CHAPTER I.
TRANSACTIONS IN PORTUGAL.
When sir John Moore marched from Portugal, the regency, established by sir Hew Dalrymple, nominally governed that country; but the weak characters of the members, the listless habits engendered by the ancient system of misrule, the intrigues of the Oporto faction, and the general turbulence of the people soon produced an alarming state of anarchy. Private persons usurped the functions of government, justice was disregarded, insubordination and murder were hailed as indications of patriotism. War was the universal cry, but military preparations were wholly neglected; [Appendix, No. 3], section 1. for the nation, in its foolish pride, believed that the French had neither strength nor spirit for a second invasion.
In Lisbon there was a French faction. The merchants were apprehensive, the regency was unpopular, the public mind unsettled; and, in Oporto, the violence of both people and soldiers was such, that sir Harry Burrard sent two British regiments there, by sea, to preserve tranquillity; in fine, the seeds of disorder were widely cast and sprouting vigorously before the English cabinet thought fit to accredit a responsible diplomatist near the government, or to place a permanent chief at the head of the forces left by sir John Moore. The convention of Cintra was known in England in September. The regency was established and the frontier fortresses occupied by British troops in the same month; yet it was not until the middle of December that Mr. Villiers and sir John Cradock, charged with the conduct of the political and military proceedings in Portugal, reached Lisbon, and thus the important interval, between the departure of Junot and their arrival, was totally neglected by the English cabinet.
Sir Hew Dalrymple, who had nominated the regency; sir Arthur Wellesley, who, to local knowledge and powerful talents, added the influence of a victorious commander; Burrard, Spencer, were all removed from Portugal at the very moment when the presence of persons acquainted with the real state of affairs was essential to the well-being of the British interests in that country; and this error was the offspring of passion and incapacity; for, if the convention of Cintra had been rightly understood, the ministers, appreciating the advantages of that treaty, would have resisted the clamour of the moment, and the generals would not have been withdrawn from the public service abroad to meet unjust and groundless charges at home.
It may be disputed whether Portugal was the fittest theatre for the first operations of a British army; but, when that country was actually freed from the presence of an enemy; when the capital and the frontier fortresses were occupied by English troops; when sir John Moore leaving his hospitals, baggage, and magazines there, as in a place of arms, had marched to Spain, the question was no longer doubtful. The ancient relations between England and Portugal, the greatness of the port of Lisbon, the warlike disposition of the Portuguese, and, above all, the singularly-happy circumstance that there was neither court nor monarch to balance the English influence, and that even the nomination of the regency was the work of an English general, offered such great and obvious advantages as could no where else be obtained. It was a miserable policy that, neglecting such an occasion, retained sir Arthur Wellesley in England, while Portugal, like a drunken man, at once weak and turbulent, was reeling on the edge of a precipice.
The 5th of December sir John Cradock, being on his voyage to Lisbon, touched at Coruña. Fifteen hundred thousand dollars had just arrived there in the Lavinia frigate; but, sir John Moore’s intention to retreat upon Portugal being known, Cradock divided this sum, and carried away eight hundred thousand dollars, proposing to leave a portion at Oporto, and to take the remainder to Lisbon, that Moore might find, on whatever line he retreated, a supply of money.
From Coruña he proceeded to Oporto, and landed to gather information of the state of affairs. Here he found that sir Robert Wilson had succeeded in organizing, under the title of the Lusitanian Legion, about thirteen hundred men, and that others were [Appendix, No. 3], section 2. on their way to reinforce him; but, this excepted, nothing at Oporto, civil or military, bespoke either arrangement or common sense. The bishop, still intent upon acquiring supreme rule, was deeply engaged with secret intrigues, and, under him, a number of factious and designing persons instigated the populace to violent actions, with a view to profit from their excesses.
The formation of the Lusitanian Legion was originally a project of the chevalier da Souza, the Portuguese minister in London. Souza was one of the bishop’s faction, and the prelate calculated upon this force not so much to repel the enemy as to give weight to his own party against the government. The men were promised higher pay than any other Portuguese soldiers, to the great discontent of the latter, and they were clad in uniforms differing in colour from the national troops. The regency, who dreaded the machinations of the turbulent priest, entertained the utmost jealousy of the legion, which, in truth, was a most anomalous force, and, as might be expected from its peculiar constitution, was productive of much embarrassment.
Sir John Cradock left three hundred thousand dollars at Oporto, and having directed the two British battalions which were in that neighbourhood to march to Almeida, he took on board a small detachment of German troops, and set sail for Lisbon; but, before his departure, he strongly advised sir Robert Wilson to move such of his legionaries as were sufficiently organized to Villa Real, in Tras os Montes, a place appointed by the regency for the [Appendix, No. 6], section 1. assembly of the forces in the north. Sir Robert, tired of the folly and disgusted with the insolence and excesses of the ruling mob, readily adopted this advice, so far as to quit Oporto, but, having views of his own, took the direction of Almeida instead of Villa Real.
