[364] The French army of 72,000 men under Masséna invaded Portugal early in September. Wellington had only 50,000 men at his disposal; half of whom were Portuguese. He retreated before the invaders, but was able to deliver a severe check to their advance, at Busaco, on September 27, with but little loss to his own force.
[365] The critical state of the King’s mind was adversely affected by the illness of Princess Amelia. After her death, on November 2, he became permanently insane.
[366] Yet Masséna represented to Napoleon some weeks later that the frontal attack on the British position was only a feint, which had developed from over-keenness into a general engagement. His dispatches, however, captured after the action, made no mention of this fact (Sir Herbert Maxwell’s Life of Wellington).
[367] Afterwards Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt, and Black Rod.
[368] George Ponsonby.
[369] It is impossible to trace so extended an interpretation in the report of the speech given in Hansard, though a veiled meaning is possible in some of his carefully worded allusions to the royal power.
[370] The ordinary composition of the Cortes was a three-chamber assembly consisting of clergy, nobility, and commons. The Central Junta, in whom the power of calling together the Cortes rested, decided that as a compromise with the extreme party of reform, only two chambers (the higher clergy and nobility sitting together in one) should be summoned to assemble early in March. The advance of the French, however, postponed the meeting, and the supreme government was placed in the hands of a Regency of five. These took good care to keep the power as long as possible, and when the Cortes was at last found necessary, only one chamber could be elected, and that within the boundaries of Cadiz, for the French were almost at their gates. See Appendix B, p. 297.
[371] General Sir Robert Wilson (1777–1849), author of The History of the British Expedition to Egypt. He served both in the British army and in various continental corps. He was dismissed the service in 1820 for his supposed conduct at Queen Caroline’s funeral, but was reinstated by William IV.
His Lusitanian Legion was amalgamated with the Portuguese army during its reorganisation.
General Drouet joined Masséna with the Ninth corps, forcing Wilson across the Mondego, from fear of being surrounded.