sola omnium provinciarum vires suas postquam victa est intellexit." * In the northern provinces, especially Catalonia, Asturias, Leon, and Galicia, the insurrection took place, and the provincial juntas were established, in a comparatively regular manner, without any of the usual frightful ebullitions of popular passion. But it was far otherwise in the cities of the south and east of Spain. The usual vehemence and intemperance of the unbridled populace of great towns, was there increased by the fiery intermixture of Moorish blood. Frightful atrocities were committed. At Badajoz, the governor, who endeavoured to restrain the furious multitude which surrounded his house clamouring for arms, was dragged out and murdered; numbers were massacred, on the supposition of being agents or partisans of the French, at Carthagena, Granada, Carolina, Cadiz, and other places; and at Cadiz a fearful altercation took place between the governor, Solano, who refused to commence the hostilities which were required of him against the French squadron of five ships of the line, which had lain in the harbour since the battle of Trafalgar, and the ardent populace, who clamoured for an immediate attack. Independent of a secret leaning to the French interest, he naturally hesitated, as an officer of prudence and honour, at taking the decisive step of attacking, without any previous declaration of war or authority from the executive power, a squadron of an allied state which had taken refuge in Cadiz during the hostilities with Great Britain; and he openly expressed an apprehension that, during these dissensions, the English would break in and destroy the fleets of both contending parties. Finding that the popular effervescence was becoming too strong to be openly resisted, he endeavoured to temporise, called a council of war, and gave symptoms of submission to the public wish. But the populace, distrusting his sincerity, broke into his hotel, and chased him into the house of Mr Strange, an English merchant, where he was discovered by a set of bloodthirsty assassins, who dragged him from his place of concealment, notwith * "Spain alone of all the provinces knew her own strength after she had been conquered." LIII. 1808. 341, 356. standing the courageous efforts of Mrs Strange to save CHAP. his life, and massacred him while on the road towards the gallows. He met his fate with dignity and composure, bidding his heroic supporter, Mrs Strange, fare-1 South. i. well till eternity. Don Thomas Morla, the second in Nell. i. 134, command, was next day nominated to the government of Cadiz by popular acclamation, and immediately enter- Foy, i. 201, ed on the duties of his important office.1 143. Tor. i. 209, 214. 208. the revolu Valencia At Valencia the first burst of popular indignation was accompanied with still more frightful atrocities. Three 40. hundred French merchants or traders had long been Massacres established in that city, and when the insurrection with which broke out there in the end of May, they all, as a tion in measure of precaution, took refuge in, or were sent to commenced. the citadel, where they were supposed to be safe from May 24. any violence that might arise. An ardent, resolute, and able Franciscan monk, Juan Rico, early acquired, by his powers of public speaking, the lead in the movement; but the junta elected for the government was composed, as in most other instances, of a mixture of persons of noble and plebeian origin. The people, however, from the first conceived a jealousy of the nobles; and to such a height did that feeling arrive, that the commander of the troops, Don Fernando Saavedra, was May 29. massacred before the eyes of the Count de Cervellon, a nobleman of the popular side, to whose palace he had fled for safety. This deed of blood was but the prelude to still greater atrocities, and the popular appetite for slaughter being once aroused, the multitude fell, as usual in such circumstances, under the direction of the most worthless and sanguinary leaders. In Valencia there appeared at this period one of those infamous characters who degrade the human race by their cruel deeds, and who is worthy of a place in history beside Robespierre, Collot d'Herbois, and the other political fanatics whose atrocities have for ever stained the annals of the French Revolution. Padre Balthasar Calvo, a canon June 1. of Madrid, denounced the fugitives in the citadel to the 236, 240. mob, as being in correspondence with Murat for the pur- Foy, iii. pose of betraying that stronghold to the French troops. South. i. As invariably ensues in such moments of excitement, 363,369 strong assertions passed for proofs with the multitude,2 VOL. XII. 2 Tor. i, 244, 246. LIII. CHAP. and no difficulty was experienced in finding persons to undertake the most sanguinary designs. A general massacre of the unfortunate French was resolved on, and its execution fixed for the 5th June. 1808. 41. cruelty of Calvo and the insur gents. Mingling perfidy with cruelty, Calvo, on the evening of that day, repaired to the citadel, and told the tremAbominable bling inmates, who already had conceived, from vague rumours, apprehensions of their fate, that their destruction was resolved on, and that their only remaining chance of safety was to avail themselves of the means of escape which, from an impulse of Christian charity, he had prepared for them. Trusting to these perfidious assurances, the unhappy victims agreed to his proposal, and two hundred of them set forth by the wicket through the walls, which, according to his promise, was left open for them. No sooner had this flight begun, than Calvo, with a band of assassins, hastened to the spot, and spreading the cry that the French were escaping, so worked upon the passions of the populace assembled as to induce them to join his murderers, and they were all massacred without mercy. Wearied with slaughter, and yielding to the solicitations of some benevolent ecclesiastics, who earnestly besought them to desist, the assassins at length agreed to spare those who still survived in the citadel; but no sooner did Calvo hear of this returning feeling of humanity than he hastened to the spot, and conducted the remaining prisoners outside the walls to a ruined tower called the Tour de Cuarte. There he spread a false report that papers had been found upon them, proving a design to deliver up the citadel to the French; and the mob, again infuriated, fell upon their victims, and despatched them to a man.1 1 South. i. 363, 366. Tor. i. 238, 240. Foy, iii. 244, 246. 