[Sidenote: 1813.]
The force and energy of Napoleon’s system of government was evinced
in a marvellous manner by the rapidity with which he returned
to Germany, at the head of an enormous army, before his enemies
had time even to understand the extent of his misfortunes in the
Russian campaign. The victories of Lutzen and Bautzen then seemed
to reinstate him as the arbiter of Europe. But those battles were
fought with the heads of columns the rear of which were still filing
out of France. They were fought also with young troops. Wherefore
the emperor when he had given himself a fixed and menacing position
in Germany more readily listened to the fraudful negociations of
his trembling opponents, partly in hopes of attaining his object
without further appeal to arms, partly to obtain time to organize
and discipline his soldiers, confident in his own unmatched skill in
directing them if war was finally to decide his fate. He counted also
upon the family ties between him and Austria, and believed that power
willing to mediate sincerely. Not that he was so weak as to imagine
the hope of regaining some of its former power and possessions
was not uppermost, nor was he unprepared to make concessions; but
he seems to have been quite unsuspecting of the long course of
treachery and deceit followed by the Austrian politicians.
[Sidenote: Vol. v. p. 49]
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 1.]
It has been already shewn that while negociating with France an
offensive and defensive treaty in 1812, the Austrian cabinet was
cognizant of, and secretly aiding the plan of a vast insurrection
extending from the Tyrol to Calabria and the Illyrian provinces. The
management of this scheme was entrusted by the English cabinet to
general Nugent and Mr. King who were at Vienna; their agents went
from thence to Italy and the Illyrian coast, many Austrian officers
were engaged in the project; and Italians of great families entered
into commercial houses to enable them with more facility to carry
on this plan. Moreover Austria while actually signing the treaty
with Napoleon was with unceasing importunity urging Prussia to join
the Russians in opposition to him. The feeble operations of Prince
Swartzenberg, the manner in which he uncovered the emperor’s right
flank and permitted Tchitchagoff to move to the Beresina in the
Russian campaign, were but continuations of this deceitful policy.
And it was openly advanced as a merit by the Austrian cabinet that
her offer of mediation after the battle of Bautzen was made solely
with the view of gaining time to organize the army which was to
join the Russians and Prussians. Finally the armistice itself was
violated, hostilities being commenced before its termination, to
enable the Russian troops safely to join the Austrians in Bohemia.
Nevertheless Napoleon’s genius triumphed at Dresden over the
unskilful operations of the allies, directed by Swartzenberg, whose
incapacity as a commander was made manifest in this campaign. Nor
would the after misfortunes of Vandamme and Marshal Macdonald, or
the defeat of Oudinot and Ney have prevented the emperor’s final
success but for the continuation of a treachery, which seemed at the
time to be considered a virtue by sovereigns who were unceasingly
accusing their more noble adversary of the very baseness that they
were practising so unblushingly. He had conceived a project so
vast so original so hardy, so far above the imaginations of his
contemporary generals, that even Wellington’s sagacity failed to
pierce it, and he censured the emperor’s long stay on the Elbe as
an obstinacy unwarranted by the rules of art. But Napoleon had more
profoundly judged his own situation. The large forces he left at
Dresden at Torgau, and Wittemberg, for which he has been so much
blamed by shallow military critics as lessening his numbers on the
field of Leipsic, were essential parts of his gigantic plan. He
quitted Dresden, apparently in retreat, to deceive his enemies, but
with the intention of marching down the Elbe, recrossing that river
and throwing his opponents into a false position. Then he would have
seized Berlin and reopening his communications with his garrisons
both on the Elbe and the Oder have operated between those rivers; and
with an army much augmented in power, because he would have recovered
many thousand old soldiers cooped up in the garrisons; an army more
compact and firmly established also, because he would have been in
direct communication with the Danes and with Davoust’s force at
Hamburgh, and both his flanks would have been secured by his chains
of fortresses on the two rivers. Already had Blucher and the Swedes
felt his first stroke, the next would have taught the allies that
the lion was still abroad in his strength, if at the very moment of
execution without any previous declaration the Bavarians, upon whose
operations he depended for keeping the Austrians in the valley of the
Danube in check, had not formed common cause with his opponents and
the whole marched together towards the Rhine. The battle of Leipsic
followed, the well-known treason of the Saxon troops led to the
victory gained there by the allies, and Napoleon, now the prey of
misfortune, reached France with only one-third of his army, having on
the way however trampled in the dust the Bavarian Wrede who attempted
to stop his passage at Hannau.
