The Portugueze General, Francisco da Silveira, had taken the command upon that frontier; his force consisted of 2800 regular troops, 2500 militia, and only fifty horse. Romana ♦Feb. 24.♦ had an interview with him at Chaves, while the enemy were preparing for their vain attempt to pass the Minho; and they had resolved upon attacking the French at Tuy, when they learnt that Soult was advancing up the river. They then took up a position for the defence of Chaves, the Spaniards upon the right bank of the Tamega from Monterrey to that fortress, Silveira from the bridge of Villaça to Villarelho. The Portugueze were elated by the failure of the French in their attempt to cross the Minho, which indeed had in some degree dispirited the invaders; and Romana, though fully aware of the inefficiency of his own force, had yet an entire reliance upon the national character and the spirit which had been raised. The secular clergy as well as the monks were zealously aiding him; the monks of S. Claudio, of S. Mamed, and of S. Maria de Melon, and the parochial priest of the latter place, distinguished themselves especially in this good work. His orders were, that all should take arms who were capable of using them, and that the remaining part of the population wherever the French came should abandon their houses, and carry away all provisions.
♦Difference between M. Soult and M. Ney.♦
These orders were very generally obeyed. The small parties of the French were harassed or cut off wherever they appeared; and when Soult approached Ribadavia a brave resistance was made in the village of Franzelos and before the town. The peasantry were not dispersed till great carnage had been made among them; and the invaders upon entering the town found only about a dozen persons remaining there. Detachments were dispatched against the peasantry on all sides, and the greater part of the artillery was sent back to Tuy, as much because of the opposition which was experienced, as owing to the state of the roads. At Orense ♦Operations de M. Soult, 92–99.♦ part of the people remained, and the magistrates[5] submitting of necessity, came out to meet the French. Here Marshal Soult received dispatches from Ney; the contents were kept secret, but it was reported that Ney advised him not to pursue his intention of entering Portugal. The report considerably affected the superior officers, and those especially who, having belonged to Junot’s army, understood the horrible sort of war in which they were again to be engaged. The two Marshals were upon ill terms with each other, and a spirit of dissension was thus introduced into the army.
♦Rout of Romana’s army.♦
After remaining more than a week at Orense, endeavouring by force to suppress the peasants, and by allurements to seduce the higher classes from their duty, Soult resumed his march for Portugal, by way of Monterrey and Chaves. In this line he expected to find a road practicable for artillery, and he thought Romana would be so effectually crushed, that he should meet with no enemy capable of molesting him in that quarter. He had sent a trumpet to that general’s outposts, requesting permission for an officer to pass with a letter to the Marquis. It was granted. The letter merely contained an offer of honours and employments in the Intruder’s name, if Romana would acknowledge him as King, and bring over his troops. Romana having glanced at the contents, bade the bearer return, and say that the only answer to be given to such proposals was from the mouth of the cannon: but the real object of the overture was, that the officer who had been selected for this service might reconnoitre the position; and this the Spaniards, unaccustomed as they were to military precautions, gave him full opportunity of doing. On the following day General Franceschi was ordered to attack their right, which was posted to the south-east of Monterrey, on the heights of Orsona. The rout was so complete, that the actual loss did not amount to more than some 300 slain, and as many prisoners: the French considered the dispersion of the army which ensued as its destruction, and believed that Romana had fixed upon so remote a point as Asturias for the rallying place. While Franceschi was thus employed on the right, Laborde attacked the vanguard of the Portugueze at Villaça, who retired[6] at night, after a good resistance, losing one of their two guns.
♦The French remove their sick to Monterrey.♦
The French had left 200 sick and wounded at Ribadavia; they had removed them to Orense, where nearly 500 were added to the number, and now the whole were ordered to Monterrey, in so insecure a state did Soult consider the country which he was leaving. The old works at Monterrey, he thought, might be so repaired as to render that place tenable, and make it serve as a base for his line of operations. There and in the little town of Verin, on the opposite side of the Tamega, which contained about 2000 inhabitants, scarcely twenty persons had remained; and the French began to doubt the saying of Buonaparte, that men with bayonets could want for nothing. The fugitives, however, had left wine in Verin; and in order to pay some part of his establishment, Soult raised a few thousand pounds by a loan from the troops, ... part of the money which had been thrown away in Sir John Moore’s retreat. General Merle was left to collect his division there, forming the reserve, and the rest of the army advanced down the Tamega, to enter Portugal, before any effectual preparations could be made for resisting them. Marshal Soult was so apprehensive ♦Operations de M. Soult, 107–111, 115.♦ lest the troops should suffer in health, that when they crossed the river by a ford little more than knee deep, he erected two temporary bridges there for the infantry.
♦Chaves.♦
Chaves is the frontier town of Portugal on that side, as Monterrey is that of Spain; both are on the Tamega, a river which, rising in the Sierra de S. Mamed, and watering the fertile vales of Monterrey and Oimbra, enters Portugal at Chaves, turns again into Galicia among the mountains of Barroso, and re-entering Tras os Montes, joins the Douro at S. Miguel de Entre ambos os Rios with a stronger and larger volume of waters than is borne to it by any other of its tributary streams. Chaves is known to have been the Aquæ Flaviæ of the Romans, so named because of its hot springs, and in honour of its founder Vespasian. The baths, when flattery in course of nature was out of date, supplanted the memory of the Emperor; and the place then obtained the more appropriate name of Aquæ Calidæ, which in process of time was abbreviated and corrupted into Chaves. The springs are said to be more efficacious than any other in Portugal; but the buildings which formerly served to accommodate invalids who came to seek relief from these waters were demolished by the Conde de Mesquitella, toward the close of the seventeenth century, in order that the guns might command the approach on that side without impediment: he has been censured for this as having committed a certain mischief for the sake of a frivolous precaution. At that time Chaves was considered a place of importance. The walls were now in many places fallen to decay, and though the citadel was in better repair, both it and the town were commanded from several points, and at short distances.
♦Silveira retires from Chaves.♦