Chapter XXV

PLANS OF THE FRENCH. SIR A. WELLESLEY RAISED TO THE PEERAGE. MARQUIS WELLESLEY ARRIVES IN SPAIN. ALTERATIONS IN THE BRITISH MINISTRY. STATE OF THE SPANISH GOVERNMENT. THE BRITISH ARMY RETREATS TO THE FRONTIERS OF PORTUGAL. BATTLES OF TAMAMES, OCANA, AND ALBA DE TORMES.

♦1809. August.♦

Never during the war had the prospect appeared so hopeful as when Sir Arthur entered Spain. For the first time Buonaparte had been repulsed at all points in a great battle; and for the first time also a spirit of national resistance had broken forth in Germany, ... the only spirit by which his tyranny could be overthrown. The Spaniards seemed to acquire strength from their defeats, learning confidence in their resources, if not experience from misfortunes; while the British army, by the passage of the Douro and the discomfiture of Soult, had once more made the enemy feel what they might apprehend from such troops and such a commander.

♦Soult proposes immediately to invade Portugal.♦

The Peninsula was but a secondary object in the all-grasping schemes of Buonaparte’s ambition. At first he had expected to secure it without a struggle; nor was he yet so undeceived concerning the real nature of the resistance to be experienced there, as to believe that any serious effort would be required for completing its conquest. In Germany it was, he thought, that the fate of Europe must be decided; and this opinion was proclaimed in England by those who, on every occasion, sought to persuade the public that resistance to such a statesman and such a general, wherever it was attempted, could only end in defeat, and humiliation, and ruin. Under this impression he had ordered the intrusive government, which was in fact entirely under his orders, to content itself with protracting the war till the campaign in Germany should be brought to a close. That campaign was now ended. The battle of Wagram had re-established his shaken power; an armistice had immediately been sued for, and in the negotiations which followed, the house of Austria surrendered more than the French king Francis I. had lost at Pavia. The news of this great success did not, however, induce the Intruder to deviate from his instructions. M. Soult, the most enterprising as well as the ablest of the French officers who were employed in Spain, proposed at this time a plan for re-entering Portugal. The line which should have secured the communication of the British army with Lisbon he occupied, now that that army had found it necessary to retreat across the Tagus. He proposed, therefore, to move from Plasencia against Beresford’s inefficient force, while Ney, advancing from Salamanca, should act upon its left flank. That army, if not absolutely destroyed, would be prevented from forming a junction by way of Alcantara with Sir Arthur; and the French, by rapidly pursuing this advantage, might occupy Abrantes, and once more take possession of Lisbon, in which case Soult, ♦Campaign of 1809, pp. 49–52. Ib. App. C-K.♦ still deceiving himself with regard to the disposition of the Portugueze, thought they would submit to an enemy whom they found it hopeless to resist. The plan was boldly conceived, though M. Soult had not sufficiently taken into his calculation the character of the troops with which he would again be brought in contact: but it was rejected by Joseph, who was at that time guided chiefly by M. Jourdan. That General, distinguished for his signal successes in the revolutionary war, held the high situation of Major-General of the army of Spain; and he preferring what seemed the surer though the slower course, resolved implicitly to follow the Emperor Napoleon’s instructions, and undertake no offensive operation for the present. A plan, he said, had been laid down for invading Portugal, and would be executed in the month of February. It was their intention to subjugate the south of Spain before this should be undertaken; and if the British Commander had possessed as little foresight as appeared in the conduct of the Spanish government, or if the British army had not derived better support from the Portugueze than from the Spaniards, the French might have succeeded in both parts of their intended operations.

♦Sir A. Wellesley raised to the peerage.♦

The Central Junta expressed its sense of Sir Arthur Wellesley’s services, by nominating him one of the Captain-generals of the army (a rank nearly equivalent to that of our field-marshal), and presenting him, in the name of Ferdinand, with some horses selected from the best breeds of Andalusia. “This tribute,” they said, “was of small value in comparison with the services which he had rendered to Spain, and still less in proportion to the wishes of those who offered it: but for hearts like his, the satisfaction resulting from great achievements was their best recompense; not was it in the power of man to bestow any reward which could equal the glory of being one of the principal deliverers of a great and generous people, of listening to their blessings, and of deserving their gratitude.” Sir Arthur accepted the horses, and the appointment also, provided he should receive permission from his own sovereign; but he declined the pay attached to it, not thinking it becoming that he should burthen the finances of Spain during such a contest. In England, also, he was recompensed with new honours. As soon as the news of his victory arrived, he was raised to the peerage by the titles of Baron Douro of Wellesley, and Viscount Wellington of Talavera, and of Wellington in the county of Somerset.

♦Aug. 1. Marquis Wellesley arrives in Spain.♦

On the fourth morning after the battle, while the bells of Cadiz were ringing, the cannon firing, and the people rejoicing with higher hopes than had been felt since the surrender of Dupont, Marquis Wellesley landed in that harbour to supersede Mr. Frere. A great concourse assembled to see him land, and as he set foot on shore, a French flag was spread before him, that he might tread upon it in honour of his brother’s victory. The people drew his carriage, which in that country is an unusual mark of respect. The Marquis gave one of them a purse of gold to distribute among his comrades: but the man returned it, and, in the name of the people, assured him they desired no reward, being happy that they had this opportunity of expressing the sentiments of the whole nation. Both at Cadiz and at Seville the Marquis was received with every mark of public honour, and with the most enthusiastic expressions of attachment and gratitude to the British nation. But the first dispatches from Sir Arthur opened ♦Distress of the army for provisions.♦ upon him a disheartening prospect. The combined armies, amounting to not less than 60,000 men, and 16,000 or 18,000 horse, were depending entirely for their daily supply upon the country, which did not contain a population in many square miles equal to the number of the army, and could not of course produce a sufficiency for its sustenance. Extremadura indeed is the worst peopled and least cultivated province of the whole Peninsula. It was necessary to send to a great distance for supplies, which, scanty as they were, could not be procured regularly, nor without great difficulty. The troops were ill fed, and frequently received no rations whatever. Effectual measures, Sir Arthur said, must be taken, and that speedily. No army could serve to any purpose unless it were properly fed; and it was absurd to suppose that a Spaniard, or a man or animal of any country, could make exertions without a due supply of food; in fact the Spaniards were more clamorous, and more exhausted, if they did not receive it regularly, than the English. The English, however, were in a state of great distress; from the 3d till the 7th they had had no bread; then about 4000 pounds of biscuit were divided among 30,000 mouths, and the whole supply ♦Aug. 8.♦ was exhausted. “The army,” said Sir Arthur, “will be entirely lost, if this treatment continues. If efficient measures had been adopted by the government when the distress of the British troops was first represented to them, the benefit must ere this have been experienced. There had been no neglect on the part of Mr. Frere: the evil was owing to the poverty and exhausted state of the country; to the inactivity of the magistrates and people; to their disinclination to taking any trouble, except that of packing up their property, and removing when they heard of the approach of a French patrole; to their habits of insubordination and disobedience, and to the want of power in the government and their officers.”

♦Disputes with Cuesta concerning supplies.♦

Cuesta’s unaccommodating temper aggravated the evil. He was applied to after the battle for ninety mules to draw the British artillery in place of those lost in the action; there were at that time hundreds in his army employed in drawing empty carts, and yet he refused to part with any. Five guns belonging to Alburquerque’s division having been taken at Arzobispo, the Duke endeavoured to make over to the British army the mules attached to them; but Cuesta took them for himself. His own cavalry were plentifully supplied with barley, while hundreds of the British horses died for want of it. In other respects, his men suffered as many privations as the English; and vexation at this and at the untoward issue of the campaign, combined with bodily infirmity, seems to have bewildered him: he lent ear to every complaint against the allies; and at a time when they were literally starving, both men and horses, he wrote to their General, stating that his own troops were in want of necessary food, because all that he ordered for their use was intercepted by the British and their commissaries. The English, he said, actually sold biscuit and meat; and he heard continual complaints and saw continual traces that they plundered all the places through which they passed, and even followed the peasantry to the mountains, for the purpose of stripping them even to the shirt. Sir Arthur positively denied that any thing going to the Spanish army had been stopped by the British; as for the tale of his soldiers selling provisions, he observed, that it was beneath the dignity of his Excellency’s situation and character to notice such things, and beneath his own to reply to them. He was concerned that General Cuesta should conceive there was any reason for complaining of the British troops; but, continued he, “when troops are starving, which those under my command have been, as I have repeatedly told your Excellency since I joined you, and particularly when they had no bread from the 3d to the 7th, it is not astonishing that they should go to the villages and even to the mountains to look for food where they think they can get it. The complaints of the inhabitants, however, should not have been confined to the conduct of the British; here in Deleitosa I have seen Spanish soldiers, who ought to have been elsewhere, take off the doors of the houses which were locked up, in order that they might plunder the houses; and they afterwards burnt the doors.”

