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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.

COLONEL H. P. FORTY-THIRD REGIMENT, AND MEMBER OF
THE ROYAL SWEDISH ACADEMY OF MILITARY
SCIENCES.

VOL. III.

LONDON:

THOMAS & WILLIAM BOONE, NEW BOND-STREET.

MDCCCXXXI.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

ERRATA.

LIST OF PLATES.

NOTICE.

The manuscript authorities consulted for this volume consist of original papers and correspondence of the duke of Wellington, marshal Soult, king Joseph, Mr. Stuart,[1] general Graham,[2] general Pelet,[3] general Campbell,[4] captain Codrington,[5] and colonel Cox,[6] together with many private journals and letters of officers employed during the war.

Before the Appendix two papers are inserted, the one a letter from major-general Frederick Ponsonby relative to a passage in the description of the battle of Talavera; the other is an original note by the emperor Napoleon, which I had not seen when I published my first volume. The reader is referred to it as confirmatory of the arguments used by me when objecting to Joseph’s retreat from Madrid.

The reader is informed that, in the second volume, Book VI. & VII. should be Book VI., and Book IX. should be Book VIII.

HISTORY
OF THE
PENINSULAR WAR.

BOOK IX.

CHAPTER I.

1809.

When Gallicia was delivered by the campaign of Talavera, the Asturias became the head of a new line of operation threatening the enemy’s principal communication with France. But this advantage was feebly used. Kellerman’s division at Valladolid, and Bonet’s at San Andero, sufficed to hold both Asturians and Gallicians in check; and the sanguinary operations in the valley of the Tagus, were colaterally, as well as directly, unprofitable to the allies. In other parts the war was steadily progressive in favour of the French; yet their career was one of pains and difficulties.

Hitherto Biscay had been tranquil, and Navarre so submissive, that the artillery employed against Zaragoza, was conveyed by the country people, without an escort, from Pampeluna to Tudela. But when the battle of Belchite terminated the regular warfare in Aragon, the Guerilla system commenced in those parts; and as the chiefs acquired reputation at the moment when Blake was losing credit by defeats, the dispersed soldiers flocked to their standards; hoping thus to cover past disgrace, and to live with a greater license, because the regular armies suffered under the restraints without enjoying the benefits of discipline, while the irregulars purveyed for themselves.

Zaragoza is surrounded by rugged mountains, and every range became the mother of a Guerilla brood; nor were the regular Partizan corps less numerous than the Partidas. On the left of the Ebro, the Catalonian colonels, Baget, Perena, Pedroza, and the chief Theobaldo, brought their Migueletes to the Sierra de Guara, overhanging Huesca and Barbastro. In this position, commanding the sources of the Cinca and operating on both sides of that river, they harassed the communication between Zaragoza and the French outposts; and maintained an intercourse with the governor of Lerida, who directed the movements and supplied the wants of all the bands in Aragon.

On the right of the Ebro, troops raised in the district of Molina, were united to the corps of Gayan, and that officer, taking possession of the mountains of Montalvan, the valley of the Xiloca, and the town of Daroca, pushed his advanced guards even to the plain of Zaragoza, and occupied Nuestra Senora del Aguilar. This convent, situated on the top of a high rock, near Cariñena, he made a depôt of provisions and ammunition, and surrounded the building with an entrenched camp for three thousand men.

On Gayan’s left, general Villa Campa, a man of talent and energy, established himself at Calatayud, with the regular regiments of Soria and La Princessa, and making fresh levies, rapidly formed a large force, with which he cut the direct line of communication between Zaragoza and Madrid.

Beyond Villa Campa’s positions the circle of war was continued by other bands; which, descending from the Moncayo mountains, infested the districts of Taranzona and Borja, and intercepted the communications between Tudela and Zaragoza.

The younger Mina, called the student, vexed all the country between Tudela and Pampeluna; and the inhabitants of the high Pyrennean valleys of Roncal, Salazar, Anso, and Echo, were also in arms, and commanded by Renovalles. This general officer, taken at Zaragoza, was, by the French, said to have broken his parole; but he, pleading a previous breach of the capitulation, fled to Lerida, and from thence passing with some regular officers into the valleys, took the command of the insurrection, and succeeded in surprising several French detachments. His principal post was at the convent of San Juan de la Pena, which is built on a rock, remarkable in Spanish history as a place of refuge maintained with success against the Moorish conquerors. The bodies of twenty-two kings of Aragon rested in the church, and the whole rock was held in veneration by the Aragonese, and supposed to be invulnerable. From this post Saraza, acting under Renovalles, continually menaced Jaca, and communicating with Baget, Pedroza, and Father Theobaldo, completed, as it were, the investment of the third corps.

All these bands, amounting to, at least, twenty thousand armed men, commenced their operations at once, cutting off isolated men, intercepting convoys and couriers, and attacking the weakest parts of the French army. Meanwhile Blake having rallied his fugitives at Tortoza, abandoned Aragon to its fate, and proceeding to Taragona, endeavoured to keep the war alive in Catalonia.

Suchet, in following up his victory at Belchite, had sent detachments as far as Morella, on the borders of Valencia, and pushed his scouting parties close up to Tortoza; but finding the dispersion of Blake’s troops complete, he posted Meusnier’s division on the line of the Guadalupe, with orders to repair the castle of Alcanitz, so as to form a head of cantonments on the right bank of the Ebro. Then crossing that river at Caspe with the rest of the army, he made demonstrations against Mequinenza, and even menaced Lerida, obliging the governor to draw in his detachments, and close the gates. Suchet, however, continued his march by Fraga, recrossed the Cinca, and leaving Habert’s division to guard that line, returned himself in the latter end of June to Zaragoza by the road of Monzon.

Having thus dispersed the regular Spanish forces and given full effect to his victory; the French General sought to fix himself firmly in the positions he had gained. Sensible that arms may win battles, but cannot render conquest permanent, he projected a system of civil administration which enabled him to support his troops, and yet to offer some security of property to those inhabitants who remained tranquil. But, as it was impossible for the people to trust to any system, or to avoid danger, while the mountains swarmed with the Partidas, Suchet resolved to pursue the latter without relaxation, and to put down all resistance in Aragon before he attempted to enlarge the circle of his conquests. Foreseeing that while he thus laid a solid base for further operations, he should also form an army capable of executing any enterprize.

He commenced on the side of Jaca, and having dislodged the Spaniards from their positions near that castle, in June, supplied it with ten months’ provisions. After this operation, Almunia and Cariñena, on the right of the Ebro, were occupied by his detachments; and having suddenly drawn together four battalions and a hundred cuirassiers at the latter point, he surrounded Nuestra Senora del Aguilar, during the night of the 19th, destroyed the entrenched camp, and sent a detachment in pursuit of Gayan. On the same day, Pedrosa was repulsed on the other side of the Ebro, near Barbastro, and general Habert defeated Perena.

The troops sent in pursuit of Gayan dispersed his corps at Uzed, and Daroca was occupied by the French. The vicinity of Calatayud and the mountains of Moncayo were then scoured by detachments from Zaragoza, one of which took possession of the district of Cinco Villas. Meanwhile Jaca was continually menaced by the Spaniards at St. Juan de la Pena, and Saraza, descending from thence by the valley of the Gallego, on the 23d of August, surprised and slew a detachment of seventy men close to Zaragoza. On the 26th, however, five French battalions stormed the sacred rock, and penetrated up the valleys of Anso and Echo in pursuit of Renovalles. Nevertheless, that chief, retiring to Roncal, obtained a capitulation for the valley without surrendering himself.

These operations having, in a certain degree, cleared Aragon of the bands on the side of Navarre and Castile, the French general proceeded against those on the side of Catalonia. Baget, Perena, and Pedrosa, chased from the Sierra de Guarra, rallied between the Cinca and the Noguerra, and were joined by Renovalles, who assumed the chief command; but on the 23d of September, the whole being routed by general Habert, the men dispersed, and the chiefs took refuge in Lerida and Mequinenza.

Suchet, then occupied Fraga, Candasnos, and Monzon, established a flying bridge on the Cinca, near the latter town, raised some field-works to protect it, and that done, resolved to penetrate the districts of Venasques and Benevarres, the subjection of which would have secured his left flank, and opened a new line of communication with France. The inhabitants, having notice of his project, assembled in arms, and being joined by the dispersed soldiers of the defeated Partizans, menaced a French regiment posted at Graus. Colonel La Peyrolerie, the commandant, marched the 17th of October, by Roda, to meet them; and having reached a certain distance up the valley, was surrounded, yet he broke through in the night, and regained his post. During his absence the peasantry of the vicinity came down to kill his sick men, but the townsmen of Graus would not suffer this barbarity; and marshal Suchet affirms that such humane conduct was not rare in Aragonese towns.

While this was passing in the valley of Venasque, the governor of Lerida caused Caspe, Fraga, and Candasnos to be attacked, and some sharp fighting took place. The French maintained their posts, but the whole circle of their cantonments being still infested by the smaller bands, petty actions were fought at Belchite, and on the side of Molino, at Arnedo, and at Soria. Mina also still intercepted the communications with Pampeluna; and Villa Campa, quitting Calatayud, rallied Gayan’s troops, and gathered others on the rocky mountain of Tremendal, where a large convent and church once more furnished as a citadel for an entrenched camp. Against this place colonel Henriod marched in November, from Daroca, with from fifteen hundred to two thousand men and three pieces of artillery, and driving back some advanced posts from Ojos Negros to Origuela; came in front of the main position at eleven o’clock in the morning of the 25th.

COMBAT OF TREMENDAL.

The Spaniards were on a mountain, from the centre of which a tongue of land shooting out, overhung Origuela, and on the upper part of this tongue stood the fortified convent of Tremendal. To the right and left the rocks were nearly perpendicular, and Henriod, seeing that Villa Campa was too strongly posted to be beaten by an open attack, imposed upon his adversary by skirmishing and making as if he would turn the right of the position by the road of Albaracin. Villa Campa was thus induced to mass his forces on that side. In the night, the fire of the bivouacs enabled the Spaniards to see that the main body of the French troops and the baggage were retiring, and, at the same time, Henriod, with six chosen companies and two pieces of artillery, coming against the centre, suddenly drove the Spanish outposts into the fortified convent, and opened a fire with his guns, as if to cover the retreat. The skirmish soon ceased, and Villa Campa, satisfied that the French had retired, was thrown completely off his guard, when Henriod’s six companies, secretly scaling the rocks of the position, rushed amongst the sleeping Spaniards, killed and wounded five hundred, and put the whole army to flight. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Ebro, a second attempt was made against the valley of Venasque, which being successful, that district was disarmed.

Petty combats still continued to be fought in other parts of Aragon, but the obstinacy of the Spaniards gradually gave way. In the month of December, Suchet (assisted by general Milhaud, with a moveable column from Madrid,) took the towns of Albaracin and Teruel, the insurgent junta fled to Valencia, and the subjection of Aragon was, in a manner effected. The interior was disarmed and quieted, and the Partidas, which still hung upon the frontiers, were recruited, as well as supplied, from other provinces, and acted chiefly on the defensive. The Aragonese also were so vexed by the smaller bands, now dwindling into mere banditti, that a smuggler of Barbastro raised a Spanish corps, with which he chased and suppressed many of them.

Reinforcements were now pouring into Spain, and enabled the French general to prepare for extended operations. The original Spanish army of Aragon was reduced to about eight thousand men; of which, a part were wandering with Villa Campa, a part were in Tortoza, and the rest about Lerida and Mequinenza. Those fortresses were, indeed, the only obstacles to a junction of the third with the seventh corps; and in them the Spanish troops who still kept the field took refuge, when closely pressed by the invaders.

The policy of the Supreme Junta was however, always to form fresh corps upon the remnants of their beaten armies. Hence Villa Campa, keeping in the mountains of Albaracin, recruited his ranks, and still infested the western frontier of Aragon: Garcia Novarro, making Tortoza his base of operations lined the banks of the Algas, and menaced Alcanitz: and Perena, trusting to the neighbourhood of Lerida for support, posted himself between the Noguera and the Segre. But the activity of the French gave little time to effect any considerable organization.

Suchet’s positions formed a circle round Zaragoza; and Tudela, Jaca, and the castle of Aljaferia were garrisoned; but his principal forces were on the Guadalupe and the Cinca, occupying Alcanitz, Caspe, Fraga, Monzon, Barbastro, Benevarres, and Venasque; of which the first, third, and fourth were places of strength: and certainly, whether his situation be regarded in a political, or a military light, it was become most important. One year had sufficed, not only to reduce the towns and break the armies, but in part to conciliate the feelings of the Aragonese—confessedly the most energetic portion of the nation—and to place the third corps, with reference to the general operations of the war, in a most formidable position.

1º. The fortified castle of Alcanitz formed a head of cantonments on the right bank of the Ebro; and being situated at the entrance of the passes leading into Valencia, it also furnished a base, from which Suchet could invade that rich province; and by which also, he could place the Catalonian army between two fires, whenever the seventh corps should again advance beyond the Llobregat.

2º. Caspe secured the communication between the wings of the third corps, while Fraga and its wooden bridge over the Cinca, offered the means of passing that uncertain river at all seasons.

3º. Monzon, a regular fortification, in some measure balanced Lerida; and its flying bridge over the Cinca enabled the French to forage all the country between Lerida and Venasques; moreover a co-operation of the garrison of Monzon, the troops at Barbastro, and those at Benevarres, could always curb Perena.

4º. The possession of Venasques permitted Suchet to communicate with the moveable columns, (appointed to guard the French frontier,) while the castle of Jaca rendered the third corps in a manner independent of Pampeluna and St. Sebastian. In fine, the position on the Cinca and the Guadalupe, menacing alike Catalonia and Valencia, connected the operations of the third with the seventh corps; and henceforward we shall find these two armies gradually approximating until they form but one force, acting upon a distinct system of invasion against the south.

Vol. 3, Plate 1.

SUCHET’S OPERATIONS
1809-10.

Published by T. & W. Boone 1830.

Suchet’s projects were, however, retarded by insurrections in Navarre, which, at this period, assumed a serious aspect. The student Mina, far from being quelled by the troops sent at different periods in chase of him, daily increased his forces, and, by hardy and sudden enterprizes, kept the Navarrese in commotion. The duke of Mahon, one of Joseph’s Spanish adherents, appointed viceroy of Navarre, was at variance with the military authorities; and all the disorders attendant on a divided administration, and a rapacious system, ensued. General D’Agoult, the governor of Pampeluna, was accused of being in Mina’s pay. His suicide during an investigation seems to confirm the suspicion, but it is also abundantly evident, that the whole administration of Navarre was oppressive, venal, and weak.

To avert the serious danger of an insurrection so close to France, the emperor directed Suchet to repair there with a part of the third corps. That general soon restored order in Pampeluna, and eventually captured Mina himself; but he was unable to suppress the system of the Partidas. “Espoz y Mina” took his nephew’s place; and from that time to the end of the war, the communications of the French were troubled, and considerable losses inflicted upon their armies by this celebrated man—undoubtedly the most conspicuous person among the Partida chiefs. And here it may be observed how weak and inefficient this guerilla system was to deliver the country, and that, even as an auxiliary, its advantages were nearly balanced by the evils.

It was in the provinces lying between France and the Ebro that it commenced. It was in those provinces that it could effect the greatest injury to the French cause; and it was precisely in those provinces that it was conducted with the greatest energy, although less assisted by the English than any other part of Spain: a fact leading to the conclusion, that ready and copious succours may be hurtful to a people situated as the Spaniards were. When so assisted, men are apt to rely more upon their allies than upon their own exertions. But however this may be, it is certain that the Partidas of Biscay, Navarre, Aragon, and Catalonia, although they amounted at one time to above thirty thousand men, accustomed to arms, and often commanded by men of undoubted enterprize and courage, never occupied half their own number of French at one time; never absolutely defeated a single division; never prevented any considerable enterprize; never, with the exception of the surprise of Figueras, to be hereafter spoken of, performed any exploit seriously affecting the operations of a single “corps d’armée.”

It is true, that if a whole nation will but persevere in such a system, it must in time destroy the most numerous armies. But no people will thus persevere, the aged, the sick, the timid, the helpless, are all hinderers of the bold and robust. There will, also, be a difficulty to procure arms, for it is not on every occasion that so rich and powerful a people as the English, will be found in alliance with insurrection; and when the invaders follow up their victories by a prudent conduct, as was the case with Suchet and some others of the French generals, the result is certain. The desire of ease natural to mankind, prevails against the suggestions of honour; and although the opportunity of covering personal ambition with the garb of patriotism may cause many attempts to throw off the yoke, the bulk of the invaded people will gradually become submissive and tranquil. It is a fact that, notwithstanding the violent measures resorted to by the Partida chiefs to fill their ranks, deserters from the French and even from the British formed one-third of their bands.

To raise a whole people against an invader may be easy, but to direct the energy thus aroused, is a gigantic task, and, if misdirected, the result will be more injurious than advantageous. That it was misdirected in Spain was the opinion of many able men of all sides, and to represent it otherwise, is to make history give false lessons to posterity. Portugal was thrown completely into the hands of lord Wellington; but that great man, instead of following the example of the Supreme Junta, and encouraging independent bands, enforced a military organization upon totally different principles. The people were, indeed, called upon and obliged to resist the enemy, but it was under a regular system, by which all classes were kept in just bounds, and the whole physical and moral power of the nation rendered subservient to the plan of the general-in-chief. To act differently is to confess weakness: it is to say that the government being unequal to the direction of affairs permits anarchy.

The Partida system in Spain, was the offspring of disorder, and disorder in war is weakness accompanied by ills the least of which is sufficient to produce ruin. It is in such a warfare, that habits of unbridled license, of unprincipled violence, and disrespect for the rights of property are quickly contracted, and render men unfit for the duties of citizens; and yet it has with singular inconsistency been cited, as the best and surest mode of resisting an enemy, by politicians, who hold regular armies in abhorrence, although a high sense of honour, devotion to the cause of the country, temperance, regularity, and decent manners are of the very essence of the latter’s discipline.

Regular armies have seldom failed to produce great men, and one great man is sufficient to save a nation: but when every person is permitted to make war in the manner most agreeable to himself;—for one that comes forward with patriotic intentions, there will be two to act from personal interest; in short, there will be more robbers than generals. One of the first exploits of Espoz y Mina Extract from the Life of Mina.was to slay the commander of a neighbouring band, because, under the mask of patriotism, he was plundering his own countrymen: nay, this the most fortunate of all the chiefs, would never suffer any other Partida than his own to be in his district; he also, as I have before related, made a species of commercial treaty with the French, and strove earnestly and successfully to raise his band to the dignity of a regular force. Nor was this manner of considering the guerilla system confined to the one side. The following observations of St. Cyr, a man of acknowledged talents, show that, after considerable experience of this mode of warfare, he also felt that the evil was greater than the benefit.

“Far from casting general blame on the efforts made by the Catalans, I admired them; but, as they often exceeded the bounds of reason, their heroism was detrimental to their cause. Many times it caused the destruction of whole populations without necessity and without advantage.”

“When a country is invaded by an army stronger than that which defends it, it is beyond question that the population should come to the assistance of the troops, and lend them every support; but, without an absolute necessity, the former should not be brought on to the field of battle.”—“It is inhuman to place their inexperience in opposition to hardened veterans.”

“Instead of exasperating the people of Catalonia, the leaders should have endeavoured to calm them, and have directed their ardour so as to second the army on great occasions. But they excited them without cessation, led them day after day into fire, fatigued them, harassed them, forced them to abandon their habitations, to embark if they were on the coast, if inland to take to the mountains and perish of misery within sight of their own homes, thus abandoned to the mercy of a hungry and exasperated soldiery. The people’s ardour was exhausted daily in partial operations, and hence, on great occasions, when they could have been eminently useful, they were not to be had.”

“Their good will had been so often abused by the folly of their leaders, that many times their assistance was called for in vain. The peasantry, of whom so much had been demanded, began to demand in their turn. They insisted that the soldiers should fight always to the last gasp, were angry when the latter retreated, and robbed and ill-used them when broken by defeat.”

“They had been so excited, so exasperated against the French, that they became habitually ferocious, and their ferocity was often as dangerous to their own party, as to the enemy. The atrocities committed against their own chiefs disgusted the most patriotic, abated their zeal, caused the middle classes to desire peace as the only remedy of a system so replete with disorder. Numbers of distinguished men, even those who had vehemently opposed Joseph at first, began to abandon Ferdinand; and it is certain that, but for the expedition to Russia, that branch of the Bourbons which reigns in Spain, would never have remounted the throne.”

“The cruelties exercised upon the French military were as little conformable to the interest of the Spaniards. Those men were but the slaves of their duty, and of the state; certain of death a little sooner or a little later, they, like the Spaniards, were victims of the same ambition. The soldier naturally becomes cruel in protracted warfare; but the treatment experienced from the Catalans brought out this disposition prematurely; and that unhappy people were themselves the victims of a cruelty, which either of their own will or excited by others, they had exercised upon those troops that fell into their power; and this without any advantage to their cause, while a contrary system would, in a little time, have broken up the seventh corps,—seeing that the latter was composed of foreigners, naturally inclined to desert. But the murders of all wounded, and sick, and helpless men, created such horror, that the desertion, which at first menaced total destruction, ceased entirely.”

Such were St. Cyr’s opinions; and, assuredly, the struggle in Catalonia, of which it is now the time to resume the relation, was not the least successful in Spain.

CHAPTER II.

OPERATIONS IN CATALONIA.

See Vol II. p. 102.

The narrative of the Catalonian affairs was broken off at the moment, when St. Cyr having established his quarters at Vich, received intelligence of the Austrian war, and that Barcelona had been relieved by the squadron of admiral Comaso. His whole attention was then directed towards Gerona; and with a view to hastening general Reille’s preparation for the siege of that place, a second detachment, under Lecchi, proceeded to the Ampurdan.

During this time Conpigny continued at Taragona, and Blake made his fatal march into Aragon; but those troops which, under Milans and Wimphen, had composed Reding’s left wing, were continually skirmishing with the French posts in the valley of Vich, and the Partizans, especially Claros and the doctor Rovira, molested the communications in a more systematic manner than before.

Lecchi returned about the 18th of May, with intelligence that Napoleon had quitted Paris for Germany, that general Verdier had replaced Reille in the Ampurdan, and that marshal Augereau had reached Perpignan in his way to supersede St. Cyr himself in the command of the seventh corps. The latter part of this information gave St. Cyr infinite discontent. In his “Journal of Operations,” he asserts that his successor earnestly sought for the appointment, and his own observations on the occasion are sarcastic and contemptuous of his rival.

Augereau, who having served in Catalonia during the war of the revolution, imagined, that he had then acquired an influence which might be revived on the present occasion, framed a proclamation that vied with the most inflated of Spanish manifestoes. But the latter, although turgid, were in unison with the feelings of the people, whereas, Augereau’s address, being at utter variance with those feelings, was a pure folly. This proclamation he sent into Catalonia, escorted by a battalion; but even on the frontier, the Miguelette colonel, Porta, defeated the escort, and tore down the few copies that had been posted.

The French marshal, afflicted with the gout, remained at Perpignan, and St. Cyr continued to command; but reluctantly, because (as he affirms) the officers and soldiers were neglected, and himself exposed to various indignities, the effects of Napoleon’s ill-will. The most serious of these affronts was permitting Verdier to correspond directly with the minister of war in France, and the publishing of his reports in preference to St. Cyr’s. For these reasons, the latter contented himself with a simple discharge of his duty. Yet, after the conspiracy in the second corps, Napoleon cannot be justly blamed for coldness towards an officer, who, however free himself from encouraging the malcontents in the French army, was certainly designed for their leader. It is rather to be admired that the emperor discovered so little jealousy; when a man has once raised himself to the highest power, he must inevitably give offence to his former comrades, for, as all honours and rewards, flowing from him, are taken as personal favours, so all checks and slights, or even the cessation of benefits, are regarded as personal injuries. Where the sanction of time is wanting, to identify the sovereign with the country, the discontented easily convince themselves that revenge is patriotism.

While St. Cyr was preparing for the siege of Gerona, Joseph, as we have seen, directed him to march into Aragon, to repel Blake’s movement against Suchet. This order he refused to obey, See Vol. II p. 363. and with reason; for it would have been a great error to permit Blake’s false movement to occupy two “Corps d’Armée,” and so retard the siege of Gerona, to the infinite detriment of the French affairs in Catalonia. Barcelona was never safe while Hostalrich and Gerona were in the Spaniard’s possession. St. Cyr was well aware of this, but the evils of a divided command are soon felt. He who had been successful in all his operations, was urgent, for many reasons, to commence the siege without delay, but Verdier, who had failed at Zaragoza, was cautious in attacking a town which had twice baffled Duhesme, and when pressed to begin, complained that he could not, after placing garrisons in Rosas and Figueras, bring ten thousand men before Gerona; which, seeing the great extent of the works, were insufficient.

St. Cyr, disregarding the works, observed that the garrison did not exceed three thousand men, that it could not well be increased, and that expedition was of more consequence than numbers. Nevertheless, considering that a depôt of provisions, established for the service of the siege at Figueras, and which it was unlikely Napoleon would replenish, must, by delay, be exhausted, as well as the supplies which he had himself collected at Vich: he sent all his own cannoniers, sappers, and artillery horses, two squadrons of cavalry, and six battalions of infantry to the Ampurdan, and having thus increased the number of troops there to eighteen thousand men, again urged Verdier to be expedite.

These reinforcements marched the 22d of May, and the covering army diminished to about twelve thousand men under arms, continued to hold the valley of Vich until the middle of June. During this time, the Miguelettes often skirmished with the advanced posts, but without skill or profit; and the inhabitants of the town, always remained in the high mountains unsheltered and starving, yet still firm of resolution not to dwell with the invaders. This may be attributed partly to fear, but more to that susceptibility to grand sentiments, which distinguishes the Spanish peasants. Although little remarkable for hardihood in the field, their Moorish blood is attested by their fortitude; and, men and women alike, they endure calamity with a singular and unostentatious courage. In this they are truly admirable. But their virtues are passive, their faults active, and, continually instigated by a peculiar arrogance, they are perpetually projecting enterprises which they have not sufficient vigour to execute, although at all times they are confident and boasting more than becomes either wise or brave men.

Early in June, St. Cyr, having consumed nearly all his corn, resolved to approach Gerona, and secure the harvest which was almost ripe in that district; but, previous to quitting Vich, he sent his sick and wounded men, under a strong escort, to Barcelona, and disposed his reserves in such a manner that the operation was effected without loss. The army, loaded with as much grain as the men could carry, then commenced crossing the mountains which separate Vich from the districts of Gerona and Hostalrich. This march, conducted by the way of Folgarolas, San Saturnino, Santa Hillario, and Santa Coloma de Farnes, lasted two days; and, the 21st of June, the head-quarters being fixed at Caldas de Malavella, the Fort of St. Felieu de Quixols was stormed, and the Spanish privateers driven to seek another harbour. The French army was then distributed in a half circle, extending from St. Felieu to the Oña river. Intermediate posts were established at St. Grace, Vidreras, Mallorquinas, Rieu de Arenas, Santa Coloma de Farnes, Castaña, and Bruñola; thus cutting off the communications between Gerona and the districts occupied by Conpigny, Wimphen, the Milans, and Claros.

During the march from Vich, the French defeated three Spanish battalions, and captured a convoy, coming from the side of Martorel, and destined for Gerona. St. Cyr calls them the forerunners of Blake’s army; a curious error, for Blake was, on that very day, being defeated at Belchite, two hundred miles from Santa Coloma. Strictly speaking, there was, at this period, no Catalonian army, the few troops that kept the field were acting independently, and Conpigny, the nominal commander-in-chief, remained at Taragona. He and the other authorities, more occupied with personal quarrels and political intrigues than with military affairs, were complaining and thwarting each other. Thus the Spanish and French operations were alike weakened by internal divisions.

Verdier was slow, cautious, and more attentive to the facilities afforded for resistance than to the number of regular soldiers within the works; he, or rather Reille, had appeared before Gerona on the 6th of May, but it was not till the 4th of June that, reinforced with Lecchi’s division, he completed the investment of the place on both sides of the Ter. On the 8th, however, ground was broken; and thus, at the very moment when Blake, with the main body of his army, was advancing against Zaragoza, in other words, seeking to wrest Aragon from the French, Catalonia was slipping from his own hands.

THIRD SIEGE OF GERONA.

When this memorable siege commenced, the relative situations of the contending parties were as follows:—Eighteen thousand French held the Ampurdan, and invested the place. Of this number about four thousand were in Figueras, Rosas, and the smaller posts of communication; and it is remarkable that Verdier asserted that the first-named place, notwithstanding its great importance, was destitute of a garrison, when he arrived there from France. A fact consistent with Lord Collingwood’s description of the Catalan warfare, but irreconcilable with the enterprise and vigour attributed to them by others.

St. Cyr, the distribution of whose forces has been already noticed, covered the siege with twelve thousand men; and Duhesme, having about ten thousand, including sick, continued to hold Barcelona. Forty thousand French were, therefore, disposed Imperial Muster Roll. MSS.between that city and Figueras; while, on the Spanish side, there was no preparation. Blake was still in Aragon; Conpigny, with six thousand of the worst troops, was at Taragona; the Milans watched Duhesme; Wimphen, with a few thousand, held the country about the Upper Llobregat. Juan Claros and Rovira kept the mountains on the side of Olot and Ripol; and, in the higher Catalonia, small bands of Miguelettes were dispersed under different chiefs. The Somatenes, however, continuing their own system of warfare, not only disregarded the generals, as in the time of Reding, but fell upon and robbed the regular troops, whenever a favourable opportunity occurred.

The Spanish privateers, dislodged from St. Filieu, now resorted to Palamos-bay, and the English fleet, under Lord Collingwood, watched incessantly to prevent any French squadron, or even single vessels, from carrying provisions by the coast. But from Gerona, the governor did not fail to call loudly on the generals, and even on the Supreme Central Junta, for succours; yet his cry was disregarded; and when the siege commenced, his garrison did not exceed three thousand regular troops: his magazines and hospitals were but scantily provided, and he had no money. Alvarez Mariano was however, of a lofty spirit, great fortitude, and in no manner daunted.

See Vol. I. p. 78.

The works of Gerona, already described, were little changed since the first siege; but there, as in Zaragoza, by a mixture of superstition, patriotism, and military regulations, the moral as well as physical force of the city had been called forth. There, likewise, a sickness, common at a particular season of the year, was looked for to thin the ranks of the besiegers, and there also women were enrolled, under the title of the Company of Sta. Barbara, to carry off the wounded, and to wait upon the hospitals, and at every breath of air, says St. Cyr, their ribbons were seen to float amidst the bayonets of the soldiers! To evince his own resolution, the governor forbad the mention of a capitulation under pain of death; but severe punishments were only denounced, not inflicted upon faint-hearted men. Alvarez, master of his actions, and capable of commanding without phrenzy, had recourse to no barbarous methods of enforcing authority; obstinate his defence was, and full of suffering to the besieged, yet free from the stain of cruelty, and rich in honour.

On the 4th of June the siege was begun, and, on the 12th, a mortar-battery, from the heights of Casen Rocca, on the left of the Ter, and two breaching-batteries, established against the outworks of Fort Monjouic, being ready to play, the town was summoned in form. The answer was an intimation that henceforth all flags of truce would be fired upon; the only proceeding indicative of the barbarian in the conduct of Alvarez.

The 13th the small suburb of Pedreto was taken possession of by the French, and early on the morning of the 14th, the batteries opened against Monjouic, while the town was bombarded from the Casen Rocca.

The 17th the besieged drove the enemy from Pedreto, but were finally repulsed with the loss of above a hundred men.

The 19th the stone towers of St. Narcis and St. Louis, forming the outworks of Monjouic, being assaulted, the besieged, panic-stricken, abandoned them and the tower of St. Daniel also. The French immediately erected breaching-batteries, four hundred yards from the northern bastion of Monjouic. Tempestuous weather retarded their works, but they made a practicable opening by the 4th of July, and with a strange temerity resolved to give the assault, although the flank fire of the works was not silenced, nor the glacis crowned, nor the covered way or counterscarp injured, and that a half moon, in a perfect state, covered the approaches to the breach. The latter was proved by the engineers, in a false attack, on the night of the 4th, and the resolution to assault was then adopted; yet the storming-force drawn from the several quarters of investment was only assembled in the trenches on the night of the 7th; and during these four days, the batteries ceasing to play, the Spaniards retrenched, and barricadoed the opening.

At four o’clock in the morning of the 8th, the French column, jumping out of the trenches, rapidly cleared the space between them and the fort, descended the ditch, and mounted to the assault with great resolution; but the Spaniards had so strengthened the defences that no impression could be made, and the assailants taken in flank and rear by the fire from the half moon, the covered way, and the eastern bastion, were driven back. Twice they renewed the attempt, but the obstacles were insurmountable, and the assault failed, with a loss of a thousand men killed and wounded. The success of the besieged was however mitigated by an accidental explosion, which destroyed the garrison of the small fort of St. Juan, situated between Monjouic and the city.

About the period of this assault which was given without St. Cyr’s knowledge, the latter finding that Claros and Rovira interrupted the convoys coming from Figueras to Gerona, withdrew a brigade of Souham’s division from Santa Coloma de Farnés, and posted it on the left of the Ter, at Bañolas. The troops on the side of Hostalrich were thus reduced to about eight thousand men under arms, although an effort to raise the siege was to be expected. For letters from Alvarez, urgently demanding succours of Blake, had been intercepted, and the latter, after his defeat in Aragon, was, as I have said, collecting men at Taragona.

Meanwhile, to secure the coast-line from Rosas to Quixols before Blake could reach the scene of action, St. Cyr resolved to take Palamos. To effect this, general Fontanes marched from St. Filieu, on the 5th of July, with an Italian brigade, six guns, and some squadrons of dragoons. Twice he summoned the place, and the bearer being each time treated with scorn, the troops moved on to the attack; but in passing a flat part of the coast near Torre Valenti, they were cannonaded by six gun-boats so sharply, that they could not keep the road until the artillery had obliged the boats to sheer off.

STORMING OF PALAMOS.

This town having a good roadstead, and being only one march from Gerona, was necessarily a place of importance; and the works, although partly ruined, were so far repaired by the Catalans as to be capable of some defence. Twenty guns were mounted; and the town, built on a narrow rocky peninsula had but one front, the approach to which was over an open plain, completely commanded from the left by some very rugged hills, where a considerable number of Somatenes were assembled, with their line touching upon the walls of the town.

Fontanes drove the Somatenes from this position, and a third time, summoned the place to surrender. The bearer was killed, and the Italians immediately stormed the works. When the Spaniards flying towards the shore endeavoured to get on board their vessels, the latter put off to sea, and some of Fontanes’ troops having turned the town during the action, intercepted the fugitives, and put all to the sword.

Scarcely had Palamos fallen when Wimphen and the Milans, arriving near Hostalrich, began to harass Souham’s outposts at Santa Coloma, hoping to draw St. Cyr’s attention to that side, while a reinforcement for the garrison of Gerona should pass through the left of his line into the city. The French general was not deceived; but the Spaniards nevertheless sent fifteen hundred chosen men, under the command of one Marshal, an Englishman, to penetrate secretly through the enemy’s posts at Llagostera. They were accompanied by an aide-de-camp of Alvarez, called Rich, apparently an Englishmen also, and they succeeded on the 9th in passing general Pino’s posts unobserved. A straggler, however, was taken, and St. Cyr being thus informed of the march, and judging that the attempt to break the line of investment would be made in the night and by the road of Casa de Selva, immediately placed one body of men in ambush near that point, and sent another in pursuit of the succouring column.

As the French general had foreseen, the Spaniards continued their march through the hills at dusk, but being suddenly fired upon by the ambuscade, hastily retired, and the next day fell in with the other troops, when a thousand men were made prisoners: the rest dispersing, escaped the enemy, yet were ill used and robbed of their arms by the Somatenes. St. Cyr says that Mr. Marshal, having offered to capitulate, fled during the negotiation, and thus abandoned his men; but the Spanish general Conpigny affirmed that the men abandoned Marshal, and refused to fight, that Rich ran away before he had seen the enemy, and that both he and the troops merited severe punishment. It is also certain that Marshal’s flight was to Gerona, where he afterwards fell fighting gallantly.

This disappointment was sensibly felt by Alvarez. Sickness and battle had already reduced his garrison to fifteen hundred men, and he was thus debarred of the best of all defences, namely, frequent sallies as the enemy neared the walls. His resolution was unshaken, but he did not fail to remonstrate warmly with Conpigny, and even denounced his inactivity to the Supreme Junta. That general excused himself on the ground of Blake’s absence, the want of provisions, and the danger of carrying the contagious sickness of Taragona into Gerona; and finally adduced colonel Marshal’s unfortunate attempt, as proof that due exertion had been made. Yet he could not deny that Gerona had been invested two months, had sustained forty days of open trenches, a bombardment and an assault without any succour, and that during that time, he himself remained at Taragona, instead of being at Hostalrich with all the troops he could collect.

From the prisoners taken the French ascertained that neither Conpigny nor Blake had any intention of coming to the relief of Gerona, until sickness and famine, which pressed as heavily on the besiegers as on the besieged, should have weakened the ranks of the former; and this plan receives unqualified praise from St. Cyr, who seems to have forgotten, that with an open breach, a town, requiring six thousand men to man the works, and having but fifteen hundred, might fall at any moment.

After the failure of the assault at Monjouic, Verdier recommenced his approaches in due form, opened galleries for a mine, and interrupted the communication with the city by posting men in the ruins of the little fort of St. Juan. But his operations were retarded by Claros and Rovira, who captured a convoy of powder close to the French frontier. To prevent a recurrence of such events, the brigade of Souham’s division was pushed from Bañolas to St. Lorenzo de la Muja; and, on the 2d of August, the fortified convent of St. Daniel, situated in the valley of the Galligan, between the Constable fort and Monjouic, was taken by the French, who thus entirely intercepted the communication between the latter place and the city.

On the 4th of August, the glacis of Monjouic being crowned, the counterscarp blown in, and the flank defences ruined, the ditch was passed, and the half moon in front of the curtain carried by storm, but no lodgement was effected. During the day, Alvarez made an unsuccessful effort to retake the ruins of St. Juan; and at the same time, two hundred Spaniards who had come from the sea-coast with provisions, and penetrated to the convent of St. Daniel, thinking that their countrymen still held it, were made prisoners.

On the 5th the engineers having ascertained that the northern bastion being hollow, the troops would, after storming it, be obliged to descend a scarp of twelve or fourteen feet, changed the line of attack, and commenced new approaches against the eastern bastion. A second practical breach was soon opened, and preparations made for storming on the 12th, but in the night of the 11th, the garrison blew up the magazines, spiked the guns, and, without loss, regained Gerona. Thus the fort fell, after thirty-seven days of open trenches and one assault.

CHAPTER III.

Verdier, elated by the capture of Monjouic, boasted, in his despatches, of the difficulties that he had overcome, and they were unquestionably great, for the rocky nature of the soil had obliged him to raise his trenches instead of sinking them, and his approaches had been chiefly carried on by the flying sap. But he likewise expressed his scorn of the garrison, held their future resistance cheap, and asserted that fifteen days would suffice to take the town; in which he was justified neither by past nor succeeding facts; for the Spaniards indignant at his undeserved contempt, redoubled their exertions and falsified all his predictions; and while these events were passing close to Gerona, Claros and Rovira, at the head of two thousand five hundred Miguelettes, attacked Bascara a post between Figuera and Gerona at the moment when a convoy, escorted by a battalion had arrived there from Belgarde. The commandant of Figueras indeed, uniting some “gens d’armes” and convalescents to a detachment of his garrison, succoured the post on the 6th; but, meanwhile, the escort of the convoy had fallen back on France and spread such terror, that Augereau applied to St. Cyr for three thousand men to protect the frontier. That general refused this ill-timed demand, and, in his Memoirs, takes occasion to censure the system of moveable columns, as more likely to create than to suppress insurrections, as being harassing to the troops, weakening to the main force, and yet ineffectual, seeing that the peasantry must always be more moveable than the columns, and better informed of their marches and strength. There is great force in these observations, and if an army is in such bad moral discipline that the officers commanding the columns cannot be trusted, it is unanswerable. It must also be conceded that this system, at all times requiring a nice judgement, great talents, and excellent arrangement, was totally inapplicable to the situation and composition of the seventh corps. Yet, with good officers and well combined plans, it is difficult to conceive any more simple or efficient mode of protecting the flanks and rear of an invading army, than that of moveable columns supported by small fortified posts; and it is sufficient that Napoleon was the creator of this system, to make a military man doubtful of the soundness of St. Cyr’s objections. The emperor’s views, opinions, and actions, will in defiance of all attempts to lessen them, go down, with a wonderful authority to posterity.

A few days after the affair of Bascara, eight hundred volunteers, commanded by two officers, named Foxa and Cantera, quitted Olot, and making a secret march through the mountains, arrived in the evening of the 10th, upon the Ter, in front of Angeles; but being baffled in an attempt to pass the river there, descended the left bank in the night, pierced the line of investment, and, crossing at a ford near St. Pons, entered Gerona at day-break. This hardy exploit gave fresh courage to the garrison; yet the enemy’s approaches hourly advanced, pestilence wasted the besieged, and the Spanish generals outside the town still remained inactive.

In this conjuncture, Alvarez and his council were not wanting to themselves; while defending the half ruined walls of Gerona with inflexible constancy, they failed not to remonstrate against the cold-blooded neglect of those who should have succoured them; and the Supreme Junta of Catalonia, forwarded their complaints to the Central Junta at Seville, with a remarkable warmth and manliness of expression.

“The generals of our army,” they said, “have formed no efficient plan for the relief of Gerona; not one of the three lieutenant-generals here has been charged to conduct an expedition to its help; they say that they act in conformity to a plan approved by your Majesty. Can it be true that your Majesty approves of abandoning Gerona to her own feeble resources! If so, her destruction is inevitable; and should this calamity befall, will the other places of Catalonia and the Peninsula have the courage to imitate her fidelity, when they see her temples and houses ruined, her heroic defenders dead, or in slavery? And if such calamities should threaten towns in other provinces, ought they to reckon upon Catalonian assistance when this most interesting place can obtain no help from them?”—“Do you not see the consequences of this melancholy reflection, which is sufficient to freeze the ardour, to desolate the hearts of the most zealous defenders of our just cause? Let this bulwark of our frontier be taken, and the province is laid open, our harvests, treasures, children, ourselves, all fall to the enemy, and the country has no longer any real existence.”

In answer to this address, money was promised, a decree was passed to lend Catalonia every succour, and Blake received orders to make an immediate effort to raise the siege. How little did the language of the Spaniards agree with their actions! Blake, indeed, as we shall find, made a feeble effort to save the heroic and suffering city; but the Supreme Central Junta were only intent upon thwarting and insulting the English general, after the battle of Talavera, and this was the moment that the Junta of Catalonia, so eloquent, so patriotic with the pen, were selling, to foreign merchants, the arms supplied by England for the defence of their country!

Towards the end of August, when the French fire had opened three breaches in Gerona, and the bombardment had reduced a great part of the city to ashes, Blake commenced his march from Taragona with a force of eight or ten thousand regulars. Proceeding by Martorel, El Valles, and Granollers, he reached Vich, and from thence crossed the mountains to St. Hillario, where he was joined by Wimphen and the Milans; and as he had free communication with Rovira and Claros, he could direct a body of not less than twenty thousand men against the circle of investment. His arrival created considerable alarm among the French. The pestilence which wasted the besieged, was also among the besiegers, and the hospitals of Figueras and Perpignan contained many thousand patients. The battalions in the field could scarcely muster a third of their nominal strength. Even the generals were obliged to rise from sick-beds to take the command of the brigades; and the covering army, inferior in number to the Spanish force, was extended along more than thirty miles of mountainous wooded country, intersected by rivers, and every way favourable for Blake’s operations.

Verdier was filled with apprehension, lest a disastrous action should oblige him to raise the long-protracted siege, notwithstanding his fore-boasts to the contrary. But it was on such occasions that St. Cyr’s best qualities were developed. A most learned and practised soldier, and of a clear methodical head, he was firm in execution, decided and prompt in council; and, although, apparently wanting in those original and daring views, which mark the man of superior genius, seems to have been perfectly fitted for struggling against difficulties. So far from fearing an immediate battle, he observed, “that it was to be desired, because his men were now of confirmed courage. Blake’s inaction was the thing to be dreaded, for, notwithstanding every effort, not more than two days provisions could be procured, to supply the troops when together, and it would be necessary after that period to scatter them again in such a manner, that scarcely two thousand would be disposable at any given point. The Spaniards had already commenced skirmishing in force on the side of Bruñola, and as Blake expected no reinforcements, he would probably act immediately. Hence it was necessary to concentrate as many men as possible, in the course of the night and next day, and deliver battle, and there were still ten thousand good troops under arms, without reckoning those that might be spared from the investing corps.”

On the other hand, Blake, with an army, numerous indeed but by no means spirited, was from frequent defeat, become cautious without being more skilful. He resolved to confine his efforts to the throwing supplies of men and provisions into the town; forgetting that the business of a relieving army is not to protract, but to raise a siege, and that to save Gerona was to save Catalonia.

He had collected and loaded with flour, about two thousand beasts of burthen, and placed them in the mountains, on the side of Olot, under an escort of four thousand infantry and five hundred cavalry. Garcia Conde, an ambitious and fiery young man of considerable promise, undertook to conduct them to Gerona, by the flat ground between the Ter and the Oña, precisely opposite to that of the French attack. To facilitate this attempt, Blake caused colonel Henry O’Donnel to fall upon Souham’s posts, near Bruñola, on the evening of the 31st of August, supporting this attack with another detachment under general Logoyri. At the same time he directed colonel Landen to collect the Miguelettes and Somatenes on the side of Palamos, and take possession of “N. S. de los Angelos,” a convent, situated on a high mountain behind Monjouic. Claros and Rovira also received directions to attack the French on the side of Casen Rocca. Thus the enemy were to be assailed in every quarter, except that on which the convoy was to pass.

O’Donnel, commencing the operations, attacked and carried a part of the position occupied by one of Souham’s battalions at Bruñola, but the latter, with an impetuous charge, again recovered the ground. The Spanish general, being joined by Loygori, renewed the skirmish, but could make no further impression on the enemy. Meanwhile, St. Cyr, having transferred his head-quarters to Fornels, was earnestly advised to concentrate his troops on the left of the Ter, partly, that it was thought Blake would attempt to penetrate on that side; partly that, being so close to the Spanish army, the French divisions might, if ordered to assemble on their actual centre, be cut off in detail during their march. But he argued that his opponent must be exceedingly timid, or he would have attacked Souham with all his forces, and broken the covering line at once; and, seeing that such an opportunity was neglected, he did not fear to concentrate his own troops, on the Oña, by a flank march close under the beard of his unskilful adversary.

Souham’s division, falling back in the night, took post the 1st of September, on the heights of San Dalmaz, reaching to Hostalnou, and at eight o’clock, the head of Pino’s division entered this line, prolonging it, by the left, in rear of the village of Rieudellot. At twelve o’clock, these two divisions were established in position, and at the distance of four miles in their rear, Verdier with a strong detachment of the besieging corps, was placed in reserve on the main road to Gerona. Lecchi was sick, and his troops, commanded by Millosewitz, took post at Salt, guarding the bridge and the flat ground about St. Eugenio; having also instructions to cross the Ter and march against Rovira and Claros, if they should press the Westphalian division which remained at San Pons. The trenches under Monjouic were guarded. The mortar battery of Casa Rocca was disarmed, and the Westphalians had orders, if attacked, to retire to Sarria, and look to the security of the parc and the trenches. A thick fog and heavy rain interrupted the view, and both armies remained apparently quiet until the middle of the day, when the weather clearing, St. Cyr rode to examine the Spanish positions; for the heads of Blake’s columns were disposed as if he would have penetrated at once, by Bruñola, Coloma de Farnés, Vidreras, and Mallorquinas. Scarcely had the French general quitted Fornels, when Garcia Conde, who, under cover of the mist had been moving down the mountains, crossed the Ter at Amer, and decended the heights of Bañolas with his convoy. He was now on the flat ground, where there was no other guard than the two thousand men under Millosewitz, placed, as I have said, at Salt to watch the garrison and the movements of Rovira and Claros; and consequently, with their rear to the advancing convoy.

Verdier’s reserve, the nearest support, was six miles distant, and separated from Millosewitz by considerable heights, and the Spanish columns, coming into the plain without meeting a single French post, advanced unperceived close to the main body, and, with one charge, put the whole to flight. The fugitives, in their panic, at first took the direction of the town; but being fired upon, turned towards the heights of Palau, made for Fornels; and would have gone straight into Blake’s camp, if they had not met St. Cyr on his return from viewing that general’s positions. Rallying and reinforcing them with a battalion from Pino’s division, he instantly directed them back again upon Salt, and at the same time sent Verdier orders to follow Garcia Conde with the reserve; but the latter had already conducted his convoy safely into the town. Alvarez, also, sallying forth, had destroyed the French works near St. Ugenio, and thinking the siege raised, had immediately sent five hundred sick men out of the town, into the convent of St. Daniel, which place had been abandoned by the French two days before.

Verdier after causing some trifling loss to Conde, passed the bridge of Salt, and marched down the left of the Ter to Sarria, to save his parcs, which were threatened by Rovira and Claros; for when those two Partizans skirmished with the Westphalian troops, the latter retired across the Ter, abandoning their camp and two dismounted mortars. Thus the place was succoured for a moment; but, as Blake made no further movement, Alvarez was little benefitted by the success. The provisions received, did not amount to more than seven or eight days’ consumption; and the reinforcement, more than enough to devour the food, was yet insufficient to raise the siege by sallies.

While Millosewitz’s troops were flying on the one side of the Ter, the reports of Claros and Rovira, exaggerating their success on the other side of that river, had caused Alvarez to believe that Blake’s army was victorious, and the French in flight. Hence, he refrained from destroying the bridge of Salt, and Verdier, as we have seen, crossed it to recover his camp at Sarria. But for this error, the garrison, reinforced by Conde’s men, might have filled the trenches, razed the batteries, and even retaken Monjouic before Verdier could have come to their support.

St. Cyr having but one day’s provisions left, now resolved to seek Blake, and deliver battle; but the Spanish general retired up the mountains, when he saw the French advancing, and his retreat enabled St. Cyr again to disseminate the French troops. Thus ended the first effort to relieve Gerona. It was creditable to Garcia Conde, but so contemptible, with reference to the means at Blake’s disposal, that Alvarez believed himself betrayed; and, trusting thenceforth only to his own heroism, permitted Conde’s troops to go back, or to remain as they pleased; exacting, however, from those who stopped, an oath not to surrender. Renewing the edict against speaking of a capitulation, he reduced the rations of the garrison first to one half, and afterwards to a fourth of the full allowance, a measure which caused some desertions to the enemy; but the great body of the soldiers and citizens were as firm as their chief, and the townsmen freely sharing their own scanty food with the garrison, made common cause in every thing.

Garcia Conde’s success must be attributed partly to the negligence of St. Cyr’s subordinates; but the extended cantonments, occupied in the evening of the 31st, gave Blake, as the French general himself acknowledges, an opportunity of raising the siege without much danger or difficulty: nor were St. Cyr’s dispositions for the next day perfectly combined. It is evident that giving Blake credit for sound views, he was himself so expectant of a great battle that he forgot to guard against minor operations. The flat country between the left of the Oña and the Ter was the natural line for a convoy to penetrate to the town; hence it was a fault to leave two thousand men in that place, with their front to the garrison, and their rear to the relieving army, when the latter could steal through the mountains until close upon them. Cavalry posts at least should have been established at the different inlets to the hills, and beacons raised on convenient eminences. The main body of the army appears also to have been at too great a distance from the town; the firing that took place in the plain of Salt was disregarded by Verdier’s reserve; and the first information of the attack was brought to Fornels by the fugitives themselves.

St. Cyr says that his generals of division were negligent, and so weakened by sickness as to be unable to look to their outposts; that he had recommended to Verdier the raising of field-works at the bridge of Salt and in the passes of the hills, and, when his advice was disregarded, forbore, from the peculiar situation in which he himself was placed by the French government, to enforce his undoubted authority. But St. Cyr avows that his St. Cyr’s Journal of Operations.soldiers answered honestly to every call he made; and he was bound, while he retained the command, to enforce every measure necessary for maintaining their honour. In other respects, his prudence and vigilance were such as beseemed his great reputation. It was not so with Blake. The whole of his operations proved that he had lost confidence, and was incapable of any great enterprize. He should have come up with a resolution to raise the siege or to perish. He contented himself with a few slight skirmishes, and the introduction of a small convoy of provisions; and then notwithstanding the deep suffering of this noble city, turned away, with a cold look, and a donation that mocked its wants.

When the siege was resumed, St. Cyr withdrew the French posts from Palau and Monte Livio, leaving the way apparently open on that side, for the return of Garcia Conde, who, deceived by this wile came out at daybreak on the 3d of September, with fifteen hundred men and the beasts of burthen. Halting, for a little time, just beyond the gate, he examined the country in front with his glass; every thing appeared favourable and his troops were beginning to move forward, when the noise of drums beating to arms gave notice that an ambuscade was placed behind Palau. St. Cyr had, indeed, posted a brigade there in the hope of surprising the Spaniards, but the French forgetting the ambush, were performing the regular service of the camp at day-light, and a cry of astonishment burst from the Spanish column as it hastily retreated again into the town.

Baffled by this ridiculous mistake, and concluding that the next attempt would be by Castellar and La Bispal, St. Cyr placed Mazzuchelli’s brigade (the same that had been behind Palau) in the valley of the Oña in such a manner that it could fall upon Conde’s rear when the latter should again come forth. He also put a battalion on the hills in a position to head the Spanish column, and drive it back either upon Mazzuchelli’s brigade or upon La Bispal, where he also posted three battalions and a squadron of Pino’s division.

The 4th of September one thousand infantry, five hundred cavalry, and eleven hundred mules again came out of Gerona, and ascending the heights in which the fort of the Capuchin was situated, pushed in single files along a by-path, leading to Castellar da Selva. Mazzuchelli saw them plainly, but did not attack, waiting for the fire of the battalion ahead, and that battalion did not fire because Mazzuchelli did not attack, and it was supposed the Spaniards were part of his brigade. Garcia Conde quickly perceived their double error, and with great readiness filing off to his left, turned the right of the battalion in his front, and gained Castellar without hurt, although the French in Monjouic observing all that passed, played their guns upon the rear of his column. Being informed by the peasants at Castellar, that troops were also waiting for him at La Bispal, he made for Caza de Selva, and General Pino having notice of his approach, directed two battalions to seize the summit of a ridge which crossed the Spanish line of march, but the battalions took a wrong direction; the Spaniards moved steadily on, and although their rear was attacked by Pino’s personal escort, and that fifty men and some mules were captured, the main body escaped with honour.

There were now four open breaches in Gerona; Mazzuchelli’s brigade and the troops at La Bispal were added to the investing corps, and the immediate fall of the city seemed inevitable, when the French store of powder failed, and ten days elapsed before a fresh supply could be obtained. Alvarez profitted of this cessation, to retrench and barricade the breaches in the most formidable manner. Verdier had retaken the convent of St. Daniel in the valley of Galligan, and obliged the five hundred sick men to return to the town on the 4th; but Landen, the officer sent by Blake, on the 31st of August, to seize the convent of Madona de los Angeles, had fortified that building, and introduced small supplies of provisions; thus reviving, in the mind of Alvarez, a plan for taking possession of the heights beyond those on which the Capuchin and Constable forts were situated, by which, in conjunction with the post at Madona de los Angeles, and with the assistance of Blake’s army, he hoped to maintain an open communication with the country. A bold and skilful conception, but he was unable to effect it; for making a sally from the Capuchins on the 6th with eighteen hundred men, he was beaten by a single French regiment; and the same day Mazzuchelli’s Italians stormed Madona de los Angeles, and put the garrison to the sword.

During these events, Verdier marched against Claros and Rovira who were posted at St. Gregorio, near Amer. He was repulsed with loss, and the French general Joba was killed. Meanwhile the batteries having recommenced their fire on the 13th, Alvarez made a general sally, by the gates of San Pedro, beat the guards from the trenches, and spiked the guns in one of the breaching batteries. The 18th, however, Verdier thinking the breaches practicable, proposed to give the assault, and required assistance from St. Cyr, but disputes between the generals of the covering and the investing forces were rife. The engineers of the latter declared the breaches practicable, those of the former asserted that they were not, and that while the fort of Calvary, outside the walls, although in ruins was in possession of the Spaniards, no assault should be attempted.

Either from negligence, or the disputes between St. Cyr and Augereau, above five thousand convalescents capable of duty were retained in a body at Perpignan, and Verdier could not produce so many under arms for the assault, nor even for this number were there officers to lead, so wasting was the sickness. The covering army was scarcely better off, and Blake had again taken the position of St. Hilario. Howbeit, St. Cyr, seeing no better remedy, consented to try the storm provided Calvary were first taken.

Souham’s division was appointed to watch Blake, Pino was directed to make a false attack on the opposite quarter to where the breaches were established, and, on the 19th, Verdier’s troops, in three columns, advanced rapidly down the valley of Galligan to the assault. But the fort of Calvary had not been taken, and its fire swept the columns of attack along the whole line of march. Two hundred men fell before they reached the walls, and just as the summit of the largest breach was gained, the French batteries, which continued to play on the Spanish retrenchments, brought down a large mass of wall upon the head of the attacking column. The besieged resisted manfully, and the besiegers were completely repulsed from all the breaches with a loss of six hundred men. Verdier accused his soldiers of cowardice, and blamed St. Cyr for refusing to St. Cyr’s Journal of Operationsbring the covering troops to the assault; but that general, asserting that the men behaved perfectly well, called a council of war, and proposed to continue the operations with as much vigour as the nature of the case would permit. His persevering spirit was not partaken by the council, and the siege was turned into a blockade.

Blake now advanced with his army, and from the 20th to the 25th, made as if he would raise the blockade; but his object was merely to introduce another convoy. St. Cyr, divining his intention and judging that he would make the attempt on the 26th, resolved to let him penetrate the covering line, and then fall on him before he could reach the town. In this view, Souham’s division was placed behind Palau and Pino’s division at Casa de Selva, and Lecchi’s division of the investing troops, was directed to meet the Spaniards in front, while the two former came down upon their rear.

Blake assembled his troops on the side of Hostalrich, then made a circuitous route to La Bispal, and, taking post on the heights of St. Sadurni, detached ten thousand men, under Wimphen, to protect the passage of the convoy, of which Henry O’Donnel led the advanced guard. At day-break, on the 26th, O’Donnel fell upon the rear of the French troops at Castellar, broke through them, and reached the fort of the Constable with the head of the convoy; but the two French battalions which he had driven before him, rallying on the heights of San Miguel to the right of the Spanish column, returned to the combat, and at the same time St. Cyr in person, with a part of Souham’s division came upon the left flank of the convoy, and, pressing it strongly, obliged the greater part to retrograde. When Pino’s division, running up from Casa de Selva, attacked the rear-guard under Wimphen, the route was complete, and Blake made no effort to save the distressed troops. O’Donnel with a thousand men and about two hundred mules got safely into the town, but the remainder of the convoy was taken. The Italians gave no quarter and three thousand of the Spaniards were slain.

After this action, some troops being sent towards Vidreras, to menace Blake’s communications with Hostalrich, he retired by the side of St. Filieu de Quixols, and Gerona was again abandoned to her sufferings which were become almost insupportable. Without money, without medicines, without food; pestilence within the walls, the breaches open. “If,” said Alvarez, “the captain-general be unable to make a vigorous effort, the whole of Catalonia must rise to our aid, or Gerona will soon be but a heap of carcases and ruins, the memory of which will afflict posterity!”

St. Cyr now repaired to Perpignan to make arrangements for future supply, but finding Augereau in a good state of health, obliged that marshal to assume the command. Then, he says, every thing needful was bestowed with a free hand upon the seventh corps, because he himself was no longer in the way; but a better reason is to be found in the state of Napoleon’s affairs. Peace had been concluded with Austria, the English expeditions to the Scheldt and against Naples had failed, and all the resources of the French government becoming disposable, not only the seventh, but every “corps d’armée” in Spain was reinforced.

Augereau, escorted by the five thousand convalescents from Perpignan, reached the camp before Gerona, the 12th of October. In the course of the following night, O’Donnel, issuing from the town, on the side of the plain, broke through the guards, fell upon Souham’s quarters, obliged that general to fly in his shirt, and finally effected a junction with Milans, at Santa Coloma; having successfully executed as daring an enterprise as any performed during this memorable siege. Augereau, however, pressed the blockade, and thinking the spirit of the Spaniards reduced, offered an armistice for a month, with the free entry of provisions, if Alvarez would promise to surrender unless relieved before the expiration of that period. Such, however, was the steady virtue of this man and his followers, that, notwithstanding the grievous famine, the offer was refused.

Blake, on the 29th of October took possession once more of the heights of Bruñola. Souham, with an inferior force put him to flight, and this enabled Augereau to detach Pino against the town of Hostalrich, which was fortified with an old wall and towers, defended by two thousand men, and supported by the fire of the castle. It was carried by storm, and the provisions and stores laid up there captured, although Blake, with his army, was only a few miles off. This disaster was however, more than balanced by an action off the coast. Rear-admiral Baudin, with a French squadron, consisting of three ships of the line, two frigates, and sixteen large store-ships, having sailed from Toulon for Barcelona, about the 20th of October, was intercepted by admiral Martin on the 23d. During the chase several of the smaller vessels were burnt by the enemy, the rest were driven on shore at different places, and two of the line of battle ships were set on fire by their own crews. The store-ships and some of the armed vessels, taking refuge at Rosas, put up boarding nettings, and protecting their flanks by Rosas and the Trinity-fort, presented a formidable front, having above twenty guns on board disposed for defence, besides the shore batteries. On the 31st of November however, captain Hallowell appeared in the bay with a squadron; and the same evening, sending his boats in, destroyed the whole fleet, in despite of a very vigorous resistance which cost the British seventy men killed and wounded.

Vol. 3, Plate 2.

SIEGE of GERONA
1810.

Published by T. & W. Boone 1830.

Meanwhile the distress of Gerona increased, desertions became frequent, and ten officers having failed in a plot to oblige the governor to capitulate, went over in a body to the enemy. During November, famine and sickness increased within the city, and the French stores of powder were again exhausted; but on the 6th of December, ammunition having arrived, the suburb of Marina, that of Girondella, the fort of Calvary, and all the other towers beyond the walls, were carried by the besiegers; and the besieged, confined to the circuit of the walls, were cut off from the Capuchin and Constable forts. Alvarez, who had been ill for some days, roused himself for a last effort; and, making a general sally, on the 7th, retook the suburb of Girondella and the redoubts; and opening a way to the outworks of the Constable, carried off the garrison. The next day, overcome by suffering, he became delirious. A council of war assembled, and after six months of open trenches, Gerona yielded on the 10th. The garrison marched out with the honours of war, the troops were to be exchanged in due course, the inhabitants were to be respected, and none but soldiers were to be considered prisoners. Such was the termination of a defence which eclipsed the glory of Zaragoza.

French and Spanish writers alike, affirm that Augereau treated Alvarez with a rigour and contumely that excited every person’s indignation; and that, in violation of the capitulation, the monks were, by an especial order of Napoleon, sent to France. This last accusation admits, however, of dispute; the monks had during the siege, formed themselves into a regular corps, named the Crusaders; they were disciplined and clothed in a sort of uniform; and being to all intents soldiers, it can hardly be said, that to constitute them prisoners, was a violation, although it was undoubtedly a harsh interpretation of the terms.

Alvarez died at Figueras in his way to France; but so long as virtue and courage are esteemed in the world, his name will be held in veneration; and if Augereau forgot what was due to this gallant Spaniard’s merit, posterity will not forget to do justice to both.

OBSERVATIONS.

1º. In this siege, the constancy with which the Geronans bore the most terrible sufferings accounts for the protracted resistance; but constancy alone could not have enabled them to defy the regular progress of the engineer; as I have before observed, the combinations of science are not to be defied with impunity. But the French combinations were not scientific; and this, saving the right of Gerona to the glory she earned so hardly, was the secret of the defence.

2º. General St. Cyr, after observing that the attack on Montjouic was ill judged and worse executed, says, “The principal approaches should have been conducted against the Marcadel, because the soil there, was easy to work in, full of natural hollows and clifts, and the defences open in flank and rear to batteries on the Monte Livio and the Casen Rocca. Whereas on the side of Montjouic, the approaches, from the rocky nature of the soil, could only be carried forward by the flying sap, with great loss and difficulty.” If however, the Marcadel had fallen, the greatest part of the city would still have been covered by the Oña, and Montjouic, and the forts of the Constable and Capuchin, (regular places complete in themselves,) would have remained to be taken, unless it can be supposed, that a governor who defended the feeble walls of the town after those outworks fell, would have surrendered all, because a lodgement was made in an isolated quarter. These things are, however, ordinarily doubtful; and certainly, it must always be a great matter with a general, to raise the moral confidence of his own army, or to sink that of his adversary, even though it should be by a momentary and illusive success.

3º. The faulty execution of the attack on Montjouic is less doubtful than the choice of direction. The cessation of the breaching fire for four days previous to the assault, and the disregard of the rules of art already noticed, amply account for failure; and it is to be observed, that this failure caused the delay of a whole month in the progress of the siege; that during that month disease invaded the army, and the soldiers, as they will be found to do in all protracted operations, became careless and disinclined to the labours of the trenches.

4º. The assault on the body of the place was not better conducted than that against Montjouic; and considering these facts, together with the jealousy and disputes between the generals, the mixture of Germans, Italians, and French in the army, and the mal-administration of the hospitals, by which so many men were lost, and so many more kept from their duty, it is rather surprising that Gerona was taken at all.

5º. The foregoing conclusions in no wise affect the merits of the besieged, because the difficulties and errors of their adversaries only prolonged their misery. They fought bravely; they endured unheard of sufferings with constancy; and their refusal to accept the armistice offered by Augereau, is as noble and affecting an instance of virtue as any that history has recorded. Yet how mixed are good and evil principles in man; how dependent upon accidental circumstances is the development of his noble or base qualities! Alvarez, so magnanimous, so firm, so brave, so patriotic at Gerona, was the same Alvarez who, one year before, surrendered the Barcelona Montjouic, on the insolent summons of Duhesme! At that period, the influence of a base court, degraded public feeling, and what was weak in his character came to the surface; but in times more congenial to virtuous sentiments, all the nobility of the man’s nature broke forth.

6º. When the siege of Gerona is contrasted with that of Zaragoza, it may shake the opinion of those who regard the wild hostility of the multitude as superior to the regulated warfare of soldiers. The number of enemies that came against the latter was rather less than those who came against the former city. The regular garrison of Zaragoza was above thirty thousand; that of Gerona about three thousand. The armed multitude, in the one, amounted to at least twenty-five thousand; in the other, they were less than six thousand. Cruelty and murder marked every step in the defence of Zaragoza; the most horrible crimes were necessary to prolong the resistance, above forty thousand persons perished miserably, and the town was taken within three months. In Gerona there was nothing to blush for; the fighting was more successful; the actual loss inflicted upon the enemy greater; the suffering within the walls neither wantonly produced nor useless; the period of its resistance doubled that of Zaragoza; and every proceeding tended to raise instead of sinking the dignity of human nature. There was less of brutal rule, more of reason, and consequently more real heroism, more success at the moment, and a better example given to excite the emulation of generous men.

