68 DUTCH SHIPS CAPTURED IN INDIAN OCEAN. [A.D had escaped from Batavia. The "Psyche" and " Caroline" were despatched in pursuit to the harbour of Griessie, at the eastern extremity of Java, but on arriving off Point Panka, on the 30th of August, they ascertained that the two ships sought for were in harbour but were not worth capture. The two frigates then stood to the westward, and on the 31st entered the roads of Samarang. The boats were immediately sent in under the command of Lieutenant Kersteman to bring out some vessels at anchor there, which service being performed, the vessels again weighed and made sail after some strange vessels who were endeavouring to escape. As soon as these three vessels found themselves chased they ran themselves on shore and opened a well directed fire upon the "Psyche." This was returned with such effect that in a few minutes the "Resolute," armed merchant ship with a valuable cargo on board, struck her colours. The "Psyche's" boats were then prepared to go in and board the other vessels, when the Dutch national corvette, "Scipio," 24, Captain Carrage (who had been mortally wounded), also struck. Shortly afterwards the "Ceres," 12, fired a broadside and hauled down her colours. All these prizes were by the exertions of the British crews got afloat and carried off. When this spirited affair was communicated to the Admiral, on the 5th of December, he proceeded with his squadron to Griessie, and sent a flag of truce to demand the surrender of the two ships lying there, which the Dutch Commodore met with a flat refusal. Accordingly, on the 6th the "Culloden" and "Powerful" sailed in, and were saluted by a battery of 12 guns at Sambelangau with hot shot, which, however, the Admiral soon silenced, and the Governor and Council of Sourabaya becoming dismayed, disclaimed the act of their Commodore and gave up the ships, which were set on fire, and the guns and military stores in the battery were destroyed. On the 15th of April, off Cheribon, to the eastward of Batavia, three proas, under Dutch colours, were brought to by the boats of the sloop "Victor," Captain Bell; but the people on board were so unmanageable that the Captain fired a carronade into one of them, which, unfortunately, reached some powder and blew up the after part of the ship. The prisoners, on this, commenced a furious attack, throwing spears and knives, and firing pistols; but, by the great exertions of the ship's crew, the proas were cut adrift and the fire was providentially subdued, when attention was turned to the proas, which were taken possession of, after 80 of the insurgents were laid dead, in little more than half an hour, and the rest driven below. Nothing short of the most determined valour and coolness could have saved the ship under such circumstances. One Lieutenant and seven men were killed in the struggle, and the Captain and 25 wounded. On the 9th of October the "Modeste," 36, Hon. Captain Elliot, captured the French corvette, "La Jéna," 24. The "Psyche," 36, Captain Fleetwood Pellew, boarded and captured an armed schooner and a merchant brig off the port of Samarang, and subsequently an armed ship of 700 tons with a valuable cargo, a brig of 12 guns, 1807.] FATE OF THE HEROIC SIR THOMAS TROWBRIDGE. 69 and a corvette of 24 guns, all which she safely carried into Madras roads. The most severe blow to the commerce of Holland was, however, the attack of the Admiral upon Java, where, with the trifling loss of 1 killed and 5 wounded, 10 ships of war, mounting_more than 150 guns, were boarded and destroyed in the Roads. In the latter part of the previous year, Rear-Admiral Sir Thomas Trowbridge was directed to proceed with his flag on board the "Blenheim," 74, to the command of the Cape Station. It will be remembered that this gallant officer was the friend of Jervis and the companion of Nelson, and a man of the same daring spirit as those pre-eminently brave men. He was coming out of the Indian seas when he got on shore in the Straits of Malacca, which so injured his ship that his Captain reported it as unsafe for navigation. Sir Thomas, who was one of those men who made it his pride to overcome difficulties, persisted in his resolution to sail in her to the Cape of Good Hope, and on the 12th of January quitted Madras in company with the "Java," 36, Captain Pigot, and the brig "Harrier," 18, Captain Finlay. The latter was the only one of the three which reached her destination, having parted with her consorts in a tremendous gale off Madagascar. The gallant and deeply-regretted