140 GUERILLA LEADERS. [1809. no de Renovales, who had distinguished himself by the defence of the Convent of St. Joseph, during the siege of Zaragoza, collected a band of mountaineers, and occasioned much annoyance to the enemy. High offers were made, in hope of inducing him to join the French service; but the patriotism of Renovales was inflexible. Last, not least, was Xavier Mina. This celebrated leader brought the system of Guerilla warfare to its greatest perfection. In the northern provinces he occasioned the most important losses to the enemy, by his boldness and perpetual vigilance. The most strenuous efforts were repeatedly made to surprise and annihilate his force; but in vain. His band was like the Giant, in Ariosto, whose limbs, when severed by the sword of Astolfo, again united, and presented an antagonist, whom the most powerful efforts of hostility could not subdue. In the year following, Mina was taken by the enemy, and sent prisoner into France.-His uncle, Espoz y Mina, succeeded him in command; and, by that leader, the system of desultory warfare was carried on with undiminished vigour and success. On the whole, since the commencement of the year, a material improvement had taken place in the prospects of the Spanish nation. The enemy had been compelled to a disgraceful abandonment both of Portugal and Gallicia; a supply of money had been received from the American colonies; Napoleon, in the prosecution of the war with Austria, had at Essling encountered a severe reverse, and a British army was preparing to advance into Spain, with the view of driving the invaders from the capital. In the succeeding portion of this work, Spain will no longer be found exclusively dependent on her own energies and resources. From the period when Sir Arthur Wellesley returned to the Peninsula, a mightier agent was continually at work for her de June.] SUBJECTS TO BE CONSIDERED. 141 liverance. Et is to the operations of the British armies that the attention of the reader will henceforth be chiefly directed; and the narrowness of our limits demands that the efforts of the native troopsrarely attended by important or permanent success -should be noticed with comparative brevity. 142 DISTRIBUTION OF THE FRENCH FORCES. [1809. CHAPTER VII. CAMPAIGN OF WELLESLEY AND CUESTA. On their return from Oporto, the British army concentrated on the Tagus. Victor had withdrawn from the frontier of Portugal to Talavera de la Reyna, where he was kept in check by CuesJune.] ta. Sir Arthur Wellesley, therefore, found himself at liberty to engage in operations for the liberation of Spain. At the period in question, the distribution of the French armies was nearly as follows:-Victor, with about twenty-three thousand men, was on the Tagus; a corps of eighteen thousand, under Sebastiani, was in La Mancha; the corps of Ney, Mortier, and Soult, amounting in all to about sixty thousand men, were in Gallicia, Leon and Old Castile; ten thousand were in the neighbourhood of Madrid; in Arragon and Catalonia there were about forty thousand; and, in addition to the force already enumerated, there was a division of cavalry, under Kellerman, in Old Castile, employed in maintaining the communication between Madrid and Burgos. Neither the army in Catalonia nor the force of Kellerman, however, could be considered as disposable for the general purposes of the war, unless in cases of the greatest emergency. The allied armies were disposed in the following manner :-The British, consisting of about nineteen thousand infantry, and fifteen hundred cavalry, were, in the neighbourhood of Abrantes, preparing to en June.] PROJECTS OF OPERATIONS. 143 ter Spain; the Estramaduran army, under Cuesta, occupied the left bank of the Tagus, and commanded the bridge at Almaraz,-it consisted of about thirtyseven thousand men; a force of nearly eighteen thousand, under Vanegas, was in the Carolinas; the army of Romana, about fifteen thousand strong, was in Gallicia, and might be expected to hold in check the corps of Ney. Blake, with about twenty thousand men, was in Valencia. Such was the relative position of the hostile armies. The plan of operations concerted by Sir Arthur Wellesley and Cuesta was as follows:-The British army was to march on Placentia, and having formed a junction with that under Cuesta, the combined armies were to advance on Madrid, with the view of liberating the capital. Twelve thousand Portuguese, under Beresford, with a Spanish force of about ten thousand men, commanded by the Duke del Parque, were to watch the operations of Soult, from the neighbourhood of Ciudad Rodrigo; and detachments of the Spanish army were, likewise, to be posted at Perales and Banos, to maintain these important passes, and check Soult's advance on Placentia. Vanegas was to descend from La Mancha, and advance on the capital from the south. We would now say something of the country which is about to become the scene of operations, at once memorable and important. The frontier of Spain, between the Douro and the Tagus, presents but two lines which an invading army can follow in advancing upon Madrid. The Memoir of the Campaign of 1809. one runs by Salamanca, where it crosses the Tormes; the other by Placentia and the valley of the Tagus. The whole of the country between these two points is impracticable for artillery. The long chain of mountains, which take their rise towards the sources of the Tagus, follow that river in its course to where it enters the frontier of Portugal, 144 NATURE OF THE COUNTRY. [1809. and form an immense and almost impassable barrier from Segovia to Placentia. Between these mountains and the river lies what is called the valley of the Tagus, at some places only a few miles wide, at others enlarging in latitude according to the inflections of the river. Along this valley runs the principal road from Placentia to Madrid. A country, which is bounded on one flank by a deep river, and on the other by a range of lofty mountains, must naturally be supposed to afford strong stations of defence. It does so at Oropesa, at Maqueda, and at Santa Cruz; and by defending these positions, the French would have been enabled to oppose very powerful obstacles to the advance of the allies. The northern road to the capital, leading by the Douro, was defended by the army under Soult, consisting of his own corps, and those of Ney and Mortier, which could be concentrated by a few marches. Victor's force occupied the road leading by the valley of the Tagus. These armies communicated across the intervening mountains, by the roads in the neighbourhood of Segovia, while by that leading from Salamanca to Placentia, either Victor June.] or Soult would be enabled to act offensively against the rear of an enemy who should advance against the other. The immediate object of both leaders was to cover the capital, the possession of which, in every point of view, was of the greatest consequence to the invaders. On the twenty-seventh of June, the British army broke up from its cantonments on the Tagus, and in two columns, directed its march on Placentia. Of these, one, consisting of three divisions of infantry, and the whole of the cavalry, advanced by way of Coria; the other column proceeded by a different route, and the whole army were concentrated at Placentia about the tenth of July. The Lusitanian legion, under Sir Robert Wilson, with severJuly. 10.1 al Spanish battalions of light infantry, were |