7º. With reference to the general posture of affairs, the fall of Gerona was a reproach to the Spanish and English cabinets. The latter having agents in Catalonia, and such a man as lord Collingwood in the Mediterranean, to refer to, were yet so ignorant, or so careless of what was essential to the success of the war, as to let Gerona struggle for six months, when half the troops employed by sir John Stuart to alarm Naples, if carried to the coast of Catalonia, and landed at Palamos, would have raised the siege. It was not necessary that this army should have been equipped for a campaign, a single march would have effected the object. An engineer and a few thousand pounds would have rendered Palamos a formidable post; and that place being occupied by English troops, and supported by a fleet, greater means than the French could have collected in 1809, would not have reduced Gerona. The Catalans, indeed, were not more tractable nor more disposed than others to act cordially with their allies; but the natural sterility of the country, the condensed manufacturing population, the number of strong posts and large fortified towns in their possession, and, above all, the long and difficult lines of communication which the French must have guarded for the passage of their convoys, would have rendered the invaders’ task most difficult.

8º. From the commencement of the Spanish insurrection, the policy of the Valencians had been characterised by a singular indifference to the calamities that overwhelmed the other parts of Spain. The local Junta in that province, not content with asserting their own exclusive authority, imagined that it was possible to maintain Valencia independent, even though the rest of the Peninsula should be conquered. Hence the siege of Zaragoza passed unheeded, and the suffering of Gerona made no impression on them. With a regular army of above ten thousand men, more than thirty thousand armed irregulars, and a large fleet at Carthagena, the governors of this rich province, so admirably situated for offensive operations, never even placed the fortified towns of their own frontier in a state of defence, and carelessly beheld the seventh and third corps gradually establishing, at the distance of a few days’ march from Valencia itself, two solid bases for further invasion! But it is now time to revert to the operations of the “Central Supreme Junta,” that it may be fully understood how the patriotism, the constancy, the lives, and the fortunes of the Spanish people were sported with by those who had so unhappily acquired a momentary power in the Peninsula.

CHAP. IV.

When sir Arthur Wellesley retired to the frontier of Portugal, the calumnies propagated in Andalusia, relative to the cause of that movement, were so far successful that no open revolt took place; but the public hatred being little diminished, a design was formed to establish a better government, as a preliminary to which, measures were secretly taken to seize the members of the Junta, and transport them to Manilla. The old Junta of Seville being the chief movers of this sedition, no good could be expected from the change, otherwise, such an explosion, although sure to be attended with slaughter and temporary confusion, was not unlikely to prove advantageous to the nation at large, it being quite obvious that some violent remedy was wanting to purge off the complicated disorders of the state.

“Spain,” said lord Wellesley, “has proved untrue to our alliance, because she is untrue to herself.”—“Until some great change shall be effected in the conduct of the military resources of Spain, and in the state of her armies, no British army can attempt safely to co-operate with Spanish troops in the territories of Spain.”—“No alliance can protect her from the results of internal disorders and national infirmity.”

This evident discontent of the British ambassador led the conspirators to impart their designs to him, in the hopes of assistance; but he being accredited to the existing government, apprised it of the danger, concealing, however, with due regard to humanity, the names of those engaged in the plot. The Junta, in great alarm, immediately sought to mitigate the general hatred; but still averse to sacrificing any power, projected a counter scheme. They had, for the public good according to some, for private emolument according to others, hitherto permitted trading, under licenses, with the towns occupied by the enemy. This regulation and some peculiarly-heavy exactions they now rescinded, and, as a final measure of conciliation, appointed, with many protestations of patriotism, commissioners to prepare a scheme of government which should serve until the fit period for convoking the Cortes arrived.

But the commissioners, principally chosen from amongst the members of the Junta, soon made manifest the real designs of that body. They proposed that five persons should form a supreme executive council, every member of the existing Junta, in rotation, to have a place; the colonies to be represented as an integral part of the empire; and the council so composed, to rule until the Cortes should meet, and then to preside in that assembly. Thus under the pretence of resigning their power, by a simple change of form, the present and the future authority of the Junta were to be confirmed, and even the proposal, in favour of the colonies, was, following the opinion of lord Wellesley, a mere expedient to obtain a momentary popularity, and entirely unconnected with enlarged or liberal views of policy and government.

This project was foiled by Romana, who, being of the commission, dissented from his colleagues; and it was on this occasion that he drew up that accusatory paper, quoted in another part of this history, and the bad acts therein specified, although sufficiently heinous, were not the only charges Vol. II. p. 348.made at this period. It was objected to some amongst the Junta, that having as merchants, contracted for supplying the army, they in their public capacity, raised the price to be paid by the treasury for the articles; and that the members generally were venal in their patronage, difficult of access, and insolent of demeanour.

Romana proposed a council of regency, to be composed of five persons, not members of the Junta. This council to be assisted by a fresh chosen Junta, also composed of five members and a procurator-general, and to be stiled “The Permanent Deputation of the Realm.” One of this body to be a South American, and the whole to represent the Cortes, until the meeting of that assembly, which, he thought, could not be too soon. His plan, introduced by misplaced declarations in favour of arbitrary power, and terminated by others equally strong in favour of civil liberty, was not well considered. The “Permanent Deputation,” being to represent the Cortes, it was obvious that it must possess the right of controlling the Regency; but the numbers and dignity of both being equal, and their interests opposed, it was as obvious that a struggle would commence, in which the latter, having the sole distribution of honours and emoluments, could not fail to conquer, and no Cortes would be assembled.

Some time before this, when the terror caused by sir Arthur Wellesley’s retreat from Spain, was fresh, Don Martin de Garay had applied to lord Wellesley for advice, as to the best form of government, and that nobleman also recommended a “Council of Regency,” and, like Romana, proposed a second council; but with this essential difference, that the latter were only to arrange the details for electing the members of Cortes, a proclamation for the convocation of which was to be immediately published, together with a list of grievances, “a Bill of Rights” founded on an enlarged conciliatory policy and having equal regard for the interests of the colonies as for those of the mother country. Garay approved of this advice while danger menaced the Junta; but when the arrangement for the command of the armies had been completed, and the first excitement had subsided, his solicitude for the improvement of the government ceased. It must, however, be acknowledged, that lord Wellesley, condemned the existing system, as much for its democratic form as for its inefficiency; because the English cabinet never forgot, that they were the champions of privilege, nor, that the war was essentially, less for the defence of Spain, than the upholding of the aristocratic system of Europe.

To evade Romana’s proposition, the Junta, on the 28th of October, announced that the National Cortes should be convoked on the 1st of January, 1810, and assembled for business on the 1st of March following. Having thus, in some measure, met the public wishes, they joined to this announcement a virulent attack on the project of a Regency, affirming, and not without some foundation as regarded Romana’s plan, that such a government would disgust the colonies, trample on the king’s rights, and would never assemble the Cortes; moreover that it would soon be corrupted by the French. Then enlarging on their own merits in a turgid declamatory style, they defended their past conduct by a tissue of misrepresentations, which deceived nobody; for, to use the words of lord Wellesley, “no plan had been adopted for any effectual redress of grievances, correction of abuses or relief from exactions, and the administration of justice, the regulation of revenue, finance, commerce, the security of persons and property, and every other great branch of government, were as defective as the military establishments.”

However, the promise of assembling the Cortes sufficed to lull the public wrath; and the Junta resolved to recommence offensive military operations, which they fondly imagined would, at once, crush the enemy, and firmly establish their own popularity and power. They were encouraged by a false, but general impression throughout Andalusia, that Austria had broken off negotiations with France; and in September and October, fresh levies, raised in Estremadura and Andalusia, were incorporated with the remains of Cuesta’s old army; the whole forming a body of more than sixty thousand soldiers, of which nearly ten thousand were cavalry. Nor was the assembling and equipment of this force a matter of great difficulty; for owing to the feeble resistance made against the invaders, the war had hitherto drawn so little on the population, that the poorer sort never evaded a call for personal service; and the enormous accumulation of English stores and money at Cadiz and Seville, were sufficient for every exigency.

In October Eguia advanced with this army a short way into La Mancha; but when the French, unwilling to lose the resources of that fertile province made a movement towards him, he regained the Sierra Morena on the 16th, taking post, first at St. Elena, and finally at La Carolina. The first and fourth corps then occupied the whole of La Mancha, with advanced posts at the foot of the mountains; the second and fifth corps were established in the valley of the Tagus and at Toledo; and the reserve at Madrid. During these movements, Bassecour, who commanded in Estremadura, detached eight hundred horsemen to reinforce the duke Del Parque, and quartered the rest of his forces behind the Guadiana. Thus in the latter end of October, there were sixty thousand men, under Eguia, covering Seville by the line of La Mancha; ten thousand under Bassecour on the line of Estremadura, and about six thousand employed as guards to the Junta and in the service of the depôts behind the Morena.

In the north, the Spanish army of the left was concentrated near Ciudad Rodrigo. For when Beresford marched down the Portuguese frontier to the Tagus, the duke Del Parque, reinforced with the eight hundred cavalry from Estremadura, and with the Gallician divisions of Mendizabel and Carrera, (amounting to thirteen thousand men, completely equipped from English stores, brought out to Coruña in July,) made a movement into the rugged country, about the Sierra de Francia, and sent his scouting parties as far as Baños. At the same time general Santocildes, marching from Lugo with two thousand men, took possession of Astorga, and menaced the rear of the sixth corps, See Vol. II. p. 427.which after forcing the pass of Baños, had been quartered between the Tormes and the Esla. In this situation, a French detachment attempted to surprise one of the gates of Astorga, on the 9th of October, and, being repulsed, returned to their cantonments. Soon afterwards Ballasteros, having again collected about eight thousand men in the Asturias, armed and equipped them from English stores, and, coming down to Astorga, crossed the Esla, and attempted to storm Zamora. Failing in this, he entered Portugal by the road of Miranda, and from thence proceeded to join the duke Del Parque. Thus the old armies of Gallicia and the Asturias being broken up, those provinces were ordered to raise fresh forces; but there was in Gallicia a general disposition to resist the authority of the Central Junta.

Del Parque, eager to act against the sixth corps, demanded, through Perez Castro the Spanish envoy at Lisbon, that the Portuguese army should join him; but this being referred to sir Arthur Wellesley, he gave it a decided negative, grounding his refusal upon reasons which I shall insert at large, as giving a clear and interesting view of the military state of affairs at this period.

Letter from Sir A. Wellesley, Sept. 23, 1809. MS.

“The enemy, he said, were superior to the allies, including those which Beresford might bring into the field, not only in numbers, but (adverting to the composition of the Spanish armies, the want of cavalry in some, of artillery in others, of clothing, ammunition, and arms, and the deficiency of discipline in all) superior in efficiency even to a greater degree than in numbers. These circumstances, and the absolute deficiency in means, were the causes why, after a great victory at Talavera, the armies had been obliged to recur to the defensive, and nothing had altered for the better since.

“But, besides these considerations, the enemy enjoyed peculiar advantages from his central position, which enabled him to frustrate the duke Del Parque’s intended operations. He could march a part, or the whole of his forces to any quarter, whereas the operation of the different corps of the allies must necessarily be isolated, and each for a time exposed to defeat. Thus there was nothing to prevent the enemy from throwing himself upon the duke Del Parque and Beresford, with the whole corps of Ney, which was at Salamanca, of Soult, which was at Plasencia, and with the force under Kellerman, which was near Valladolid, in which case, even if he, sir Arthur, had the inclination, he had not the means of marching in time to save them from destruction.

“In the same manner the British army, if it took an advanced position, would be liable to a fatal disaster; so likewise would the Spanish army of La Mancha. It followed, then, that if any one of these armies made a forward movement, the whole must co-operate, or the single force in activity would be ruined; but the relative efficiency and strength of the hostile forces, as laid down in the commencement of the argument, forbad a general co-operation with any hopes of solid success; and the only consequence that could follow would be, that, after a battle or two, some brilliant actions performed by a part, and some defeats sustained by others, and after the loss of many valuable officers and soldiers, the allies would be forced again to resume those defensive positions, which they ought never to have quitted.

“Satisfied that this was the only just view of affairs, he, although prepared to make an effort to prevent Ciudad Rodrigo from falling into the enemy’s hands, was resolved not to give the duke Del Parque any assistance to maintain his former position, and he advised the Portuguese government, not to risk Bereford’s army in a situation which could only lead to mischief. The proposed operation of the duke Del Parque was not the mode to save Ciudad Rodrigo. The only effectual one was to post himself in such a situation as that the enemy could not attack and defeat him without a long previous preparation, which would give time for aid to arrive, and a march, in which the enemy himself might be exposed to defeat. To expose those troops to defeat which were ultimately to co-operate in defence of Ciudad Rodrigo, was not the way of preventing the success of an attempt of that fortress. The best way was to place the Spanish force in such a post that it could not be attacked without risk to the enemy, and from whence it could easily co-operate with the other corps, which must be put in motion, if Ciudad was to be saved; and although he would not take upon himself to point out the exact position which the duke Del Parque ought to occupy, he was certain that, in his present forward one, although joined by Beresford, he could not avoid defeat. Ciudad Rodrigo would be lost, and other misfortunes would follow, none of which could occur under any other probable, or even possible concurrence of circumstances. In fine, that he had long been of opinion that the war must necessarily be defensive on the part of the allies, and that Portugal at least, if not Spain, ought to avail herself of the short period, which the enemy seemed disposed to leave her in tranquillity, to organize, and equip, and discipline her armies. Those objects could not be accomplished, unless the troops were kept quiet, and yet they were much more important to all parties, than any desultory successful operations against the French troops about Salamanca; but any success was doubtful, and certain to be temporary, because the enemy would immediately collect in numbers sufficient to crush the allies, who must then return, having failed in their object, lost a number of men, and, what was worse, time, which would have been more usefully employed in preparing for a great and well combined effort.”

This reasoning, solid, clear, convincing, made no impression upon the Spanish Junta or their general. Castro replied to it, by demanding a positive and definitive answer, as to when the Portuguese army would be in a condition to co-operate with the Spaniards in the Spanish territories. Sir A. Wellesley’s Correspondence with Don M. Forjas, October 19, 1809. MSS.“When there is a Spanish army with which the Portuguese can co-operate on some defined plan, which all parties will have the means, and will engage to carry into execution, as far as any person can engage to carry into execution a military operation.” “When means shall be pointed out, and fixed, for the subsistence of the Portuguese troops while they remain in Spain, so that they may not starve, and be obliged to retire for want of food, as was the case when lately in that country.” “When decided answers shall be given upon those points, I shall be enabled to tell the governors of Portugal that their excellencies have an army in a state to be sent into Spain.” This was sir Arthur’s reply, which ended the negotiation, and the duke Del Parque commenced operations by himself.

To favour the junction of Ballasteros, his first movement was towards Ledesma. General Marchand immediately drew together, at Salamanca, eleven thousand men and fourteen guns, and marched to meet him. Thereupon, the duke, without having effected his junction, fell back to Tamames; taking post half-way up a mountain of remarkable strength, where he awaited the enemy, with a thousand cavalry and twenty thousand infantry, of which the Gallicians only could be accounted experienced soldiers.

BATTLE OF TAMAMES.

General Losada commanded the Spanish right, count Belvidere the reserve, Martin Carrera the left, which being on the most accessible part of the mountain was covered and flanked by the cavalry. Marchand, desirous of fighting before Ballasteros could arrive, moved rapidly, reached the foot of the mountain early on the 18th of October, and immediately fell upon Del Parque’s left. The Spanish cavalry fled rather hastily; the French horsemen followed closely, the infantry surprised in the midst of an evolution, were thrown into disorder, and the artillery was taken. Carrera, Mendizabel, and the duke, rallied the troops on the higher ground, reinforced them from the reserve, and coming down with a fresh impetus, recovered the guns, and discomfitted the French with the loss of an eagle, one cannon, and several hundred men. During this brilliant combat on the left, the right and centre were felt by the French skirmishers; but the ground was too strong to make any impression. Marchand, seeing his men repulsed in all quarters with loss, and fearing to be enclosed by Ballasteros in that disordered state, retreated to Salamanca.

Del Parque did not venture to follow up his victory until the 21st, when, being joined by Ballasteros, he pushed with nearly thirty thousand men for Ledesma; crossed the Tormes there on the 23d, turned Salamanca by a night march, and early in the morning of the 24th crowned the heights of San Cristoval in rear of that city, hoping to cut off Marchand’s retreat. But that general had timely information, and was already at Toro, behind the Douro. Meanwhile, the news of the defeat at Tamames reached Madrid, Dessolle’s division was detached through the Puerto Pico to reinforce the sixth corps; and Kellerman was directed to advance from Valladolid, and take the command of the whole.

When the duke Del Parque heard of this reinforcement, he fell back, not to Ciudad Rodrigo, but by the way of Alba de Tormes to Bejar, which latter place he reached on the 8th of November. And while these events were taking place in Castile, the Central Junta having finally concocted their schemes, were commencing an enterprise of unparalleled rashness on the side of La Mancha.

CHAPTER V.

In the arrangement of warlike affairs, difficulties being always overlooked by the Spaniards, they are carried on from one phantasy to another so swiftly, that the first conception of an enterprise is immediately followed by a confident anticipation of complete success, which continues until the hour of battle; and then when it might be of use, generally abandons them. Now the Central Junta having, to deceive the people, affirmed that sir Arthur Wellesley retreated to the frontiers of Portugal at the very moment when the French might have been driven to the Pyrenees, came very soon to believe this their own absurd calumny, and resolved to send the army at Carolina headlong against Madrid: nay, such was their pitch of confidence, that forenaming the civil and military authorities, they arranged a provisionary system for the future administration of the capital, with a care, that they denied to the army which was to put them in possession.

Eguia was considered unfit to conduct this enterprise, and Albuquerque was distasteful to the Junta; wherefore, casting their eyes upon general Areizaga, they chose him, whose only recommendation was, that, at the petty battle of Alcanitz, Blake had noticed his courage. He was then at Lerida, but reached La Carolina in the latter end of October; and being of a quick lively turn, and as confident as the Junta could desire, readily undertook to drive the French from Madrid.

This movement was to commence early in November, and at first, only Villa Campa, with the bands from Aragon, were to assist. But when Areizaga, after meeting the enemy, began to lose confidence, the duke of Albuquerque, successor to Bassecour in Estremadura, received instructions to cause a diversion, by marching on Arzobispo and Talavera de la Reyna. The duke Del Parque, coming by the pass of Baños, was to join him there; and thus nearly ninety thousand men were to be put in motion against Madrid, but precisely on that plan which sir Arthur Wellesley had just denounced as certain to prove disastrous. Indeed, every chance was so much in favour of the French, that taking into consideration the solid reasons for remaining on the defensive, Areizaga’s irruption may be regarded as an extreme example of military rashness; and the project of uniting Del Parque’s forces with Albuquerque’s, at Talavera, was also certain to fail; because, the enemy’s masses were already in possession of the point of junction, and the sixth corps could fall on Del Parque’s rear.

Partly to deceive the enemy, partly because they would never admit of any opposition to a favourite scheme, the Junta spread a report that the British army was to co-operate; and permitted Areizaga to march, under the impression that it was so. Yet nothing could be more untrue. Sir Arthur Wellesley Appendix, [No. II.] Section 1.being at this period at Seville, held repeated conversations with the Spanish ministers and the members of the Junta, and reiterating all his former objections to offensive operations, warned his auditors that the project in question was peculiarly ill-judged, and would end in the destruction of their army. The Spanish ministers, far from attending to his advice, did not even officially inform him of Areizaga’s march until the 18th of November, the very day before the fatal termination of the campaign. Yet, on the 16th they had repeated their demand for assistance, and with a vehemence, deaf to reason, required that the British should instantly co-operate with Albuquerque and Del Parque’s forces. Sir Arthur, firm to his first views, never gave the slightest hopes that his army would so act; and he assured the Junta, that the diversion proposed would have no effect whatever.

OPERATIONS IN LA MANCHA.

Areizaga, after publishing an address to the troops on the 3d of November, commenced his march from La Carolina, with sixty pieces of artillery, and from fifty to sixty thousand men, of which about eight thousand were cavalry. Several British officers and private gentlemen, and the baron Crossard, an Austrian military agent, attended the head-quarters which was a scene of gaiety and boasting; for Areizaga, never dreaming of misfortune, gave a free scope to his social vivacity. The army marched by the roads of Manzanares and Damiel, with scarcely any commissariat preparation, and without any military equipment save arms; but the men were young, robust, full of life and confidence; and being without impediments of any kind, made nearly thirty miles each day. They moved however in a straggling manner, quartering and feeding as they could in the villages on their route, and with so little propriety, that the peasantry of La Mancha universally abandoned their dwellings, and carried off their effects.

Although the French could not at first give credit to the rumours of this strange incursion, they were aware that some great movement was in agitation, and only uncertain from what point and for what specific object the effort would be made. Jourdan had returned to France; Soult was major-general of the French armies, and under his advice, the king, who was inclined to abandon Madrid, prepared to meet the coming blow. But the army S.
Journal of Operations. MSS.was principally posted towards Talavera; for the false reports had, in some measure, succeeded in deceiving the French as to the approach of the English; and it was impossible at once to conceive the full insanity of the Junta.

The second corps, commanded by general Heudelet, being withdrawn from Placentia, was, on the 5th of November, posted at Oropesa and Arzobispo, with an advanced guard at Calzada, and scouting parties watching Naval Moral, and the course of the Tietar.

The fifth corps, under Mortier, was concentrated at Talavera.

Of the fourth corps, half a division garrisoned Madrid in the absence of Dessolle’s troops; and the other half, under general Liger Belair, was behind the Tajuna, guarding the eastern approaches to the capital. The remaining divisions, commanded by Sebastiani, were, the one at Toledo, the other with Milhaud’s cavalry at Ocaña.

Imperial Muster Roll. MSS.

The first corps, about twenty-one thousand strong, and commanded by marshal Victor, was at Mora and Yebenes, a day’s march in advance of Toledo, but the cavalry of this corps under the command of Latour Maubourg occupied Consuegra and Madrilejos, on the road to the Sierra Morena. The whole army including the French and Spanish guards, was above eighty thousand fighting men, without reckoning Dessolle’s division, which was on the other side of the Guadarama mountains.

S.
Journal of Operations. MSS.

In the night of the 6th, information reached the king, that six thousand Spanish horsemen, supported by two thousand foot, had come down upon Consuegra from the side of Herencia, and that a second column likewise composed of cavalry and infantry, had passed the Puerto de Piche, and fallen upon the outposts at Madrilejos. All the prisoners taken in the skirmishes agreed that the Spanish army was above fifty thousand strong, and the duke of Belluno immediately concentrated the first corps at Yebenes, but kept his cavalry at Mora, by which he covered the roads leading from Consuegra and Madrilejos upon Toledo. On the 8th, there were no Spaniards in front of the first corps, yet officers sent towards Ocaña, were chased back by cavalry; and Soult judged what was indeed the truth, that Areizaga continuing his reckless march, had pushed by Tembleque towards Aranjuez, leaving the first corps on his left flank. The division of the fourth corps was immediately moved from Toledo by the right bank of the Tagus to Aranjuez, from whence Sebastiani carried it to Ocaña, thus concentrating about eight thousand infantry, and fifteen hundred cavalry at that point on the 9th; and the same day Victor retired with the first corps to Ajofrin.

On the 10th, Gazan’s division of the fifth corps was ordered to march from Talavera to Toledo; and the first corps which had reached the latter town, was directed to move up the right bank of the Tagus to Aranjuez to support Sebastiani, who holding fast at Ocaña, sent six squadrons to feel for the enemy towards Guardia. The Spaniards continuing their movement, met those squadrons and pursued them towards Ocaña.

COMBAT OF DOS BARRIOS.

Areizaga, ignorant of what was passing around him, and seeing only Sebastiani’s cavalry on the table-land between the town of Dos Barrios and Ocaña, concluded that they were unsupported, and directed the Spanish horse to charge them without delay. The French thus pressed, drew back behind their infantry which was close at hand and unexpectedly opened a brisk fire on the Spanish squadrons which were thrown into confusion, and being charged in that state by the whole mass of the enemy’s cavalry, were beaten, with the loss of two hundred prisoners and two pieces of cannon. Areizaga’s main body was, however, coming up, and Sebastiani fell back upon Ocaña. The next morning he took up a position on some heights lining the left bank of the Tagus and covering Aranjuez, the Spaniards entered Dos Barrios, and their impetuous movement ceased. They had come down from the Morena like a stream of lava; and burst into La Mancha with a rapidity that scarcely gave time for rumour to precede them. But this swiftness of execution, generally so valuable in war, was here but an outbreak of folly. Without any knowledge of the French numbers or position, without any plan of action, Areizaga rushed like a maniac into the midst of his foes, and then suddenly stood still, trembling and bewildered.

From the 10th to the 13th he halted at Dos Barrios, and informed his government of Sebastiani’s stubborn resistance, and of the doubts which now for the first time assailed his own mind. It was Appendix, [No. II.] Section 1.then the Junta changing their plans, eagerly demanded the assistance of the British army, and commanded the dukes of Albuquerque and Del Parque to unite at Talavera. Albuquerque commenced his movement immediately, and the Junta did not hesitate to assure both their generals and the public, that sir Arthur was also coming on.

Thus encouraged, and having had time to recover from his first incertitude, Areizaga on the 14th, made a flank march by his right to Santa Cruz la Zarza, intending to cross the Tagus at Villa Maurique, turn the French left, and penetrate to the capital by the eastern side; but during his delay at Dos Barrios the French forces had been concentrated from every quarter.

South of Ocaña, the ground is open and undulating, but on the north, the ramifications of the Cuença mountains, leading down the left bank of the Tagus, presented, at Santa Cruz, ridges which stretching strong and rough towards Aranjuez, afforded good positions for Sebastiani to cover that place. Soult was awake to his adversary’s S.
Journal of Operations. MSS.projects, yet could not believe that he would dare such a movement unless certain of support from the British army; and therefore kept the different corps quiet on the eleventh, waiting for Heudelet’s report from Oropesa. In the night it arrived, stating that rumours of a combined Spanish and English army being on the march, were rife, but that the scouts could not discover that the allied force was actually within several marches.

Soult, now judging that although the rumours should be true, his central position would enable him to defeat Areizaga and return by the way of Toledo in time to meet the allies in the valley of the Tagus, put all his masses again into activity. The first corps was directed to hasten its march to Aranjuez; the fifth corps to concentrate at Toledo; the second corps to abandon Oropesa, Calzada and Arzobispo, and replacing the fifth corps at Talavera, to be in readiness to close upon the main body of the army. Finally, information being received of the duke Del Parque’s retreat from Salamanca to Bejar and of the re-occupation of Salamanca by the sixth corps, Dessolle’s division was recalled to Madrid.

During the 12th, while the first, second, and fifth corps were in march, general Liger Belair’s brigade continued to watch the banks of the Tajuna, and the fourth corps preserved its offensive positions on the height in the front of Aranjuez, having fifteen hundred men in reserve at the bridge of Bayona. The 14th the general movement was completed. Two corps were concentrated at Aranjuez to assail the Spaniards in front; one at Toledo to cross the Tagus and fall upon their left flank, and the king’s guards at Madrid, formed a reserve for the fourth and first corps. The second corps was at Talavera, and Dessolle’s division was in the Guadarama on its return to the capital. In fine, all was prepared for the attack of Dos Barrios, when Areizaga’s flank march to Santa Cruz la Zarza occasioned new combinations.

In the evening of the 15th, it was known that the Spaniards had made a bridge at Villa Maurique, and passed two divisions and some cavalry over the Tagus. The duke of Belluno was immediately ordered to carry the first and fourth corps (with the exception of a brigade left in Aranjuez) up the left bank of the Tagus, operating, to fix Areizaga, and force him to deliver battle; and, with a view of tempting the Spaniard, by an appearance of timidity, the bridges of La Reyna and Aranjuez were broken down.

While these dispositions were making on the French side, the Spanish general commenced a second bridge over the Tagus; and part of his cavalry, spreading in small detachments, scoured the country, and skirmished on a line extending from Arganda to Aranjuez. The Partidas also, being aided by detachments from the army, obliged the French garrison to retire from Guardalaxara upon Arganda, and occupied the former town on the 12th. But, in the night of the 13th, eight French companies and some troops of light cavalry, by a sudden march, surprised them, killed and wounded two or three hundred men, and took eighty horses and a piece of artillery.

The 16th the infantry of the first and fourth corps was at Morata and Bayona, the cavalry at Perales and Chinchon, and, during this time, the fifth corps, leaving a brigade of foot and one of horse at Toledo, marched by Illescas towards Madrid, to act as a reserve to the duke of Belluno.

The 17th Areizaga continued his demonstrations on the side of the Tajuna, and hastened the construction of his second bridge; but on the approach of the duke of Belluno with the first corps, he stayed the work, withdrew his divisions from the right bank of the Tagus, and on the 18th, (the cavalry of the first corps having reached Villarejo de Salvanes,) he destroyed his bridges, called in his parties, and drew up for battle on the heights of Santa Cruz de la Zarza.

Hitherto the continual movements of the Spanish army, and the unsettled plans of the Spanish general, rendered it difficult for the French to fix a field of battle; but now Areizaga’s march to St. Cruz had laid his line of operations bare. The French masses were close together, the duke of Belluno could press on the Spanish front with the first corps, and the king, calling the fourth corps from Bayona, could throw twenty-five or thirty thousand men on Areizaga’s rear, by the road of Aranjuez and Ocaña. It was calculated that no danger could arise from this double line of operations, because a single march would bring both the king and Victor upon Areizaga; and if the latter should suddenly assail either, each would be strong enough to sustain the shock. Hence, when Soult knew that the Spaniards were certainly encamped at Santa Cruz, he caused the fifth corps, then in march for Madrid, to move during the night of the 17th upon Aranjuez. The fourth corps received a like order. The king, himself, quitting Madrid, arrived there on the evening of the 18th, with the Royal French Guards, two Spanish battalions of the line, and a brigade of Dessolle’s division which had just arrived; in all about ten thousand men. The same day, the duke of Belluno concentrated the first corps at Villarejo de Salvanés, intending to cross the Tagus at Villa Maurique, and attack the Spanish position on the 19th.

A pontoon train, previously prepared at Madrid, enabled the French to repair the broken bridges, near Aranjuez, in two hours; and about one o’clock on the 18th, a division of cavalry, two divisions of infantry of the fourth corps, and the advanced guard of the fifth corps, passed the Tagus, part at the bridge of La Reyna, and part at a ford. General Milhaud with the leading squadrons, immediately pursued a small body of Spanish horsemen; and was thus led to the table-land, between Antiguela and Ocaña, where he suddenly came upon a front of fifteen hundred cavalry supported by three thousand more in reserve. Having only twelve hundred dragoons, he prepared to retire; but at that moment general Paris arrived with another brigade, and was immediately followed by the light cavalry of the fifth corps; the whole making a reinforcement of about two thousand men. With these troops Sebastiani came in person, and took the command at the instant when the Spaniards, seeing the inferiority of the French, were advancing to the charge.

CAVALRY COMBAT AT OCAÑA.

The Spaniards came on at a trot, but Sebastiani directed Paris, with a regiment of light cavalry and the Polish lancers, to turn and fall upon the right flank of the approaching squadrons, which being executed with great vigour, especially by the Poles, caused considerable confusion in the Spanish ranks, and their general endeavoured to remedy it by closing to the assailed flank. But to effect this he formed his left and centre in one vast column. Sebastiani charged headlong into the midst of it with his reserves, and the enormous mass yielding to the shock, got into confusion, and finally gave way. Many were slain, several hundred wounded, and eighty troopers and above five hundred horses were taken. The loss of the French bore no proportion in men, but general Paris was killed, and several superior officers were wounded.

This unexpected encounter with such a force of cavalry, led Soult to believe that the Spanish general, aware of his error, was endeavouring to recover his line of operations. The examination of the prisoners confirmed this opinion; and in the night, information from the duke of Belluno, and the reports of officers sent towards Villa Maurique arrived, all agreeing that only a rear-guard was to be seen at Santa Cruz de la Zarza. It then became clear that the Spaniards were on the march, and that a battle could be fought the next day. In fact Areizaga had retraced his steps by a flank movement through Villa Rubia and Noblejas, with the intention of falling upon the king’s forces as they opened out from Aranjuez. He arrived on the morning of the 19th at Ocaña; but judging from the cavalry fight, that the enemy could attack first, drew up his whole army on the same plain, in two lines, a quarter of a mile asunder.

Ocaña is covered on the north by a ravine, which commencing gently half a mile eastward of the town, runs deepening and with a curve, to the west, and finally connects itself with gullies and hollows, whose waters run off to the Tagus. Behind the deepest part of this ravine was the Spanish left, crossing the main road from Aranjuez to Dos Barrios. One flank rested on the gullies, the other on Ocaña. The centre was in front of the town, which was occupied by some infantry as a post of reserve, but the right wing stretched in the direction of Noblejas along the edge of a gentle ridge in front of the shallow part of the ravine. The cavalry was on the flank and rear of the right wing. Behind the army there was an immense plain, but closed in and fringed towards Noblejas with rich olive woods, which were occupied by infantry to protect the passage of the Spanish baggage, still filing by the road from Zarza. Such were Areizaga’s dispositions.

Joseph passed the night of the 18th in reorganizing his forces. The whole of the cavalry, consisting of nine regiments, was given to Sebastiani. Four divisions of infantry, with the exception of one regiment, left at Aranjuez to guard the bridge, were placed under the command of marshal Mortier, who was also empowered, if necessary, to direct the movements of the cavalry. The artillery was commanded by general Senarmont. The Royal Guards remained with the King, and marshal Soult directed the whole of the movements.

Before day-break, on the 19th, the monarch marched with the intention of falling upon the Spaniards wherever he could meet with them. At Antiguela his troops quitting the high road, turned to their left, gained the table-land of Ocaña somewhat beyond the centre of the Spanish position, and discovered Areizaga’s army in order of battle. The French cavalry instantly forming to the front, covered the advance of the infantry, which drew up in successive lines as the divisions arrived on the plain. The Spanish outposts fell back, and were followed by the French skirmishers, who spread along the hostile front and opened a sharp fire.

About forty-five thousand Spanish infantry, seven thousand cavalry, and sixty pieces of artillery were in line. The French force was only twenty-four thousand infantry, five thousand sabres and lances, and fifty guns, including the battery of the Royal Guard. But Areizaga’s position was miserably defective. The whole of his left wing, fifteen thousand strong, was paralized by the ravine; it could neither attack nor be attacked: the centre was scarcely better situated, and the extremity of his right wing was uncovered, save by the horse, who were, although superior in number, quite dispirited by the action of the preceding evening. These circumstances dictated the order of the attack.

BATTLE OF OCAÑA.

At ten o’clock, Sebastiani’s cavalry gaining ground to his left, turned the Spanish right. General Leval, with two divisions of infantry in columns of regiments, each having a battalion displayed in front, followed the cavalry, and drove general Zayas from the olive-woods. General Girard, with his division arranged in the same manner, followed Leval in second line; and at the same moment, general Dessolles menaced the centre with one portion of his troops, while another portion lined the edge of the ravine to support the skirmishers and awe the Spanish left wing. The king remained in reserve with his guards. Thus the French order of battle was in two columns: the principal one, flanked by the cavalry, directed against and turning the Spanish right, the second keeping the Spanish centre in check; and each being supported by reserves.

These dispositions were completed at eleven o’clock; at which hour, Senarmont, massing thirty pieces of artillery, opened a shattering fire on Areizaga’s centre. Six guns, detached to the right, played at the same time across the ravine against the left; and six others swept down the deep hollow, to clear it of the light troops. The Spaniards were undisciplined and badly commanded, but discovered no appearance of fear; their cries were loud and strong, their skirmishing fire brisk; and, from the centre of their line, sixteen guns opened with a murderous effect upon Leval’s and Girard’s columns, as the latter were pressing on towards the right. To mitigate the fire of this battery, a French battalion, rushing out at full speed, seized a small eminence close to the Spanish guns, and a counter battery was immediately planted there. Then the Spaniards gave back: their skirmishers were swept out of the ravine by a flanking fire of grape; and Senarmont immediately drawing the artillery from the French right, took Ocaña as his pivot, and, prolonging his fire to the left, raked Areizaga’s right wing in its whole length.

During this cannonade, Leval, constantly pressing forward, obliged the Spaniards to change their front, by withdrawing the right wing behind the shallow part of the ravine, which, as I have before said, was in its rear when the action commenced. By this change, the whole army, still drawn up in two lines, at the distance of a quarter of a mile asunder, was pressed into somewhat of a convex form with the town of Ocaña in the centre, and hence Senarmont’s artillery tore their ranks with a greater destruction than before. Nevertheless, encouraged by observing the comparatively feeble body of infantry approaching them, the Spaniards suddenly retook the offensive, their fire, redoubling, dismounted two French guns; Mortier himself was wounded slightly, Leval severely; the line advanced, and the leading French divisions wavered and gave back.

The moment was critical, and the duke of Treviso lost no time in exhortations to Leval’s troops, but, like a great commander, instantly brought up Girard’s division through the intervals of the first line, and displayed a front of fresh troops, keeping one regiment in square on the left flank: for he expected that Areizaga’s powerful cavalry, which still remained in the plain, would charge for the victory. Girard’s fire soon threw the Spanish first line into disorder; and meanwhile, Dessolles, who had gained ground by an oblique movement, left in front, seeing the enemy’s right thus shaken, seized Ocaña itself, and issued forth on the other side.

The light cavalry of the king’s guard, followed by the infantry, then poured through the town; and, on the extreme left, Sebastiani, with a rapid charge, cut off six thousand infantry, and obliged them to surrender. The Spanish cavalry, which had only suffered a little from the cannonade, and had never made an effort to turn the tide of battle, now drew off entirely: the second line of infantry gave ground as the front fell back upon it in confusion; and Areizaga, confounded and bewildered, ordered the left wing, which had scarcely fired a shot, to retreat, and then quitted the field himself.

For half an hour after this, the superior officers who remained, endeavoured to keep the troops together in the plain, and strove to reach the main road leading to Dos Barrios; but Girard and Dessolle’s divisions being connected after passing Ocaña, pressed on with steady rapidity, while the Polish lancers and a regiment of chasseurs, outflanking the Spanish right, continually increased the confusion: finally, Sebastiani, after securing his prisoners, came up again like a whirlwind, and charged full in the front with five regiments of cavalry. Then the whole mass broke, and fled each man for himself across the plain; but, on the right of the routed multitude, a deep ravine leading from Yepes to Dos Barrios, in an oblique direction, continually contracted the space; and the pursuing cavalry arriving first at Barrios, headed nearly ten thousand bewildered men, and forced them to surrender. The remainder turned their faces to all quarters; and such was the rout, that the French were also obliged to disperse to take prisoners, for, to their credit, no rigorous execution was inflicted; and hundreds, merely deprived of their arms, were desired, in raillery, “to return to their homes, and abandon war as a trade they were unfit for.” This fatal battle commenced at eleven o’clock; thirty pieces of artillery, a hundred and twenty carriages, twenty-five stand of colours, three generals, six hundred inferior officers, and eighteen thousand privates were taken before two o’clock, and the pursuit was still hot. Seven or eight thousand of the Spaniards, however, contrived to make away towards the mountain of Tarancon; others followed the various routes through La Mancha to the Sierra Morena; and many saved themselves in Valencia and Murcia.

Meanwhile, the first corps, passing the Tagus by a ford, had re-established the bridge at Villa Maurique before ten o’clock in the morning, and finding Santa Cruz de la Zarza abandoned, followed Areizaga’s traces; at Villatobas, the light cavalry captured twelve hundred carriages, and a little farther on, took a thousand prisoners, from the column which was making for Tarancon. Thus informed of the result of the battle, the duke of Belluno halted at Villatobas, but sent his cavalry forward. At La Guardia they joined Sebastiani’s horsemen; and the whole continuing the pursuit to Lillo, made five hundred more prisoners, together with three hundred horses. This finished the operations of the day: only eighteen hundred S.
Journal of Operations MSS.cannon-shot had been fired, and an army of more than fifty thousand men had been ruined. The French lost seventeen hundred men, killed and wounded; Letter from Lord Wellington to Lord Liverpool, Nov. 30, 1809. MSS.the Spaniards five thousand: and, before nightfall, all the baggage and military carriages, three thousand animals, forty-five pieces of artillery, thirty thousand muskets, and twenty-six thousand captives were in the hands of the conquerors!

Vol. 3, Plate 3.

AREIZAGA’S Operations,
1809.

Published by T. & W. Boone 1830.

Areizaga reached Tembleque during the night, and La Carolina the third day after. On the road, he met general Benaz with a thousand dragoons that had been detached to the rear before the battle commenced; this body he directed on Madrilegos to cover the retreat of the fugitives; but so strongly Letter from Lord Wellington to Lord Liverpool, Nov. 30, 1809. MSS.did the panic spread that when Sebastiani approached that post on the 20th, Benaz’s men fled, without seeing an enemy, as fearfully as any who came from the fight. Even so late as the 24th, only four hundred cavalry, belonging to all regiments, could be assembled at Manzanares; and still fewer at La Carolina.

CHAPTER VI.

Joseph halted at Dos Barrios, the night of the battle, and the next day directed Sebastiani, with all the light cavalry and a division of infantry, upon Madrilegos and Consuegra; the first corps, by St. Juan de Vilharta, upon the Sierra Morena, and the fifth corps, by Tembleque and Mora, upon Toledo. One division of the fourth corps guarded the spoil and the prisoners at Ocaña. A second division, reinforced with a brigade of cavalry, was posted, by detachments, from Aranjuez to Consuegra.

The monarch himself, with his guards and Dessolle’s first brigade, returned, on the 20th, to Madrid.

Three days had sufficed to dissipate the storm on the side of La Mancha, but the duke Del Parque still menaced the sixth corps in Castile, and the reports from Talavera again spoke of Albuquerque and the English being in motion. The second brigade of Dessolle’s division had returned from Old Castile on the 19th, and the uncertainty with respect to the British movements, obliged the king to keep all his troops in hand. Nevertheless, fearing that, if Del Parque gained upon the sixth corps, he might raise an insurrection in Leon, Gazan’s division of the fifth corps was sent, from Toledo, through the Puerto Pico, to Marchand’s assistance, and Kellerman was again directed to take the command of the whole.

During these events, the British army remained tranquil about Badajos; but Albuquerque, following his orders, had reached Peralada de Garbin, and seized the bridge of Arzobispo, in expectation of being joined by the duke Del Parque. That general, however, who had above thirty thousand men, thought, when Dessolle’s division was recalled to Madrid, that he could crush the sixth corps, and, therefore, advanced from Bejar towards Alba de Tormes on the 17th, two days before the battle of Ocaña. Thus, when Albuquerque expected him on the Tagus, he was engaged in serious operations beyond the Tormes, and, having reached Alba, the 21st, sent a division to take possession of Salamanca, which Marchand had again abandoned. The 22d he marched towards Valladolid, and his advanced guard and cavalry entered Fresno and Carpio. Meanwhile Kellerman, collecting all the troops of his government, and being joined by Marchand, moved upon Medina del Campo, and the 23d, fell with a body of horse upon the Spaniards at Fresno. The Spanish cavalry fled at once; but the infantry stood firm, and repulsed the assailants.

Lord Wellington to Lord Liverpool. MSS.

The 24th the duke carried his whole army to Fresno, intending to give battle; but on the 26th imperative orders to join Albuquerque having reached him, he commenced a retrograde movement. Kellerman, without waiting for the arrival of Gazan’s division, instantly pursued, and his advanced guard of cavalry overtook and charged the Spanish army at the moment when a part of their infantry and all their horse had passed the bridge of Alba de Tormes; being repulsed, it retired upon the supports, and the duke, seeing that an action was inevitable, brought the remainder of his troops, with the exception of one division, back to the right bank.

BATTLE OF ALBA DE TORMES.

Scarcely was the line formed, when Kellerman came up with two divisions of dragoons and some artillery, and, without hesitating, sent one division to outflank the Spanish right, and, with the other, charged fiercely in upon the front. The Spanish horsemen, flying without a blow, rode straight over the bridge, and the infantry of the right being thus exposed, were broken and sabred; but those on the left stood fast and repulsed the enemy. The duke rallied his cavalry on the other side of the river, and brought them back to the fight, but the French were also reinforced, and once more the Spanish horse fled without a blow. By this time it was dark, and the infantry of the left wing, under Mendizabel and Carrera, being unbroken, made good their retreat across the river, yet not without difficulty, and under the fire of some French infantry, which arrived just in the dusk. During the night the duke retreated upon Tamames unmolested, but at day-break a French patrol coming up with this rear, his whole army threw away their arms and fled outright. Kellerman having, meanwhile entered Salamanca, did not pursue, yet the dispersion was complete.

After this defeat, Del Parque rallied his army in the mountains behind Tamames, and, in ten or twelve days, again collected about twenty thousand men; they were however without artillery, scarcely any had preserved their arms, and such was their distress for provisions, that two months afterwards, when the British arrived on the northern frontier, the peasantry still spoke with horror of the sufferings of these famished soldiers. Many actually died of want, and every village was filled with sick. Yet the mass neither dispersed nor murmured! For Spaniards, though hasty in revenge and feeble in battle, are patient, to the last degree, in suffering.

This result of the duke Del Parque’s operation amply justified sir Arthur Wellesley’s advice to the Portuguese regency. In like manner the battle of Ocaña, and the little effect produced by the duke of Albuquerque’s advance to Arzobispo, justified that which he gave to the Central Junta. It might be imagined that the latter would have received his after-counsels with deference; but the course of that body was never affected by either reason or experience. Just before the rout of Alba de Tormes, Lord Wellington to Lord Liverpool, Dec. 7, 1809. MSS.sir Arthur Wellesley proposed that ten thousand men, to be taken from the duke Del Parque, should reinforce Albuquerque, that the latter might maintain the strong position of Meza d’Ibor, and cover Estremadura for the winter. Meanwhile Del Parque’s force, thus reduced one-third, could be more easily fed, and might keep aloof from the enemy until the British army should arrive on the northern frontier of Portugal, a movement long projected, and, as he informed them, only delayed to protect Estremadura until the duke of Albuquerque had received the reinforcement. The only reply of the Junta was an order, directing Albuquerque immediately to quit the line of the Tagus, and take post at Llerena, behind the Guadiana. Thus abandoning Estremadura to the enemy, and exposing his own front in a bad position to an army coming from Almaraz, and his right flank and rear to an army coming from La Mancha.

This foolish and contemptuous proceeding, being followed by Del Parque’s defeat, which endangered Ciudad Rodrigo, sir Arthur at once commenced his march for the north. He knew that twenty thousand Spanish infantry and six thousand mounted cavalry were again collected in La Carolina; that the troops (eight thousand), who escaped from Ocaña, on the side of Tarancon, were at Cuença, under general Echevarria; and as the numbers re-assembled in the Morena were (the inactivity of the French after the battle of Ocaña considered) sufficient to defend the passes and cover Seville for the moment, there was no reason why the British army should remain in unhealthy positions to aid people who would not aid themselves. Albuquerque’s retrograde movement was probably a device of the Junta to oblige sir Arthur to undertake the defence of Estremadura; but it only hastened his departure. It did not comport with his plans to engage in serious operations on that side; yet to have retired when that province was actually attacked, would have been disreputable for his arms, wherefore, seizing this unhappily favourable moment to quit Badajos, he crossed the Tagus, and marched into the valley of the Mondego, leaving general Hill, with a mixed force of ten thousand men, at Abrantes.

The Guadiana pestilence had been so fatal that many officers blamed him for stopping so long; but it was his last hold on Spain, and the safety of the southern provinces was involved in his proceedings. It was not his battle of Talavera, but the position maintained by him on the frontier of Estremadura, which, in the latter part of 1809, saved Andalusia from subjection; and this is easy of demonstration, for, Joseph having rejected Soult’s project against Portugal, dared not invade Andalusia, by Estremadura, with the English army on his right flank; neither could he hope to invade it by the way of La Mancha, without drawing sir Arthur into the contest. But Andalusia was, at this period, the last place where the intrusive king desired to meet a British army. He had many partisans in that province, who would necessarily be overawed if the course of the war carried sir Arthur beyond the Morena; nor could the Junta, in that case, have refused Cadiz, as a place of arms, to their ally. Then the whole force of Andalusia and Murcia would have rallied round the English forces behind the Morena; and, as Areizaga had sixty thousand men, and Albuquerque ten thousand, it is no exaggeration to assume that a hundred thousand could have been organized for defence, and the whole of the troops, in the south of Portugal, would have been available to aid in the protection of Estremadura. Thus, including thirty thousand English, there would have been a mass of at least one hundred thousand soldiers, disposable for active operations, assembled in the Morena.

From La Carolina to Madrid is only ten marches, and while posted at the former, the army could protect Lisbon as well as Seville, because a forward movement would oblige the French to concentrate round the Spanish capital. Andalusia would thus have become the principal object of the invaders; but the allied armies, holding the passes of the Morena, their left flank protected by Estremadura and Portugal, their right by Murcia and Valencia, and having rich provinces and large cities behind them, and a free communication with the sea, and abundance of ports, could have fought a fair field for Spain.

Sir J. Moore’s Correspondence.

It was a perception of these advantages that caused sir John Moore to regret the ministers had not chosen the southern instead of the northern line for his operations. Lord Wellesley, also, impressed with the importance of Andalusia, urged his brother to adopt some plan of this nature, and the latter, sensible of its advantages, would have done so, but for the impossibility of dealing with the Central Junta. Military possession of Cadiz Lord Wellesley’s Correspondence, Parl. Papers, 1810.and the uncontrolled command of a Spanish force were the only conditions upon which he would undertake the defence of Andalusia; conditions they would not accede to, but, without which, he could not be secured against the caprices of men whose proceedings were one continued struggle against reason. This may seem inconsistent with a former assertion, that Portugal was the true base of operations for the English; but political as well as physical resources and moral considerations weighed in that argument.

For the protection, then, of Andalusia and Estremadura, during a dangerous crisis of affairs, sir Arthur persisted, at such an enormous sacrifice of men, to hold his position on the Guadiana. Yet it was reluctantly, and more in deference to his brother’s wishes than his own judgement, that he remained after Areizaga’s army was assembled. Having proved the Junta by experience, he was more clear sighted, as to their perverseness, than lord Wellesley; who, being in daily intercourse with the members, obliged to listen to their ready eloquence in excuse for past errors, and more ready promises of future exertion, clung longer to the notion, that Spain could be put in the right path, and that England might war largely in conjunction with the united nations of the Peninsula, instead of restricting herself to the comparatively obscure operation of defending Lisbon. He was finally undeceived, and the march from Badajos for ever released the British general from a vexatious dependence on the Spanish government.

Meanwhile the French, in doubt of his intentions, appeared torpid. Kellerman remained at Salamanca, watching the movements of the duke Del Parque; and Gazan returned to Madrid. Milhaud, with a division of the fourth corps, and some cavalry, was detached against Echavaria; but, on his arrival at Cuença, finding that the latter had retreated, by Toboado, to Hellin, in Murcia, combined his operations with general Suchet, and, as I have before related, assisted to reduce the towns of Albaracin and Teruel. Other movements there were none, and, as the Spanish regiments of the guard fought freely against their countrymen, and many of the prisoners, taken at Ocaña, offered to join the invaders’ colours, the king conceived hopes of raising a national army. French writers assert that the captives at Ocaña made a marked distinction between Napoleon and Joseph. They were willing to serve the French emperor, but not the intrusive king of Spain. Spanish authors, indeed, assume that none entered the enemy’s ranks save by coercion and to escape; and that many did so with that view, and were successful, must be supposed, or the numbers said to have reassembled in the Morena, and at Cuença, cannot be reconciled with the loss sustained in the action.

The battles of Ocaña and Alba de Tormes terminated the series of offensive operations, which the Austrian war, and the reappearance of a British army in the Peninsula had enabled the allies to adopt, in 1809. Those operations had been unsuccessful; the enemy again took the lead, and the fourth epoch of the war commenced.

OBSERVATIONS.

1º. Although certain that the British army would not co-operate in this short campaign, the Junta openly asserted, that it would join Albuquerque in the valley of the Tagus. The improbability of Areizaga’s acting, without such assistance, gave currency to the fiction, and an accredited fiction is, in war, often more useful than the truth; in this, therefore, they are to be commended; but, when deceiving their own general, they permitted Areizaga to act under the impression that he would be so assisted, they committed not an error but an enormous crime. Nor was the general much less criminal for acting upon the mere assertion that other movements were combined with his, when no communication, no concerting of the marches, no understanding with the allied commander, as to their mutual resources, and intentions, had taken place.

2º. A rushing wind, a blast from the mountains, tempestuous, momentary, such was Areizaga’s movement on Dos Barrios, and assuredly it would be difficult to find its parallel. There is no post so strong, no town so guarded, that, by a fortunate stroke, may not be carried; but who, even on the smallest scale, acts on this principle, unless aided by some accidental circumstance applicable to the moment? Areizaga obeyed the orders of his government; but no general is bound to obey orders (at least without remonstrance) which involve the safety of his army; to that he should sacrifice everything but victory: and many great commanders have sacrificed even victory, rather than appear to undervalue this vital principle.

3º. At Dos Barrios the Spanish general, having first met with opposition, halted for three days, evidently without a plan, and ignorant both of the situation of the first corps on his left flank, and of the real force in his front: yet this was the only moment in which he could hope for the slightest success. If, instead of a feeble skirmish of cavalry, he had borne forward, with his whole army, on the 11th, Sebastiani must have been overpowered and driven across the Tagus, and Areizaga, with fifty thousand infantry and a powerful cavalry, would, on the 12th, have been in the midst of the separated French corps, for their movement of concentration was not completely effected until the night of the 14th. But such a stroke was not for an undisciplined army, and this was another reason against moving from the Morena at all, seeing that the calculated chances were all against Areizaga, and his troops not such as could improve accidental advantages.

4º. The flank march, from Dos Barrios to Santa Cruz, although intended to turn the French left, and gain Madrid, was a circuitous route of at least a hundred miles, and, as there were three rivers to cross, namely, the Tagus, the Tajuna, and Henares, only great rapidity could give a chance of success; but Areizaga was slow. So late as the 15th, he had passed the Tagus with only two divisions of infantry. Meanwhile the French moving on the inner circle, got between him and Madrid, and the moment one corps out of the three opposed to him approached, he recrossed the Tagus and concentrated again on the strong ground of Santa Cruz de la Zarza. The king by the way of Aranjuez had, however, already cut his line of retreat, and then Areizaga who, on the 10th, had shrunk from an action with Sebastiani, when the latter had only eight thousand men, now sought a battle, on the same ground with the king, who was at the head of thirty thousand; the first corps being also in full march upon the Spanish traces and distant only a few miles. Here it may be remarked that Victor, who was now to the eastward of the Spaniards, had been on the 9th to the westward at Yebenes and Mora, having moved in ten days, on a circle of a hundred and fifty miles, completely round this Spanish general, who pretended, to treat his adversaries, as if they were blind men.

5º. Baron Crossand, it is said, urged Areizaga to entrench himself in the mountains, to raise the peasantry, and to wait the effect of Albuquerque’s and Del Parque’s operations. If so, his military ideas do not seem of a higher order than Areizaga’s, and the proposal was but a repetition of Mr. Frere’s former plan for Albuquerque; a plan founded on the supposition, that the rich plains of La Mancha were rugged mountains. In taking a permanent position at Santa Cruz or Tarancon, Areizaga must have resigned all direct communication with Andalusia, and opened a fresh line of communication with Valencia, which would have been exposed to the third corps from Aragon. Yet without examining whether either the Spanish general or army were capable of such a difficult operation, as adopting an accidental line of operations, the advice, if given at all, was only given on the 18th, and on the 19th, the first corps, the fourth, the greatest part of the fifth, the reserve and the royal guards, forming a mass of more than fifty thousand fighting men, would have taught Areizaga that men and not mountains decide the fate of a battle. But in fact, there were no mountains to hold; between Zarza and the borders of Valencia, the whole country is one vast plain; and on the 18th, there was only the alternative of fighting the weakest of the two French armies, or of retreating by forced marches through La Mancha. The former was chosen, Areizaga’s army was destroyed, and in the battle he discovered no redeeming quality. His position was ill chosen, he made no use of his cavalry, his left wing never fired a shot, and when the men undismayed by the defeat of the right, demanded to be led into action, he commanded a retreat, and quitted the field himself at the moment when his presence was most wanted.

6º. The combinations of the French were methodical, well arranged, effectual, and it may seem misplaced, to do ought but commend movements so eminently successful. Yet the chances of war are manifold enough to justify the drawing attention to some points of this short campaign. Areizaga’s burst from the mountains was so unexpected and rapid, that it might well make his adversaries hesitate; and hence perhaps the reason why the first corps circled round the Spanish army, and was singly to have attacked the latter in front at Zarza, on the 19th; whereas, reinforced with the division of the fourth corps from Toledo, it might have fallen on the rear and flank from Mora a week before. That is, during the three days Areizaga remained at Dos Barrios, from whence Mora is only four hours march.

7º. The 11th, the king knew the English army had not approached the valley of the Tagus; Areizaga only quitted Dos Barrios the 13th, and he remained at Zarza until the 18th. During eight days therefore, the Spanish general was permitted to lead, and had he been a man of real enterprise he would have crushed the troops between Dos Barrios and Aranjuez on the 10th or 11th. Indeed, the boldness with which Sebastiani maintained his offensive position beyond Aranjuez, from the 9th to the 14th, was a master-piece. It must, however, be acknowledged that Soult could not at once fix a general, who marched fifty thousand men about like a patrole of cavalry, without the slightest regard to his adversary’s positions or his own line of operations.

8º. In the battle, nothing could be more scientific than the mode in which the French closed upon and defeated the right and centre, while they paralized the left of the Spaniards. The disparity of numbers engaged, and the enormous amount of prisoners, artillery, and other trophies of victory prove it to have been a fine display of talent. But Andalusia was laid prostrate by this sudden destruction of her troops; why then was the fruit of victory neglected? Did the king, unable to perceive his advantages, control the higher military genius of his advising general, or was he distracted by disputes amongst the different commanders? or, did the British army at Badajos alarm him? An accurate knowledge of these points is essential in estimating the real share Spain had in her own deliverance.

9º. Sir Arthur Wellesley absolutely refused to co-operate in this short and violent campaign. He remained a quiet spectator of events at the most critical period of the war; and yet on paper the Spanish projects promised well. Areizaga’s army exceeded fifty thousand men, Albuquerque’s ten thousand, and thirty thousand were under Del Parque, who, at Tamames had just overthrown the best corps in the French army. Villa Campa also, and the Partida bands on the side of Cuença were estimated at ten thousand; in fine, there were a hundred thousand Spanish soldiers ready. The British army at this period, although much reduced by sickness, had still twenty thousand men fit to bear arms, and the Portuguese under Beresford were near thirty thousand, making a total of a hundred and fifty thousand allies. Thirty thousand to guard the passes of the Sierra de Gredos and watch the sixth corps, a hundred and twenty thousand to attack the seventy thousand French covering Madrid! Why then, was sir Arthur Wellesley, who only four months before so eagerly undertook a like enterprise with fewer forces, now absolutely deaf to the proposals of the Junta? “Because moral force is to physical force, as three to one in war.” He had proved the military qualities of Spaniards and French, had foresaw, to use his own expressions, “after one or Letter to Lord Liverpool. MS.two battles, and one or two brilliant actions by some, and defeats sustained by others, that all would have to retreat again:” yet this man, so cautious, so sensible of the enemy’s superiority, was laying the foundation of measures that finally carried him triumphant through the Peninsula. False then are the opinions of those, who, asserting Napoleon might have been driven over the Ebro in 1808-9, blame sir John Moore’s conduct. Such reasoners would as certainly have charged the ruin of Spain on sir Arthur Wellesley, if at this period the chances of war had sent him to his grave. But in all times the wise and brave man’s toil has been the sport of fools!

1810.

Alba de Tormes ended the great military transactions of 1809. In the beginning, Napoleon broke to atoms and dispersed the feeble structure of the Spanish insurrection, but after his departure the invasion stagnated amidst the bickerings of his lieutenants. Sir Arthur Wellesley turned the war back upon the invaders for a moment, but the jealousy and folly of his ally soon obliged him to retire to Portugal. The Spaniards then tried their single strength, and were trampled under foot at Ocaña, and notwithstanding the assistance of England, the offensive passed entirely from their hands. In the next book we shall find them every where acting on the defensive, and every where weak.

BOOK X.

CHAPTER I.

Napoleon, victorious in Germany, and ready to turn his undivided strength once more against the Peninsula, complained of the past inactivity of the king, and Joseph prepared to commence the campaign of 1810 with vigour. His first operations, however, indicated great infirmity of purpose. When Del Parque’s defeat on one side and Echevaria’s on the other had freed his flanks, and while the British army was still at Badajos, he sent the fourth corps towards Valencia, but immediately afterwards recalled it, and also the first corps, which, since the battle of Ocaña, had been at Santa Cruz de Mudela. The march of this last corps through La Mancha had been marked by this peculiarity, that, for the first time since the commencement of the war, the peasantry, indignant at the flight of the soldiers, guided the pursuers to the retreats of the fugitives.

Joseph’s vacillation was partly occasioned by the insurrection in Navarre, under Renovalles and Mina. But lord Wellington, previous to quitting the Guadiana, had informed the Junta of Badajos, as a matter of courtesy, that he was about to evacuate their district; and his confidential letter being published in the town Gazette, and ostentatiously copied into the Seville papers, Joseph naturally suspected it to be a cloak to some offensive project. However, the false movements of the first and fourth corps distracted the Spaniards, and emboldened the French partizans, who were very numerous both in Valencia and Andalusia. The troubles in Navarre were soon quieted by Suchet; the distribution of the British army in the valley of the Mondego became known, and Joseph seriously prepared for the conquest of Andalusia. This enterprise, less difficult than an invasion of Portugal, promised immediate pecuniary advantages, which was no slight consideration to a sovereign whose ministers were reduced to want Appendix [No. IV.] Sec. 1.from the non-payment of their salaries, and whose troops were thirteen months in arrears of pay. Napoleon, a rigid stickler for the Roman maxim, that “War should support war,” paid only the corps near the frontiers of France, and rarely recruited the military chest.

Both the military and political affairs of Andalusia were now at the lowest ebb. The calm produced by the promise to convoke the National Cortes had been short lived. The disaster of Ocaña revived all the passions of the people, and afforded the old Junta of Seville, the council of Castile, and other enemies of the Central Junta, an opportunity to pull down a government universally obnoxious; and the general discontent was increased by the measures adopted to meet the approaching crisis. The marquis of Astorga had been succeeded by the archbishop of Laodicea, under whose presidency the Junta published a manifesto, assuring the people that there was no danger,—that Areizaga could defend the Morena against the whole power of France,—that Albuquerque would, from the side of Estremadura, fall upon the enemy’s rear,—and that a second Baylen might be expected. But, while thus attempting to delude the public, they openly sent property to Cadiz, and announced that they would transfer their sittings to that town on the 1st of February.

Meanwhile, not to seem inactive, a decree was issued for a levy of a hundred thousand men, and for a forced loan of half the jewels, plate, and money belonging to individuals; sums left for pious purposes were also appropriated to the service of the state.

To weaken their adversaries, the Junta offered Romana the command of the army in the Morena,—sent Padre Gil on a mission to Sicily, and imprisoned the Conde de Montijo and Francisco Palafox. The marquis of Lazan, accused of being in league with his brother, was also confined in Pensicola, and the Conde de Tilly, detected in a conspiracy to seize the public treasure and make for America, was thrown into a dungeon, where his infamous existence terminated. Romana refused to serve, and Blake, recalled from Catalonia, was appointed to command the troops re-assembled at La Carolina; but most of the other generals kept aloof, and in Gallicia the Conde de Noronha, resigning his command, issued a manifesto against the Junta. Hence the public hatred increased, and the partizans of Palafox and Montijo, certain that the people would be against the government under any circumstances, only waited for a favourable moment to commence violence. Andalusia generally, and Seville in particular, were but one remove from anarchy, when the intrusive monarch reached the foot of the Morena with a great and well organized army.

The military preparation of the Junta was in harmony with their political conduct. The decree for levying a hundred thousand men, issued when the enemy was but a few marches from the seat of government, was followed by an order to distribute a hundred thousand poniards, as if assassination were the mode in which a great nation could or ought to defend itself, especially when the regular forces at the disposal of the Junta, were still numerous enough, if well directed, to have made a stout resistance. Areizaga had twenty-five thousand men in the Morena; Echevaria, with eight thousand, was close by, at Hellin; five or six thousand were spread over Andalusia, and Albuquerque had fifteen thousand behind the Guadiana. The troops at Carolina were, however, dispirited and disorganized. Blake had not arrived, and Albuquerque, distracted with contradictory orders transmitted almost daily by the Junta, could contrive no reasonable plan of action, until the movements of the enemy enabled him to disregard all instructions. Thus, amidst a whirlpool of passions, intrigues, and absurdities, Andalusia, although a mighty vessel, and containing all the means of safety, was destined to sink.

This great province, composed of four kingdoms, namely, Jaen and Cordoba in the north, Grenada and Seville in the south, was protected on the right by Murcia and on the left by Portugal. The northern frontier only was accessible to the French, who could attack it either by La Mancha or Estremadura; but, between those provinces, the Toledo and Guadalupe mountains forbad all military communication until near the Morena, when, abating somewhat of their surly grandeur, they left a space through which troops could move from one province to the other in a direction parallel to the frontier of Andalusia.

Towards La Mancha, the Morena was so savage that only the royal road to Seville was practicable for artillery. Entering the hills, a little in advance of Santa Cruz de Mudela, at a pass of wonderful strength, called the Despenas Perros, it led by La Carolina and Baylen to Andujar. On the right, indeed, another route passed through the Puerto del Rey, but fell into the first at Navas Toloza, a little beyond the Despenas Perros; and there were other passes also, but all falling again into the main road, before reaching La Carolina. Santa Cruz de Mudela was therefore a position menacing the principal passes of the Morena from La Mancha.

To the eastward of Santa Cruz the town of Villa Nueva de los Infantes presented a second point of concentration for the invaders. From thence roads, practicable for cavalry and infantry, penetrated the hills by La Venta Quemada and the Puerto de San Esteban, conducting to Baeza, Ubeda, and Jaen.

