Upon receiving intelligence of Sir Arthur’s landing, Junot sent Laborde, one of the ablest of the French generals, from Lisbon, with three thousand foot and five hundred horse to check the progress of the British; and calling in his various detachments, he ordered them severally to effect their junction with Laborde. Under these circumstances, the English commander’s object was to prevent the junction of the several detachments—an object which the skill and celerity of his movements enabled him, in the most important instance, to effect. Wellesley was thus enabled to attack Laborde at Roliza on the 17th of August, with great numerical superiority. He drove him from his position with comparative facility; but Laborde fell back about a mile to much stronger ground, where he again awaited the English, and here the battle was sanguinary. Laborde, after displaying both skill and intrepidity, abandoned the contest, retreating in good order.
After the victory was gained, Sir Arthur, now reinforced to about sixteen thousand men, proposed turning the left flank of the position occupied by Junot and his united forces—about fourteen thousand men—and endeavouring to cut him off from Lisbon. But, unfortunately, Sir Arthur Wellesley was no longer commander-in-chief. The English ministry had not known how to appreciate the man whose extraordinary talents had as yet only been tried in India; and three senior officers had been appointed to supersede him, and, as it proved, each other. The nomination of one of these could not be blamed, for Sir John Moore then certainly ranked higher in public estimation as a general than Sir Arthur Wellesley; but Sir Harry Burrard and Sir Hew Dalrymple had never been in situations to display military capacity. Sir Harry Burrard arrived on the very day that the reinforcements joined Sir Arthur; and with all the caution of old age refused to sanction the advance of an army deficient in cavalry and artillery horses, especially as ten thousand men were daily expected with Sir John Moore.
On the morning of the 21st, Junot fell upon the British army, with the impetuosity characterising his countrymen and Napoleon’s warriors. They were, however, repulsed in every attack; the defects of the position, and the almost total want of cavalry, were immediately remedied by the ability of the general, and the loss was far greater on the side of the French, and less on that of the British, than at Roliza. The battle was over by noon; a considerable portion of the army had not been engaged, and Sir Arthur proposed to follow up his victory, pursue the retreating enemy, cut him off from Lisbon, and thus deliver the capital from the French yoke. Again Burrard’s caution prevailed to forbid the pursuit, and still the army remained at Vimeiro.
Sir Harry Burrard’s authority expired almost as soon as he had thus unfortunately used it; and on the 22nd Sir Hew Dalrymple landed to take the supreme command. On the evening of the same day, before he could well make himself master of the state of affairs, General Kellermann was sent by Junot to the British camp to propose an armistice, and the evacuation of Portugal by the French troops upon conditions. Such as it was, the so-called Convention of Cintra was signed, and Portugal delivered from her conquerors, on the 30th of August, within a month of General Wellesley’s landing.
The authority of Queen Maria and the prince-regent was now restored throughout Portugal. Sir Hew Dalrymple reinstated the council of regency appointed by the prince at his departure, and began his preparations for entering Spain. He was, however, recalled to stand a sort of trial for concluding the Convention of Cintra which provoked wild rage in England; Sir Harry Burrard and Sir Arthur Wellesley returned home to give evidence upon the subject, and the command devolved upon Sir John Moore.
About sixty thousand French troops were now left in Spain. But the British army with all its reinforcements did not exceed twenty-five thousand men. Sir John Moore was of a temperament rather desponding than sanguine: although a brave and able officer, he had not the self-reliance characteristic of a master-mind, and the conduct of the Spaniards abundantly justified his mistrust of the allies, in co-operation with whom he was required to risk an army too valuable to be rashly hazarded, but too small singly to engage the French forces now concentrated upon the Ebro. But now that Spanish energy had driven the intrusive king and his foreign troops almost to the foot of the Pyrenees, Spanish pride deemed all accomplished, and the restraints that had compelled union were no more. Provincial ambition, local, and even individual interests, jealousy, and intrigue tainted the patriotism of the juntas.
Meanwhile discussions were going on as to the mode of government to be adopted. Florida-Blanca, the president of the Murcian junta, and the Council of Castile (which, on the evacuation of Madrid, had there assumed the reins of government) strongly pointed out the necessity of some central executive power, and the evils resulting from the existing anarchy of independent juntas. The convocation of the cortes, or the choice of a Sicilian prince as regent, were proposed, amongst other expedients. At length it was agreed that each junta should send two deputies from its own body to form a central and sovereign junta, each separate junta, however, still governing its own province. The central junta was installed at Aranjuez on the 26th of September. Florida-Blanca, one of the Murcian deputies, was chosen president (Jovellanos was the only other member of much reputation), and its first measure was a solemn proclamation of Ferdinand VII.
France was now pouring one hundred thousand additional men into Spain, Ney, duke of Elchingen, temporarily holding the command until the emperor should arrive from Erfurt to rule the war in person. The French army was, however, still waiting Napoleon’s arrival to make a forward movement, when the Spaniards, to the number of 130,000 men, formed in a crescent around them.
One of Sir Arthur Wellesley’s reasons for approving the Convention of Cintra had been that it immediately set the English army at liberty to enter Spain. But this advantage was either neglected or lost in the care of investigating the circumstances of that convention. It was not till the beginning of October that Sir John Moore received orders to enter Spain, and co-operate with the armies assembled around the French. Sir David Baird was, at the same time, sent to Corunna with ten thousand men, to act under Moore, who appointed Salamanca for their junction. Neither food nor means of transport had been provided; Baird was unfurnished with pecuniary resources, whilst the Galician and Austrian juntas, though so abundantly supplied by the profuse munificence of the English ministry, refused the troops of their benefactors every kind of succour. Indeed, most of the juntas appear to have misapplied the money sent by England to their own purposes, and often to have made no use whatever of the arms and stores. Moore could not cross the frontiers till the 11th of November; and the absurd precipitation of the central junta, and of those inexperienced generals who were equal in authority to Castaños, had already brought the Spanish forces into collision with the French. After many days’ skirmishing and manœuvring, Blake had been defeated, October 30th, by Lefebvre, but had retreated, rallied his men, and being joined by some of La Romana’s troops, again made head.
Napoleon himself entered Spain on the 8th of November, and the influence of his genius was immediately apparent. On the 10th, Soult, duke of Dalmatia, attacked, defeated, and utterly routed Belvedere. He then turned upon the line of retreat of Blake, whom Victor, duke of Belluno, defeated at Espinosa on the 11th, and Soult finally annihilated at Reynosa on the 13th. The greater part of the veterans brought back from the Baltic were destroyed in Blake’s successive defeats. Blake fled to the Asturian mountains, where he reunited the relics of his army, and met La Romana, who, though disappointed in all his schemes, assumed the command of these routed troops, and exerted himself strenuously to reorganise and reinforce them. The emperor now turned his forces against Castaños and Palafox, whilst his cavalry swept the plains of Leon and Castile. On the 23rd, Lannes attacked Castaños and Palafox at Tudela, and completely routed them.