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disease the sense of his own wrongs, intolerable and fatal as they had proved, gave way to a deeper feeling; he forgot himself in thinking of his country: his repeated exclamations of ven. geance upon Napoleon Buonaparte were so vehement and loud that they were distinctly heard by the passers in the street, and his last breath was spent in imprecations upon the execra

ble tyrant whose wickedness had caused all the unutterable miseries of Spain. Every public honour which it was in the power of the British government to bestow was paid to the remains of this illustrious man, and his body was deposited in the same vault, in Henry 7th's chapel, where Marlborough had formerly been laid, till it could be sent home to rest with his ancestors.

* Mr Frere, who, during his mission in Spain, so justly appreciated the duke, wrote the following epitaph. It is worthy of the author and of the subject.

Impiger, impavidus, spes maxima gentis Iberæ,
Mente rapax, acerque manu bellator, avita
Institui monumenta novis attollere factis ;
Fortunâ comite et virtute duce, omnia gessi;
Nulla in re nec spe mea sors incæpta fefellit.
Gadibus auxilium tetuli, patriamque labentem
Sustentavi: hæc meta meis fuit ultima factis
Quippe iras hominum meritis superare nequivi.
Hic procul a patriâ vitæ datus est mihi finis,
Sed non laudis item; gliscit nova fama sepulto,
Anglorum quod testantur proceres populusque,
Magno funus honore secuti, mæstitiaque
Unanimes. Æterna pater sint fædera faxis
Quæ pepigi. Nec me nimium mea patria adempto
Indigeat, nec plus æquo desideret unquam.
Sint fortes alii ac felices, qui mea possint
Facta sequi, semperque benignis civibus uti.

CHAP. XII.

Catalonia. Recovery of Figueras. Tarragona besieged and taken by the French. Figueras retaken. General Lacy succeeds Campoverde. His Activity and Success.

THE battles of Barrosa and Albuhera, brilliant as they were, produced no beneficial consequences whatever; a far more momentous advantage, if it had been improved as it ought to have been, was gained by the Catalans under Rovira. This gallant Spaniard had distinguished himself in such a manner from the commencement of the war as to be honoured with the particular invectives of the French. Looking to something of more permanent importance than could be achieved by the desultory warfare, which was what all, the generals seemed to aim at, he had long projected schemes for recovering from the enemy some of the fortresses of which they had possessed themselves, and these schemes he imparted to the successive commanders-in-chief in the principality, all of whom, till the Marquis of Campoverde took the command, regarded it as visionary and impracticable, calling his plan in mockery the Rovirada. Rovira, however, was not deterred from prosecuting well-founded plans, and having succeeded in esta blishing a correspondence with one of the Spaniards in Barcelona, and with some of the garrison of Figueras, Campoverde listened at length to his representations, and Don Jose Antonio Martinez, commandant of the division of Ampurdan, was instructed to make the attempt upon the latter place with him.

Figueras is a little town situated in the midst of the fertile plain of Ampurdan, eighteen miles from the French frontier. Some centuries ago it was burnt, and its castle razed by the Count of Ampurias in his war with Jayme I. of Aragon; but in the last century, Ferdinand VI. erected one of the finest fortifications in Europe there, which he named, after his canonized namesake and predecessor, the Castle of St Fernando. It is an irregular pentagon; the site of which has been so well chosen upon the firm 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 master-piece of art; no cost was spared upon the works, and the whole were finished in that character of magnificence which the public works of Spain continued to exhibit in the worst ages of the Spanish monarchy. It was surrendered to France in the revolutionary war, by corruption or by treason; and when, after Spain made its peace with the directory, it was restored, some inkspots still remained upon the wall, where an officer, in honourable indignation, had dashed his pen, either determining not to sign the capitulation, or in despair for having borne a part in the act of infamy. Figueras was one of the four fortresses which Go

doy delivered into the hands of the French as the keys of Spain, before Buonaparte avowed his profligate design of usurping the kingdom.

