When Lord Wellington retired from Almeida to the far-famed position of Torres-Vedras, the inhabitants were invited to remove their persons and property to a place of security in rear of the allied army. Amongst the few who were deaf to all entreaty, was an elderly man, who, with his wife, and a beautiful daughter, occupied a house in Valada. On Massena's progress being arrested at Torres-Vedras, the whole country was instantly over-run with his legions, in search of shelter from the inclemency of the weather. Valada, as a matter of course, was occupied, and a party quartered on the obstinate old man. They had not been many days in the house before the sparkling eyes of the beautiful Maria had so far captivated the hearts of the foreign inmates, that two of them successively paid their addresses to her, which, however, she rejected with marked disdain. This so irritated the villains, that from that day they sought the ruin of the family. The eyes of the father being at length opened, he, with the most sincere and poignant grief, beheld for the first time, his daughter standing on the brink of inevitable destruction. But alas, it was too late to retrieve the error into which his obstinacy had betrayed him. An order arriving for the detachment to proceed to Santarem, one of her lovers again made Maria a tender of his hand, which was rejected as before. This was conclusive of her fate. In an instant the innocent girl was dragged from under her father's roof, and he, in an attempt to rescue her from the grasp of the ruffians, received a wound from one of their bayonets, of which he soon after died. Her mother was afterwards maltreated, and the house plundered; in fact nothing was left but the bleeding trunk of the once happy father—the wretched mother—and the once beautiful and happy, but thenceforth the miserable and unhappy Maria. The former then lay hid from the sight of men, but the other two I saw in Valada; the widowed mother mourning over the loss of a beloved husband, and the misfortunes of an only daughter; and poor Maria, deprived of a parent's fostering care, sat brooding over her misfortunes, with misery staring her in the face, being unable to render any assistance to her mother from the barbarous treatment she experienced at the hands of the vile miscreants.
How often since that time have I fancied that I heard this interesting girl repeating, in all the calm utterance of despair,
——"O cover not
His blood, thou earth; nor ye, ye blessed souls
Of heroes, and of murdered innocence,
O! never let your everlasting cries
Cease round the eternal throne, till the Most High,
For all these unexampled wrongs, hath given
Full overflowing vengeance."
Our route led us on the 29th to the once beautiful city of Santarem, but then little better than a heap of ruins. That part of it denominated the New Town, stands on the summit of a considerable eminence, and commands a most extensive and delightful view of the vale of the Tagus, and country on its left bank. The Old Town is built along the eastern base of the hill, close to the bank of the river.
When Marshal Massena retired from before Lord Wellington at Torres-Vedras, he selected the position of Santarem as one admirably adapted for a defensive post, against an assailant moving from the side of Lisbon. The left of the French army rested on Santarem, and the right extended westward a considerable distance. What nature had left unfinished to render the position formidable, Massena endeavoured to accomplish. Field-works of various kinds crowned the eminence, while the face of the hill was studded with innumerable breast-works, from which thousands of Gallic soldiers for some time looked down upon their opponents with the scowl of defiance. From the plain the allied troops could advance by one road only to the assault of the left of the enemy's position, and that was so completely commanded by the works above noticed, that thousands of them would have bit the dust before they could have made the smallest impression in that quarter. For not attempting to drive Massena from this position, the British general was roundly but most unjustly censured by various classes in England. At first the troops were a little disappointed in not being allowed an opportunity of measuring weapons with the enemy; but before Massena finally relinquished his hold of Santarem, I believe there was not a man in the British army but was convinced that their chief acted on that occasion with his usual prudence and caution, in not attacking the crafty Marshal in his almost impregnable post, defended as it was by a numerous and veteran army, and commanded by a general, who, from his numerous successes, had been dubbed by his Imperial Master, the "Child of Fortune."
On the 30th we moved forward to Gallegao, fourteen miles from Santarem. During the last invasion of Portugal, some hundreds of the inhabitants of this large village were turned adrift on the world by the French, who subsequently ransacked and pillaged their houses, and then either threw them down, or burned them. But even these barbarous acts did not always satisfy the enemy. No: when it suited their convenience, murder was added to their long catalogue of crimes.
See yonder cottage, once the peaceful seat
Of all the pleasures of the nuptial state.
The sturdy son, the prattling infant there,
And spotless virgin blessed the happy pair.
In gentle sleep undreaming ill, they lay;
But, oh! no more to see the cheerful day.
Observing a young man of genteel appearance walking rather hurriedly, and apparently in deep meditation, behind the counter of a very small coffee-shop, we stepped in under pretence of purchasing a cup of that excellent beverage, but, in reality, to obtain information relative to the conduct of the French troops during their sojourn in that town and vicinity. After enumerating various acts of uncommon barbarity, he informed us, that before the French invasion, his father, mother, brother, and two sisters, occupied one of the neatest cottages in Gallegao, where, blessed with a competency, they lived in the full possession of every earthly comfort, which a family united within itself, and possessing the esteem and love of its neighbours, could enjoy. Being the reputed possessor of riches, the enemy naturally conceived that the old man would have a portion of his cash secreted near his person, but how to lay their talons on it, they were for some time at a loss to invent a proper excuse. At length, however, the happy thought struck them, that as our informant was then in the ranks of the Portuguese army, nothing could be more plausible than a charge of treason against his father and brother. Accordingly they were seized, tried, and on a charge of corresponding with the British, condemned and executed. Their once happy abode was plundered and unroofed, and his beloved sisters were dragged from their native village, and compelled to accompany the murderers of their parent and brother. Of their fate he was then totally ignorant; but his opinion was, (and tears trickled down his cheek as he spoke,) that if they had escaped the fate of the former, it was not improbable but that both of them, rather than survive their dishonour, had put a period to their wretched existence.
Next morning we occupied Punhete, once a neat village, but then almost a ruin. It stands on a piece of level ground, at the confluence of the Tagus and Zezere, and is completely surrounded with hills, as barren as they are uninteresting to the eye. To those who have not witnessed the distressing spectacle, no language can properly convey the most distant notion of the destruction of property by the enemy at Punhete, in spring 1811.
Almost every piece of furniture, and every door and window in the village was removed to the French bivouac, in its vicinity, but not one article ever returned; for every thing was consigned to the flames, when the enemy took a final leave of Punhete. The village church was not even held sacred by the unhallowed crew. No: from under the sacred roof every thing portable was removed, and the interior of the building was then converted into a place of repose for mules and asses. God grant that a similar calamity may never befal the sacred edifices of our own happy isle!