To preserve discipline among starving troops is indeed impossible, and neither Cuesta nor Sir Arthur could be responsible for their men under such circumstances; but the letter of the former brought the question respecting provisions to a point, and Sir Arthur called upon him to state distinctly whether he understood that the Spanish army was to have not only all the provisions which the country could afford, but all those also which were sent from Seville; whether any magazines had been formed, and from whence the troops were to draw provisions? “I hope,” said he, “that I shall receive satisfactory answers to these questions to-morrow morning; if not, I beg that your Excellency will be prepared to occupy the posts opposite Almaraz, as it will be impossible for me to remain any longer in a country in which no arrangement is made for provisioning my troops, and in which it is understood that all the provisions which are either found in the country, or are sent from Seville (as I have been informed, for the use of the British army) are to be applied solely and exclusively to the Spanish troops.” On the day that this correspondence took place, an English commissary arriving from Truxillo with bread and barley for the British army, was stopped on the way, and deprived of all his barley and part of his bread by a detachment of Spanish horse. Whatever momentary irritation might be occasioned by circumstances like these, Sir Arthur commiserated the sufferings of the Spanish army too sincerely to harbour any resentment; but he perceived the absolute necessity of withdrawing. “It is useless,” he said to the British ambassador, “to complain; but we are not treated as friends, much less as the only prop on which the cause of Spain can depend. But, besides this want of good-will, which can easily be traced to the temper of the General, there is such a want of resources in the country, and so little exertion in bringing forward what is to be found; that if the army were to remain here much longer, it would become totally useless. The daily and increasing loss of horses from deficiency of food, and from the badness of what there is, is really alarming.” Ney’s return to Old Castille strengthened him in this resolution; it satisfied him that no serious attack upon Andalusia was intended for the present, and he thought it not unlikely that this corps of the enemy was about to invade Portugal, for the sake of drawing him out of Spain.

♦Mr. Frere requires the removal of Cuesta.♦

The necessity of removing Cuesta from the command appeared so urgent to Mr. Frere, that he deemed it his duty to present a memorial upon the subject, though Marquis Wellesley was expected two days afterward at Seville. ♦Aug. 9.♦ He dwelt upon his abandonment of the wounded at Talavera, and upon the imminent danger to which he had exposed Venegas by concealing from him, as well as from his government, the true state of the combined armies, and the inability of the English to proceed. The dismissal of Cuesta, he said, could not long be delayed, and it was important that it should take place instantly, and another commander appointed: either the choice being left to Sir Arthur, or the Junta itself appointing the Duke of Alburquerque, who possessed his confidence and that of the army, and whose abilities had been tried and approved. This was the only satisfaction which could be given to the British General and his army, and even this would be little: “the wound,” said Mr. Frere, “is very deep, and the English nation could not have received one more difficult to heal than the abandonment of their wounded at Talavera.” This was the last act of Mr. Frere in his public capacity; and it was consistent with the whole conduct of that minister, who, during his mission never shrunk from any responsibility, nor ever, from the fear of it, omitted any effort which he thought requisite for the common welfare of his own country and of Spain. In presenting such a memorial, while his successor was, as it were, at the door, he was conscious that he might appear to be acting irregularly in his public character; and in his private one, that it might alter the feelings with which he could have wished to take leave of his friends in Spain; but, in addition to the urgency of the case, he considered also that it would be peculiarly unpleasant for Marquis Wellesley to begin his mission with an altercation in which his brother was concerned. Mr. Frere’s situation had been unfavourable to any thing like a controlling influence; the intelligence which announced the intended assistance of a British force had been accompanied with an intimation of his recall, and for some months he had, as he expressed himself, literally been a minister only from day to day, looking for the arrival of his successor by the first fair wind. The Junta expressed their sense of his zealous services by conferring upon him the Castillian title of Marquez de la Union (which he received permission from his own government to retain); and, in reply to the momentary outcry which misrepresentation and party spirit had raised against him in England, they represented his conduct such as they conceived it to be, and as it truly was. This had never prevented him from using the strongest language and taking the highest tone toward the very persons who had been foremost in this friendly act; but he felt how unfavourable his situation was, and, knowing that that of Marquis Wellesley would in all respects be very different, he hoped the Marquis might be able to remedy the existing evils as far as they were capable of being remedied. The task, however, was no easy one. “It might seem,” he said, “that a British minister ought before that time to have established a regular system for securing the subsistence of the armies; but the evil lay deep; it arose from an old despotic government, and from eighteen years of the basest corruption, intrigue, and public pillage. The effects of all this still continued, the system itself was not wholly done away, and even a sovereign in ordinary times would find it difficult to remedy it.”

♦Cuesta resigns the command.♦

Marquis Wellesley, on his arrival, did not think it expedient to insist on Cuesta’s removal. That General, he observed, was said to be deficient in every quality necessary for an extensive command, except courage; his temper rendered him peculiarly unfit for acting with an allied army, and it was scarcely possible that another officer with equal disqualifications should be found in the Spanish service. But the government was under some apprehension of his influence, which was supposed to be extensive and dangerous, though it rested on no other foundation than the precarious one of undeserved popularity. The Marquis, therefore, limited his interference to a strong expression of his sense of the General’s misconduct, being of opinion that his removal might be effected more willingly and with less danger if it appeared to be the consequence of his own actions, rather than the result of a direct application from the British ambassador. The Junta, however, were desirous that such a direct application should be made; and Marquis Wellesley then addressed a note to Garay, stating that it was impossible to hope for any degree of co-operation, or even for any aid from the troops of Spain to the British army, if the chief command remained in the hands of General Cuesta. Cuesta had wisely anticipated such a measure. Two days after the date of that letter to Sir Arthur, in which he complained so preposterously of the British troops, a paralytic stroke deprived him of the use of one leg; feeling himself then completely incapacitated, he delivered over the army to the second in command, D. Francisco de Eguia, and requested permission to resign, that he might go to the baths of Alhama. When, therefore, the Marquis delivered in his note, he was informed that Cuesta’s resignation had been accepted.

♦Eguia succeeds ad interim to the command.♦

Eguia was well acquainted with the military topography of Spain, but had no other qualification for the command of an army: at the battle of Medellin he did not venture to depart from his orders without receiving fresh ones from Cuesta, at a time when it was impossible for Cuesta to communicate with him, and by this imbecility he completed the destruction of the army that day. Mr. Frere, knowing that the military Junta would be most likely to confirm him in the command, because he was one of the old school, wrote a private note to Garay, deprecating such an appointment. Alburquerque was the proper person for the command; but the Junta were jealous of his rank, his popularity, his talents, and his enlightened views; and Marquis Wellesley soon discovered that, if he were named to the command, the army under him would certainly be reduced. Till, however, a successor to Cuesta should be chosen, the command devolved upon Eguia; and when that General notified this to the British Commander, he accompanied the intelligence with the fairest professions, desiring him to depute a confidential officer, who, with another appointed on the part of the Spaniards, might regulate the distribution of provisions in such a manner that the English army should be supplied in preference to the Spaniards. Lord Wellington expressed, in reply, his perfect confidence in the intentions of Eguia, and sent some officers to Truxillo, there to meet any whom Eguia might appoint, and settle some practicable arrangement: a preference like that which was spoken of he well perceived was impossible.

♦Calvo sent to see to the supplies.♦

When first the Junta were informed of the distress of the British army, nothing appeared to hurt them so much as that their own troops should have been supplied while their allies were in want, and they ordered Cuesta, in every instance, to supply the British troops in preference to his own. They directed the Junta of Badajoz to send two members of their body into the vale of Plasencia, and secure the persons of those magistrates who, having engaged to furnish means for the British army, had failed in their engagement; to supersede them also, and place at the disposal of the British commissary every thing which he might require. Before these measures could be executed, Soult entered from Old Castille, and the whole of the fertile country on that side of the Tagus fell into the possession of the enemy. When the complaints of the British General became louder, the Junta, alarmed at his intended retreat into Portugal, deputed D. Lorenzo Calvo, one of their own body, to the armies, hoping that his exertions, aided by his authority, would effectually remedy the evil. Calvo was considered a man of energetic character and activity, and, having been bred up in commerce, had acquired those habits of business which were necessary for the service in which he was now employed. True to that system of dissimulation, which, by the old school, was esteemed essential in all business of state, he was charged to invest Cuesta with the order of Charles III. lest that General should take umbrage at the distinction conferred upon Lord Wellington, though at this very time the Junta were so offended at Cuesta’s conduct, that nothing but their fears had prevented them from immediately displacing him.

