be drowned in the Minho; an avowal recorded by Mr. Frere, without animadversion, but which, happily for the cause of humanity, there is good reason to believe was as false as it was disgraceful.

After the capture of Vigo, the Spanish force on the coast increased rapidly. Barios returned to Seville; Martin Carrera assumed the command of the troops near Orense, and the Conde Noroña of those near Vigo. General Maucune returned to St. Jago from Tuy, and Ney, apprized of the loss at Villa Franca, advanced to Lugo. Romana immediately abandoned Gallicia, and, entering the Asturias by the pass of Cienfuegos, marched along the line of the Gallician frontier, until he reached Navia de Suarna. Here he left Mahi, with the army, to observe Ney, but repaired, himself, to Oviedo, to redress the crying wrongs of the Asturians.

It is unnecessary to recapitulate the evil doings of the Asturian junta, which was notoriously corrupt and incapable. Romana, after a short inquiry, dismissed the members in virtue of his supreme authority, and appointed new men; but this act of justice gave great offence to Jovellanos and others. It appeared too close an approximation to Cuesta’s manner, in Leon, the year before; and as the central government, always selfish and jealous, abhorred any indication of vigour or probity in a general, Romana was soon afterwards deprived of his command. Meanwhile, he was resolutely reforming abuses, when his proceedings were suddenly arrested by an unexpected event.

As soon as Ney understood that the Spanish army was posted on the Gallician side of the Asturian frontier, and that Romana was likely to excite the energy of the Asturian people, he planned a combined movement, to surround and destroy, not only Romana and his army, but also the Asturian forces, which then amounted to about fifteen thousand men, including the partida of Porlier, commonly called the Marquisetto. This force, commanded by general Ballasteros and general Voster, occupied Infiesta, on the eastern side of Oviedo, and Castropol on the coast. Ney, with the consent of Joseph, arranged that Kellerman, who was at Astorga, with six guns and eight thousand seven hundred men, composed of detachments, drawn together from the different corps, should penetrate the Asturias from the south east by the pass of Pajares; that Bonnet, who always remained at the town of St. Andero, should break in, from the north east, by the coast road; and that the sixth corps should make an irruption by the Concejo de Ibias, a short but difficult route leading directly from Lugo.

When the period for these combined movements was determined, Ney, appointing general Marchand to command in Gallicia during his own absence, left three battalions under Maucune at St. Jago, three others in garrison at Coruña under general D’Armagnac, one at Ferrol, and three with a regiment of cavalry under Fournier at Lugo; and then marched himself, with twelve battalions of infantry and three regiments of cavalry, against Mahi. The latter immediately abandoned his position at Navia de Suarna, and drawing off by his left, without giving notice to Romana, returned to Gallicia and again entered the valley of the Syl. Ney, either thinking that the greatest force was near Oviedo, or that it was more important to capture Romana than to disperse Mahi’s troops, continued his route by the valley of the Nareca, and with such diligence that he reached Cornellana and Grado, one march from Oviedo, before Romana knew of his approach. The Spanish general, thus surprized, made a feeble and fruitless endeavour to check the French at the bridge of Peñaflor, after which, sending the single regiment he had with him to Infiesta, he embarked on board an English vessel at Gihon, and so escaped.

The 18th of May, Ney entered Oviedo, where he was joined by Kellerman, and the next day pursued Romana to Gihon. Bonnet, likewise, executed his part, but somewhat later; and thus Vorster, being unmolested by Ney, had time to collect his corps on the coast. Meanwhile Ballasteros, finding that Bonnet had passed between him and Vorster, boldly marched upon St. Andero and retook it, making the garrison and sick men (in all eleven hundred) prisoners. The Amelia and Statira, British frigates, arrived off the harbour at the same moment, and captured three French corvettes and two luggers, on board of which some staff-officers were endeavouring to escape.

Bonnet, however, followed hard upon Ballasteros, and, the 11th of June, routed him so completely that he, also, was forced to save himself on board an English vessel, and the French recovered all the prisoners, and, amongst them, the men taken at Villa Franca, by Romana. But, before this, Ney, uneasy for his posts in Gallicia, had returned to Coruña by the coast-road through Castropol, and Kellerman, after several trifling skirmishes with Vorster, had also retired to Valladolid. This expedition proved that Asturia was not calculated for defence, although, with the aid of English ships, it might become extremely troublesome to the French.

While Ney was in Asturia, Carrera, advancing from the side of Orense, appeared in front of St. Jago di Compostella at the moment that colonel D’Esmenard, a staff-officer sent by the marshal to give notice of his return to Coruña, arrived with an escort of dragoons in Maucune’s camp. This escort was magnified by the Spaniards into a reinforcement of eight hundred men; but Carrera, who had been joined by Morillo, commanded eight thousand, and, on the 23d, having attacked Maucune, at a place called “Campo de Estrella,” totally defeated him, with a loss of six hundred men and several guns. The Spaniards did not pursue, but the French retreated in confusion to Coruña. Nor was this the only check suffered by the 6th corps; for Mahi, having united a great body of peasants to his army, drove back Fournier’s outposts, and closely invested him in Lugo on the 19th.

Such was the state of affairs in Gallicia when Soult arrived at Orense; and as the inhabitants of that town, from whom he got intelligence of these S.
Journal of Operations MS. events, rather exaggerated the success of their countrymen, the French marshal immediately sent forward an advanced guard of his stoutest men to relieve Lugo, and followed himself, by the route of Monforte, with as much speed as the exhausted state of his troops would permit. The 22d, he reached Gutin, and, the same day, his van being descried on the mountains above Lugo, Mahi broke up his camp, and fell back to Mondenedo.