CHAPTER IV.
POLITICAL STATE OF PORTUGAL.
The power and crafty projects of the Souzas,1811. their influence over their weak-minded prince, their cabal to place the duke of Brunswick at the head of the Portuguese army, the personal violence of the patriarch, the resignation of Das Minas, and the disputes with lord Wellington, have beenVol. III. already touched upon; but the extent of the difficulties engendered by those things, cannot be understood without a more detailed exposition.
Mr. Villiers’s mission, like all those emanating from Mr. Canning, had been expensive in style, tainted by intrigues, useless in business, and productive of disorders. When Mr. Stuart arrived, he found every thing, except the army underFeb. 1810. Beresford, in a state of disorganization; and the influence of England was decreasing, because of the vacillating system hitherto pursued by the British government. As early as 1808 lord Wellington had advised the ministers not only to adopt Portugal as the base of operations in the Peninsula, but to assume in reality the whole administration of that country; to draw forth all its resources, both of men and money, and to make up any deficiency, by the power of England. This advice had been neglected, and an entirely different policy pursued, which, in execution, was also feeble and uncertain.
The Portuguese constitution, like most of those1811. springing from the feudal system, was excellent in theory, as far as regarded the defence of the kingdom: but it was overwhelmed with abuses in practice; and it was a favourite maxim with the authorities that it did not become a paternal government to punish neglect in the subordinates. When court intrigues were to be effected, or poor men to be oppressed, there was no want of vigour or of severity; but in all that regarded the administration of affairs, it was considered sufficient to give orders without looking to their execution, and no animadversion, much less punishment, followed disobedience. The character of the government was extreme weakness; the taxes, partially levied, produced only half their just amount; the payments from the treasury were in arrears; the army was neglected in all things dependent on the civil administration, and a bad navy was kept up, at an expense of a quarter of a million, to meet a war with Algiers. This last question was, however, a knife with a double edge, for in peace, a tribute paid in coin, drained the treasury already too empty, and in war the fleet did nothing; meanwhile the feeding of Cadiz was rendered precarious by it; and of Lisbon also, for the whole produce of Portugal was only equal to four months’ consumption. In commercial affairs, the usual peninsular jealousy was displayed; the imports of British goods were prohibited to the advantage of smugglers only, while the government which thus neglected its own resources to the injury of both countries, clamoured for subsidies. Finally, the power of the Souzas was so great, and the regency was so entirely subservient to them, that although Mr. Stuart had been assured by Mr. Canning, that a note forbidding Domingo Souza to meddle with affairs at Lisbon, had been procured from the Brazils, all representations, to the regency, were met by references to that nobleman, who was in London, and the business of the mission was thus paralysed.
In March 1809 the British government had taken ten thousand Portuguese troops into pay. In May they were increased to twenty thousand, and in June to thirty thousand. The cost of these forces, and the increased pay to Portuguese officers, added to the subsidy, amounted to two millions sterling; but this subsidy partly from negligence, partly from the exhaustion of England in consequence of Mr. Canning’s prodigal donations to Spain, was in arrears. However, as this mode of proceeding was perfectly in unison with their own method, the regency did not much regard it, but they were eager to obtain a loan from England, in the disposal of which they would have been quite uncontrolled, and for this very reason lord Wellington strenuously opposed it. In revenge, the regency, by a wilful misunderstanding of the debates of parliament, and by the distortion of facts, endeavoured to throw a doubt upon the sincerity of England, and this, with the encouragement given to all Portuguese malcontents by the Whigs, whose clamour, just, as applied to the ministers, was unjustly extended to the generals, greatly increased the disorder of the times.
