French victims failing, his raging thirst for murder urged him to menace the junta, who with the exception of the English consul Mr. Tupper, had given way to his previous violence, but now readily found the means to crush his power. The canon, while in the act of braving their authority, was seized by stratagem, and soon afterwards strangled, together with two hundred of his band. The Conde de Serbelloni, captain-general of the province, then proceeded to organize an army; the old Count Florida Blancha placed himself at the head of the Murcian insurrection, and his force acted in unison with that of Valencia.

In Catalonia the occupation of Barcelona repressed the popular effervescence, but the feeling was the same, and an insurrection, breaking out at the town of Manresa, soon spread to all the unfettered parts of the province.

In Aragon the arrival of Don Joseph Palafox kindled the fire of patriotism. He had escaped from Bayonne, and his family were greatly esteemed in a country where it was of the noblest among a people absurdly vain of their ancient descent. The captain-general, fearful of a tumult, ordered Palafox to quit the province; but this circumstance, joined to some appearance of mystery in his escape from Bayonne, increased the passions of the multitude; a crowd surrounded his abode, and forced him to assume the command, the captain-general was confined, some persons were murdered, and a junta was formed. Palafox was considered by his companions as a man of slender capacity and great vanity, and there is nothing in his exploits to create a doubt of the justness of this opinion; it was not Palafox that upheld the glory of Aragon, it was the spirit of the people, which he had not excited, and could so little direct, that for a long time after the commencement of the first siege, he was kept a sort of prisoner in Zaragoza, his courage and fidelity being distrusted by the population which he is supposed to have ruled.

The example of Aragon aroused the Navarrese, and Logroño became the focus of an insurrection which extended along most of the valleys of that kingdom. In the northern and western provinces, the spirit of independence was equally fierce and as decidedly pronounced, accompanied also by the same excesses. In Badajoz the Conde de la Torre del Frenio was butchered by the populace, and his mangled carcass dragged through the streets in triumph. At Talavera de la Reyna, the corregidor with difficulty escaped a similar fate by a hasty flight; Leon presented a wide, unbroken scene of anarchy, and, generally speaking, in all the great towns violent hands were laid upon those who opposed the people's wishes.

Gallicia seemed to hold back for a moment, but the example of Leon, and the arrival of an agent from the Asturias, where the insurrection was in full force, produced a general movement. A junta was formed, and Filanghieri, the governor of Coruña, an Italian, was called upon to exercise the functions of royalty by declaring war in form against France. Like every man of sense in Spain he was unwilling to commence a revolution upon such uncertain grounds, and the impatient populace sought his death; he was saved at the moment by the courage of an officer of his staff, yet his horrible fate was only deferred. Being a man of talent and sincerely attached to Spain, he exerted himself to organize the military resources of the province, and no suspicion attached to his conduct; but such was the inherent ferocity of the people and of the time, that the soldiers of the regiment of Navarre seized him at

Villa Franca del Bierzo, and, as some say, stuck him full of bayonets, while others assert that they planted their weapons in the ground, and then tossing him on to their points, left him there to struggle, and disbanded themselves.

The Asturians were the first who proclaimed their indefeasible right of choosing a new government when the old one ceased to afford them protection. They established a local junta, declared war against the French, and despatched deputies to England to solicit assistance. Meanwhile, although the great towns in Biscay and the Castiles, were overawed by fifty thousand bayonets, the peasantry commenced a war, in their own manner, against the stragglers and the sick, and thus a hostile chain surrounding the French army was completed in every link.

This universal, and nearly simultaneous effort of the Spanish people was beheld by the rest of Europe with astonishment and admiration : astonishment at the energy thus suddenly put forth by a nation hitherto deemed unnerved and debased; admiration at the devoted courage of an act which, seen at a distance and its odious parts unknown, appeared with all the ideal beauty of Numantian patriotism. In England the enthusiasm was unbounded; dazzled at first with the splendour of such an agreeable, unlooked-for spectacle, men of all classes gave way to the impulse of a generous sympathy, and forgot, or felt disinclined to analyze, the real causes of this apparently magnanimous exertion. It may, however, be fairly doubted if the disinterested vigour of the Spanish character was the true source of the resistance; it was, in fact, produced by several co-operating causes, many of which are any thing but commendable. Constituted as modern states are, with little in their systems of government or education adapted to nourish intense feelings of patriotism, it would be miraculous indeed if such a result was obtained from the pure virtue of a nation, which for two centuries had groaned under the pressure of civil and religious despotism.

