[Illustration: Sir Harry Smith and the Spanish Patriot
That there was considerable cause for complaint on the part of the Spaniards is also borne out by other eye-witnesses. Napier records that a captain and his company came across a peasant’s hut and demanded provisions, as was their wont. The father explained that his children were half-starving, and he had but little food left. He was told that he would be hanged to a beam. Should he give a sign that he repented of his decision he would be cut down, but not otherwise. He was strung up without further ado. Then the cries of his wife and children overcame his noble act of self-sacrifice, and he was released. The soldiers then took every scrap of food in the miserable dwelling and departed. A similar method was adopted by a second body of plunderers, and when they could find nothing they spitefully killed the poor fellow, doubtless on the charge that he was hiding his stock.
Robert Blakeney, in noticing that most writers have referred to the Spanish army as “ragged, half-famished wretches,” cautions us that the men themselves must not be blamed for their unkempt appearance. “The scandal and disgrace,” he writes, “were the legitimate attributes of the Spanish Government. The members of the Cortez and Juntas were entirely occupied in peculation, amassing wealth for themselves and appointing their relatives and dependents to all places of power and emolument, however unworthy and unqualified; and although it was notorious that shiploads of arms, equipments, clothing, and millions of dollars were sent from England for the use and maintenance of the Spanish troops, yet all was appropriated to themselves by the members of the general or local governments or their rapacious satellites, while their armies were left barefoot, ragged and half-starved. In this deplorable state they were brought into the field under leaders, many of whom were scarcely competent to command a sergeant’s outlying piquet; for in the Spanish army, as elsewhere, such was the undue influence of a jealous and covetous aristocracy, that, unsupported by their influence, personal gallantry and distinction, however conspicuous, were but rarely rewarded.”[40] The same officer, who joined the 28th Regiment as a boy of fifteen and saw much service in the Peninsular War, assures us that “Courage was never wanting to the Spanish soldiers; but confidence in their chiefs was rare.”[41]