Both in Portugal and in Andalusia the French had at length encountered a resistance which, with their utmost efforts, they were unable to overcome: but their career of success continued longer in the eastern provinces, where their operations were conducted with more unity of purpose, and where Great Britain afforded only a precarious and inefficient aid to the best and bravest of the Spaniards.

No sooner had Tortosa fallen, than Marshal Macdonald began to prepare at Lerida for laying siege to Tarragona. The arrival at Barcelona of a convoy of ammunition and grain from Toulon relieved him from all anxiety on that point, and left him at leisure to direct his whole attention to this great object, which in a military view would complete the conquest of Catalonia, ... any other Buonaparte was incapable of taking. Tortosa was to be the pivot of the intended operations against Tarragona first, and after its fall, which was not doubted, against Valencia; and to facilitate these operations, Col de Balaguer was put in a state of defence, and Fort Rapita which commanded the mouth of the Ebro. These measures had been taken when General Suchet received orders from Paris to undertake the siege, and was at the same time informed that Lower Catalonia was to be under his command. Early in the preceding year this general had ♦March 19.♦ been told that he must raise in his government of Aragon means both for the pay and subsistence of his troops, France being no longer able to support such an expense; and that while he was to communicate as before with the E’tat-major of the army ♦The Pyrenean provinces administered in Buonaparte’s name.♦ concerning military affairs, he was to receive instructions upon all matters relating to the administration, police, and finances of the country, from the Emperor alone. It was evident, therefore, that Buonaparte was as little disposed to keep faith with his brother, King Joseph, as he had been with his ally Charles IV., and Ferdinand his invited guest, but that it was his intention to extend the frontier of France from the Pyrenees to the Ebro; and in fact from that time all orders of the government in that part of the Peninsula were issued in his name. The faithful Spaniards cared not in which name it was administered, acknowledging neither, and detesting both: if they had any feeling upon the subject, it was a sense of satisfaction that their unworthy countrymen in the Intruder’s service should be deprived of the shallow pretext with which they sought to excuse their treason to their country. At first this change appeared to increase the difficulties of Suchet’s situation, who, while he looked only to a temporary occupation of the province, would without scruple have supplied himself by force, regardless in what condition he might leave it to those who should succeed him, or what sufferings he might bring upon the inhabitants. But regarding himself now as fixed in a permanent command, it behoved him to adopt measures which, ... if any thing could have that effect upon the Aragonese, might gradually reconcile them to subjection, by giving them the benefit of a military government, regularly as well as vigorously administered.

The province was in a miserable state: though the population had increased from the end of the Succession war till the beginning of Charles IV.’s reign, it had diminished since that time, owing to causes which have not been explained. There were 150 deserted villages in it, and nearly 400 in which a few houses were all that remained, ... this, not in consequence of the existing war, but of the preceding decay. Yet before the invasion, Aragon exported corn, wine, and oil to Catalonia on one side, and to Navarre on the other: to that export the war had put an end; fields, and vineyards, and oliveyards, had been laid waste; and an enormous consumption of sheep by the armies had almost destroyed the only kind of cattle which in that country could be depended on for food. It had been drained of money also both by the national and intrusive governments: before the siege of Zaragoza, three millions of francs had been remitted to Seville; and the spoils of the suppressed convents to the amount of a million reales and 3000 marks of silver had been afterwards sent to Joseph’s treasury at Madrid. Very many families, and among them all the wealthiest, had emigrated, taking with them all the specie they could collect, ... the miserable remains of their fortunes. Trade had suffered in the same degree as agriculture; there were no manufacturers left; and from a province in this condition, which in its best times paid only four million francs to its native government, eight millions were to be raised for the annual pay of the troops alone. Suchet began by levying an extraordinary contribution per month, which ♦System of the French general.♦ more than doubled in amount the tax in ordinary times; the mode of collecting was prepared for him by a regulation of Philip V., who, as a punishment upon the three provinces of Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia, for their adherence to his opponent the Archduke Charles, had subjected them to a property tax, taking from them the privilege which they had formerly possessed of taxing themselves. It might have been thought impossible to wring this additional impost from a ruined people; but the hoards of prudence, of selfishness, and of misery are opened at such times, and what has been withheld from the pressing necessities of a just cause, is yielded to a domineering enemy; and Suchet, while he insisted to the utmost upon the law of the strongest, and regarded no other law, had clear views of the policy by which obedience to that law is to be facilitated or conciliated. No compunction withheld him from any crime which he deemed it expedient to commit; but he would do good as well as evil, and perhaps more willingly, when it accorded with his purpose; and worldly wisdom producing the effect of better motives might under other circumstances have made him a beneficent ruler. He abolished monopolies, by retaining which nothing was to be gained; he sent for his wife from France, to conciliate the Aragonese ladies by her means, and their husbands by theirs; he employed the influence of those priests who followed the example of their traitorous archbishop; and he purchased with offices in the revenue department and in the police the ablest of the Spaniards whose souls were for sale. Among them was Mariano Dominguez, who having held the office of military Intendant under Palafox during the siege of Zaragoza, lived to be praised by General Suchet for the eminent services which he rendered to the French. He was made corregidor of that city; and it is said that under his administration not a single murder occurred there during eighteen months, though before the war the annual average exceeded three hundred. In no situation does a man seem so cut off from repentance, as when he can reconcile himself to his own dereliction of duty by the good that he may do in an office which he has accepted as the price of his integrity.

