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troops. Let them imitate the perseverance of the Arragonese, and their obedience to their General and Chiefs, and the enemy will soon experience, that neither the rapidity of his movements, nor his boasted superiority in tactics, can subdue a nation which has sworn to live and die free. Spaniards, let us fulfil that sacred oath; God, the King, the country, our wives, and children, exact it from us-let us not frustrate their hopes; the hopes of all Europe, which has her eyes fixed upon us with admiration and envy.

Truxillo, 10th Dec 1808."

CAPTURE OF MADRID BY THE FRENCH.

French Account.

The following account of the opera tions of the French army before Madrid is extracted from their bulletins:

It appears from the bulletins, that on the evening of the 2d Dec. Bonaparte arrived upon the heights that command that city, having been preceded by a force, consisting of dragoons and the Imperial Guards, which he found post ed there. The Duke of Istria (Marshal Bessieres) then sent his Aid-deCamp to summon the town.-On his arrival, he found that a military Junta had been formed, with the Marquis of Castelar at its head, and under him General Morla, Captain General of Andalusia, who was so instrumental to the surrender of the French squadron at Cadiz.-There were in the town 60,000 men in arms, including 6000 troops of the line, the remainder consisted of armed citizens and peasants. The great est enthusiasm prevailed among the mass of the inhabitants. The Marquis of Perales, who had been accused of putting sand in the cartridges, had been massacred on the preceding day, and the cartridges ordered to be re-made: 4000 monks were employed in this work, and all the houses were opened to furnish provisions and every other necessary, to the defenders of the place. A Spanish General was sent out with a refusal to the summons, declaring the determination of the citizens to defend the town, and so great was their indig. nation, that the French Aid-de Camp, who was the bearer of the summons, narrowly escaped with his life. All this happened on the 2d, at which time the French infantry were three leagues from

Madrid, and Bonaparte devoted the remainder of the evening to reconnoitring the place, and preparing a plan of attack. At 7 o'clock, a corps of infantry, part of the division of the Duke of Belluno (Marshal Victor) arrived, and the French proceeded to take possession of the suburbs. The Spaniards fled at the first fire, and the Duke of Beliuno spent the night in placing his artillery, preparatory to an immediate attack. At midnight the Prince of Neufchatel (General Berthier) sent a second summons to the citizens, the bearer of which returned at nine o'clock on the morning of the 3d, with an answer from the Marquis Castelar, requesting a suspension of arms for that day, to consult the constituted authorities, ascertain the disposition of the citizens, and promising a categorical answer early on the next morning. The French, however, had not relaxed in their preparations from the beginning, and in the mean time an attack was made and a breach effected, in the Pa. lace of the Retiro, by a battery of 30 pieces of cannon, which they had brought to bear against it. The Retiro being a commanding situation, it was resolutely defended by the Spaniards. The French entered the breach, but did not obtain possession of it until after 1000 Spaniards had fallen in its defence. All the strong posts in its vicinity were of course occupied by the enemy.

The French having made this progress, and fully prepared the means for storming the town, the Prince of Neufchatel sent another summons, at eleven o'clock on the morning of the 4th, stating, that every thing was ready for an immediate attempt to take the place by storm, and granting until two o'clock to send Commissioners to treat for the surrender of the place. The advantage already obtained by the enemy had not, however, the desired effect. No answer was returned until five o'clock, when Don Morla, one of the Members of the Military Junta, and Don Bernardo Yri. arte, sent from the town, repaired to the tent of the Major-General. They informed him, that the most intelligent persons were of opinion that the town was destitute of resources, and that the continuation of the defence would be the height of madness, but that the lower orders of the inhabitants, and the fo. reigners at Madrid, were determined to

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persevere in the defence. Believing that they could not do it with effect, they requested a pause of a few hours to inform the people of the real state of affairs. The Major-General presented the Deputies to the Emperor and King, who addressed them thus:

"You make use of the name of the people to no purpose; if you cannot restore tranquillity,and appease their minds, it is because you have excited them to revolt, you have seduced them by propaga ting falsehoods. Assemble the clergy, the heads of the convents, the Alcades, the men of property and influence, and let the town capitulate by six o'clock in the morning, or it shall be destroyed. I will not, nor ought I to withdraw my troops. You have massacred the unfortunate French prisoners who had fallen into your hands; only a few days ago, you suffered two persons in the suite of the Russian Ambassador to be dragged along and murdered in the public streets, because they were Frenchmen born. The incapacity and baseness of a General had put into your power troops who had surrendered on the field of battle, and the capitulation has been violated. You, M. Morla, what sort of an epistle did you write to that General? It well became you, Sir, to talk of pillage, you, who, on entering Rousillon, carried off all the women, and distributed them as booty among your soldiers! What right had you to hold such language elsewhere? The expectation ought to have induced you to pursue a different line of conduct. See what has been the conduct of the English, who are far from piquing themselves on being rigid observers of the law of nations. They have complained of the convention of Portugal, but they have carried it into effect. To violate military treaties is to renounce all civilization. It is placing ourselves on a footing with the banditti of the desert. How dare you then presume to solicit a capitulation, you who violated that of Baylen? See how injustice and bad faith always recoil upon the guilty, and operate to their prejudice. I had a fleet at Cadiz. It was under the protection of Spain; yet you directed against it the mortars of the town, where you commanded. I had a Spanish army in my ranks; I would rather have viewed them embark on board the English ships, and be obliged

