THREE:The news of Wellington's defeat of Marmont, and his occupation of the capital, caused Soult to call Victor from the blockade of Cadiz; and uniting his forces, he retired into Granada. The French, after destroying their works,the creation of so much toil and expenditure,retreated with such precipitation from before Cadiz that they left behind a vast quantity of their stores, several hundred pieces of ordnancesome of which, of extraordinary length, had been cast for this very siegeand thirty gunboats. They were not allowed to retire unmolested. The British and Spanish troops pursued them from Tarifa, harassed them on the march, drove them out of San Lucar, and carried Seville by storm, notwithstanding eight battalions being still there to defend it. The peasantry rushed out from woods and mountains to attack the rear of Soult on his march by Carmona to Granada, and the sufferings of his soldiers were most severe from excessive fatigue, heat, want of food, and these perpetual attacks. General Hill meanwhile advanced from the Guadiana against King Joseph, who fell back to Toledo, hoping to keep up a communication with Soult and Suchet, the latter of whom lay on the borders of Valencia and Catalonia. But General Hill soon compelled him to retreat from Toledo, and the British general then occupied that city, Ypez, and Aranjuez, thus placing himself in connection with Lord Wellington, and cutting off the French in the south from all approach to Madrid.But, on the 6th of May, a blow fell on Nuncomar from an unexpected quarter. He was arrested and thrown into prison at the suit of a merchant named Mohun Persaud. The charge was, that he had forged a bond five years before. He had been brought to trial for this before the Mayor's Court at Calcuttathe Supreme Court not then being in existence. On this occasion, being in favour with Hastings, he had procured his release; but now, the merchant seeing that Hastings' favour was withdrawn, and that, therefore, he might have a better chance against him, the charge was renewed. Hastings, on the trial, declared before the Supreme Court that neither directly nor indirectly had he promoted the prosecution. The opposition members were highly incensed at this proceeding. Three days after Nuncomar's committal they realised their threat of dismissing the Munny Begum, and appointed Goordas, the son of Nuncomar, to her office. They sent encouraging messages to Nuncomar in his prison, and made violent protests to the judges against the prosecution. Their efforts were useless. The trial came on in due course. One of the judges, Sir Robert Chambers, had endeavoured to have Nuncomar tried on an earlier statute, which included no capital punishment, for forgery was no capital crime by the native laws. But Sir Elijah Impey and the other judges replied that the new Act compelled them to try him on the capital plea, and he had been, on this ground, refused bail. Nuncomar knew nothing of our estimate of forgery, and he could not comprehend how a man of his rank, and a Brahmin of high dignity, should be tried for his life on such a charge. But he was found guilty, and condemned to be hanged. Strong efforts were then made to have him respited till the judgment of the Court of Directors could be taken on the question, but Impey and the other judges declared that it could not be done unless they could assign some sufficient reasons, and they contended that there were no such reasons. Yet the new Acts expressly gave them this power, and, what made it more desirable, was that no native of any rank had been tried by the Supreme Court and the British law, and only one native had ever been capitally convicted for forgery in any of our Indian courts. Moreover, the indignity of hanging a high-caste Brahmin was so outraging to the native feeling that it was deemed most impolitic to perpetrate such an act. All was pleaded in vain; on the 5th of August, 1775, Nuncomar was brought out and publicly hanged, amid the terrified shrieks and yells of the native population, who fled at the sight, and many of them rushed into the sacred Ganges to purify them from the pollution of ever witnessing such a scene. The death of Nuncomar put an end to all hope of procuring any further native evidence against Hastings. The natives were so terrified at this new kind of execution, that nothing could convince them but that, in spite of the opposition of his colleagues, Hastings was all powerful.
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THREE:The Ministry had, as a matter of course, been much weakened by the retirement of Lord Grey; but, having got through the Session, it might have survived to the next meeting of Parliament but for the death of Earl Spencer, which occurred on the 10th of Novemberan event which removed Lord Althorp to the House of Peers. It was supposed that this would lead only to a fresh modification of the Cabinet, by a redistribution of places. For example, Lord John Russell was to succeed Lord Althorp as the leader of the House of Commons. Lord Melbourne's Administration seemed to be quietly acquiesced in, as sufficient for a time; the nation evidently assuming that, in any case, a Liberal Government was the necessary consequence of a reformed Parliament. The public were therefore startled when it was announced on the 15th that the king had dismissed his Ministers. It appeared that Lord Melbourne had waited upon his Majesty at Brighton, on the 14th, to take his commands as to the new arrangements he was about to make. But the king said he considered that Government dissolved by the removal of Lord Althorp; that he did not approve of the intended construction of the Cabinet; that Lord John Russell would make "a wretched figure" as leader of the House, and that Abercromby and Spring-Rice were worse than Russell; that he[378] did not approve of their intended measure with regard to the Irish Church; and concluded by informing Lord Melbourne that he would not impose upon him the task of completing the Ministerial arrangements, but would send for the Duke of Wellington.
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THREE:As usual, a great cry was raised at the retreat of Wellington. The Spaniards would have had him stand and do battle for them, as foolishly as their own generals did, who, never calculating the fitting time and circumstances, were always being beaten. Amongst the first and loudest to abuse him was Ballasteros, the man who, by his spiteful disregard of orders, had been the chief cause of the necessity to retreat. But it was not the Spaniards only, but many people in England, especially of the Opposition, who raised this ungenerous cry. Wellington alluded to these censures with his wonted calmness in his dispatches. "I am much afraid," he said, "from what I see in the newspapers, that the public will be much disappointed at the result of the campaign, notwithstanding that it is, in fact, the most successful campaign in all its circumstances, and has produced for the common cause more important results than any campaign in which the British army has been engaged for the last century. We have taken by siege Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz, and Salamanca, and the Retiro has surrendered. In the meantime the allies have taken Astorga, Consuegra, and Guadalaxara, besides other places. In the ten months elapsed since January, this army has sent to England little short of twenty thousand prisoners; and they have taken and destroyed, or have themselves retained the use of, the enemy's arsenals in Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz, Salamanca, Valladolid, Madrid, Astorga, Seville, the lines before Cadiz, etc.; and, upon the whole, we have taken and destroyed, or we now possess, little short of three thousand pieces of cannon. The siege of Cadiz has been raised, and all the country south of the Tagus has been cleared of the enemy. We should have retained greater advantages, I think, and should have remained in possession of Castile and Madrid during the winter, if I could have taken Burgos, as I ought, early in October, or if Ballasteros had moved upon Alcaraz, as he was ordered, instead of intriguing for his own aggrandisement."
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