Hereafter the lines shall be described more minutely; at present it must suffice to observe, that intrenchments, inundations, and redoubts secured more than five hundred square miles of mountainous country lying between the Tagus and the ocean. Nor was this the most gigantic part of the English general’s undertaking. He was a foreigner, ill supported by his own government, and holding power under that of Portugal by a precarious tenure; he was vehemently opposed by the local authorities, by the ministers, and by the nobility of that country; and yet, in this apparently weak position, he undertook at one and the same time, to overcome the abuses engendered by centuries of misgovernment, and to oblige a whole people, sunk in sloth, to arise in arms, to devastate their own lands, and to follow him to battle against the most formidable power of modern times.
Notwithstanding the secret opposition of the Regency, and of the fidalgos, the ancient military laws were revived, and so effectually, that the returns for the month of May gave a gross number of more than four hundred and thirty thousand men in arms, of which about fifty thousand were regular troops, fifty-five thousand militia, and the remainder “ordenanças;” but this multitude was necessarily subject to many deductions. The “capitans mor,” or chiefs of districts, were at first exceedingly remiss in their duty, the total number of “ordenanças” really assembled, fell far short of the returns, and all were ill-armed. This also was the case with the militia, only thirty-two thousand of which had muskets and bayonets: and deserters were so numerous, and the native authorities connived at absence under false pretences, to such an extent, that scarcely twenty-six thousand men ever remained with their colours. Of the regular troops the whole were in good condition, and thirty thousand being in the pay of England, were completely equipped, clothed, disciplined, and for the most part commanded by British officers; but, deduction being made for sick men and recruits, the actual number under arms did not exceed twenty-four thousand infantry, three thousand five hundred cavalry, and three thousand artillery. Thus the disposable native force was about fifty-six thousand men, one-half of which were militia.
At this period, the British troops employed in the Peninsula, exclusive of the garrison of Gibraltar, somewhat exceeded thirty-eight thousand men of all arms, but six thousand were in hospital or detached, and above seven thousand were in Cadiz. The latter city was protected by an allied force of nearly thirty thousand men, while the army, on whose exertions the fate of the Peninsula rested, was reduced to twenty-five thousand British; such was the policy of the English Cabinet; for this was the ministers’ and not the general’s arrangement. The ordenanças being set aside, the actual force at the disposition of lord Wellington, cannot be estimated higher than eighty thousand men, and the frontier to defend, reckoning from Braganza to Ayamonte, four hundred miles long. The great military features, and the arrangements made to take advantage of them in conformity with the general plan of defence, shall now be described.
The Portuguese land frontier presents four great divisions open to invasion:—
1º. The northern line of the Entre Minho and the Tras os Montes, extending from the mouth of the Minho, to Miranda on the Douro.
2º. The eastern line of the Tras os Montes following the course of the Douro from Miranda to Castel Rodrigo.
3º. The frontier of Beira from Castel Rodrigo to Rosaminhal on the Tagus.
4º. The Alemtejo and the Algarve frontiers, stretching, in one line from the Tagus to the mouth of the Guadiana.
But these divisions may be simplified with respect to the military aspect of the country; for Lisbon taken as the centre, and the distance from thence to Oporto as the radius, a sweep of the compass to Rosaminhal will trace the frontier of Beira; and the space lying between this arc, the Tagus, and the sea-coast, furnished the main body of the defence. The southern and northern provinces being considered as the wings, were rendered subservient to the defence of the whole, but had each a separate system for itself, based on the one general principle, that the country should be wasted, and the best troops opposed to the enemy without risking a decisive action, while the irregular forces closed round the flanks and rear of the invaders.