If proof had been wanting that men of any country may be made good soldiers under good discipline, it might have been seen at this time in Buonaparte’s armies, where the Italians, who in their own country ran like sheep before the French, were now embodied with them, and approved themselves in every respect equal to their former conquerors. These men, who were taken by the conscription to bear part in a war wherein they had no concern, who had no national character to support, nothing but the spirit of their profession to animate them, were nevertheless equal to any service required from them, and needed no other excitement than that they were fighting for pay, and plunder, and life. Was it then to be doubted, that if the same care were bestowed in training, the same results would be seen in the Spaniards and Portugueze, who were under the influence of every passion and every principle which can strengthen and elevate the heart of man, ... both people too being alike remarkable for national feeling, and for patience under difficulties and privations, docility to their superiors, and faithful attachment to those in whom they trust? It was not indeed to be expected that the Spaniards would so far acknowledge their military degradation as to put themselves under the tuition of an ally; Spain had not abated sufficiently of its old pretensions, thus to humiliate itself. Neither indeed was that degradation so complete as it had been in Portugal. The Spanish artillery was most respectable; and there were officers in the army who had studied their profession, and whose talents might have raised them to distinction in the proudest age of Spanish history. But the Portugueze were conscious of their weakness, and in this knowledge they found their strength: for when that brave and generous people, in the extremity of their fortune, submitted implicitly to the direction of their old hereditary ally, ... when they offered hands and hearts for the common cause, and asked for assistance and instruction, the ultimate success of that cause became as certain as any thing can possibly be deemed by human foresight. With Portugal for the scene of action, and her population ready for every sacrifice that duty might require, it remained only for Great Britain to feel and understand its own strength, and employ its inexhaustible resources in exertions adequate to the occasion.

But Great Britain as yet hardly understood its strength. The cold poison which was continually instilled by party writers into the public ear had produced some effect even upon the sound part of the nation. From the commencement of the war it had been proclaimed as a truth too certain to be disputed, that England could no longer as a military power compete with France, consequently that we must rely upon our insular situation, and husband our resources. These opinions had been so long repeated, that they had acquired something like the authority of prescription; the government itself seemed to distrust the national power, and in the fear of hazarding too much, apportioned always for every service the smallest possible force that could be supposed adequate to the object, instead of placing at the general’s disposal such ample means as might ensure success. The first departure from this over-cautious system was in the expedition to Walcheren, where a great armament was worse than wasted. That miserable enterprise weakened the government, and in some degree disheartened it; and Lord Wellington, in addition to the other difficulties of his situation, had long to struggle with insufficient means. But the exertions and the experience of the last year had not been lost: the British army had acquired a reputation which, however successfully Buonaparte concealed it from the French people, was felt by his soldiers and his generals: time had been gained for training the Portugueze troops, and preparing for the defence of Portugal; and the British Commander having proved both his enemies and his allies, had clearly foreseen the course which the war would take, and determined upon his own measures with the calmness of a mind that knew how to make the best advantage of the events it could not control.

While both parties were preparing for a campaign in Portugal, in which the enemy expected to complete the conquest of the Peninsula, and Lord Wellington felt assured that the tide of their fortune would be turned; while the war before Cadiz was pursued with little exertion or enterprise on either side, and the cities of Andalusia were occupied without a struggle by the invaders; in Catalonia the contest was carried on with renewed vigour. The fall of Gerona enabled the besieging army to undertake farther operations; but the Catalans, as well as the French, had changed their commander. Upon Blake’s recall to the south, D. Juan de Henestrosa had succeeded to the command; the provincial Junta however, in accord with the general wish of the people and of the troops, appointed O’Donnell in his stead, and this nomination was ♦Garcia Conde made governor of Lerida.♦ confirmed by the Regency. It gave offence to Garcia Conde, who was an older officer, and had also distinguished himself during the siege of ♦Von Staff, 246.♦ Gerona. He resigned the command of the first division in disgust: this act of intemperance, however, was overlooked, and he was made governor of Lerida, a post of great importance at that time, but to which his services and his character seemed fairly to entitle him. The Duque del Parque had more reason for displeasure at O’Donnell’s promotion; in the belief that he was to have the command in Catalonia by the express desire of the Catalan people, he had taken leave of his own army, and Romana had been appointed to succeed him.