♦Lord Wellington declares his intention of falling back.♦

But neither Eguia’s professions, nor the measures of the government, nor the presence of one of its members, produced any relief to the British army. Had it been in a condition for service, and provided with means of transport, Lord Wellington had it in view to act against the French at Plasencia, for which purpose he ordered materials to be collected for repairing the Puente de Cardinal; but his cavalry had now consumed all the forage within reach; they were obliged to go from twenty to thirty miles to procure it, and frequently when they had gone so far, the Spaniards, being themselves in equal want, deprived them of it on their return. The horses were at length so much reduced that they were scarcely able to relieve the outposts. More than a month had now elapsed since the British General informed Cuesta that, if he were not supplied, he could not remain in Spain. In the course of that time, if proper measures had been taken, supplies might have been forwarded from the farthest part of Andalusia; but not a mule or cart, or article of provision of any kind had been obtained under any order from, or arrangement made by, the government. Lord Wellington applied for a remount of only an hundred mares, which could not be used in the Spanish cavalry, because they used stallions; even these he could not procure, nor did he receive an answer to his application. It was now become absolutely necessary to withdraw, and on the 18th of August, he requested Marquis Wellesley to give notice to the government that he was about so to do. “Since the 22d of last month,” said he, “the horses have not received their regular deliveries of barley, and the infantry not ten days’ bread. I have no doubt the government have given orders that we should be provided as we ought to be, but orders are not sufficient. To carry on the contest to any purpose, the labour and service of every man and of every beast in the country should be employed in the support of the armies; and these should be so classed and arranged as not only to secure obedience to the orders of the government, but regularity and efficiency in the performance of the service. Magazines might then with ease be formed, and transported wherever the armies should be stationed. But as we are now situated, 50,000 men are collected upon a spot which cannot afford subsistence for 10,000, and there are no means of sending to a distance to make good the deficiency: the Junta have issued orders, which, for want of arrangement, there are no persons to obey; and the army would perish here, if I were to remain, before the supplies could arrive.”

♦Correspondence with Eguia and Calvo.♦

Prepared as both the Spanish government and general ought to have been for such a determination, both manifested the greatest astonishment when it was announced. Eguia wrote to Lord Wellington, repeating his protestations, that he should have every thing which he required, and that the Spaniards should go without any thing, rather than the British should be in want. “An English commissary,” he said, “should reside at Truxillo, who should have a key of the magazines, and take the proportion for the British army, though his own should perish. If,” he continued, “notwithstanding these conclusive protestations, the British General persisted in marching into Portugal, it would be apparent that other causes induced him to take that step, and not the want of subsistence.” Upon this insulting assertion, Lord Wellington informed Eguia that any further correspondence between them was unnecessary. He entered, nevertheless, into a sufficient explanation of the real state of affairs. The magazines of Truxillo, according to a return sent by Eguia himself, did not contain a sufficiency to feed the British army alone for one day. No doubt was entertained of the exertions of the Spanish General, nor of his sincerity. “The deficiencies,” said Lord Wellington, “arise not from want of orders of your Excellency, but from the want of means in the country, from the want of arrangement in the government, and from the neglect of timely measures to supply the wants which were complained of long ago.” A letter from Calvo to Lord Wellington implied the same suspicion concerning the motives of his retreat as Eguia had done, though in more qualified terms. This member of the Junta came forward with something more specious than vague promises and protestations. “He bound himself,” he said, “to provide the army, within three days, with all the rations which it might require; and within fifteen days to have magazines formed in places appointed by the British General, containing all the articles which the army could consume in one or two months; and to provide also carts and mules, both of draft and burthen, sufficient for the transport of these magazines.” He then protested that 7000 rations of bread, 50,000 pounds of flour, 250 fanegas of barley, 50 of rye, 100 of wheat, and 60 arrobas of rice were ready, with means of transport for them, and before the morrow noon would reach the British army in their present position. “My activity,” said Calvo, “shall not rest until continual remittances of the same articles prove that my promises deserve to be confided in; and if there were in your Excellency’s intention any disposition to alter your purpose of retreat, I am certain I should obtain the satisfaction of hearing your Excellency yourself confess that I had surpassed your hopes.” At the time when Lord Wellington received this letter, he had in his possession an order dated only five days back, and signed by this very member of the Supreme Junta, ordering to the Spanish head-quarters, for the use of the Spanish army, all the provisions which the British commissary had provided in the town of Guadalupe and its neighbourhood. Well, therefore, might he reply to him, that he could have no confidence in his assurances. “As for the promise,” said he, “of giving provisions to the British army to the exclusion of the Spanish troops, such a proposal can only have been made as an extreme and desperate measure to induce me to remain in Spain; and were it practicable, I could not give my consent to it. The Spanish army must be fed as well as the British. I am fully aware,” he continued, “of the consequences which may follow my departure, though there is now no enemy in our front; but I am not responsible for them, whatever they may be. They are responsible who, having been made acquainted with the wants of this army more than a month ago, have taken no effectual means to relieve them; who allowed a brave army, which was rendering gratuitous services to Spain, and which was able and willing to pay for every thing it received, to starve in the midst of their country, and be reduced by want to a state of inefficiency; who refused or neglected to find carriages for removing the officers and soldiers who had been wounded in their service, and obliged me to give up the equipment of the army for the performance of this necessary act ♦Aug. 20.♦ of humanity.” On the following day Lord Wellington began his retreat in the direction of Badajoz.

♦Marquis Wellesley proposes a plan for supplying the armies.♦

He halted at Merida, and eight days after his departure, being then four marches from Xaraicejo, he found none of the supplies on the road which had so confidently been promised. Having, however, been able to separate his troops, and being out of reach of Eguia’s army, he now procured regular supplies. Marquis Wellesley meantime had been indefatigable in pressing upon the government the necessity of a regular plan for provisioning the armies; and he found, upon investigation, that orders enough had been issued, but no means had been employed either to enforce the execution of those orders, or to ascertain in what respects they had failed, or what were the causes either of their total failure or of their partial success. No magazines or regular depots had been established, no regular means of transport provided, nor any persons regularly appointed to conduct and superintend convoys, under the direction of the general commanding the army; nor had any system been adopted for drawing from the more fertile provinces, by a connected chain of magazines, resources to supply the deficiency of those poorer countries in which the army might be acting. At the solicitation of the Junta, Marquis Wellesley delivered in a plan for remedying these evils. It was less easy of execution in Spain than it would have been in England, where the system of our stagecoaches and waggons has disciplined a great number of persons in the detail of such arrangements; yet, with due exertions on the part of government, it might speedily have been established. Two days elapsed, and no notice was taken of the proposal; he requested a reply, and after two days more Garay put into his hand a long string of regulations for the internal management of the magazines when they should have been formed. Marquis Wellesley again anxiously inquired whether the Junta were disposed to adopt the plan which he had formed at their request, and whether any steps had been taken for carrying it into effect? At length, after it had been nine days in their hands, he was informed that they assented to it,—but this was all; it was a mere verbal assent, and no measures whatever were taken for beginning arrangements of such urgent necessity. The government at the same time expressed its confidence that the British army would now rejoin the Spaniards, and make a forward movement against the enemy. Marquis Wellesley suspected some of the Junta of treason. “This proposition,” said he to his government, “accords with the general tenor of those professions of zeal for active war, which have particularly characterized the declarations of the Junta since the army has been deprived of the means of movement and supply. Far from affording any just foundation of confidence in their intentions, such declarations of activity and enterprise, unaccompanied by any provident or regular attention to the means and objects of the war, serve only to create additional suspicions of ignorance, weakness, or insincerity. No person acquainted with the real condition of the British and Spanish forces at ♦Aug. 30.♦ this time, could reasonably advise a forward movement against the enemy with any other view than the certain destruction of the allied armies.”

♦His ill opinion of the Spanish government.♦

The conduct of the Junta gave strong grounds for such a suspicion. The real cause which had checked the progress of a victorious army, and finally reduced it to a state unfit for service, could not be concealed; public opinion loudly imputed this evil to the negligence of government, and the government endeavoured, by ungenerous artifices, to divert the general indignation. Rumours were set afloat that the real cause of the retreat of the British army was very different from the assigned one; they had not fallen back upon Portugal because there had been any deficiency either in their means of supply or of transport, but because of certain political considerations, inconsistent with the security and honour of Spain, and with the good faith of Great Britain. Demands, it was whispered, had been made in the King of England’s name, for the cession of Cadiz, of the Havannah, and even of the whole island of Cuba; changes had been required in the form of the Spanish government, as preliminary conditions to the further operations of the British troops in Spain, and Lord Wellington had retreated only because these demands were refused. These reports, which, if not invented by the government, certainly were not discountenanced by them, were absolutely and entirely false; nothing had been asked from Spain except subsistence for the army employed in her defence. Marquis Wellesley, however, though he perceived the criminal misconduct of the government, and though he affirmed that in the last campaign no rational motives could be imagined for the conduct of some of the generals and officers, unless it were supposed that they concerted their operations with the French instead of the British general, did justice to the people of Spain. “Whatever insincerity or jealousy towards England existed, was to be found,” he said, “in the government, its officers, and adherents; no such unworthy sentiment prevailed among the people.” They had done their duty, and were still ready to do it; and, notwithstanding the vexations which he experienced, and the alarm and even ill-will which the retreat of the British excited, he remembered, as became him, that the cause of Spain and England was the same: while, therefore, he expressed his opinion that the Cortes ought to be assembled, and a more efficient government formed than that of so ill-constituted and anomalous a body as the Junta, he listened willingly to every suggestion for employing the British troops in any practicable manner. Might it not be possible, it was said, for them to take up a position on the left bank of the Guadiana, occupying Merida as an advanced post, their right at Almendralejo, and their left extending toward Badajoz? Portugal might be covered by this position; Seville protected at the same time, and a point of support given to the left of the Spanish army, which should in that case be cantoned in Medellin, Don Benito, and Villa Nueva de la Serena.