The state of the capital was little better than that of Oporto. There was arrangement neither for present nor for future defence, and the populace, [Appendix, No. 3], section 5. albeit less openly encouraged to commit excesses, were quite uncontrolled by the government. The regency had a keener dread of domestic insurrection than of the return of the French, whose operations they regarded with even less anxiety than the bishop did, as being further removed than he was from the immediate theatre of war. Their want of system and vigilance, evinced by the following fact, was truly surprising. Sattaro and another person, having contracted for the supply of the British troops, demanded, in the name of the English general, all the provisions in the public stores of Portugal, and then sold them to the English commissaries for his own profit.
Sir John Cradock’s instructions directed him to reinforce sir John Moore’s army, and, if the course of events should bring that general back to Portugal, he was not to be interfered with. In fact, Cradock’s operations were limited to the holding of Elvas, Almeida, and the capital; for, although he was directed to encourage the formation of a native army upon a good and regular system, and even to act in concert with it on the frontier, he was [Appendix, No. 4], section 1. debarred from political interference; and even his relative situation, as to rank, was left unsettled until the arrival of Mr. Villiers, to whose direction all political and many military arrangements were entrusted.
It is evident that the influence of a general thus fettered, and commanding only a small force, which was moreover much scattered, must be feeble and insufficient to produce any real amelioration in the military situation of the country. But the English ministers, attentive to the false information obtained from interested agents, still imagined that not only the Spanish, but the Portuguese armies were numerous, and to be relied upon; and they confidently expected, that the latter would be able to take an active part in the Spanish campaign.
Cradock, feeling the danger of this illusion, made it his first object to ascertain, and to transmit home, exact information of the real strength and efficiency of the native regular troops. They were nominally twenty thousand; but Miguel Percira Forjas, military secretary to the regency, and the ablest public man Portugal possessed, acknowledged that this force was a nullity, and that there were not more Cradock’s Correspondence, MSS. than ten thousand stand of serviceable arms in the kingdom, the greatest part of which were English. The troops themselves were undisciplined and unruly; and the militia and the “ordenanza,” or armed peasantry, animated rather by a spirit of outrage than of enthusiasm, evinced no disposition to submit to regulation, neither was there any branch of administration free from the grossest disorder.
The Spanish dollar had a general acceptance in Portugal. The regency, under the pretence that a debased foreign coin would drive the Portuguese coin out of circulation, deprived the dollar of its current value. This regulation, true in principle, and applicable, as far as the Portuguese gold coin (which is of peculiar fineness) was concerned, had, however, a most injurious effect. The Spanish dollar was in reality finer than the Portuguese silver cruzado-nova, and would finally have maintained its value, notwithstanding this decree. But a slur being thus thrown upon it by the government, the money changers contrived to run its value down for the moment, a matter of infinite importance; for the English soldiers and sailors being all paid in these dollars, at four shillings and sixpence, which was the true value, were thus suddenly mulcted four-pence in each, by the artificial depreciation of the moment. The men attributed this to fraud in the shopkeepers; the retail trade of Lisbon was interrupted, and quarrels between the tradesmen and the soldiers took place hourly.
To calm this effervescence, a second decree was promulgated, directing that the dollar should be received at the mint and in the public offices at its real value. It then appeared that the government could profit by coining the dollar of four shillings and sixpence into cruzado-novas, a circumstance which gave the whole affair the appearance of an unworthy trick to recruit the treasury. This happened in October; and as the financial affairs were ill managed, and the regency destitute of vigour or capacity, the taxes were unpaid, the hard cash exhausted, and the treasury paper at a heavy discount when Cradock arrived. Upon the scroll thus unfolded he could only read confusion, danger, and misfortune; for such being the fruits of victory, what could be expected from disaster; and at this period (the middle of December) sir John Moore was supposed to be in full retreat upon Portugal, followed by the emperor with one French army, while another threatened Lisbon by the line of the Tagus. The English troops in the kingdom did not amount to ten thousand men, including the sick, and they were ill equipped and scattered; moreover, the capital was crowded with women and children, with baggage and non-combatants, belonging as well to the army in Spain as to that in Portugal.
There were in the river three Portuguese ships of the line, two frigates, and eight other smaller vessels of war; but none were in a state for sea, and the whole likely to fall into the hands of the enemy: for in the midst of this confusion sir Charles Cotton was recalled, without a successor being appointed; and although the zeal and talents of captain Halket, the senior officer on the station, amply compensated for the departure of the admiral, as far as professional duties were concerned, he could not aid the general, nor deal with the regency as vigorously as an officer of higher rank, and formally accredited, could have done.