Meanwhile the allied sovereigns, by giving hopes to their subjects
that constitutional liberty would be the reward of the prodigious
popular exertions against France, hopes which with the most
detestable baseness they had previously resolved to defraud,
assembled greater forces than they were able to wield, and prepared
to pass the Rhine. But distrusting even their immense superiority
of numbers they still pursued their faithless system. When Napoleon
in consequence of the Bavarian defection marched to Leipsic, he
sent orders to Gouvion St. Cyr to abandon Dresden and unite with
the garrisons on the Lower Elbe, the messengers were intercepted,
and St. Cyr, too little enterprising to execute such a plan of his
own accord, surrendered on condition of being allowed to regain
France. The capitulation was broken and general and soldiers remained
prisoners.
After the Leipsic battle, Napoleon’s adherents fell away by nations.
Murat the husband of his sister joined Austria and thus forced
prince Eugene to abandon his position on the Adige. A successful
insurrection in favour of the prince of Orange broke out in Holland.
The neutrality of Switzerland was violated, and more than half a
million of armed men were poured across the frontiers of France in
all the violence of brute force, for their military combinations were
contemptible and their course marked by murder and devastation. But
previous to this the allies gave one more notable example of their
faithless cunning.
[Sidenote: Diplomatic Correspondence, MSS.]
St. Aignan the French resident minister at Gotha had been taken at
Leipsic and treated at first as a prisoner of war. He remonstrated
and being known to entertain a desire for peace was judged a good
tool with which to practise deception. Napoleon had offered on the
field of battle at Leipsic to negociate, no notice was taken of it at
the time, but now the Austrian Metternich and the Russian Nesselrode
had an interview with St. Aignan at Frankfort, and they assured
him the Prussian minister agreed in all things with them. They had
previously arranged that lord Aberdeen should come in during the
conference as if by accident; nothing was put down in writing, yet
St. Aignan was suffered to make minutes of their proposals in reply
to the emperor’s offer to negociate. These were generally that the
alliance of the sovereigns was indissoluble—that they would have only
a general peace—that France was to be confined to her natural limits,
viz. the Alps the Rhine and the Pyrenees—that the independence
of Germany was a thing not to be disputed—that the Spanish
Peninsula should be free and the Bourbon dynasty be restored—that
Austria must have a frontier in Italy the line of which could be
afterwards discussed, but Italy itself was to be independent of
any preponderating power—that Holland was also to be independent
and her frontier to be matter for after discussion—that England was
ready to make great sacrifices for peace upon these bases and would
acknowledge that freedom of commerce and of navigation which France
had a right to pretend to. St. Aignan here observed that Napoleon
believed England was resolved to restrict France to the possession of
thirty sail of the line, lord Aberdeen replied that it was not true.
This conference had place at the emperor of Austria’s head-quarters
on the 10th of November, and lord Aberdeen inclosed the account of
it in a despatch dated at Smalcalde the 16th of November. He had
objected verbally to the passage relating to the maritime question
with England, nevertheless he permitted it to remain in St. Aignan’s
minutes. It was decided also that the military operations should
go on notwithstanding the negociation, and in truth the allies had
not the slightest design to make peace. They thought Napoleon would
refuse the basis proposed, which would give them an opportunity to
declare he was opposed to all reasonable modes of putting an end
to the war and thus work upon the French people. This is proved by
what followed. For when contrary to their expectations the emperor’s
minister signified, on the 16th of November, that he accepted the
propositions, observing that the independence of all nations at sea
as well as by land had been always Napoleon’s object, Metternich in
his reply, on the 25th of November, pretended to consider this answer
as avoiding the acceptation of the basis. The emperor however put
that obstacle aside, on the 2d of December, by accepting explicitly
the basis, generally and summarily, such as it had been presented
to him, adding, that France would make great sacrifices but the
emperor was content if by like sacrifices on the part of England,
that general peace which was the declared object of the allies could
be obtained. Metternich thus driven from his subterfuge required
Napoleon to send a like declaration to each of the allies separately
when negociations might, he said, commence.
Meanwhile lord Aberdeen, who had permitted St. Aignan to retain the
article relating to maritime rights in his minutes of conference,
presented to Metternich on the 27th of November a note declaring
that England would not admit the turn given by France to her share
of the negociation; that she was ready to yield all the rights of
commerce and navigation which France had a right to pretend to, but
the question would turn upon what that right was. England would never
permit her navigation laws to be discussed at a congress, it was a
matter essentially foreign to the object of such an assembly, and
England would never depart from the great principle thereby announced
as to her maritime rights. Metternich approved of lord Aberdeen’s
views, saying they were his own and those of his court, thus proving
that the negociation had been a deceit from the beginning. This fact
was however placed beyond doubt by lord Castlereagh’s simultaneous
proceedings in London.
In a note dated the 30th November that minister told lord Aberdeen
England admitted as a basis, that the Alps the Rhine and the Pyrenees
should be the frontier of France, subject to such modifications as
might be necessary to give a secure frontier to Holland, and to
Switzerland also, although the latter had not been mentioned in
the proposals given by St. Aignan. He applauded the resolution to
pursue military operations notwithstanding the negociations, and he
approved of demanding nothing but what they were resolved to have.
