The Court and Camp of Don Carlos; being the results of a late tour in the Basque provinces, and parts of Catalonia, Aragon, Castile, and Estramadura

Preface

. The Tour described in the following pages was commenced in the month of December, and con cluded in March last. Few changes of importance have since then taken place in the counsels or camp of Don Carlos. M. Cruz Mayor and the Count de Villemur have resigned, and all the de partments of state are now united under M. Erro, formerly minister of finance to Ferdinand, an able and an honest man. General Villa Real has re placed the Count de Casa Eguia. The combination, so often planned between General Cordova and General Evans, has again failed : Cordova, after penetrating to Salinas, was glad to find his way back to Victoria ; and Evans has but cleared half a league of front before St. Sebastian, and extended his coast line as far as Passages ; but he has not ven-

PREFACE.

. tured beyond the cover of the British fleet or entered fairly into the Carlist territory. The account, therefore, which I have given of the Basque Provinces, as fully represents the actual position, political as well as military, of Don Carlos, as if it were written yesterday. The Public may be assured that the truth, and nothing but the truth, will be found in this sketch. I have no personal objects to serve ; and it is probable that the Carlists, as well as the Chris tinos, will be equally displeased at the freedom with which I have described their operations. I have avoided touching on events which have lately taken place in Spain, and are known to the public through the regular channels of information, as my object has been to describe the position of Don Carlos, and not to discuss the affairs of the Queen Regent, or notice the changes which are so frequently occurring in her counsels. London, June 25, 1836. i THE COURT AND CAMP OF DON CARLOS.

Chapter I

Having determined to visit the camp of Don Carlos, and to ascertain by personal observation the actual state of the war in the Basque pro vinces, 1 left London at the close of last November, and made my way by the ordinary route to Bayonne. I believe I am one of the first travellers that ever paid a compliment to that city ; but find ing the weather as warm as the month of May with us, and the leaves still on the trees ; the coun try breathing more of autumn than of winter ; and having exchanged for it the cold London fog, and a AND CAMP OF the continued rain and swollen kennels of Paris, I am bound to do justice to Bayonne, and to say that, for once since its creation, a stranger found a residence of a few days within it delightful. That delight will, I fear, not be participated in by many ; for the genius of ennui seems to have set up his rest there ; and those who do not travel in five days from damp and cold to a genial warmth, and therefore must be happy, will wander about its lonely streets and its dismal walk on the banks ofthe river, and gape and grow discontented, and envy every more fortunate person, who takes his final leave in that worst of all diligences, the lum bering crazy vehicle which plies between it and Bourdeaux.

Great improvements are making, and no one can tell what it may become in. the course of years, as some of the old fortifications have been thrown down, and a new line planned, and more space given to the city ; and even a Place is under formation, where the world will show their Sunday clothes and last Paris fashion to more advantage than can now be done in front of the dirty theatre and few cafes that line the pre sent promenade. Be Bayonne what it may, I arrived in it on the 24th of November, and descended at the hotel , so well known to those who trade in politics as the grand depot of the friends of Don Carlos ; where certain cabalistic signs and words are to be exchanged before the stranger finds him self at ease at the table-d'hote ; where he meets Spaniards of every rank, some on their way to join the Infante, and others just come from head quarters, and all filled with that busy and myste rious air which men engaged in these perilous enter prises, in spite of their better judgment, assume.

There were French gentlemen embarked in the same cause also to be found in the hotel ; but a marked difference was to be observed between them and the Spaniards of their party. The latter were hot and impatient, full of words, and anxious to display their feelings ; the former were cold and composed, and spoke on all other subjects with the utmost sangfroid — though, if the truth were known, their attachment to their principles was more deeply rooted than that of their vehe ment neighbours. The tone and conduct of the Spaniards told you plainly you were in the midst of a conspiracy ; the lively unembarrassed manner of Frenchmen created no suspicion, and would re move it if it were formed. A person who had in view the object which I purposed, namely, that of reaching the head quarters of Don Carlos, and traversing the whole line of operations, would of course not neglect all and every means of creating confidence, and of ANI) CAMP OF placing himself on a good footing with the party he was about to meet ; and I took care to receive, in London and Paris, from friends who, though deeply compromised, met me with full candour, the necessary papers and recommendations.