to precipitate it from the rocks of Es pinosa, than to disarm it; I would rather prefer having seven thousand more enemies to fight, than be deficient in honour and good faith. Return to Madrid-I give you till six o'clock tomorrow morning-return at that hour you have only to inform me of the submission of the people-if not, you and your troops shall be put to the sword." This speech of the Emperor, repeated in the midst of the respectable people, the certainty that he commanded in person, the losses sustained during the foregoing day, had carried terror and repentance into all minds. During the night the most mutinous withdrew themselves from the danger by flight, and a part of the troops was disbanded. At ten o'clock General Belliard took the command of Madrid; all the posts were put into the hands of the French, and a general pardon was proclaimed. [The bulletin closes with a panegyric on the order observed by the French in taking possession of the town, the secu rity enjoyed by the inhabitants, and with a tirade against the English, and another long one against the Duke del Infantado, which ends with stating, that "he will lose his titles, his property, valued at 2,000,000 of livres a-year, and he will go to London to seek the contempt and ingratitude with which England has always rewarded the men who sacrifice their honour and their country to the injustice of their cause."]

Another bulletin gives further particulars of the tranquil state of Madrid, and states, that a French soldier found guilty of plundering a number of wat ches, was shot in the principal square.The disarming was carried on without difficulty. The King of Spain (Joseph had formed two regiments of foreign troops, from the late Spanish army; one the Royal Foreigners, and the other that of Reding the younger, a Swiss General of a very different character from that of the Spanish General of the same name. The 5th and 8th corps of the French armies were but passing the Bidossa, very far from the line of the French army, and all the victories recounted were already obtained, and the business was almost completely settled. Another bulletin contains the following furious Proclamation and Decrees, issued by Bonaparte about the 10th December:

PRO

PROCLAMATION BY BONAPARTE. " Spaniards!--You have been misled by perfidious men. They have engaged you in a senseless struggle, and you have had recourse to arms. Is there one amongst you, who, after a moment's reflection upon all that has passed, would not be convinced that you have been the sport of the eternal enemies of the Continent, who take delight in witnessing the effusion of Spanish and French blood? What possible result would attend even the success of some campaigns? An endless war upon your soil, and a tedious uncertainty respecting the fate of your properties and lives. Within the space of a few months, you have been delivered up to all the afflictions of popular factions. The defeat of your armies has been the work of some marches; 'I have entered Madrid; the rights of war would justify me in making a signal example, by washing away in blood the outrages offered to me and to my nation; but I have listened to the dictates of clemency only. Some men, the authors of all your calamities, shall alone be punished. I shall speedily drive from the peninsula that English army which has been sent to Spain, not for the purpose of assistance to you, but to inspire you with a false confidence, and to mislead you.

"I had declared to you in my proclamation of the 2d of June, that I wished to be your regenerator. To the rights which had been ceded to me by the Princes of the last dynasty, you wished that I should add the right of conquest. That shall not make any alteration in my intentions. I am even disposed to praise all that may be generous in your efforts; I am willing to admit that your real interests have been concealed from you, that the real state of 'things has been disguised from you. Spaniards, your destiny is in your own hands. Reject the poisons which the English have spread amongst you: let your King be assured of your affection and your confidence, and you will be more powerful and more happy than you have ever been. All that obstructed your prosperity and your grandeur, I have destroyed; the chains which have borne down the people, I have broken; a free constitution gives you a limited and constitutional, instead of an absolute monarchy. It depends upon yourselves whether this constitution shall still continue in your land.

"But should all my efforts prove fruit less, and should you not merit my confidence, nothing will remain for me but to treat you as conquered provinces, and to place my brother upon another throne. I shall then place the Crown of Spain upon my own head, and cause it to be respected

by the guilty; for God hath given me power and inclination to surmount all obstacles!” Given at our Imperial Camp at Madrid,

Dec. 7 1808.

