There is plenty of game about, and we now get woodcocks frequently, shot by the officers, very good hares, better, I think, than in England, a few good snipes and plovers, and a very few partridges; the latter are very wild. We have had, off and on, frost for this month and more, and some very fine days, others like a London November fog, a little snow, and now and then a day’s rain; but in eight hours again, from a sudden change of wind, all dry and frost. The sun, when out, makes the mid-day very pleasant; and though the winds are very cold, and produce very hard ground and thick ice for the time in a very short period, yet the ice does not continue, as in England, and accumulate. It never gets much thicker than it is in one night with a cold wind, and in the daytime the ground is soft; the cold, therefore, though for a time very sharp, certainly cannot be near so intense in reality as in England. We go to bed sometimes with the ground entirely wet at eleven o’clock, and at six in the morning find there has been a very hard frost, which is then going off again.
The population here is very considerably thinned, and there is much less land in cultivation than formerly; the people remaining have generally lost their flocks and their animals for agriculture. Few have now means of ploughing and manuring. The vineyards are generally in a very neglected state also; not manured or in any way attended to, and eaten close down by our hungry animals. Yet the labour required is so moderate, and the light soil seems so productive, that the country might very soon recover itself; but we take the oxen over the whole country, buy up, and eat up everything. Out of our reach, in the Tras os Montes, are plenty of poultry, sheep, turkeys, &c. The Portuguese, naturally lazy, never repair the damages of war, never rebuild, clean out, or set to work to bring things round. They despair, and only just work to supply our market with onions, 4d. each; eggs, 3d. each; potatoes alone rather cheap at 2d. the pound; pork, 1s. 6d. the pound, and good. The Spaniards, on the contrary, begin, very soon after the armies go, to restore; they put on their tiles, rebuild their walls, and especially whitewash the inside of their houses; they collect their cooking-vessels, and get to work on their farms. The peasantry recover themselves much more and much faster than the Portuguese, but yet they have not in any one place suffered so much and so often as this part of Portugal has; and in this town they are pretty much as lazy as the other.
The 20th.—A very interesting case of a poor deserter whom we tried yesterday at Fuentes, I must copy out fair to carry over to the general president for his signature to-morrow. The deserter, poor fellow! deserted for love to the Spaniards, with a Spanish girl from the neighbourhood of Madrid whom he had brought away with him. She had been most honest and faithful in very trying scenes during the retreat. On being ordered to send her off by his Captain, he appeared to have had no intention of going over to the French. I was not aware of the merit of his story till I copied the whole out fairly. It was translated in broken bits, by a not very skilful interpreter. Three deserters came in here yesterday; they are Flemings. They report that part of the French cavalry are gone to France, and that all the cars round Salamanca have been put in requisition to carry off the sick from the hospital there. But this does not prove much, as it would at any rate be an unsafe place, and out of their line of defence next campaign. They state that the sick have been very numerous, and Salamanca well plundered.
I have been one morning over to Almeyda to breakfast with the governor and see the town. At breakfast I met a sawny Spanish signora, with a crying, poor-looking child: she breakfasted on beefsteaks, onions, partridges, and wine, and did nothing all day. Almeyda is twelve miles off. I rode thither on my new horse. He is just such a horse as you would admire, prancing, showy, sleek, like a Flemish picture of a horse, rather clumsy and heavy; but he went well and quietly. Almeyda is in ruins; a mere heap of rubbish! The works are being repaired, and much is already done; but there is yet a great deal to do, and the workmen, though well watched, seem very lazy. There are very good shops among the ruins for the materials of all articles of wearing apparel; these from Oporto, and not dear; cloth and baize of all sorts, linen, stockings, but not a cup and saucer to be had, or a drinking-glass. Most of the new work at Almeyda is at present only earth—slanting so that you might run up in a storm, I think; but the masonry is going on, and it would cost some men to storm it, if we defend it. At present there is only a Portuguese garrison.
