CHAPTER IV.
A few days after sailing from Cork, sir Arthur Wellesley quitting the fleet, repaired in a frigate to Coruña, where he arrived the 20th of July, and immediately held a conference with the members of Sir A. Wellesley’s Narrative. Court of Inquiry. the Gallician junta, by whom he was informed of the battle of Rio Seco; but the account was glossed over in the Spanish manner, and the issue of that contest had caused no change in their policy, if policy that may be called, which was but a desire to obtain money and to avoid personal inconvenience; they rejected all succour in men, but earnestly pressed for arms and gold; and even while the conference went on, the last was supplied, for an English frigate entered the harbour with two hundred thousand pounds for their use. Whereupon, the junta recommended that the British troops should be employed in the north of Portugal, and promising to aid them by sending a Spanish division to Oporto, supported their recommendation by an incorrect statement of the number of men, Spanish and Portuguese, who, they asserted, were in arms near that city, and by a still more inaccurate estimate of the forces under Junot; and in this manner persuaded sir Arthur not to land in their province. Yet, at the moment they were rejecting the assistance of the British troops, the whole kingdom of Gallicia was lying at the mercy of marshal Bessieres, and there were neither men nor means to impede the progress of his victorious army.
Mr. Charles Stuart, appointed to reside as British envoy near the junta, landed at Coruña, and sir Arthur Wellesley proceeded to Oporto, where he found colonel Browne, an active and intelligent officer, who had been sent there a short time before to collect intelligence, and to distribute supplies. From his information it appeared, that no Spanish troops were in the north of Portugal, and that all the Portuguese force was upon the Mondego, to the south of which river the insurrection had spread. A French division of eight thousand men was supposed to be in their front, and some great disaster was expected, for, to use colonel Browne’s words, “with every good will in the people, their exertions were so short lived, and Parliamentary Papers, 1809. with so little combination, that there was no hope of their being able to resist the advance of the enemy;” in fact, only five thousand regulars and militia, half armed, and associated with ten or twelve thousand peasants without any arms, were in the field at all. A large army was, however, made out upon paper by the bishop of Oporto, who, having assembled his Sir A. Wellesley’s Narrative. Court of Inquiry. civil and military coadjutors in council, proposed various plans of operation for the allied forces, none of which sir Arthur was inclined to adopt; but after some discussion it was finally arranged that the prelate and the paper army should look to the defence of the Tras os Montes against Bessieres, and that the five thousand soldiers on the Mondego should co-operate with the British forces.
This being settled, sir Arthur Wellesley hastened to consult with sir Charles Cotton relative to the descent at the mouth of the Tagus, which had so long haunted the imaginations of the ministers. The strength of the French, the bar of the river, the disposition of the forts, and the difficulty of landing in the immediate neighbourhood, occasioned by the heavy surf playing upon all the undefended creeks and bays, convinced him that such an enterprise was Sir A. Wellesley’s Narrative. Court of Inquiry. unadvisable, if not impracticable. There remained the alternative of landing to the north of Lisbon at such a distance as to avoid the danger of a disputed disembarkation, or of proceeding to the southward to join general Spencer, and commence operations in that quarter against Dupont. Sir Arthur Wellesley decided against the latter, which promised no good result while Junot held Portugal, and Bessieres hung on Sir H. Dalrymple’s and lord Collingwood’s Correspondence. the northern frontier. He foresaw that the jealousy of the Spaniards, evinced by their frequent refusal to admit English troops into Cadiz, would assuredly bring on a tedious negotiation, and waste the season of action before the army could obtain a place of arms, or that the campaign must be commenced without any secure base of operations. Nothing was then known of the Spanish troops, except that they were inexperienced; but without good aid from them it would have been idle with fourteen thousand men to take the field against twenty thousand strongly posted in the Sierra Morena and communicating freely with the main body of the French army. A momentary advance was useless; and if the campaign was protracted, the line of operations running nearly parallel to the frontier of Portugal, would have required a covering army on the Guadiana to watch the movements of Junot.
