CHAP. LV. 1808. 34. of Madrid. the experienced discipline which restrains an ardour not less powerful, till the moment for letting it loose with decisive effect has arrived. But the possession of the Retiro, in a military point of view, is possession of Madrid; bombs from its heights Capitulation can reach the farthest points of the city. Sensible of the impossibility of maintaining the defence, the Spanish authorities were deliberating on the expedience of proposing terms of capitulation, when a flag of truce arrived from Berthier, threatening the utmost severity of military execution if the signal of submission was not hoisted within two hours. Morla and Ivriarte were upon that despatched to the headquarters of the Emperor, to negotiate the terms of surrender. He received the former with unusual sternness, and in just but cutting terms reproached him with his violation of good faith towards the unhappy prisoners taken at Baylen.* "Injustice and bad faith," *When Morla appeared before him, Napoleon addressed him in these words: "You in vain seek to shelter yourself under the name of the people; if you cannot now appease them, it is because you have formerly excited and misled them by your falsehoods; return to Madrid, assemble the clergy, the magistrates, the principal inhabitants; tell them, that if by to-morrow morning at six o'clock the town has not surrendered, it will cease to exist. I neither will nor ought to withdraw my troops. You have massacred the unhappy French prisoners who fell into your hands: within these few days you have suffered two servants of the Russian ambassador to be dragged into the streets and murdered, because they were born in France. The unskilfulness and cowardice of a general had placed in your hands troops who had capitulated on the field of battle, and the capitulation was violated. What sort of a letter did you, M. Morla, write to the general who subscribed that capitulation? It well became you to speak of pillage-you, who in Roussillon had carried off women, and divided them like booty among your soldiers. What right, besides, had you to hold such language? The capitulation expressly forbade it. What have the English done, who are far from piquing themselves on being strict observers of the law of nations? they complained of the Convention of Cintra, but nevertheless carried it into execution. To violate military conventions is to renounce civilisation and put ourselves on a level with the Bedouins of the Desert. How can you now venture to demand a capitulation, you who have violated that of Baylen? See how injustice and bad faith ever recoil upon those who commit them. I had a fleet at Cadiz; it had come there as to an ally's harbour; and you directed against it the mortars of the town which you commanded. I had a Spanish army in my ranks, but I preferred allowing it to escape on board the English vessels, and precipitating it from the rocks of Espinosa, to disarming it. I would rather have seven thousand additional enemies to combat than be wanting in good faith. Return to Madrid; I give you till to-morrow at ten: return then if you are the bearer of submission; if not, you and your troops shall be all put to the sword."-THIBAUDEAU, vii. 165, 166. There can be no doubt that consciousness of his former breach of faith now paralysed Morla, and impelled him into a second act of pusillanimity, if not treachery, to his own countrymen; so true it is, in Napoleon's words, that "injustice and bad faith ever recoil in the end upon those who commit them." Morla lingered out a few years, abhorred and shunned by all; he died as he had lived, devoured by remorse and sunk in misery.-See TORENO, ii. 155. Alluding to Morla's letter to Dupont of 10th August 1808, in which he sought to vindicate the violation of the capitulation on the ground of the atrocities of which the French soldiers had been guilty СНАР, LV. 1808. said he, "ever in the end recoil upon those who commit them." Prophetic words! of the truth and universal application of which Napoleon himself, on the rock of St Helena, afterwards afforded a memorable example. Filled with consternation at the perilous predicament in which he was individually placed, from the wellfounded resentment of the Emperor, and inspired with a sense of the necessity of appeasing the wrath of the conqueror by an immediate surrender, Morla returned to the city, and easily persuaded the majority of the junta that submission had become a matter of necessity. A few gallant men, with the Marquis Castellas and 1 Tor. ii. 152, Viscount de Gaeta, disdaining to surrender, withdrew. 