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Spaniards, their want of shoes, stockings, and knapsacks, and their deficiency in those thousand minutiae of dress which are necessary to give a uniform character to soldiery. But a short time spent in marching amongst them had done much to wipe off my original prejudices, and I now looked less at the drapery, and more at the

men.

'Taking them as a body, they were tall, stout, and well made; sober, steady, and obedient. Their discipline was good, and their arms kept in the highest order. Of their fighting qualities report spoke variously; and I confess the numerous combats which were detailed to me, in which, after several hours of hard fighting, the whole loss amounted to some six or seven wounded, and as many missing, gave me no very high idea of their fondness to come into collision with their enemies. I ought, however, to add that all the foreign officers with whom I conversed upon the subject spoke highly of their courage, and said that they only required to be better led, to become first-rate troops; and perhaps the conduct of the Italians in Napoleon's army, and that of the Portuguese and Sepoys in our own, goes far to prove that the behaviour of soldiers in action depends not so much on the original character of the men, as on the spirit and gallantry of their leaders. In these qualities the Spanish officers were said to be at best deficient, and adventitious physical causes had contributed to add to their original inefficiency. The greater part of those I saw in the armies of Rodil and Jaureguy were men somewhat advanced in life, who had been made prisoners during the early part of the Peninsular war. In 1814 they had returned to their country, but as most of them were obnoxious to Ferdinand, on account of their principles, they were obliged, by his restoration to absolute power, either to leave Spain, or to retire on half-pay.

'Both these classes, thus martyrs to their political creed, had claims on the regency of 1833, and, on the double principle of gratitude and interest, were restored to the army and their rank. But years had rolled on in the interval, and lieutenants at twenty found themselves at forty lieutenants still, and engaged in a war demanding, beyond all others, those energies and that activity of which their age and bulk alike deprived them.

'Out of compassion to their infirmities, the government had permitted the older officers, even of the lowest ranks, to use horses; but as it was impossible to draw a line between those who, from bodily weakness, were entitled to the indulgence, and those who were not, the practice became universal. Unfortunately the means of becoming luxurious were not increased with the permission; and as the scanty pay of the Spanish officer was insufficient to support more than one animal, and that necessary for the conveyance of his baggage, he endeavoured to make the unhappy quadruped do double duty; and sat squatted on the top of his pack-saddle like an old woman going to market between her panniers of eggs. Nothing could give a more unsoldier-like appearance to a march than this practice; and contri

buted

buted to make them the object of ridicule to their men, instead of being considered examples of zeal and activity in moments of exhaustion and toil.

6

Many of the Spanish officers were decorated; several wore two Orders, and I recollect a single instance of a lieutenant who had three. One of these, if I understood rightly, had been given him on account of his having been carried a prisoner to France. But it has since occurred to me that my ears must have deceived me, for if a government rewards its troops for being beaten, it is difficult to understand by what stimulus it shall tempt them to be occasionally victorious.'-p. 290.

Of the Carlist army he speaks thus:-

Opposed to these forces of the constitutional government, the Carlists had about 14,000 picked men, in capital order and well armed, under Zumalacarreguy, Eraso, and Zabala. Independently of these, there were two or three corps of 1000 or 1200 each, under Guibelaldi, Iturisso, and other leaders; besides numerous bands of Guerillas, which occupied every village, and served the cause by blocking up the roads, and cutting off the communications. That the numerical force of the legitimate party was not greater, arose from their want of arms, as such was the enthusiasm in favour of Don Carlos, that I have no hesitation in saying, that, beyond the walls of the fortified towns, nineteen-twentieths of the population were his adherents. Of the disposition of those within the places occupied by the military of the Queen it would be difficult to judge, as death or imprisonment followed an avowal of Carlist opinions, and thus rendered it necessary for the inhabitants to affect unanimity in a cause for which it is probable many of them entertained the most cordial aversion.

'During the early part of the struggle, in which the Basque provinces engaged in support of their sovereign, they carefully avoided anything like a collision with their opponents in open ground, from the knowledge that the discipline of the Queen's soldiery, and their superior power of handling their arms, gave them advantages, against which mere numbers would not avail. They therefore adopted that system of warfare which they had found so successful in the contest with Napoleon, and which was suggested alike by their habits, and the character of the country. Acting upon this principle, they contented themselves with surprising out-posts, cutting off convoys, intercepting couriers, and thus leaving the different corps of the constitutional army perfectly isolated, and ignorant alike of the motions of their enemies or their friends.

Emboldened by success, they gradually abandoned the extreme caution of their early enterprises, and commenced an attack on the main body of the Christinos, and from the top of rocks which overhung the road, and the woody defiles that here and there ran along it for upwards of a league, kept up a fire upon the troops below. This mode of warfare, little glorious as it may appear, had been singularly destructive; and during the two months previous to that in which Í

joined Rodil, the Queen's forces had, in consequence of such attacks, or from the paltry skirmishes in which they had been engaged, lost not less than eighty officers. Occasionally, too, when favourable circumstances presented themselves, the Carlists attempted a bolder policy, and when supposed to be at a distance, or in small numbers, appeared suddenly before detached corps of their enemy, in a force that made fighting or flying alike unavailing. To such surprises were owing the defeats of Quesada and Lorenzo's advanced guard. In both cases the approach of the legitimates was wholly unexpected, and the disorganization of the one force, and the annihilation of the other, almost without loss to the victors, showed how well the enterprises had been planned.

'These fortunate results arose from their possessing that power which is the groundwork of all military success-the power of combination; a necessary consequence of their knowledge of the country, their capability of enduring fatigue, and their accuracy of intelligence. The first of these was peculiarly the concomitant of an army composed of shepherds and smugglers, to whom, in the course of their various professions, every path in the mountains, with its individual capabilities, was accurately known, and gave to their general, either on occasion of advance or retreat, advantages of the first order. Their power of enduring fatigue was not less remarkable, and was such, that had I not received my information from a dozen different and unconnected quarters, I could scarcely have credited it. But I was again and again informed, that Zumalacarreguy had not unfrequently marched fifty miles in a day; and that the body-guard of Don Carlos, on the occasion of his being so nearly captured by Jaureguy, had passed over, within the four-and-twenty hours, between fifty and sixty miles; and must have moved at a very rapid pace even to the end of their journey, as, on approaching Tolosa, El Pastor, and the troops in pursuit, too much fatigued to follow any farther, took refuge in the town, and sent the garrison to continue the chace. But even these fresh men were unable to come near the veteran pedestrians of the prince's garde de corps, and returned in two hours in despair.

With such extraordinary capabilities of limb, the Spanish constitutional army, however superior it might be to those of other European governments in its marching qualifications, was totally unable to enter into competition. But even had its physical energies been equally great with those of its Carlist opponents, its motions must ever have been more dilatory, from the circumstance, that the legitimates were able to advance at the rate of speed possessed by their best men, as they found all along their route, in the cottages of the attached peasantry, an asylum for their exhausted soldiery; while the Christinos were obliged to accommodate themselves to the laggard step of the greatest invalid in their ranks, as every loiterer was sure to be slaughtered as soon as he was beyond the protection of his comrades. Even in Guipuscoa, where, from the more open state of the country, such attacks were less dreaded, I have seen the rear-guard,

VOL. LIV. NO. CVII.

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more than once, come to a halt till some soldiers who were drinking at a rivulet had finished their draught, lest they should be exposed to danger by being for a few moments behind the rest.

It is in consequence of this amazing rapidity of movement, and this attachment of the Basquese, that I should be inclined to listen with distrust to the details of any important loss sustained by the Carlists, so long as they confine their operations to the broken surface of the four provinces. As in the event of Zumalacarreguy being engaged in any general combat, in which he was not likely to be victor a matter by no means probable, since by his superior speed he is enabled to choose his own ground, and is understood never to go into action except with overwhelming odds in his favour-he has only, on the day going against him, to scatter his troops to every wind of heaven, and send them in a thousand directions to the defiles of the neighbourhood, where, moving at a pace incompatible alike with the dress and the habits of the regulars, they would be in a few minutes safe from pursuit; and, re-organizing themselves amid the security of their fastnesses, assume, in four-and-twenty hours, as formidable a character as ever. The constitutional army has no such resource against misfortune; its existence depends upon its remaining in a mass, and once broken, it would certainly and rapidly be annihilated

in detail.

