Wilmot has already reached Guarda, and, as far as I have already seen, the road presents few obstacles, and those easily surmounted. This knowledge was, however, only acquired by our own officers: when the brigade was at Castello Branco, it was not certain if it could proceed." He now desired Hope no longer to trust any reports, but seek a shorter line, by Placentia, across the mountains to Sala

manca.

Up to this period, all reports from the agents, all information from the government at home, all communications public and private, coincided upon one subject. The Spaniards were an enthusiastic, a heroic people, a nation of unparalleled energy! their armies were brave, they were numerous, they were confident! one hundred and eighty thousand men were actually in line of battle, extending from the sea-coast of Biscay to Zaragoza; the French, reduced to a fourth of this number, cooped up in a corner, were shrinking from an encounter; they were deserted by the Emperor, they were trembling, they were spiritless! Nevertheless, the General was somewhat distrustful; he perceived the elements of disaster in the divided commands, and the lengthened lines of the Spaniards, and early in October he had predicted the mischief that such a system would produce. "As long as the French remain upon the defensive," he observed, "it will not be so much felt, but the moment an attack is made, some great calamity must ensue." However, he was not without faith in the multitude and energy of the patriots, when he considered the greatness of their cause.

Castaños was at this time pointed out by the Central Junta as the person with whom to concert a plan of campaign, and Sir John Moore, concluding that it was a preliminary step towards making that officer generalissimo, wrote to him in a conciliatory style, well calculated to insure a cordial co-operation. It was an encouraging event; the English General believed it to be the commencement of a better system, and looked forward with more hope to the opening of the war. But this favorable state soon changed; far from being created chief of all, Castaños was superseded in the command he already held, the whole folly of the Spanish character broke forth, and confusion and distress followed. At that moment also clouds arose in a quarter which had hitherto been all sunshine; the military agents, as the crisis approached, lowered their sanguine tone, and no longer dwelt upon the enthusiasm of the armies; they admitted that the confidence of the troops was sinking, and that even in numbers they were inferior to the French. In truth, it was full time to change their note, for the real state of affairs could no longer be concealed; a great catastrophe was at hand; but what of wildness in their projects, or skill in the

enemy's, what of ignorance, vanity, and presumption in the generals, what of fear among the soldiers, and what of fortune in the events, combined to hasten the ruin of the Spaniards, and how that ruin was effected, I, quitting the English army for a time, will now relate.

CHAPTER IV.

Movements of the Spanish generals on the Ebro; their absurd confidence, their want of system and concert-General opinion that the French are weak-Real strength of the King-Marshal Ney and General Jourdan join the army-Military errors of the King exposed by Napoleon, who instructs him how to make war-Joseph proposes six plans of operation-Operations thereupon.

IN the preceding chapters I have exposed the weakness, the folly, the improvidence of Spain, and shown how the bad passions and sordid views of her leaders were encouraged by the unwise prodigality of England. I have dissected the full boast and meagre preparations of the governments in both countries, laying bare the bones and sinews of the insurrection, and by comparing their loose and feeble structure with the strongly knitted frame and large proportions of the enemy, prepared the reader for the inevitable issue of a conflict between such ill-matched champions. In the present book, I shall recount the sudden and terrible manner in which the Spanish armies were overthrown, during the tempestuous progress of the French Emperor. Yet, previous to relating these disasters, I must revert to the period immediately following the retreat of King Joseph, and trace those early operations of the French and Spanish forces, which, like a jesting prologue to a deep tragedy, unworthily ushered in the great catastrophe.

CAMPAIGN OF THE FRENCH AND SPANISH ARMIES BEFORE THE ARRIVAL OF THE EMPEROR.

After General Cuesta was removed from the command, and the Junta of Seville had been forced by Major Coxe to disgorge so much of the English subsidy as sufficed for the immediate relief of the troops in Madrid, all the Spanish armies closed upon the Ebro.

General Blake, reinforced by eight thousand Asturians, established his base of operations at Reynosa, opened a communication

with the English vessels off the port of Santander, and directed his views towards Biscay.*

The Castilian army, conducted by General Pignatelli, resumed its march upon Burgo del Osma and Logroño.

The two divisions of the Andalusian troops under La Peña, and the Murcian division of General Llamas, advanced to Taranzona and Tudela.†

Palafox, with the Aragonese and Valencian divisions of St. Marc, operated from the side of Zaragoza.‡

The Conde de Belvedere, a weak youth, not twenty years of age, marched with fifteen thousand Estremadurans upon Logroño, as forming part of Castaños' army, but soon received another destination.§

Between all these armies there was neither concert nor connection; their movements were regulated by some partial view of affairs, or by silly caprices of the generals, who were ignorant of each other's plans, and little solicitous to combine operations. The weak characters of many of the chiefs, the inexperience of all, and this total want of system, opened a field for intriguing men, and invited unqualified persons to interfere in the direction of affairs: thus we find Colonel Doyle making a journey to Zaragoza, and priding himself upon having prevailed with Palafox to detach seven thousand men to Sanguessa. Captain Whittingham, without any knowledge of Doyle's interference, earnestly dissuading the Spaniards from such an enterprise. The first affirming that the movement would "turn the enemy's left flank, threaten his rear, and have the appearance of cutting off his retreat." The second arguing that, Sanguessa being seventy miles from Zaragoza, and only a few leagues from Pampeluna, the detachment would itself be cut off. Doyle judged that, drawing the French from Caparosa and Milagro, it would expose those points to Llamas and La Peña; that it would force the enemy to recall the reinforcements said to be marching against Blake, enable that General to form a junction with the Asturians, and then, with the forty thousand men thus collected, possess himself of the Pyrenees; and if the French army, estimated at thirty-five thousand men, did not fly, cut it off from France, or, by moving on Miranda, sweep clear Biscay and Castile. Palafox, pleased with this plan, sent Whittingham to inform Llamas and La Peña that O'Neil would, with six thousand men, march on the 15th of September to Sanguessa.

