XII. 1808. August. Cabañes, ii. of the ser battle reached him at Tarragona, the French were CHAP. half way to Barcelona; and before he was apprised that they had broken up the siege, they were already in that city. The command which he had undertaken was no enviable one. The repulse 101. of the enemy at Valencia, their losses in Anda- Difficulties lusia, and the heroic defence of Zaragoza, had vice. raised hopes which nothing but the most brilliant success could satisfy; the service in which he was engaged required great steadiness and military skill; the best of his troops were wanting in both, and the great body of them fit only for irregular war. The Junta of Catalonia had decreed that an army of 40,000 men should be raised; and because there were no officers to command, and no time for disciplining them, they determined that the whole force should consist of Miquelets. This class of irregular troops D. Fr. Mawas originally called * Almogavares; but when deCatalana, l. iv. p. 90. they began to alter their savage appearance and barbarous mode of warfare, they took their present name from one of their favourite commanders, Miquelot de Prats, a notable partizan who attached himself to Cæsar Borgia. name was popular among the Catalans, the Miquelets having distinguished themselves whenever the country was invaded, and especially in * An account of them may be found in the notes to the Chronicle of the Cid, pp. 141 and 418. Marshal Gouvion St. Cyr says of the present Miquelets, that they are the best light troops in Europe (p. 54.) But Cabañes ar The gues that they cannot possibly noel Hist. XII. 1808. August. 90-93. CHAP. the succession war. It was intended to raise forty tercios of a thousand men each, and this might have been done in a few days, such was the national spirit, if equipments of every kind had not been wanting. A great bounty was given to these Miquelets, but this prevented recruiting for the line, and the regular troops were disgusted at seeing that men received larger pay for engaging in a service where they had more Cabanes, i. liberty, and were subject to less discipline. On the other hand, the Miquelet officers received less pay than those of the army, and were less esteemed, their rank being only during the war. The force which was thus defective in its constitution, was alsó ill armed. Sir Hew Dalrymple, upon whom pressing demands for arms were made from all that side of the peninsula, could allot but few to Catalonia; and the abundant supplies which had been sent out by England were dispatched to other parts, where they were neither so much wanted nor so well bestowed; for Barcelona was the great arsenal of the province: 50,000 firelocks had there fallen into the enemy's hands, whereas the manufactory at Ripoll could furnish the Catalans with not more than 150 per week. Palacio therefore ordered pikes or partisans to be made, with which he armed the two foremost ranks of the Miquelets, who, as upon the old system, were drawn up three deep. In hands that can be trusted with the bayonet the pike would be a weapon hardly less efficient; but for these raw troops the want of XII. 1808. 130-132. fire-arms lessened the little confidence which CHAP. they felt in themselves when they were brought to encounter soldiers as well disciplined as armed. Even the regular troops knew their own infe- Cabañes, ii. riority in the art of war. They were incapable of manoeuvring in the face of an enemy; for so greatly had their discipline been neglected while no danger was apprehended, that they had gone through none of the rehearsals by which sol- Cabañes, i. diers are prepared for real action; mere drilling seems to have been all the instruction they had received. 78. proaches Sept. 1. With this force, as ill officered as it was ill pro- The Marvided in all other respects, the Marques removed quiches his head-quarters to Villa-franca, to maintain the Barcelona. line of the Llobregat, and take advantage of any opportunity for recovering Barcelona while the blockade was kept up. An expectation that something would be attempted by the inhabitants seems to have influenced the Spaniards to this measure, otherwise ill judged. The recovery of Barcelona was indeed an object of the greatest importance; but weakened as Duhesme then was, a few thousand Miquelets, with the armed population, would have sufficed to prevent the incursions of the garrison, and the Spaniards should have taken their post on the Pluvia instead of the Llobregat, with the Ter for their second position, and Gerona and Hostalrich to support them,.. there they could best have im- Marshal peded the efforts which the French would make for relieving and securing to themselves the 280. Gouvion St. Cyr, XII. 1808. September. British troops or Sicily, but detained CHAP. strongest place in Spain. A British force might here have rendered the most essential service. Deputies from the Junta of Catalonia were sent to Madrid, to consult with the Council of Generals there upon the affairs of the province; and in the hope of obtaining British aid one of them proceeded to Lisbon to confer with Sir Hew Dalrymple. All that could be done in that quarter was effected; the Spanish troops in Lisbon were embarked for Catalonia; and the British Government, sensible of what might be effected there by timely measures, ordered thither 10,000 men from the army at that time stationed in Sicily. But a feint of invading Sicily was made dered from by Murat, who had succeeded Joseph Buonaparte as Intrusive King of Naples; and the troops were there by the detained in an inactive and unworthy service, when they ought to have been co-operating for the most important ends with one of the finest and bravest people in the world. At no other time or place during the whole war could such a body of English troops have been employed to so much effect as at this time in Catalonia. Some petty jealousies or idle forms had hitherto deprived the Catalans also of cavalry when it might have been most useful. There was a regiment of hussars in Majorca, for which the Junta repeatedly applied, and its applications were earnestly enforced by the British officers who were in communication with that island; but it was Cabanes, ii. not till after a series of frivolous and vexatious delays that they were embarked at length in the commander. 129. XII. 1808. September. beginning of October; and a detachment of them CHAP. had not reached the Llobregat more than twentyfour hours before they were led to intercept the enemy at S. Culgat, on their return to Barcelona from a marauding expedition. Not expecting to be attacked by cavalry, the French were taken by surprise; they suffered a considerable loss, and from that time confined their incursions within narrower bounds. The troops from Portugal soon afterwards arrived; reinforcements also came from Valencia and Majorca; Palacio was removed from the command, because of the Cabañes, ii. unpopularity which he had incurred, and was succeeded by D. Juan Miguel de Vives. 161. cupied by The want of military knowledge and military Bilbao octalent was never more severely felt in any coun- the French. try than in Spain at this momentous crisis. It could not be doubted that Buonaparte was preparing to bring against the Spaniards that tremendous force which none of the continental powers had hitherto been able to withstand. If he seemed to delay, it was only that the preparations might be more complete; sure, meantime, that neither Spain nor England knew at that time how to profit by the interval, and that very probably disunion might arise among the Spaniards themselves, of which he might take advantage. The French had paid dearly for the error of dividing their forces, and advancing where they had no point of support; they were now in strong positions, receiving reinforcements from time to time, and waiting in security till |