Robert Southey

“ The result of all your victories, of all your expenditure in men and money, of all your exertions, and of all your waste of the military resources of this country, is ... the position of your army at Lisbon, insulated and incapable of acting, but at the discretion of the enemy: your allies in every other part of the peninsula overwhelmed, and only manifesting partial and unavailable hostility; your own resources exhausted, and your hopes of ultimate success, to every mind which is not blinded by enthusiasm, completely annihilated! ”

“ In Craufurd the army lost one of its most experienced officers; in Mackinnon one of the greatest promise, in whom were united all the personal accomplishments, intellectual endowments, and moral virtues which in their union constitute the character of a perfect soldier. He was one of those men whom the dreadful discipline of war renders only more considerate for others, more regardless of themselves, more alive to the sentiments and duties of humanity. ”

“ No equitable reader will suppose that any national reproach is intended in thus dwelling upon the crimes which were committed throughout the Peninsular war by the French and their allies: Englishmen under like circumstances would have been equally depraved: the reproach is not upon a brave and noble nation; it rests upon those alone on whom the guilt abides; and as we tender the welfare and improvement of the human race, let us hope that it may be perpetual!
The retreat of this abominable army was marked by havoc, conflagration, and cruelties of every kind. ”

“ In proportion as this apology, if such it may be called, be valid, is the guilt of that tyrant by whose deliberate orders the army was detained in such a situation; and inferior only to his guilt is that of the commander by whom such orders were obeyed. Life is what every soldier must hold himself ready to lay down whenever his military duty should require the sacrifice; but woe to that soldier who acts as if life were all that he had to lose! ”

“ In extending to the people of Portugal that generosity for which they might look through Europe and the world in vain, we placed our national character upon a pinnacle of greatness which nothing could destroy. Even if our army was compelled to evacuate Portugal, and we should be unable to withstand there the progress of the French, still the posterity of the inhabitants of Portugal would remember with gratitude the aid afforded to their ancestors in the hour of their distress. ”

“ None of the Guerrilla leaders were placed in so dangerous a position as Espoz y Mina. Every fortress in Navarre was occupied by the French, and they were in possession of all the country which surrounded it. There was no point from which he could receive succour; none upon which he could retire: the mountains were his only fastnesses; and he had no resources but what were to be found in his own genius, and in the courage of his comrades, and in the love of his countrymen. ”

“ The conduct of the French in other respects was such as heightened this feeling of abhorrence; everywhere the people groaned under their exactions, their cruelties, and their intolerable insolence. It seemed as if it were the wish of Buonaparte and his ferocious agents utterly to depopulate a country which they found it impossible to subdue. Dreadful as war always is, no ordinary war could have brought upon any nation such complicated miseries. It was impossible for those even who would have been contented to bow, like bulrushes, before the storm, to obtain security by any course of conduct ”

“ The Marques del Palacio had been appointed captain-general of the kingdoms of Aragon, Valencia, and Murcia. He announced his coming in a proclamation from Alicante, of a very different character from those which had so greatly contributed to support the cause of Spain. “From the moment,” said he, “that I set foot in this country, and knew the fall of Tarragona, my spirit, far from being cast down, seemed as if it had taken fresh courage to run to danger as well as to victory. Do not hold me arrogant and vain, for my hopes are not rested upon the arm of flesh. ”

“ Disbelief is too weak a word for expressing the feelings of a generous Spaniard toward the superstition which has eaten like a cancer into the bosom of his country. And most unhappily for themselves and Spain, the men whose heart and understanding revolted against intolerance and imposture were themselves infected with the counterpoison of French philosophy, and their best purposes were too often sophisticated with the frothy notions of that superficial school. ”

“ It is an irregular pentagon, the site of which has been so well chosen upon the solid and bare rock, that it is scarcely possible to open trenches against it on any side; and it commands the plain, serving as an entrenched camp for 16,000 men. As a fortress it is a masterpiece of art; no cost was spared upon it, and the whole was finished in that character of magnificence which the public works of Spain continued to exhibit in the worst ages of the Spanish monarchy. ”

“ General, the laws of war assign a period to the sufferings of the people; this period has arrived. The imperial army is now within ten toises of the body of your fortress; in some hours several breaches may be effected; and then a general assault must precipitate the French columns into Valencia. If you wait for this terrible moment, it will no longer be in my power to control the fury of the soldiers, and you alone will have to answer to God and man for the evils which must overwhelm Valencia. ”

“ The fall of Tarragona has made that situation critical in the extreme, not desperate. There yet remain to us inextinguishable hatred of oppression and ardent love of independence; ... there yet remain to us strong-holds and mountains; ... there remain to us the arms of our numerous and valiant youth for recovering what is lost, and for making the enemy know that the attempt to conquer us is vain. With fewer resources did Pelayo from the mountains of Covadonga begin the deliverance of Spain: and there are not wanting to us chiefs who are determined to follow his glorious example. ”

“ Such is the result of a system founded upon the principle of attempting to subdue Buonaparte by the force of your armies on the continent! Will any man say that this has been a wise system? Will any man, who is not determined, under any circumstances, to support the measures of a weak and misguided government, contend that it has been successful? that it has answered either the promises to your allies, or the hopes to your country? that it has either contributed to their security, or to your own benefit? ”

