Transcriber’s Note:
Sidenotes are shown in UPPER-CASE and enclosed in ♦DIAMOND SYMBOLS♦;
italic text is enclosed in _underscores_.
Superscripts are indicated as ^o, ^r, or ^{er}.
Other notes will be found at the end of this eBook.
HISTORY
OF THE
PENINSULAR WAR.
“Unto thee
“Let thine own times as an old story be.”
DONNE.
BY ROBERT SOUTHEY, ESQ. LL.D.
POET LAUREATE,
HONORARY MEMBER OF THE ROYAL SPANISH ACADEMY, OF THE
ROYAL SPANISH ACADEMY OF HISTORY, OF THE ROYAL
INSTITUTE OF THE NETHERLANDS, OF THE
CYMMRODORION, OF THE MASSACHUSETTS
HISTORICAL SOCIETY, ETC.
A NEW EDITION.
_IN SIX VOLUMES._
VOL. VI.
LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE-STREET.
MDCCCXXXVII.
Ἱστορίας γὰρ ἐὰν ἀφέλῃ τις τὸ διὰ τί, καὶ πῶς, καὶ τίνος χάριν ἐπράχθη,
καὶ τὸ πραχθὲν πότερα εὔλογον ἔσχε τὸ τέλος, τὸ καταλειπόμενον αὐτῆς
ἀγώνισμα μὲν, μάθημα δὲ οὐ γίγνεται· καὶ παραυτίκα μὲν τέρπει, πρὸς δὲ
τὸ μέλλον οὐδὲν ὠφελεῖ τὸ παράπαν.
POLYBIUS, lib. iii. sect. 31.
CONTENTS OF THE SIXTH VOLUME
CHAPTER XLI.
(CONTINUED.)
Page
Duran enters Soria 1
Members of the Junta of Burgos seized by the French and put to
death 2
Circumstances of the execution 4
Treatment of their bodies 5
Retaliatory executions 6
El Manco 7
Mutual retaliations 7
Guerrilla exploits 8
Intercepted letters from the Intruder 9
Sir Rowland Hill’s expedition against the bridge of Almaraz 12
Ballasteros defeated at Bornos 16
Lord Wellington advances into Spain 16
Salamanca 17
The Tormes 18
The allies enter Salamanca 18
Siege of the forts there 19
Marmont moves to relieve them 21
Surrender of the forts 24
Marmont falls back upon the Douro 25
Lord Wellington advances to that river 26
The Douro 27
Marmont reinforced by General Bonnet 28
Lord Wellington retires before him 29
Battle of Salamanca 33
Proceedings of Sir Home Popham on the coast of Biscay 41
CHAPTER XLII.
Appeal of the Intruder to the Spaniards 47
State of Madrid 48
Measures of the Intruder before the battle of Salamanca 49
Advance of the allies 50
Affair at Majalahonda 51
The enemy retire from Madrid 51
The allies enter 52
The new constitution proclaimed there 52
The Buen Retiro 53
Surrender of the Retiro 56
The constitution sworn to 56
General Foy’s movement 58
Measures of police at Madrid 59
Lord Wellington’s situation 61
Anglo-Sicilian army 62
Majorcan division 63
The expedition arrives on the coast of Catalonia 64
Defeat of the Spaniards at Castalla 65
The expedition lands at Alicante 66
The French fall back to the Xucar 66
They withdraw from Santander 67
And are driven from Bilbao 67
State of the Galician army 67
The French break up the siege of Cadiz 68
Movement of General La Cruz Mourgeon and Colonel Skerrett upon
Seville 69
Brigadier-General Downie 69
The French driven from Seville 71
Rejoicing in that city 73
Honours rendered to Lord Wellington 74
St. Teresa appointed co-patroness of Spain 74
Lord Wellington commander-in-chief of the Spanish armies 77
His situation at Madrid 77
He moves toward Burgos 79
The French withdraw from Valladolid 79
The allies advance to Burgos 80
Burgos 81
The allies enter Burgos 85
Castle of Burgos 86
The horn-work on St. Miguel’s taken 87
Failure in assaulting the first line 89
A second assault fails 90
A third by daylight proves successful 91
Major Cocks 93
The second line assaulted with ill success 95
Movement of the French in the North 95
Ballasteros refuses to act under the British commander 96
He is exiled to Ceuta 97
General Maitland gives up the command of the Anglo-Sicilian army 98
Unsuccessful attempt upon Denia 99
The French prepare to march from the South against Lord
Wellington 99
Castle of Chinchilla taken by them 99
They begin their march 100
Lord Wellington raises the siege of Burgos 101
Retreat from Burgos 101
Disorder during the retreat 102
The allies halt 104
Sir Rowland Hill retreats from the Xarama 106
State of Madrid 107
The allies withdraw from Madrid 107
The French enter 108
Junction of the retreating armies 109
Junction of the French armies 110
Lord Wellington retreats to Salamanca 111
And from thence to the Agueda 112
Sufferings of the army 112
Sir Edward Paget made prisoner 114
Lord Wellington reaches Ciudad Rodrigo 115
The French retire to the Tormes 116
Castle of Alba de Tormes evacuated 116
Lord Wellington’s circular letter to the commanding officers of
battalions 117
CHAPTER XLIII.
Opinions of the opposition 122
Marquis Wellesley calls for inquiry 122
Lord Grenville 124
Mr. Ponsonby 125
Mr. Freemantle 125
Mr. Whitbread 125
Motion of thanks to the armies 127
Sir F. Burdett 127
Marquis Wellesley moves for a committee 129
Earl Grey 131
Earl of Liverpool 132
Earl Bathurst 132
Lord Holland 133
Lord Wellington goes to Cadiz 133
Arrangements concerning the Spanish armies 134
Lord Wellington goes to Lisbon 135
Relaxed discipline of the Portugueze army 135
Buonaparte withdraws troops from Spain 137
Exactions of the French 138
Longa’s movements in the North 138
Mina’s movements 140
Caffarelli recalled from Spain 141
Clausel endeavours to hunt Mina down 141
Renovales made prisoner 143
Castro de Urdiales taken by General Foy 143
Enormities committed there by the French 144
Marshal Soult called from Spain 145
The Intruder goes to Valladolid 145
Anglo-Sicilian army 146
Sir John Murray takes the command 146
Defeat of Elio’s corps 147
Suchet marches against the Anglo-Sicilian army 147
Battle of Castalla 149
Lord Wellington opens the campaign 153
The left of his army crosses the Douro 153
Affair near Salamanca 154
Passage of the Ezla 157
Sir Rowland Hill crosses the Douro 159
The French abandon Burgos 161
The Ebro 162
Passage of the Ebro 163
The French fall back upon Vittoria 163
Vittoria 165
Battle of Vittoria 166
Sir Thomas Graham proceeds against General Foy 175
The French driven from Tolosa 176
Foy retreats into France 177
Passages is surrendered 178
Castro abandoned by the enemy 178
Pancorbo taken 179
Clausel retires to Zaragoza 179
Preparations for the siege of Pamplona 180
CHAPTER XLIV.
Expedition from Alicante 181
Col de Balaguer taken by the Anglo-Sicilian army 182
The expedition lands near Tarragona 183
Suchet’s movements for the relief of that place 185
Sir John Murray raises the siege 186
Suchet approaches Col de Balaguer and retires again 188
Sir John re-lands the troops 189
Lord W. Bentinck takes the command 190
Fort at Col de Balaguer demolished 190
Unsuccessful movements of the Spaniards in Valencia 191
The expedition returns to Alicante 192
Suchet’s measures after the battle of Vittoria 192
Lord Wellington undertakes the siege of S. Sebastian’s 193
Clausel retreats into France by way of Jaca 193
Duran invites Mina to act with him for the deliverance of
Zaragoza 194
Affair before Zaragoza 195
Second sally of the French 197
Duran arrives before the city 197
The French withdraw from the city, leaving a garrison 198
Suchet draws off the remaining garrisons in Aragon 201
Duran enters Zaragoza 202
Mina takes the command 203
The Aljaferia surrendered 204
Conduct of the Zaragozans during their captivity 204
S. Sebastian’s 207
Distribution of the allied army 208
Siege of S. Sebastian’s 210
Convent of S. Bartolomé taken 211
The batteries open 213
Unsuccessful assault 214
The siege suspended 217
Soult appointed Commander-in-chief 218
His address to the troops 219
Critical situation of the allied army 220
Soult’s movements for the relief of Pamplona 221
Battles of the Pyrenees 222
Siege of S. Sebastian’s resumed 230
Preparations for assaulting the town 233
Soult moves for its relief 234
Assault of the town 234
Sir James Leith wounded 238
Sir Richard Fletcher slain 239
The town taken 239
The French defeated in their attempt to relieve it 241
Siege of the castle 244
Excesses committed in the town 246
The garrison surrenders 247
CHAPTER XLV.
The remains of Romana’s army return from the North 251
Lord W. Bentinck invests Tarragona 251
Suchet raises the siege 253
The French abandon Tarragona 254
Plans proposed to Suchet by Soult 254
Suchet surprises the allies at the pass of Ordal 256
The Anglo-Sicilians retreat 257
The command devolves upon Sir William Clinton 258
Position of the armies in the Pyrenean frontier 261
Levy ordered in France for Soult’s army 262
Speech of M. Regnaud de S. Jean Angely 262
Of the Comte de Beurnonville 262
Lord Wellington’s orders upon entering France 263
Passage of the Bidassoa 264
The Bidassoa 265
Attack of the French position 266
Conduct of the French peasantry 270
Pamplona surrendered 272
Soult’s position on the Nivelle 274
Battles of the Nivelle 278
The allies cantoned between that river and the sea 287
S. Jean de Luz 288
Discipline observed by the allies 289
The inhabitants return to their homes 290
Bayonne 291
Passage of the Nive 292
Soult takes a defensive position 306
The allies wait in their cantonments for better weather 307
Marshal Beresford restores the colours of certain Portugueze
militia regiments 308
Conduct of the Spanish and Portugueze soldiers at Dantzic 309
Ill conduct of the Spanish government towards Lord Wellington 310
Change of Regency 310
Proceedings in Parliament 311
Lord Grenville’s speech 312
Marquis Wellesley 314
Lord Liverpool 315
Mr. Charles Grant 316
Mr. Whitbread 318
Mr. Canning 320
Mr. Whitbread 325
Militia allowed to volunteer for foreign service 325
Lord Holland 326
Terms offered by the allies to Buonaparte 328
Buonaparte treats with Ferdinand 329
Conference between Comte de Laforest and Ferdinand 329
Treaty concluded at Valençay 334
Duque de San Carlos sent to the Regency 335
Secret instructions from Ferdinand 337
Macanaz sent to Valençay 338
Zayas and Palafox released 339
Palafox sent to the Regency 340
Reply of the Spanish government 340
Measures of the Cortes 341
CHAPTER XLVI.
