However unimportant it may appear in the vast page of history, no
English account of sieges can be complete without a notice of that
of Barcelona, in which he who may be called the last of our knights
maintained so nobly that British good faith which we claim as our
proudest characteristic.
In 1705, the earl of Peterborough commanded the army of the Archduke
Charles, competitor with Philip V., the grandson of Louis XIV., in
conjunction with the prince of Darmstadt. The siege was dragged on to a
great length, and Peterborough was thinking of re-embarking his English
soldiers, when he learnt that the prince of Darmstadt had been killed
in carrying the intrenchments which covered Mount Joire and the city. A
few days after, a bomb burst in the fort over the powder-magazine; the
fort was taken, and the city consented to capitulate. The viceroy was
conferring with Peterborough at the city gates, and the articles were
not yet signed, when, on a sudden, cries and screams of distress were
heard in the city: “You are betraying us!” exclaimed the viceroy; “we
are capitulating loyally, and there are your English, who have entered
the city by the ramparts, slaughtering, pillaging, and violating.”
“You are mistaken,” replied Peterborough, “it must be the troops of
the prince of Darmstadt. There is only one means of saving your city;
let me enter the place at once with my English; I will make all quiet,
and will then return to the gate, to complete the capitulation.” The
tone with which he spoke this convinced the Spanish governor of his
good faith, and he was allowed to enter Barcelona with his officers.
As he expected, he found the Germans and Catalans sacking the houses
of the principal citizens; he made them abandon their prey, and drove
them out. Among the victims about to be sacrificed to the lust of the
soldiery was the duchess of Popoli; he extricated her from the hands
of the ruffians, and restored her to her husband. When the tumult was
appeased, he returned to the gate and terminated the capitulation,
offering a fine example of observance of his word given to a conquered
enemy.
Lord Peterborough was certainly more an eccentric man than a great one,
and yet, like Don Quixote’s, many of his eccentricities had a strong
leaning to the side of greatness. Plutarch would have made a fine story
of the above anecdote; it belongs to the character of the real hero, of
whom, though abounding in great soldiers, modern history contains so
few.
To show the importance of such a trait to the reputation of a nation,
we have only to observe with what high praise the historians of other
countries mention this act of simple good faith.