HISTORY OF EUROPE. 



201 



Blake, had been enabled to place 

 himself between Gerona and the 

 Spanish army. It did not, how- 

 ever, 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 llth entered the 

 city, where they found eight 

 standards and 200 pieces of can- 

 non. By the capitulation the gar- 

 rison was to evacuate the city with 

 all the honours of war, and be con- 

 ducted prisoners of war to France. 

 The inhabitants were to be re- 

 spected ; that is, both their per- 

 sons 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 de- 

 fects to which these evils are to 

 be attributed, need not be pointed 

 out to any one who has perused 

 even a general and imperfect ac- 

 count of the campaign. But the 

 grand cause of the whole was un- 

 doubtedly 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 de- 

 fence 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 know- 

 ledge 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 restrain- 

 ing the press. They were more 

 afraid of tumults among the Spa- 

 nish 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 co- 

 operate in the struggle. But self- 

 ishness, indolence, procrastination, 

 and imbecility marked throughout 

 the conduct of the junta. The 

 war that was kindled on the Da- 

 nube, and in Italy and the Tyrol, 

 procured them a respite when 

 they were on the point of destruc- 

 tion. This fortunate juncture fed 

 the hopes, but did not call forth 

 exertion on the part of the Spa- 

 nish government. 



The mighty and decisive battle of 

 Wagram was fought on the 5th of 

 July. Though no troops were sent 

 from France to Spain until Octo- 

 ber, after the conclusion of a peace 

 with Austria, intelligence of that 

 decisive victory of Wagram con- 

 veyed by the telegraph had a 

 visible influence on the conduct of 

 the Spanish army in Spain, which 

 after that crisis were seen with- 

 drawing from the north towards 



the 



