♦The French resolve to propose terms.♦
In withholding the army from following up the great advantage which it had gained, Sir Harry Burrard knew how unpopular such a determination must be, and sacrificed his own feelings to his judgement. He thought it not allowable to risk much when the reinforcements which were at hand would make the British force so superior, that any further efforts of the enemy must be vain, and success would be obtained without hazard and with less loss. He erred in judgement; but this honourable testimony was borne to him by Sir Arthur Wellesley, the person of all others by whom that error must have been felt most keenly, that he decided upon fair military grounds in the manner which he thought most conducive to the interests of the country. The French failed not to profit by the respite which was thus allowed them; they formed a rear-guard of four regiments of cavalry, and retired[28] at leisure, no attempt being made to harass their retreat. Junot, who is said to have exposed himself at the close of the action so as hardly to have been saved from the British cavalry, summoned Generals Laborde, Loison, Kellermann, and Thiebault, upon the field, and demanded their opinions, whether the army ought again to try the lot of arms, and if not, what course it should pursue. They agreed that they were neither in a condition to give battle, nor to stand one. Their troops were harassed, discontented, and discouraged; their ammunition would not last three hours longer; their provisions were failing, their horses already sinking for want of forage. Their losses were irreparable, whereas the enemy were looking for strong reinforcements; and, in fine, the slightest reverse would now leave them at the mercy of the English and Portugueze. Nothing remained but to preserve the best attitude they could, and retire to Lisbon, the possession of which was now their only safeguard. They retreated accordingly to Torres Vedras. A second council was held there on the morrow; and upon a full view of the difficulties and dangers[29] of their situation, and the impossibility of effecting a retreat through so large a part of Spain as must be traversed before they could effect a junction with their countrymen, they resolved to try what could be done by negotiation. General Kellermann, therefore, was dispatched with a flag of truce to propose a convention for the evacuation of Portugal. Meantime Sir Hew Dalrymple had arrived and taken the command of the British army, which thus had three commanders-in-chief within twenty-four hours.
♦Arrival of Sir Hew Dalrymple.♦
Sir Hew Dalrymple had been expressly chosen for this command because of the zeal and judgement which he had displayed during the whole of those important transactions in the south of Spain on which so much depended, and in which he had acted upon his own responsibility. In a private letter from Lord Castlereagh, then minister for the war department, Sir Arthur Wellesley was recommended to his particular confidence, and a full persuasion expressed that that officer’s high reputation would alone dispose Sir Hew to select him for any service which required great prudence and temper, combined with much military experience; but, above all, that the habits of communication in which Sir Arthur had for a length of time been with his majesty’s ministers, concerning the affairs of Spain, would point him out as an officer of whom it would be desirable for the commander-in-chief, on all accounts, to make the most prominent use which the rules of the service would permit. Sir Hew embarked at Gibraltar on the 13th; and learnt that night from Lord Collingwood, who was off Cadiz, that Sir Arthur’s corps had either landed, or was about to land, in Mondego Bay. Arriving off the Tagus on the 19th, he was informed by Sir Charles Cotton, that Sir Arthur was proceeding along the coast. It was not Sir Hew’s wish to supersede that General in a detached command for which he had been particularly chosen, especially when he was now completely engaged in an enterprise from which it was impossible to recede, and which required all his ability to accomplish. Under these feelings, therefore, the Commander-in-chief resolved to proceed to Mondego Bay, and there join the expected reinforcements when they should land, leaving Sir Arthur meantime to pursue and complete his own plan. Seeing, however, on the way a number of ships under the land, and receiving a vague account of the action at Roliça from a sloop of war, he sent an aide-de-camp on shore for intelligence, ordering him to inform Sir Arthur, if he chanced to see him, that he was proceeding to fall in with Sir Harry Burrard and the main body, and that though he wished to be informed of his proceedings, he did not mean to interfere with his command. This was on the evening of the 21st; about midnight the boat returned, bringing intelligence of the battle, and that Sir Harry Burrard was in command. There was now no room for that delicacy toward Sir Arthur, as honourable as it was judicious, which he had resolved to observe. His determination was immediately taken, and in the morning the frigate stood in for the shore.
