I Have Just Arrived At Santander On
My Way To Madrid, Where I Intend To Ask Of The Government A
Command, With Twenty Thousand Men."
Poor Flinter!
A braver heart and a move gasconading mouth were
surely never united in the same body. He proceeded to Madrid, and
through the influence of the British ambassador, who was his
friend, he obtained the command of a small division, with which he
contrived to surprise and defeat, in the neighbourhood of Toledo, a
body of the Carlists, commanded by Orejita, whose numbers more than
trebled his own. In reward for this exploit he was persecuted by
the government, which, at that time, was the moderado or juste
milieu, with the most relentless animosity; the prime minister,
Ofalia, supporting with all his influence numerous and ridiculous
accusations of plunder and robbery brought against the too-
successful general by the Carlist canons of Toledo. He was
likewise charged with a dereliction of duty, in having permitted,
after the battle of Valdepenas, which he likewise won in the most
gallant manner, the Carlist force to take possession of the mines
of Almaden, although the government, who were bent on his ruin, had
done all in their power to prevent him from following up his
successes by denying him the slightest supplies and reinforcements.
The fruits of victory thus wrested from him, his hopes blighted, a
morbid melancholy seized upon the Irishman; he resigned his
command, and in less than ten months from the period when I saw him
at Santander, afforded his dastardly and malignant enemies a
triumph which satisfied even them, by cutting his own throat with a
razor.
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