* General Broderick's Corrrespondence.

+ Captain Whittingham.

Colonel Doyle.

Castaños' Vindication.

Those generals disapproved of the movement as dangerous, premature, and at variance with the plan arranged in the council of war held at Madrid; but Palafox, regardless of their opinion, persisted.* O'Neil accordingly occupied Sanguessa, drew the attention of the enemy, and was immediately driven across the Alagon river.

In this manner all their projects, characterized by a profound ignorance of war, were lightly adopted and as lightly abandoned, or ended in disasters; yet victory was more confidently anticipated than if consummate skill had presided over the arrangements; and this vainglorious feeling, extending to the military agents, was by them propagated in England, where the foreboasting was nearly as loud, and as absurd, as in the Peninsula. The delusion was universal; even Lord William Bentinck and Mr. Stuart, deceived by the curious consistency of the Spanish falsehoods, doubted if the French army was able to maintain its position, and believed that the Spaniards had obtained a moral ascendency in the field.†

Drunk with vanity and folly, and despising the "remnants" of the French army on the Ebro, which they estimated at from thirtyfive to forty thousand men, the Spanish government proposed that the British army should be directed upon Catalonia; and when they found that this proposal was not acceded to, they withdrew ten thousand men from the Murcian division, and sent them to the neighborhood of Lerida. The innate pride and arrogance of the Spaniards were also nourished by the timid and false operations of King Joseph. Twenty days after the evacuation of Madrid, that monarch was at the head of above fifty thousand fighting men, exclusive of eight thousand employed to maintain the communications, and to furnish the garrisons of Pampeluna, Tolosa, Irun, St. Sebastian and Bilbao; exclusive also of the Catalonian army, which was seventeen thousand strong, and distinct from his command. A strong reserve assembled at Bayonne, under General Drouet, supplied reinforcements, and was itself supported by drafts from the interior of France; six thousand men, forming movable columns, watched the openings of the Pyrenees, from St. John Pied de Port to Roussillon, and guarded the frontier against Spanish incursions; and a second reserve, composed of Neapolitans, Tuscans, and Piedmontese, was commenced at Belgarde, with a view of supporting Duhesme in Catalonia. How the King quelled the nascent insurrection at Bilbao, and how he dispersed the insurgents of the valleys in Aragon, I have already related; but after those operations, the French army made no movement. It was re-organized, and divided *Whittingham's Correspondence.

+ Lord W. Bentinck's Correspondence, MS. Doyle's Correspondence, MS.

into three grand divisions and a reserve. Bessières retained the command of the right wing, Moncey assumed that of the left, and Ney, arriving from Paris, took charge of the centre; the reserve, chiefly composed of detachments from the imperial guard, remained near the person of the King, and the old republican General Jourdan, a man whose day of glory belonged to another era, re-appeared upon the military stage, and filled the office of Major-General to the army.

With such a force, and so assisted, there was nothing in Spain, turn which way he would, capable of opposing King Joseph's march. But the incongruity of a camp with a court is always productive of indecision and of error; the truncheon does not fit every hand, and the French army soon felt the inconvenience of having at its head a monarch who was not a warrior. Joseph remained on the defensive, without understandning the force of the maxim, "that offensive movements are the foundation of a good defence," he held "Bilbao, and, contrary to the advice of the generals who conducted the operations on his left, abandoned Tudela, to choose for his field of battle Milagro, a small town situated near the confluence of the Arga and Aragon with the Ebro.* While Bessières held Burgos in force, his cavalry commanded the valley of the Duero, menaced Palencia and Valladolid, and, scouring the plains, kept Blake and Cuesta in check; instead of reinforcing a post so advantageous, the King relinquished Burgos as a point beyond his line of defence, and Bessières' troops were posted in successive divisions behind it, as far as Puente Lara on the Ebro. Ney's force then lined that river down to Logroño, the reserve was quartered behind Miranda, and Trevino, a small obscure place, was chosen as the point of battle, for the right and centre.†

In this disadvantageous situation the army, with some trifling changes, remained from the middle of August until late in September, during which time the artillery and carriages of transport were repaired, magazines were collected, the cavalry remounted, and the preparations made for an active campaign when the reinforcements should arrive from Germany. But the line of resistance thus offered to the Spaniards evinced a degree of timidity which the relative strength of the armies by no means justified; the left of the French evidently leaned towards the great communication with France, and seemed to refuse the support of Pampeluna; Tudela was abandoned, and Burgos resigned to the enterprise of the Spaniards; all this indicated fear, a disposition to retreat if the enemy advanced. The King complained with what extreme difficulty he * Napoleon's notes.

+ S. Journal of the King's operations, MS.