If heroes who carry victory with their single presence were to be produced as if by miracle, according to Lord Holland’s supposition, by democratic institutions, during such struggles as that in which the Spaniards were engaged, fairer opportunities for their appearance could not have been afforded under the most democratic forms than were given both by the Central Junta and by the Regency. There had been a flagrant exception in the case of Alburquerque; the union of high rank, deserved popularity, and great military talents in his person, had excited unworthy jealousies in some, and worse passions in others: but in every other instance, promotion had rapidly followed upon desert; a rash and even ruinous confidence had been shown where any promise of ability appeared; and men were raised so rapidly, that they became giddy with their sudden elevation. But Henrique O’Donnell justified the expectations which had been formed of him. While the French proclaimed in their official accounts, that now Gerona had been taken, little more was required for the complete subjugation of Catalonia; that the Ampurdam was already reduced; that the peasants, as they were taken in arms, were hung up in great numbers upon the trees along the road side, and that the French communications had at length been rendered secure, the fall of Gerona, like that of Zaragoza, had animated the Spaniards, not discouraged them: they looked to the spirit which the garrison and the inhabitants had displayed, not to the surrender which famine had rendered inevitable, and in the religious and heroic endurance which had there been manifested, found cause for more ennobling pride and surer hope than a victory in the field would have given them. Eroles was charged by the superior Junta to enforce the decree for embodying every fifth man. He called upon the Catalans in language suited to the times, reminding them of their forefathers who spread terror through the Greek empire; and referring to those regiments of the Gerona garrison, which but a little while before the siege had been filled up with men thus levied, as having exemplified not less illustriously the powerful effects of discipline. By this means the army was recruited, and the men hoping for change of fortune with every change of commander, entered cheerfully upon the service under O’Donnell, who had hitherto only been known by his adventurous exploits and his success.

In the other parts of Spain, grievously as all had suffered, the scene of action had frequently been shifted; but in Catalonia there had been no intermission. From the commencement till the termination of the war, the struggle was carried on there without an interval of rest. A memorable instance of the provincial spirit was given at this time by the people of Villadrau, an open town, in the plain of Vich; on the approach of an enemy’s detachment, which they had no means of resisting, the whole of its inhabitants, in the middle of February, retired to the mountains. The French Commandant, finding the place utterly deserted, wrote to the Regidor, telling him that if the inhabitants were not brought back by the following day, he should be obliged to report their conduct to Marshal Augereau, and take the necessary measures for reducing them to obedience: at the same time he assured him that the most effectual means should be used for preserving order. This answer was returned by the Regidor: “All these people, that the French nation may know the love they bear to their religion, their King, and their country, are contented to remain buried among the snows of Montsen, rather than submit to the hateful dominion of the French troops.” So many families, in the same spirit, forsook their homes, rather than remain subject to the invaders, that the superior Junta, at O’Donnell’s suggestion, issued an order for providing them with quarters in the same manner as the soldiers. The exceptions to this spirit were found, where they were to be expected, in the rich commercial towns, as at Reus. If the people of Barcelona, like those of Villadrau, and of so many smaller places, had abandoned their houses, that city could not long have been held by the enemy; in that case the blockade might have been as rigorous, and almost as effectual by land as by sea: but provisions for the use of the inhabitants were allowed by the Spanish generals to enter; and therefore, though the French might be sometimes inconvenienced, it was certain that they would never be exposed to any serious danger of famine.

The communication between Gerona and that city was impeded by Hostalrich, a modern fortress, overlooking a small and decayed town, which had once been fortified. It is situated on high and broken ground, seven leagues from Gerona. The intermediate country is of the wildest character, consisting of mountains covered with pines; the road winds through sundry defiles, so narrow, that in most places the river nearly fills up the way; the pass is so difficult, that in one part it has obtained the name of El Purgatorio; and the outlet is commanded by this fortress. Part of the town had been burnt during the siege of Gerona, when the magazines which had been collected there were taken by the enemy. An enemy’s division, under the Italian General Mazzuchelli, occupied it now, preparatory to the siege of the castle; the inhabitants, upon their approach, took refuge in the church, and there defended themselves till a detachment of the garrison sallied, and relieved them; and before the blockade of the fortress was pressed, they had time to remove and seek shelter where they could. The garrison meantime prepared for a Spanish defence. This fortress, said the governor Julian de Estrada, is the daughter of Gerona, and ought to imitate the example of its mother!

The siege began on the 13th of January: a week afterwards one of the outworks, called the Friars’ Tower, was attacked; the officer in command, D. Francisco Oliver, was killed by a hand-grenade, which exploded as he was in the act of throwing it; and the man who succeeded him, immediately, either through cowardice, or from a worse motive, surrendered his post. Augereau, who was at this time come to inspect the siege and accelerate the operations, thought it a good opportunity to intimidate the governor. He therefore summoned him to surrender, saying, that the garrison should in that case be allowed the honours of war, and marched as prisoners into France; giving them two hours to reply, and warning them that if they refused to submit upon this summons, they must not expect to be treated like soldiers, but should suffer capital punishment, as men taken in rebellion against their lawful king. Estrada replied, that the Spaniards had no other king than Ferdinand VII. The siege was carried on with little vigour till the 20th of February, when the French began to bombard the fort; but the men who defended it showed themselves worthy of the cause in which they were engaged, and of their commander; and here, as at Gerona, the French, with all their skill, and all their numbers, found that the strength of a fortress depends less upon its walls and bulwarks, than upon the virtue of those who defend it.

