comparatively innocent Frenchmen was shed, and the base governor and
magistrates of Madrid allowed Murat to make his own terms, which were
nothing less, in fact, than the dispersion of the troops, who were
ordered to clear out of their barracks, and hand them over to the
French. The two artillery officers, Daoiz and Valarde, with one infantry
officer named Ruiz, and a few of the populace, refused, and, all
unaided, attempted to hold the barracks of Monteleon against the French
army of invasion! The end was certain; but little recked these Spaniards
of the old type. Daoiz and Valarde were killed, the former murdered by
French bayonets after being wounded, on the cannon by which they had
stood alone against the whole power of the French troops; Ruiz also was
shot. On the following day, Murat led out some scores of the patriots
who had dared to oppose him, and shot them on the spot of the Prado now
sacred to their memory. Thus was the torch of the Peninsular War
lighted. As one man the nation rose; the labourer armed himself with his
agricultural implements, the workman with his tools; without leaders,
nay, in defiance of those who should have led them, the people sprang to
action, and, with England's help, the usurper was driven from the throne
of France, and finally caged in St. Helena. But it is never forgotten
that Spain--these two or three sons of hers preferring honour to
life--has the glory of having been the first to oppose and check the
man and the nation that aspired to tyrannise over Europe.

It is not too much to say that the conduct of every individual in
Cervera's fleet at Santiago de Cuba showed that the Spaniard's
magnificent courage, his absolute devotion to duty, and his disregard of
death are no whit less to-day than when those two thousand naked men
stood in the breach to be slain in the name of their country's honour.
The _Oquendo_, already a wreck, coming quietly out of her safe moorings
in obedience to the insane orders of the Government in Madrid, steering