Buonaparte’s speech to his council 344
Proceedings of the French government 345
Comte Dejean 345
Regnaud de S. Jean d’Angely 345
Lacepède 346
Buonaparte’s speech to the Legislative Assembly 347
British regulations for trading with the captured French ports 347
Injury done by destroying the woods in this part of the Pyrenees 350
Movements in the month of January 352
False reports circulated by the French government 353
The Duc d’Angoulême goes to Lord Wellington’s army 354
Rochejaquelein comes to the British camp 355
Lord Wellington refuses to send an expedition to the coast of
Poitou 357
Suchet fails in an attempt to surprise a British corps 358
The German troops in Barcelona disarmed 359
Troops withdrawn from Suchet’s army 359
Failure of an attempt against the enemy at Molins del Rey 360
Farther drafts from Suchet’s army 361
He retires to Gerona 361
Van Halen opens a correspondence with Eroles 363
He deserts from the French army 363
His scheme for recovering certain places 364
The deceit tried at Tortosa 365
It fails there 367
Attempt at Lerida 368
And at Mequinenza, where it succeeds 369
Success at Lerida 370
And at Monzon 372
The three garrisons made prisoners 373
Suchet dismantles Gerona and other places 374
State of Lord Wellington’s army 375
Operations are renewed 376
Preparations for crossing the Adour 378
The Adour 379
Passage of the Adour 381
Entrance of the flotilla 386
A bridge carried over the Adour 389
Passage of the Gaves 391
Orthes 392
Battle of Orthes 394
The French driven from Aire 399
Soult draws nearer the Pyrenees 400
The allies enter Pau 401
Deputies arrive from Bourdeaux 402
The Duc d’Angoulême proceeds thither with Marshal Beresford 402
The Landes 403
The Buonapartists withdraw from Bourdeaux 404
The Duc enters, and the white flag is hoisted there 405
Failure of the negotiations at Chatillon 407
Soult’s proclamation 409
Admiral Penrose enters the Gironde 411
Proceedings at Valençay 414
Ferdinand set at liberty 416
His arrangement with Marshal Suchet 418
He writes from Gerona to the Regency 420
Ferdinand goes to Zaragoza 420
Soult resumes the offensive 421
He retreats upon Tarbes 422
Farther retreat to Toulouse 422
Passage of the Garonne 424
Toulouse 426
Soult’s position there 428
Battle of Toulouse 430
Soult retires from Toulouse 437
The allies enter 438
Louis XVIII proclaimed there 439
Sally of the French from Bayonne 439
Sir John Hope taken prisoner 441
The French repulsed 442
Suchet and Soult acknowledge the new government 444
Disposition of Ferdinand on his return 446
Impolitic measures of the Cortes 447
Cardinal Bourbon’s reception by Ferdinand 452
Elio meets the King 453
Ferdinand enters Valencia 453
The officers swear fidelity to him 455
General Wittingham’s advice 456
Memorial of the Serviles 457
Stone of the Constitution removed 458
Ferdinand’s declaration 459
He enters Madrid 465
Subsequent conduct of the people and of the government 466
Lord Wellington returns to England 467
He takes his seat in the House of Lords 468
The Lord Chancellor’s speech 468
The House of Commons congratulate him on his return 469
He returns thanks to the House 469
The Speaker’s speech 470
Conclusion 471
HISTORY
OF THE
PENINSULAR WAR.
CHAPTER XLI.
(CONTINUED.)
GUERRILLAS, AND THEIR EXPLOITS. SIR ROWLAND HILL’S SUCCESS AT ALMARAZ.
BATTLE OF SALAMANCA.
♦MAY, 1812.
DURAN ENTERS SORIA.♦
At this time, when nothing could be expected from the Spanish armies,
the Guerrillas acted in larger bodies than before, and engaged in
more difficult enterprises than they had yet undertaken. Duran having
obtained a plan of the fortifications of Soria from an architect who
resided there, resolved upon attacking that city as an important post,
from whence the French commanded a considerable extent of country.
Soria, which stands on the Douro, near the supposed site of Numantia,
and contained about 1,100 families in the middle of the last century,
is surrounded by an old wall eighteen feet in height and six in
thickness, to which some works adapted to a more modern art of war
had been added; the suburb also had been fortified, and the castle
strengthened. He approached the city by a circuitous route (during a
most tempestuous night of wind ♦MARCH 18.♦ and snow, which froze as
it fell,) and reaching it at daybreak scaled the walls, forced the
suburb, and obtained possession of the city. The enemy retired into the
castle, and Duran prepared to besiege it, setting fire to four convents
to clear the way for his operations.
The adventurers had arrived in fortunate time, for the morrow was
St. Joseph’s day, when a ball and supper were to have been given in
honour of the Intruder for his name’s sake, and the delicacies which
had been prepared for this occasion served to regale these unexpected
and unwelcome visiters. Battering-rams were employed with great effect
against the old walls, that the city might no longer afford protection
to the French; the public money was seized, great quantities of grain
and biscuit dispatched by all the means of transport which could be
found, and a contribution levied upon the inhabitants, for hitherto
they had contributed nothing to the national troops, being under
the yoke of the French, and thinking it evil enough to pay what the
invaders exacted; but the Guerrillas admitted of no such excuse: they
supposed the people to be rich because it was a trading city, and many
who had formerly been rich proprietors dwelt there; the contribution,
therefore, was not likely to be lightly imposed. Duran enrolled also
such men as he thought fit for service, ordered others who might have
been serviceable to the enemy to leave the city, and retreated himself
without loss, when a detachment arrived from Aranda to the succour of
the garrison.
♦MEMBERS OF THE JUNTA OF BURGOS SEIZED BY THE FRENCH AND PUT TO DEATH.
MARCH 21.♦
This enterprise led to a tragedy characteristic of the spirit in which
the war was carried on on both sides. The French, who had come in time
to save the castle of Soria, obtained intelligence that the Junta of
Burgos were in a village called Grado; and there, under the guidance of
a Spanish traitor, Moreno by name, a party of 450 horse, making a march
of fourteen leagues in less than four-and-twenty hours, surprised them
early in the morning. Some twenty soldiers with their commander were
found fast asleep, and made prisoners, as were three members of the
Junta and the secretary of the Intendency: but more persons escaped
than were taken, though the enemy set every house on fire, with the
intention of burning those who might have hidden themselves. As soon
as the news was known, Duran and the Junta of Soria sent to the French
commander in that city, reminding him that the prisoners taken there
had been treated with humanity, and threatening reprisals if the
persons who had now been captured should be put to death. This was of
no avail. The vice-president of the Junta, D. Pedro Gordo, who was the
parochial priest of Santibañez, was inhumanly scourged by Moreno, ...
perhaps from some impulse of private enmity: the prisoners were then
conducted to Aranda, from whence the soldiers contrived to effect their
escape. Navas, the secretary of Gordo, and the two other members of
the Junta, D. Jose Ortiz de Covarrubios, and D. Eulogio Jose de Muro,
with a young lad, son of the former, were sent in irons to Soria,
there to be tried by the criminal Junta of that ♦APRIL 2.♦ city. The
trial, which took place during the night, occupied five hours, all the
formalities of justice being observed; and the boy, whom because of his
youth it would have been monstrous to condemn, was acquitted: the other
four were sentenced to death, and four priests were ordered immediately
to attend them; but no more time was allowed than was necessary for
bringing together and forming the soldiers who were to conduct them to
the place of execution.
The different behaviour of the sufferers was such as deeply to affect
the spectators. Ortiz was greatly moved at the thought of leaving his
son fatherless and destitute; ♦CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE EXECUTION.♦ but
overcoming that emotion with a Spaniard’s feeling, he commended the
boy to God as the orphan’s Father, and called upon the Lord to receive
his soul as a victim for his religion and his country. The priest
held a crucifix in one hand as he went to execution, and beat his
breast incessantly with the other; and while tears of ardent devotion
streamed down his cheeks, implored with a loud voice forgiveness for
his own sins and for those of the people. Muro, who was a much younger
man than either, was of a weak constitution, still further weakened
by the fatigues he had undergone in the performance of his duties; so
that what with ill treatment, and what he had suffered during twelve
days’ imprisonment, there seemed to be an entire prostration of his
strength; faintings and cold sweats succeeded each other, and it was
thought he would expire before he could reach the place where he was
to be put to death. He had asked earnestly for a crucifix; the priest
who attended him not knowing for what service he had been summoned
had improvidently left his house without one; he gave him therefore
in its stead a rosary, with a medal attached to it, on which was the
image of Our Lady of the Pillar. Muro had studied in the university
of Zaragoza, where it is said he had never omitted, for a single day,
to visit and adore the tutelary idol of that city; and this trifling
circumstance, which at any other time would have appeared to him light
as air, acted upon him now in a manner that might seem miraculous or
incredible to those who cannot comprehend the force of imagination and
the strength of a believing mind; for no sooner had he seen what image
the medal bore, than, as if by an influx of divine support, he put
off all weakness and proceeded to the place of death with a firm step
and a cheerful countenance, and ejaculations of jubilant devotion.
When they came to the foot of the hill on the top of which they were
to suffer, “Up, brothers!” he exclaimed, “up! let us ascend this our
Mount Calvary, where it is vouchsafed to us that we should imitate our
Redeemer! I pray and trust that this hour our offences shall be blotted
out by virtue of the blood which on his holy Calvary he shed for our
sins.” In this spirit he knelt down upon the fatal spot, raised his
eyes to heaven, and presented his breast to the soldiers. The Spaniards
compared the circumstances of this man’s death with what the French
themselves had related of Marshal Lasnes, how after he had received his
mortal wound, a visit from Buonaparte comforted and for a while revived
him: “Let patron,” said they, “be compared with patron, client with
client, and cause with cause!”
♦TREATMENT OF THEIR BODIES.♦
The bodies of these victims were suspended from the gallows till
the following day, when the French gave orders that they should be
taken down and buried. But the execution had been an act of impolitic
severity: after Duran’s recent visit the national cause would not
have been popular in Soria, unless the national feeling had been thus
provoked; and that feeling was now manifested in a manner which the
invaders had not looked for. The clergy, the nobles, the different
brotherhoods of the city, and the people assembled: the bodies were
carried to the church of St. Salvador in procession, with a long line
of tapers, and a most numerous attendance; they were then dressed
in grave clothes with becoming decency, that of the priest in his
sacerdotal habits. So public and ostentatious a funeral was considered
by the French an insult to their authority; soldiers, therefore, were
sent to interrupt it, and some of the attendants were compelled to
carry the bodies back to the gallows and hang them there again, the
priest in his alb, the others in their shrouds; there they remained
many days, and what the birds and the dogs had left was then buried at
the foot of the gallows.
