XIV. Junta upon the means of restoring to him all the CHAP. credit and respectability which he had formerly enjoyed. By another decree, dated on the day when Castaños was defeated at Tudela, they resolved that honorary militias should be formed in all towns which were not in the scene of war, in order to prevent disorders, and to arrest robbers, deserters, and ill-disposed persons. A more remarkable measure related to the Ex-Jesuits: their banishment was repealed, and they were permitted to return to any part of Spain, and there enjoy their pensions. The reason assigned was, that it was a miserable thing for them to be expatriated, to live far from their friends and kin, and be abandoned to the mercy of strangers; that it was now become difficult to furnish them with the pensions assigned to them by the crown; and that the sums thus allotted were so much withdrawn from the circulating specie of the kingdom, to increase that of foreign and even of hostile countries. This late act of humanity to the poor survivors of an injured community, is not at any time to be censured; but it is extraordinary that at such a time it should have occupied the attention of the Junta. Of these measures, all would have been unexceptionable, and even praise-worthy, had they been well-timed; but the Central Junta still pursued the fatal system of deceiving the people as to the extent and imminence of their danger. 1808. November. CHAP. XIV. 1808. November. Nov. 21. They addressed a proclamation to the inhabitants of Madrid, saying, that they had taken all the measures in their power for defeating the enemy, who, continuing his attacks, had advanced to the neighbourhood of Somosierra; and that the number of the French there hardly amounted to 8000 men. The enthusiasm with which the soldiers were preparing to beat the enemies of their country, they said, and their confidence in their valour, was not to be expressed; and the English were ready to march from the Escurial, to reinforce the position chosen by the able general whom the Junta had appointed, and to support the operations of the van, who, by that time, were already engaged with the slaves of the tyrant. With such representations did the government endeavour to deceive the people of Madrid, and lull them into a feeling of security, when its duty was, to have told them the whole extent of their danger, and manfully roused them to those exertions which the emergency required. But they themselves still in some degree partook the delusion which they inspired. Their confidence in the Spanish character was too well founded ever to be shaken; and they relied, with little reflection, upon the natural strength of the country. Their present hope was upon the pass of the Somosierra. D. Benito San Juan, a judicious and able officer, of high reputation, was stationed there with the remains of the Extremaduran army, which had with great prompti tude been reinforced. The Junta did not call to mind with how little difficulty Vedel had forced the stronger passes of the Sierra Morena. CHAP. XIV. 1808. November. Pass of the Buonaparte continued at Aranda till the 29th, when his head-quarters were removed to Boca- Somosierra guillas, a village upon the skirts of the Somo-forced. sierra. There he learnt that about 6000 men were entrenched upon the heights of Sepulveda, and that a stronger body occupied the pass. The advanced guard was attacked without the success which the French expected; but the Spaniards, instead of being encouraged by this advantage, forsook their entrenchments and dispersed. On the following morning the enemy, under M. Victor, attempted the pass. Sixteen pieces of Nov. 30. cannon had been well placed to flank the ascent, and some attempts had been made to break up the road; but this easy means of defence had been so imperfectly performed, that the pass was won by a charge of Polish lancers. They were favoured in their approach by a thick fog; but the Spaniards must have strangely neglected the advantage of the ground, when they suffered a strong mountain defile to be taken by a charge of light horse. The men, fancying themselves betrayed, betrayed themselves by their own fears; they threw away their arms, and dispersed among the hills, leaving all the artillery and baggage to the enemy. And now the way to Madrid was open. During the series of disasters which thus rapidly succeeded each other, there had been no CHAP. time for the Junta to think of removing their XIV. 1808. residence to the capital, still less for them to take into consideration, on the appointed day, the November. plan for forming a Regency, and convoking the Junta retire Cortes. They began now to feel themselves infrom Aran secure at Aranjuez;.. already advanced parties The Central jucz. of the French had approached the Tagus; whereever they went there was no armed force to oppose them; they had appeared at Villarejo on the 28th, on the 30th at Mostoles; and if at this time two or three hundred horse, with a few infantry, had pushed on to Aranjuez, they might with perfect ease have surprised the Junta, and by depriving Spain of its government, have inJovellanos's flicted upon it a more dangerous injury than all p. ii. § 44. which it had hitherto suffered in the field. This Memorial, opportunity was overlooked by Buonaparte; and the Junta, sensible of their danger when the consequences of the defeat at Tudela and the rout at Somosierra were known, deliberated whither to retire. Florida-Blanca, who was sinking under the burthen of years and the anxieties of his situation, was for removing at once to Cadiz, and a few others agreed with him. Jovellanos, who added to his other virtues that of perfect calmness and intrepidity under any danger, represented that this would be sacrificing too much for safety; and that the honour of the government, as well as the public service, required that it should establish itself as near as possible to the theatre of war. Toledo was named, and rejected, XIV. 1808. December. as having nothing but its situation to defend it. CHAP. Cordoba and Seville were proposed, but liable to the same objection; and Badajoz, which was the place that Jovellanos advised, was chosen: the provinces every where were open to the enemy, but Badajoz was a strong place, from whence the Junta might correspond with the British army, and with that which Romana was now re-forming in the northern provinces from the dispersed troops of Blake and the Conde de Belveder. There they could take measures for raising new armies in Extremadura and Andalusia; and if the French should overrun those provinces, which there was now nothing to prevent them from doing, they might thence pass through Portugal to those northern parts where the founders of the Spanish monarchy had found an asylum from the Moors; and where its restorers, animated with the same spirit, might, in like manner, Jovellanos thought, maintain the independence of their country. They were to halt at Toledo on the way, and there take such measures as circumstances might require. Madrid. Two days before the passage of the Somo- State of sierra orders had been given to arm and embody the people of Madrid. The people were ready and willing, but this measure had been too long delayed; nevertheless a permanent Junta was formed, to maintain order, and provide for the defence of the capital; and the latter object was especially entrusted to Morla and to the Marques de Castelar. Now indeed was the time for that |