In this state of affairs Mr. Canning being happily removed from office, lord Wellesley, who succeeded him, changed the instructions of the diplomatic agents in the Peninsula. They were now directed to make conditions with respect to the succours, and in Portugal they were vigorously to interfere in all civil changes, augmentations of revenue, and military resources; and even to demand monthly reports of the condition of the army, and the expenditure of the subsidy. Lord Wellesley also, thinking that the example of a cortes in Spain, might create a desire for a more temperate government in Portugal, was prepared to forward such a change, provided old forms were preserved, and that all appeared to flow from the prince regent, whose consent he undertook to secure. Resistance to the enemy, he said, would be in proportion to the attachment of the people, and hence it was advisable to make timely concessions, giving however no more than was absolutely necessary.
The regency were strongly opposed to this notion of a cortes, and Mr. Stuart and lord Wellington affirmed, and truly, that the docility of the people, and their hatred of the French, were motives powerful enough, without any other stimulus, to urge them to action. Thus the project fell to the ground, and the time was perhaps inconvenient to effect a revolution of this nature, which the people themselves certainly did not contemplate, and which, as Spain had shewn, was not a certain help to the war. Lord Wellington, who only considered what would conduce to the success of the war, was therefore consistent upon this occasion, but it is curious to observe the course of the English cabinet. The enforcement in France of a military conscription, authorized by the laws, was an unheard-of oppression on the part of Napoleon; but in Portugal a conscription, enforced by foreigners, was a wise and vigorous measure; and lord Wellesley admitting that the Portuguese government had been harsh and oppressive, as well as weak and capricious, was content to withhold a better system from the people, expressly because they loved their country and were obedient subjects; for he would have readily granted it to them if they had been unruly and of doubtful patriotism.
Mr. Stuart in concert with lord Wellington diligently endeavoured to remedy the evils of the hour, but whenever he complained of any particular disorder, he was, by the regency, offered arbitrary power to punish, which being only an expedient to render the British odious to the people, he refused. The intrigues of the Fidalgos then became apparent, and the first regency was broken up in 1810. The marquis of Das Minas retired from it under the pretext of ill health, but really because he found himself too weak to support Mr. De Mello, a Fidalgo officer, who was thrust forward to oppose the legal authority of marshal Beresford. Mr. Cypriano Freire was then made minister of finance, and of foreign affairs, and Mr. Forjas secretary-at-war, with a vote in the regency on matters of war. But the former soon after Mr. Stuart’s arrival resigned his situation in consequence of some disgust, and the Conde Redondo, having undertaken the office, commenced, with the advice of Mr. Stuart, a better arrangement of the taxes, especially the “decima” or income tax, which was neither impartially nor strictly enforced on the rich towns, nor on the powerful people of the Fidalgo faction. The clergy also evaded the imposts, and the British merchants, although profiting enormously from the war, sought exemption under the factory privileges, not only from the taxes, which in certain cases they could legally do, but from the billets, and from those recruiting laws affecting their servants, which they could not justly demand, and which all other classes in the community were liable to.
The working of the Souzas, in the Brazils, where the minister of finance wished to have the regulation of the Portuguese treasury under his control, soon changed this arrangement. Freire’s resignation was not accepted, Redondo was excluded from the government, and Forjas, who was the most efficient member of the government, was deprived of his functions. The remaining members then proposed to fill up Das Minas’ vacancy themselves, but this was resisted by lord Wellington, on the ground, that, without the prince’s order, the proceeding would be illegal, and involve the regency in an indefensible quarrel at the Brazils. The order for removing Redondo, and cramping the utility of Forjas, he, in concert with Mr. Stuart, withstood; and this, for the moment, prevented a change, which would have impeded the ameliorations begun. Such, however, was the disorder in the finances, that Mr. Stuart proposed, as the least difficult mode of arranging them, to take the whole direction himself, England becoming answerable for the expenditure of the country; lord Wellington thought this could not be done, without assuming, at the same time, the whole government of the country, which he had previously proposed to the British cabinet, but which it was now too late to attempt, and Mr. Stuart’s project fell to the ground.
