Fotheringham John Knight
The Political History of England – Vol XI
In spite of this riots grew into local insurrections, and a message from the prince regent on June 27 recommended further action to parliament. It was natural, in that generation to connect all disorderly movements with revolutionary designs, and this belief underlies an alarmist report from a secret committee of the house of lords on the prevailing tumults. Accordingly, Sidmouth obtained new powers for magistrates to search for arms, to disperse tumultuous assemblies, and to exercise jurisdiction beyond their own districts. In November many Luddites were convicted, and sixteen were executed by sentence of a special commission sitting at York. These stern measures were effectual for a time, and popular discontent in the manufacturing districts ceased to assume so acute a form until after the war was ended.
The sufferings of the poor in the rural districts, though generally endured in silence, were at least equally severe with those of the artisan class, and it is difficult to say whether a good or bad harvest pressed more heavily on agricultural labourers. When the price of wheat rose to 130s. per quarter or upwards, as it did in 1812 and other years of scarcity, the farmers were able to pay comparatively high wages. When the price fell to 75s., as it did in years of plenty like 1813, wages were reduced to starvation-point, but supplemented out of the poor-rates, under the miserable system of indiscriminate out-door relief graduated according to the size of families. In either case, the entire income of a labourer was far below the modern standard, and the prosperity of trade meant to him an increase in the cost of all necessaries except bread. As for their employers, the golden age of farming, which is often identified with the age of the great war, had really ceased long before. Not only did the high price of a farmer's purchases go far to neutralise the high price of his sales, but the excessive fluctuations in all prices, due to the opening and closing of markets according to the fortunes of war, made prudent speculation almost impossible. The frequently recurring depressions were rendered all the more disastrous, because in times of high prices "the margin of cultivation" was unduly extended.
CORN LAWS.
With a view to diminish the violence of these fluctuations, a select committee on the corn-trade was appointed by the house of commons in 1813, and reported in favour of a sliding-scale. When the price of wheat should fall below 90s. per quarter, its exportation was to be permitted; but its importation was to be forbidden, until the price should reach 103s., when it might, indeed, be imported, but under "a very considerable duty". It was assumed, in fact, that the normal price of wheat was above 100s. per quarter, and the price above which importation should be permitted was nearly twice as high as that fixed in 1801, when, moreover, it was to be admitted above 50s. at a duty of 2s. 6d., and above 54s. at a duty of sixpence. It is remarkable that in the debates of 1814 upon the report of this committee, William Huskisson, as well as Sir Henry Parnell, supported its main conclusions, upon the ground that agriculture must be upheld at all costs, and the home-market preferred to foreign markets. Canning and others ably advocated the cause of the consumers, alleging that duties on corn injured them far more than they could benefit landowners or farmers. Finally, a bill embodying a modified sliding-scale was introduced by the government, and, though lost by a narrow majority in 1814, became law in 1815. Under this act the importation of foreign corn was prohibited, so long as the price of wheat did not rise above 80s. Above that price it might be imported free. Corn from British North America might, however, be imported free so long as the price of wheat exceeded 67s.
The parliamentary debates of 1812 chiefly turned on Spanish affairs, the revocation of the orders in council, the subsequent rupture with the United States which had anticipated this great concession, and the wearisome cabinet intrigues which preceded the accession of Liverpool as prime minister. It is noteworthy that so conservative a house of commons should actually have pledged itself to consider the question of catholic emancipation in the next session, and should have passed an act relieving nonconformists from various disabilities. The next session of this parliament, however, never came, for an unexpected dissolution took place on September 29. This dissolution was attributed, with some reason, to a wish on the part of the government to profit by an abundant harvest, and to the restoration of comparative quiet both in England and in Ireland. A new parliament assembled at the end of November. The prince regent's speech in opening it, though it noticed the suppression of the Luddite disturbances, was inevitably devoted to the great events in Spain and Russia, the conclusion of a treaty with Russia, and the American declaration of war. After the Christmas recess, Castlereagh presented an argumentative message from the prince fully discussing the points at issue between Great Britain and the United States, upon which Canning, though out of office, delivered a vigorous speech in defence of the British position. Eldon, in the house of lords, went further, boldly justifying the right of search, and denying the American contention that original allegiance could be cancelled by naturalisation without the consent of the mother-country. The Princess of Wales, who had long been separated from the prince, was the cause of more parliamentary time being wasted by a complaint which she addressed to the speaker against the proceedings of the privy council. That body had approved restrictions which her husband had thought fit to place on her intercourse with her daughter, the Princess Charlotte. Parliament, however, took no action in the matter.
