[1799-1807 A.D.]
Portugal was now driven to open alliance with England, against whom Spain declared war in 1796. At the same time Dom João learned that Napoleon and the Spanish prime minister Godoy had agreed to conquer and divide Portugal as a spoil of war. The English voted £200,000 [$1,000,000] to Portugal and sent six thousand men under Major-General Sir Charles Stuart. These with a native army of some forty thousand men placed under the prince of Waldeck frightened off Spanish invasion, whereupon Stuart and the English troops withdrew. Little had happened thus far except the loss of some commerce to French privateers. In 1799 Dom João formally assumed the regency and tried vainly to secure the favour of Napoleon, who would listen to nothing less than the payment of a heavy tribute, breach of the alliance with England, the closing of Portuguese ports to English ships, the surrender of a portion of Portuguese territory to Spain. As alternative to these hard terms made under the name of Spain, war was offered. Dom João accepted the latter alternative, and proclaimed war on Spain, February 10th, 1801.
As related in the Spanish history, Portugal was invaded by the Spanish at once, and with such ease that, by June 6th, João was glad to accept the Peace of Badajoz at the cost of ceding Olivenza to Spain. Napoleon, however, required more, and sent troops which extorted a tribute of £1,000,000 [$5,000,000] and the cession of Portuguese Guiana to France. Napoleon’s representative at Lisbon was General Lannes (or Lasnes) who at first provoked great hatred by his insolent bearing, but later procured a large influence over João and secured the dismissal of the ministers of English sympathies. In 1804 he was succeeded by General Junot who accepted a treaty of neutrality which gave Portugal quiet for some years, while Napoleon went on from great to greater.
The English tried to break the Portuguese peace with France, but could succeed in nothing more than keeping her ports open in spite of Napoleon’s continental system against English trade. By 1807, however, Napoleon was master enough of the East to turn again to Portugal and by the Treaty of Fontainebleau (October 29th, 1807), resumed his project of dividing it among Godoy, the king of Etruria, and himself. The terrified João offered every sacrifice for peace, going so far as to order from his realm every British subject and to close his ports to England, though this meant commercial ruin to Portugal. But Napoleon, pretending that the submission was too late, sent forward his troops under General Junot.[a]
THE INVASION OF THE FRENCH (1807 A.D.)
The Treaty of Fontainebleau contained all the decisions respecting the campaign against Portugal, and the partition of that kingdom. The Spaniards were to reinforce the army of the Gironde with twelve thousand men; at the same time to invade the north of Portugal with forty thousand men; and to give orders for another army to enter Algarve under Solano. In terms of the treaty, Lisbon and the whole centre of the country were to fall to the share of France, a part of the northern division was to be given as compensation to the queen of Etruria, and a sovereign territory to be formed in the south for Godoy. The part not allotted by the treaty to any of the three parties just mentioned was to be the subject of future negotiations, when possession of the whole was obtained.
Notwithstanding the imminent danger, the prince-regent had neither taken measures for defence, made preparations for setting sail to Brazil, nor even for the removal of the rich stores in the arsenals and magazines of the capital. The prince and his whole court would have been taken by surprise in Lisbon by the French rapidly advancing on the capital through Beira, had not a swift sailing ship brought a copy of the Moniteur to Lisbon, in which Napoleon, who supposed that his army was long since in that city, too hastily expressed his triumph by the declaration: “The house of Braganza has ceased to reign.”
The army of the Gironde was under the command of Marshal Junot, who gained his ensign’s commission by an act of great presence of mind displayed under the eyes of Napoleon at the siege of Toulon, although he was in reality possessed of very small military capacity. He had been in Lisbon as ambassador, and still held that title, never having been formally recalled; the troops under his command, however, contained but very few men who could be thoroughly relied upon, for this army of the Gironde had been very hastily drawn together. The prime of the French army was at that time still in Germany (September, 1807) and in Prussia, and the first army, as well as that by which it was succeeded, consisted of a mixture of soldiers and officers, who, on the landing of the English and the outbreak of the Spanish rising, proved wholly unequal to maintaining the glory gained by the grand army; this was not at first perceived. Junot wished to collect and organise his army, seeing it was composed of very different elements, when he suddenly received orders to march direct upon Lisbon in order to surprise the prince-regent in his security. We may form some idea of the rapidity with which he prosecuted his march, from the fact that he had taken twenty-five days to march from Bayonne to Salamanca, where he arrived on the 12th of November; while, on the other hand, he reached Alcantara as early as the 17th, and was in Abrantes on the 23rd, about eighty miles from Lisbon.
The difficulty of the march, the pathless and rough character of the districts through which he led the army were indescribable; but no measures whatever were adopted by the Portuguese for resistance or even to increase the difficulty of the journey. A great portion of the army fell a sacrifice to the difficulties of the march, or to want, in neighbourhoods where no idea could be entertained of any kind of sustenance or cover. Many had fallen into pits, others perished in the attempt to cross running streams; but the immense loss in men was taken into no account whatever. As a reward for the rapidity of his march, Junot received the title of the duke of Abrantes, although he reached Lisbon with only a small part of his army [about two thousand men] at the end of November, and a long time elapsed before all the stragglers joined their respective corps.