a detachment upon Braga, which put down the revolutionary movement, and restored tranquillity in that city. He then advanced to Amarante, a town commanding the Tamega, a considerable river, which forms the eastern boundary of Traz-os-Montes; and without crossing which, the insurgents could not enter the province of Minho, or approach Oporto. Amarante made now an attempt to penetrate in another direction, and, by crossing the Douro, to carry the war into the great central province of Beira. The passage was accordingly attempted on the 4th, near Lamego, partly with cavalry and partly with boats; but the attempt was completely frustrated by the vigour and spirit of the constitutional militia, Amarante, besides, was now obliged to return and make head against Rego, who, having mustered a considerable force, was pushing forward into the interior of Traz-os-Montes. On the 13th, however, a signal disaster befell the army of that general. His vanguard, consisting of two battalions of light troops, having pushed forward too hastily, was surprised and surrounded by the whole army of Amarante. It defended itself with some bravery; but the great superiority of number, and especially of cavalry, finally overwhelmed it, and the whole were either slain or taken. A few of the prisoners joined the enemy; but the greater part are said to have embraced the alternative of returning to their homes. This victory, however, highly elevated the courage and hopes of the insurgents; while Rego was obliged to fall back upon Amarante, and to content himself with maintaining the defensive line of the Tamega. This insurrection, meantime, being reported at Lisbon, was treated ostensibly as a matter of little importance; but the strong measure, to which the Cortes resorted, evidently

shewed the serious light in which they viewed it. A law was passed, suspending for three months all the safeguards of personal liberty. A suspected individual might be arrested, and even his house entered, without legal formalities; government might even oblige him to quit the kingdom. Such violent measures, augmenting the unpopularity under which the Cortes laboured, tended only to weaken their power. Ample demonstrations were, however, made of attachment to the constitution; and the military chiefs in particular sent in assurances of their strict fidelity. The disposable regiments were sent forward by forced marches to reinforce Rego. In the beginning of April, that general found himself at the head of 12,000 troops, 7000 of which were regulars; and being confident that Amarante would be unable to cope with this force, he immediately began a rapid offensive movement. Amarante, it appears, had not been able to increase his army beyond its first amount, and it did not now muster more than 3000 regular troops. With these he could not attempt even to face the formidable force under Rego, and precipitately retreated by Mirandela upon Braganza. Rego passed through Mirandela on the 10th, and pushed forward upon the enemy, who must either make a stand at Braganza, or evacuate the Portuguese territory. Their only resistance was at the village of Alla, where a considerable body of cavalry and infantry presented itself, and endeavoured to surprise the constitutional advanced guard; nor was it till after a somewhat obstinate conflict, that they were beat off, On the 13th, Rego entered Braganza, where he was well received. In his passage through the province, however, he had found the peasantry universally hostile to him, and had been induced, neither well nor wisely, to

chastise this disposition by great severities, and even by burning one or two of the villages.

The insurgent army was now entirely in Spain; and finding that Rego passed the frontier in pursuit of them, they retreated upon Leon. It was hoped that Morillo, with the Spanish army of the north, might here have intercepted them; but that lukewarm champion of liberty did not oppose

any obstacle to their progress. Amarante, therefore, proceeded towards Burgos, where he could come into contact with the French army; for, in order to exhibit a connected view of this campaign, we have anticipated somewhat on the order of time. Rego, finding the enemy beyond his reach, withdrew within the Portuguese frontier.

under the influence of alarm caused by the approach of Bessieres to Madrid, had been invested with the command of that capital, which he continued to hold, in combination with that of the Castiles, and of all the centre of Spain. In order to obtain the services of Ballasteros, the Cortes had dispensed in his favour with a law, more plausible than truly wise, requiring that none of their members should hold an office under the crown. He was now invested with the command of the important eastern provinces of Arragon, Valencia, and Murcia. Morillo, ever since the affair of the guards, had been the object of deep suspicion to the constitutional party. His conduct on that occasion had even been unfavourably reported on by a committee of the Cortes; and the clamour against him had risen so high, that he was induced to quit Madrid, and to remain for some time in concealment. Having, however, reappeared, and declared his readiness, in the great exigency of his country, to forget whatever wrongs he might have suffered from it, and to devote his exertions to its deliverance, the sense of his military talents hushed former suspicion, and he was appointed to the command of the north of Spain, including Gali cia, Asturias, Leon, and the bordering part of Old Castile. Villacampa, meantime, was employed in Andalusia, to organize an army of reserve, whose services, it was to be feared, would at no distant period be required in a theatre, little removed from that of its formation.