The force under Augereau’s command was sufficiently large for carrying on the siege of Hostalrich, commencing operations against Lerida, and acting at the same time against O’Donnell, whose troops the French Marshal despised, as consisting merely of raw levies. He was soon taught to respect them and their General; for when he himself went to Barcelona with a considerable convoy of stores, and 1500 of the garrison were sent to occupy O’Donnell’s attention, not a fifth part of the number effected their retreat into the city. More than 500 of the French were slain, and nearly as many taken ♦Desertion from the French army.♦ prisoners. They suffered a greater loss from desertion. Buonaparte had pursued the wicked policy of forcing into his own service the Austrian prisoners taken in the late war; 800 of these men went over to the Spaniards in a body, stipulating only that they might keep their arms, and remain together, till they should be distributed among the regiments of the line. General Doyle had addressed proclamations to the soldiers in the French service, not only in the French and Spanish languages, but in Italian, Dutch, German, and Polish also, setting before them the real cause of a war, the nature of which they saw and felt. The Catalans too had learnt the good policy of distinguishing between the French and the foreigners in the French army, treating the latter, when they were taken, with kindness, as men who had been brought against them by compulsion. The effect of this system, and of the proclamations, was such as greatly to alarm the enemy. They lost in this manner more than 6000 men, wretched as the service was to which the men went over. It was not possible for them to take any effectual means for checking this evil, when such constant opportunities were offered in the desultory warfare which they were compelled to carry on.

Had the Spanish army been even in a tolerable condition, this cause must have produced the ruin of the French in Catalonia; but the deserters found that they were exchanging a bad service for a worse. The French troops, though by a policy not less ruinous than detestable, left to supply themselves as they could, were, even at the worst, better provided than the Spaniards in their best state. They had always the benefit of system, regularity, and order; while the Spaniards suffered as much from the confusion which insubordination and the total want of method occasioned, as from neglect on the part of the local authorities and the provincial government. Owing to these combined causes their armies were often in a state of destitution. Unanimous as Spain was in its feeling of indignant abhorrence at the insolent usurpation which Buonaparte had attempted, it was divided against itself whenever provincial interests appeared to clash. Neither Catalonia nor Valencia would at this time make common cause with Arragon, although they were engaged with the same passionate feeling, for the same object, against the same enemy, and although their own safety was immediately involved in the fate of that kingdom. The Arragonese army consisted of about 13,000 men in three divisions, one of which was near Teruel, another near Tortosa, and the third on the line of the Cinca; the men were without pay, without arms, without clothing; the officers on a fourth part of their appointments. Twenty thousand men would eagerly have joined that army, if they could have been armed and fed; the people had given abundant proof of their zeal, and spirit, and devotion, and the army had done its duty: yet Valencia would spare them none of its own ample resources, and the Catalan government even stopped the supplies which were intended for Arragon. The Arragonese felt this the more indignantly, because, while Lazan was at their head, his rank and influence ensured some attention to his representations on their behalf; but Lazan, whether or not justly, had been arrested, as being implicated in the intrigues of Montijo and D. Francisco Palafox, and was kept a close prisoner in Peñiscola. The judge who officially inquired into his conduct declared that there was not the slightest proof ♦1810.
February.♦ against him; and upon the overthrow of the Central Junta, Saavedra dispatched an order for his liberation; but the Junta of Valencia, with that order in their hands, detained him in strict confinement.