♦RETALIATORY EXECUTIONS.♦
When D. Jose O’Donell, who commanded what was called the 2nd and
3rd army then in Murcia, received official intelligence of these
executions, he wrote to Duran, as acting commander in Aragon and Soria,
and instructed him to put to death ten prisoners, without distinction
of rank, for each of the four victims, first apprising the nearest
French commandant that he had received these orders, and should
act upon them unless such reparation were made as might be deemed
proportionate to the offence. Without waiting for such instructions,
the Merino had exacted vengeance upon a larger scale. Having defeated
a considerable body of the French who had marched from Aranda, to
collect requisitions, killed and wounded some 150 and taken about
500 prisoners, he put 110 of them to death, twenty of these being in
reprisals for each member of the Junta of Burgos; the others, at the
rate of ten for each of his own people whom the French had executed.
The other prisoners were marched into Asturias where opportunity might
be found for embarking them; but all the officers, twelve in number,
including the lieutenant-colonel, their commander, were reserved to be
shot unless General Rey, who commanded at Burgos, would rescue them
from that fate by delivering the traitor Moreno into the Merino’s
hands. The unhappy prisoners are said to have addressed a letter
to Rey, entreating him to save their lives by complying with this
proposal, for they well knew that in these cases the Spaniards never
failed to execute what they threatened. The issue has not been related,
but may easily be guessed, as it was scarcely possible that the
French commander should so far break his faith with a Spaniard in the
Intruder’s service as to deliver him to certain death.
♦EL MANCO.♦
There were no persons whom the Spaniards regarded with such hatred
as those who had forsaken the national cause, and entered into the
Intruder’s service. Albuir, known as a Guerrilla chief by the name of
El Manco, had taken this course, and became therefore a special object
of vengeance to his countrymen: it is the only instance of any man
who had acquired celebrity as a Guerrillero becoming a traitor, while
in the officers of the army such cases were not unfrequent: this was
because the regular officers were men, who, having entered the service
either as a matter of course or of compulsion, felt severely the
poverty of the government, and often had little else to do than to talk
of its errors, complain of its abuses, and speculate upon its hopeless
condition; whereas the Guerrilla leaders led a life of incessant
activity and animating hope, and most of them were impelled to that
course by a strong feeling either of their country’s injuries or of
their own.
♦MUTUAL RETALIATION.♦
At this time Lord Wellington’s successes had animated the Spaniards
with a hope of deliverance, and made the French more intent upon
extirpating those persons who, by keeping up the national spirit in
what they deemed the subjected provinces, occupied a large part of
the invading force. They attempted to surprise the Junta of Aragon,
as they had that of Burgos, and a detachment from Palombini’s troops
nearly effected this at Mochales, in the lordship of Molina: the Junta
escaped, but the enemy sacked the village, stripped the women in the
market-place, and hung the alcalde and two other persons; in reprisals
for whom, Jabarelli, the late commandant at Calatayud, and ten other
prisoners, were shot by the Spaniards. Vicente Bonmati, the leader
of a Guerrilla party, had been put to death at Petrel, in Valencia,
with circumstances of peculiar cruelty; the French having tied his
hands, transfixed them with a bayonet, and then parading him through
the streets, pricked him with their bayonets till he died. Upon
this the Camp Marshal Copons, provincial commandant-general in that
kingdom, gave orders to shoot the first prisoner who should be taken,
and informed the nearest French commandant, that for every other such
execution twenty prisoners should be put to death. Such reprisals were
but too characteristic of a vindictive people, capable of inflicting
as well as enduring anything; but they were evidences also of that
high-mindedness which the Spaniards retained in their lowest fortune;
never abasing themselves, never submitting to the insolent assumption
of authority, nor for a moment consenting that might should be allowed
to sanction injustice. Their parties, meantime, acquired a confidence
from their own experience, and from the success of their allies. ♦MAY
5. GUERRILLA EXPLOITS.♦ Mendizabal appeared before Burgos, and drove
the enemy from the monastery of Las Huelgas and the hospital del Rey.
Duran entered Tudela ♦MAY 28.♦ by escalade, and destroyed a battering
train of artillery which had been brought thither from Zaragoza, with
the intent, he supposed, of laying siege to ♦MAY 30.♦ Ciudad Rodrigo.
The Empecinado attacked the French in Cuenca; they withdrew from it in
the night, and he destroyed their fortifications there, and set fire
to the Inquisition. Mina received information that a strong convoy was
about to set forth from Vittoria for France, escorting some prisoners
taken from Ballasteros. He determined to intercept them upon the plains
of Arlaban, which had been the scene of one of his most successful
exploits in the preceding year; and in order to deceive the enemy,
he wrote letters which were thrown into their hands, declaring his
intention of marching upon the river Arga, to form a junction at the
foot of the Pyrenees with two of his battalions. The enemy, ♦APRIL 9.♦
supposing that this dreaded commander was far distant, began their
march: his orders were, after one discharge to attack with the bayonet,
and that no soldier should touch the convoy on pain of death till
the action was ended. It was of no long duration; the vanguard were
presently slaughtered; the centre and the rear, consisting of Poles and
of Imperial Guards, made a brave but unavailing resistance: from 600
to 700 were slain, 500 wounded, and 150 taken, with the whole convoy,
and about 400 prisoners set at liberty. M. Deslandes, the Intruder’s
private secretary, was in the convoy; he got out of his carriage, and
endeavoured to escape in a peasant’s dress, with which it seems he
had provided himself, in anticipation of some such danger; but this
disguise cost him his life, which would have been saved had it been
known in time who he was. His wife, an Andalusian lady, with two of her
countrywomen, who were married to officers in the enemy’s service, fell
into Mina’s hands. Very few would have escaped if the French had not
erected a fort at Arlaban, in consequence of their last year’s loss,
and this served as a protection for the fugitives.
♦INTERCEPTED LETTERS FROM THE INTRUDER.♦
Some letters from the Intruder were found upon his secretary. One was
to Buonaparte, reminding him how, when he returned to Spain at his
desire twelve months before, his Imperial Majesty had told him, that
at the worst he could quit that country in case their hopes should
not be realised, and that then he should have an asylum in the south
of the empire. “Sire,” said he, “events have deceived my hopes; I
have done no good, and I have no hopes of doing any. I entreat your
Majesty, therefore, to let me resign into your hands the right to
the crown of Spain, which four years ago you deigned to transfer to
me. I had no other object in accepting the crown than the happiness
of this vast monarchy, and it is not in my power to effect that. I
entreat your Majesty to receive me into the number of your subjects,
and to believe that you will never have a more faithful servant than
the friend whom nature has given you.” There were other letters of
the same date to his wife, whom he had left in Paris, and who was to
deliver that which he had written to the Emperor only in case the
decree for uniting to France the provinces beyond the Ebro should have
been published; otherwise she was to await his farther directions. In
another letter to her he said, that if the Emperor made war against
Russia, and thought his presence in Spain could be useful, he would
remain there, provided that both the military and civil authority were
vested in him; otherwise his desire was to return to France. Should
there be no Russian war, he would remain with or without the command,
provided nothing were exacted from him which could make it believed
that he consented to a dismemberment of the monarchy: provided also
that troops enough and territory enough were left him, and that the
monthly loan of a million, which had been promised, were paid. In that
case he would remain as long as he could, thinking himself as much
bound in honour not to quit Spain lightly, as he should be to quit it,
if, during the war with England, sacrifices were required from him
which he neither could nor ought to make, except at a general peace,
for the good of Spain, of France, and of Europe. A decree for uniting
to France the provinces beyond the Ebro, if it arrived unexpectedly,
he said, would make him depart the next day; and if the Emperor should
adjourn his projects till a time of peace, he must supply him with
means of subsistence during the war. But if he inclined either to his
removal, or to any of those measures which must cause him to remove,
it was then of great consequence that he should return to France on
kindly terms with the Emperor, and with his sincere and full consent;
and this was what reason dictated to him, and what was more conformable
to the situation of the miserable country over which he had been made
king, and to his own domestic relations. In that case, he asked from
the Emperor a domain in Tuscany, or in the south, some three hundred
leagues from Paris. The course of events, and the false position in
which he found himself, so contrary, he said, to the rectitude and
loyalty of his character, had greatly injured his health: he was
growing old; nothing but honour and duty could detain him where he was,
and his inclination would drive him away, unless the Emperor explained
himself in a different manner from what he had hitherto done. There
was also a letter to his brother Louis, expressing a hope to see him
one day in good health, and with the happiness which arises from a
good conscience.... That happiness the intrusive king Joseph might
well envy! It is little excuse for him that he was more weak than
wicked, and in mere weakness had consented to be made the instrument
of his brother’s insatiable ambition. Even in these letters, where he
manifested a full sense of his humiliating situation, no consciousness
is expressed of its guilt. For the sake of his own credit, and no
doubt of his own personal safety, he protested against any immediate
dismemberment of Spain; but he would have been contented to serve his
brother’s purpose, by nominally retaining the kingdom, till a pretext
could be found for dismembering it at a general peace.
But how long he should retain it depended upon something more than the
will and pleasure of Napoleon Buonaparte, and this he was soon made to
apprehend. ♦SIR ROWLAND HILL’S EXPEDITION TO THE BRIDGE OF ALMARAZ.♦
Lord Wellington was not about to remain idle with his victorious
army; he prepared for offensive operations, and the first step was to
interrupt the communication between the armies of Soult and Marmont.