Sir John Cradock, although fully sensible of his own difficulties, with a very disinterested zeal, resolved to make the reinforcing of sir John Moore’s army his first care; but his force at this time was, as I have already said, less than ten thousand men of all arms. It consisted of eight British and four German battalions of infantry, four troops of dragoons, and thirty pieces of artillery, of which, however, only Sir J. Cradock’s Papers, MSS. six were horsed so as to take the field. There was, also, a battalion of the 60th regiment, but it was composed principally of Frenchmen, recruited from the prison ships, and had been sent back from Spain, as the soldiers could not be trusted near their countrymen.
Of these thirteen battalions two were in Abrantes, one in Elvas, three at Lamego on the Duero, one in Almeida, and the remaining six at Lisbon. Three of the four battalions in the north were immediately directed to join sir John Moore by the route of Salamanca; and of those in the south, two, accompanied by a demi-brigade of artillery, were sent to him from Abrantes, by the road of Castello Branco and Ciudad Rodrigo.
The 19th of December, Mr. Villiers having arrived, sir John Cradock forwarded to the regency a strong representation of the dangerous state of Portugal. He observed that there was neither activity in the government nor enthusiasm among the people; that the army, deficient in numbers, and still more so in discipline, was scattered and neglected; and, notwithstanding that the aspect of affairs was so threatening, the regency were apparently without any Sir J. Cradock’s Correspondence, MSS. system, or fixed principle of action. He proposed, therefore, that a general enrolment of all the people should take place; and from the British stores he offered a supply of a thousand muskets and ten thousand pikes. This giving of pikes to the people appears to have been in compliance with Mr. Villiers’ wishes, and betrayed more zeal than prudence; for certainly a general levy and arming with pikes of the turbulent populace of a capital city, at such a conjuncture, was more likely to lead to confusion and mischief than to any effectual defence. But the main objects pressing upon the general’s attention were sufficiently numerous and contradictory to render it difficult for him to avoid errors.
It was a part of his instructions, and of manifest importance, to send reinforcements to sir John Moore. But it was equally necessary to keep a force towards the frontier on the line of the Tagus, seeing that the fourth French corps had just passed [Appendix, No. 2], section 1. that river at Almaraz, had defeated Galluzzo’s army and menaced Badajos, which was without arms, ammunition, or provisions; and, moreover, the populace there were in commotion, and slaying the chief persons. Now, sir John Cradock’s instructions directed him to keep his troops in a position that would enable him to abandon Portugal, if a very superior force should press him; but as, in such a case, he was to carry off not only the British army, but the Portuguese navy and stores, to destroy what he could not remove, and to receive on board his [Appendix, No. 4], section 1. ships all the natives who might be desirous of escaping, it was of pressing necessity to ship the women, children, and baggage, in fine, all the encumbrances belonging to Moore’s army, immediately, that his own rear might be clear for a sudden embarkation. In short, he was to send his troops to Spain, and yet defend Portugal; to excite confidence in the Portuguese, and yet openly to carry on the preparations for abandoning that country.
The populace of Lisbon were, however, already uneasy at the rumours of an embarkation, and it was doubtful if they would permit even the British non-combatants to get on board quietly, much less suffer the forts to be dismantled, and the ships of war to be carried off, without a tumult, which, at such a conjuncture, would have been fatal to all parties. Hence it was imperative to maintain a strong garrison in Lisbon and in the forts commanding the mouth of the river; and this draft, together with the troops absorbed by the fortresses of Almeida and Elvas, reduced the fighting men in the field to insignificance.
The regency, knowing the temper of the people and fearing to arm them, were not very eager to enforce the levy; yet, anxious to hide their weakness, they promised, at the urgent solicitations of the English general, to send six thousand troops to Alcantara, on the Spanish frontier, with a view to observe the march of the fourth corps,—a promise which they never intended, and indeed were unable, to perform. Forjas, who was supposed to be very inimical to the British influence, frankly declared Sir J. Cradock’s Correspondence, MSS. that they neither could nor would move without an advance of money, and sir John Cradock, although he recommended that this aid should be given, had no power to grant it himself.
Letters from sir John Moore, dated at Salamanca, now reached Lisbon: they increased the anxiety to reinforce the army in Spain; but, as they clearly showed that reverses were to be expected, Cradock, although resolved to maintain himself in Portugal as long as it was possible to do so without a breach of his instructions, felt more strongly that timely preparation for an embarkation should be made, especially as the rainy season, in which south-west winds prevail, had set in, and rendered the departure of vessels from the Tagus very uncertain. Meanwhile the internal state of Portugal was in no wise amended, or likely to amend.
The government had, indeed, issued a decree, on the 23d of December, for organizing the population of Lisbon in sixteen legions, but only one battalion each was to parade at the same moment for exercise, and those only on Sundays, nor were the legions, at any time, to assemble without the order of the general commanding the province; and this regulation, which rendered the whole measure absurd, was dictated by the fears of the regency.