No province had as yet suffered so little as Valencia; the people were proud of the spirit and signal success with which they had repelled Marshal Moncey from the walls of their capital; their country was the most fertile and most populous part of Spain; men were in abundance, wealth was not wanting, and there were more appearances of activity and preparation than were any where else to be seen. In every town and village militia and guerilla bands were formed; about 50,000 were thus embodied, the greater part armed with fire-arms; and besides these there were 11,000 troops of the line; but with this force nothing was undertaken. Good service might have been rendered on one side by harassing the enemy’s communications in La Mancha; and scenes of more important action were open both in Arragon and Catalonia, ... even on their own borders; but the will, courage, and means were inefficient, for want of capacity in their leaders. They waited for the enemy upon their own ground, in hope and in confidence, but without foresight or system. General Doyle endeavoured to convince the provincial government that no time should be lost in fortifying the important points of Morella, Oropesa, and Murviedro. He inferred from some of Suchet’s movements an intention to establish himself in the latter place, which would have cut off the communication between Catalonia and the rest of Spain, and have given him command of the Huerta de Valencia, and of the whole country to the very gates of Tortosa. But in the confidence and confusion which prevailed alike in the people and in the officers and the rulers, nothing was done; and so far were they from storing Tarragona, and forming a depôt at Peñiscola, as the importance of the crisis required, that Tortosa itself had not at this time provisions for a week’s consumption. They relied upon the defence of their frontier, upon their own numbers and resources, upon fortune and Providence; for themselves, they were ready to meet the danger manfully whenever it should come, ... but as for any system of defence, to fortune and Providence that seemed to be left.

The Valencians were in this state when the half-armed, half-clothed, half-hungered Arragonese, with whom their abundant means ought to have been shared, were dispersed, and the frontier in consequence was left open. General Caro determined to march upon Teruel, which the French had entered, but the movements of an active enemy soon compelled him to change this determination. One division of Suchet’s army advanced from Alcañiz upon Morella; no means had been taken for strengthening that important point, the Valencians therefore fell back from thence, and from San Mateo also, and the enemy, without experiencing any opposition, proceeded by Burriol with all speed toward Murviedro. Meantime Suchet with the other division advanced upon the same point by way of Alventosa; there he encountered a brave resistance from the vanguard of Caro’s army, and after a contest, which lasted nearly the whole day, was repulsed. The Spanish commander, expecting a renewal of the attack, requested a reinforcement from Segorbe; he was informed in reply, that General Caro had ordered the troops to fall back upon the capital. This disheartened men who were too prone to interpret an order for retreating as a signal for flight; they dispersed upon the next attack, leaving the artillery upon the ground; Segorbe was entered in pursuit, and Suchet, having sacked that place, effected a junction with the other division of his army at Murviedro.

His corps consisted of about 12,000 men, with thirty field-pieces; a force manifestly insufficient for its object, if he had not counted upon the success of his machinations in the capital. ♦Suchet advances against Valencia.♦ From thence he advanced to the Puig, and having fixed his head-quarters on the spot ♦March 6.♦ where King Jayme el Conquistador had encamped when he undertook the conquest of Valencia, he addressed a letter to the Captain General Caro, saying, that he came not to make war upon the happy capital of the finest kingdom in Spain, nor to lay waste the delicious country which surrounded it, but to offer protection and peace, such as Jaen, and Granada, ♦1810.
March.♦ and Cordoba, and Seville were enjoying. Andalusia had submitted; the army, having discharged its duty, had entered into the service of King Joseph Napoleon; and the militia, consisting of men enlisted by force, and under the penalty of death if they refused, had been dismissed. Religion was respected, justice observed, private property untouched; and General Caro was now invited to open the gates of Valencia, that the French might enter, and he might deserve the blessings of his country. Wherefore should he prolong a contest, the issue of which the Spaniards themselves could now no longer consider doubtful? They had done enough to prove their courage, and it was time that their sufferings should have an end. The Captain General’s answer contained some stinging truths, and some remarkable falsehoods. It contrasted the professions of General Suchet with his actual conduct; and it assured him that the French had been completely defeated between Puerto Real and the Isle of Leon, that they had evacuated Seville in consequence, and were in full retreat toward the Sierra Morena. Authentic intelligence was so irregularly communicated, and the most extravagant reports so eagerly propagated and so readily believed, that it is very possible the Captain General of Valencia believed the incredible statement which he advanced. Suchet addressed a summons also to the inhabitants of Valencia, calling upon them as proprietors and parents to consult their own interest and their duty, by preserving their beautiful and flourishing city from the calamities of war. They returned for answer, that they were prepared to sacrifice every thing in the defence of their just cause; that having defeated Moncey in a similar attempt, they had good reason now to hope for the same success; and that it was for his Excellency, who so humanely deprecated the effusion of blood, to consider whether the best method of avoiding that evil was not to abstain from an attack?

