[388] It is fair to the Portuguese to note that other witnesses of May 1809 speak much more favourably of them. Londonderry (i. p. 305) writes that ‘they had applied of late so much ardour to their military education that some were already fit to take the field, and it only required a little experience to put them on a level with the best troops in Europe. There was one brigade under General Campbell (the 4th and 10th regiments), which struck me as being in the finest possible order: it went through a variety of evolutions with a precision and correctness which would have done no discredit to our own army.’
[389] Wellington Dispatches, iv. 273-5, 276. To Castlereagh. Wellesley says that the plot will probably fail, and that even if the 2nd Corps mutinied, they would not carry away the other French armies, as Argenton hoped. He had therefore refused to commit himself to anything.
[390] Wellington Dispatches, ii. 306.
[391] The regiments were, giving their force present with the colours from the return of May 5:—
| 3/27th Foot | 726 |
| 2/31st Foot | 765 |
| 1/45th Foot | 671 |
| 2/24th Foot [From Lisbon] | 750 |
| 2,912 | |
| 3rd Dragoon Guards | 698 |
| 4th Dragoons | 716 |
| One battery Field Artillery [Captain Baynes’s], six-pounders | 120 |
| 1,534 | |
| Total | 4,446 |
[392] The Portuguese regiments were:—1st Foot [La Lippe] one batt., 3rd and 15th Foot [1st and 2nd of Olivenza] each one batt., 4th Foot [Freire] and 13th Foot [Peniche] two batts. each. 1st, 4th and 5th Cazadores, one batt. each. Five squadrons of the 4th and 7th cavalry. Total, 6,000 foot, 700 horse, and three field-batteries, about 7,100 men.
[393] Viz. 2/87th, 669 bayonets, 1/88th, 608 bayonets, five companies of the 5/60th, 306 bayonets.
[394] Two battalions each of the regiments nos. 7 (Setubal), 19 (Cascaes), and one of no. 1 (La Lippe), as far as I can ascertain, composed this force.
[[Erratum from p. xii]: I found in Lisbon that the regiments which marched with Beresford to Lamego were not (as I had supposed) nos. 7 and 19, but nos. 2 and 14, with the 4th cazadores. Those which joined from the direction of Almeida were two battalions of no. 11 (1st of Almeida) and one of no. 9.]
[395] Regiment, no. 1.