Having received instructions from the secretary of state that you were likely to arrive on the coast of Portugal with a corps of 10,000 men, lately employed in the north of Europe under the orders of sir John Moore, I now submit to you such information as I have received regarding the general state of the war in Portugal and Spain, and the plan of operations which I am about to carry into execution.
The enemy’s force at present in Portugal consists, as far as I am able to form an opinion, of from 16,000 to 18,000 men, of which number there are about 500 in the fort of Almeida, about the same number in Elvas, about 6 or 800 in Peniché, and 16 or 1800 in the province of Alemtejo, at Setuval, &c.; and the remainder are disposable for the defence of Lisbon, and are in the forts of St. Julian and Cascaes, in the batteries along the coast as far as the Rock of Lisbon, and the old citadel of Lisbon, to which the enemy have lately added some works.
Of the force disposable for the defence of Lisbon, the enemy have lately detached a corps of about 2000, under general Thomieres, principally I believe to watch my movements, which corps is now at Alcobaça; and another corps of 4000 men, under genl. Loison, was sent across the Tagus into Alemtejo on the 26th of last month, the object of which detachment was to disperse the Portuguese insurgents in that quarter, to force the Spanish corps, consisting of about 2000 men, which had advanced into Portugal as far as Evora from Estremadura, to retire, and then to be enabled to add to the force destined for the defence of Lisbon the corps of French troops which had been stationed at Setuval and in the province of Alemtejo; at all events Loison’s corps will return to Lisbon, and the French corps disposable for the defence of that place will probably be about 14,000 men, of which at least 3000 must be left in the garrisons and forts on the coast and in the river.
The French army under Dupont, in Andalusia, surrendered on the 20th of last month to the Spanish army under Castaños; so that there are now no French troops in the south of Spain. The Spanish army of Gallicia and Castille, to the northward, received a check at Rio Seco, in the province of Valladolid, on the 14th of July, from a French corps supposed to be under the command of general Bessieres, which had advanced from Burgos.
The Spanish troops retired on the 15th to Benevente, and I understand there has since been an affair between the advanced posts in that neighbourhood, but I am not certain of it; nor am I acquainted with the position of the Spanish army, or of that of the French, since the 14th July. When you will have been a short time in this country, and will have observed the degree to which the deficiency of real information is supplied by the circulation of unfounded reports, you will not be surprised at my want of accurate knowledge on these subjects.
It is however certain that nothing of importance has occurred in that quarter since the 14th July; and from this circumstance I conclude that the corps called Bessieres attacked the Spanish army at Rio Seco solely with a view to cover the march of king Joseph Buonaparte to Madrid, where he arrived on the 21st July. Besides their defeat in Andalusia, the enemy, as you may probably have heard, have been beat off in an attack upon Sarragossa, in Arragon, in another upon the city of Valencia (in both of which it is said that they have lost many men); and it is reported that in Catalonia two of their detachments have been cut off, and that they have lost the fort of Figueras in the Pyrenees, and that Barcelona is blockaded. Of these last-mentioned actions and operations I have seen no official accounts, but the report of them is generally circulated and believed; and at all events, whether these reports are founded or otherwise, it is obvious that the insurrection against the French is general throughout Spain; that large bodies of Spaniards are in arms; amongst others, in particular, an army of 20,000 men, including 4000 cavalry, at Almaraz on the Tagus in Estremadura, and that the French cannot carry on their operations by means of small corps. I should imagine from their inactivity, and from the misfortunes they have suffered, that they have not the means of collecting a force sufficiently large to oppose the progress of the insurrection and the efforts of the insurgents, and to afford supplies to their different detached corps, or that they find that they cannot carry on their operations with armies so numerous as they must find it necessary to employ without magazines.
In respect to Portugal, the whole kingdom, with the exception of the neighbourhood of Lisbon, is in a state of insurrection against the French; their means of resistance are, however, less powerful than those of the Spaniards, their troops had been completely dispersed, their officers had gone off to the Brazils, and their arsenals pillaged, or in the power of the enemy, and their revolt under the circumstances in which it has taken place is still more extraordinary than that of the Spanish nation.
The Portuguese may have in the northern part of the kingdom about 10,000 men in arms, of which number 5000 are to march with me towards Lisbon. The remainder, with a Spanish detachment of about 1500 men which came from Gallicia, are employed in a distant blockade of Almeida, and in the protection of Oporto, which is now the seat of government.
The insurrection is general throughout Alemtejo and Algarve to the southward, and Entre Minho et Douero and Trasasmontes and Beira to the northward; but for want of arms the people can do nothing against the enemy.
Having consulted sir C. Cotton, it appeared to him and to me that the attack proposed upon Cascaes bay was impracticable, because the bay is well defended by the fort of Cascaes and the other works constructed for its defence, and the ships of war could not approach sufficiently near to silence them. The landing in the Passa d’Arcos in the Tagus could not be effected without silencing fort St. Julian, which appeared to be impracticable to those who were to carry that operation into execution.