Another spring of mischief soon bubbled up, lord Strangford, whose diplomatic dexterity evinced by his Bruton-street despatch, had been rewarded by the situation of minister at the Brazils, was there bestirring himself. It had been the policy of Mr. Stuart and the English general, to keep the regency permanent, and to support the secretariats as they were placed in the hands of Mr. de Forjas and the Conde de Redondo; for these men had been found by experience, to be better qualified to co-operate with the British authorities than any other persons, and hence lord Wellington had resisted the prince’s orders for Cypriano Freire’s resumption of office, and had continued the functions of Forjas and Redondo, until his own remonstrances could reach the Brazils. In this state of affairs lord Strangford informed Mr. Stuart that he had persuaded the prince to accede to the following propositions. 1º. That the British plenipotentiary at Lisbon, the count Redondo, doctor Nogueras, and the principal Souza, should be added to the old regency. 2º. That admiral Berkeley should be naval commander-in-chief. 3º. That all traitorous correspondence should be prevented, and that measures should be taken to limit the exuberant power assumed by subordinates. This last article was directed against Forjas, and the whole went to establish the preponderance of the Souza faction. The only useful part was the appointment of Mr. Stuart to the regency, but this was arranged before it was known that Mr. Villiers had been recalled, and consequently had the same object of favouring the Souzas in view.
Mr. Stuart and lord Wellington strongly objected to this change, although they submitted to it as not wishing to appear regardless of the prince regent’s rights. Mr. Stuart, however, reflecting that a government composed of men having different views and feelings, and without any casting vote, the number being even, could not go on usefully, was at first averse to join the regency, but was finally persuaded to do so by lord Wellington, who justly considered that his presence there would give the only chance of success.
Doctor Nogueras’ appointment was described, by lord Strangford, as a tribute to democracy, the object being to counteract the power of those very secretariats which lord Wellington and Mr. Stuart were labouring to preserve. But lord Strangford prided himself chiefly upon the appointment of the principal Souza, who, he said, had been recommended to him by Mr. Villiers, an avowal of great import, as shewing at once the spirit of the new arrangement: for this Souza had, in a subordinate situation, hitherto opposed every proceeding of the British in Portugal; he was the avowed enemy of Beresford, the contriver of all confusion, and the most mischievous person in Portugal; and his absence from that country was so desirable, that intimations to that effect had been formally given to him, by lord Wellesley, through Mr. Stuart. This factious person was now, however, armed with additional power, to thwart the English authorities in Portugal, and thus lord Strangford’s diplomacy tended, in effect, to ruin that cause which he had been sent to the Brazils to support.
In relating these proceedings I have, following his own letter, announcing the change, described lord Strangford as acting voluntarily; but in a subsequent despatch he affirmed, that it was under Mr. Canning’s instructions, he had pressed for this incorporating of the British minister in the regency, and that Nogueras’ appointment sprang entirely from the prince regent’s own will, which he did not choose to oppose. In like manner, when lord Wellesley was intent upon assembling a cortes, lord Strangford called it “a great and essential measure strongly and wisely urged by the government,” and yet afterwards acknowledged that he neglected to press it, because he thought it “useless and even hurtful,” which inconsistency renders it difficult to determine on whom these affairs rested. As affecting Mr. Canning’s policy, however, it is to be observed that if he originally arranged this change, his object was to put Mr. Villiers in the regency, not with any view to the more complete controul of Portugal for the purposes of war, but,See Vol. II. Appendix. as the instructions to sir John Cradock prove, to ensure a preponderance to the diplomatic department over the military in that country.
The principal reforms, in the administration, which had been sought for by lord Wellington, were a better arrangement of the financial system—the execution of the laws without favour to the fidalgos—the suppression of the “junta di viveres,” a negligent and fraudulent board, for which he wished to establish a Portuguese commissariat—the due supply of provisions and stores, for the national troops and fortresses—the consolidation of the arsenal department under one head—the formation of a military chest, distinct from the treasury, which was always diverting the funds to other purposes—the enforcing of the regulations about the means of transport—the repairs of the roads and bridges—the reformation of the hospitals—the succouring of the starving people, and the revival of agriculture in the parts desolated by the war.