Nevertheless he said that any sacrifice to be made by England was
only to secure the independence of Holland and Switzerland, and the
former having already declared for the house of Nassau was now out of
the pale of discussion. Finally he recommended that any unnecessary
delay or equivocation on the part of the enemy should be considered
as tantamount to a rejection of the basis, and that the allies
_should then put forward the offer of peace to show that it was not
they but France that opposed an honourable termination of the war_.
Having thus thrown fresh obstacles in the way of that peace which the
allies pretended to have so much at heart, he, on the 21st December,
sent notes to the different ambassadors of the allied powers then
in London demanding explicit answers about the intentions of their
courts as to England’s maritime code. To this they all responded that
their cabinets would not suffer any question relative to that code
to be entertained at a congress in which England was represented,
and this on the express ground that it would mar the great object of
peace.
Lord Castlereagh thus provided, declared that France should be
informed of their resolutions before negociations commenced, but
twenty days before this Napoleon having decreed a fresh levy of three
hundred thousand conscripts the allies had published a manifesto
treating this measure, so essentially a defensive one since they
would not suspend their military operations, as a fresh provocation
on his part, because the motives assigned for the conscription
contained a just and powerful description of their past deceits and
violence with a view to rouse the national spirit of France. Thus
having first by a pretended desire for peace and a willingness on
the part of England to consent to an arrangement about her maritime
code, inveigled the French emperor into negociations and thereby
ascertained that the maritime question was uppermost in his mind and
the only obstacle to peace, they declared that vital question should
not even be discussed. And when by this subtlety they had rendered
peace impossible proclaimed that Napoleon alone resisted the desire
of the world for tranquillity. And at this very moment Austria was
secretly endeavouring to obtain England’s consent to her seizing upon
Alsace a project which was stopped by lord Wellington who forcibly
pointed out the danger of rousing France to a general insurrection by
such a proceeding.
The contrast between these wiles to gain a momentary advantage,
and the manly, vigorous policy of lord Wellington must make honest
men of all nations blush for the cunning which diplomatists call
policy. On one side the arts of guileful negociation masked with fair
protestations but accompanied by a savage and revolting system of
warfare; on the other a broad open hostility declared on manly and
just grounds followed up with a strict regard to humanity and good
faith; nothing put forward with an equivocal meaning and the actions
true to the word. On the eastern frontier the Cossack let loose to
ravage with all the barbarity of Asiatic warfare. On the western
frontier the Spaniards turned back into their own country in the
very midst of triumph, for daring to pass the bounds of discipline
prescribed by the wise and generous policy of their commander. Terror
and desolation and the insurrection of a people rendered frantic by
the cruelty of the invaders marked the progress of the ferocious
multitudes who crossed the Rhine. Order and tranquillity, profound
even on the very edge of the battle-field, attended the march of the
civilized army which passed the Bidassoa. And what were the military
actions? Napoleon rising even above himself hurtled against the armed
myriads opposed to him with such a terrible energy that though ten
times his number they were rolled back on every side in confusion
and dismay. But Wellington advanced without a check, victorious
in every battle, although one half of the veterans opposed to him
would have decided the campaign on the eastern frontier. Nor can
this be gainsaid, since Napoleon’s career in this campaign was only
stayed by the defection of his brother-in-law Murat, and by the
sickening treachery of two marshals to whom he had been prodigal of
benefits. It is undeniable that lord Wellington with sixty thousand
Anglo-Portuguese acting in the south, effected more than half a
million of the allies were able to effect on the opposite side of
France; and yet Soult’s army on the 10th of November was stronger
than that with which Napoleon fought the battle of Brienne.
That great man was never personally deceived by the allies’ pretended
negociations. He joined issue with them to satisfy the French
people that he was not averse to peace, but his instructions dated
the 4th of January and addressed to Caulaincourt prove at once his
sagacity and firmness. “I think,” he said, “that both the allies
good faith and the wish of England to make peace is doubtful; for
my part I desire peace but it must be solid and honourable. I have
accepted the basis proposed at Frankfort yet it is more than probable
the allies have other notions. These propositions are but a mask,
the negociations are placed under the influence of the military
operations and it is easy to foresee what the consequences of such a
system must be. It is necessary therefore to listen to and observe
every thing. It is not certain even that you will be admitted to
the head-quarters of the allies. The Russians and the English watch
to prevent any opening for explanation and reconciliation with the
emperor of Austria. You must therefore endeavour to ascertain the
real views of the allies and let me know day by day what you learn
that I may frame instructions for which at present I have no sure
grounds.”