I am an impartial man : my daily discipline is to expunge political prejudices from my mind, and to view things as they are ; a friend to the principle of legitimacy — an ardent one of a constitutional monarchy, but not a visionary Royalist, who dreams of restorations, and will not recognise the duties of kings to their people, as well as the duties of the people to their kings. Still, though not standing in the full odour of sanctity with my royalist friends, I must do them the justice to say that they met my views with the greatest liberality, and, believing that I was a person in whose sincerity [and good faith a full reliance could be placed, they opened to me the secrets of their union, and gave me the means of making myself known to the people, at Bayonne and on the frontiers, who could advance my journey.

I have dealt with the extremes of both the Royalist and Liberal parties in more than one coun try agitated by internal division, and I cannot avoid declaring that I have been invariably treated well by the one, and ill treated by the other. Differing from both, and obliged to make that difference known, I came under the reproach of being alternately a servile or a republican ; but I found that the Royalists were more amiable than the others, and expressed their dissent without giving offence, while the Liberals' tolerance was of a limited nature and seldom of long endurance. So much for myself; — and to let the reader know of what manner of man he is perusing the thoughts, and to give him an assurance that if he will not find any thing else to please him in this volume, he will find the truth, and nothing but the truth.

I have often reflected on the strange waywardness which makes the partisans of every cause so desirous to exaggerate events in their favour, and conceal all facts that make against them — when the commonest experience proves that the only way to insure being believed is, to under-state and not over-state the truth, and that one fabrication or over-wrought accounts throws into discredit narratives which would otherwise be worthy of notice, and materially advance the cause. If ever that folly has been exemplified, it has been in Spain, where the Carlist and Christino accounts of the same affair differ as light and darkness, and are so wide of the verity, at both sides, that the English public have given up believing in either. Zumalacaregui, the well-known general of Don Carlos, was the only person who, since the beginning of the contest, allowed the facts to speak for themselves ; and all his bulletins were remarkable for their brevity, good sense, and honesty ; but we have scarcely seen, since his death, an official no tice of any action, however trivial, that has not been swelled out by despatches more lengthy and pom pous than those of Waterloo.

Well knowing how the war was going on in the North, and that the Carlists were invariably successful, since the first defeat of Sarsfield to the final overthrow of Valdez, at the Amescuas ; it was a matter of amusement to me, then resident at Madrid, to read the daily extraordinary gazettes of victories, by which the Carlists were annihilated. The very post was often filled with letters from officers in the army, detailing their misfortunes to their friends, and presaging a fatal issue to the war ; while the gazette of the same day contained brilliant details of operations and omens of final triumphs of the arms of the Queen. Every man in the Puerta del Sol knew that the gazette was false, yet still the government was weak enough to publish it ; and though every one knew it was false, yet such was the tyranny of the Liberals, that no person dared avow his opinions ; and these narratives were sent into other countries uncontradicted, except by some private letters, to form the groundwork of financial delusion, by which, in turn, each moneymarket of Europe has been sacrificed, and for the conception and execution of which the Spanish Ministers of the Treasury enjoy a special reputa tion.

I was even told by the officer of the day, on one of these great battles, whose duty it was to count the bodies of the slain enemy on the field, that he found but forty-five corpses, while the gazette represented no less than 3400 put hors de combat — an instance of exaggeration only to be matched by a Carlist bulletin, lately published, of Cordova's retreat to Victoria, which, headed "Vic tory ! Victory ! Victory ! ! !" declared that 9000 men were destroyed, out of 12,000, although, in good truth, not more than about sixty poor fellows bit the dust. It must be admitted that the Carlist exaggera tions were less frequent than the others ; for while the Queen's gazette announced that the Infante's force was diminished to a small mountain-band, which was about expiring from starvation, we have seen it increasing daily in number and equip ment, until, from a commencement of seven hundred men, it has swollen to a number of 30,000 armed and organized — and that, while it was stated to be in the throes of death, it was driving a succession of seven Queen's generals before it, and finally occupying the whole of the provinces, and defying every new attempt that was made to put it down.

So much did this hyperbole prevail, that the beaten Christino captains even made a jest of it themselves ; and I heard one of them say, at a table of distinction at Madrid — " Well, what do you think of us now ? I was beaten : I have committed faults which in any other service would cashier me ; and look ! here is the sword which the Queen has given me, and here is the commission by which I am appointed Commander-in-Chief." The positive fact was, that nothing but lying and imposture succeeded at Madrid ; and I know that a beaten general who was called a Bribon (scoundrel) by the Minister of State, and told not to come near the government, to annoy it, — who received from another minister the epithet of C , the most offensive which can be given to a Spaniard, — was sent out, three days after the occurrence, to command the army ; and, though he was defeated in every instance, he contrived to lie so stoutly, and to bully the government and the public, that he has still compelled the one to continue him at the head of the forces, and the other to believe that he was the Napoleon of Spain : — and, as if more strongly to expose the extreme of all truth and principle, this the man, a Carlist from his youth — a well-known agent of the cruelties of Ferdinand — who was under the most sacred obligations to Don Carlos and to his wife, and who had sent in his adhesion to the Infante when the question of the succession was first mooted !

