AN EPISODE IN THE BALTIC

It will be remembered that one of Napoleon’s preliminary measures, in his long campaign against the freedom of Spain, had been the removal of the flower of her army to the shores of the Baltic. In the spring of 1807 the Marquis of La Romana, with fourteen battalions of infantry and five regiments of cavalry, all completed to war strength, had marched for Hamburg. After wintering in the Hanseatic towns, Mecklenburg, and Swedish Pomerania, this corps had been moved up early in 1808 into Denmark[377]. It is clear that there was no military object in placing it there. The Danish fleet was gone, carried off by Lord Cathcart’s expedition in the previous September, and there was no probability that the English would return for a second visit, when they had completely executed their plan for destroying the naval resources of Denmark. France and Sweden, it is true, were still at war, but King Gustavus was so much occupied by the defensive struggle against the Russians in Finland, that it was unlikely that he would detach troops for an objectless expedition against the Danes. On the other hand the Anglo-Swedish fleet was so completely dominant in the Baltic and the Sound, that there was no possibility of launching an expedition from Denmark against Southern Sweden. Even between the various islands at the mouth of the Baltic, where the water-distances are very short, troops could only be moved at night, and with infinite precautions against being surprised on the passage by English frigates. Gothenburg and the other harbours of South-western Sweden served as convenient ports of call to the British squadron told off for the observation of the Cattegat, the two Belts, and the Sound. Nothing could be done against Sweden, unless indeed a frost of[p. 368] exceptional severity might close the waterway between Zealand and Scania. Even then an attempt to make a dash at Helsingborg or Malm? would involve so many difficulties and dangers that few generals would have cared to risk it.

La Romana’s corps formed part of an army under Marshal Bernadotte, whose sphere of command extended all over the south-western shores of the Baltic, and whose head quarters were sometimes at Schleswig and sometimes at Lübeck or Stralsund. He had considerable French and Dutch contingents, but the bulk of his force consisted of 30,000 Danes. In preparation for Napoleon’s scheme against the Spanish Bourbons, La Romana’s forces had been carefully scattered between Jutland and the Danish Isles, so that there was no large central body concentrated under the Marquis’s own hand. The garrisons of the Spanish regiments were interspersed between those of Danish troops, so that it would be difficult to get them together. In March, 1808, when the Emperor had at last shown his hand by the treacherous seizure of Pampeluna, Barcelona, and Figueras, the troops of La Romana were cantoned as follows. Six battalions were in the island of Zealand, mainly in and about the old royal residence of Roeskilde[378]. Four battalions and two cavalry regiments were in Fünen, the central island of the Danish group, and with them La Romana himself, whose head quarters were at Nyborg[379]. One battalion lay in the island of Langeland, close to the south coast of Fünen[380]. In the mainland of Jutland were three cavalry regiments and three battalions of infantry[381], quartered in the little towns at the southern end of the Cattegat—Fredericia, Aarhuus, and Randers. In Zealand the 4,000 Spaniards were under the eyes of the main Danish army of observation against Sweden. In Fünen La Romana’s 4,500 horse and foot were cantoned in small detachments, while a solid body of 3,000 Danes garrisoned Odense in the centre of the island, separating the Spanish regiments one from another. In Langeland, along with the Catalonian light battalion, were a company of French grenadiers and about 800 Danes. The troops in Jutland were mixed up with a brigade of Dutch light[p. 369] cavalry and some Danish infantry. Napoleon’s own provident eye had been roving round Denmark, and he had himself given the orders for the dislocation of the Spanish corps in the fashion that seemed best calculated to make any common action impossible. To keep them in good temper he had recently raised the pay of the officers, and announced his intention of decorating La Romana with the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour. Bernadotte, by his desire, displayed the greatest confidence in his auxiliaries, and took a troop of the cavalry regiment Del Rey as his personal escort while moving about in Denmark[382].