These things he had hoped to accomplish; but from the moment the change effected by lord Strangford took place, unceasing acrimonious disputes ensued between the British commander and the Portuguese government, and no species of falsehood or intrigue, not even personal insult, and the writing of anonymous threatening letters, were spared by the Souza faction. In the beginning of 1811 they had organized an anti-English party, and a plot was laid to force the British out of the country, which would have succeeded if less vigilance had been used by Mr. Stuart, or less vigour of control by lord Wellington. This plot however required that the patriarch should go to the northern provinces, a journey which the envoy always dexterously prevented.
The first complaint of the British authorities, accompanied with a demand for the removal of the principal Souza, reached the Brazils in February 1811, and Das Minas died about the same time; but so strongly was the faction supported at Rio de Janeiro, that in May, the prince regent expressed hisMay. entire approval of the Souzas’ proceedings and his high displeasure with Forjas and Mr. Stuart. His minister, the Conde de Linhares, wrote, that the capture of Massena with his whole army, which he expected to hear of each day, would not make amends for the destruction of the country during the retreat of the allies; and in an official note to lord Strangford, he declared, that the prince regent could not permit Mr. Stuart to vote in matters concerning the internal government of the kingdom, because he was influenced by, and consulted persons suspected of disaffection, which expression lord Strangford said referred solely to Forjas.
The prince himself also wrote to lord Wellington, accusing Mr. Stuart of acting separately from the commander-in-chief, and of being the cause of all the factions which had sprung up, and he declared that he would not remove Souza, unless Mr. Stuart was recalled. He desired that Forjas, who he affirmed to be the real author of the opposition complained of by the British, should be sent to the Brazils, to answer for his conduct; and finally he announced his intention to write in a like strain to the king of England. To this lord Wellington answered that finding his conduct disapproved and Souza’s applauded, he proposed to quit Portugal.June. Forjas immediately sent in his resignation, admiral Berkeley proposed to do the same, and Mr. Stuart withdrew from the council until the pleasure of his own cabinet should be made known: the war was then on the point of finishing, but the crisis was not perceived by the public, because the resolution of the English general was kept secret, to avoid disturbing the public mind, and in the hopes of submission on the part of the prince.
Meanwhile other embarrassments were super-added,1811. of a nature to leave the English general little hope of being able to continue the contest, should he even defeat the intrigues at Rio Janeiro; for besides the quarrel with the Souza faction, in which he and Mr. Stuart supported Forjas, Nogueira, and Redondo, against their enemies in the Brazils, these very persons, although the best that could be found, and men of undoubted ability, influenced partly by national habits, partly by fears of ultimate consequences, continually harassed him in the execution of the details belonging to their offices. No delinquent was ever punished, no fortress ever stored in due time and quantity, the suffering people were uncared for, disorders were unrepressed, the troops were starved, and the favouring of the fidalgos constant. The “junta de viveres” was supported, the formation of a military chest, and commissariat, delayed; many wild and foolish schemes daily broached; and the natural weakness of the government was, by instability, increased, because the prince regent had early in 1811 intimated an intention of immediately returning to Europe.
