“Our loss is much less than one would have supposed possible, scarcely 200 men. The 43rd have 73 killed and wounded. But really these attacks in columns[63] against our lines are very contemptible.
“The contest was latterly entirely for the howitzer, which was taken and retaken twice, and at last remained in our hands. Our cavalry, which ought to have crossed the Coa on the right of the Light division, crossed at the same ford, and therefore could be of no use to them. Besides they went too far to the right.
“In short, these combinations for engagements do not answer, unless one is upon the spot to direct every trifling movement. I was upon a hill on the left of the Coa, immediately above the town, till the 3rd and 5th divisions crossed, whence I could see every movement on both sides, and could communicate with ease with everybody; but that was not near enough.
“We took 6 Officers, and between 200 and 300 prisoners, and Soult’s[64] and Loison’s baggage.”
Two days after this affair on the banks of the Coa Masséna crossed the frontier, having been literally driven out of Portugal. Within a few hours we find Wellington urging on Beresford the necessity for a strict blockade of Badajoz preparatory to besieging it. Masséna fell back upon Salamanca, while Wellington busied himself with the investment of Almeida, where a French garrison had been left. With Ciudad Rodrigo, the second and remaining place occupied by the Marshal’s troops, he felt he could do little at the moment beyond intercepting supplies. These two forts, which are within comparatively easy distance and almost parallel, the one in Portugal and the other in Spain, were extremely important, and commanded the north-eastern frontier of the former country.
Incidentally, the British Commander-in-Chief also took the opportunity to publish a lengthy Proclamation to the Portuguese nation, of which the following is a brief synopsis. He informs the inhabitants that they are now “at liberty to return to their occupations,” that nearly four years have elapsed since “the tyrant of Europe” invaded the country, the object being “the insatiable desire of plunder, the wish to disturb the tranquillity, and to enjoy the riches of a people who had passed nearly half a century in peace.” He then strikes a deeper note and adds a few words of advice as to the future:
“The Marshal General, however, considers it his duty, in announcing the intelligence of the result of the last invasion, to warn the people of Portugal, that, although the danger is removed, it is not entirely gone by. They have something to lose, and the tyrant will endeavor to plunder them: they are happy under the mild government of a beneficent Sovereign; and he will endeavor to destroy their happiness: they have successfully resisted him, and he will endeavor to force them to submit to his iron yoke. They should be unremitting in their preparations for decided and steady resistance; those capable of bearing arms should learn the use of them; or those whose age or sex renders them unfit to bear arms should fix upon places of security and concealment, and should make all the arrangements for their easy removal to them when the moment of danger shall approach. Valuable property, which tempts the avarice of the tyrant and his followers, and is the great object of their invasion, should be carefully buried beforehand, each individual concealing his own, and thus not trusting to the weakness of others to keep a secret in which they may not be interested.
“Measures should be taken to conceal or destroy provisions which cannot be removed, and everything which can tend to facilitate the enemy’s progress; for this may be depended upon, that the enemy’s troops seize upon everything, and leave nothing for the owner.
“By these measures, whatever may be the superiority of numbers with which the desire of plunder and of revenge may induce, and his power may enable, the tyrant again to invade this country, the result will be certain; and the independence of Portugal, and the happiness of its inhabitants, will be finally established to their eternal honor.”[65]
However “beneficent” the Sovereign—who was a lunatic and out of the country—might be, Wellington had little that was good to say of its present rulers. He told them that he would inform the home Cabinet “that they cannot with propriety continue to risk a British army in this country unsupported by any exertion of any description on the part of the Portuguese Government.” The army was lamentably deficient “in that essential arm, its cavalry,” and the commissariat arrangements remained hopelessly deficient.