Consequences of the embarkation.—Wretched position of Spanish affairs.—State of Portugal.—Memoir of the Guerillas.

The immediate consequence of the embarkation, was the surrender of Corunna on the second day from that on which the once proud army of England quitted the coast of Spain. Ferrol soon followed the example—and in both these places, an immense supply of stores and ammunition was obtained. All effective resistance was apparently at an end—and French dominion seemed established in Gallicia more strongly than it had ever been before.

In every part of Spain, the cause of freedom appeared hopeless. One campaign was closed, and never did one end more hopelessly;73—an unvarying scene of misfortune from the commencement, it seemed to have withered every national feeling that might have existed in Spanish breasts. Fortresses that should have held out, provisioned, garrisoned, and open to receive supplies from England, surrendered to a weak army, who could not command “a battering gun or siege store within four hundred miles.” In fact, Spanish resistance seemed a mockery. Their military force was now the ruins of Romana’s army, and some half-starved fugitives who occasionally appeared in Estremadura and La Mancha,—while the French had nearly two hundred thousand veteran troops covering the whole country,—and these too in masses, that set any hostile demonstration at defiance.

Portugal, in its military footing, was nearly on a par with Spain. A British corps, under Sir John Craddock, garrisoned Lisbon—and, that place excepted, there were no troops in the kingdom on which the slightest dependence could be placed. The appointment of Marshal Beresford to a chief command, produced in time a wonderful reformation. The English system of drill was successfully introduced,—and, before the war ended, the Portuguese, when brigaded with the British, were always respectable in the field, and sometimes absolutely brilliant. At this period, there was but one national force in the least degree formidable to the invaders—and that was the Spanish Guerillas.

The Spanish armies in the course of the Peninsular campaign had met so many and discouraging defeats, that their military reputation sunk below the standard of mediocrity. They were despised by their enemies, and distrusted by their allies, and whether from the imbecility of the government, the ignorance of their leaders, or some national peculiarity, their inefficiency became so notorious, that no important operation could be entrusted to them with any certainty of its being successful. As an organized force, the Spanish army was contemptible; while, in desultory warfare, the peasantry were invaluable. With few exceptions, the history of Spanish service would be a mere detail of presumption and defeat; while their neighbours, the Portuguese, merited the perfect approbation of their officers, and proved worthy of standing in the battle-field by the side of British soldiers.

The irregular bands, termed Partidas and Quadrillas, partly formed from peasant volunteers and smugglers, and enlisted and paid by government, were embodied originally by order of the Central Junta. At first their numbers were few, and their efficiency as military partisans not very remarkable—but as the Spanish armies declined in strength and reputation, the guerillas proportionately increased. The most determined spirits would naturally select a life of wild and desperate adventure74—and a love of country and religion, an unextinguishable hatred of oppression, inflamed the passions of a people proverbial for the intensity of feeling with which they regarded even an imaginary insult. They had now deep and heart-burning injuries to stimulate them to hatred and revenge,—and the ferocity with which they retaliated for past and present wrong, gained for these formidable partisans a name that made the boldest of their oppressors tremble.

A brief sketch of this wild and devoted confederacy, so connected with the Peninsular operations during that arduous struggle, will not be irrelevant.

“There was in the whole system of guerilla warfare a wild and romantic character, which, could its cruelty have been overlooked, would have rendered it both chivalrous and exciting—and men, totally unfitted by previous habits and education suddenly appeared upon the stage, and developed talent and determination, that made them the scourge and terror of the invaders.

“But theirs was a combat of extermination,—none of those courtesies, which render modern warfare endurable, were granted to their opponents,—the deadliest hostility was unmitigated by success,—and, when vanquished, expecting no quarter from the French, they never thought of extending it to those who unfortunately became their prisoners. A sanguinary struggle was waging, and vÆ victis seemed, with ‘war to the knife,’ to be the only mottos of the guerilla. “The strange exploits of many of these daring partisans,75 though true to the letter, are perfectly romantic; and their patient endurance, and the deep artifice with which their objects were affected, appear to be almost incredible. Persons, whose ages and professions were best calculated to evade suspicion, were invariably their chosen agents. The village priest was commonly a confederate of the neighbouring guerilla,—the postmaster betrayed the intelligence that reached him in his office,—the fairest peasant of Estremadura would tempt the thoughtless soldier with her beauty, and decoy him within range of the bullet; even childhood was frequently and successfully employed in leading the unsuspecting victim into some pass or ambuscade, where the knife or musket closed his earthly career.”76

In every community, however fierce and lawless, different gradations of good and evil will be discovered, and nothing could be more opposite than the feelings and actions of some of the guerillas and their leaders.

Many of these desperate bands were actuated in every enterprise by a love of bloodshed and spoliation, and their own countrymen suffered as heavily from their rapacity, as their enemies from their swords. Others took the field from nobler motives; an enthusiastic attachment to their country and religion roused them to vengeance against a tyranny which had now become insufferable,—every feeling but ardent patriotism was forgotten—private and dearer ties were snapped asunder,—homes, and wives, and children, were abandoned,—privations, that appear almost incredible, were patiently endured, until treachery delivered them to the executioner, or in some wild attempt they were overpowered by numbers, and died resisting to the last.

