This ridiculous movement attracted the enemy’s attention, and lord Wellington fearing they would pass over a detachment, disperse the Portuguese troops, and seize Setuval before it could be succoured, peremptorily ordered the governor to return to that fortress. This retrograde movement caused the dispersion of the ordenança, and consternation reigned in the Alemtejo. The supply of grain coming from Spain was stopped, the chain of communications broken, and, the alarm spreading to Lisbon, there was no remedy but to send general Fane, with some guns and Portuguese cavalry, that could be ill spared from the Lines, to that side. Fane immediately destroyed all the boats he could find, hastened the removal of provisions, and patrolling the banks of the river as high as the mouth of the Zezere, kept a strict watch upon the enemy’s movements.
Other embarrassments were however continually arising. The number of prisoners in Lisbon had accumulated so as to become a serious inconvenience; because, for some reason which does not appear, the English Admiralty would not permit them to be transported to England in ships of war, and other vessels could not be spared. About this time also admiral Berkeley, whose elaborate report the year before, stated that, although the enemy should seize the heights of Almada, he could not injure the fleet in the river, now admitted that he was in error; and the engineers were directed to construct secondary lines on that side.
Another formidable evil, arising from the conduct of the Regency, was the state of the Portuguese army. The troops were so ill supplied that more Appendix, [No. V.] Section 7.than once they would have disbanded, had they not been relieved from the British magazines. Ten thousand soldiers of the line deserted between April and December, and the militia and ordenança abandoned their colours in far greater numbers; for, as no remonstrance could induce the Regency to put the laws in force against the delinquents, that which was at first the effect of want became a habit; so that even when regularly fed from the British stores within the Lines, the desertion was alarmingly great.
Notwithstanding the mischiefs thus daily growing up, neither the Patriarch nor the Principal ceased their opposition. The order to fortify the heights of Almada caused a violent altercation in the Regency, and lord Wellington, greatly incensed, denounced them to the Prince Regent; and his letter produced such a paroxysm of anger in the Patriarch, that he personally insulted Mr. Stuart, and vented his passion in the most indecent language against the general. Soon after this, the deplorable state of the finances obliged the government to resort to the dangerous expedient of requisitions in kind for the feeding of the troops: and in that critical moment the Patriarch, whose influence was, from various causes, very great, Appendix, [No. V.] Section 10.took occasion to declare that “he would not suffer burthens to be laid upon the people which were evidently for no other purpose than to nourish the war in the heart of the kingdom.”
But it was his and his coadjutors’ criminal conduct that really nourished the war, for there were ample means to have carried off in time ten-fold the quantity of provisions left for the enemy. Massena could not then have remained a week before the Lines, and his retreat would have been attended with famine and disaster, if the measures previously agreed to by the Regency had been duly executed. Whereas now, the country about Thomar, Torres Novas, Gollegao, and Santarem was absolutely untouched; the inhabitants remained; the mills, but little injured, were quickly repaired, and lord Wellington had the deep mortification to find that his well considered design was frustrated by the very persons from whom he had a right to expect the most zealous support. There was, indeed, every reason to believe that the prince of Esling would be enabled to maintain his positions Appendix, [No. V.] Section 7.until an overwhelming force should arrive from Spain to aid him. “It is heart-breaking,” was the bitter reflection of the British general, “to contemplate the chance of failure from such obstinacy and folly.”
CHAPTER X.
The increasing strength of the works, and the report of British deserters (unhappily very numerous at this period), soon convinced Massena that it was impracticable to force the Lines without great reinforcements. His army suffered from sickness, from the irregular forces in the rear, and from the vengeance of individuals, driven to despair by the excesses which many French soldiers, taking advantage of the times, committed in their foraging courses. Nevertheless, with an obstinate pertinacity, only to be appreciated by those who have long made war, the French general maintained his forward position, until the country for many leagues behind him was a desert, and then, reluctantly yielding to necessity, he sought for a fresh camp in which to make head against the allies, while his foragers searched more distant countries for food.
Early in October artillery officers had been directed to collect boats for crossing both the Tagus and the Zezere. Montbrun’s cavalry, stretching along the right bank of the former, gathered provisions, and stored them at Santarem, and both there and at Barquiña (a creek in the Tagus, below the mouth of the Zezere), rafts were formed and boats constructed with wheels, to move from one place to another; but, from the extreme paucity of materials and tools, the progress was necessarily slow. Meanwhile Fane, reinforced by some infantry, watched them closely from the left bank; Carlos d’España came down from Castello Branco to Abrantes; Trant acted sharply on the side of Ourem, and Wilson’s Portuguese militia so infested the country from Espinhal to the Zezere, that Loison’s division was detached upon Thomar to hold him in check.
Towards the end of October, however, all the hospitals, stores, and other incumbrances of the French army were removed to Santarem, and, on the 31st, two thousand men forded the Zezere above Punhete to cover the construction of a bridge. From this body, four hundred infantry and two hundred dragoons, under general Foy, moved against Abrantes, and, after skirmishing with the garrison, made towards Sobreira Formosa. The allies’ bridge of Villa Velha was foolishly burnt, but Foy, with a smaller escort, pushed for Pena Macor, and the 8th had gained Ciudad Rodrigo, on his way to France, having undertaken to carry information of the state of affairs to Napoleon; a task which he performed with singular rapidity, courage, and address. The remainder of his escort retiring down the Zezere, were attacked by Wilson, and suffered some loss.