In like manner, on the westward of Santa Cruz, roads, or, rather, paths, penetrated into the kingdom of Cordoba. One, entering the mountains, by Fuen Caliente, led upon Montoro; a second, called the La Plata, passed by La Conquista to Adamuz, and it is just beyond these roads that the ridges, separating La Mancha from Estremadura, begin to soften down, permitting military ingress to the latter, by the passes of Mochuello, Almaden de Azogues, and Agudo. But the barrier of the Morena still shut in Andalusia from Estremadura, the military communication between those provinces being confined to three great roads, namely, one from Medellin, by Llerena, to Guadalcanal; another from Badajos to Seville, by the defiles of Monasterio and Ronquillo; and a third by Xeres de los Caballeros, Fregenal, and Araceña. From Almaden, there was also a way, through Belalcazar, to Guadalcanal; and all these routes, except that of Araceña, whether from La Mancha or Estremadura, after crossing the mountains, led into the valley of the Guadalquivir, a river whose waters, drawn from a multitude of sources, at first roll westward, washing the foot of the Morena as far as the city of Cordoba, but then, bending gradually towards the south, flow by Seville, and are finally lost in the Atlantic.

To defend the passage of the Morena, Areizaga posted his right in the defiles of San Esteban and Montizon, covering the city of Jaen, the old walls of which were armed. His left occupied the passes of Fuen Caliente and Mochuello, covering Cordoba. His centre was established at La Carolina and in the defiles of the Despenas Perros and Puerto del Rey, which were entrenched, but with so little skill and labour as to excite the ridicule rather than the circumspection of the enemy. And here it may be well to notice an error relative to the strength of mountain-defiles, common enough even amongst men who, with some experience, have taken a contracted view of their profession.

From such persons it is usual to hear of narrow passes, in which the greatest multitudes may be resisted. But, without stopping to prove that local strength is nothing, if the flanks can be turned by other roads, we may be certain that there are few positions so difficult as to render superior numbers of no avail. Where one man can climb another can, and a good and numerous infantry, crowning the acclivities on the right and left of a disputed pass, will soon oblige the defenders to retreat, or to fight upon equal terms. If this takes place at any point of an extended front of defiles, such as those of the Sierra Morena, the dangerous consequences to the whole of the beaten army are obvious.

Hence such passes should only be considered as fixed points, around which an army should operate freely in defence of more exposed positions, for defiles are doors, the keys of which are on the summits of the hills around them. A bridge is a defile, yet troops are posted, not in the middle, but behind a bridge, to defend the passage. By extending this principle, we shall draw the greatest advantages from the strength of mountain-passes. The practice of some great generals may, indeed, be quoted against this opinion; nevertheless, it seems more consonant to the true principles of war to place detachments in defiles, and keep the main body in some central point behind, ready to fall on the heads of the enemy’s columns as they issue from the gorges of the hills.

Pierced by many roads, and defended by feeble dispirited troops, the Morena presented no great obstacle to the French; but, as they came up against it by the way of La Mancha only, there were means to render their passage difficult. If Albuquerque, placing his army either at Almaden de Azogues, or Agudo, had operated against their right flank, he must have been beaten, or masked by a strong detachment, before Areizaga could have been attacked. Nor was Andalusia itself deficient of interior local resources for an obstinate defence.

Parallel to the Morena, and at the distance of about a hundred miles, the Sierra Nevada, the Apulxaras, and the Sierra Ronda, extend from the borders of Murcia to Gibraltar, cutting off a narrow tract of country along the coast of the Mediterranean: and the intermediate space between these sierras and the Morena is broken by less extensive ridges, forming valleys which, gradually descending and widening, are finally lost in the open country about Seville. Andalusia may therefore be considered as presenting three grand divisions of country:—1º. The upper, or rugged, between the Sierra Morena and the Sierra Nevada. 2º. The lower, or open country, about Seville. 3º. The coast-tract between the Nevada and Ronda, and the Mediterranean. This last is studded, in its whole length, with sea-port towns and castles, such as Malaga, Velez-Malaga, Motril, Ardra, Marbella, Estipona, and an infinity of smaller places.

Vol. 3, Plate 4.

INVASION of ANDALUSIA
1810.

Published by T. & W. Boone, 1830.

No important line of defence is offered by the Guadalquivir. An army, after passing the Morena, would follow the course of its waters to gain the lower parts of Andalusia, and, thus descending, the advantage of position would be with the invaders. But, to reach the Mediterranean coast, not only the ridges of the Nevada or Ronda must be crossed, but most of the minor parallel ridges enclosing the valleys, whose waters run towards the Atlantic. Now all those valleys contain great towns, such as Jaen and Cordoba, Ubeda, Grenada, and Alcala Real, most of which, formerly fortified, and still retaining their ancient walls, were capable of defence; wherefore the enemy could not have approached the Mediterranean, nor Grenada, nor the lower country about Seville, without first taking Jaen, or Cordoba, or both. The difficulty of besieging those places, while a Spanish army was stationed at Alcala Real, or Ecija, while the mountains, on both flanks and in the rear, were filled with insurgents, and while Albuquerque hung upon the rear at Almada, is apparent. Pompey’s sons, acting upon this system, nearly baffled Cæsar, although that mighty man had friends in the province, and, with his accustomed celerity, fell upon his youthful adversaries before their arrangements were matured.

But in this, the third year of the war, the Junta were unprovided with any plan of defence beyond the mere occupation of the passes in the Morena. Those, once forced, Seville was open, and, from that great city, the French could penetrate into all parts, and their communication with Madrid became of secondary importance, because Andalusia abounded in the materials of war, and Seville, the capital of the province, and, from its political position, the most important town in Spain, was furnished with arsenals, cannon-founderies, and all establishments necessary to a great military power.

INVASION OF ANDALUSIA.

The number of fighting-men destined for this enterprise was about sixty-five thousand. Marshal Soult directed the movements; but the king was disposed to take a more prominent part, in the military arrangements than a due regard for his own interest would justify. To cover Madrid, and to watch the British army, the second corps was posted between Talavera and Toledo, with strong detachments pushed into the valley of the Tagus. Two thousand men, drawn from the reserve, garrisoned the capital; as many were in Toledo, and two battalions occupied minor posts, such as Arganda and Guadalaxara. Gazan’s division was recalled from Castile, Milhaud’s from Aragon; and the first, fourth, and fifth corps, the king’s guards, and the reserve, increased by some reinforcements from France, were directed upon Andalusia.

During the early part of January, 1810, the troops, by easy marches, gained the foot of the Morena, and there Milhaud’s division, coming by the way of Benillo, rejoined the fourth corps. A variety of menacing demonstrations, made along the front of the Spanish line of defence, between the 14th and 17th, caused Areizaga to abandon his advanced positions and confine himself to the passes of the Morena; but, on the 18th, the king arrived in person at Santa Cruz de Mudela, and the whole army was collected in three distinct masses.

In the centre, the artillery, the king’s guards, the reserve, and the fifth corps, under marshal Mortier, were established at Santa Cruz and Elviso, close to the mouths of the Despenas Perros and the Puerto del Rey.

On the left, Sebastiani, with the fourth corps, occupied Villa Nueva de los Infantes, and prepared to penetrate, by Venta Quemada and Puerto San Esteban, into the kingdom of Jaen.

On the right, the duke of Belluno, placing a detachment in Agudo, to watch Albuquerque, occupied Almaden de Azogues, with the first corps, pushed an advanced guard into the pass of Mochuelo, and sent patrols through Benalcazar and Hinojosa towards Guadalcanal. By these dispositions, Areizaga’s line of defence in the Morena, and Albuquerque’s line of retreat from Estremadura, were alike threatened.

On the 20th, Sebastiani, after a slight skirmish, forced the defiles of Esteban, making a number of prisoners; and when the Spaniards rallied behind the Guadalen, one of the tributary torrents of the Guadalquiver, he again defeated them, and advancing into the plains of Ubeda, secured the bridges over the Guadalquiver.

In the centre Dessolles carried the Puerto del Rey without firing a shot, and Gazan’s division crowning the heights right and left of the Despenas Perros, turned all the Spanish works in that pass, which was abandoned. Mortier, with the main body and the artillery, then poured through, reached La Carolina in the night, and the next day took possession of Andujar, having passed in triumph over the fatal field of Baylen; more fatal to the Spaniards than to the French, for the foolish pride, engendered by that victory, was one of the principal causes of their subsequent losses.

Meanwhile the duke of Belluno pushed detachments to Montoro, Adamuz, and Pozzoblanco, and his patrols appeared close to Cordoba. His and Sebastini’s flanking parties communicated also with the fifth corps at Andujar; and thus, in two days, by skilful combinations upon an extent of fifty miles, the lofty barrier of the Morena was forced, and Andalusia beheld the French masses portentously gathered on the interior slopes of the mountains.

In Seville all was anarchy: Palafox and Montijo’s partisans were secretly preparing to strike, and the Ancient Junta openly discovered a resolution to resume their former power. The timid, and those who had portable property, endeavoured to remove to Cadiz; but the populace opposed this, and the peasantry came into the city so fast that above a hundred thousand persons were within the walls, and the streets were crowded with multitudes that, scarcely knowing what to expect or wish, only wanted a signal to break out into violence. The Central Junta, fearing alike, the enemy, and their own people, prepared to fly, yet faithful to their system of delusion, while their packages were actually embarking for Cadiz, assured the people that the enemy had indeed forced the pass of Almaden, leading from La Mancha into Estremadura, but that no danger could thence arise. Because the duke Del Parque was in full march to join Albuquerque; and those generals when united being stronger than the enemy would fall upon his flank, while Areizaga would co-operate from the Morena and gain a great victory.

It was on the 20th of January, and at the very moment when the Morena was being forced at all points, that this deluding address was published, it was not until the day after that the Junta despatched orders for the duke Del Parque (who was then in the mountains beyond Ciudad Rodrigo) to effect that junction with Albuquerque from which such great things were expected! Del Parque received the despatch on the 24th, and prepared to obey. Albuquerque, alive to all the danger of the crisis, had left general Contreras at Medellin, with four thousand five hundred men, destined to form a garrison for Badajos, and marched himself on the 22d, with about nine thousand, towards Agudo, intending to fall upon the flank of the first corps; but he had scarcely commenced his movement, when he learned that Agudo and Almaden were occupied, and that the French patrols were already at Benalcazar and Hinojosa, within one march of his own line of retreat upon Seville.

In this conjuncture, sending Contreras to Badajos, and his own artillery through the defile of Monasterio, he marched with his infantry to Guadalcanal. During the movement, he continued to receive contradictory and absurd orders from the Junta, some of which, he disregarded, and others he could not obey; but conforming to circumstances, when the Morena was forced, he descended into the basin of Seville, crossed the Guadalquivir a few leagues from that city, at the ferry of Cantillana, reached Carmona on the 24th, and immediately pushed with his cavalry for Ecija to observe the enemy’s progress. Meanwhile the storm, so long impending over the Central Junta, burst at Seville.

Early on the 24th a great tumult arose. Mobs traversing all the quarters of the city, called out, some for the deposition of the Junta, others for the heads of the members. Francisco Palafox and Montijo were released, and the Junta of Seville being re-established by acclamation, the Central Junta, committed to their hands the defence of Andalusia, and endeavoured themselves to reach Cadiz, each as he could; but with the full intention of reuniting and resuming their authority. On the road however, some of them were cast into prison by the people, some were like to be slain at Xerez, and the Junta of Seville had no intention that the Central Junta should ever revive. Saavedra, the President of the former, by judicious measures calmed the tumult in the city, restored Romana to the command of his old army, which was now under the duke Del Parque, made some other popular appointments, and in conjunction with his colleagues sent a formal proposition to the Junta at Badajos, inviting them to take into consideration the necessity of constituting a Regency, which was readily acceded to. But the events of war crowding on, overlaid their schemes; and three days after the flight of the Central Junta, treason and faction being busy amongst the members of the Seville Junta, they also disbanded, some remaining in the town; others, and amongst them Saavedra, repairing to Cadiz. The tumults were then renewed with greater violence, and Romana was called upon to assume the command and defend the city; but he evaded this dangerous honour, and proceeded to Badajos.

Thus abandoned to themselves, the people of Seville, discovered the same disposition, as the people of other towns in the Peninsula, had done upon like occasions. If men like the Tios of Zaragoza, had assumed command, they might have left a memorable tale and a ruined city, but there were none so firm, or so ferocious; and finally, a feeling of helplessness produced fear in all, and Seville was ready to submit to the invaders.

When the passage of the mountains was completely effected, the French corps again received their artillery, but the centre and right wing of the army remained stationary, and a detachment of the first corps, which had approached Cordoba, returned to Montoro. Areizaga rallied his troops at Jaen, but Sebastiani marching from Ubeda, drove him upon Alcala Real, and Jaen surrendered with forty-six guns mounted on the walls. The Spanish general made one more stand; but being again beaten, and all his artillery captured, his army dispersed. Five thousand infantry and some squadrons of cavalry throwing away their arms escaped to Gibraltar; and Areizaga himself, with a remnant of horse, flying into the kingdom of Murcia, was there superceded by Blake. Meanwhile, Sebastiani marched upon Grenada, and entering it the 28th of January, was received with apparent joy, so entirely had the government of the Central Junta extinguished the former enthusiasm of the people.

As the capture of Jaen secured the left flank of the French, the king with the centre and right, moved on Cordoba the 27th, and there also, as at Jaen and Grenada, the invaders were received without any mark of aversion,[7] and thus the upper country was conquered. But the projects of Joseph were not confined to Andalusia; he had opened a secret communication with Valencia, where his partisans undertook to raise a commotion whenever a French force should appear before the city. Hence, judging that no serious opposition would be made in Andalusia, he directed Sebastiani to cross the Sierra Nevada, and seize the Grenadan coast, an operation that would enable him with greater facility to act against Valencia. To ensure the success of the latter enterprise, he wrote from Cordoba to Suchet’s Memoirs.Suchet, urging him to make a combined movement from Aragon, and promising a powerful detachment from Andalusia, to meet him under the walls of Valencia.

Dessolles, with the reserve, occupied Cordoba and Jaen; but the first and fifth corps, followed by the king’s guards, proceeded without delay towards Ecija, where it will be remembered, Albuquerque’s cavalry had been posted since the night of the 24th. As the French approached, the duke fell back upon Carmona, from whence he could retreat either to Seville, or Cadiz, the way to the latter being through Utrera. But from Ecija there was a road through Moron to Utrera, shorter than that leading through Carmona, and along this road the cavalry of the first corps was pushed on the 27th.

Albuquerque now despairing for Seville, resolved to make for Cadiz, and lest the enemy should reach Utrera before him, gained that town with great expedition, and thence moving through Lebrija and Xeres, by long marches, journeying day and night, reached Cadiz on the 3d of February. Some French cavalry overtook and skirmished with his rear at Utrera; but he was not pursued further, save by scouting parties; for the king had altered the original plan of operations, and ordered the first corps which was then pushing for Cadiz, to change its direction and march by Carmona against Seville, and the 30th, the advanced guards came on that city.

Some entrenchments and batteries had been raised for defence, and the mob still governing, fired upon the bearer of the first French summons, and announced in lofty terms a resolution to fight. Besides the populace, there were about seven thousand troops, composed partly of fugitives from the Morena, partly of the original garrison of the town; nevertheless, the city, after some negotiation, surrendered on the 31st, with all its stores, founderies, and arsenals complete, and on the 1st of February the king entered in triumph. The lower country was thus conquered, and there remained only Cadiz, and the coast tract lying between the Mediterranean and the Sierra de Nevada to subdue.

The first corps was immediately sent against Cadiz, and the fifth against Estremadura; and Sebastiani having placed fifteen hundred men in the Alhambra, and incorporated among his troops, a Swiss battalion, composed of those who had abandoned the French service in the battle of Baylen, seized Antequera. He was desirous to establish himself firmly in those parts before he crossed the Nevada, but his measures were precipitated by unexpected events. At Malaga, the people had imprisoned the members of the local Junta, and headed by a Capuchin friar, resolved to fight the French, and a vast multitude armed in all manners took post above Antequera and Alhama, where the road from Grenada enters the hills.

As this insurrection was spreading, not only in the mountains, but through the plains of Grenada, Sebastiani resolved to fall on at once, lest the Grenadans having Gibraltar on the one flank, Murcia on the other, and in their own country, many sea-ports and fortified towns, should organize a regular system of resistance. The 5th of February, after a slight skirmish at Alhama, he penetrated the hills, driving the insurgents upon Malaga; but near that place they rallied, and an engagement, with the advanced guard of the French, under general Milhaud, taking place, about five hundred Spaniards fell, and the conquerors entered the town fighting. A few of the vanquished took refuge on board some English ships of war; the rest submitted, and more than a hundred pieces of heavy, and about twenty pieces of field artillery with ammunition, stores, and a quantity of British merchandize, became the spoil General Campbell’s Correspondence from Gibraltar. MSS.of the conquerors. Velez-Malaga opened its gates the next day, Motril was occupied, and the insurrection was quelled; for in every other part, both troops and peasantry, were terrified and submissive to the last degree.

Meanwhile, Victor followed the traces of Albuquerque with such diligence, as to reach Chiclana on the 5th of February, and it is generally supposed, that he might have rendered himself master of Leon, for the defensive works at Cadiz, and the Isla were in no way improved, but rather deteriorated since the period of Sir George Smith’s negotiation. The bridge of Zuazo was indeed broken, and the canal of Santa Petri a great obstacle; but Albuquerque’s troops were harassed, dispirited, ill clothed, badly armed, and in every way inefficient; the people of Cadiz were apathetic, and the authorities, as usual, occupied with intrigues and private interests. In this state, eight thousand Spanish soldiers could scarcely have defended a line of ten miles against twenty-five thousand French, if a sufficient number of boats could have been collected to cross the canal.

Venegas was governor of Cadiz; but when it was known that the Central Junta had been deposed at Seville, a Municipal Junta, chiefly composed of merchants, was elected by general ballot. This body, as inflated and ambitious of power as any that had preceded it, would not suffer the fugitive members of the Central Junta to assume any authority; and the latter, maugre their extreme reluctance, were obliged to submit, but, by the advice of Jovellanos, appointed a Regency, composed of men not taken from amongst themselves. The Municipal Junta vehemently opposed this proceeding, but finally, the judicious intervention of Mr. Bartholomew Frere induced them to acquiesce; and the 29th of January, the bishop of Orense, general Castaños, Antonio de Escaño, Saavedra, and Fernandez de Leon, were appointed Regents, until the Cortes could be assembled. Leon was afterwards replaced by one Lardizabal, a native of New Spain.

The council of Castile, which had been reinstated before the fall of Seville, now charged the deposed Junta, and truly, with usurpation—the public voice added peculation and other crimes; and the Regency, which they had themselves appointed, seized their papers, sequestered their effects, threw some of the members into prison, and banished others to the provinces: thus completely extinguishing this at once odious, ridiculous, and unfortunate oligarchy. Amongst the persons composing it, there were undoubtedly, some of unsullied honour and fine talents, ready and eloquent of speech, and dexterous in argument; but it is not in Spain only, that men possessing all the “grace and ornament” of words have proved to be mean and contemptible statesmen.

Albuquerque, elected president of the Municipal Junta, and commander of the forces, endeavoured to place the Isla de Leon in a state to resist a sudden attack; and the French, deceived as to its strength, after an ineffectual summons, proceeded to gird the whole bay with works. Meanwhile, Marshal Mortier, leaving a brigade of the fifth corps at Seville, pursued a body of four thousand men, that, under the command of the Visconde de Gand, had retired from that town towards the Morena; they evaded him, and fled to Ayamonte, yet were Mr. Stuart’s Correspondence, MSS.like to be destroyed, because the bishop of Algarve, from national jealousy, would not suffer them to pass the Portuguese frontier. Mortier disregarding these fugitives, passed the Morena, by Ronquillos and Monasterio, and marching against Badajos, summoned it, the 12th of February. Contreras’ detachment had however, arrived there on the 26th of January, and Mortier, finding, contrary to his expectation, that the place was in a state of defence, retired to Merida.

This terminated the first series of operations in the fourth epoch of the war; operations which, in three weeks, had put the French in possession of Andalusia and Southern Estremadura, with the exception of Gibraltar and Cadiz in the one, and of Badajos, Olivenza, and Albuquerque in the other province. Yet, great as were the results of this memorable irruption, more might have been obtained; and the capture of Cadiz would have been a fatal blow to the Peninsula.

From Andujar to Seville is only a hundred miles, yet the French took ten days to traverse that space; a tardiness for which there appears no adequate cause. The king, apparently elated at the acclamations and seeming cordiality with which the towns, and even villages, greeted him, moved slowly. He imagined that Seville would open her gates at once; and thinking that the possession of that town, would produce the greatest moral effect, in Andalusia, and all over Spain, changed the first judicious plan of campaign, and marched thither in preference to Cadiz. The moral influence of Seville, was however transferred, along with the government, to Cadiz; and Joseph was deceived in his expectations of entering the former city as he had entered Cordoba. When he discovered his error there was still time to repair it by a rapid pursuit of Albuquerque, but he feared to leave a city with a hundred thousand people in a state of excitement upon his flank; and resolving first to reduce Seville, he met indeed with no formidable resistance, yet so much of opposition, as left him only the alternative of storming the town or entering by negotiation. The first his humanity forbad; the latter cost him time, which was worth his crown, for Albuquerque’s proceedings were only secondary: the ephemeral resistance of Seville was the primary cause of the safety of Cadiz.

The march by which the Spanish duke secured the Isla de Leon, is only to be reckoned from Carmona. Previous to his arrival there, his movements, although judicious, were more the result of necessity than of skill. After the battle of Ocaña, he expected that Andalusia would be invaded; yet, either fettered by his orders or ill-informed of the enemy’s movements, his march upon Agudo was too late, and his after-march upon Guadalcanal, was the forced result of his position; he could only do that, or abandon Andalusia and retire to Badajos.

From Guadalcanal, he advanced towards Cordoba on the 23d, and he might have thrown himself into that town; yet the prudence of taking such a decided part, was dependent upon the state of public sentiment, of which he must have been a good judge. Albuquerque indeed, imagined, that the French were already in possession of the place, whereas they did not reach it until four days later; but they could easily have entered it on the 24th: and as he believed that they had done so, it is apparent that he had no confidence in the people’s disposition. In this view, his determination to cross the Guadalquivir, and take post at Carmona, was the fittest for the occasion. It was at Carmona he first appears to have considered Seville a lost city; and when the French approached, we find him marching, with a surprising energy, towards Cadiz, yet he was again late in deciding; for the enemy’s cavalry, moving by the shorter road to Utrera, overtook his rear-guard: and the infantry would assuredly have entered the Island of Leon with him, if the king had not directed them upon Seville. The ephemeral resistance of that city therefore saved Albuquerque; and he, in return, saved Cadiz.

CHAPTER II.

Lord Wellington’s plans were deeply affected by the invasion of Andalusia: but before treating of the stupendous campaign he was now meditating, it is necessary, once more to revert to the operations in the other parts of the Peninsula, tracing them up to a fixed point; because, although bearing strongly on the main action of the war, to recur to them chronologically, would totally destroy, the unity of narrative indispensable to a just handling of the subject.

OPERATIONS IN NAVARRE, ARAGON, AND VALENCIA.

Suchet, being ordered to quell the disorders in Navarre, repaired to Pampeluna, but previously directed an active pursuit of the student Mina, who, availing himself of the quarrel between the military governor and the viceroy, was actually master of the country between that fortress and Tudela, and was then at Sanguessa. General Harispe, with some battalions, marched straight against him from Zaragoza, while detachments from Tudela and Pampeluna endeavoured to surround him by the flanks, and a fourth body moving into the valleys of Ainsa and Medianoz, cut him off from the Cinca river.

Suchet’s Memoirs.

Harispe quickly reached Sanguessa, but the column from Pampeluna being retarded, Mina, with surprising boldness, crossed its line of march, and attacked Tafalla, thus cutting the great French line of communication; the garrison, however, made a strong resistance, and Mina disappeared the next day. At this period, however, reinforcements from France were pouring into Navarre, and a division, under Loison, was at Logroño, wherefore Harispe having, in concert with this general and with the garrison of Pampeluna, occupied Sanguessa, Sos, Lodosa, Puenta de Reyna, and all the passages of the Arga, Aragon, and Ebro rivers, launched a number of moveable columns, that continually pursued Mina, until chased into the high parts of the Pyrenees, cold and hunger obliged his band to disperse. The enterprising chief himself escaped with seven followers, and when the French were tracking him from house to house, he, with a romantic simplicity, truly Spanish, repaired to Olite, that he might see Suchet pass on his way from Zaragoza to Pampeluna.

But that general, while seemingly occupied with the affairs of Pampeluna, was secretly preparing guns and materials, for a methodical war of invasion, beyond the frontiers of Aragon, and when general Reynier, coming soon afterwards from France, with troops intended to form an eighth corps, was appointed governor of Navarre, Suchet returned to Zaragoza. During his absence, some petty actions had taken place, but his general arrangements were not disturbed, and the emperor having promised to increase the third corps to thirty thousand men, with the intention of directing it at once against Valencia, all the stores befitting such an enterprise were collected at Terruel in the course of January. The resistance of Gerona, and other events in Catalonia having, however, baffled Napoleon’s calculations, this first destination of the third corps was changed. Suchet was ordered to besiege Tortoza or Lerida; the eighth corps, then forming at Logroño, was directed to cover his rear, and the seventh corps to advance to the Lower Ebro and support the siege. Nor was this arrangement definitive; fresh orders sent the eighth corps towards Castile, and just at this moment Joseph’s letter from Cordoba, calling upon Suchet to march against Valencia, arrived, and gave a new turn to the affairs of the French in Spain.

A decree of the emperor, dated the 8th of January, and constituting Aragon a particular government, rendered Suchet independent of the king’s orders, civil or military. But this decree, together with a renewed order to commence the siege of Lerida, had been intercepted, and the French general, doubtful of Napoleon’s real views, undertook the enterprise against Valencia. Desirous, however, of first intimidating the partisans hanging on the borders of Aragon, he detached Laval against Villa Campa, and the latter being defeated on the side of Cuença, his troops dispersed for the moment.

Suchet then fortified a post at Terruel, to serve as a temporary base of operations, and drew together at that place twelve battalions of infantry, a regiment of cuirassiers, several squadrons of light cavalry, and some field artillery, and, at the same time, caused six battalions and three squadrons of cavalry to be assembled at Alcanitz, under general Habert. The remainder of the third corps was distributed on the line of the Cinca, and on the right bank of the Ebro. The castles of Zaragoza, Alcanitz, Monzon, Venasque, Jaca, Tudela, and other towns, were placed in a state of defence, and four thousand men, newly arrived from France, were pushed to Daroca, to link the active columns to those left in Aragon. These arrangements occupied the whole of February, and, on the 1st of March, a duplicate of the order, directing Suchet to commence the siege of Lerida, reached Terruel. But as Habert’s column having marched on the 27th, by the road of Morella, was already committed in the province of Valencia, the operation went on.

INCURSION TO VALENCIA.

The first day, brought Suchet’s column, in presence of the Valencian army, for Ventura Caro, captain-general of that province, was in march to attack the French at Terruel, and his advanced guard of five or six thousand regulars, accompanied by armed peasants, was drawn up on some high ground behind the river Mingares, the bed of which is a deep ravine so suddenly sunk, as not to be perceived until close upon it. The village and castle of Alventoza, situated somewhat in advance of the Spaniard’s centre, were occupied, and commanded a bridge over the river. Their right rested on the village and bridge of Puenseca, and their left on the village of Manzanera, where the ground was rather more practicable.

Suchet, judging that Caro would not fight so far from Valencia, while Habert’s column was turning his right, sent a division before daylight, on the 2d, to turn the left of the position, and cut off the retreat; but, although the French, after a skirmish, crossed the ravine, the Spaniards retired with little loss upon Segorbe, and Caro fell back to the city of Valencia. Suchet entered Segorbe the 3d, and on the 4th was at Murviedro, the ancient Saguntum, four leagues from Valencia. At the same time, Habert, who had defeated a small corps at Morella, arrived at Villa Real on the sea coast. The country between their lines of march was mountainous and impracticable, but after passing Saguntum, the Huerta, or garden of Valencia, the richest and most delightful part of Spain, opened, the two columns, united, and arriving before the city on the 5th of March, seized the suburb Seranos, and the harbour called the Grao.

Suchet’s spies at first confirmed the hopes of an insurrection within the walls, but the treason was detected, the leader, a baron Pozzo Blanco, publicly executed, and the archbishop and many others imprisoned; in fine, the plan had failed, the populace were in arms, and there was no movement of French troops on the side of Murcia. Five days the French general remained before the city, vainly negotiating, and then, intrigue failing, and his army being inadequate to force the defences, he resolved to retire. In the night of the 10th he commenced his retreat in one column by Segorbe and Terruel. Meanwhile the Spanish partisans were gathering on his rear. Combats had already taken place at Liria and Castellon de la Plana, and general Villa Campa, who had reassembled his dispersed troops, captured four guns, with their ammunition and escort, between Terruel and Daroca; cut off another detachment of a hundred men left at Alventoza, and, having invested the post at Terruel, on the 7th, by a bold and ready witted attempt, nearly carried the castle. The 12th, however, the head of Suchet’s column came in sight, Villa Campa retired, and the 17th the French general reached Zaragoza.

During his absence, Perena had invested Monzon, and when the garrison of Fraga marched to its relief, the Spaniards from Lerida, entered the latter town, and destroyed the bridge and French entrenchments. Mina, also, was again become formidable, and, although several columns were sent in chase of him, it is probable, that they would have done no more than disperse his band for the moment, but for an accident, which threw him into their hands a prisoner.

Suchet’s failure at Valencia was more hurtful to the French than would at first sight appear. It happened at the moment when the National Cortes, so long desired, was at last directed to assemble; and as it seemed to balance the misfortunes of Andalusia, it was hailed by the Spaniards as the commencement of a better era. But the principal military advantage was the delaying of the sieges of Lerida and Mequinenza, whereby the subjection of Catalonia was retarded: and although Suchet labours, and successfully, to show that he was drawn into this enterprise by the force of circumstances, Napoleon’s avowed discontent was well founded. The operations in Catalonia were so hampered by the nature of the country, that it was only at certain conjunctures, any progress could be made, and one of the most favourable of those conjunctures, was lost, for want of the co-operation of the third corps; but to understand this, the military topography of Catalonia must be well considered.

That province is divided in its whole length by shoots from the Pyrenees, which, with some interruptions, run to the Atlantic shores; for the sierras separating Valencia, Murcia, and Andalusia from the central parts of Spain, are but continuations of those shoots. The Ebro, forcing its way transversely through the ridges, parts Catalonia from Valencia, but the hills, thus broken by the river, push their rocky heads southward to the sea, cutting off Taragona from Tortoza, and enclosing what may be called the eastern region of Catalonia, which contains Rosas, Gerona, Hostalrich, Vich, Barcelona, Manreza, Taragona, Reus, and many more Vol. I. Book I. Chap. VI.towns. The torrents, the defiles, and other military features of this region have been before described. The western portion of Catalonia lying beyond the principal spine, is bounded partly by Aragon, partly by Valencia; and, like the eastern region, it is an assemblage of small plains and rugged valleys, each, the bed of a river, descending towards the Ebro from the Pyrenees. It contains the fortresses of Balaguer, Lerida, Mequinenza, Cervera, and, near the mouth of the Ebro, Tortoza, which, however, belongs in a military view rather to Valencia than Catalonia.

Now the mountain ridge, parting the eastern from the western region of Catalonia, could only be passed by certain routes, for the most part impracticable for artillery, and those practicable, leading upon walled towns at both sides of the defiles. Thus Cervera is situated on the principal and direct line from Lerida to Barcelona; Balaguer, Cardona, and Montserrat, on another and more circuitous road to the same city. Between Lerida and Taragona, stands Momblanch, and between Taragona, and Tortoza, the Fort St. Felippe blocks the Col de Balaguer. All these places were in the hands of the Spaniards, and a number of smaller fortresses, or castles, such as Urgel, Berga, and Solsona, served as rallying points, where the warlike Somatenes, of the higher valleys, took refuge from the moveable columns, and from whence, supplied with arms and ammunition, they sallied, to harass, the flanks and rear, of both the French corps.

In the eastern region, the line of operations for the seventh corps, was between the mountains and the sea-coast, and parallel with both; hence, the Spanish irregular forces, holding all the communications, and the high valleys on both sides of the great dividing spine, could at all times descend upon the rear and flanks of the French, while the regular troops, opposed to them on a narrow front, and supported by the fortresses of Gerona, Hostalrich, and Taragona, could advance or retire as circumstances dictated. And upon this principle, the defence of Catalonia was conducted.

Detachments and sometimes the main body of the Spanish army, passing by the mountains, or by sea from Taragona, harassed the French flanks, and when defeated, retired on Vich, Manresa, Montserrat, or Cervera, and finally to Taragona. From this last, the generals communicated with Tortoza, Valencia, Gibraltar, the Balearic Isles, and even Sicily, and drew succours of all kinds from those places, and meanwhile the bands in the mountains continued to vex the French communications; and it was only during the brief period of lassitude in the Spanish army, following any great defeat, that the seventh corps could chase those mountaineers. Nor, until Gerona and Hostalrich fell, was it easy to make any but sudden and short incursions towards Taragona, because the Miguelettes from the higher valleys, and detachments from the army at Taragona, again passing by the hills or by sea, joined the garrisons, and interrupted the communications; and thus obliged the French to retire, because the country beyond the Llobregat could never feed them long.

But when Barcelona could not be succoured by sea, it was indispensable to conduct convoys by land, and to insure their arrival, the whole army was obliged to make frequent movements in advance, retiring again when the object was effected; and this being often renewed, offered many opportunities for cutting off minor convoys, detachments, and even considerable bodies isolated by the momentary absence of the army. Thus, during the siege of Gerona, Blake passed through the mountains and harassed the besiegers. When the place fell, he retired again to Taragona, and Augereau took the occasion to attack the Miguelettes, and Somatenes, in the high valleys; but in the midst of this operation admiral Baudin’s squadron, was intercepted by admiral Martin; and the insatiable craving of Barcelona, obliged Augereau to reassemble his army, and conduct a convoy there by land. Yet he was soon obliged to return again, lest he should himself consume the provisions he brought for the city. This retreat, as usual, drew on the Spaniards, who were again defeated; and Augereau once more advanced, in the intention of co-operating with the third corps, which, he supposed, would, following the Emperor’s design, be before Lerida or Tortoza. However, when Augereau thus advanced, Suchet was on the march to Valencia; and Henry O’Donnel who had succeeded Blake in the command, recommenced the warfare on the French communications, and forced Augereau again to retire to Gerona, at the moment when Suchet, having returned to Aragon, was ready to besiege Lerida; thus, like unruly horses in a chariot dragging different ways, the French impeded each other’s movements. I shall now briefly narrate the events touched upon above.

OPERATIONS OF THE SEVENTH CORPS.

Gerona having fallen, general Souham with a division, scoured the high valleys, beating the Miguelettes of Claros and Rovira, at Besalu, Olot, Ribas, and Campredon; and at Ripoll, he destroyed a manufactory for arms. Being afterwards reinforced with Pino’s division, he marched from Olot, by the road of Esteban and Manlieu; the Somatenes disputed the defiles near the last point, but the French forcing the passage, again took possession of Vich. Meanwhile Blake having been called to Andalusia, the Provincial Junta of Catalonia rejecting the duke Del Parque, took upon themselves to give the command to Henry O’Donnel, whose courage during the siege of Gerona had gained him a high reputation. He was now with the remains of Blake’s army at Vich, and as the French approached that town he retired to the pass of Col de Sespina, from whence he had a free retreat upon Moya and Manresa. Souham’s advanced guard, pursued, and at Tona, captured some baggage, but the Spaniard turned on finding his rear pressed, and when the pursuers mounted the heights of Sespino, charged with a shock, that sent them headlong down the hills again. Souham rallied the beaten troops in the plain, and the next day offered battle; but O’Donnel continued his retreat, and the French general returned to Vich.

During these events, Augereau, leaving a detachment in Hostalrich to blockade the castle, marched to Barcelona, by the road of Cardedieu, having previously ordered Duhesme, to post three battalions and five squadrons of cuirassiers, with some guns, near the junction, of the roads of Cardedieu and Manresa, to watch O’Donnel. Colonel Guery, commanding this detachment, placed one battalion at Granollers, a second at Santa Perpetua, and with the remainder occupied Mollet, taking however no military precautions; and O’Donnel who had been joined by Campo Verde, from the side of Cervera, sent him to fall upon the French posts. Campo Verde, passing by Tarrassa and Sabadel, surprised and put to the sword or captured all the troops at Santa Perpetua and Mollet; but those at Granollers, threw themselves into a large building, and defended it for three days, when by the approach of Augereau they were relieved. The marshal finding the streets of Mollet strewed with French carcasses, ordered up the division of Souham from Vich, but passed on himself to Barcelona. When there, he became convinced how oppressive Duhesme’s conduct had been, and sent him to France in disgrace; after which, unable to procure provisions without exhausting the magazines of Barcelona, he resumed his former position at Gerona, and Souham, passing the defiles of Garriga, returned to Vich.

All this time the blockade of Hostalrich continued; but the retreat of Augereau, and the success of Campo Verde’s enterprise, produced extraordinary joy over all Catalonia. The prisoners taken, were marched from town to town, and the action everywhere exaggerated; the decree for enrolling a fifth of the male population was enforced with vigour, and the execution entrusted to the Baron d’Erolles, a native of Talarn, who afterwards obtained considerable celebrity. The army, in which there was still a large body of Swiss troops, was thus reinforced; the confidence of the people increased hourly, and a Local Junta was established at Arenys de Mar, to organise the Somatenes on the coast, and to direct the application of succours from the sea. The Partisans, also reassembling their dispersed bands in the higher valleys, again vexed the Ampurdan, and incommoded the troops blockading the citadel of Hostalrich.

O’Donnel himself, moving to Manresa, called the Miguelettes from the Lerida side, to his assistance; and soon formed a body of more than twelve thousand fighting-men, with which he took post at Moya, in the beginning of February, and harassed the French in front of Vich, while, in the rear of that town, Rovira occupied the heights above Roda. Souham, seeing the crests of the hills thus swarming with enemies, and, having but five thousand men of all arms to oppose to them, demanded reinforcements; but Augereau paid little attention to him: and, on the 20th, O’Donnel, descending the mountain of Centellas, entered the plains in three columns, and the French general had scarcely time to draw up his troops a little in front of the town, ere he was attacked with a vigour hitherto unusual with the Spaniards.

COMBAT OF VICH.

Rovira commenced the action, by driving the enemy’s posts, on the side of Roda, back upon the town, and soon afterwards O’Donnel, coming close up on the front of the French position, opened all his guns, and, throwing out skirmishers along the whole of the adverse line, filed his cavalry, under cover of their fire, to the right, intending to outflank Souham’s left; but the latter general, leaving a battalion to hold Rovira in check, encouraged his own infantry, and sent his dragoons against the Spanish horsemen, who, at the first charge, were driven back in confusion. The foot then fell in on the French centre, but, failing to make any serious impression, the Spanish general, whose great superiority of numbers enabled him to keep heavy masses in reserve, endeavoured to turn both flanks of the enemy at the same time. Souham was now hard pressed, his infantry were few, his reserves all engaged, and himself severely wounded in the head. O’Donnel, who had rallied his cavalry, and brought up his Swiss regiments, was full of confidence, and in person fiercely led the whole mass once more against the left; but, at this critical period, the French infantry, far from wavering, firmly closed their ranks, and sent their volleys more rapidly into the hostile ranks, while the cavalry, sensible that the fate of all (for there was no retreat) hung upon the issue of their charge, met their adversaries with such a full career that horse and man went down before them, and the Swiss, being separated from the rest, surrendered. Rovira was afterwards driven away, and the Spanish army returned to the hills, having lost a full fourth of its own numbers, and killed or wounded twelve hundred of the enemy.

O’Donnel’s advance, had been the signal, for all the irregular bands to act against the various quarters of the French; they were, however, with the exception of a slight succour, thrown into Hostalrich, unsuccessful, and, being closely pursued by the moveable columns, dispersed. Thus the higher valleys were again subdued, the Junta fled from Arenys de Mar, Campo Verde returned to the country about Cervera, and O’Donnel, quitting the Upper Llobregat, retired by Taraza, Martorel, and Villa Franca to the camp of Taragona, leaving only an advanced guard at Ordal.

It was at this moment, when Upper Catalonia was in a manner abandoned by the Spanish general, that the emperor, directed the seventh corps upon the Lower Ebro, to support Suchet’s operations against Lerida and Mequinenza. Augereau, therefore, leaving a detachment under Verdier, in the Ampurdan, and two thousand men to blockade Hostalrich, ordered his brother and general Mazzucchelli (the one commanding Souham’s, and the other Pino’s division) to march upon Manreza, while he himself, with the Westphalian division, repaired once more to Barcelona, and from thence directed all the subsequent movements.

General Augereau, passing by Col de Sespina, entered Manreza, the 16th of March, and there joined Mazzucchelli; but the inhabitants abandoned the place, and general Swartz was sent with a brigade, from Moncada, to take possession, while the two divisions continued their movement, by Montserrat, upon Molino del Rey. The 21st they advanced to Villa Franca, and the Spaniards retired from Ordal towards Taragona. But the French, acting under orders from Barcelona, left a thousand men in Villa Franca, and, after scouring the country on the right and left, passed the Col de San Cristina, and established their quarters about Reus, by which the Spanish army at Taragona was placed between them and the troops at Villa Franca.

O’Donnel, whose energy and military talents, were superior to his predecessors, saw, and instantly profited from this false position. By his orders, general Juan Caro marched, with six thousand men, against the French in Villa Franca, and, on the 28th, killed many and captured the rest, together with some artillery and stores; but, being wounded himself, resigned the command to general Gasca, after the action. Augereau, alarmed for Manreza, detached troops, both by Olesa and Montserrat, to reinforce Swartz. The first reached their destinations, but the others, twelve hundred strong, were intercepted by Gasca, and totally defeated at Esparaguera on the 3d of April. Campo Verde then, coming down from the side of Cervera, took the chief command, and proceeded against Manreza, by Montserrat, while Milans de Boch, and Rovira, hemmed in the French on the opposite side, and the Somatenes gathered on the hills to aid the operations. Swartz evacuated the town in the night, and thinking to baffle the Spaniards, by taking the road of Taraza and Sabadel, was followed closely and beaten, by Rovira and Milans, on the 5th of April, and, with great difficulty and the loss of all his baggage, reached Barcelona.

These operations having insulated the French divisions at Reus, an officer was despatched, by sea, with orders to recall them to Barcelona. Meanwhile count Severoli, who had taken the command of them, and whose first instructions were to co-operate with Suchet, feared to pass the mountains between Reus and the Ebro, lest he should expose his rear to an attack from Taragona, and perhaps fail of meeting the third corps at last. Keeping, therefore, on the defensive at Reus, he detached colonel Villatte, at the head of two battalions and some cavalry, across the hills, by Dos Aguas and Falcet, to open a communication with the third corps, a part of which had just seized Mora and Flix, on the Lower Ebro. Villatte accomplished his object, and returned with great celerity, fighting his way through the Somatenes, who were gathering round the defiles in his rear. He regained Reus, just as Severoli, having received the order of recall, was commencing his march for Barcelona.

Vacani Istoria Militáre degl’Italiani in Ispagna.

In the night of the 6th, this movement took place, but in such confusion, that, from Taragona, O’Donnel perceived the disorder; and sending a detachment, under colonel Orry, to harass the French, followed himself with the rest of his army. Nevertheless, Severoli’s rear guard, covered the retreat successfully, until a position was attained near Villa Franca; and there Orry, pressing on too closely, was wounded and taken, and his troops rejoined their main body. As these divisions arrived, Campo Verde fell back to Cervera, Severoli reached Barcelona, and Augereau retired to Gerona, having lost more than three thousand men, by a series of most unskilful movements. The situation in which he voluntarily placed himself, was precisely such as a great general would rejoice to see his adversary choose.

Barcelona, the centre of his operations, was encircled by mountains, to be passed only at certain defiles; now Reus and Manresa, were beyond those defiles, and several days march from each other. Rovira and Milans being about San Culgat, cut the communication between Manresa and Barcelona; and O’Donnel, at Taragona, was nearer to the defiles of Cristina, than the French divisions at Reus. His communication with Campo Verde, was open by Valls, Pla, and Santa Coloma de Querault; and with Milans and Rovira, by Villa Franca, San Sadurni, and Igualada.

Augereau indeed, placed a battalion in Villa Franca, but this only rendered his situation worse; for what could six hundred men effect in a mountainous country against three considerable bodies of the enemy? The result was inevitable. The battalion, at Villa Franca, was put to the sword; Swartz only saved a remnant of his brigade by a timely flight; the divisions at Reus with difficulty made good their retreat; and O’Donnel, who, one month before, had retired from the battle of Vich, broken and discomfited by only five thousand French, now, with that very beaten army, baffled Augereau, and obliged him, although at the head of more than twenty thousand men, to abandon Lower Catalonia, and retire to Gerona with disgrace: a surprising change, yet one in which fortune had no share.

Napoleon’s Memoirs.

Augereau’s talents for handling small corps in a battle, have been recorded by a master hand. There is a vast difference between that and conducting a campaign; but the truth is, that Catalonia had, like Aragon, been declared a particular government, and Augereau, afflicted with gout, remained in the palace of Barcelona, affecting the state of a viceroy, when he should have been at the head of his troops in the field. On the other hand, his opponent, a hardy resolute man, excited by a sudden celebrity, was vigilant, indefatigable, and eager. He merited the success he obtained; and, with better and more experienced troops, that success would have been infinitely greater. Yet if the expedition to Valencia had not taken place, O’Donnel, distracted by a double attack, would have remained at Taragona; and neither the action of Vich, nor the disasters at Mollet, Villa Franca, and Esparaguera, would have taken place.

Napoleon, discontented, as he well might be, with these operations, appointed M’Donald, duke of Tarentum, to supersede Augereau; but, in the meantime, the latter, having reached Gerona, disposed his troops in the most commodious manner to cover the blockade of Hostalrich, giving Severoli the command.

FALL OF HOSTALRICH CASTLE.

This citadel was invested early in January. Situated on a high rock, armed with forty guns, well garrisoned, and commanded by a brave man, it was nearly impregnable; and the French at first endeavoured to reduce it by a simple blockade: but, towards the middle of February, commenced the erection of mortar-batteries. Severoli also pressed the place more vigorously than before, and although O’Donnel, collecting convoys on the side of Vich and Mattaro, caused the blockading troops to be attacked at several points by the Miguelettes, every attempt to introduce supplies failed. The garrison was reduced to extremity, and honourable terms were offered, but the governor, Julian Estrada, rejected them, and prepared to break through the Napoleon’s Memoirs.enemy’s line, an exploit always expected from a good garrison in Turenne’s days, and, as Napoleon has shewn by numerous examples, generally successful.

O’Donnel, who could always communicate with the garrison, being aware of their intention, sent some vessels to Arenys de Mar, and made demonstrations from thence, and from the side of St. Celoni, to favour the enterprise; and in the night of the 12th, Estrada, leaving his sick behind, came forth with about fourteen hundred men. He first made as if for St. Celoni, but afterwards turning to his right, broke through on the side of St. Felieu de Buxalieu and pushed for Vich; but the French closing rapidly from the right and left, pursued so closely, that Estrada himself was wounded, and taken, together with about three hundred men; many also were killed, the rest dispersed in the mountains, and eight hundred reached Vich in safety. This courageous action was therefore successful. Thus, on the 14th of May, after four months of blockade and ten weeks of bombardment, the castle fell, the line of communication with Barcelona was completed, and the errors committed by Duhesme were partly remedied, but at an expense of two years of field operations, many battles, and four sieges.

Two small islands, called Las Medas, situated at the mouth of the Ter, and affording a safe anchorage, were next seized, and this event which facilitated the passage of the French vessels, stealing from port to port with provisions, or despatches, finished Augereau’s career. It had been the very reverse of St. Cyr’s. The latter, victorious in the field, was humane afterwards; but Augereau endeavouring, to frighten those people into submission, Victoires et Conquêtes des Français.who he had failed to beat, erected gibbets along the high-roads, upon which every man taken in arms was hung up without remorse, producing precisely the effect that might be expected. The Catalans more animated by their successes, than daunted by this barbarous severity, became incredibly savage in their revenge, and thus all human feeling lost, both parties were alike steeped in blood and loaded with crimes.

CHAPTER III.

While Augereau lost, in Barcelona, the fruits of his success at Gerona, Suchet, sensible how injurious the expedition to Valencia had proved, was diligently repairing that error. Reinforcements from France, had raised his fighting men to about twenty-three thousand, and of these, he drew out thirteen thousand to form the siege of Lerida; the remainder, were required to maintain the forts in Aragon, and to hold in check the Partisans, principally in the higher valleys of the Pyrenees. Villa Campa however, with from three to four thousand men, still kept about the lordship of Molina, and the mountains of Albaracin.

Two lines of operation were open to Suchet, the one, short and direct, by the high road leading from Zaragoza through Fraga to Lerida; the other circuitous, over the Sierra de Alcubierre, to Monzon, and from thence to Lerida. The first was inconvenient, because the Spaniards, when they took Fraga, destroyed the bridge over the Cinca. Moreover, the fortress of Mequinenza, the Octogesa of Cæsar, situated at the confluence of the Segre and the Ebro, was close on the right flank, and might seriously incommode the communications with Zaragoza, whereas the second route, although longer, was safer, and less exhausted of forage and provisions.

Monzon was already a considerable military establishment, the battering train consisting of forty pieces, with seven hundred rounds of ammunition attached to each, was directed there, and placed under the guard of Habert’s division, which occupied the line of the Cinca. Leval leaving general Chlopiski with a brigade at Daroca, to observe Villa Campa, drew nearer to Zaragoza with the rest of his division. Musnier marched with one brigade to Alcanitz, and was there joined by his second brigade, which had been conducted to that point, from Terruel, across the Sierra de Gudar. And while these movements were executing, the castles of Barbastro, Huesca, Ayerbe, Zuera, Pina, Bujarola, and other points on the left of the Ebro, were occupied by detachments.

The right bank of that river, being guarded by Leval’s division, and the country on the left bank, secured by a number of fortified posts, there remained two divisions of infantry, and about nine hundred cavalry, disposable for the operations against Lerida. On the Spanish side, Campo Verde was with O’Donnel at Manreza, and Garcia Novaro at Taragona, having small detachments on the right bank of the Ebro to cover Tortoza; Perenna with five battalions occupied Balaguer on the Upper Segre.

Such were the relative situations of both parties, when general Musnier quitting Alcanitz towards the end of March, crossed the Guadalupe, drove Novarro’s detachments within the walls of Tortoza, and then remounting the Ebro, seized some boats, and passing that river at Mora and at Flix, communicated as I have before related, with colonel Villatte of the seventh corps. And while this was passing on the Ebro, general Habert crossed the Cinca in two columns, one of which moved straight upon Balaguer, while the other passed the Segre at Camarasa. Perenna, fearing to be attacked on both sides of that river, and not wishing to defend Balaguer, retired down the left bank, and using the Lerida bridge, remounted the right bank to Corbins, where he took post behind the Noguerra, at its confluence with the Segre.

Suchet himself repaired to Monzon the 10th of April, and placed a detachment at Candasnos to cover his establishments from the garrison of Mequinenza, and the 13th he advanced with a brigade of infantry, and all his cavalry, by Almacellas, against Lerida; meanwhile Habert, descending the right bank of the Segre, forced the passage of the Noguerra, and obliged Perenna to retire within the place. The same day Musnier came up from Flix, and the town being thus encompassed, the operations of the seventh and third corps were connected. Suchet’s line of operations from Aragon, was short, direct, and easy to supply, because the produce of that province was greater than the consumption; but Augereau’s line, was long and unsafe, and the produce of Catalonia was at no time equal to the consumption.

Lerida, celebrated in ancient and modern times, contained about eighteen thousand inhabitants. Situated upon the high road from Zaragoza to Barcelona, and about sixty-five miles from each; it possessed a stone bridge over the Segre, and was only a short distance from the Ebro, and the Cinca rivers; its strategic importance was therefore great, and the more so, that it in a manner commanded the plains of Urgel, called the granary of Catalonia. The regular governor was named Gonsalez, but Garcia Conde had been appointed chief commandant, to appease his discontent at O’Donnel’s elevation; and the troops he brought with him had encreased the garrison to nine thousand regulars, besides the armed inhabitants.

The river Segre covered the town on the south-east, and the head of the bridge was protected on the left bank, by a rampart and ditch enclosing a square stone building. The body of the place on the north side, was defended by a wall, without either ditch or covered way, but strengthened and flanked by bastions, and by towers. This wall on the east, was joined to a rocky hill more than two hundred and fifty feet high, the top of which sustained the citadel, an assemblage of huge solid edifices, clustered about a castle of great height, and surrounded by an irregular work flanked by good bastions with ramparts from forty to fifty feet high.

The descent from this rock into the town, was gentle, and the works were there strengthened by ditches; on the other parts, the walls could be seen to their base; yet the great height of the rock rendered it impossible to breach them, and the approaches were nearly inaccessible. Between the citadel-rock and the river, the town was squeezed out, about two or three hundred yards, and the salient part was secured by an entrenchment, and by two bastions called the Carmen and the Magdalen.

To the westward of the town, at the distance of seven or eight hundred yards, the hill, on which Afranius and Petrieus encamped to oppose Cæsar, was crowned, on the end next to Lerida, by Fort Garden, which was again covered by a large horn-work, with ditches above twenty feet deep; and at the farthest extremity of the Afranian hill, two large redoubts called the Pilar and San Fernando, secured the whole of the flat summit. All the works of Lerida were in good condition, and armed with more than one hundred pieces of artillery; the magazines were full, and the people enthusiastic. A local Junta also had been formed to excite public feeling; and two officers of artillery had already been murdered and their heads nailed to the gates of the town.

The siege was to be a joint operation by the third and seventh corps, but the information derived from colonel Villatte, and the appearance of Spanish Partisans on the lower Ebro, led Suchet to suspect that the seventh corps had already retired, and that the burthen would rest on him alone, wherefore he still kept his battering train at Monzon, intending to wait until O’Donnel’s plans should be clearly indicated, before he commenced the siege. Meanwhile, he established a communication across the Segre, by means of a rope ferry, one league above Lerida, and after closely examining the defences, prepared materials for the construction of batteries.

Two battalions of the investing troops had been left at Monzon and Balaguer, but the remainder were thus distributed. On the left bank of the Segre, at Alcoteletge, four thousand men, including the cavalry, which was composed of a regiment of cuirassiers and one of hussars, were stationed as a corps of observation; and Harispe, with three battalions, invested the bridge-head of Lerida. By this disposition, the ferry-boat was protected, and all danger from the sudden rising of the Segre obviated, because the stone bridge of Balaguer furnished a certain communication. The rest of the troops occupied different positions, on the roads to Monzon, Fraga, and Corbins, but as the number was insufficient to complete the circle of investment round Fort Garden, that part was continually scoured by patrols.

Scarcely were these arrangements completed when a Spanish officer, pretending to bear propositions for an exchange of prisoners, was stopped on the left bank of the Segre, and the French general detained him, suspecting his real object was to gain information; for rumours obtained, that O’Donnel was collecting troops at Momblanch, that Campo Verde was at Cervera, and that the Somatenes of the high valleys were in arms on the upper Segre. Suchet anxious to ascertain the truth of these reports, reinforced Harispe with three hundred hussars on the 19th of April, and carried the corps of observation to Balaguer. The governor of Lerida took that opportunity to make a sally, but was repulsed, and the 21st, the French general, to strengthen his position at Balaguer, caused the bridge of Camarasa, above that town, to be broken, and then advanced as far as Tarrega, forty miles on the road to Barcelona, to obtain intelligence; for he was still uncertain of Augereau’s movements, and like every other general, French or English, found it extremely difficult to procure authentic information. On this occasion, however, by a happy fortune, he ascertained that O’Donnel, with two divisions, was at Momblanch, ready to descend the mountains and succour Lerida; wherefore returning by one forced march to Balaguer, he directed Musnier to resume his former position at Alcoleletge. This rapidity was well-timed, for O’Donnel had passed the defiles of Momblanch, with eight thousand chosen infantry, and six hundred cavalry, and encamped at Vinaxa, about twenty-five miles from Lerida, on the 22d. There a note from Garcia Conde, saying that, the French reserve being drawn off, the investing force was weak, reached him, and he being willing to seize the favourable moment, immediately pushed forward, reached Juneda, fourteen miles from Lerida, by ten o’clock in the morning of the 23d, and, after a halt of two hours, resumed his march with the cavalry and one division of infantry, leaving the other to follow more leisurely.

COMBAT OF MARGALEF.

Four miles from Juneda, stood the ruined village of Margalef, and from thence to Lerida was an open country, on which O’Donnel could perceive no covering force. Hence, trusting implicitly to Conde’s information (already falsified by Suchet’s activity), the Spanish general descended the hills, and crossed the plain in three columns, one following the high road and the other two marching on the right and left. The centre outstripping the flankers, soon beat back the advanced posts of Harispe; but that general, charged with his three hundred hussars, upon the Spanish column, so suddenly, that it was thrown into confusion, and fled towards Margalef, to which place, the flank columns also retreated, yet in good order. During this skirmish, the garrison sallied over the bridge, but the French infantry stood firm, and the besieged, seeing the rout of O’Donnel’s column, returned to the town.

Meanwhile, Musnier, hearing the firing, guessed the real state of affairs, and marched at once with his infantry and four hundred cuirassiers from Alcoteletge across the plain towards Margalef, hoping to cut off the Spaniards’ retreat. O’Donnel had, however, rallied his troops, and was already in line of battle, the artillery on the right and the cavalry on the left, his second division being, however, still in the rear. The French cuirassiers and a battery of light artillery, came up at a quick pace, a cannonade commenced, and the Spanish cavalry rode forward, but the cuirassiers, commanded by general Boussard, charged hotly, and forced them back on the line of battle in such a manner that the latter wavered, when Boussard, observing the confusion, came with a rude shock upon the flank of the infantry. The Walloon guards made an effort to form square, but the confusion was extreme, and nearly all the Spanish infantry threw down their arms or were sabred. The cuirassiers, elated with their success, then met and overthrew a Swiss regiment, forming the advanced guard of the second Spanish division; but the main body of the latter checked their fury, and O’Donnel retreated in good order, and without further loss to the defile of Momblanch.

This action, although not discreditable to O’Donnel, was very unfortunate. The plain was strewed with carcases; three Spanish guns, one general, eight colonels, and above five thousand men were captured; and the next day the prisoners, being first ostentatiously marched under the walls of the town, were shown to the Spanish officer who had been detained on the 19th, after which he was dismissed by the road of Cervera, that he might spread the news of the defeat.

Suchet wishing to profit from the effect of this victory upon the besieged, attempted the night after the battle, to storm the redoubts of San Fernando and Pilar. He was successful with the latter, and the assailants descended into the ditch of San Fernando, from whence the Spaniards, only fifty in number and unprovided with hand grenades, could not drive them, and a parley ensuing it was agreed that the French should retire without being molested. Thus the Pilar was also saved, for being commanded by San Fernando, it was necessarily evacuated. Previous to this attempt, Suchet had summoned the city to surrender, offering safe conduct for commissioners to count the dead on the field of Margalef, and to review the prisoners; but Garcia Conde replied, “that Lerida never looked for external succour in her defences.”

SIEGE OF LERIDA.

The absolute retreat of Augereau, was now fully ascertained, yet the victory of Margalef, and the apathy of the Valencians, encouraged Suchet to commence the siege in form. The prisoners were sent to France by the way of Jaca; the battering train was brought up from Monzon, and all the other necessary preparations being completed, the Spanish outposts were driven within the walls between the 26th and 27th. The following night, under the direction of general Haxo, ground was broken three hundred yards from the bastions of the Carmen and Magdalen; the Spaniards threw some fire-balls, and opened a few guns, but without interrupting the workmen, and when day broke, the besiegers were well covered in the trenches.

In the night of the 30th the first parallel was completed. Breaching and counter-batteries were commenced, six sixteen-pounders were destined to batter the left face of the Carmen, four long twelve-pounders, to ruin the defences of the Magdalen, and four mortars of eight inches to throw shells into the citadel. The weather was rainy and the labour heavy, yet the works advanced rapidly, and on the 2d of May, a fourth battery, armed with two mortars and two sixteen-pounders, was raised against the Carmen. Meanwhile the Spanish musqueteers, incommoded the trenches from the left bank of the Segre, which obliged the French to contract the circle of investment on that side.

In the evening of the 4th of May, six hundred Spaniards, sallying from the Carmen, carried the fourth battery and all the left of the trenches, while another body, coming from the Magdalen, menaced the right of the French works. The French guards held the latter in check, and the reserves finally drove the former back into the town, but after this attack, a ditch and rampart, to serve as a place of arms, was carried from the battery which had been taken, down to the river, and as the light troops still continued to ply the trenches from the other side of the Segre, ground was broken there, close to the water, and a battery of two guns was constructed to answer six Spanish field-pieces, posted on the bridge itself. The parallel of the main attack was also extended on the right, embracing a part of the northern front of the citadel, and two mortars were placed at this extremity.

All the French batteries opened at day-break on the 7th, the mortars played into the town and citadel, and four Spanish guns were dismounted in the Carmen. Nevertheless, the counter fire silenced three French batteries, the dismounted guns were replaced, and three hundred men stealing out at dusk by the Puerta Nueva, fell upon the right of the parallels, took the two mortars, and penetrated as far as the approaches against the Magdalen. This sally was repulsed by the French reserves, but the latter pursuing too far, suffered from grape, and in the night a violent storm, with rain, damaged the batteries and overflowed the trenches. From the 8th to the 11th the French only laboured at the works, and opened a second parallel one hundred and fifty yards in advance of the first, with the intention of forming fresh batteries; that being closer under the citadel-rock, would be less exposed to its plunging fire. More guns, and of a larger size, were also mounted; three new batteries were constructed; and marksmen were planted to harass the Spanish cannoneers.

On the 12th the besiegers recommenced their fire from eight batteries, containing fifteen guns and nineteen mortars. The besieged replied at first sharply, but in a little time stammered in their answers, and the French artillery taking the ascendent, the walls of the Carmen and Magdalen crumbled under their salvos, and a portable magazine blew up in the citadel. Towards evening two breaches in the Carmen, and one in the Magdalen appeared practicable, and after dark, some Swiss deserters coming out through the openings, brought intelligence, that the streets of the town behind the breaches, were retrenched and defended by batteries.

Suchet’s hopes of an early termination to the siege now rose high. He had from the first supposed, that the vehemence of the citizens, and of the armed peasantry who had entered the place, would oblige the governor to fight the town to the last, instead of reserving his efforts for the defence of the citadel. He knew that armed mobs easily excited, are as easily discouraged, and he projected to carry the breaches briskly, and, with one sweep, to force all the inhabitants into the citadel, being well assured that they would hamper, if not entirely mar, the defence of that formidable fortress: but he resolved first, to carry the forts of San Fernando and the Pilar and the horn-work of Fort Garden, lest the citizens, flying from the assault of the breaches, should take refuge on that side. To effect this, three columns, provided with ladders and other necessary implements, simultaneously mounted the hill of Afranius that night; one marched against the redoubts, and the others were ordered to storm the horn-work on two sides. The Pilar was carried without difficulty, and the garrison flying towards Fort Garden, fell in with the second French column, which arrived with the fugitives at the ditch of the horn-work, and being there joined by the third column, which had taken a wrong direction, the whole mass entered the place fighting. The Spaniards saved themselves in Fort Garden, and meanwhile the people in Fernando resisted desperately, and that redoubt was not taken until two-thirds of the defendants were put to the sword. Thus the French effected their object with the loss of a hundred men.

During this operation the great batteries only played into the citadel, but, at daybreak, renewed their fire on the breaches; steps were also cut in the parallel, to facilitate the advance of the troops to the assault; and all the materials, necessary to effect a solid lodgement on the walls, were conveyed into the trenches. On the other hand, the Spaniards were preparing a grand sally, to retake the horn-work of Fort Garden, but the French arrangements being first completed, at seven o’clock, in the evening of the 13th, four shells were thrown as a signal, and the storming-parties, jumping out of the trenches, rushed towards the breaches, two advancing against the Carmen, a third attacking the Magdalen, and a fourth, moving close by the river, endeavouring to break in on that side. The Spaniards, unexpectant of the attack, at first permitted the French to mount the breaches unmolested; but, soon recovering, poured such a fire of musquetry and artillery upon the head of the principal columns that they staggered, yet, being encouraged by general Habert, finally forced their way into the town; and, at the same moment, the troops on the right and left, being also successful, turned all the retrenchments in the streets. On the other side of the river, general Harispe carried the bridge, and Suchet himself, with the reserve, followed close upon the steps of the storming-parties; the Spaniards were thus overpowered, and the regular troops commenced a retreat into the citadel.

Suchet’s Memoirs.

It was now that the French general put his design in execution. Harispe’s brigade passing the bridge, made for the gate of St. Anthony, looking towards Fort Garden, and cut off all egress from the town; and this done, the French columns advanced from every side, in a concentric direction, upon the citadel, and, with shouts, and stabs, and musquetry, drove men, women, and children before them, while the guns of the castle smote friends and foes alike. Then, flying up the ascent, the shrieking and terrified crowds rushed into the fortress with the retiring garrison, and crowded the summit of the rock; but, all that night, the French shells fell amongst the hapless multitude, and, at daylight, the fire was redoubled, and the carnage swelled, until Garcia Conde, overpowered by the cries and sufferings of the miserable people, hoisted the white flag.

At twelve o’clock, the horrible scene terminated, and the capitulation that followed was honourable in terms to the besieged; but Fort Garden being included, Suchet became master of Lerida, with its immense stores and near eight thousand prisoners, for the whole loss of the garrison had been only twelve hundred men.

Thus suddenly was this powerful fortress reduced, by a proceeding, politic indeed, but scarcely to be admitted within the pale of civilized warfare. For, though a town, taken by assault, be considered the lawful prey of a licentious soldiery, this remnant of barbarism, disgracing the military profession, does not warrant the driving of unarmed helpless people, into a situation, where they must perish from the fire of the enemy, unless a governor fail in his duty. Suchet justifies it, on the ground, that he thus spared a great effusion of blood which must necessarily have attended a protracted siege, and the fact is true. But this is to spare soldiers’ blood at the expense of women’s and children’s, and, had Garcia Conde’s nature been stern, he, too, might have pleaded expediency, and the victory would have fallen to him who could longest have sustained the sight of mangled infants and despairing mothers.

CHAP. IV.

When Lerida fell, Conde was accused of treachery, but there seems no foundation for the charge; the cause stated by Suchet is sufficient for the effect; yet the defence was very unskilful. The walls, on the side of the attack, could not be expected, and scarcely did, offer an impediment to the French general; hence the citadel should have been the better prepared, and, as the besiegers’ force, the corps of observation being deducted, did not exceed the garrison in number, it might have baffled Suchet’s utmost efforts. Engineers require that the relative strength of besiegers and besieged, should not be less than four to one; yet here the French invested a force equal to themselves, and in a short time reduced a great fortress in the midst of succouring armies, for Lerida had communications, 1º. With the armed population of the high valleys; 2º. With O’Donnel’s corps of fourteen thousand; 3º. With Cervera, where Campo Verde was posted with four thousand men; 4º. With Tortoza, where the marquis of Lazan, now released from his imprisonment, commanded from five to six thousand; 5º. With Valencia, in which province there was a disposable army of fifteen thousand regular and more than thirty thousand irregular soldiers.