All the permanent bridges on the Tagus below that of Arzobispo had been
destroyed; and the only way which was practicable for a large army was
by a bridge of boats at Almaraz, in the line of the high road, where
the noble bridge erected in Charles the Fifth’s time, at the city of
Plasentia’s cost, had been demolished. For the protection of this
important post, the French had thrown up strong works on both sides of
the river: they had formed a flanked _tête-du-pont_ on the left bank,
riveted with masonry and strongly intrenched; and on the high ground
above it they had constructed a large and strong redoubt, called Fort
Napoleon, with an interior intrenchment, and a loop-holed tower in its
centre; here they had mounted nine pieces of cannon, and had garrisoned
it with between 400 and 500 men. On the right bank, there was a redoubt
called Fort Ragusa, in honour of Marshal Marmont, of the same strength
and construction, except that the tower had a double tier of loopholes;
this flanked the bridge, and between the redoubt and the bridge there
was a flêche. For farther security, the invaders had fortified an old
castle commanding the Puerto de Miravete, about a league distant, being
the only pass for carriages of any kind by which the bridge could be
approached. A marked alteration of climate is perceptible upon crossing
the narrow mountain ridge over which the road here passes. Coming from
Castille, the traveller descends from this ridge into a country, where,
for the first time, the gum-cistus appears as lord of the waste, ...
the most beautiful of all shrubs in the Peninsula for the profusion
of its delicate flowers, and one of the most delightful for the rich
balsamic odour which its leaves exude under a southern sun; but which
overspreads such extensive tracts, where it suffers nothing else to
grow, that in many parts both of Portugal and Spain it becomes the very
emblem of desolation. The old castle stood at little distance from the
road, on the summit of the sierra: the French had surrounded it by a
lower _enceinte_, twelve feet high; they had fortified a large _venta_,
or travellers’ inn, upon the road, and had constructed two small works
between the inn and the castle, forming altogether a strong line of
defence.
Sir Rowland Hill, to whom this important service had been intrusted,
broke up from Almandralejo on the 12th of May, with part of the 2nd
division of infantry, and six of the 24-pounder iron howitzers which
had been used against Badajoz. The Marquis de Almeida, who was a
member of the Junta of Extremadura, accompanied them, and from him and
from the people, Sir Rowland received the most ready and effectual
assistance which it was in their power to bestow. On the morning of the
16th they reached Jaraicejo, an old and decayed town, about eight miles
from the summit of the pass; and on the same evening they advanced in
three columns ... the left, under Lieutenant-General Chowne, toward
the castle of Miravete; Sir Rowland himself, with the right under
Major-General Howard, toward a pass through which a most difficult and
circuitous footpath leads by the village of Romangordo to the bridge;
and the centre, under Major-General Long, along the high road, to the
Puerto. The artillery was with the centre: both the flank columns were
provided with ladders, and it was intended that both should escalade
the forts against which they were directed; but the difficulties of the
way were such, that it was found impossible for them to reach their
respective points before daybreak: as the enemy, therefore, could not
be taken by surprise, Sir Rowland judged it best to defer the attack
till they should be better acquainted with the position and nature of
the works; and the troops bivouacked on the sierra. It was found that
the castle, because of its peculiar situation, could not be carried
without a long operation: a false attack therefore was directed to be
made upon it by Lieutenant-General Chowne, and Sir Rowland, with the
right, and the 6th Portugueze caçadores (about 2,000 men in all), on
the evening of the 18th began to descend by the mountain path which
he had originally proposed to take. They were provided with twelve
scaling-ladders of sixteen feet in length; and he relied, as in this
case he well might do, upon the valour of the troops, to supply the
want of artillery. Although the distance was little more than six
miles, the way was so difficult, that notwithstanding all the exertions
of officers and men the head of the column did not arrive near the fort
till it was break of day, and it was two or three hours later before
the rear came up; but during this time the troops were completely
concealed by the hill, and the feint against the castle had induced the
enemy to believe that the bridge forts would not be attacked till the
pass should have been forced, and a way made for the guns.
♦MAY 19.♦
Could the attack have been made before day, it was intended that the
_tête-du-pont_ should have been escaladed, and the bridge destroyed at
the same time that Fort Napoleon was assaulted; but well knowing how
much depended upon celerity, Sir Rowland did not wait till the troops
who were appointed to this part of the operations could come up; with
the first battalion of the 50th and one wing of the 71st, he escaladed
the fort in three places nearly at the same time. At first a determined
resistance was made, but the enemy soon slackened their destructive
fire: they took to flight as soon as the assailants were on the top of
the parapet; they abandoned the tower, and were driven at the point of
the bayonet through their entrenchment, and through the _tête-du-pont_,
and across the bridge. The commander of Fort Ragusa on the opposite
bank, with a cowardice rarely shown among French officers, but with a
selfish disregard for the soldiers which was too common among them,
cut the bridge, in consequence of which many leaped into the river
and perished, and 259 were made prisoners, including the governor
and sixteen officers; and acting with further folly in his fear, he
evacuated his own fort, which was perfectly safe from any attack, and
retired with his garrison to Naval Moral, three leagues off, for which
he was brought to summary trial at Talavera and shot.... Both forts
were entirely destroyed by the conquerors, and the whole apparatus of
the bridge, and the stores, which were in such abundance as to prove
that this point had justly been considered a most important station by
the enemy. The loss in this signal enterprise was, two officers and 31
men killed, 13 and 131 wounded.
The garrison ought to have been prepared for such an attack; for
Marmont had apprehended it, and in that apprehension had marched
a detachment to the Puerto del Pico, with the view of reinforcing
Talavera in case the bridge should be lost. Sir Rowland retired by
Truxillo to his former position in front of Badajos; and on the
second day after his success, a division of the central army, under
General d’Armagnac, crossed the Tagus by the Puente del Arzobispo,
to relieve the isolated garrison at Miravete. Both Soult and Marmont
had put their forces in motion as soon as they were informed of Sir
Rowland’s march: the latter arrived upon the Tagus too late to prevent
the evil, and without the means of repairing it; the former, when he
found that the allies had passed Truxillo on their return, gave up
the hope of intercepting them. He returned to Seville, and, regarding
with uneasy apprehension the enterprising spirit of an enemy whom he
had once affected to despise, gave directions for strengthening the
line of the Guadalete, lest a force should be landed at St. Roque’s
or at Algeziras, and endanger his communication with the besieging
army before Cadiz. Bornos, as the most important point upon the line,
was fortified with great care. Ballasteros ♦BALLASTEROS DEFEATED
AT BORNOS.♦ thought to interrupt the progress of the works, and
accordingly brought all the force he could muster, consisting of about
6,000, to attack the French division there of 4,500 under General
Corroux. Collecting his troops at La Majada de Ruiz, and marching from
thence early in the afternoon of one day, he succeeded in fording the
Guadalete unperceived ♦JUNE 1.♦ at dawn on the next. The attack was
made bravely, but, with the usual ill fortune and ill discipline of a
Spanish army, some mistake led to confusion, and confusion was followed
by panic: the French were not strong enough to pursue them beyond the
river, and Ballasteros retired with the loss of about 1,000 killed and
wounded, and half as many prisoners, ... a fourth of his whole force.
♦LORD WELLINGTON ADVANCES INTO SPAIN.♦
Meantime Badajoz had been fully supplied; the means of transport which
had been used for that service were then employed in storing Ciudad
Rodrigo; a month’s consumption for the whole army was deposited there;
the bridge at Alcantara was repaired for a readier communication with
Sir Rowland’s corps; and on the 13th of June the army broke up from
its cantonments on the Agueda. On the 16th they came up with the
enemy, about six miles from Salamanca, on the Valmusa, and there was a
skirmish with their cavalry; in the evening the French withdrew across
the Tormes, and the army bivouacked within a league of Salamanca.
♦SALAMANCA♦
When the earliest accounts of Spain begin, Salamanca was already a
considerable place, and known by a name little different from what it
bears at present. It fell to decay after the Moorish conquest, but was
re-peopled at the same time with certain other towns upon the Tormes,
by the Leonese in the 10th century, after the great battle of Simancas:
in the 13th King St. Ferdinand removed thither the university from
Palencia. It soon became one of the most flourishing seats of learning
in Christendom, and continued to be so till Spain rejected the light
of the reformation. In its best days it is said to have contained no
fewer than 8,000 native students, and 7,000 from foreign countries:
when the present war began, the number little exceeded 3,000, among
whom a few Irish were the only foreigners. The population consisted of
some 3,400 families: it had once been much greater. But Salamanca was
still an important and a famous place: popular fiction had made its
name familiar to those who are unacquainted with its history; while
to the antiquary, the historian, and the philosopher, it is a city
of no ordinary interest. The Roman road, which extended from thence
to Merida, and so to Seville, may still be traced in its vicinity:
its bridge of twenty-seven arches, over the Tormes, is said to be in
part a Roman work. The Mozarabic liturgy is retained in one of its
churches. Its cathedral, though far inferior to some of the older
edifices, whether of Moorish or Gothic architecture, in Spain, is a
large and imposing structure. Twenty-five parish churches are enclosed
within its walls, twenty convents of monks or friars, eleven of nuns:
these, with its numerous colleges, give it an imposing appearance from
without, and a melancholy solemnity within. Nowhere, indeed, were
there more munificent endowments for education, and for literature,
and for religion; and nowhere could be less of that happy effect which
the benefactors in their piety had contemplated: the philosophy which
was taught there was that of the schoolmen, the morality that of the
casuists, the religion that of the Inquisition. It is a popular belief
in Spain, that the Devil also has his college at Salamanca, where
students of the black art take their degrees in certain caverns, every
seventh being left with him, in earnest of the after-payment to which
they all are bound.
♦THE TORMES.♦
The city stands in a commanding situation on the right bank of the
Tormes, a river of considerable magnitude there, which rises near
the Sierra de Tablada in Old Castille, and falls into the Douro on
the Portuguese frontier, opposite Bemposta. The country round is
open, without trees, and with a few villages interspersed, in which
the houses are constructed of clay. On the left of the river there
are extensive pastures, on the right a wide and unenclosed corn
country. The pastures are common, and the arable land occupied after a
manner not usual in other parts of Spain: it is cultivated in annual
allotments, and reverts to the commonalty after the harvest.