Perhaps the most important measure enacted in the session of 1813 was the so-called East India company's act. By this act the charter of the company was renewed with a confirmation of its administrative privileges and its monopoly of the China trade, but subject to material reservations: the India trade was thrown open from April 10, 1814, and the charter itself, thus restricted, was made terminable by three years' notice after April 10, 1831. In this year the naval and military armaments of Great Britain, considered as a whole, perhaps reached their maximum strength, and the national expenditure rose to its highest level, including, as it did, subsidies to foreign powers amounting to about £10,500,000. Of the aggregate expenditure, about two-thirds, £74,000,000, were provided by taxation, an enormous sum relatively to the population and wealth of the country at that period. Patiently as this burden was borne on the whole by the people of Great Britain, we cannot wonder that Vansittart, the chancellor of the exchequer, should have sought to lighten it in some degree by encroaching upon the sinking fund, as founded and regulated by Pitt. The debates on this complicated question, in which Huskisson and Tierney stoutly combated Vansittart's proposal, belong rather to financial history. What strikes a modern student of politics as strange is that Vansittart, tory as he was, should have advocated the relief of living and suffering taxpayers, upon the principle, then undefined, of leaving money "to fructify in the pockets of the people"; while the whig economists of the day stickled for the policy of piling up new debts, if need be, rather than break in upon an empirical scheme for the gradual extinction of old debts.
CHAPTER V.
THE PENINSULAR WAR
Reference has already been made to the conflict maintained for six years by Great Britain against France for the liberation of Spain and Portugal, which has since been known in history as the Peninsular war. It had its origin in two events which occurred during the autumn of 1807 and the spring of 1808. The first was the secret treaty of Fontainebleau concluded between France and Spain at the end of October, 1807; the second was the outbreak of revolutionary movements at Madrid, followed by the intervention of Napoleon in March, April, and May, 1808. The treaty of Fontainebleau was a sequel of the vast combination against Great Britain completed by the peace of Tilsit, under which the continental system was to be enforced over all Europe. Portugal, the ally of this country and an emporium of British commerce, was to be partitioned into principalities allotted by Napoleon, the house of Braganza was to be exiled, and its transmarine possessions were to be divided between France and Spain, then ruled by the worthless Godoy in the name of King Charles IV. Whether or not the subjugation of the whole peninsula was already designed by Napoleon, his troops, ostensibly despatched for the conquest of Portugal under the provisions of the treaty, had treacherously occupied commanding positions in Spain, when the populace of Madrid rose in revolt, and, thronging the little town of Aranjuez, where the court resided, frightened the king into abdication. His unprincipled son, Ferdinand, was proclaimed in March, 1808, but Murat, who now entered Madrid as commander-in-chief of the French troops in that city, secretly favoured the ex-King Charles. In the end, both he and Ferdinand were enticed into seeking the protection of Napoleon at Bayonne. Instead of mediating or deciding between them, Napoleon soon found means to get rid of both. They were induced or rather compelled to resign their rights, and retire into private life on large pensions; and Napoleon conferred the crown of Spain on his brother Joseph, whose former kingdom of Naples was bestowed on Murat.
In the meantime, sanguinary riots broke out afresh at Madrid, hundreds of French were massacred, and the insurrection, as it was called, though sternly put down by Murat, spread like wildfire into all parts of Spain. A violent explosion of patriotism, resulting in anarchy, followed throughout the whole country. Napoleon was taken by surprise, but the combinations which he matured at Bayonne for the conquest of Spain were as masterly as those by which he had well-nigh subdued the whole continent, except Russia. He established a base of operations in the centre of the country, and organised four campaigns in the north-west, north-east, south-east, and south. Savary, who had succeeded Murat at Madrid, was supposed to act as commander-in-chief, but was really little more than a medium for transmitting orders received from Napoleon at Bayonne. The campaign of Duhesme in Catalonia was facilitated by the treacherous seizure of the citadel of Barcelona in the previous February. It was not long, however, before effective aid was rendered on the coast by the British fleet under Collingwood, and especially by Lord Cochrane in the Impérieuse frigate; the undisciplined bands of Catalonian volunteers were reinforced by regular troops from Majorca and Minorca; the fortress of Gerona made an obstinate resistance; the siege of it was twice raised, and Barcelona, almost isolated, was now held with difficulty.
