Delaborde brought out from Lisbon two battalions of the 70th, the 26th Chasseurs à Cheval, and five guns. Thomières joined him from Peniche with the 1st Provisional Light Infantry (a battalion each of the 2nd and 4th Léger) and with the 4th Swiss.
The numbers of these corps had been on July 15:—
| 70th of the Line (two batts.) | 2,358 |
| 2nd Léger (one batt.) | 1,075 |
| 4th Léger (one batt.) | 1,098 |
| 4th Swiss (one batt.) | 985 |
| 26th Chasseurs | 263 |
| 5,779 |
But each of the four French corps had given its grenadier company as a contribution to the ‘Reserve Grenadier Battalions’ which Junot had organized. The battalions being on the old nine-company establishment (see Foy’s large table of the Armée d’Espagne, note d) we must deduct one-ninth of each, or about 500 men in all. We have also to allow for six companies of the 4th Swiss sent to garrison Peniche; not for the whole battalion, as Foy says in iv. 306, for there were Swiss in the fight of Roliça (Leslie’s Military Journal, p. 43), and at Vimiero in the official state of Junot’s army we find two companies of this corps with Brennier’s brigade. We must deduct, then, three-fourths of them from the force present with Delaborde, i.e. some 740 men. This leaves 4,276 men for the four and a quarter battalions under fire at Roliça. Of course Junot’s troops must have had a few men in hospital since July 15, the date of the return which we are using. But they cannot have been many. The 70th had been quiet in its quarters in Lisbon. The other three battalions had been in Loison’s Beira expedition, and had lost some men therein, but all before July 11. If we concede 300 sick on August 16, it is ample. We can allow therefore for 4,000 infantry, 250 cavalry, and some 100 gunners present with Delaborde, i.e. his total force must have been about 4,350 men—a number much closer to Wellesley’s 6,000 than to Thiébault’s 1,900; Foy, usually so accurate, is clearly wrong in bringing the figures down to 2,500 (iv. 310).
[203] The name of Lieutenant Bunbury, of the 2/95th, perhaps deserves remembrance as that of the first British officer killed in the Peninsular War.
[204] Foy, iv. 309.
[205] I cannot find the authority for Napier’s statement that Fane joined Ferguson in the second move. He seems still to have acted in the centre.
[206] Col. Leslie’s narrative, p. 43. The 4th Swiss was a very discontented corps; individuals of it had begun to desert to the British even before Roliça (Leach, p. 44), and a considerable number of them took service in the 60th Rifles after the Convention of Cintra, refusing to return to France.
[207] Well. Disp., iv. 83, 87.
[208] Foy says only one gun, but Wellesley, who had better opportunities of knowing, says that he took three (Well. Disp., iv. 83).