José Pascual de Zayas Biography

José Pascual de Zayas

(José Pascual de Zayas y Chacón; Havana, 1772-Chiclana, Cádiz, 1827) Spanish military.Belonging to a distinguished and wealthy family established in Cuba, he was sent to Spain in 1789 and was a cadet in the Asturias Infantry Regiment.After serving in various garrisons and just left as a second lieutenant, he had to live in Ceuta the terrible earthquake of October 9, 1790, from which he miraculously survived (he was taken out of the rubble in which his colonel, with whom he lived) perished.

José Pascual de Zayas

He participated in the war against the French Republic (1793), in which he obtained the rank of lieutenant.After signing the peace, he was assigned with his company to the care of one of the ships that brought flows from Veracruz to Cádiz, and after one of those trips he took an active part in the battle of La Coruña against the English, under the orders of General Conde del Donadío (August 26, 1800), in which he was wounded and promoted to captain.

Lieutenant General Gonzalo O'Farrill appointed him his assistant when, in 1805, he went with a division to establish in Tuscany the new king of Etruria; and after two years in Florence, Zayas was promoted to sergeant major.At the end of 1807 he returned to Spain and became a commander in the Princess Regiment.In April 1808, the Supreme Board of Madrid secretly commissioned him to go to Bayonne, together with Evaristo Pérez de Castro, to inform the king of the true state of things, but the trip was totally useless.Back in Spain, he went to Valladolid to place himself under the command of Lieutenant General Gregorio de la Cuesta, who promoted him to Colonel of Infantry and commissioned him to organize one of the regiments that were being improvised at the time.

After a series of setbacks, he went with Cuesta to Extremadura, where in January 1809 he fought commanding an infantry brigade, which earned him promotion to brigadier by the Central Board, first, and, after the battle of Albuera (May 16, 1811), to field marshal.He was appointed assistant to the governor of Seville, by decision of the interim Junta, after the disturbances of January 24, 1810.Then he settled with his troops in Cádiz and Ronda and, under Blake's orders in Murcia and Valencia, until conquering Cuenca on November 28, 1811.Cornered by the French army in Valencia, he was forced to capitulate on January 9, 1812, and was later taken to the Vincennes castle, near Paris.

Although he It says that he became a Mason in the lodge of Montpellier or Marseille, when he was released in 1814 he went to Valençay, and accompanied Ferdinand VII on his return to Spain; in fact, he was the first commissioner that the monarch dispatched to express his will to the Courts of the Kingdom, already meeting in Madrid.Soon he was promoted to lieutenant general (1814), and also received the great cross of San Fernando (1815), remaining as a barracks in the capital.

In 1815 he refused the viceroyalty of Peru and was appointed second corporal of Castile the New (1817-1819).When the Constitution was proclaimed again in 1820, he was the first general to be appointed by the king as his aide de camp.He was a deputy to the Cortes for Havana between 1820 and 1822 and a member of the permanent Council of the Cortes in 1821.On July 7, 1822 he was in charge of defending the palace and prevented the rebels from communicating with the monarch.Captain general of Madrid in March 1823, he was in charge of dispersing the factional forces of Bessières.Made the formal delivery to the Duke of Angouleme, he went with his column towards Andalusia and, after the capitulation of Cádiz, requested and obtained his headquarters for Chiclana.

Absolutism re-installed, the Superior Board of Purifications stripped him of employment, salary and decorations, among which were the band of San Fernando, that of Carlos III and the First laureate cross of San Fernando of the 3rd class.He spent his last days suffering from gout, and at the expense of his sister and his close friends Andrés Arango and General José Mª Cadasal.Days before he died, but without ever having official notice of it, his jobs and honors had been restored to him.