♦Lord Wellington objects to taking a position on the Guadiana.♦

This plan the Marquis proposed to his brother; but that able general was of opinion that the Guadiana was not defensible by a weaker against a stronger army, being fordable in very many places, and affording no position. The Spanish army, he thought, was at that time in the best position in that part of the country, one which they ought to hold against any force that could be brought against them, if they could hold any thing; while they held it they covered the Guadiana effectually, and their retreat from it was always secure. He, therefore, recommended that they should send away the bridge of boats which was still opposite Almaraz, and remain where they were as long as possible. For the British army, Lord Wellington said, he saw no chance at present of its resuming offensive operations; and he desired that no hopes might be held out to the Junta of any further co-operation on his part with the Spanish troops, which in their present state were by no means to be depended on. He saw the difficulty to which this determination might reduce the Spanish government; their army might be seized with a panic, run off, and leave every thing exposed to instant loss. All he could say to this was, that he was in no hurry to withdraw from Spain; he wanted to refresh his troops; he should not enter Portugal till he had heard Marquis Wellesley’s sentiments; if he did enter it he should go no farther than the frontier, where he should be so near, that the enemy, unless in very great force, would not venture across the Guadiana, leaving the British army upon their flank and rear; in fact, therefore, he should be as useful to Spain within the Portugueze frontier as upon the Guadiana, and even more so, because the nearer he went to Portugal, the more efficient he should become. The best way to cover the Guadiana and Seville, was by a position on the enemy’s flank.

♦Alburquerque appointed to the command in Extremadura.♦

As an inducement to Lord Wellington to remain, and co-operate with the Spanish army, the Junta proposed to place the corps which they designed to leave in Extremadura under his command. This was to consist of 12,000 men, a number inadequate to the service for which they were required; but the true reason was perceived by the British General; he had by this time had ample opportunities of discovering that the Junta, in the distribution of their force, did not consider military defence and military operations so much as political intrigues and the attainment of trifling political objects. The Junta of Extremadura had insisted that Alburquerque should have the command in their province; the government was weak enough in authority to be obliged to yield this, and weak enough in judgement to diminish as far as possible the army which they unwillingly entrusted to this envied and most ill-treated nobleman. Lord Wellington, who could not have accepted the command unconditionally without permission from his own court, declined it altogether under present circumstances, as being inconsistent with those operations which he foresaw would soon become necessary for the British army. He had intelligence that a council of war held at Salamanca had recommended an attack upon Ciudad Rodrigo: the loss of that place would cut off the only communication which the Spanish government had with the northern provinces, and would give the French secure possession of Old Castille, and probably draw after it the loss of Almeida. It would, therefore, be incumbent upon him to make exertions for relieving Ciudad Rodrigo. The cabildo of that city, just at this time when Lord Wellington was contemplating their approaching danger, and how best to succour them, gave an example of the spirit which too many of these provincial authorities displayed toward the British army. 100,000 pounds of biscuit had been ordered there, and paid for by a British commissary; and when Marshal Beresford sent for it, that it might be deposited in the magazines at Almeida, the cabildo seized 30,000 pounds of this quantity, upon the ground that debts due to that city by Sir John Moore’s army had not been paid, ... although part of the business of the commissary who was sent to Ciudad Rodrigo was to settle these accounts, and discharge the debts in question.

♦Lord Wellington withdraws to Badajoz.♦

This was a specimen of that ill-will towards England which prevailed in many places among persons of this rank; and Marquis Wellesley perceived that such persons, if not favoured by the government, were certainly not discountenanced. The same spirit was manifested but too plainly by the persons employed about Cuesta’s army. While they were professing that the English army should be served in preference to their own people (even to the exclusion of them, if needful), they never offered to supply a single cart or mule, or any means of transport from their own abundance. Lord Wellington, for want of such means, was compelled to leave his ammunition behind him, and then no difficulty was found in transporting it to the Spanish stores. No difficulty was found in transporting the bridge of boats from Almaraz to Badajoz; yet if these means of transport, with which the Spanish army was always abundantly provided, had been shared with the British army, many of the difficulties under which it suffered would have been relieved, and its separation, says Lord Wellington, certainly would not have taken place when it did. The distress which his men suffered would not have been felt in an equal degree by the French, or by any people who understood how to manage their food. Meat they had always in sufficiency, and their chief want was of bread, ... they were not ingenious enough to make a comfortable meal without it, though flour or rice was served out in its stead. But the want of food for the cavalry, and of means of transport, which actually rendered the British army inefficient, could not be remedied by any dexterity of the men, or any foresight of the general, and is wholly imputable to the conduct of the Spanish generals and the Spanish government. Spain was grievously injured by this unpardonable misconduct. The English ministry were at this very time proposing to increase Lord Wellington’s force to 30,000 men, provided the supreme command were vested in the British general, and effectual arrangements made for their supply. But in the present state of things, both the Marquis and his brother perceived that any co-operation with the Spanish armies would only draw on a repetition of the same disasters. The intent was therefore abandoned, ♦1809. September.♦ and Lord Wellington at the beginning of September, proceeded to Badajoz, stationing his army, part within the Portugueze frontier, and part on the Spanish territory, in a position which would menace the flank and rear of the French if they advanced toward Andalusia.

♦Expedition to Walcheren.♦

While the allied armies were thus rendered inefficient, not by the skill or strength of the enemy, but by the inexperience and incapacity of the Spanish authorities, the mightiest force that had ever left the British shores was wasted in a miserable expedition to the Scheldt, and upon objects so insulated, and unimportant at that crisis, that if they had been completely attained, success would have been nugatory. Had that force been landed in the north of Germany, as the Austrian government proposed, it has since been known, that what Schill did with his single regiment, would have been done by Blucher and the whole Prussian army. Marquis Wellesley had always disapproved of its destination, looking upon the plan as at once absurd and ruinous. Destructive to the last degree it proved, from the unwholesome nature of the country to which it was sent: a cause which of all others might with most certainty have been foreseen, and yet by some fatality seems to have been overlooked by all who were concerned in planning the expedition or consulted upon it. The only consolation, if consolation it may be deemed, for the misemployment of such a force, was in the knowledge that, owing to the state of the Spanish counsels, and the temper of the Spanish generals, it could not have acted in Spain.

♦Inquiry into the conduct of the Duke of York.♦

The British government meantime had to struggle with difficulties at home as well as abroad, and of the most unexpected kind. During the former part of the year parliament was occupied with an inquiry into the conduct of the Duke of York as commander-in-chief, which ended in his resigning the office. The circumstances which were disclosed rendered this resignation becoming and necessary; but perhaps there never was another instance in which the reaction of public opinion was at once so strongly and so justly manifested. For when the agitation was subsided which had been raised, not so much by the importance of the business itself, as by the unremitting efforts of a set of libellers the vilest and most venomous of their kind, it was then perceived that the accusation had originated in intrigue and malice; that the abuses which were brought to light were far less than had been supposed to exist, and that in proving them it had been proved also that the greatest improvements had been introduced into that department by his Royal Highness, and that the general administration was excellent. From that time, therefore, the Duke acquired a popularity which he had never before possessed; and the efforts which had been made with persevering malignity to ruin him in the good opinion of the nation, served only to establish him there upon the strongest and surest grounds.

♦Alterations in the ministry.♦

This inquiry had occupied a full third of the whole session, to the grievous interruption of public business, and the more grievous excitement of the people, even to the extinction in most minds of all other public interest whatever. The ministry meantime had other causes of disquiet, which did not transpire till the session had closed. Mismanaged arrangements for the removal of Lord Castlereagh from the war department, induced him to challenge Mr. Canning, with whom the wish for his removal originated, but who in the course of the affair had been as ill used as himself. Both parties in consequence resigned; the Duke of Portland did the same, compelled by the state of his health, for he died almost immediately afterwards, and thus the administration was broken up. Lord Liverpool, the only remaining secretary of state, performed the business of the other two departments, while the remaining members of the cabinet looked about in dismay, and almost in despair, for new colleagues and for a new head. ♦Sept. 23.♦ Their situation appeared so forlorn that official letters were addressed to Earl Grey and Lord Grenville, informing them that his Majesty had authorized Earl Liverpool and Mr. Perceval to communicate with their lordships for the purpose of forming an extended and combined administration, and requesting them to come to town, that as little time as possible might be lost in forwarding so important an object. Earl Grey replied, that had his Majesty been pleased to signify he had any commands for him personally, he should not have lost a moment in showing his duty by prompt obedience to his royal pleasure; but when it was proposed that he should communicate with the existing ministers, for the purpose of forming a combined administration with them, he should be wanting in duty to the King, and in fairness to them, if he did not at once declare that such a union was, as far as it regarded him under the then circumstances, impossible: this being the answer which he was under the necessity of giving, his appearance in London could be of no advantage; and it might possibly be of detriment to the country, if, in consequence of a less decisive answer, any farther delay should take place in the formation of a settled government.