♦THE ALLIES ENTER SALAMANCA.♦
Marmont had apprehended this advance of the allies, and had applied
for reinforcements without effect. He showed some cavalry and a small
body of infantry in front of the town, and manifested an intention
of holding the heights on the south side of the Tormes; but in the
evening of the 16th the enemy withdrew over the river, and the allies
bivouacked within a league of Salamanca. The French retired from that
city during the night, leaving some 800 men in the fortifications
which they had constructed there. These works commanded the bridge;
the left column of the allied army therefore crossed at the ford of
El Campo, a league below the city, the centre and the right at the
ford of Santa Martha. The utmost joy was expressed by the inhabitants
when the English entered, and women crowded to thank Lord Wellington
and bless him for their deliverance. Some aching hearts there were
among those who had connected themselves by marriage, or by looser
ties, with the enemies of their country, but the general feeling was
that of perfect and grateful joy; for though this city had suffered
none of the immediate evils of war, its consequences had been severely
felt there. During the three years of its captivity the French had
demolished thirteen of its convents and twenty-two of its twenty-five
colleges; the people had been compelled to labour upon works erected
for their own subjugation; and the last act of the enemy before they
left the city, was to set fire to such houses as obstructed the defence
of their works, ... consisting of a fort and two redoubts. For the same
reason they had previously demolished the Convent of St. Augustine,
the colleges of Cuenca and ♦SIEGE OF THE FORTS THERE.♦ Oviedo, and the
magnificent King’s College. The fort was formed out of the Convent of
St. Vicente, a large building in the centre of the angle of the old
wall, on a perpendicular cliff over the Tormes. The windows had been
built up and loop-holed; on both sides it was connected by lines of
works with the old wall. There was a fascine battery in a re-entering
angle of the convent, not enclosed by these lines, and this was
protected by a loop-holed wall, with a palisade in front. ♦COL. JONES’S
SIEGES. 158–9.♦ The demolition of so many substantial edifices supplied
timber of the best quality, and in abundance, for gates, drawbridges,
palisades, and splinter proofs; and the whole was well flanked in
every part. The ground to the south, which was toward the bridge,
fell by a steep descent: at the bottom was a small stream flowing to
the Tormes; and on the opposite bank the convents of San Cayetano
and La Merced had been converted with great skill into two redoubts,
with well-covered perpendicular escarpes, deep ditches, and casemated
counterscarps; they were also full of bomb-proofs, made by supporting
a roof horizontally and vertically with strong beams, and covering it
with six feet of earth. These works were seen at once to be far more
respectable than Lord Wellington had expected to find, his information
amounting to little more than that some convents had been fortified.
It was necessary to reduce them before the army could advance, but
the means of attack had been provided on this inadequate knowledge:
they consisted of only four iron eighteen-pounders and four 24-pounder
iron howitzers, with an hundred rounds for each. The engineers had
only 400 intrenching tools, without any stores; there were present
three engineer officers, with nine men of the corps of royal military
artificers; and the works were soon found to be even more formidable
than they appeared.
♦JUNE 17.♦
The sixth division broke ground before the fort. The left wing of the
army moved to Villares de la Reyna, a league in advance of Salamanca;
the right and centre bivouacked on the Tormes, near Santa Martha, on
the right bank. Lieutenant-Colonel Ponsonby’s brigade followed the
retiring enemy, and skirmished with them for two leagues. A battery was
erected for breaching the main wall of the fort. It was nearly full
moon; little could be done therefore during the first night. An attempt
to blow in part of the counterscarp opposite to the intended breach,
was frustrated by the vigilance of a dog; and an attempt at mining it
failed also, the party being ordered to withdraw in consequence of the
loss sustained by a plunging fire from the top of the convent. On the
second night two batteries were completed: they opened the following
morning, and beat down part of the wall; but the enemy’s musketry
fired with great effect from loopholes in the upper windows, and
their fire was more than ordinarily destructive, because of the large
openings of the embrasures which were necessary for such short pieces
as the howitzers. More ammunition was sent for to Almeida. Early on
the third day, the lower part of the convent wall, three feet and a
half thick, was pierced through, and at a single shot half the length
of that face of the building came down, bringing the roof with it,
and laying the interior open: the men were seen firing through the
loopholes at the moment of its fall, and they of course were buried in
the ruins. Carcasses were then fired into the convent, to set it on
fire, but the enemy’s precautions prevented them from taking effect.
♦MARMONT MOVES TO RELIEVE THEM.♦
Marmont at this time moved forward from Fuente Sabuco, making the
most display of the force which he could then bring together: it was
estimated at about 16,000 men. He advanced as if with a determination
of giving battle, firing artillery the whole way to give the forts
notice of his approach. Lord Wellington immediately formed the allied
army upon the heights: his left, where the rains had formed a deep
ravine, rested on a chapel; his centre was in the village of S.
Christobal de la Cuesta, and his right on another eminence in front
of Castellanos de los Moriscos.... The advanced posts retired before
the enemy with little loss; there was a considerable cannonade on
both sides; the enemy’s cavalry were dislodged by our guns from the
position in which they had halted; and Marmont, after manœuvring for
some time in front of the position, took up ground in the plain below
it, near the village of Villares, and just out of cannon-shot, his
right resting upon the great road to Toro, his left in Castellanos de
los Moriscos. The allies were under arms at daylight, expecting an
attack. In the course of the day the French received reinforcements,
but not sufficient to justify them in bringing on an action, scarcely
in exposing themselves ♦JUNE 21.♦ to one. Both armies remained quiet
in front of each other, the allies on the heights, the French close
under their position, occupying Castellanos de los Moriscos in force,
and having a considerable bivouac between that village and another on
their right: both villages were soon completely unroofed for firewood,
and there were wells in both, whereas the allies were badly off for
wood and water, which were brought to them in insufficient supply from
Salamanca. There was not a tree on the position; but the midsummer sun
was less powerful than it usually is in that country, and the troops
did not suffer from heat.
During the night, the French occupied an eminence on the right flank
of the allies. Sir Thomas Graham was directed to dislodge them. The
58th and 61st carried the hill immediately, and drove them from the
ground with considerable loss. The enemy’s troops got under arms,
expecting a general attack, but they made no attempt ♦JUNE 23.♦ to
regain the hill. They retired in the night, and on the following
evening posted themselves with their right on the heights near Cabeza
Vellosa, their left on the Tormes at Huerta, their centre at Aldea
Rubia, their object in this movement being to communicate with the
garrison. Lord Wellington therefore changed the front of his army,
placing the right at S. Martha, and the advanced posts at Aldea Lingua;
and he sent Major-General Bock’s brigade of heavy dragoons across the
river in order to observe the fords. By this time a battery which had
been opened on the Cayetano redoubt had beaten down the palisades
and injured the parapet; and when night closed 300 men from the 6th
division were ordered to attack it by escalade. The undertaking was
difficult, and the men seemed to feel it. Major-General Bowes went
forward with the storming party; he was wounded, returned to the attack
as soon as his wound was dressed, and was then killed. The enemy made
so resolute a resistance, that only two ladders were reared against the
redoubt, and no one mounted them: 120 men were killed or wounded in
this unsuccessful attempt. On the following evening a truce was made
for removing the killed and wounded; till then the French would neither
allow them to be removed, nor remove them themselves.
♦JUNE 24.♦
There had been a report on the preceding afternoon, that the enemy had
crossed at Huerta. Lord Wellington was on the hill at Aldea Lingua by
daybreak. It was certain that they had made some movement, but the
morning was so foggy that nothing could be seen. Soon Major-General
Bock’s brigade was heard skirmishing, and from their fire it was
evident that they were losing ground. The French had crossed about two
in the morning in considerable force; and when the fog cleared General
Bock was seen retiring in the best order before superior numbers, who
had also the advantage of having artillery with them. Lord Wellington,
upon the first certainty that the enemy had passed the Tormes, ordered
the 1st and 7th divisions, under Sir Thomas Graham, to cross and take
up a position to the right in front of Santa Martha, and Major-General
Le Marchant’s brigade of cavalry was sent to support General Bock; the
rest of the army he concentrated between Castellanos de los Moriscos
and Cabrerizas, keeping the advanced posts at Aldea Lingua. The French,
who had crossed with 10,000 infantry and fourteen squadrons of horse,
gained possession of Calvarasa de Abaxo; but seeing the disposition
which was made for their reception, they did not venture upon an
attack. About three in the afternoon they began to withdraw, and
before night they had repassed the river to their former position. The
allies also recrossed.
Both armies remained quiet during the following day, but on the next
night a communication was carried along the bottom of the ravine
between the redoubts and the fort, and a piquet was lodged under the
gorge of S. Cayetano. On the morrow a supply of ammunition ♦SURRENDER
OF THE FORTS.♦ arrived, and red-hot shot were then fired against San
Vicente. By the third shot the roof of a large square tower on the
convent was set on fire and consumed; but the conflagration did not
spread, and during the day wherever fires broke out they were speedily
extinguished. The inhabitants said that the powder in the fort was well
secured; but no activity on the enemy’s part could long counteract
the means of destruction which were now employed. Hot shot were fired
during the whole night: by ten in the morning the convent was in
flames. At the same time a breach had been effected in the gorge of S.
Cayetano: the troops were formed in readiness for assaulting it, when
a white flag was hoisted there, and the commanding officer offered
to surrender that and the other redoubt in two hours, which time he
asked for that he might represent his situation to the commandant in
San Vicente. Lord Wellington offered him five minutes to march out, in
which case he should preserve his baggage; but it presently appeared
that he was only negotiating for the sake of gaining time, as in
fact he could not venture without the commandant’s sanction to carry
into effect the capitulation which he had offered. He was ordered,
therefore, to take down his white flag. The commandant meantime sent
out a flag of truce, and proposed to surrender San Vicente in three
hours: five minutes were allowed, and as at the expiration of that
short term there was no appearance of their coming out, both redoubts
were stormed, and carried with little resistance. The troops moved
forward against the fort: a few shot were fired from it, by which six
men were killed or wounded; but with that the resistance ended: the
enemy even helped the Portuguese caçadores into the work, and Lord
Wellington allowed them to march out with the honours of war, but to
be prisoners of war, the officers retaining their personal military
baggage, and the soldiers their knapsacks. There were 36 pieces of
cannon in the forts, with large depôts of clothing, and military stores
of every kind: these were consigned to the Spaniards, and the works
were destroyed. The prisoners were somewhat more than 700; the loss of
the besiegers about 450.
♦MARMONT FAILS BACK UPON THE DOURO.♦
Marmont commenced his retreat at midnight, as if, said the Spaniards,
he had only come thither to witness the capture of his fort, and see
the illumination made by it when on fire. At daylight their column was
nearly out of sight, and their rear-guard moving off the ground. During
this tarriance the French, considering that part of Spain no longer as
a subjected but as a hostile country, had acted in the same spirit of
disgraceful barbarity as had rendered their name execrable in Portugal;
and when they departed they left the villages of Castellanos de los
Moriscos, Huerta, Babila Fuente, Villoria, and Villaruela in flames:
where they did not burn the villages they sacked the houses, and
murdered those who had ventured to remain in them; and where they did
not trample down the standing corn, they set fire to it. The popular
feeling had been strongly manifested during the operations against the
forts: not only were all necessaries and accommodations for the wounded
abundantly supplied, but women of all ranks offered their services to
attend on them. High mass was performed this day in the Cathedral,
at which Lord Wellington and most of the general officers attended.
