1The importance which was at that time attached to it led the Archbishop Pierre de Marca to remark cujus momenti sit Dartosa in bello Hispaniensi; quÆ cum sita sit in trajectu Iberi, latam aperit viam ad faciendam irruptionem in reliquas Hispaniarum regiones, unde ex hujus urbis deditione ingens Maurorum Sarracenorumque metus. Marca Hispanica, 294.

2On the one side La EspaÑa reconocida a la intrepidez Britanica, on the other Alianza eterna.

3They gave four dollars for the measure of rice (for example), which at Port Mahon would have produced only half a dollar.

4When this practice was discovered, and some of them searched in consequence, a mortar was found in one of them. These boats had forfeited all claim to indulgence, in the first year of the war, when they boarded a British prize, and carried her in.

5Se preciaba de buen tirador, y se divertia en esto. Diario de Tortosa.

6Major Von Staffe (340–2) dates this affair in November, instead of the following month. If there could be any doubt between his authority and that of Eroles’s dispatch, this circumstance would determine it.

7No era imaginable frustrase mis calculos, atendida la circumspeccion con que se formaron, la exactitud de los datos, y el valor de la tropas; pero casualidades funestas, que no pueden entrar en la prevision de un gefe superior, que fia una parte de sus esperanzas Á la suerte, y Á manos subalternos, hicieron inutiles mis tareas. Thus he expresses himself in his official dispatch.

8The French officers, who went on board the frigate after this affair to propose an exchange, walked along the main deck, where some of the wounded were lying between the guns for the sake of the air, and with a spirit perfectly worthy of the cause in which they were engaged, and the character they had acquired in it, asked them insultingly when they would be pleased to pay them another visit on shore!

9No account (as far as I can discover) of this disgraceful action was published by the Spanish Government. There was no longer the same magnanimity in relating its misfortunes as in the days of the Central Junta.

10Guerra de Moros contra estos infideles.

11Escaramuzas, celadas, rebatos, ardides,—son nombres castellanos de la antigua milicia, la mas necessaria en la guerra domestica.

12The Chaleco states this fact himself in the Relacion de sus Meritos, which he published at the end of the war!

13Lord Blayney saw them there; victims of retaliation he calls them, and says that the French General and his officers, who were conducting him prisoner to Madrid, could not help expressing their detestation of the barbarous manner in which the war was carried on.

14Thus this Merino is described as el terror de la comarca; y su caracter feroz estÁ indicado en lo fiero de su semblante, y en lo membrudo y velloso de su cuerpo. Este es el Cura decantado. But it should be added, that the man who is thus described spared his prisoners, and conducted them to Alicant. The general appearance of the guerrillas is described by a British officer as “horribly grotesque; any thing of a jacket, any thing of a cap, any thing of a sword, pistol, or carbine, and any thing of a horse.”

15Sea la EspaÑa toda otra Numancia o Sagunto; y veremos desde el empireo, si estos impios espiritos fuertes se atreven a pasearse tranquilos por la silenciosa morada da nuestros tremendos manes.—Diario de las Cortes, T. 2. 172.

16An intercepted despatch from Berthier to Massena had informed him, on the authority of the English newspapers, that the British army did not amount to more than 23,000 men; that a reinforcement of 3000 had reached Lisbon; and, therefore, he had little to apprehend from their resistance; the Portugueze were about as many, and his force was fully sufficient to ensure success.

17A small edition of Pindar, which he had brought from the north, was in his pocket when he died. It is now in the possession of my friend Mr. Locker.

18An officer whose journal is before me, and who entered AlcobaÇa on the 7th, describes what were supposed to be the bodies of Pedro and Ignez as having been well embalmed, and having each a great deal of hair still attached to the head.

19A French orderly book was found near Batalha, in which it appeared what number of men were daily ordered upon the service of destroying, as far as they could, that beautiful edifice, one of the finest in Europe.

20Marshal Victor, in his official account, affirmed, as positively as falsely, that there were 22,000 men, among whom were at least 8000 of the best English troops; thus, according to the system of his government, doubling the number of his opponents.