Suchet, in fact, had no intention of making one. It was, however, expected by the Valencians; and in that expectation the superior Junta, by Caro’s advice, had removed to St. Felipe, a city to which it seems strange that its old name of Xativa should not have been at this time restored. There they were to exert themselves for supplying the capital and annoying the invaders, a military Junta being appointed meantime within the city, to dispose of the peasantry who had flocked thither, and to direct the labours of a willing people. A former Junta had been assembled after the dispersion at Alventosa, and in the course of the ensuing night every member had been arrested upon a charge of treason. An edict also was passed, confiscating the property of all who had fled from the city at this time, their absence being interpreted as proof either of cowardice or of treachery. Such severity was not without cause. Relying upon their intelligence in the city, the van of the French army entered the suburb of Murviedro, and occupied the College of Pius V. the Royal Palace, and the Zaidia, all which are without the walls on the farther bank of the Turia. From the palace they fired upon the bridge; and they exasperated, if it were possible to exasperate, the hatred of the Spaniards, by exposing the images which they had taken from the churches on their march and in the suburbs to the fire of the city, having stript some of their taudry attire, and dressed up others in regimentals. But finding their hopes fail, and not being in sufficient force to venture upon an attack, they decamped during the night of the 11th, retreating with such celerity, that they abandoned great part of their plunder.

The Valencians imputed their deliverance on this occasion to their Patroness and Generalissima, the Virgin, under her invocation of Maria Santissima de los Desamparados, and to the Saints who were natives of Valencia. A deliverance it was; for a plan had actually been formed to assassinate the Captain General, and proclamations in favour of King Joseph and his French allies were found upon the chief mover of this treason, Colonel Baron de Pozoblanco. This person, who appears to have been a revolutionary fanatic, suffered under the hangman; his head was exposed upon a stake in the market-place, with an inscription under it, announcing his crime, and charging him also with belonging to the sect of the illuminated Egyptian freemasons, which was said to be extending itself from Madrid into La Mancha, Murcia, and Valencia, and to have converted the different appellations of the Virgin into distinctive names for its own organization.

Suchet’s expedition was not made without loss; some of his garrisons and smaller parties were cut off by the Arragonese troops in his rear, under D. Pedro Villacampa. The Castle of Benasque had been taken before he marched against Valencia, and that capture completed his military possession of the north of Arragon; but the people, when deprived of their fortresses, found fastnesses in their mountains, and waged from thence a wearying and wasting war against their oppressors; and Mina’s prisoners were escorted from the frontier of Navarre to Lerida, through a country of which the French called and fancied themselves masters. This desultory warfare was carried on in Catalonia also with no less skill than success. Augereau had supposed, that after the reduction of Gerona little more was necessary for the complete subjugation of the province; he boasted of a victory in the plain of Vich, the most glorious, it was said, which the French had yet obtained, wherein O’Donnell had lost 7000 men, with the whole of his baggage, and after which he could find no place of safety till he had taken refuge under the walls of Tarragona. Souham in like manner proclaimed that the famous Rovira had fled before him, notwithstanding his vaunts of the incursions, robberies, and assassinations upon which he prided himself. It was presently seen with what little foundation the invaders boasted of these triumphs.

O’Donnell’s movements were not in consequence of a defeat. Having experienced the superiority which the enemy’s discipline gave them in the management of large bodies, he had immediate recourse to that system of warfare, in which enterprise, celerity, and the ardour of the soldiers, are of more avail than tactics. Therefore he retreated rapidly from Moya to Terrasa, leaving Manresa uncovered: the inhabitants of that city forsook it on the approach of the French; and O’Donnell continuing ♦March 16.♦ to lead the invaders on, fell back, first to Villa-franca del Panades, then to Torre-dembarra, finally under the walls of Tarragona, executing these movements in good order, and without loss. The enemy, in pursuit, as they believed, of a flying army, occupied Manresa with 1500 men, left 900 in Villa-franca, and proceeded till they also came in sight of Tarragona. One division occupied Vendrell, and extended to Arco de Barra, upon the high road to Barcelona; but in a few days this division joined the main body, which was at Coll de Santa Cristina, and they immediately advanced ♦March 28.♦ towards Valls. O’Donnell, profiting by this movement, sent Camp Marshal D. Juan Caro against Villa-franca; Caro proceeded by forced marches, and surprised the enemy on the following ♦March 30.♦ morning; between 200 and 300 were killed, and 640 made prisoners, not a man escaping. Caro himself was wounded; the command of his detachment devolved upon Brigadier D. Gervasio Gasca, and they proceeded toward Manresa, to attack the enemy, who occupied that town.