It is evident that, if all these forces had been directed with skill and concert upon Lerida, not only the siege would have been raised, but the very safety of the third corps endangered; and it was to obviate this danger that Napoleon directed the seventh corps to take such a position on the Lower Ebro as would keep both O’Donnel and the Valencians in check; but Augereau, as we have seen, failed to do this; and St. Cyr asserts that the seventh corps could never safely venture to pass the mountains, and enter the valley of the Ebro. On the other hand, Suchet affirms that Napoleon’s instructions could have been obeyed without difficulty. St. Cyr himself, under somewhat similar circumstances, blockaded Taragona for a month; Augereau, who had more troops and fewer enemies, might have done the same, and yet spared six thousand men to pass the mountains; Suchet would then have been tranquil with respect to O’Donnel, and would have had a covering army to protect the siege, and these troops, fed from the resources of Aragon, would have relieved Catalonia.

Augereau has been justified, on the ground, that the blockade of Hostalrich would have been raised while he was on the Ebro. The danger of this could not have escaped the emperor, yet his military judgement, unerring in principle, was often false in application, because men measure difficulties by the standard of their own capacity, and Napoleon’s standard only suited the heroic proportions. One thing is, however, certain, that Catalonia presented the most extraordinary difficulties to the invaders. The powerful military organization of the Miguelettes and Somatenes,—the well-arranged system of fortresses,—the ruggedness and sterility of the country,—the ingenuity and readiness of a manufacturing population thrown out of work,—and, finally, the aid of an English fleet, combined to render the conquest of this province a gigantic task. Nevertheless, the French made progress, each step planted slowly indeed and with pain, but firmly, and insuring the power of making another.

Hostalrich and Lerida fell on the same day. The acquisition of the first consolidated the French line of communication with Barcelona; and, by the capture of the second, Suchet obtained large magazines, stores of powder, ten thousand muskets, the command of several dangerous rivers, easy access to the higher valleys, and a firm footing in the midst of the Catalonian strong holds; and he had taken or killed fifteen thousand Spanish soldiers. Yet this was but the prelude to greater struggles. The Miguelettes supplied O’Donnel with abundance of men, and neither his courage nor his abilities were at fault. Urgel, Cardona, Berga, Cervera, Mequinenza, Taragona, San Felippe Balaguer, and Tortoza the link of connexion between Valencia and Catalonia, were still to be subdued, and, during every great operation, the Partisans, being unmolested, recovered strength.

Thus while the siege of Lerida was going on, the marquis of Lazan entered the town of Alcanitz with five thousand men, and would have carried the castle, but that general Laval despatched two thousand men, from Zaragoza, to its succour, when the Spaniards, after a skirmish in the streets, retired; and, while this was passing at Alcanitz, Villa Campa, intercepted four hundred men conducting a convoy of provisions from Calatayud to Zaragoza. Colonel Petit, the commander, being attacked in the defile of Frasno, was forced to abandon his convoy, and, under a continued fire, to fight his way for ten miles, until his detachment, reduced to one hundred and eighty wounded men, passed the Xalon river, and, at the village of Arandiza, finally repulsed the assailants. The remainder of this desperate band were taken or killed, and Petit himself, wounded, a prisoner, and sitting in the midst of several Spanish officers, was basely murdered the evening after the action. Villa Campa put the assassin to death, but, at the same time, suffered the troops to burn alive the Alcalde of Frasno, an old man taken among the French.

This action happened the day Lerida fell; and, the next day, Chlopiski, following Villa Campa’s march from Daroca, reached Frasno. The Spaniards were no longer there, and Chlopiski, dividing his forces, pursued them, by the routes of Calatayud and Xarava, to Molina, where he destroyed a manufactory for arms, and so pressed the Spanish general, that his troops disbanded, and several hundred retired to their homes. At the same time, an attack, made from the side of Navarre, on the garrison of Ayerbe, was repulsed.

But these petty events, while they evinced the perseverance of the Spaniards, proved also the stability of Suchet’s power in Aragon. His system was gradually sapping the spirit of resistance in that province. In Lerida his conduct was as gentle and moderate as the nature of this unjust war would permit; and, however questionable, the morality of the proceeding by which he reduced the citadel, it must be acknowledged that his situation required most decided measures, for the retreat of the seventh corps set free not only O’Donnel’s army, but Campo Verde’s and all the irregular bands. The Somatenes of the high valleys appeared in force, on the Upper Segre the very day of the assault; eight hundred Miguelettes attacked Venasque three days after; and Campo Verde, marching from Cervera, by Agramunt, took post in the mountains of Lliniana, above Talarn and Tremp, where great bodies of the Somatenes also assembled.

Their plans were disconcerted by the sudden fall of Lerida; the Miguelettes were repulsed from Venasque; the Somatenes defeated at Tremp; and general Habert, marching from Balaguer, cut off Campo Verde from Cervera, and forced him to retreat upon Cardona. But, if the citadel of Lerida had held out, and O’Donnel, less hasty, had combined his march, at a later period, with these Somatenes and with Campo Verde, the third corps could scarcely have escaped a disaster; whereas, now the plain of Urgel and all the fertile valleys opening upon Lerida fell to the French, and Suchet, after taking measures to secure them, turned his arms against Mequinenza, which, by its situation at the confluence of the Segre and the Ebro, just where the latter begins to be navigable, was the key to further operations. The French general could not advance in force against Tortoza, nor avail himself of the water-carriage, until Mequinenza should fall.

Suchet’s activity was extreme; one detachment, sent the day after the assault of Lerida, by the left bank of the Segre, was already before the place, and general Musnier’s division, descending the right bank of that river, drove in some of the outposts and commenced the investment on the 20th of May.

Mequinenza, built on an elbow of land formed by the meeting of the Segre and Ebro, was fortified by an old Moorish wall, and strengthened by modern batteries, especially on the Fraga road, the only route by which artillery could approach. A shoot from the Sierra de Alcubierre filled the space between the two rivers, and narrowing as they closed, ended in a craggy rock, seven hundred feet high and overhanging the town, which was built between its base and the water.

This rock was crowned by a castle, with a rampart, which being inaccessible on two sides from the steepness, and covered, on a third, by the town, could only be assailed, on the fourth, along a high neck of land, three hundred yards wide, that joined the rock to the parent hills; and the rampart on that side, was bastioned, lined with masonry, and protected by a ditch, counterscarp, and covered way with palisades.

No guns could be brought against this fort, until the country people, employed by Suchet, had opened a way from Torriente, over the hills, and this occupied the engineers until the 1st of June. Meanwhile the brigade, which had defeated Lazan, at Alcanitz, arrived on the right bank of the Ebro, and completed the investment. The 30th of May, general Rogniat, coming from France, with a reinforcement of engineer-officers, and several companies of sappers and miners, also reached the camp, and, taking the direction of the works, contracted the circle of investment, and commenced active operations.

SIEGE OF MEQUINENZA.

The Spaniards made an ineffectual sally the 31st; and, the 2d of June, the French artillery, consisting of eighteen pieces, of which six were twenty-four-pounders, being brought over the hills, the advanced posts of the Spaniards were driven into the castle, and, during the night, ground was broken two hundred yards from the place, under a destructive fire of grape. The workmen suffered severely; and, while this was passing on the height, approaches were made against the town, in the narrow space between the Ebro and the foot of the rock. Strong infantry posts were also entrenched, close to the water, on the right bank of that river, to prevent the navigation; yet eleven boats, freighted with inhabitants and their property, quitted the town, and nine effected their escape.

In the night of the 3d the parallels on the rock were perfected, the breaching-batteries commenced, and parapets of sand-bags were raised, from behind which the French infantry plied the embrasures of the castle with musketry. The works against the town were also advanced; but, in both places, the nature of the ground greatly impeded the operations. The trenches above, being in a rocky soil, were opened chiefly by blasting; those below were in a space too narrow for batteries, and, moreover, searched by a plunging fire, both from the castle, and from a gun mounted on a high tower in the town wall. The troops on the right bank of the Ebro, however, opened their musketry with such effect on the wall, that a part of the garrison quitted it; both it and the tower were then escaladed without difficulty; and the Spaniards all retired to the castle. The French placed a battalion in the houses, and put those next the rock in a state of defence; and although the garrison of the castle rolled down large stones from above; they killed more of the inhabitants than of the enemy.

The 6th the French batteries on the rock, three in number, were completed; and, in the night, forty grenadiers carried by storm a small outwork called the horse-shoe. The 7th Suchet, who had been at Zaragoza, arrived in the camp; and, on the 8th, sixteen pieces of artillery, of which four were mortars, opened on the castle. The Spaniards answered with such vigour, that three French guns were dismounted; yet the besiegers acquired the superiority, and, at nine o’clock in the morning, the place was nearly silenced, and the rampart broken in two places. The Spaniards endeavoured to keep up the defence with musketry, while they mounted fresh guns, but the interior of the castle was so severely searched by the bombardment, that, at ten o’clock, the governor capitulated. Fourteen hundred men became prisoners of war; forty-five guns, large stores of powder and of cast iron were captured, and provisions for three months were found in the magazines.

Two hours after the fall of Mequinenza, general Mont-Marie, commanding the troops on the right bank of the Ebro, marched, with his brigade, against Morella, in the kingdom of Valencia, and took it on the 13th of June; for the Spaniards, with a wonderful negligence, had left that important fortress, commanding one of the principal entrances into the kingdom of Valencia, without arms or a garrison. When it was lost, general O’Donoju, with a division of the Valencian army, advanced to retake it, but Mont-Marie defeated him. The works were then repaired, and Morella became a strong and important place of arms.

By these rapid and successful operations Suchet secured, 1º. A fortified frontier against the regular armies of Catalonia and Valencia; 2º. Solid bases for offensive operations, and free entrance to those provinces; 3º. The command of several fertile tracts of country and of the navigation of the Ebro; 4º. The co-operation of the seventh corps, which, by the fall of Lerida, could safely engage beyond the Llobregat. But, to effect the complete subjugation of Catalonia, it was necessary to cut off its communications by land with Valencia, and to destroy O’Donnel’s base. The first could only be attained, by taking Tortoza, the second by capturing Taragona. Hence the immediate sieges of those two great places, the one by the third, and the other by the seventh corps, were ordered by the emperor.

Suchet was ready to commence his part, but many and great obstacles arose: the difficulty of obtaining provisions, in the eastern region of Catalonia, was increased by O’Donnel’s measures, and that general, still commanding above twenty thousand men, was neither daunted by past defeats, nor insensible to the advantages of his position. His harsh manners and stern sway, rendered him hateful to the people, but he was watchful to confirm the courage, and to excite the enthusiasm of his troop’s by conferring rewards and honours on the field of battle; and, being of singular intrepidity himself, his exhortations had more effect.

Two years of incessant warfare had also formed several good officers, and the full strength and importance of every position and town were, by dint of experience, becoming known. With these helps O’Donnel long prevented the siege of Tortoza, and found full employment for the enemy during the remainder of the year. Nevertheless, the conquest of Catalonia advanced, and the fortified places fell one after another, each serving, by its fall, to strengthen the hold of the French, in the same proportion that it had before impeded their progress.

The foundations of military strength were however, deeply cast in Catalonia. There the greatest efforts were made by the Spaniards, and ten thousand British soldiers, hovering on the coast, ready to land on the rear of the French, or to join the Catalans in an action, would at any period of 1809 and 1810, have paralized the operations of the seventh corps, and saved Gerona, Hostalrich, Tortoza, Taragona, and even Lerida. While those places were in the hands of the Spaniards and their hopes were high, English troops from Sicily were reducing the Ionian islands or loitering on the coast of Italy, but when all the fortresses of Catalonia had fallen, when the regular armies were nearly destroyed, and when the people were worn out with suffering, a British army which could have been beneficially employed elsewhere, appeared, as if in scorn of common sense, on the eastern coast of Spain.

Notwithstanding the many years of hostility with France, the English ministers were still ignorant of every military principle; and yet too arrogant to ask advice of professional men; for it was not until after the death of Mr. Perceval, and when the decisive victory of Salamanca shewed the giant in his full proportions, that even Wellington himself was permitted the free exercise of his judgement, although he was more than once reminded by Mr. Perceval, whose narrow views continually clogged the operations, that the whole responsibility of failure would rest on his head.

CHAPTER V.

Suchet’s preparations equally menaced Valencia, and Catalonia, and the authorities in the former province, perceiving, although too late, that an exclusive and selfish policy would finally bring the enemy to their own doors, resolved to co-operate with the Catalonians, while the Murcians, now under the direction of Blake, waged war on the side of Grenada, and made excursions against the fourth corps. The acts of the Valencians shall be treated of when the course of the history leads me back to Catalonia, but those of the Murcian army belong to the

OPERATIONS IN ANDALUSIA.

During the month of February, the first corps was before Cadiz, the fourth in Grenada, Dessolles’ division at Cordoba, Jaen, and Ubeda, and the fifth corps (with the exception of six battalions and some horse left at Seville) in Estremadura. The king, accompanied by marshal Soult, moved with his guards and a brigade of cavalry, to different points, and received from all the great towns assurances of their adhesion to his cause. But as the necessities of the army demanded immediate and heavy contributions, both of money and provisions, moveable columns were employed to collect them, especially for the fourth corps, and with so little attention to discipline as soon to verify the observations of St. Cyr, that they were better calculated to create than King Joseph’s Correspondence, captured at Victoria. MSS.to suppress insurrections. The people exasperated by disorders, and violence, and at the same time excited by the agents of their own and the British government, suddenly rose in arms and Andalusia, like other parts of Spain, became the theatre of a petty and harassing warfare.

The Grenadans of the Alpujarras, were the first to resist, and this insurrection spreading on the one hand through the Sierra de Ronda, and on the other, towards Murcia, received succours from Gibraltar, and was aided by the troops and armed peasantry under the command of Blake. The communication between the first and fourth corps across the Sierra de Ronda, was maintained by a division of the former, posted at Medina Sidonia, and by some infantry and hussars of the latter quartered in the town of Ronda. From this place, the insurgents, principally smugglers, drove the French, while at the other extremity Blake marching from Almeria, took Ardra and Motril. The mountaineers of Jaen and Cordoba at the same time interrupted Dessolles’ communications with La Mancha.

These movements took place in the beginning of March, and the king and Soult being then in the city of Grenada, sent one column across the mountain by Orgiva to fall upon the flank of Blake at Motril, while a second moving by Guadix and Ohanes upon Almeria, cut off his retreat. This obliged the Murcians to disperse, and at the same time, Dessolles defeated the insurgents on the side of Ubeda; and the garrison of Malaga, consisting of three battalions, marched to restore the communications with the first corps. Being joined by the detachment beaten at Ronda, they retook that post on the 21st of March; but during their absence the people from the Alpuxaras entered Malaga, killed some of the inhabitants as favourers of the enemy, and would have done more, but that another column from Grenada came down on them, and the insurrection was thus strangled in its birth. It had however, sufficed to prevent the march of the troops designed to co-operate with Suchet at Valencia, and it was of so threatening a character, that the fifth corps was recalled from Estremadura, and all the French troops at Madrid, consisting of the garrison, and a part of the second corps, were directed upon Almagro Mr. Stuart’s Correspondence. MSS.in La Mancha, the capital itself being left in charge of some Spanish battalions in the invader’s service. The king then repaired to La Mancha, fearing an offensive movement, by the Valencian and Murcian armies, but after a time returned to Madrid. The duke of Dalmatia then remained chief commander of Andalusia, and proceeded to organize a system of administration so efficacious, that neither the efforts of the Spanish government, nor of the army in Cadiz, nor the perpetual incursions of Spanish troops issuing from Portugal, and supported by British corps on that frontier, could seriously shake his hold, but this will be better shewn hereafter; at present, it is more convenient to notice.

THE BLOCKADE OF CADIZ.

Marshal Victor declining, as we have seen, an assault on the Isla, spread his army round the margin of the bay, and commenced works of contravallation on an extent of not less than twenty-five miles. The towns, the islands, castles, harbours, and rivers, he thus enclosed are too numerous, and in their relative bearings, too intricate for minute description; yet, looking as it were from the French camps, I shall endeavour to point out the leading features.

The blockade was maintained in three grand divisions or entrenched positions, namely, Chiclana, Puerto Real, and Santa Maria. The first, having its left on the sea coast near the Torre Bermeja, was from thence carried across the Almanza, and the Chiclana rivers, to the Zuraque, on a line of eight miles, traced along a range of thickly wooded hills, and bordering a marsh from one to three miles broad. This marsh, traversed in its breadth by the above-mentioned rivers, and by a number of navigable water courses or creeks, was also cut in its whole length by the Santi Petri, a natural channel connecting the upper harbour of Cadiz with the open sea. The Santi Petri, nine miles long, from two to three hundred yards wide, and of depth to float a seventy-four, received the waters of all the creeks crossing the marsh and was the first Spanish line of defence. In the centre, the bridge of Zuazo, by which the only road to Cadiz passes, was broken and defended by batteries on both sides. On the right hand, the Caraccas, or Royal Arsenal, situated on an island just in the harbour mouth of the channel, and on account of the marsh inattackable, save by water or by bombardment, was covered with strong batteries and served as an advanced post. On the left hand the castle of Santi Petri, also built on an island, defended the sea mouth of the channel.

Beyond the Santi Petri was the Isla de Leon, in form a triangular island, the base of which rests on that channel, the right side on the harbour, the left on the open sea, and the apex points towards Cadiz. All this island was a salt-marsh, except one high and strong ridge in the centre, about four miles long, upon which the large town of La Isla stands, and which being within cannon shot of the Santi Petri, offered the second line of defence.

From the apex, called the Torre Gardo, a low and narrow isthmus about five miles long, connected the island with the rocks upon which Cadiz stood, and across the centre of this narrow isthmus, a cut called the Cortadura, defended by the large unfinished fort of Fernando, offered a third line of defence. The fourth and final line, was the land front of the city itself, regularly and completely fortified.

On the Chiclana side therefore, the hostile forces were only separated by the marsh; and although the Spaniards commanded the Santi Petri, the French having their chief depôts in the town of Chiclana, could always acquire the mastery in the marsh and might force the passage of the channel, because the Chiclana, Zuraque, and Almanza creeks, were navigable above the lines of contravallation. The thick woods behind, also afforded the means of constructing an armed flotilla, and such was the nature of the ground bordering the Santi Petri itself, on both sides, that off the high road, it could only be approached by water, or by narrow footpaths, leading between the salt-pans of the marsh.

The central French or Puerto Real division extending from the Zuraque on the left, to the San Pedro, a navigable branch of the Guadalete on the right; measured about seven miles. From the Zuraque to the town of Puerto Real, the line was traced along a ridge skirting the marsh, so as to form with the position of Chiclana a half circle. Puerto Real itself was entrenched, but a tongue of land four miles long projected from thence perpendicularly on to the narrow isthmus of Cadiz. This tongue, cloven in its whole length by the creek or canal of Troccadero, separated the inner from the outward harbour, and at its extreme points stood the village of Troccadero, and the fort of Matagorda; opposed to which there was on the isthmus of Cadiz a powerful battery called the Puntales. From Matagorda to the city was above four thousand yards, but across the channel to Puntales was only twelve hundred, it was the nearest point to Cadiz and to the isthmus, and was infinitely the most important post of offence. From thence the French could search the upper harbour with their fire and throw shells into the Caraccas and the fort of Fernando, while their flotilla safely moored in the Troccadero creek, could make a descent upon the isthmus, and thus turn the Isla, and all the works between it and the city. Nevertheless, the Spaniards dismantled and abandoned Matagorda.

The third or Santa Maria division of blockade, followed the sweep of the bay, and reckoning from the San Pedro, on the left, to the castle of Santa Catalina the extreme point of the outer harbour, on the right, was about five miles. The town of Santa Maria, built at the mouth of the Guadalete in the centre of this line, was entrenched and the ground about Santa Catalina was extremely rugged.

Besides these lines of blockade which were connected by a covered way, concealed by thick woods, and when finished armed with three hundred guns, the towns of Rota and San Lucar de Barameda were occupied. The first, situated on a cape of land opposite to Cadiz, was the northern point of the great bay or roadstead. The second commanded the mouth of Guadalquivir. Behind the line of blockade, Latour Maubourg, with a covering division, took post at Medina Sidonia, his left being upon the upper Guadalete, and his advanced posts watching the passes of the Sierra de Ronda. Such was the position of the first corps. I shall now relate the progress of events within the blockaded city.

The fall of the Central Junta, the appointment of the regency and the proclamation for convoking the national Cortes have been already touched upon. Albuquerque, hailed as a deliverer, elected governor, commander in chief, and president of the Junta, appeared to have unlimited power; but in reality, possessed no authority except over his own soldiers, and he did not meddle with the administration. The regency appointed provisionally and composed of men without personal energy or local influence, was obliged to bend and truckle to the Junta of Cadiz; and that imperious body without honour, talents, or patriotism, sought only to obtain the Albuquerque’s Manifesto.command of the public revenue for dishonest purposes, and meanwhile, privately trafficked with the public stores.

Private Correspondence of Officers from Cadiz. 1810. MSS.

Albuquerque’s troops were in a deplorable state; the whole had been long without pay, and the greater part were without arms, accoutrements, ammunition, or clothes. When he demanded supplies, the Junta declared that they could not furnish them; but the duke affirming this to be untrue, addressed a memorial to the Regency, and the latter, anxious to render the Junta odious, yet fearing openly to attack them, persuaded Albuquerque to publish his memorial. The Junta replied by an exposition, false as to facts, base and ridiculous in reasoning; for although they had elected the duke president of their own body, they accused him amongst other things, with retreating from Carmona too quickly; and they finished with an intimation, that, supported by the populace of Cadiz, they were able and ready to wreak their vengeance on all enemies. Matters being thus brought to a crisis, both Albuquerque and the Regency gave way, and the former being sent ambassador to England, died in that country some months after of a phrenzy brought on, as it is said, by grief and passion at the unworthy treatment he received.

But the misery of the troops, the great extent of the positions, the discontent of the seamen, the venal spirit of the Junta, the apathy of the people, the feebleness of the Regency, the scarcity of provisions, and the machinations of the French, who had many favourers and those amongst the men in power, all combined to place Cadiz in the greatest jeopardy; and this state of affairs would have led to a surrender, if England had not again filled the Spanish store-houses, and if the Regency had not consented to receive British troops into the city.

General Campbell’s Correspondence. MSS.

At the same time, general Colin Campbell (who had succeeded Sir John Cradock as governor of Gibraltar) performed a great service to his country, for, by persevering negotiation, he obtained that an English garrison should likewise enter Ceuta, and that the Spanish lines of San Roque, and the forts round the harbour of Algesiras should be demolished. Both measures were very essential to the present and permanent interests of England; but the first especially, because it cleared the neighbourhood of the fortress, and gave it a secure harbour. Gibraltar, at this time, contained a mixed and disaffected population of more than twelve thousand persons, and merchandize to the value of two millions sterling, which could have been easily destroyed by bombardment; and Ceuta which was chiefly garrisoned by condemned troops, and filled with galley-slaves, and its works miserably neglected, had only six days’ provisions, and was at the mercy of the first thousand French that could cross the streights. The possession of it would have availed the enemy in many ways, especially in obtaining provisions from Barbary, where his emissaries were exceedingly active.

General William Stewart arrived in Cadiz, on the 11th of February, with two thousand men, a thousand more joined him from Gibraltar, and the whole were received with an enthusiasm, that proved sir George Smith’s perception to have been just, and that Mr. Frere’s unskilful management of the Central Junta, had alone prevented a similar measure the year before. The 17th of February, a Portuguese regiment, thirteen hundred strong, was also admitted into the city, and Spanish troops came in daily in small bodies. Two ships of war, the Euthalion and Undaunted, arrived from Mexico with six millions of dollars; and another British battalion, a detachment of artillery, and more native troops, having joined the garrison, the whole Official Abstract of Operations at Cadiz. 1810. MSS.force assembled behind the Santi Petri, was not less than four thousand Anglo-Portuguese, and fourteen thousand Spaniards. Yet there was little of enthusiasm amongst the latter; and in all this time, not a man among the citizens had been enrolled or armed, or had volunteered, either to labour or to fight. The ships recovered at Ferrol, had been transferred to Cadiz, so there were in the bay, twenty-three men of war, of which four of the line and three frigates were British; and thus, money, troops, and a fleet, in fine, all things necessary to render Cadiz formidable, were collected, yet to little purpose, because procrastination, jealousy, ostentation, and a thousand absurdities, were the invariable attendants of Spanish armies and governments.

General Stewart’s first measure, was to recover Matagorda. In the night of the 22d, a detachment consisting of fifty seamen and marines, twenty-five artillery-men, and sixty-seven of the ninety-fourth regiment, the whole under the command of captain M’Lean, pushed across the channel during a storm, and taking possession of the dismantled fort, before morning effected a solid lodgement, and although the French cannonaded the work with field-artillery all the next day, the garrison, supported by the fire of Puntales, was immoveable.

The remainder of February passed without any event of importance, yet the people suffered from the want of provisions, especially fresh meat; and from the 7th to the 10th of March, a continued tempest, beating upon the coast, drove three Spanish and one Portuguese sail of the line, and a frigate and from thirty to forty merchantmen, on shore, between San Lucar and St. Mary’s. One ship of the line was taken, the others burnt and part of the crews brought off by boats from the fleet; but many men, and amongst others a part of the fourth English regiment fell into the hands of the enemy, together with an immense booty.

Early in March, Mr. Henry Wellesley, minister plenipotentiary arrived, and on the 24th of that month, general Graham coming from England assumed the chief command of the British, and immediately caused an exact military survey of the Isla to be made. It then appeared, that the force hitherto assigned for its defence, was quite inadequate, and that to secure it against the utmost efforts of the enemy, twenty thousand soldiers, and a system of redoubts, and batteries, requiring the labour of four thousand men for three months, Appendix, No. 3, Sect. 1.were absolutely necessary. Now, the Spaniards had only worked beyond the Santi Petri, and that without judgement; their batteries in the marsh were ill placed, their entrenchments on the tongue of land at the sea mouth of that channel, were of contemptible strength, and the Caraccas which they had armed with one hundred and fifty guns, being full of dry timber could be easily burned by carcasses. The interior defences of the Isla were quite neglected, and while they had abandoned the important posts of Matagorda, and the Troccadero, they had pushed their advanced batteries, to the junction of the Chiclana road with the Royal Causeway, in the marsh, that is to say, one mile and a half beyond the bridge of Zuazo, and consequently exposed, without support, to flank attacks both by water and land.

It was in vain that the English engineers presented plans, and offered to construct the works; the Spaniards would never consent to pull down a house, or destroy a garden; their procrastination, paralized their allies, and would have lost the place, had the enemy been prepared to press it vigorously. Nor were the English works (when the Spaniards would permit any to be constructed) well and rapidly completed, for the Junta furnished bad materials, there was a paucity of engineer-officers, and, from the habitual negligence of the ministerial departments at home, neither the proper stores, nor implements had been sent out. Indeed, an exact history, drawn from the private journals of commanders of British expeditions, during the war with France, would show an incredible carelessness of preparation on the part of the different cabinets. The generals were always expected to “make bricks without straw,” and thus the laurels of the British army were for many years blighted. Even in Egypt, the success of the venerable hero, Abercrombie, was due, more to his perseverance and unconquerable energy before the descent, than to his daring operations afterwards.

Additional reinforcements reached Cadiz the 31st of March, and both sides continued to labour, but the allies slowly and without harmony, and, the supplies being interrupted, scarcity increased, many persons were forced to quit Cadiz, and two thousand men were sent to Ayamonte to collect provisions on the Guadiana. But now Matagorda, which, though frequently cannonaded, had been held fifty-five days, impeded the completion of the enemy’s works at the Troccadero point. This small fort, of a square form, without a ditch, with bomb-proofs insufficient for the garrison, and with one angle projecting towards the land, was little calculated for resistance, and, as it could only bring seven guns to bear, a Spanish seventy-four and an armed flotilla were moored on the flanks, to co-operate in the defence. The French had however raised great batteries behind some houses on the Troccadero, and, as daylight broke, on the 21st of April, a hissing shower of heated shot, falling on the seventy-four, and in the midst of the flotilla, obliged them to cut their cables and take shelter under the works of Cadiz. Then the fire of forty-eight guns and mortars, of the largest size, was concentrated upon the little fort of Matagorda, and the feeble parapet disappeared in a moment before this crashing flight of metal. The naked rampart and the undaunted hearts of the garrison remained, but the troops fell fast, the enemy shot quick and close, a staff, bearing the Spanish flag, was broken six times in an hour, and the colours were at last fastened to the angle of the work itself, while the men, especially the sailors, besought the officers to hoist the British ensign, attributing the slaughter to their fighting under a foreign flag. Thirty hours the tempest lasted, and sixty-four men out of one hundred and forty were down, when general Graham, finding a diversion he had projected impracticable, sent boats to carry off the survivors. The bastion was then blown up, under the direction of major Lefebre, an engineer of great promise, and he also fell, the last man whose blood wetted the ruins thus abandoned. Here I must record an action of which it is difficult to say whether it were most feminine or heroic. A sergeant’s wife, named Retson, was in a casemate with the wounded men, when a very young drummer was ordered to fetch water from the well of the fort; seeing the child hesitate, she snatched the vessel from his hand, braved the terrible cannonade herself, and, although a shot cut the bucket-cord from her hand, she recovered the vessel, and fulfilled her mission.[8]

After the evacuation of Matagorda, the war languished at Cadiz; but Sebastiani’s cavalry infested the neighbourhood of Gibraltar, and he himself entered the capital of Murcia, on the 23d of April, when Blake retired upon Alicant and Carthagena. Meanwhile the French covered Matagorda point General Campbell’s Correspondence. MSS.with batteries; but they were pressed for provisions, and general Campbell, throwing a detachment into Tarifa, drove their foragers from that vicinity, which abounds with cattle. The Spaniards at San Roque promised to reinforce this detachment, but their tardiness enabled the enemy to return with four hundred foot and some cavalry, and although the former were repulsed, the horse foraged the country, and drove off several herds of cattle during the action. General Campbell then increased the detachment to five hundred men, joining some guns, and placing the whole under the command of major Brown of the 28th.

In May the French prisoners, cutting the cables of two hulks, drifted in a heavy gale to the French side of the bay; and the boats sent against them being beat off, by throwing cold shot from the decks, above fifteen hundred men saved themselves, in despite of the fire from the allied fleet, and from Puntales, which was continued after the vessels had grounded, although the miserable creatures, thus struggling for life, had been treated with horrible cruelty, and, being all of Dupont’s or Vedel’s corps, were prisoners only by a dishonourable breach of faith. Meanwhile, in Cadiz, disorder was daily increasing. The Regency having recalled Cuesta to their military councils, he published an attack on the deposed Central Junta, and was answered so as to convince the world, that the course of all parties had been equally detrimental to the state. Thus fresh troubles were excited. The English general was hampered by the perverse spirit of the authorities, and the Spanish troops were daily getting more inefficient from neglect, when the departure of Albuquerque enabled Blake to take the chief command in the Isla, and his presence produced some amelioration in the condition and discipline of the troops. At his instance, also, the Municipal Junta consented, although reluctantly, that the British engineers should commence a regular system of redoubts for the defence of the Isla.

English reinforcements continued to arrive, and four thousand Spaniards, from Murcia, joined the garrison, or, rather, army now within the lines; but such was the state of the native troops, and the difficulty of arranging plans, that hitherto the taking of Matagorda had been the only check given to the enemy’s works. It was, however, General Graham’s Despatches. MSS.necessary to do something; and, after some ill-judged plans of the Regency had been rejected by Graham, general Lacy was embarked, with three thousand infantry and two hundred cavalry, to aid the armed peasants, or Serranos, of the Ronda. These people had been excited to arms, and their operations successfully directed by captain Cowley and Mr. Mitchel, two British artillery-officers, sent from Gibraltar, and general Campbell offered to reinforce Lacy, from Gibraltar, if he would attack Malaga, where there were twenty thousand males fit to carry arms. The French were only two thousand, and cooped in the citadel, a Moorish castle, containing but twelve guns, and dependent for water on the town, which was itself only supplied by aqueducts from without. Lacy rejected this enterprise, but demanded that eight hundred men, from Gibraltar, should make a diversion to the eastward, while he, landing at Algesiras, moved on Ronda; and, this being assented to, the English armament sailed under the command of general Bowes. Lacy made good his movement upon Ronda the 18th of June; but the French, having fortified it, were too strong at that point, or, rather, Lacy, a man of no enterprise, durst not act, and, when he was joined by many thousand mountaineers, he arrested their leaders for some offence, which so disgusted the men that they disbanded. The enemy, alarmed by these operations, which were seconded from the side of Murcia, and by an insurrection at Baeza, put all their disposable troops in motion; but the insurrection at Baeza was quickly crushed, and general Rey, marching from Seville, against Lacy, entirely defeated and cut him off from Gibraltar, so that he was forced to re-embark with a few men at Estipona, and returned to Cadiz in July.

Here it is impossible not to reflect on the little use made of the naval power, and the misapplication of the military strength in the southern parts of Spain. The British, Portuguese, and Spanish soldiers, at Cadiz, were, in round numbers, 30,000, the British in Gibraltar 5000, in Sicily 16,000, forming a total of more than fifty thousand effective troops, aided by a great navy, and favourably placed for harassing that immense, and, with the exception of the Valencian and Murcian coasts, uninterrupted French line of operations, which extended from the south of Italy to Cadiz, for, even from the bottom of Calabria, troops and stores were brought to Spain. Yet a Neapolitan rabble, under Murat, in Calabria, and from fifteen to twenty thousand French around Cadiz, were allowed to paralize this mighty power.

It is true that vigilance, temper, and arrangement, and favourable localities, are all required, in the combined operations of a fleet and army, and troops disembarking, also require time to equip for service. But Minorca offered a central station, and a place of arms for the army, and a spacious port for the fleet; the operations would always have been short, and independent of the Spanish authorities, and lord Collingwood was fitted, by his talents, discretion, zeal, experience, and accurate knowledge of those coasts, successfully to direct such a floating armament. What coast-siege, undertaken by the seventh or third corps, could have been successfully prosecuted, if the garrison had been suddenly augmented with fifteen or twenty thousand men from the ocean? After one or two successful descents, the very appearance of a ship of war would have checked the operations of a siege, and obliged the enemy to concentrate: whereas, the slight expeditions of this period, were generally disconcerted by the presence of a few French companies.

In July the British force, in Cadiz, was increased to eight thousand five hundred men, and Sir Richard Keats arrived to take the command of the fleet. The enemy, intent upon completing his lines, and constructing flotillas at Chiclana, Santa Maria, and San Lucar de Barameda, made no attacks, and his works, have been much censured, as ostentatiously extended, and leading to nothing. This is however a rash criticism; for the Chiclana camp was necessary to blockade the Isla, and, as the true point for offensive operations, was at the Troccadero, the lines of Puerto Real and Santa Maria, were necessary to protect that position, to harass the fleet, to deprive the citizens of good water, which, in ordinary times, was fetched from Puerto Maria, and finally to enable the flotilla, constructing at San Lucar, to creep round the coast. The chances from storms, as experience proved, almost repaid the labour, and it is to be considered that Soult contemplated a serious attack upon Cadiz, not with a single corps, generally weaker than the blockaded troops, but, when time should ripen, with a powerful army. Events in other parts of the Peninsula first impeded, and finally frustrated this intention, yet the lines were, in this view, not unnecessary or ostentatious.

Neither was it a slight political advantage, that the duke of Dalmatia should hold sway in Seville for the usurper’s government, while the National Cortes, and the Regency, were cooped up in a narrow corner of the province. Moreover the preparations at Matagorda constantly and seriously menaced Cadiz, and a British division was necessarily kept there, for the English generals were well assured, that otherwise, some fatal disaster would befall the Spaniards. Now if a single camp of observation at Chiclana had constituted all the French works, no mischief could have been apprehended, and Graham’s division, consisting of excellent soldiers would have been set free, instead of being cooped up, without any counterbalance in the number of French troops at the blockade; for the latter aided indirectly, and at times directly, in securing the submission of Andalusia, and if not at Cadiz, they must have been covering Seville as long as there was an army in the Isla.

CHAPTER VI.

While the blockade of Cadiz proceeded, Seville scarcely required a garrison, and in March, six hundred infantry, under colonel Remond, and two hundred cavalry, commanded by the duke D’Aremberg, were despatched from thence, against the viscount De Gand, who was still at Ayamonte, vainly demanding refuge in Portugal. He had four thousand troops, but declining an engagement, passed by his left through Gibraleon into the Sierra de Aroche, bordering on the Condado de Niebla. The French then occupied Moguer and Huelva, towns situated at the mouths of the Odiel and Tinto rivers, from whence Cadiz had hitherto drawn supplies, and the viscount returning to Ayamonte, sailed with his troops to Cadiz, being replaced by general Copons, who came with two thousand men to gather provisions on the lower Guadiana, and in the Tinto and Odiel districts.

On the other side of Seville, Sebastiani had an uneasy task. The vicinity of Gibraltar and of the Murcian army, the continued descents on the coast, and the fierceness of the Moorish blood, rendered Grenada the most disturbed portion of Andalusia, and a great part of that fine province, visited by the horrors of insurrectional war, was ravaged and laid waste.

In the northern parts of Andalusia, about Jaen and Cordoba, Dessolles reduced the struggle to a trifling Guerilla warfare; but it was not so in La Mancha, where the Partidas became so numerous and the war so onerous, that one of Joseph’s ministers, writing to a friend, described that province as peopled with beggars and brigands. Meanwhile Estremadura was the scene of various complicated movements and combats, producing no great results, indeed, but important as being connected with and bearing on the defence of Portugal.

The Spanish and Portuguese line of frontier, south of the Tagus, may be divided into three parts.

1º. From the Tagus to Badajos, on the Guadiana. 2º. From Badajos to the Morena. 3º. From the Morena to the sea. Each of these divisions is about sixty miles. Along the first, two-thirds of which is mountainous and one-third undulating plains and thick woods, a double chain of fortresses guard the respective frontiers. Alcantara, Valencia de Alcantara, Albuquerque, and Badajos are the Spanish; Montalvao, Castello de Vide, Marvao, Aronches, Campo Mayor, and Elvas, the Portuguese places. The three first on either side are in the mountains, the others in the open country, which spreads from the Guadiana to Portalegre, a central point, from whence roads lead to all the above-named fortresses.

From Badajos to the Morena, forms the second division of the country, it is rugged and the chain of fortresses continued. On the Portuguese side, Juramenha, Mourao and Moura; on the Spanish, Olivenza (formerly Portuguese), Xeres de los Cavalleros, and Aroche.

From the Morena to the sea, the lower Guadiana separates the two kingdoms. The Spanish side, extremely rugged, contained the fortresses of San Lucar de Guadiana, Lepe, and Ayamonte. The Portuguese frontier, Serpa, Mertola, Alcontin, and Castro Marin, and, although the greater number of these places were dismantled, the walls of all were standing, some in good repair, and those of Portugal for the most part garrisoned by militia and ordenanza.

When Mortier attempted Badajos, on the 12th of February, Romana was near Truxillo, and the place was so ill provided, that a fortnight’s blockade Mr. Stuart’s Correspondence. MSS.would have reduced it; but the French general, who had only brought up eight thousand infantry and a brigade of cavalry, could not invest it in face of the troops assembling in the vicinity, and therefore retired to Zafra, leaving his horsemen near Olivenza. In this position he remained until the 19th of February, when his cavalry was surprised at Valverde, and the commander Beauregard slain. Romana returned to Badajos the 20th and the 27th, and Mortier then leaving some troops in Zafra, marched to Merida, to connect himself with the second corps, which had arrived at Montijo, on the Guadiana.

It will be remembered that this corps, commanded by general Mermet, occupied the valley of the Tagus in its whole length during the invasion of Andalusia, and communicating with the sixth corps through the pass of Baños, formed an intermediate reserve between Mortier and Kellerman. The latter was at Bejar, and Miranda de Castanar, watching the duke Del Parque, in the early part of January; but withdrew to Salamanca, when the British army arrived in the valley of the Mondego, and the duke Del Parque, leaving Martin Carrera with a weak division in the Sierra de Gata, marched, with thirteen thousand men, through the pass of Perales, crossed the Tagus at Barca de Alconete on the 10th of February, and on the 12th, the day Mortier summoned Badajos, was in position with his right at Albuquerque and his left on the Guadiana.

When Mermet, whose advanced guard was at Placentia, knew of this movement, he first detached three thousand men across the Tagus, by Seradillo, to observe Del Parque, and soon afterwards Soult’s brother, with four thousand men from Talavera, crossed the bridge of Arzobispo, and advancing by Caceres, surprised some Spanish troops at Villa del Rey and reaching Montijo, pushed patrols close to Badajos. The remainder of the second corps arrived at Caceres by degrees; general Reynier then took the command, and, as I have said, was joined by Mortier, who immediately commenced defensive works at Merida, and prepared gabions and facines as if to besiege Badajos.

These demonstrations attracted the notice of general Hill, who advanced with ten thousand men from Abrantes to Portalegre, and Romana, finding himself, by the junction of the duke Del Parque’s army, at the head of twenty-five thousand men, resolved to act against the communications of the French.

His first division, commanded by Charles O’Donnel, brother to the Catalan general, occupied Albuquerque. The second, under Mendizabel, was posted near Castello de Vide. The third, consisting of five thousand Asturians, was sent, under Ballasteros, to Olivenza, and the fourth remained at Badajos. The fifth, under Contreras, was detached to Monasterio, with orders to interrupt Mortier’s communication with Seville.

Contreras reached Xeres de los Cavalleros the 1st of March, but a detachment from Zafra soon drove him thence, and Romana retired to Campo Mayor with three divisions, leaving Ballasteros with the fourth at Olivenza. On the other hand, Mortier, uneasy about Contreras’ movements, repaired to Zafra, leaving the second corps at Merida, and the 10th, Romana, advanced again towards Albuquerque; but having pushed a detachment beyond the Salor river, it was surprised by general Foy. The 14th O’Donnel endeavoured to surprise Foy, but the latter, with very inferior numbers, fought his way through the Puerto de Trasquillon, and the Spaniards took possession of Caceres.

At this period the insurrections in Grenada, the movements of the Murcian army, and the general excitement of Valencia, in consequence of Suchet’s retreat, caused Joseph to recall Mortier for the defence of Andalusia, and the latter, after holding a council of war with Reynier, destroyed the works at Merida, the 19th of March, and retired to Seville, leaving Gazan’s division at Monasterio. Reynier having sent his stores to Truxillo drove the Spaniards out of Caceres the 20th, and followed them to the Salor, but afterwards took post at Torremacho, and O’Donnel returned to Caceres.

There are two routes leading from Merida and Badajos to Seville: 1º. The Royal Causeway, which passes the Morena by Zafra, Los Santos, Monasterio, and Ronquillo. 2º. A shorter, but more difficult, road, which, running westward of the causeway, passes the mountains by Xeres de los Cavalleros, Fregenal, and Araceña. These parallel routes, have no cross communications in the Morena, but on the Estremaduran side, a road runs from Xeres de los Cavalleros to Zafra, and on the Andalusian side, from Araceña to Ronquillo. When, therefore, Mortier retired, Ballasteros marched from Olivenza to Xeres de los Cavalleros, and being joined by Contreras, their united corps, amounting to ten thousand men, gained the Royal Causeway by Zafra, and, on the evening of the 29th of March, came up with Gazan, and fought an undecided action; but the next day, the Spaniards being repulsed, Ballasteros retired to Araceña and Contreras to the high mountains above Ronquillo. From Araceña, Ballasteros marched to Huerva, within a few leagues of Seville, but Gerard’s division drove him back to Araceña, and defeated him there; yet again entering the Condado de Neibla, he established himself at Zalamea de Real on the Tinto river.

Meanwhile, Romana detached a force to seize Merida, and cut the communication of the fifth corps with Reynier, but that general, marching with eight thousand men from Torremocha, passed through to Medellin before the Spaniards arrived, and pushed troops, the 2d of April, into the Morena, intending to take Contreras in rear, while Gazan attacked him in front; and this would have happened, but that O’Donnel, immediately threatened Merida, and so drew Reynier back. Nevertheless, Contreras was attacked by Gazan, at Pedroche, and so completely defeated, that he regained Zafra in the night of the 14th, with only two thousand men, and Ballasteros also, assailed by a detachment from Seville, retired to Araceña. The 20th, Reynier marched to Montijo, and O’Donnel retired from Caceres, but his rear guard was defeated at La Rocca the 21st, and his division would have been lost, if Mendizabel and Hill also had not come to his aid, when Reynier declining a general action, retired to Merida. The insurrection in the Alpuxaras was now quelled, the Valencians remained inactive, Joseph re-entered Madrid, Soult assumed the government of Andalusia, and Mortier returned to Estremadura. While on the Spanish side, Contreras was displaced, and Imas, his successor, advanced to Ronquillo, in Mortier’s rear; Ballasteros remained at Aroche; Hill returned to Portalegre; and Romana encamped, with fourteen thousand men, near Bajados, where a Spanish plot Mr. Stuart’s Correspondence. MSS.was formed to assassinate him. It was discovered, but the villain who was to have executed the atrocious deed escaped.

Notwithstanding Romana’s presence, Reynier and the younger Soult, passed the Guadiana below Badajos, with only four hundred cavalry, and closely examined the works of that fortress, in despite of the whole Spanish army; and at the same time, Mortier’s advanced guards arrived on the Guadiana, and a reinforcement of four thousand men joined the second corps from Toledo. But as the want of provisions would not permit the French to remain concentrated, Mortier returned to the Morena, to watch Imas. The 14th of May, a French detachment again came close up to Badajos, then took the road to Olivenza, and would have cut off Ballasteros, if Hill had not by a sudden march to Elvas, arrested their movements. Meanwhile, Ballasteros again menaced Seville, and was again driven back upon Aroche, with a loss of three hundred men.

To check these frequent incursions, the French threatened the frontier of Portugal, by the Lower Guadiana; sometimes appearing at Gibraleon, and Villa Blanca, sometimes towards Serpa, the possession of which would have lamed Ballasteros’ movements, yet the advantages were still chequered. A Portuguese flotilla intercepted, at the mouth of the Guadiana, a convoy of provisions going to the first corps; and O’Donnel having made an attempt during Reynier’s absence, to surprise Truxillo, was repulsed, and regained Albuquerque with great difficulty. It would be perplexing, to trace in detail all the movements, on the line from Badajos to Ayamonte, yet two circumstances there were, of historical importance. In the beginning of July, when Lacy was in the Sierra de Ronda, Ballasteros near Aroche, and Copons in the Condado Neibla, the French marched against Lacy, leaving Seville garrisoned solely by Spaniards in Joseph’s service; and while this example was furnished by the enemy, the Portuguese and Spanish troops on the frontier, complaining, the one of inhospitality, the other of robbery and violence, would, but for the mediation of the British authorities, have come to blows, for the mutual spirit of hatred extended to the governments on both sides.

Hitherto, Hill had not meddled in the Spanish operations, save, when Romana was hardly pressed, but the latter’s demands for aid were continual, and most of his projects were ill judged, and contrary to lord Wellington’s advice. On the 26th of June however, Reynier passing the Guadiana, foraged all the country about Campo Mayor, and then turned by Montijo to Merida; it was known that his corps belonged to the army assembling in Castile for the invasion of Portugal, and that he had collected mules and other means of transport in Estremadura; and the spies asserted, that he was going to cross the Tagus. Hill, therefore, gathered his divisions well in hand, ready to move as Reynier moved, to cross the Tagus if he crossed it, and by parallel operations to guard the frontier of Beira. The march of the second corps was, however, postponed, and the after operations belonging to greater combinations, will be treated of in another place.

Although, apparently complicated, the movements in Estremadura were simple in principle. The valley of the Guadiana as far as Badajos, is separated from the valley of the Tagus, by a range of heights, connecting the Guadalupe mountains with those of Albuquerque, and the country between those hills and the Tagus, contained fertile valleys, and considerable towns; such as Valencia de Alcantara and Caceres. To profit from their resources was an object to both parties. Reynier, whose base was at Truxillo, could easily make incursions as far as Caceres, but beyond that town, the Salor, presented a barrier, from behind which, the Spaniards supported by the fort of Albuquerque, could observe whether the incursion was made in force, and act accordingly; hence O’Donnel’s frequent advances and retreats.

Reynier could not operate seriously, unless in unison with the fifth corps, and by the valley of the Guadiana; and, therefore, Merida, on account of its stone bridge, was the key of his movements; but Mortier’s base of operations, being in Andalusia, his front, was spread, from Zafra to Merida, to cover his line of retreat, and to draw provisions from about Llerena; but the road of Xeres de los Cavalleros was open to the Spaniards, and the frequent advances of Ballasteros and Contreras, were to harass Mortier’s line of communication. The clue of affairs was this; Romana, holding Badajos, and being supported by Hill, acted on both flanks of the French, and the Portuguese frontier furnished a retreat from every part of his lines of operation; but, as his projects were generally vague and injudicious, lord Wellington forbad Hill to assist, except for definite and approved objects.

To put an end to the Spanish system, Mortier had only to unite the two corps and give battle, or, if that was refused, to besiege Badajos, which, from its influence, situation, and the advantage of its stone bridge, was the key to the Alemtejo; and this he ardently desired. Soult, however, would not Appendix, [No. V.] Section 1.permit him to undertake any decisive operation while Andalusia was exposed to sudden insurrections and descents from Cadiz, and to say that either marshal was wrong would be rash, because two great interests clashed. Mortier and Reynier united, could have furnished twenty thousand infantry, fifty guns, and more than three thousand cavalry, all excellent troops. Romana having garrisoned Badajos, Olivenza, and Albuquerque, could not bring more than fifteen thousand men into line, and must have joined Hill. But with a mixed force and divided command, the latter could not have ventured a battle in the plain country beyond Portalegre. A defeat would have opened Lisbon to the victor, and lord Wellington must then have detached largely from the north, the king and Soult could have reinforced Mortier, and the ultimate consequences are not to be assumed.

On the other hand, Soult, judging, that ere further conquests were attempted, the great province of Andalusia, should be rendered a strong hold and independent of extraneous events, bent all his attention to that object. An exact and economical arrangement, provided for the current consumption of his troops; vast reserve magazines were filled without overwhelming the people; and the native municipal authorities, recognized and supported in matters of police and supply, acted zealously, yet without any imputation upon their patriotism; for those who see and feel the miseries, flowing from disorderly and wasting armies, may honestly assist a general labouring to preserve regularity. Yet all this could not be the work of a day, and meanwhile the marshals under Soult’s orders, being employed only in a military capacity, desired the entire control of their own corps, and to be engaged in great field operations, because, thus only could they be distinguished; whereas the duke of Dalmatia while contributing to the final subjugation of Spain, by concentrating the elements of permanent strength in Andalusia, was also well assured, that, in fixing a solid foundation for future military operations, he should obtain reputation as an able administrator and pacificator of a conquered country.

His views, however, clashed, not more with those of the generals, than with the wishes of the king, whose poverty, forced him to grasp at all the revenues of Andalusia, and who having led the army, in person across the Morena, claimed both as monarch and conqueror. But he who wields the sword will always be first served. Soult, guided by the secret orders of Napoleon, resisted the king’s demands, and thus excited the monarch’s hatred to an incredible degree; nevertheless, the duke of Dalmatia, never lost the emperor’s confidence, and his province, reference being had to the nature of the war, was admirably well governed. The people were gradually tranquillized; the military resources of the country drawn forth, and considerable bodies of native troops raised, and even successfully employed, to repress the efforts of the Partisan chiefs. The arsenal of construction at Seville was put into full activity; the mines of lead at Linares were worked; the copper of the river Tinto gathered for the supply of the founderies, and every provision for the use of a large army collected; privateers also were fitted out, a commerce was commenced with neutral nations in the ports of Grenada, and finally, a secret, but Mr. Stuart’s Correspondence. MSS.considerable, traffic carried on with Lisbon itself, demonstrated the administrative talents of Soult. Andalusia soon became the most powerful establishment of the French in Spain.

Both marshals appear to have entertained sound views, and the advantages of either plan being considered, leads to the reflection that they might have been reconciled. A reinforcement of twenty-five thousand men in Estremadura, during the months of June and July, would have left scarcely a shadow of defence for Portugal; and it would seem that Napoleon had an eye to this, as we find him directing Suchet, in July, to co-operate with fifteen thousand men in the invasion, whenever Tortoza should fall. The application of this reasoning will, however, be better understood as the narrative advances; and whether Napoleon’s recent marriage with the Austrian princess drew him away from business, or that, absorbed by the other many and great interests of his empire, he neglected Spanish affairs, or whether deceived by exaggerated accounts of successes, he thought the necessity for more troops less than it really was, I have not been able to ascertain. Neither can I find any good reason, why the king, whose army was increased to twenty thousand men before the end of June, made no movement to favour the attack on Portugal. It is, however, scarcely necessary to seek any other cause, than the inevitable errors, that mar all great military combinations not directed by a single hand.

CHAPTER VII.

The operations, south of the Tagus, having been described, those which occurred, north of that river, shall now be traced; for previous to the invasion of Portugal, the French, stretching in one great line across the Peninsula, from Cadiz to Gihon, eagerly discussed the remnants of the Spanish armies.

It will be remembered, that the duke Del Parque left Martin Carrera in the Gata mountains, to interrupt the communication, between the Salamanca country and the valley of the Tagus. Julian Sanchez also, issuing from time to time out of Ciudad Rodrigo, cut off the French foragers in the open country between the Agueda and the Douro; and beyond the Douro, the Gallician army, under Garcia (in number about ten thousand), occupied Puebla de Senabria, Puente Ferrada, Villa Franca, and Astorga, and menaced the right flank, and rear, of the sixth corps. Mahy was organising a second army at Lugo, and in the Asturias, the captain-general D’Arco, commanded seven thousand men, three thousand of which were posted at Cornellana, under general Ponte. Thus an irregular line of defence, six hundred miles long, was offered to the invaders, but without depth or substance, save at Badajos and Ciudad Rodrigo, behind which the British and Portuguese troops were lying.

On the other hand, the French, holding the interior line, kept their masses only on the principal routes, communicating by moveable columns, and thus menacing all the important points without scattering their forces. The influx of fresh troops from France, continually added to their solidity, especially in Old Castile, where Ney had resumed the command, and was supported by Kellerman with the force of his government, and by an eighth corps under the duke of Abrantes.

The invasion of Andalusia was the signal for a general movement of all the French in Spain; and while Victor and Mortier, menaced Cadiz and Badajos, Ney summoned Ciudad Rodrigo, and Bonet, entering the Asturias, threatened Gallicia by the Concija d’Ibas. At the same time, Loison, with eight thousand fresh men, occupied Leon and Medina del Campo, and the advanced guard of the eighth corps passed Valladolid. Loison gave out that he would invade Gallicia by Puebla de Senabria, and on the 15th of February, his cavalry cut to pieces five hundred Spanish troops at Alcanizas, but he finally marched against Astorga, and, at the same time, Bonet destroyed Ponte’s force at Potes de Sierra, and advanced to Nava de Suarna. These movements alarmed the Spaniards. Garcia, menaced at once by Bonet and by Loison, and fearing equally for Astorga and Lugo, threw two-thirds of his army into the former, and carried the remainder to Villa Franca, to support Mahi.

Ney, however, made only a feint of escalading Ciudad Rodrigo, and Loison, although supported by the men from Leon, who advanced to Puente Orbijo, was repulsed from Astorga. Junot then concentrated the eighth corps at Benevente, intending to besiege Astorga in form; but he was suddenly called towards Madrid, lest disorders should arise in the capital during the king’s absence, and Mahi and Garcia being apprised of this, immediately brought up the new levies to the edge of the mountains, thinking that they might relieve the Asturians by threatening an irruption into the plains of Leon. But as Loison still remained at Benevente, they were unable to effect their object, and, after drawing off five thousand men from Astorga, retired to Villa Franca. Bonet, however, did not pass Nava de Suarna, and when general Arco had rallied the Asturian fugitives at Louarca, Garcia, leaving Mahi to command in Gallicia, marched himself with the remnant of the old army of the left, to join Romana at Badajos. Meanwhile Kellerman advanced to Alba de Tormes, and detachments from his and Ney’s force chased Carrera from the Gata and Bejar mountains, driving him sometimes over the Alagon, sometimes into Portugal. But it is unnecessary to trace all these movements, for the French, while preparing for greater operations, were continually spreading false reports, and making demonstrations in various directions to mislead the allies, and to cover their own projects.

Those projects were at first obscure. It is certain that the invasion of Portugal by the northern line, was not finally arranged, until a later period, yet it seems probable that, while Bonet drew the attention of the Gallician army towards Lugo, the duke of Abrantes designed to penetrate by Puebla Senabria, not as Loison announced, for the invasion of Gallicia, but to turn the Tras os Montes and descend by the route of Chaves upon Oporto, while Ney, calling the second corps to the aid of the sixth, should invest Ciudad Rodrigo. But whatever designs might have been contemplated, they were frustrated partly by the insurrection in Grenada and the failure of Suchet against Valencia, partly by disunion amongst the generals, for here also Ney and Junot complained reciprocally, and every where it was plainly seen that the French corps d’armée, however formidable in themselves, would not, in the absence of Napoleon, act cordially in a general system.

When the commotions in the south subsided, Junot returned to Old Castile, Loison joined the sixth corps on the Tormes, Kellerman retired to Valladolid, detachments, placed on the Douro, maintained the communications between Ney and Junot, and the latter, having drawn a reinforcement from Bonet, invested Astorga with ten thousand infantry, two thousand cavalry, eighteen field-guns, six twenty-four pounders, and two mortars. His covering-divisions were placed, one at Benevente, to watch the road of Mombuey, one near Puebla de Senabria, and one at Puente Ferrada. Mahi immediately concentrated the Gallician army at Villa Franca and Fonceabadon, and detached fifteen hundred men, under Echevarria, to Mombuey and Puebla, to harass the flank and rear of the investing Mr. Stuart’s Correspondence, MSS.army; yet his force was weak. The Gallician authorities had frequently assured lord Wellington that it amounted to twenty thousand well-organized troops; but it now appeared that only eight thousand were in the field, and those ill provided, and prone to desertion.

SIEGE OF ASTORGA.

Santocildes, governor of this place, was an officer of courage; his garrison consisted of two thousand five hundred infantry, besides cannoneers and armed peasantry, and the Moorish ramparts had been strengthened by fresh works; but there was little ammunition, scarcely twenty days’ rations, and nothing outside the walls, capable of seriously disturbing the enemy. The town stood in an open plain, and had three suburbs: Puerto de Hierro, to the north; St. Andreas, to the east; and Retebia, to the west. On the two last Junot made false attacks, but conducted his real approaches, against the front, between Puerto de Hierro and Retebia. The place was invested the 22d of March; and Puerto de Hierro was carried by storm, two sallies repulsed, and the trenches opened, before the end of the month. A breach was then commenced, but the battering-guns soon became unserviceable, and the line of approach was flanked by the houses of Retebia, which were filled with Spanish infantry. Nevertheless, the town suffered from shells, and the wall was so much broken, on the 20th of April, that an assault was ordered. A previous attack on Retebia had failed; but Santocildes was distressed for ammunition, and, during the preparations for storming, offered to capitulate.

Junot refused the terms demanded, and, at five o’clock in the evening of the 21st, some picked troops ran up to the breach; but it was well retrenched and stockaded, and defended with great obstinacy, and the flank fire from Retebia stopped the supporting columns. The storming-party, thus abandoned to its own exertions, was held at bay on the summit of the breach; and being plied on both flanks, and in front, with shot from the houses of the town, and in rear by the musketry from Retebia, would have been totally destroyed, but for the scarcity of ammunition, which paralized the Spanish defence. Three hundred French fell on the breach itself, but the remainder finally effected a lodgement in the ruins, and, during the night, a second attack on Retebia proving successful, a communication was opened from the parallels to the lodgement, and strong working-parties were sent forward, who cut through the stockade into the town, when the governor surrendered.

Mahi, who had advanced to the edge of the mountains, as if he would have succoured the place, hearing of this event, retired to Bembibre, where his rear was overtaken and defeated by general Clausel on the 24th. He then fell back to Lugo, and recalled his detachment from Mombuey; but the French from Benevente were already in that quarter, and, on the 25th, totally defeated Echevaria at Castro Contrijo. Meanwhile, Junot placed garrisons in Astorga and Leon, and restored Bonet his division. That general, who had retired to Santander during the siege, then re-occupied Oviedo and Gihon, defeated the Asturians, and once more menaced Gallicia by the road of Concija, and by that of Sales; several slight actions ensued; but the French did not penetrate farther, and the Junta of Gallicia reinforced the Asturians with three thousand men.

During the siege of Astorga, the sixth corps was concentrated at Salamanca, a strong detachment of Kellerman’s troops siezed the pass of Baños, and Martin Carrera, quitting the hills, joined the English light division near Almeida. In fine, the great operations were commencing, and the line of communication with France, was encumbered with the advancing reinforcements. A large battering-train, collected from Segovia, Burgos, and Pampeluna, arrived at Salamanca; general Martineau, with ten thousand men for the eighth corps, reached Valladolid; general Drouet passed the Pyrennees with a ninth corps, composed of the fourth battalions of regiments already in Spain; and these were followed by seventeen thousand of the imperial guards, whose presence gave force to the rumour, that the emperor himself was coming to take the chief command.

Fortunately for the allies, this report, although rife amongst all parties, and credited both by Joseph’s ministers, and the French ambassador at Madrid, proved groundless; and a leader for the projected operations was still to be named. I have been informed that marshal Ney resumed the command of the sixth corps, under the impression that he was to conduct the enterprise against Portugal, that the intrigues of marshal Berthier, to whom he was obnoxious, frustrated his hopes, and that Napoleon, fatigued with the disputes of his lieutenants, had resolved to repair in person to the Peninsula: that his marriage, and some important political affairs, diverted him from that object, and that Massena, prince of Esling, was finally chosen, partly for his great name in arms, and partly that he was of higher rank than the other marshals, and a stranger to all the jealousies and disputes in the Peninsula. His arrival was known in May amongst the allies, and lord Wellington had no longer to dread the formidable presence of the French emperor.

That Massena’s base of operations might not be exposed to the interference of any other authority in Spain, the four military governments, of Salamanca, Valladolid, Asturias, and St. Andero were placed under his temporary authority, which thus became absolute in the northern provinces. But previous to taking the command of the troops, he repaired to Madrid, to confer with the king; and it would seem that some hesitation as to the line of invasion still prevailed in the French councils, because, in the imperial muster-rolls, the head-quarters of the army of Portugal are marked as being at Caceres in Estremadura, and the imperial guards are returned as part of that army, yet during the month of April only; a circumstance strongly indicating Napoleon’s intention to assume the command himself. The northern line was, however, definitively adopted; and, while the prince of Esling was still in the capital, the eighth corps passed the Tormes, and Ney commenced the

FIRST SIEGE OF CIUDAD RODRIGO.

Lord Wellington’s Correspondence. MSS.

This fortress had been commanded, in the beginning of the year, by a person whose conduct had been so suspicious, that lord Wellington demanded his removal. But don Andreas Herrasti, the actual governor, was a veteran of fifty years’ service, whose silver hairs, dignified countenance, and courteous manners excited respect; and whose courage, talents, and honour were worthy of his venerable appearance. His garrison amounted to six thousand fighting men, besides the citizens; and the place, built on a height overhanging the northern bank of the Agueda river, was amply supplied with artillery and stores of all kinds. The works were, however, weak, consisting of an old rampart, nearly circular, about thirty feet in height, and without other flanks than a few projections containing some light guns: a second wall, about twelve feet high, called a “fausse braie,” with a ditch and covered way, surrounded the first; but was placed so low on the hill, as scarcely to offer any cover to the upper rampart. There were no bomb-proofs, even for the magazine, and Herrasti was forced to place his powder in the church, which he secured as he might.

Beyond the walls, and totally severed from the town, the suburb of Francisco, defended by an earthern entrenchment, and strengthened by two large convents, formed an outwork to the north-east of the place. The convent of Santa Cruz served a like purpose on the north-west; and between these posts there was a ridge called the Little Teson, which, somewhat inferior in height to the town, was only a hundred and fifty yards from the body of the place. There was also a Greater Teson, which, rising behind the lesser at the distance of six hundred yards from the walls, overlooked the ramparts, and saw into the bottom of the ditch.

The country immediately about Ciudad Rodrigo, although wooded, was easy for troops; especially on the left bank of the Agueda, to which the garrison had access by a stone bridge within pistol-shot of the castle-gate. But the Agueda itself, rising in the Sierra de Francia, and running into the Douro, is subject to great and sudden floods; and six or seven miles below the town, near San Felices, the channel deepens into one continued and frightful chasm, many hundred feet deep, and overhung with huge desolate rocks.

During February and March, the French departed as lightly as they had advanced against Ciudad Rodrigo; but, on the 25th of April, a camp was pitched upon a lofty ridge five miles eastward of the city; and, in a few days, a second, and then a third, arose: and these portentous clouds continued to gather on the hills until June, when fifty thousand fighting men came down into the plain, and throwing two bridges over the Agueda, begirt the fortress.

This multitude, composed of the sixth and eighth corps, and a reserve of cavalry, was led by Ney, Junot, and Montbrun. The sixth corps invested the place; the eighth occupied San Felices Grande, and other points, and the cavalry swarmed on both sides of the river; but the battering train and a great escort was still two days’ march in the rear; for the rains inundating the flat country between the Agueda and the Tormes, rendered the roads impassable. The bridges were established on the 2d and 7th of June; the one above, the other below the town; and on the 13th, ground was broken on the Greater Teson. The 22d, the artillery arrived, and preparations were made to contract the circle of investment on the left bank of the Agueda, which had hitherto been but slightly watched. But that night, Julian Sanchez, with two hundred horsemen, passed silently out of the castle-gate, and, crossing the river, fell upon the nearest French posts, pierced their line in a moment, and reached the English light division, then behind the Azava, six miles from Ciudad Rodrigo. This event, induced Ney, to reinforce his troops on the left bank, and a movement, to be hereafter noticed, was directed against general Crawfurd the 25th, on which day, also, the French batteries opened.

Ney’s plan, was to breach the body of the place without attending to the Spanish fire. Salvos, from forty-six guns, constantly directed on one point, soon broke the old masonry of the ramparts; but the besieged, who could bring twenty-four guns to bear on the Teson, shot so well that three magazines blew up at once in the trenches, and killed above a hundred of the assailants. On the 27th, the prince of Esling arrived in the camp, and summoned the governor to surrender. Herrasti answered in the manner to be expected from so good a soldier; and the fire was resumed until the 1st of July, when Massena, sensible that the mode Intercepted French Correspondence. MSS.of attack was faulty, directed the engineers to raise counter-batteries, to push their parallels to the Lesser Teson, work regularly forward, blow in the counterscarp, and pass the ditch in form. Meanwhile, to facilitate the progress of the new works, the convent of Santa Cruz, on the right flank, was carried after a fierce resistance; and, on the left, the suburb was attacked, taken, and retaken by a sally, in which great loss was inflicted on the French. Howbeit, the latter remained masters of every thing beyond the walls.