155. from the city during the night, and took the road for Nap. i. 413, Estremadura. At daybreak the capitulation was signed, i. 414, 417. and by ten o'clock the principal points of the city were in the possession of the French troops.1 Napoleon did not himself enter Madrid, but established Dec. 4. vii. 163, 165. 415. South. Spair.. 35. his headquarters at Chamartin, in the neighbourhood of the capital, where he received the submission of the Napoleon's authorities, and fulminated his anathemas against the measures for the tranquilfunctionaries who had resisted or swerved from his lising of government. In a short time every thing wore the appearance of peace: the theatres were reopened; the shopkeepers displayed their tempting wares, secure in the discipline of the conquerors; the Prado and public walks were crowded with spectators. Numerous deputations, embracing some of the most wealthy and respectable inhabitants of Madrid, waited on the Emperor, and renewed their protestations of fidelity to his brother Joseph, who was established at the royal palace of Pardo: it then appeared how completely and fatally the corruptions and enjoyments of opulence and civilised life disqualify men from acting a heroic part in defence of their country. Measures of great severity were adopted against all the constituted authorities who, after having recognised Joseph as King of Spain, had joined the popular party. The Marquis de Simon, a Frenchman by birth, who had to the last prolonged the conflict after the capitulation had paralysed all general resistance, and *Their number amounted to above twelve hundred, comprehending the most eminent and wealthy individuals of all classes in the metropolis.-Joм. iii. 105. СНАР. 1808. Dec. 4. Dec. 7. 1 Thib. vii. 168, 170. Tor. ii. 156, 158. South. ii. 419, 420. was taken fighting bravely, when endeavouring to cut his way through at the gate of Fuencarral, was ordered to be shot. He owed his life to the intercession of his daughter, who threw herself at the Emperor's feet, and obtained from his clemency a commutation of the sentence. All the members of the Council of Castile who had declared that they had sworn allegiance to Joseph under jesuitical mental reservations, were dismissed, and ordered to be detained prisoners in their own houses. Nor were general measures wanting, calculated to reconcile the nation to the sway of the intrusive monarch. By a solemn decree, the Inquisition was abolished, and all its funds directed to be applied towards the reduction of the public debt; feudal rights were suppressed; all personal restrictions and privileges declared at an end ; the number of convents throughout the kingdom was at once reduced a third, and their inmates were turned adrift, while all novices were permitted to leave their places of seclusion. One-half of the proceeds of the estates of the suppressed convents was to be applied to the public debt, the other to the relief of the cities and towns which had suffered from the French invasion; and all the barriers between province and province, which had so long impeded the internal commerce of the kingdom, were declared at an end. A few days after, the Emperor fulminated a bulletin against the English government, which deserves to be recorded, from the singular contrast which its predictions exhibited to the future march of events with which his own destinies were so deeply interwoven.1* Nor was the Emperor less actively employed during the fortnight that he remained at Madrid, in dispersing his armies so as to spread them over the greatest possible space, and complete in all the provinces that thorough conquest which had already been effected in the capital. * "As to the English armies, I will chase them from the Peninsula. Saragossa, Valencia, Seville, shall be reduced to subjection, either by persuasion or force of arms; there is no longer any obstacle which can long retard the execution of my wishes. The Bourbons can never again reign in Europe; the divisions in the royal family have been fomented by the English. It was not the old King Charles or his favourite whom the Duke del Infantado, the instrument of England, wished to overturn from the throne; his papers recently taken prove what the real object was; it was British preponderance which they wished to establish in Spain. Insensate project! which could have led to no other result but a war without end, and the shedding of occans of blood. No power LV. 1808. 