The internal state of France was more disquieting to his mind
than foreign negociations or the number of invaders. The sincere
republicans were naturally averse to him as the restorer of monarchy,
yet they should have felt that the sovereign whose ruin was so
eagerly sought by the legitimate kings and nobles of Europe could not
be really opposed to liberty. Meanwhile the advocates of legitimacy
shrunk from him as an usurper, and all those tired of war, and they
were a majority of the nation, judging from the stupendous power of
his genius that he had only to will peace to attain it with security,
blamed his tardiness in negociation. An unexpected opposition to his
wishes was also displayed in the legislative body, and the partizans
of the Bourbons were endeavouring to form a great conspiracy in
favour of that house. There were many traitors likewise to him and
to their country, men devoid of principle, patriotism, or honour,
who with instinctive hatred of a failing cause plotted to thwart his
projects for the defence of the nation. In fine the men of action
and the men of theories were alike combined for mischief. Nor is
this outbreak of passion to be wondered at when it is considered
how recently Napoleon had stopped the anarchy of the revolution and
rebuilt the social and political structure in France. But of all who
by their untimely opposition to the emperor hurt their country, the
most pernicious were those silly politicians, whom he so felicitously
described as “_discussing abstract systems of government when the
battering ram was at the gates_.”
Such however has been in all ages the conduct of excited and
disturbed nations, and it seems to be inherent in human nature,
because a saving policy can only be understood and worked to good by
master-spirits, and they are few and far between, their time on earth
short, their task immense. They have not time to teach, they must
command although they know that pride and ignorance and even honesty
will carp at the despotism which brings general safety. It was this
vain short-sighted impatience that drove Hannibal into exile, caused
the assassination of Cæsar, and strewed thorns beneath the gigantic
footsteps of Oliver Cromwell. It raged fiercely in Spain against
lord Wellington, and in France against Napoleon, and always with the
most grievous injury to the several nations. Time only hallows human
institutions. Under that guarantee men will yield implicit obedience
and respect to the wildest caprices of the most stupid tyrant that
ever disgraced a throne, and wanting it they will cavil at and reject
the wisest measures of the most sublime genius. The painful notion
is thus excited, that if governments are conducted with just the
degree of stability and tranquillity which they deserve and no more,
the people of all nations, much as they may be oppressed, enjoy upon
an average of years precisely the degree of liberty they are fitted
for. National discontents mark, according to their bitterness and
constancy, not so much the oppression of the rulers as the real
progress of the ruled in civilization and its attendant political
knowledge. When from peculiar circumstances those discontents
explode in violent revolutions, shattering the fabric of society and
giving free vent and activity to all the passions and follies of
mankind, fortunate is the nation which possesses a Napoleon or an
Oliver Cromwell “_to step into their state of dominion with spirit
to controul and capacity to subdue the factions of the hour and
reconstruct the frame of reasonable government_.”
For great as these two men were in the field of battle, especially
the former, they were infinitely greater when they placed themselves
in the seat of power, and put forth the gigantic despotism of genius
essential to the completion of their holy work. Nor do I hold the
conduct of Washington to be comparable to either of those men. His
situation was one of infinitely less difficulty, and there is no
reason to believe that his capacity would have been equal to the
emergencies of a more formidable crisis than he had to deal with.
Washington could not have made himself master of all had it been
necessary and he so inclined, for he was neither the foremost general
nor the foremost statesman of his nation. His forbearance was a
matter of necessity, and his love of liberty did not prevent him from
bequeathing his black slaves to his widow.
Such was Napoleon’s situation, and as he read the signs of the
times truly he knew that in his military skill and the rage of the
peasants at the ravages of the enemy he must find the means to
extricate himself from his difficulties, or rather to extricate his
country, for self had no place in his policy save as his personal
glory was identified with France and her prosperity. Never before
did the world see a man, soaring so high and devoid of all selfish
ambition. Let those who honestly seeking truth doubt this, study
Napoleon carefully; let them read the record of his second abdication
published by his brother Lucien, that stern republican who refused
kingdoms as the price of his principles, and they will doubt no
longer. It is not however with these matters that this History has
to deal but with the emperor’s measures affecting his lieutenants on
the Spanish frontier of France. There disaffection to his government
was extensive but principally from local causes. The conscription
was peculiarly hateful to the wild mountaineers, who like most
borderers cherish very independent notions. The war with England had
ruined the foreign commerce of their great towns, and the advantage
of increased traffic by land on the east was less directly felt in
the south. There also the recollection of the Vendean struggle still
lingered and the partizans of the Bourbons had many connections. But
the chief danger arose from the just and politic conduct of lord
Wellington which, offering no cause of anger and very much of private
advantage to the people, gave little or no hope of insurrection from
sufferings.
