Note 112 — SECTION III: CHAPTER II

Palafox has been so often abused that I take the opportunity of quoting the description of him given by Sir Charles Vaughan, one of the three or four Englishmen who saw him at Saragossa in the day of his power, and the only one who has left his impressions on record. He lived with Palafox for some five weeks in October-November, 1808. ‘This distinguished nobleman is about thirty-four years of age [an overstatement by six years]; his person is of middling stature, his eyes lively and expressive, and his whole deportment that of a perfectly well-bred man. In private life, so far as my daily intercourse gave me an opportunity of judging, his manners were kind, unaffected, and ingratiating. From the great readiness with which he dispatched business, and from the letters and public papers which were written by him with apparent great ease in my presence, I was led to form a very favourable opinion of his talents. There was a quickness in his manner of seizing objects, an impatience until they were accomplished. He was fond of talking of the events of the siege, and anxious to introduce to us men of every class who had distinguished themselves. There was a vivacity in his manner and conversation, an activity in his exertions as an officer, that is rarely met in a Spaniard. It was always a most cheering and interesting thing to ride with him through the streets of Saragossa. The joy and exultation of the people as he passed evidently sprung from the heart. To have acquitted himself to their satisfaction was no mean reward, and forms a sufficient answer to all the unworthy attempts (which I have been disgusted to witness) to depreciate his character’ (Vaughan Papers, from an unpublished journal of 1808).