The French general had, therefore, to consider—
1º. If, following the course of the Lima, he should attack and disperse the insurgents between that river and the Minho, and then recovering his artillery from Tuy, proceed against Oporto by the main road leading along the sea coast.
2º. If he should descend the Tamega, take Chaves, and then decide whether to continue his route to Villa Real, near the Douro, and so take the defences of Tras os Montes in reverse, or, turning to his right, and crossing the Sierra de Cabrera by the pass of Ruivaens, enter Braga, and thus operate against Oporto.
The first project was irregular and hazardous, inasmuch as Romana and Sylveira’s troops might have fallen upon the flank and rear of the French during their march through a difficult country; but S.
Journal of Operations, MSS. as the position of those generals covered the road to Chaves, to beat them was indispensable, as a preliminary measure to either plan; and this was immediately executed.
The 4th of March the French movement commenced. The 5th, the van being at Villa Real and Penaverde, Soult sent a flag of truce to Romana, with a letter, in which, exposing fully the danger of the latter’s situation, he advised him to submit: but no answer was returned; nor would the bearer Sir J. Cradock’s Papers, MSS. have been suffered to pass the outposts, but that Romana himself was in the rear, for he dreaded that such an occurrence would breed a jealousy of his conduct, and, perhaps, cause his patriotism to be undervalued.
This failing, three divisions of infantry and one of cavalry marched the next morning against Monterey; while La Houssaye’s dragoons, taking the road of Laza, covered the left flank, and pushed parties as far La Gudina, on the route to Puebla de Senabria. The fourth division of infantry remained at Villa del Rey, to cover the passage of the sick and wounded men from Orense; for the duke of Dalmatia, having no base of operations, transported his hospitals, and other incumbrances, from place to place as the army moved, acting in this respect after the manner of the Roman generals, when invading a barbarous country.
As the French advanced, the Spaniards abandoned their positions in succession, spiked the guns in the S.
Journal of Operations, MSS. dilapidated works of Monterey, and after a slight skirmish at Verim, took the road to Puebla de Senabria; but Franceschi followed close, and overtaking two or three thousand as they were passing a rugged mountain, he assailed their rear with a battalion of infantry, and at the same time leading his horsemen round both flanks, headed the column, and obliged it to halt.
The Spaniards, trusting to the rough ground, drew up in one large square and awaited the charge. Franceschi had four regiments of cavalry; each regiment settled itself against the face of a square, and then the whole, with loud cries, bore down swiftly upon their opponents; the latter unsteady and dismayed, shrunk together from the fierce assault, and were instantly trampled down in heaps. Those who escaped the horses’ hoofs and the edge of the sword became prisoners, but twelve hundred bodies were stretched lifeless on the field of battle, and Franceschi continued his movements on La Gudina.
Romana was at Semadems, several miles in the rear of Verim, when his vanguard was attacked, and there was nothing to prevent him from falling back to Chaves with his main body, according to a plan before agreed upon between him and Sylveira, but [Appendix, No. 6], section 3. either from fear or indignation at the treatment his soldiers had received at the hands of the Portuguese, he left Sylveira to his fate, and made off with six or seven thousand men towards Bragança; from thence passing by Puebla de Senabria, he regained the valley of the Syl. Meanwhile, two thousand Portuguese infantry, with some guns, issuing from the side of Villaza, cut the French line of march at the moment when Franceschi and Heudelet having passed Monterey, Laborde was approaching that place. In the slight combat that ensued the Portuguese lost their guns and were driven, fighting, down the valley of the Tamega as far as the village of Outeiro, within their own frontier.
S.
Journal of Operations MSS.