During the cessation of fire, consequent upon the change in the French dispositions, Herrasti removed the ruins from the foot of the breach, and strengthened his flank defences: but, on the 9th of July, the besieger’s batteries, being established on the Lesser Teson, re-opened with a terrible effect. In twenty-four hours, the fire of the Spanish guns was nearly silenced, part of the town was in flames, a reserve magazine exploded on the walls, the counterscarp was blown in by a mine, on an extent of thirty-six feet, the ditch filled by the ruins, and a broad way made into the place. At this moment, three French soldiers, of heroic courage, suddenly running out of the ranks, mounted the breach, looked into the town, and having thus, in broad daylight, proved the state of affairs, discharged their muskets, and, with matchless fortune, retired unhurt to their comrades.

The columns of assault immediately assembled. The troops, animated by the presence of Ney, and excited by the example of the three men who had so gallantly proved the breach, were impatient for the signal. A few moments would have sent them raging into the midst of the city, when the white flag waved on the rampart, and the venerable governor was seen standing alone on the ruins, and signifying, by his gestures, that he desired to capitulate. He had stricken manfully, while reason warranted hope, and it was no dishonour to his silver hairs, that he surrendered when resistance could only lead to massacre and devastation.

Six months had now elapsed, since the French resuming the plan of conquest interrupted by the Austrian war and by the operations of sir Arthur Wellesley, had retaken the offensive. Battle after battle they had gained, fortress after fortress they had taken, and sent the Spanish forces, broken and scattered, to seek for refuge in the most obscure parts: solid resistance there was none; and the only hope of deliverance for the Peninsula rested upon the British general. How he realized that hope shall be related in the next book. Meanwhile, the reader should bear in mind that the multifarious actions related in the foregoing chapters, were contemporaneous; and that he has been led, as it were, round the margin of a lake, whose turbulent waters spread on every side. Tedious to read, and trifling many of the circumstances must appear, yet, as a whole, they form what has been called the Spanish military policy: and, without accurate notions on that head, it would be impossible to appreciate the capacity of the man who, like Milton’s phantom, paved a broad way through the chaotic warfare.

I have been charged with incompetence to understand, and, most unjustly, with a desire to underrate the Spanish resistance; but it is the province of history to record, foolish as well as glorious deeds, that posterity may profit from all: and neither will I mislead those who read my work, nor sacrifice the reputation of my country’s arms to shallow declamation upon the unconquerable spirit of independence. To expose the errors is not to undervalue the fortitude of a noble people; for in their constancy, in the unexampled patience, with which they bore the ills inflicted alike by a ruthless enemy, and by their own sordid governments, the Spaniards were truly noble: but shall I say that they were victorious in their battles, or faithful in their compacts; that they treated their prisoners with humanity; that their Juntas were honest or wise; their generals skilful; their soldiers firm? I speak but the bare truth, when I assert, that they were incapable of defending their own cause! Every action, every correspondence, every proceeding of the six years that the war lasted, rise up in support of this fact; and to assume that an insurrection so conducted did, or could possibly baffle the prodigious power of Napoleon is an illusion. Spain baffle him! Her efforts were amongst the very smallest causes of his failure. Portugal has far greater claims to that glory. Spain furnished the opportunity; but it was England, Austria, Russia, or rather fortune, that struck down that wonderful man. The English, more powerful, more rich, more profuse, perhaps more brave than the ancient Romans; the English, with a fleet, for grandeur and real force, never matched, with a general equal to any emergency, fought as if for their own existence. The Austrians brought four hundred thousand good troops to arrest the conqueror’s progress, the snows of Russia destroyed three hundred thousand of his best soldiers; and finally, when he had lost half a million of veterans, not one of whom died on Spanish ground, Europe, in one vast combination, could only tear the Peninsula from him, by tearing France along with it. What weakness, then, what incredible delusion to point to Spain, with all her follies, and her never-ending defeats, as a proof that a people fighting for independence must be victorious. She was invaded, because she adhered to the great European aristocracy; she was delivered, because England enabled that aristocracy to triumph for a moment, over the principles of the French revolution.

BOOK XI.

CHAPTER I.

The defence of Portugal, was not the result of any fortuitous combination of circumstances, nor was lord Wellington moved thereto, by any hasty ambition to magnify his own reputation, but calmly and deliberately, formed his resolution, after a laborious and cautious estimate of the difficulties and chances of success. Reverting then to the period, when, by retreating upon Badajos, he divorced his operations from the folly of Spain, I shall succinctly trace his military and political proceedings up to the moment, when, confident in the soundness of his calculations, he commenced his project, unmoved by the power of his enemy, the timidity of his friends, the imprudence of his subordinates, or the intrigues of discontented men, who secretly, and with malignant perseverance, laboured to thwart his measures and to ruin his designs.

After the retreat from Spain in 1809, he repaired to Seville, partly to negotiate with the Central Junta, upon matters touching the war, but principally to confer with his brother, ere the latter quitted the Peninsula. Lord Wellesley’s departure was caused by the state of politics in England, where a change in the administration was about to take place,—a change, sudden indeed, but not unexpected; because the ineptitude of the government, was, in private, acknowledged by many of its members, and the failure of the Walcheren expedition, was only the signal, for a public avowal of jealousies and wretched personal intrigues, which had rendered the Cabinet of St. James’s the most inefficient, Spain excepted, of any in Europe. Mr. Canning, the principal mover of those intrigues, Lord Castlereagh’s Statementhad secretly, denounced lord Castlereagh to his colleagues, as a man incapable of conducting the public affairs, and exacted from them a promise to dismiss him. Nevertheless, he permitted that nobleman, ignorant of the imputation on his Mr. Canning’s Statementabilities, to plan, and conduct the fitting out, of the most powerful armament that ever quitted England. But when it became evident that only loss and ruin waited on this unhappy expedition, Mr. Canning claimed the fulfilment of the promise, and the intrigue thus becoming known to lord Castlereagh, was by him characterised as “a breach of every principle of good faith, both public and private.” This was followed by a duel; and by the dissolution of the administration. Mr. Perceval and lord Liverpool were then empowered to form another Cabinet; and after a fruitless negotiation with lord Grey, and lord Grenville, assumed the lead themselves, and offered the department of foreign affairs to lord Wellesley.

Contrary to the general expectation, he accepted it. His brother had opened to him those great views for the defence of Portugal, which were afterwards so gloriously realized, but which could never have been undertaken with confidence by the general, unless secure of some powerful friend in the administration, embued with the same sentiments, bound by a common interest, and resolute, to support him when the crisis of danger arrived. It was therefore wise, and commendable, in lord Wellesley, to sacrifice something of his own personal pretensions, to be enabled to forward projects, promising so much glory to the country and his own family, and the first proceedings in parliament justified his policy.

Previous to the change in the Cabinet, sir Arthur Wellesley had been created baron Douro, and viscount Wellington; but those honours, although well deserved, were undoubtedly conferred as much from party as from patriotic feeling, and greatly excited the anger of the opposition members, who with few exceptions, assailed the general, personally, and with an acrimony not to be justified. His See Parliamentary Debates.merits, they said, were nought; his actions silly, presumptuous, rash; his campaign one deserving not reward, but punishment. Yet he had delivered Portugal, cleared Gallicia and Estremadura, and obliged one hundred thousand French veterans to abandon the offensive and concentrate about Madrid!

Lord Grey opposing his own crude military notions, to the practised skill of sir Arthur, petulantly censured the latter’s dispositions at Talavera; others denied that he was successful in that action; and some, forgetting that they were amenable to history, even proposed to leave his name out of the vote of thanks to the army! That battle, so sternly fought, so hardly won, they would have set aside with respect to the commander, as not warranting admission to a peerage always open to venal orators; and the passage of the Douro, so promptly, so daringly, so skilfully, so successfully executed, that it seemed rather the result of inspiration than of natural judgement, they would have cast away as a thing of no worth!

This spirit of faction was, however, not confined to one side: there was a ministerial person, at this time, who in his dread of the opposition, wrote to lord Wellington complaining of his inaction, and calling upon him to do something that would excite a public sensation: any thing provided blood was spilt. A calm but severe rebuke, and the cessation of all friendly intercourse with the writer, discovered the general’s abhorrence of this detestable policy; but when such passions were abroad, it is evident that lord Wellesley’s accession to the government, was essential to the success of lord Wellington’s projects.

Those projects delivered the Peninsula and changed the fate of Europe; and every step made towards their accomplishment merits attention, as much from the intrinsic interest of the subject, as that it has been common to attribute his success to good fortune and to the strenuous support he received from the Cabinet at home. Now it is far from my intention to deny the great influence of fortune in war, or that the duke of Wellington has always been one of her peculiar favourites; but I will make it clearly appear, that if he met with great success, he had previously anticipated it, and upon solid grounds, that the Cabinet did not so much support him as it was supported by him; and finally, that his prudence, foresight, and firmness were at least as efficient causes as any others that can be adduced.

Immediately after the retreat from Jaraceijo, and while the ministers were yet unchanged, lord Castlereagh, brought, by continual reverses, to a more sober method of planning military affairs, had demanded lord Wellington’s opinion upon the expediency, the chance of success, and the expense of defending Portugal. This letter reached the general on the 14th of September, 1809; but the subject required many previous inquiries and a careful examination of the country; and, at that period, any plan for the defence of Portugal, was necessarily to be modified, according to the energy or feebleness of the Spaniards in Andalusia. Hence it was not until after his return from Seville, a few days previous to the defeat at Ocaña, that lord Wellington replied to lord Liverpool, who, during the interval, had succeeded lord Castlereagh in the war department.

Lord Wellington to Lord Liverpool. Badajos, 14th Nov. 1809. MSS.

Adverting to the actual state of the French troops in the Peninsula, he observed, that, unless the Spanish armies met with some great disaster, the former could not then make an attack upon Portugal; yet, if events should enable them to do so, that the forces at that moment in the latter might defend it. “But the peace in Germany,” he said, “might enable France to reinforce her armies in Spain largely, when the means of invading Portugal would be increased, not only in proportion to the additional troops then poured in, but also in proportion to the effect which such a display of additional strength would necessarily have upon the spirit of the Spaniards. Even in that case, until Spain should have been conquered and rendered submissive, the French would find it difficult, if not impossible, to obtain possession of Portugal, provided England employed her armies in defence of that country, and that the Portuguese military service was organised to the full extent of which it was capable. But the number of British forces employed should not be less than thirty thousand effective men. Although the Portuguese regular force, actually enrolled, consisted of thirty-nine thousand infantry, three thousand artillery, and three thousand cavalry; and the militia amounted to forty-five thousand, exclusive of the ordenanças.”

The next point of consideration was the probable expense. “The actual yearly cost of the British army in Portugal, exclusive of the hire of transport-vessels, was about £1,800,000, being only half a million sterling more than they would cost if employed in England. Hence the most important consideration was the expense of renovating, and supporting the Portuguese military, and civil services. The British government, had already subsidised the Portuguese Regency, at the rate of six hundred thousand pounds yearly, being the expense of twenty thousand men, which the latter were bound by treaty to place at the service of the English commander-in-chief.

“But this was far from sufficient to render the Portuguese army efficient for the impending contest. The revenue of Portugal was between eight and nine millions of dollars, the expenses between fourteen and fifteen millions, leaving a deficiency of more than six millions of dollars. Hence, for that year, the most pressing only of the civil and military demands had been paid, and the public debt and the salaries of the public servants were in arrear. The advances already made by Great Britain amounted to two millions of dollars; there remained a deficiency of four millions of dollars, which, after a careful inquiry, it appeared could not be made good by Portugal; and it was obvious that the administration would, when distressed, gradually appropriate the subsidy to support the civil authorities to the detriment of the military service. Nay, already money from the English military chest had been advanced to prevent the Portuguese army from disbanding from want of food.

“It was impossible to diminish the expenses of the Regency, and yet the French invasion and the emigration to the Brazils had so impoverished the country that it was impossible to raise the revenue or to obtain money by loans. The people were unable to pay the taxes already imposed, and the customs, which formed the principal branch of Portuguese revenue, were reduced to nothing by the transfer of the Brazilian trade from the mother-country to Great Britain. This transfer, so profitable to the latter, was ruinous to Portugal, and, therefore, justice as well as policy required that England should afford pecuniary assistance to the Regency.

“Without it, nothing could be expected from the Portuguese army. The officers of that army had, for many years, done no duty, partly that their country having been, with some trifling exceptions, at peace nearly half a century, they had continued in the same garrisons, and lived with their families; and, to these advantages, added others arising from abuses in the service. Now the severe but necessary discipline introduced by marshal Beresford, had placed the Portuguese officers in a miserable situation. All abuses had been extirpated, additional expenses had been inflicted, and the regular pay was not only insufficient to support them in a country where all the necessaries of life were enormously dear, but it was far below the pay of the English, Spanish, and French officers, with whom, or against whom, they were to fight.

“If, therefore, the war was to be carried on, it was advisable to grant a subsidy of one hundred and thirty thousand pounds yearly, to enable the Regency to increase the pay of the Portuguese officers; and to this sum, for the reasons before-mentioned, should be added a further subsidy of about three hundred thousand pounds, to supply the actual deficiency in the Portuguese revenues. Or, if the English cabinet preferred it, they might take ten thousand more Portuguese troops into pay, which could be done at an expense of two hundred and fifty thousand pounds. With such assistance, the difficulties of the moment might be overcome; but, without it, he lord Wellington, felt assured, that the whole financial and military system of the Portuguese would break down at once; all the expense, hitherto incurred, would be cast away, and all hopes of defending the country extinguished. It was for the ministers to decide.

“There remained two other points to consider—the re-embarkation of the British army, in the event of failure, and the chances of the Portuguese nation continuing the contest alone. As to the first, he could carry off everything safely, except the horses of the cavalry and artillery, those could not be carried off, if the embarkation took place after a lost battle; and, if under other circumstances, the expense of horse-transports would be more than the worth of the animals. As to the second point, if the British army evacuated Portugal, under any circumstances, he could not give hopes that the contest could be prolonged effectually by the natives. Although I,” he said, “consider the Portuguese government and army as the principals in the contest for their own independence, and that their success or failure must depend principally upon their own exertions and the bravery of their army, and that I am sanguine in my expectations of both, when excited by the example of British officers and troops, I have no hope of either, if his Majesty should now withdraw the army from the Peninsula, or if it should be obliged to evacuate it by defeat. There is no doubt that the immediate consequences will be the possession of Lisbon by the enemy, probably without a contest; and other consequences will follow, affecting the state of the war, not only in Portugal but Spain. If, therefore, it should be thought advisable now to withdraw, or if, eventually the British army should be obliged to withdraw from Portugal, I would recommend a consideration of the means of carrying away such of the Portuguese military as should be desirous of emigrating, rather than continue, by their means, the contest in this country.”

Peniché and Setuval offered secure points of embarkation in the event of failure, but neither were likely to come within the scope of the operations, and lord Wellington’s opinion as to the facility of carrying off the army from Lisbon was founded chiefly upon admiral Berkeley’s assurances that the embarkation would not take longer than four hours, during which time, even though the left bank of that river should be occupied by the enemy, the ships of war could sustain the fire and at the same time sweep with their own guns all the ground above Passo d’Arcos, which, from the circumstance of its having no surf, was thought preferable to St. Julian’s for an embarkation. But the admiral’s views, as I shall have occasion to observe hereafter, were erroneous; the fleet could not remain in the Tagus, if the enemy were in possession of the left bank.

Although alarmed at the number of men demanded, a number which, from the recent loss sustained on the Walcheren expedition, they truly observed, would, in case of disaster, endanger the safety of England, the ministers assented to lord Wellington’s proposals, undertook to pay ten thousand additional Portuguese troops, and to advance money for the increased stipends to the officers; but thus pledging themselves to an annual subsidy of nearly one million, they with justice required that the Portuguese Regency, under pain of the subsidy being stopped, should keep all that part of the military establishment which remained under their own direction in a state of complete efficiency.

Thus supported, lord Wellington proceeded with vigorous intelligence to meet the impending contest. His troops removed from the Guadiana, took healthy cantonments on the north-eastern frontier of Portugal, and he expected a reinforcement of five thousand infantry and a regiment of cavalry from England. Smaller detachments had already reached him, and the army when it commenced its march from the Guadiana was numerically thirty thousand strong; but those actually under arms scarcely amounted to twenty thousand; nine thousand were in hospital, and many in the ranks were still tottering from the effects of past illness.

The 20th of January, the head-quarters, and the artillery parcs, were established at Viseu, in Upper Beira. The cavalry, was quartered, by single regiments, at Golegao, Punhete, Torres Novas, Celerico, and Santarem. General Hill, was left with five thousand British, and a like number of Portuguese at Abrantes, and the remainder of the infantry (one regiment, forming the garrison of Lisbon, excepted) was distributed along the valley of the Mondego.

The plans of the English general, were—at first, grounded, upon the supposition, that the French would follow the right or northern line, in preference to the centre or southern line of operations, against the Peninsula, that is, attack Portugal from the side of Old Castile, rather than Andalusia from the side of La Mancha. In this he was mistaken. The movements were again directed by Napoleon, his views were as usual gigantic, and not Andalusia alone, but every part of the Peninsula, was destined to feel the weight of his arms. Fresh troops, flushed with their recent German victories, were crowding into Spain, reinforcing the corps to their right and left, scouring the main communications, and following the footsteps of the old bands, as the latter were impelled forward in the career of invasion. Hence, the operations against Andalusia so deeply affected the defence of Portugal, that, on the 31st of January, at the moment Seville was opening her gates, lord Wellington demanded fresh instructions, reiterating the question, whether Portugal should be defended at all, but at the same time transmitting, one of those clear and powerful statements, which he invariably drew up for the ministers’ information previous to undertaking any great enterprise; statements, in which, showing the bearings of past and present events, and drawing conclusions as to the future with a wonderful accuracy, he has given irrefragable proofs, that envious folly has attributed to fortune, and the favour of the cabinet, successes, which were the result of his own sagacity and unalterable firmness.

Lord Wellington to Lord Liverpool, 31st Jan. 1810. MSS.

“The enemy,” he said, “aimed at conquering the south; he would no doubt obtain Seville with all its resources, and the defeat and dispersion of the Spanish armies would be the consequences of any action, in which either their imprudence or necessity, or even expediency, might engage them. The armies might, however be lost and the authorities dispersed, but the war of Partisans would continue; Cadiz might possibly hold out, and the Central Junta even exist within its walls; but it would be without authority, because the French would possess all the provinces. This state of affairs, left Portugal untouched; but it was chiefly to that country he wished to draw the ministers’ attention.

“They already knew its military situation and resources. If arms could be supplied to the militia, a gross force of ninety thousand men, regularly organized, could be calculated upon, exclusive of the armed population and of the British army. Much had been done within the last nine months, for the enrollment, organization, and equipment of this great force; but much remained to be done, and with very insufficient means, before the fifty thousand men, composing the militia, could possibly contend with the enemy; and although this should be effected, the whole army would still want that confidence in themselves and in their officers, which is only to be acquired by military experience.

“When the affairs of Spain should, as before supposed, be brought to that pass, that a regular resistance would cease, no possibility existed of the contest in that country being renewed on such a scale as to afford a chance of success, although the possession of each part might be precarious, depending upon the strength of the French force holding it, and that the whole might prove a burthen rather than an advantage to the French government. Thence arose this question, ‘Will the continuation of the contest in Portugal, afford any reasonable prospect of advantage against the common enemy, or of benefit to the allies?’

“It was impossible to calculate upon any certain grounds the degree of assistance to be expected from the Portuguese troops. For the regulars every thing that discipline could effect had been done, and they had been armed and equipped as far as the means of the country would go. The militia also had been improved to the extent which the expense of keeping them embodied would permit. The Portuguese had confidence in the British nation and army; they were loyal to their Prince; detested the French government, and were individually determined to do every thing for the cause. Still they were not to be certainly calculated upon until inured to war, because the majority of their officers were of an inferior description and inexperienced in military affairs.”

Under these circumstances, and adverting to the approaching subjection of Spain, he demanded to know whether “the enemy, bending the greatest part of his force against Portugal, that country should be defended, or measures taken to evacuate it, carrying off all persons, military and others, for whose conveyance means could be found. But, under any circumstances, (he said) the British army could always be embarked in despite of the enemy.”

Such being the view taken of this important subject by lord Wellington, it may seem proper here to notice an argument which, with equal ignorance and malice, has often been thrust forward in disparagement of sir John Moore, namely, that he declared Portugal could not be defended, Mr. James Moore’s Narrativewhereas lord Wellington did defend that country. The former general premising that he was not prepared to answer a question of such magnitude, observed, that the frontier, being, although rugged, open, could not be defended against a superior force; yet that Almeida, Guarda, Belmonte, Baracal, Celerico, Viseu, might be occupied as temporary positions to check the advance of an enemy, and cover the embarkation of stores, &c. which could only be made at Lisbon, that the Portuguese in their own mountains would be of much use, and that he hoped that they could alone defend the Tras os Montes. That, if the French succeeded Appendix, [No. II.] Section 12.in Spain, it would be vain to resist them in Portugal “because the latter was without a military force,” and if it were otherwise, from the experience of Roriça and Vimiero, no reliance was to be placed on their troops. But this opinion, hastily given, had reference only to the state of affairs existing at that moment, being expressly founded on the miserable condition and unpromising character of the Portuguese military, Spain also being supposed conquered.

Lord Wellington, after two campaigns in the country; after the termination of the anarchy, which prevailed during sir John Cradock’s time; after immense subsidies had been granted to Portugal, her whole military force re-organized, and her regular troops disciplined, paid, and officered by England; after the war in Germany had cost Napoleon fifty thousand men, the campaign in the Peninsula at least fifty thousand more; in fine, after mature consideration, and when Spain was still fighting, when Andalusia, Catalonia, Murcia, Valencia, Gallicia, and the Asturias, were still uninvaded; when Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajos, most important posts with reference to this question, were still in possession of the Spaniards, and prepared for defence, lord Wellington, I say, came to Letter to Lord Liverpool, Nov. 14. 1809. MSS.the conclusion, that Portugal might be defended against the enemy then in the Peninsula, provided an enormous additional subsidy and a powerful auxiliary army were furnished by England, and that one earnest and devoted effort was made by the whole Portuguese nation. And when Andalusia fell, he warned his government, that, although success Ibid. Jan. 31, 1810. MSS.could only be expected from the devotion and ardour of the Portuguese, their army could not even then be implicitly trusted. Lisbon also, he considered as the only secure point of resistance, and he occupied Viseu, Guarda, Almeida, Belmonte, and Celerico, as temporary posts. But, in all things concerning this war, there was between those generals, a remarkable similarity of opinion and plan of action.

“The French,” said sir John Moore, “will find Mr. James Moore’s Narrative.the Spaniards troublesome subjects, but in the first instance they will have little more than a march to subdue the country.”

“The defeat and dispersion of the Spanish armies will be,” said lord Wellington, “the probable consequence Letter to Lord Liverpool, Jan. 31, 1810. MSS.of any action in which either imprudence, necessity, or even expediency, may lead them to engage. The armies may be lost, the authorities dispersed, but the war of Partisans will probably continue.”

And when the edge of the sword was, in 1810, as in 1808, descending on the unguarded front of Andalusia, lord Wellington, on the first indication of Joseph’s march, designed to make a movement similar in principle to that executed by sir John Moore on Sahagun, that is, by an irruption into Appendix, [No. II.] Section 3.Castile, to threaten the enemy’s rear, in such sort that he should be obliged to return from Andalusia or suffer his forces in Castile to be beaten. Nor was he at first deterred from this project, by the knowledge, that fresh troops were entering Spain. The Junta, indeed, assured him that only eight thousand men had reinforced the French; but, although circumstances led him to doubt this assertion, he was not without hopes to effect his purpose before the reinforcements, whatever they might be, could come into line. He had even matured his plan, as far as regarded the direction of the march, when other considerations obliged him to relinquish it, and these shall be here examined, because French and Spanish writers then, and since, have accused him of looking on with indifference, if not with satisfaction, at the ruin of the Central Junta’s operation, as if it only depended upon him to render them successful.

Why he refused to join in the Spanish projects has been already explained. He abandoned his own,—

1º. Because the five thousand men promised from England had not arrived, and his hospitals being full, he could not, including Hill’s division, bring more than twenty thousand British soldiers into the field. Hill’s division, however, could not be moved without leaving the rear of the army exposed to the French in the south,—a danger, which success in Castile, by recalling the latter from Andalusia, would only increase.

2º. The Portuguese had suffered cruelly during the winter from hunger and nakedness, the result of the scarcity of money before-mentioned. To Lord Wellington’s Correspondence. MSS.bring them into line, was to risk a total disorganization, destructive alike of present and future advantages. On the other hand, the French in Castile, consisting of the sixth corps and the troops of Kellerman’s government, lord Wellington knew to be at least thirty thousand strong, of which twenty thousand were in one mass; and, although the rest were dispersed from Burgos to Avila, and from Zamora to Valladolid, they could easily have concentrated in time to give battle, and would have proved too powerful. That this reasoning was sound shall now be shewn.

Mortier’s march from Seville would not have terminated at Badajos, if the British force at Abrantes, instead of advancing to Portalegre, had been employed in Castile. The invasion of Andalusia, was only part of a general movement throughout Spain; and when the king placed himself at the head of the army, to force the Morena, Kellerman marched from Salamanca to Miranda del Castanar and Bejar, with the sixth corps, and thus secured the defiles leading into the valley of the Tagus, and at the same time, the second corps coming down that valley, communicated with the sixth by the pass of Baños, and with the fifth by Seradillo and Caceres. Hence, without losing hold of Andalusia, three corps d’armée, namely, the sixth, second, and fifth, amounting to fifty thousand men, could, on an emergency, be brought together to oppose any offensive movement of lord Wellington’s. Nor was this the whole of the French combinations; for, in rear of all these forces, Napoleon was crowding the Peninsula with fresh armies, and not eight thousand, as the Central Rolls of the French army.Junta asserted, but one hundred thousand men, rendered disposable by the peace with Austria and the evacuation of Walcheren, were crossing, or to cross, the western Pyrennees.

Of these, the first detachments reinforced the divisions in the field, but the succeeding troops formed an eighth and ninth corps, and the former, under the command of the duke of Abrantes, advancing gradually through Old Castile, was actually in the plains of Valladolid, and would, in conjunction with Kellerman, have overwhelmed the British army; but for that sagacity, which the French, with derisive but natural anger, and the Spaniards, with ingratitude, have termed “The selfish caution of the English system.”

Truly, it would be a strange thing, to use so noble and costly a machine, as a British army, with all its national reputation to support, as lightly as those Spanish multitudes, collected in a day, dispersed in an hour, reassembled again without difficulty, incapable of attaining, and consequently, incapable of losing, any military reputation.

CHAPTER II.

The greatness of the French reinforcements having dispelled the idea of offensive operations, lord Wellington turned his whole attention to Portugal, and notwithstanding the unfavourable change of circumstances, the ministers consented that he should undertake its defence; yet, the majority yielding to the influence of his brother, rather than to their own conviction of its practicability, and throwing the responsibility entirely on the shoulders of the general. The deep designs, the vast combinations, and the mighty efforts, by which he worked out the deliverance of that country, were beyond the compass of their policy; and even now, it is easier to admire than to comprehend, the moral intrepidity which sustained him under so many difficulties, and the sagacity which enabled him to overcome them; for he had an enemy with a sharp sword to fight, the follies and fears of several weak cabinets to correct, the snares of unprincipled politicians to guard against, and finally to oppose public opinion. Failure was every where anticipated, and there were but few who even thought him serious in his undertaking. But having now brought the story of the war down to the period, when not Spain nor Portugal, but England was to contend with France; before I enter upon the narrative of this memorable contest, it will be well to take a survey of the respective conditions and plans of the belligerents, and to shew how great the preparations, how prodigious the forces on both sides, and with what a power each was impelled forward to the shock.

State of the French.—France victorious, and in a state of the highest prosperity, could with ease, furnish double the number of men, required to maintain the struggle in the Peninsula for many years. But the utmost strength of the Spaniards having been proved, it was evident that if the French could crush the British armies, disorder and confusion might indeed be prolonged for a few years, yet no effectual resistance made, and as in the war of succession, the people would gradually accommodate themselves to the change of dynasty, especially as the little worth of Ferdinand was now fully demonstrated, by an effort to effect his release. The agent, a baron Kolli being detected, and his place supplied by one of the French police to ascertain the intentions of the captive king, the latter, influenced by personal fears alone, not only refused to make the attempt, but dishonourably denounced Kolli to the French government. The only real obstacles then to the entire conquest of the Peninsula were Cadiz and Portugal. The strength of the former was precarious, and the enormous forces assembled to subdue the latter appeared to be equal to the task. Yet in war, there are always circumstances, which, though extraneous to the military movements, influence them as much as the wind influences the sailing of a ship, and amongst the most important of these, must be reckoned the conduct of the intrusive king.

Joseph was a man of so amiable a nature, that even the Spaniards never accused him of any thing worse than being too convivial; but it is evident that he was unequal to his task and mistook his true situation, when, resisting Napoleon’s policy, he claimed the treatment of an independent king. He should have known that he was a tool, and in Spain, could only be a tool of the emperor’s. To have refused a crown, like his brother Lucien, would have been heroic firmness, but like his brother Louis, first to accept, and then to resist the hand that conferred it, was a folly that, without ameliorating the condition of the Spaniards, threw fatal obstacles in Napoleon’s path. Joseph’s object was to create a Spanish party for himself by gentle and just means, but the scales fell from the hands of justice when the French first entered the Peninsula, and while the English supported Spain, it was absurd to expect even a sullen submission, much less attachment from a nation so abused, neither was it possible to recast public feeling, until the people had passed through the furnace of war. The French soldiers were in Spain for conquest, and without them the intrusive monarch could not keep his throne.

Now Joseph’s Spanish ministers, were men who joined him upon principle, and who, far from shewing a renegado zeal in favour of the French, were as ardently attached to their own country, as any of those who shouted for Ferdinand VII.; and whenever Spanish interests clashed (and that was constantly) with those of the French armies, they as well as the king invariably supported the former; Appendix, [No. IV.] Section 1.and so strenuously, that in Paris it was even supposed that they intended to fall on the emperor’s troops. Thus civil contention weakened the military operations, and obliged Napoleon either to take the command in person, or to adopt a policy which however defective, will upon inspection prove perhaps, to have been the best adapted to the actual state of affairs.

He suffered, or as some eager to lower a great man’s genius to their own level, have asserted, he fomented disputes between the marshals and the king, but the true question is, could he prevent those disputes? A wise policy, does not consist in pushing any one point to the utmost perfection of which it may be susceptible, but in regulating and balancing opposing interests, in such a manner, that the greatest benefit shall arise from the working of the whole.

To arrive at a sound judgement of Napoleon’s measures, it would be necessary to weigh all the various interests of his political position, but there are not sufficient materials yet before the world, to do this correctly, and we may be certain, that his situation with respect both to foreign and domestic policy, required extraordinary management. It must always be remembered, that, he was not merely a conqueror, but the founder, of a political structure too much exposed to storms from without, to bear any tampering with its internal support. If money be the sinew of war, it is the vital stream of peace, and there is nothing more remarkable in Napoleon’s policy, than the care with which he handled financial matters; avoiding as he would the plague, that fictitious system of public credit, so fatuitously cherished in England. He could not without hurting France, transmit large quantities of gold to Spain, and the only resource left was to make “the war maintain the war.”

But Joseph’s desire of popularity, and the feelings of his ministers, were much opposed to this system; nor were the proceeds always applied for the benefit of the troops. This demanded a remedy; yet openly to declare the king of no consideration would have been impolitic in the highest degree. The emperor adopted an intermediate course, and formed what were called “particular military governments,” such as Navarre, Aragon, Catalonia, and Andalusia; in which the marshal, or general, named governor possessed both the civil and military power: in short, he created viceroys as he had threatened to do when at See Vol. I. p. 420.Madrid; and, though many disadvantages attended this arrangement, it appears to have been wise and consistent with the long reach which distinguishes all Napoleon’s measures. The principal disadvantages were, that it mortally offended the king, by thwarting his plans for establishing a national party; that many of the governors were Appendix, [No. IV.] Sections 2 and 3.wantonly oppressive, and attentive only to their own situation, without regarding the general objects of the war; that both the Spanish ministers and the people regarded it as a step towards dismembering Spain, and especially with respect to the provinces beyond the Ebro; and, indeed, the annexing those parts to France, if not resolved upon, was at one time contemplated by the emperor.

On the other hand, experience proved, that Joseph was not a general equal to the times. Napoleon himself admits, that, at this period, the marauding Memoires de St. Helene.system necessary to obtain supplies, joined to the Guerilla warfare, had relaxed the discipline of the French armies, and introduced a horrible license, while the military movements were feebly pushed. Hence, perhaps, the only effectual means to obtain the resources of Spain for the troops, with least devastation, was to make the success of each “corps d’armée,” and the reputation of its commander, dependent upon the welfare of the province in which it was fighting. And, although some of the governors, had neither the sense nor the justice to fulfil this expectation; others, such as Soult and Suchet, did tranquillize the people, and yet provided all necessary things for their own troops; results which would certainly not have been attained under the supreme government of the king, because he knew nothing of war, loved pleasure, was of an easy, obliging disposition, and had a court to form and maintain.

I am aware that the first-named generals, especially Soult, were included by Joseph amongst those who, by oppressing the people, extended the spirit of resistance; but this accusation was the result of personal enmity; and facts, derived from less interested quarters, as well as the final results, prove that those officers had a longer reach in their policy than the king could understand.

There is yet another view in which the matter may be considered. Napoleon says he left many provinces of Italy under the harsh government of Austria, that the spirit of jealousy, common to the small states of that country, might be broken, and the whole rendered amenable and ready to assimilate, when he judged the time ripe to re-form one great kingdom. Now the same policy may be traced in the military governments of Spain. The marshal’s sway, however, wisely adapted to circumstances, being still the offspring of war and violence, must, of necessity, be onerous and harsh; but the Peninsula once subdued, this system would have been replaced by the peaceful government of the king, who would then have been regarded as a deliverer. Something of this nature was also necessary to sweep away the peculiar privileges which many provinces possessed, and of which they were extremely tenacious; and the iron hand of war, only, could introduce that equality which was the principal aim and scope of the constitution of Bayonne.

King Joseph’s Correspondence. MSS.

Nevertheless, the first effects of the decree establishing this system, were injurious to the French cause. Fresh contributions were exacted to supply the deficiency occasioned by the cessation of succours from France; and, to avoid these, men, who would otherwise have submitted tranquilly, fled from the military governments. The Partidas also suddenly and greatly increased, and a fresh difficulty arose about their treatment when prisoners. These bodies, although regardless of the laws of war themselves, claimed all the rights of soldiers from their adversaries, and their claim was supported by the Spanish government. Thus, when Soult, as major-general for the king, proclaimed that military execution would be done on the bands in Andalusia, as assassins, and beyond the pale of military law, the Regency answered, by a retaliatory declaration; and both parties had strong grounds for what they did: the Junta, because the defence of the country now rested chiefly on the Partidas; Joseph, because the latter, while claiming the usages of war, did not act upon them, and were, by the Junta, encouraged in assassination. Mina, and, indeed, all the chiefs, put their prisoners to death whenever it became inconvenient to keep them; and Saraza publicly announced his hope of being able to capture Madame Suchet Suchet’s Memoirs.when she was pregnant, that he might destroy the mother and the infant together! And such things were common during this terrible war. The difficulties occurring in argument were, however, overcome in practice; the question of the treatment of the prisoners was generally decided by granting no quarter on either side.

Joseph, incensed at the edict establishing the governments, sent the marquis of Almenara to Paris, to remonstrate with his brother, and to complain of the violence and the injustice of the French generals, especially Ney and Kellerman; and he denounced Appendix, [No. IV.] Section 2.one act of the latter, which betrayed the most wanton contempt of justice and propriety; namely, the seizure of the national archives at Simancas; by which, infinite confusion was produced, and the utmost indignation excited, without obtaining the slightest benefit, political or military. Another object of Almenara’s mission was to ascertain if there was really any intention of seizing the provinces beyond the Ebro; and this gave rise to a curious intrigue; for his correspondence, being intercepted, was brought to Mr. Stuart, the British envoy, and he, in concert with Romana, and Cabanes the Spanish historian, simulated the style and manner of Napoleon’s state-papers, and composed a counterfeit “senatus consultum” and decree for annexing the provinces beyond the Ebro to France, and transmitted them to Joseph, whose Appendix, [No. IV.] Section 5.discontent and fears were thereby greatly increased. Meanwhile, his distress for money was extreme; and his ministers were at times actually destitute of food.

These political affairs impeded the action of the armies, but the intrinsic strength of the latter was truly formidable; for, reckoning the king’s French guards, the force in the Peninsula was not less than three hundred and seventy thousand men, and eighty thousand horses. Of these, forty-eight thousand Appendix, [No. I.] Section 1.men were in hospital, four thousand prisoners, and twenty-nine thousand detached; leaving nearly two hundred and eighty thousand fighting men actually under arms, ready either for battle or siege: and moreover, a fresh reserve, eighteen thousand strong, was in march to enter Spain. In May, this prodigious force had been re-organized; and in July was thus distributed:—

Thus the plan of invasion was determined in three distinct lines, namely, the third and seventh corps on the left; the army of the south in the centre; the army of Portugal on the right. But the interior circle was still held by the French; and their lines of communication were crowded with troops.

State of Spain.—On the right, the armies of Valencia and Catalonia, were opposed to the third and seventh corps; but the utmost efforts of the last could only retard, not prevent the sieges of Taragona and Tortoza. In the centre, the Murcian troops and those assembled at Cadiz, were only formidable by the assistance of the British force under general Graham. On the left, Romana, supported by the frontier fortresses, maintained a partizan warfare from Albuquerque to Ayamonte, but looked to Hill for safety, and to Portugal for refuge. In the north, the united forces of Gallicia and Asturias, did not exceed fifteen thousand men; and Mahi declared his intention of retiring to Coruña if Bonet advanced beyond the frontiers. Indeed, the Gallicians were so backward to join the armies, that, at a later period, Contreras was Memoirs of Contreras, published by himself.used to send through the country moveable columns, attended by an executioner, to oblige the villages to furnish their quota of men. Yet, with all this severity, and with money and arms continually furnished by England, Gallicia never was of any signal service to the British operations.

But, as in the human body livid spots and blotches appear as the vital strength decays, so, in Spain, the Partidas suddenly and surprisingly increased as the regular armies disappeared. Many persons joined these bands, as a refuge from starvation; others from a desire to revenge the licentious conduct of the marauding French columns; and, finally, the Regency, desirous of pushing the system Mr. Stuart’s Papers, MSS.to its utmost extent, established secret Guerilla Juntas, in each province, enjoining them, diligently to collect stores and provisions in secure places. District inspectors and paymasters, selected by the nearest general officer in command of regular troops, were also appointed, as superintendents of details relative to the discipline and payment of the Partidas, and particular tracts were charged with the supplies, each according to its means. Lastly, every province was divided into three parts, each part, following its population, being to furnish seven, eight, or nine squadrons of this irregular force; and the whole, whenever circumstances required it, to unite and act in mass.

The first burst of these bands, occasioned the French considerable loss, impeded their communications, and created great alarm. It was a second insurrection of the whole country. The Murcians, in concert with the peasants of Grenada and Jaen, waged war in the mountains of Andalusia; Franquisette and Palarea beset the neighbourhood of Ciudad Real, and Toledo in La Mancha. El Principe, Saornil, and Juan Abril, descending from the Carpentino mountains, sometimes on the side of Segovia, sometimes on the side of Madrid, carried off small French posts, close to the capital, and slew the governor of Segovia, at the very gates of that town.

On the other side of Madrid, the Empecinado, with twelve hundred cavalry and infantry, kept the hills above Guadalaxara, and ventured sometimes to give battle in the plain. Espoz y Mina was formidable in Navarre. Longa and Campillo, at the head of two thousand men, harassed Biscay and the neighbourhood of Vittoria, and the chain of communication, between these great bands and the Empecinado, was maintained by Amor, Merino, and the Friar Sapia, the two first acting about Burgos, and the third holding the mountains above Soria. In the Asturias, Escaidron, continually hanging upon the flanks and rear of Bonet, between St. Andero and Oviedo, acted in concert with Campillo on one side, and with Porlier on the other, and this last chief, sometimes throwing himself into the mountains on the borders of Gallicia, and sometimes sailing from Coruña, constantly troubled the Asturias by his enterprises. To curb these bands, the French fortified all their own posts of communication and correspondence, slew numbers of the Guerillas, and suppressed others. Many were robbers who, under pretence of acting against the enemy, merely harassed their own countrymen; and few were really formidable, though all were vexatious. Enough, however, has been said upon this point!

But, while reduced to this irregular warfare, for preventing the entire submission of Old Spain, the Regency, with inconceivable folly and injustice, were alienating the affections of their colonies, and provoking civil war; as if the terrible struggle in the Peninsula were not sufficient for the ruin of their country. The independence of Spain was, with them, of subordinate interest to the continuance of oppression in South America. Money, arms, and troops, were withdrawn from the Peninsula, to subdue the so-called rebellious colonists; nor was any reflection made on the inconsistency, of expecting Napoleon’s innumerable hosts to be beaten close to their own doors, by Guerilla operations, and yet attempting, with a few divisions, to crush whole nations, acting in the same manner, at three thousand miles distance. Such being the state of French and Spanish affairs, it remains to examine the condition of England and Portugal, as affecting the war in the Peninsula.

England.—The contentions of party were vehement, and the ministers’ policy resolved itself into three principal points: 1º. The fostering the public inclination for the war; 2º. The furnishing money for the expenses; and, 3º. The recruiting of the armies. The last was provided for by an act passed in the early part of 1809, which offered eleven guineas bounty to men passing from the militia to the line, and ten guineas bounty to recruits for the militia; this was found to furnish about twenty-four thousand men in the year; but the other points were not so easily disposed of. The opposition, in parliament, was powerful, eloquent, and not very scrupulous. The desperate shifts which formed the system of the ministers, were, indeed, justly attacked, but when particulars, touching the contest in Portugal, were discussed, faction was apparent. The accuracy of Beresford’s report of the numbers and efficiency of the native forces, was most unjustly questioned, and the notion of successful resistance, assailed by arguments and by ridicule, until gloom and doubt were widely spread in England, and disaffection wonderfully encouraged in Portugal; nor was the mischief thus caused, one of the smallest difficulties encountered by the English general.

On the other side, the ministers, trusting to their majorities in parliament, reasoned feebly and ignorantly, yet wilfully, and like men expecting that fortune would befriend them, they knew not why or wherefore, and they dealt also more largely than their adversaries in misrepresentations to mislead the public mind. Every treasury newspaper teemed with accounts of battles which were never fought, plans which were never arranged, places taken which were never attacked, and victories gained where no armies were. The plains of the Peninsula could scarcely contain the innumerable forces of the Spaniards and Portuguese; cowardice, weakness, treachery, and violence were the only attributes of the enemy; if a battle was expected, his numbers were contemptible; if a victory was gained, his host was countless. Members of parliament related stories of the enemy which had no foundation in truth, and nothing, that consummate art of intrigue could bring to aid party spirit, and to stifle reason, was neglected.

But the great and permanent difficulty was to raise money. The country, inundated with bank-notes, was destitute of gold; Napoleon’s continental system burthened commerce, the exchanges were continually rising against England, and all the evils which sooner or later are the inevitable result of a fictitious currency, were too perceptible to be longer disregarded in parliament. A committee appointed to investigate the matter, made early in the following session, a report in which the evils of the existing system, and the causes of the depreciation were elaborately treated, and the necessity of returning to cash payments enforced: but the authors did not perceive, or at least did not touch upon the injustice, and the ruin, attending a full payment in coin of sterling value, of debts contracted in a depreciated paper currency. The celebrated writer, William Paper against Gold.Cobbett, did not fail, however, to point out this very clearly, and subsequent experience has confirmed his views. The government endeavoured to stave off the discussion of the bullion question, but lord King, by demanding gold from those of his tenants whose leases were drawn before the depreciation of bank-notes, proved the hollowness of the system, and drove the ministers to the alternative, of abandoning the prosecution of the war, or of denying the facts adduced in the bullion report. They adopted the latter; and at the instance of Vansittart, the chancellor of the exchequer, the house voted in substance, that a pound-note and a shilling, were equal in value to a golden guinea of full weight, at the moment when light guineas were openly selling at twenty-eight shillings. This vote, although well calculated to convince the minister’s opponents, that no proposition could be too base, or absurd, to meet with support in the existing parliament, did not, however, remove the difficulties of raising money, and no resource remained, but that of the desperate spendthrift, who never intending to pay, cares not on what terms he supplies his present necessities. The peculiar circumstances of the war, had, however, given England a monopoly of the world’s commerce by sea, and the ministers affirming, that, the country, was in a state of unexampled prosperity, began a career of expense, the like of which no age or nation had ever seen; yet without one sound or reasonable ground for expecting ultimate success, save the genius of their general, which they but half appreciated, and which the first bullet might have extinguished for ever.

State of Portugal.—In this country, three parties were apparent. That of the people ready to peril body and goods for independence. That of the fidalgos, who thought to profit from the nation’s energy without any diminution of ancient abuses. That of the disaffected, who desired the success of the French; some as thinking that an ameliorated government must follow, some from mere baseness of nature. This party, looked to have Alorna, Pamplona, and Gomez Freire, as chiefs if the enemy triumphed; for those noblemen, in common with many others, had entered the French service in Junot’s time, under the authority of the prince regent’s edict to that effect. Freire more honourable than his companions, refused to bear arms against his country, but the two others had no scruples, and Pamplona even sketched a plan of invasion, which is at this day in the military archives at Paris.

The great body of the people, despising both their civil governors and military chiefs, relied on the British general and army; but the fidalgos, or cast of nobles, working in unison with, and supported by the regency, were a powerful body, and their political proceedings after the departure of sir John Cradock, demand notice. The patriarch, formerly bishop of Oporto, the Monteiro Mor, and the marquess of Das Minas, composed the regency, and they and every other member of the government were jealous of each other, exceedingly afraid of their superiors in the Brazils, and, with the exception of the secretary, Miguel Forjas, unanimous in support of abuses; and as the military organization carried on by Beresford, was only a restoration of the ancient institutions of the country, it was necessarily hateful to the regency, and to the fidalgos, who profited by its degeneracy. This, together with the unavoidable difficulties in finance, and other matters, retarded the progress of the regular army towards efficiency during 1809, and rendered the efforts to organize the militia, and ordenança, nearly nugatory. Nevertheless, the energy of lord Wellington and of Beresford, and the comparatively zealous proceedings of Forjas, proved so disagreeable to Das Minas, who was in bad health, that he resigned, and immediately became a centre, round which all discontented persons, and they were neither few, nor inactive, gathered. The times, obliged the government, to permit an unusual freedom of discussion in Lisbon; it naturally followed that the opinions of designing persons were most obtruded, and those opinions being repeated in the British parliament, were printed in the English newspapers, and re-echoed in Lisbon. Thus a picture of affairs was painted in the most glaring colours of misrepresentation, at the moment when the safety of the country depended upon the devoted submission of the people.

After Das Minas’ resignation, four new members were added to the regency, namely, Antonio, commonly called, Principal Souza, the Conde de Redondo, the marquis de Olhao, and doctor Noguiera. The two last were men of some discretion, but the first, daring, restless, irritable, indefatigable, and a consummate intriguer, created the utmost disorder, seeking constantly to thwart the proceedings of the British generals. He was strenuously assisted by the patriarch, whose violence and ambition were no way diminished, and whose influence amongst the people was still very considerable.

An exceedingly powerful cabal, was thus formed, whose object was to obtain the supreme direction, not only of the civil, but military affairs, and to control both Wellington and Beresford. The Conde Linhares, head of the Souza family, was prime minister in the Brazils; the Principal was in the regency at Lisbon; the chevalier Souza was envoy at the British court, and a fourth of the family, don Pedro de Souza, was in a like situation near the Spanish regency; so that playing into each others hands, and guided by the subtle Principal, they were enabled to concoct very dangerous intrigues; and their proceedings, as might be expected, were at first supported with a high hand by the cabinet of Rio Janeiro. Lord Wellesley’s energetic interference reduced the latter, indeed, to a reasonable disposition, yet the cabal secretly continued their machinations, and what they durst not attempt by force, they sought to attain by artifice.

In the latter end of the year 1809, Mr. Villiers was replaced as envoy, by Mr. Charles Stuart, and this gentleman, well experienced in the affairs of the Peninsula, and disdaining the petty jealousies which had hitherto marked the intercourse of the principal political agents with the generals, immediately applied his masculine understanding, and resolute temper, to forward the views of lord Wellington. It is undoubted, that the dangerous political crisis which followed his arrival, could not have been sustained, if a diplomatist less firm, less able, or less willing to support the plans of the commander had been employed.

To resist the French was the desire of two of the three parties in Portugal, but with the fidalgos, it was a question of interest more than of patriotism. Yet less sagacious than the clergy, the great body of which perceiving at once that they must stand or fall with the English army heartily aided the cause, the fidalgos clung rather to the regency. Now the caballers in that body, who were the same people that had opposed sir Hew Dalrymple, hoped not only to beat the enemy, but to establish the supremacy of the northern provinces (of which they themselves were the lords) in the administration of the country, and would therefore consent to no operations militating against this design.

Another spring of political action, was the hatred and jealousy of Spain common to the whole Portuguese nation. It created difficulties during the military operations, but it had a visibly advantageous effect upon the people, in their intercourse with the British. For when the Spaniards shewed a distrust of their allies, the Portuguese were more minded to rely implicitly on the latter, to prove that they had no feeling in common with their neighbours.

Yet, notwithstanding this mutual dislike, the princess Carlotta, wife to the Prince Regent, and sister to Ferdinand, claimed, not only the succession to the throne of Spain in the event of her brother’s death or perpetual captivity, but the immediate government of the whole Peninsula as hereditary Regent; and to persuade the tribunals to acknowledge her claims, was the object of Pedro Souza’s mission to Cadiz. The council of Castile, always ready to overthrow the Spanish Regency, readily recognized Carlotta’s pretensions in virtue of the decision of the secret Cortes of 1789 which abolished the Salique law of Philip the Fifth: but the regents would pay no attention to them, yet Souza renewing his intrigues when the Cortes assembled, by corruption obtained an acknowledgement of the princess’s claim. His further progress was, however, promptly arrested by lord Wellington, who foresaw that his success would not only affect the military operations in Portugal, by placing them under the control of the Spanish government, but the policy of England afterwards, if power over the whole Peninsula was suffered thus to centre in one family. Moreover, he judged it a scheme, concocted at Rio Janeiro, to embarrass himself and Beresford; for it was at first kept secret from the British Cabinet, and it was proposed that the princess should reside at Madeira, where, surrounded by the contrivers of this plan, she could only have acted under their directions. Thus it is plain that arrogance, deceit, and personal intrigues, were common to the Portuguese and Spanish governments; and why they did not produce the same fatal effects in the one as in the other country, will be shewn in the succeeding chapters.

CHAPTER III.

When lord Wellington required thirty thousand British troops to defend Portugal, he considered the number that could be fed, rather than what was necessary to fight the enemy; and hence it was, that he declared success would depend upon the exertions and devotion of the native forces. Yet knowing, from his experience in Spain, how passions, prejudices, and abuses would meet him at every turn, he would trust neither the simple enthusiasm of the people, nor the free promises of their governors, but insisted that his own authority as marshal-general of Portugal should be independent Appendix, [No. V.] Section 9.of the local government, and absolute over all arrangements concerning the English and Portuguese forces, whether regulars, militia, or “ordenanças;” for his designs were vast, and such as could only be effected by extraordinary means.

Armed with this power, and with the influence derived from the money supplied by England, he first called upon the Regency, to revive and enforce the ancient military laws of the realm, by which all men were to be enrolled, and bear arms. That effected, he demanded that the people should be warned and commanded to destroy their mills, to remove their boats, break down their bridges, lay waste their fields, abandon their dwellings, and carry off their property, on whatever line the invaders should penetrate: and that this might be deliberately and effectually performed, he designed at the head of all the allied regular forces, to front the enemy, in such sort, that, without bringing on a decisive battle, the latter should yet be obliged to keep constantly in a mass, while the whole population, converted into soldiers, and closing on the rear and flanks, should cut off all resources, save those carried in the midst of the troops.

But it was evident, that if the French could find, or carry, supplies, sufficient to maintain themselves until the British commander, forced back upon the sea, should embark or giving battle be defeated, the whole of this system must necessarily fall to pieces, and the miserable ruined people submit without further struggle. To avoid such a calamitous termination, it was necessary to find a position, covering Lisbon, where the allied forces could neither be turned by the flanks, nor forced in front by numbers, nor reduced by famine, and from which a free communication could be kept up with the irregular troops closing round the enemy. The mountains filling the tongue of land upon which Lisbon is situated, furnished this key-stone to the arch of defence. Accurate plans of all the positions, had been made under the directions of sir Charles Stuart in 1799, and, together with the French colonel Vincent’s minutes, shewing how they covered Lisbon, were in lord Wellington’s possession; and from those documents the original notion of the celebrated lines of Torres Vedras are said to have been derived; but the above-named officers only contemplated such a defence as might be made by an army in movement, before an equal or a greater force. It was lord Wellington, who first conceived the design, of turning those vast mountains into one stupendous and impregnable citadel, wherein to deposit the independence of the whole Peninsula.

Hereafter the lines shall be described more minutely; at present it must suffice to observe, that intrenchments, inundations, and redoubts secured more than five hundred square miles of mountainous country lying between the Tagus and the ocean. Nor was this the most gigantic part of the English general’s undertaking. He was a foreigner, ill supported by his own government, and holding power under that of Portugal by a precarious tenure; he was vehemently opposed by the local authorities, by the ministers, and by the nobility of that country; and yet, in this apparently weak position, he undertook at one and the same time, to overcome the abuses engendered by centuries of misgovernment, and to oblige a whole people, sunk in sloth, to arise in arms, to devastate their own lands, and to follow him to battle against the most formidable power of modern times.

Notwithstanding the secret opposition of the Regency, and of the fidalgos, the ancient military laws were revived, and so effectually, that the returns for the month of May gave a gross number of more than four hundred and thirty thousand men in arms, of which about fifty thousand were regular troops, fifty-five thousand militia, and the remainder “ordenanças;” but this multitude was necessarily subject to many deductions. The “capitans mor,” or chiefs of districts, were at first exceedingly remiss in their duty, the total number of “ordenanças” really assembled, fell far short of the returns, and all were ill-armed. This also was the case with the militia, only thirty-two thousand of which had muskets and bayonets: and deserters were so numerous, and the native authorities connived at absence under false pretences, to such an extent, that scarcely twenty-six thousand men ever remained with their colours. Of the regular troops the whole were in good condition, and thirty thousand being in the pay of England, were completely equipped, clothed, disciplined, and for the most part commanded by British officers; but, deduction being made for sick men and recruits, the actual number under arms did not exceed twenty-four thousand infantry, three thousand five hundred cavalry, and three thousand artillery. Thus the disposable native force was about fifty-six thousand men, one-half of which were militia.

At this period, the British troops employed in the Peninsula, exclusive of the garrison of Gibraltar, somewhat exceeded thirty-eight thousand men of all arms, but six thousand were in hospital or detached, and above seven thousand were in Cadiz. The latter city was protected by an allied force of nearly thirty thousand men, while the army, on whose exertions the fate of the Peninsula rested, was reduced to twenty-five thousand British; such was the policy of the English Cabinet; for this was the ministers’ and not the general’s arrangement. The ordenanças being set aside, the actual force at the disposition of lord Wellington, cannot be estimated higher than eighty thousand men, and the frontier to defend, reckoning from Braganza to Ayamonte, four hundred miles long. The great military features, and the arrangements made to take advantage of them in conformity with the general plan of defence, shall now be described.

The Portuguese land frontier presents four great divisions open to invasion:—

1º. The northern line of the Entre Minho and the Tras os Montes, extending from the mouth of the Minho, to Miranda on the Douro.

2º. The eastern line of the Tras os Montes following the course of the Douro from Miranda to Castel Rodrigo.

3º. The frontier of Beira from Castel Rodrigo to Rosaminhal on the Tagus.

4º. The Alemtejo and the Algarve frontiers, stretching, in one line from the Tagus to the mouth of the Guadiana.

But these divisions may be simplified with respect to the military aspect of the country; for Lisbon taken as the centre, and the distance from thence to Oporto as the radius, a sweep of the compass to Rosaminhal will trace the frontier of Beira; and the space lying between this arc, the Tagus, and the sea-coast, furnished the main body of the defence. The southern and northern provinces being considered as the wings, were rendered subservient to the defence of the whole, but had each a separate system for itself, based on the one general principle, that the country should be wasted, and the best troops opposed to the enemy without risking a decisive action, while the irregular forces closed round the flanks and rear of the invaders.

The northern and southern provinces have been already described, Beira remains to be noticed. Separated by the Douro from the Entre Minho and Tras os Montes, it cannot well be invaded on that line, except one or both of those provinces be first subdued; but from Castel Rodrigo to Rosaminhal, that is from the Douro to the Tagus, the frontier touches upon Spain, and perhaps the clearest method to describe the conformation of the country will be to enter the camp of the enemy.

An invading army then, would assemble at Ciudad Rodrigo, or at Coria, or at both those places. In the latter case, the communications could be maintained, directly over the Gata mountains by the pass of Perales, or circuitously, by Placentia and the pass of Baños, and the distance being by Perales not more than two marches, the corps could either advance simultaneously, or unite and force their way at one point only. In this situation, the frontier of Beira between the Douro and the Tagus, would offer them an opening of ninety miles against which to operate. But in the centre, the Sierra de Estrella, lifting its snowy peaks to the clouds and stretching out its gigantic arms, would seem to grasp and claim the whole space; the summit is impassable, and streaming down on either hand, numerous rivers cleaving deeply, amidst ravines and bristled ridges, continually oppose the progress of an army. Nevertheless, the invaders could penetrate to the right and left of this mountain in the following directions:—

From Ciudad Rodrigo.—1º. By the valley of the Douro.—2º. By the valley of the Mondego.—3º. By the valley of the Zezere.

From Coria.—1º. By Castello Branco and the valley of the Tagus; and, 2º. By the mountains of Sobreira Formosa.

To advance by the valley of the Douro, would be a flank movement through an extremely difficult country, and would belong rather to an invasion of the northern provinces than of Beira, because a fresh base must be established at Lamego or Oporto, before the movement could be prosecuted against Lisbon.

To gain the valley of the Mondego there are three routes. The first passing by Almeida and Celerico, the second by Trancoso and Viseu, the third by Alfayates and Guarda over the high ridges of the Estrella. To gain the valley of the Zezere, the march is by Alfayates, Sabugal, and Belmonte, and whether to the Zezere or the Mondego, these routes, although rugged, are practicable for artillery; but between Guarda and Belmonte some high table-land offers a position where an army could seal the passage on either side of the mountain, except by the Trancoso road. In fact, the position of Guarda may be called the breast-plate of the Estrella.

On the side of Coria, an invading army must first force or turn the passages of the Elga and Ponçul rivers, to reach Castello Branco, and that done, proceed to Abrantes by the valley of the Tagus or over the savage mountain of Sobreira Formosa. But the latter is impracticable for heavy artillery, even in summer, the ways broken and tormented by the deep channels of the winter torrents, the country desert, and the positions if defended, nearly impregnable. Nor is the valley of the Tagus to be followed, save by light corps, for the villages are few, the ridges not less steep than those of Sobreira, and the road quite impracticable for artillery of any calibre.

Such, and so difficult, being the lines of invasion through Beira, it would seem that a superior enemy might be met with advantage on the threshold of the kingdom; but it is not so. For, first, the defending army must occupy all the positions on this line of ninety miles, while the enemy, posted at Ciudad Rodrigo and Coria, could, in two marches, unite and attack on the centre, or at either extremity, with an overwhelming force. Secondly, the weakness of the Beira frontier consists in this, the Tagus along its whole course is, from June to December, fordable as low down as Salvatierra, close under the lines. A march through the Alemtejo and the passage of the river at any place below Abrantes would, therefore, render all the frontier positions useless; and although there were no enemy on the borders of the Alemtejo itself, the march from Ciudad Rodrigo by Perales, Coria, and Alcantara, and thence by the southern bank to the lowest ford in the river, would be little longer than the route by the valley of the Mondego or that of the Zezere. For these reasons the frontier of Portugal must be always yielded to superior numbers.

Both the conformation of the country, and the actual situation of the French corps, led lord Wellington to expect, that the principal attacks would be by the north of Beira and by the Alemtejo, while an intermediate connecting corps would move by Castello Branco upon Abrantes, and, under this impression, he made the following dispositions. Elvas, Almeida, and Valença, in the first, and Peniché, Abrantes, and Setuval, in the second line of fortresses, were garrisoned with native troops, part regulars, part militia.

General Baccellar, having Silveira and the British colonels, Trant, Miller, and J. Wilson, under his orders, occupied the provinces beyond the Douro, with twenty-one regiments of militia, including the garrison of Valença, on the Minho.

The country between Penamacor and the Tagus, that is to say, the lines of the Elga and the Ponçul, was guarded by ten regiments of militia, a regiment of native cavalry, and the Lusitanian legion. In the Alemtejo, including the garrisons, four regiments of militia were stationed, and three regiments held the fortresses of the Algarves. There remained in reserve, twelve regiments of the fifty composing the whole militia force, and these were distributed in Estremadura on both sides of the Tagus, but principally about Setuval. The regular Portuguese troops, deducting those in garrison at Almeida Elvas and Cadiz, were at Thomar and Abrantes.

But the British, organized in five divisions of infantry and one of cavalry, were distributed as follows:—

Thus the wings of the defence were composed solely of militia and ordenança, and the whole of the regular force was in the centre. The Portuguese at Thomar, and the four British divisions of infantry posted at Viseu, Guarda, Pinhel, and Celerico, formed a body of thirty-eight thousand men, the greater part of which could, in two marches, be united either at Guarda or between that position and the Douro. On the other side Beresford and Hill could, in as short a period, unite by the boat-bridge of Abrantes, and thus thirty-two thousand men would be concentrated on that line. If the enemy should attempt the passage of the Elga either direct from Coria, or by a flank movement of the second corps from Estremadura, across the Tagus, Beresford could succour the militia by moving over the Sobreira Formosa to Castello Branco, while Hill could reach that place much quicker than general Reynier, in consequence of an arrangement which merits particular attention.

It has been already said that the march from Abrantes to Castello Branco is over difficult mountains; to have repaired the roads between these places would have been more useful to the enemy than to the allies, as facilitating a passage for superior numbers to penetrate by the shortest line to Lisbon. But lord Wellington, after throwing boat-bridges over the Tagus and the Zezere, and fortifying Abrantes, established between the latter and Castello Branco a line of communication by the left bank of the Tagus, through Niza, to the pass of Vilha Velha, where, by a flying bridge, the river was recrossed, and from thence a good road led to Castello Branco. Now the pass of Vilha Velha is prodigiously strong for defence, and the distance from Abrantes to Castello Branco being nearly the same by Niza as by the other bank of the river, the march of troops was yet much accelerated, for the road near Vilha Velha being reconstructed by the engineers, was excellent.

Thus all the obstacles to an enemy’s march by the north bank were preserved, and the line by Vilha Velha, enabled not only Hill to pass from Portalegre, or Abrantes, to Castello Branco by a flank movement in less time than Reynier, but it also provided a lateral communication for the whole army, which we shall hereafter find of vital importance in the combinations of the English general, supplying the loss of the road by Alcantara and the pass of Perales, which otherwise would have been adopted.

The French, also, in default of a direct line of communication between Estremadura and the Ciudad Rodrigo country, were finally forced to adopt the circuitous road of Almaraz and the pass of Baños, and it was in allusion to this inconvenience that I said both parties sighed over the ruins of Alcantara.

But, notwithstanding this facility of movement and of concentration, the allies could not deliver a decisive battle near the frontier, because the enemy could unite an overwhelming force in the Alemtejo, before the troops from the north could reach that province, and a battle lost there, would, in the dry season, decide the fate of Lisbon. To have concentrated the whole army in the south, would have been to resign half the kingdom and all its resources to the enemy; but to save those resources for himself, or to destroy them, was the very basis of lord Wellington’s defence, and all his dispositions were made to oblige the French to move in masses, and to gain time himself, time to secure the harvests, time to complete his lines, time to perfect the discipline of the native troops, and to give full effect to the arming and organization of the ordenança, and, above all things, time to consolidate that moral ascendancy over the public mind which he was daily acquiring. A closer examination of his combinations will shew, that they were well adapted to effect these objects.

1º. The enemy durst not advance, except with concentrated masses, because, on the weakest line of resistance, he was sure to encounter above twenty thousand men.

2º. If, choosing the Alemtejo, he suddenly dispersed Romana’s troops and even forced back Hill’s, the latter passing the Tagus at Abrantes, and uniting with Beresford, could dispute the passage of the Tagus until the arrival of the army from the north; and no regular and sustained attempt could be made on that side without first besieging Badajos or Elvas to form a place of arms.

3º. A principal attack on the central line could not be made without sufficient notice being given by the collection of magazines at Coria, and by the passage of the Elga and Ponçul, Beresford and Hill could then occupy the Sobreira Formosa. But an invasion on this line, save by a light corps in connexion with other attacks, was not to be expected; for, although the enemy should force the Sobreira and reach Abrantes, he could not besiege the latter, in default of heavy artillery. The Zezere, a large and exceedingly rapid river, with rugged banks, would be in his front, the Tagus on his left, the mountains of Sobreira in his rear, and the troops from Guarda and the valley of the Mondego would have time to fall back.

4º. An attack on Guarda could always be resisted long enough to gain time for the orderly retreat of the troops near Almeida, to the valley of the Mondego, and moreover the road from Belmonte towards Thomar by the valley of the Zezere was purposely broken and obstructed.

Vol. 3, Plate 5.

click here for larger image. Defence of Portugal
1810.

Published by T. & W. Boone 1830.

The space between Guarda and the Douro, an opening of about thirty miles leading into the valley of the Mondego, remains to be examined. Across this line of invasion, the Agueda, the Coa, and the Pinel, run, in almost parallel directions from the Sierra de Francia and Sierra de Estrella, into the Douro, all having this peculiarity, that as they approach the Douro their channels invariably deepen into profound and gloomy chasms, and there are few bridges. But the principal obstacles were the fortresses of Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida, both of which it was necessary to take before an invading army could establish a solid base of invasion. After this the lines of the Douro and of the Mondego would be open; if the French adopted the second, they could reach it by Guarda, by Alverca, and by Trancoso, concentrating at Celerico, when they would have to choose between the right and the left bank. If the latter, they must march between the Mondego and the Estrella mountains, until they reached the Alva, a river falling at right angles into the Mondego, and behind which they would find the allied army in a position of surprising strength. If, to avoid that, they marched by the right of the Mondego upon Coimbra, there were other obstacles to be hereafter noticed; but, in either case, the allied forces, having interior lines of communication, could, as long as the Belmonte road was sealed, concentrate in time behind the Alva, or in front of Coimbra. Hence it was on the side of the Alemtejo that danger was most to be apprehended; and it behoved general Hill to watch vigilantly and act decisively in opposition to general Reynier; for the latter having necessarily the lead in the movements, might, by skilful evolutions and rapid marches, either join the sixth and eighth corps before Hill was aware of his design, and thus overwhelm the allied divisions on the Mondego, or drawing Hill across the Tagus, furnish an opportunity for a corps from Andalusia to penetrate by the southern bank of that river.