Rovira, who was a doctor in theology as well as a colonel, and regarded the contest to which he had devoted himself as a holy war, fixed upon Passion Week as the fittest time for an attempt. There could be no season so proper, he thought, as that on which the church was celebrating the sufferings and death of Christ. Accordingly, on Palm Sunday (April 6,) he assembled his division in the village of Esquirol, and when they were drawn up, addressing them, says the Spanish relator, like another Gideon, he desired that every man who was willing to accompany him in an expedition of great peril, but of the highest importance and greatest honour, should step out of the line; 500 men immediately volunteered, all of the second Catalan legion. The same appeal was made to another detachment at S. Privat, and ninety-two of the battalion of Almugavares, and 462 of the Expatriates, as those Catalans were called who came from the parts of the country which the French possessed, offered them selves. The two parties formed a junction that night at Ridaura, and marched the next day, by roads which were almost impracticable, to Oix, a village close upon the French border. From thence they proceeded on the 8th by Sadernes, Gitariu, and Cofi, to Llorena, taking this direction in order that the enemy and the men themselves might be induced to believe it was their intention to make an incursion into France. The alarm spread along the border as they wished; the somaten was rung; the French peasantry, and about 300 troops of the lines collected at S. Laurent de Sardas, and remained under arms for thirty

hours. At noon on the 9th, the Catalans left Llorena, and proceeded in a direction toward Figueras as far as the wood of Villarity, when they concealed themselves in a glen till night came; it had rained heavily all the day, and a strong north wind was blowing, but orders were given that no man should kindle a fire on pain of death.

One scanty meal a-day was all that could be allowed to these hardy and patient men; but a good allowance of generous wine had been provided for them when it should be most needed; this was distributed now when they had been formed into six companies, and when night was set in they advanced to Palau-Surroca, a short hour's distance from the fortress. The officers of each division were men who were well acquainted with the works, having been selected for their local knowledge; each was now informed of what point he was to attempt, at what time and in what manner. At half past two the first party leapt into the ditch; three soldiers, who had served in the garrison for more than a year, expressly that they might perform this service when the hour should come, opened the gate which leads into the ditch to receive them. The first

sentinel whom they met was killed by one thrust before he could give the alarm; the different parties went each in its allotted direction, and so well had every part of this important enterprize been planned, and so perfectly was it executed in all its parts, that before men, officers, or governor, could get out of their quarters, almost before they were awakened, Figueras was in the hands of the Spaniards, and its garrison, amounting to about 1000 men, were prisoners. The gate by which they had entered was immediately walled up to guard against any surprise, and as Rovira, being a native of the

* Diario de Manresa, April 20.

country, and one who had been so conspicuous in it since the commencement of the war, was better known than Martinez, orders were sent out in his name, and signed by his hand, calling upon the men of the adjoining country to come and strengthen the garrison. His signature left no doubt of an event which they could else hardly have been persuaded to believe, so much was it beyond their hopes, and in a few hours men enough were assembled there to man the works.

There were about 700 of the enemy in the town, who supposed at first that the stir which they perceived in the castle was merely some quarrel between the French and the Italians of whom the garrison was composed. One of them went to ascertain this; he was asked, quien vive as he approached, and upon his replying France, was fired at and shot. Upon this the French commandant sent a trumpeter, who was ordered to return and tell his master on the part of General Martinez and Colonel Rovira, that no Frenchman must again present himself before the fortress, or he would be answered at the cannon's mouth. Martinez immediately sent off a dispatch in brief, but characteristic language: "Glory to the God of armies, and honour to the brave Catalans, St Fernando de Figueras is taken; Rovira had the happiness of directing the enterprize, and I of having been the commander." The Doctor Colonel, in a private letter which found its way to the press, alluded with an enviable feeling to the ridicule which had been cast upon his project: "The Rovirada is made," said he, "and the great fortress is ours!" Baron de Eroles was ordered to reinforce the conquerors, and on his way from Martorell he took the forts which the French had erected in Castellfullit and Olot, making 546 pri

soners.