Lord Grenville, who was in Cornwall, replied, he should lose no time in repairing to town, and begged leave to defer all observations upon the business till his arrival. The day after his arrival he sent an answer conformable to that of Earl Grey, declining the proposed communication, because it could not be productive of any public advantage. “I trust,” he added, “I need not say that this opinion is neither founded in any sentiment of personal hostility, nor in a desire of unnecessarily prolonging political differences. To compose, not to inflame, the divisions of the empire, has always been my anxious wish, and is now more than ever the duty of every loyal subject; but my accession to the existing administration could not in any respect contribute to this object, nor could it be considered in any other light than as a dereliction of public principle. This answer, which I must have given to any such proposal, if made while the government was yet entire, cannot be varied by the retreat of some of its members. My objections are not personal, they apply to the principle of the government itself, and to the circumstances which attended its appointment.”

Nothing but extreme necessity could have induced the remaining ministers to make these overtures; and when their advances were thus rejected, great hopes were entertained by the adverse party, that they would not be able to keep their ground as an administration. It was even affirmed and believed that some of the highest offices were offered to different persons, and that none could be found to accept them. The only hope of the ministry rested upon Marquis Wellesley; hints were thrown out that he would not join any arrangement in which Mr. Canning was not included; this opinion, however, proved erroneous, the Marquis accepted the office which Mr. Canning vacated, the Earl of Liverpool was transferred from the home to the war department, and the situation which he had vacated was filled by Mr. Ryder. Lord Palmerstone was made secretary at war in the room of Sir James Pulteney, and Mr. Perceval took the place of the Duke of Portland, ... thus uniting in himself, as Mr. Pitt and Mr. Addington had done before him, the offices of first lord of the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer. The loss of the Duke was only that of a name; that of Mr. Canning was greatly regretted, as was also the secession of Mr. Huskisson, who resigned his seat at the treasury at the same time; but though the ministry was weakened by their departure, it was well understood that the opposition would derive no aid from them; and, on the whole, government was thought to have gained by these changes more than it had lost, in consequence of the high reputation of Marquis Wellesley, and the almost general desire of the nation to see him in administration. His brother, Mr. Henry Wellesley, was appointed to succeed him as ambassador to Spain.

♦Disposition of the French and Spanish armies.♦

The disposable force of the enemy in Spain at this time was estimated at 125,000 men, well provided with cavalry and artillery, exclusive of the garrisons in Barcelona and the strong places upon the Pyrenean frontier. Of these, about 35,000 were employed in Arragon and Catalonia, the rest were in the two Castilles and Extremadura, 70,000 being in the field under Victor, Soult, Ney, Sebastiani, and Mortier, ... the remainder employed in garrisons, and in keeping up the communication between the different places in their possession. Sick and wounded were not included, and an allowance was made for the loss of 10,000 men at Talavera. At the lowest estimate, this was the number of the enemy; the force of the Spaniards was miserably inferior. Blake, after the rout at Belchite, had reassembled a small army, scarcely exceeding 6000 men, with which he was endeavouring, from time to time, to relieve Gerona. Noroña had 15,000 men in Galicia; but a tenth part of these were without arms, and he had neither cavalry nor artillery. The Duke del Parque had 9000 men at Ciudad Rodrigo, and Eguia and Venegas had about 50,000 in their two armies. But the inefficient state of these troops had been lamentably proved; both cavalry and infantry were for the most part undisciplined, and the latter neither properly clothed nor accoutred, notwithstanding large supplies of all things needful had been sent from England.

♦Neediness of the intrusive government.♦

The Intruder meantime, now that immediate danger was averted, had leisure to feel the wretched state to which his subserviency to a wicked brother had reduced him. He was, indeed, in possession of Madrid, and half the kingdom was overrun by his troops; but how were those troops to be paid, or how was he to support the expenses of his court and government? Whatever might be the issue of the war in the Peninsula, the vast colonial empire of Spain could never be his, and the resources which still continued to arrive from thence were enjoyed by the legitimate government. Whereever his authority extended, trade was at an end, the people were impoverished, and the sources of revenue destroyed. The first-fruits of plunder also had now been consumed. Andalusia, indeed, offered a harvest as yet untouched, and which would ere long be at his disposal; but till the opportunity arrived, it was necessary to glean whatever had been spared in the former pillage. An edict was issued, denouncing severe punishment against those who should secrete papers or effects belonging to the suppressed monasteries, and offering a reward for the discovery of such property, proportionate to its value. He had previously confiscated the property of all Spaniards in foreign countries, who should not forthwith return in obedience to his command; he now called upon those in whose hands property, papers, or effects had been left by others when forsaking their place of residence, to deliver them up for the use of the treasury. Any persons buying or selling gold, silver, or jewels, which had belonged to a suppressed convent, or to an insurgent, were to be severely punished; and those who assisted the insurgents in any manner were to be put to death. Another decree sequestered the revenues of all archbishops and bishops, and appointed pensions from the state instead. Another commanded all persons possessing plate to the amount of more than ten dollars, except in plates, knives, and spoons, to give in an account thereof within three days; the mint was immediately to pay a fourth of its value, and the remainder was promised within four months. All plate which should be concealed after this edict was to be forfeited, and a fourth of its value given to the informer; and silversmiths were forbidden to purchase any articles in silver, except such as were permitted to be in use by the present decree.

♦Measures of severity.♦

These measures proved the neediness of the intrusive government. Its atrocious character had already been amply demonstrated; if farther proof were needed, it was to be found in a decree by which all persons whose sons were serving in what it called the insurgent armies were required to furnish a man to the Intruder’s service for every son, or a proportionate sum of money; the elder brothers, or other nearest relations or guardians of those who had no father, were subjected to the same law; and those who had no money either for procuring the substitute or paying the fine were to be imprisoned, or sent into France. But it was reserved for this government to introduce a new species of barbarity, which had never before been heard of in war. Kellermann, whom the English had rescued with such difficulty from the vengeance of the Portugueze at Lisbon, was at this time governor-general of what the French called Upper Spain, ♦Oct. 28.♦ that is, of the provinces of Salamanca, Zamora, Toro, Leon, Valladolid, Palencia, Burgos, Soria, Santander, Biscay, Guipuzcoa, and Alava. ♦Kellermann’s edict.♦ Throughout this whole tract of country he placed all horses and mares above a certain height in requisition for the French armies, ordering them to be taken to the respective country towns, and there delivered for that purpose; and every horse or mare below the size named, or under thirty months old, with every mare that should be three months gone with foal, was to have the left eye put out by the owner, and to be in other ways rendered unfit for military service. A fine of four times the value of the beast was to be exacted from any one who disobeyed this edict, and all French officers were charged to see it carried into execution. Nothing can more strikingly evince their moral degradation, than that their general should have ordered them to enforce the execution ♦Measures of Joseph’s ministers.♦ of an edict like this. These were the measures pursued in the name of a King who was represented as being equally philosophic and humane, who was to remedy all the evils of long misrule, to relieve the people from all grievances, restore Spain to its ancient prosperity, and confer upon it a happiness which it had never before enjoyed! In an unhappy hour had Joseph’s ministers entered his service, persuading, or seeking to persuade, themselves that they might benefit their country by giving their countenance to a perfidious and odious usurpation. The ablest men who have ever endeavoured to do good by evil means, have felt their best intentions frustrated in the attempt. These ministers, worthy, as under other circumstances they might have been of their station, found themselves now the mere instrument of that very military power which they had flattered themselves that they should be allowed to direct. Still, however, seeking some excuse to their own hearts, and to posterity, they took advantage of the time for attempting alterations, which would have been most salutary if the nation had been prepared for them, ... but for which it was so little prepared, that the premature attempt only attached the Spaniards the more to the very evils from which it was intended to deliver them. One sweeping decree abolished all the regular orders in Spain, whether monastic, mendicant, or clerical; the individuals belonging to them were ordered to quit their convents within fifteen days, resume their secular habits, and repair to their native places, where pensions were promised them. It was certain that the intrusive government had neither the means nor the intention of paying these pensions; but the whole property of the suppressed orders was seized for the use of the state. The reason assigned for this measure in the preamble to the decree was, that these communities had taken a hostile part against the government, which, while it thus abolished them, wished to recompense those individuals who had conducted themselves well. Better reasons, Urquijo and his colleagues well knew, would only have exasperated a people whose souls were thoroughly enslaved to the superstitions which debased them; but the cause which was thus assigned exasperated them as much, and this feeling was kept up and disseminated every where by the ejected members, who, wherever they went, excited the compassion of their countrymen and inflamed their hatred of the intrusive government. Some prudence as well as humanity was shown, by exempting the nuns from this decree; they were subjected to the ordinary, and forbidden to receive pupils. The military orders were abolished also, except that of the Golden Fleece, and the one which the intrusive government had itself instituted. This was needlessly offending the national pride, which was in like manner wounded by the removal of the tax raised under the name of the Voto de Santiago; the relief, even had circumstances allowed it to be felt, would not have compensated for the outrage upon Spanish feeling. In taking away the privilege of sanctuary, and suppressing all ecclesiastical jurisdiction in civil and criminal cases, the ministers acted as they would have wished to do, had they held their offices by a better tenure; and in making strangulation the mode of death for all criminals of whatever rank, and decreeing that degradation was implied in the sentence. But when an edict affected to abolish all dignities and titles which had not been conferred by the Intruder, and required the traitorous nobles in his service to receive from him a confirmation of the peerage which they had disgraced, the futility of the decree only provoked contempt.