The money which Suchet raised for his military and civil establishments was presently expended in the province, to the immediate benefit of the people upon whom it had been levied. The troops were paid every five days, the civil officers regularly received their salaries, and what they received was necessarily spent in the country. Suchet took care also to purchase there whatever it could supply for the clothing and equipment of the troops, paying for it at once from the contributions; and the active circulation ♦Mémoires du Maréshal Suchet, 1. 302.♦ which was thus occasioned, if he may be believed, made the inhabitants themselves sensible that they were gainers by such taxation. He repaired the dykes, the sluices, and the great basin at Mount Torrero which had been destroyed during the siege; the canal was thus again restored: preparations were made for conducting water into the city and erecting fountains there: the hospitals and the bull circus were repaired; bull fights, the national sport and the national reproach, were exhibited; and by these means ... and by his refusal to send the treasure of Our Lady of the Pillar to Madrid, notwithstanding repeated orders to that effect, ... he endeavoured to gratify the Zaragozans, while he erected works about the city to secure it against any sudden attempt. Buonaparte’s orders were not so safely to be disregarded as those of the Intruder; when, ♦British goods burnt at Zaragoza.♦ therefore, Suchet was instructed to confiscate and burn all the English goods which could be found in Aragon, the general remonstrated against so impolitic a measure, and proposed instead to levy a duty upon such goods of fifty per cent.; but Buonaparte hated England too vehemently to be capable of receiving any advice which opposed the indulgence of that insane passion, and Suchet found it necessary to search the warehouses, and make a bonfire of what he found there, in the Plaza Mayor at Zaragoza, taking care however that the search should be as perfunctory as he could venture to make it, and leaving colonial ♦Mémoires, 1. 306.♦ produce untouched because it happened not to be specified in his orders.

But the Spaniards were a people whom no length of time could reconcile to an usurpation by which they felt themselves insulted as much as they were wronged and outraged. Though his political sagacity was equal to his military skill, and though he was placed in a part of the peninsula where the Spaniards never received the slightest assistance from their British allies, even in Aragon he felt the insecurity of his position, and deemed it an advantage of no trifling moment when he could discover a manufactory of arms among the mountains. The Spanish frontier is that upon which France was least provided with military establishments; but the want of stores, which in other quarters could be drawn abundantly from the arsenals of Douay, Metz, and Strasbourg, was supplied here by the treacherous seizure of Pamplona before hostilities commenced, and by the subsequent capture of Lerida, Mequinenza, Tortosa, and Col de Balaguer. In this respect the war had abundantly furnished its own means; nor was he deficient in numbers for the siege which he was about to undertake, the army now under his command consisting of more than 40,000 men, notwithstanding its daily waste, and the great losses it had suffered. The Italian division from 13,000 to 14,000 had been reduced to five or six; but with the population of France, Italy, and the Netherlands, at his disposal, and of those states which, under the name of confederates, were actually subjected to the French government, Buonaparte thought that no war could thin his armies faster than the conscription could recruit them; and under his officers he well knew that men of any nation would soon be made efficient soldiers. Suchet found it better to make the regiments of different nations act together than to keep them in separate divisions; they were more likely thus to be influenced by a common feeling, and less liable to be affected by the proclamations in Italian, German, Dutch, and Polish, as well as Spanish and French, which General Doyle addressed to them, inviting them to abandon the unjust service in which they were engaged. Suchet provided also for their wants with a solicitude which made him deservedly popular among his men. He saw that the commissariat department was better administered by military than by civil agents; and having placed it therefore wholly in their hands, he adopted the farther improvement of giving to each regiment the charge of its own cattle, convoys of which from Pau and Oleron were constantly on the road, protected by a chain of fortified posts from Canfranc and Jaca to Zaragoza. It was found that by this means the cattle were better guarded and more easily fed; that the movements of the army were not impeded by them; and that when the soldiers reached their bivouac they were no longer under the necessity of marauding for their food. This general was as little subject as Massena to any visitations of compassion; but he knew that a system of marauding must in the end prove as fatal to the army which subsisted by it, as to the inhabitants who were the immediate sufferers.

