sist the unexampled atrocity of France, and preserve the independence of their country; and there exists the strongest disposition on the part of the British government to afford every practicable aid in a contest so magnanimous. In endeavouring to afford this aid, it will never occur to us to consider that a state of war exists between this country and Spain. Whenever any nation in Europe starts up with a determination to oppose a power which, whether professing insidious peace or declaring open war, is alike the common enemy of all other people, that nation, whatever its former relation may be, becomes, ipso facto, the ally of Great Britain. In furnishing the aid which may be required, government will be guided by three principles-to direct the united efforts of both countries against the common foe-to direct them in such a way as shall be most beneficial to our new ally-and to direct them to such objects as may be most conducive to British interests. But of these objects the last will never be allowed to come into competition with the other two. I mention British objects, chiefly for the purpose of disclaiming them as any material part of the considerations which influence the British government. No interest can be so purely British as Spanish success; no conquest so advantageous to England as conquering from France the complete integrity of Spanish dominions in every quarter of the globe." 58. This debate marks in more ways than one an important era in the war, and indicates a remarkable change in the sentiments with which it was regarded by a large portion of the liberal party in the British dominions. There were no longer any apologies for Napoleon, or the principles of the Revolution; no deprecation of any attempt to resist the power of France, as in the earlier periods of the war. The eloquent declamations of Mr Fox and Mr Erskine in favour of the great republic-their sophistical excuses for the grasping ambition in which its fervour had terminated-had expired. Experience and suffering, danger and difficulty, had in a great degree subdued even political passion-the strongest feeling, save religious, which can agitate mankind. Mr Sheridan and Mr Wyndham from the Opposition benches, earnestly called on the government to engage deeply in the war; they loudly and justly condemned the selfish policy and Lilliputian expeditions of the aristocratic government in its earlier years, and demanded, in the name of public freedom, that England should at last take her appropriate place in the van of the conflict, and, disregarding all selfish or exclusively national objects, stand forth with all her might for the deliverance of mankind. 59. In such sentiments from such men, none but the vulgar and superficial could see any inconsistency with their former opinions. Whatever others might do, it was not to be supposed that the highest intellects and most generous hearts in the empire were to gaze all day at the East in hopes of still seeing the sun rise there. Resistance to French despotism and invasion was not only not inconsistent with, but necessarily flowed from, the real principles of the ardent philanthropists who had formerly opposed the overshadowing what they then deemed the brilliant dawn of the French Revolution. But it had the appearance of change to the numerous class who judge by words instead of things, and are attached, not to abstract principles, but to actual parties; and, therefore, the enunciation of such sentiments by any of the Whig leaders not only was an honourable instance of moral courage, but evinced a remarkable change in the general feeling of their party. Not less clearly was the disclaiming of interested views or British objects by the ministerial chiefs an indication of the arrival of that period in the contest, when the generous passions were at length aroused, and the fervent warmth of popular feeling had melted or overcome that frigid attention to interested views, which, not less than their tenacity and perseverance, is the uniform characteristic of aristocratic governments among mankind. 60. Animated by such powerful support, from the quarter where it was 1 : least expected, to enter vigorously into the contest, the English government made the most liberal provision for its prosecution. The supplies voted for the war-charges amounted to the enormous sum of £48,300,000; to meet which, ways and means to the value of £48,400,000 were voted by parliament; and the total income of the year 1808, including the ordinary and permanent revenue, was estimated at £86,780,000, and the expenditure at £84,797,000. The loan was £10,102,000 for England, and £2,000,000 for Ireland, and the new taxes imposed only £300,000; the Chancellor of the Exchequer having adhered, in a great measure, to the system approved of by both sides of the House in the finance debates of the preceding year, of providing for the increased charges of the year and the interest of the loans, in part at least, by an impignoration, in time of peace, of the war taxes. A subsidy of £1,100,000 was provided for the King of Sweden. But these sums, great as they are, convey no adequate idea of the expenditure of this eventful year; the budget was arranged in April, before the Spanish contest had arisen; and for the vast expenses with which it was attended, and which, not having been foreseen, had not been provided for, there was no resource but a liberal issue of Exchequer bills, which fell as an oppressive burden upon future years. * 61. The supplies of all sorts sent out during this year to the Spanish patriots, though in great part misapplied or wasted, were on a princely scale of liberality, and worthy of the exalted station which, by consent of all parties, England now took at the head of the alliance. In every province of the Peninsula juntas were established, and to all British envoys were sent, who made as minute inquiries into the wants and capabilities of the district as the circumstances would admit, and received ample powers from government to afford such aid, either in money, arms, clothing, or warlike stores, as they deemed it expedient to demand. Military supplies of every * See Appendix, Note G. description were, in consequence of these requisitions, sent to Corunna, Santander, Cadiz, Gibraltar, Valencia, Malaga, and other places, with a profusion which astonished the inhabitants, and gave them at least ample means to fit themselves out for the contest in which they were engaged.