FRANCE OCCUPIES THE PENINSULA.
Marshal Moncey vainly besieged Valencia, while Generals Lefebvre-Desnoëttes and Verdier were equally unsuccessful before Zaragoza. In the plains of Leon, Marshal Bessières gained a decisive victory over a superior force of Spaniards under Cuesta and Blake, at Medina de Rio Seco, on July 14. Having thus secured the province of Leon, and the great route from Bayonne to Madrid, he was advancing on Galicia when his progress was arrested by disaster in another quarter. General Dupont, commanding the southern army, found himself nearly surrounded at Baylen, and solicited an armistice, followed by a convention, under which, "above eighteen thousand French soldiers laid down their arms before a raw army incapable of resisting half that number, if the latter had been led by an able man".42 The convention, signed on July 20, stipulated for the transport of the French troops to France, but its stipulations were shamefully violated; some were massacred, others were sent to sicken in the hulks at Cadiz, and comparatively few lived to rejoin their colours. Meanwhile a so-called "assembly of notables," summoned to Bayonne, consisting of ninety-one persons, all nominees of Napoleon, assumed to act for the whole nation, had accepted the nomination of Joseph Bonaparte as king, and proceeded to adopt a constitution. On July 20, the very day of the capitulation of Baylen, Joseph entered Madrid, and on the 24th was proclaimed King of Spain and the Indies. But the military prestige of the grand army received a fatal blow in the catastrophe, of which the immediate effect was the retirement of Joseph behind the Ebro, and the ultimate effects were felt in the later history of the war.
At this moment almost the whole of Portugal was in possession of the French. In November, 1807, under peremptory orders from Napoleon, Junot with a French army and an auxiliary force of Spaniards, but without money or transport, had marched with extraordinary rapidity across the mountains to Alcantara in the valley of the Tagus. He thence pressed forward to Lisbon, hoping to anticipate the embarkation of the royal family for Brazil, which, however, took place just before his arrival and almost under his eyes. With his army terribly reduced by the hardships and privations of his forced march, he overawed Lisbon and issued a proclamation that "the house of Braganza had ceased to reign". A fortnight later a Spanish division occupied Oporto, and meanwhile another Spanish division established itself in the south-east of Portugal, but, as the French stragglers came in and reinforcements approached, Junot felt himself strong enough to cast off all disguise; he suppressed the council of regency, took the government into his own hands, and levied a heavy war contribution. During the early months of 1808 he was employed in reorganising his own forces, and the resources of Lisbon, where an auxiliary Russian fleet of nine ships was lying practically blockaded. In a military sense, he was successful, but the rapacity of the French, the contagion of the Spanish uprising, the memory of the old alliance with England, and the proximity of English fleets, stirred the blood of the Portuguese nation into ill-concealed hostility. The Spanish commander at Oporto withdrew his troops to Galicia, and the inhabitants declared for independence. Their example was followed in other parts of Portugal. Junot acted with vigour, disarmed the Spanish contingent at Lisbon, and sent columns to quell disturbances on the Spanish frontiers, but he soon realised the necessity of concentration. He therefore resolved to abandon most of the Portuguese fortresses, limiting his efforts to holding Lisbon, and keeping open his line of communication with Spain.
VIMEIRO AND CINTRA.
