Some change also, and of the same kind, appeared to be not less desirable in Portugal. The arrangement which placed the Portugueze army under a British general, introducing at the same time a large proportion of British officers into that army, and that which placed the whole military establishment under a British commander-in-chief, had been necessary, and the Portugueze themselves were sensible that it was so. But it was not wisely done to put the Portugueze fleet under a British admiral, nor to make the British ambassador a member of the Regency: in the first instance, a great expense was incurred in time of extreme want; in both, some offence was given to national feeling; and in neither was there any advantage gained. Sir Charles Stuart was in no enviable situation; there was a constant opposition between him and the Souzas, who had great influence at the court of the Rio, whose intentions were not to be suspected, and whose abilities were of no common order, but whose deep prepossessions prevented them from adapting their views to the actual circumstances of the country. When he exerted himself to rectify habitual disorders, and provide for demands which were continually recurring, and which it was ruinous to neglect, the whole host of intriguers was in action against him, and he incurred the dislike of the prince, of whose ear his opponents had possession: on the other hand, the repeated complaints from head-quarters against the misconduct of the Portugueze government under which the native army was mouldering away more rapidly than it had been formed, seemed to include him of course among the persons upon whom the blame was laid. Yet his colleagues, as well as he, were more to be pitied than condemned, for what they left undone. The whole revenues of the house of Braganza were at this time remitted to Brazil, ... no unfit arrangement, as the family was there to be supported. But the court received also the revenues from Madeira and the Western Isles, and the establishments in Africa, and yet called for money from Portugal! It had left so great a part of the old court establishment there that the expenses of that part exceeded the whole produce of the crown lands; and it was continually sending persons from Brazil, to be provided for at home; ... this, at a time when Portugal with only half its former revenues, and with a ruined people, had to support an army fourfold more numerous than in its days of prosperity!

The prince of Brazil was jealous of his prerogative; ... and there were those about him who lost no opportunity of insinuating that England aimed at establishing a permanent influence over the government of Portugal. This was so old an art of faction, that even from new circumstances it could derive no strength; and although, if he were at Lisbon, he would be within reach of the insidious proposals of the French, who would have no difficulty in finding intriguers to second them, yet, on the whole, those persons whose opinions carried most weight thought it desirable that he should be urged to return, his presence nearer Lisbon being as necessary as that of the princess was deemed to be at Cadiz. But the statesmen who advised this seem to have overlooked the circumstances of Brazil, where at that time the presence of the court was the only check upon the revolutionary spirit which was then gathering strength: that consideration alone must have detained the prince there; and if the claim of the princess had been more popular than it was at Cadiz, the conduct of the Portugueze diplomatists on this occasion was sufficient to ruin it.

Marquis Wellesley, whose views were always comprehensive, thought that nothing of importance could be done in the field, unless an efficient Spanish army were raised of 30 or 40,000 men. To expect any thing from it under its present establishment, he argued, would be to deceive ourselves; ... any thing short of a thorough reform under a British commander and British officers, Great Britain providing also for the pay and subsistence of the whole, would be fruitless; and this we could not afford. But we might take into our pay an army of 30,000 men, and assist Spain with a loan of five or six millions for raising another: a much larger sum would be saved by this expenditure if it shortened the war a single year; and that it might be so shortened, no one who had faith in British courage, and knew the capacity of the British commander, could doubt. But Marquis Wellesley had not that ascendancy in the cabinet to which in the opinion of his admirers he was entitled, and which, perhaps, he had expected to assert. His colleagues might have acted with more vigour, if their tenure of the government had been more secure; the sense of that insecurity, and the constant struggle wherein they were engaged at home, made them regard difficulties as insuperable, which would have disappeared if they had had sufficient confidence in themselves.

This want of energy must have been fatal, if Lord Wellington had not been eminently qualified for the arduous situation in which he was placed. Both his mind and body were equal to all that was required from them. He rose about four, and after a slight breakfast was usually on horseback from daylight till about the hour of noon. He was then employed till three, in transacting business with the officers of the army, or in writing his orders and letters, answering every dispatch and letter as it was brought before him. At three he dined, was on horseback again at five, till evening closed, and was then employed in business till ten, when he retired to rest. Mortifying as it was, having in himself glorious anticipations of what he could effect with adequate means, at the same time to feel himself crippled for want of them; no embarrassments ever had the effect of perplexing his judgment, or leading him to despond; but making his preparations with long forethought, he waited the opportunity for attempting whatever his means allowed him to undertake.

