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who should attempt to impeach their proceedings. If the junta of Cadiz had no other sins to answer for, this paper alone would be sufficient to render their name odious in the history of the Spanish revolution; so unprovoked was it in its temper, so false in its details, so detestable for its ingratitude. The perilous impolicy of their conduct is almost forgotten in indignation at its baseness. Had Alburquerque been capable of consulting his own safety by a precipitate retreat, Portugal, as he said, and the English army were at hand, and he would never have undertaken an arduous march of 260 miles in the face of a superior enemy, and in direct disobedience of the orders of his government. If the cavalry which saved Cadiz, and which they thus wantonly accused of retreating too precipitately, had been even a quarter of an hour later, it could not have entered the Isle of Leon. "This," said the indignant duke, "is the patriotism of the junta of Cadiz; the enemy is at the gates, and they throw out a defiance to the general and the army who protect them!"'

But Alburquerque was too sincere a lover of his country to expose it to the slightest danger, even for the sake of his own honour. He could not resent this infamous attack without exciting a perilous struggle, and without resenting it he felt it impossible to remain at the head of the army. Having thus been publicly insulted, a reparation as public was necessary to his honour, and that reparation, for the sake of Spain, he delayed to demand. The regency would have had him continue in the command; he how ever persisted in resigning. No injustice which could be done him, he said, would ever have made him cease to present himself to the front

VOL. III PART I.

of danger, had he not been compelled to withdraw for fear of the fatal consequences of internal discord. Accordingly, he who should have been leading, and who would have led, the men who loved him to victory, came over to England as ambassador, with a wounded spirit and a broken heart. It will be seen, in the annals of the ensuing year, that the poisonous malice of the junta pursued him, and literally proved fatal to this true Spaniard, whose virtues and whose heroism were worthy of the illustrious name which he bore.

Meantime the British cabinet, which, during the last campaign, had so severely felt the want of an energetic government in Spain, made an attempt to deliver Ferdinand. No other account of it has yet transpired than what it has pleased Buonaparte to make public. The person employed is called, in the statement, Charles Leopold, Baron de Kolli, an Irishman; this uncouth appellation made the whole story at first appear a fabrication, but when the facts were no longer doubted, it was perceived that the real name was Kelly. This person made his way to Valençay, the residence, or place of imprisonment, of Ferdinand, and under pretence of having some valuable articles for sale, endeavoured to speak with the prince;

to effect which he disclosed

April 6. his purpose to the Infante

D. Antonio, and to Amazaga, the intendant of the royal prisoner's household; but Ferdinand, upon hearing his business, immediately sent for Berthemy, the governor of the castle, and with the greatest emotion informed him, that an English emissary had found his way into the castle. Whether the prince suspected that it was a plot laid by Buonaparte for his destruction, or whether he was 2 c

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really poor enough of spirit to hope to recommend himself to the tyrant by this conduct, it is impossible as yet to ascertain. He is represented as saying, that the English had done much injury to the Spanish nation, and continued to cause blood to be shed in his name; that his honour, his repose, and the good opinion due to his principles, would all have been endangered by this step, if Amazaga had not been equally loyal to the emperor and to him; and that he was anxious again to manifest his sentiments of inviolable fidelity towards the emperor Napoleon, and the hor ror which he felt at this infernal project, of which he wished the authors and abettors to meet with condign punishment.