The double line of operations, proposed by lord Castlereagh, was contrary to all military principle, and as Spencer’s despatches announced that his division was at St. Mary’s, near Cadiz, and disengaged from any connexion with the Spaniards (a fortunate circumstance scarcely to have been expected), sir Arthur sent him orders to sail to the mouth of the Mondego, whither he himself also repaired, and joined the fleet having his own army on board. Off the Mondego he received the despatches announcing sir Hew Dalrymple’s appointment and the sailing of sir John Moore’s troops.
This mortifying intelligence did not relax his activity; he directed fast sailing vessels to look out for Anstruther’s armament, and to conduct it to the Mondego, and having heard of Dupont’s capitulation, resolved, without waiting for general Spencer’s arrival, to disembark his own troops and commence the campaign—a determination that marked the cool decisive vigour of his character; for, although sure that (in consequence of Dupont’s defeat) Bessieres would not Sir A. Wellesley’s Narrative. Court of Inquiry. enter Portugal, his information led him to estimate Junot’s own force at sixteen to eighteen thousand men, a number, indeed, below the truth, yet sufficient to make the hardiest general pause before he disembarked with only nine thousand men, and without any certainty that his fleet could remain even for a day in that dangerous offing, at a moment also when another man was coming to profit from any success that might be obtained, and when a failure would have ruined his own reputation in the estimation of the English public, always ready to deride the skill of an Indian general.
It was difficult to find a good point of disembarkation, for the coast of Portugal from the Minho to the Tagus, presents, with few exceptions, a rugged and dangerous shore; all the harbours formed by the rivers have bars, that render most of them difficult of access even for boats, and with the slightest breeze from the sea-board a terrible surf breaks along the whole line of coast and forbids all approach, and when the south wind, which commonly prevails from August to the winter months, blows, a more dangerous shore is not to be found in any part of the world.
The small peninsula of Peniché, about seventy miles northward of the Lisbon Rock, alone offered a safe and accessible bay, perfectly adapted for a disembarkation, but the anchorage was completely within range of the fort, which contained a hundred guns and a garrison of a thousand men. The next best place was the Mondego river, and as the little fort of Figueras, taken, as I have before related, by the student Zagalo, and now occupied by English marines, secured a free entrance, sir Arthur commenced landing his troops Sir A. Wellesley’s Narrative. Court of Inquiry. there on the 1st of August. The weather was calm, but the operation was so difficult that it was not completed before the 5th. At that moment, by a singular good fortune, general Spencer arrived; he had not received sir Arthur’s orders, but with great promptitude had sailed for the Tagus the moment Dupont surrendered, and by sir Charles Cotton had been directed to the Mondego. The united forces, however, only amounted to twelve thousand three hundred men, because the fourth veteran battalion being destined for Gibraltar was left on board the ships.
The army being on shore, the British general repaired to Montemor Velho to confer with don Bernardim Freire de Andrada, the Portuguese commander-in-chief. The latter proposed that the troops of the two nations should relinquish all communication with the coast, and throwing themselves into the heart of Beira, commence an offensive campaign; he promised ample stores of provisions; but sir Arthur having already discovered the weakness of the insurrection, placed no reliance on those promises. He supplied Freire with five thousand stand of arms and ammunition, but refused to separate from his ships; and seeing clearly that the insurgents were unable to give any real assistance, he resolved to act with reference to the probability of their deserting him in danger. The Portuguese general, disappointed at this refusal, reluctantly consented to join the British army, but he pressed sir Arthur to hasten to Leria, lest a large magazine filled, as he affirmed, with provisions for the use of the British army, should fall into the enemy’s hands. After this the two generals separated, and the necessary preparations for a march being completed, the advanced guard of the English army quitted the banks of the Mondego on the 9th, taking the road to Leria. The 10th sir Arthur Wellesley followed with the main body, and thus commenced the