Lord Wellington gave a dinner in Salamanca, and the Junta a ball in
the evening; but some of the principal inhabitants absented themselves
because they were partisans of the French, and others from a prudential
fear, lest the enemy should return and again obtain possession of the
city.
♦JUNE 29. LORD WELLINGTON ADVANCES TO THE DOURO.♦
The French withdrew their garrison from Alba de Tormes, and retired
towards the Douro in three columns ... one upon Toro, and the others
upon Tordesillas. The allies broke up the next day, following their
march, and encamped upon the Guarena. On the morrow Marmont had
collected his force, as if with an intention of making a stand on
the right bank of that river; his rear was on the hills in front of
Alaejos: they moved off before the advanced guard could come up. The
allies bivouacked every night in an open country, without a tree to
shade them, and where it was necessary to seek for wood at the distance
of several miles, the inhabitants frequently using straw for fuel.
The enemy continued to fall back toward the Douro, closely followed
by one who would let no opportunity escape him. On the 2nd of July
their cavalry were on the plain toward Tordesillas, and they had a
considerable force of infantry in Rueda; but they were compelled to
withdraw from thence, and the town was occupied by the advance of
the allied army. On the following day, this part of the army was
ordered into the plain, as if with a view of attacking Tordesillas;
while the left column, strengthened by the brigades of Generals Bock
and Le Marchant, moved on Pollos, where there is a ford. There was
some cannonading on the part of the enemy there, and an affair of
light troops; and some of the allies passed the river, but they were
withdrawn at night: it was then seen that there was no intention of
forcing the passage, and orders were given for the distribution of
the army. Lord Wellington fixed his head-quarters at Rueda. The French
occupied Tordesillas in force: they had a considerable bivouac in the
rear of that town, and the bridge there was fortified.
After the recapture of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajos, Marmont could not
be surprised that the forts at Salamanca fell, even if he had known
with what scanty means they had been attacked; and as he had not been
brought to action, his army took credit to themselves for having braved
a superior force. The French had lost much of their confidence in
battle against the English, but they still relied upon their skill in
manœuvring; and Marmont, knowing that he should soon have the advantage
in numbers, availed himself of all the opportunities which the nature
of the country afforded him for gaining time. ♦THE DOURO.♦ He was in
possession of the line of the Douro. That river rises in the Sierra
de Orbion, in Old Castille, issuing from a large and deep tarn, high
on the mountain: passing the site of Numancia, it comes to Soria, and
so to Berlanga, Osma, and Santesteban de Gormas: in this part of its
course its banks are remarkable for the jessamine with which they are
profusely clothed. Having left Aranda, it passes by the Cistercian
monastery of Valbueno, a place denoting by its name the happy
circumstances of its position, and where the monks used to account
among the goodly things which had fallen to their lot the barbel and
trout with which the Douro supplied them. The Pisuerga, having already
received the Arlanza and the Carrion, joins it by Simancas; and though
it brings the larger body of water to the junction, loses its name
there. The Douro then makes for Tordesillas: for the first ten leagues
of its way its course is s. s. w., then westward till it reaches this
old city, where it bends to the southward for a few leagues, passing
S. Roman de Hornija, the now obscure burial-place of Chindasuintho,
one of the most powerful of the Wisigoth kings; then it resumes its
western course, waters Toro and Zamora, cities of great name in the
Spanish annals, and having collected all the rivers of Leon on its way,
enters Portugal. Of all the rivers in the Peninsula, the Douro has the
longest course. From its junction with the Pisuerga, till it receives
the Tormes on the frontier of Portugal, it flows through a wide valley,
the right bank for the most part skirting the heights. The French were
in possession of all the ♦COLONEL JONES’S ACCOUNT OF THE WAR, 2. 100.♦
bridges, and from the mouth of the Pisuerga to Zamora there is but one
point favourable for passing an army from the left in presence of an
enemy: that point is three leagues above Toro, at Castro Nuño, where
there is a good ford, a favourable bend in the river, and advantages of
ground. There could be little hope, therefore, of striking an efficient
blow against Marmont so long as he kept his force concentrated behind
the Douro, and it was in his power to cross the river at any of its
bridges or fords whenever he might think that opportunity invited.
♦MARMONT REINFORCED BY G. BONNET.♦
But the French, according to the barbarous system which Buonaparte
pursued, were without magazines, and trusted to their command of the
country for subsistence: Marmont therefore had this anxious object
to distract his attention; and the Guerrillas were actively employed
both upon his flanks and rear in intercepting his supplies, and in
occupying troops who would otherwise have reinforced him. Two parties
under Sorniel and Bourbon, with 700 cavalry were on the right; D.
Julian Sanches, with 500, on the left; while Porlier displayed his
usual activity on the side of Asturias; and Mina and Duran in Navarre
and Aragon: on that side their efforts were effectual: but General
Bonnet joined him from the north, and increased his force to 47,000
men, thus making it numerically superior to that of the allies. Lord
Wellington’s situation was at this time an anxious one: he had counted
upon the aid which the Gallician army might have given him in occupying
some of the enemy by besieging Astorga; in that undertaking, however,
they were more dilatory than had been intended; and he was now aware
that the force intended to co-operate with him by acting upon the
eastern coast was upon so small a scale, that he could place little
hope upon it, and no reliance. The French suffered at this time nothing
for want of magazines or means of transport, because they took what
they wanted, and preyed upon the country. The British Government would
not, even in an enemy’s territories, carry on war upon so inhuman and
iniquitous a system; but it exposed its army to privations, and its
general to perplexities and difficulties which might have paralysed
any weaker mind than Lord Wellington’s, by the parsimony with which it
apportioned his means. When he advanced from Salamanca, there were but
20,000 dollars in the military chest: the harvest was abundant, but how
was bread to be obtained without money? ... and the same want would be
felt in bringing his supplies from Ciudad Rodrigo, and other places in
the rear of that fortress. The very difficulty of removing his wounded
to the frontier of Portugal was sufficient to deter him from seeking an
action on the Douro.
♦LORD WELLINGTON RETIRES BEFORE HIM.♦
On the 15th and 16th, Marmont concentrated his troops between Toro and
San Roman: two divisions crossed the bridge at Toro on the evening of
the 16th, and Lord Wellington moved the allies that night to Fuente
la Peña and Canizal, intending to concentrate them on the Guarena.
But it was ascertained next day, that during the night the enemy had
repassed the bridge, and destroyed it after them; then making forced
marches to Tordesillas, which is six leagues above Toro, crossed again
there, and early on the morning of the 18th were on the Trebancos.
Marmont might well applaud himself both for the celerity and the
skill of these movements: he had marched forty miles; had opened his
communication with the army of the centre, which was then moving from
Madrid to support him; and by advancing in force on Castrejon he
endangered the light and 4th divisions, with Major-General Anson’s
brigades of cavalry, which there had not been time for calling in.
The enemy commenced a very heavy cannonade against the cavalry; they
were scattered about in squadrons, and so escaped without much loss;
and immediate measures had been taken to provide for their retreat
and junction. The troops at Castrejon maintained their posts till the
cavalry joined them; then they retired in perfect order to Tordesillas
de la Orden, and thence to the Guarena, having the enemy’s whole army
on their left flank or in their rear; and the French getting possession
of the heights above that river, before the allies had crossed, brought
forty guns to bear upon them, under the fire of which they joined the
army on the left bank. Four streams which unite about a league below
Canizal, form the Guarena: the French crossed at Castrillo, a little
below the junction, and manifested an intention to press upon the left
of the allies; with this view they endeavoured to occupy a ridge above
Castrillo, but Lieutenant-General Cole’s division advanced to meet them
with the bayonet; they gave way; the cavalry charged, General Carrier
and between 300 and 400 men were made prisoners, and one gun taken.
In the course of the day, the allies lost about 100 in killed, 400
wounded, and 50 prisoners; but the check which Marmont received made
him more circumspect in his movements.
The allies took up a position for the night on the Guarena, from
Castrillo on the left, to beyond Canizal on the right. The enemy
occupied the opposite side of the valley with their whole force. Both
armies ♦JULY 19.♦ remained quiet till two in the afternoon of the
following day, when the French withdrawing all their troops from the
right marched by Tarrazona, as if with an intention of turning the
right of the allies. Counter-movements were consequently made; the
artillery fired at the enemy’s advance, and in that dry season the
corn took fire in several places, and burnt for a mile in extent. Lord
Wellington expected a battle on the plain of Vallesa in the morning,
and made every preparation for it; the men bivouacked in two lines
in order of battle, and stood to their arms at daybreak, ready to
receive an attack; but as soon as it was light, the enemy were seen
moving in several columns to their left, on Babilafuente; the allies
made a correspondent movement to the right: at any moment either
commander might have brought on a general action; but it was a game
of skill in which they were engaged, not of hazard. Marmont’s march
was estimated at five leagues, that of the allies at four, being in
the inner circle; they moved in parallel lines, frequently within
half cannon shot. The enemy encamped that night at Babilafuente and
Villamela; the allies at Cabeza Vellosa, the 6th division and a brigade
of cavalry being upon the Tormes at Aldea ♦JULY 21.♦ Lengua. On the
following day, the French crossed that river by the fords near Alba
and Huerta, and moved by their left towards the road leading to Ciudad
Rodrigo. In the evening the allies crossed also, part by the bridge at
Salamanca, part by the ford of Santa Martha. A dreadful storm came on
of thunder and lightning with heavy rain; the different divisions of
infantry were seen by the lightning marching to their ground, their
muskets reflecting the flashes. The 5th dragoon guards had just got
to their ground; many of the men had lain down; their horses were
fastened together by their collars for the night, but terrified by the
lightning, they set off full gallop and ran over the men, eighteen of
whom were hurt; and two and thirty horses were lost, having probably
gone to the enemy’s lines.
It was evident from Marmont’s manner of manœuvring, that he did not
mean to attack the allies, unless at such advantage as might seem to
render his success certain; and it seemed not less evident, that by
pursuing this system, turning their flank and keeping possession of
the heights, he would drive them to the frontier if they continued
to act upon the defensive. All the stores which were at Salamanca
were ordered to the rear of the army, and the inhabitants were in the
utmost consternation, apprehending, not without good apparent reason,
that they should presently be brought under the yoke of the French
again. Lord Wellington had placed the troops in a position, the right
of which was upon one of two heights called the two Arapiles; and the
left on the Tormes below the ford of Santa Martha. The enemy had still
a large corps above Babilafuente, on the right of the river; for this
reason, the 3rd division and Brigadier-General D’Urban’s cavalry were
left on the same side at Cabrerizos; and Lord Wellington thought it
not improbable, that when Marmont should find in the morning that the
allies were prepared for him on the left of the Tormes, he would alter
his plan, and manœuvre by the other bank. In the course of the night
he was informed that the cavalry and horse-artillery of the army of
the north had arrived at Pollos to join Marmont, and that they would
effect a junction with him the next day, or the day after at latest.
