6. Tales of Secret Service (4)
The Capture of the Baron's Companion
The scruples of Mr. Canning as to transmitting correspondence to Mexico, or allowing secret agents to go thither, were most exasperating to Guttierez, since they stood in the way of the completion of one half of his task. But it is probable that he succeeded in transmitting some of Canning’s confidences to Paris, through obscure French secret agents in London, who were certainly in existence, just as obscure English secret agents were to be found in Paris, as one of the later stories in this volume shows. But information of this kind was not so valuable in September or October as it would have been in July or August, since Great Britain had shown her hand, and was giving every form of support to insurgent Spain.
The Baron began to get restive when the weeks slipped away, and he was told to await a Spanish ambassador, and submit his documents for approval before they could cross the Atlantic. Considering what the documents were, to the best of our knowledge, it was not at all to his interest that they should be scrutinized by patriotic Spanish eyes.
When Admiral Apodaca received his letter of appointment as Minister Plenipotentiary in mid-October, Canning began to press the Baron to get things settled with him. But the adventurer could not, and would not, show the Admiral the contents of his sealed dispatch box, being, as he insisted, the King’s personal representative, and independent of any obligations to the new Spanish Government. Whereupon Apodaca gave him a passport for Spain, insisting that he should go to Aranjuez and make matters straight with the Central Junta. And Canning, agreeing with the Admiral, pressed him to depart at once, gave him £200 for expenses, and on November 20th shipped him and his party on the brigantine Primrose, bound for Corunna.
Now the Baron did not at all want to go to Corunna, still less to show his supposed documents to the Supreme Central Junta. The Primrose being wind-bound in Portland Bay for six days after its start, he and his younger companion made excuses for going ashore at Weymouth, and could not be found when the wind shifted and the vessel sailed off. His other companion, the so-called cousin, remained on board—apparently charged with some separate mission.
We may as well finish with him at once. He landed at Corunna on December 10th, and evidently did not want to be identified there, for within half an hour of his arrival he had procured a post-chaise and horses, and was pushing on for Castile—where the French were now advancing, for Blake had lost the Battle of Espinosa on November 11th. Soult was pushing forward, and Napoleon had just occupied Madrid on December 2nd. At Villafranca, on the borders of Galicia and Leon, José Guttierez was arrested as a suspicious person and sent back to Corunna, where on being examined by the local police he was recognized (December 18, 1808) as a person who had been seen with the French army four months back, and as being the brother of Luis Guttierez, whom several witnesses remembered as a French agent at Bayonne. When he protested that he was attached to the mission of the Baron de Agra, and was well known to the British Foreign Office, the Corunna magistrates referred his claim to General Broderick, British liaison officer with the Galician Junta, who wrote to Whitehall to warn Canning of the doubtful record of this prisoner. It was also suggested that the whole character of the Baron’s mission had better be looked into.
Meanwhile José remained in prison at Corunna, and was still there when Moore’s army retreated on to that fortress, and fought its last battle on the hills outside (January 16th). Corunna surrendered after the embarkation of the British, and the younger Guttierez must have been one of the several hundred prisoners, French and Francophil, whom Soult is recorded to have delivered from the dungeons of its citadel. We know nothing more of his fate. Probably he found employment in King Joseph’s service, as did so many other scores of Afrancesados.
His companions were less fortunate. The Baron and the soi-disant son of the Marquis returned to London from Weymouth, to the surprise and vexation of Mr. Canning, who had supposed them well on the way to Spain. Writing to the Minister at great length, Guttierez proceeded to assure him that, by the last news, the cause of the insurrectionary Government in Spain was lost. Some of its members had notoriously sold themselves to Bonaparte; in a few weeks the French would be in possession of the whole country. The only reasonable thing was to proceed with the plan of saving the colonies, for Spain was lost. The future of Spanish America was in the hands of Great Britain at the moment. Let the King’s dispatches be sent off without a day’s further delay. As to going to Spain to confer with the Central Junta, it was useless. If told to carry out the dictated arrangements, he would prefer to throw up the whole matter and retire into private life.
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