It is due to the character of Ferdinand to observe, that in the French statement there are two material contradictions. Berthemy says, that Amazaga apprized him of the business on the part of the prince. Ferdinand says, that Amazaga apprized the governor first, and himself immediately afterwards. Berthemy represents the prince as saying, that the English minister had been deceived by the false opinion that he was forcibly detained; yet in his letter he is made to call the wish to deliver him from this forcible detention an infernal project, and to wish for the punishment of its authors. Kelly was furnished with ample credentials ;-a letter from the king to Ferdinand, signed in his own hand, and countersigned by Marquis Wellesley; and to verify this, he had the letter addressed by Charles IVth to his Britannic Majesty, on occasion of Ferdinand's marriage, the authenticity of which was attested by a note of Marquis Wellesley's on the back, and which Ferdinand himself would know to be authentic. His examina

tion has evidently been falsified in one part; the rest appears to be sufficiently exact. He had proposed the scheme, he said, originally to the Duke of Kent, and concerted it with Marquis Wellesley. A squadron waited for him off Quiberon, and was placed at his disposal: Marquis Wellesley intended to send the prince to Spain; the duke was for sending him to Gibraltar; but this plan, Kelly was made to say, disgusted him, because it would have been, in fact, sending him to prison, and he meant to have taken the prince wherever he pleased to go. A letter, purporting to have been written by Ferdinand two days before this discovery, was published with these details. Its object was to request an interview with the gover. nor upon a serious matter, which had long occupied his attention. "My first wish," said he, "is to become the adopted son of his majesty the emperor, our august sovereign; I conceive myself to be worthy of this adoption, which would truly consti tute the happiness of my life, as well from my perfect love and attachment to the sacred person of his majesty, as by my submission and entire obedience to his intentions and desires. I am, moreover, extremely anxious to leave Valençay, because this residence, which has nothing about it but what is unpleasant to us, is not in any respect suitable for us."

May 7.

As soon as these circumstances appeared in the English papers, Mr Whitbread thought proper to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether the letter, purporting to be written by his majesty to Ferdinand VIIth, was to be looked upon as a document which had any pretensions to the character of authenticity; a question which Mr Perceval declined answering. The

party paper made this a topic of exultation. "With extreme mortification," they said, "they were obliged to confess, that all the particulars of the plot were true. Mr Whitbread had put the question to ministers, but they were mute. Poor Lord Wel lesley had not a friend to defend him from the reproach of the only expedition he had contrived. Buonaparte had sent over an agent to tempt this wise man from the east with a plot; he was caught napping on his bed of roses, and became the easy dupe of the most flimsy stratagem that ever was devised. Imbecile as they thought the administration of this country, they did not believe that the new secretary of state for the foreign department would have so absurdly exposed his royal master's councils to scorn, and wasted the treasures of the country in so puerile a contrivance."

The Spaniards felt very differently upon this occasion. Whether the most enlightened among them thought it desirable or not to see Ferdinand in possession of his throne before the reformation of abuses was effected, may well be doubted; but whatever they might think of the policy of the attempt, it excited no other feelings than those of gratitude and admiration towards Great Britain, "With what pleasure," said they, "does the good man, who watches the mazes of political events, behold one transaction of which humanity alone was the end and aim? with what interest does he contemplate an expedition destined, not for speculations of commerce, or for objects of ambition, but for the deliverance of a captive king, in the hope of restoring him to his throne and to his people?"

* El Espanol.

CHAP. XIII.

Catalonia. Death and reported Murder of Mariano Alvarez. Suchet's attempt upon Valencia. Siege of Hostalrich. Exploits of O'Donnell. Lerida betrayed. Mequinenza and Tortosa taken."

WHILE the people of Cadiz, with an enemy in sight, felt none of the evils, and scarcely even any of the inconveniences of war, protected by their situation, which our naval supremacy rendered inaccessible, and assisted by British and Portugueze troops; the Catalans, whom their own government could not assist, and Great Britain most unfortunately still continued to neglect, carried on the contest with a desperate perseverance, worthy of so noble a people in so good a cause. One of the last acts of the Jan. 3. supreme junta, was to decree the same honours to Gerona, and its heroic defenders, as had been awarded to Zaragoza. The rewards which Mariano Alvarez had deserved by his admirable conduct, were to be given to his family, if, as there was reason to fear, he himself should not live to receive them. This apprehension was but too well founded; Alvarez recovered sufficiently to be removed to Figueras, the place to which, by his own choice, he was conveyed prisoner, for, in this respect, Augereau maintained his word; but he soon died there. The Catalans affirm, that Buonaparte sent orders to have him executed in the public