♦The Central Junta announce that the Cortes will be assembled.♦

Joseph’s ministers had leisure for legislative speculations and for dreams of reformation. The real business of government was not in their hands; in all essential points they were mere ciphers, and seemed to feel that they were so. The Central Junta was in a situation as much more trying as it was more honourable. The difficulties and embarrassments of every kind with which they were beset might have confused heads more experienced in affairs of state; and their exertions under the pressure of immediate danger left them little time for those measures of effectual reform, which Spain so greatly needed, but which were looked for more eagerly by the British nation than by the Spaniards, for as a people the Spaniards were contented with their old system, and attached to it even with all its evils and abominations. The general wish in England was that the Cortes should be convened, and this was desired as sincerely by the British government as by Jovellanos and those other noble minded Spaniards who hoped through regular and constitutional means to restore the liberty and the prosperity of their country. It was long after the installation of the Junta before the disasters of the day allowed them leisure for thinking of the morrow. To this their delay in taking measures for assembling the Cortes must be ascribed, more than to their love of power, which they were ill able to wield, or of the patronage which they unworthily bestowed. But to these motives the delay was imputed; and by not following the advice of Jovellanos when the act would have appeared spontaneous and graceful, they lost the opportunity of obtaining that popularity which even the semblance of disinterestedness is sure to acquire. It was not till eight months after their installation that a decree came forth for re-establishing the legal representation of the monarchy in its ancient Cortes. The time was left indefinite, but the edict said it would be convoked in the course of the ensuing year, or earlier, if circumstances should permit.

The language of the Supreme Junta on this, as on every other occasion, was worthy of the position in which the national government was placed, and of the principles on which it professed to act. “The Spanish people,” they said, “must leave to their posterity an inheritance worthy of the sacrifices which were made for obtaining it. The Supreme Junta had never lost sight of this object; and the progress of the enemy, which had hitherto occupied their whole attention, rendered more bitter the reflection, that all their disasters were solely owing to the disuse of those institutions which, in happier times, secured the welfare and the strength of the state. The ambition of some, and the indolence of others, had reduced those institutions to nothing; and the Junta, from the moment of its installation, solemnly bound itself to restore them. The time was now arrived for this great work. Desirous, therefore, that the nation should appear with the dignity due to its heroic efforts; that the rights of the people should be placed beyond the reach of encroachments; and that the sources of public felicity should run freely as soon as the war ceased, and repair whatever inveterate arbitrary power had scorched, or the present devastation had destroyed, the Junta decreed, that the Cortes should be re-established, and would immediately proceed to consider the method of convening it; for which end it would nominate a committee of five of its members. It would also investigate, in order to propose them to the nation assembled in Cortes, the means of supporting the holy war in which they were engaged; of insuring the observance of their fundamental laws; of meliorating the legislation and abolishing the abuses which had crept into it; of collecting and administering the revenue, and of reforming the system of public education. And to combine the information necessary for such discussions, it would consult the councils, provincial Juntas, tribunals, magistracies, corporations, bishops, and universities, and the opinion of intelligent and enlightened persons.”

♦Declaration which was first proposed.♦

A declaration in stronger terms had been submitted to the Junta, and rejected by them at the instigation of Mr. Frere. “Spaniards,” it was there said, “it is three ages since the laws on which the nation founded its defence against tyranny have been destroyed. Our fathers did not know how to preserve the liberty which had been bequeathed to them; and although all the provinces of Spain successively struggled to defend it, evil stars rendered their efforts useless. The laws, from that time forward, have been only an expression more or less tyrannical, or beneficent, of a particular will. Providence, as if to punish the loss of that prerogative of free men, has paralysed our valour, arrested the progress of our intellect, and impeded our civilization, till we have come to that condition, that an insolent tyrant formed the project of subduing the greatest nation of the globe, without reckoning upon its will, and even despising its existence. In vain has the prince sometimes attempted to remedy some of the evils of the state: buildings cannot be erected on sand, and without fundamental and constituted laws, it is useless for the philosopher in his study, or the statesman in the theatre of business, to exert himself for the good of the people. The best projects are not put in execution, or not carried through. Good suggestions are followed by evil ones; economy and order, by prodigality and rapine; a prudent and mild minister, by an avaricious and foolish favourite; and thus the ship of the state floats without sails and helm, till, as has happened to the Spanish monarchy, it is dashed to pieces on a rock. How, but by the re-establishment of freedom, could that blood be recompensed which flows in every part of the Peninsula; those sacrifices which Spanish loyalty is offering every instant; that moral resistance, as universal as it is sublime, which disconcerts our enemies, and renders them hopeless even in the midst of their victories? When this dreadful contest is concluded, the Spaniard shall say proudly to himself, ‘My fathers left me slavery and wretchedness for my inheritance; I leave to my descendants liberty and glory.’ Spaniards, this is the feeling which, by reflection in some, and by instinct in all, animates you now; and it shall not be defrauded of its expectations. Our detractors say that we are fighting to defend old abuses, and the inveterate vices of our corrupted government; let them know that your struggle is for the happiness, as well as the independence of your country; that you will not depend henceforward on the uncertain will or the variable temper of a single man; nor continue to be the plaything of a court without justice, under the control of an insolent favourite, or a capricious woman; but that on the edifice of your ancient laws you will rear a barrier between despotism and your sacred rights. This barrier consists in a constitution to aid and support the monarch when he is just, and to restrain him when he follows evil councils. Without a constitution all reform is precarious, all prosperity uncertain; without it the people are no more than flocks of slaves, put in motion at the order of a will, frequently unjust, and always unrestrained; without it the forces of the whole society, which should procure the greatest advantages for all its members, are employed exclusively to satisfy the ambition, or satiate the frenzy of a few, or perhaps of one.”

♦Objections by Mr. Frere.♦

When this paper was communicated to Mr. Frere, he saw serious objections, which he stated to Garay, and which the Junta, though they would otherwise have published the proclamation, readily admitted. That ambassador perceived, more clearly perhaps than any other person at that time, the danger to be apprehended from convoking a legislative assembly in a nation altogether unprepared for it by habits, feelings, education, or general knowledge. He considered it a delicate and dangerous point in every respect, and said, “that if the decision of the question were left in his hand, notwithstanding the necessity for widening the basis of the government, the failure of all the political experiments which had been made in these latter times, and the impossibility which had been found (by a fatality peculiar to the present age) of forming a permanent establishment, even in affairs less essential than the formation of a free constitution for a great nation, would make him waver. But taking the decision for granted, he thought the manner in which it was proposed to announce it likely to produce bad effects in Spain; and he could venture,” he said, “to assure D. Martin de Garay, that it would undoubtedly create them in England. If the Spaniards had indeed passed three centuries under arbitrary government, they ought not to forget that it was the price which they paid for having conquered and peopled the fairest portion of the world, and that the integrity of that immense power rested solely upon these two words, Religion and the King. If the old constitution had been lost by the conquest of America, the first object should be to recover it; but in such a manner as not to lose what had cost so much in the acquisition: and for this reason, they ought to avoid, as a political poison, every enunciation of general principles, the application of which it would be impossible to limit or qualify, even when the Negroes and Indians should quote it in favour of themselves. And allowing that a bad exchange had been made in bartering the ancient national liberty for the glory and extension of the Spanish name; allowing that the error should at all hazards be done away; even though it were so,” Mr. Frere said, “it did not appear becoming the character of a well-educated person to pass censures upon the conduct of his forefathers, or to complain of what he may have lost by their negligence or prodigality, still less so if it were done in the face of the world; and what should be said of a nation who should do this publicly, and after mature deliberation?”

