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CHAP.
LIII.

1808.

8.

Extraordi

tion with

every age the

in every age been distinguished beyond any other country recorded in history, by the unconquerable resolution with which their inhabitants have defended their walls, even under circumstances when more prudent courage would have abandoned the contest in despair. The heart of nary resoluevery classical scholar has thrilled at the fate of Numan- which in tia, Saguntum, and Astapa, whose heroic defenders pre- Spaniards ferred perishing with their wives and children in the have defendflames to surrendering to the hated dominion of the ed their cities.. stranger; and the same character has characterised their descendants in modern times.* With invincible resolution Barcelona held out for its rights and privileges, after Europe had adjusted its strife at Utrecht, and England with perfidious policy had abandoned her Peninsular allies to the arms of their enemies. The double siege of Saragossa, the heroic defence of Gerona, the obstinate stand at Rosas, have put the warriors of northern Europe to the blush for the facility with which they surrendered fortresses to the invader, incomparably stronger and better provided with arms and garrisons; while Cadiz alone of all European towns successfully resisted the utmost efforts of the spoiler, and, after a fruitless siege of two years, saw the arms even of Napoleon roll back.

The peculiar political constitution of the Spanish monarchy, and the revolutions which its inhabitants have undergone in the course of ages, have been as favourable to the maintenance of a defensive and isolated internal, as they were prejudicial to the prosecution of a vigorous external warfare by its government. Formed

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-MALTE BRUN, vii. 661, 663.
*"Locum in foro destinant, quo pretiosissima rerum suarum congererent; super
eum cumulum conjuges ac liberos considere quum jussissent; ligna circa exstru-
unt, fascesque virgultorum conjiciunt. Fœdior alia in urbe trucidatio erat, quum
turbam feminarum puerorumque imbellem inermemque cives sui cæderent, et in
succensum rogum semianima pleraque injicerent corpora, rivique sanguinis
flammam orientem restinguerent; postremo ipsi, cæde miseranda suorum fatigati,
cum armis medio se incendio injecerunt.' LIVY, xxviii. c. 22, 23. Numantia
and Saguntum have become household words over the world, but the heroism
of ASTAPA here narrated has not received the fame it deserves.

LIII.

1808.

9.

rendered it a

munity.

CHAP. by the amalgamation at various times of many different nations of separate descent, habits, and religion, it has never yet attained the vigour and unity of a homogeneous monarchy. Its inhabitants are severed from each other, Peculiarities in the civil not only by desert ridges or rocky sierras, but by original history of the Peninsula separation of race and inveterate present animosity. The which have descendants of the ancient inhabitants of the Spanish soil divided com- are there mingled with the children of the Goth, the Vandal, and the Roman; with the faithlessness of Moorish, or the fire of Arabian descent. These different and hostile races have never thoroughly amalgamated. For many centuries they maintained separate and independent governments, and kept up prolonged and bloody warfare with each other; and when at length they all yielded to the arms and fortune of Ferdinand and Isabella, the central government neither acquired the popular infusion nor the inherent energy which is necessary to mould out of such discordant materials a vigorous state.

10.

It has never

been thoroughly

The example of Great Britain, where the various and hostile races of the Britons, the Saxons, the Danes, Scots, and Normans have been at length blended into one united and powerful monarchy, proves that such an amalgamated. amalgamation is possible: that of Ireland, where the Saxon and the Gael are still in fierce and ruinous hostility with each other, that it is one of the most difficult of political problems. Without the freedom of the English constitution, which unites them by the powerful bond of experienced benefits and participated power, or the crushing vigour of the Russian despotism, which holds them close in the bands of rising conquest, it is hardly possible to give to such a mixed race the vigour of homogeneous descent. In Spain this had never been attempted, and if attempted, it would probably have proved unsuccessful. The Arragonese were jealous of the Catalonians; the Castilians despised the Valencians; the Galicians even were at variance with the Asturians; and the freeborn mountaineers of Navarre and Biscay had their local antipathies. All the inhabitants of the north regarded as an inferior race the natives of Grenada and Andalusia, where Moorish conquest had degraded the character, and Moorish blood contaminated the descent of the people; and where,

LIII.

amidst orange groves, evening serenades, and bewitching CHAP. forms, the whole manly virtues were thought to be fast wearing out under the enervating influence of an African

sun.