But the people whom he protected from irregular exactions were under an iron yoke; they were to be kept down only by present force and the severest intimidation; and Suchet prepared willingly for the siege of Tarragona, because he saw that the only serious losses which the Spaniards sustained was when they defended fortified places with a large military force. Their armies, when routed in the field, collected again as easily as they were dispersed; but from Lerida, Mequinenza, and Tortosa, no fewer than 800 officers and 18,000 soldiers had been sent prisoners into France. He desired therefore to attack a fortress which would be regularly defended, as much as he dreaded to encounter ♦Mémoires. 2. 17.♦ a civil defence. While he was preparing for the enterprise, the news of Massena’s retreat raised the hopes of the Spaniards, and made their desultory parties everywhere more active: in proportion as they were elated, were the invaders exasperated. A ♦Manresa burnt by Macdonald.♦ considerable force under Marshal Macdonald moved upon Manresa. Sarsfield and Eroles were on the alert to harass its movements: and they attacked its rear at Hostal de Calvet, about an hour’s distance from that city: many of the Manresans were in the field. The disposition of the inhabitants was well known, and perhaps Manresa was marked for vengeance, because it was the first place in Catalonia which had declared against the French; and one of those journals also was printed there which contributed so greatly to keep up the national spirit. Upon whatever pretext, ... for pretexts are never wanting to those who hold that everything ought to succumb before ♦March 30.♦ military force, ... orders were given to burn the city: it was set on fire in the night, and between seven and eight hundred houses were consumed. The very hospitals were not spared, though an agreement had been made between the Spanish and French generals, that they should be considered sacred, and though that agreement was produced by one of the physicians to General Salme, and its observance claimed on the score of honour and good faith as well as of humanity. It availed nothing; the wounded were taken out of their beds; the attendants plundered; the building sacked and set on fire. It was by the light of the flames that Sarsfield and Eroles attacked the enemy at Hostal de Calvet; their orders were that no quarter should that night be given; and in consequence, of many who surrendered (for in this partial action the Catalans had greatly the advantage), one man alone was spared. The commander-in-chief Campoverde accused Macdonald of having in this instance broken his faith, as well as violated the received usages of war; and he ♦April.♦ issued orders that his troops, regular or irregular, should give quarter to no Frenchman, of what rank soever, who might be taken in the vicinity of any place which had been burned or sacked, or in which the inhabitants had been murdered. Subscriptions were raised for the relief of the Manresans; and, as in every case where intimidation was intended, the effect of this atrocity was to render the invaders more odious, and give to that desire of vengeance with which the Spaniards were inflamed the dreadful character of a religious obligation.

Macdonald was at this time meditating an attempt upon Montserrat, the possession of which place would be of great advantage in the operations against Tarragona. But the Catalans were not idle. Looking to something of more permanent importance than could be achieved in desultory warfare, Rovira, who from the commencement of the struggle had so distinguished himself as to be honoured with the particular invectives of the French, had long projected schemes for recovering from the enemy some of the fortresses whereof they had possessed themselves, and these schemes he proposed to the successive generals in the principality, all of whom, till Campoverde took the command, regarded them as impracticable. Rovira, however, was not deterred by ridicule from prosecuting plans which appeared to him well founded; and Campoverde at length listened ♦Scheme for the recovery of Barcelona frustrated.♦ to his representations. He had established a communication in Barcelona, which, like other attempts of the like nature, was discovered; and five persons, two of whom were women, were condemned to death for it, but only one, Miguel Alzina by name, fell into the enemy’s hand, and he was executed upon the glacis of Monjuic. The sentence charged him with having conspired to betray that fortress and the place of Barcelona to the Spaniards: this he had done, and in suffering for it, felt that he was dying a martyr to his country’s cause: but he was charged also with having intended to poison the garrison; and that any such purpose should have been sanctioned by the commander-in-chief, under whose sanction the scheme was formed, or that it should have been communicated to him, or even formed at all, is not to be believed. Of the persons who were acquitted of any share in the conspiracy, two were nevertheless ordered to be sent into France, and there detained till the general pacification of Catalonia; and one, who was niece of Alzina, to be confined in a nunnery, under the special observation of the vicar-general and of the prioress, who were to be responsible for her.

Rovira had concerted a plan also for surprising Figueras: it was conceived in the spirit of more adventurous ages, and therefore, some of those persons who felt no such spirit in themselves called it, in mockery, the Rovirada; to better minds, however, it appeared so feasible for men like those who had undertaken it, that Martinez, the commandant of the division of Ampurdan, was instructed by Campoverde to join him in the attempt.

Figueras is a little town situated in the midst of the fertile plain of Ampurdan, eighteen miles from the French frontier. Some centuries ago it was burned, and its castle razed, by the Count of Ampurias, in his war with Jayme I. of Aragon; but in the last century, Ferdinand VI. erected there one of the finest fortifications in Europe, which he called, after his canonized namesake and predecessor, the Castle of St. Fernando. It is an irregular pentagon, the site of which has been so well chosen upon the solid and bare rock, that it is scarcely possible to open trenches against it on any side; and it commands the plain, serving as an entrenched camp for 16,000 men. As a fortress it is a masterpiece of art; no cost was spared upon it, and the whole was finished in that character of magnificence which the public works of Spain continued to exhibit in the worst ages of the Spanish monarchy. But an English traveller made this prophetic remark ♦Townsend’s Travels, 1. p. 81. 3rd edition.♦ when he visited Figueras in the year 1786: “Every such fortress requires an army to defend it, and when the moment of trial comes, the whole may depend on the weakness or treachery of a commander, and instead of being a defence to the country, may afford a lodgement to the enemy.” Nowhere has that apprehension been more fully verified than in the place where it was excited. Figueras was surrendered to France in the revolutionary war, by corruption or by treason, more likely than by cowardice; for the governor had behaved bravely at Toulon. After the peace he returned to Spain, was delivered over to trial, and condemned to lose his head: but the punishment was commuted for perpetual exile. When the place was restored, after the treaty of Basle, some ink spots still remained upon the wall, where an officer, in honourable indignation, had dashed his pen, either determining not to sign the capitulation, or in despair for having borne a part in that act of infamy. And now Figueras served as a stronghold for the invaders, having been one of the four fortresses which Godoy delivered into their hands as the keys of Spain, before Buonaparte avowed his profligate design of usurping the kingdom.

