lied them the next day at Bottorita. The French lost nearly a thousand men, and general Harispe was wounded.'

During the action, a French brigade held the position of Monte Torrero, without mixing in the fight, lest the citizens of Zaragoza, being released from their presence, should rise against the garrison; but after the victory, this brigade marched down the Ebro to cut off Blake's retreat. However general Laval, who commanded it, did not execute his orders, and the Spanish army retired on the night of the 16th. The 17th, their rear-guard suffered some loss at Torrecilla, and on the 18th, the two armies were again in presence at Belchite. Blake, being now re-enforced by some detachments, had still fourteen thousand combatants; yet he had lost the greatest part of his artillery, and his men were dispirited. Suchet, on the contrary, having by the success at Maria awed the Aragonese, was able to bring twenty-two battalions and seven squadrons, or about fifteen thousand men flushed with victory, into action."

BATTLE OF BELCHITE.

The Spaniards were drawn up on a range of hills, half enclosing the town. Their right, resting on a hermitage and some buildings, was inaccessible to cavalry, and the left was well covered. Behind the right, a hill, with a building on it, overtopping all the position, was occupied by a reserve, and served as a rallying point, because there was an easy line of communication between it and the left wing. The centre was on rough ground, it contained the town of Belchite, which had a wall and gates, and the whole position was so compact, that Blake, after completely filling his line, had yet a considerable reserve in hand. His design was to fight with his centre and right, his left being rather in the nature of an advanced post.3 Suchet's attack disordered his dispositions, for a French battalion commenced the action, by skirmishing with the Spanish centre, and at the same time, two columns of attack marched, the one against the right, the other against the left. The latter, which was the principal column, being preceded by a fire of artillery, soon closed upon the Spanish troops, although Blake's guns opened heavily from his centre and right; and this rapid attack, together with the accidental explosion of an ammunition waggon, created a panic, which commencing on the left, quickly spread to all parts of the line. The Spanish general made a charge of cavalry to retrieve the day, it was however easily repulsed, and the confusion which followed is thus described by himself. "One regiment fled without firing a shot, it was followed by another, and a third, all flying without having discharged

Suchet's Memoirs. 2 Ibid. 3 Blake's despatch.

a gun, and, in a few moments, the whole position was abandoned. . . Thus we, the generals and officers, were left alone, without being able to rally a body which could make any opposition; and I had the mortification to see our army dispersed, abandoning all its baggage, and throwing away its arms, and even its clothes, before a single corps of the enemy; nor were we able to avail ourselves of the defence of any strong place, as it was impossible to collect two hundred men to make head against the enemy." Blake, although a bad general, was a man of real courage. Stung to the quick by this disgrace, he reproached his troops with bitterness, demanded an inquiry into his own conduct, and with a strong and sincere feeling of honour, restored, to the junta, the estate which had been conferred upon him for the success at Alcaniz.

This battle and the pursuit, in which Suchet took about four thousand prisoners, and all the artillery, ammunition, and baggage of the Spaniards, not only made him master of the operations in Aragon, but also rendered the fifth corps, under Mortier, who where now at Valladolid, completely disposable for offensive operations. Thus, on the 1st of July, there were, exclusive of Kellerman's and Bonnet's divisions, three complete corps d'armée, furnishing six thousand cavalry and fifty thousand infantry, collected between Astorga, Zamora, and Valladolid. The inroad on Portugal had failed, and the loss of Gallicia followed, yet Napoleon's admirable system of invasion was unbroken: his troops, deprived of his presiding genius, had been stricken severely, and shrunk from further aggression; they had been too widely spread for a secure grasp, but the reaction disclosed all the innate strength of his arrangements.

CHAPTER IV.

State of the British army-Embarrassments of sir Arthur Wellesley-State and numbers of the French armies-State and numbers of the Spanish armies-Some account of the partidas, commonly called guerillas-Intrigues of Mr. Frere-Conduct of the central junta--Their inhuman treatment of the French prisoners-Corruption and incapacity -State of the Portuguese army-Impolicy of the British government-Expedition of Walcheren-Expedition against Italy.