I never could under stand how, if the Spanish government was so stupid as to employ this person, the Foreign Am bassadors were weak enough to give him their countenance ; as they must have seen that he was playing a part by them, and crouching at their feet, in order to persuade the Ministry that he had the support ofthe two great contracting Powers in the Quadruple Treaty. A man's character and his antecedent conduct should decide for or against his eligibility ; and I believe it would be difficult to find in Spain an individual more thoroughly profli gate than the one in question, and whose every action, up to the day when he turned his coat, bespoke a more devoted slave to absolutism. But Spain abounds in such instances, that we who know it well should not be astonished.

Chapter II

Having arrived at Bayonne, I waited instantly on the person with whom I was to exchange sig nals ; and, having established my identity with him, I was soon introduced to another — the confi dential agent of Don Carlos — who received me in the most gentlemanlike manner, made me know that he was aware I was unconnected with any party, but offered me every service in his power. This secret intelligence amused me much, and brought back to my mind the historical recol lections of our own civil wars for the exiled Stuarts; and I imagined myself, and the person to whom I was addressed, seated gravely opposite to each other, opening alternately a link of the chain of recognition, until the whole was fully developed, like unto the Jacobite emissaries of old, seated in some dark nook in the purlieus of the Tower, with pulse beating, eyes straining, each trembling with fear of discovery, and of the other's good faith, until the connexion of syllables and words, or the combination of colours, or the comparison of some article of clothing, or of any thing else — (which was not the case in my recognition — for of course to it, or to the persons from whom it pro ceeded, I will give no clue) — established a perfect confidence; and the chairs are drawn together, the hands compressed, and the parties finally locked in each other's arms, in full confidence of their identity.

My man looked sharply at me, and I, cautiously, at him ; not that I had any thing to risque, but lest I should compromise the real personage, in case this was not the person. I asked him to re peat his name, and to write it, before I said a word further; and, gradually proceeding, arrived at the full end of my object, until I had the assurance that no one was endangered ; and then we entered on our affair with all the confidence imaginable, and I had every reason to be pleased. The gentleman alluded to could not understand how I, a person who asked for nothing, sought for nothing — neither a soldier nor a loan-contractor — could ex pose myself to some danger, and the severity of the weather, to gratify curiosity, or to establish a truth for others ; and he lifted up his eyes in astonishment at the hardihood and oddity of my pro ceedings ; but I made him fully understand that my object was to enter Spain as speedily as I could, and that he might defer his surprise until I had the pleasure to see him on my return.

The table-d'hote at the hotel consisted of eight persons ; two of whom were English, two French, and the others Spaniards ; all devoted royalists. The Spaniards were dressed in that kind of inde finable costume which is neither civil nor military, but to which every soldier on campaign comes to, as his wardrobe gradually fails him in the hazard of the war. There was the military cap and the furred frock-coat, with pantaloons of faded glory ; or the red striped trowser, but plain surtout and black stock ; or the short jacket of goat-skin — the favourite costume of Zumalacaregui, and that best suited to mountain work, as it defies both wind and rain — besides other military appurtenances ; such as the spur, or the sabre-belt. But the state of the beard was that which gave the most assu rance of the soldier of fortune : in some grown to its full length, as the officers of Don Pedro were accustomed to wear it at Oporto ; in others, aiming at the same ferocity, but still scant of its growth ; while one lad, the handsomest of the party, en couraged only his young mustachios, and shaved his chin, in order that the aspiring curls of the upper lip should produce still greater effect.

The Englishmen were, as they ever are, taciturn, and wondered at the bustle of their companions ; while the French were gay, and chatted and laughed on indifferent subjects, and seemed desirous to throw off the political character until the moment of action arrived, when the old royalist blood would show that men were still alive, sans peur et sans reproche ; but the Spaniards were not for a moment at their ease ; and the most indifferent spectator rn'ist have observed that some deep spell was upon them. Each would, in turn, break out into violent denunciations against the Queen, or some of the people most forward in supporting her; while others discussed the state of the nation, and pro spects of the two belligerents, with a fluency and a wisdom which astonished me, although well accustomed to a Spaniard's flow of words.