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plaza, or market-place of Gerona, bat that the French, fearing the effect which this would have upon the peo ple, and yet not daring to disobey their tyrant, satisfied his cowardly vengeance, by poisoning their noble prisoner: this was believed upon the testimony of a man, who deposed that he had seen the body, though the French endeavoured to conceal it, and buried it hastily and by night; the face was swoln, and the eyes forced out of their sockets. These appearances rather denote strangulation than poison; under any other circumstances, his death would have been thought natural, considering what he had suffered, and in how dangerous a state of bodily disease he had been at the conclusion of the siege; but, if the Corsican be wronged by the imputation of this new murder, it is owing to his own crimes. He who was the public murderer of Hofer, would as willingly order the execu tion of Mariano Álvarez as of Santiago Sass; he who was the private murderer of Captain Wright, would have Alvarez strangled in secret with as little scruple as he had ordered the murder of Pichegru. One murder more can neither add to his infa

* Gazeta de Valencia, June 19. Gazeta de la Regencia July 10.

my, nor, in any human conception, to the measure of his guilt.

About six hundred of the garrison of Gerona made their escape from Rousillon, and rejoined their brethren in arms. Among them was Baron de Eroles, who immediately began to make the most vigorous exertions for recruiting the army. A decree had been past for making every fifth man take arms; but this, like most of the orders of the government, had been scandalously evaded, and Eroles was now charged by the superior junta of Catalonia to see it carried into effect. He called accordingly upon the people in animated language, reminding them of their forefathers, who spread terror through the Greek empire; and referring, as a not less illustrious instance of the good effects of discipline, to those regiments of the Gerona garrison, which had but lately before the siege been filled up by this measure of the Quintos, or fifths. This decree, even now, was very imperfectly executed; nevertheless, the patrio tic army was considerably strengthened, and it derived new spirit from its new commander; for Blake being removed to the command of the central army, O'Donnell was appointed to succeed him. Blake, with all his talents, had been too unfortunate to be popular, and O'Donnell, by his splendid enterprizes for the relief of Gerona, had obtained the confidence both of the soldiers and the people.

Catalonia was in a deplorable state. In the other parts of Spain, grievous ly as they all had suffered, the scene of action had frequently been shifted; but in Catalonia the war has been carried on without intermission, from the commencement of the revolution. A noble instance of the spirit of the Catalans was given by the people of Villadran, an open town in the plain

of Vich; on the approach of a French detachment, which they had no means of resisting, the whole of its inhabitants retired to the mountains in the midst of February. The French commandant, finding the place thus utterly deserted, wrote to the regidor, telling him, that if he did not bring back the inhabitants by the next day, he should be obliged to report their conduct to Marshal Augereau, and take the necessary measures for reducing them to obedience; at the same time he assured him, that the most rigorous means would be taken to preserve perfect order. The regidor returned his answer in these words: "That the French nation may know the love they bear to their religion, their king, and their country, all these people are content to remain buried among the snows of Montsen, rather than submit to the hateful dominion of the French troops." So many families, in this same spirit, forsook their homes, rather than remain subject to the invaders, that the superior junta, by O'Donnell's suggestion, issued a decree for providing them with quarters in the same manner as the soldiers.

The fall of Gerona enabled the besieging army to pursue further operations, which was done, according to the French accounts, with such success, that little more was necessary for the complete subjugation of Catalonia. Augereau asserted in his dispatches, that the Ampurdam was reduced, the peasants taken in arms hung in great numbers upon the trees along the roads, and all the French communications secure. "The famous Rovira," General Souham said, "fled before him, notwithstanding his audacious boasts of his incursions, his robberies and assassinations ;" for in this manner did these invaders, robbers, and murderers, always speak

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