Head-Quarters, Frenada, January 23rd, 1813.—I do not quite feel as I did in England, nor can I make out that others do either. There is a languor and laziness which seem in some degree catching from the natives, as they have it in such perfection. We have had almost constant frost or cold, fog and sleet, but in general clear cold days ever since Christmas. It seems that we are likely to have some snow, which hitherto we have only on the sierras and hills (where it lies almost constantly), except a very few storms of snow which melted as it fell; and then rain in February; then some warm days in March and in April, with very cold mornings and nights, and some very cold days again, even so late as in May at times. By-the-by, our English post from all the different parts of the army, to each other, and to Lisbon, is now in general in very good order, which saves me much trouble in my extensive correspondence relative to the Courts-martial. I have now also got through the great worry of the number of cases which came upon me at once, and, though fully employed, business comes more regularly. I have persevered in being civil and useful as far as I could to every one, never objecting to anything, answering all queries, and taking everything upon myself. I endeavour to model the whole as it was arranged in England, before the Adjutant-general’s offices did two-thirds of the business of Judge-Advocate. As I have no clerk, and am not allowed a soldier, this at times presses me hard, but the greatest stress is now over, though new cases come in regularly. I yesterday sent in one against a Lieutenant-colonel, with six charges and thirty-seven witnesses. I have another Commissary just come in here as a prisoner, for purposely burning down a house, a mischievous freak, when drunk.
I now dine out about three or four times in the week, generally once or twice at head-quarters—and occasionally with Major and Mrs. Scobell, who give very pleasant little dinners, and tender meat, and a loo party afterwards. He is a clever man, in the Quarter-Master-general’s department, and has the command of the corps of guides, and the arrangement of the English post through the country.
The report current now is, that next campaign is to be in camp, and not in towns and villages, as Lord Wellington wants to keep the army more together than he can do in quarters; and unless he goes into camp, the other Generals also leave their divisions and come into the towns. At any rate, it will not be as it was last year, when the men went into camp in February and March, as, from general rumour, the army will not be in a state to move much before the end of April; nearly one-third are still sick, and this state of things mends now but slowly; this I observe from the general daily state of the whole army made for Lord Wellington, which is kept most perfectly. The horses will not be ready till they have had a month’s green food in March and April; straw, bad hay, and a little Indian corn do not suit them for very active service.
I want a neat lantern sent out, to go out after dark in these horrible villages, where if you go only a hundred yards in the dark you step from a rock half up your legs in mud.
There is a shocking set of servants at head-quarters; idle, drunken English servants and soldiers, almost all bad, and the Portuguese are every day running off with something or other from their masters and others. There has been no chaplain here for these last eight or nine months, or any notice taken in any manner of Sunday! It used to be, I hear, a very regular and imposing thing to attend divine service performed out of doors with hats off, but the people must now think we have no religion at all, as almost every public business goes on nearly the same as on ordinary days. The English soldiers, however, keep it as a holiday, though the Portuguese will many of them work, particularly after three o’clock. We have had a glee or two with the aides-de-camp of the Prince of Orange and some others. There is also a Spanish Commissary who sings and plays the guitar very well. I wish my violoncello were more portable, and, with a flute or two, we should have a little music now and then here, in the evenings. They have asked me to send for a collection of glees.
People here are all very sore about the Americans and our taken frigates. I think we deserve it a little. Our contempt for our old descendants and half brothers has always rather disgusted me, and with some English is carried so far as not to be bearable. This reverse may set matters right. The Americans have faults enough; we should allow them their merits. Our sailors all thought the Americans would not dare to look them in the face. I think the army rather rejoice, and laugh aside at all this falling on the navy, as they bullied so much before. I will not write to you of northern or English news, for it would be absurd; you would, if I did, receive comments and observations on what was nearly forgotten, or entirely altered, by the time my letter reached you. I keep this paper under my business heap, and take it out and scribble when anything occurs. Lord Wellington is to arrive to-day; and I must get up my lesson for to-morrow, so adieu!