Dreadful as the retaliation was which French cruelty and oppression had provoked, the guerilla vengeance against domestic treachery was neither less certain nor less severe.77 To collect money or supplies for the invaders, convey any information, conceal their motions, and not betray them when opportunity occurred, was certain death to the offender. Sometimes the delinquent was brought, with considerable difficulty and risk, before a neighbouring tribunal, and executed with all the formalities of justice; but, generally, a more summary vengeance was exacted, and the traitor executed upon the spot. In these cases, neither calling nor age were respected—and, if found false to his country, the sanctity of his order was no protection to the priest.

The daughter of the collector of Almagro, for professing attachment to the usurper, was stabbed by Urena to the heart,—and a secret correspondence between the wife of the Alcalde of Birhueda and the French general in the next command, having been detected by an intercepted despatch, the wretched woman, by order of Juan Martin Diez, “the Empecinado,”78 was dragged by a guerilla party from her house, her hair shaven, her denuded person tarred and feathered, and disgracefully exhibited in the public market-place,—and she was then put to death amid the execrations of her tormentors. Nor was there any security for a traitor, even were his residence in the capital, or almost within the camp of the enemy. One of the favourites of Joseph Buonaparte, Don Jose Riego, was torn from his home in the suburbs of Madrid, while celebrating his wedding, by the Empecinado, and hanged in the square of Cadiz. The usurper himself, on two occasions, narrowly escaped from this desperate partisan. Dining at Almeida, some two leagues distance from the capital, with one of the generals of division, their hilarity was suddenly interrupted by the unwelcome intelligence that the Empecinado was at hand, and nothing but a hasty retreat preserved the pseudo-king from capture. On another occasion, he was surprised upon the Guadalaxara-road, and so rapid was the guerilla movement, so determined the pursuit, that before the French could be succoured by the garrison of Madrid, forty of the royal escort were sabred between Torrejon and El Molar.

A war of extermination raged, and on both sides blood flowed in torrents. One act of cruelty was as promptly answered by another; and a French decree, ordering that every Spaniard taken in arms should be executed, appeared to be a signal to the guerillas to exclude from mercy every enemy who fell into their hands. The French had shown the example; the Junta were denounced, their houses burned, and their wives and children driven to the woods. If prisoners received quarter in the field,—if they fell lame upon the march, or the remotest chance of a rescue appeared, they were shot like dogs. Others were butchered in the towns, their bodies left rotting on the highways, and their heads exhibited on poles. That respect, which even the most depraved of men usually pay to female honour, was shamefully disregarded,—and more than one Spaniard, like the postmaster of Medina, was driven to the most desperate courses, by the violation of a wife and the murder of a child.79

It would be sickening to describe the horrid scenes which mutual retaliation produced. Several of the Empecinado’s followers, who were surprised in the mountains of Guadarama, were nailed to the trees, and left there to expire slowly by hunger and thirst. To the same trees, before a week elapsed, a similar number of French soldiers were affixed by the guerillas. Two of the inhabitants of Madrid, who were suspected of communicating with the brigands, as the French termed the armed Spaniards, were tried by court-martial, and executed at their own door. The next morning, six of the garrison were seen hanging from walls besides the high road. Some females related to Palarea, surnamed the Medico, had been abused most scandalously by the escort of a convoy, who had seized them in a wood; and in return the guerilla general drove into an Ermida eighty Frenchmen and their officers, set fire to the thatch, and burned them to death, or shot them in their endeavours to leave the blazing chapel. Such were the dreadful enormities a system of retaliation caused.

These desperate adventurers were commanded by men of the most dissimilar professions. All were distinguished by some sobriquet, and these were of the most opposite descriptions. Among the leaders were friars and physicians, cooks and artisans; while some were characterized by a deformity, and others named after the form of their waistcoat or hat. Worse epithets described many of the minor chiefs,—truculence and spoliation obtained them titles; and, strange as it may appear, the most ferocious band that infested Biscay was commanded by a woman named Martina. So indiscriminating and unrelenting was this female monster in her murder of friends and foes, that Mina was obliged to direct his force against her. She was surprised, with the greater part of her banditti, and the whole were shot upon the spot.

Of all the guerilla leaders the two Minas were the most remarkable for their daring, their talents, and their successes. The younger, Xavier, had a short career—but nothing could be more chivalrous and romantic than many of the incidents that marked it. His band amounted to a thousand—and with this force he kept Navarre, Biscay, and Aragon in confusion; intercepted convoys, levied contributions, plundered the custom-houses, and harassed the enemy incessantly. The villages were obliged to furnish rations for his troops, and the French convoys supplied him with money and ammunition. His escapes were often marvellous.80 He swam flooded rivers deemed impassable, and climbed precipices hitherto untraversed by a human foot. Near Estella he was forced by numbers to take refuge on a lofty rock; the only accessible side he defended till nightfall, when, lowering himself and followers by a rope, he brought his party off without the loss of a man.