+ It may readily be conceived, that from the enthusiasm and animation of the insurgent provinces, and the universal transport with which the British envoys were received, abundance of room was afforded for misrepresentation or delusion; that the accounts transmitted to government must, in many cases, have been inaccurate and that, amidst the extraordinary profusion with which supplies of all sorts were poured into the country, there were many opportunities afforded to ; the native authorities of fraud or em- were intended to procure the accumubezzlement, of which, amidst the gen-lation' of a force which might, by sea eral confusion, they were not slow to and land, overmatch the British emavail themselves. In truth, lament-pire. The moment his troops entered able experience afterwards demon- Spain, his orders were directed to this strated that a large proportion of these object. He sent funds from Paris for magnificent supplies was misapplied or the construction of two sail of the line neglected. The money was in great part at Carthagena; Spain was to furnish embezzled or squandered, the stores sold two magnificent three-deckers, the or wasted, the arms piled and forgotton Santa Anna and San Carlos: these, in magazines, when the patriots in the with the five French ships at Cadiz field were in want of the most necessary and six Spanish, and other ships afloat part of military equipment. in the Spanish harbours, would produce a force of eighteen ships of the line ready for sea. The Carthagena fleet, which had taken refuge at Port Mahon, consisting of six line-of-battle ships, was directed forthwith to put to sea and join the Toulon squadron, already consisting of twelve in very good condition. Junot received the most pressing orders to equip immediately two line-of-battle ships left at Lisbon when the royal family embarked. "Consider it your first glory," wrote Napoleon to Murat, "during your short administration, to have reanimated the Spanish marine. It is the best way to attach the Spaniards to us, and to justify our occupation of their territory." 62. Still, with all these evils, inseparable probably from the condition of a country thus driven into a dreadful | contest in the absence of any regular government, and unavoidably thrown under the direction of local and recently-elected authorities, alike destitute of the knowledge, unacquainted with the arrangements, and relieved from the responsibility requisite for the faithful discharge of official duty, the prodigal bounty of England was attended with the most important effects upon the progress of the strife. It removed at once the imputation of cautious and prudential policy, which the incessant declamations of the French writers during the former periods of the war, joined to the 64. These preparations in the Peninfeeble temporising measures of pre-sula were but a part of the vast deceding cabinets, had so strongly affix- signs which the French Emperor had ed to the British name. It demon- formed and matured at this period for strated the sincerity and energy of a the overthrow of the British empire, government which thus, with unpre- and which the Spanish war alone precedented profusion, spread abroad in vented being carried into execution. every quarter the means of resistance; The nine Russian ships of the line and inspired boundless confidence in under Admiral Siniavin at Lisbon the resources of a power which, great were to be reinforced by three Portuat all times, seemed capable of gigan- guese, seized in the dockyards of Listic expansion at the decisive moment, bon. Four ships of the line were ready and appeared rather to have increased for sea at Rochefort; four were at than diminished from a contest of fif- L'Orient; and at Brest, seven line-ofteen years' duration. battle ships, in good order, remained 63. Nor were these great efforts on of its once formidable squadron. Eight the part of the British government splendid new vessels, constructed at either unnecessary or uncalled-for; for Antwerp, lay in the basin of Flushing; the forces, both military and naval, twelve were in the course of construcwhich Napoleon had now arrayed for tion in the Scheldt. At the Texel, their subjugation were immense. If Louis Napoleon had eight ships of the the contest were not fixed in the line in excellent condition ready for Peninsula. it was plain that it would sea, and the Russians had twelve in ere long approach the English shores. the Adriatic; while the flotilla at All his preparations in every quarter | Boulogne was still capable of transport + 7 ing 80,000 men, with all their guns ready to embark at a moment's warnand equipments, across the Channel.ing on board their various squadrons, In addition to these considerable naval and either by a concentrated effort forces, orders were given for the con-menace at once the independence of struction, with the utmost possible expe- Great Britain, or distract