The force with which he intended to besiege Ciudad Rodrigo consisted of 17,000 British, and 14,000 Portugueze, ... so inferior to what Marmont might bring into the field against him, that every thing depended upon secrecy in his plans, and celerity in their execution. That he would undertake the siege was what every officer who reasoned, or talked about the ensuing campaign, could not but conclude; but when it was his intention was not communicated even to those persons in whom he placed most confidence, and of whom he entertained the34 highest opinion. The works of Almeida which Brennier had demolished, when with so much credit to himself he abandoned the place, were restored; British and Portugueze troops in equal numbers being employed upon them, and receiving working money, and such of them as were bricklayers or stonemasons, and acted as artificers, double pay. This, which the French might consider a defensive measure, was for the purpose of providing a safe depôt for the battering train. That train was conveyed up the Douro forty miles, farther than the boats of the country had navigated the river before, our engineers having removed the impediments which rendered it innavigable. There had been such difficulty in obtaining means of transport, that for this reason alone, Lord Wellington had been obliged to undertake feeding all the Portugueze troops that were incorporated in the British divisions. The system of the Portugueze commissariat was to embargo carts and cattle for this service, ... a grievous evil to the owners, who knew that they were likely never to be paid, and that their beasts would probably be worked to death; unless, therefore, they were closely watched, they, as might be expected, deserted, and left the supplies to take their chance. Nor, when British faith was pledged for payment of the commissariat accounts, was there any perceptible amendment, so long as the means of transport were to be supplied by the local authorities: these authorities showed little alacrity in executing the orders of government, and the people as little in obeying their requisitions; for the magistrates being delivered from immediate danger had relapsed into that apathy which had long pervaded every department of the body politic. There were 20,000 carts in Alentejo, and yet, when Lord Wellington was on that frontier, it was with difficulty that 600 could be procured for the service of the army. The institutions of the country were excellent; but government could not enforce the laws, and the magistrates would not: the British were the only persons who observed them, and by that observance, subjected themselves to serious inconvenience; they depended upon the civil magistrate, who neglected his duty, and they were then left to shift for themselves. To prevent this evil, a waggon train was now attached to the British commissariat, and upwards of 600 carts, each capable of carrying eight hundred weight, and upon a better construction than the primitive carts of the country, were built at Lisbon, Porto, and Almeida. To this latter place the battering train was conveyed towards the close of November; and when relying upon Lord Wellington’s comparative weakness, and the improbability of his attempting any serious operation at that season, Marmont had detached Montbrun to the eastern coast, and Dorsenne had ordered two other divisions to Asturias and the Montaña: the allied troops began to make fascines and gabions at their respective head-quarters on the 27th of December; and the 6th of January was fixed for the investment of Ciudad Rodrigo.

The time of year, and the exhausted state of the country, contributed to deceive the French: they did not suppose that Lord Wellington would, in the depth of winter, undertake an operation of such importance, nor that his army could long endure the privations to which they must be exposed. Every thing which could serve for the support of man or beast had been consumed for miles and miles around; and on that part of the frontier there was little grain at any time, the tract for corn commencing at Salamanca and its neighbourhood, where the enemy were cantoned. The allied troops were four days together without bread; and the officers purchased it at the rate of three shillings the quartern loaf, and at one time five. The horses, though hardy as if they had never stood in a stable, and rough as if never groom had laid his hand upon their coats, began to fail; all the straw having been consumed, they had nothing to subsist on except coarse long grass pulled up from under the trees, and so thoroughly sun-dried that little nourishment was left in it. Because of this scarcity, the three brigades of cavalry took the outpost duty in rotation, ... and the regiments lost about fifty horses each by starvation.

A heavy rain fell on the first night of the new year; and the weather continued so inclement till the fifth, that the investment was necessarily deferred till two days later than the time originally fixed. General Mackinnon’s brigade marching from Aldea da Ponte to Robledo, six-and-twenty miles through a continued oak forest, had in many places to make their way knee-deep in snow; between 300 and 400 men were left on the road, of whom some died on the march, several afterwards of fatigue. There was no camp-equipage with the army, nor cover near the town; the troops were therefore cantoned in the nearest villages, and it was regulated, that the light, first, and third divisions, should alternately take the duties of the siege, each remaining four-and-twenty hours on the ground.