While France was in this state England presented a scene of universal
exultation. Tory politics were triumphant, opposition in the
parliament was nearly crushed by events, the press was either subdued
by persecution or in the pay of the ministers, and the latter with
undisguised joy hailed the coming moment when aristocratic tyranny
was to be firmly established in England. The most enormous subsidies
and military supplies were poured into the continent, and an act was
passed to enable three-fourths of the militia to serve abroad. They
were not however very forward to volunteer, and a new army which
ought to have reinforced Wellington was sent, under the command of
general Graham, to support the insurrection of Holland, where it
was of necessity engaged in trifling or unsuccessful operations in
no manner affecting the great objects of the war. Meanwhile the
importance of lord Wellington’s army and views was quite overlooked
or misunderstood. The ministers persevered in the foolish plan of
removing him to another quarter of Europe, and at the same time,
instigated by the ambassadors of the allied sovereigns, were
continually urging him to push his operations with more vigour in
France. As if he was the man who had done least!
His letters were filled with strong and well-founded complaints that
his army was neglected. Let his real position be borne in mind. He
had, not as a military man but with a political view and to meet
the wishes of the allied sovereigns backed by the importunities of
his own government, placed himself in a confined and difficult
district of France, where his operations were cramped by rivers and
fortresses and by a powerful army occupying strong positions on his
front and flanks. In this situation, unable to act at all in wet
weather, he was necessarily dependent upon the ocean for supplies and
reinforcements, and upon the Spanish authorities for his hospitals,
depôts, and communications. Numbers were requisite to balance the
advantages derived by the enemy from the peculiar conformation of the
country and the position of the fortresses. Money also was wanted to
procure supplies which he could not carry with him, and must pay for
exactly, if he would avoid a general insurrection and the consequent
ruin of the political object for which he had adopted such critical
military operations. But though he had undertaken the invasion of
France at the express desire of the government the latter seemed to
be alike ignorant of its importance and of the means to accomplish
it, at one moment urging progress beyond reason, at another ready to
change lightly what they had proposed ignorantly. Their unsettled
policy proved their incapacity even to comprehend the nature of the
great tide of events on which they floated rather than sailed. Lord
Wellington was forced day by day to teach them the value of their
own schemes, and to show them how small their knowledge was of the
true bearing of the political and military affairs they pretended to
direct.
“Assure,” he wrote on the 21st of December to lord Bathurst, in
reply to one of their ill-founded remonstrances, “Assure the
Russian ambassador there is nothing I can do to forward the general
interest that I will not do. What do they require? I am already
further advanced on the French territory than any of the allied
powers, and better prepared to take advantage of any opportunities
which might offer as a consequence of my own situation or of their
proceedings.”—“In military operations there are some things which
can not be done, and one is to move troops in this country during or
immediately after a violent fall of rain. To attempt it will be to
lose more men than can be replaced, a guilty waste of life.”
“The proper scene of action for the army was undoubtedly a question
for the government to decide, but with thirty thousand men in the
Peninsula, he had for five years held two hundred thousand of
Napoleon’s best soldiers in check, since it was ridiculous to suppose
that the Spaniards and Portuguese could have resisted for a moment
if the British troops had been withdrawn. The French armies actually
employed against him could not be less than one hundred thousand
men, more if he included garrisons, and the French newspapers
spoke of orders to form a fresh reserve of one hundred thousand at
Bordeaux. Was there any man weak enough to suppose one-third of the
number first mentioned would be employed against the Spaniards and
Portuguese if the British were withdrawn? They would if it were an
object with Buonaparte to conquer the Peninsula and he would in that
case succeed; but he was more likely to give peace to the Peninsula
and turn against the allied sovereigns his two hundred thousand men
of which one hundred thousand were such troops as their armies had
not yet dealt with. The war every day offered a crisis the result of
which might affect the world for ages, and to change the scene of
operations for the British army would render it incapable of fighting
for four months, even if the scene were Holland, and it would even
then be a deteriorated machine.”
“The ministers might reasonably ask how by remaining where he was he
could induce Napoleon to make peace. The answer was ready. He held
a commanding situation on the most vulnerable frontier of France,
probably the only vulnerable one, and if he could put twenty thousand
Spaniards in activity, and he could do it if he had money and was
properly supported by the fleet, Bayonne the only fortress on the
frontier, if it could be called a fortress, would fall to him in a
short time. If he could put forty thousand Spaniards in motion his
posts would soon be on the Garonne, and did any man believe that
Napoleon would not feel an army in such a position more than he
would feel thirty or forty thousand British troops laying siege to
one of his fortresses in Holland? The resources in men and money of
which the emperor would be thus deprived, and the loss of reputation
would do ten times more to procure peace than ten armies on the
side of Flanders. But if he was right in believing a strong Bourbon
party existed in France and that it preponderated in the south,
what mischief would not an advance to the Garonne do Napoleon! What
sacrifices would he not make to get rid of the danger!”