21The following epitaph upon Alburquerque, worthy of the author and of the subject, is the composition of Mr. Frere:—

22This lady is known with her own hand and that of her waiting woman, to have vaccinated above 12,000 persons. The Royal Academy of Sciences at Lisbon presented her with a medal in acknowledgment and commemoration of the services which, in public and private, she was continualy rendering to humanity.

23The dispatch, however, like other falsehoods of the same kind, carried with it its own confutation; for it stated that the allies made no prisoners except two or three hundred wounded, who were left on the field; but the same dispatch said, that the French kept the field for two days, retaining the position they had won, ... how then could the wounded who were left upon the field have fallen into the hands of the allies? But throughout this war the remark made some three centuries ago by the Flemish historian Meyer was verified, that res suas Galli non majore solent SCRIBERE fide, quam GERERE.

24Diario de Manresa, April 20.

25VoilÀ qui est militaire was the phrase in which Buonaparte expressed his approbation.

26Sixty thousand bushels, from the woods at the foot of the western mountains, were shipped in the year 1775.—Swinburne.

27This, which was suspected at the time, I happen to know.

28Contreras insinuates as much in his account of the siege. I have heard it asserted as a thing believed by those who had the best opportunity of forming a true opinion; but the assertion was not supported by direct evidence, as in the case of Fort Olivo.

29There was a town called Bedouin in the department of Vaucluse, which contained about 500 houses and some 2000 inhabitants: they had a good trade in silk, and the place was flourishing. In the month of May, 1794, the tree of liberty which had been planted without this town was cut down during the night. Fearing in those dreadful times the consequence of this act of individual indiscretion, the townsmen themselves informed the deputy Maignet of it, an ex-priest, who was then upon a Robespierrean mission in the department. This availed nothing in their favour: he issued a decree proscribing not only the people of Bedouin, but of the surrounding communes also, and condemned the town to be burnt. An officer, by name Suchet, commanded the battalion which accompanied Maignet’s commission to execute this decree. Sixty fathers of families, after the mockery of a revolutionary trial, were put to death, those who were spared being placed at the foot of the scaffold during the execution. Suchet then gave the word for setting fire to the town, and it was burnt to the ground. The church was the only building which was not destroyed by the flames, and that was demolished by means of gunpowder. Such of the inhabitants as had fled were hunted out in their retreats by the soldiers of the detachment, and shot like wild beasts. The answer of Robespierre’s Committee of Public Safety to the report of this transaction was, Le ComitÉ est satisfaite de la conduite de Maignet.

Prud’homme, Hist. des Erreurs, des Fautes, et des Crimes commis pendant la Revolution FranÇaise, t. 2. 170–176.

I know not whether the Suchet of Tarragona was the Suchet of Bedouin. If he was not, then has France produced two monsters of the name instead of one.

30One of the first acts of the provisional government upon the overthrow of this tyrant, was to give orders for the liberation of those injured Catalans, and their removal to Spain; considering, they said, that the violence committed upon men, whose only offence was that of having fought in defence of their country, outraged humanity, and the laws which were consecrated by the nations of Europe.

31Por Urbano se debe entender en mi concepto, said Sr. Aner in the debates upon this subject, aquel que se halle armado para conservar la tranquilidad de los pueblos, y quando mas para La defensa interior de una provincia, sin tener que salir jamas de ella. Diario de las Cortes. T. 4. p. 103.

32

33“Colonel,” said one of the 87th, the regiment which took the eagle at Barrosa, “Colonel, I only want to taich ’em what it is to attack the Aiglers.”

34One of those friends obtained leave to go to England at the beginning of the winter. Upon rejoining the army after the capture of the place, he expressed his sorrow to Lord Wellington that his request should have been granted at a time when an enterprise of such importance was contemplated. Lord Wellington replied to this effect: “Perhaps, ... you did me better service by your absence, than you could have rendered had you been on the spot. Have you never said that your presence was required at home for your own family affairs, and that it was your intention to ask leave as soon as the campaign was over and nothing more was to be done? And do you suppose that Marmont had not heard this, and known of your departure?”