Such was the state of affairs in the Peninsula when Sir Arthur Wellesley landed his army of some 12,000 men on August 13, 1808. He had been specially designated for the command of a British army in Portugal by Castlereagh, then secretary for war and the colonies, who fully appreciated his singular capacity for so difficult a service. Sir John Moore, who had just returned from the Baltic, having found it hopeless to co-operate with Gustavus IV. of Sweden, was sent out soon afterwards to Portugal with a corps of some 10,000 men. Both these eminent soldiers were directed to place themselves under the orders not only of Sir Hew Dalrymple, the governor of Gibraltar, as commander-in-chief, but of Sir Harry Burrard, when he should arrive, as second in command. Wellesley had received general instructions to afford "the Spanish and Portuguese nations every possible aid in throwing off the yoke of France," and was empowered to disembark at the mouth of the Tagus. Having obtained trustworthy information at Coruña and Oporto, he decided rather to begin his campaign from a difficult landing-place south of Oporto at the mouth of the Mondego, and to march thence upon Lisbon. He was opportunely joined by General Spencer from the south of Spain, and chose the coast-road by Torres Vedras. At Roliça he encountered a smaller force under Delaborde, sent in advance by Junot to delay his progress, and routed it after a severe combat. Delaborde, however, retreated with admirable tenacity, and Wellesley, expecting reinforcements from the coast, pushed forward to Vimeiro, without attempting to check the concentration of Junot's army. There was fought, on August 21, the first important battle of the Peninsular war. The British troops, estimated at 16,778 men (besides about 2,000 Portuguese), outnumbered the French considerably, but the French were much stronger in cavalry, and boldly assumed the offensive, confident in the prestige derived from so many victories in Italy and Germany. Wellesley's position was strong, but the attack on it was skilfully designed and pressed home with resolute courage. It was repelled at every point of the field, and the French, retiring in confusion, might have been cut off from Lisbon. But Burrard, who had just landed and witnessed the battle without interfering, now absolutely refused to sanction a vigorous pursuit.
On the following day he was superseded in turn by Dalrymple. The new commander determined to await the arrival of Moore, whose approach was reported, but who did not disembark his whole force until the 30th. In the meantime, overtures for an armistice were received from Junot, and ultimately resulted in the so-called "convention of Cintra," though it was first drafted at Torres Vedras and was ratified at Lisbon. Under this agreement the French army was to surrender Lisbon intact with other Portuguese fortresses, but was allowed to return to France with its arms and baggage at the expense of the British government. Having dissented from the military decision which had enabled Junot to negotiate, instead of capitulating, Wellesley also dissented from certain terms of the convention. He was, however, party to it as a whole, and afterwards justified its main conditions as securing the evacuation of Portugal at the price of reasonable concessions. This was not the feeling of the British public, which loudly resented the escape of the French army and insisted upon a court of inquiry. The verdict of this court saved the military honour of all three generals, but its members were so divided in opinion on the policy of the convention that no authoritative judgment was pronounced. Napoleon felt no such difficulty in condemning Junot for yielding too much, and the inhabitants of Lisbon were infuriated not only by the loss of their expected vengeance, but also by the shameless plunder of their public and private property by the departing French. Under a separate convention, the Russian fleet, long blockaded in the Tagus, was surrendered to the British admiral, but without its officers or crews.
The capitulation of Baylen paralysed for a time the aggressive movements of France in Spain. Catalonia remained unconquered, even Bessières retreated, and Joseph, as we have seen, abandoned Madrid. Happily for the French, the Spaniards proved quite incapable of following up their advantages, and though a "supreme junta" was assembled at Aranjuez, it wasted its time in vain wrangling, and did little or nothing for the organisation of national defence. Meanwhile, Napoleon was pouring veteran troops from Germany into the north of Spain, where they repulsed the Spanish levies in several minor engagements. On October 14 he left Erfurt, where he had renewed his alliance with the tsar, and reached Bayonne on November 3. His simple but masterly plan of campaign was already prepared, and was carried out with the utmost promptitude. On November 10-11, one of three Spanish armies was crushed at Espinosa; on the former day another was routed at Gamonal; on the 23rd the third was utterly dispersed at Tudela. Napoleon himself remained for some days at Burgos, awaiting the result of these operations; on December 4, after a feeble resistance, he entered Madrid in triumph, and stayed there seventeen days, which he employed with marvellous activity in maturing fresh designs, both civil and military, for securing his power in Spain.
ADVANCE OF SIR JOHN MOORE.