The young est had but just arrived from the head-quarters of Don Carlos, and was about to undertake a mission into one ofthe southern provinces — and two were, it was hinted, preparing to venture to Madrid, to wake the sluggish hopes of their party there. All were full of zeal and warmth : at least, their words were those of fire ; — and, if their actions but corre sponded to their promises, Don Carlos would be faithfully served. But I have seen too much of Spaniards to be deceived by any show of determination ; and 1 have known a man talk by the hour at the Puerta del Sol, of honour, virtue, and pa triotism, till the blood boiled within me ; and I have found the same person go the round of all the Tertulias at night, with the same set of ideas, and the same inspiring language ; all which was to end in his doing nothing ; for the display and the plea* sure of hearing himself talk was all he aimed at.

The dinner was good, and abundant in that variety which none but a French cook can fur nish ; but so addicted were these gentlemen to the abominable mess of beans, bacon, fowl, beef, and sausage, called a Puchero, that one and all declared they would prefer having it to even the best set-out at the Grand Vatel. " Oh, que rico!" — "Oh, how rich it is!" said one of the party, kissing the tips of his fingers, in token of supreme delight. " Oh, que excellente Ios garvansos!" — " Oh, how excellent the beans ! " cried another, licking his lips, like an alderman at his turtle. " And the bacon and the sausage !" exclaimed the rest. — " There is nothing like the puchero ! it is more solid than roast beef, and more refined than a Strasburg Pate !" and they all agreed that no thing more was necessary to enjoy life than a good puchero.

Now, to understand what they were speaking of, it is necessary to be more precise than I have been in the description ofthe dish ; and I will set it before the reader in all its primitive and compound singularity. First, then, into an earthen pipkin are to be poured, at seven or eight o'clock in the morning, a quantity of white beans, called garvansos, a pound or two of lean beef, half a pound of bacon, a quarter of a pound of reeking sausage, a piece of garlic, a couple of fowls, some green long beans, with a quantum sufficit of water; and these are to stew at a slow fire until three o'clock, when the whole family are to be served, first with the soup, and then with the meat and vegetables ; and I believe a greasier mess never graced the festive board ; and he that has once eaten it, will wonder at the national taste, that prefers it to all other food, and declares that a dinner is not tolerable without it.

All families in Spain, from the highest to the humblest, dine on puchero every day in the year ; except that, on fete days, in rich families, another horror, called an estqfado, or a piece of beef stewed in garlic, is superadded ; but the stranger will in vain try to approach the last; and it is not till sharp necessity compels him, that he can venture it within his lips. This was the dish which my Spanish friends de clared was preferable to all the excellent prepara tions our dinner afforded. And I suppose we should never have heard the end of its merits, if a pie had not been placed on the table ; and they all opened at once, like dogs in full cry, at the pastel and the paste/leros ; which latter is a sobri quet given to Martinos de la Rosa and his party, their politics being, as they say, thinner than a baker's crust.

It is remarkable to find, at a large city like that of Bayonne, where a vigilant police is supposed to exist, a Carlist club sitting almost in open day, and persons passing and repassing the frontier openly to it. It proves how hollow the French government is, and how gloriously it has bamboozled England in the quadruple treaty ; and if any thing were wanted to establish the fact of its connivance, it is, that the frontier is all but publicly open, and any person, taking only ordinary precaution, can go and return from Don Carlos. I understood that an English merchant, partner in a large house in the city, went into head-quarters very lately ; and when I proposed to go, no objection was made about my passport, which was backed most commodiously in general for Spain, without specifying any route ; so that, without resorting to smuggling, or any underhand means to procure an entrance, you will be enabled to pass the French posts with a passport en regie ; and of course you have arranged that the Carlists will receive you, before making the expe riment.

Chapter III

But I cannot leave Bayonne without saying a word or two more about it, even if it were only as a sign-post to those unfortunate strangers, who, like myself, may yet be cast away upon its sands. The most remarkable circumstance which I found on the northern frontier of Bayonne, was the manner in which the damsels ride on horse back ; they having found, without the intervention of pantaloons, and notwithstanding all the obstruc tions of petticoats, that the easiest and surest mode to get a firm seat, is cross-legged, like us, the Nimrods of the creation. The first lady I met in that way was old and ugly, and I fancied she took to the astride because she was too feeble to manage the side-saddle; but when I saw the young and the pretty also crossed in the same manner, I blushed up to the eyes for them, and, being come to the age of sentimentality, could scarcely venture to look upon the ankle too far displayed, and the bundle of petticoats lapped over the pummel of the saddle, without feeling that the daughters of Eve in the Basque were carrying their prerogatives a little too far.