Rovira, who was a doctor in theology as well as a colonel, and regarded the contest to which he had devoted himself as a holy war, fixed upon Passion week as the fittest time for the attempt: there could be no season so proper for it, he thought, as that on which the church was celebrating ♦April 6.♦ the sufferings and death of Christ24! Accordingly, on Palm Sunday he assembled his division in the village of Esquirol, and when they were drawn up, addressing them, says the Spanish relator, like another Gideon, he desired that every man who was willing to accompany him in an expedition of great peril, but of the highest importance and greatest honour, should step out of the line; 500 men immediately volunteered, all of the second Catalan legion. The same appeal was made to another detachment at S. Privat, and ninety-two of the battalion of Almogavares, and 462 of the Expatriates, as those Catalans were called who came from parts of the country which the French possessed, offered themselves. The two parties formed a junction that night at Ridaura, and marched the next day, by roads which were almost impracticable, to Oix, a village close upon the French border. From thence they proceeded on the 8th by Sadernes, Gitarriu, and Cofi, to Llorena, taking this direction in order that the enemy and the men themselves might be induced to believe it was their intention to make an incursion into France. The alarm spread along the border as they wished; the somaten was rung; the French peasantry, and about 300 troops of the line, collected at S. Laurent de Sardas, and remained under arms for thirty hours. At noon on the 9th, the Catalans left Llorena, and proceeded in a direction toward Figueras as far as the wood of Villarit, where they concealed themselves in a glen till night came: it had rained heavily all day, and a strong north wind was blowing, nevertheless orders were given that no man should kindle a fire on pain of death.

One scanty meal a day was all that could be allowed to these hardy and patient men; but a good allowance of generous wine had been provided for them when it should be most needed: this was distributed now after they had been formed into six companies, and when night set in they advanced to Palau-Surroca, a short hour’s distance from the fortress. The officers of each division were men who were well acquainted with the works; and each was now informed what point he was to attempt, at what time, and in what manner. At half-past two the first party leaped into the ditch; three soldiers, who had served in the garrison more than a year, for the purpose of performing this service when the hour should come, opened the gate which leads into the ditch to receive them. The first sentinel whom they met was killed by one thrust before he could give the alarm; the different parties went each in its allotted direction; and so well had every part of this enterprise been planned, and so perfectly was it executed in all its parts, that before men, officers, or governor, could get out of their quarters, ... almost before they were awakened, ... Figueras was in the hands of the Spaniards, and its garrison, amounting to about 1000 men, were prisoners. The gate by which they had entered was immediately walled up to guard against any counter-surprise; and as Rovira, being a native of the country, and conspicuous in it since the commencement of the war, was better known than Martinez, orders were sent out in his name, and signed by his hand, calling upon the men of the adjoining country to come and strengthen the garrison. His signature left no doubt of an event which they could else hardly have been persuaded to believe, so much was it beyond their hopes, and in a few hours men enough were assembled there to man the works.

There were about 700 of the enemy in the town, who supposed at first that the stir which they perceived in the castle was merely some quarrel between the French and the Italians of whom the garrison was composed. One of them went to ascertain this; he was asked Quien vive? as he approached, and upon his replying “France,” was fired at and shot. Upon this the French commandant sent a trumpeter, who was ordered to return and tell his master, on the part of General Martinez and Colonel Rovira, that no Frenchman must again present himself before the fortress, or he would be answered at the cannon’s mouth. Martinez immediately sent off a dispatch in brief but characteristic language: “Glory to the God of armies, and honour to the brave Catalans, St. Fernando de Figueras is taken; Rovira had the happiness of directing the enterprise, and I of having been the commander.” The Doctor-Colonel, in a private letter which found its way to the press, alluded to the ridicule which had been cast upon his project: “The Rovirada is made,” said he, “and the great fortress is ours!”