Ciudad Rodrigo stands in the middle of a plain some sixteen miles in circumference, surrounded by hills, which rise gradually, ridge behind ridge above each other on every side, far as the eye can reach. From those heights, at a distance of ten or twelve miles, the movement of the British army might be perceived; but the enemy seem at this time to have exercised no vigilance, and voluntary information was never given them by the Spaniards. The city is on a rising ground, on the right bank of the Agueda, which in that part of its course forms many little islets. The citadel standing on a high mount has been likened, for its situation, to Windsor Castle. The works were old, and in many respects faulty; and the suburbs, which are about three hundred yards from the town on the west, had no other defence, at the time of the former siege, than a bad earthen intrenchment hastily thrown up; but the French had made strong posts of three convents, one in the centre of the suburbs, and one on either flank; and they had converted another convent just beyond the glacis on the north-west angle of the place into an infantry post. Being thus supported, the works of the suburbs, bad as they were, were thought fully capable of resisting a ♦Colonel Jones’s Journal of the siege, pp. 82–3.♦ coup de main. The ground is every where flat and rocky except on the north, where there are two pieces of rising ground, one at the distance of six hundred yards from the works, being about thirteen feet higher than the ramparts, the other at less than a third of that distance, nearly on a level with them: the soil here is very stony, and in the winter season water rises at the depth of half a foot below the surface. The enemy had provided against an attack on this side, by erecting a redoubt upon the higher ground, which was supported by two guns, and a howitzer in battery on the fortified convent of S. Francisco at four hundred yards distance; and a large proportion of the artillery of the place was in battery to fire upon the approach from the hill.

On this side, however, it was deemed advisable to make the attack, because of the difficulty of cutting trenches in a rocky soil, and the fear of delay in winning the suburbs, ... the garrison being sure of relief if they could gain even but a little time. On this side, too, it was known, by Massena’s attack, that the walls might be breached at a distance from the glacis; whereas, on the east and south it was doubtful, because of a fall in the ground, whether this could be done without erecting batteries on the glacis: but here a small ravine at the foot of the glacis and its consequent steepness, would conceal the workmen during their operations for blowing in the counterscarp, a circumstance which had great ♦Colonel Jones’s Journal, 84.♦ weight in forming the plan of an attack, where not a single officer had ever seen such an operation performed.

Time was of such importance, and such preparations had been made before the army moved from its quarters, that ground was broken on the very night of the investment. At nine that night, a detachment under Lieutenant ♦A redoubt carried.♦ Colbourne of the 52nd attacked the redoubt on the upper teson or hill. Lieutenant Thomson (of the Royal engineers) preceded the detachment with a party of men carrying ladders, fascines, axes, &c.: he found the palisades to be within three feet of the counterscarp, and nearly of the same height: fascines were immediately laid from the one to the other, by which, as by a bridge, part of the storming party walked over. When they came to the escarpe, which was not revêted, the men scrambled up, some of them sticking their bayonets into the sods, and so entered the work; while another party went round to the gorge, where there was no ditch, and forced the gate. Only four of the garrison escaped into the town, and only three were killed; two officers and forty-three men were made prisoners; the loss of the assailants was six men killed, three officers and sixteen men wounded. A lodgment was then made on the hill near the redoubt, and with little loss, because the enemy directed their fire chiefly into the work; and a communication was opened to it.

The siege was carried on with extraordinary vigour; and Lord Wellington calculating upon intelligence which he received, that Marmont would advance to relieve the place even before the rapid plan of operations on which he had determined could be carried through, resolved to form a breach, if possible, from the first batteries, and storm the place with the counterscarp entire, if he could not wait until it should be blown up. The weather increased the difficulties of the undertaking: while the frost continued, men could not work through the night; and when it broke, they who were employed in the sap worked day and night up to their knees in water, under the declivity of a hill down which the rain had poured. Of 250 mules attached to the light division, fifty died in conveying ammunition to the breaches, ... destroyed by being overworked, and by want of needful rest and sufficient food. The garrison were encouraged, not only by the confident expectation of relief, (for they knew Marmont was strong enough to effect it, and could not suppose that, for want of foresight, he had disabled himself for attempting it in time,) but also by the failure of the allies at Badajoz, and the inferiority of our engineering department. They omitted no means of defence, and neglected no opportunity which presented itself. On the night, between the 13th and 14th, the convent of ♦Convent of Santa Cruz taken.♦ Santa Cruz, in which they kept a strong guard, was attacked and taken. From the steeple of the cathedral which commanded the plain, and where there was always an officer on the look-out, they noticed a careless custom, that when the division to be relieved saw the relieving division advancing, the guards and workmen were withdrawn from the trenches to meet it; sore weariness and pinching cold were present and pressing evils, which made them overlook the danger of leaving the works unguarded at such intervals. Profiting by this, some 500 men made a sortie at the right point of time, upset most of the gabions which during the preceding night had been placed in advance of the ♦January 14.♦ first parallel, penetrated some of them into the right of that parallel, and would have pushed into the batteries and spiked the guns, had it not been for the steady conduct of a few workmen, whom an officer of engineers collected into a body; on the approach of part of the first division, they retired into the town.