36. Positions of corps in the Ney's corps, which had been brought up from Soria, CHAP. was stationed at Madrid, under his own immediate control, with the Guards and reserve; Victor was advanced to Toledo, which, notwithstanding its expressed determination to hold out to the uttermost, opened its the French gates on the first summons; while his light cavalry end of Descoured the plains of La Mancha, carrying devastation cember. and terror to the foot of the Sierra Morena. Lefebvre advanced to Talavera, on the great road for Badajoz and Elvas; Soult was reposing on the banks of the Carrion, preparing to follow the broken remains of Romana's army into the fastnesses of Galicia; Junot's corps was broken up, and the divisions composing it incorporated with Soult's troops; Moncey was ordered up to Madrid for an expedition against Valencia; while Mortier was directed to advance to support his corps, which was occupied with the siege of Saragossa. Thus the Emperor, from his central position at Madrid, was preparing expeditions to subdue the insurrection at once in Andalusia, Estremadura, Galicia, Valencia, and Arragon; governed in these measures by his favourite maxim, which had been acted upon with such fatal effect against the Prussians after the battle of Jena, that the true secret of war is to concentrate when a decisive blow is to be struck, but to disperse when the broken remains of the enemy are to be pursued, and the moral effect of victory is to be magnified by the numerous minor successes by which it is followed. 37. Vast as such a plan of operations undoubtedly was, it was not disproportioned to the resources of the Emperor; for the imperial muster-rolls, on October 10th, showed in Vast forces at the Peninsula the enormous number of three hundred the disposal and thirty thousand men and sixty thousand horse, of peror. whom no less than two hundred and fifty thousand were influenced by England can exist on the Continent; if there are any which desire it, their wish is insensate, and will sooner or later cause their ruin. If you swear allegiance to my brother with sincerity and truth, without equivocation or mental reservation, I will relinquish all the rights which conquest has now afforded me, and make it my first object to conduct myself towards you as a faithful friend. The present generation may differ in opinion; too many passions have been brought into action; but your grandchildren will bless me as their regenerator; they will place among their memorable days that in which I appeared among them, and from those days will date the future prosperity of Spain."-NAPOLEON'S Proclamation to the Spaniards, December 7, 1808; JOMINI, iii. 108, 110. of the Em LV. 1808. 1 Imperial Muster-Rolls, Nap. i. App. 28. CHAP. present with the eagles and with their regiments, and the losses since sustained had been more than counterbalanced by the reinforcements received; so that, after making every allowance for the troops requisite for garrisons and communications, at least a hundred and sixty thousand were disposable for active operations, or above thirty thousand men could be directed against each of the provinces menaced with an attack.1* The disorganised condition of the Spanish armies, the deplorable state of destitution to which they were reduced, the vast distance which separated them from each other, and the want of any efficient central government to combine their operations, rendered it too probable that this vigorous and unrelenting system of conquest would be attended with the desired effect. There was every reason to fear that the national resistance of the Spaniards would, in the first moments of consternation consequent on their disasters, be speedily suppressed in all the provinces; when * Nap. i. 421, the career of victory was arrested from a quarter whence 422. Jom. iii. it was least expected, and by an enemy who had been hitherto almost forgotten, from the mistaken view which the Emperor entertained of their prowess.1 104. Tor. ii. 166, 172. 38. of Sir John While these disasters were accumulating on the Spanish monarchy, the English army, unobserved and unassailed, Bold advance had at length been concentrating its forces. Baird had Moore. come up from Corunna, Hope from the Escurial; and Sir John Moore found himself at the head of nearly thirty thousand men, of whom above two thousand were cavalry in admirable condition, and sixty pieces of cannon.+ The English general was for long extremely perplexed what to do, in consequence of the imperfect information which he received, and the contradictory nature of the plans advocated to him on the one hand by Mr Frere, the British ambassador at Madrid, who strongly urged an immediate advance to the capital, and the evidence which the progress of events around him was daily affording -See Imperial Muster-Rolls; NAPIER, i, p. 88, App. 319,690 247,834 56,567 32,536 37,419 The British army, however, had its full proportion of that usual drawback upon all armies, the difference between the actual numbers appearing on the |