This was true foresight,—and yet the English ambassador approached Charybdis in his fear of Scylla. He spoke to the Spaniards of Religion and the King; in England the truest and most enlightened lovers of liberty can have no better rallying words; in Spain those words had for three hundred years meant the inquisition and an absolute monarch, whose ministers, so long as they could retain his favour, governed according to their own will and pleasure, unchecked by any constitutional control. The government did not obtain by their decree for ♦Unpopularity of the Junta.♦ convoking the Cortes the popularity which they had perhaps expected. The measure had been long delayed, and therefore was supposed to have been unwillingly resolved on. So much, indeed, had been expected from the Central Junta, that no possible wisdom on their part, no possible success, could have answered the unreasonable demand. The disappointment of the nation was in proportion to its hopes, and the government became equally the object of suspicion and contempt. Some of the members had large estates in those provinces which were occupied by the French, and it was suspected that where their property was, there their hearts were also. Their subsequent conduct proved how greatly they were injured by this distrust. They were not censured for their first disasters, which the ablest men under like circumstances could not have averted. Had they obtained accurate intelligence of the strength and movements of the enemy when Buonaparte entered Spain; had they exerted themselves as much in disciplining troops as in raising and embodying them, and had they supplied them with regularity and promptitude; it would not have been possible to have stopped the progress of such a force. Something was allowed for the confidence which the battle of Baylen had inspired, and for the enthusiasm of the people, which the government had partaken. Neither would the nation have been disposed to condemn, even if it had perceived, errors which arose from the national character. But when, after the bitter experience of twelve whole months, no measures had been adopted for improving the discipline of the armies, or supplying them in the field, the incapacity of the Junta became glaring, and outcries against them were heard on all sides.

♦Their difficulties and errors.♦

One of the weightiest errors for which they were censured was for not exerting themselves more effectually to bring the whole strength of the country against the invaders. They had promised to raise 500,000 men and 50,000 cavalry. Granada was the only province which supplied its full proportion, and Granada even exceeded it; its contingent was about 28,000, whereas it furnished nearly forty. But this depended more upon the provincial Juntas than upon the central government, whose decrees were of no avail in those parts which the enemy possessed, and were ill observed in others, where the local administrations, from disgust, or jealousy, or indolence, or incapacity, seemed to look on as spectators of the dreadful drama, rather than to perform their parts in it, as men and as Spaniards. Neither is it to the want of numbers that their defeats were to be attributed; there were at all times men enough in the field; arms, equipments, and discipline were wanting. It is unjust to judge of the exertions of the Spanish Junta by those of the National Convention in France, who had the whole wealth and strength of a populous and rich country at their absolute disposal, and who began the revolutionary war with officers, and tacticians, and statesmen capable of wielding the mighty means which were put into their hands. The fault of the Junta was in relying too much upon numbers and bravery, and too little upon their fortresses. The general under whom the great captain Gonzalo de Cordova learnt the art of war had left them a lesson which they might profitably have remembered. He used to say, that fortresses ought to be opposed to the impatience and fury of the French, and that the place for stationing raw troops was behind walls and ramparts.

The most important errors which the Junta had hitherto committed were, the delay in convoking the Cortes, and their conduct towards Sir Arthur Wellesley’s army; but the national character contributed in no slight degree to both. For it was not the known aversion of Florida Blanca to the name of a representative assembly, nor the fears of some of the Junta, nor the love of power in others, which protracted the convocation of the Cortes, so much as their reverential adherence to established forms. This was evident in Jovellanos himself, who regarded it as equally profane and dangerous to approach this political ark of the covenant, without scrupulously observing all the ceremonies and solemnities which the law prescribed. Precedents on points of this kind are not to be found in Spain as they are in England. Antiquaries were to be consulted, archives examined, old regulations adapted to new circumstances,—and this when the enemy was at the gates. The defect may well be pardoned, because of the virtues with which it was connected. Had the Spaniards regarded with less veneration the deeds and the institutions of their ancestors, they would never have supported that struggle which will be the wonder of succeeding ages. Their conduct toward the English army sprang from a worse fault; from that pride which made them prone to impose upon others and upon themselves a false opinion of their strength. It is the national failing, for which they have ever been satirized, by their own writers as well as by other nations. They will rather promise and disappoint, than acknowledge their inability; of this, their history for the last two centuries affords abundant examples; they had yet to learn, that perfect sincerity is as much due to an ally as to a confessor. In many cases the government was itself deceived; the same false point of honour prevailing in every department, from the lowest to the highest, it received and acted upon exaggerated statements and calculations; but in others, it cannot be denied, that pride led to the last degree of meanness, and that promises were held out to the English general, which those who made them must have known it was impossible to perform.

Yet it must be admitted that the errors of the Junta were more attributable to the character of the nation than of the individuals; and those individuals were placed in circumstances of unexampled difficulty. Four-and-thirty men, most of them strangers to each other, and unaccustomed to public business, were brought together to govern a nation in the most perilous crisis of its history, without any thing to direct them except their own judgement, and almost without any other means than what the patriotism of the people could supply. They had troops indeed, but undisciplined, unofficered, unprovided, half armed, and half clothed. The old system of government was broken up, the new one was yet to be formed. They had neither commissariat nor treasury; the first donations and imposts were exhausted; so also were the supplies which England had liberally given, and those from America had not yet arrived. Added to these difficulties, and worse than all, was that dreadful state of moral and social anarchy into which the nation had been thrown, and which was such that no man knew in whom he could confide. To poison food or water in time of war is a practice which all people, who are not absolute savages, have pronounced infamous by common consent; but it is a light crime compared to the means which Buonaparte employed for the subjugation of Spain,—means which poisoned the well-springs of social order, and loosened the very joints and fibres of society. Morla, when he betrayed his country, committed an act of treason against human nature. The evil had been great before, but when a Judas Iscariot had been found in Morla during the agony of Spain, in whom could the people confide? “Suspicion,” says Jovellanos, “and hatred were conceived and spread with frightful facility. How many generals, nobles, prelates, magistrates, and lawyers, were regarded with distrust, either because of their old relations with Godoy, or because they were connected with some of the new partizans of the tyranny; or for the weakness, or indecision, or ambiguity of their conduct; or for the calumnies and insinuations which rivalship and envy excited against them! It was considered as a crime to have gone to Bayonne, to have remained at Madrid, or resided in other places which were occupied by the intrusive government; to have submitted to swear allegiance to it, to have obeyed its orders, or to have suffered even compulsively its yoke and its contempt. What reputation was secure? Who was not exposed to the attacks of envy, to the imputations of calumny, and to the violence of an agitated populace?”

From this state of things it necessarily arose, that the Junta acted in constant fear and suspicion of those whom they employed. Their sense of weakness and their love of power increased the evil. Fearing the high spirit of Alburquerque, and the influence which rank and talents conjoined would give to his deserved popularity among the soldiers, they cramped him in a subordinate command, while they trusted those armies which were the hope of Spain to Cuesta, because they were afraid of offending him, and to Venegas, for the opposite reason, that they were sure of his obsequious submission. Some odium they incurred by permitting a trade with towns which the enemy occupied. For the sake, as was alleged, of those Spaniards who were compelled to live under the yoke, and also for the advantage of the colonies, they had granted licences for conveying sugar, cacao, and bark, to those parts of the kingdom. ♦July 14.♦ These licences were only to be trusted to persons of known and approved patriotism, who were likewise to be strictly watched, and liable to be searched upon any suspicion. The weakness of such a concession in such a war, as well as the obvious facility which it afforded to the French and their traitorous partizans, excited just reprehension; and at the close of the year ♦Dec. 28.♦ the Junta found it necessary to revoke their edict, acknowledging that, in spite of all precautions, it was found prejudicial to the public safety. Some of the members were suspected of enhancing the price of necessaries for the army, by their own secret monopolies; others were said to be surrounded by venal instruments, through whom alone they were accessible. These imputations were probably ill-founded or exaggerated; certain, however, it is, that never had any government fewer friends. Men of the most opposite principles were equally disaffected toward it. Its very defenders had no confidence in its stability, and were ready to forsake it. They who dreaded any diminution of the regal authority, could not forgive its popular origin; they who aspired to lay the foundation of a new and happier order of things, were discontented, because the measures which were taken towards the reformation of the state were slowly, and, as they deemed, reluctantly adopted. Those wretches who were sold to France were the enemies of any government which resisted the usurpation; and those whose timid natures, or short-sighted selfishness, disposed them to submission, naturally regarded it with dislike, because it delayed the subjection of the country. Among the people, who were actuated by none of these feelings, it was sufficient to render the Junta unpopular that it was unfortunate. The times rendered them suspicious; their own conduct and their power made them obnoxious to many; and their ill-fortune, more than their errors, made them disliked by all.

♦Scheme for overthrowing them.♦

Influenced by some of these motives, and perhaps in no little degree by jealousy, the Junta of Seville were particularly hostile to the government, and a plan was formed in that city for overthrowing it: the members were to be seized, and some of the most obnoxious transported to Manilla in a ship which was prepared for the purpose. Some regiments had been gained over, and it is said even the guards of the Junta; but as the persons who designed this revolution had for their direct object the good of Spain, they considered it a mark of confidence due to Great Britain to make the English ambassador acquainted with their purpose; for in fact, so far were the Spanish people from regarding the interference of Great Britain with jealousy, that they were disappointed because their ally did not interfere more frequently, and with more effect. Marquis Wellesley, of whom it had been said by Mr. Whitbread that he would, if opportunity should offer, take Spain and Portugal as Buonaparte had done, had now an opportunity of showing in what manner he thought himself bound to act by a government which he knew to be weak, and suspected to be treacherous. At the very time when this foul imputation was brought against him in parliament, he gave to that government just so much information of its danger, as, without compromising the safety of any persons concerned, enabled the Junta to prevent the intended insurrection.