Captain Ross of the engineers, one of the directors, was killed by a chain shot from St. Francisco’s: he was brother to that excellent officer who afterward fell at Baltimore, and was himself a man of great professional promise, uniting with military talents, a suavity of manners, and a gentleness of disposition, especially to be prized in a profession where humanity is so greatly needed. His friend and comrade, Lieutenant Skelton, was killed at the same time, and buried with him, in the same grave, in a little retired valley, not far from the spot where they fell. Colonel (then Captain) Jones, (to whose history of the war, and more especially, to whose Journal of the Sieges this work is greatly indebted,) placed a small pedestal with an inscription to mark the grave, and with prudent as well as christian feeling, surmounted it with a cross. That humble monument has, because of its christian symbol, been respected; ... Spaniards have been seen kneeling there, and none pass it without uncovering their heads.

A howitzer placed in the garden of St. Francisco’s convent so as to enfilade one of the batteries, had caused many casualties and impeded the progress of the work. The convent also looked into the rear of the second parallel. Two guns which were opened upon this edifice on the 14th, at the same time that twenty-five were opened against the walls of the place, did not drive the enemy from their advantageous post; a party, therefore, of the 40th regiment was ordered to force into it at dusk, and as soon as they had escaladed ♦St. Francisco’s taken and the suburbs.♦ the outer wall, the French, leaving their artillery, retired into the town, not from the convent only, but from the suburbs, which were immediately occupied by the 40th.

The batteries had injured the wall so much on the second day, as to give hopes of speedily bringing it down. A fog compelled them to cease firing on the 16th; the engineers took advantage of the cover which the fog afforded them, and placed fifty gabions in prolongation of the second parallel. That parallel was pushed to its proper extent on the left in the course of the night, and the lower teson crowned by it. The sappers also broke out the head of the sap: but they could do nothing on the hill, and but little in the sap, because of their inexperience, and because the enemy’s artillery knocked over their gabions, nearly as fast as they could be ♦Col. Jones’s Journal of Sieges, 102.♦ replaced. Yet, the assistance which the engineers derived from the men of the third division, who had been instructed in sapping during the summer, was invaluable, and enabled them to push the approaches three hundred yards nearer than at the attack of Badajoz, under a much heavier fire. An unusual length of time was nevertheless required for throwing up the batteries, owing to the small front of the work, against which the enemy directed an incessant fire of shell; they fired during the siege 11,000 shells and nearly 10,000 shot upon the approaches: their practice was remarkably accurate, and not one shot was fired at them in return. “It was not unfrequent to have three or four large shells in the course of an hour explode in the middle of the parapet of a battery, each having the effect of a small mine, and scattering the ♦Col. Jones’s Journal of Sieges, 103.♦ earth in every direction. In consequence of this dire destruction, the parapets were of necessity made of a great thickness.” But on the other hand, a confidence was felt both by the officers and men, which they had not partaken at either of the former sieges; the officers had sufficient means at their disposal, and the men seemed, to perceive that the operations were differently conducted. The artillery was excellent, as well as ample in quantity, and its effect was materially improved by a circumstance in which accident corrected an actual defect of science. There happened to be a considerable quantity of shot in the fortress at Almeida, and of all calibres; when there was such want of transport for bringing shot from the rear, it became of great importance to take as many of these as could be made serviceable: shot of a larger size than what are commonly employed were thus accidentally brought into use, and some 2000 or 3000 of what are termed very high shot were brought forward during the latter days of the ♦Sir H. Dickson, in Sir Howard Douglas’s Treatise on Naval Gunnery, p. 84.♦ siege. The consequence was, that because the windage was thus diminished, the firing became so singularly correct, that every shot seemed to tell on the same part of the wall as the preceding one; whereas, when shot of the ordinary size were fired at the same distance, some struck high and others low, although the pointing was carefully the same.

On the 17th, a breach had been made, and the guard in the second parallel kept up a continued fire through the night, to prevent the garrison from clearing it. At daylight following, a battery of seven twenty-four pounders opened upon an old tower; and next day when this tower had nearly been brought down, and the ♦Jan. 19.♦ main breach appeared practicable, Lord Wellington, after a close reconnoissance, resolved upon giving the assault at seven o’clock that evening. The enemy were perfectly prepared; they had constructed intrenchments on the ramparts near the breach, by means of cuts through the terre-plein, perpendicular to the parapet, with a breast-work in rear of them, to enfilade and rake the whole: so that if the assailants gained the summit of the breach, their alternative must be either to force the intrenchments, or get down a wall sixteen feet in depth, at the bottom of which impediments of every kind had been arrayed.