“It was for the government not for him to dispose of the nation’s
resources, he had no right to give an opinion upon the subject,
but military operations in Holland and in the Peninsula could not
be maintained at the same time with British troops; one or other
must be given up, the British military establishment was not equal
to maintain two armies in the field. He had begun the recent
campaign with seventy thousand Anglo-Portuguese, and if the men
got from the English militia, and the Portuguese recruits which he
expected, had been added to his force, even though the Germans were
removed from his army according to the ministers’ plan, he might
have taken the field early in 1814 with eighty thousand men. That
was now impossible. The formation of a Hanoverian army was the most
reasonable plan of acting on the continent but the withdrawal of
the Germans would reduce his force to fifty thousand men unless he
received real and efficient assistance to bring up the Portuguese
recruits. This would increase his numbers to fifty-five or even
sixty thousand if his own wounded recovered well and he had no more
battles, but he would even then be twenty thousand less than he had
calculated upon, and it was certain that if the government extended
their operations to other countries new means must be put in activity
or the war must be stinted on the old stage. He did not desire to
complain but every branch of the service in the Peninsula was already
stinted especially in what concerned the navy and the supplies which
came directly from England!”
While thus combating the false views of the English cabinet as to the
general state of affairs he had also to struggle with its negligence
and even opposition to his measures in details.
The general clothing of the Spanish troops and the great coats of the
British soldiers for 1813, were not ready in January 1814, because
the inferior departments could not comprehend that the opening of new
scenes of exertion required new means, and the soldiers had to brave
the winter half naked, first on the snowy mountains, then in the more
chilling damps of the low country about Bayonne. The clothing of the
British soldiers for 1814 should have arrived in the end of 1813 when
the army lying inactive near the coast by reason of the bad weather
could have received and fitted it without difficulty. It did not
however arrive until the troops were in progress towards the interior
of France, wherefore, there being no means of transporting it by
land, many of the best regiments were obliged to return to the coast
to receive it, and the army as we shall find had to fight a critical
battle without them.
He had upon commencing the invasion of France issued a proclamation
promising protection to persons and property. This was construed by
the French to cover their vessels in the Nivelle when the battle
of that name gave the allies St. Jean de Luz. Lord Wellington
sacrificing personal profit to the good of the service admitted this
claim as tending to render the people amicable, but it clashed with
the prize-money pretensions of lord Keith who commanded the fleet
of which Collier’s squadron formed a detached portion. The serious
evils endured by the army in default of sufficient naval assistance
had been treated as of very slight importance, the object of a
trifling personal gain for the navy excited a marvellous activity,
and vigorous interference on the part of the government. Upon these
subjects, and others of a like vexatious nature affecting his
operations, lord Wellington repeatedly and forcibly declared his
discontent during the months of December, January, and February.
“As to the naval affairs,” he said, “the reports of the number of
ships on the stations striking off those coming out and going home
would shew whether he had just ground of complaint, and whatever
their numbers there remained the right of complaint because they
did not perform the service required. The French had recommenced
their coast navigation from Bordeaux to Bayonne, and if the blockade
of Santona had been maintained the place would have been forced to
surrender at an early period. The proclamation of protection which
he had issued, and the licenses which he had granted to French
vessels, every act of that description, and two-thirds of the acts
which he performed every day could not he knew be considered of any
avail as affecting the king’s government, unless approved of and
confirmed by the prince regent; and he knew that no power short of
the regent’s could save the property of French subjects on the seas
from the British navy. For that reason he had requested the sanction
of the government to the sea passports which he had granted. His
proclamation of protection had been construed whether rightfully or
wrongfully to protect the French ships in the rivers; his personal
interest, greater than others, would lead him to deny this, but he
sacrificed his profit to the general good.
“Were lord Keith and sir George Collier because the latter happened
to have a brig or two cruizing off the coast, to claim as prizes all
the vessels lying in every river which the army might pass in its
operations? and this to the detriment of the cause which required the
strictest respect for private property. For the last five years he
had been acting in the confidence that his conduct would be approved
of and supported, and he concluded it would be so still; but he was
placed in a novel situation and asked for legal advice to determine,
whether lord Keith and the channel fleet, were to be considered
as engaged in a conjoint expedition with the army under his
command against the subjects of France, neither having any specific
instructions from government, and the fleet having nothing to do with
the operations by land. He only required that fleet to give him a
free communication with the coast of Spain, and prevent the enemy’s
sea communication between the Garonne and the Adour, and this last
was a part of its duty before the army arrived. Was his proclamation
of protection to hold good as regarded the ships in the rivers? He
desired to have it sanctioned by the prince regent, or that he might
be permitted to issue another declaring that it was of no value.”
