to notice the patriotism and valour of Gerona, which equalled those of Saragossa.*

It is remarkable, that the provinces nearest the Pyrennees were those that evinced the most determined and persevering resistance to the French. After Gerona had been twice invested, and the assailants twice driven back, the French again advanced to besiege it with more formidable means, and in a more regular manner. For its defence the inhabitants had little to trust to but their own valour. There was scarcely any other strong post in the city than the castle of Mountjoy. Against this the French made repeated attacks, which were repulsed with the most heroic bravery. On the 7th of July, the assailants having effected three breaches in the walls of the castle, proceeded to the assault. The garrison, though fewer in number and enfeebled by unremitting duty, repelled the French five times with consider able slaughter. The French therefore began to raise the necessary works; which they were forced to do under great difficulties, being obliged to raise them on a rock, and to form their entrenchments under the fire of the garri.

son.

On the 12th of August, the besieged finding themselves unable any longer to defend the castle of Mountjoy, retired unmolested into the city of Gerona, leaving the enemy only a heap of ruins, and a few pieces of almost useless cannon. While the French, from the possession of the citadel, were enabled to carry on the siege of the

city to greater advantage, the inhabitants, become more numerous by the addition of the garrison of Mountjoy, were reduced to greater extremities from want of provisions, and even from that of the most necessary articles for the sick and wounded. Gen. Blake, who commanded the Spanish army in Catalonia, determined to throw into Gerona not only a supply of provisions and other necessaries, but also a reinforcement of troops. With this view, he made such movements and arrangements as seemed to indicate an intention of attacking the enemy in a quarter directly opposite to that by which the convoy was to be sent into the city. A body of 1,200 infantry, supported by cavalry, sent against the enemy's troops stationed at Brunolas, commenced an attack upon them with so much vigour, as induced them to think that the convoy for the supply of Gerona was under the escort and protection of this body of Spanish troops. Notwithstanding the excellent position the French occupied at Brunolas, and that strengthened by entrenchments, the Spaniards gained the summit of the hill, and there planted the Spanish colours. The enemy weakened the other part of their army for the purpose of sending reinforcements to Brunolas, and by threatening to turn the Spanish detachment, obliged it to descend into the plain. In the mean time, a body of 4,000 infantry and 500 cavalry escorted along the right bank of the river Tor, on which the Gerona is situate, a convoy of nearly 2,000 mules; and after defeating

the

The garrison of Gerona was now strengthened and refreshed by a plentiful supply of provisions. But three large practicable breaches had been made in the walls of the city, and a great part of the houses was in ruins. Against these three breaches the French generals Verdier and St. Cyr, on the 19th of September, sent three strong columns; which after repeating their attack four times, were driven back by the garrison, supported by the inhabitants. The ladies of the town, in assisting the wounded, freely exposed themselves to every danger.

So much enraged was Buonaparté at the failure of this assault, that the generals St. Cyr and Verdier were recalled, and the command of the besieging army given to marshal Augereau, who, altering the plan of operations, resolved before he should make another assault on Gerona, to bend all his efforts to the defeat and destruction of Blake's army. The Spanish general had posted his troops on the heights of Brunolas. By repeated attacks general Blake was driven from that advantageous position, and compelled to retreat to

rona. Marshal Augereau having been informed by some of those spies, or, as the French generals called them, agents, which he took care to have in every part of Catalonia, that large magazines were formed at Hostalrich, for the purpose both of supplying Gerona and Blake's army, sent early in November a strong division against them under the command of general Pino. Hostalrich was strongly fortified, and defended by a body of 2,000 soldiers and nearly all the inhabitants. Fire was set to the gates, and one quarter of the town taken by storm. But in the streets the Catalonians made the most determined resistance: every position was disputed. From every house the French were assailed with a destructive fire of musquetry: and when the enemy gained possession of all the principal quarters, the inhabitants joining the troops of the line, drew up on a level piece of ground, in the middle of the town, and for some time made an obstinate resistance to the repeated attacks on their center as well as on both their flanks. At last they were forced to give way, and the whole town with all the magazines fell into the hands of the French.

By the reduction of Hostalrich Gerona was cut off from all hopes of supply. They had nothing to hope from general Blake, who after the total defeat and dispersion of his army at Belshite, was, so much inferior in strength to his adversary, that he did not think it prudent to make any attempt to defend the magazines. Nor was this all. Marshal Augereau, by the defeat of general

Blake

Blake, had been enabled to place himself between Gerona and the Spanish army. It did not, however, surrender till its walls had become wholly useless; nor till the strength of its inhabitants had been wholly exhausted by fatigue and famine. It capitulated on the 10th of December, 1809, and the French on the 11th entered the city, where they found eight standards and 200 pieces of cannon. By the capitulation the garrison was to evacuate the city with all the honours of war, and be conducted prisoners of war to France. The inhabitants were to be respected; that is, both their persons and property was to be safe: and the catholic religion was to be continued and protected.

