he was thoroughly instructed in the bearings of the case; and if he did not put more, it was because he knew that the answers would be such as irrecoverably to ruin the cause of his client. Nor was it the ordeal of the Old Bailey alone which condemned her, her case underwent the solemn consideration of the great lawofficers of the realm, the Secretary of State, and of the Regent himself. Every circumstance of extenuation was patiently weighed, every point of her subsequent defence was cautiously examined, and the result was that her guilt was the more apparent, and the justice of her sentence more firmly established.

One of the leading features of this publication is an attempt to degrade the character of that worthy and upright law officer, who, with so much honour to himself, and advantage to his country, fills the high and laborious station of Recorder in the City of London. Allowed by the general voice of his profession to be one of the best criminal judges who ever sat upon the bench, he adds to the experience of now a long life, a certain practical acuteness of understanding, which no roguery can evade nor quibbling confound. There is no man who can more keenly discern, or more readily explain the bearings of innocence and guilt, and the determination which his just conceptions have formed; there is no man who will more undauntedly maintain. As long as unsullied integrity, experienced acuteness, and unaffected humanity shall be considered as the leading ornaments in the character of a criminal judge, so long shall Sir John Sylvester maintain his rank in the confidence of the English

nation.

Of the guilt of this infatuated woman we never cherished the slightest doubt, or if we had the pamphlet before us would have removed our hesitation. The crime for which she suffered, was one of a most horrible nature; but less by one degree alone is the crime of those, who knowing her guilty, for purposes best known to themselves, would conspire to throw a veil of suspicion over her sentence, and by thus shaking the confidence and defeating the end of public justice, would encourage a repetition of the crime.

ART. V. Memoirs of the War of the French in Spain, &c. &c. (Concluded from p. 486.)

WHILE this was the real state of things abroad, very different accounts were circulated in France and England. In France it was not difficult for some time to persuade the people that the conquest and submission of Spain must be the speedy result of the sieges of Zaragoza and Gerona, and Hostalrich, and Astorga, and Ciudad Rodrigo. The English army, or the

hermoso

hermoso exercito, as it was during the first part of the campaign rather deridingly called by the Spaniards, was always represented as being driven to the coast, and on the point of setting sail for England. At Paris, peculiar pains were employed to convince the French that the war was not as inglorious an unjust the flags taken from the raw recruits and volunteers at Espinosa, Burgos, Tudela, and Somosierra, and those which had been betrayed by Morla at Madrid, were presented to the legislative body as so many indisputable evidences of triumph, while Spain itself still required, by the confession of the Minister of Finance, 350,000 men to support the poor puppet placed upon its throne. The French army had not yet been at Moscow; it was not yet known that a country might be unconquered, whilst not only its king, but its capital, was in the hands of the enemy: and when the thundering proclamations and bulletins of Napoleon, dated from Madrid, announced his triumphs to the whole of Europe, no one could doubt of the reality of his successes, and the probability of the immediate submission of such of the provinces as still resisted. No one could doubt, except those who were actually on the spot, and knew the whole situation of affairs. "Nous conservions," says M. Rocca,

au milieu des chants de victoire dont nos bulletins retentissoient, un sentiment confus d'incertitude sur les avantages mêmes que nous venions de remporter,―on auroit dit que nous avions vaincus sur des volcans.' No one could doubt it, except those who knew that Napoleon, encamped on the heights of Chamartin, made no public entry into Madrid, as he had done into other capitals, making some frivolous excuse about the etiquette due to his brother Joseph, whom he affected to consider as a foreign sovereign: etiquette has never been a bar to the plans of Bonaparte, whenever policy presented no more invincible obstacle. The fact was, as was well known, that the regiments quartered in Madrid were kept with their horses constantly saddled, and the men ready to mount at a moment's warning, as if it had been an advanced post in sight of the enemy: the first aide-de-camp, who was sent to summon the town, narrowly escaped being torn to pieces; and during the time that the capitulation was signing, and when all the important posts were in the hands of the French, fifty thousand armed inhabitants were running up and down the streets, demanding leaders and orders, and exclaiming against the treason which betrayed them. After all hopes were over, eleven hundred determined men remained concealed in the town, in order to raise the inhabitants, and put an end to every Frenchman at the first favourable opportunity. These were more cogent reasons than any which etiquette could prescribe, for the continuance of the head quarters at Chamartin, when the Retiro was in sight, and, accord

ing to the bulletins, in their power. The war, from the very nature of it, shortly became unpopular in the army: the soldier is cheered rather than discouraged by open engagements which present a decided result, but his spirit is not proof against that covert warfare and eternal harassing which converts every peasant into an enemy, every house into a castle, which must beblockaded and stormed in form, every wood and every mountain iuto a field of battle, so much the more dangerous, as the nature of the ground prevented the extent of the danger itself from being seen.

Unseen the foes that give the wound,

The dying ask revenge in vain.

Entire squadrons were thus annihilated in a single night, and the fate of the prisoners was no less certain: seven hundred were drowned at once in the Minho, by order of Don Pedro de Barrios, governor of Galicia, and such as were taken in smaller bodies, were hanged without mercy. Before these violent measures had excited a spirit of reprisal, the French soldiers had been in the habit of conniving, through commiseration, at the escape of such of the peasants as fell into their hauds.

"Des prisonniers espagnols disoient dans leur langue, en soupirant profondément, et en montrant dans le lointain un village à un grenadier chargé de les garder et de les conduire,-Senor Soldado, Seigneur Soldat, là est notre village; là sont nos femmes et nos enfans; faut-il que nous passions si près d'eux sans jamais les revoir? faut-il que nous allions dans cette terre lointaine de France?-Le grenadier leur répondoit, en affectant de prendre un ton rude,—Si vous cherchez à vous échapper je vous tue, c'est ma consigne; mais tout ce qui se passe derrière moi, je ne le vois pas. Il se portoit de quelques pat en avant, alors les prisonniers gagnoient les champs, et rejoignoient bientôt leurs armées. Nous fumes dans la suite forcés de faire escorter les prisonniers par des soldats de la division allemande, leur caractère national et une discipline plus exacte les rendoient vigilants et inflexibles."