In Turkey, the women always ride in the same fashion ; but then their natural costume is suited to the task : here, where the under-clothing is framed on a different principle, it is shocking* — it is immodest. To the south of Bayonne, bordering on the Pyrenees, the fair sex have established a more convenient system, which is called a cacolat, and two of them, sitting in a chair or basket, are suspended at each side of the horse ; a quantity of weight being added to the lighter, to make the balance even. Sometimes, a man and his wife take a matrimonial excursion, each hampered on the sides of old Dobbin ; and numerous are the jests of the passers-by, on some dumpy lady sitting in the midst of her fat, while the husband is obliged, from his diminutive size, to take in a quantity of ballast to make an even poise with his baggage at the other side of the way.

Except this fashion of equitation, I know nothing the Bayonne womenkind are remarkable for : as for beauty of face, they have none; and as to shape, they are thin and meagre exactly where they should be showy ; and it would take a large im portation from the Rue Vivienne before they were fitted to the Dutch market. I did not fail to visit the grave-yard, where the British officers, who fell in the sortie from the citadel, on the 14th of April, 1814, are interred. Every one knows that General Sir John Hope, in tending to anticipate a sortie which the garrison was about to make, was surprised himself, and that he was taken prisoner, and several of our brave fellows came to an early grave. The sur viving officers of the Coldstream Guards enclosed a small plot of ground, about twenty feet square, with a substantial wall of ten feet high, and there deposited the bodies of their fallen comrades, with a stone to mark the rank and name of each.

Some years ago, Mr. Harvey, the British Consul at Bayonne, and who was wounded in the action, further erected a handsome tablet to the memory of his brother officers. On the outside of the wall, a broad stone bears this record — " Burial-place of the British Officers, especially of the Coldstream Guards, who fell in action, near to this spot, on the 14th April, 1814, the night of the sortie from the Citadel of Bayonne." And within, in the southern wall, a neat tablet is thus inscribed — Sacred to the Memory Ofthe undernamed British Officers Who gallantly fell at the sortie made by the Garrison from the Citadel of Bayonne, On the 14th of April, 1314. Coldstream Guards — Lieut.-Col. G. Collier. Lieut.-Col. Sib Henry Sullivan. Captains — Hon. W. G. Crofton. W. Blrrocches. Lieutenant T. Vachell.

W. Pitt. 1st Regt. of Guards — Ensign W. Vane. 3rd Regt. of Guards — Captain C. L. White. G. B. Shifxer. Lieutenant T. Holbocrse. 6th Regt. — Lieutenant L. Hamilton. This Tablet was placed to the memory of the above-named Officers, by their friend and companion at the sortie, G. V. Harvey, Formerly Captain in the Coldstream Guards, and since His Majesty's Consul at Bti yonne. 1830. At a short distance from this grave-yard, the large depot is to be seen, which received the bodies ofthe private soldiers slain in the action. It bears no record, and the mound of earth is nearly over grown with fern and brambles ; and it is with some difficulty that it can be made out. Without affecting to be sentimental, I know nothing, abroad, which more forcibly recalls home to the mind of the traveller, than the tombstone of a departed countryman ; and I stood an hour over these cold memorials of the past, thinking ofthe fate of these gallant men, born some to high fortune, thus fallen before their time, and imagin ing in what part of the world, removed from the wife of my love, and the children of my heart, I should find a final rest, perhaps without a record of my name, or a friend to breathe a sigh to my memory.

Can man carve out his own destiny ? or why is it that we are made the sport of fortune, and, with every reluctance to embrace a particular course of life, that we are compelled to pursue it ? Driven about the world against my will — separated, often for many months, from those I love, and who exist only to love me — it is when I visit the tombs of Englishmen, in foreign climes, that I feel there is perhaps a more cruel pang reserved for them and me ; and that is, to have my bones laid in some remote spot, on which their tears can never fall, nor over which their prayers can ne'er be heard. But what has the reader to do with me or mine ? and if I bore him any further, it is possible that he may wish my book in the grave, and the writer to the devil, a, rAnglaise. Having heard, while I was at Bayonne, that the Carlists were about to attack the tete-de-pont of the Bidassoa, where the refugee Christinos of Saint Sebastian had for some time past entrenched themselves, and professed rather to be buried in the ruins than surrender, I went down to see some of their fine speeches set to action.