Sept. 21.

of patriots were approaching, and they were fain to break off their repast, and hasten as fast as possible to Madrid. On another occasion, when Joseph was at Guadalaxara, and intended to go from thence to Siguenza, the Empecinado, four days only after the French general Hugo boast ed, in the customary style of French falsehood, of having totally defeated and dispersed his band of brigands, took post at Cogolludo, and the intruder fled to put himself under the protection of the garrison of Madrid, so closely pursued, that more than 40 of his rearguard were cut off at Tor rejon and El Molar. It was repeatedly asserted in the French papers, that the Empecinado was routed and his band destroyed, every new account of his destruction exposing the fallacy of the last. Sometimes it was said that he was killed. There is reason to suspect that they once attempted to rid themselves of this dreaded enemy by poison, from the violent manner in which he was affected by a liquor which was given him as he passed through Jadraque.

The name of Mina, which is not less celebrated than that of the Empecinado, belongs to two heroic Spaniards. The first was a student of Navarre, who, after a brilliant but short career, when only 20 years of age, was wounded, taken prisoner, and carried into France. His uncle, D. Francisco Espoz y Mina, succeeded to the command of the province: he acquired it by his courage and conduct; it has been confirmed to him by his own government, and the French call him the King of Navarre, where, in spite of their possession of all the fortresses, they are less obeyed than he is. Espoz y Mina was at this time between 20 and 30 years old, and his frame, both of body and mind,

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had received that stamp which the circumstances of his country required. When he lies down at night, it is always with his pistols in his girdle; and on the few nights that he ever passes under a roof, the door is well secured. Two hours sleep is sufficient for him. When his shirt is dirty, he goes into the nearest house and changes it with the owner for a clean one ; and he and his men wear sandals, that they may the more easily climb the: mountains in their hair-breadth escapes. He makes his own powder in a cave among the mountains, and has his hospital in a mountain village, which the French have repeatedly attempted to surprise, but always unsuccessfully; for the hearts of the whole country are with Mina, he receives intelligence of every movement e of the enemy, and on the first tidings of danger the villagers carry the sick and wounded upon litters, on their shoulders, into the fastnesses, where they remain in perfect security till the baffled enemy retires. The alcaldes of every village, when they are ordered by the French to make any requisition, must instantly inform Mina; if they fail in this duty, he goes himself in the night, seizes them in. their beds, and shoots them. He encourages the people of Navarre to trade with the French, and by this means he obtains many things for his men which it would otherwise be difficult to acquire, and gets, for allowing the trade, whatever he wants. From the rich traders he exacts money

for their passports; this goes toward the pay of his soldiers, and his spies, men whom he rewards. with the utmost liberality. When an enemy's spy is detected, his right ear is cut off with a sword by one of Mina's guard, whom practice has made expert at the operation, and the culprit is then branded on the

ties, or in the regular armies. In all those provinces which were occupied by the enemy, the convents had been suppressed, and the expelled religioners were forbidden to wear the habit on pain of death;-the young took arms, the old employed themselves in keeping up the spirit of the people, while they excited their pity as well as their indignation. The intruder never acted more impoliticly than when he seized the church property, and thus sent out those whom it had formerly supported to preach a crusade against him, or to serve in it.

After the battle of Ocana, the French made a great effort to destroy the guerillas, and they boasted of complete success: but the guerillas were not like regular armies; whenever they were in danger of being attacked by a superior force they dispersed, and every man shifted for himself. There was nothing in their dress to distinguish them from the peasantry; they knew the country perfectly, and when they assembled at the appointed rallying place, they met together without any loss of reputation, and so far from feeling dispirited by the dispersion, that the ease with which they eluded the enemy became a new source of confidence. These parties began to be formed immediately after Buonaparte swept the country before him to Madrid, and from that time they have continued to increase in numbers and activity, carrying on a most disheartening and destructive war, by day and by night, in every part of Spain where the enemy have spread themselves. They lie in wait for their detachments, cut off their foraging parties, destroy their stragglers, surprise their smaller garrisons, intercept their convoys, and interrupt all their com.

munications. Along the highway, from Irun to Vitoria, the French have cut down all the woods to the distance of a musket-shot from each side of the road; by a decree of Kellerman's, a watchman is stationed in the church tower of every village, to ring the alarm bell whenever he discovers a guerilla party; their couriers are always protected by a strong escort of cavalry; and still so perilous is the service, that it is said sixteen couriers were at one time imprisoned at Bayonne for refusing to enter Spain. It is asserted, that not one in six ever› reaches his destination.