Rovira needed no other reward than the place in history which the success of this Rovirada secured for him; but it was not the less becoming that the government should express their sense of his services. Some little time after, the dignity of Maestre-Escuela, which is equivalent to that of prebend in the English church, fell vacant in the cathedral of Vich. A decree had past in the preceding year for leaving unfilled such ecclesiastical offices as could, without indecency, be dispensed with, and applying their revenues to the public use as long as the necessities of the country should require. The Regency applied to the Cortes to dispense with this law for the present occasion only, that they might confer the vacant dignity upon Rovira, as the most appropriate testimony of national gratitude; that when the bloody struggle in which they were engaged against the tyrant of Europe should have terminated happily, as was to be expected, they said, he might have a decorous retirement suitable to his profession, and an establishment for that time in which, indispensably, he ought to renounce the military honours and dignities with which he was now decorated, but which, in any other than the actual circumstances, were incompatible with his ministerial character. Arguelles declared, that the Doctor Brigadier (for to this rank he had then been promoted) was worthy in the highest degree of national gratitude; but he wished that any mode of remuneration should be devised rather than one which involved the suspension of a law, ... too perilous an example not to be carefully avoided. But Creus observed, that Rovira, who was a priest as much in heart as in profession, would value this prebend more than any military rank which could be conferred upon him; and more even than the archdeanery of Toledo, because it was in his own country. And he argued, that no injury could accrue to the state, as the income might be reserved for the treasury while the existing circumstances continued. Garcia Herreros was of opinion that the reward ought to be of the nature of the service; the soldier should have a military recompense, the priest a clerical one; he proposed, therefore, that as the order of St. Fernando had just been instituted, Dr. Rovira should be the first person who should be invested with it; and that when the war was ended one of the best prebends should then be given him. The proposal of the Regency, however, was adopted, and Rovira was made Maestre-Escuela of the cathedral of Vich, for having recovered Figueras.

Had the Catalans been equally successful at Barcelona, all their losses would have been more than compensated; the success which they had gained excited the greatest exultation, not only in Catalonia, but throughout the whole of Spain. Te Deum was sung at Tarragona, and the town was illuminated three successive nights. In Madrid the Spaniards could scarcely dissemble their joy. In the Cortes the news was welcomed as the happiest which had been received since the battle of Baylen; and the Regency called upon the people for fresh contributions and fresh efforts to improve this unexpected success, the first of its kind which had been obtained during the war. The army which had achieved it, they said, was in want of every thing; and the two Regents who were in Cadiz (Blake being absent) set the example themselves by contributing each a month’s salary. It was, indeed, a success which, if the Spaniards had been able, or their allies alert enough to have improved it, might have been a far more momentous advantage than the victories of Barrossa and Albuhera. The first report appeared incredible to the French generals; when it was confirmed, ♦Suchet refuses to send the troops which Macdonald required from him.♦ Macdonald called upon Suchet to send him by forced marches that part of the army of Catalonia which he had placed under his command; unless this were done, he said, Upper Catalonia was lost: for neither Rosas, Gerona, nor Hostalrich, were provisioned, and the consequences of this cruel event were incalculable; and Maurice Mathieu, who commanded in Barcelona, instructed the governor of Lerida to be ready with provisions for these troops upon their way, not doubting but that Suchet would see the necessity of the measure in which he was called upon to concur. But when that general had recovered from the first grief and astonishment which the news excited, he considered that part of these troops being employed in an expedition among the mountains, and the others along the Ebro to protect its navigation, from twenty to five and twenty days must elapse before they could receive orders from Zaragoza, assemble at Lerida, and march from thence by Barcelona to Figueras; during which interval the Spaniards would have done all they could do for storing and garrisoning the place. All the French could do was to blockade it with the troops which were nearest at hand: those from a distance would arrive too late, and there would then be the difficulty of supporting them in a part of the country stripped of its resources. If the Spaniards should fail in endeavouring to throw sufficient supplies into the fortress which they had surprised, the unexpected success with which they were now so greatly elated would in the end be little to their advantage: it would even facilitate his operations against Tarragona, for Campoverde would doubtless move his army towards the Ampurdan, instead of endeavouring to interrupt the investment of that city; to hasten that investment, therefore, and press the siege would be the best service which he could render to the French in Upper Catalonia: this opinion he thought Buonaparte would form, whom the intelligence would reach at Paris five or six days before he had received it at Zaragoza: upon that opinion, therefore, he resolved to act, on his own responsibility; and he had soon the satisfaction of knowing that his conduct in so doing was approved and25 applauded.