A proposal to prepare the Portuguese vessels for sea was acceded to, without any apparent dissatisfaction; but the government, secretly jealous of their allies, fomented or encouraged discontent and suspicion among the people. No efforts were made to improve the regular force, none to forward the march of troops to Alcantara; and so inactive or so callous were the regency to the rights of humanity, that a number of French prisoners, captured [Appendix, No. 3], section 4. at various periods by the Portuguese, and accumulated at Lisbon, were denied subsistence. Sir John Cradock, after many fruitless representations, was forced to charge himself with their supply, to avert the horrors of seeing them starved to death. The [Appendix, No. 3], section 5. provisions necessary for Fort La Lippe were also withheld, and general Leite, acting upon the authority of the regency, strenuously urged that the British troops should evacuate that fortress.
The march of the reinforcements for sir John Moore left only three hundred dragoons and seven battalions available for the defence of Portugal, of which four were necessarily in garrison, and the remainder were unable to take the field, in default of mules, of which animal the country seemed bereft; yet, at this moment, as if in derision, Mr. Frere, the central junta, the junta of Badajos, and the regency of Portugal, were, with common and Sir J. Cradock’s Correspondence, MSS. characteristic foolishness, pressing sir John Cradock to march into the south of Spain, although there was scarcely a Spanish soldier there in arms to assist him; and such a movement, if it had been either prudent or practicable, was directly against his instructions.
Towards the end of December, the communication with sir John Moore was suddenly interrupted, and the line of the Tagus acquired greater importance. The troops going from Elvas to the army in Spain were, therefore, directed to halt at Castello Branco, and general Richard Stewart, who commanded them, being reinforced with two hundred cavalry, was ordered, for the moment, to watch the Sir J. Cradock’s Correspondence, MSS. roads by Salvatierra and the two Idanhas, and to protect the flying bridges at Abrantes and Vilha Velha from the enemy’s incursions. At the same time, a promise was obtained from the regency that all the Portuguese troops in the Alemtejo should be collected, at Campo Mayor and Portalegre.
Sir John Cradock fixed upon Sacavem as the position in which his main body should be concentrated, intending to defend that point as long as he could with so few troops; and, as he knew that Almeida, although full of British stores, and important in every way, was, with respect to its own defence, utterly neglected by the regency, and that even the presence of a British force there was viewed with jealousy, he sent brigadier-general A. Cameron, with instructions to collect the convalescents of Moore’s army, to unite them with the two battalions still at Almeida, and then to make his way to the army in Spain; but if the attempt should be judged too dangerous, Cameron was to return to Lisbon. In either case, the stores and the sick men lying at Almeida were to be directed upon Oporto.
The paucity of cavalry was severely felt on the frontier. It prevented the general from ascertaining the real strength and objects of the enemy’s parties, and the Portuguese reports were notoriously contradictory and false. The 14th dragoons, seven hundred strong, commanded by major-general Cotton, had been disembarked since the 22d of December, Sir J. Cradock’s Correspondence, MSS. and were destined for the army in Spain; but such was the penury of the country, or the difficulty of drawing forth its resources, that the commissary-general doubted if he could forward that small body, even by detachments. Nor is this surprising, for many of the debts left by Moore’s army were yet unpaid, and sufficient confidence was not established among the peasantry to induce them to bring forward the necessary supplies upon credit.
Rumours of reverses in Spain were now rife, and acquired importance, when it became known that four thousand infantry, and two thousand cavalry, the advanced guard of thirty thousand French troops, were actually at Merida, on the road to Badajos, which town, as I have already said, was not only in a state of anarchy, but destitute of provisions, arms, and ammunition. If, at this time, the Portuguese force had been assembled at Alcantara, sir John Cradock would have supported them with the British brigades, at Abrantes and Castello Branco; but not a man had been put in motion, and he, feeling no confidence either in the troops or in the promises of the regency, resolved to concentrate his own army near Lisbon. General Stewart was, therefore, directed to destroy the bridges of Vilha Velha and Abrantes, and to fall back to Sacavem.
Meanwhile, the Lisbon populace, supposing that the English general designed to abandon them without necessity, were violently excited. The regency, either from fear or folly, made no effort to preserve tranquillity, and the people, feeling their own strength, proceeded from one excess to another, until it become evident that, in a forced embarkation, the British would have to fight their allies as well as their enemies. At this gloomy period when ten marches would have brought the French to Lisbon, when a stamp of Napoleon’s foot would have extinguished that spark of war which afterwards blazed over the Peninsula, sir John Moore made his daring movement upon Sahagun; and Portugal, gasping as in a mortal agony, was instantly relieved.