The Portuguese had, however, before this time, raised the standard of their prince. The Bishop of Oporto assumed the government of the northern provinces of Portugal; and General Frere and other persons took the lead in the insurrection in the other parts of that country. The old soldiers, who had been disbanded by the French, were called to arms; and in a short time three armies were formed; one at Oporto, another at Coimbra, and the third at Viseu. Officers had already been despatched from England to ascertain the state of the Oporto and Coimbra corps; and Sir Arthur Wellesley sent an officer to Viseu to report to him the state of the force assembled there under General Barcellar. It is needless to observe, that an army formed as the Portuguese had been, could not be very effective; such as it was, however, it was hearty in the cause of its country, and most anxious for an opportunity of revenging the wrongs which had been inflicted upon the nation.
The corps of Oporto was joined to that of Coimbra, and was destined to act with Sir Arthur Wellesley. The corps of Viseu was sent to Guarda; whence, in conjunction with some Spaniards under the orders of the Marquis of Valadares, it was directed to march upon Abrantes, and from thence co-operate in the meditated attack on Lisbon. There was also a corps of Spaniards of some force collected at Badajos under General Galluzzo, which it was hoped might have given some assistance to these combinations, by a simultaneous operation in the Alemtejo.
Such was the state of the allied force when Sir Arthur Wellesley first landed his army on the banks of the Mondego. The French were in possession of Lisbon, and the country north of it as far as Leyria, which had been recaptured from the Portuguese by a force under the orders of General Margaron. On the entry of the French into this town, they committed the most atrocious acts of cruelty[[1]]. As an instance of the brutality of a superior officer, the —— of —— related of himself, that upon entering the town, he met a woman with a child at her breast, that the appearance of the infant excited his pity, but “se rapellant qu’il était soldat,” he pierced the two bodies with a single thrust of his sword. When the English advanced guard arrived there, it found in one of the convents the dead bodies of several Monks, who had been killed by the French soldiers; some of whom had dipped their hands in the blood of their unfortunate victims, and had daubed with it the walls of the convent.
[1]. The cruelties committed by the French army in this instance, and throughout the whole of its campaigns in Portugal, had their origin in the nature of the war in which it was now for the first time engaged. Till this period, wherever the French soldiers had established themselves, whether by the defeat of the armies which defended the country invaded, or otherwise, they found the people submitting to their rule; when, in Portugal, therefore, the nation rose in hostility against them, they considered such resistance as rebellion, and looked upon the inhabitants taken in arms, as disturbers of the public peace, and therefore entitled to no mercy or consideration. The officers also hoped, by inflicting vengeance on the patriots, to arrest the progress of an insurrection which menaced their total overthrow. It would not be fair to argue, from the conduct of the French in Portugal, that in other situations they would be led to adopt similar proceedings.
To the southward of the Tagus, the French had been unable to retain any part of the Alemtejo.
About the end of July, Junot detached a corps, under the orders of General Loison, to repress, in the first instance, the insurrections of that province; next, to give whatever assistance might be wanted by the garrison of Elvas; and, lastly, to return by Abrantes to the north of the Tagus, and to wreak a signal vengeance upon Coimbra. General Loison, in execution of these directions, marched to Evora, where the Portuguese had collected the force of the provinces, and, assisted by some Spaniards, resolved to defend the town. General Loison attacked it, and after meeting with a considerable resistance, entered it, and delivered it over to pillage. The inhabitants, threatened with indiscriminate massacre, endeavoured to shelter themselves in the churches and convents, where they had been accustomed to look for protection; but this was of no avail against their merciless enemies; thousands of them were drawn from their places of refuge, and fell victims to a licentious soldiery, excited by the unrestrained desire of plunder and revenge.
From Evora, General Loison marched to Elvas, and from thence returned by Abrantes to Thomar, where he was arrested in the further execution of his instructions, by the news that Sir Arthur Wellesley had landed, and was at Leyria, upon his march towards Lisbon.
During this period Sir Arthur had prepared for the campaign he was about to undertake.
He had 13,000 British infantry and 300 cavalry; he selected 5,000 of the best Portuguese troops that were assembled at Coimbra, and with an army so composed, determined to move forward. He was in daily expectation of a corps of 5,000 men from England, and he was also apprized that the body of men who had been under Lieut.-General Moore in Sweden, had received orders to proceed to the Peninsula.
The Commissariat, under Sir Arthur Wellesley, was defective; an army just landed must necessarily be without the means of transport; it was, therefore, evident that it must depend entirely upon its communication with the shipping for its support throughout its operations: Sir Arthur Wellesley upon these considerations determined to advance by the road nearest the coast; by that movement he secured to himself the advantages of being able to receive his reinforcements at any time they should arrive; and in addition, he was not cramped by any line of communication which it would be necessary for him to maintain, or which he must have defended, had the enemy (as was once contemplated) made any demonstrations upon his rear.