I have said that it was a favourite maxim with the regency that a paternal government should not punish delinquents in the public service, and they added to this another still more absurd, namely, that the Portuguese troops could thrive under privations of food, which would kill men of another nation; with these two follies they excused neglect, whenever the repetition, that there had been no neglect, became fatiguing to them. Besides this, collisions between the British commissariat and the “junta de viveres” were frequent and very hurtful, because the former able to outbid, and more in fear of failure, overbought the latter; this contracted the already too small sphere of their activity, and lord Wellington was prevented feeding the whole Portuguese army himself by a curious obstacle. His principal dependance for the support of his own troops was upon the Spanish muleteers attached to the army, they were the very life and sustenance of the war, and their patience, hardiness, and fidelity to the British were remarkable; but they so abhorred the Portuguese people that they would not carry provisions for their soldiers, and lord Wellington only obtained their services, for those brigades which were attached to the English divisions, by making them think the food was entirely for the latter. Upon such nice management even in apparently trifling matters did this war depend. And yet it is not uncommon for politicians, versed only in the classic puerilities of public schools, and the tricks of parliamentary faction, to hold the rugged experience of Wellington’s camp as nothing in the formation of a statesman.
The effects of these complicated affairs were soon and severely felt. Abrantes had like to have been abandoned, from want, at the time Massena held Santarem, and the Portuguese troops were starved during that general’s retreat; Beresford’s operations in the Alemtejo were impeded, and his hospitals were left without succour; at Fuentes Onoro ammunition failed, and the Portuguese artillery were forced to supply themselves by picking up the enemy’s bullets; the cavalry of that nation were quite ruined, and out of more than forty thousand regular troops, formed by Beresford, only nineteen thousand were to be found under arms after the battle of Albuera, the rest had deserted or died from extreme want.
When Massena retreated the provincial organization of the country was restored, and to encourage the people to sow the devastated districts before the season passed, Mr. Stuart had furnished seed corn on the credit of the coming subsidy; an amnesty for deserters was also published, the feudal imposts for the year were remitted, and fairs were established to supply tools of husbandry; but notwithstanding these efforts, such was the distress, that at Caldas eighty persons died daily, and at Figueras where twelve thousand people, chiefly from Portuguese Estremadura, had taken refuge, the daily deaths were above a hundred, and the whole would have perished but for the active benevolence of major Von Linstow, an officer of general Trant’s staff. Meanwhile the country was so overrun with robbers that the detached officers could not travel in safety upon the service of the army, and Wellington was fearful of being obliged to employ his troops against them. British officers were daily insulted at Lisbon, and even assassinated while on duty with impunity; the whole army was disgusted, the letters to England were engendering in that country a general dislike to the war, and the British soldiers, when not with their regiments, committed a thousand outrages on the line of operations.
As a climax to these scenes of misery and mischief, the harvest which had failed in Portugal, failed also in England; and no corn was to be got from the Baltic because there was no specie to pay for it, and bills were refused. Hence the famine spread in a terrible manner until Mr. Stuart obtained leave to license fifty American vessels with corn, whose cargoes were paid for out of funds provided partly by the charity of the people of England, and partly by a parliamentary grant which passed when Massena retreated.
In this crisis the British cabinet granted an additional subsidy to Portugal, but from the scarcity of specie, the greatest part of it was paid in kind, and the distress of the regency for money was scarcely lessened; for these supplies merely stood in the place of the plunder which had hitherto prevailed in the country. Thus Mr. Canning’s prodigality, Mr. Vansittart’s paper system, and Mr. Perceval’s economy, all combined to press upon the British general, and to use his own words, he was supplied with only one-sixth part of the money necessary to keep the great machine going which had been set in motion. Mr. Perceval however, in answer to his remonstrances, employed a secretary of the Treasury to prove in a laboured paper, founded entirely upon false data, that the army had been over-supplied, and must have money to spare. But that minister, whose speeches breathed nothing but the final destruction of France, designed to confine the efforts of England to the defence of Portugal alone, without any regard to the rest of the Peninsula.