The Spanish character, with relation to public affairs, is distinguished by inordinate pride and arrogance. Dilatory and improvident, the individual as well as the mass, all possess an absurd confidence that every thing is practicable which their heated imaginations suggest; once excited, they can see no difficulty in the execution of a project, and the obstacles they encounter are attributed to treachery; hence the sudden murder of so many virtuous men at the commencement of this commotion. Kind and warm in his attachments, but bitter in his anger, the Spaniard is patient under privations, firm in bodily suffering, prone to sudden passion, vindictive, bloody, remembering insult longer than injury, and cruel in his revenge. With a strong natural perception of what is noble, his promise is lofty, but as he invariably permits his passions to get the mastery of his reason, his performance is mean. In the progress of this war, the tenacity of vengeance peculiar to the nation supplied the want of cool, persevering intrepidity; but it was a poor substitute for that essential quality, and led rather to deeds of craft and cruelty than to daring acts of patriotism. Now the abstraction of the royal family, and the unexpected pretensions to the crown, so insultingly put forth by Napoleon, had aroused all the Spanish pride, and the tumults of Madrid and Aranjuez prepared the public mind for a violent movement; the protection afforded by the French to the obnoxious Godoy increased the ferment of popular feeling, because a dearly cherished vengeance was thus frustrated at the moment of its expected accomplishment, and the disappointment

excited all that fierceness of anger which with Spaniards is, for the moment, uncontrollable; and then came the tumult of Madrid, which, swollen and distorted, was cast like Cæsar's body before the people to urge them to frenzy; they arose, not to meet a danger the extent of which they had calculated, and were prepared for the sake of independence to confront, but to gratify the fury of their hearts, and to slake their thirst of blood.

During Godoy's administration the property of the church had been trenched upon, and it was evident, from the example of France and Italy, that, under the new system, the operation would be repeated; this was a matter that involved the interests, and, of course, stimulated the activity of a multitude of monks and priests, who found no difficulty in persuading an ignorant and bigoted people, that the aggressive stranger was also the enemy of religion and accursed of God. With processions, miracles, prophecies, distribution of relics, and the appointment of saints to the command of the armies, they fanaticised the mass of the patriots, and in every part of the Peninsula the clergy were distinguished for their active zeal; monks and friars were invariably, either leaders in the tumults, or at the side of those who were, instigating them to barbarous actions. Bonaparte found the same cause produce similar effects during his early campaigns in Italy;* and if the shape of that country had been as favourable for protracted resistance, and a like support had been furnished by Great Britain, the patriots of Spain would have been rivalled by modern Romans.

The continental system of mercantile exclusion was another spring of this complicated machinery. It threatened to lessen the already decayed commerce of the maritime towns, and the contraband trade, which has always been carried on in Spain to an incredible extent, was certain of destruction; with that trade the fate of one hundred thousand excise and custom-house officers was involved.† It required but a small share of penetration to perceive, that a system of armed revenue officers, organized after the French manner, and stimulated by a vigorous administration, would quickly put an end to the smuggling, which was, in truth, only a consequence of monopolies and internal restrictions upon the trade of one province with another-vexations abolished by the constitution of Bayonne hence all the activity and intelligence of the merchants engaged in foreign trade, and all the numbers and lawless violence of the smugglers were enlisted in the cause of the country, swelling the ranks of the insurgent patriots; and hence also, the readiness of the Gibraltar merchants to advance the loan before spoken of.

The state of civilization in Spain was likewise exactly suited to an insurrection, for if the people had been a little more enlightened, they would have joined the French; if very enlightened, the invasion could not have happened at all. But in a country where the comforts of civilized society are less needed, and therefore less attended to than in any other part of Europe; where the warmth and dryness of the climate render it no sort of privation, or even inconvenience, to sleep for the greatest part of the year in the open air; and where the universal custom is to go armed, it was not difficult for any energetic man to assemble and keep together large masses of the credulous peasantry. No story could be too gross for their belief, if it agreed with their

* Napoleon's Mémoires, Campagne de Italie, Venise.

+ Appendix, No. IX.

wishes. "Es verdad, los dicen,"-"It is true, they say it," is the invariable answer of a Spaniard if a doubt is expressed of the truth of an absurd report. Temperate, possessing little furniture, and generally hoarding all the gold he can get, he is less concerned for the loss of his house than the inhabitant of another country would be, and the effort that he makes in relinquishing his abode, must not be measured by the scale of an Englishman's exertion in a like case; once engaged in an adventure, the lightness of his spirits and the brilliancy of his sky, makes it a matter of indifference to the angry peasant whither he wanders.

The evils which had afflicted the country previous to the period of the French interference also tended to prepare the Spaniards for violence, and aided in turning that violence against the intruders. Famine, oppression, poverty, and disease, the loss of commerce, and unequal taxation, had pressed sorely upon them. For such a system the people could not be enthusiastic, but they were taught to believe, that Godoy was the sole author of the misery they suffered, that Ferdinand would redress their grievances; and as the French were the protectors of the former, and the oppressors of the latter, it was easy to add this bitterness to their natural hatred of the domination of a stranger, and it was so done.*

Such were the principal causes which combined to produce this surprising revolution, from which so many great events flowed, without one man of eminent talent being cast up, to control or direct the spirit thus accidentally excited. Nothing more directly shows the heterogeneous nature of the feelings and interests, which were brought together, than this last fact, which cannot be attributed to a deficiency of natural talent, for the genius of the Spanish people is notoriously ardent, subtle, and vigorous; but there was no common bond of feeling, save that of individual hatred to the French, which a great man could lay hold of to influence large masses. Persons of sagacity perceived, very early, that the Spanish revolution, like a leafy shrub in a violent gale of wind, greatly agitated, but disclosing only slight unconnected stems, afforded no sure hold for the ambition of a master-spirit, if such there were. It was clear that the cause would fail, unless supported by England, and then England would direct all, and not suffer her resources to be wielded for the glory of an individual, whose views and policy might afterwards thwart her own; nor was it difficult to perceive that the downfall of Napoleon, not the regeneration of Spain, was the object of her cabinet.

The explosion of public feeling was fierce in its expression, because political passions will always be vehement at the first moment of their appearance among a people new to civil commotion, and unused to permit their heat to evaporate in public discussions. The result was certainly a wonderful change in the affairs of Europe; it seems yet undecided whether that change has been for the better or for the worse; and in the progress of their struggle, the Spaniards certainly developed more cruelty than courage, more violence than intrepidity, more personal hatred of the French than enthusiasm for their own cause. They opened, indeed, a wide field for the exertions of others, they presented a fulcrum upon which a lever was rested that moved the civilized world, but assuredly the presiding genius, the impelling power, came from another quarter; useful accessories they were, but as principals they displayed neither wisdom, spirit, nor skill sufficient to resist the prodigious force

* Historia de la Guerra contra Napoleon,

by which they were assailed. If they appeared at first heedless of danger, it was not because they were prepared to perish rather than submit, but that they were reckless of provoking a power whose terrors they could not estimate, and in their ignorance despised.

It is, however, not surprising that great expectations were at first formed of the heroism of the Spaniards, and those expectations were greatly augmented by their agreeable qualities. There is not upon the face of the earth a people so attractive in the friendly intercourse of society. Their majestic language, fine persons, and becoming dress, their lively imaginations, the inexpressible beauty of their women, and the air of romance which they throw over every action, and infuse into every feeling, all combine to delude the senses and to impose upon the judgment. As companions, they are imcomparably the most agreeable of mankind, but danger and disappointment attend the man who, confiding in their promises and energy, ventures upon a difficult enterprise. "Never do to-day what you can put off until to-morrow," is the favourite proverb in Spain, and rigidly followed.

CHAPTER IV.

New French corps formed in Navarre--Duhesme fixes himself at Barcelona-Importance of that city-Napoleon's military plan and arrangements.

THE Commotion of Aranjuez undeceived the French emperor: he perceived that he was engaged in a delicate enterprise, and that the people he had to deal with were any thing but tame and quiescent under insult. Determined, however, to persevere, he pursued his political intrigues, and without relinquishing the hope of a successful termination to the affair by such means, he arranged a profound plan of military operations, and so distributed his forces, that at the moment when Spain was pouring forth her swarthy bands, the masses of the French army were concentrated upon the most important points, and combined in such a manner, that, from their central position, they had the power of overwhelming each separate province, no three of which could act in concert without first beating a French corps. And if any of the Spanish armies succeeded in routing a French force, the remaining corps. could unite without difficulty, and retreat without danger. It was the skill of this disposition which enabled seventy thousand men, covering at great extent of country, to brave the simultaneous fury of a whole nation; an army less ably distributed would have been trampled under foot, and lost, amidst the tumultuous uproar of eleven millions of people.

In a political point of view the inconvenience which would have arisen from suffering a regular army to take the field, was evident. To have been able to characterize the opposition of the Spanish people, as a partial insurrection of peasants, instigated by some evil-disposed persons to act against the wishes of the respectable part of the nation, would have given some colour to the absorbing darkness of the invasion. And to have permitted that which was at first an insurrection of peasants, to take the form and consistence of regular armies and methodical warfare, would have been a military error, dangerous in the extreme. Napoleon, who well knew that scientific war is only a wise application of force, laughed