At dusk the columns of attack were formed, and they moved forward at the rising of the moon: 150 sappers, under the direction of Captains M’Leod and Thomson, royal engineers, and Captain Thompson of the 74th, advanced from the second parallel to the edge of the ditch, each man carrying two bags filled with hay, which they threw into the ditch, reducing its depth thus from nearly fourteen feet to eight. Major-General Mackinnon followed close with his brigade, consisting of the 45th, 74th, and 88th, ... the men jumped into the ditch upon the bags; the enemy, though not yet wanting in heart, wanted the coolness of deliberate courage: they had accumulated shells and combustibles upon the breach, and at the foot of it, but they fired them too soon, so that the tremendous discharge was mostly spent before the troops reached their point of action. Ladders were instantly fixed upon the bags; they were not sufficient in number, the breach being wide enough for a hundred men abreast; but the short delay that this occasioned produced no evil, for the 5th arrived from the right to take part in the assault, and their eventual success was facilitated by the speedier progress of the light division on the left. That division moved simultaneously with Mackinnon’s column from behind the convent of St. Francisco against the little ♦Craufurd mortally wounded.♦ breach, under a heavy fire of musketry from the ramparts, by which Major-General Craufurd, who commanded, and was considerably in front, animating his men and leading them on, was mortally wounded. The counterscarp here was not so deep, the breach was not obstinately defended, and no interior defence had been prepared, so that the assailants carried it without much difficulty, and began to form on the ramparts. Meantime Major-General Mackinnon’s brigade, aided by the 5th, after a short but severe struggle gained the summit of the great breach. Giving up the breach, where first one mine was sprung and then a smaller, though neither with much effect, the enemy retired behind a retrenchment, where they stood their ground resolutely, and a severe contest ensued. But Brigadier-General Pack, who had been ordered with his brigade to make a false attack upon the southern face of the fort, converted it into a real one; and his advanced guard under Major Lynch, following the enemy’s troops from the advanced works into the fausse braye, made prisoners of all opposed to them: and while the garrison was thus disheartened on one side, the success of the light division on the other took from them all hope as soon as it was known; they gave way at once, and the retrenchment was carried. The brigade then dividing to the right and left, General Mackinnon said to Ensign Beresford, “Come, Beresford, you are a fine lad, we will go together!” ... these were the last words which he was heard to utter, for presently some powder exploded; Beresford was blown up, but fell without much injury into the arms of Mackinnon’s aide-de-camp ♦Mackinnon killed.♦ Captain Call. Mackinnon himself was among the many brave men killed by the explosion, and in him the nation lost an officer of the highest promise in the British army.

The enemy were now driven at the point of the bayonet into the great square, and were pursued from house to house, till they threw down their arms and called for quarter; and this was granted them, in the first heat of the onslaught, when, as they afterwards confessed, judging from what they themselves would have done, they expected nothing else than to be massacred. The place was won about nine at night: the troops, British and Portugueze, spread themselves all over the town, and got at the stores; but fortunately a guard was placed in time over the spirit-magazine, in which fifty pipes of good cogniac were found: had the men got at these, the amount of deaths would have been increased. It was a scene of wild disorder till daylight. The night was miserably cold, and the men crowded into the ruined houses to make fires: these rotten edifices soon caught the flames, and the conflagration became dreadful. Very little booty was to be gained in a town which the French had sacked, and which, indeed, had been deserted before they occupied it upon their conquest; what the men found was wholesome as well as welcome after their late hard fare, and they were seen each carrying three or four loaves stuck upon his bayonet. The enemy had pulled down many of the houses for firewood, and those which were nearest the ramparts had been demolished by our guns, though especial care had been taken to spare the town by battering it only in breach.