The general wish was less for the convocation of the Cortes, than for the establishment of a regency, from which more unanimity and more vigour was expected, than from the present divided council. The people of Cadiz said the fate of Spain was in Marquis Wellesley’s hands, that he ought to remove the Junta, and establish an energetic government. Those persons who respected hereditary claims would have had the Archbishop of Toledo appointed regent, as being the only Bourbon in the country; but he was young; and what weighed against him more than the want of either talents or character, was, that he was believed to be governed by his sister, the wife of Godoy. Others looked to Romana, knowing his dislike to the Junta, and hoping that he would assume the government himself, or intrust it to able hands. Another project was to appoint both these personages regents, with the Duke del Infantado, and two other colleagues. It was thought that the army would gladly have seen the supreme authority vested in one of their own body, either Romana or Infantado. But both these noblemen were free from any such ambition; and Montijo, who was always intriguing for power, was so well known, that he was the last person whom any party would have trusted.

♦Commission appointed by the Junta.♦

The warning which had thus been given was not lost upon the Junta, and they attended to the representations which accompanied it; they knew their weakness, and perceived their danger; admitted that the existing government was not suited to the state of affairs, and nominated a commission for the purpose of inquiring in what manner it might best be replaced. Romana was included in the commission, and upon this occasion he delivered in a paper, which, if they had required additional proof of his hostility, and their own unstable tenure, would amply have ♦Romana’s address. Oct. 4.♦ afforded it. “There were three cases,” he said, “either of which ought to produce a change in the system of a government: When a nation, which ought only to obey, doubts the legitimacy of the authority to which it is to submit; when such authority begins to lose its influence; when it is not only prejudicial to the public weal, but contrary to the principles of the constitution. The existing government was objectionable upon all these grounds: it was founded upon a democratic principle of representation, inconsistent with the pure monarchical system of Spain, and with the heroic loyalty of the Spaniards, and which, if it continued, would subvert the monarchy. As often as he meditated upon this subject, he doubted the lawfulness of the existing government; and this opinion was general in the provinces through which he had passed. Among the services which he had endeavoured to perform for his king and country, it was not the least that he had yielded obedience to the orders of this government, and made the constituted authorities in Leon, Asturias, and Gallicia do the same; considering this absolutely necessary to preserve the nation from anarchy. A government, though illegal, might secure the happiness of the people, if it deserved their confidence, and they respected its authority; but the existing government had lost its authority. The people, who judge of measures by the effects which they see produced, complain that our armies are weak for want of energy in the government; that no care has been taken for supplying them; that they have not seen the promised accounts of the public expenditure, and how the sums which have arrived from America, those which our generous allies have given, the rents of the crown, and the voluntary contributions, have been expended: they look in vain for necessary reforms; they see that employments are not given to men of true merit, and true lovers of their country; that some members, instead of manifesting their desire of the public good, by disinterestedness, seek to preserve their authority for their own advantage; that others confer lucrative and honourable employments on their own dependents and countrymen; that for this sole reason ecclesiastical offices have been filled up, the rents of which ought to have been applied to the necessities of the state; that that unity which is necessary in the government, is not to be found, many of the Junta caring only for the interests of their particular provinces, as if they were members of some body different from that of the Spanish monarchy; that they had not only confirmed the military appointments made by the provincial Juntas, without examining the merits of the persons appointed, but had even assigned recompences to many who were destitute of all military knowledge, having never seen service, nor performed any of those duties which were confided to them; that the Junta, divided into sections, dispatched business in matters altogether foreign to their profession, and in which they were utterly unversed, instead of referring them to the competent and appropriate ministers; that horses taken from their owners, instead of being sent to the armies, were dying for hunger on the dry sea-marshes; finally, that many of the most important branches of administration were in the hands of men, suspicious, because of their conduct from the commencement of the public misfortunes, and because they were the creatures of that infamous favourite, who had been the author of all the general misery. Such,” said Romana, “are the complaints of the people: there is but one step to disobedience; the enemy will profit by the first convulsion, and anarchy or servitude will then be the alternative.”

The Marquis then stated, that the time for which some provinces had appointed their representatives to the Junta was expired; that others had empowered them not to exercise the sovereign authority, but to constitute a government which might represent the monarch: in neither case could these provinces be expected to acknowledge an authority which they had never conferred. The commission, he proceeded to say, had proposed that the Junta should reduce itself to five persons, in whom the executive power should be vested; and that in rotation each member of the existing body should enter into this supreme executive council, which should also preside over the Cortes when it was assembled. This project discovered the love of power in the Junta more unequivocally than any other part of their conduct. What Romana proposed in its stead was as prudent in itself as it was inconsistent with his previous positions. After maintaining that the powers of the existing government were from the first illegal, and that even such as they were, they had, for part of the members, expired, he recommended nevertheless that this government should, as representing legitimately or illegitimately the Cortes, appoint a regent, or a council of regency, consisting of three or of five persons, especially advising, as a proof of generosity and patriotism, that they should nominate none of their own body. A Junta should be formed, under the title of the Permanent Deputation of the Realm, to represent the Cortes till the Cortes should be assembled; it should consist of five members and a procurador-general, and one of these members should always be chosen from their American brethren, as forming an integral part of the nation. But the Cortes should be assembled with as little delay as circumstances would permit, and then no laws should be passed, or contributions imposed, without its consent. “If,” said he, “I have in some cases connected the supreme power with the nation, I have done no more than revive the constitutional principles of the Spanish monarchy, which have been stifled by the despotism of its kings and their ministers.” However hostile to the principles of civil liberty the first positions of Romana appeared, the most zealous friends of freedom might have been contented with his conclusions.

“Ought we,” said he, “to fear that an adventurer, who usurps the throne of Ferdinand, should appear among us, if we had a government like this, emanating from the consent of the people, from submission to the true God, and from the necessity of our mournful and perilous situation? Would our armies then be defective in numbers, and in subordination and discipline? would they be so filled with ignorant and cowardly officers, so unprovided with food, so irregularly paid, and so destitute of all equipments? would men be appointed generals, because they would support the persons who appointed them, or because they knew how to command an army and how to save the country? With such a government, the nation would have invincible armies, the armies would have generals, the troops would be officered, and the soldiers would learn subordination and discipline. When Spain shall see that auspicious day, I shall think it the first day of her hope, and the most happy of her glorious revolution. Such,” he continued, “is my opinion; but I ought not to forget that I have publicly controverted it by my actions. For who sustained your sovereign authority in the army and province which I governed? Gallicia, whom didst thou obey? Didst thou respect in me any power but that of the Central Junta, or did I consent that thou shouldst separate thyself from a government which I was sanctioning by my own obedience? Asturias, didst not thou see the powerful arm upraised which thou hadst implored so earnestly, and the blow of its power fall upon a Junta, which, after having acknowledged the sovereignty of the Central, and received from it succours, of which my soldiers, naked and exhausted, were in want, domineered like a despot, and had even disobeyed the express will of our King, D. Ferdinand? Nevertheless,” said he, addressing the Central Junta, “you rewarded this scandalous disobedience; and removed me covertly from the command, in order that guilty Spaniards might be honoured with the greater distinction. My opinions were the same then that they are now; but circumstances imperiously required a government, and any government is better than none. Then it was my duty to obey; now I should not perform what is due to my character, if I did not declare what I believe to be required for the salvation of my country. How indeed should I be silent; how should I suffer the fire of patriotism to be extinguished, seeing the sacrifice of so many victims in our glorious cause; faithful wives murdered with their daughters, after the most foul and unutterable outrages; nuns driven from their cloisters, some wandering about, many more the prey of lustful impiety; ministers of the altar forced from the sanctuary; temples turned into stables and dens of uncleanness; towns reduced to servitude; opulence to squalid beggary; armies composed of the bravest spirits of the nation, which have disappeared in the hottest struggles of their native land, consumed by hunger, naked, and destitute; seeing, in fine, that such revenues and the liberal donations of Spain and America have not even supplied the first necessities of the soldier? How could I remain a tranquil spectator of such great and mournful objects, and not think them superior to the nearest personal interest, to our self-love, and to our very existence? As a Spaniard,” he concluded, “I am ready to suffer a thousand deaths in defence of our liberty; and in my rank I have rendered homage to the descendant of the Pelayos, the Jaymes, and the Garcias. As a general, I will join myself to the last soldier who shall have resolution to revenge his country in the last period of her independence; but as a representative of the nation, I must be excused from occupying that distinguished place, unless a legitimate government be immediately established, which foreign powers will not hesitate to acknowledge, which will represent our sovereign, and which will save a people who are resolved to die for their God, for their king, and for the happiness of their posterity.”