XII. 1811. CHAP, the fortified towns were no security beyond their walls. The patient and enterprising Don Julian drove away the cattle from under the guns of Ciudad Rodrigo, and remaining in ambush, Oct. 15th. made a prisoner of the French governor, who sallied out to retake them. Some of these principal bands mustered five hundred associates, but the majority from thirty to one hundred only; the total number of guerrillas to the south of the Ebro amounting, on a reasonable calculation, to nearly ten thousand. The actions of minor hostility committed by the lesser bands, such as prisoners liberated, dispatches intercepted, patroles cut off, are not to be enumerated; acting independently, in small bodies, but occasionally combining their movements, they were a constant source of inquietude to the French armies, doubling their duty, and giving perpetual employment to whole brigades in Append. 14. fruitless endeavours to annihilate them. Though such a desultory mode of warfare could be productive of no great results, yet in the reduced condition of the Spanish regular force, it ought to have been niost carefully cherished and encouraged. Unluckily, however, the reputation of some of the guerrilla chiefs raised an unworthy jealousy in the government, which feared their becoming independent; and to retin an authority over them, they artfully rewarded their exertions with military rank, XII. 1811. thereby subjecting them to the generals of the CHAP. regular army. Gaudy uniforms, a personal staff, and other useless appendages followed: with their titles, their feelings of importance rose, and they increased their force in a corresponding degree; composing their bands of artillery, infantry and cavalry, they exchanged activity for weight, and became a bad species of regular force. The talents of Mina and Longa alone rose with the change: they headed corps of 5 or 6,000 men with distinguished ability, and favoured by the strong country of Aragon and Navarre, displayed manœuvres, sometimes for months together, in baffling the pursuit of more numerous bodies of French, which would have reflected credit on the most celebrated commanders: a volume would scarcely suffice to detail their various stratagems, and the alternate boldness and prudence of their movements. On one occasion, a price being put on Mina's head, the combined operations of armies, and the united efforts of the police of neighbouring provinces were directed against him; but though driven to the verge of destruction by such an overpowering effort, he revived in increased strength and boldness. With these exceptions, the guerrilla force withered under the interference of the government, and would probably have ceased to exist in a few campaigns, had the war been so long protracted. СНАР. Notwithstanding the activity of the guerrillas, the greater part of the population, in the summer 1811. of 1811, submissively acquiesced in the rule of the intrusive government. The principal difficulty Joseph's ministers had to contend with, was to raise sufficient money to cover the expenses of the state, after providing for the support of the French armies. The rich possessions of the monastic orders, and the confiscated estates of various patriotic noblemen, were applied to the public service, and an endeavour was made, by partitioning the country into districts, under an equitable system of imposition, to provide for both objects. These attempts were constantly defeated by the insubordination of the French commanders, who arbitrarily seized and appropriated to the use of their respective corps whatsoever came within their immediate grasp. The penury of Joseph's government, and the distress of his party amongst the Spaniards were in consequence extreme: a profuse distribution of honours, and nominations to lucrative employments in every part of the dominions of Spain, for some time supported his interest; but as the war became protracted, and the expectation of speedily receiving any benefit from these appointments vanished, they ceased to attract, and the number of his adherents daily diminished: indeed, at this time, for want of means to pay or feed the few Spaniards he had XII. been able to organize into battalions previously CHAP. to the retreat of Marshal Massena, they were permitted to desert with impunity. The ill consequences produced to the royal cause by inattention to the regulations of the government were altogether disregarded by the French generals; and the remonstrances of the Spanish ministers only produced insulting replies: they were reproached with the clemency of their sovereign in releasing prisoners and overlooking repeated opposition to his authority, as being the chief cause of the public distress by paralyzing their system of force and vigour. The Spanish authorities being thus totally disregarded, the subsistence of the French armies continued to be provided by requisition on the country round their cantonments, the inhabitants of which were, as a remuneration, freed from taxation. Their pay was a minor consideration, the troops being usually kept two years in arrears, and as death, desertion, or captivity cancelled every claim, a large proportion never received anything. At first plunder and the sale of confiscated possessions produced considerable sums; but soon the cost of renewing the clothing and equipments of the army, with other indispensable disbursements, far exceeded the amount that exaction could raise, and in the third year of the war, regular remittances from France became indispensable. At the 1811. XII. CHAP. commencement of 1811, one hundred thousand pounds monthly issued from the French trea1811. sury was more felt by Napoleon than the annual drain of 70 or 80,000 men, and was made a subject of threatening remonstrance. The French marshals, to avert his displeasure from themselves, imputed the charge to want of vigour in the government: Joseph recriminated. on their violence, and Napoleon at length seriously contemplated, as a means of establishing subordination and making Spain bear the expense of the war, to abolish the independent government and place the whole country under a French military administration. Joseph, on the failure of the efforts against Portugal, was called to Paris to confer personally with his brother on this important change; but the danger of confiding to able hands the chief command of so large a force superseded all other considerations, and after a threatening lecture and much unworthy treatment, he was sent back with an injunction to make every interest secondary to that of keeping the imperial armies efficient. From that time almost an open schism prevailed between Joseph's ministers and the French commanders. The latter* set no bounds * When Joseph Buonaparte passed through Burgos in June, 1811, on his return from Paris, he received the homage of the clergy: after the ceremony, Urquijo, addressing himself to the Reverend Canon -, said, His Majesty desires to |