They arrived there on the 12th of March; and thus ended a transaction clearly indicating an unsettled policy, shallow combinations, and a bad choice of agents on the part of the English cabinet, and a most unwise and unworthy disposition in the supreme junta. General Mackenzie attributed the jealousy of the latter to French influence; Mr. Frere to the abrupt proceedings of sir George Smith, and to fear, lest the junta of Seville, who were continually on the watch to recover their ancient power, should represent the admission of the British troops as a treasonable proceeding on the part of the supreme government. It is, however, evident that the true cause was the false position in which the English ministers had originally placed themselves, by inundating Spain with arms and money, without at the same time asserting a just influence, and making their assistance the price of good order and useful exertion.
CHAPTER III.
The effort made to secure Cadiz was an act of disinterested zeal on the part of sir John Cradock. The absence of his best troops exposed him to the most galling peevishness from the regency, and to the grossest insults from the populace. With his reduced force, he could not expect to hold even a contracted position at the extremity of the rock of Lisbon against the weakest army likely to invade Portugal; and, as there was neither a native force nor a government to be depended upon, there remained for him only the prospect of a forced and, consequently, disgraceful embarkation, and the undeserved obloquy that never fails to follow disaster.
In this disagreeable situation, as Elvas and Almeida no longer contained British troops, the general’s attention was necessarily fixed upon Lisbon and Oporto. The violence of the gales rendered the latter a sealed port; but the hospitals and magazines of Almeida, and even of Salamanca, being evacuated upon Lamego, that town was crowded with fifteen hundred sick men, besides escorts, and the hourly accumulating stores. The river had overflowed its banks, the craft could not ply; and one large boat, attempting to descend, was overset, and eighty persons, soldiers and others, perished.
General Cameron, hearing of this confusion, relinquished the idea of embarking his detachment at Oporto, and, re-crossing the Douro, made for Lisbon, where he arrived the beginning of February with about two thousand men; but they were worn down by fatigue, having marched eight hundred miles under continued rains.
Sir Robert Wilson sent his guns to Abrantes, by the road of Idanha Nova; but, partly from a spirit [Appendix, No. 6], sect. 1. of adventure, partly from an erroneous idea that sir John Cradock wished him to defend the frontier, he remained with his infantry in the neighbourhood of Ciudad Rodrigo. His force had been increased by a Spanish detachment under don Carlos d’España, and by some volunteers; but it was still weak, and his operations were necessarily confined to a few trifling skirmishes: yet, like many others, his imagination [Appendix, No. 6], sect. 1. so far outstripped his judgement that, when he had only felt the advanced post of a single division, he expressed his conviction that the French were going to abandon Spain altogether.
Sir John Cradock entertained no such false expectations; he was informed of the battle of Coruña and the death of Moore; he knew too well the vigour and talent of that general to doubt that he had been oppressed by an overwhelming force; he knew that Zaragoza had fallen, and that twenty-five thousand French troops were thus free to act in other quarters; he knew that Soult, with at least twenty thousand men, was on the Minho; that Romana was incapable of making any head, that Portugal was one wide scene of helpless confusion, and that a French army was again in the neighbourhood of Merida, threatening Lisbon by the line of the Tagus; in fine, that his own embarrassments were hourly increasing, and that the moment was arrived when the safety of his troops must become the chief consideration.
The tenor of the few despatches he had received from England led him to suppose that the ministers [Appendix, No. 10], sect. 1. designed to abandon Portugal; but, as their intentions on that head were never clearly explained, he resolved to abide by the literal interpretation of his first instructions, and to keep his hold of the country as long as it was possible to do so without risking the utter destruction of his army. To avoid that danger, he put every incumbrance at Lisbon on board the transports in the Tagus, proceeded to dismantle the batteries at the mouth of the river, and, in concert with the admiral, made preparations for carrying away or destroying the military and naval stores in the arsenal. At the same time, he renewed his efforts to embark the sick men and stores at Oporto; but the weather continued so unfavourable that he was finally obliged to remove the invalids and many stores by land, yet he could not procure carriages for the whole.
After the arrival of Cameron’s detachment, the effective British force under arms, including convalescents and fifteen hundred stragglers from sir John [Appendix, No. 11]. Moore’s army, was about eight thousand men; but, when the security of the forts and magazines, and the tranquillity of Lisbon, was provided for, only five thousand men, and those not in the best order, could be brought into the field. As this force was infinitely too weak to cover such a town as Lisbon, the general judged that it would be unwise to take up a position in advance, whence he should be obliged to retreat through the midst of a turbulent and excited population, which had already given too many indications of ill-temper to leave any doubt of its hostility under such circumstances. He, therefore, came to the resolution of withdrawing from Saccavem and Lisbon, and concentrating his whole force on a position at Passa D’Arcos, near the mouth of the [Appendix, No. 10], sect. 2 and 3. river, where he could embark with least danger, and where he had the best chance of defending himself, if necessary, against superior numbers.