Another circumstance, highly favourable to the Carlist generals, is the accuracy of their intelligence, and the power which they possess of transmitting immediate orders to the subordinate heads of the scattered corps. In both qualifications were the Christinos deficient. Of intelligence indeed, such as it was, they had plenty, for it is always volunteered when men pay high; and it was said that Rodil gave an ounce of gold for each piece of information: but his officers used to complain that it could not be depended on; and that even where it proved to be true, the commander-in-chief was unable to take advantage of it so as to execute a combined movement-as the orders to the generals of the detached divisions could only be conveyed under the protection of a strong escort, which was occasionally beaten back when amounting to 180 men, and which, even when enabled to proceed, marched only in the day-time, and moved at a snail's pace.

The Carlists were in a very different position. Through the me dium of a peasantry, who had been taught by their priests that they were incurring eternal damnation if they neglected any means of advancing the cause of their sovereign, the most detailed accounts were conveyed to the head-quarters of Zumalacarreguy of the movements of the queen's army; while despatches, sent from one corps to another, instead of loitering along the road at the slow pace of an escort of infantry, were conveyed across the country after the fashion of the fiery cross in the old times of Highland warfare. The bearer of the packet, while it remained in his possession, hurried on with all the speed that wind and limb could muster; and at the moment his

energies

energies became exhausted, he was entitled to put it into the hands of the first peasant whom he met, who, on horseback or on foot, in cottage or in field, was obliged to receive it, and (such was the terror inspired by the denunciations of the monks) to forward it on its course with the same rapidity. In this manner, the orders of the superior officers of the legitimate party were occasionally conveyed sixteen miles within the hour; and their power, either of avoiding or surprising an enemy, increased in a tenfold degree.

'But, independently of the information derived from a zealous peasantry, they had a corps of light troops specially attached to the duty of preceding and following the queen's army. These fellows occupied the heights, and by firing signals were able to communicate with each other, and transmit intelligence with wonderful facility. They were, as I was afterwards informed, in full operation on the day on which Rodil's army left Tolosa for Ascoytia, and gave warning to the inhabitants of the latter town of our approach within five minutes after we had entered the gully up which, about a mile and a half from Tolosa, turns the Ascoytia road. The consequence was, that the band of Carlists which occupied the village, and those inhabitants who, from their zeal for legitimacy, might have been objects of suspicion to Rodil, had full time to transport themselves to the mountains, and await in safety amid their fastnesses the moment of our departure.

Of the fortified places possessed by the queen, all, with the exception of Pampeluna and St. Sebastian, might be taken in a few hours by two heavy guns; as those I saw, Eybar, Bergara, Villafranca, and Tolosa, were commanded by heights in the immediate neighbourhood; and I was informed that the others were in a similar situation. But I am not sure that it would be good policy in the Carlists to reduce them if they could, as at present they are said to occupy fifteen thousand men, who, without a single soldier being withdrawn from the legitimate ranks for the purpose, are de facto blockaded by the animosity of the inhabitants of the neighbourhood, and dare not, except in force, move three hundred yards from the walls. Occasionally they sally forth in a strong body, and clear the roads for two miles in advance; but though everything gives way before them, they no sooner begin to retrace their steps than their enemies return upon their heels, and by the time they have entered the town the place is as strictly blockaded as before.

From all these circumstances, were I called on to form an opinion, I should augur ill for the success of the queen in the four provinces. Independently of the hatred of the Basquese-a hatred founded on the triple ground of interest, loyalty, and religion-there exists a bar to her success in the character of the country, which, full of forests and defiles, is impenetrable to any but the natives; and defied the power of Napoleon, at the head of armies much more formidable than any that the Christinos are likely to bring into the field.

⚫ Of the sentiments of the inhabitants towards Don Carlos, in the southern districts of the Peninsula, I had no means of forming an

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