Some of these measures, Marshal Soult said, he had persuaded Marshal Ney to undertake. But when that dispatch was written Ney was on his retreat, and so harassed by the Spaniards, that he did not feel himself safe till he had got beyond Astorga into the plain country. Soult on his part proceeded to Zamora, and Galicia was thus delivered from its invaders. That kingdom was left in a state of dreadful exhaustion, and the anarchy to which all things tended was thereby increased. Men who had done their part in driving out the enemy, having now no means of providing for themselves, roamed about in armed parties, and lived as freebooters, so that the condition of the helpless inhabitants was little better than when they were under the French yoke. Romana appointed military governors in every province, and was taking measures for making its resources available to the general cause, when the Junta superseded him in the command. The pretext was that they required his presence among them; for upon the demise of the Principe Pio he had been chosen to succeed him as one of the deputies for Valencia, his native province; but the real cause was the complaints which were made against him by Jovellanos and his colleagues, for his interference in Asturias. Romana regarded not their accusations, knowing that he had acted with the best intentions, and believing that he had done what was best for the country: but he said to his friends that the Junta had never taken so false a step as in removing him at that time.

Before he left Coruña he erected a19 temporary monument, in the name of his country, to the memory of Sir John Moore and the brave ♦His farewell to the army.♦ men who had fallen with him. And he published a farewell address to the remnant of those faithful soldiers whom he had brought from the Baltic, and who had accompanied him through all his dangers and privations. “Neither the marches of the Carthaginians in former times,” said he, “nor of the French in latter, can be compared with those incessant ones which you have made among the mountains of Castille, Galicia, and Asturias, during six months of nakedness, hunger, and misery. You have fought no boasted battles, but you have annihilated one of the tyrant’s proudest armies; aiding the national spirit, keeping up its noble excitement, wearying the enemy’s troops, destroying them in petty actions, and circumscribing their command to the ground upon which they stood. You have fulfilled the highest duties of the soldier; and I owe to you the reward, which all my labours, and cares, and thoughts as a general have aspired to. Your country was long ignorant of your best services; but the actions of Villa Franca, Vigo, the fields of Lugo, Santiago, and San Payo, free you from all reproach for having avoided to engage in fatal battles, and will make you terrible to those enemies who have been conquered and driven out, wherever the superiority of their forces was not too great to be overcome. Brave Spaniards, I acknowledge this day the want of that composure which I have always felt at your head. I am no longer your General. The government calls me from you to take a place in the Supreme Central Junta. Nothing but its irresistible will should separate me from you, nor make me renounce the right I have to partake in your future welfare, under your new commander. Take, soldiers, the last farewell of your General, and reckon always upon the gratitude and paternal love of your compatriot and companion in arms.”

The Central Junta, upon the deliverance of Galicia, addressed one of their animated proclamations to the inhabitants. “People of Galicia,” they said, “upon seeing you fall into the power of the enemy without resistance, your naval ports and arsenals occupied by them, and so powerful and important a province subjected from sea to sea, indignation and grief made your country break out in cries of malediction and reproach, like a mother who complains to heaven and earth of the degradation of a daughter in whom alone she had confided. At that time reverses followed each other, as successes had done before. After the battles of Espinosa, and Burgos, and Tudela, came the passage of the Somosierra, the capture of Madrid, and the rout at Ucles, and then, to afflict the heart of the country, the ruin of Zaragoza, the defeat in Catalonia, and at Medellin. In all these memorable events, though fortune failed, our reputation was not lost, and Spain, suffering as she did, retained her confidence. But Galicia ... Galicia, entered without resistance, subdued without opposition, and bearing tranquilly the yoke of servitude, ... Galicia deranged all calculations of prudence, and was destroying the country by destroying hope. Who then in that night of misfortunes would have looked to Galicia for the first day-spring of joy? More glorious in your rise, than you had seemed weak in your fall, magnanimous Galicians! despair itself made you feel the strength of which you had not before been conscious. The cry of independence and vengeance was heard in your highways, your villages, your towns; the conquerors in their turn began to fear they should be conquered, and retired into their strong places; there they were pursued, and assaulted, and taken. Vigo delivered itself up with its oppressors, and Galicia, sending these prisoners to the other side of the sea, gave a proof as authentic as it was great, that the Spaniards had not wholly forgotten the art of subduing and binding the French. This was the first day of good fortune that rose on Spain after five months of disasters, ... others followed. In vain did Soult, hardly escaping from our allies at Porto, come with the relics of his beaten division to succour the weakened Ney. Harassed in their marches, decimated in their parties, cut off in their communications, and baffled in their hope of fighting great actions, these arrogant Generals despair of conquest, and execrate a war in which their men are consumed without glory. Weary of struggling against a physical force which every day strengthened, and a moral resistance which had made itself invincible, they fled at last from your soil in a state of miserable exhaustion, giving to Castille a new and great example that it is not possible to force the yoke upon a people who are unanimous in resisting it.

“The Spaniards do not yet know what war is, said those traitors to their country, who under the mask of a false prudence concealed their guilty selfishness. With such disheartening language they endeavoured to repress the generous impulses of loyalty. Base and pusillanimous men, we know what war is now! this terrible lesson is written upon our soil with the finger of desolation, it is engraved in our hearts with the dagger of vengeance. The execrable criminals whose instruments you have made yourselves have in their atrocities exceeded all that your perfidious mind could have foreseen, all that your terrified imagination could have foreboded. Transport yourselves to Galicia, if ye dare do it, ye miserable men, and there learn what is the standard of the true Spanish character! The blood which has there been shed is still steaming to heaven, the houses which have been burnt are still smoking, and the frightful silence of depopulation prevails over a country which was lately covered with villages and hamlets. But ask those families who, wandering among the mountains, chose rather to live with wild beasts, than communicate with the assassins to whom you had sold them: ask them if they repent of their resolution; seek among them one voice that shall follow you, one vote that shall exculpate you!

“People of Galicia, you are free! and your country, in proclaiming it, effaces with her tears of admiration and tenderness the mournful words wherein, in other times, she complained of you. You are free, and you owe your freedom to your exaltation of mind, to your courage, to your constancy. You are free, and Spain and all Europe congratulate you the more joyfully in proportion as your case had appeared desperate. All good men bless your name; and in holding you up as a model to the other provinces, we regard the day of your deliverance as a fortunate presage for the country.”