His judgment was not less accurate as to what was, ♦Mémoires, 1. 13–18.♦ in this instance, to be expected from the Spaniards, who were still destined to suffer for the weakness of their government, the want of union in their leaders, and the want of system which was felt in every ♦Eroles introduces troops into Figueras.♦ department. Eroles, indeed, acted on this emergency as he always did, with promptitude, and vigour, and ability. Collecting all the force he could, he hastened from Martorell to reinforce the garrison of Figueras, and on his way took the forts which the French had erected in Castelfollit and Olot, and made above 500 prisoners there. Though a considerable ♦April 16.♦ force had already been collected to blockade the place, he entered it on the sixth day after its capture, with 1500 infantry, 150 horse, and about 50 artillerymen, losing on the way some forty killed and sixty wounded; but the French battalion, which endeavoured to prevent his entrance, suffered ♦The French blockade it.♦ more than a threefold loss. General Baraguay d’Hilliers had by that time brought together about 8000 troops for the blockade, nearly half of which had been called off from blockading the Seu d’Urgel, and had made a circuitous march within the French border. All posts of minor importance they immediately abandoned, retaining only Rosas, Gerona, and Hostalrich, in that part of Catalonia, and even weakening the garrison of Gerona so much, that that place might have been recovered by a second Rovirada, had there been another Rovira to conduct one. But there was little concert among the Catalan leaders; it was deemed fortunate that Eroles had not been obliged to require the co-operation of another body, which from its position he might have looked to for aid, because there was ill blood between that body and the corps which he commanded. His arrival was well-timed, for the garrison was disorderly as well as weak, ... more enterprising than wary, ... not to be restrained from making rash sallies against the blockading force; and they had also 1500 prisoners to guard, whom, for their own security, they were compelled to confine so closely, that they were in reasonable apprehension lest disease and infection should be the consequences. But supplies were as needful as reinforcements; wine and oil were especially wanted. The Spaniards, with more alertness than they often exerted, sent off a convoy of stores with one of their frigates from Tarragona: it came into the bay of Rosas three days after Eroles had entered the fortress, but it had to wait off shore, vainly expecting that a sufficient force for escorting it might be collected. The British squadron off that coast was too weak to afford any effectual assistance. Captain Buller, taking immediate advantage of the enemy’s departure from those places, had landed at Palamos, St. Feliu, Cadeques, and Selva, embarked their guns and destroyed their batteries; a useful service for the time, but one which could not affect the operations on the land, and the commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean, who was applied to for some ships of the line, could spare none from his own anxious station, where all his vigilance was required for watching those ports in France from whence the enemy might look for reinforcements or supplies. In Valencia, where there were most means, there was least energy; and in Tarragona, where alacrity was not wanting, it was necessary to wait for the new levies before they could venture to send from thence any considerable body of old soldiers with which Campoverde might undertake the relief of the blockaded fortress, lest Suchet, if his preparations for besieging that city were anything more than a feint, should find it in a state of insecurity and weakness.

That general had never been more in earnest. He ♦Mémoires, 2. 20.♦ perceived that he could no longer look for co-operation from the side of Catalonia in his intended siege; from thence, however, he expected little interruption, but he apprehended serious annoyance from Mina; for if that enterprising chief could connect himself with the Catalans of the upper valleys, it would be possible for him, he thought, to draw after him so large a part of the Aragonese, that he might cut off the communication with France, and thus endanger the subsistence ♦Attempts to destroy Mina.♦ of the besieging army. None of the Guerrilla leaders were placed in so dangerous a position as Espoz y Mina. Every fortress in Navarre was occupied by the French, and they were in possession of all the country which surrounded it. There was no point from which he could receive succour; none upon which he could retire: the mountains were his only fastnesses; and he had no resources but what were to be found in his own genius, and in the courage of his comrades, and in the love of his countrymen. But this man was the Scanderbeg of his age. Reille, the French governor of Navarre, had received special instructions to hunt him down; and toward the close of the preceding year, the enemy had succeeded in surprising his troop. He and the commanders of the second and third battalions, Cruchaga and Gorriz, immediately began to collect their scattered force, and perceiving that their dispersion would not have been so injurious but for want of order, they abstained awhile from offensive operations, for the purpose of disciplining the men. Reille hoped again to surprise them while they were thus employed, and detached Colonel Gaudin from Pamplona with 1500 foot and 200 horse, who was to form a junction with an equal number, drawn from Tudela, Caparroso, and Tafalla by Colonel Brescat, surround Mina, and occupy all the points by which he might endeavour to escape. Mina was informed of their movements: before the two detachments could join, he drew Gaudin into an ambuscade, in which forty of his cavalry were killed, and about 100 infantry made prisoners, he then attacked them in their position at Monreal, drove them from it, and was about to renew the attack upon a second position which they had taken, when intelligence that Reille with a force from Pamplona was hastening to Gaudin’s succour, induced him to retire. The Guerrilla chief let his men rest one day, and on the second attacked Brescat, who, with 1300 men and 170 horse, occupied Aybar, part of the line within which it was intended to surround this heroic Navarrese. The enemy were driven successively from every position where they attempted to make a stand, till having fallen back two leagues, they reached the river Aragon: the infantry crossed it by the bridge at Caseca, the cavalry swam the stream, and thus interposed a barrier between themselves and their pursuers, which Mina was not able to force, being without artillery. In this action the French left 162 men and sixty-three horses upon the field: their commander and about 220 men were wounded.