“ It must have added to the grief of the true Spaniards in Cadiz upon this occasion, when they remembered that they might at this day have had a general who had every claim to the confidence of his men, his government, and his allies, that distinguished services, unbounded sacrifices, enterprise, talents, and devoted patriotism could give. That general, the Duque de Alburquerque, whose name will ever be regarded as the most illustrious of his illustrious line, had just at this time fallen a victim to the malignity of the Junta of Cadiz. ”

“ Blake, Castaños, Mendizabal, Ballasteros, Zayas, and Carlos d’España, were in the field, and all distinguished themselves. Blake and Castaños had each an arm grazed. España was run through the hand by a lance. In the heat of the action, when the issue of the battle appeared most hopeless, many of the Spaniards were heard exclaiming to each other, “What will the Conciso say?” ... thus stimulating themselves to new exertion by remembering the honour or dishonour which a free press would bestow, according to their deserts. ”

“ Some regiments of cavalry, and reinforcements from his majesty’s guards, conducted by the marshal of the district, assist in your efforts and your duties. Forget not that it is your courage which must maintain that superiority of heroism and intrepidity which forms the subject of the admiration and the envy of other nations. Through you, the honour of the French armies will render renowned the hitherto unknown banks of the Coa, as you have made the rivers of Italy and of the North for ever memorable. ”

“ In one place some friars were hanging, impaled by the throat upon the sharpened branches of a tree. Everywhere peasants were found in the most miserable condition; poor wretches who had fallen into the hands of the French, and been tortured to make them discover where supplies were hid, or made to serve as guides, and when their knowledge of the way ended, shot, that they might give no information to the pursuers. The indignation of our army was what it ought to be; men and officers alike exclaimed against the atrocious conduct of their detestable enemies. ”

“ The chief resources of the Spaniards, at the commencement of the struggle, had been in America, and these had been cut off by a series of deplorable events, in which it is difficult to say which of the opposite parties was most culpable. This was now the fourth year of the war; the spirit of the people, and the defects of their military system, had been abundantly proved; nothing was wanting but to remedy those defects by raising an army under the direction of Lord Wellington, who had delivered Portugal, and might by similar means speedily and certainly have delivered Spain. ”

“ People might choose to close their eyes, but the force of truth must dispel the wilful blindness; they might choose to shut their ears, but the voice of a suffering nation must sooner or later be heard. He still retained his objections to every part of the system which he had so often condemned; he still deprecated that wanton waste of money and of all the public resources, when it was more necessary than ever to husband them with the most provident care. ”

“ When a family was hunted out among the rocks, woods, or mountains by these hell-hounds, happy were the men who did not endure torments, the women who did not suffer violation, before they were murdered. The French officers, when any of them were made prisoners, endeavoured always to reject the opprobrium of these flagitious and undeniable deeds upon the Italians and Germans in their army: but let us be just to human nature, which has neither made the Italians and Germans more depraved than the French, nor the French than the English. ”

“ Men are usually alive to hope in proportion as their natures are generous; and the same cause, which throughout the war rendered it impossible to depress the Spaniards, made them easily elated. Of the patriotic journals which were published in every part of Spain, scarcely a number appeared that did not contain details of some skirmish, some guerrilla attack, some successful enterprise, or hair-breadth escape, ... more animating than success in the recital. These things, more even than signal victories, tended to excite a military spirit, when no other advantage accrued from them. ”

“ The gratitude of the people, to their honour it should be said, was more in proportion to the intention and good-will which were thus manifested, than to the actual relief which was afforded. And if in Portugal, as there would have been in any other country, men were found whose hearts were so hard and their consciences so stupified that they sought only how to make the necessities and miseries of their fellow-creatures an occasion of lucre for themselves, it may safely be asserted, that never in any public calamity was there less of such wicked selfishness displayed than at this time. ”

“ It would be wronging the Marques to break off here, for in other parts of his address he spoke in the proper language of a Spaniard and a general. “This is a holy war,” said he, “in which we must fight like the Maccabees. Let him who feels for the public cause join us, and take arms, and offer himself as a sacrifice, and put forth his hand, and advance, and attack, and triumph. Confide in the Government, and it will confide in you. If there is conduct in the chiefs, there will be conduct in the people; moderation in the expenditure, and there will be plenty in the army ”

“ At that time also, the French were perfectly skilled both in the attack and defence of fortified places, while we had every thing to learn: there was not even a corps of sappers and miners attached to the army, so that all those preliminary operations to which men may be trained at home, at leisure, and in perfect safety, were here to be learnt under the fire of an enemy as well skilled in all the arts of defence as we were deficient in those of attack. In this branch of war they were as superior to us as our troops were uniformly found to theirs in the field ”

“ It tends, as we think, to establish within the cabinet itself a system of counteraction inconsistent with the prosecution of any uniform and beneficial course of policy. We must therefore request permission to decline all participation in a government constituted upon such principles, satisfied as we are that the certain loss of character which must arise from it to ourselves could be productive only of disunion and weakness in the administration of the public interests. ”

“ But any great immediate advantage, any rapid acceleration of the deliverance of Spain, ought not to have been expected, unless it was supposed that the Spanish deputies would proceed like the French national convention, and that a revolutionary delirium might have produced a preternatural and overpowering strength. There was as little reason to look for this, as there could be for desiring it. The Spaniards, more than any other Europeans, are attached to the laws and customs of their country. Spain is to them literally a holy land ”