The Story of Wellington

by Harold Wheeler

Thomas Maybank

It is due to the French to record that they were not without men equally as cool as Piper Mackay. A typical example is furnished by Major Ross-Lewin, who fought in the 32nd, and it occurred immediately after the battle of Vimiero:

“An officer of my regiment,” he relates, “happened to pass near an old French soldier, who was seated by the roadside, covered with dust, and desperately wounded; a cannon-shot had taken off both his feet just above the ankles, but his legs were so swollen that his wounds bled but little. On seeing the officer, the poor fellow addressed him, saying, ‘Monsieur, je vous conjure donnez moi mes pieds.’ and at the same time pointed to his feet, which lay on the road beyond his reach. His request met with a ready compliance. The pale, toilworn features of the veteran brightened up for an instant on receiving these mutilated members, which had borne him through many a weary day, and which it grieved him to see trampled on by the victorious troops that passed; and then, as if prepared to meet his fast-approaching fate becomingly, by the attainment of this one poor wish, he laid them tranquilly beside him, and, with a look of resignation, and the words, ‘Je suis content,’ seemed to settle himself for death.”

Many years afterwards, when in a reminiscent mood, the Duke of Wellington recapitulated the events of the 21st August 1808. “The French,” he told his guests, “came on at Vimiero with more confidence, and seemed to feel their way less than [smiling] I always found them to do afterwards. They came on in their usual way, in a very heavy column, and I received them in line, which they were not accustomed to, and we repulsed them there several times, and at last they went off beaten on all points, while I had half the army untouched and ready to pursue; but Sir H. Burrard—who had joined the army in about the middle of the battle, but seeing all doing so well, had desired me to continue in the command now that he considered the battle as won, though I thought it but half done—resolved to push it no further. I begged very hard that he would go on, but he said enough had been done. Indeed, if he had come earlier, the battle would not have taken place at all, for when I waited on him on board the frigate in the bay the evening before, he desired me to suspend all operations, and said he would do nothing till he had collected all the force which he knew to be on the way. He had heard of Moore’s arrival, but the French luckily resolving to attack us, led to a different result. I came from the frigate about nine at night, and went to my own quarters with the army, which, from the nearness of the enemy, I naturally kept on the alert. In the dead of the night a fellow came in—a German sergeant, or quartermaster—in a great fright—so great that his hair seemed actually to stand on end—who told me that the enemy was advancing rapidly, and would be soon on us. I immediately sent round to the generals to order them to get the troops under arms, and soon after the dawn of day we were vigorously attacked. The enemy were first met by the (50th ?), not a good-looking regiment, but devilish steady, who received them admirably, and brought them to a full stop immediately, and soon drove them back; they then tried two other attacks ... one very serious, through a valley on our left; but they were defeated everywhere, and completely repulsed, and in full retreat by noon, so that we had time enough to have finished them if I could have persuaded Sir H. Burrard to go on.”

On the day following the battle of Vimiero, Dalrymple arrived. While pondering over the situation he received a proposal for an armistice from Junot, which developed into the Convention of Cintra, preliminarily signed on the 30th August 1808. The most important conditions were—the surrender of all places and forts in Portugal occupied by the French troops, the evacuation of the country, and the transport of the army, its munitions and “property,” to France in British ships. By a strange oversight the important question of future service was overlooked, consequently there was nothing to prevent an early return of the troops to the Peninsula should Napoleon think fit for them to do so.

We have now to consider Wellesley’s part in this much discussed transaction. The Convention was definitely signed on the 30th August 1808, but previous to this a meeting of the General Officers was called to deliberate upon it. “The result of the meeting,” Wellesley writes on the 29th inst., “was a proposal to make certain alterations, which I acknowledge I do not think sufficient, although the treaty will answer in its amended form.... At the same time I must say that I approve of allowing the French to evacuate Portugal, because I see clearly that we cannot get them out of Portugal otherwise, under existing circumstances, without such an arrangement; and we should be employed in the blockade or siege of the places which they would occupy during the season in which we ought and might be advantageously employed against the French in Spain. But the Convention, by which they should be allowed to evacuate Portugal, ought to be settled in the most honorable manner to the army by which they have been beaten; and we ought not to be kept for 10 days on our field of battle before the enemy (who sued on the day after the action) is brought to terms.

“I am quite annoyed on this subject.”

Wellesley signed the preliminary Memorandum at the request of Dalrymple, but had nothing to do with the final settlement. “I lament the situation of our affairs as much as you do,” he writes on the 5th September, “and I did every thing in my power to prevent it; but my opinion was overruled. I had nothing to do with the Convention as it now stands; and I have never seen it to this moment.... I have only to regret that I put my name to an agreement of which I did not approve, and which I did not negotiate: if I had not done it, I really believe that they would not have dared to make such a Convention as they have made: notwithstanding that that agreement was never ratified, and is now so much waste paper.”[45]

His letters at this period teem with allusions to the unfortunate treaty. He tells Castlereagh that “It is quite impossible for me to continue any longer with this army; and I wish, therefore, that you would allow me to return home and resume the duties of my office, if I should still be in office, and it is convenient to the Government that I should retain it; or if not, that I should remain upon the Staff in England; or, if that should not be practicable, that I should remain without employment. You will hear from others of the various causes which I must have for being dissatisfied, not only with the military and other public measures of the Commander-in-Chief, but with his treatment of myself. I am convinced it is better for him, for the army, and for me, that I should go away; and the sooner I go the better.”

On the 6th October Wellesley was in London, and at once resumed his office as Chief Secretary for Ireland. The newspapers teemed with unsavory references to the unpopular Convention; the caricaturists, not to be rivalled by their journalistic brethren, produced the grossest lampoons for the benefit of the indignant public. In one of them Wellesley and his colleagues are hanging on gibbets, in another the former is shown urging his troops to glory: