HISTORY OF THE PENINSULAR WAR. BOOK I. CHAPTER I. I. 1807. THE hostility of the European aristocracy caused CHAP. the enthusiasm of republican France to take a military direction, and forced that powerful nation into a Introduccourse of policy which, however outrageous it might tion. appear, was in reality one of necessity. Up to the treaty of Tilsit, the wars of France were essentially defensive; for the bloody contest that wasted the continent so many years was not a struggle for pre-eminence between ambitious powers, not a dispute for some accession of territory, nor for the political ascendancy of one or other nation, but a deadly conflict to determine whether aristocracy or democracy should predominate; whether equality or privilege should henceforth be the principle of European governments. The French revolution was pushed into existence before the hour of its natural birth. The power of the aristocratic principle was too vigorous and too much identified with that of the monarchical principle, to be successfully resisted by a virtuous democratic effort, much less could it be overthrown by a VOL. I. B. 1. 1807. BOOK democracy rioting in innocent blood, and menacing destruction to political and religious establishments, the growth of centuries, somewhat decayed indeed, yet scarcely showing their grey hairs. The first military events of the revolution, the disaffection of Toulon and Lyons, the civil war of La Vendee, the feeble, although successful resistance made to the duke of Brunswick's invasion, and the frequent and violent change of rulers whose fall none regretted, were all proofs that the French revolution, intrinsically too feeble to sustain the physical and moral force pressing it down, was fast sinking when the wonderful genius of Buonaparte, baffling all reasonable calculation, raised and fixed it on the basis of victory, the only one capable of supporting the crude production. Sensible, however, that the cause he upheld was not sufficiently in unison with the feelings of the age, Napoleon's first care was to disarm or neutralize monarchical and sacerdotal enmity, by restoring a church establishment, and by becoming a monarch himself. Once a sovereign, his vigorous character, his pursuits, his talents, and the critical nature of the times, inevitably rendered him a despotic one; yet while he sacrificed political liberty, which to the great bulk of mankind has never been more than a pleasing sound, he cherished with the utmost care political equality, a sensible good, that produces increasing satisfaction as it descends in the scale of society; but this, the real principle of his government, the secret of his popularity, made him the people's monarch, not the sovereign of the aristocracy; hence, Mr. Pitt called him, "the child and the champion of democracy," a truth as evident as that Mr. Pitt and his successors were the children and the champions of aristocracy; I. 1807. hence also the privileged classes of Europe consist- CHAP. ently transferred their natural and implacable hatred of the French revolution to his person, for they saw that in him innovation had found a protector; that he alone had given pre-eminence to a system so hateful to them, and that he really was what he called himself, "the State." The treaty of Tilsit, therefore, although it placed Napoleon in a commanding situation with regard to the potentates of Europe, unmasked the real nature of the war, and brought him and England, the respective champions of equality and privilege, into more direct contact; peace could not be between them while both were strong, and all that the French emperor had hitherto gained only enabled him to choose his future field of battle. When the catastrophe of Trafalgar forbade him to think of invading England, his fertile genius conceived the plan of sapping her naval and commercial strength, by depriving her of the continental market for her manufactured goods; he prohibited the reception of English wares in any part of the continent, and he exacted from allies and dependants the most rigid compliance with his orders; but this "continental system," as it was called, became inoperative when French troops were not present to enforce his commands. It was thus in Portugal, where British influence was really paramount, although the terror inspired by the French arms seemed at times to render this doubtful; fear however is momentary, self-interest lasting, and Portugal was but an unguarded province of England. From Portugal and Gibraltar, English goods freely passed into Spain; and to check this traffic by force BOOK 1807. de Cham'pagny's Report, 21st Oct. 1807. was not easy, and otherwise impossible. Spain stood nearly in the same position with regard to France that Monsieur Portugal did to England; a warm feeling of friendship for the enemy of Great Britain was the natural consequence of the unjust seizure of the Spanish frigates in a time of peace; but although this rendered the French cause popular in Spain, and that the court of Madrid was from weakness subservient to the French Emperor, nothing could induce the people to refrain from a profitable contraband trade; they would not pay that respect to the wishes of a foreign power, which they refused to the regulations of their own government; neither was the aristocratical enmity to Napoleon asleep in Spain. A proclamation issued by the Prince of Peace previous to the battle of Jena, although hastily recalled when the result of that conflict was known, sufficiently indicated the tenure upon which the friendship of the Spanish court was to be held. Napoleon, in Las This state of affairs drew the French Emperor's Casas, vol. attention towards the Peninsula; a chain of remarkii. 4th part. able circumstances fixed it there, and induced him to remove the reigning family, and to place his brother Joseph on the throne of Spain. He thought that the people of that country, sick of an effete government, would be quiescent under such a change; and although it should prove otherwise, the confidence he reposed in his own fortune, unrivalled talents, and vast power, made him disregard the consequences, while the cravings of his military and political system, the danger to be apprehended from the vicinity of a Bourbon dynasty, and above all the temptations offered by a miraculous folly which outrun even his desires, urged him to a deed, that well accepted by I. the people of the Peninsula, would have proved be- CHAP. neficial; but being enforced contrary to their wishes, was unhallowed either by justice or benevolence. In an evil hour, for his own greatness and the happiness of others, he commenced this fatal project; founded in violence, executed with fraud and cruelty, it spread desolation through the fairest portions of the Peninsula; it was calamitous to France and destructive to himself. The conflict between his hardy veterans and the bloody vindictive race he insulted, assumed a character of unmitigated ferocity disgraceful to human nature; for the Spaniards did not fail to defend their just cause with hereditary cruelty, and the French army struck a terrible balance of barbarous actions. Napoleon observed with surprise the unexpected energy of the people, and bent his whole force to the attainment of his object; while England coming to the assistance of the Peninsula employed all her resources to frustrate his efforts. Thus the two leading nations of the world were brought into contact at a, moment when both were disturbed by angry passions, eager for great events, and possessed of surprising power. The extent and population of the French empire, including the kingdom of Italy, the confederation of the Rhine, the Swiss Cantons, the Duchy of Warsaw, and the dependent states of Holland and Naples, enabled Buonaparte through the medium of the conscription to array an army, in number nearly equal to the great host that followed the Persian of old against Greece; like that multitude also his troops were gathered from many nations, but they were trained in a Roman discipline, and ruled by a Car 1807. |