THE REGENT OF PORTUGAL FLIES TO THE BRAZILS. 497 1808.] ditions, which so well determine the moral and military decline of England, let us speak of the situation in which they leave Portugal at this day. The prince-regent of Portugal loses his throne. He loses it, influenced by the intrigues of England. He loses it, because he has not been willing to seize the English merchandize at Lisbon. What does England do, this ally? She regards with indifference what is passing in Portugal. . . . The fall of the House of Braganza will remain a new proof that the destruction of whatever power attaches itself to England is inevitable." * There is little to choose between the meaning of the pithy sentence and of the lengthened argument. The prince-regent now took his resolution. The British ambassador returned on shore to aid him in carrying out his purpose. The sailors of our fleet made the most strenuous exertions to fit out the Portuguese fleet of eight sail of the line, three frigates, and twenty-three other vessels. On the 29th of November, the archives of Portugal, the treasure, the plate and other valuable effects, having been got on board, a train of carriages moved to the quay of Belem, conveying the prince-regent, his mother the queen who had been many years insane, and the two princesses of the family. A crowd of attendants and other court fugitives accompanied them. Altogether, fifteen thousand persons left Lisbon on the 29th of November. They were going to the great dependency which Portugal had held uninterrupted by any hostility for a hundred and two years-a land of vast natural riches, but one which the parent state governed upon the narrowest principles of monopoly. From the time when the seat of government was transferred from Lisbon to Brazil, the colony prospered in a new life. In 1815 it became a constituent part of the Portuguese empire. As the British fleet saluted the Portuguese squadron as it passed down the Tagus, the sun became eclipsed; and a superstitious dread came over the population. The French, as the last of the royal fleet cleared the bar, came within sight of the Tagus-a ragged and starving remnant of a great army. The prey that they were to seize was gone. They were enough for the occupation of the city-enough to levy contributions on the country-enough to induce the belief that Portugal would never be separated from its French masters. The delivery of Portugal from the thraldom of Napoleon was to turn upon the speedy manifestation of popular resistance to his fraud and oppression in Spain. Ferdinand, prince of Asturias, the heir of the Spanish crown, was just entering upon the twenty-fourth year of his age, when he addressed a letter to Napoleon which produced very memorable consequences. His wife had died in 1806-a woman of firm mind, who had endeavoured to rescue her imbecile husband from the wretched state of pupilage in which he had been kept by his infamous mother and her paramour Godoy. Ferdinand solicited the protection of Napoleon; described the humiliation to which his father and himself were reduced by the favourite; and expressed his wish to be united to a princess of Napoleon's family. Godoy discovered what was passing; and having persuaded Charles IV. that Ferdinand was conspiring against his life, the prince was arrested. With the weakness of his character, he was terrified into the acknowledgment of a conspiracy to dethrone his father-a confession for which it is believed there was no foundation, except in the "Le Consulat et l'Empire," tome viii. p. 340, note. 498 [1808. ABDICATION OF CHARLES IV. OF SPAIN-INSURRECTION. secret correspondence with Napoleon. Meanwhile, Portugal was in the occupa tion of Junot. French soldiers were constantly crossing the Bidassoa, and planting themselves in frontier fortresses. The Court became alarmed; and Godoy persuaded the king to follow the example of the prince-regent of Por tugal, and seek in the rich possessions of Spain in the New World that security which the revolutions of the Old World denied to crowned heads. Ferdinand was hesitating what to do; when the people of Madrid, who had always felt a compassionate affection for the prince of Asturias, resolved that he should not be removed by force; and the guards at Aranjuez revolted, and would have taken the favourite's life had not the prince interfered to save him. This was on the 17th of March. On the 19th, Charles IV. abdicated in favour of his son, who took the title of king of Spain and the Indies. The king, in the decree which transferred the crown, asserted that his abdication was his spontaneous act. In a letter to Napoleon he said that he had been forced to abdicate, and had no hope but in the support of his magnanimous ally. The exiled emperor said to O'Meara, "When I saw those imbécilles quarrelling and trying to dethrone each other, I thought that I might as well take advantage of it, and dispossess an inimical family."