VI. June. well understood his intention, and voted that he should imme- CHAP. diately be sent in irons to Majorca ; and before the mob, who at his bidding would have massacred the Junta, knew that he had 1808. been accused, he was conducted secretly under a strong guard to the mole, put in chains, and embarked for that island. The Junta then acted with vigour and severity: they seized about two hundred of the assassins, had them strangled in prison, and exposed their bodies upon a scaffold. The Canon was afterwards brought back and suffered the same deserved fate. What confession he made was not known; he would not permit the priest to reveal it, farther than an acknowledgement that God Travels, p. and his crimes had brought him to that end. Sir J. Carr's 255-266. fails in at Occupy Le rida. The Valencians, as soon as they were delivered from the Duheme tyranny of this frantic demagogue, prepared vigorously for tempting to defence. They burnt the paper money which had been stamped in Murat's name, and stopped several chests of specie which were on the way to Madrid. The Catalans were not able to exert themselves with equal effect, because Barcelona, the second city of the kingdom in population, but in commercial and military importance the first, was in the hands of the French; but where the people were not controlled by the immediate presence of the enemy they declared themselves with a spirit worthy of their ancestors. The decrees from Bayonne and the edicts of Murat were publicly burnt at Manresa. The Governor of Tortosa, D. Santiago de Guzman y Villoria, was murdered by the raging populace, and that city declared against the intrusive government. Duhesme thought to secure Lerida by sending the Spanish regiment of Estremadura to occupy the citadel; he expected that, being Spaniards, no objection would be made to admitting them, and an order for relieving them by French troops might afterwards be obtained from the government at Madrid. But the people of Lerida refused to let them enter, VOL. I. P P June. Cabañes. Exercito de Cataluña. Palafox escapes onne to Za ragoza. CHAP. in wrongful, though at that time necessary distrust; and the VI. regiment, glad to find itself at liberty, took up its quarters at 1808. Tarrega, waiting to see where it might be employed with most advantage in the service of its country. They were soon invited to Zaragoza. It was for the purpose of keeping open a communication with that city that Duhesme had wished to occupy 23, 24. Lerida; and if both places had been secured, the French would then have had military possession of all the Pyrenean provinces. Among the persons who accompanied Ferdinand to Bayonne was D. Joseph Palafox y Melzi, the youngest of three brothers, of one of the most distinguished families in Aragon. He was about thirty-four years of age, and had been from boyhood in the Spanish guards without ever having seen actual service; in Madrid, where he had mostly passed his time, he was only remarkable for a certain foppishness in his appearance, and in ordinary times he might have passed through life as an ordinary man, without any pretensions to moral or intellectual rank. After the tumults at Aranjuez he was appointed second in command there, under the Marquis de Castellar, to whose custody the Prince of the Peace was committed. Not being regarded at Bayonne as a person whom it was necessary to secure, he found means to escape in the disguise of a peasant, and in that dress arrived safely at a country house belonging to his family, at Alfranca, about two miles from Zaragoza. That city was in a perturbed state,.. the people restless, indignant, and eager to act against the enemy; the magistrates, and the Captain-general of Aragon, D. Jorge Juan Guillermi, desirous of maintaining order, and ready in regular course of office to obey the instructions which they received from Madrid, not scrupulous from what authority they came, while it was through the accustomed channels. The arrival of Palafox at such a time excited the hopes and the expectations of the Zaragozans. That he was VI. June. hostile to the intended usurpation was certain, he would not CHAP. otherwise have exposed himself to danger in escaping from Bayonne; that he came with the intention of serving Ferdinand 1808. was to be presumed, . . perhaps with secret instructions from him; it was even rumoured that Ferdinand himself had miraculously made his escape, and was now concealed in the house of the faithful companion of his flight. This report was too romantic to obtain belief, except among the most credulous of the ignorant. Palafox however was so popular, and the impatience of the people discovered itself so plainly, and their wishes so evidently looked to him as the man whom they would fain have for their leader, that though he used no means direct or indirect for encouraging this disposition, the Captain-general thought proper to send him an order to quit the kingdom of Aragon. Despotic as the system of administration had been throughout