But all these forces united would not, with the exception of the British, have been capable of sustaining the shock of ten thousand French soldiers for half an hour; and the whole mass of the latter, then hanging on the frontier of Portugal, was above fifty thousand. Gathering like clouds on the horizon, they threatened many points, but gave no certain indication of where the storm would break. Soult, indeed, with about twenty thousand men, was endeavouring to pass the Minho; but Lapisse, although constantly menacing Ciudad Rodrigo, kept his principal masses at Salamanca and Ledesma; while Victor had concentrated his between the Alberche and the Tietar.
Thus Lapisse might join either Soult or Victor; and the latter could march by Placentia against Ciudad Rodrigo, while Soult attacked Oporto; or he might draw Lapisse to him, and penetrate Portugal by Alcantara. He might pass the Tagus, attack Cuesta, and pursue him to Seville; or, after defeating him, he might turn short to the right, and enter the Alemtejo.
In this uncertainty, sir John Cradock, keeping the British concentrated at Lumiar and Saccavem, waited for the enemy to develop his plans, and, in the mean time, endeavoured to procure the necessary equipments for an active campaign. He directed magazines to be formed at Coimbra and Abrantes; urged the regency to exertion; took measures to raise money, and despatched officers to Barbary to procure mules. But while thus engaged, intelligence arrived that Victor had suddenly forced the passage of the Tagus at Almaraz, and was in pursuit of Cuesta on the road to Merida; that Soult, having crossed the Minho, and defeated Romana and Sylveira, was within a few leagues of Oporto; and that Lapisse had made a demonstration of assaulting Ciudad Rodrigo.
The junta of Oporto now vehemently demanded aid from the regency, and the latter, although not much inclined to the bishop’s party, proposed that sir John Cradock should unite a part of the British Sir J. Cradock’s Correspondence, MSS. forces to the Portuguese troops under marshal Beresford, and march to the succour of Oporto. Beresford was averse to trust the Portuguese under his immediate command, among the mutinous multitude in that city, but he thought the whole of the British army should move in a body to Leiria, and from thence either push on to Oporto, or return, according to the events that might occur in the latter town, and he endeavoured to persuade Cradock to follow this plan.
It was doubtful, he said, if Victor and Soult intended to co-operate in a single plan; but, on the [Appendix, No. 12], section 1. supposition that it was so, he considered it essential to drive back or to overcome one before the other could come to his assistance. Victor was then in pursuit of Cuesta; if he continued that pursuit, it must be to enter Seville, or to cripple his opponent previous to the invasion of Portugal; in either case he would be in the Sierra Morena before he could hear of the march from Leiria, and, as Cradock had daily intelligence of Victor’s movements, there would be full time to relieve Oporto, and to return again to the defence of Lisbon. If, however, Soult depended on the co-operation of Victor, he would probably remain on the right of the Duero until the other was on the Tagus, and Lapisse also would be contented for the present with capturing Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida.
This reasoning, so evidently unsound, did not weigh with sir John Cradock, who resolved to preserve his central position, covering the capital at such a distance as to preclude the danger of being cut off from it by one army while he was engaged [Appendix, No. 12], section 2. with another. Lisbon and Oporto, he observed, were the enemy’s objects; the former was of incomparably greater importance than the latter. Portugal was in a state of anarchy equally incompatible with firm resistance and rapid movements. The peasantry were tumultuous and formidable to everybody but the enemy; and Beresford himself acknowledged that the regular forces were mutinous, disregarding their officers, choosing when and where to rest; when to fight, and when to remain in quarters; and altogether unfit to be trusted within the circle of the Oporto mischief. The British troops, therefore, were the only solid resource; but they were too few to divide, and must act in a body, or not at all.
Was it most desirable to protect Lisbon or Oporto? The first was near, the second two hundred miles off; and, although the utmost exertions had been made, the army was not yet equipped for an active campaign. The troops were ill-clothed, and wanted shoes; the artillery was unhorsed; the commissariat possessed only a fourth part of the transport necessary for the conveyance of provisions and ammunition, and no activity could immediately supply these deficiencies, inasmuch as some of the articles required were not to be had in the country, and, to obtain others, the interference of the regency was necessary, but hitherto all applications to that quarter had been without any effect. Was it wise to commence offensive operations in the north? Soult and Lapisse together were estimated at thirty thousand men, of which above five thousand were cavalry, and he himself could only bring fifteen guns and twelve thousand men, of all arms, into the field; yet, if the British army, marched with the avowed intention of relieving Oporto, it must accomplish it, or be dishonoured!
Was it consistent with reason to march two hundred miles in search of a combat, which the very state of Oporto would render it almost impossible to gain, and for an object perhaps already lost? Suspicion was alive all over the country: if Oporto was already taken, the army must come back; that would be the signal for fresh tumults—for renewed cries that the country was to be abandoned; Lisbon would instantly be in a state of insurrection, and would be even more formidable to the British than the enemy; besides, it was impossible to reckon upon Cuesta’s aid in keeping Victor employed. He was personally inimical to the English, and his principal object was to gain time for the increase and discipline of his own force.