is placed at the end of the paragraph that includes its anchor. * In p. 53, the anchor placement for footnote 54 is conjectured. None found in the printed original. [Illustration: CARLOS IIII. _REY DE ESPAÑA._] A HISTORY OF THE PENINSULAR WAR BY CHARLES OMAN, M.A. FELLOW OF ALL SOULS COLLEGE AND DEPUTY-PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY (CHICHELE) IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD VOL. I 1807-1809 FROM THE TREATY OF FONTAINEBLEAU TO THE BATTLE OF CORUNNA WITH MAPS, PLANS AND PORTRAITS [Illustration] OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 1902 HENRY FROWDE, M.A. PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD LONDON, EDINBURGH NEW YORK PREFACE It is many years since an attempt has been made in England to deal with the general history of the Peninsular War. Several interesting and valuable diaries or memoirs of officers who took part in the great struggle have been published of late[1], but no writer of the present generation has dared to grapple with the details of the whole of the seven years of campaigning that lie between the _Dos Mayo_ and Toulouse. Napier’s splendid work has held the field for sixty years. Meanwhile an enormous bulk of valuable material has been accumulating in English, French, and Spanish, which has practically remained unutilized. Papers, public and private, are accessible whose existence was not suspected in the ’thirties; an infinite number of autobiographies and reminiscences which have seen the light after fifty or sixty years of repose in some forgotten drawer, have served to fill up many gaps in our knowledge. At least one formal history of the first importance, that of General Arteche y Moro, has been published. I fancy that its eleven volumes are practically unknown in England, yet it is almost as valuable as Toreño’s _Guerra de la Independencia_ in enabling us to understand the purely Spanish side of the war. [1] I need only mention the diaries of Sir Harry Smith, Blakeney, Shaw, and Tomkinson on our side, and Foy’s private diary and the Memoirs of Fantin des Odoards, St. Chamans, and Thiébault on the French. I trust therefore that it will not be considered presumptuous for one who has been working for some ten or fifteen years at the original sources to endeavour to summarize in print the results of his investigations; for I believe that even the reader who has already devoted a good deal of attention to the Peninsular War will find a considerable amount of new matter in these pages. My resolve to take in hand a general history of the struggle was largely influenced by the passing into the hands of All Souls College of the papers of one of its most distinguished fellows, the diplomatist Sir Charles Vaughan. Not only had Vaughan unique opportunities for observing the early years of the Peninsular War, but he turned them to the best account, and placed all his observations on record. I suppose that there was seldom a man who had a greater love for collecting and filing information. His papers contain not only his own diaries and correspondence, but an infinite number of notes made for him by Spanish friends on points which he desired to master, and a vast bulk of pamphlets, proclamations, newspapers, and tables of statistics, carefully bound together in bundles, which (as far as I can see) have not been opened between the day of his death and that on which they passed, by a legacy from his last surviving relative, into the possession of his old college. Vaughan landed at Corunna in September, 1808, in company with Charles Stuart, the first English emissary to the Central...