A body of 500 or 600 had already been sent to reinforce the French in Manresa, and had effected their junction, though not without the loss of two carts of ammunition, and forty killed, in an action with a party of somatenes and of expatriates, as those Spaniards were called whose homes were occupied by the enemy. Augereau no sooner heard of the loss in Villa-franca, than, apprehending a similar attack upon Manresa, he ordered a further reinforcement of 1200 men from Barcelona, to proceed thither with the utmost celerity. Gasca, receiving timely intelligence of their movement, instead ♦April 3.♦ of proceeding upon Manresa, marched to intercept this column, and fell in with it between Esparraguera and Abrera; 400 were left upon the field, 500 made prisoners, and the remainder fled toward Barcelona, not more than 200 reaching that city. The Spaniards, after this second success, prepared to execute their projected attack upon the enemy in Manresa, and the Marquis de Campoverde took the command for this purpose: but the men had exerted themselves too much in forced marches and in action to perform a third enterprise with the same celerity as the two former; and on the night before the attack should have been made, Schwartz, who headed the French detachment, evacuated the town, and took the road to Barcelona by Santa Clara, Barata, and Marieta. He began his retreat at eleven on the night of the 4th. Brigadier D. Francisco Milans, who was stationed at St. Fructuos, passing the night under arms, to be ready for the attack at seven on the following morning, was apprised of the enemy’s retreat between four and five, and dispatched the corps of expatriates, under Rovira, in pursuit, while the rest of the division followed as fast as possible. Rovira, whom the French had lately reviled as a wretch who was flying before them, passing in two hours over a distance which was the ordinary journey of four, in their pursuit, overtook them at Hostalet, and attacked them with his usual intrepidity. Schwartz, whose force consisted of 1500 men, formed them into a column, and continued to retreat, fighting as he went. Rovira, however, so impeded his movements, that he gave time for Milans to come up with him near Sabadell; the Spaniards then charged with the bayonet; 500 of the French fell, 300 were made prisoners; Schwartz himself was wounded, and owed his life to the swiftness of his horse. Some of the French, after having surrendered, were said to have fired upon the Spaniards, and this was assigned as the cause why the number of the slain exceeded that of the prisoners.

The amount of the killed and taken in these actions falls far short of the sum of the French loss; for the desertion was very great, every defeat giving the Germans, who were forced into their wicked service, an opportunity of escaping from it. The whole loss which they sustained from these well-planned enterprises was not less than 5000. O’Donnell hoped that he should now be enabled to relieve Hostalrich; but the main body of the French returning toward Barcelona from Reus, which they had taken possession of a few days before, compelled Campoverde’s division to fall back, and thus prevented the attempt. In Catalonia, indeed, though more military talent and far more energy were displayed than in the other provinces, it was less a war of armies than of the people against a great military force. Wherever the French moved in large bodies, the Catalans could not resist them, or resisted in vain; in general actions and in sieges, the enemy were sure to be successful; the French, therefore, and they in this country who would have had us abandon the Peninsula to their mercy, concluded that the party which won battles, and captured fortresses, must necessarily soon become masters of the country; and they reasoned thus, because they never took into their calculation the national character, the natural strength of Spain, and the moral strength of man.

The effect of that moral power was shown not less admirably at Hostalrich than it had been at Zaragoza and Gerona, though the three sieges differed from each other in all their circumstances. The little town of Hostalrich was not included within the works, and the fortress contained no other inhabitants than its garrison. The bombardment began on the 20th of February. The adjutant, D. Jose Antonio Roca, was writing a dispatch for the governor to the commander-in-chief, when a shell burst so near them, that one of the fragments entered the room and swept away every thing from off the table: Roca picked up his paper, and, remarking that the sand which it carried with it might save him the trouble of telling the general they were bombarded, continued his dispatch. A private soldier, who went out of the works for water, received a musket-ball in his groin as he was returning; he laid one hand upon the wound, and carrying in the pitcher steadily with the other, met his serjeant, to whom he delivered it; then groping in the wound for the ball, which probably had not gone deep, he pulled it out with his fingers, and gave it to the serjeant, saying, “I deposit this ball in your hands; keep it for me, and as soon as I am cured, this very bullet shall revenge me upon the first Frenchman at whom I can get a shot.” And as he went to the hospital he charged his comrades, in case he should not live to take vengeance for himself, that they would take it for him. Such was the spirit with which Hostalrich was defended. “Let every circumstance of the siege be made known!” said this brave garrison; “if we are successful, the detail will give hope, and confidence, and joy to every true patriot; if we are unfortunate, it will excite a different feeling, but it will never produce shame or dismay.”