But while these circumstances were destructive to the

1808.

stances in

the means of

fence.

external vigour and consideration of the Spanish mon- 11. archy, they were, of all others, those best calculated to Effect of enable its inhabitants, when deprived of their central these circumgovernment and left to their own guidance, to oppose a promoting formidable resistance to the invader. When deprived of internal and the direction of their sovereign, the provinces of Spain separate dedid not feel themselves powerless, nor did they lose hope because it was abandoned by those who were their natural protectors. Society, when resolved into its pristine elements, still found wherewithal to combat; the provinces, when loosened or severed from each other, separately maintained the contest. Electing juntas of government, and enrolling forces on their own account, they looked as little beyond their own limits as the Swiss peasants in former times did beyond the mountain ridges which formed the barriers of their happy valleys. If this singular oblivion of external events, and concentration of all their energies on local concerns, was subversive in the end of any combined plan of operations, and effectually prevented the national strength from being hurled, in organised and concentrated masses, against the enemy, it was eminently favourable, in the first instance, to the efforts of tumultuary resistance, and led to the assumption of arms, and the continuance of the conflict, under circumstances when a well-informed central government would probably have resigned it in despair. Defeats in one quarter did not lead to submission in another; the occupation of the capital, the fortresses, the military lines of communication, was not decisive of the fate of the country; as many victories required to be gained as there were cities to be captured or provinces subdued; and, like the Anglo-Saxons in the days of the English heptarchy, they fought resolutely in their separate districts, and rose up again in arms when the invader had passed on to fresh theatres of conquest.

The nobility in Spain, as in all countries where civilisation and wealth have long existed, and the salutary

CHAP. LIII. 1808.

12.

and extent to

were carried.

check of popular control has not developed their energy and restrained their corruption, were sunk in the lowest state of selfish degradation. Assembled for the most part Corruption of in the capital, devoted to the frivolities of fashion, or the the nobility, vices of a court; taught to look for the means of elevawhich entails tion, not in the energy of a virtuous, but the intrigues of a corrupted life; they were alike unfit for civil or military exertion, and alone of all the nations must, with a few brilliant exceptions, be considered as strangers to the glories of the Peninsular war. Not more than three or four of the higher grandees were in the army when the war broke out in 1808; and the inferior noblesse, almost all destitute alike of education, vigour, or active habits, took hardly any share in its prosecution. The original. evil of entails had spread to a greater extent, and produced more pernicious consequences in Spain than in any other country of Europe; a few great families engrossed more than half the landed property of the kingdom, which was effectually tied up from alienation, and of course remained in a very indifferent state of cultivation; while the domains of the cities or corporate bodies, held in mortmain, and for the most part uncul164. Laborde, tivated, were so extensive, that a large proportion of i. 197, 212. the arable land in the kingdom still remained in a state of nature.1

1 Foy, iii. 151, 152, Jovellanos,

13.

peasantry.

Notwithstanding these unfavourable circumstances, the elements of great political activity and energetic State of the national conduct existed in the Peninsula. The peasantry were every where an athletic, sober, enduring race; hardy from exercise, abstemious from habit, capable of undergoing incredible fatigue, and of subsisting on fare which to an Englishman would appear absolute starvation. The officers in the Spanish armies during the war, drawn from the ill-educated urban classes, were for the most part a most conceited, ignorant, and inefficient body; but the men were almost always excellent, and possessed not only the moral spirit, but the physical qualities, calculated to become the basis of an admirable army. Colonel Napier has recorded his opinion that the Catalonian Miquelets or smugglers formed the finest materials for light troops in the world, and the Valencian and Andalusian levies presented a physical appearance greatly exceeding that of

CHAP.

LIII.

1808.

both the French and English regular armies.* The cause of this remarkable peculiarity is to be found in the independent spirit and general well-being of the peasantry. Notwithstanding all the internal defects of their government and institutions, the shepherds and cultivators of the soil enjoyed a most remarkable degree of prosperity. Their dress, their houses, their habits of life, demonstrated the long-established comfort which had for ages prevailed among them; vast tracts, particularly in the mountainous regions of the north, were the property of the cultivators —a state of things of all others the most favourable to social happiness, when accompanied with a tolerable narvon's degree of mildness in the practical administration of Spain, ii. 234, government; and even in those districts where they were goyne's merely tenants of the nobility, the cities, or the church, 267; ii. 384. their condition demonstrated that they were permitted to retain an ample share of the fruits of their toil.1

1 Lord Caer

360. Bur

Espagne, i.

14.

details on

The general comfort of the Spanish peasantry, especially in the northern and mountainous provinces, is easily explained by the number of them who were owners of the Statistical soil, coupled with the vigour and efficacy of the pro- that subject. vincial immunities and privileges which, in Catalonia, Navarre, the Basque Provinces, Asturias, Arragon, and Galicia, effectually restrained the power of the executive, and gave to the inhabitants of those districts the practical enjoyment of almost complete personal freedom. So extensive were their privileges, so little did government venture to disregard them, that in many cases those enjoying them were to be rather considered as democratic commonwealths, inserted into that extraordinary assemblage of separate states which formed the Spanish monarchy, than as subjects of a despotic government. The classification of the population was as in the note below, which speaks volumes as to the condi- 173, 174. tion of the people, and the causes of their prolonged resistance to the French invasion.2+

I heard Lord Lynedoch, then Sir Thomas Graham, express this opinion in 1809, immediately after the retreat of Sir John Moore, in which he bore a part. †Total inhabitants,

Of whom were Families engaged in agriculture,

Owners of the soil they cultivated,
Farmers holding under landlords,

Ecclesiastical proprietors,

Parish priests,

Regular clergy,

10,409,879

872,000

360,000

502,000

6,216

22,480

47,710

1 Hard. X.

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