Note 704 — SECTION VIII: CHAPTER V

In defence of the unfortunate Galicians, whose patriotism and good faith has been impugned by so many English narrators of the retreat, it is only necessary to quote the reflections of two dispassionate eye-witnesses. Leith Hay (i. 132) writes: ‘To expect that the peasantry were to rush from their houses, and supply the wants of our soldiers with the only provision that they possessed for their own families—who might in consequence be left in the midst of the mountains, at midwinter, to starve—was imagining friendly feeling carried to an unnatural extent, and just as likely to happen as it would have been if, Napoleon having invaded Britain, an English yeoman should have earnestly requested one of our own soldiers to accept the last morsel of bread he had the means of obtaining for his children.’ Ormsby (ii. 162) says, to much the same effect: ‘As to their inhospitable reception of us, and the concealment of provisions, in candour I must be their apologist, and declare my conviction that the charge in many instances is unfounded and in others exaggerated. Do those who are most loud in their complaints honestly think that an army of 30,000 Spaniards would be better received in England than we were in Spain? I doubt it much. The people, dispirited and alarmed, began to look to self-preservation as the primary or sole object of their care. Add to this the horror and dismay which the excesses of our soldiers struck, and you will not be surprised that villages and houses were frequently deserted. Is it a matter of astonishment that the peasantry fled into the recesses of their mountains, intimidated by our presence and confounded by our crimes?’