In these dispositions the English general had regard only to the enemy’s actual situation, and expecting the invasion in summer; but in the winter season the rivers and torrents being full, and the roads deteriorated, the defence would be different; fewer troops would then suffice to guard the Tagus, and the Zezere, the Sobreira Formosa would be nearly impassable, a greater number of the allied troops, could be collected about Guarda, and a more stubborn resistance made on the northern line.

Every probable movement being thus previously well considered, lord Wellington trusted that his own military quickness, and the valour of the British soldiers, could baffle any unforeseen strokes during the retreat, and once within the Lines, (the Portuguese people and the government doing their part) he looked confidently to the final result. He judged that, in a wasted country, and with thirty regiments of militia, in the mountains on the flank and rear of the enemy, the latter could not long remain before the Lines, and his retreat would be equivalent to a victory for the allies. There were however many hazards. The English commander, sanguine and confident as he was, knew well how many counter-combinations were to be expected; in fine, how much fortune was to be dreaded in a contest with eighty thousand French veterans having a competent general at their head. Hence, to secure embarkation in the event of disaster, a third line of entrenchments was prepared, and twenty-four thousand tons of shipping were constantly kept in the river to receive the British Lord Wellington’s Correspondence. MSS.forces; measures were also taken to procure a like quantity for the reception of the Portuguese troops, and such of the citizens as might wish to emigrate. It only remained to feed the army.

In the Peninsula generally, the supplies were at all times a source of infinite trouble on both sides, and this, not as some have supposed, because Spain is incapable of supplying large armies; there was throughout the war an abundance of food in that country but it was unevenly distributed; some places were exhausted, others overflowing, the difficulty was to transport provisions, and in this the allies enjoyed a great advantage; their convoys could pass unmolested, whereas the French always required strong guards first to collect food and then to bring it up to their armies. In Portugal there was however a real deficiency, even for the consumption of the people, and after a time scarcely any food for man or beast, (some cattle and straw from the northern provinces excepted,) was to be obtained in that country: nay, the whole nation was at last in a manner fed by England. Every part of the world accessible to ships and money was rendered subservient to the cravings of this insatiable war, and even thus, it was often a doubtful and a painful struggle against famine, while near the sea, but at a distance from that nurse of British armies, the means of transport necessarily regulated the extent of the supply. Now wheel-carriage was scarce and bad in Portugal, and for the most part the roads forbade its use; hence the only resource, for the conveyance of stores, was water-carriage, to a certain distance, and afterwards beasts of burthen.

Lisbon, Abrantes, and Belem Castle, on the Tagus; Figueras and Raiva de Pena Cova, on the Mondego; and, finally, Oporto and Lamego, on the Douro, were the principal depôts formed by lord Wellington, and his magazines of consumption were established at Viseu, Celerico, Condeixa, Leiria, Thomar, and Almeida. From those points four hundred miserable bullock-cars and about twelve thousand hired mules, organized in brigades of sixty each, conveyed the necessary warlike stores and provisions to the armies; when additional succours could be obtained, it was eagerly seized, but this was the ordinary amount of transport.

With such means and with such preparations was the defence of Portugal undertaken, and it must be evident to the most superficial observer, that, amidst so many difficulties, and with such a number of intricate combinations, lord Wellington’s situation was not one in which a general could sleep, and that, due allowance being made for fortune, it is puerile to attribute the success to aught but his talents and steel-hardened resolution.

In the foregoing exposition of the political and military force of the powers brought into hostile contact, I have only touched, and lightly, upon the points of most importance, designing no more than to indicate the sound and the diseased parts of each. The unfavourable circumstances for France would appear to be the absence of the emperor,—the erroneous views of the king,—the rivalry of the marshals,—the impediments to correspondence,—the necessity of frequently dispersing from the want of magazines,—the iniquity of the cause, and the disgust of the French officers, who, for the most part, spoiled by a rapid course of victories on the continent, could not patiently endure a service replete with personal dangers, over and above the ordinary mishaps of war, yet promising little ultimate reward.

For the English, the quicksands were—the memory of former failures on the continent,—the financial drain,—a powerful and eloquent opposition pressing a cabinet so timid and selfish that the general dared not risk a single brigade, lest an accident should lead to a panic amongst the ministers which all lord Wellesley’s vigour would be unable to stem,—the intrigues of the Souza party,—and the necessity of persuading the Portuguese to devastate their country for the sake of defending a European cause. Finally, the babbling of the English newspapers, from whose columns the enemy constantly drew the most certain information of the strength and situation of the army.

On the other side, France had possession of nearly all the fortified towns of the Peninsula, and, while her enormous army threatened to crush every opponent, she offered a constitution, and recalled to the recollection of the people that it was but a change of one French dynasty for another. The church started from her touch, but the educated classes did not shrink less from the British government’s known hostility to all free institutions. What, then, remained for England to calculate upon? The extreme hatred of the people to the invaders, arising from the excesses and oppressions of the armies,—the chances of another continental war,—the complete dominion of the ocean with all its attendant advantages,—the recruiting through the militia, which was, in fact, a conscription with two links in the chain instead of one; and, not least, the ardour of the troops to measure themselves with the conquerors of Europe, and to raise a rival to the French emperor. And here, as general Foy has been at some pains to misrepresent the character of the British soldiers, I will set down what many years’ experience gives me the right to say is nearer the truth than his dreams.

That the British infantry soldier is more robust than the soldier of any other nation, can scarcely be doubted by those who, in 1815, observed his powerful frame, distinguished amidst the united armies of Europe, and, notwithstanding his habitual excess in drinking, he sustains fatigue, and wet, and the extremes of cold and heat with incredible vigour. When completely disciplined, and three years are required to accomplish this, his port is lofty, and his movements free; the whole world cannot produce a nobler specimen of military bearing, nor is the mind unworthy of the outward man. He does not, indeed, possess that presumptuous vivacity which would lead him to dictate to his commanders, or even to censure real errors, although he may perceive them; but he is observant, and quick to comprehend his orders, full of resources under difficulties, calm and resolute in danger, and more than usually obedient and careful of his officers in moments of imminent peril.

It has been asserted that his undeniable firmness in battle, is the result of a phlegmatic constitution uninspired by moral feeling. Never was a more stupid calumny uttered! Napoleon’s troops fought in bright fields, where every helmet caught some beams of glory, but the British soldier conquered under the cold shade of aristocracy; no honours awaited his daring, no despatch gave his name to the applauses of his countrymen, his life of danger and hardship was uncheered by hope, his death unnoticed. Did his heart sink therefore! Did he not endure with surpassing fortitude the sorest of ills, sustain the most terrible assaults in battle unmoved, and, with incredible energy overthrow every opponent, at all times proving that, while no physical military qualification was wanting, the fount of honour was also full and fresh within him!

The result of a hundred battles and the united testimony of impartial writers of different nations have given the first place, amongst the European infantry, to the British; but, in a comparison between the troops of France and England, it would be unjust not to admit that the cavalry of the former stands higher in the estimation of the world.

CHAPTER IV.

In resuming the thread of military events, it is necessary to refer back to the commencement of the year, because the British operations on the frontier of Beira were connected, although not conducted, in actual concert with those of the Spaniards; and here I deem it right to notice the conduct of Miguel Alava, that brave, generous, and disinterested Spaniard, through whom this connexion was kept up. Attached to the British head-quarters, as the military correspondent of the Junta, he was too sagacious not to perceive the necessity of zealously seconding the English general; yet, in the manner of doing it, he never forgot the dignity of his own country, and, as he was too frank and honest for intrigues, his intercourse was always honourable to himself and advantageous to both nations.

It will be remembered that, in February, Ney threatened Ciudad Rodrigo at the same time that Mortier menaced Badajos and that Hill advanced from Abrantes to Portalegre; lord Wellington immediately reinforced the line between Pinhel and Guarda, and sent the light division across the Coa, to observe the enemy’s proceedings. The Portuguese Regency were alarmed, and demanded more British troops; but lord Wellington replying that Appendix, [No. V.] Section 1.the numbers already fixed would be as great as he could feed, took occasion to point out, that the measures agreed upon, with respect to the native forces, were neither executed with vigour nor impartiality, and that the carriages and other assistance, required for the support of the British soldiers then in the country were not supplied. These matters he urgently advised them to amend before they asked for more troops; and, at the same time, as the Regency in the hope of rendering him unpopular with the natives, intimated a wish that he should take the punishment of offenders into his own hands; he informed them that, although he advised the adoption of severe measures, he would not be made the despotic punisher of the people, while the actual laws were sufficient for the purpose.

When the siege of Astorga was commenced by the French, the Portuguese army was brought up to Cea and Viseu, and the militia in the northern provinces, were ordered to concentrate at Braganza to guard the Tras os Montes. Ciudad Rodrigo, being soon afterwards seriously menaced, lord Wellington sent a brigade of heavy cavalry to Belmonte, and transferred his own quarters to Celerico, intending to succour Ciudad if occasion offered; but the conduct of the Portuguese Regency cramped his operations. The resources of the country were not brought forward, and the English general could scarcely maintain his actual position, much less advance; yet the Regency treated his remonstrances lightly, exactly following the system of the Spanish Central Junta during the campaign of Talavera: lord Wellington was, however, in a different situation.

Appendix, [No. V.] Section 1.

Writing sharply, he told them that “their conduct was evasive and frivolous; that the army could neither move forward nor remain without food; that the time was one which would not admit of idle or hollow proceedings, or partiality, or neglect of public for private interests; that the resources were in the country, could be drawn forth, and must be so if the assistance of England was desired; finally, that punishment should follow disobedience, and, to be effectual, must begin with the higher classes.” Then, issuing a proclamation, he pointed out the duties and the omission of both magistrates and people, and by this vigourous conduct procured some immediate relief for his troops.

Meanwhile, Crawfurd commenced a series of remarkable operations. His three regiments of infantry were singularly fitted for any difficult service; they had been for several years under sir John Moore, and, being carefully disciplined in the peculiar school of that great man, came to the field with such a knowledge of arms that, in six years of real warfare, no weakness could be detected in their system. But the enemy’s posts on the Agueda rendered it impossible for the light division to remain, without cavalry, beyond the Coa, unless some support was at hand nearer than Guarda or Celerico. Crawfurd proposed that, while he advanced to the Agueda, Cole, with the fourth division, should take up the line of the Coa. But that general would not quit his own position at Guarda; and lord Wellington approving, and yet desirous to secure the line of the Coa with a view to succour Ciudad Rodrigo, brought up the third division to Pinhel, and reinforcing Crawfurd with the first German hussars, (consisting of four hundred excellent and experienced soldiers,) and with a superb troop of horse-artillery, commanded by captain Ross, gave him the command of all the outposts, ordering Picton and Cole to support him, if called upon.

In the middle of March, Crawfurd lined the bank of the Agueda with his hussars, from Escalhon on the left, to Navas Frias on the right, a distance of twenty-five miles, following the course of the river. The infantry were disposed in small parties in the villages between Almeida and the Lower Agueda; the artillery was at Fort Conception, and two battalions of Portuguese caçadores soon afterwards arrived, making a total of four thousand men, and six guns. The French at this period were extended in divisions from San Felices to Ledesma and Salamanca, but they did not occupy the pass of Perales; and Carrera’s Spanish division being at Coria, was in communication with Crawfurd, whose line, although extended, was very advantageous. From Navas Frias to the Douro, the Agueda was rendered unfordable by heavy rain, and only four bridges crossed it on that whole extent, namely, one at Navas Frias; one at Villar, about a league below the first; one at Ciudad Rodrigo; and one at San Felices, called the bridge of Barba del Puerco. While therefore, the hussars kept a good watch at the two first bridges which were distant, the troops could always concentrate under Almeida before the enemy could reach them from that side; and on the side of Barba del Puerco, the ravine was so profound that a few companies of the ninety-fifth were considered capable of opposing any numbers.

This arrangement sufficed while the Agueda was swollen; but that river was capricious, often falling many feet in a night without apparent reason: when it was fordable, Crawfurd always withdrew his outposts, and concentrated his division; and his situation demanded a quickness and intelligence in the troops, the like of which has never been surpassed. Seven minutes sufficed for the division to get under arms in the middle of the night; and a quarter of an hour, night or day, to bring it in order of battle to the alarm-posts, with the baggage loaded and assembled at a convenient distance in the rear. And this not upon a concerted signal, or as a trial, but at all times and certain.

The 19th of March, general Ferey, a bold officer, either to create a fear of French enterprise at the commencement of the campaign, or to surprise the division, collected six hundred grenadiers close to the bridge of San Felices, and, just as the moon, rising behind him, cast long shadows from the rocks, and rendered the bottom of the chasm dark, he silently passed the bridge, and, with incredible speed, ascending the opposite side, bayonetted the sentries, and fell upon the piquet so fiercely that friends and enemies went fighting into the village of Barba del Puerco while the first shout was still echoing in the gulf below. So sudden was the attack, and so great the confusion, that the British companies could not form, but each soldier encountering the nearest enemy, fought hand to hand; and their colonel, Sydney Beckwith, conspicuous by his lofty stature and daring actions, a man capable of rallying a whole army in flight, urged the contest with such vigour that, in a quarter of an hour, the French column was borne back, and pushed over the edge of the descent.

This skirmish proved that, while the Agueda was swollen, the enemy could gain nothing by slight operations; but it was difficult to keep in advance of the Coa: the want of money had reduced the whole army to straits, and Crawfurd, notwithstanding his prodigious activity, being unable to feed his division, gave the reins to his fiery temper, and seized some church-plate, with a view to the purchasing of corn. For this impolitic act he was immediately rebuked, and such redress granted that no mischief followed; and the proceeding itself had some effect in procuring supplies, as it convinced the priests that the distress was not feigned.

When the sixth corps again approached Ciudad Rodrigo in the latter end of April, lord Wellington, as I have before said, moved his head-quarters to Celerico, and Carrera took post at St. Martin Trebeja, occupying the pass of Perales; being, however, menaced there by Kellerman’s troops, he came down, in May, from the hills to Ituero on the Azava river, and connected his left with the light division, which was then posted at Gallegos Espeja and Barba del Puerco. Crawfurd and he then agreed that, if attacked, the British should concentrate in the wood behind Espeja, and, if unable to maintain themselves there, unite with the Spaniards at Nava d’Aver, and finally retire to Villa Mayor, a village covering the passage of the Coa by the bridge of Seceira, from whence there was a sure retreat to Guarda.

It was at this period that Massena’s arrival in Spain became known to the allies; the deserters, for the first time, ceased to speak of the emperor’s commanding in person; yet all agreed that serious operations would soon commence. Howbeit, as the river continued unfordable, Crawfurd maintained his position; but, towards the end of May, certain advice of the march of the French battering-train was received through Andreas Herrasti: and, the 1st of June, Ney, descending upon Ciudad Rodrigo, threw a bridge, on trestles, over the Agueda at the convent of Caridad, two miles above; and, a few days afterwards, a second at Carboneras, four miles below the fortress. As this concentration of the French relieved the northern provinces of Portugal from danger, sixteen regiments of militia were brought down from Braganza to the Lower Douro; provisions came by water to Lamego, and the army was enabled to subsist.

The 8th of June four thousand French cavalry crossed the Agueda, Crawfurd concentrated his forces at Gallegos and Espeja, and the Spaniards occupied the wood behind the last-named village. It was at this moment, when Spain was overwhelmed, and when the eye could scarcely command the interminable lines of French in his immediate front, that Martin Carrera thought fit to invite marshal Ney to desert!

Nothing could be more critical than Crawfurd’s position. From the Agueda to the Coa the whole country, although studded with woods and scooped into hollows, was free for cavalry and artillery, and there were at least six thousand horsemen and fifty guns within an hour’s march of his position. His right was at Espeja, where thick woods in front rendered it impossible to discover an enemy until close upon the village; while wide plains behind, almost precluded hope, in a retreat before the multitude of French cavalry and artillery. The confluence of the Azava with the Agueda offered more security on his left, because the channel of the former river there became a chasm, and the ground rose high and rugged at each side of the bridge of Marialva, two miles in front of Gallegos. Nevertheless, the bank on the enemy’s side was highest, and, to obtain a good prospect, it was necessary to keep posts beyond the Azava; moreover the bridge of Marialva could be turned by a ford, below the confluence of the streams. The 10th, the Agueda became fordable in all parts, but, as the enemy occupied himself raising redoubts, to secure his bridge at Carboneras, and making preparations for the siege of Rodrigo, Crawfurd, trusting to his own admirable arrangements, and to the surprising discipline of his troops, still maintained his dangerous position: thus encouraging the garrison of Ciudad Rodrigo, and protecting the villages in the plain between the Azava and the Coa from the enemy’s foraging parties.

On the 18th, the eighth corps was seen to take post at San Felices, and other points; and all the villages, from the Sierra de Francia to the Douro, were occupied by the French army. The 23d, Julian Sanchez, breaking out of Ciudad, came into Gallegos. On the 25th, the French batteries opened against the fortress, their cavalry closed upon the Azava, and Crawfurd withdrew his outposts to the left bank. The 26th, it was known that Herrasti had lost one hundred and fifty killed, and five hundred wounded; and, the 29th, a Spaniard, passing the French posts, brought Carrera a note, containing these words: “O venir luego! luego! luego! a socorrer esta plaza.” (“Oh! come, now! now! now! to the succour of this place.”) And, on the 1st of July, the gallant old man repeated his “Luego, luego, luego, por ultimo vez.”

Meanwhile, lord Wellington (hoping that the enemy, by detaching troops, would furnish an opportunity of relieving Ciudad Rodrigo) transferred his quarters to Alverca, a village half-way between Almeida and Celerico. The Spaniards supposed he would attack; and Romana, quitting Badajos, came to propose a combined movement for carrying off the garrison. This was a trying moment! The English general had come from the Guadiana with the avowed purpose of securing Rodrigo; he had, in a manner, pledged himself to make it a point in his operations; his army was close at hand; the garrison brave and distressed; the governor honourably fulfilling his part. To permit such a place to fall without a stroke struck, would be a grievous disaster, and a more grievous dishonour to the British arms; the troops desired the enterprise; the Spaniards demanded it, as a proof of good faith; the Portuguese to keep the war away from their own country: finally, policy seemed to call for an effort, lest the world might deem the promised defence of Portugal a heartless and a hollow boast. Nevertheless, Romana returned without his object. Lord Wellington absolutely refused to venture even a brigade; and thus proved himself a truly great commander, and of a steadfast mind.

It was not a single campaign but a terrible war that he had undertaken. If he lost but five thousand men, his own government would abandon the contest; if he lost fifteen, he must abandon it himself. His whole disposable force did not exceed fifty-six thousand men: of these, twelve thousand were with Hill, and one-half of the remainder were untried and raw. But this included all, even to the Portuguese cavalry and garrisons. All could not, however, be brought into line, because Reynier, acting in concert with Massena, had, at this period, collected boats, and made demonstrations to pass the Tagus and move upon Coria; French troops were also crossing the Morena, in march towards Estremadura, which obliged lord Wellington to detach eight thousand Portuguese to Thomar, as a reserve, and these and Hill’s corps being deducted, not quite twenty-five thousand men were available to carry off the garrison in the face of sixty thousand French veterans. This enterprise would also take the army two marches from Guarda, and Coria was scarcely more distant from that place, hence, a division must have been left at Guarda, lest Reynier, deceiving Hill, should reach it first.

Twenty thousand men of all arms remained, and there were two modes of using them. 1º. In an open advance and battle. 2º. In a secret movement and surprise. To effect the last, the army might have assembled in the night upon the Azava, and filed over the single bridge of Ciudad Rodrigo, with a view of capturing the battering train, by a sally, or of bringing off the garrison. But, without Appendix, [No. VII.] Section I.dwelling on the fact that Massena’s information was so good that he knew, in two days after it occurred, the object of Romana’s visit, such a movement could scarcely have been made unobserved, even in the early part of the siege, and, certainly, not towards the end, when the enemy were on the Azava.

An open battle a madman only would have ventured. The army, passing over a plain, in the face of nearly three times its own numbers, must have exposed its flanks to the enemy’s bridges on the Agueda, because the fortress was situated in the bottom of a deep bend of the river, and the French were on the convex side. What hope then for twenty thousand mixed soldiers cooped up between two rivers, when eight thousand cavalry and eighty guns should come pouring over the bridges on their flanks, and fifty thousand infantry followed to the attack? What would even a momentary success avail? Five thousand undisciplined men brought off from Ciudad Rodrigo, would have ill supplied the ten or twelve thousand good troops lost in the battle, and the temporary relief of the fortress would have been a poor compensation for the loss of Portugal. For what was the actual state of affairs in that country?—The militia deserting in crowds to the harvest, the Regency in full opposition to the general, the measures for laying waste the country not perfected, and the public mind desponding! The enemy would soon have united his whole force and advanced to retrieve his honour, and who was to have withstood him?

Massena, sagacious and well understanding his business, only desired that the attempt should be made. He held back his troops, appeared careless, and in his proclamations taunted the English general, that he was afraid!—that the sails were flapping on the ships prepared to carry him away—that he was a man, who, insensible to military honour, permitted his ally’s towns to fall without risking a shot to save them, or to redeem his plighted word! But all this subtlety failed; lord Wellington was unmoved, and abided his own time. “If thou art a great general, Marius, come down and fight! If thou art a great general, Silo, make me come down and fight!”

Ciudad Rodrigo left to its fate, held out yet a little longer, and meanwhile the enemy pushing infantry on to the Azava; Carrera retired to the Dos Casas river, and Crawfurd, reinforced with the sixteenth and fourteenth light dragoons, placed his cavalry at Gallegos, and concentrated his infantry in the wood of Alameda, two miles in rear. From thence he could fall back, either to the bridge of Almeida by San Pedro or to the bridge of Castello Bom by Villa Formosa. Obstinate however not to relinquish a foot of ground that he could keep either by art or force, he disposed his troops in single ranks on the rising grounds, in the evening of the 2d of July, and then sending some horsemen to the rear to raise the dust, marched the ranks of infantry in succession, and slowly, within sight of the enemy, hoping that the latter would imagine the whole army was come up to succour Ciudad Rodrigo. He thus gained two days; but, on the 4th of July, a strong body of the enemy assembled at Marialva, and a squadron of horse, crossing the ford below that bridge, pushed at full speed towards Gallegos driving back the picquets. The enemy then passed the river, and the British retired skirmishing upon Alameda, leaving two guns, a troop of British and a troop of German hussars to cover the movement. This rear-guard drew up on a hill half-cannon shot from a streamlet with marshy banks, which crossed the road to Alameda; in a few moments a column of French horsemen was observed coming on at a charging pace, diminishing its front as it approached the bridge, but resolute to pass, and preserving the most perfect order, notwithstanding some well-directed shots from the guns. Captain Kraüchenberg, of the hussars, proposed to charge. The English officer did not conceive his orders warranted it; and the gallant German rode full speed against the head of the advancing columns with his single troop, and with such a shock, that he killed the leading officers, overthrew the front ranks, and drove the whole back. Meanwhile the enemy crossed the stream at other points, and a squadron coming close up to Alameda was driven off by a volley from the third caçadores.

This skirmish not being followed up by the enemy, Crawfurd took a fresh post with his infantry and guns in a wood near Fort Conception. His cavalry, reinforced by Julian Sanchez and Carrera’s divisions, were disposed higher up on the Duas Casas, and the French withdrew behind the Azava, leaving only a piquet at Gallegos. Their marauding parties however entered the villages of Barquillo and Villa de Puerco for three nights successively; and Crawfurd, thinking to cut them off, formed an ambuscade in a wood near Villa de Puerco with six squadrons, another of three squadrons near Barquillo, and disposed his artillery, five companies of the ninety-fifth and the third caçadores in reserve, for the enemy were again in force at Gallegos and even in advance of it.

A little after day-break, on the 11th, two French parties were observed, the one of infantry near Villa de Puerco, the other of cavalry at Barquillo. An open country on the right would have enabled the six squadrons to get between the infantry in Villa de Puerco and their point of retreat. This was circuitous, and Crawfurd preferred pushing straight through a stone enclosure as the shortest road: the enclosure proved difficult, the squadrons were separated, and the French, two hundred strong, had time to draw up in square on a rather steep rise of land; yet so far from the edge, as not to be seen until the ascent was gained. The two squadrons which first arrived, galloped in upon them, and the charge was rough and pushed home, but failed. The troopers received the fire of the square in front and on both sides, and in passing saw and heard the French captain Guache and his serjeant-major exhorting the men to shoot carefully.

Scarcely was this charge over when the enemy’s cavalry came out of Barquillos, and the two squadrons riding against it, made twenty-nine men and two officers prisoners, a few being also wounded. Meanwhile colonel Talbot mounting the hill with four squadrons of the fourteenth dragoons, bore gallantly in upon captain Guache; but the latter again opened such a fire, that Talbot himself and fourteen men went down close to the bayonets, and the stout Frenchman made good his retreat; after which Crawfurd returned to the camp, having had thirty-two troopers, besides the colonel, killed or wounded in this unfortunate affair. That day Ciudad Rodrigo surrendered, and the Spanish troops, grieved and irritated, separated from the light division, and marching by the pass of Perales, rejoined Romana; but Crawfurd assumed a fresh position, a mile and a half from Almeida, and demanded a reinforcement of two battalions. Lord Wellington replied that he would give him two divisions, if he could hold his ground; but that he could not do so; yet, knowing the temper of the man, he repeated his former orders not to fight beyond the Coa.

On the 21st, the enemy’s cavalry again advanced, Fort Conception was blown up, and Crawfurd fell back to Almeida, apparently disposed to cross the Coa. Yet nothing was further from his thoughts. Braving the whole French army, he had kept with a weak division, for three months, within two hours march, of sixty thousand men, appropriating the resources of the plains entirely to himself; but this exploit, only to be appreciated by military men, did not satisfy his feverish thirst of distinction. Hitherto he had safely affronted a superior power, and forgetting that his stay beyond the Coa was a matter of sufferance, not real strength, with headstrong ambition, he resolved, in defiance of reason and of the reiterated orders of his general, to fight on the right bank.

COMBAT OF THE COA.

Crawfurd’s whole force under arms consisted of four thousand infantry, eleven hundred cavalry, and six guns, and his position, one mile and a half in length, extended in an oblique line towards the Coa. The cavalry piquets were upon the plain in his front, his right on some broken ground, and his left resting on an unfinished tower, eight hundred yards from Almeida, was defended by the guns of that fortress; but his back was on the edge of the ravine forming the channel of the Coa, and the bridge was more than a mile distant, in the bottom of the chasm.

A stormy night ushered in the 24th of July. The troops, drenched with rain, were under arms before day-light, expecting to retire, when a few pistol shots in front, followed by an order for the cavalry reserves and the guns to advance, gave notice of the enemy’s approach; and as the morning cleared, twenty-four thousand French infantry, five thousand cavalry, and thirty pieces of artillery were observed marching beyond the Turones. The British line was immediately contracted and brought under the edge of the ravine; but meanwhile Ney, who had observed Crawfurd’s false disposition, came down with the stoop of an eagle. Four thousand horsemen and a powerful artillery swept the plain. The allied cavalry gave back, and Loison’s division coming up at a charging pace, made towards the centre and left of the position.

While the French were thus pouring onward, several ill-judged changes were made on the English side, part of the troops were advanced, others drawn back, and the forty-third most unaccountably placed within an enclosure of solid masonry, at least ten feet high, situated on the left of the road with but one narrow outlet about half-musket shot down the ravine. While thus imprisoned, the firing in front redoubled, the cavalry, the artillery, and the caçadores successively passed by in retreat, and the sharp clang of the ninety-fifth rifle was heard along the edge of the plain above. A few moments later, and the forty-third would have been surrounded; but that here, as in every other part of this field, the quickness and knowledge of the battalion officers remedied the faults of the general. One minute sufficed to loosen some large stones, a powerful effort burst the enclosure, and the regiment, re-formed in column of companies, was the next instant up with the riflemen; there was no room to array the line, no time for any thing but battle, every captain carried off his company as an independent body, and joining as he could with the ninety-fifth or fifty-second, the whole presented a mass of skirmishers, acting in small parties and under no regular command; yet each confident in the courage and discipline of those on his right and left, and all regulating their movements by a common discretion and keeping together with surprising vigour.

It is unnecessary to describe the first burst of French soldiers. It is well known with what gallantry the officers lead, with what vehemence the troops follow, and with what a storm of fire they waste a field of battle. At this moment, with the advantage of ground and numbers, they were breaking over the edge of the ravine, their guns ranged along the summit, played hotly with grape, and their hussars, galloping over the glacis of Almeida, poured down the road, sabring every thing in their way. Ney, desirous that Montbrun should follow this movement with the whole of the French cavalry, and so cut off the troops from the bridge, sent five officers in succession to urge him on, and so mixed were friends and enemies at the moment, that only a few guns of the fortress durst open, and no courage could have availed against such overwhelming numbers. But Montbrun enjoyed an independent command, and, as the attack was made without Massena’s knowledge, he would not stir. Then the British regiments, with singular intelligence and discipline, extricated themselves from their perilous situation. For falling back slowly, and yet stopping and fighting whenever opportunity offered, they made their way through a rugged country tangled with vineyards, in despite of their enemies, who were so fierce and eager, that even the horsemen rode in amongst the enclosures, striking at the soldiers as they mounted the walls or scrambled over the rocks.

As the retreating troops approached the river, they came upon a more open space; but the left wing being harder pressed, and having the shortest distance, arrived while the bridge was still crowded and some of the right wing distant. Major M’Leod, of the forty-third, seeing this, rallied four companies on a hill just in front of the passage, and was immediately joined by a party of the ninety-fifth, and at the same time, two other companies were posted by brigade-major Rowan, on another hill flanking the road, these posts were thus maintained until the enemy, gathering in great numbers, made a second burst, when the companies fell back. At this moment the right wing of the fifty-second was seen marching towards the bridge, which was still crowded with the passing troops, M’Leod, a very young man, but with a natural genius for war, immediately turned his horse round, called to the troops to follow, and, taking off his cap, rode with a shout towards the enemy. The suddenness of the thing, and the distinguished action of the man, produced the effect he designed; a mob of soldiers rushed after him, cheering and charging as if a whole army had been at their backs, and the enemy’s skirmishers, astonished at this unexpected movement, stopped short. Before they could recover from their surprise, the fifty-second crossed the river, and M’Leod, following at full speed, gained the other side also without a disaster.

As the regiments passed the bridge, they planted themselves in loose order on the side of the mountain. The artillery drew up on the summit and the cavalry were disposed in parties on the roads to the right, because two miles higher up the stream there were fords, and beyond them the bridge of Castello Bom, and it was to be apprehended that, while the sixth corps was in front, the reserves, and a division of the eighth corps, then on the Agueda, might pass at those places and get between the division and Celerico. The river was, however, rising fast from the rains, and it was impossible to retreat farther.

The French skirmishers, swarming on the right bank, opened a biting fire, which was returned as bitterly; the artillery on both sides played across the ravine, the sounds were repeated by numberless echoes, and the smoke, rising slowly, resolved itself into an immense arch, spanning the whole chasm, and sparkling with the whirling fuzes of the flying shells. The enemy gathered fast and thickly; his columns were discovered forming behind the high rocks, and a dragoon was seen to try the depth of the stream above, but two shots from the fifty-second killed horse and man, and the carcasses, floating between the hostile bands, showed that the river was impassable. The monotonous tones of a French drum were then heard, and in another instant, the head of a noble column was at the long narrow bridge. A drummer and an officer in a splendid uniform, leaped forward together, and the whole rushed on with loud cries. The depth of the ravine at first deceived the soldiers’ aim, and two-thirds of the passage was won ere an English shot had brought down an enemy; yet a few paces onwards the line of death was traced, and the whole of the leading French section fell as one man! Still the gallant column pressed forward, but no foot could pass that terrible line; the killed and wounded railed together, until the heap rose nearly even with the parapet, and the living mass behind melted away rather than gave back.

The shouts of the British now rose loudly, but they were confidently answered, and, in half an hour, a second column, more numerous than the first, again crowded the bridge. This time, however, the range was better judged, and ere half the distance was won, the multitude was again torn, shattered, dispersed, and slain; ten or twelve men only succeeded in crossing, and took shelter under the rocks at the brink of the river. The skirmishing was renewed, and a French surgeon coming down to the very foot of the bridge, waved his handkerchief and commenced dressing the wounded under the hottest fire; nor was his appeal unheeded: every musket turned from him, although his still undaunted countrymen were preparing for a third attempt. The impossibility of forcing the passage was, however, become too apparent, and this last effort, made with feebler numbers and less energy, failed almost as soon as it commenced.

Vol. 3, Plate 6.

click here for larger image. CRAWFURD’S OPERATIONS
1810.

Published by T. & W. Boone 1830.

Nevertheless, the combat was unnecessarily continued. By the French, as a point of honour, to cover the escape of those who had passed the bridge. By the English, from ignorance of their object. One of the enemy’s guns was dismantled, a powder-magazine blew up, and many continued to fall on both sides until about four o’clock; when a heavy rain causing a momentary cessation of fire the men amongst the rocks returned, unmolested, to their own party, the fight ceased, and Crawfurd retired behind the Pinhel river. Forty-four Portuguese, two hundred and seventy-two British, including twenty-eight officers, were killed, wounded, or taken, and it was at first supposed that lieutenant Dawson and half a company of the fifty-second, which had been posted in the unfinished tower, were also captured: but that officer kept close until the evening, and then, with great intelligence, passed all the enemy’s posts, and, crossing the Coa at a ford, rejoined his regiment.

In this action the French lost above a thousand men, the slaughter at the bridge was fearful to behold; but Massena claimed to have taken two pieces of artillery, and it was true; for the guns intended to arm the unfinished tower, near Almeida, were lying dismounted at the foot of the building. They, however, belonged to the garrison of Almeida, not to the light division, and that they were not mounted and the tower garrisoned was a great negligence; the enemy’s cavalry could not otherwise have fallen so dangerously on the left of the position, and the after-investment of Almeida would have been retarded. In other respects, the governor, severely censured by Crawfurd, at the time, for not opening his fire sooner and more vigorously, was unblameable; the whole affair had been so mismanaged by the general himself, that friends and enemies were mingled together from the first, and the shots from the fortress would have killed both.

During the fight, general Picton came up alone from Pinhel, Crawfurd desired the support of the third division; it was refused; and, excited by some previous disputes, the generals separated after a sharp altercation. Picton was decidedly wrong, because Crawfurd’s situation was one of extreme danger; he durst not retire, and Massena might undoubtedly have thrown his reserves, by the bridge of Castello Bom, upon the right flank of the division, and destroyed it, between the Coa and the Pinhel rivers. Picton and Crawfurd were, however, not formed by nature to act cordially together. The stern countenance, robust frame, saturnine complexion, caustic speech, and austere demeanour of the first promised little sympathy with the short thick figure, dark flashing eyes, quick movements, and fiery temper of the second; nor, indeed, did they often meet without a quarrel. Nevertheless, they had many points of resemblance in their characters and fortunes. Both were inclined to harshness, and rigid in command, both prone to disobedience, yet exacting entire submission from inferiors, and they were alike ambitious and craving of glory. They both possessed decided military talents, were enterprising and intrepid, yet neither were remarkable for skill in handling troops under fire. This, also, they had in common, that both, after distinguished services, perished in arms, fighting gallantly, and being celebrated as generals of division while living, have, since their death, been injudiciously spoken of, as rivalling their great leader in war.

That they were officers of mark and pretension is unquestionable, and Crawfurd more so than Picton, because the latter never had a separate command, and his opportunities were necessarily more circumscribed; but to compare either to the duke of Wellington displays ignorance of the men and of the art they professed. If they had even comprehended the profound military and political combinations he was conducting; the one would have carefully avoided fighting on the Coa; and the other, far from refusing, would have eagerly proffered his support.

CHAPTER V.

During the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo, Mahi, coming down from the Gallician mountains, menaced Astorga, and a detachment of his army, under Toboado Gil, occupied Puebla de Senabria; acting in concert with Silveira; and an expedition sailing from Coruña, under Porlier, seized Santona, and dismantled that and other points on the coast, near Santander. Mahi’s movements could not be well opposed by either Kellerman or Serras, during the siege, because the former had a strong detachment in Baños, and the troops of the latter were spread over too great an extent of ground; but, when the place fell, the eighth corps, being detached beyond the Tormes, to gather provisions, enabled Serras to act against the Gallicians. The latter were driven into the mountains, and Toboado Gil, removing his stores from Puebla Senabria, drew closer to Silveira, in expectation of an attack; but Serras, only placing a Swiss battalion and sixty dragoons at Puebla, fell back to Zamora, and the eighth corps re-occupied the country between the Tormes and the Agueda.

Bonet defeated the Spaniards at Sales, and entered Castropol, on the frontier of Gallicia, but returned to Oviedo, on hearing of the expedition to Santona. The Spaniards then re-embarked for Coruña, the project of a larger armament, to be directed against Santander itself, was adopted, and Mahi affirmed that, if more arms and ammunition were sent to him from England, he would clear the plains of Leon, as far as the Esla river. His demands were complied with; sir Home Popham was appointed to superintend the naval expeditions against the coast of the Asturias and Biscay, and a serious interruption of the French communications was planned, but never realised.

Meanwhile, general Reynier passed the Tagus with the second corps, but it appears that this movement should have been executed in June; for boats were collected at Barca de Alconete, in the middle of that month, and the French only waited for a detachment from Andalusia, when Mendizabel, taking the road of Zafra, attacked that detachment, at Los Santos, on the 23d, and Reynier immediately moved to its succour with one division of infantry and all his cavalry.

But, at this period, the insurrection caused by Lascy’s expedition to the Ronda, had drawn all the troops of the fifth corps from Seville to that side, the duke of Aremberg and general Remond had fallen back behind the river Tinto, and Copons had advanced to collect provisions on the Odiel. In this threatening state of affairs, instead of returning to Merida, Reynier endeavoured to surprise Imas, at Xeres de los Cavalleros, and failing in that, pushed across the Morena against Ballasteros, the latter being at Campo Frio, beyond Araceña, and, ignorant that Imas had retreated, could only save himself by a hasty flight across the frontier of Portugal. Meanwhile, Lascy was beaten in the Ronda, the fifth corps retired to Seville, D’Aremberg and Remond re-occupied Huelva and Moguer; and Reynier, going back to Merida, resumed his design of passing the Tagus.

His boats were still at Alconete, for the Spaniards had neglected this opportunity of destroying them; but, as it was necessary to cover the operations both from Hill’s division which was concentrated at Campo Mayor, and from the Portuguese troops behind the Elga river, a strong rear guard was placed on the Salor to watch the former, and the French division at Baños advanced to Coria to awe the latter. Reynier then quitting Merida the 10th of July, marched, by Truxillo and Caceres, upon Alconete and Almaraz, and effected the passage; his rear guard following on the 16th.

This cautious operation saved him from an attack meditated by Hill, who had received orders to unite with Romana, and drive the second corps back, with a view to gather the harvest for the victualling of Badajos and the other frontier fortresses. But the passage of the Tagus being thus effected by the French, general Hill made a parallel movement, which, on his part, only required thirty-six hours; and meanwhile, lord Wellington assembled a reserve at Thomar, under the command of general Leith, consisting of eight thousand Portuguese and two thousand British infantry, just arrived from England.

Soon after Reynier had reached Coria, he detached a force, by Perales, upon Sabugal, but recalled it when he found that Hill, having crossed the Tagus by Vilha Velha, was at Castello Branco on the 21st. The two generals then faced each other. Hill, joined by a strong body of Portuguese cavalry, under general Fane, encamped, with sixteen thousand men and eighteen guns, at Sarzedas, just in front of the Sobreira Formosa; his advanced guard in Castello Branco; his horsemen on the line of the Ponçul; and a brigade of Portuguese infantry at Fundao, to keep up the communication with Guarda, and to cover the Estrada Nova. Behind him, Leith occupied the line of the Zezere: and thus twenty-six thousand men, besides the militia, were in observation between the Estrella and the Tagus.

Reynier first made demonstrations on the side of Salvatierra; but being repulsed by some Portuguese cavalry, divided his forces between Penamacor and Zarza Mayor, established a post of one hundred and fifty men on the left bank of the Tagus, near the mouth of the Rio Del Monte, and, by continual movements, rendered it doubtful whether he meant to repass the Tagus or to advance upon Sarzedas, or to join Massena. Meanwhile, Ballasteros returned to Araceña, Imas to Xeres de los Cavalleros, O’Donnel entered Truxillo, and Carlos d’España cut off the French post on the Rio del Monte. Romana was, however, soon obliged to concentrate his troops again; for Mortier was on the Guadalquivir, with a view to re-enter Estremadura. Such was the situation of the armies in the beginning of August; and when Massena was assured that Reynier had crossed the Tagus, he directed the sixth corps and the cavalry upon Almeida, which led, as we have seen, to the combat on the Coa; during which, Loison, imagining the governor to be a native, pressed him to desert the cause of the English: “that vile people, whose object was to enslave the Portuguese.”

Lord Wellington’s situation was critical. Ciudad Rodrigo furnished the French with a place of arms; they might disregard Almeida: and their tardy investment of it, viewed in conjunction with the great magazines collecting at Ciudad Rodrigo, indicated an intention of so doing. But Massena’s dispositions were such as rendered his true designs difficult to be discovered. The sixth corps and the reserve cavalry were, indeed, around Almeida; but, by telegraphic intercourse with the garrison, it was known that the investment was not real, and the heads of the columns pointed towards Celerico. Loison’s advanced guard was in Pinhel the day after Crawfurd’s action; the second corps, divided between Zarza Mayor and Penamacor, and with boats, near Alcantara, on the Tagus, menaced equally the line of that river and the line of the Zezere; and it was as likely that Massena would join Reynier as that Reynier would join Massena. The eighth corps and the divisions of Serras and Kellerman were between the Tormes and the Esla, and might break into the northern provinces of Portugal, while the sixth and second corps should hold the allies in check: and this was undoubtedly the surest course; because the taking of Oporto would have furnished many resources, stricken the natives with terror, opened the great coast-road to Lisbon, and enabled Massena to avoid all the difficult country about the Mondego. The English general must then have retired before the second and sixth corps, unless he attacked Ney; an unpromising measure, because of the enemy’s strength in horse: in fine, Massena had one hundred and sixteen thousand men and the initial operations in his power, and lord Wellington was obliged to wait upon his movements.

The actual position of the allies was too extended and too forward; yet to retire at once would have seemed timid: hence lord Wellington remained quiet during the 25th, 26th, and 27th of July, although the enemy’s posts were thickening on the Pinhel river. But the 28th, the British cavalry advanced to Frexadas, and the infantry withdrew behind the Mondego, except the fourth division, which remained at Guarda. The light division occupied Celerico; the other divisions were posted at Penhancos, Carapichina, and Fornos; the Portuguese troops being a day’s march behind. The sick and wounded men transferred daily to the rear, and the line of retreat kept free from encumbrance. The enemy then made a demonstration towards St. Joa de Pesquera, and defeated some militia at Fosboa, on the Douro, but finally retired across the Coa, and, after a few skirmishes with the garrison on the 3d of August, left the communication with Almeida again free. At the same time, a detachment of Reynier’s horse was encountered at Atalaya, near Fundao, and beaten by the Portuguese cavalry and ordenança, with a loss of fifty killed or taken.

On the side of Gallicia, Kellerman advanced from Benevente to Castro Contrijo, and detachments from Serras’s division penetrated towards Monterey, ordering provisions for ten thousand men on the road to Braganza. But Silveira, marching on Senabria, defeated the enemy’s cavalry there on the 6th; invested the Swiss on the 7th; and, on the 10th, obliged them to capitulate at the moment when Serras was coming to their relief. Five hundred men and an eagle were taken, and Silveira, who did not lose a man, would have given battle to Serras also, if Beresford, alarmed at such rashness, had not sent him imperative orders to retreat; an operation he effected with some difficulty.

This advantage in the north was balanced by a disaster in Estremadura. The Spanish generals, never much disposed to respect lord Wellington’s counsels, were now less so than before, from the discontent engendered by the fall of Ciudad Rodrigo. He had pressed upon Romana the policy of avoiding battles; had procured permission that Campo Mayor should be given to him as a place of arms, with leave to retire into Portugal when overmatched by the enemy; and he had shewn him that Hill’s departure greatly augmented the necessity of caution. Nevertheless, Romana joined Ballasteros; and, as their united force amounted to fourteen thousand infantry and fifteen hundred horse, the English general immediately foresaw that they would offer battle, be defeated, and lay open the whole frontier of the Alemtejo; he, therefore, directed Hill to send Madden’s brigade of Portuguese cavalry to their assistance.

Madden reached Campo Mayor the 14th of August, but Romana’s advanced guard had been already intercepted at Benvenida, and having lost six hundred men, was going to lay down its arms, when fortunately Carrera arrived with the Spanish cavalry and disengaged them. The whole then retreated across the Morena to Monte Molin and Fregenal, but the French pursued and slew or took four hundred more. The following day Mortier entered Zafra, and Romana retired to Almendralejos. The enemy did not, however, press this advantage, because Lascy with three thousand men from Cadiz convoyed by Capt. Cockburn of the British navy, had landed near Moguer and driven the duke of Aremberg towards Seville, while Copons drove Remond upon Zalamea; and although the French soon rallied and obliged Lascy to re-embark, Mortier was withdrawn towards the Morena, and Romana again advanced to Zafra. This affair at Moguer was very trifling, but a tumid description in Cockburn’s despatches obtained for it a momentary celebrity.

It would appear that Massena had been waiting for Mortier’s movements to develope his own plans, for on the day that the latter entered Zafra, the sixth corps formally invested Almeida; and lord Wellington immediately bringing up the Portuguese, recrossed the Mondego; the British being at Pinhel, Frexadas, and Guarda, and the Portuguese at Celerico, Govea, Melho, and Trancoso. In this situation, expecting a vigorous defence from Almeida, he had good hopes to delay the enemy for six weeks or two months, when the rains setting in would give him additional advantages in the defence of the country. He had intended to keep the light division on the Cabeça Negro overhanging the bridge of the Coa, and thus secure a communication with the garrison, or force the French to invest the place with their whole army: Crawfurd’s rashness marred this plan, and he himself was so dispirited by the action on the 24th, that the commander-in-chief did not think it prudent to renew the project. Yet Massena’s tardiness and the small force with which he finally invested the place, led lord Wellington to think of assembling secretly a large and chosen body of men behind the Cabeça Negro, with the view of suddenly forcing the bridge and the fords and taking the French battering train, or at least bringing off the garrison; but while revolving this great stroke in his mind, an unexpected and terrible disaster broke his measures.

SIEGE OF ALMEIDA.

This fortress, although regularly constructed with six bastions, ravelins, an excellent ditch, and covered way, was extremely defective. The ramparts were too high for the glacis, and from some near ground, on the side of the attack, the bottom of the ditch might be seen. An old square castle, built on a mound in the centre of the town, contained three bomb proofs, the doors of which were not secure; but with the exception of some damp casements in one bastion, there was no other magazine for the powder. Colonel Cox was governor, and his garrison Colonel Cox’s Narrative.composed of one regular and two militia regiments, a body of artillery and a squadron of cavalry, amounted to about four thousand men.

On the 18th, the trenches were begun under cover of a false attack, and in the morning of the 26th (the second parallel being commenced) sixty-five pieces of artillery mounted in ten batteries opened at once. Many houses were soon in flames and the garrison was unable to extinguish them; the counter fire was, however, briskly maintained, little military damage was sustained, and towards evening the cannonade slackened on both sides; but just after dark the ground suddenly trembled, the castle bursting into a thousand pieces, gave vent to a column of smoke and fire, and with a prodigious noise the whole town sunk into a shapeless ruin! Treason or accident had caused the magazines to explode, and the devastation was incredible. The ramparts were breached, the greatest part of the guns thrown into the ditch, five hundred people were struck dead on the instant, and only six houses left standing; the stones thrown out hurt forty of the besiegers in the trenches, and the surviving garrison, aghast at the horrid commotion, disregarded all exhortations to rally. Fearing that the enemy would take the opportunity to storm the ramparts, the governor beat to arms, and, running to the walls with the help of an artillery officer, fired off the few guns that remained; but the French shells fell thickly all the night, and in the morning of the 27th, two officers appeared at the gates, with a letter from Massena, offering terms.

Cox, sensible that further resistance was impossible, still hoped that the army would make a movement to relieve him, if he could impose upon the enemy for two or three days; and he was in act of refusing the prince of Esling’s offer, when a mutiny, headed openly by the lieutenant-governor, one Bernardo Costa, and secretly by José Bareiros, the chief of artillery, who had been for some time in secret correspondence with the French, obliged him to yield. The remainder of the native officers disturbed by fear, or swayed by the influence of those two, were more willing to follow than to oppose their dishonourable proceedings, and Costa expressed his resolution to hoist the white flag. The governor seeing no remedy by force, endeavoured to procrastinate, and, being ignorant of Bareiros’ treason, sent him to the enemy with counter propositions. Bareiros immediately informed Massena of the true state of garrison, and never returned; and the final result was a surrender upon agreement that the militia should retire to their homes, and the regulars remain prisoners of war.

While the treaty was pending and even after the signature of the articles, in the night of the 27th, the French bombarded the place. This act, unjustifiable and strange, because Massena’s aide-de-camp, colonel Pelet, was actually within the walls when the firing commenced, was excused, on the ground of an error in the transmission of orders; Justification of Colonel W. Cox.it, however, lasted during the whole night, and Cox also asserts that the terms of the capitulation with respect to the militia were violated. Pelet indignantly denies this, affirming that when the garrison Note by Gen. Pelet. Appendix to Vol. XII. Victoires et Conquestes des Français.still amounting to three thousand men perceived the marquis d’Alorna amongst the French generals, the greatest part immediately demanded service, and formed a brigade under general Pamplona. Yet, so easily are men’s minds moved by present circumstances, that the greater number deserted again, when they afterwards saw the allied armies.

Bareiros, having joined the enemy, escaped punishment, but De Costa, being tried, was afterwards shot as a traitor, by the orders of marshal Beresford. His cowardice and mutiny merited this chastisement, yet the principal evidence against him was an explanatory letter, written to lord Liverpool, by Cox, while a prisoner at Verdun.

The explosion, the disappearance of the steeple, and cessation of fire, proclaimed the misfortune of Almeida in the allied camp; but the surrender was first ascertained by lord Wellington on the 29th, when, with a telescope, he observed many French officers on the glacis of the place. The army then withdrew to its former position behind the Mondego; and while these things were passing on the Coa, the powder-magazine in Albuquerque, being struck with lightning, also exploded and killed four hundred men; and, on the 1st of September, general Reynier, after several demonstrations towards Castello Branco, in one of which he lost a squadron of horse, suddenly reached Sabugal. The British piquets on the Pinhel were attacked the following day by the horsemen of the sixth corps, the enemy’s plans seemed to be ripe for execution; and lord Wellington transferring his quarters to Govea, withdrew his infantry behind Celerico, and fixed his cavalry at that place with posts of observation at Guarda and at Trancoso. Reynier, however, suddenly returned to Zarza Mayor, and, throwing a bridge over the Tagus at Alcantara, again involved the French projects in obscurity.

Massena experienced considerable difficulty in feeding his forces, and he seemed at first, either disinclined to commence the invasion or undecided as to the mode. Two months had elapsed since the surrender of Ciudad Rodrigo, Almeida had only resisted for ten days, the French army was still behind the Coa, and it would seem, by an intercepted letter, dictated by Napoleon, in September, that he expected further inaction: “Lord Wellington,” he observed to Massena, “has only eighteen thousand men, Hill has only six thousand; and it would be ridiculous to suppose that twenty-five thousand English can balance sixty thousand French, if the latter do not trifle, but fall boldly on after having well observed where the blow may be given. You have twelve thousand cavalry, and four times as much artillery as is necessary for Portugal. Leave six thousand cavalry and a proportion of guns between Ciudad Rodrigo, Alcantara, and Salamanca, and with the rest commence operations. The emperor is too distant, and the positions of the enemy change too often, to direct how you should attack; but it is certain that the utmost force the English can muster, including the troops at Cadiz, will be twenty-eight thousand men.”

This letter was accurate as to the numbers of the English army, but Napoleon was ignorant how strongly lord Wellington was thrusting Portugal forward in the press.

Massena had commenced the invasion before these instructions reached him; but to understand his operations it is essential to have a clear idea of the country in which they were conducted. The advanced positions of the allies extended from Almeida over the Sierra de Estrella, by Guarda to Fundao, Sarzedas, and Castello Branco: no enemy could penetrate that line unless by force, and a serious attack on any one point was to be the signal for a gradual retreat of the whole, in concentric directions towards the Lines. But, if Guarda were evacuated, the enemy while menacing Celerico, could move either by Belmonte or Covilhao and separate general Hill from lord Wellington, the distance between those generals being twice as great as the enemy’s perpendicular line of march would be.

To balance this disadvantage, the road from Covilhao was broken up, a Portuguese brigade placed in Fundao, and general Leith’s corps was stationed at Thomar, between two entrenched positions, which formed the second temporary line of resistance. The first of those positions was behind the Zezere, extending from the Barca de Codies to the confluence of that river with the Tagus. The second behind the Alva, a strong and swift stream descending from the Estrella and falling into the Mondego some miles above Coimbra. Both were strong, the rivers deep and difficult of access, and the Sierra de Murcella closely hugs the left bank of the Alva.

Hill’s line of retreat from Sarzedas to the Zezere, has been already noticed, and from that river to the Alva, there was a military road constructed through the mountains to Espinhal. But the country from Celerico to the Murcella, a distance of about sixty miles, is one long defile, lying between the Sierra Estrella and the Mondego. The ridge upon which Celerico stands, being a shoot from the Estrella, and encircled by a sweep of the Mondego, closes this defile in front. In like manner the Sierra Murcella, covered by the Alva river, closes it in the rear, and the intermediate parts are but a succession of smaller streams and lower ridges. The principal road was repaired and joined to the road of Espinhal, and a branch was also carried across the Mondego to Coimbra. Thus an internal communication was established for the junction of all the corps. Nevertheless, between Celerico and the Alva, the country was not permanently tenable, because, from Guarda and Covilhao, there were roads over the Estrella to Gouvea, Cea, and Gallices, towns in rear of Celerico; and the enemy could also turn the whole tract by moving through Trancoso and Viseu, and so down the right bank of the Mondego to Coimbra.

But lord Wellington keeping the head of his army one march behind Celerico, in observation of the routes over the Estrella, and his rear close to the Alva, was master of his retreat; and as the Mondego was fordable in summer and bridged at several points, he could pass it by a flank movement in a few hours. Now the right bank was also one great defile, lying between the river and the Sierra de Alcoba or Caramula. This mountain stretching with some breaks from the Douro to Coimbra, separates the valley of the Mondego from the coast line, and in approaching Coimbra sends out a lofty transverse shoot, called the Sierra de Busaco, exactly in a line with the Sierra de Murcella, and barring the way on the right bank of the Mondego in the same manner that the latter Sierra bars it on the left bank. Moreover this route to Coimbra was the worst in Portugal, and crossed by several deep tributaries of the Mondego, the most considerable of which were the Criz and Dao. The Vouga, however, opened a passage through the Alcoba near Viseu, and that way the French could gain the great road from Oporto, and so continue their movement upon Coimbra.

Such being the ground on both sides of the Mondego, the weakest point was obviously towards the Estrella, and lord Wellington kept the mass of his forces there. But Massena was ill-acquainted with the military features, and absolutely ignorant of the lines of Torres Vedras. Indeed, so circumspectly had those works been carried on, that only vague rumours of their existence reached the bulk of the English army; and many British officers imagined that the campaign was only to cloak the general’s intention of embarking when he reached Lisbon. In England the opposition asserted that he would do so: the Portuguese dreaded it; the French army universally believed it; and the British minsters seem to have entertained the same opinion; for at this time an officer of engineers arrived at Lisbon, whose instructions, received personally from lord Liverpool, were unknown to lord Wellington, and commenced thus:—“As it is probable that the army will embark in September.”

CHAPTER VI.

THIRD INVASION OF PORTUGAL.

Massena’s command, extended from the banks of the Tagus to the Bay of Biscay, from Almeida to Burgos, and the number of his troops present under arms exceeded one hundred and ten thousand men. From these must be deducted thirteen thousand in the Asturias and province of Santander, four thousand in the government of Valladolid, eight thousand under Serras at Zamora and Benevente, and lastly, the reserve of Bayonne under general Drouet, nineteen thousand strong, which, organized as a ninth corps had only entered Spain in August, being replaced at Bayonne by a fresh reserve under general Caffarelli. Thus, the active army of invasion did not much exceed seventy thousand; and as every man, combatant or non-combatant, is borne on the strength of a French army, not more than fifty-five thousand infantry and about eight thousand horsemen were with the eagles. The ninth corps had however orders to follow the traces of the prince of Esling, and the void thus left at Burgos and Valladolid was supplied by sixteen thousand of the young guard.

This arrangement shows how absurdly Napoleon has been called a rash warrior, and one never thinking of retreat. No man ever made bolder marches, but no man ever secured his base with more care. Here he would not suffer any advance to fresh conquests until his line of communication had been strengthened with three additional fortresses,—namely, Astorga, Ciudad, and Almeida; and while he employed sixty-five thousand men in the invasion of Portugal, he kept more than eighty thousand in reserve. Thus, even the total loss of the army destined to make what is technically termed “a point” upon Lisbon, would, as a mere military disaster, have scarcely shaken his hold of Spain.

Massena’s instructions were to convert, Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida, into places of arms for the conquest of Portugal, and to move on both sides of the Tagus against Lisbon in the beginning of September. Either thinking his force too weak to act upon two lines at the same time, or trusting to the co-operation of Soult’s army from Andalusia, he relinquished the Alemtejo, looking only to the northern bank of the Tagus; and hence, as the experience of Junot’s march in 1807, warned him off the Sobreira mountains, his views were confined to the three roads of Belmonte, Celerico, and Viseu.

The strength of the positions about the Alva was known to him, as were also the measures taken to impede a descent from Covilhao to Espinhal; but Alorna, Pamplona, and the other Portuguese in the French camp, with a singular ignorance, Note by General Pelet.asserted that the road by Viseu and Coimbra was easy, and that no important position covered the latter town. Wherefore the French general resolved suddenly to assemble all his forces, distribute thirteen days’ bread to the soldiers, and pour in one solid mass down the right bank of the Mondego, not doubting to reach Coimbra before general Hill could join lord Wellington.

In pursuance of this project the three corps were directed to concentrate on the 16th of September; Reynier’s at Guarda; Ney’s, and the heavy cavalry, at Maçal da Chao, and Junot’s at Pinhel. By this disposition all three roads were alike menaced; and the allies being kept in suspense as to the ultimate object, Massena hoped to gain one march, a great thing, seeing that from Coimbra he was not more than a hundred miles, whereas Hill’s distance from that town was longer. But, to cover the real object with more care, and to keep Hill as long as possible at Sarzedas, the French general caused Guarda to be siezed on the 12th, by a detachment, which withdrew again immediately, as if it were only a continuation of the former feints; and meanwhile Reynier, having first ascertained that Mortier was at Monasterio, threatening Estremadura, suddenly destroyed the boat-bridge at Alcantara, and marched towards Sabugal.

On the 13th the allies re-established their post at Guarda; but on the 15th, it was again driven away by a considerable mass of the enemy, and retired up the side of the Estrella. At the same time the cavalry in front of Celerico was forced back in the centre, and the post at Trancoso chased towards Mongualde on the left. Lord Wellington then felt assured that the invasion was at last in serious progress; and having ascertained, beyond a doubt, that the troops in Guarda were of Reynier’s corps, despatched his final orders for Hill and Leith to concentrate on the Alva.

On the 16th, Reynier descended from Guarda to the plains bordering the Mondego; and being there joined by the sixth corps and Montbrun’s horsemen, the whole passed the river, and, pushing through Celerico, drove back the cavalry posts of the allies to the village of Cortiço; but there the first German hussars turning, overthrew the leading squadrons, and made some prisoners. Near Cortiço, the road branching off to the bridge of Fornos and to Gouvea; a French brigade took the latter to cover the march of the main body which made for Fornos. But this feint was closely watched; for there is a custom, peculiar to the British army, of sending mounted officers, singly to observe the enemy’s motions; and, such is their habit, that they will penetrate through the midst of his cantonments, cross the line of his movement, and hover, just out of musket-shot, for whole days, on the skirts of his columns, until they obtain a clear notion of the numbers and the true direction of the march. Colonel Waters, one of these exploring officers, being close on the left of Reynier’s troops during this day, reported their movements, and in the evening, leading some of the German cavalry behind the enemy, took several prisoners and the baggage of a general.

The French operations were decisive. Lord Wellington directed the first, third, and fourth divisions upon the Alva, withdrew his heavy cavalry from the front, and placed the light division at St. Romao, in the Estrella, to cover the head-quarters, which were transferred, that night, to Cea.

The 17th, the whole of the second and sixth corps were observed to pass the bridge of Fornos, and the advanced guard entered Mongualde; but the eighth corps still kept the road leading towards Oporto, for ten thousand militia of the northern provinces, forming the brigades of Trant, Wilson, and Miller, were collected upon the Douro to harass the enemy’s right flank and rear, and Trant, with about three thousand, was already at Moimenta de Beira, in the defiles leading through the hills to Lamego. The country between the Coa and Coimbra, on both sides of the Mondego, had been before laid waste, the mills were destroyed, the ordenança were in arms, and the helpless population hidden amongst the highest mountains.

On the 18th, the French advanced guard reached the deserted city of Viseu. Pack’s Portuguese brigade immediately passed the Mondego at Fosdao, and took post beyond the Criz; and general Pakenham, with a brigade of the first division, entered Coimbra, to protect it from the enemy’s scouting parties. On the 19th, captain Somers Cocks, a very gallant and zealous officer, commanding the cavalry post which had been driven from Guarda, came down from the Estrella, and following the enemy through Celerico, ascertained that neither sick men nor stores were left behind: hence it was evident that Massena, relinquishing his communications, had thrown his cavalry, infantry, artillery, parcs, baggage and hospital waggons, in one mass, upon the worst road in Portugal. The allies were now in motion also to cross the Mondego, when a false report, that the enemy was again on the left bank, arrested the general movement. The next day, however, the third, fourth, and light divisions, and the British cavalry passed the river at Pena Cova, Olivarez, and other places, and were distributed; the light division at Mortagao supporting Pack; the third and fourth in the villages between the Sierra de Busaco and Mortagao; and the horse on a plain in front of the latter place, connecting the light division with Pack’s brigade.

But the eighth corps still pointed towards the valley of the Vouga; and it was doubtful whether Massena would not that way gain the main road from Oporto to Coimbra; wherefore general Spencer, with the first division, marched upon Milheada, and Trant was directed to join him by a march through San Pedro de Sul to Sardao. Meanwhile Leith arrived on the Alva, and general Hill was only one march behind; for having discovered Reynier’s movements on the 12th, and, at the same time, getting intelligence that all the French boats on the Tagus had been destroyed, he, with a ready decision, anticipating lord Wellington’s orders, directed his artillery by Thomar, and putting his troops in motion that evening, reached Espisnal on the 20th, and was there joined by general Lecor, who, with equal vigour and judgement, had brought the Portuguese brigade, by long marches, from Fundao. On the 21st, Hill arrived on the Alva, and pushed his cavalry in observation beyond that river. Thus the two corps of the allied army were united on the same day that the main body of the enemy entered Viseu; and, although the French horsemen were on the Criz, the bridges had been destroyed by Pack; and the project of surprising Coimbra was baffled.

Neither had Massena failed to experience other evil consequences from his false movement. He had been obliged to repair the road from day to day for his artillery; and it was still twenty miles from Viseu on the 19th. Trant, aware of this, formed the hardy project of destroying it; and quitting Moimenta de Beira in the night, with a squadron of cavalry, two thousand militia, and five guns, on the 20th, surprised a patrole of ten men, from whom he learnt that the convoy was at hand, and that Montbrun’s cavalry was close in the rear. The defiles were, however, narrow, and, Trant charging the head of the escort, took a hundred prisoners and some baggage. The convoy then fell back, and the militia followed; the ways being so narrow that Montbrun could never come up to the front. At this time, a resolute attack would have thrown all into confusion, but the militia were unmanageable; and the enemy, having at last rallied a few men, and repulsed the Portuguese cavalry, with a loss of twelve troopers, the whole got into disorder, and Trant, seeing nothing more was to be effected, returned to Moimenta de Beira, and from thence marched to Lamego with his prisoners. The French, ignorant of the number and quality of their assailants, still fell back, and did not finally reach Viseu until the 23d; by which, Massena lost two most important days.

While these events were passing in the valley of Mondego, a small expedition from Cadiz again landed at Moguer, to aid Copons in collecting provisions on the Tinto. It was, however, quickly obliged to re-embark; and Copons was defeated by general Remond, with the loss of three hundred men on the 15th. Meanwhile, Romana attacked the French posts near Monasterio, pushing his cavalry towards Seville. Soult sent the fifth corps against him, and he retired; but was beaten at Los Santos on the same day that Copons had been defeated on the Tinto. The pursuit was continued to Fuente del Maestre; and the whole army was like to disperse in flight, when Madden’s Portuguese cavalry came up, and, charging the pursuers with signal gallantry, overthrew the leading squadrons, recovered some prisoners, and gained time for the Spaniards to rally. Nevertheless, the French entered Zafra, and Romana retreated, by Almendralejo and Merida to Montijo, on the 18th, throwing a garrison into Olivenza, and three battalions into Badajos. Being, however, sensible that the latter place was in no condition to resist a serious attack, he directed the Junta to repair to Valencia d’Alcantara, and took refuge himself at Elvas.

Lord Wellington’s anticipations were thus realized and the Alemtejo laid open. Fortunately for the allies, Sebastiani was at this moment near Carthagena in pursuit of the Murcian army, and a fresh insurrection breaking out in the mountains of Grenada the castles of Motril and Almunecar were taken; Copons also advanced to the Tinto, and all these calls upon Soult taking place at one time, he was unable to bring quite twelve thousand men to Zafra; a number inadequate to the invasion of the Alemtejo, the more especially that several regiments withdrawn from Cadiz, and others coming from England had reached Lisbon about this period, and formed a reserve for the allies, of more than five thousand British troops. Wherefore the French returned to Ronquillo, the Spaniards again advanced to Xeres de los Cavalleros, and Araceña, and this dangerous crisis glided gently away. But, to understand this, it is necessary to shew how encreasing political embarrassments had thwarted the original plan of the English general.