The governor, General Banier, was made prisoner, with seventy-eight officers and 1700 soldiers. Great quantities of ammunition and stores were found, a well-filled armoury, and an arsenal abundantly supplied; 109 pieces of ordnance mounted on the ramparts; and moreover, the battering-train of Marmont’s army, consisting of forty-four guns with their carriages. The loss of the allies consisted of three officers and seventy-seven men killed, twenty-four wounded and 500 during the siege; six officers and 140 men killed, sixty and 500 ♦General Craufurd.♦ wounded, in storming the breaches. Craufurd’s wound, though severe, was not thought dangerous, but it proved fatal on the fifth day. He had entered the army at the age of fifteen, and in the course of two-and-thirty years few officers had seen so much or such varied service. Early in life his abilities and professional zeal were noticed by his then colonel, Sir Charles Stuart, than whom no man was better qualified to appreciate them. During peace he pursued the study of his profession in all its branches upon the continent for three years, then went to India, and there distinguished himself in two campaigns under Lord Cornwallis. He was employed on a military mission with the Austrian armies during the years 1795, 1796, and 1797, and again in 1799; was made prisoner in the ill-planned and not more happily executed expedition against Buenos Ayres; and afterwards commanded the light division of Sir John Moore’s army in Spain. With that miserable retreat his course of ill fortune terminated. He joined Sir Arthur Wellesley the day after the battle of Talavera; sustained a severe attack from very superior numbers and in a perilous position upon the Coa; signalized himself at Busaco; rejoined his division after a short absence, when the troops were drawn up for action at Fuentes d’Onoro, and was saluted by them with three cheers in presence of the enemy. “I cannot report his death,” said Lord Wellington in his dispatch, “without expressing my sorrow and regret that his Majesty has been deprived of the services, and I of the assistance of an officer of tried talents and experience, who was an ornament to his profession, and was calculated to render the most important services to his country.” He was buried with all military honours in the breach before which he received his mortal wound.

Mackinnon also had been interred in the breach which he had won; but this was done hastily, by some pioneers under General Picton’s orders, and the officers of the Coldstream guards, in which regiment he had long served, removed his body to Espeja, and there deposited it with due honours. In Craufurd the army lost one of its most experienced officers; in Mackinnon one of the greatest promise, in whom were united all the personal accomplishments, intellectual endowments, and moral virtues which in their union constitute the character of a perfect soldier. He was one of those men whom the dreadful discipline of war renders only more considerate for others, more regardless of themselves, more alive to the sentiments and duties of humanity. He was born near Winchester in 1773, but his father was chief of a numerous clan in the Hebrides. His military education was commenced in France, his family having removed to Dauphiny because of his elder brother’s state of health; and Buonaparte, then a military student, was a frequent visitor at their house. It is one of the redeeming parts of Buonaparte’s character, that he never forgot his attachment to that family; that during the peace of Amiens he invited them to France, where they might receive proofs of it; and that when he heard of General Mackinnon’s death, he manifested some emotion. He entered the army in his 15th year, served three years as a subaltern in the 43rd, was employed at the commencement of the war in raising an independent company, and then exchanged into the Coldstream guards. During the Irish rebellion, he was attached to the staff as major of brigade to Sir George Nugent; and distinguishing himself greatly in that horrible service, was distinguished also for his humanity. He was in the expedition to the Helder, volunteered to Egypt, and was at the siege of Copenhagen. In 1809 he joined the army in Portugal, was at the passage of the Douro, and had two horses killed under him at Talavera; how ably he conducted himself when left in the charge of the wounded after that action has been related in its proper place. At Busaco he displayed so much skill and promptitude, that Sir Arthur, immediately after the battle, returned him thanks in person. He distinguished himself also on many occasions during Massena’s retreat, and led that last charge against the French at Fuentes d’Onoro which drove them finally from the ground. The unwholesome heat in the vicinity of Badajoz induced some recurrence of a disease with which he had been attacked in Egypt, and he returned for a few weeks to England there to recruit his health. In 1804 he had married a daughter of Sir John Call: she planted in his garden a laurel for every action in which her husband was engaged; and when in his last visit she took him into the walk where they were flourishing, he said to her, that she would one day have to plant a cypress at the end. Perhaps this country has never sustained so great a loss since the death of Sir Philip Sidney.

Without delay the approaches were destroyed and the works repaired. On the 27th the place had been again rendered defensible. Marmont was at Toledo when he received the first tidings of its investment. Hastening to Valladolid, he stated in his dispatches to France on the 16th, that he had collected five divisions for the purpose of throwing supplies into Ciudad Rodrigo, but finding that force inadequate, he had been fain to recall two divisions from the army of the north: with these he should have 60,000 men, and events might then be looked for as momentous in their results as they would be glorious for the French arms. Massena had been a month in reducing that fortress; the calculation was, that it might hold out against a regular siege, to which there should be no interruption from without, four or five-and-twenty days; Marmont expected to be in good time if he came to its relief on the 29th; ... but his army was not collected at Salamanca till the 24th; and when he announced to his own government the loss of the place, in which he said there was something so incomprehensible that he would not allow himself to make any observation upon it, it was too late to make any movement for its recovery. The weather, which had so often been unfavourable to the allies, favoured them on this occasion; heavy rains, which cut off their communications, and which would have rendered it impossible to fill in the trenches and close the breaches, did not commence till four days after the place had been rendered secure against a sudden attack; and Marmont, whose battering-train had been captured with it, could attempt nothing more.