Already, on October 7, Sir John Moore had taken over the command of the British forces. He probably owed his appointment to George III., who seems on this occasion to have overruled his foreign and war ministers, Canning and Castlereagh. In spite of his unwillingness to offer the appointment to Moore, Castlereagh gave him the most loyal and efficient support during the whole campaign; and this loyalty to Moore was one of the reasons for Canning's desire to remove Castlereagh from the war office, which, as we have seen, led to the famous duel between those two statesmen. It was at first intended that Moore should co-operate with the Spanish armies which were then facing the French on the line of the Ebro. For this purpose he was to have the command of 21,000 troops already in Portugal and of about 12,000 who were being sent by sea to Coruña under Sir David Baird. Burrard was to remain in Portugal with another 10,000. Nothing had been done before Moore was appointed to the command to provide the troops with their necessary equipment or their commander with the necessary local information. The departure of the troops was therefore slow. By October 18 the greater part of the British troops in Portugal were in motion, but the whole army had not left Lisbon till the 29th. The main body travelled by fairly direct routes to Salamanca, where Moore arrived on November 13, but he was induced by information, which proved to be incorrect, to send his cavalry and guns with a column under Hope, by the more circuitous high road through Elvas and Talavera. When this route was adopted it was anticipated that the different divisions of the British army would be able to unite at, or near, Valladolid. But the advance of the French rendered this impossible, and Hope ultimately joined Moore at Salamanca on December 4.
Baird suffered from even more vexatious delays. Though the greater part of his convoy had arrived at Coruña on October 13, the local junta would not permit them to land without express orders from the central junta at Aranjuez. Consequently the disembarkation did not begin till the 26th and was only finished on November 4. Transport and equipment were difficult to obtain, and on November 22 Baird was still only at Astorga. There exaggerated reports of the French advance induced him to halt, but by Moore's orders he continued his march. On the 28th the news of the defeat of Castaños at Tudela reached Moore at Salamanca. Co-operation with a Spanish army now appeared impossible, and even a junction with Baird seemed too hazardous to attempt. Moore therefore, ordered Baird to retire on Coruña and to proceed to Lisbon by sea, and, while waiting himself at Salamanca for Hope, made preparations for a retreat to Portugal. On December 5, the day after his junction with Hope, Moore determined to continue his advance. He had received news of the enthusiastic preparations for the defence of Madrid but did not know of its fall, and he considered that the Spanish enthusiasm justified some risk on the part of the British troops. He accordingly recalled Baird, whose infantry had retired to Villafranca, though his cavalry were still at Astorga. On the 9th came the news of the fall of Madrid, but Moore believed that an attack on the French lines of communication might still prove useful, and on the 11th the advance was renewed. Moore himself left Salamanca on the 13th. On the 12th he learned for the first time from some prisoners the true strength of the French army, 250,000 of all arms, and also discovered that the enemy were in complete ignorance of the position of his own army. Next day an intercepted despatch showed him that he might possibly be able to cut off Soult in an isolated position at Saldaña. Having at last effected a junction with Baird's corps on the 19th he reached Sahagun on the 21st, and was on the point of delivering his attack under favourable conditions, though his triumph must have been short-lived.
His real success was of another order. He had anticipated that Napoleon would postpone everything to the opportunity of crushing a British army, and the ultimate object of his march to Sahagun was to draw the French away from Lisbon and Andalusia. He was not disappointed. Napoleon at last divined that Moore was not flying in a south-westerly direction, but carrying out a bold manœuvre in a north-easterly direction. He instantly pushed division after division from various quarters by forced marches upon Moore's reported track, while he himself followed with desperate efforts across the snow-clad mountains between Madrid and the Douro. Apprised of his swift advance, and conscious of his own vast inferiority in numbers, Moore had no choice but to retreat without a moment's delay upon Benevente and Astorga. He was now sufficiently far north to prefer to retire upon Galicia rather than upon Portugal. The retreat began on the 24th and was executed with such rapidity that on January 1, 1809, Napoleon gave up the pursuit at Astorga, leaving it to be continued by Soult. Whether he was influenced by intelligence of fresh armaments on the Danube, or of dangerous plots in Paris, must remain uncertain, but it is highly probable that he saw little honour to be won in a laborious chase of a foe who might prove formidable if brought to bay.