Rovira needed no other reward than

the place in history which the success of this Rovirada secured for him; but it was not the less necessary that the government should express their sense of his services. Some little time after, the dignity of Maestre-Escuela, which is equivalent to that of prebend in the English church, fell vacant in the cathedral of Vich. A decree had past in the preceding year for leaving unfilled such ecclesiastical offices as could, without indecency, be dispensed with, and applying their revenues to the pub. lic use as long as the necessities of the country should require. The regency now applied to the cortes to dispense with this law for the present occasion only, that they might confer the vacant dignity upon Rovira, as the most appropriate testimony of national gratitude, that when the bloody struggle in which they were engaged against the tyrant of Europe should have terminated happily, as was to be expected, they said, he might have a decorous retirement suitable to his profession, and an establishment for that time in which, indispensably, he ought to renounce the military honours and dignities with which he was now decorated, as incompatible in any other than the actual circumstances with his ministerial character. Sr Arguelles declared, that the Doctor Brigadier (for this was his present rank) was worthy in the highest degree of national gratitude; but he wished that any mode of remuneration should be devised rather than one which involved the suspension of a law,-too perilous an example not to be carefully avoided. Sr Creus observed, that Rovira, who was a priest as much in heart as in profession, would value this prebend more than any military rank which could be conferred upon him; and more even than the archdeanery of Toledo, because it was in his own country. And he argued, that no injury could accrue to the state, as the income might be

reserved for the treasury while the existing circumstances continued. Sr Garcia Herreros was of opinion that the reward ought to be of the nature of the service; the soldier should have a military recompence, the priest a clerical one; he proposed, therefore, that as the order of St Fernando had just been instituted, Dr Rovira should be the first person who should be invested with it, and that when the war was ended, one of the best prebends should then be given him. The proposal of the regency, however, was adopted, and Rovira was made Maestre-Escuela of the cathedral of Vich, for having recovered Figueras.

Had the Catalans been equally successful at Barcelona, all their losses would have been more than compensated; but the design failed, for it was unhappily discovered. Five persons, of whom two were women, were condemned to death for it by Macdonald: only one of them was in his power, a commissary, by name Miguel Alzina, was the only one who fell into his hands, and this martyr fell in his country's cause upon the glacis of Monjuic on the evening before the surprise of Figueras. However deeply the Catalan chiefs must have regretted the failure of this well-concerted plan, the important success which they had gained excited transports of joy not only in Catalonia, but throughout the whole of Spain. Te Deum was sung at Tarragona, and the town was illuminated for three nights. In Madrid the Spaniards could scarcely dissemble their joy. In the cortes the news was welcomed as the happiest which had been received since the battle of Baylen; the regency called upon the people for fresh contributions and fresh efforts to improve this unexpected success, the first of its kind which had been obtained during the war. The army which had achieved it, they said, was in want of every thing; and the two

regents who were then in Cadiz (Blake being then absent) set the example themselves by contributing each a month's salary.

But Spain was still destined to suffer for the weakness of its government, the want of unity in its leaders, and the want of system which was felt in every department. The first object should now have been to have stored Figueras; this the Catalans had no means of doing, for their country had now for three years been the seat of war, and most of its large towns and all its strongest places were in the hands of the enemy; and before it could be done from those parts of the kingdom which had hitherto escaped, or, perhaps, before any thought was taken for doing it, the French under Baraguay d'Hilliers collected a strong force and formed a regular and strict blockade. Meantime Suchet, who had long been making preparations for the siege of Tarragona, advanced against that city, and began to invest it at the latter end of April. Tarragona, one of the oldest cities in Spain, and once the most flourishing, had fallen more rapidly to decay during the last century than in the course of all the revolutions which it had witnessed. At the commencement of the present war it contained about 9000 inhabitants, and as a fortress was of so little importance that its garrison consisted only of fifty men. It was now crowded with fugitives from the open country, and from those towns which had fallen; and every exertion had been made to strengthen its works, for it was the only strong place which the Spaniards possessed upon the coast, and they who relied upon fortresses regarded it as the last bulwark of Catalonia.

D. Juan Senen de Contreras commanded here; he had a strong garrison, and Tarragona had this advantage above every other place in the province

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