Castaños was present at the siege, and to him as Captain-General of that province the place was given up. Before its capture, the Alcaldes of 230 pueblos had repaired to his head-quarters, to testify their own fidelity and that of their respective communities. Lord Wellington bore testimony in his dispatches as well to the loyalty and general good-will of the Spaniards in those parts, as to the assistance he had derived from Brigadier Alava; and from Julian Sanchez and D. Carlos de España, who with their two bands had watched the enemy on the other side the Tormes. A thanksgiving-service for the reconquest was performed with all solemnity at Cadiz; and the Cortes, in conformity with the proposal of the Regency, conferred upon Lord Wellington ♦Lord Wellington made Duque de Ciudad Rodrigo.♦ the rank of a Grandee of the first class, and the title of Duque de Ciudad Rodrigo. The tidings could not have been more unexpected by Buonaparte himself, than it was by the opponents of administration in England. At the commencement of the session, they, in their old tone of dismay, had repeated their denunciations of discomfiture and utter failure: ministers were again arraigned by them for their obstinate blindness, ... for their wanton waste of money and of the public strength, and for persisting in flattering and fallacious language when they had brought the nation to the very brink of ruin! Sir ♦Speeches of Sir F. Burdett and Mr. Whitbread.♦ Francis Burdett said, that whatever had been done by England for the rights of the King of Spain (who had resigned his whole pretensions to Buonaparte), nothing had been done for the Spanish people; that even if the cause of Spain had been honourably undertaken by the British government, it had now become perfectly hopeless; our victories were altogether barren, and the French were making regular and rapid strides towards the subjugation of the Peninsula: but these evils, he said, arose from the system of corruption which an oligarchy of boroughmongers had established; and as things now were, the progress of France was more favourable to liberty than the success of England would be! With more curious infelicity in his croakings, Mr. Whitbread observed, that Lord Wellington after pursuing Massena to the frontiers had been obliged to fall back; that his attempt upon Ciudad Rodrigo had proved abortive; that every thing which we could do for Spain had already been done; and though the first general of the age and the bravest troops in the world had been sent to her assistance, nothing had been accomplished, and, in short, the French were in military possession of Spain. A month had not elapsed after the delivery of these opinions, ♦Vote of thanks to Lord Wellington. He is created an Earl.♦ before the thanks of Parliament were voted to Lord Wellington for the recovery of Ciudad Rodrigo, he was created an Earl of the United Kingdom, and an additional annuity of 2000l. granted to him in consideration of his signal services. In the course of the debate, Mr. Canning took occasion to state that a revenue of 5000l. a year had been granted to Lord Wellington by the Portugueze government when they conferred upon him the title of Conde de Vimeiro; that as Captain-General of Spain, 5000l. a year had been offered him, and 7000l. as Marshal in the Portugueze service; all which he had declined, saying, he would receive nothing from Spain and Portugal in their present state; he had only done his duty to his country, and to his country alone he would look for reward.

The Earl of Wellington was already preparing for a more arduous siege. Eighteen 24-pounders had been reserved at Lisbon for this service, when the battering-train intended for Ciudad Rodrigo was sent from the Tagus to the Douro. These, with some iron guns which the Russian fleet had left there, and with the engineers’ stores, were embarked at Lisbon in large vessels, as if for some remote destination, then transhipped at sea into smaller craft, and conveyed up the Sadam to Alcacere do Sal. Fascines and gabions were prepared at Elvas. The line of supply was changed from the Douro to the Tagus; and as the Beira frontier must for awhile be left open to the enemy’s incursions, directions were given for forming a temporary depôt at Celorico, the nearest point where it could be deemed safe, and a grand magazine beyond the Douro. Ciudad Rodrigo was in some degree provisioned, as well as rendered thoroughly defensible against any attack that the French had means of making; and the troops were then put in motion, glad to remove from an exhausted country, where the labour of procuring forage amounted to constant occupation for the cavalry, none being to be found except the straw which the peasants had reserved and endeavoured to conceal, as the only subsistence left for their remaining cattle. Corn was so scarce that the very few officers who could afford such an expenditure paid the enormous price of fourteen dollars the fanega for it, in prudence, as well as in mercy to their beasts; and the owner, loading his horse with his own precious provender, performed the march himself on foot. One division of infantry remained on the Agueda, covered by a few cavalry posts. The main body proceeding by rapid marches to the Tagus crossed it, some at Abrantes, some at Villa Velha. Lord Wellington having completed his arrangements at Ciudad Rodrigo, and given it finally over to the Spaniards, set out for Alemtejo on the 5th of March, and on the 11th his head-quarters were fixed at Elvas. On the 16th, the preparations being completed, a pontoon bridge was thrown across the Guadiana about a league below Badajoz; and the light, 3rd, and 4th divisions, under Lieutenant-Colonel Barnard, Generals Picton and Colville, crossed and invested the place without opposition. General Graham, with the 1st, 6th, and 7th divisions of infantry, and Generals Slade and Le Marchant’s brigades of cavalry, advanced to Los Santos, Zafra, and Llerena, to oppose any movements on the part of Marshal Soult; while Sir Rowland Hill with the 2nd division, General Hamilton’s Portugueze division, and a brigade of cavalry, moved from their cantonments near Alburquerque to Merida and Almendralejo, thus interposing between Soult and Marmont, if the latter should march from Salamanca with the intention of forming a junction as in the preceding year.