We have been told that the gue rillas plunder indiscriminately friend and foe. Parties of banditti will naturally be formed under cover of the system, and bands, like the White: Companies of our French wars, may perhaps survive it; but Germany, where such companies are already formed, is likely to suffer longer from this evil than Spain: for when Spain shall have expelled or exterminated the invaders, there will be a government ready, possessing all the strength of its new birth, and enjoying at the same time the reverence due to longestablished institutions. The more turbulent and daring spirits, who may have been too long accustomed to a life of outlawry and adventure, will find scope enough for ambition and enterprize in those countries whose part in this dreadful revolutionary drama is yet to come; for as Spain has been the first of the kingdoms of the continent where the people have done their duty, Spain may be expected to be the first which will enjoy repose. The guerillas, therefore, are not likely to leave any lasting evil behind them, even if they were at present, as has been insinuated, as great an evil to their own countrymenas to the French:

It is true that the French, by repeated edicts, have declared they will make the Spaniards who are in subjection responsible for every injury which they receive from the guerillas, and so far as these decrees are enforced, so far the guerillas may be said to occasion the additional exactions which the people suffer; but to whom is this to be impu. ted, and upon whom will the indignation of the injured fall, but on the primary authors of all the miseries of Spain? There are very few parts of the peninsula in which the enemy can possibly enforce their own abominable laws. The experiment of nailing the patriots alive to the oak trees of Guadarrama has not been repeated since the Empecinado took down the bodies of his murdered comrades, and fastened up the same number of their murderers to fill the same forest with their groans. Notwithstanding this dreadfulretaliation, and notwithstand ing the maddening wrongs which the Empecinado has suffered, both he and Mina are distinguished for their humanity: the latter has even personally escorted his prisoners to the sea

coast, to deliver them safely into British custody. On some occasions exchanges have taken place between the guerillas and the French, though none

has been effected between the two governments.

To follow the atchievements of these indefatigable leaders would require an historian like Froissart, or his more noble and more delightful contemporary, Fernam Lopez. Should they survive to give us their own memoirs, the life of Scanderbeg himself would not present a series of more daring enterprizes, incessant danger, and hairbreadth escapes. Whatever may be their fate, whether they fall in the field, rot in the dungeons of the tyrant, perish, like Hofer, by his executioners, or, like Captain Wright and Mariano Alvarez, by his midnight murderers, or whether they survive to enjoy in peace the blessings and the rewards of their grateful country, their names will ever be distinguished in her annals, and they will take their place in the popular songs of Spain with Bernardo, and the Infantes of Lara, and the Campeador.

VOL. III. PART I.

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WHILE the peninsula in every part, from the Pyrenees to the Pillars of Hercules, was filled with mourning, and with all the horrors of a war carried on on the one side with unexampled cruelty, and on the other with proportionate hatred, the Madrid Gazette spoke with the most ridiculous affectation of public diversions, and public projects, as if the people of Madrid, like the Parisians, were to be amused with plans of great works upon paper, and entered into the affairs of the theatre and opera with perfect forgetfulness of the miseries of their country. The gazette had now its regular portion devoted to theatrical criticism, but the numbers of the audience and the accounts of the theatre were no longer published: needy as the intrusive government was, it kept these places of amusement open, in the spirit of Parisian policy, taking its erroneous estimate of human nature from man in his most corrupted state. Schemes of education were hinted at, and for the encouragement of literature, the unction which such miserable men as Cabarrus and Urquijo laid to their souls; endeavouring by these fallacious promises to cheat

themselves, as well as their countrymen, into a persuasion, that their treason might be palliated by the motives which had induced them to become the partizans of France, when France professed herself the friend of liberty. Canals were projected, when the couriers of the intruder were not safe even at the gates of Madrid; and the improvement of agriculture was announced, while, at the same time, cir. cular letters were sent from Joseph's mock ministers to the generals and military governors, urging them to prevent the destruction of the vines and olives by the troops: it was confessed, that for want of fuel the soldiers had resorted to these means, but it was promised that this ruinous course would not be continued, if the peasants would be careful always to provide them at the places appointed with wood of their own cutting.

Spain also, like Italy, was to be despoiled of its works of art. Joseph gave orders that a selection of the best pictures should be sent to Buonaparte, to be placed in one of the halls of the Napoleon Museum, as a pledge of the union of the two nations. This robbery did not excite