The armies were thus placed under the first military names which Spain could boast; yet were there circumstances attending them which might have induced the government to pause. One had the reputation of being closely attached to the cause of royalty, the other of being destitute of every form of faith or honour. Now the govern

ment, being ready to cede Madrid to the enemy, knew that this was a war which must begin, at least, with retreat and disaster-a war which must probe to the core the faith of all their adherents. None could stand such a test who were not wholly committed and devoted to the cause. Assurance of fidelity in such circumstances was more essential than talent; and to secure the former, the latter, to a certain extent, ought to have been sacrificed.

In regard to the plan of campaign, we clearly conceive it to be so far wise, as it was founded on the principle of avoiding immediate encounter in the field. The reproaches thrown upon the Spaniards on this ground are rash and senseless. They had not numbers sufficient, which was their grievous fault; but however numerous their levies had been, they could never have had discipline sufficient to give them any chance in a general battle with the first troops in Europe. A defensive and dilatory warfare, in the first instance, was their only hope. The plan formed did not want ingenuity. The two corps of Morillo and Ballasteros were to operate on the flanks of the enemy, having the one Galicia, and the other Arragon, to retreat upon when hard pressed. By harassing attacks, by successive advances and retreats, they might, it was hoped, occupy the attention of the French, and render it dangerous for them to advance deep into the interior. The plan would have been good, had there been force sufficient to execute it; but when these two generals had between them scarcely 20,000 men, to oppose 60 or 70,000, it was easy for the French to leave troops sufficient to watch, and even to drive back these flanking corps; while they retained, at the same time, a great army to march into the interior, defended on ly by a handful of undisciplined levies.

In such circumstances, the flower of the army ought to have covered the centre of Spain and the seat of government, and to have been ready to fall back with it upon some entrenched and impregnable position. Mina and his troops, the best and surest general, and the bravest army, ought to have been called to this post. Catalonia was now only a secondary field, which must, and did follow the fate of the main theatre of war.

The chief activity displayed by the Spanish government, was in provisioning and putting in a state of defence the frontier fortresses; on the west Pampeluna, St Sebastian, and Santona; on the east Figueras, Barcelona, Tarragona, Lerida, and Urgel. Unless in the case of the great cities, this did not prove of much use, as might perhaps have been foreseen. Under the present, perhaps too improved system of offensive warfare, detached forts are no longer considered sufficient to stay the march of an army. They require, merely, that a certain amount of troops be left to watch them. The French could much more easily spare these corps of observation, than the Spaniards could spare the garrisons. This service absorbed all their best troops, and left scarcely the vestige of an army for active service in the field. The only effective fortification would have been to have converted the great cities, capitals of provinces, at least into strong entrenched camps, to have put all their population under arms, and defended them a la Saragosse. These were the prime seats of liberalism; and if these did not resist, nothing else in Spain would. Several months were allowed, which were much more than Palafox had to prepare his glorious defence. The idea of resisting and expelling the French by guerillas, was of all others the most illusory. The guerillas, in the war of independence, were brave

and honourable to the nation; they harassed the enemy much; but they never prevented him from penetrating and occupying every part of the peninsula; they never dislodged him from any quarter of it, and he never would have been dislodged, but for the operations of the Anglo-Portuguese regular army. At the present moment there were peculiar grounds for hoping little from this description of force. They consisted of the peasantry, animated, and in a great measure led by the priests; but at this moment both priests and peasantry were almost, in one mass, armed and arrayed against the existing government of Spain.

On the 15th March, the nominal generalissimo took his departure from Paris. He proceeded first to Toulouse, and thence to Perpignan, whence he might "dart his experienced eye" upou the whole military line extending along the Pyrenees. Just, however, as he was in act to strike, an alarm arose as to the soundness of the instrument with which the blow was to be given. There had been formed, on the Spanish frontier, corps of French exiles, obliged to abandon their country on account of political opinions, and attempts to subvert the existing dynasty. This was a step which Spain, from the moment that France placed herself in a state of declared hostility, was fully entitled to take; though we cannot but somewhat wonder that she should have lent herself to the support of the name and house of Napoleon. Through their efforts it was generally believed that a plot had been formed, having extensive ramifica tions, and embracing several officers of high rank. It was discovered, however, and its ringleader, a General Piat, was arrested, with two companions, on his way from Bayonne to Bourdeaux. The plot being thus crushed in the bud, the French go