CORPS, under the orders of Mortier, alias the duke of Treviso, was sent about the beginning, or near the middle of March, against Badajoz. A fruitless attack having been made on that city, the French established themselves in Merida, Zafra, and Santa Maria. The sicge of Badajoz was abandoned for a time, from the necessity of forwarding the siege of Cadiz by suppressing the insurrections in Grenada and Murcia: yet still demonstrations were made on Badajoz. There was a good deal of skirmishing. The reconnoitring parties of the French sometimes advanced almost to the glacis of Badajoz. This was in the nature of a false attack, intended no doubt to occupy the army of Estramadura, while the real invasion of Portugal was to be carried on by the route of Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida. When the troops under Romana were drawn from Badajoz and Campo Major, and some other points in Estramadura, to join lord WelVOL. LII.

lington, they were replaced by Portuguese, united with English; of whom a great proportion was officers. The siege of Cadiz, in like manner, as above observed, went on but slowly. The main efforts of the French were naturally pointed against the allied army under lord Wellington. If marshal Massena should be able to drive the English into the sea, he would be enabled to send out such detachments as could easily reduce Badajoz, perhaps Cadiz.

After the sad reverses of fortune suffered by the Spaniards towards the close of 1809, when they were convinced, by multiplied experience, that their armies were altogether unfit to contend with the French in pitched battles, they had again recourse to that desultory warfare, which had been so wisely recommended by the Junta of Seville at the beginning of the revolution, and which had been carried on for some time with so much success. The Junta of Badajoz P

issued a spirited and energetic address to the Spanish nation, rousing them to a defiance of the invaders, even in the midst of their triumphs; and gave orders for raising the greatest possible number of detached corps. It particularly named three, of 150 men each; the third part cavalry. It likewise ordered smaller ones to be raised in proportion to the population of the parishes, or other districts, into which the province of Estramadura was divided, subordinate to the three principal ones. The order of the Junta specified also the weapons to be used. These were only two; the musket, and the cuchillo, or side knife: the musket for attacking the enemy's convoys and detachments by ambush and surprize; and the cuchillo for attacks by night and in the streets. Similar orders were immediately issued by the Junta of Gallicia, and of Asturias. But even without the intervention of any public authorities throughout all Spain, even in most of the provinces overrun, and partly occupied by the French, Old Castille, Leon, Navarre, Arragon, Catalonia, Valencia, Murcia, and Grenada, parties were formed to fall suddenly on the French and their partizans, to arrest their convoys, carry off their advanced guards, watch and harass their patroles, surprize stragglers, make an attack when they had the advantage of numbers, and lie in ambush when their safety de

pended on flight. They were again to re-organize themselves, re-appear, to stand, and to multiply themselves by the rapidity of their marches, and their acquaintance with all the roads and defiles. Among the most renowned chiefs or leaders of the Guerillas, so the parties of armed Spaniards were called, were Longa, in Gallicia and Asturias; Mina, in the north of Castille, Santochildes, in Leon; Don Juan Sanchez, near Salamancha; Baron Deroles, in Arragon; and l'Empecinado, * in the vicinity of Madrid.

The French troops, after the retreat of lord Wellington, and the total defeat of the main Spanish army under general Ariesaga, were dispersed in different and distant stations, for procuring subsistence, and keeping the territories they had overrun in subjection. The allied army presented a formidable force on the frontier of Spain. The French, in the prosecution of their grand design, the reduction of Cadiz and Lisbon, were obliged to concentrate their forces. This operated as a diversion in favour of the Guerillas. Many places occupied before by the French, fell into the hands of the Guerillas. Among these were Oviedo and Gijon, in Asturias. When the French divisions were drawn together for opposing the united armies of lord Wellington and general Cuesta, the Guerillas, taking advantage of their absence, scoured the country

in different directions. When the French returned, after the retreat from Talavera, to their old quarters, the Guerillas were dispersed, but not subdued; for, on the departure of the French troops from a variety of posts, to join Massena, the Guerillas appeared again in force with increased boldness; and of this alternation of concentrating the French forces for fighting great battles and dispersing the different divisions, for subsistence in a poor and exhausted country, resolute to maintain its independence, there seemed to be no end. In proportion as the Guerillas increased in numbers and daring resolution, it became necessary for the French to send stronger and stronger escorts for protecting their couriers and convoys against those parties, or, as the French called them, bands, who incessantly attacked the enemy in the rear, impeded his communications, cut off his supplies, and, by the booty that fell into their hands, made up in no inconsiderable degree for the ravages committed in the provinces by the invaders. Indeed the misery to which the country had been reduced, was so great as to drive many young men to the Guerillas as their only means of a livelihood. We find the French generals, in their private dispatches to the government, intercepted, continually deploring the necessity they were under of detaching or separating their divisions, for the pur

pose of maintaining the public tranquillity in the conquered provinces, overawing the country, and retaining it in subjection. The French, notwithstanding the superiority of their numbers, were unable to invade at once all parts of the country. Harassed on every side by an armed population, they were ignorant of the number of enemies they had to contend with. The Guerillas, dispersed by superior forces in one place, appeared re-organized in another. New bodies of armed men appeared to spring up from the earth after they were supposed to be destroyed.