Amongst the other follies of the Portuguese regency was a resolution to issue proclamations, filled with bombastic adulation of themselves, vulgar abuse of the French, and altogether unsuited to the object of raising the public feeling, which flagged under their system. To the English general’s remonstrances on this head, Forjas replied, that praise of themselves and abuse of the French, was the national custom, and could not be dispensed with! a circumstance which certain English writers who have implicitly followed the accounts of the Portuguese authors, such as Accursio de Neves, and men of his stamp, relative to French enormities, would do well to consider. And here it is right to observe, that so many complaints were made of the cruelty committed by Massena’s army while at Santarem, that lord Wellington had some thoughts of reprisals; but having first causedMr. Stuart’s papers, MSS. strict inquiry to be made, it was discovered that in most cases, the ordenança, after having submitted to the French, and received their protection, took advantage of it to destroy the stragglers and small detachments, and the cruelty complained of was only the infliction of legitimate punishment for such conduct: the projected retaliation was therefore changed for an injunction to the ordenanças to cease from such a warfare.
The character of the regency was, however, most openly shewn in their proceedings connected with the convention of Cintra. All the advantages which that treaty ensured to Portugal, they complacently reaped, but overlooked or annulled those points in which the character of England was concerned. In violation of the convention, and in despite of the remonstrances of lord Wellington and Mr. Stuart, they cast the French residents at Lisbon into loathsome dungeons, without any cause of complaint; and in the affair of Mascarheñas their conduct was distinguished alike by wanton cruelty and useless treachery. This youth, when only fifteen, had with many others entered the French service in Junot’s time, under the permission of his own prince; and he and the Conde de Sabugal, were taken by the peasantry in 1810 endeavouring to pass from Massena’s army into Spain, Sabugal in uniform, Mascarheñas in disguise. They were both tried as traitors. The first, a general officer, and with powerful friends amongst the Fidalgos, was acquitted, as indeed was only just; but he was then appointed to a situation under the regency, which was disgraceful, as arising from faction: Mascarheñas was a boy, and had no powerful friends, and he was condemned to death. Lord Wellington and Mr. Stuart represented the injustice of this sentence, and they desired that if humanity was unheeded the government would put him to death as a spy, for being in disguise, and so prevent the danger of reprisals, already threatened by Massena. The young man’s mother and sisters, grovelling in the dust, implored the regency to spare him, but to shew their hatred of lord Wellington and Mr. Stuart, for the disputes with the regency were then highest, the government told the miserable women, that it was the British general and minister who demanded his death, and they were sent, with this brutal falsehood, to weep and to ask grace from persons who had no power to grant it. Mascarheñas was publicly executed as a traitor, for entering the French service under the authority of his native prince, while Sabugal was acquitted, and even rewarded, although precisely in the same circumstances, when the excuse of the disguise had been rejected.
In 1810 one Corea, calling himself an aide-de-camp of Massena, was likewise seized in disguise within the British lines, and, having given useful information, was by lord Wellington confined in St. Julians, to protect him from the Portuguese government. After a time he became deranged, and was released, whereupon the regency, rather than keep him, desired that he might be sent as a prisoner of war to England; thus for convenience admitting the very principle which they had rejected when only honour and humanity were concerned. A process against the marquis d’Alorna had also been commenced, but his family being powerful it was soon dropped, and yet the government refused madame d’Alorna leave to join her husband, thus shewing themselves spiteful and contemptible as well as cowardly and bloody. Even the court of Brazil was shocked. The prince rebuked the regency severely for the death of Mascarheñas, reversed the sentences on some others, and banished Sabugal to Terceira.
This was the political state of Portugal.
Lord Liverpool’s intimation, that neither corn nor1811. May. specie could be had from England, threw lord Wellington on his own resources for feeding his troops. He had before created a paper money by means of commissariat bills, which, being paid regularly at certain periods, passed current with the people when the national bonds called “Apolocies” were at an enormous discount. He now in concert with Mr. Stuart, entered into commerce to supply his necessities. For having ascertained that grain in different parts of the world, especially in South America, could be bought by bills, cheaper than it sold for hard cash in Lisbon; and that in Egypt, although only to be bought with specie, it was at a reduced price; they employed mercantile agents to purchase it for the army account, and after filling the magazines sold the overplus to the inhabitants. This transaction was, however, greatly impeded by the disputes with North America, which were now rapidly hastening to a rupture; the American ships which frequented the Tagus being prevented by the non-importation act from bringing back merchandize, were forced to demand coin, which helped to drain the country of specie.