This was among his last exploits; for, when reconnoitring by moonlight, in the hope of capturing a valuable convoy, he fell unexpectedly into the hands of an enemy’s patrol. Proscribed by the French as a bandit, it was surprising that his life was spared; but his loss to the guerillas was regarded as a great misfortune.

While disputing as to the choice of a leader, where so many aspired to a command to which each could offer an equal claim, an adventurer worthy to succeed their lost chief was happily discovered in his uncle, the elder Mina. Educated as a husbandman, and scarcely able to read or write, the new leader had lived in great retirement, until the Junta’s call to arms induced him to join his nephew’s band. He reluctantly acceded to the general wish to become Xavier’s successor; but when he assumed the command, his firm and daring character was rapidly developed. Echeverria, with a strong following, had started as a rival chief; but Mina surprised him—had three of his subordinates shot with their leader—and united the remainder of the band with his own. Although he narrowly escaped becoming a victim to the treachery of a comrade, the prompt and severe justice with which he visited the offender, effectually restrained other adventurers from making any similar attempt.

The traitor was a sergeant of his own, who, from the bad expression of his face, had received among his companions the sobriquet of Malcarado. Discontented with the new commander, he determined to betray him to the enemy, and concerted measures with Pannetti, whose brigade was near the village of Robres, to surprise the guerilla chieftain in his bed. Partial success attended the treacherous attempt; but Mina defended himself desperately with the bar of the door, and kept the French at bay till Gustra, his chosen comrade, assisted him to escape. The guerilla rallied his followers, repulsed the enemy, took Malcarado, and shot him instantly; while the village cure and three alcades implicated in the traitorous design, were hanged side by side upon a tree, and their houses rased to the ground.

An example of severity like this gave confidence to his own followers, and exacted submission from the peasantry. Every where Mina had a faithful spy—every movement of the enemy was reported; and if a village magistrate received a requisition from a French commandant, it was communicated to the guerilla chief with due despatch, or woe to the alcade that neglected it.

Nature had formed Mina81 for the service to which he had devoted himself. His constitution was equal to every privation and fatigue, and his courage was of that prompt and daring character which no circumstance, however sudden and disheartening, could overcome. Careless as to dress or food, he depended for a change of linen on the capture of French baggage or any accidental supply; and for days he could subsist on a few biscuits, or any thing chance threw in his way. He guarded carefully against surprise—slept with a dagger and pistols in his girdle; and such were his active habits, that he rarely took more than two hours of repose. Remote caverns were the depositories of his ammunition and plunder; and in a mountain fastness he established an hospital for his wounded, to which they were carried on litters across the heights, and placed in perfect safety until their cure could be completed. Gaming and plunder were prohibited, and even love forbidden, lest the guerilla might be too communicative to the object of his affection, and any of his chieftain’s secrets should thus transpire.

Of the minor chiefs many strange and chivalrous adventures are on record. The daring plans, often tried and generally successful, and the hair-breadth escapes of several, are almost beyond belief. No means, however repugnant to the laws of modern warfare, were unemployed; while the ingenuity with which intelligence of a hostile movement was transmitted—the artifice with which an enemy was delayed, until he could be surrounded or surprised, appear incredible. Of individual ferocity a few instances will be sufficient. At the execution of an alcade and his son at Mondragon, the old man boasted that two hundred French had perished by their hands; and the Chaleco, Francis Moreno, in a record of his services, boasts of his having waited for a cavalry patrol in a ravine, and by the discharge of a huge blunderbuss, loaded nearly to the muzzle, dislocated his own shoulder, and killed or wounded nine of the French. The same chief presented to Villafranca a rich booty of plate and quicksilver, and added to the gift a parcel of ears cut from the prisoners whom on that occasion he had slaughtered.

Profiting by the anarchy that reigned in this afflicted country, wretches, under political excuses, committed murder and devastation on a scale of frightful magnitude. One, pretending to be a functionary of the Junta, made Ladrada a scene of bloodshed. By night his victims were despatched; and, to the disgrace of woman, his wife was more sanguinary than himself. Castanos at length arrested their blood-stained career; and Pedrazeula was hanged and beheaded, and Maria, his infamous confederate, gavotted.

Castile was overrun by banditti; and one gang, destroyed by a guerilla chief named Juan Abril, had accumulated plunder, principally in specie, amounting in value to half a million of reals. One of the band, when captured by the French, to save his life discovered the secret, and offered to lead a party to the place where the treasure was deposited. His proposal was accepted. An alguazil, with an escort of cavalry, proceeded to the wood of Villa Viciosa, and there booty was found worth more than the value affixed to it by the deserter. Returning in unsuspecting confidence, the party were drawn into an ambuscade by the Medico, who had been acquainted with the expedition; and of the escort and officials, with the exception of five who managed to escape, every one was butchered without mercy.

Such were the wild and relentless foes to whom the invaders were exposed—such were the Spaniards, who had made themselves remarkable for patriotism and endurance—surpassing courage, and unmitigated cruelty.82