Verdier, who now commanded the besieging force, addressed a new summons to the governor at the time of O’Donnell’s retreat to Tarragona, representing that movement as the consequence of a total defeat. “The wreck of the Spanish army,” he said, “was seeking a moment’s shelter in Tarragona and Tortosa, vigorously pursued by Augereau in person, who would immediately commence the siege of both places. The siege of Lerida was already far advanced, and its fall inevitable. Hostalrich was a fort of no other use than as it interrupted the communication between Gerona and Barcelona; and this purpose it no longer effected, the French having made a new road, and communicating freely between those cities. The object, therefore, for defending it, no longer existed; and longer resistance, instead of adding to the governor’s glory, would be called a vain obstinacy, draw upon him the reproaches of posterity, and make him responsible for the blood which should be shed.” Considering these circumstances, the French general summoned him to surrender, and offered him the honours of war. The Marshal Duke of Castiglione, Augereau, he added, revoking his former declaration, had authorized him to propose these terms. “You will do well, sir,” he continued, “to accept them with glory; if you delay, they will without doubt be refused to you; and you will then be obliged to suffer conditions, which, however rigorous they may appear, are dictated by justice, seeing that a protracted resistance is neither justified by honour nor by reason.” Estrada replied, by simply referring him to his former determination, and to the conduct of the garrison.

The situation of the fortress, upon a craggy height, secured it against an assault, while there were any resolute men to defend it. The bombardment continued till every building within the walls had been destroyed, except a casemate, which served as an hospital, and was only large enough to hold one-and-twenty beds; the remainder of the sick and wounded were secured in a mine, and the garrison also had their quarters under ground. Supplies had been introduced about the middle of the siege; all other attempts had been defeated, and would have been of no avail at length had they succeeded, because the cisterns were destroyed. Estrada had the example of O’Donnell’s retreat from Gerona before him, and determined to make his way through the enemy’s lines, rather than capitulate. This he concerted with O’Donnell, ♦1810.
May.♦ who, for the purpose of deceiving the besiegers, ordered some vessels to approach Arenys de Mar, the nearest part of the coast, sent one detachment to call off their attention on the side of Orsaviña and Monnegre, and another on the southern skirts of Monseny, toward Breda. Augereau, who had come to witness the capture of a fortress which had resisted him for four months, sent in a last summons on the evening of the 11th of May, offering the same terms which had been granted to Gerona; he allowed the governor two hours for consideration, and declared, that if the fort was not then delivered up, the whole of the garrison should be put to the sword. Estrada laid this before his officers, and with one consent they returned for answer, that they thanked the Marshal for thinking them worthy of being thus named with Gerona, but that they were not yet in a condition which should make them yield. On the following morning, the men, to their great joy, were informed of the resolution which had been taken.

The French expected such an attempt, and judged, from the stir which they beheld in the fort, that it would be made in the ensuing night. That evening, therefore, they strengthened their post at Tordera on the right, thinking, as the men themselves did, that the governor would make for Arenys de Mar, where the ships were awaiting him. At ten, the garrison descended the glacis on the side of the high road of St. Celoni, and crossed the road and the space between the fort and the heights of Masanas. It was broad moonlight. Two advanced parties, to the right and left, fell upon the enemy’s picquets with the bayonet; those, however, who escaped gave the alarm; but the garrison had gained the start, ascended to St. Jacinto, and hastened toward St. Feliu de Buxaleu. A league from Hostalrich they fell in with an enemy’s encampment, and routed them; this gave the alarm to another body of 2000 French, whose station was near, on the road to Arbucias; but they were received so resolutely, that they soon gave over the pursuit. Thus all was effected which could be done by skill and courage; one division lost its way, and many of the men dropt on the road, their strength failing them on this great exertion, from the want of rest and food, which they had long endured. Among them was the noble Julian de Estrada, who thus fell into the hands of the enemy: this was a heavier loss to his country than that of the fortress which he had defended so well; for in the course of the war, Catalonia had but too much cause bitterly to regret the loss of such men as Estrada and Alvarez. Five hundred men reached Vich in safety on the following day, 132 joined them on the next, being part of the battalion of Gerona, who had lost their way and fallen in with the enemy; stragglers continually came in, and on the evening of that day, the number who had accomplished their retreat amounted to 800, though the French asserted, that every man was either killed or taken.