Moore's army, disheartened as it was by the loss of a brilliant chance, and demoralised as it became under the fatigues and hardships of a most harassing retreat, never failed to repel attacks on its rear, where Paget handled the cavalry of the rear-guard with signal ability, especially in a spirited action near Benevente. In spite of some excesses, tolerable order was maintained until the British force, still 25,000 strong, reached Astorga, and was joined by some 10,000 Spaniards under Romaña. Thenceforward, all sense of discipline was abandoned by so many regiments that Moore described the conduct of his whole army as "infamous beyond belief," though it is certain that some regiments, and notably those of the reserve, should be excepted from this sweeping condemnation. Drunkenness, marauding, and other military crimes grew more and more general as the main body marched "in a drove" through Villafranca to Lugo, where Moore vainly offered battle, and onwards to Betanzos on the sea-coast. There a marvellous rally was effected, stragglers rejoined the ranks in unexpected numbers, the moral of the soldiery was restored as the fearful strain of physical misery was relaxed, and by January 12, 1809, all the divisions of Moore's army were safely posted in or around Coruña. Bad weather had delayed the fleet of transports ordered round from Vigo, but it ran into the harbour on the 14th, and the sick and invalids were sent on board.
THE BATTLE OF CORUÑA.
Moore was advised to make terms for the embarkation of his entire command, but he was too good a soldier to comply. Those who took part in the battle of Coruña on the 16th, some 15,000 men in all, were no unworthy representatives of the army which started from Lisbon three months earlier. Soult, with a larger force, assumed the offensive, and made a determined attack on the British position in front of the harbour and town of Coruña. He was repulsed at all points, but Moore was mortally, and Baird severely, wounded on the field. Hope, who took command, knowing that Soult would soon be reinforced, wisely persisted in carrying out Moore's intention, evacuated Coruña, and embarked his army for England during the night and the following day. His losses were estimated by Hope at above 700, killed and wounded; those of the enemy were twice as great. Thus victory crowned a campaign which otherwise would have done little to satisfy the popular appetite for tangible success. The original object of supporting the Spanish resistance in the north had been rendered impossible of fulfilment by Napoleon's victories when Moore had barely crossed the Spanish frontier, and in this sense the expedition must be regarded as a failure, though its commander was in no sense responsible for its ill-success. On the other hand, considered as a skilful diversion, the expedition was highly successful. It drew all the best French troops and generals into the north-west corner of Spain, leaving all the other, and far richer, provinces to recover their power of resistance.43
The spirit in which Napoleon had entered upon this contest is well illustrated in two sentences of his address to the citizens of Madrid. "The Bourbons," he said, "can no longer reign in Europe," and "No power under the influence of England can exist on the continent". The counter-proclamations of Spanish juntas were more prolix and equally arrogant, but one of them reveals the secret of national strength when it asserts that "a whole people is more powerful than disciplined armies". The British estimate of Napoleon's Spanish policy was tersely expressed by the Marquis Wellesley in the house of lords, "To him force and fraud were alike; force, that would stoop to all the base artifices of fraud; and fraud, that would come armed with all the fierce violence of force".
WELLESLEY TAKES COMMAND.
For three months after the battle of Coruña, the Peninsular war, as regards the action of Great Britain, was all but suspended. Two days before that battle, a formal treaty of peace and alliance between Great Britain and the Spanish junta, which had withdrawn to Seville, was signed at London. Sir John Cradock was in command of the British troops at Lisbon, and took up a defensive position there, with reinforcements from Cadiz, awaiting the approach of Soult, who had captured Oporto by storm, and of Victor, who was in the valley of the Tagus. At the request of the Portuguese, Beresford had been sent out to organise and command their army. Early in 1809 the Spaniards were defeated with great slaughter at Ucles, Ciudad Real, and Medellin; Zaragoza was taken after another siege, and still more obstinate defence; and the national cause seemed more desperate than ever. On April 2, however, Sir Arthur Wellesley, who had returned home after the convention of Cintra, was appointed to the command-in-chief of our forces in the Peninsula. Before leaving England, he left with the ministers a memorandum on the conduct of the war which, viewed by the light of later events, must be accounted a masterpiece of foresight and sagacity. When it was laid before George III., his natural shrewdness at once discerned its true value, and he desired its author to be informed of the strong impression which it had produced on his mind.