The first vexatious interference of the Souza faction had been checked, but the loss of Almeida furnished a favourable opportunity to renew their clamorous Appendix, [No. II.]hostility to the military proceedings. Falsely asserting, that the provisions of that fortress had been carried away by the English commissaries; and as falsely pretending that lord Wellington had promised to raise the siege, this party hypocritically assumed, that his expressions of sorrow for its fall were indications of an intention to remove by a splendid victory the public despondency. They vehemently insisted, also, on a defence of the frontier, inveighed against the destruction of the mills, and endeavoured Mr. Stuart’s Papers. MSS.to force their own friends of the fidalgo faction even on to the staff of marshal Beresford, that they might the more readily embarrass the operations. Meanwhile, neglecting or delaying the measures agreed upon for laying waste the country, they protected the minor authorities when disobedient, refrained from punishing delinquents, and took every occasion to mislead the public mind at the very moment when the enemy commenced the invasion. Nor was there wanting either accident or indiscretion to encrease the growing confusion.

When Almeida fell, an officer of the guards writing to a friend at Oporto, indiscreetly asserted, that Massena was advancing in front with a hundred thousand French, and that eighty thousand more were moving in rear of the allies upon Lisbon. This letter being immediately made public, created such a panic amongst the English merchants, that one and all applied for ships to carry their families and property away, and there arose such a tumult that Trant was obliged to quit his command for the purpose of suppressing the commotion. To dry this source of mischief lord Wellington issued proclamations; and, in the orders of the day, declared that he would not seek to ascertain the author of this and similar letters, being assured that the feelings and sense of the officers would prevent any repetition.

To the regency he addressed himself in a more peremptory and severe manner, reproving them for the false colouring given to his communications, and informing them that he would never “permit public clamour and panic to induce him to change, in the smallest degree, a system and plan of operation which he had adopted after mature consideration, and which daily experience proved to be the only one likely to produce a good end.” But this remonstrance only increased the virulence of his opponents; and such was their conduct, that, before lord Wellington reached Busaco, he was obliged to tell them, “their miserable intrigues must cease or he would advise his own government to withdraw the British army.”

Meanwhile their proceedings had been so mischievously successful, that the country between the Mondego, the Tagus, and the Lines, still contained provisions sufficient for the French during the ensuing winter, and the people were alike unprepared to expect an enemy or to attempt a removal of their property.

Lord Wellington could but choose then, between stopping the invaders on the Mondego, or wasting the country by force as he retreated. But what an act the last! His hopes depended upon the degree of moral strength he was enabled to call forth, and he would have had to retire with a mixed force before a powerful army and an eminent commander, his rear guard engaged, and his advance driving miserable multitudes before it to the capital, where nothing was prepared to save them from famine, but where the violent and powerful faction in the regency was ready to misrepresent every proceeding, and inflame the people’s minds; and this, when the court of Rio Janeiro was discontented, and the English ministers, as I shall have occasion to shew, panic-stricken by the desponding letters of some general officers about the commander-in-chief! It was evidently necessary to fight, although Massena had above sixty thousand veterans, and lord Wellington could only bring about fifty thousand men into line, more than half of which were untried soldiers.

The consequences of such a battle were not, however, to be estimated by the result on the field. The French general might indeed gain every thing by a victory; but, if defeated, his powerful cavalry and the superior composition and experience of his army would prevent it from being very injurious; or a serious check might induce him to turn his attention from Coimbra towards Oporto, contenting himself with the capture of that city, and the reduction of the northern provinces, until more formidable preparations should enable him to renew his first design. Nor could the time thus gained by the allies be as profitably employed in the defence. The French could be reinforced to any amount, whereas the English general’s resources could not be much improved, and it was very doubtful if either England or Portugal would longer endure the war, without some palpable advantage to balance the misery and the expense.

Such was the state of affairs, when the allies passed to the right bank of the Mondego with a view to fight the battle thus forced upon their general. While the French remained concentrated at Viseu, the first division, under Spencer, was held at Milheada in observation of the great road from Oporto; the light division at Mortagao watching the road from Viseu, and the remainder of the army in reserve ready to move to either side. But when the French advanced guard had repaired the bridges over the Criz, and passed that river, lord Wellington recalled the first division, and fixed upon the Sierra de Busaco for his position of battle.

This mountain, about eight miles in length, abuts to the right on the Mondego, and on the left is connected with the Sierra de Caramula by a hilly rugged country, impervious to the march of an army. A road along the crest of Busaco afforded an easy communication, and at Pena Cova, just behind the right hand extremity, a ford in the Mondego permitted the troops to pass in a few hours to the Murcella ridge, behind the Alva. The face of Busaco was steep, rough, and fit for defence. The artillery of the allies fixed on certain points, could play along the front freely, and there was some ground on the summit suitable for a small body of cavalry; but neither guns nor horsemen of the enemy had a fair field, their infantry were to contend with every difficulty, and the approach to the position was also unfavourable to an attacking army.

After passing the Criz, a table-land permitted Massena to march, in a wide order of battle, to Mortagao; but then a succession of ascending ridges led to the Sierra Busaco, which was separated from the last by a chasm, so profound, that the naked eye could hardly distinguish the movement of troops in the bottom, yet in parts so narrow that twelve-pounders could range to the salient points on the opposite side. From Mortagao four roads conducted to Coimbra. The first, unfrequented and narrow, crossed the Caramula to Boyalva, a village situated on the western slope of that sierra, and from thence led to Sardao and Milheada. The other roads, penetrating through the rough ground in front, passed over the Sierra de Busaco; one by a large convent on the right hand of the highest point of the ridge; a second on the left hand of this culminating point, by a village called St. Antonio de Cantara; and a third, which was a branch from the second, followed the Mondego to Pena Cova.

When this formidable position was chosen, some officers expressed their fears that Massena would not assail it. “But, if he does, I shall beat him,” was the reply of the English general, who was well assured that the prince would attack; for his advanced guard was already over the Criz, the second and sixth corps were in mass on the other side of that river, and it was improbable that so celebrated a commander would, at the mere sight of a strong position, make a retrograde movement, change all his dispositions, and adopt a new line of operations by the Vouga, which would be exposed also to the militia under Baccellar. Massena was, indeed, only anxious for a battle, and, being still under the influence of Alorna’s and Pamplona’s false reports, as to the nature of the country in his front, never doubted that the allies would retire before him.

CHAPTER VII.

General Pack, on the 22d, destroyed the bridges over the Criz, and fell back upon the light division; but, the 23d, the enemy re-established the communications, passed the river, and obliged the British horse to quit the plain, and take to the hills behind Mortagao. Three squadrons of light and one regiment of heavy cavalry were retained there by lord Wellington; but the rest he sent over the Sierra de Busaco to the low country about Milheada, whence he recalled Spencer, and at the same time caused the third and fourth divisions to take their ground on the position, the former at St. Antonio de Cantara, the latter at the convent. But the light division falling back only a league, encamped in a pine-wood, where happened one of those extraordinary panics that, in ancient times, were attributed to the influence of a hostile god. No enemy was near, no alarm was given, yet suddenly the troops, as if seized with a phrenzy, started from sleep, and dispersed in every direction; nor was there any possibility of allaying this strange terror, until some persons called out that the enemy’s cavalry were amongst them, when the soldiers mechanically run together in masses, and the illusion was instantly dissipated.

The 24th, the enemy appeared in force, and skirmished with the picquets in front of Montagao, when the light division, again retiring four miles, occupied strong ground, and, in the evening, some of the enemy’s cavalry approaching too close, were charged by a squadron of the fourteenth dragoons, and overthrown, with the loss of twenty or thirty men.

Early on the 25th, Crawfurd moved down from his post, and appeared somewhat disposed to renew the scene at the Coa; for the enemy’s cavalry were gathering in front, and the heads of three infantry columns were plainly descried on the table-land above Mortagao, coming on abreast, and with a most impetuous pace, while heavy clouds of dust, rising and loading the atmosphere for miles behind, showed that the whole French army had passed the Criz, and was in full march to attack. The cavalry skirmishers were already exchanging pistol-shots, when lord Wellington, suddenly arriving, ordered the division to retire, and, taking the personal direction, covered the retreat with the fifty-second and ninety-fifth, the cavalry, and Ross’s troop of horse-artillery. Nor was there a moment to lose: the enemy, with incredible rapidity, brought up both infantry and guns, and fell on so briskly, that all the skill of the general and the readiness of the excellent troops composing the rear guard, could scarcely prevent the division from being dangerously engaged. Howbeit, a series of rapid and beautiful movements, a sharp cannonade, and an hour’s march, brought everything back, in good order, to the great position; but, almost at the same moment, the opposite ridge was crowned by the masses of the sixth corps, and the French batteries opened as the English troops mounted the steep ascent on which the convent was situated. Meanwhile, Reynier, taking the left hand route, along which a Portuguese battalion had retired, arrived at St. Antonio de Cantara, in front of the third division, and before three o’clock, forty thousand French infantry were embattled on the two points, and the sharp musketry of the skirmishers arose from the dark-wooded chasms beneath.

Ney, whose military glance was magical, perceived in an instant that the position, a crested not a table mountain, could not hide any strong reserve, that it was scarcely half occupied, and that great part of the allied troops were moving from one place to another, with that sort of confusion which generally attends the first taking up of unknown ground. He desired to make an early and powerful attack; but the prince of Esling was at Montagao, ten miles in the rear, and an aide-de-camp, despatched to inform him of the state of affairs, after attending two hours for an audience, was (as I have been informed) told that everything must await Massena’s arrival. Thus a most favourable opportunity was lost; for the first division of the allies, although close at hand, was not upon the ridge; Leith’s troops, now called the fifth division, were in the act of passing the Mondego; Hill was still behind the Alva; scarcely twenty-five thousand men were actually in line, and there were great intervals between the divisions.

Appendix, [No. 5.]

Reynier coincided with Ney; and they wrote in concert to Massena, on the 26th, intimating their joint desire to attack. The prince of Esling, however, did not reach the field until twelve o’clock, bringing with him the eighth corps, with which, and the cavalry, he formed a reserve, connecting the sixth and second corps, and then sending out his skirmishers along the whole front, proceeded carefully to examine the position from left to right.

The situation of the allies was now greatly changed. Hill’s corps, having crossed the Mondego, was posted athwart the road leading over the Sierra to Pena Cova; on his left Leith prolonged the line of defence, having the Lusitanian legion in reserve. Picton, with the third division, supported by Champlemond’s Portuguese brigade, was next to Leith, and Spencer, with the first division, occupied the highest part of the ridge, being between Picton and the convent. The fourth division closed the extreme left, covering a path leading to Milheada, where the cavalry held the flat country, one heavy regiment only being kept in reserve on the summit of the sierra. Pack’s brigade, forming an advanced guard to the first division, was posted half way down the descent, and the light division, supported by a German brigade, occupied a piece of ground jutting out nearly half a mile in front of and about two hundred feet lower than the convent, the space between being naturally scooped like the hollow of a wave before it breaks. Along the whole of the front skirmishers were thrown out on the mountain side, and about fifty pieces of artillery were disposed upon the salient points.

Ney was averse to attack after the delay which had taken place, but Massena resolved to attempt carrying the position. Reynier thought that he had only to deal with a rear-guard of the allies, and the prince, whether partaking of this error, or confident in the valour of his army, directed the second and sixth corps to fall on the next day, each to its own front, while the eighth corps, the cavalry, and the artillery remained in reserve. To facilitate the attack the light French troops, dropping by twos and threes into the lowest parts of the valley, endeavoured, in the evening, to steal up the wooded dells and hollows, and to establish themselves unseen close to the picquets of the light division. Some companies of rifle corps and caçadores checked this, but similar attempts made with more or less success at different points of the position, seeming to indicate a night attack, excited all the vigilance of the troops. Yet, were it otherwise, none but veterans, tired of war, could have slept, for the weather was calm and fine, and the dark mountain masses, rising on either side, were crowned with innumerable fires, around which more than a hundred thousand brave men were gathered.

BATTLE OF BUSACO.

Before day-break on the 27th, the French formed five columns of attack; three under Ney, opposite to the convent, and two under Reynier, at St. Antonio de Cantara, these points being about three miles asunder. Reynier’s troops had comparatively easier ground before them, and were in the midst of the picquets and skirmishers of the third division almost as soon as they could be perceived to be in movement. The allies resisted vigorously, and six guns played along the ascent with grape, but in less than half an hour the French were close upon the summit, so swiftly and with such astonishing power and resolution did they scale the mountain, overthrowing every thing that opposed their progress. The right of the third division was forced back; the eighth Portuguese regiment was broken to pieces, and the hostile masses gained the highest part of the crest, just between the third and the fifth divisions. The leading battalions immediately established themselves amongst the crowning rocks, and a confused mass wheeled to the right, intending to sweep the summit of the sierra, but at that moment lord Wellington caused two guns to open with grape upon their flank, while a heavy musketry was still poured into their front, and, in a little time, the forty-fifth and the eighty-eighth regiments charged so furiously that even fresh men could not have withstood them. The French, quite spent with their previous efforts, opened a straggling fire, and both parties, mingling together, went down the mountain side with a mighty clamour and confusion; the dead and dying strewing the way even to the bottom of the valley.

Meanwhile the French who first gained the summit had re-formed their ranks with the right resting upon a precipice overhanging the reverse side of the Sierra, and thus the position was in fact gained, if any reserve had been at hand, for the greatest part of the third division, British and Portuguese, were fully engaged, and a misty cloud capped the summit, so that the enemy, thus ensconced amongst the rocks, could not be seen, except by general Leith. That officer had put his first brigade in motion to his own left as soon as he perceived the vigorous impression made on the third division, and he was now coming on rapidly; yet he had two miles of rugged ground to pass in a narrow column before he could mingle in the fight. Keeping the royals in reserve, he directed the thirty-eighth to turn the right of the French; but the precipice prevented this; and meanwhile colonel Cameron, informed by a staff-officer of the critical state of affairs, formed the ninth regiment in line under a violent fire, and, without returning a single shot, ran in upon and drove the grenadiers from the rocks with irresistible bravery, plying them with a destructive musketry as long as they could be reached, and yet with excellent discipline refraining from pursuit, lest the crest of the position should be again lost, for the mountain was so rugged that it was impossible to judge clearly of the general state of the action. The victory was, however, secure. Hill’s corps edged in towards the scene of action; the second brigade of Leith joined the first, and a great mass of fresh troops was thus concentrated, while Reynier had neither reserves nor guns to restore the fight.

Ney’s attack had as little success. From the abutment of the mountain upon which the light division was stationed, the lowest parts of the valley could be discerned. The ascent was steeper and more difficult than where Reynier had attacked, and Crawfurd, in a happy mood of command, had made masterly dispositions. The table-land between him and the convent was sufficiently scooped to conceal the forty-third and fifty-second regiments, drawn up in line; and a quarter of a mile behind them, but on higher ground and close to the convent, a brigade of German infantry appeared to be the only solid line of resistance on this part of the position. In front of the two British regiments, some rocks, overhanging the descent, furnished natural embrasures, in which the guns of the division were placed, and the whole face of the hill was planted with the skirmishers of the rifle corps and of the two Portuguese caçadores battalions.

While it was yet dark, a straggling musketry was heard in the deep hollows separating the armies; and when the light broke, the three divisions of the sixth corps were observed entering the woods below and throwing forward a profusion of skirmishers; soon afterwards Marchand’s division emerging from the hollow, took the main road, as if to turn the right of the light division, Loison’s made straight up the face of the mountain in front, and the third remained in reserve.

General Simon’s brigade, which led Loison’s attack, ascended with a wonderful alacrity, and though the light troops plied it unceasingly with musketry, and the artillery bullets swept through it from the first to the last section, its order was never disturbed, nor its speed in the least abated. Ross’s guns were worked with incredible quickness, yet their range was palpably contracted every round, and the enemy’s shot came singing up in a sharper key, until the skirmishers, breathless and begrimed with powder, rushed over the edge of the ascent, when the artillery suddenly drew back, and the victorious cries of the French were heard within a few yards of the summit. Crawfurd, who standing alone on one of the rocks, had been intently watching the progress of the attack, then turned, and in a quick shrill tone desired the two regiments in reserve to charge. The next moment a horrid shout startled the French column, and eighteen hundred British bayonets went sparkling over the brow of the hill. Yet so truly brave and hardy were the leaders of the enemy, that each man of the first section raised his musket, and two officers and ten soldiers fell before them. Not a Frenchman had missed his mark! They could do no more! The head of their column was violently overturned and driven upon the rear, both flanks were lapped over by the English wings, and three terrible discharges at five yards’ distance completed the route. In a few minutes a long trail of carcasses and broken arms indicated the line of retreat. The main body of the British stood fast; but several companies followed the pursuit down the mountain, until Ney moving forward his reserve, and opening his guns from the opposite height killed some men, and thus warned the rest to recover their own ground. The German brigade then spread over the hill, and the light division resumed its original position.

Loison shewed no disposition to renew the attack, but Marchand’s people, who had followed the main road, broke into several masses, gained a pine wood half-way up the mountain, and sent a cloud of their skirmishers against the highest part, at the very moment that Simon was defeated. Such however was the difficulty of ascending, that Pack alone held the enemy in check, and half a mile higher up, Spencer shewed a line of the royal guards which forbade any hope of success; and from the salient point of land occupied by the light division, Crawfurd’s artillery took the main body of the French in the wood, in flank. Ney, who was there in person, after sustaining this murderous fire for an hour, relinquished the attack. The desultory fighting of the light troops then ceased, and before two o’clock Crawfurd having assented to a momentary truce, parties of both armies were mixed amicably together searching for the wounded men.

Towards evening, however, a French company having, with signal audacity, seized a village within half-musket shot of the light division, refused to retire; which so incensed Crawfurd that, turning twelve guns on the village, he overwhelmed it with bullets for half an hour. After paying the French captain this distinguished honour, the English general recovering his temper, sent a company of the forty-third down, which cleared the village in a few minutes. Meanwhile an affecting incident, contrasting strongly with the savage character of the preceding events, added to the interest of the day. A poor orphan Portuguese girl, about seventeen years of age, and very handsome, was seen coming down the mountain and driving an ass, loaded with all her property, through the midst of the French army. She had abandoned her dwelling in obedience to the proclamation, and now passed over the field of battle with a childish simplicity, totally unconscious of her perilous situation, and scarcely understanding which were the hostile and which the friendly troops, for no man on either side was so brutal as to molest her.

In this battle of Busaco, the French after astonishing efforts of valour, were repulsed, in the manner to be expected from the strength of the ground, and the goodness of the soldiers opposed to them; and their loss, although prodigiously exaggerated at the time, was great. General Graind’orge and about eight hundred men were slain, generals Foy and Merle wounded, Simon made prisoner, and the sum total may be estimated at four thousand five hundred men, while that of the allies did not exceed thirteen hundred. For on the one side musketry and artillery were brought into full activity, but the French sought to gain the day by resolution and audacity rather than by fire.

Vol. 3, Plate 7.

OPERATIONS on the MONDEGO,
1810.

Published by T. & W. Boone 1830.

After this Massena judged the position of Busaco impregnable, and to turn it by the Mondego impossible, as the allies could pass that river quicker than himself. But a peasant informed him of the road leading from Mortagao over the Caramula to Boyalva, and he resolved to turn lord Wellington’s left. To cover this movement the skirmishing was renewed with such vigour on the 28th, that a general battle was for some time expected. Yet an ostentatious display of men, the disappearance of baggage, and the throwing up of entrenchments on the hill covering the roads to Mortagao plainly indicated some other design. Howbeit, it was not until evening when the enemy’s masses in front being sensibly diminished, and his cavalry descried winding over the distant mountains, that the project became quite apparent. Hill then crossed the Mondego, and retired by Espinal upon Thomar, while the centre and left of the army defiled in the night by the other roads upon Milheada. In this manner Busaco was evacuated before the 29th, the guns followed the convent road, and the light division furnished the rear-guard until they passed Fornos, when the open country enabled the cavalry to relieve them.

Massena’s scouts reached Boyalva in the evening of the 28th, and it has been erroneously asserted, that Trant’s absence from Sardao alone enabled the French general to execute his design. Trant was however at Sardao, four miles from Boyalva before one o’clock on the 28th; but having, through a mistake of Baccellar’s, marched from Lamego, by the circuitous route of Oporto, instead of the direct road through San Pedro do Sul, he lost men from fatigue and desertion, and could bring only fifteen hundred militia into line; hence his absence or presence could have produced no effect whatever, even though he had, as lord Wellington intended, been at Boyalva itself.

Accordingly, the French cavalry, pushing between him and the British horse, on the 29th cut off one of his patroles, and the next morning drove him, with the loss of twenty men, behind the Vouga. When Massena’s main body had cleared the defiles of Boyalva, it marched upon Coimbra, and the allies, crossing the Mondego at that city, commenced the passage of the defiles leading upon Condexa and Pombal. The commissariat stores, which had been previously removed from Raiva de Pena Cova to Figueras, were embarked at Peniché; the light division and the cavalry remained on the right bank of the river; and Baccellar was directed to bring down all the militia of the northern provinces upon the Vouga.

But, notwithstanding the proclamations and the urgent, and even menacing remonstrances of the English general, the Portuguese Regency had not wasted the country behind the Mondego. During the few days that the enemy was stopped at Busaco, only the richest inhabitants had quitted Coimbra; when the allied army retreated, that city was still populous; and when the approach of the enemy left no choice but to fly or to risk the punishment of death and infamy announced in the proclamation, so direful a scene of distress ensued that the most hardened of men could not behold it without emotion. Mothers, with children of all ages; the sick, the old, the bedridden, and even lunatics, went or were carried forth; the most part, with little hope and less help, to journey for days in company with contending armies. Fortunately for this unhappy multitude, the weather was fine, and the roads firm, or the greatest number must have perished in the most deplorable manner. And, notwithstanding all this misery, the object was not gained: the people fled, but the provisions were left, and the mills were but partially and imperfectly ruined.

On the 1st of October, the outposts were attacked, and driven from the hills bounding the plain of Coimbra to the north. The French, on entering this plain, suffered some loss from a cannonade, and the British cavalry were drawn up in line, but with no serious intention of fighting, and were soon after withdrawn across the Mondego, yet somewhat unskilfully; for the French following briskly, cut down some men even in the middle of the river, and were only prevented from forcing the passage by a strong skirmish, in which fifty or sixty men fell.

This scrambling affair obliged the light division to march hastily through the city, to gain the defiles of Condeixa, which commence at the end of the bridge; and all the inhabitants who had not before quitted the place rushed out, each with what could be caught up in the hand, and driving before them a number of animals loaded with sick people or children. At the entrance to the bridge, the press was so great that the troops halted for a few moments, just under the prison; the jailor had fled with the keys, the prisoners, crowding to the windows, were endeavouring to tear down the bars with their hands, and even with their teeth, and bellowing in the most frantic manner, while the bitter lamentations of the multitude increased, and the pistol-shots of the cavalry, engaged at the ford below, were distinctly heard.

Captain William Campbell, an officer of Crawfurd’s staff, burst the prison-doors, and released the wretched inmates, while the troops forced their way over the bridge; yet, at the other end, the up-hill road, passing between high rocks, was so crowded that no effort, even of the artillery, could make way. A troop of French dragoons crossed a ford, and hovering close upon the flank, increased the confusion; and a single regiment of foot would have sufficed to destroy the division, wedged in, as it was, in a hollow way, and totally incapable of advancing, retreating, or breaking out on either side. At last, some of the infantry opened a passage on the right flank, and, by great exertions, the road was cleared for the guns; but it was not until after dusk that the division reached Condeixa, although the distance was less than eight miles. Head-quarters were that night at Redinha, and the next day at Leiria.

Hitherto the marches had been easy, the weather fine, and provisions abundant; nevertheless, the usual disorders of a retreat had already commenced. In Coimbra, a quantity of harness and intrenching tools were scattered in the streets; at Leiria, the magazines were plundered by the troops and camp-followers; and, at Condeixa, a magazine of tents, shoes, spirits, and salt meat was destroyed, or abandoned to the enemy: and, while the streets were flowing, ancle deep, with rum, the light division and Pack’s Portuguese brigade, at the distance of a quarter of a mile, were obliged to slaughter their own bullocks, and received only half rations of liquor.

Lord Wellington arrested this growing disorder with a strong hand. Three men, taken in the fact at Leiria, were hanged on the spot; and some regiments, whose discipline was more tainted than others, were forbidden to enter a village. This vigorous exercise of command, aided by the fine weather and the enemy’s inactivity, restored order amongst the allies; while Massena’s conduct, the reverse of the English general’s, introduced the confusion of a retreat in the pursuing army. In Coimbra, the French general permitted waste; and, in a few days, resources were dissipated that, under good arrangements, would have supplied his troops for two months: and, during this licentious delay, the advantage gained by his dangerous flank march to Boyalva was lost.

OBSERVATIONS.

1º. “Attack vigorously, after having observed well where to strike.” This simple, but profound expression in Napoleon’s letter of service, forms the test by which the prince of Esling’s operations should be judged.

2º. The design of turning the strong ground behind Celerico, by the route of Viseu, required close and rapid movements; yet the French general did not quit Viseu, to march against Coimbra, until the tenth day after passing the Pinhel. This was not a “a vigorous attack.”

3º. Massena should have brought the allies to action in a forward position; and he might have done so either when Almeida fell, or before that event, because the complement of mules for the service of the army not being then full, the commissariat was dependent upon the country carts; and when the first retrograde movement took place from Alverca, the drivers fled with their animals, producing infinite confusion in the rear. The commissary-general Kennedy contrived, indeed, to procure fifteen hundred additional mules; but, intermediately, a brisk advance of the enemy would have forced the English general to fight, or retire more hastily than would have beseemed his reputation, or suited his political position.

4º. If the prince of Esling had not been misled by Alorna and Pamplona, and the more readily that the estates of the latter were situated about Coimbra, he would have judged that the line his adversary had studied for eight months, and now so carefully and jealously guarded, was more likely to afford advantages, than the circuitous route by Viseu, which was comparatively neglected. The French general, ill acquainted with the scene of action, but having the stronger and more moveable army, should have followed closely.

A rapid pursuit, through Celerico, would have brought the French army on to the Alva before Hill or even Leith could have joined lord Wellington. The latter must then have fought with half his own army, or he must have retreated to the Lines. If he offered battle, his position could be turned either by the right or left; on the left by the slopes of the Estrella, on the right by crossing the Mondego, for Busaco was too extensive to be occupied before Hill and Leith arrived. Now, the road by Viseu being the longest and least practicable, demanded great diligence to compensate for the difficulties of the way, and to gain Coimbra and force the allies to a battle before Hill arrived, were objects more readily to be attained by the left bank of the Mondego. The point where to strike was therefore not “well considered,” and it is clear that Massena did not rightly estimate the greatness of his enterprise.

5º. When the rocks of Busaco glittering with bayonets first rose on the prince of Esling’s view, two fresh questions were to be solved. Was he to attack or to turn that formidable post? Or, availing himself of his numerical strength and central situation, was he to keep the allies in check, seize Oporto, and neglect Lisbon until better combinations could be made? The last question has been already discussed; but, contrary to the general opinion, the attack upon Busaco appears to me faulty in the execution rather than in the conception; and the march by which that position was finally turned, a violation of the soundest principles of war. In a purely military view, the English general may be censured for not punishing his adversary’s rashness.

With respect to the attack, sixty-five thousand French veterans had no reason to believe that fifty thousand mixed and inexperienced troops, distributed on a mountain more than eight miles long, were impregnably posted. It would have been no overweening presumption in the French general to expect, that three corps well disposed, supported by a numerous artillery, and led on the first day, (as Ney desired,) might carry some part of the position, and it is an error, also, to suppose that guns could not have been used: the light division were constantly within range, and thirty pieces of artillery employed on that point would have wonderfully aided the attack by the sixth corps. But when a general in chief remains ten miles from a field of battle, gives his adversary two days to settle in a position, makes his attacks without connection, and without artillery, and brings forward no reserves, success is impossible even with the valiant soldiers Massena commanded.

6º. “An army should always be in condition to fight.”

“A general should never abandon one line of communication without establishing another.”

“Flank marches within reach of an enemy are rash and injudicious.”

These maxims of the greatest of all generals have been illustrated by many examples; Senef, Kollin, Rosbach, the valley of the Brenta, Salamanca, attest their value. Now, Massena violated all three, by his march to Boyalva, and some peculiar circumstances, or desperate crisis of affairs should be shewn, to warrant such a departure from general principles. Sir Joshua Reynolds, treating of another art says, “genius begins where rules end.” But here genius was dormant, and rules disregarded. Massena was not driven to a desperate game. The conquest of Oporto was open to him, or a march by Viseu upon the Vouga, which, though demanding time, was safe; while in that by Boyalva, he threw his whole army into a single and narrow defile, within ten miles of an enemy in position; and that also (as I have been informed by an officer of marshal Ney’s staff) with much disorder: the baggage and commissariat, the wounded and sick, the artillery, cavalry, and infantry, mixed together; discord raging amongst the generals, confusion amongst the soldiers, and in the night season when every difficulty is doubled. His “army was not, then, in a condition to fight.” He was making “a flank march within reach of an enemy in position,” and he was “abandoning his line of communication without having established another.”

7º. Lord Wellington was within four hours march of either end of the defile, through which the French army was moving. He might have sent the first division and the cavalry (forming with Portuguese regular troops, and Trant’s militia, a mass of twelve or fourteen thousand men) to Sardao, to head the French in the defile; while the second, third, fourth, fifth, and light divisions, advancing by Martagao, assailed their rear. That he did not do so, is to be attributed to his political position. War is full of mischances, and the loss of a single brigade might have caused the English government to abandon the contest altogether. Nevertheless, his retreat was more critically dangerous than such an attack would have been, and in a military view the battle of Busaco should not have been fought: it was extraneous to his original plan, it was forced upon him by events, and was in fine a political battle.

8º. Massena’s march, being unopposed, was successful. The allied army could not cope with him in the open country between Busaco and the sea, where his cavalry would have had a fair field; hence lord Wellington, reverting to his original plan, retreated by the Coimbra and Espinhal roads. But the prince of Esling was at Avelans de Cima and Milheada on the 30th, the allied cavalry and the light division being still on the right bank of the Mondego, which was fordable in many places below Coimbra. Had the French general, directing his march through Tentugal, crossed at those fords, and pushed rapidly on to Leiria, by the route sir Arthur Wellesley followed, in 1808, against Junot, the communication with Lisbon would have been cut: terror and confusion would then have raged in the capital, the patriarch’s faction would have triumphed, and a dangerous battle must have been risked before the Lines could be reached.

9º. When the allies had gained Leiria, and secured their line of retreat, the fate of Portugal was still in the French general’s hands. If he had established a fresh base at Coimbra, employed the ninth corps to seize Oporto, secured his line of communication with that city and with Almeida by fortified posts, and afterwards, extending his position by the left, attacked Abrantes, and given his hand to a corps sent by Soult from the south; not only would the campaign have been so far a successful one, but in no other manner could he have so effectually frustrated his adversary’s political and military projects. Lord Wellington dreaded such a proceeding, and hailed the renewed advance of the French army, as the rising of a heavy cloud discovering a clear sky in the horizon beneath.

Appendix, [No. VII.] Sect. 2.

Even at Coimbra, the prince was unacquainted with the existence of the lines, and believed that, beyond Santarem, the country was open for the usage of all arms. It is strange that, when Junot, Loison, Foy, and many other officers, who had served in Portugal, were present, better information was not obtained; but every part of this campaign illustrated Massena’s character, as drawn by Napoleon:—“Brave, decided, and intrepid; dull in conversation, but in danger acquiring clearness and force of thought; ambitious, filled with self-love, neglectful of discipline, regardless of good administration, and, consequently, disliked by the troops; his dispositions for battle were bad, but his temper was pertinacious to the last degree, and he was never discouraged!”

10º. It appears that the French reached Coimbra at the moment when the fourteen days’ bread, carried by the soldiers, was exhausted, and it is worthy of consideration that French soldiers are accustomed to carry so much bread. Other nations, especially the English, would not husband it; yet it was a practice of the ancient Romans, and it ought to be the practice of all armies. It requires a long previous discipline and well-confirmed military habits; but, without it, men are only half efficient, especially for offensive warfare. The secret of making perfect soldiers is only to be found in national customs and institutions; men should come to the ranks fitted, by previous habits, for military service, instead of being stretched as it were upon the bed of Procrustes, by a discipline which has no resource but fear.

CHAPTER VIII.

From the 1st of October until the 3d, the French army was in disorder. The 4th, Massena resumed his march by Condeixa and Leiria, leaving his sick and wounded, with a slender guard, (in all about four thousand seven hundred men,) at Coimbra. His hospital was established at the convent of Santa Clara, on the left bank of the river, and all the inhabitants, who were averse or unable to reach the Lines, came down from their hiding-places in the mountains. But scarcely had the prince left the city, when Trant, Miller, and Wilson, with nearly ten thousand militia, closed upon his rear, occupying the sierras on both sides of the Mondego, and cutting off all communication with Almeida.

On the evening of the 4th, the French drove the English picquets from Pombal, and, the next morning, pushed so suddenly upon Leiria, as to create some confusion; but the road being crossed at right angles, by a succession of parallel ravines, captain Somers Cocks took advantage of one, to charge the head of the enemy, and checked him until general Anson’s brigade of cavalry, and captain Bull’s troop of artillery, arrived to his support. The French then, forming three columns, endeavoured to bear down the British with the centre, while the others turned the flanks. The ravines were, however, difficult to pass; Bull’s artillery played well into the principal body, and Anson, charging as it emerged from every defile, slew a great number. The British lost three officers and about fifty men, the enemy considerably more, and, in five hours, he did not gain as many miles of ground, although he had thirty-six squadrons opposed to ten. During this delay, Leiria was cleared, and the army retreated; the right by Thomar and Santarem, the centre by Batalha and Rio Mayor, the left by Alcobaça and Obidos, and at the same time a native force, under colonel Blunt, was thrown into Peniché. Massena followed, in one column, by the way of Rio Mayor; but, meanwhile, an exploit, as daring and hardy as any performed by a Partizan officer during the war, convicted him of bad generalship, and shook his plan of invasion to its base.

SURPRISE OF COIMBRA.

Colonel Trant reached Milheada, intending to form a junction with Wilson and Miller; but these last were still distant, and, believing that his own arrival was unknown at Coimbra, he resolved, alone to attack the French in that city. Having surprised a small post at Fornos early in the morning of the 7th, he sent his cavalry, at full gallop, through the streets of Coimbra, with orders to pass the bridge, and cut off all communication with the French army, of whose progress he was ignorant. Meanwhile, his infantry penetrated at different points into the principal parts of the town, and the enemy, astounded, made little or no resistance. The convent of Santa Clara surrendered at discretion, and thus, on the third day after the prince of Esling had quitted the Mondego, his depôts and hospitals, and nearly five thousand prisoners wounded and unwounded, amongst which there was a company of the marines of the imperial guards, fell into the hands of a small militia force! The next day, Miller and Wilson, arriving, spread their men on all the lines of communication, and picked up above three hundred more prisoners, while Trant conducted his to Oporto.

During the first confusion, the Portuguese committed some violence on the prisoners; and the Abbé du Pradt and other French writers have not hesitated to accuse Trant of disgracing his country and his uniform by encouraging this conduct; whereas, his exertions repressed it; and if the fact, that not more than ten men lost their lives under such critical circumstances, was not sufficient Appendix, [No. VIII.]refutation, the falsehood is placed beyond dispute in a letter of thanks, written to colonel Trant, by the French officers who fell into his hands.

This disaster made no change in Massena’s dispositions. He continued his march, and, on the 8th, his advanced guard drove the cavalry picquets out of Rio Mayor. General Slade, who commanded, took no heed of this; and the enemy, pushing rapidly on, was like to have taken the brigade of artillery in Alcoentre; a good deal of confusion ensued, but the royals and the sixteenth drove the French out of the town, sabred many, and made twelve prisoners. The next day the skirmish was renewed with various turns of fortune, but, finally, the British retreated.

Meanwhile the allied army was entering the Lines. The first, fourth, and fifth divisions in the centre by Sobral, the third division on the left by Torres Vedras, and Hill’s corps on the right by Alhandra. The light division and Pack’s brigade should also have entered by Aruda. But Crawfurd, who had reached Alemquer on the 9th, was still there, at three o’clock, p. m. on the 10th. The weather being stormy, the men were placed under cover, and no indication of marching was given by the general. The cavalry had already filed into the Lines; yet no guards were posted, no patroles sent forward, nor any precaution taken against surprise, although the town, situated in a deep ravine, was peculiarly favourable for such an attempt.

Some officers, uneasy at this state of affairs, anxiously watched the height in front, and, about four o’clock, observed some French dragoons on the summit, which was within cannon shot. The alarm was given, and the regiments got under arms, but the posts of assembly had been marked on an open space, very much exposed, and from whence the road led through an ancient gateway to the top of the mountain behind. The enemy’s numbers increased every moment, and they endeavoured to create a belief that their artillery was come up. This feint was easily seen through, but the general desired the regiments to break and re-form on the other side of the archway, out of gun range, and in a moment all was disorder. The baggage animals were still loading, the streets were crowded with the followers of the division, and the whole in one confused mass rushed or were driven headlong to the archway. Several were crushed, and with worse troops, a general panic must have ensued; but the greatest number of the soldiers, ashamed of the order, stood firm in their ranks until the first confusion had abated.

Nevertheless the mischief was sufficiently great, and the enemy’s infantry descending the heights, endeavoured some to turn the town on the left, while others pushed directly through the streets in pursuit, and thus with his front in disorder, and his rear skirmishing, Crawfurd commenced a retreat. The weather was, however, so boisterous that the fire soon ceased, and a few men wounded and the loss of some baggage was all the hurt sustained; yet so uncertain is every thing in war, that this affair had like to have produced the most terrible results in another quarter.

The division, instead of marching by Caregada and Cadafaes, followed the route of Sobral, and was obliged in the night to make a flank march of several miles along the foot of the Lines to gain Aruda, which was meanwhile left open to the enemy. Hence, the cavalry patroles from Villa Franca, meeting some stragglers and followers of the camp near Caregada, were by them told that the light division was cut off, a report confirmed in some measure by the unguarded state of Aruda, and by the presence of the enemy’s scouts on that side. This information alarmed general Hill for the safety of the second line, and the more so that the weakest part was in the vicinity of Aruda; he made a retrograde movement towards Alverca with a view to watch the valley of Calandrix, or to gain the pass of Bucellas according to circumstances. Hence, when the enemy was in full march against the Lines, the front from Alhandra to the forts above Sobral, a distance of eight or nine miles, was quite disgarnished of troops. The true state of affairs was, however, quickly ascertained, and Hill regained Alhandra before day-light on the 11th.

During this time the second and the eighth corps passed Alemquer, the former marching upon Villa Franca, the latter upon Sobral. Reynier’s movements were languid, he did not discover the unguarded state of Alhandra, and his picquets did not enter Villa Franca until the next day; but general Clausel, one of the most distinguished officers in the French army, coming upon Sobral in the dusk with the head of the eighth corps dislodged the troops of the first division, occupied the ridge on which the town is built, and in the night threw up some entrenchments close under the centre of the allies position.

It is however time to give a more detailed description of those celebrated works, improperly called

THE LINES OF TORRES VEDRAS.

Memoranda of the lines, &c. by Col. J. T. Jones, Royal Engineers, printed for private circulation.

It has been already said, that they consisted of three distinct ranges of defence.

The first, extending from Alhandra on the Tagus to the mouth of the Zizandre on the sea-coast, was, following the inflections of the hills, twenty-nine miles long.

The second, traced at a distance varying from six to ten miles in rear of the first, stretched from Quintella on the Tagus to the mouth of the St. Lorenza, being twenty-four miles in length.

The third, intended to cover a forced embarkation, extended from Passo d’Arcos on the Tagus to the tower of Junquera on the coast. Here an outer line, constructed on an opening of three thousand yards, enclosed an entrenched camp designed to cover the embarkation with fewer troops, should the operation be delayed by bad weather; and within this second camp, Fort St. Julian’s (whose high ramparts and deep ditches defied an escalade) was armed and strengthened to enable a rear-guard to protect both itself and the army.

The nearest part of the second line was twenty-four miles from these works at Passo d’Arcos, and some parts of the first line were two long marches distant; but the principal routes led through Lisbon, where measures were taken to retard the enemy and give time for the embarkation.

Of these stupendous Lines, the second, whether regarded for its strength or importance, was undoubtedly the principal, and the others only appendages, the one as a final place of refuge, the other as an advanced work to stem the first violence of the enemy, and to enable the army to take up its ground on the second line without hurry or pressure. Massena having, however, wasted the summer season on the frontiers, the first line acquired such strength, both from labour and from the fall of rain, that lord Wellington resolved to abide his opponent’s charge there.

The ground presented to the French being, as it were, divided into five parts or positions, shall be described in succession from right to left.

1º. From Alhandra to the head of the valley of Calandrix. This distance, of about five miles, was a continuous and lofty ridge, defended by thirteen redoubts, and for two miles rendered inaccessible by a scarp fifteen to twenty feet high, executed along the brow. It was guarded by the British and Portuguese divisions under general Hill, and flanked from the Tagus by a strong flotilla of gun-boats, manned by British seamen.

2º. From the head of the vale of Calandrix to the Pé de Monte. This position, also five miles in length, consisted of two salient mountains forming the valley of Aruda, that town being exactly in the mouth of the pass. Only three feeble redoubts, totally incapable of stopping an enemy for an instant, were constructed here; the defence of the ground was entrusted to general Crawfurd and the light division.

3º. The Monte Agraça. This lofty mountain overtopped the adjacent country in such a manner, that from its summit the whole of the first line could be distinctly observed. The right was separated from the Aruda position, by a deep ravine which led to nothing, the left overlooked the village and valley of Zibreira, and the centre overhung the town of Sobral. The summit of this mountain was crowned by an immense redoubt, mounting twenty-five guns, and having three smaller works, containing nineteen guns, clustered around. The garrisons, amounting to two thousand men, were supplied by Pack’s brigade, and on the reverse of the position, which might be about four miles in length, the fifth division, under general Leith, was posted in reserve.

4º. From the valley of Zibreira to Torres Vedras. This position, seven miles long, was at first without works, because it was only when the rains had set in, that the resolution to defend the first line permanently, was adopted. But the ground being rough and well defined, and the valley in front watered by the Zizandre, now become a considerable river, it presented a fine field of battle for a small army. The first and fourth, and a sixth division formed of troops just arrived from England and from Cadiz, were there posted, under the immediate command of lord Wellington himself; and his head-quarters were fixed at Pero Negro, near the Secorra, a rock, on which a telegraph was erected, communicating with every part of the Lines.

5º. From the heights of Torres Vedras to the mouth of the Zizandre. The right flank of this position and the pass in front of the town of Torres Vedras were secured, first, by one great redoubt, mounting forty guns, and, secondly, by several smaller forts, judiciously planted so as to command all the approaches. From these works to the sea a range of moderate heights were crowned with small forts; but the chief defence there, after the rains had set in, was to be found in the Zizandre, which was not only unfordable, but overflowed its banks, and formed an impassable marsh. A paved road, parallel to the foot of the hills, run along the whole front, that is, from Torres Vedras, by Runa Sobral and Aruda, to Alhandra. This was the nature of the first line of defence; the second was still more formidable.

1º. From the mouth of the St. Lourença to Mafra, a distance of seven miles, there was a range of hills naturally steep, artificially scarped, and covered by a deep, and in many parts impracticable ravine. The salient points were secured by forts, which flanked and commanded the few accessible points; but as this line was extensive, a secondary post was fortified a few miles in the rear, to secure a road leading from Ereceira to Cintra.

2º. On the right of the above line the Tapada, or royal park of Mafra, offered some open ground for an attack. Yet it was strong, and, together with the pass of Mafra, was defended by a system of fourteen redoubts, constructed with great labour and care, well considered with respect to the natural disposition of the ground, and, in some degree, connected with the secondary post spoken of above: in front, the Sierra de Chypre, covered with redoubts, obstructed all approaches to Mafra itself.

3º. From the Tapada to the pass of Bucellas, a space of ten or twelve miles, which formed the middle of the second line, the country is choked by the Monte Chique, the Cabeça, or head of which is in the centre of, and overtopping all the other, mountain masses. A road, conducted along a chain of hills, high and salient, but less bold than any other parts of the line, connected Mafra with the Cabeça, and was secured by a number of forts. The country in front was extremely difficult, and a second and stronger range of heights, parallel to and behind the first, offered a good fighting position, which could only be approached with artillery by the connecting road in front, and to reach that, either the Sierra de Chypre, on the left, or the pass of the Cabeça de Monte Chique, on the right, must have been carried. Now the works covering the latter consisted of a cluster of redoubts constructed on the inferior rocky heads in advance of the Cabeça, and completely commanding all the approaches, and both from their artificial and natural strength, nearly impregnable to open force. The Cabeça and its immediate flanks were considered secure in their natural precipitous strength; and, in like manner, the ridges connecting the Cabeça with the pass of Bucellas, being impregnable, were left untouched, save the blocking of one bad mule road that led over them.

4º. From Bucellas (the pass of which was difficult and strongly defended by redoubts on each side) a ridge, or rather a collection of impassable rocks, called the Sierra de Serves, stretches to the right for two miles without a break, and then dies away by gradual slopes in the low ground about the Tagus. These declivities and the flat banks of the river offered an opening two miles and a half wide, which was laboriously and carefully strengthened by redoubts, water-cuts, and retrenchments, and connected by a system of forts with the heights of Alhandra, but it was the weakest part of the whole line in itself, and the most dangerous from its proximity to the valleys of Calandrix and Aruda.

There were five roads practicable for artillery piercing the first line of defence, namely, two at Torres Vedras, two at Sobral, and one at Alhandra; but as two of these united again at the Cabeça, there were, in fact, only four points of passage through the second line, that is to say, at Mafra, Monte Chique, Bucellas, and Quintella in the flat ground. The aim and scope of all the works was to bar those passes and to strengthen the favourable fighting positions between them, without impeding the movements of the army. These objects were attained, and it is certain that the loss of the first line would not have been injurious, save in reputation, because the retreat was secure upon the second and stronger line, and the guns of the first were all of inferior calibre, mounted on common truck carriages, and consequently immoveable and useless to the enemy.

The movements of the allies were free and unfettered by the works. But the movements of the French army were impeded and cramped by the great Monte Junta, which, rising opposite the centre of the first line, sent forth a spur called the Sierra de Baragueda in a slanting direction, so close up to the heights of Torres Vedras that the narrow pass of Ruña alone separated them. As this pass was commanded by heavy redoubts, Massena was of necessity obliged to dispose his forces on one or other side of the Baragueda, and he could not transfer his army to either without danger; because the sierra, although not impassable, was difficult, and the movement, which would require time and arrangement, could always be overlooked from the Monte Agraça, whence, in a few hours, the allied forces could pour down upon the head, flank, or rear of the French while in march. And this with the utmost rapidity, because communications had been cut by the engineers to all important points of the Lines, and a system of signals were established, by which orders were transmitted from the centre to the extremities in a few minutes.

Thus much I have thought fit to say respecting the Lines, too little for the professional reader, too much, perhaps, for a general history. But I was desirous to notice, somewhat in detail, works, more in keeping with ancient than modern military labours, partly that a just idea might be formed of the talents of the British engineers who constructed them, and partly to show that lord Wellington’s measures of defence were not, as some French military writers have supposed, dependent upon the first line. Had that been stormed, the standard of Portuguese independence could still have been securely planted amidst the rocks of the second position.

To occupy fifty miles of fortification, to man one hundred and fifty forts, and to work six hundred pieces of artillery, required a number of men; but a great fleet in the Tagus, a superb body of marines sent out from England, the civic guards of Lisbon, the Portuguese heavy artillery corps, the militia and the ordenança of Estremadura furnished, altogether, a powerful reserve. The native artillery and the militia supplied all the garrisons of the forts on the second, and most of those on the first line. The British marines occupied the third line: the navy manned the gun-boats on the river, and aided, in various ways, the operation in the field. The recruits from the depôts, and all the men on furlough, being called in, rendered the Portuguese army stronger than it had yet been; and the British army, reinforced, as I have said, both from Cadiz and England, and remarkably healthy, presented such a front as a general would desire to see in a dangerous crisis.

Vol. 3, Plate 8.

LINES of Torres Vedras
1810.

Published by T. & W. Boone 1830.

It was, however, necessary not only to have strength, but the appearance of strength; and lord Wellington had so dealt with Romana that, without much attention to the wishes of his own government, the latter agreed to join the allies with two divisions. The first, under his own command, crossed the Tagus at Aldea Gallega on the 19th of October, reached head-quarters the 24th, and was posted at Enxara de los Cavalleros, just behind the Monte Agraça; the other followed in a few days: and thus, before the end of October, not less than one hundred and thirty thousand fighting men received rations within the Lines; more than seventy thousand being regular troops, completely disposable and unfettered by the works.

Meanwhile, Mendizabel, with the remainder of the Spanish army, reinforced by Madden’s Portuguese dragoons, advanced towards Zafra. Ballasteros, at the same time, moved upon Araceña; and Mortier, ignorant of Romana’s absence, retired across the Morena on the 8th, for Soult was then seriously menacing Cadiz. Thus fortune combined, with the dispositions of the English general, to widen the distance, and to diversify the objects of the French armies, at the moment when the allies were concentrating the greatest force on the most important point.

Massena, surprised at the extent and strength of works, the existence of which had only become known to him five days before he came upon them, employed several days to examine their nature. The heights of Alhandra he judged inattackable; but the valleys of Calandrix and Aruda attracted his attention. Through the former he could turn Hill’s position, and come at once upon the weakest part of the second line; yet the abattis and the redoubts erected, and hourly strengthening, gave him little encouragement to attack there; while the nature of the ground about Aruda was such that he could not ascertain what number of troops guarded it, although he made several demonstrations, and frequently skirmished with the light division, to oblige Crawfurd to shew his force. That general, by making the town of Aruda an advanced post, rendered it impossible to discover his true situation without a serious affair; and, in a short time, his division, with prodigious labour, secured the position in a manner really worthy of admiration.

Across the ravine on the left, a loose stone wall, sixteen feet thick and forty feet high, was raised; and across the great valley of Aruda, a double line of abattis was drawn; not composed, as is usual, of the limbs of trees, but of full-grown oaks and chestnuts, dug up with all their roots and branches, dragged, by main force, for several hundred yards, and then reset and crossed, so that no human strength could break through. Breast-works, at convenient distances, to defend this line of trees, were then cast up; and along the summits of the mountain, for a space of nearly three miles, including the salient points, other stone walls, six feet high and four in thickness, with banquettes, were built; so that a good defence could have been made against the attacks of twenty thousand men.

The next points that drew Massena’s attention were the Monte Agraça and the vale of the Upper Zizandre, where, from the recent period at which lord Wellington had resolved to offer battle on the first line, no outworks had been constructed; and the valley of Zibreira, and even the hills above Runa, had not been fortified. Here it was possible to join battle on more equal terms, but the position of the allies was still very formidable; the flanks and rear were protected by great forts, and not only was a powerful mass of troops permanently posted there, but six battalions, drawn from Hill’s corps, and placed at Bucellas, could, in a very short time, have come into action.

Beyond Runa, the Baragueda ridge and the forts of Torres Vedras forbad any flank movement by the French general; and it only remained for him to dispose his troops in such a manner between Villa Franca and Sobral that, while the heads of the columns menaced the weakest points of the Lines, a few hours would suffice to concentrate the whole army at any part between the Tagus and the Baragueda ridge. The second corps, still holding the hills opposite Alhandra, extended its right along some open ground as far as Aruda, and being covered, at that point, by a force of cavalry, was connected with the eighth corps; the head of which was pushed forward on Sobral, occupying the lower ridges of the Baragueda, and lining the banks of the Zizandre as far as Duas Portas on the road to Runa: the outposts of the two armies being nearly in contact.

Massena did not bring the sixth corps beyond Otta, and his dispositions were not made without several skirmishes, especially near Sobral, on the morning of the 14th, when, attempting to dislodge the seventy-first regiment from a field-work, his troops were repulsed, pursued, and driven from their own retrenchments, which were held until evening; and only evacuated because the whole of the eight corps was advancing for the purpose of permanently establishing its position. The loss of the allies in these petty affairs amounted to one hundred and fifty; of which, the greatest part fell at Sobral; that of the enemy was estimated higher. The English general Harvey was wounded, and at Villa Franca the fire of the gun-boats killed the French general St. Croix, a young man of signal ability and promise.

The war was now reduced to a species of blockade: Massena’s object being to feed his army until reinforcements reached it; lord Wellington’s to starve the French before succour could arrive. The former spread his moveable columns in the rear to seek for provisions, and commenced forming magazines at Santarem, where his principal depôt was established; but the latter drew down all the militia and ordenança of the north on the French rear, putting their right in communication with the garrison of Peniché, and their left with the militia of Lower Beira. To strengthen the latter he prevailed on Carlos d’España to cross the Tagus, and act between Castello Branco and Abrantes; and thus the French were completely enclosed, without any weakening of the regular army.

To aid the communication between Peniché and the militia, a Spanish light battalion and a strong body of English cavalry advanced to Ramalhal. Obidos, surrounded by old walls, was placed in a temporary state of defence, and garrisoned by three hundred Portuguese, under major Fenwick; and a moveable column, under colonel Waters, issuing from Torres Vedras, made incursions against the enemy’s marauding detachments, capturing many prisoners, and part of a considerable convoy which was passing the Baragueda. The French were thus continually harassed, yet their detachments scoured the whole country, even beyond Leiria, and obtained provisions in considerable quantities.

Meanwhile, the main bodies of the hostile forces remained quiet, although the French right was greatly exposed. Lord Wellington had four British divisions and Romana’s corps, forming a mass of twenty-five thousand men, close round Sobral, and, by directing the greatest part of his cavalry and the six battalions, at Bucellas, upon Aruda, he could have assembled from eight to ten thousand men there also, who, advancing a short distance into the plain, could, in conjunction with Hill, have kept the second corps in check; while the twenty-five thousand, pouring down at daylight from the Monte Agraça, from the valley of Zibreira, and from the side of Ruña, could have enveloped and crushed the head of the eighth corps long before the sixth could have reached the scene of action. But war is a curious and complicated web! and while the purely military part was thus happily situated and strong, the political part was one of weakness and alarm. Scarcely could the English See Annals of the Peninsular War, Vol. II. p. 331.general maintain a defensive attitude, struggling as he was against the intrigues and follies of men who have, nevertheless, been praised for their “earnest and manly co-operation.”

CHAPTER IX.

The presence of the enemy, in the heart of the country, embarrassed the finances, and the Regency Mr. Stuart’s Papers. MSS.applied to England for an additional subsidy. Mr. Stuart, seeing the extreme distress, took upon himself to direct the house of Sampayo to furnish provisions to the troops on the credit of the first subsidy; he also made the greatest exertions to feed the fugitive inhabitants, forty thousand of whom arrived before the 13th of October, and others were hourly coming in, destitute and starving. Corn, purchased at any price, was sought for in all countries; from Ireland, America, and Egypt; and one thousand tons of government shipping were lent to merchants to fetch grain from Algiers. One commission of citizens was formed to facilitate the obtaining cattle and corn from the northern provinces; another to regulate the transport of provisions to the army, and to push a trade with Spain through the Alemtejo. Small craft were sent up the Tagus to carry off both the inhabitants and their stock, from the islands and from the left bank, and post-vessels were established along the coast to Oporto. Bullion and jewels were put on board the men of war, a proclamation was issued, calling upon the people to be tranquil, and a strong police was established to enforce this object. Finally, to supply the deficiency of tonnage created by the sending off the transports in search of corn, an embargo was laid upon the port of Lisbon; it was strongly protested against by the Americans, but an imperious necessity ruled.

All these measures were vehemently opposed by the Patriarch and his faction; and that nothing might be wanting to shew how entirely the fate of the Peninsula depended, in that hour, upon lord Wellington’s firmness, the fears of the British cabinet, which had been encreasing as the crisis approached, were now plainly disclosed. During the retreat from the north, affairs seemed so gloomy to the eyes of some officers of rank, that their correspondence bore evidence of their feelings; and the letters of general Spencer and general Charles Stewart appeared so desponding to lord Liverpool, that he transmitted them to lord Wellington, and, by earnestly demanding an opinion upon their contents, shewed how deeply they had disturbed his own mind.

Thus beset on every side, the English general rose like a giant. Without noticing either the arguments or the forebodings in these letters, he took a calm historical review of the grounds upon which he had undertaken the defence of Portugal, and which he had before pointed out to the minister he was addressing; then shewing that, up to that period, his views had been in every instance borne out by the results, he demonstrated that it was reasonable to confide in his judgement of what was to come. Having thus vindicated his own prudence and foresight by irresistible facts, he proceeded to trace the probable course of future events, entered largely into both his own and the enemy’s designs, and with such a judgement and sagacity that the subsequent course of the war never belied his anticipations. This remarkable letter exists, and, were all other records of lord Wellington’s genius to be lost, it would alone suffice to vindicate his great reputation to posterity.

Having with conscious superiority replied to his own government, he, with a fierceness rendered necessary by the crisis, turned upon the patriarch and his coadjutors. Reproaching them for their unpatriotic, foolish, and deceitful conduct, he told Appendix, [No. V.] Section 3.them plainly, that they were unfaithful servants of their country and their prince, and threatened to withdraw the British army altogether, if the practices of which he complained were not amended.

“The king of England and the prince regent of Portugal had,” he said, “entrusted him with the conduct of the military operations, and he would not suffer any person to interfere. He knew what to do, and he would not alter his plans to meet the senseless suggestions of the Regency. Let the latter look to their own duties! Let them provide food for the army and the people, and keep the capital tranquil.” “With principal Souza,” he said, “it was not possible to act, and, if that person continued in power, the country would be lost. Either the principal or himself must quit their employments; if himself, he would take care that the world should know the reasons; meanwhile he would address the prince upon the conduct of the Regency.”

Appendix [No. V.] Section 4.

“He had hoped,” he resumed in another letter, “that the Portuguese government was satisfied with his acts, and that instead of endeavouring to render all defence useless by disturbing the minds of the populace at Lisbon, they would have adopted measures to secure the tranquillity of that capital. But, like other weak individuals, they added duplicity to weakness, and their past expressions of approbation and gratitude he supposed were intended to convey censure. All he asked from them was to preserve tranquillity, to provide food for their own troops while employed in the Lines, and to be prepared, in case of disaster, to save those persons and their families who were obnoxious to the enemy.” “I have,” he said “little doubt of final success, but I have fought a sufficient number of battles to know, that the result of any is not certain, even with the best arrangements.” These reproaches were neither too severe nor ill-timed, for the war had been hanging in even balance, and the weight of interested folly thus thrown in by the Regency, was beginning to sink the scale. Yet to shew the justice of lord Wellington’s complaints, it is necessary to resume the thread of those intrigues which have been before touched upon.

Appendix [No. V.] Section 8.

Instead of performing their own duties, the government assumed, that the struggle could be maintained on the frontier, and when they should have been removing the people and the provisions from the line of retreat, they were discussing the expediency of military operations which were quite impracticable. When convinced of their error by facts, they threw the burthen of driving the country upon the general, although they knew that he was ignorant even of the names and places of abode of those officers and magistrates who were to execute it, and that there was but one Portuguese agent at head-quarters to give assistance in translating the necessary orders.

When this was remarked to them, they issued the orders themselves, but made the execution referable to the general, without his knowledge, and well knowing that he had no means of communicating with the country people, and this at the very moment of the enemy’s advance. The battle of Busaco, by delaying the French army, alone enabled the orders even to reach the persons to whom they were addressed. But it was the object of the Regency, by nourishing and soothing the national indolence, to throw the odium of harsh and rigorous measures upon the British authorities. Lord Wellington, however, while he reproached them for this conduct, never shrunk from the odium; he avowed himself, in his proclamations, the author of the plan for wasting the country, and he was willing the Regency should shelter themselves under his name, but he was not willing to lose the fruit of his responsibility, or, that those whose courage did shrink from the trial, “should seek popularity with the populace at the expense of the best interests of the country.”

After the disputes which followed the fall of Almeida, the English government convinced that a more secure and powerful grasp must be taken of Portugal, insisted, at the instance of lord Wellington, that their envoy, Mr. Stuart, should have a seat in the Regency, and that the subsidy should be placed under the control of the British instead of the native authorities. The 2d of October, Mr. Stuart took his seat, and together with doctor Noguera, the Conde de Redondo, and the marquis Olhao (the former of whom was decidedly averse to the Souzas’ faction, and the two latter moderate in their conduct) proceeded to control the intrigues and violence of the Patriarch and principal Souza. It was full time, for both were formally protesting against the destruction of the mills in Beira, and vigorously opposing every measure proposed by lord Wellington. They were deeply offended by the suppression of the Lusitanian legion, which about this time was incorporated with the regular forces; and they had openly declared, that the Portuguese troops should not retreat from the frontiers, and that if the enemy obliged the British army to embark, not a native, whether soldier or citizen, should go with it. When the allies, notwithstanding this, fell back to the Lines, Souza proposed that the Regency should fly to the Algarves, which being indignantly protested against by Mr. Stuart, Souza threatened to quit the government. The dispute was then referred to lord Wellington, and, on the 6th of October, drew from him those severe expressions of which an abstract has been given above.

Meanwhile, the restless Principal pursued his designs with activity, and, in conjunction with his brothers and the Patriarch, established a regular and systematic opposition to lord Wellington’s plans of defence. Factious in council, they were also clamorous out of doors, where many echoed their sentiments, from anger at some wanton ravages, that, in despite of the general’s utmost efforts, had marked the retreat. They courted the mob of Lisbon servilely and grossly; and Antonio Souza getting the superintendence of the succours for the fugitive population, became the avowed patron of all persons preferring complaints. He took pains to stimulate and exasperate the public griefs, and to exaggerate the causes of them, frequently hinting that the Portuguese people and not the British army had formerly driven out the French. All these calumnies being echoed by the numerous friends and partisans of the caballers, and by the fidalgos, who endeavoured to spread discontent as widely as possible; there wanted but slight encouragement from the Brazils, to form a national party, and openly attack the conduct of the war.

To obtain this encouragement, Raymundo, the old tool of the party in the Oporto violences, was sent to the court of Rio Janeiro, to excite the prince regent against lord Wellington; and the Patriarch himself wrote to the prince of Wales and to the duke of Sussex, thinking to incense them also against the English general. The extent and nature of the intrigues may be estimated from a revelation made at the time by baron Eben, and by the editor of a Lisbon newspaper, called the Brazilienza.

Those persons abandoning the faction, asserted that the Patriarch, the Souzas, and (while he remained in Portugal) the ex-plenipotentiary, Mr. Villiers, were personally opposed to lord Wellington, marshal Beresford, and Mr. de Forjas, and had sought to remove them from their situations, and to get the duke of Brunswick appointed generallissimo in Portugal; that they had also endeavoured to engage the duke of Sussex to take a leading part, but that his royal highness had repulsed them at the outset; that their plan was to engage a newspaper to be their organ in London, as the Brazilienza was to have been in Lisbon; that in their correspondence lord Wellington was designated under the name of Alberoni; lord Wellesley, Lama; Beresford, Ferugem; Mr. Stuart, Labre; the Patriarch, Saxe; Antonio Souza, Lamberti; colonel Bunbury and Mr. Peel, then under secretaries of state, as Thin and By-Thin. That after Mr. Villier’s departure, the intrigue was continued by the Patriarch and the Souzas, but upon a different plan; for, overborne by the vigour of Mr. Stuart in the council, they agreed to refrain from openly opposing either him or Forjas, but resolved to write down what either might utter, and transmit, that which suited their purpose, to the Conde de Linhares and the chevalier Souza; these persons undertaking to represent the information so received, after their own fashion, to the cabinets of St. James’ and Rio Janeiro.

The violent temper of the Patriarch unfitted him to execute this plan; he made open display of his hostility to the English general; and it is worthy of observation that, while thus thwarting every measure necessary to resist the enemy, his faction did not hesitate to exercise the most odious injustice and cruelty against those whom they denominated well-wishers to the French. By a decree of the prince regent’s, dated the 20th of March, 1809, private denunciations in cases of disaffection, were permitted, the informer’s name to be kept secret; and in September, 1810, this infamous system, although strenuously opposed by Mr. Stuart, was acted upon, and many persons suddenly sent to the islands, and others thrown into dungeons. Some might have been guilty; and the government pretended that a traitorous correspondence with the enemy was carried on through a London house, which they indicated; but it does not appear that a direct crime was brought home to any, and it is certain that many innocent persons were oppressed.

All these things shewing that vigorous measures were necessary to prevent the ruin of the general cause, lord Wellesley dealt so with the Brazilian court, that every intrigue there was soon crushed, lord Wellington’s power in Portugal confirmed, and his proceedings approved of. Authority was also given him to dismiss or to retain Antonio Souza and even to remove lord Strangford, the British envoy at Rio Janeiro, if it suited him so to do. The subsidies were placed under his and Mr. Stuart’s control; admiral Berkeley was appointed to a seat in the Regency; and, in fine, Portugal was reduced to the condition of a vassal state. A policy which could never have been attempted, however necessary, if the people at large had not been willing to acquiesce; but firm in their attachment to independence and abhorring the invaders, they submitted cheerfully to this temporary assumption of command, and fully justified the sagacity of the man, who thus dared to grasp at the whole power of Portugal with one hand, while he kept the power of France at bay with the other.

Although so strongly armed, lord Wellington removed no person, but with equal prudence and moderation reserved the exercise of this great authority until further provocation should render it absolutely necessary. But this remedy for the disorders above related was not perfected for a long time, nor until after a most alarming crisis of affairs had been brought on by the conduct of the Lisbon cabal.

From the strength of the Lines, it is plain that offensive operations were far more to be dreaded on the left, than on the right bank of the Tagus. In the Alemtejo, the enemy could more easily subsist, more effectually operate to the injury of Lisbon, and more securely retreat upon his own resources. Now lord Wellington had repeatedly urged the Regency to oblige the inhabitants to abandon their dwellings, and carry off their herds and grain, especially those near the banks, and on the numerous islands in the river, and above all things to destroy or remove every boat. To carry this into effect a commission had been appointed, but so many delays and obstacles were interposed by the Patriarch and his coadjutors, that the commissioners did not leave Lisbon until the enemy were close upon that river; both banks Appendix, [No. V.] Section 5.being still stocked with cattle and corn, and what was worse forty large boats on the right side, by which the French immediately made themselves masters of the islands, especially of Lizirias, where they obtained abundance of provisions. But while the Regency thus provided for the enemy, they left the fortresses of Palmella, St. Felippe de Setuval, and Abrantes with empty magazines.

Lord Wellington thinking that the ordenança on the left bank, of whom four hundred were armed with English muskets and furnished with three pieces of artillery, would be sufficient to repel plundering parties attempting to cross the Tagus, was unwilling to spare men from the Lines. He wanted numbers there and he also judged that the ordenança would, if once assisted by a regular force, leave the war to their allies. But Antonio Souza was continually urging the planting of ambuscades, and other like frivolities, upon the left bank of the Tagus; and as his opinions were spread abroad by his party, the governor of Setuval adopted the idea, and suddenly advanced with his garrison to Salvatierra on the river side.

