PASSAGE OF THE DOURO.
A boat was soon obtained; for a poor barber of Oporto, evading the French patroles, had, during the night, come over the water in a small skiff; this being discovered by colonel Waters, a staff officer, of a quick and daring temper, he and the barber, and the prior of Amarante, who gallantly offered his aid, crossed the river, and in half an hour returned, unperceived, with three or four large barges. Meanwhile, eighteen or twenty pieces of artillery were got up to the convent of Sarea; and major-general John Murray, with the German brigade, some squadrons of the 14th dragoons, and two guns, reached the Barca de Avintas, three miles higher up the river, his orders being to search for boats, and to effect a passage there also, if possible.
Some of the British troops were now sent towards Avintas, to support Murray; while others came cautiously forwards to the brink of the river. It was ten o’clock; the enemy were tranquil and unsuspicious; and an officer reported to sir Arthur Wellesley that one boat was brought up to the point of passage, “Well, let the men cross,” was the reply; and upon this simple order, an officer and twenty-five soldiers, of the Buffs, entered the vessel, and in a quarter of an hour were in the midst of the French army.
The Seminary was thus gained without any alarm being given, and every thing was still quiet in Oporto: not a movement was to be seen; not a hostile sound was to be heard: a second boat followed the first, and then a third passed a little higher up the river; but scarcely had the men from the last landed, when a tumultuous noise of drums and shouts arose in the city; confused masses of the enemy were seen hurrying forth in all directions, and throwing out clouds of skirmishers, who came furiously down upon the Seminary. The citizens were descried gesticulating vehemently, and making signals from their houses; and the British troops instantly crowded to the bank of the river; Paget’s and Hill’s divisions at the point of embarkation, and Sherbrooke’s where the old boat-bridge had been cut away from Villa Nova.
Paget himself passed in the third boat, and, mounting the roof of the Seminary, was immediately struck down, severely wounded. Hill took Paget’s place; the musketry was sharp, voluble, and increasing every moment as the number accumulated on both sides. The enemy’s attack was fierce and constant; his fire augmented faster than that of the British, and his artillery, also, began to play on the building. But the English guns, from the convent of Sarea, commanded the whole enclosure round the Seminary, and swept the left of the wall in such a manner as to confine the French assault to the side of the iron gate. Murray, however, did not appear; and the struggle was so violent, and the moment so critical, that sir Arthur would himself have crossed, but for the earnest representations of those about him, and the just confidence he had in general Hill.
Some of the citizens now pushed over to Villa Nova with several great boats; Sherbrooke’s people begun to cross in large bodies; and, at the same moment, a loud shout in the town, and the waving of handkerchiefs from all the windows, gave notice that the enemy had abandoned the lower part of the city; and now, also, Murray’s troops were seen descending the right bank from Avintas. By this time three battalions were in the Seminary; and Hill, advancing to the enclosure wall, opened a destructive fire upon the French columns as they passed, in haste and confusion, by the Vallonga road. Five pieces of French artillery were coming out from the town on the left; but, appalled by the line of musketry to be passed, the drivers suddenly pulled up, and while thus hesitating, a volley from behind stretched most of the artillery-men on the ground; the rest, dispersing among the enclosures, left their guns on the road. This volley was given by a part of Sherbrooke’s people, who, having forced their way through the streets, thus came upon the rear. In fine, the passage was won; and the allies were in considerable force on the French side of the river.
To the left, general Sherbrooke, with the brigade of guards, and the 29th regiment, was in the town, and pressing the rear of the enemy, who were quitting it. In the centre, general Hill, holding the Seminary and the wall of the enclosure, with the Buffs, the 48th, the 66th, the 16th Portuguese, and a battalion of detachments, sent a damaging fire into the masses as they passed him; and his line was prolonged on the right, although with a considerable interval, by general Murray’s Germans, and two squadrons of the 14th dragoons. The remainder of the army kept passing the river at different points; and the artillery, from the height of Sarea, still searched the enemy’s columns as they hurried along the line of retreat.
If general Murray had then fallen boldly in upon the disordered crowds, their discomfiture would have been complete; but he suffered column after column to pass him, without even a cannon shot, and seemed fearful lest they should turn and push him into the river. General Charles Stewart and major Hervey, however, impatient of this inactivity, charged with the two squadrons of dragoons, and rode over the enemy’s rear-guard, as it was pushing through a narrow road to gain an open space beyond. Laborde was unhorsed, Foy badly wounded; and, on the English side, major Hervey lost an arm; and his gallant horsemen, receiving no support from Murray, were obliged to fight their way back with loss.
This finished the action; the French continued their retreat, and the British remained on the ground they had gained. The latter lost twenty killed, a general and ninety-five men wounded; the former had about five hundred men killed and wounded, and five pieces of artillery were taken in the fight; a considerable quantity of ammunition, and fifty guns (of which the carriages had been burnt) were afterwards found in the arsenal, and several hundred men were captured in the hospitals.
Plate 4. to face Pa. 290.