During the night the enemy took possession of Calvarasa de arriba,
and of a height near that village called Nuestra Señora de la Peña;
the allied cavalry were in possession of Calvarasa de abaxo, which is
between three and four miles from the upper village, and near the river.
♦JULY 22. BATTLE OF SALAMANCA.♦
The last night’s storm had not cleared the atmosphere, and the morning
rose threateningly, in clouds. The French were early in motion, and
from the manner in which they marched and countermarched their troops,
it was impossible to divine what might be their intention. Soon after
daylight detachments from both armies attempted to gain the yet
unoccupied Arapiles hill; but the enemy had been concealed in the woods
nearer that point, and their infantry were discovered on the summit
when the allies were in the act of advancing to it: their detachment
was also the strongest. By occupying this point they materially
strengthened their own position, and were the better enabled to annoy
that of the allies. Early in the day the light troops of the 7th
division and the 4th _caçadores_ of General Pack’s brigade were engaged
with the enemy on the height of N. Señora de la Peña, which they gained
and kept through the day. But the possession of the farther Arapiles by
the French made it necessary for Lord Wellington to extend the right of
his army to the heights behind the village of that name, and to occupy
that village with the 4th division under Lieutenant-General Cole.
Doubtful as Marmont’s intentions still were, the British commander
judged that his objects were on the left of the Tormes, and therefore
he ordered the 3rd division and D’Urban’s cavalry from the other bank,
and placed them behind Aldea Tejada.
During these movements the French kept up a heavy cannonade and fire
of light troops. The day, meantime, had cleared. Their force was
formed in columns of attack in rear of the Arapiles hill, the left
resting upon an extensive wood; thence they could either by a rapid
march interpose between Lord Wellington and Ciudad Rodrigo, or wait an
opportunity for debouching from behind the Arapiles, and separating
the corps of his army. Marmont was too skilful a tactician himself
not to perceive that all his movements were watched by one who well
knew how to counteract them; nevertheless, hoping to deceive his
antagonist, he marched a strong force to the right and formed columns
of attack opposite the 5th division, which was in rear of the village
of Arapiles. Lord Wellington soon perceived that nothing serious was
intended by this manœuvre, and returned to direct the operations of
his right, which he now threw back to that side of the Arapiles,
forming nearly a right angle with that which he had occupied in the
morning. About two in the afternoon the French Marshal perceiving
that his last demonstration had produced no effect, pushed forward
his columns rapidly to the left, with the intent of turning the right
flank of the allies, and interposing between them and Ciudad Rodrigo.
Till now the operations of the day had induced a belief in the British
army that it was intended only to meet manœuvre by manœuvre, and to
continue their retreat as soon as it was night. Indeed the army of the
centre, with the Intruder at its head, was on the way to join Marmont
within three days’ march, and a considerable body of cavalry and horse
artillery was still nearer. But Lord Wellington had anxiously been
looking for the opportunity which was now presented him: he was at
dinner when information was brought him of this movement, which was
made under cover of a heavy cannonade, and accompanied with skirmishers
in his front and on his flank, and with a body of cavalry who made
the British dragoons and light troops give way before them. But the
generals of division had either misunderstood or ill executed their
commander’s intentions, and they weakened their line by dangerously
extending it: Lord Wellington at once perceived this; he rose in such
haste as to overturn the table, exclaiming, that Marmont’s good genius
had forsaken him: in an instant he was on horseback, and issued his
orders for attack.
The right he reinforced with the 5th division, placing it behind the
village of Arapiles, on the right of the 4th, and with the 6th and 7th
in reserve. These having taken their stations, he ordered Major-General
Pakenham to move forward with the 3rd and General D’Urban’s cavalry,
and two squadrons of the 14th light dragoons under Lieutenant-Colonel
Hervey, in four columns, to turn the enemy’s left on the heights,
while Brigadier-General Bradford’s brigade, the 5th division, under
Lieutenant-General Leith, the 4th, under Lieutenant-General Cole, and
the cavalry under Sir Stapleton Cotton, should attack them in front,
supported in reserve by the 6th and 7th under Major-Generals Clinton
and Hope, and D. Carlos d’España’s Spanish division; Brigadier-General
Pack, with the 1st and 16th Portuguese regiments, was to support the
left of the 4th division, by attacking the hill which the enemy held.
The first and the light divisions occupied the ground on the left of
the Arapiles in reserve.
As soon as the formation was effected, the attack commenced from the
right. Major-General Pakenham moved along a valley at a quick rate,
crossed the extended left of the enemy, almost before they were
aware of his intention, drove them back in confusion and overthrew
everything before him. Brigadier-General D’Urban’s Portugueze cavalry
and Lieutenant-Colonel Hervey’s squadrons of the 14th, supported him in
the most gallant style, defeated every attempt which was made upon his
flank, cut in upon the enemy’s broken infantry, and put numbers of them
to the sword. The attack in front was made with equal ardour: the fifth
division had been exposed for about an hour to a continued and heavy
cannonade; no orders were ever more welcome to the soldiers who were
stretched on the ground to avoid its effects, than those which bade
them advance against the enemy. The distance was more than a mile, up
a steep height crowned by twenty pieces of cannon, and their left had
to pass through the village which formed a considerable obstruction;
they advanced in perfect order, not firing a shot till they had gained
the summit, from whence the guns which had annoyed them were hastily
withdrawn, nor till they had received the fire of the enemy, who were
formed into squares to resist them. When they were within some thirty
yards the word was given to fire and charge; this instantly threw
the squares into disorder; the heavy cavalry coming up on the right
increased their confusion; they fled then, and in their flight fell in
with the remains of their extreme left, flying before Major-General
Pakenham’s division. Lieutenant-General Leith was severely wounded
in the act of breaking into the squares. Pakenham and the cavalry
constantly bringing up their right, so as to outflank the points on
which the French attempted to make a stand, drove them from one height
to another and made above 3000 prisoners. The 4th and 5th divisions
acquiring in like manner strength upon the enemy’s flank in proportion
as they advanced, carried height after height, till at length the
enemy’s left rallied on their centre; and on the last height, after its
crest had been gained, one division of their infantry charged Cole’s
division, which, after a severe contest, in which Cole was wounded,
gave way.
This temporary success was owing to the failure of Pack’s attack
upon the Arapiles; it was bravely made, but the Portugueze failed to
carry it against the disadvantage of such strong ground; the attempt,
however, was not without some good effect, for it occupied troops who
would otherwise have been engaged against General Cole in his advance,
and who were not now at leisure to oppose him, till, notwithstanding
this temporary success, it was too late. Beresford, who happened to be
on the spot, directed a brigade of the 5th division, which was in the
second line, to change its front, and bring its fire on the enemy’s
flank; while thus engaged he was wounded. Three British generals had
thus been disabled, and in a most successful charge against a body of
infantry, Major-General Le Marchant was killed, at the head of his
own brigade. Lord Wellington now ordered up the 6th division under
Major-General Clinton. That division marching under a heavy fire
deployed at the foot of a hill, and beginning then to fire regular
volleys, suffered severely as it advanced; it was vigorously attacked
by a body of cavalry which had been concealed behind the Arapiles,
and for some minutes the contest appeared doubtful; but when Clinton
was enabled to form his two right battalions into line, and charge,
the French again lost heart, and abandoned the important point which
they had till then maintained. Their right still resisted, having
been reinforced by the troops who now withdrew in good order from the
Arapiles, and by those who had fled from the left.
They re-formed and took up their ground with equal promptitude and
skill almost at right angles to their original front, the infantry
along the crest of the hill in line, supported by heavy close columns
in reserve, the cavalry in masses on their flanks, and the artillery
posted at the advanced knolls, so as to sweep the whole face of the
height. The 1st and light divisions were ordered against these, with
two brigades of the 4th, to turn their right, while the 6th supported
by the 3rd and 5th, attacked the front. Clinton advanced up the rocky
and steep height inline, without firing a shot, and under a murderous
fire of musketry and artillery: but he charged with the bayonet, drove
them from a commanding conical eminence, and captured two guns. Their
flank was attacked at the same time; and then, beaten at all points,
they fled through the woods towards the Tormes, cavalry, infantry,
and baggage all mixed together. The defeat was complete, and so would
have been the destruction, if darkness had not opportunely covered
their flight. Lord Wellington, with the 1st and light divisions, and
Major-General William Anson’s brigade of the 4th, and some squadrons of
cavalry under Sir Stapleton Cotton, pursued them towards Huerta and the
fords of the Tormes, as long as any of them could be found together;
but night soon put an end to the pursuit, and enabled great numbers who
had been taken prisoners to escape. A sentinel mistook Sir Stapleton
Cotton in the dark for an enemy, fired, and wounded him.
This memorable battle, which lasted from three in the afternoon till
ten at night, took place within sight of the city; the ground with its
heights rising gradually one behind another, forming, as it were, a
fine theatre for such a spectacle. On the part of the allies, nearly
5000 were killed and wounded. General Le Marchant’s loss was greatly
regretted: he was a native of Guernsey, who having served in the
light dragoons under the Duke of York in the years 1793 and 1794,
applied himself with zeal and ability to the study of his profession,
introduced the Hungarian sword exercise into the British army, and drew
up a manual for the use of the cavalry, which was published by the
war-office. The royal military college was in great measure planned
by him; he was appointed lieutenant-governor of that institution, and
discharged the duties of the office till 1811, when he could no longer
retain it, being promoted to the rank of Major-General. He then joined
the army in Portugal in command of a brigade, but had not been long
in that country, when the unexpected death of his wife rendered it
necessary that he should return to England for the arrangement of his
domestic affairs: that mournful business having been performed, he
rejoined the army, and shortly afterwards fell, being in the 47th year
of his age. His eldest son, who was an ensign in the guards, was at his
side when he fell. The Prince Regent manifested with proper munificence
his sense of General Le Marchant’s worth, by granting a pension of £300
to that son, £100 to each of three younger sons, and £120 to each of
his five daughters.... The loss of the French was very great; besides
the dead and wounded, they left 7000 prisoners on the field. Eleven
guns and two eagles were taken: it is said that more than ten were
captured, but that there were men base enough to conceal them, and sell
them to persons at Salamanca, who deemed it good policy as well as a
profitable speculation, to purchase them for the French. Marmont was
disabled early in the action, Bonnet also was wounded, and the command
then devolved upon General Clausel, who was wounded also, but not so as
to incapacitate him. Generals Ferey, Desgraviers, and Thomieres were
killed.