This ridiculous movement attracted the enemy’s attention, and lord Wellington fearing they would pass over a detachment, disperse the Portuguese troops, and seize Setuval before it could be succoured, peremptorily ordered the governor to return to that fortress. This retrograde movement caused the dispersion of the ordenança, and consternation reigned in the Alemtejo. The supply of grain coming from Spain was stopped, the chain of communications broken, and, the alarm spreading to Lisbon, there was no remedy but to send general Fane, with some guns and Portuguese cavalry, that could be ill spared from the Lines, to that side. Fane immediately destroyed all the boats he could find, hastened the removal of provisions, and patrolling the banks of the river as high as the mouth of the Zezere, kept a strict watch upon the enemy’s movements.

Other embarrassments were however continually arising. The number of prisoners in Lisbon had accumulated so as to become a serious inconvenience; because, for some reason which does not appear, the English Admiralty would not permit them to be transported to England in ships of war, and other vessels could not be spared. About this time also admiral Berkeley, whose elaborate report the year before, stated that, although the enemy should seize the heights of Almada, he could not injure the fleet in the river, now admitted that he was in error; and the engineers were directed to construct secondary lines on that side.

Another formidable evil, arising from the conduct of the Regency, was the state of the Portuguese army. The troops were so ill supplied that more Appendix, [No. V.] Section 7.than once they would have disbanded, had they not been relieved from the British magazines. Ten thousand soldiers of the line deserted between April and December, and the militia and ordenança abandoned their colours in far greater numbers; for, as no remonstrance could induce the Regency to put the laws in force against the delinquents, that which was at first the effect of want became a habit; so that even when regularly fed from the British stores within the Lines, the desertion was alarmingly great.

Notwithstanding the mischiefs thus daily growing up, neither the Patriarch nor the Principal ceased their opposition. The order to fortify the heights of Almada caused a violent altercation in the Regency, and lord Wellington, greatly incensed, denounced them to the Prince Regent; and his letter produced such a paroxysm of anger in the Patriarch, that he personally insulted Mr. Stuart, and vented his passion in the most indecent language against the general. Soon after this, the deplorable state of the finances obliged the government to resort to the dangerous expedient of requisitions in kind for the feeding of the troops: and in that critical moment the Patriarch, whose influence was, from various causes, very great, Appendix, [No. V.] Section 10.took occasion to declare that “he would not suffer burthens to be laid upon the people which were evidently for no other purpose than to nourish the war in the heart of the kingdom.”

But it was his and his coadjutors’ criminal conduct that really nourished the war, for there were ample means to have carried off in time ten-fold the quantity of provisions left for the enemy. Massena could not then have remained a week before the Lines, and his retreat would have been attended with famine and disaster, if the measures previously agreed to by the Regency had been duly executed. Whereas now, the country about Thomar, Torres Novas, Gollegao, and Santarem was absolutely untouched; the inhabitants remained; the mills, but little injured, were quickly repaired, and lord Wellington had the deep mortification to find that his well considered design was frustrated by the very persons from whom he had a right to expect the most zealous support. There was, indeed, every reason to believe that the prince of Esling would be enabled to maintain his positions Appendix, [No. V.] Section 7.until an overwhelming force should arrive from Spain to aid him. “It is heart-breaking,” was the bitter reflection of the British general, “to contemplate the chance of failure from such obstinacy and folly.”

CHAPTER X.

The increasing strength of the works, and the report of British deserters (unhappily very numerous at this period), soon convinced Massena that it was impracticable to force the Lines without great reinforcements. His army suffered from sickness, from the irregular forces in the rear, and from the vengeance of individuals, driven to despair by the excesses which many French soldiers, taking advantage of the times, committed in their foraging courses. Nevertheless, with an obstinate pertinacity, only to be appreciated by those who have long made war, the French general maintained his forward position, until the country for many leagues behind him was a desert, and then, reluctantly yielding to necessity, he sought for a fresh camp in which to make head against the allies, while his foragers searched more distant countries for food.

Early in October artillery officers had been directed to collect boats for crossing both the Tagus and the Zezere. Montbrun’s cavalry, stretching along the right bank of the former, gathered provisions, and stored them at Santarem, and both there and at Barquiña (a creek in the Tagus, below the mouth of the Zezere), rafts were formed and boats constructed with wheels, to move from one place to another; but, from the extreme paucity of materials and tools, the progress was necessarily slow. Meanwhile Fane, reinforced by some infantry, watched them closely from the left bank; Carlos d’España came down from Castello Branco to Abrantes; Trant acted sharply on the side of Ourem, and Wilson’s Portuguese militia so infested the country from Espinhal to the Zezere, that Loison’s division was detached upon Thomar to hold him in check.

Towards the end of October, however, all the hospitals, stores, and other incumbrances of the French army were removed to Santarem, and, on the 31st, two thousand men forded the Zezere above Punhete to cover the construction of a bridge. From this body, four hundred infantry and two hundred dragoons, under general Foy, moved against Abrantes, and, after skirmishing with the garrison, made towards Sobreira Formosa. The allies’ bridge of Villa Velha was foolishly burnt, but Foy, with a smaller escort, pushed for Pena Macor, and the 8th had gained Ciudad Rodrigo, on his way to France, having undertaken to carry information of the state of affairs to Napoleon; a task which he performed with singular rapidity, courage, and address. The remainder of his escort retiring down the Zezere, were attacked by Wilson, and suffered some loss.

The bridge on the Zezere was destroyed by floods, the 6th; but the enemy having entrenched the height over Punhete, not only restored it, but cast a second at Martinchel, higher up the river. Massena then commenced his retrograde march, but with great caution, because his position was overlooked from the Monte Agraça, and the defile of Alemquer being in the rear of the eighth corps, it was an operation of some danger to withdraw from before the Lines. To cover the movement from the knowledge of the Partizans in the rear, Montbrun’s cavalry marched upon Leiria and his detachments scoured the roads to Pombal, on the one side, and towards the Zezere, on the other. Meanwhile the sixth corps marched from Otta and Alemquer to Thomar, and Loison removed to Golegao with his division, reinforced by a brigade of dragoons.

These dispositions being made, general Clausel withdrew from Sobral during the night of the 14th, and the whole of the eighth corps passed the defile in the morning of the 15th, under the protection of some cavalry left in front of Aruda, and of a strong rear-guard on the height covering Alemquer. The second corps then retreated from Alhandra by the royal causeway upon Santarem, while the eighth corps marched by Alcoentre upon Alcanhede and Torres Novas.

This movement was not interrupted by lord Wellington. The morning of the 15th proved foggy, and it was some hours after day-break ere he perceived the void space in his front which disclosed the ability of the French general’s operations. Fane had reported on the 14th that boats were collecting at Santarem, and information arrived at the same time that reinforcements for Massena were on the march from Ciudad Rodrigo. The enemy’s intention was not clearly developed. It might be a retreat to Spain; it might be to pass round the Monte Junta, and so push the head of his army on Torres Vedras, while the allies were following the rear. Lord Wellington, therefore, kept the principal part of the army stationary, but directed the second and light divisions to follow the enemy, the former along the causeway to Villa Franca, the latter to Alemquer, at the same time calling up his cavalry, and requesting admiral Berkeley to send all the boats of the fleet up the Tagus, to enable the allies to pass rapidly to the other bank, if necessary.

Early on the 16th the enemy was tracked, marching in two columns, the one upon Rio Mayor, the other upon Santarem. Having passed Alcoentre, it was clear that he had no views on Torres Vedras; but whether he was in retreat to cross the Zezere by the bridges at Punhete and Martinchel, or making for the Mondego, was still uncertain. In either case, it was important to strike a blow at the rear, before the reinforcements and convoy, said to be on the road from Ciudad Rodrigo, could be met with. The first division was immediately brought up to Alemquer, the fifth entered Sobral, the light division and cavalry marched in pursuit, four hundred prisoners were made, principally marauders; and a remarkable exploit was performed by one Private Journal of the Hon. Captain Somers Cocks, 16th Dragoons.Baxter, a serjeant of the sixteenth dragoons. This man, having only five troopers, came suddenly upon a piquet of fifty men, who were cooking. The Frenchmen ran to their arms, and killed one of the dragoons; but the rest broke in amongst them so strongly, that Baxter, with the assistance of some countrymen, made forty-two captives.

The 17th, the eighth corps marched upon Alcanhede and Pernes, the head of the second corps reached Santarem, and Fane, deceived by some false movements, reported that they were in full retreat, and the troops at Santarem only a rear guard. This information seeming to be confirmed by the state of the immense plains skirting the Tagus, which were left covered with straw-ricks, it was concluded that Massena intended to pass the Zezere, over which it was known that he had cast a second bridge. Hill was immediately ordered to cross the Tagus with the second division and thirteenth dragoons, and move upon Abrantes, either to succour that fortress or to head the march of the French. Meanwhile, the fourth, fifth, and sixth divisions were directed upon Alemquer, the first division and Pack’s brigades upon Cartaxo, and the light division reached El Valle, a village on the Rio Mayor, where a considerable rear guard was formed, and an unequal engagement would have ensued, but for the opportune arrival of the commander-in-chief. In the evening the enemy joined their main body on the heights of Santarem.

Hitherto, lord Wellington, regarding the security of the Lines with a jealous eye, acted very cautiously. On the 15th and 16th, while the French were still hampered by the defiles, his pursuit was slack, although it would in no degree have risked the safety of the Lines, or of the pursuing troops, to have pushed the first, second, and light divisions and Pack’s brigade vigorously against the enemy’s rear. On the 18th, however, when Hill had passed the Tagus at Villada, and Fane was opposite to Abrantes, lord Wellington, whether deceived by false reports, or elated at this retrograde movement, this proof of his own superior sagacity, prepared, with a small force, to assail what he conceived the rear guard of an army in full retreat. But the French general had no intention of falling back any farther; his great qualities were roused by the difficulty of his situation, he had carried off his army with admirable arrangement, and his new position was chosen with equal sagacity and resolution.

Santarem is situated on a mountain, which, rising almost precipitously from the Tagus, extends about three miles inland. In front, a secondary range of hills formed an outwork, covered by the Rio Mayor, which is composed of two streams, running side by side to within a mile of the Tagus, but there they unite and flow in a direction parallel with that river for many miles; the ground between being an immense flat, called the plain of Santarem.

In advancing by the royal road from Lisbon, the allies ascended the Rio Mayor, until they reached the Ponte Seca, a raised causeway, eight hundred yards long, leading to the foot of the French position. On the right hand, as far as the Tagus, a flat sedgy marsh, not impassable, but difficult from deep water-cuts, covered the French left. On the other hand, the two streams of the Rio Mayor overflowing, presented a vast impassable sheet of water and marsh, covering the French right, and, in the centre, the causeway offered only a narrow line of approach, barred at the enemy’s end, by an abattis, and by a gentle eminence, with a battery looking down the whole length. To force this dangerous passage was only a preliminary step; the secondary range of hills was then to be carried before the great height of Santarem could be reached; finally, the town, with its old walls, offered a fourth point of resistance.

In this formidable position, the second corps covered the rich plain of Golegao, which was occupied by Loison’s division of the sixth corps, placed there to watch the Tagus, and keep up the chain of communication with Punhete. On Reynier’s right, in a rugged country, which separated Santarem from the Monte Junta and the Sierra de Alcoberte, the eighth corps was posted; not in a continuous line with the second, but having the right pushed forward to Alcanhete, the centre at Pernes, and the left thrown back to Torres Novas, where Massena’s head-quarters were fixed. On the right of Alcanhete, the cavalry were disposed as far as Leiria, and the sixth corps was at Thomar, in reserve, having previously obliged Wilson’s militia to retire from the Zezere upon Espinhal.

Massena thus enclosed an immense tract of fertile country; the plain of Golegao supplied him with maize and vegetables, and the Sierra de Alcoberte with cattle. He presented a formidable head to the allies at Santarem, commanded the road, by Leiria, to Coimbra, with the eighth corps and the cavalry; that from Thomar, by Ourem, to Coimbra, with the sixth corps; and, by his bridges over the Zezere, opened a line of operations towards the Spanish frontier, either through Castello Branco, or by the Estrada Nova and Belmonte. Preserving the power of offensive operations, by crossing the Tagus on his left, or of turning the Monte Junta by his right, he necessarily paralized a great part of the allied force, and appeared, even in retreating, to take the offensive.

His first dispositions were, however, faulty in detail. Between Santarem and the nearest division of the eighth corps there was a distance of ten or twelve miles, where the British general might penetrate, turn the right of the second corps, and cut it off from the rest of the army. Reynier, fearing such an attempt, hurried off his baggage and hospitals to Golegao, despatched a regiment up the Rio Mayor to watch two bridges on his right, by which he expected the allies to penetrate between him and the eighth corps, and then calling upon Junot for succour, and upon Massena for orders, proceeded to strengthen his own position. It was this march of Reynier’s baggage, that led Fane to think the enemy was retreating to the Zezere, which, corresponding with lord Wellington’s high-raised expectations, induced him to make dispositions; not for a general attack, by separating the second corps from the rest of the army, but, as I have before said, for assaulting Santarem in front with a small force, thinking he had only to deal with a rear guard.

On the 19th, the light division entering the plain between the Rio Mayor and the Tagus advanced against the heights by the sedgy marsh. The first division under Spencer, was destined to attack the causeway, and Pack’s Portuguese brigade and the cavalry were ordered to cross the Rio Mayor at the bridges of Saliero and Subajeira and turn the right of the French. The columns were formed for the attack, and the skirmishers of the light division were exchanging shots with the enemy in the sedgy marsh, when it was found that the guns belonging to Pack’s brigade had not arrived; and lord Wellington, not quite satisfied with the appearance of his adversary’s force, after three hours’ demonstrations, ordered the troops to retire to their former ground. It was, indeed, become evident, that the French were determined to maintain this position. Every advantageous spot of ground was fully occupied, the most advanced centinels boldly returned the fire of the skirmishers, large bodies of reserve were descried, some in arms, others cooking, the strokes of the hatchet, and the fall of trees, resounded from the woods clothing the hills, and the commencement of a triple line of abattis, and the fresh earth of entrenchments were discernible in many places.

On the 20th the demonstrations were renewed; but, as the enemy’s intention to fight was no longer doubtful, they soon ceased, and orders were sent to general Hill to halt at Chamusca, on the left bank of the Tagus. General Crawfurd, however, still thought it was but a rear-guard at Santarem; his eager spirit was chafed, he seized a musket, and, followed only by a serjeant, advanced in the night along the causeway, commencing a personal skirmish with the French piquets, from whose fire he escaped by miracle, convinced at last that the enemy were not yet in flight.

Meanwhile Clausel brought his division from Alcanhete close up to Santarem, and Massena carefully examining the dispositions of the allies, satisfied himself, that no great movement was in agitation; wherefore, recalling the baggage of the second corps, he directed Clausel to advance towards Rio Mayor; a feint which instantly obliged lord Wellington to withdraw the first division and Pack’s brigade to Cartaxo; and the light division was also held in readiness to retreat. In truth, Massena was only to be assailed by holding the second corps in check at the Ponte Seca, while a powerful mass of troops penetrated in the direction of Tremes and Pernes; but heavy rains rendered all the roads impracticable, and as the position of Santarem was maintained for several months, and many writers have rashly censured the conduct of both generals, it may be well to shew here that they acted wisely and like great captains.

It has been already seen how, without any extreme dissemination of his force, the French general contrived to menace a variety of points and to command two distinct lines of retreat; but there were other circumstances that equally weighed with him. He expected momentarily to be joined by the ninth corps, which had been added to his command, and by a variety of detachments; his position, touching upon Leiria and upon the Zezere, enabled him to give his hand to his reinforcements and convoys, either by the line of the Mondego or that of Belmonte and the Estrada Nova; at the same time he was ready to communicate with any troops coming from Andalusia to his assistance. He was undoubtedly open to a dangerous attack, between Santarem and Alcanhete; but he judged that his adversary would not venture such a decisive operation, requiring rapid well-timed movements, with an army composed of three different nations and unpractised in great evolutions. In this, guided by his long experience of war, he calculated upon moral considerations with confidence, and he that does not understand this part of war is but half a general.

Like a great commander, he calculated likewise upon the military and political effect, that his menacing attitude would have. While he maintained Santarem, he appeared, as it were, to besiege Lisbon; he also prolonged the sufferings of that city, and it has been estimated that forty thousand persons died from privations within the Lines during the winter of 1810: moreover he encouraged the disaffected, and shook the power which the English had assumed in Portugal, thus rendering their final success so doubtful in appearance, that few men had sagacity enough to judge rightly upon the subject. At this period also, as the illness of George the Third, by reviving the question of a Regency in England, had greatly strengthened the opposition in parliament, it was most important that the arguments of the latter against the war should seem to be enforced by the position of the French army. It is plain therefore that, while any food was to be obtained, there were abundant reasons to justify Massena in holding his ground; and it must be admitted that, if he committed great errors in the early part of his campaign, in the latter part he proved himself a daring, able, and most pertinacious commander.

On the side of the British general, such were the political difficulties, that a battle was equally to be desired and dreaded. Desirable, because a victory would have silenced his opponents both in England and Portugal, and placed him in a situation to dictate the measures of war to the ministers instead of having to struggle incessantly against their fears. Desirable to relieve the misery of the Portuguese people, who were in a state of horrible suffering; but, above all things desirable, lest a second and a third army, now gathering in Castile and in Andalusia, should reach Massena, and again shut up the allies in their works.

Dreaded, because a defeat or even a repulse would have been tantamount to the ruin of the cause; for it was at this period that the disputes in the Regency, relative to the Lines, at Almada, were most violent, and the slightest disaster would have placed the Patriarch at the head of a national party. Dreaded, because of the discussions relative to the appointment of a Regency in England, as any serious military check would have caused the opposition to triumph, and the troops to be withdrawn from Portugal. In this balanced state it was essential that a battle, upon which so many great interests hung, should not be fought, except on terms of advantage. Now those terms were not to be had. Lord Wellington, who had received some reinforcements from Hallifax and England, had indeed more than seventy thousand fighting men under arms, and the enemy at this time was not more than fifty thousand: nevertheless, if we analyze the composition and situation of both, it will be found that the latter, from the advantage of position, could actually bring more soldiers into the fight.

Mr. Stuart’s Papers, MSS.

In the Portuguese army, since the month of April, the deaths had been four thousand, the disbanded four thousand, the deserters ten thousand, the recruits thirty thousand; the numbers were therefore increased, but the efficiency for grand evolutions rather decreased. The Spanish auxilliaries also, ill-governed and turbulent, were at open discord with the Portuguese, and their general was neither able in war himself nor amenable to those who were.

While the heights of Almada were naked, the left bank of the Tagus could not be watched with less than twelve thousand men; and as from Alcanhete the march to Torres Vedras was shorter than from Cartaxo, two British divisions were employed to protect the Lines; during the attack upon Pernes, Reynier also might break out from Santarem, and ten thousand men were required to hold him in check: thus, the disposable troops would have fallen short of forty-five thousand, comprehending soldiers of three nations and many recruits. Lord Wellington’s experience in the movement of great armies was not at this period equal to his adversary’s, and the attack was to be made in a difficult country, with deep roads, where the Alviella, the Almonda, and other rivers, greatly swelled by incessant rain, furnished a succession of defensive lines to the enemy, and the means of carrying off two-thirds of his army. Victory might crown the attempt, but the stakes were unequal. If Massena lost even a third of his force, the ninth corps could have replaced it. If lord Wellington failed, the Lines were gone, and with them the whole Peninsula.

He judged it best to remain on the defensive; to strengthen the Lines; and to get the works at Almada sufficiently forward; meanwhile, quieting the troubles occasioned by the Patriarch, to perfect the discipline of the Portuguese troops, and improve the organization of the militia in rear of the enemy. In this view, the light division, supported by a brigade of cavalry, occupied Valle and the heights overlooking the marsh and inundation; the bridge at the English end of the causeway was mined; a sugar-loaf hill, looking straight down the approach, was crowned with embrasures for artillery and laced in front with a zigzag covered way, capable of containing five hundred infantry: thus the causeway being blocked, the French could not, while the inundation kept up, make any sudden irruption from Santarem.

On the left of the light division, posts were extended along the inundation to Malhorquija; thence, by a range of heights to Rio Mayor; and behind the latter place, Anson’s cavalry was stationed in observation of the roads leading from Pernes and Alcanhede. In rear of Anson, a position was entrenched at Alcoentre, and occupied by a division of infantry. Thus all the routes leading upon the Lines between the Tagus and the Monte Junta, were secured by what are technically called heads of cantonments, under cover of which, the other divisions were disposed in succession; the first and the head-quarters being at Cartaxo, a few miles in the rear of Valle; the remainder at Alemquer and Sobral. Torres Vedras was, however, always occupied in force, lest the enemy should make a sudden march round the Monte Junta.

Massena, satisfied that his front was safe, continued to build boats, fortified a post at Tancos, on the Tagus, and expected, with impatience, the arrival of a convoy escorted by five thousand men, with which general Gardanne was coming from Ciudad Rodrigo. This reinforcement, consisting of detachments and convalescents left in Castile when the army entered Portugal, marched by Belmonte and the Estrada Nova, and the 27th, was at Cardijos, within a few leagues of the French bridges on the Zezere. The advance of a cavalry patrol on either side would have opened the communications, and secured the junction; but, at that moment, Gardanne, harassed by the ordenança, and deceived by a false rumour that general Hill was in Abrantes, ready to move against him, suddenly retreated upon Sabugal, with such haste and blindness that he sacrificed a part of his convoy, and lost many men.

Notwithstanding this event, Massena, expecting to be joined by the ninth corps, greatly strengthened his position at Santarem, which enabled him to draw the bulk of his forces to his right, and to continue his marauding excursions in the most daring manner. General Ferey, with a strong detachment of the sixth corps, crossing the Zezere, foraged the country as far as Castello Branco without difficulty, and returned without loss: Junot occupied Leiria and Ourem with detachments of the eighth corps, and on the 9th of December a battalion endeavoured to surprise Coimbra: Trant, however, baffled that project. Meanwhile, Drouet avowed a design to invade the Tras os Montes, but the 22d of December occupied the line of the Coa with the ninth corps, and Massena’s patroles appeared again on the Mondego above Coimbra, making inquiries about the fords: all the spies likewise reported that a great reunion of forces from the south was to have place near Madrid.

These things gave reason to fear, either that Massena intended to file behind the Mondego and seize Oporto, or that the reinforcements coming to him were so large that he meant to establish bridges over the Mondego, and occupy the northern country also. It was known that a tenth corps was forming at Burgos; the head of the fifth corps was again in Estremadura; the French boats at Punhete and Barquiña were numerous and large; and in all parts there was evidence of great forces assembling for a mighty effort on both sides of the Tagus.

It was calculated that, before the end of January, more than forty thousand fresh troops would co-operate with Massena; and preparations were made accordingly. An outward line of defence, from Aldea Gallega to Setuval, was already in a forward state; Abrantes, Palmella, and St. Felippe de Setuval had been at last provisioned; and a chain of forts parallel to the Tagus were constructing on the hills lining the left bank from Almada to Traffaria. Labourers had also been continually employed in strengthening the works of Alhandra, Aruda, and Monte Agraça, which were now nearly impregnable, soldiers only being wanting to defy the utmost force that could be brought against them. To procure these, lord Wellington wrote earnestly to lord Liverpool on the 29th of December, demonstrating the absolute necessity of reinforcing the army; and, on the receipt of his letter, five thousand British were ordered to embark for Lisbon, and three regiments were drafted from Sicily.

Sickness obliged general Hill to go home in December; and, as Soult was known to be collecting a disposable force behind the Morena, the troops on the left bank of the Tagus were augmented, and marshal Beresford assumed the command: for the Portuguese army was now generally incorporated with the British divisions. His force, composed of eighteen guns, two divisions of infantry, and five regiments of cavalry, Portuguese and British, was about fourteen thousand men, exclusive of Carlos d’Espana’s brigade, which, being at Abrantes, was under the marshal’s orders.

To prevent the passage of the Tagus; to intercept all communication between Massena and Soult; to join the main body of the army, by Vellada if in retreat; and by Abrantes if in advance; were the instructions given to Beresford; hence, fixing his quarters at Chamusca, he disposed his troops along the Tagus, from Almeyrim by Chamusca, as high as the mouth of the Zezere, establishing signals between his different quarters. He also beat the roads leading towards Spanish Estremadura; established a sure and rapid intercourse with Elvas and the other frontier fortresses; organized good sources of intelligence at Golegao, at Santarem, and especially at Thomar, and, in addition to these general precautions, erected batteries opposite the mouth of the Zezere. But, against Appendix, [No. X.] Section 1.the advice of the engineers, he placed them at too great distance from the river, and in other respects unsuitable, and offering nothing threatening to the enemy: for the French craft dropped down frequently towards Santarem, without hindrance, until colonel Colborne, of the sixty-sixth regiment, moored a guard-boat close to the mouth of the Zezere, disposing fires in such a manner on the banks of the Tagus that nothing could pass without being observed.

On the side of Santarem, as all the country between Alcanhete and the Ponte Seca continued impracticable from the rain, the main bodies of both armies were, of necessity, tranquil. Anson’s cavalry, however, acting in concert with major Fenwick, who came down from Obidos towards Rio Mayor, harassed the enemy’s foraging parties; and in the Upper Beira several actions of importance had taken place with the militia, which it is time to notice as forming an essential part of lord Wellington’s combinations.

It will be remembered that the ninth corps, being ordered to scour Biscay and Upper Castile in its progress towards the frontier of Portugal, was so long delayed that, instead of keeping the communications of Massena free, and securing his base, Drouet lost all connexion with the army of Portugal. Meanwhile the Partidas of Leon and Salamanca gave such employment to Serras’ division that the Tras os Montes were unmolested, and Silveira, falling down to the Lower Douro, appeared, on the 29th, before Almeida. Its former garrison had entered the French service, yet immediately deserted to their countrymen, and Silveira then blockaded the place closely, and made an attempt to surprise a French post at San Felices, but failed.

In November, however, the head of the ninth corps reached Ciudad Rodrigo, bringing a large convoy of provisions, collected in Castile, for Massena. Lord Wellington, anxious to prevent this from reaching its destination, directed Silveira to intercept it if possible, and ordered Miller on the 16th to Viseu, in support. On the 13th, general Gardanne, with four thousand infantry and three squadrons of cavalry, raised the blockade of Almeida, took possession of Pinhel, and, supported by the ninth corps, conducted the convoy towards Sabugal and Penamacor. The 16th, he was between Valverde and Pereiro Gavillos, but Silveira falling upon him killed some of his men, took many prisoners, and then retiring to Trancoso on the 17th, united with Miller, the latter taking post at Guarda. Nevertheless, Gardanne pursued his march, but finally, as we have seen, retreated from Cardigos in a panic.

Drouet had not yet received the orders to put himself under Massena’s command, but, at the representation of Foy, moved forward into Portugal, and to hide his object, spread the report, already noticed, of his intention to penetrate the Tras os Montes; the 17th December, however he passed the Coa with fourteen thousand infantry and two thousand cavalry, and crossing the Mondego the 18th, encamped near Gouvea, the 22d. Thence the cavalry and one division under general Claparede, marched against Silveira, and after a skirmish occupied Trancoso; meanwhile, Drouet with eleven battalions, and the troops under Gardanne, made for the Alva and reached Ponte Murcella the 24th.

Hitherto lord Wellington’s communications with Baccellar, had been carried on, through Trant on the side of Coimbra, and through Wilson on that of Espinhal and Abrantes. But this sudden advance of the ninth corps obliged Wilson to cross the Mondego to avoid being enclosed, and Drouet effecting his junction with Massena by Espinhal, established his division at Leiria; and then spreading towards the sea cut off all communication between the allies and the northern provinces. On the 2d of January, however, Trant intercepted a letter from Drouet to Claparede, giving an account of his own arrival, and of the state of Massena’s army; intimating also, that a great operation was in contemplation, and that the fifth corps was daily expected in the Alemtejo: Claparede was desired to seize Guarda, to forage the neighbouring villages, and to watch the road of Belmonte; and if Silveira should be troublesome, to defeat him.

Silveira, an insufficient man, naturally vain, and inflated with his former successes, had indeed, already attacked Claparede, and was defeated with the loss of two hundred men at Ponte Abad, on the side of Trancoso. Baccellar, alarmed for the safety of Oporto, then recalled Miller and Wilson. The first moved upon Viseu; the last who had already repassed the Mondego and taken a hundred stragglers of Drouet’s division, marched hastily towards the same point. Meanwhile, Silveira again provoked Claparede, who pressed him so closely, from the 10th to the 13th of January, that he drove him with loss over the Douro at Pezo de Ragoa, seized Lamego, and menaced Oporto before any troops could concentrate to oppose him. Yet when Baccellar brought up his reserve to the Pavia, and Miller’s and Wilson’s corps reached Castro d’Airo, Claparede returned to Moimenta de Beira, being followed by Wilson. Meanwhile, the arrival of the ninth corps having relieved the French troops in Leon, the latter again menaced Tras os Montes, and Silveira marched to Braganza. Miller died at Viseu, but Wilson and Trant continued to harass the enemy’s parties.

Claparede taking post at Guarda, according to his instructions, seized Covilhao; while Foy, who in returning from France had collected about three thousand infantry and cavalry convalescents, was marching by the road of Belmonte. Foy had escaped innumerable perils. At Pancorbo he was fain to fly from the Partidas, with the loss of his despatches and half his escort, and now at Enxabarda entering the Estrada Nova, he was harassed by colonel Grant with a corps of ordenança from the Lower Beira; and although he suffered nothing here by the sword, three hundred of his men died on the mountain from cold. On the 2d of February he reached Santarem, where affairs were working to a crisis.

During December and January, the country being always more or less flooded, the armies continued in observation; but Massena’s positions were much strengthened, his out posts were reinforced, and his marauding excursions extended in proportion to his increasing necessities. The weak point on either side was towards Rio Mayor, any movement there created great jealousy, especially as the season advanced and the roads became firmer. Hence, on the 19th of January (some reinforcements having landed at Lisbon a few days before) a fear lest the allies should be concentrating at Alcoentre, induced Junot to drive the out posts from Rio Mayor to probe the state of affairs, and a general attack was expected; but after a skirmish he returned with a wound which disabled him for the rest of the campaign.

Early in February, a column of six thousand French again scouring all the country beyond the Zezere, got much concealed food near Pedragoa; while other detachments arriving on the Mondego below Coimbra, even passed that river, and carried off four hundred oxen and two thousand sheep intended for the allies. These excursions gave rise to horrible excesses, which broke down the discipline of the French army, and were not always executed with impunity; the British cavalry at various times redeemed many cattle and brought in a considerable number of prisoners, amongst them an aide-de-camp of general Clausel’s.

Meanwhile, Massena, organized a secret communication with Lisbon, through the Portuguese general Pamplona, who effected it by the help of the fidalgos in that capital: their agents, under the pretence of selling sugar to the inhabitants of Thomar and Torres Novas, passed by the road of Caldas and thence through the mountains of Pedragoa. Lord Wellington, on the other hand, was understood to have gained a French officer of rank, and it is certain that both generals had excellent information.

In this manner hostilities were carried on, each commander impatiently waiting for reinforcements which should enable him to act offensively. How both were disappointed, and how other events hitherto unnoticed, bore upon the plans of each, must be the subject of another book.

OBSERVATIONS.

1º. “War is not a conjectural art.” Massena forgetting this, assumed that the allies would not make a stand in front of Lisbon, and that the militia would not venture to attack Coimbra, but the battle of Busaco and the capture of his hospitals evinced the soundness of the maxim. Again, he conjectured that the English would re-embark if pressed; the Lines put an end to his dream; yet once awake, he made war like a great man, proving more formidable with reduced means and in difficulties, than he had been when opportunity was rife and his numbers untouched. His stay at Santarem shews what thirty thousand additional men acting on the left bank of the Tagus could have done, had they arrived on the heights of Almada before admiral Berkeley’s error was discovered: the supply of provisions from Alemtejo and from Spain would then have been transferred from Lisbon to the French armies, and the fleet would have been driven from the Tagus; when, the misery of the inhabitants, the fears of the British cabinet, the machinations of the Patriarch, and the little chance of final success would probably have induced the British general to embark.

2º. It has been observed, that Massena, in the first week might have easily passed the Tagus, secured the resources of the Alemtejo, and sent the British fleet out of the port. This was not so practicable as it might at first sight appear. The rains were heavy; the fords impassable; the French had not boats sufficient for a bridge; a weak detachment would have been useless, a strong detachment would have been dangerous: to collect boats, cast a bridge, and raise the entrenchments necessary to defend it, in the face of the allied forces, would have been neither a safe nor certain operation; moreover, Massena would then have relinquished the certain aid of the ninth for the uncertain assistance of the fifth corps.

3º. Lord Wellington conjecturing the French to be in full retreat, had like to have received a severe check at Santarem; he recovered himself in time, and with this exception, it would be difficult to support essential objections to his operations: yet, many have been urged, as that, he might have straightened the enemy’s quarters more effectually at Santarem; and that Hill’s corps, passing through Abrantes, could have destroyed the bridges at Punhete, and lining the Zezere cut off Massena’s reinforcements, and obliged him to abandon his positions or even to capitulate. This last idea, advanced at the time by colonel Squires, an engineer of great zeal and ability, perfectly acquainted with the localities, merits examination.

As a simple operation it was feasible, but the results were not so certain; the Lines of Almada being unfinished, the rashness of leaving the Tagus unguarded, before an enemy who possessed eighty large boats, exclusive of those forming the bridges on the Zezere, is apparent; Hill’s corps must then have been replaced, and the army before Santarem would have been so weak as to invite a concentrated attack, to the great danger of the Torres Vedras Lines. Nor was the forcing of the French works at Punhete a matter of certainty; the ground was strong, there were two bridges over the Zezere, and the sixth corps, being within a short march, might, by passing at Martinchel, have taken Hill in flank.

4º. The same officer, at a later period, miscalculating the enemy’s numbers at thirty thousand men, and the allies at more than seventy thousand regulars, proposed that Beresford should cross the Tagus at Azingha, behind the Almonda, and march upon Golegao, while lord Wellington, concentrating at Rio Mayor, pushed upon Torres Novas. It was no common head that conceived this project, by which seventy thousand men would, in a single march, have been placed in the midst of the enemy’s extended quarters; but the hand of Napoleon could scarcely have launched such a thunder-bolt. Massena had still fifty thousand fighting-men; the boats from Abrantes must have been brought down, to pass the Tagus; the concentration of troops at Rio Mayor could scarcely have escaped the enemy’s notice; exact concert, in point of time, was essential, yet the eighth corps could have held the allies in check on the Alviella, while Reynier, from Santarem, and Ney, from Thomar, crushed Beresford between the Almonda and the Tagus: moreover the roads about Tremes were nearly impassable from rain during December; in January, Soult, of whose operations I shall speak in the next book, was menacing the Alemtejo, and a disaster happening to the allies would have relieved the enemy’s difficulties, when nothing else could. A campaign is like other works of art; accessaries, however splendid, must be rejected when not conducive to the main object. That judgement, which duly classes the value of every feasible operation, is the best quality of a general, and lord Wellington possessed it in a remarkable degree; to it, his genius and his courage were both subservient; without it he might have performed many brilliant exploits in the Peninsula, but could never have conducted the war to a successful end.

BOOK XII.

CHAPTER I.

In the preceding book, Spanish affairs have been little noticed, although lord Wellington’s combinations were deeply affected by them. The general position of the allies, extending from Coruña to Cadiz, presented a great crescent, in the convex of which the French armies were operating, and it was clear that, when checked at Lisbon, the most important point, their wings, could reinforce the centre, unless the allied forces, at the horns of the crescent, acted vigorously on a system which the harbours and fortresses, at either extremity, pointed out as suitable to those who possessed the absolute command of the sea. A British army and fleet were therefore established at Cadiz, and a squadron of frigates at Coruña; and how far this warfare relieved the pressure on lord Wellington I shall now show.

The Gallician troops, under Mahi, usually hanging on the borders of Leon, were always reported to be above twenty thousand men when arms or stores were demanded from England; but there were never more than ten or twelve thousand in line, and, although Serras’ division, of only eight thousand, was spread over the plains, from Benevente to the Agueda, during Massena’s advance, no stroke of importance was effected against it; the arrival of the ninth corps, in October, put an end to all hopes from the Gallicians in that quarter, although the Partidas often surprised both posts and convoys. Behind Mahi there was, however, a second army, from four to six thousand strong, embodied to defend the coast line towards the Asturias; and, in the latter province, about eight thousand men, including the irregular bands of Porlier and other chiefs, constantly watched Bonet’s movements.

That general frequently mastered the Asturias, but could never maintain himself there; because the country is a long defile, lying between the great mountains and the sea, and being crossed by a succession of parallel ridges and rivers, is admirably calculated for partizan warfare in connexion with a fleet. Thus, if he penetrated towards Gallicia, British and Spanish frigates, from Coruña, landing troops at the ports of Gihon, Santander, or Santona, could always form a junction with the great bands of Longa, Mina, and Amor, and excite insurrections on his rear.

In this manner Porlier, as before related, forced him to withdraw from Castropol, after he had defeated general Ponte at Sales, about the period of Almeida being invested; and the advantages of such operations being evident, the British government sent sir Home Popham to direct the naval, and general Walker the military affairs at Coruña. Preparations were then made to embark a considerable force, under Renovales, to renew the attack at Santona and Santander; the Partidas of the interior were to move at the same time; a battalion of marines was assembled, in England, to garrison Santona, when taken; and Mahi promised to co-operate Mr. Stuart’s Papers. MSS.by an incursion. Serras, however, threatened the frontier of Gallicia, and Mahi remained in suspense, and this, together with the usual procrastination of the Spaniards, and the late arrival of sir Home Popham, delayed the expedition until October. Meanwhile, Porlier, Escadron, and other chiefs commenced an isolated attack in the beginning of September. Serras returned to Zamora, Mahi sent a division into Leon, and Bonet, aware of the preparations at Coruña, first concentrated at Oviedo, and then fell back towards Santander, leaving a post at Gihon.

On the 16th of October Renovales sailed but with only thirteen hundred men; accompanied, however, by general Walker, who carried ten thousand stand of arms and ammunition. The 19th, entering the harbour of Gihon, they captured some French vessels; and Porlier, coming up on the land side, took some treasure and eighty prisoners. The next day, Renovales proceeded to Santona, but tempests impeded his landing, and he returned to Coruña the 2d of November, with only eight hundred and fifty men: a frigate and a brig had foundered, with the remainder of his troops, in a dreadful gale, which destroyed all the Spanish naval force along the coast, twelve vessels being wrecked even in the harbour of Coruña. Meanwhile, Mahi, leaving Toboado Gil’s division to watch Serras, entered the Asturias with the rest of the Gallicians, and being joined first by the troops of that province, and soon after by Renovales, was very superior to the French; yet he effected nothing, and Bonet maintained his line from Gihon, through Oviedo, to the borders of Leon.

In this manner hostilities wore feebly on; the Junta of the Asturias continued, as from the first, distinguished by their venality and indifference to the public good; their province was in a miserable and exhausted state; and the powers of the British naval officers on the coast not being defined, occasioned some dispute between them and general Abstract of General Walker’s Military Reports from Gallicia. MSS.Walker; and gave opportunity to the Junta to interfere improperly with the distribution of the English stores. Gallicia was comparatively rich, but its Junta culpably inactive in the discharge of duties and oppressive in government, disgusted the whole province, and a general desire to end their power was prevalent. In the course of the winter a combination of the clergy was formed to oppose both the Local Junta and the General Cortes, and assumed so threatening an aspect that Mahi, who was then on the coast, applied to be taken in an English vessel to Coruña, to ensure his personal safety; one Acuña was soon after arrested at Ponferrada, the discontent spread, and the army was more employed to overawe these factions than to oppose the enemy. Little advantage, therefore, was derived from the Spanish operations in the north, and general Walker, despairing to effect any thing useful, desired either that a British force should be placed at his disposal or that he might join the army in Portugal.

These expeditions from Coruña naturally encreased the audacity of the inland partidas, who could only become really dangerous, by having a sea-port where they could receive supplies and reinforcements, or embarking save themselves in extremity, and change the theatre of operations. To prevent this, the emperor employed considerable numbers of men in the military governments touching on the Bay of Biscay, and directed, as we have seen, the corps d’armée, in their progress towards Portugal, to scour all the disturbed countries to the right and left. The ninth corps was thus employed during the months of August and September, but when it passed onward, the partidas resumed their activity. Mina, Longa, Campillo, and Amor, frequently united about Villar Caya and Espinosa in numbers sufficient to attack large French detachments with success; and to aid them, general Walker repeatedly recommended the taking possession of Santona with a corps of British troops. That town, having the best winter harbour along the coast, and being built on a mountain promontory joined to the main by a narrow sandy neck, could have been made very strong; it would have cut off Bonet’s communication with France by sea, have given the British squadron a secure post from whence to vex the French coasts; and it offered a point of connexion with the partidas of the Rioja, Biscay, and Navarre.

Lord Liverpool, swayed by these considerations, desired to employ a corps of four thousand men to secure it; but, having first demanded lord Wellington’s Letter to Lord Liverpool. 7th May, 1811. MSS.opinion, the latter “earnestly recommended that no such maritime operations should be undertaken. For,” said he, “unless a very large force was sent, it would scarcely be able to effect a landing, and maintain the situation of which it might take possession. Then that large force would be unable to move or effect any object at all adequate to the expense, or to the expectations which would be formed from its strength, owing to the want of those equipments and supplies in which an army landed from its ships must be deficient. It was vain to hope for any assistance, even in this way, much less military assistance from the Spaniards; the first thing they would require uniformly would be money; then arms, ammunition, clothing of all descriptions, provisions, forage, horses, means of transport, and every thing which the expedition would have a right to require from them; and, after all, this extraordinary and perverse people would scarcely allow the commander of the expedition to have a voice in the plan of operations, to be followed when the whole should be ready to undertake any, if indeed they ever should be ready.”

Meanwhile Napoleon caused Caffarelli’s reserve to enter Spain, ordered Santona to be fortified, directed other reinforcements from France upon the northern provinces, and finally sent marshal Bessieres to command the young guard, the third and fourth governments, and that of the Asturias, including Bonet’s division, the whole forming a distinct force, called the army of the north.

Appendix, [No. I.] Section 6.

The 1st of January, 1811, this army exceeded seventy thousand, of which fifty-nine thousand men and eight thousand horses, were present under arms; and Bessieres, who had received unusual powers, was especially ordered to support and furnish all necessary assistance to the army of Portugal. This was the state of the northern parts of Spain.

In the middle parts, the army of the centre, or that immediately under the king, at first about twenty thousand, was, before the end of the year, carried up to twenty-seven thousand, exclusive of French and Spanish guards and juramentados, or native troops, who had taken the oath of allegiance: with this power he protected his court, watched the movements of the Valencians, and chased the Guerillas of the interior.

The summer and autumn of 1810 were, however, for reasons before-mentioned, the period of greatest activity with these irregulars; numerous petty actions were constantly fought around the capital, many small French posts, and numbers of isolated men and officers, were cut off, and few despatches reached their destinations without a considerable escort. To remedy this, the lines of correspondence were maintained by small fortified posts which run from Madrid; through Guadarama and Segovia to the provinces of Valladolid and Salamanca; through Buitrago and Somosierra to the army of the north; through Guadalaxara and Calatayud to the army of Aragon; through La Mancha to the army of the south; and by the valley of the Tagus, Arzobispo, and Truxillo, to the fifth corps during its incursions into Estremadura; a brigade of cavalry, was also generally stationed at Truxillo.

As the warfare of the Partidas was merely a succession of surprises and massacres, little instruction, and no pleasure, can be derived from the details; but in the course of the summer and autumn, not less than twelve considerable, and an infinite number of trifling affairs, took place between the moveable columns and these bands: and the latter being almost always beaten; at the close of the year, only the Empecinado, Sanchez, Longa, Campillo, Porlier, and Mina retained any reputation, and the country people were so harassed, that counter Partidas, in many places assisted the French.

The situation of the army of the centre enabled the king to aid Massena, either by an advance upon the Elga, or by reinforcing, or, at least, supporting the fifth corps in Estremadura. But Joseph, troubled by the Partidas, and having many convoys to protect, was also averse to join any of the marshals, with all of whom, except Massena, he was on ill terms; neither were his relations with Napoleon such as to induce him to take an interest Appendix, [No. IV.] Section 4.in any military operations, save those which affected the immediate security of his court. His poverty was extreme; he was surrounded by French and Spanish intriguers; his plan of organizing a national party was thwarted by his brother’s regulations; plots were formed, or supposed to be formed, against his person, and, in this uneasy posture, the secondary part he was forced to sustain, combined with his natural gentleness which shrunk from the terrible scenes of bloodshed and devastation continually before his eyes, rendered his situation so irksome, that he resolved to vacate the throne and retire to France, a resolution which he soon afterwards partially executed. Such being the course of affairs in the northern and central provinces, it remains to trace the more important military operations at the southern horn of the crescent, where the allies were most favourably situated to press the left flank of the invaders.

Sebastiani was peculiarly exposed to a harassing warfare, because of the city of Grenada and other towns in the interior, which he was obliged to hold at the same time with those on the coast, although the two districts were completely separated by the mountains. Hence a large body of troops were necessarily kept in the strip of country bordering the Mediterranean, although menaced, on the one flank by Gibraltar and the Spanish troops at San Roque, on the other by the Murcian army, and, in front by continual descents from the sea; yet, from the shallowness and length of their position, unable to concentrate in time to avoid being cut off in detail. Now the Murcian army, nominally twenty thousand, was based upon the cities of Murcia and Carthagena, and menaced alike the coast-line and that of Grenada by the route of Baza and Guadix; and any movement towards the latter was sure to attract the French, while troops landing from Cadiz or Gibraltar fell upon their disseminated posts along the coast.

To meet this system, Sebastiani, keeping his reserves about Grenada, where he had entrenched a permanent camp, made sudden incursions, sometimes against the Murcians, sometimes against the Spanish forces on the side of Gibraltar; but that fortress afforded a refuge to the patriots on one side, and Carthagena, surrounded by arid lands, where, for two marches, no water is to be found, always offered a sure retreat on the other. Meanwhile the French general endeavoured to gain the important castles on the coast, and to put them into a state of defence; yet Estipona and Marbella were defended by the Spaniards, and the latter sustained many attacks, nor was it finally reduced until the 9th of December, when the garrison, of one hundred men, took refuge on board the Topaze frigate. But Sebastiani’s hold of these towns, and even the security of the French troops along the coast, depended upon the communications across the mountains with Grenada, Chiclana, and Seville, and to impede these, general Campbell sent British officers into the Ronda, who successfully directed the wild mountaineers of that district, until their operations were marred by Lascy’s misconduct.

The various movements and insurrections in Grenada during the summer of 1810 have been already noted, but, in October, general Campbell and admiral Penrose, conjointly with the governor of Ceuta, renewed the design of surprising Malaga, where were many privateers and a flotilla of gun-boats, supposed to be destined against the islands near Ceuta. The French depôt for the siege of Marbella was at Fuengirola, which is only thirty miles from Malaga, and it was judged that an attack there would draw the troops from the latter place; and the more surely, as general Valdemoro, commanding the Spanish force at San Roque, engaged to co-operate on the side of Ronda.

EXPEDITION OF FUENGIROLA.

General C. Campbell’s Correspondence. MSS.

On the 13th of October, captain Hope, in the Topaze, sailed from Ceuta, with a division of gun-boats and a convoy, containing a brigade of twelve-pounders, sixty-five gunners, a battalion of the eighty-ninth regiment, a detachment of foreign deserters, and the Spanish imperial regiment of Toledo, in all fifteen hundred men, including serjeants. Lord Blayney, commanding this force, was directed to make a false attack on Fuengirola, and should the enemy come out from Malaga, he was to sail against that place. A landing was effected the same day, and Sebastiani instantly marched, leaving only three hundred men in Malaga: lord Blayney was as instantly apprised of the success of the demonstration, yet he remained two days cannonading the castle with twelve-pounders, although the heavier metal of the gun-boats and of the frigate, had failed to make any impression on the walls; and during this time his dispositions betrayed the utmost contempt of military rules. Appendix, [No. XI.]On the second day, while he was on board a gun-boat himself, the garrison, which did not exceed two hundred men, having first descried Sebastiani’s column, made a sally, took the battery, and drove the British part of the investing force headlong towards the boats. Lord Blayney landed, rallied his men, and retook the artillery; but at this moment two squadrons of French cavalry came up, and his lordship, mistaking them for Spaniards, ordered the firing to cease. He was immediately made prisoner; his troops again fled to the beach, and would have been sabred but for the opportune arrival of the Rodney with the eighty-second regiment, the flank companies of which were immediately disembarked and first checked the enemy. The Spanish regiment, untouched by the panic, regained the ships regularly and without loss; but, of the British, two officers and thirty men were killed or wounded, and one general, seven inferior officers, and nearly two hundred serjeants and privates taken. Thus an expedition, well contrived and adequate to its object, was ruined by misconduct, and terminated in disaster and disgrace.

Scarcely was this affair finished, when Valdemoro and the marquis of Portasgo appeared in the Ronda, an insurrection commenced at Velez Malaga and in the neighbouring villages; and Blake, who had returned from Cadiz to the army in Murcia, advanced, with eight thousand men, towards Cullar on the side of Baza. General General Campbell’s Correspondence. MSS.Campbell immediately furnished money to Portasgo, and embarked a thousand stand of arms for the people of Velez Malaga. An English frigate was also sent to cruize along the coast, yet Sebastiani, relieved from the fear of a descent, soon quelled this insurrection; and then sending Milhaud on before with some cavalry, followed himself with reinforcements for general Rey, who was opposed to Blake. The latter, retiring behind the Almanzora river, was overtaken by Milhaud, and, being defeated on the 4th of November, his army dispersed: at the same time, a contagious fever, breaking out at Carthagena, spread along the coast to Gibraltar and Cadiz, and the Spanish operations on the side of Murcia ceased.

In the kingdom of Seville, the war turned chiefly upon the blockade of the Isla, and the movements of the Spanish armies in Estremadura. Provisions for Cadiz were principally drawn from the Condado de Neibla, and it has been seen that Copons, aided by descents from the ocean, endeavoured to secure this important resource; but neither his efforts, nor the descents, would have availed, if Ballasteros had not co-operated by constantly menacing Seville from Araceña and the Aroche mountains. Neither could Ballasteros have maintained the war there, were it not for the support of Badajos and Olivenza; under cover of which, Romana’s army protected his line of operation, and sent military supplies and reinforcements. On the possession of Badajos, therefore, the supply of Cadiz chiefly depended.

Seville was the French point of defence; Cadiz Estremadura and the Condado de Neibla their points of offence. The want of provisions, or the desire to cut off the Spanish convoys, or the sudden irruption of troops from Cadiz, threatening their posts at Moguer and Huelva, always drew them towards the coast; the enterprises of Ballasteros brought them towards Araceña; and, in like manner, the advance of Romana towards the mountains brought them to Estremadura; but Romana had wasted the greater part of the latter province, and as the fifth corps alone was disposable either for offensive movements, or for the defence of the country around Seville, Soult contented himself with such advantages as could be gained by sudden strokes; frequently, however, crossing the mountains to prevent the Spaniards from permanently establishing themselves on the frontier of Andalusia.

In October, Romana entered the Lines of Torres Vedras, and Mendizabal, who remained with two divisions, finding that Mortier, unconscious of Romana’s absence, had retired across the mountains, occupied Merida. He would also have established himself in the yet unwasted country about Llerena; but the appearance of a moveable column on the frontier of La Mancha, sent him back to Badajos, and, on the 20th of November, he united with Ballasteros. The French then fortified Gibraleon and other posts in the Condado de Neibla; Girard’s division re-appeared at Guadalcanal, and being joined by the column from La Mancha, foraged the country towards Llerena: whereupon Mendizabel took post at Zafra with nine thousand infantry and two thousand cavalry, including Madden’s Portuguese brigade. Meanwhile, Copons, who had four thousand men, was totally defeated at Castillejos by D’Aremberg, and retired to Puebla de Gusman.

At Cadiz, no change or military event had occurred after the affair of Matagorda, save the expeditions against Moguer already noticed, and a slight attempt of the Spaniards against the Chiclana works in September; but all men’s hopes and expectations had been wonderfully raised by political events which it was fondly hoped would secure both independence and a good constitution to Spain. After two years of intrigues and delay, the National Cortes was assembled, and the long suppressed voice of the people was at last to be heard. Nevertheless the members of the Cortes could not be duly and legally chosen in the provinces possessed by the enemy; and as some members were captured by the French on their journey to Cadiz, many persons unknown, even by name, to their supposed constituents, were chosen: a new principle of election, unknown to former Cortes, was also adopted; for all persons twenty-five years old, not holding office or pension under the government, nor incapacitated by crime, nor by debts to the state, nor by bodily infirmity, were eligible to sit if chosen. A supplement of sixty-eight members was likewise provided to supply accidental vacancies; and it was agreed that twenty-six persons then in Spain, natives of the colonies, should represent those dependencies.

Towards the latter end of September this great assembly met, and immediately took the title of Majesty: it afterwards declared the press free in respect of political, but not of religious matters, abolished some of the provincial juntas, re-appointed captains-general, and proceeded to form a constitution worded in the spirit of republican freedom. These things, aided by a vehement eloquence, drew much attention to the proceedings of the Cortes, and a fresh impulse seemed given to the war: but men brought up under despotism do not readily attain the fashions of freedom. The Provincial Junta, the Central Junta, the Junta of Cadiz, the Regency, had all been, in succession, violent and tyrannical in act, while claiming only to be popular leaders, and this spirit did not desert the Cortes. Abstract principles of liberty were freely promulgated, yet tyrannical and partial proceedings were of common occurrence; and the reformations, by outstripping the feelings and understandings of the nation, weakened the main springs of its resistance to the French. It was not for liberty, but for national pride and from religious influence, that the people struck. Freedom had no attractions for the nobles, nor for the monastics, nor even for the merchants; and the Cortes, in suppressing old establishments and violating old forms and customs, wounded powerful interests, created active enemies, and shocked those very prejudices which had produced resistance to Napoleon.

In the administration of the armies, in the conduct of the war, in the execution of the laws, and the treatment of the colonies, there was as much of vanity, of intrigue, of procrastination, negligence, folly, and violence as before. Hence the people were soon discontented; and when the power of the religious orders was openly attacked by a proposition to abolish the inquisition, the clergy became active enemies of the Cortes. The great cause of feudal privileges being once given up, the natural tendency of the Cortes was towards the enemy. A broad line of distinction was thus drawn between the objects of the Spanish and English governments in the prosecution of the war; and, ere the contest was finished, there was a schism between the British cabinet and the Spanish government, which would inevitably have thrown the latter into Napoleon’s hands, if fortune had not, at the moment, betrayed him in Russia.

The Regency, jealous of the Cortes, and little pleased with the inferior title of highness accorded them, were far from partaking of the republican spirit, and so anxious to check any tendency towards innovation, that early in the year they had invited the duke of Orleans to command the provinces bordering on France, permitted him to issue proclamations, and received him at Cadiz with the honours of a royal prince; intending to oppose his authority to that of the Local Juntas at the moment, and finally to that of the Cortes. The latter, however, refused their sanction to this appointment, obliged the duke to quit Spain, and soon afterwards displaced the Regency of Five; appointing Joachim Blake, Gabriel Cisgar, and Pedro Agar in their stead. During the absence of the two first, substitutes were provided, but one of them (Palacios) making some difficulty about taking the oath to the Cortes, was immediately declared to have forfeited the confidence of the nation; so peremptorily did the Cortes proceed.

Nevertheless, the new regents, not more pleased with the democratic spirit than their predecessors, and yet wishing to retain the power in their own hands, refused to listen to the princess of Brazils’ claim, and thus factions sprung up on every side; for the republicans were not paramount in the Cortes at first, and the majority were so subtilely dealt with by Pedro Souza, as actually to acknowledge Carlotta’s hereditary claim to the succession and to the immediate control of the whole Peninsula; and, as I have before noticed, would have proclaimed her sole Regent, but for the interference of lord Wellington.

Don Manuel Lapeña being declared captain-general of Andalusia, and commander of the forces in the Isla, was subservient to the views of the Cortes; but the new Regency, anxious to have a counterbalancing force, and being instigated also by persons from Badajos, enemies to Romana, removed that officer in December, and ordered his divisions to separate from the British army and come to Cadiz. The conduct of those divisions had, indeed, given little satisfaction either to the British or Portuguese, but numbers were so absolutely Mr. Stuart’s Papers. MSS.necessary to lord Wellington, that colonel O’Neal was sent to remonstrate with the Regency; and, by shewing that the fall of Estremadura, and the total loss of communication with the interior of Spain would ensue, obtained a momentary respite.

In matters relating to the war against the French, or to the administration of the country, the Spanish leaders were incapable of acting cordially on any mature plan; but with respect to the colonies, all parties agreed to push violence, injustice, cruelty, and impolicy to their utmost bounds. To please the British government, the first Regency had published, in May, a decree, permitting the South Americans to export their own products, under certain conditions. This legalizing of a trade, which could not be suppressed, and which was but a decent return to England for her assistance, gave offence to the Municipal Junta of Cadiz, and its resentment was so much dreaded that the Regency, in June, disowned their own decree of the previous month, and even punished the printers, as having given birth to a forged instrument. Exasperated at this treatment, the colonies, who had resisted all the intrigues of the French, with a firmness and singleness of purpose very displeasing to the government in Old Spain, openly discovered their discontent, and then the authorities in the Mother Country, throwing off the mask of liberality and patriotism, exposed their own secret views. “It is not enough that Americans should be Spanish subjects now, but that in all cases they should belong to Spain,” was the proclamation of the Regency, in answer to a declaration from the Caraccas, avowing attachment to the cause of Ferdinand: meaning that, if Spain should pass under the power of the usurper America must follow, as having no right to decide in any case for herself.

When the Cortes met, America expected more justice; she had contributed ninety millions of dollars for the support of the war, and many of her sons had served zealously in person; she had also been declared an integral part of the empire by the Central Junta, and her deputies were now permitted to sit in the Great National Assembly. She was however soon made to understand, that the first of these privileges meant eternal slavery, and that the second was a mere form. “The Americans complain of having been tyrannized over for three hundred years! they shall now suffer for three thousand years,” and “I know not to what class of beast the Americans belong:” such were the expressions heard and applauded in the Cortes, when the rights of the colonists were agitated in that assembly. Better to lose Spain to Joseph, if America be retained, than to save Spain if America be separated from her, was a feeling deeply rooted in every Spanish heart, a sentiment covertly expressed in many public documents, and openly acted upon; for, when repeated insults, treachery, and continued violence, had driven the colonists to defend their rights in arms, the money and stores, supplied by England for the support of the war against the French, were applied to the fitting out of expeditions against America. Thus the convocation of the National Cortes, far from improving the posture of affairs, dried up the chief sources of revenue, weakened the army in the field, offended many powerful bodies in the state, involved the nation in a colonial war, and struck at the root of the alliance with England.

CHAPTER II.

While the Spaniards were occupied with the debates of the Cortes, the French works were laboured with care. The chain of forts was perfected, each being complete in itself with ditch and palisades and a week’s provisions; the batteries at the Trocadero were powerful, and the flotillas at San Lucar de Barameda, Santa Maria, Puerto Real, and Chiclana, were ready for action. Soult repaired in person to San Lucar, and in the last night of October, thirty pinnaces and gun-boats slipping out of the Guadalquivir eluded the allied fleet, passed along the coast to Rota, and from thence, aided by shore batteries, fought their way to Santa Maria and the San Pedro. But, to avoid the fire of the fleet and forts in doubling Matagorda, the duke of Dalmatia, remembering what he had formerly effected at Campo Saucos on the Minho, transported his flotilla on rollers, overland; and in November, one hundred and thirty armed vessels and transports were assembled in the Trocadero canal. This success was, however, alloyed by the death of general Senarmont, an artillery officer of the highest reputation.

At the Trocadero point there were immense batteries, and some notable pieces of ordnance called cannon-mortars, or Villantroys, after the inventor. These huge engines were cast in Seville, and, being placed in slings, threw shells with such prodigious force as to range over Cadiz, a distance of more than five thousand yards. But to obtain this flight the shells were partly filled with lead, and their charge of powder was too small for an effective explosion. Nevertheless, they produced some alarm in the city, and were troublesome to the shipping. But Soult’s real design was first to ruin, by a superior fire, the opposite fort of the Puntales, then pass the straits with his flotilla, and establish his army between the Isla and the city; nor was this plan chimerical, for on the side of besieged there was neither concert nor industry.

Two drafts, made, in August and September, by lord Wellington, had reduced Graham’s force to five thousand men, and in October the fever broke out in Cadiz; but as Soult’s preparations became formidable, reinforcements were drawn from Gibraltar and Sicily, and, at the end of the year, seven thousand British, Germans, and Portuguese, were still behind the Santi Petri. Graham felt confident, 1º. that, with due preparation, he could maintain the Puntales even though its fire should be silenced. 2º. That Soult must establish a stronger flotilla than the allies, or his communication with Matagorda could not be maintained. 3º. That the intercourse between the army in Isla and the garrison of Cadiz could not be interrupted, unless the great redoubt of the Cortadura was lost.

To ensure a superiority of naval means, admiral Keats drew all the armed craft from Gibraltar. To secure the land defence, general Graham perseveringly Graham’s Despatches MSS.urged the Regency to adopt certain plans, and he was warmly seconded by sir Henry Wellesley; but neither their entreaties, nor the imminence of the danger, could overcome the apathy of the Spaniards. Their army, reinforced by a small body from Ceuta, was wanting in discipline, clothing, and equipments, and only sixteen thousand men of all arms were effective on a muster-roll of twenty-three thousand. The labour of the British troops, far from being assisted, were vexatiously impeded; it was the end of December, and after many sharp altercations, ere Graham could even obtain leave to put the interior line of the Cortadura in a state Appendix, [No. III.] Sections 1, 2, 3, 4.of defence, although, by a sudden disembarkation, the enemy might enter it from the rear, and cut off the army of the Isla from the city. But while the duke of Dalmatia was thus collecting means of attack, the events in Portugal prevented the execution of his design.

When Massena passed the frontier, his communications with France became so uncertain, that the emperor’s principal source of information was through the English newspapers. Foy brought the first exact intelligence of the posture of affairs. It was then that the army of the north was directed to support the army of Portugal; that the ninth corps was made a component part of the latter; that the prince of Esling was enjoined to hold fast between Santarem and the Zezere; to besiege Abrantes; and to expect the duke of Dalmatia, who had been already several times commanded to move through the Alemtejo, to his assistance. The emperor seems The King’s Correspondence, captured at Vittoriaeven to have contemplated the evacuation of Andalusia and the concentration of the whole army of the south on the Tagus, a project that would have strengthened rather than weakened the French in the Peninsula, because it was more important to crush the regular warfare in Portugal, than to hold any particular province.

Massena’s instructions reached him in due time, Soult’s were intercepted by the Guerillas, and the duplicates did not arrive before the end of December; a delay affording proof that thirty thousand men would scarcely have compensated for the uncertainty of the French communications. Postponing his design against Cadiz, the duke of Dalmatia repaired to Seville, carrying with him Latour Maubourg’s cavalry and five thousand infantry from the first corps. His instructions neither prescribed a line of movement nor enjoined any specific operation; the prince of Esling was to communicate his plan to which Soult’s was to be subordinate. But no certain intelligence even of Massena’s early proceedings had reached Seville, and such were the precautions of lord Wellington, such the activity of the Partidas, that from the time Soult quitted Cadiz, until his operation terminated, no communication could be effected between the two marshals, and each acted in perfect ignorance of the plans and situation of the other.

The duke of Dalmatia considering that Sebastiani had his hands full, and that the blockade of Cadiz, the protection of Seville on the side of Neibla Marshal Soult’s Correspondence. MSS.and of Araceña, would not permit the drawing off more than twenty thousand men, represented to the emperor that with such a force, he durst not penetrate the Alemtejo, leaving Olivenza and Badajos, and Ballasteros, (who would certainly join Mendizabel) on his rear; while Romana alone, without reckoning British troops, could bring ten thousand men against his front; hence he demanded leave to besiege those places, and Napoleon consented. Meanwhile, order was taken to secure Andalusia during the operations. Dessolles’ division had been recalled to form the army of the centre, and general Godinot took his place at Cordoba; a column of observation was posted under general Digeon at Ecija; Seville entrenched on the side of Neibla, was given over to general Daricau, and a detachment under Remond was posted at Gibraleon. The expeditionary army, consisting of sixteen thousand infantry, artillery, sappers and miners, and about four thousand cavalry and fifty-four guns, was assembled on the 2d January. An equipage of siege, a light pontoon train, and seventeen hundred carts, for stores and provisions were also prepared, and King Joseph’s Correspondence. MSS.Soult’s administration was now so efficient, that he ordered a levy of five thousand young Spaniards, called “escopeteros” (fuzileers) to maintain the police of the province.

SOULT’S FIRST EXPEDITION TO ESTREMADURA.

1811.

Mortier moving from Guadalcanal, entered Zafra on the 5th January, Mendizabel retired to Merida, and Ballasteros, in consequence of orders from the Regency, passed over the mountains to Frejenal. Winter tempests raged, and the French convoy which moved on Araceña, being overwhelmed by storms, was detained at the foot of the mountains, and to cover it, Gazan marching from Zafra, drove Ballasteros out of Frejenal. Meanwhile, the Spanish leaders, as well those in Estremadura, as in Cadiz, were quite ignorant of Soult’s intentions, some asserting that he was going to pass the Tagus at Almaraz, others, that his object was only to crush Ballasteros. Lord Wellington alone divined the truth, and it was he who first gave Mendizabel notice, that the French were not assembling Appendix, [No. II.] Sect. 5, 6.at Seville at all, so destitute of intelligence and of military knowledge were the Spaniards. Now when the French were breaking into Estremadura, terror and confusion spread far and wide; Badajos was ill provisioned, Albuquerque in ruins, Olivenza nearly dismantled; and, in the midst of this disorder, Ballasteros was drawn off towards the Condada de Neibla by the Regency, who thus deprived Estremadura of half its defenders at the moment of invasion.

Lord Wellington had advised that the troops should be concentrated, the bridges over the Guadiana mined for destruction, and the passage of that river disputed to gain time; but these things being neglected, an advanced guard of cavalry alone carried the bridge of Merida on the 6th. Soult then turned upon Olivenza with the infantry, and while Latour Maubourg’s dragoons held Mendizabel in check on the side of Badajos, Briche’s light horsemen collected cattle on the side of Estremadura; Gazan’s division, still posted near Frejenal, protected the march of the artillery and convoy, and La Houssaye’s brigade, belonging to the army of the centre, quitting Truxillo, marched against the Partidas and scoured the banks of the Tagus from Arzobispo to Alcantara.

FIRST SIEGE OF OLIVENZA.

This place, although regularly fortified with nine bastions, a covered way, and some unfinished ravelins, was incapable of a good defence. With an old breach slightly repaired, very few guns mounted, and commanding no passage of the Guadiana, it was of little importance to the French, yet, as containing four thousand troops, it was of some consequence to reduce it. Lord Wellington had pressed Romana to destroy the defences entirely, or to supply it with the means of resistance, and the marquis decided on the former; but Mendizabel slighting his orders, had thrown his best division into the place.