Next to this proclamation come the proceedings of a municipal meeting at Madrid, on the 9th, consisting of heads of all the great bodies, &c. appointed of course under the eye of Napoleon. The Corregidor rose to inform the meeting, that he had been admitted into the Imperial presence, and came to acquaint them of the benefi cent intentions of Napoleon and King Joseph towards Spain, adding that the fate of Madrid would be happy and prosperous, if the inhabitants adhered faithfully to the constitution, and acknowledged with sincerity, for their legitimate King, Don Joseph Napoleon I,; but otherwise their country would be reduced to a province of France. The meeting then came to the following resolutions :

"Resolved to implore his Royal Majesty to indulge the capital with the presence of the King: That the Emperor should be again thanked for his kindness to the city after he had conquered it, and for his pardon of what had been done in Joseph's absence. To implore pardon for those whom fear had driven from the city, and for the peasants in arms. That property and religion be respected. A tribute of gratitude was then voted to King Joseph, whose intercession with his brother had saved Madrid; that his Majesty be requested to favour the city with his presence, that, under his just and beneficent government, good order, justice, and tranquillity, may be restored within its walls. His Majesty is finally requested to employ his good offices with his Imperial Brother to pardon the absent, and the inhabitants who had taken up arms."

After the exhibition of this imperial farce, we have a string of imperial decrees, which we can merely notice :

The first provides, that every person who shall be in possession of any portion of the civil or ecclesiastical imposts, shall cease to receive them, and those from whom they are liable shall pay them into the agents of King Joseph or the treasury.-Second Decree. All Seigniorial Courts of Justice are abolished in Spain, and there shall exist no other jurisdiction than the Royal Courts of Justice. By a third Decree, the following persons are proscribed as declared enemies and traitors to France and Spain: The Duke d'Infantado, Duke de Medina Celi, Marquis de Santa Cruz, Count de Altamira, Pedro Cevallos, late Minister of State, Duke de Hijar, Duke de Ossuna, Count de Fernan Nupes, Prince of Castelfranco, Bi

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shop of Santander. They are ordered to be seized and carried before a military tribunal, and their property, moveable and immoveable, wherever situated, to be confiscated - Then comes a decree, removing

the members of the Council of Castile as cowards. No individual can possess more than one commandery in Spain. The Inquisition is abolished.—The number of convents in Spain shall be reduced to onethird All personal dues, all exclusive right of fishery, or other rights of the same nature, on the coasts, rivers, and banks of rivers, and all barralities of mills, are suppressed, and all shall be permitted to give a free impulse to their industry. After the 1st of January, the barriers existing from province to province shall be suppressed.

The bulletins add, that the divisions of Milhaud and Lasalle were ordered to advance on Portugal by Talavera de la Reyna, that the English were flying on every side, and that the division of_Lasalle having fallen in with sixteen English stragglers, put them all to the sword. The stragglers here alluded to, and thus barbarously massacred, were probably. some sick of General Hope's division, which had advanced to the Escurial; and, as we have been given to understand, afterwards rejoined Gen. Moore's army. As to the alleged general flight of the English troops, the French statement is evidently a gasconade.

SPANISH ACCOUNTS.

"Truxillo, Dec. 15.-(The writer sets out with some accounts of the state of the Spanish armies.) Romana, after Blake's reverses, in which he acquired great glory, had united all the dispersed remnants of the army in Leon, amounting to 20,000 men, who were subsequently joined by the reserves of the Asturias and Gallicia, the whole making 35,000 men, of which 1200 were cavalry. The army of Estremadura, after its partial defeat at Burgos, fell back upon Samosierra, and covered that point. The troops that were in Madrid were ordered to proceed to Guadarama to defend that pass, and the reserve of Andalusia was ordered to proceed by forced marches to Madrid; it was also wished that Sir John Moore should march towards Madrid, to assist in defence of the capital, but Sir John refused to divide his troops. The letter then proceeds as follows:

While these important measures were These are very confused; but the in progress at Madrid, Bonaparte does following private letter appears to connot appear to have lost sight of the ar- tain the best and most interesting informy of Castanos, which, after its defeat_mation relative to the entrance of the at Tudela, had proceeded south west, French into Madrid, &c. by Borja, Calatayud, and Siguenza, in the direction of Madrid, with intent to cover that city. On the 2d, it was reconnoitred in the vicinity of Guadalaxara, about 22 miles north-east of Ma drid, under the command of Gen. Pena; Castanos having been, according to report, suspended by the Military Junta, we presume in consequence of his defeat at Tudela, an event which has been attributed to an injudicious position of his army on that day. Upon the com munication of this intelligence, the Duke of Istria (Marshal Bessieres) was sent with a large force of cavalry, followed by the Duke of Belluno (Marshal Victor,) to watch its movements. On the arrival of the French at Guadalaxara, they found there only the rear guard of the army of Castanos, the main body having passed, on its retreat, in the direction of Andalusia. This rear guard the French attacked and dispersed, tak ing 500 prisoners; while, it is said, another French force, under Gen. Ruffin, advanced to Aranjuez, where he put to flight the part of the army of Castanos which had passed Guadalaxara, and, proceeding to Ocano, cut off its retreat to Cuenca. We apprehend, however, that the Spanish army did not mean to retreat to Cuenca, which lies to the eastward, but that it was proceeding, and did proceed, south-west, in the direction of the Sierra Morena, probably to Toledo,

sa.