Reille next sent his brother, at the head of 5000 foot and 200 horse, against this harassing enemy. For the last month Mina had been manufacturing arms, ammunition, and clothing for his men, at Lumbier, and there two thousand of the French found him. Aware of their intention, and having concerted measures with his officers, he did not disturb the soldiers in the rest which they were enjoying, till the moment arrived. Then, telling them what the force was which was ordered against them, they exclaimed, with one voice, that it would not be for their honour to abandon the post without resistance, even though all France should attack it. Two companies, under D. Juan de Villanueva, defended the fords of the river, and repulsed the enemy in their first attempt at crossing, forcing them to retire with such precipitation, that some of Mina’s men, who passed over at night to see what they had left behind, collected more than a hundred muskets from the field. The French took a position which Mina was not strong enough to force, and for a day and a half both parties kept up a fire upon each other; by that time a reinforcement came to the enemy from Pamplona. The river was well defended against them, and before they won the passage they lost above 300 killed, and twice the number wounded: among those who died of their wounds was Leon Asurmendi, a renegade Spaniard, known by the name of Conveniencias, and infamous for the crimes which he had committed in aid of the intrusive government. Having succeeded in crossing the river, the French chose rather to perpetrate their usual cruelties upon the inhabitants of Lumbier than follow Mina, who retired without loss, and in the best order. They obtained information from some traitors of the place where the Spaniards had their hospital; but Cruchaga and Gorriz were too vigilant to let it be surprised, and when the enemy approached they were so warmly received that they were driven back the four hours’ march to Lumbier, leaving on the way sixty killed, many wounded, and twelve prisoners.

Mina was at this time raising a fourth battalion; the French sent a detachment to cut it off before it should be completely formed. Four hundred and fifty men, destined for this service, proceeded against the village of Echarri-Aranaz, where the commandant of the battalion, D. Ramon de Ulzurrun y Eraso, had only about one hundred to oppose them. He left the village, and disposed his handful of men so judiciously, for the double purpose of concealing their numbers and annoying the enemy, that the French dared not enter the place, and during the night the officers did the piquet duty themselves, being afraid to trust their soldiers. “Reams of paper,” Mina said, “would not suffice for the details of all the skirmishes in which he and his party were engaged, ... for every day, and sometimes twice or thrice in the day, they were occurring.”

The more the enemy suffered from this band, the more efforts they made for its destruction, and towards the close of January, Mina was again surrounded. But this lion was not to be taken in the toils. His first measure was to determine upon a point of reunion, and with that spirit which made him so truly formidable to the usurpers of his country, he fixed upon the mountains immediately above Pamplona. Here, having overcome every difficulty that a vigilant and powerful enemy could interpose, Mina collected his gallant companions: still the pursuers were on all sides; there was not a point which he could occupy without being attacked, neither could he remain in that position; and 2000 men, with a proportionate cavalry, sallied from Pamplona to dislodge him. Mina had not waited for this: knowing that there was no escape but by becoming the assailant, he sent Gorriz to El Carrascal, upon the left of the city, to call the attention of the enemy in that direction, and fall upon any convoy or escort which might be upon the road. This movement succeeded perfectly: the troops which were advancing had proceeded little more than a mile when they were hastily recalled by the alarm which Gorriz had raised in another quarter, and the governor, thinking that Mina was on that side, and that the other roads were secure, ordered a convoy of sixty carts with ammunition and stores to set out for Vitoria; 200 men escorted it, and 1000 men followed at about an hour’s interval: ... in Navarre distance is commonly expressed by time ... the best measure in so mountainous a country.

When Mina received intelligence that this convoy was setting out, his men were fasting, and they were three hours’ march from the position which it was proper to occupy for intercepting it. Leaving Cruchaga with the main body, he set off with the horse and two companies of foot; but the convoy had passed the place where he meant to attack it before he could come up. The horsemen, however, fell upon its escort, and they, abandoning the carts, took possession of an adjoining height, where they defended themselves, relying upon the greater force in their rear, and likewise upon assistance from the fortress of Irurzun, which was only at half an hour’s distance. Mina had no time to complete their destruction; it was of more importance for him to secure the ammunition, more precious in his circumstances than the richest booty, and for this there was little leisure; ... on two sides the enemy were approaching in force, and the escort was ready to assail him on the third. Night came on, and on all sides there was firing; his men became mingled with the enemy, and sometimes engaged one another. But when Mina had succeeded in collecting his men, and would have contented himself with drawing them off in safety, and destroying the stores, a general cry arose that they would rather perish than leave behind them what they should make so useful. The men, therefore, loaded themselves with cartridges, of which, after each man had stored himself, they carried off more than 60,000. Other effects, however tempting, they regarded not: but, spoiling what they could, and setting fire to the powder carts, they drew off in safety with their precious plunder. The joy of Mina and his comrades for this success was clouded by one of those fatal accidents for which even a soldier is not prepared: Gorriz that day, in leading on his troops, was thrown from his horse, and lived only long enough to go through the last ceremonies of the Romish superstition: however worthless these were to the sufferer, the thought that his salvation was thus secured was the consolation of his comrades, and probably of no little importance in keeping up their hopes and their belief in the protection of Heaven. Mina spoke of his loss with the deepest sorrow, a sorrow which was felt by all his fellows in arms, whom he had more than once led on to victory, and sometimes saved from destruction.