THE British army remained in the camp of Abrantes until the latter end of June. During this period, sir Arthur Wellesley, although burning to enter Spain, was kept back by a variety of difficulties. He had been re-enforced with five thousand men immediately after his return from the Duero; and in the preceding operations, the killed and hurt, in battle, had not exceeded three hundred men, but the deaths by sickness were numerous. Four thousand in hospital, and fifteen hundred employed in escort and dépôt duties, being deducted, the gross amount of the present under arms, as late even as the 25th of June, did not exceed twenty-two thousand men; and these were, at any moment, liable to be seriously diminished, because the ministers, still intent upon Cadiz, had authorized Mr. Frere, whenever the junta should consent to the measure, to draw a garrison for that town from sir Arthur's force. As an army, therefore, it was weak in everything but spirit; the commissariat was without sufficient means of transport, the soldiers nearly barefooted, and totally without pay; the military chest empty, the hospitals full.

The cost, at a low estimation, was about two hundred thousand pounds a month,' and yet, with the most strenuous exertions, a hundred and sixty thousand pounds only had been procured in the two months of May and June, thirteen thousand having been obtained as a temporary loan in Oporto. The rate of exchange in Lisbon was high, and notwithstanding the increased value given to the government paper, by the successes on the Duero, this rate was daily rising; the Spanish dollar was at five shillings, while Spanish gold had sunk so much in value that the commissary-general sent all that he received from England or could collect in Lisbon, to Cadiz, and other parts, where its price was higher,

1 Appendix, No. XLV. a Parliamentary Papers, 1810.

to truck for dollars; but in all places of commerce, the exchange was rising against England, a natural consequence of her enormous and increasing issues of paper. Those issues, the extravagant succours given to Spain, together with the subsidies to Austria, made it impossible to supply the army in Portugal with specie, otherwise than by raising cash in every quarter of the globe, on treasury-bills, and at a most enormous loss; an evil great in itself, opening a wide door to fraud and villany, and rendering the war between France and England not so much a glorious contest of arms, as a struggle between public credit and military force, in which even victory was sure to be fatal to the former.

The want of money, sickness, Cuesta's impracticable temper, and a variety of minor difficulties, too tedious to mention, kept the army in a state of inactivity until the end of June; but at that period, the retreat of the first corps from Torremocha, and the consequent advance of Cuesta, removed one obstacle to offensive operations. Then sir Arthur, having the certainty that eight thousand additional troops were off the rock of Lisbon, cominenced his march into Spain by the northern banks of the Tagus, meaning to unite with Cuesta on the Tietar, and to arrange, if possible, a plan of operations against Madrid.

But, before I embark on the full and broad stream into which the surges and eddies of the complicated warfare that succeeded Napoleon's departure from the Peninsula merged, I must give a view of the general state of affairs, that the reader, comprehending exactly what strength each party brought to the encounter, may judge more truly of the result.

The French, having received some re-enforcements of conscripts, amounted, in the beginning of July, including the king's guards, to about.

275,000

The military governments, lines of correspondence, garrisons, and detachments, absorbed

Present under arms with the corps d'armée.

175,000

33,000

The actual strength and situation of each corps d'armée was as fol

In addition to these corps there were twelve hundred men belonging to the battering train; four thousand infantry under Bonnet, at St. Andero; two thousand two hundred cavalry, under Kellerman, in the Valladolid country. The fortresses and armed places in possession of the French army were-St. Sebastian, Pampeluna, Bilbao, Santona, St. Andero, Burgos, Leon, Astorga, on the western line; Jaca, Zaragoza, Guadalaxara, Toledo, Segovia, and Zamora, on the central line; Figueras, Rosas, and Barcelona, on the eastern line.'

It needs but a glance at these dispositions and numbers, to understand with what a power Napoleon had fastened upon the Peninsula during his six weeks' campaign. Much had been lost since his departure, but his army still pressed the Spaniards down, and like a stone cast upon a brood of snakes, was immoveable to their writhings. Nevertheless, the situation of Spain, at this epoch, was an ameliorated one compared to that, which, four months before, the vehemence of the emperor's personal warfare had reduced it to. The elements of resistance were again accumulated in masses, and the hope, or rather confidence, of success was again in full vigour; for it was in the character of this people, while grovelling on the earth, to suppose themselves standing firm; and when crawling in the gloom of defeat, to imagine they were soaring in the full blaze of victory. The momentary cessation of offensive operations on the part of the French, instead of being traced to its true sources, the personal jealousies of the marshals and the king's want of vigour, was attributed, first-to fear and weakness, secondly-to the pressure of the Austrian war. It was not considered that the want of unity, checking the course of conquest, would cease when the French army was driven

Muster-rolls of the French army, MSS.