its fleets by dition, of thirty-five more in the various threatening its numerous colonial deharbours from the Sound to the Texel.pendencies. Such were the designs In this way he hoped to have a hundred of Napoleon, and such the means at and thirty-one ships of the line ready for his disposal, when the Peninsular war sea before the end of the year, which arose, and England, under the guidwere to be increased annually by twen-ance of Wellington, began on the fields ty-five or thirty more, till they acquir- of Spain to contend hand to hand ed a decided preponderance over the with the conqueror of continental EuBritish navy. Three hundred thou- rope, and the descendants of those sand land troops were to be stationed who conquered at Hastings met the in the neighbourhood of the principal sons of those who triumphed at Cressy harbours from Copenhagen to Venice, and Azincour! CHAPTER LIV. NAPOLEON'S FIRST DISASTERS IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. established in Perpignan, and detachments were stationed in the eastern passes of the mountains. The communications and rear being thus adequately provided for, Marshal Moncey was directed, with part of his corps, to move upon Cuença, so as to prevent any communication between the pa 1. No sooner was Napoleon made | aware, by the general progress and formidable character of the insurrection, that a serious contest awaited him, than he set about, with all his usual caution and ability, preparing the means of overcoming its difficulties. Bessières received orders to put Burgos into a state of defence, to de-triots of Valencia and Saragossa, and tach Lefebvre-Desnouttes, with five thousand foot and eight hundred horse, against Saragossa, and to move his main body so as to overawe the insurgents in Biscay, Asturias, and Old Castile. A reinforcement of nine thousand men was prepared for Duhesme in Catalonia, which it was hoped would enable him to make head against the enemy in that quarter. A reserve was organised, under General Drouet, on the Pyrenean frontier of Navarre, which, besides affording Bessières continual additions of force, placed five thousand men in the openings of the valleys towards the castle of Jaca, which was in possession of the enemy; another reserve was subsequently threaten the former city; while Dupont, with two divisions of his corps, ten thousand strong, received orders to proceed across the Sierra Morena towards Cordova and Seville. The remainder of his corps and of that of Moncey was stationed in reserve in La Mancha, to keep up the communications of the divisions pushed forward, and be in readiness, if necessary, to support either which might require assistance. With so much foresight and caution did the great commander distribute his forces,, even against an insurgent peasantry, and an enemy at that period deemed wholly unable to withstand the shock of his veteran legions. country in the upper part of the valley the smaller towns and villages, dif- 2. The first military operations of any importance were those of Marshal Bessières in Biscay and Old Castile. That able officer was at Burgos with twelve thousand men, when the insurrection broke out with great violence in all directions around him. At the same moment he received ad-French dragoons, dispersing through vices that a body of five thousand armed men had got possession of the important depot of artillery at Segovia, and another assemblage of equal force was arming itself from the royal manufactory of arms at Palencia; while General Cuesta, the captaingeneral of the province, with a few regiments of regular troops and a strong body of undisciplined peasantry, had taken post at Cabeçon on the Pisuerga. These positions appeared to Savary, who was now the chief in command at Madrid, so alarming, as threatening the communications of the French with the capital and all the southern provinces, that he detached General Frère with his division, forming part of Dupont's corps, in all haste to Segovia, where he routed the peasantry, and made himself master 4. While Leon and Castile were the of all the artillery they had taken theatres of these early and important from the arsenal, amounting to thirty successes, the province of Aragon, pieces. Meanwhile Bessières divided though almost entirely destitute of rehis disposable force into several mov- gular forces, was successful, after able columns, which, issuing from sustaining several bloody reverses, in Burgos as a centre, traversed the coun- maintaining a more prolonged resisttry in all directions, everywhere de- ance to the enemy. By indefatigable feating and disarming the insurgents, exertions, Palafox and the energetic and reinstating the French authorities junta of Saragossa had succeeded in whom they had dispossessed. One arming and communicating the rudiof these divisions, under Verdier, ments of discipline to a tumultuary asrouted the enemy at Logrono, and sembly of ten thousand infantry and with inhuman and unjustifiable cruel- two hundred horse, with which, and ty, put all their leaders to death; eight pieces of artillery, his brother, another, under Lasalle, broke the the Marquis Lazan, ventured to march armed peasantry at Torquemada, burn-out of the city and await Lefebvreed the town, pursued them with merciless severity, and entered Palencia on the day following; while a third, under Merle, uniting with Lasalle, made straight for Cuesta at Cabeçon, who accepted battle, but was speedily overthrown, and his whole new levies dispersed, with the loss of all their artillery and several thousand muskets, which were thrown away in the pursuit. 3. By these successes the whole level Desnouettes in a favourable position 1 |