In spite of all this, the Marquis and his officers began to grow uneasy in April, 1808, for the stream of dispatches and letters from Spain, which had been reaching them very regularly during the winter, began to dry up in the spring. When the first communication from the new ministry of Ferdinand VII reached La Romana he found that it contained a complaint that the home government had received no reports from the expeditionary force since January, and that fifteen separate dispatches sent to him from Madrid had failed to get any answer. The fact was that Napoleon had been systematically intercepting every document which the war minister at one end of the line, and the Marquis at the other, had been committing to the French post[383]. The last dispatch had only come to hand because such an important announcement as that of the accession of King Ferdinand had been sent by the hands of a Spanish officer, whom Bonaparte or Fouché had not thought proper to arrest, though they had intercepted so much official correspondence. The Emperor himself had sent orders to Bernadotte that the news of the revolution at Aranjuez should be kept as long as possible from the Marquis and his troops[384]: and so it came to pass that only a very few days after the events of March 19 became known in Denmark, there followed the deplorable intelligence of the treachery of Bayonne and of the Madrid insurrection of May 2. These tidings produced the same feelings in Nyborg and Fredericia that they had caused at Seville or Corunna. But on the shores of the Baltic, further north than any Spanish troops had ever been before, the expeditionary corps felt itself helpless and surrounded by enemies. Yet as Joseph O’Donnell, then one of La Romana’s[p. 370] staff, observed: ‘The more they tried to persuade us that Spain was tranquil, and had settled down to enjoy an age of felicity under Napoleon, the more clearly did we foresee the scenes of blood, strife, and disaster which were to follow these incredible events[385].’

On June 24 there reached Nyborg the intelligence which showed the whole of Napoleon’s schemes completed: it was announced to La Romana that Joseph Bonaparte had been proclaimed King of Spain, and he was ordered to transmit the news to his troops, and to inform them in General Orders that they were now serving a new master. The only commentary on this astonishing information which the Spanish officers could procure consisted of the nauseous banalities of the Moniteur concerning the ‘regeneration of Spain.’

A very few days later the first ray of hope shone upon the humbled and disheartened general. One of the earliest ideas of the British Government, on hearing of the Spanish insurrection, had been to open communications with the troops in Denmark. Casta?os, in his first interview with the Governor of Gibraltar, had expressed his opinion that they would strike a blow for liberty if only they were given the chance. The fleet of Sir Richard Keates so completely commanded the Baltic that it would be possible to rescue the Spanish expeditionary force, if only it were willing and able to cut its way to the coast. But it was necessary to find out whether the Marquis was ready to risk his neck in such an enterprise, and whether he could depend on the loyalty of his troops.

To settle this all-important question some agent must be found who would undertake to penetrate to La Romana’s head quarters, a task of the most uninviting kind, for it was quite uncertain whether the Spaniard would eagerly join in the plan, or whether he would make up his mind to espouse the cause of Napoleon, and hand over his visitor to the French police. To find a man who knew the Continent well enough to move about without detection, and who would take the risk of placing himself at La Romana’s mercy, in case his offers were refused, did not seem easy. But the right person was pitched upon by Sir Arthur Wellesley just before he sailed for Portugal. He recommended to Canning a Roman Catholic priest of the name of James Robertson. This enterprising ecclesiastic was a Scot who had spent most of his life in a monastery at Ratisbon, but had lately come to England and was acting as[p. 371] tutor in the house of an English Catholic peer. He had some time before offered himself to Wellesley as a man who knew Germany well, and was prepared to run risks in making himself useful to the Government[386].

Under the belief that the Spaniards were still quartered in the Hanse towns and Holstein, Canning sent for Robertson and asked him whether he would undertake this dangerous mission to Northern Germany. The priest accepted the offer, and was dispatched to Heligoland, where Mr. Mackenzie, the British agent in this lately seized island, found him a place on board a smuggling vessel bound for the mouth of the Weser. H............