This remonstrance produced so much effect that lord Keith
relinquished his claims, and admiral Penrose was sent to command upon
the station instead of sir George Collier. The immediate intercourse
of lord Wellington with the navy was thus ameliorated by the superior
power of this officer, who was remarkable for his suavity. Yet the
licenses given to French vessels were strongly condemned by the
government, and rendered null, for we find him again complaining that
“he had granted them only in hopes of drawing money and supplies from
France, and of interesting the French mercantile men to aid the army;
but he feared the government were not aware of, and did not feel the
difficulties in which he was placed at all times for want of money,
and judged his measures without adverting to the necessity which
occasioned them; hence their frequent disapprobation of what he did.”
Strange this may sound to those who seeing the duke of Wellington in
the fulness of his glory have been accustomed to regard him as the
star of England’s greatness; but those who at that period frequented
the society of ministers know well that he was then looked upon
by those self-sufficient men as a person whose views were wild and
visionary, requiring the corroboration of older and wiser heads
before they could be assented to. Yea! even thus at the eleventh hour
was the giant Wellington measured by the political dwarfs.
Although he gained something by making San Jean de Luz a free port
for all nations not at war with France, his financial situation was
nearly intolerable, and at the moment of greatest pressure colonel
Bunbury, under-secretary of state, was sent out to protest against
his expenses. One hundred thousand pounds a month was the maximum
in specie which the government would consent to supply, a sum quite
inadequate to his wants. And this remonstrance was addressed to this
victorious commander at the very crisis of his stupendous struggle,
when he was overwhelmed with debts and could scarcely stir out of his
quarters on account of the multitude of creditors waiting at his door
for payment of just claims.
[Sidenote: Wellington’s Despatches.]
“Some of his muleteers he said were twenty-six months in arrears,
and recently, instigated by British merchants, they had become so
clamorous that rather than lose their services he had given them
bills on the treasury for a part of their claims, though he knew they
would sell these bills at a discount to the _sharks_, who had urged
them to be thus importunate and who were waiting at the ports to take
advantage of the public distresses. A dangerous measure which he
desired not to repeat.
“It might be true that the supply of one hundred thousand pounds
a month had been even exceeded for some time past, but it was
incontestible that the English army and all its departments, and
the Spanish and Portuguese armies were at the moment paralyzed for
want of money. The arrears of pay to the soldiers was entering the
seventh month, the debt was immense, and the king’s engagements with
the Spanish and Portuguese governments were not fulfilled. Indebted
in every part of Spain he was becoming so in France, the price of all
commodities was increasing in proportion to the delay of payment, to
the difficulty of getting food at all, and the want of credit into
which all the departments of the army had fallen. Of two hundred
thousand dollars given to marshal Beresford for the pay of his troops
on account of the Portuguese subsidy he had been forced to take back
fifty thousand to keep the Spaniards together, and was even then
forced to withhold ten thousand to prevent the British cavalry from
perishing. Money to pay the Spaniards had sailed from Cadiz, but
the vessel conveying it, and another containing the soldiers’ great
coats, were by the admiralty arrangements obliged to go first to
Corunna, and neither had arrived there in January although the money
had been ready in October. But the ship of war designed to carry it
did not arrive at Cadiz until the end of December. Sixteen thousand
Spanish troops were thus rendered useless because without pay they
could not be trusted in France.”
“The commissary-in-chief in England had been regularly informed of
the state of the supplies of the military chest and of the wants and
prospects of the army, but those wants were not attended to. The
monthly hundred thousand pounds spoken of as the maximum, even if
it had been given regularly, would not cover the ordinary expenses
of the troops, and there were besides the subsidies other outlays
requiring ready money, such as meat for the soldiers, hospital
expenses, commissariat labourers, and a variety of minor engagements.
The Portuguese government had been reduced to a monthly sum of two
hundred thousand dollars out of a subsidy of two millions sterling.
The Spanish government got what they could out of a subsidy of one
million. And when money was obtained for the government in the
markets of Lisbon and Cadiz, it came not in due time, because, such
were the admiralty arrangements, there were no ships to convey
the treasure to the north coast of Spain. The whole sum which had
passed through the military chest during the past year was scarcely
more than two millions four hundred thousand pounds, out of which
part of the subsidies had been paid. This was quite inadequate, the
Government had desired him to push his operations to the Garonne
during the winter, he was prepared to do so in every point excepting
money, and he knew the greatest advantages would accrue from such a
movement but he could not stir. His posts were already so distant
from the coast that his means of transport were daily destroyed by
the journeys, he had not a shilling to pay for any thing in the
country and his credit was gone. He had been obliged privately to
borrow the expense of a single courier sent to general Clinton. It
was not his duty to suggest the fitting measures for relief, but
it was obvious that an immediate and large supply from England was
necessary and that ships should be provided to convey that which was
obtained at Lisbon and Cadiz to the army.”