P. 148.

We have already had occasion to mention the discontent of the generals, which naturally spread the contagion of dispiritedness through their divisions, till at last officers and men were equally tired of a contest, in which the rewards of success were so disproportionate to the danger of defeat. They declared, openly, that it was worse than La Vendèe itself, and that to live at peace, not a Spaniard must have been left alive. Junot wrote, in answer to a pressing demand of assistance," I cannot be of any great service at present: the Spanish troops under my command, require to be guarded, instead of contributing to my strength." The ferocious Ney, as he is well denominated in

the

the Edinburgh Annual Register, said to the people of Vittoria* Yes, you will win your cause, but you shall not have eyes to weep for the state in which you will be left."

Let us now see what was the language held in England, during the same time. The orators of the opposition were now denouncing, that "the Spanish chiefs had only a little hour to fret and strut." Sir John Moore was held out as a martyr to the obstinate ignorance with which a desperate cause was defended. Lord Grenville was declaiming, that it was idle and absurd to expect any co-operation from an armed peasantry, and all idea of it was shewn to be nugatory and fallacious: an armed population could not be considered as a disciplined army, and it was not enough that men should be sincerely attached to the cause they were to defend. Mr. Ward could see nothing in the Spaniards but matter for contempt and reproach; he neither expected their success, nor hardly, by his own confession, wished for it. Lord Moira judged more accurately of the state of the case, though he blamed the manner in which we had profited by the enthusiasm, of which he could not deny. the existence, for nothing but enthusiasm could have kept armies together, after so many defeats and disasters. That enthusiasm, said he, made Spain a lever, by which the power of France might have been removed from its foundations. Very different from the language of the opposition, was that of the Spanish Junta. That body, however inefficient it might, and from its very constitution must have been, as an executive government, yet gave proofs of constancy and devotion to the cause, in the midst of overwhelming disasters, which well en-. titled its members to have met with a better reward after the successful termination of their loyal struggle. When even the English despaired, the Junta was still strong in hope, and appealed to the spirit of patriotism, as a proof of divine inspiration. This invincible perseverance, which led them to believe themselves honestly unbroken, in spite of the greatest misfortunes, appears to have misled Sir John Moore, who constantly accused the Spaniards of having concealed from him their situ ation and their defeats, and of exaggerating their strength and means of resistance.

"Il se trompoit, comme le chef des armées françaises, sur le caractère espagnol, et il prenoit généralement pour de la foiblesse tout ce que le patriotisme fait faire croire et dire à des peuples dépourvus de ressources militaires, mais forts par le charactère national, et qui sont indomptables par cela même qu'ils s'exagè. rent de bonne foi leurs revers." P. 101.

The last part of this sentence is thus strangely mistranslated— "who are invincible, inasmuch as it is their own determination and spirit which exaggerate their means." We have observed

very few similar instances of wandering from the author's meaning. Even after the decisive battle of Medellin or Merida, where General Cuesta was defeated with the loss of 12,000 men, the Junta appealed to the shade of Fernand Cortès, who happened to be born in that city, to witness with approbatiou the intrepidity and bravery with which his descendants withstood the shock of the French army near the place of his birth. Like the Roman senate, which, after the defeat at Cannæ, thanked Varus, because he had not despaired of the salvation of Rome, the supreme Junta of Seville declared by a public ordonnance, that Cuesta and his army had deserved well of their country, and awarded to them medals and rank and double pay, and all the recompences of victorious troops. The consequence was, that a fortnight after the battle, the Spanish army recovered from its losses, and with a force of 30,000 men, had occupied the passes of the mountains in front of the French. The following extract from the report which precedes the decree of rewards to the vanquished army, contains language so noble and spirited, that it ought to be better known.

"Lors de la reddition de l'immortelle Saragosse, la junte suprême a manifesté par un dêcret qu'elle ne mesurait pas tant les services rendus à la patrie d'après le succès que d'après les sacrifices; elle veut de même en cette occasion accorder aux soldats de l'armée d'Estramadure les éloges et les récompenses qu'ils ont mérités. C'est en vain que les Espagnols traîtres à leur pays, et des Français aventuriers, chercheront dans Madrid à tourner en ridicule ces récompenses données après de grands revers. Qu'ils s'en moquent, s'ils le veulent, à la bonne heure, la raillerie insolente des hommes pervers est un des trophées de la vertu ! Le monde verra cependant que le gouvernement de l'Espagne ne se laisse pas abattre par un mauvais succès, et qu'il ne désespère pas du salut de l'état, tant qu'il voit qu'il reste du courage aux armées et qu'il y a du patriotisme dans les provinces." P. 399.

Anecdotes which tend to shew this spirit are interesting, and will find a place in history; but enough have been cited to afford sufficient evidence of the feelings which agitated for so long a period this quarter of the continent. To conclude our sketch, we will throw hastily together some few remaining passages which have struck our attention in reading the memoirs of M. Rocca. The life of the soldier is described with great spirit, and the author frequently dwells upon its mixture of evils and charms, with the gaiety which is so characteristic of his profession. It is the peculiar licence of the soldier to find himself at home everywhere, and the French did not lose sight of this principle, even in the deserted towns and villages through which they daily marched. Immediately upon their arrival, the new colony was founded, and the empty houses echoed gloomily to the sounds of the drum or trumpet; every regiment occupied a

ward,