♦He orders the army to advance. Aug. 22.♦
None of the official accounts which Sir Arthur had addressed to him had been received; he landed therefore with no other information than what had been thus gathered upon the way, and entirely unacquainted with the actual state of the French army. When he reached the beach they were embarking the wounded for Porto; during the whole night the sailors had been thus employed, wading nearly up to the middle in the sea, and displaying as much humanity as skill. Arriving at Vimeiro, he found the army on the ground which it had occupied the day before, the dead lying on the field, and the carts still busy in removing the wounded. That ground had not been chosen as a military position, but merely as a halting-place, and it was now necessary to remove from it, because of the late action. Sir Hew therefore gave orders for marching the next morning at daybreak toward Lisbon by way of Mafra. Like his predecessor, he thought that Sir Arthur had entered upon a hazardous operation, which, unless it obtained complete success, must end in complete ruin, the British having no prospect of support, nor any thing upon which to fall back in case of disaster, so that on their part the battle would be fought for existence, while the enemy, in case of defeat, would lose only what were killed or taken. But he differed from Sir Harry Burrard in this, that he deemed it imprudent to wait for Sir John Moore’s division, the arrival of which was extremely uncertain, and that he saw the necessity of pursuing active measures. The French, he knew, must either give him battle, for the sake of defending Lisbon, (a chance which he was willing to take, though they were superior in cavalry, and, as he thought, in numbers, and though they would have the great advantage of choosing their ground;) or they would cross the Tagus.
♦Kellermann arrives to propose an armistice.♦
Soon after mid-day an alarm was given that the enemy were advancing to renew the attack; the position was taken as on the preceding morning. It proved to be a body of cavalry with a flag of truce; and General Kellermann alighting at head-quarters, proposed an armistice, for the purpose of concluding a treaty for the evacuation of Portugal by the French. Sir Hew immediately called for his two predecessors. He himself had no means of knowing, but from them, what the consequences of yesterday’s battle really had been; the responsibility was his, but for the information upon which the agreement was to be founded, he trusted to them, and more especially to Sir Arthur. That General’s plans had been completely defeated by the refusal to follow up the victory, and by the change which Sir Harry Burrard, before he landed, had made in the intended destination of Sir John Moore’s corps. Considering, therefore, that in consequence of these errors the enemy had been allowed leisure to resume a formidable position between the British army and Lisbon, and could not now by any increase of the British numbers be prevented from crossing the Tagus, and occupying in strength the strong place of Elvas, with its stronger fort La Lippe, and Almeida; that the Tagus would not for some time longer be open to the fleet, the army meantime depending upon the ships for supplies, and that its communication with them by the coast must at that season be most precarious: considering also how important it was that the troops should not be delayed by regular sieges in Portugal, but march as soon as possible into Spain, he thought it expedient that the French should be allowed to evacuate Portugal with their arms and baggage, and that every facility for this purpose should be afforded them. They occupied at that time, in a military point of view, he thought, the whole of Portugal, having every strong hold in their hands; their present situation enabled them still to avail themselves of those possessions, and to strengthen them as they might think proper; and he was of opinion that an army which had its retreat open, and possessed such advantages, had a fair claim to be allowed such terms. He wished, however, to limit the suspension of arms to eight-and-forty hours. Sir Hew preferred that it should be unlimited, as it had been proposed; in this he had a view to the disembarkation of Sir John Moore’s corps, which was not forbidden by the agreement.
♦Terms of the armistice.♦
An armistice accordingly for the purpose of negotiating a definitive convention was concluded upon[30] these terms: That the river Sisandre should be the line of demarcation between the two armies, and that neither of them should occupy Torres Vedras; that the English general should bind himself to comprehend the armed Portugueze in the truce, and that their line of demarcation should be from Leiria to Thomar: that it was agreed that the French army should in no case be considered as prisoners of war; that all the individuals of it should be transported to France with their arms and baggage and private property, and that they should be deprived of no part of it whatsoever: that no individual, whether Portugueze, Frenchman, or of a nation allied to France, should be molested for his political conduct, but be protected, both in person and property, and have liberty to retire from Portugal within a limited time, with all his effects: that the neutrality of the port of Lisbon should be acknowledged for the Russian fleet; that is to say, that, when the English army and fleet should be in possession of the city and port, the Russian fleet should neither be disturbed during its stay, nor stopped when it might choose to depart, nor pursued when it had sailed, till after the time fixed, in such cases, by maritime law: that all the French artillery, and all their cavalry horses, should be transported to France.