Thus at the close of 1809, all the fortresses of Spain had fallen into the hands of the enemy, and all her principal armies been defeated and dispersed; and by dispersion, for a time annihilated. The defects to which these evils are to be attributed, need not be pointed out to any one who has perused even a general and imperfect account of the campaign. But the grand cause of the whole was undoubtedly the senselessness, the ignorance, the contracted views, and the paltry intrigues among the supreme junta, who were more attentive to the preservation of their own power than to the defence of the country. If at the same time that they had declared an intention of reforming abuses and respecting the rights of the people, they had diffused a knowledge of all that was going on on the theatre of the peninsula of Europe, of the relative interests and strength of different powers

and parties, and collected the public opinion into one luminous focus, and cherished the public spirit to which public opinion would have given birth, public virtue, genius, talents of every kind would have sprung up, raised their heads, and flourished. But instead of this, their very first and chief care was to prevent the intercourse of minds, by restraining the press. They were more afraid of tumults among the Spanish people than of the French. They neither knew how to infuse energy where it was wanting, nor to direct it where it existed. In many parts of Spain there was a spirit of resistance, which in the hands of an able government, might not only have rendered it of avail against the enemy, but in rousing the indifferent, and even forcing the unwilling to cooperate in the struggle. But selfishness, indolence, procrastination, and imbecility marked throughout the conduct of the junta. war that was kindled on the Danube, and in Italy and the Tyrol, procured them a respite when they were on the point of destruction. This fortunate juncture fed the hopes, but did not call forth exertion on the part of the Spanish government.

The

The mighty and decisive battle of Wagram was fought on the 5th of July. Though no troops were sent from France to Spain until October, after the conclusion of a peace with Austria, intelligence of that decisive victory of Wagram conveyed by the telegraph had a visible influence on the conduct of the Spanish army in Spain, which after that crisis were seen withdrawing from the north towards

the

the southern provinces of Spain, and indicating a disposition to resume offensive operations. Towards the end of the year Buonaparté poured fresh troops into the peninsula, and resumed the design of reducing Cadiz, the most important point in Spain, and planting his eagles on the towers of Lisbon, which the war with Austria had suspended.

The aspect of affairs became now more alarming than ever; and the junta, whether from a consciousness of their own imbecility and want of authority, or an apprehension that the public dissatisfaction with their management, for it can scarcely be called go

vernment, might burst into some fatal explosion, issued a proclamation for the meeting of the cortes.* The first of January, 1810, was fixed for the assembling of the cortes, and the first of March following that for entering on their functions. But if this great national assembly had been convened in January, 1809, when Buonaparté set out from Valladolid to make war on the Austrians, the French troops he left behind him, before the conclusion of the year, might have been driven out of the peninsula; and at all events, some efforts would have been made worthy of a great and high-spirited nation.

СНАР.

T is not the least remarkable

attract attention in the conduct of Buonaparté that he thought it worth while to have recourse to the aid of excessive exaggeration, fictions, or in plain term, lies. This was a system which so profound a calculator must have been well aware could not maintain itself long. But he calculated, no doubt, that certain objects of importance would be obtained before his lies should be detected. At the same time that the correspondence between count Metternich and Champagny betrayed the utmost jealousy and mistrust on the part of both France and Austria, Buonaparté proclaimed daily in his newspapers in France, Italy, and Spain, that the most perfect harmony and cordiality prevailed between the courts of the Thuilleries and Vienna. And in his German and Polish newspapers again, he represented the cause of the Spanish insurgents, as he called the patriots, as quite desperate; their tumultuous parties as broken and dispersed." He stated that Saragossa was reduced some weeks before it actually sur rendered; and that Lisbon, in the beginning of 1809, was in the hands of the French. He wished

to discourage the Austrians by his

Spain; and to dishearten the Spaniards by precluding all hopes of co-operation from the Austrians. Having so uniformly and strongly declared that the views and inclinations of Austria towards France were wholly pacific, he was, when on the very point of breaking out, under the manifest dilemma of either contradicting himself on this subject, or of admitting that he plunged both his French and Italian subjects and his vassals in Germany deeper and deeper into the gulph of war without necessity. He made a distinction, therefore, between the will of the emperor Francis and even that of those most in his confidence, as we have noticed above, and the general spirit and tone of the country, which, if not vigorously counteracted, would draw along with it both the emperor and his ministers.* He derided, in his journals, the Austrian project of making war on France. He said that the maintenance of this must depend, as the preparations for it had done, on paper money, which would soon fall to an enormous discount, and at last to nothing. But it was evident to all the world, and to none more manifest than to Buonaparté himself,

the