Admiral, with the two captains and their ships, were never again heard of. 27. SPAIN. The French army, under Junot, had entered Spain, with the full consent of the Government, for the avowed purpose of making a conquest of Portugal; but, on the 22nd of November, without any authority or permission asked for or given, 24,000 French infantry and 4000 horse, with 40 guns, under Dupont, followed by 25,000 infantry and 3000 horse, with 40 guns, under Moncey, defiled towards the Ebro, upon Madrid, while 12,000 infantry and 2000 horse, with 20 guns, took the road to Barcelona. The march of these troops was not even notified to the King, whose utter nothingness was duly appreciated by the French Emperor. The following exposition of the resources, naval and military, of the King of Spain and the Indies, as given by M. Thiers, who assures us that it was fully known to Napoleon, will show that the kingdom lay an easy conquest before him, without the sad chapter of deceit now about to be opened, and the disgraceful kidnapping of the whole Royal family which formed a portion of it, the consequences of which so fully justified Talleyrand's mot, that the blunder was worse than the crime. The Spanish marine, under Carlos Tercero and his minister, Florida Blanca, though not what it had been in the more glorious days of Spain, consisted of 76 ships of the line and 51 frigates, at the death of that monarch in 1788. At the period of the French invasion there were only 25 ships of the line fit for service, with 20 frigates, of which one-half were not worth the cost of repair, while of this force but six were victualled and ready for sea, and these 70 SPAIN AND ITS RESOURCES NAVAL AND MILITARY. [A.D. had never quitted the harbour for three years. There were only two ships of war on the stocks, and these had been so long in building that it was thought they were now scarcely worth completion. The great arsenals at Ferrol, Cadiz, and Cartagena were without stores of any kind, and the buildings themselves were falling into decay. The great magazine of Cadiz, which had been burned down nine years since, had never been restored, and the cannon remained still buried under the ruins. The great rope-walks of Cadiz and Cartagena were without hemp ; and the finest oaks lay felled in the forests of Old Castile, Biscay, and Asturias, waiting for transport to the ship-yards, where stores of all kinds were sold by the speculators, rather than purchased for the use of the State. The sailors of the fleet and the workmen in the dockyards were left two years in arrear of pay. In opposition to this scandalous dearth of naval necessities, there was a singularly numerous list of marine officers, namely, a Grand-Admiral and nearly 100 Admirals, upwards of 200 Captains, with more than 100 persons ostensibly belonging to the civil administration of a fleet which did not number a dozen ships of war of any kind ready for sea. The Spanish army, at this time, counted on paper about 60,000 infantry and 15,000 cavalry, including the 6000 Walloon guards, 11,000 Swiss, and 2000 Irish; but of these 14,000 men had been marched to the North of Europe, under Romana, and about 15,000 or 16,000 had accompanied Junot for the conquest of Portugal. The strong places were all in the worst condition. Of those opposite Gibraltar, that old Spanish sore, Ceuta was ill supplied with magazines and only half garrisoned; and in the camp of St. Roche there were only 8000 or 9000 men. The whole of the Royal army, except the guards, was ill clothed, ill supplied, under great arrears of pay, and without military training or military spirit, un corps sans âme. Yet there was a great supply of officers. A Generalissimo and five Captains-Gerent, nearly 500 General officers, and some 2000 Colonels! Nevertheless, the Spaniards, as a nation, have every requisite in their character for the purposes of war. High-minded, yet submissive to lawful authority; abstemious, and contented with the simplest fare and clothing; they never murmur under fatigue or privation; brave, and capable of endurance, they are very rarely indeed given to desert their colours. Such were the men; but there never were such officers in any country that has ranked among civilised nations. The regiments resembled hollow trees, out of which the white ant had eaten the strength, but left the mocking bark. The greater portion of the superior officers only held honorary rank, and never joined their regiments; while subalterns might be seen waiting behind the chairs of the great in their uniforms, and even asking alms of the passers-by in the streets. The higher classes of the Peninsula, both male and female, had, at this time, so widely degenerated, that shame of every kind had ceased amongst them, yet the peasantry had partaken very little of the national degeneracy. They were devoutly and proudly attached to their country, boasting 1808.] SPAIN RESISTS THE DESIGNS OF NAPOLEON. 