Such was the denuded state of the victorious Wellington at a time
when millions, and the worth of more millions were being poured by
the English ministers into the continent; when every petty German
sovereign, partizan, or robber, who raised a band, or a cry against
Napoleon, was supplied to satiety. And all this time there was not
in England one public salary reduced, one contract checked, one
abuse corrected, one public servant rebuked for negligence; not a
writer dared to expose the mischief lest he should be crushed by
persecution; no minister ceased to claim and to receive the boasting
congratulations of the tories, no whig had sense to discover or
spirit to denounce the iniquitous system, no voice of reprehension
was heard from that selfish faction unless it were in sneering
contempt of the general whose mighty genius sustained England under
this load of folly.
Nor were these difficulties all that lord Wellington had to
contend with. We have seen that the Portuguese regency withheld
his reinforcements even when he had provided transports for their
conveyance. The duke of York meanwhile insisted upon withdrawing his
provisional battalions, which being all composed of old soldiers,
the remains of regiments reduced by the casualties of war, were of
more value in a winter campaign than three times their numbers of
new men. With respect to the English militia regiments, he had no
desire for them, because they possessed, he said, all the worst
faults of the regulars and some peculiar to themselves besides. What
he desired was that eight or ten thousand men should be drafted from
them to fill up his ranks, he could then without much injury let his
foreign battalions be taken away to reform a Hanoverian army on the
continent; and this plan he was inclined to, because the Germans,
brave and strong soldiers, were yet extremely addicted to desertion
and in that particular set a bad example to the British: this
suggestion was however disregarded, and other reinforcements were
promised to him.
But the most serious of all the secondary vexations he endured sprung
from the conduct of the Spanish authorities. His hospitals and depôts
were for the most part necessarily in the Spanish territories and
principally at Santander. To avoid inconvenience to the inhabitants
he had caused portable wooden houses to be brought from England in
which to shelter his sick and wounded men; and he paid extravagantly
and regularly for every aid demanded from the natives. Nevertheless
the natural arrogance or ill-will which produced the libels about
St. Sebastian the insolence of the minister of war and the sullen
insubordination of Morillo and other generals broke out here also.
After much underhand and irritating conduct at different times,
the municipality, resolute to drive the hospitals from their town,
suddenly, and under the false pretext that there was a contagious
fever, placed all the British hospitals with their officers and
attendants under quarantine. This was in the middle of January.
Thirty thousand men had been wounded since June in the service of
Spain, and the return was to make those wounded men close prisoners
and drive their general to the necessity of fixing his hospitals in
England. Vessels coming from Santander were thus rendered objects
of dread, and the municipalities of the other ports, either really
fearing or pretending to fear the contagion, would not suffer them to
enter their waters. To such a height did this cowardice and villainy
attain that the political chief of Guipuscoa, without giving any
notice to lord Wellington, shut all the ports of that province
against vessels coming from Santander, and the alcalde of Fuenterabia
endeavoured to prevent a Portuguese military officer from assisting
an English vessel which was about to be and was afterwards actually
cast away, because she came from Santander.
Now in consequence of the difficulties and dangers of navigating the
Bay of Biscay in the winter and the badness of the ports near the
positions of the army, all the stores and provisions coming by sea
went in the first instance to Santander, the only good port, there to
wait until favourable opportunities occurred for reaching the more
eastern harbours. Moreover all the provision magazines of the Spanish
army were there, but this blow cut them off, the army was reduced to
the smaller magazines at Passages which could only last for a few
days, and when that supply was expended lord Wellington would have
had no resource but to withdraw across the Pyrenees! “_Here,” he
exclaimed, “here are the consequences of the system by which these
provinces are governed! Duties of the highest description, military
operations, political interests, and the salvation of the state, are
made to depend upon the caprices of a few ignorant individuals, who
have adopted a measure unnecessary and harsh without adverting to its
objects or consequences, and merely with a view to their personal
interests and convenience._”
They carried it into execution also with the utmost hardness caprice
and injustice, regardless of the loss of ships and lives which
must follow, and finally desired lord Wellington to relinquish the
harbour and town of Santander altogether as a depôt! However his
vigorous remonstrances stopped this nefarious proceeding in time to
avert the danger which it menaced.
Be it remembered now, that these dangers and difficulties, and
vexations, although related in succession, happened, not one after
another, but altogether; that it was when crossing the Bidassoa,
breaking through the mountain fortifications of Soult, passing the
Nive, fighting the battles in front of Bayonne, and when still
greater and more intricate combinations were to be arranged, that all
these vials of folly and enmity were poured upon his head. Who then
shall refuse to admire the undaunted firmness, the unwearied temper
and vigilance, the piercing judgement with which he steered his
gallant vessel and with a flowing sail, unhurt through this howling
storm of passion this tumultuous sea of folly.