"In the mean time we received intelligence of the battle of Tudela, and that Napoleon was marching to Madrid with his whole army, without concerning himself about Castanos or SaragosOn the 26th it was resolved to fortify the capital, and to organise its inhabitants, as well as circumstances would admit, trusting that the posts of Samosiera and Guadarama would be able to maintain themselves until time was gi ven for the arrival of Castanos, who was coming by way of Siguenza.

On

“On the 28th, 29th, and 30th of Nov. the enemy attacked Samosierra with the utmost vigour, and with a succession of fresh troops. The garrison, after maintaining its ground, and repeiling the enemy with great loss, on the 25th and 29th, was, on the 30th, unable to support the fatigue of further resistance; and after gallantly defending itself to the last moment, retreated in good order to Segovia. In consequence of this, the road to Madrid was open to the enemy; and accordingly advanced parties of their horse made their appearance on the 1st instant, in the environs of the city, which not having previously thought of constructing fortifications un til the 26th of the preceding month, was in a condition which you may easily imagine; and every one being employed in erecting bulwarks, palisades and other works, there was no time to organize the inhabitants; in addition to which, it is to be considered that the troops of Samosierra, who were advancing from Segovia by Guadarama, and those also of the latter post, could not arrive until the 3d. Castanos likewise found his march towards the capital cut off, and there were in Madrid only 7000 or 8000 veteran soldiers. Nevertheless the people, undismayed, expressed their deter mination to prefer total ruin to capitulation. The enemy, in considerable force, attacked the gates of Fuencarral, Toros, and St Bernardino, in the morning of the 2d, but they were gallantly repulsed with considerable loss.

"In the evening, and during the whole night of the ad, the enemy attacked with a considerable quantity of artillery, the gate of Alcala and the Retiro. They were unable to make themselves masters of the former; but the Retiro, in consequence of continued attacks from the preceding evening, feil into their hands at 11 o'clock in the morning of the 3d, with a most dreadful loss on the part of the enemy. The Junta of Armament, taking these circumstances into consideration, and having received the unexpected intelligence that the English troops were retreating upon Portugal, considered all attempts at defence useless-as, on account of the reinforcements which were daily joining the French army, resistance could have no other result than that of the total destruction of the capital, and the loss of

twenty thousand troops composing the army already in the city, and those who were that day expected to arrive from Segovia and Guadarama. From these motives, the white flag was hoisted, and the troops evacuated the city in the course of the evening and night, by the gates of Segovia and Toledo. The people, notwithstanding the determination of the Junta, caused the white flag to be lowered, and persisted in the intention of defending themselves.

"On the 4th, there were various attacks by the enemy at different gates, but in all of them they were repulsed. Meanwhile the enemy fortified themselves at Retiro; and the people, being without leaders or regular troops, retreated gradually to their own houses.

"The state of affairs since is the most surprising and unacountable ever heard of in the world. Up to the 9th, the French had not disarmed the inhabitants, but during the day sent strong detachments to occupy the gates, and in the evening all of them withdrew to the Retiro. The authority of the new King is not recognised by the city, which is entirely governed by its own Magistrates, without any interference on the part of the French. This fact may appear to you incredible; but it is undoubted, and no one is capable of giving any explanation of it.

"Of the 22,000 troops who were in the capital, 12,000 have proceeded, under the command of Morla, to join Castanos; and 10,000, under that of Galluzo, to the bridge of Almaran, which is fortifying in order to cover this province.

"General Don Benito San Juan has been put to death by his troops at Talavera de la Reyna, and his dead body dragged along the road. This officer commanded at Samosierra; and it must be admitted, that in the defence of that post his conduct was in every respect satisfactory, notwithstanding his being compelled to abandon it. But, according to report, the cause of his unfortunate fate was his having refused to enter Madrid with his troops, on the 3d, alleging that such a step would end in the certain destruction of all of them,Upon this subject he had some altercation with General Heredia, in conse quence of which the misinformed soldiers committed this gross enormity and injustice on this brave officer."

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