[278] For combats waged by Lahoussaye’s dragoons, who were in the middle of the long column, see the journal of Naylies (pp. 83-4). For attacks on Mermet, in the rear column, see Fantin des Odoards (p. 214).
[279] I agree with General Arteche in thinking that Eben’s dispatch to Cradock, from which this narrative is mainly drawn, does him no credit. Indeed, it is easy to adopt the sinister view that Eben was aiming at getting the command, did nothing to discourage the mob, and was indirectly responsible for Freire’s murder. As Arteche remarks ‘with a little more resolution and a little less personal ambition, the Baron could probably have prevented the catastrophe’ (vol. v. p. 393). But Freire’s conduct had been so cowardly and incapable that the peasants were reasonably incensed with him. Why had he not defended the rugged defiles of Venda Nova and Salamonde, and what could excuse his absconding and abandoning his army?
[280] Eben’s dispatch is in the Record Office, in the miscellaneous volume at the end of the Portugal 1809 series.
[281] Eben, in his report, says that at the moment of the French assault one of his guns in the battery commanding the high-road burst, and killed many of those standing about, and that the rout commenced with the stampede caused by this explosion.
[282] Naylies [of the 19th Dragoons], p. 87.
[283] Even while flying through the streets of Braga, some of the routed horde found time to pay a visit to the town gaol, and to murder the corregidor and the other prisoners who had been placed there on the eighteenth.
[284] Fantin des Odoards, p. 216.
[285] Eben, in his report to Cradock at the Record Office, says 1,000 only, of whom more than 200 belonged to the Lusitanian Legion.
[286] Le Noble, p. 142. St. Chamans, p. 121. Naylies and Fantin des Odoards, though both mentioning the slaughter in which they took part, do not give this justification for it. The latter says that the French gave no quarter save to men in uniform.
[287] Fantin des Odoards, p. 216.