[1807-1814 A.D.]
The prince-regent was at length induced, by the number of the Moniteur which was sent to him, to throw himself into the arms of the English, whose ships were lying in the Tagus, and, under their protection, to save himself by setting sail for Brazil. He took his departure from the Tagus on the 29th, under English convoy, with eight ships of the line, three frigates, three brigs, and a considerable number of transports, in order to remove the seat of his government to Brazil.[183] The well-stored arsenal, from whose treasures the whole French army was afterwards clothed and provided, fell without diminution into the hands of the French, in consequence of his precipitate departure. Junot’s advanced guard even reached Belem in time enough to capture some ships of war which had been detained by contrary winds, and were still within reach of the guns of the fort.
The second army, which was assembled at Bayonne to reinforce Junot’s corps, was still stronger than the first; but the whole of Europe deeply condemned Napoleon’s want of honour, and was angry with the French sophists and cringing flatterers who ventured to defend and to praise the emperor’s policy in the use of this army. At the very moment in which he concluded a treaty with Spain against Portugal, and was using one part of the Spanish army under Bernadotte in Denmark, and was alluring the second to Portugal, he caused a body of troops to be assembled at Bayonne, but not to march against Portugal, as he had announced. It soon became obvious that Napoleon planned to take possession of Spain in the midst of peace.
The Spaniards who had assisted Junot in the conquest of Portugal having withdrawn into their own country, the French general had scattered his troops from Algarve and Oporto, and had done everything which could render the sojourn of the French in their country intolerable to the Portuguese. Napoleon immediately laid a contribution of 100,000,000 francs on Portugal; the people were obliged, besides, to pay 600,000 francs to Junot, which the emperor had assigned to him as governor-general; and Junot raised 5,000,000 more on his own account. Napoleon not only drew away the national troops from Portugal and took them into his own army, but appeared desirous of playing the same constitution-comedy with the Portuguese in Bayonne as he had played with the Spaniards. He sent for a number of the notables as deputies, but retained them in hostages; and they were afterwards placed in a very dangerous position, when, given up by him, they became suspected by their own countrymen. The only favour which he granted them was to remit forty of the hundred millions of contribution which he had at first imposed. In small matters, every officer in Portugal played the despot and oppressor.[h]
THE PENINSULAR WAR
[1807-1809 A.D.]
Portugal now became, like Spain, hardly more than the arena where English armies under the duke of Wellington fought a desperate and protracted war with the French under various leaders. The full details of this conflict, known as the Peninsular War, will be found in the history of Spain. For some years it was impossible to distinguish between the military interests of Spain and Portugal, their common safety resting on the destruction of Napoleon and the success of British courage and British plans. In these the Spaniards and Portuguese played small part, according to the British histories, except to harass French communications by their guerillas and harass British security by their intrigues and jealousies.
But there is something to be said for the natives. The French democratic principles had made some progress in Portugal, and the cowardly and stupid king who fled to a colony and left his country for a foreigner to defend was not of much inspiration. In fact patriotism found here little to cling to except the rocks and vines, and those would remain in any case, whoever ruled. Between the world-shaking Napoleon and the weak-minded, England-serving poltroon whom monarchic heredity had with its usual felicity placed on the throne, there was small choice to the Portuguese, and the historian should be sparing of his blame for the impassivity of the nation.
Furthermore the English commander Wellington was notoriously domineering; and the English troops, according to their own historian and their general himself, showed some of the most atrocious examples of drunken insubordination and bestial ferocity in the history of human war. Few of the Portuguese could be blind to the fact that England, in spite of her lofty tone, was really in Portugal for commercial and not for altruistic reasons, and that the war was purely a wrestling-match for commerce and power between two giants, France and England, with little regard for the Lilliputians they might trample in their struggle. It behooves the reader, then, not to follow the bias of either pro- or anti-Napoleonic historians in their common tone of contempt for the alleged pusillanimity of the Spanish and Portuguese.
The fact must be remembered that Spain and Portugal had nothing or next to nothing definite to fight for, as “loyalty” in each country meant little more than a desire to shed blood and money for a monarch of third-rate virtue and first-rate imbecility. It may be said, however, that the verdict of English historians is much more favourable to the Portuguese soldiers than to the Spanish. A brief outline of events will serve here for the history of Portugal, in view of the chapter already given in the history of Spain.