42. Above three hundred French citizens, wholly innocent of the misdeeds of their Emperor, perished on that dreadDeserved ful night. The junta were overawed; the magistrates of punishment the city, elected by popular suffrage, proved powerless, as his associates might have been expected, in repressing their excesses. of Calvo and Calvo, unopposed, drunk with blood, not only despatched his orders from the citadel during the whole massacre like a sovereign prince, but in the morning was named a member of the junta, at the very moment that Rico CHAP. LIII. 1808. was concerting measures for his apprehension, and took his seat, with his clothes yet drenched with gore, at the council-board of government! It affords some consolation to the friends of virtue to know, that the triumph of this miscreant was not of long duration. Excited almost to insanity by his execrable success, he openly aspired to supreme power, and had already given orders for the apprehension of the other members of the government, when a sense of their common danger made them unite, like the Convention on the 9th Thermidor, against the tyrant. He was suddenly arrested and sent to Minorca, before the mob, who certainly would have rescued him and massacred the junta, were aware of his seizure. There he was strangled in prison, and the government having regained their authority by this vigorous act, two hundred of his associates underwent the same fate. A severe but necessary deed of public justice, which at least rescued the nation generally from the disgrace of these atrocious deeds, and indicating a very different 1 Tor. i. 240, standard of public morality from that which prevailed 244. Foy, iii. in France during its Revolution, where not only were 246, 247. such crimes almost invariably committed with impunity, 370. but their perpetrators were elevated to the highest situations in the state.1 * South. i. 368, 43. measures These deplorable disorders sufficiently demonstrated that the best of causes could not obviate the dangers of popular insurrection, and that, unless the higher orders Prudent and holders of property early and courageously exert adopted by themselves to obtain its direction, a revolutionary move- the nobles at ment, even when called forth by the noblest motives and Proceedings of its junta. in the national defence, speedily falls under the guidance of the most depraved of the people. But by adopting * Only one prisoner escaped this hideous massacre. Chance had.selected for his murderer a man whom he had frequently relieved in prison; the wretch recognised his benefactor, and though he twice raised his dagger to strike him, yet twice a sense of pity arrested his uplifted arm, and at length he suffered him to escape in the obscurity of the night among the populace. An extraordinary instance of presence of mind occurred in the daughter of the Count de Cervellon. The people, distrustful of their leaders, had insisted that the mail from Madrid should be brought to the Count, and the letters it contained publicly read; hardly was it opened when one from the Auerdo Real was discovered, to Murat, exculpating himself from the share he had taken in the insurrection, and demanding troops. The courageous young lady, who was present, instantly seized the letter, and tore it in pieces in presence of the multitude, saying it related to her own private affairs; thereby saving the whole members of the junta from immediate death, though at the imminent hazard of her own life.-See SOUTHEY, i. 367; and TORENO, i. 234, 235. Seville. CHAP. 1808. May 26. May 27. this prudent and patriotic course, the higher classes at Seville succeeded not only in preserving their own city from servile atrocities, but acquired an ascendency which was attended with the greatest public benefit, and gave their junta almost the general management of the affairs of Spain. There, as elsewhere in the south, the public effervescence began with murder, and the Count d'Aguilar, one of the chief magistrates and most enlightened citizens, who became the innocent object of their suspicion, fell a victim to the ungovernable passions of the populace, who, when too late, lamented the irreparable crime they had committed. Speedily, however, the junta was elected; and happily, though all ranks were represented, a preponderance of votes out of the twenty-three members of which it was composed, was in the hands of the nobility. The wisdom of the choice which had been made soon appeared in the measures which were adopted. Immediately they despatched couriers to Cadiz and Algeziras to secure the assistance of the naval and military forces which were there assembled; and by the aid of CASTANOS, the commander of the latter, who was at the head of the troops 206. Foy, iii. before Gibraltar in the camp of St Roch, and who had already entered into communication with Sir Hugh Dalrymple, the governor of that fortress, the entire co-operation of the army was secured.1 1 Tor. i. 204, 201, 292. Espanol. i. 13. 44. Fortunate the extreme A violent demagogue, named Tap-y-Nunez, who had acquired a great sway over the populace, and who required that the nobility should be expelled from the junta, was overthrow of arrested and sent to Cadiz; and this necessary act of democrats. vigour confirmed the authority of the provisional government. At its head was Don Francisco Saavedra, who had formerly been minister of finance, and P. Gil de Sevilla, who had both been sufferers under Godoy's administration; and the combined prudence and energy of their measures formed a striking contrast to the conceit, declamation, and imbecility which, in many other quarters of the Peninsula, afterwards rendered nugatory all the enthusiasm of the people. The regular troops were immediately directed towards the Sierra Morena to secure the passes; a general levy of all persons between the years of eighteen and forty-five was ordered; subsidiary juntas were formed in all the towns of Andalusia; the great |