It must have added to the grief of the true Spaniards in Cadiz upon this occasion, when they remembered that they might at this day have had a general who had every claim to the confidence of his men, his government, and his allies, that distinguished services, unbounded sacrifices, enterprise, talents, and devoted patriotism could give. That general, the Duque de Alburquerque, whose name will ever be regarded as the most illustrious of his illustrious line, had just at this time fallen a victim to the malignity of the Junta of Cadiz. After remaining in England eight months in a state of exile, intolerable to one who was as capable as he was desirous of serving his country in the field, he printed a statement of his conduct and case, which he had withheld as long as any possible injury could be apprehended from its publication. This he sent to the Cortes; it was received as the merits of its author deserved; eulogiums never more justly merited were heard from all sides; the Cortes declared that the duke and his army had deserved well of their country, particularly for preserving the Isle of Leon and Cadiz, and they desired that the Regency would recall him from England that he might again be actively employed. In consequence of this, he was appointed to the command in Galicia. The Junta of Cadiz, however, acting as they had done in other cases, even of greater importance, in contempt of the Government, drew up a reply to his statement; it was addressed to the duke, and with insolence equal to their ingratitude, and falsehood if possible surpassing both, they called him, in direct terms, an impudent calumniator and an enemy to his country. Each of the members of this body signed it individually; it was printed as a hand-bill, and a copy of it was sent to London by some private hand, and reached Alburquerque through the twopenny post, that no possible mark of insult might be wanting to the transaction.
Alburquerque ought to have despised any attack from that quarter, and more especially one which, by its intemperance and scurrility, so plainly showed in what vile passions it had originated. But he wore his heart for daws to peck at, and his enemies knew but too well the infirmity of his nature. At first he endeavoured to repress or to conceal his feelings, and drew up a short and dignified representation to the Cortes; but this did not satisfy him; notwithstanding the earnest dissuasions of his friends, he determined upon replying to the Junta, and he devoted himself to this composition with an earnestness which made him forgetful both of food and of sleep. Three days were thus employed in a state of restless and feverish anxiety. The wound all this while was rankling, and the venom of the Junta did its work. On the fourth day a frenzy-fever seized him; he felt the approach of the disease, and was perfectly sensible of the cause, for having sent for D. J. M. Blanco White, he took from his pocket, as soon as he saw him, a strip of paper on which he had written, “_como calumniador y enemigo de la patria_,” ... the words which had stung him to the heart, ... and said, “When they ask why I have lost my senses, this paper will answer for me.” ... A dreadful scene ensued; fits of tears were followed by paroxysms of rage, and on the third day of his illness he expired: happily in the course of the disease the sense of his own wrongs, intolerable and fatal as it had proved, gave way to a deeper feeling: he forgot himself in thinking of his country: his repeated exclamations of vengeance upon Napoleon Buonaparte were so vehement and loud that they were distinctly heard by the passers in the street; and his last breath was spent in imprecations upon the tyrant whose wickedness had caused all the unutterable miseries of Spain. Every public honour which the British Government could bestow was paid to the remains of this illustrious man, and his body was deposited in that same vault in Henry VII.’s chapel wherein Marlborough’s had formerly been laid, till it could be sent home, to rest with his ancestors[21].