The governor, G. Baron Philippon, had obtained intelligence from his spies of the preparations which were making at Elvas, and had apprised Soult accordingly that there was probably an intention of again besieging Badajoz; but it was not till the day before Lord Wellington arrived at Elvas that he knew a battering-train had been collected there, and that the allies were concentrating their forces near the Alemtejo frontier. He had before this applied for a supply of powder and shells, a convoy of which was twice sent from Seville, and twice by Sir Rowland Hill’s movements forced to put back, though the Comte d’Erlon, General Drouet, had been charged to protect it. The place had been greatly strengthened since the last unsuccessful siege, especially on the side which had then been attacked. Upon the spot where the allies had planted their breaching-battery against Fort St. Christoval, a lunette had been constructed by Marshal Soult’s orders: its ditches were cut in the rock to the depth of 14½ feet below the Berme: a powder-magazine and a bomb-proof for fifty men had been constructed there, and every means taken for securing it against a coup-de-main. The Tête-de-Pont also had been strengthened, and its communication with Fort St. Christoval repaired, so that on that side the place presented a most formidable appearance. The Pardaleras too had been repaired and strengthened, and magazines established in the castle, into which, and into the citadel, it was the governor’s intention to retire if the place should be rendered no longer tenable. The enemy had also formed galleries and trenches at each salient of the counterscarp in front of what they supposed would be the point of attack, that they might form mines under the breaching-batteries, and afterwards sink shafts for other mines, whereby to destroy the works in proportion as the assailants should gain them, and thus leave only a heap of ruins if the place should be taken. No foresight indeed had been wanting on the governor’s part. The peasantry having taken flight at the first siege and left their lands uncultivated, he had given directions for ploughing them with the oxen which were intended for slaughter, and they were sown by the soldiers within a circle of 3,000 yards: the kitchen gardens had also been distributed among the different corps and the officers of the staff, and in these they had a valuable resource. Wood was wanting for blinds and for palisades, for these had been almost wholly destroyed during the former siege: they had no means of transport for it, and it could only have been procured from a dangerous distance: to make charcoal, they were fain to dig up the root of olive-trees which had been burnt. A convoy of some threescore mules laden with flour arrived a few days before the investment, when the garrison had about five weeks’ provisions in store. The miserable townspeople were worse provided: most of those who could remove without exposing themselves to extreme distress had left the city before it was first attacked; others forsook it now, who had experienced the horrors of two former sieges, ... old men, women, and children, carrying what little had been left them, were on the road in every direction, flying from a renewal of these horrors. The population was reduced from 16,000 to little more than a fourth of that number, who thought better to abide the worst where they had a place wherein to lay their heads, than to perish as wanderers.

Though the allied army had now no want of means as in the former siege, they had no miners, nor was there any person there who had ever seen such duty performed; the sappers too had had very little experience. The only course which could be pursued was to batter from a distance the Trinidad bastion where the counterguard in its front had not been finished: this could be done from the hill on which the Picurina redoubt stands; and that redoubt must be carried and connected with the first parallel. The plan was so hazardous, and so little according to rule, that “it never was for a moment ♦Colonel Jones’s Journals, 298.♦ approved by any one employed in drawing it up, or in the execution of it.” No one doubted its success more than Lord Wellington himself; but it was deemed necessary to reduce Badajoz, and there was no chance of reducing it by any other course.