Mina was now in that perilous stage of his progress, when every new exploit, adding to his celebrity without adding to his strength, served to increase his danger, by exasperating afresh the enemy, and exciting them to make greater efforts to destroy him. In Aragon, as well as in Navarre, the French troops were put in motion to hunt him down, by night and day, like a wild beast. Harispe occupied the bridges of Sanguessa, Galipienzo, and other passes into Aragon; Panatier with another division watched La Ribera de los Arcos, Estella, and its vicinity; and three moveable columns kept up the chase. The first impulse of the Navarrese hero, when he found himself thus beset, was to attack the enemy; but for this he was too weak. Turning back, he marched above Pamplona by El Carrascal, and there he discovered that two of their columns were close at hand; upon this he countermarched towards Lumbier. Harispe was informed of his movements, and at Irurozqui Mina found ♦Feb. 11.♦ the French in his front: his men had made long and rapid marches for the three preceding days, nevertheless they prepared for battle with their wonted resolution. Before the firing began Harispe sent a cavalry officer with a flag, which Cruchaga, who went out to meet him as an enemy, discovered just in time as he levelled a pistol at him. The Frenchman said, he had matters of great importance to treat of, and Mina therefore came to hear them. His errand related to the treatment of prisoners; it was believed in the French army that Mina’s soldiers gave no quarter, and he came to request that this practice might no longer be continued. Mina on his part disclaimed the system which was imputed to him, and required a like declaration on the part of the enemy; to which the French officer replied, that his general was distinguished for humanity, and that all the officers of that division had received orders to treat such of Mina’s men as might fall into their hands as prisoners of war, since they now knew that they did not deserve to be styled brigands, but defenders of their country. Mina observed in his dispatches, that this officer behaved with perfect courtesy, and with more honour than was usual for a Frenchman; and he clearly perceived that this acknowledgment of the rights of war proceeded not from the humanity of the general, but from the discontent of the miserable men under his command, whom Buonaparte and his agents in Spain sent to butcher or to be butchered.

An affair ensued, in which Harispe lost half his cavalry in vainly attempting to break the Spaniards. Five times he attacked their position, and was as often repulsed; but Mina perceiving that a movement was made to cut off his retreat, withdrew in time, in good order, and keeping up a brisk fire. This continued till evening closed; night set in with fogs, and the French and Spaniards got confused and intermingled, firing upon their comrades: at length the latter retired into a difficult pass, where the enemy did not venture to follow them. Mina now determined, with the advice of Cruchaga and his other officers, to break up his force into companies, sending each to a different point; a measure which would distract the attention of the enemy, who would thus lose sight of him, withdraw perhaps part of their troops, and divide the others, and thus give him opportunity to collect his companions again, and strike a blow when it was not expected. He himself retained only twenty horsemen, with whom he meant to make a circuit to preserve order among his scattered bands, and prevent excesses of any kind. After awhile he came to a village near the French border, where some of his companions had stationed themselves, and where he hoped to give a little rest to his comrades; but an overpowering force was brought against him, and he, again dispersing his infantry, went with his little band of horsemen into France. Here he found that his name was known, and his virtues honoured by the mountaineers, while every heart cursed the tyrant who inflicted curses upon Europe, and brought disgrace as well as misery upon France, by the crimes which he compelled her to perpetrate. They offered all they had to the Spaniards, but Mina would suffer nothing to be taken without paying its fair price.

It was not long before the French discovered with astonishment, that Mina had entered France; they dispatched forces against him, which he eluded, and, wandering about the borders of Roncesvalles, Viscarret, and Olbayceta, surprised one of their parties, killing two officers and seven men. A handful of men only were engaged, ... but it was a well-timed success, and an auspicious scene, and Mina said, that the Spanish spirit of old times shone in his comrades that hour. A greater force, to which the fugitives had given the alarm, followed him during the whole night, but without success; and he continued among the mountains within the French border, waiting impatiently for better prospects. “From thence,” says he, “I stretched my eyes over this kingdom close at hand, covered with innumerable enemies, and I groaned for her miserable condition; the imprisonment of so many of its good inhabitants, the persecution and the banishment of the relations of my companions rent my soul, seeing myself without the means for redressing their wrongs.”

But the opportunity which he expected, and which he provided by his retreat, soon occurred; the greater part of the troops which had been sent against him returned toward Zaragoza, and so well had Mina instructed his officers, and so well did they execute their instructions, that when he re-entered Navarre, his whole band were re-assembled within four-and-twenty hours. “It would not have been strange,” he said, “if some of the men, closely pursued as they had been, and dispersed in scattered parties, as the only means of safety, had returned home; but only a very few, who were sick, had done this, and of them not a man without his officer’s permission.” During this long pursuit, the enemy, less accustomed to fatigues and privations than the hardy mountaineers of Spain, suffered a tenfold greater loss than they inflicted; above 1000 of their men were invalided, and as many more wounded in the incessant skirmishes which took place.