As Mr. Stuart could obtain no assistance from the English merchants of Lisbon, to aid him in a traffic which interfered with their profits, he wrote circular letters to the consuls in the Mediterranean, and in the Portuguese islands, and to the English minister at Washington, desiring them to negotiate treasury bills; to increase the shipments of corn to Lisbon, and pay with new bills, to be invested in such articles of British manufacture as the non-importation law still permitted to go to America. By this complicated process he contrived to keep something in the military chest; and this commerce, which lord Wellington truly observed, was not what ought to have occupied his time and attention, saved the army, and the people, when the proceedings of Mr. Perceval would have destroyed both. Yet it was afterwards cavilled at and censured by the ministers, on the representations of the merchants who found their exorbitant gains interrupted by it.
Pressed by such accumulated difficulties, and not supported in England as he deserved, the general, who had more than once intimated his resolution to withdraw from the Peninsula, now seriously thought of executing it. Yet when he considered, that the cause was one even of more interest to England than to the Peninsula; that the embarrassments of the French might be even greater than his own, and that Napoleon himself, gigantic as his exertions had been, and were likely to be, was scarcely aware of the difficulty of conquering the Peninsula while an English army held Portugal; when he considered also, that light was breaking in the north of Europe, that the chances of war are many, even in the worst of times, and above all, when his mental eye caught the beams of his own coming glory, he quelled his rising indignation, and re-tempered his mighty energies to bear the buffet of the tempest.
But he could not remove the obstacles that choked his path, nor could he stand still, lest the ground should open beneath his feet. If he moved in the north, Marmont’s army and the army under Bessieres were ready to oppose him, and he must take Ciudad Rodrigo or blockade it before he could even advance against them. To take that place required a battering-train, to be brought up through a mountainous country from Lamego, and there was no covering position for the army during the siege. To blockade and pass it, would so weaken his forces, already inferior to the enemy, that he could do nothing effectual; meanwhile Soult would have again advanced from Llerena, and perhaps have added Elvas to his former conquests.
To act on the defensive in Beira, and follow up the blow against Soult, by invading Andalusia, in concert with the Murcians and the corps of Blake, Beguines, and Graham, while Joseph’s absence paralysed the army of the centre; while the army of Portugal was being reorganized in Castile; and while Suchet was still engaged with Taragona, would have been an operation suitable to lord Wellington’s fame and to the circumstances of the moment. But then Badajos must have been blockaded with a corps powerful enough to have defied the army of the centre, and the conduct of the Portuguese government had so reduced the allied forces, that this would not have left a sufficient army to encounter Soult. Hence, after the battle of Albuera, the only thing to be done, was to renew the siege of Badajos, which, besides its local interest, contained the enemy’s bridge equipage and battering train; but which, on common military calculations, could scarcely be expected to fall before Soult and Marmont would succour it: yet it was only by the taking of that town that Portugal itself could be secured beyond the precincts of Lisbon, and a base for further operations obtained.
According to the regular rules of art, Soult should have been driven over the mountains before the siege was begun, but there was no time to do this, and Marmont was equally to be dreaded on the other side; wherefore lord Wellington could only try, as it were, to snatch away the fortress from between them, and he who, knowing his real situation, censures him for the attempt, is neither a general nor a statesman. The question was, whether the attempt should be made or the contest in the Peninsula be resigned. It failed, indeed, and the Peninsula was not lost, but no argument can be thence derived, because it was the attempt, rather than the success, which was necessary to keep the war alive; moreover the French did not push their advantages as far as they might have done, and the unforeseen circumstance of a large sum of money being brought to Lisbon, by private speculation, at the moment of failure, enabled the English general to support the crisis.