A convoy destined for the pay of the French army, was intercepted in the night of the 10th of October, by the celebrated partizan, the patriot hero, Mina, between Bayonne and Madrid. The governor of Gomara sent 300 men to reinforce the escort, which was also 300. The whole was dispersed or taken by 500 under Mina, who became master of 12 carts loaded with silver, 60 prisoners, 30 horses, arms, and ammunition.* A convoy was taken by the Guerillas, of 6000 muskets, and 6000 uniforms, on its way from Bayonne to the troops in Asturias, In the environs of Madrid, a body of 8000 men, under l'Empecinado, made King Joseph himself tremble on his usurped throne. It is stated in a Spanish journal, that about the beginning of September' "the uncle and

worthy successor of the immortal. Mina, in the command of his party, had routed near Pampeluna 800 Ganachies [apes]." So the Spaniards nick-named the French, as the Americans, in the war with England, called our soldiers Lobsters. It would seem that nicknames of enemies are of some use among raw troops, consisting of armed peasantry. It is added in the same paragraph, that this excellent warrior laid Pampeluna itself under contribution, by threatening to starve it. The common escort for a courierto the smallest distance was 200 dragoons; to France 1400. But towards the end of 1810, when the Guerillas had increased prodigiously, in both boldness and numbers, at the same time that the Portuguese militia and ordenanza hung in great force on the rear of Massena, this force was deemed very inadequate indeed to the service. In November, a body of French infantry and cavalry, 3000 strong, passing the Zezere, and crossing the Lower Beria, took the road by the side of Castle, Branco to the Spanish border, merely for the purpose of escorting a courier and obtaining information; as appeared from the short time in which they returned to the positions at the bridges of the Zezere and the fort of Punhete.

There was a whole division of French troops under the orders of general Clarapede, appointed for escorting couriers between Ciudad Rodrigo and Santarem. When general Foix was sent, in November, by Massena to Paris, he was escorted by 2000 men. On

his return to the French position: at Salamanca, with dispatches for Massena, January 13, 1811, he was escorted by near 3000 men. The success of patriotic skirmishing in Arragon forced Buonaparte to send 4000 gens d'armes into that province from France.

These are a few of the examples of the activity and enterprize of the Guerillas. But, after all, the Guerillas were liable to be cut off in detail, or most easily dispersed ; while the French, by seizing the fortresses, ports, cities, and towns, and the roads from one city or town to another, proceeded by sure steps to the conquest of the whole country; of a large portion of which, at the end of 1810, they had uncontrolled, though very unquiet possession. Nothing great can be achieved by mere numbers, without combination or concert.. The operations of the Guerillas were accidental and desultory. Even the Spanish armies did not compose one grand army, but were always placed beyond a ready and useful communication with each other. All the elements of a great and glorious army were to be found in Spain; but a spirit was wanting to breathe on the chaos, and reduce it to form. None could be more sensible of this than the Spaniards themselves, and accordingly every eye was directed with fond expectation to the meeting of the Cortes. Nor was it the Spanish nation alone that entertained the most sanguine hopes from this assembly. It was generally thought by intelligent and learned men, that the Cortes would

keep alive public spirit, apt to dwindle away, individuals being in a state of isolation. The Cortes was a focus that would collect, retain, and send forth the rays of patriotism, not confined to any particular measure or plan, but ready to vary expedients and measures according to exigencies and public opinion and spirit. The Cortes would shew what this spirit really was; the progress of knowledge, the extent of the understanding, and views of the Spanish nation, and what measure of wisdom and energy it possessed. This nation, disengaged now from all former prejudices and trammels, possessed an original and native vigour; a superabundance of life which would hold on its course, after many deep wounds and cruel amputations.*

The form of electing the deputies of the Cortes was as follows: Each parish was at a general meeting to nominate one elector, to be placed at the head of his division. The electors so chosen in the parishes, were to assemble in the principal town or city of the province, to choose a deputy for the general Cortes: and the electors were to be treble the number of the deputies appointed for the province. Such deputies were to be chosen for the extraordinary Cortes by the majority of votes. Each province was to supply one deputy to represent 50,000 of the population, to be regulated according to the last census, which was that of 1797. The provinces,

with their respective proportions of deputies were enumerated. They were in all 32, and the total of such deputies was 208. Sixty-eight supplementary deputies were to be chosen, to act in the event of the death of the former. Each of the provincial Juntas was to appoint a deputy to the general Cortes, either from their own body or otherwise. The cities which sent deputies to the Cortes in 1789 † were each of them to supply deputies on the present occasion. All the elections were to be conducted publicly, and the members were to be assembled at Cadiz, in the Isle of Leon, on the first of March in the present year. None were to be admitted to the duty stated who were under criminal process, who were debtors to the state, who were incompetent from corporeal infirmity, or who were not natives. And no one could be admitted to the situation of elector who was not born in the province for which he was appointed.

The form of election, or the constitution of the Cortes, appears to have been conceived with due regard both to population and property; of which if either greatly preponderate, a state is in danger of falling either into an aristocracy or a democracy.

The election of deputies for the Cortes took place even in the provinces occupied by the French; and this is one of the most remarkable events, and the most characteristic of the public spirit of Spain, that had happened dur