Manuel Alberto Freire de Andrade y Armijo (4 November 1767 – 7 March 1835) was a Spanish cavalry officer and general officer during the Peninsular War, and later Defense Minister. Freire (a/k/a Freyre) was born in Carmona (Seville) to a Spanish cavalry officer from Galicia, Francisco Freire de Andrade, and his wife Josefa Armijo y Bravo (from Carmona). He joined his father's Alcántara cavalry regiment as a minor cadet when just seven years old, and on 1 January 1780 became an ordinary cadet. He participated in his first battle on 15 May 1793, against revolutionary French forces during the opening of the Battle of Mas Deu, part of the War of the Pyrenees. Freire spent the next two years in Rousillon and Catalonia, including that war's last actions during which Spanish forces recaptured Puig