all Spain, such an order to a man of Palafox's rank, in his own country, would have been deemed at any time a most unfit exertion of authority. Under the present circumstances it evinced the determination of General Guillermi to support the intrusive government, and hastened the insurrection which he apprehended, but was unable to avert. tion in that Two men of strong national feeling and great hardihood had Insurrec obtained at this time an ascendancy over the populace; Tio city. Jorge the one was called, the other Tio Marin, . . Tio, or uncle, being the appellation by which men in the lower classes who have passed the middle age are familiarly addressed in that part of Spain. These persons, on the morning of the 24th of May, at the head of a multitude of peasants from the parishes of S. Madaleña and S. Pablo, proceeded to the Governor's palace, crying out, Down with Murat! Ferdinand for ever! They disarmed the guard, made their way into his apartment, and required him to accompany them to the arsenal, and give orders June. CHAP. for distributing arms to the people; a great quantity, they said, VI. had been sold to the French. It was in vain that Guillermi 1808. defended himself against this absurd accusation, and pleaded his age and services and honourable wounds: his conduct towards Palafox had unequivocally shown what part he was disposed to take in this crisis of his country. But the Zaragozans, less inhuman than the populace in many other places, contented themselves with securing him in the old castle of the Aljaferia, which was used for a military prison as well as for a depot of artillery. The second in command, Lieutenant-general Mori, who was an Italian by birth, was then regarded as his successor, rather by right of seniority, than for any confidence on the part of the people; for though his name was shouted with loud Vivas, ominous intimations accompanied these shouts, that if he did not demean himself to their satisfaction, the cry would be, Down with Mori, as it had been, Down with Guillermi. A Junta was formed, but though the most respectable persons were chosen, the people continued to act for themselves. Still it was with greater moderation than had been evinced elsewhere; a cry was raised against the French inhabitants; and they were conducted to the citadel, more for their own security than for that of the city Pafox Tio Jorge and a party of peasants, now armed from the made a arsenal, went to Alfranca, and invited Palafox into Zaragoza ; he cap tain-gene ral. showed no disposition to accept their invitation, and they would have taken him with them against his consent, if General Mori, feeling the instability of his own power, had not written to solicit his assistance. The next morning, when he appeared in the Council, he requested that some means might be taken for delivering him from the importunities of the people, protesting that he was ready to devote all his exertions, and his life also, if that sacrifice should be required, to his country and his King. The 1 VI. people who surrounded the door were now calling out that Pala- CHAP. fox should be appointed Captain-general; they burst into the Council with this cry. Mori gladly declared himself willing to 1808. resign the office if his services were no longer necessary, and Palafox was thus invested with the command. June. and Cabar ragoza. The city was in this state when Jovellanos, having been re- Jovellanos leased on the accession of Ferdinand from his long and ini- rus at Zaquitous imprisonment in Majorca, arrived there on the way from Barcelona to Asturias, his native province. The insurrection in Catalonia had not broken out when he commenced his journey, but every where the storm was gathering; travellers of his appearance were every where regarded with curiosity and suspicion; and when desirous, because of his infirm age and broken health, to avoid the noise of a tumultuous city and the inconvenience of unnecessary delay, he would have past on without entering the gates, a jealous mob surrounded the carriage. Hearing that it came from Barcelona, some were for searching the strangers, others for conducting them before the new Captain-general to be examined; presently however he was recognized, the name of Jovellanos was pronounced; He is a good man, he must stay with us, was then the cry; and he was conducted as in triumph to the palace. Palafox also intreated this eminent and irreproachable man to remain in Zaragoza and assist him with his advice; but Jovellanos pleaded infirmities brought on more by sufferings than by years, and the necessity of retirement and tranquillity for a broken constitution. Among the persons who were then with the greatest zeal assisting Palafox in his preparations for war, was the Conde de Cabarrus, a man of great reputation as a financier and political economist, remarkable alike for talents and irregularities. Jovellanos, himself the most excellent of men, had tolerated the faults of Cabarrus for the sake of the noble qualities which he |