* No Englishman would have thought it a calamity that this miserable race should have been set aside by the will of a misgoverned people. But that the father and the son should have been lured out of Spain by devices such as kidnappers could not have excelled, and then compelled to deliver up the proud Spanish people to the rule of an insolent foreigner, filled up the measure of the English wrath against the inordinate rapacity of the man who did not conquer this land of historic renown; but whom they regarded as "a cutpurse," "That from a shelf the precious diadem stole, On the 21st of April, Ferdinand was in the hands of the betrayer at Bayonne. On the 30th the old king and queen were in the same clutches. Godoy had been previously seized by Murat, and sent under guard to Napoleon, who had reached Bayonne on the 14th of April. On the 2nd of May there was an insurrection at Madrid, upon the people learning that Ferdinand was entrapped into the power of the French emperor. On the 6th of May Napoleon wrote to his brother Joseph, "King Charles has yielded up to me his right to the throne, and he is about to retire to Compiègne with the queen and some of his children. A few days before this treaty was signed, the prince of Asturias abdicated; I restored the crown to king Charles. There was a great insurrection at Madrid on the 2nd of May; between thirty and forty thousand persons were collected in the streets and houses, and fired from the windows. Two battalions of fusileers of my guard, and four or five hundred horse, soon brought them to their senses. More than two thousand of the populace were killed."+ Five days after, he again writes to Joseph,-"The nation, through the Supreme Council of Castile, asks me for a king, I destine this crown for you." What the nation was really asking for was, help from England. The insurrection at Madrid was quickly followed by popular agitations throughout the country. Provincial juntas * "Voice from St. Helena," vol. ii. p. 167-edit. 1822, ... 1808.] THE SPANISH JUNTAS ASK AID FROM ENGLAND. 499 were established in many districts. The supreme junta of Seville proclaimed Ferdinand VII., and declared war against France. The new king came to Bayonne, and proposed a Constitution to a junta there assembled of submissive nobles. The people flew to arms. 66 The British nation was not slow to manifest its deep sympathy with the Spanish patriots. Two deputies from Austurias had left Gijon in an open boat, and were picked up at sea by one of our frigates. "They were received with open arms," says Malmesbury. The veteran diplomatist wanted some grander envoys to arrive than an Asturian hidalgo and an Asturian attorney. Canning would not listen," he says. Canning wanted no better assurance of the spirit of the people than those chosen by the people could afford him. On the 15th of June, Sheridan, in the House of Commons, made a speech which electrified the country. He was convinced that there never existed so happy an opportunity for Great Britain to strike a bold stroke for the rescue of the world. He would do nothing by driblets. If a co-operation with Spain were expedient it should be an effectual co-operation. "Bonaparte has hitherto run a most victorious race. Hitherto he has had to contend against princes without dignity and ministers without wisdom. He has fought against countries in which the people have been indifferent as to his success. He has yet to learn what it is to fight against a country in which the people are animated with one spirit to resist him." * Sheridan moved for papers, which Canning said would be inconvenient to produce; but Canning's answer left no doubt as to the intentions of the cabinet: "There exists the strongest disposition on the part of the British government to afford every practicable aid in a contest so magnanimous. In endeavouring to afford this aid it will never occur to us to consider that a state of war exists between Spain and Great Britain." There were a few expressions of doubt and despondency in Parliament; but it was impossible to resist what Wilberforce described as the universal feeling. "Every Briton joined in enthusiastic prayers to the great Ruler of events, to bless with its merited success the struggles of a gallant people, in behalf of everything dear to the Christian, the citizen, and the man."+ When the Parliament was prorogued on the 4th of July, the government was pledged by the royal Speech to "make every exertion for the support of the Spanish cause.' On that day an Order in Council announced that hostilities against Spain had ceased. There had been great promptitude in the action of the British government. On the 14th of June, sir Arthur Wellesley had received from the duke of York his appointment to the command of a detachment of the army, " to be employed upon a particular service;" and, on the 30th of June were sent his full instructions from lord Castlereagh for the employment of a body of troops, to afford "to the Spanish and Portuguese nations every possible aid in throwing off the yoke of France." He was told in these instructions that "his majesty is graciously pleased to confide to you the fullest discretion to act according to circumstances for the benefit of his service." And yet sir Arthur Wellesley's "fullest discretion" was left at the absolute command of two superior officers. He sailed from Cork for Corunna on the 12th of July. On the * "Hansard," vol. xi. col. 889. Ibid., vol. xi. col. 1145. "Despatches," vol. iv. p. 160. 