In such an enterprise, it was impossible to bring off the sick and wounded; the comptroller of the hospital, D. Manuel Miguel Mellado, remained with them to go through the form of delivering up the ruins, and provide for their safety. Such of the invalids as were best able mounted guard, the gates were closed, and the drawbridges raised; and in this state Mellado anxiously waited for what might happen. Half an hour before midnight, a brisk fire of musketry was poured in upon the flanks of the ravelin, and of St. Francisco. Mellado called out to the enemy to cease firing, for the fort was theirs; and he requested them to wait till the morning, that he might deliver a letter from the governor to the French general. They replied, they would suffer no delay, the gates must instantly be opened; otherwise, they had ladders, and would enter and put every man to the sword. He, however, told them he would not open the gates till he had seen their general; upon this they renewed their fire, setting up a loud shout like men who were about to obtain possession of their prey. Mellado hastened to the bulwark of St. Barbara, where he apprehended the escalade would be made, and there he perceived that the enemy, who had found a rope-ladder in the covered way, were endeavouring to grapple the drawbridge with it; but, either from the weight of the rope, which rendered it difficult to be thrown, or because the irons were not sufficiently sharp to lay hold, their attempts were frustrated. This Mellado could not foresee; and knowing that no time was to be lost, he hastened out through a covered way to the nearest work of the enemy, and called out to the commandant, requesting him to stop the assault, and send him to the general, that he might deliver the governor’s letter; the party who were flanking the ravelin, no sooner heard his voice than they fired a volley towards it; upon which, without waiting for an answer, he hastened to the nearest centinel of the French, and the captain of the guard conducted him to the French commandant in the town; whom he entreated to have compassion upon the wounded in the fort, and call off the assailants. This officer was a man of humanity, and instantly sent off to suspend the assault, while Mellado, who was now delivered from his fears for his poor defenceless countrymen, was escorted to the general. In the morning the gates were opened to the enemy. The French soldiers gave sufficient proof how little mercy the wounded would have found at their hands, had they been under no control, for they stript the clothes and blankets from the beds of these helpless men. Mazzachelli gave orders that they should be conveyed to Gerona; and Mellado, having seen this performed, and perceiving that it was intended to detain him and his assistants as prisoners, took the first opportunity of making his escape.

At the very time when the garrison of Hostalrich, after a four months’ defence, and a bombardment, during which between three and four thousand shells were thrown into the place, ♦May 13.♦ thus gallantly effected their retreat, the Catalans suffered another loss. The islands and fortress of Las Medas, which were of material importance from their position on the coast, were surprised by a party of Neapolitan infantry, and given up in a manner which the French imputed to cowardice, though, by their own account, treason, on the part of the commander, was the only intelligible cause of the surrender. Lerida also was rather betrayed than yielded by Garcia Conde. The town was entered by assault: and the castle, where the works were uninjured, and which, under Alvarez or Estrada, might have rivalled Gerona, was surrendered the next day. For this there was no excuse; O’Donnell’s last orders to the governor had been, that if the city should be taken, he was to defend the fortresses; and if no such orders had been given, his duty required him to hold out to the last extremity. The commander-in-chief, who rewarded the defenders of Hostalrich with a medal, stigmatized this conduct as it deserved; but he reminded the Catalans, that Tarragona, Tortosa, Cardona, Berga, Seu de Urgel, Coll de Ballaguer, and Mequinenza, still remained as bulwarks of the principality; that if all these were lost, there would be their inaccessible mountains; and that when they began the war, they had neither army nor fortresses, for all their fortified places had been dismantled. A wound which he had received during the siege of Gerona, and which had never been healed, because he never allowed himself rest enough from the incessant and anxious activity of his situation, became now so threatening, that he was constrained for a while to withdraw from ♦Augereau superseded by Marshal Macdonald.♦ the command. Augereau also, about the same time, was recalled. His success in sieges did not expiate, in Buonaparte’s eyes, for the loss in men and reputation which he had sustained from an enemy who were now become as wary as they were active and enterprising. Marshal Macdonald, Duke of Tarento, succeeded him. The plunder of Barcelona was sent into France under Augereau’s escort; and a number of commercial adventurers from that country, who, being deceived by the French official accounts, had supposed that Spain was actually subdued, and gone thither with the intent of forming establishments, gladly seized the first opportunity of returning in safety.

If the war was carried on by the Catalans with an unwearied and unremitting energy which was not displayed in other parts of Spain, it was not wholly owing to that enterprising and unconquerable spirit by which they have always been characterized, but in some degree to the natural strength of the province, and still more to the advantage which they derived from having many places in their possession which could not be reduced without a regular siege. Throughout Spain there existed the same feeling of indignation against the invaders, ... but where the country, the villages, and the towns were alike open, there was not the same possibility of resistance; plains could not be defended by peasantry; nor could the contest be maintained by large bodies against a superior enemy, when there were neither fortified towns nor natural fastnesses on which they could retire. In such parts the war was carried on by guerilla parties, who made incursions from the mountainous districts into the plains, and whenever it was necessary to disperse, found friends every where. Wherever the French were nominally masters of the country, the guerillas harassed their communication, cut off their small parties, and diminished their numbers by a mode of warfare as disheartening to the enemy as it was consuming and inglorious; while in the stronger parts of the kingdom, such as Asturias, and the province of Cuenca, and the mountains of Ronda, the inhabitants perseveringly defended their native soil.