At break of day, the pursuit was renewed with the same troops, and with
Major-General Bock and Anson’s brigades, which had joined them during
the night. The first and light divisions were ordered to the ford of
Huerta, Lord Wellington having supposed that the enemy must make their
passage there, because the castle at Alba de Tormes was occupied
by the Spaniards; but the troops who garrisoned it had, without his
knowledge, been withdrawn, so that Clausel, making a most rapid march
during the night, crossed the river there without molestation. Having
crossed in pursuit, the cavalry came up with the enemy’s rear-guard of
horse and foot between Garci Hernandez and Peñarandilla: a detachment
from the 11th and 16th dragoons charged their cavalry, which fled, and
left the infantry to their fate. Major-General Bock, then, with the
heavy brigade of the King’s German legion, attacked them, when posted
upon a hill in square, and in what is described as one of the finest
charges that was ever seen, rode completely through them. The whole
body, consisting of three battalions, were made prisoners, the brigade
losing in the charge 30 killed and nearly 50 wounded. In the course of
the day, the enemy were joined by 1200 cavalry belonging to the army of
the north, who, though too late to be of any greater service, covered
the retreat of their centre to Peñaranda de Bracamonte: one column
went by Macotora; the other which had crossed the Tormes at Encina and
Huerta moved on El Campo and Cebolla. They had their head-quarters at
Flores de Avila, ten leagues from the field of battle, for a few hours
on the second night, and hastened from thence by Arevalo, towards
Valladolid. Their dead were found in many places by the road-side, and
their stragglers met with as little mercy from the peasantry as they
had been accustomed to show; yet many of their rear-guard were taken
without arms, having thrown them away as impediments in their flight.
The pursuit was continued on the 24th; but the enemy made exceedingly
long marches, and had little to encumber them while hastening to their
resources both in men and means, and the pursuers having to bring
up their supplies far from behind could not keep up an equal pace.
On that day they only came up with the rear-guard, which hastened
away at their approach. On the following the advance halted for the
army to close up; Colonel Arentschild’s brigade entered Arevalo; and
a non-commissioned officer’s patrol captured two officers and 27 men
of Joseph’s own cavalry, in Blasco Sancho, between Arevalo and Avila.
The Intruder had reached that place, hastening with the army of the
centre to join Marmont upon the Tormes; he was met there with tidings
of the defeat, and then turned towards Segovia, as if retreating upon
Madrid: soon however receiving fuller advices, he endeavoured to divert
the pursuers by threatening an advance upon their flank. The routed
army, meantime, whose movements were conducted with great ability
by Clausel, concentrated themselves on the right bank of the Douro,
between Puente de Duero and the other bridge at Tudela de Duero; they
crossed the river as soon as the allies advanced towards them, hastened
to Valladolid, and making no tarriance there, continued their retreat
to Burgos. Lord Wellington entered Valladolid on the 30th amid the
acclamations of the people. There he discontinued the pursuit, and
prepared to march against the Intruder, with the intention of either
bringing him to action, or driving him from Madrid.
♦PROCEEDINGS OF SIR HOME POPHAM ON THE COAST OF BISCAY.♦
Meantime, a squadron under Sir Home Popham which sailed from Coruña,
to co-operate with the Guerrillas, and occupy the enemy upon the side
of Biscay, rendered all the service which had been expected from
it. Sir Howard Douglas and General Carrol embarked in the Venerable
with Sir Home. They arrived off Lequeitio on the 18th of June, where
the French had possession of a hill-fort, commanding the town, and
strong enough to resist any body of infantry; they had also 200 men
fortified in a convent within the town, and into this the garrison
retired when the Pastor D. Gaspar Jauregui arrived with his party to
act in concert with the squadron. The convent might have been destroyed
by the ships, but the town must in that case have suffered also; it
was determined, therefore, to attack the fort, which was so situated
that the enemy thought it quite inaccessible to cannon. They knew not
what British seamen are capable of on shore. At a time when the sea
broke with such violence against the rocks at the foot of the hill,
that it was doubtful whether a boat could reach the land, Lieutenant
Groves succeeded in landing a gun there. It was hove up for a short
distance by a moveable capstan; but this was too tedious an operation,
and it was dragged to the summit by six and thirty pair of oxen, 400
of the Pastor’s men, and 100 seamen, headed by the Honourable Captain
Bouverie. It was immediately mounted; the first shot was fired at
four in the afternoon, and so well was it served, that by sunset a
practicable breach was made. The Guerrillas volunteered to storm;
they were repulsed in the first attempt, but succeeded in the second,
and such of the enemy as escaped on the opposite side got into the
convent. In the course of the evening the sea had abated, a landing was
effected upon the island of S. Nicholas, from whence the convent could
be battered without damage to the town; three carronades were planted
there; at dawn, a 24-pounder was brought to the east side of the town,
within 200 yards of the convent, and another was in the act of being
landed upon the island to bombard it, when the French commandant beat
a parley, and surrendered with 290 men. The Guerrillas had lost 50 in
killed and wounded, not a man belonging to the squadron was hurt. The
muskets, stores, and three small guns, which were found there were
given to the Pastor. Two 18-pounders in the fort were rendered useless;
the fort itself was demolished and the convent blown up. The next
morning a column of 1100 men were seen which had arrived within two
leagues of Lequeitio, but hearing from the peasantry that the English
had disembarked 2000 men, they retired. Some intercepted letters were
now transmitted to Sir Home, by which the commandant at Guernica was
instructed to prepare rations for a French general and 2600 of the
Imperial Guards.
The squadron was now to have co-operated in an attack upon Bilbao,
but the wind proved unfavourable for getting round Cape Machichago,
and part of the ships fetched the anchorage of Bermeo. The enemy had
retired from that place, leaving a small magazine of provisions ♦JUNE
23.♦ in a fortified convent; these were distributed to the poor; and
the battery on the hill and all the fortified places which the French
had occupied were destroyed: the works at Plencia were in like manner
demolished, and the batteries on each side of the ♦JUNE 24.♦ inlet
below the bar of the Ybeyzabal, or Narrow River, the beautiful and
tranquil stream which forms the port of Bilbao: on one side were the
castle of Galea, and the batteries of Algorta and Begona; on the other
the batteries of El Campillo, Las Quersas and Xebiles. Early on the
following morning some parties of the enemy entered the destroyed
batteries of Algorta, but retired upon the squadron’s making a
disposition to stand up the inlet; they then formed in the plain, and
were found to consist of 2000 men at Algorta, while 400 were sent to
Puerta Galetta. Three of the British sloops closed with the fort there,
silenced it, and drove them from thence. It was supposed that this was
the corps for which rations had been ordered at Guernica, and that it
had been thus drawn off from its original destination.
♦JULY 2.♦
The squadron then made for Guetaria; two companies of marines were
landed for the purpose of reconnoitring the place, previous to an
intended attack, but the Guerrillas who were expected to co-operate
were engaged with the enemy in a different quarter; parties of the
French were seen crossing the hills; the intention, therefore, was
relinquished, ♦JULY 6.♦ and the marines re-embarked without loss.
Sir Home then sailed for Castro, where Sir George Collier had landed
a company of marines to assist Longa in a concerted attack. Longa
was there at the time and place appointed; more marines were landed,
and guns with hearty exertions of well-directed skill were drawn up
heights that might have seemed inaccessible to men less earnest in
their duty. They were placing them in a battery to the east of the
town, when 2500 of the enemy appeared on the heights of S. Pelayo;
the parties upon this were re-embarked, and Longa found it necessary
to change his ground, after which he sustained an action, in which
no advantage was gained over him. Somewhat disheartened by this, the
French marched into the town that evening, and were driven out of it
on the morrow by the fire of the squadron: they then took post on
the hills, and under favour of the night retired towards Laredo. The
castle then surrendered with 150 men, and having been put in a state of
defence, was garrisoned by ♦JULY 10. JULY 11.♦ the marines and Spanish
artillerymen of the Iris. Their next attempt was a combined attack
upon Puerta Galleta, which was abandoned because the enemy were found
to be in greater strength than had been expected; the French on their
part failed equally in endeavouring to recover Castro. Their moveable
column had now been drawn by a feint to Santona; from thence it could
not reach Guetaria in less than four days; another attempt therefore
was made upon that place in concert with the Pastor, and with one of
Mina’s battalions. The latter, after two days’ severe march, did not
arrive till it was too late; for when the enemy’s guns on one side had
been silenced, ♦JULY 19.♦ and a battery was ready to open upon them
on the other, intelligence was received that a considerable body of
French troops was hastening thither by forced marches. The Guerrillas
maintained a brave action against them, till the superiority of the
enemy’s numbers was ascertained, and made it necessary for them to
retreat; but this action prevented the re-embarkation of the British in
time, so that two guns were in consequence destroyed, and 32 men made
prisoners.
These operations of Sir Home Popham’s squadron were of service in many
ways. Troops were thus occupied who would otherwise have joined Marmont
before the battle of Salamanca; the corps which relieved Guetaria was
recalled from that direction, and Caffarelli was prevented from sending
the infantry who were to have assisted in driving the English into
the Tagus. The ports which were liberated lost no time in conveying
supplies to the free parts of the kingdom, and vessels from them
arrived daily at Coruña laden with corn and wine. And the Guerrillas,
as well as the regular troops of Spain, received a countenance and
support which enabled them to hold towards the enemy the language
of confident hope. Renovales, who was Commandant-General in Biscay,
addressed a letter to the French Governor of Bilbao, General Roquet,
remonstrating against the cruelties which General Mouton had committed
with his column: “for the security of a fortress,” he said, “or to
prevent an insurrection, the rules of military precaution might render
it proper to put some few persons of respectability in confinement,
but that cottages and private dwellings should be outraged, and that
peaceable persons should be tortured by stripes, by the bayonet, and
by fire, was what no laws of war could justify. The Spaniards were a
people who might be softened by generosity though not subdued by it;
but if this system of terror were persisted in towards them, ... if it
were still to be war at the knife’s point, the Biscayans, instead of
yielding a foot to him, would meet him half way in such warfare. Four
and twenty officers were in his hands, and should suffer for the next
act of cruelty on the part of the French. He concluded by assuring
Roquet that the day was not far distant when Bilbao would be delivered,
and that he, Renovales, would then, at the head of 10,000 Biscayans,
fulfil his duty as he had hitherto done, and first of all towards
himself.