500 SIR ARTHUR WELLESLEY SENT WITH TROOPS TO PORTUGAL. [1808. 15th, lord Castlereagh writes to him that the command of the troops is entrusted to sir Hew Dalrymple, and to sir Harry Burrard as second in command. Nevertheless, lord Castlereagh points out to sir Hew Dalrymple the great hero of the Mahratta war as "an officer of whom it is desirable for you, on all accounts, to make the most prominent use which the rules of the service will permit." 11* The "rules of the service" subjected the man who had given the best evidence of his great military genius to the command of two generals, whose exploits were better known in the private records of the Horse Guards than in the annals of their country. Sir Arthur Wellesley's division comprised nine thousand men. Another corps, under sir John Moore, which had just arrived from the Baltic, numbered eleven thousand men. These two detachments were to co-operate. But their united efforts were to be directed by sir Hew Dalrymple and sir Harry Burrard. Moore had shown in Egypt of what metal he was made. When he waited on lord Castlereagh to receive his instructions, he was apprised that he was to go to Portugal, where he would find sir Arthur Wellesley; but that, if sir Hew Dalrymple had not arrived from Gibraltar, the operation would be undertaken by sir Harry Burrard. "It was thus indirectly notified to sir John Moore, that, after commanding in chief in Sicily and Sweden, he was now to be placed subordinate to two officers, the first of whom had never served in the field as a general."+ Moore expressed his feelings in somewhat strong terms. He had not to endure the bitter mortification which Wellesley experienced, when, in the moment of victory, he was compelled to leave his triumph incomplete, at the bidding of "an ordinary general in opposition to a great captain."‡ "The character of the Spaniard," writes lord Malmesbury, "is to let everything be done for him, if he finds any one disposed to do it, and never to act till obliged to do so."§ Before anything was done for the Spaniard by England, he was obliged to act, and in many things he acted well. There were great difficulties in his acting at all. The provincial juntas, who directed the course of hostilities to the French, were independent bodies, acting each for its own province; not having a federal unity which would be content to place those executive powers which were in a temporary desuetude under some authority competent to represent the monarchy, which, as the Spaniards expressed its condition, was in a state of widowhood. England had abundantly provided arms, ammunition, and pay for large native armies. But there was no one governing power to direct their employment in masses against the enemy, who would seek to overwhelm them by the magnitude of his forces. Still, in the early stages of the contest, the Spaniards well employed the means which they possessed. In June, the French general Dupont had marched from Madrid to Andalusia; given Cordova up to pillage; and committed atrocities which roused the people to fury. The Spanish general Castanos, with an army sent against Dupont by the Junta of Seville, won the battle of Baylen, and compelled the French to surrender at discretion on the 21st of July. Aragon was defended by its people under 1808.] SUCCESSES OF THE SPANIARDS-ZARAGOZA. 501 the command of Palafox. The siege of Zaragoza, the capital of the province, was commenced by the French on the 15th of June. They carried some of the outer works, but on forcing their way into the city were encountered with a heroism such as the conscripts of Napoleon had rarely beheld in the standing armies of the continental monarchies. The exploits of Augustina, the amazon of Zaragoza, inspired as much courage into the besieged as Joan of Arc had inspired at the siege of Orleans. The trenches were open for forty-nine days. The city was bombarded for twenty-one days. But nothing could shake the courage of its defenders. The French raised the siege on the 4th of August. A fortnight before this termination, Napoleon had written to the new king Joseph, who was beginning to despond, "Do not doubt for an instant that everything will end sooner and more happily than you think."* He adds-" All goes well at Zaragoza." On the 24th of July, Joseph is still more alarmed. He writes to Napoleon, " Your glory will be shipwrecked in Spain. My tomb will be a monument of your want of power to support me." The confident emperor replies: "To die is not your business, but to live and conquer; which you are doing and shall do. I shall find in Spain the pillars of Hercules, but not the limits of my power."+ On the 9th of August he gives him the comfortable assurance that before the autumn Spain "Correspondence with King Joseph," vol. i. p. 333. + Ibid., p. 339. |