71 it to be above every other country in the world, and were of one heart and one mind in all that regarded their native honour. Spain was still, in its lower classes, the land of romance, of chivalrous gallantry, and of dance and song. The nationality of the Spaniards, and the geographical position of their country, to which that nationality is partly owing, still preserved many of the characteristics of the age of chivalry. The simultaneous and unanimous decision to resist oppression manifested by the whole nation when Napoleon unmasked his designs upon their country-a universally-pervading sentiment that they would not, and therefore could not, be conquered-is a trait of strong patriotic feeling, which must ever remain an enduring monument of the solid qualities which belong to this grand old people.* 1808. 7. 12. 1. COMMENCEMENT OF THE PENINSULAR WAR.— -2. THE FRENCH Thiers; Southey; "Modern Traveller," &c. 33. 72 INSATIATE APPETITE OF FRANCE FOR CONQUEST. [A.D. 1. COMMENCEMENT OF THE PENINSULAR WAR. ALTHOUGH these "Annals" are expressly precluded from recounting the causes of war-and it is not particularly necessary that the steps which led to that of the Peninsula should be stated at length-still a brief summary may be required to connect the chain of events. It is melancholy to see the laurel-crowned hero of Austerlitz, Jena, Friedland, and the conqueror of half the globe, descending to the meanest intrigues and subterfuges, in order to obtain possession of the yet remaining kingdom of the Continent which had not succumbed to his sword. But the insatiate appetite of French conquest was never to be satisfied, without possession of the Peninsula. Without going back to the treaty of the Pyrenees, Prince Talleyrand had, as early as July, 1806, let fall, in conversation with an English diplomatist, that the army for the invasion of Portugal was already assembling at Bayonne, and it is to the influence and representations of that wily politician that history assigns the promptings, if not the machinations, that preceded the war we have now to narrate. The Spanish Royal family was at this period divided and distracted to a degree unprecedented, even in that most fertile soil of intrigue and crime. The King, not destitute of good qualities, was indolent, and, like many who sit upon an autocratic throne, ready to surrender himself, without scruple, to the direction of men who, taking all trouble off his hands, would leave him to his pursuits and pleasures. Charles IV. had a favourite minister, Emanuel Godoy, Prince of the Peace, who was, at the same time, the minion of his Queen, a woman of spirit and capacity, but sensual and corrupt. A blue-blooded nobility regarded this influential upstart with undisguised aversion; but the Spanish Court, and, indeed, it is to be feared, the whole Spanish nation, with the exception of the peasantry, was at this period so sunk in the very lowest depths of dissoluteness and corruption that the tie between the Queen and Minister was not an object of public reprehension; for the King himself lived openly with a mistress who had brought him several children, and the royal blood of Spain was a heterogeneous mixture, the result of every species of adulterous and even incestuous intercourse. The high nobility, indeed, were a degenerate race, but the "bold peasantry, a country's pride," with a somewhat purer morality, was as fine a race as any in Europe, and quite equal, as was afterwards proved, to maintain the independence of their country. Don Manuel Godoy, though of a family of noble origin, was of such low parentage as to have been a private in the King's Body Guard, where her Majesty "blest the promise that his form portrayed," and in five years exalted him to great power, had him created Prince of the Peace for negotiating the treaty of Bâle in 1795, and married him to a niece of the King. Godoy was at this time still further advancing his ambition by the union of a daughter of this marriage to the King of Etruria. But, if the nobility looked askance at such an intruder, the son of the King, the heir-apparent of the Monarchy, was less likely to tolerate the presumption of an adventurer |