Now it is possible that as Acland’s arrival was also the subject of conversation, his name was mentioned instead of Anstruther’s; and it is also possible, as the note shows, that Spencer was the man, but the main fact relative to the government could not have been mistaken. To balance this, however, there undoubtedly is an error as to the situation of general Anstruther’s brigade at the battle of Vimiero. It appears by an extract from his journal, that it was disposed, not, as the reviewer says, on the right of Fane’s brigade, but at various places, part being on the right of Fane, part upon his left, part held in reserve. The forty-third were on the left of Fane, the fifty-second and ninety-seventh on his right, the ninth in reserve, the error is therefore very trivial, being simply the describing two regiments as of Fane’s brigade, when they were of Anstruther’s without altering their position. What does the public care whether it was a general called Fane, or a general called Anstruther, who was on the right hand if the important points of the action are correctly described? The fighting of the fifty-second and ninety-seventh has indeed been but slightly noticed, in my history, under the denomination of Fane’s right, whereas those regiments make a good figure, and justly so, in Anstruther’s journal, because it is the story of the brigade; but general history ought not to enter into the details of regimental fighting, save where the effects are decisive on the general result, as in the case of the fiftieth and forty-third on this occasion. The whole loss of the ninety-seventh and fifty-second together did not exceed sixty killed and wounded, whereas the fiftieth alone lost ninety, and the forty-third one hundred and eighteen.
While on the subject of Anstruther’s brigade, it is right also to admit another error, one of place; that is if it be true, as the reviewer says, that Anstruther landed at Paymayo bay, and not at Maceira bay. The distance between those places may be about five miles, and the fact had no influence whatever on the operations; nevertheless the error was not drawn from Mr. Southey’s history, though I readily acknowledge I could not go to a more copious source of error. With respect to the imputed mistake as to time, viz. the day of Anstruther’s landing, it is set down in my first edition as the 19th, wherefore the 18th in the third edition is simply a mistake of the press! Alas! poor reviewer!
But there are graver charges. I have maligned the worthy bishop of Oporto; and ill-used the patriotic Gallician junta! Reader, the bishop of Oporto and the patriarch of Lisbon are one and the same person! Examine then my history and especially its appendix and judge for yourself, whether the reviewer may not justly be addressed as the pope was by Richard I. when he sent him the bishop of Beauvais’ bloody suit of mail. “See now if this be thy son’s coat.” But the junta! Why it is true that I said they glossed over the battle of Rio Seco after the Spanish manner; that their policy was but a desire to obtain money, and to avoid personal inconvenience; that they gave sir Arthur Wellesley incorrect statements of the number of the Portuguese and Spaniards at Oporto, and a more inaccurate estimate of the French army under Junot. All this is true. It is true that I have said it, true that they did it. The reviewer says my statement is a “gratuitous misrepresentation.” I will prove that the reviewer’s remark is a gratuitous impertinence.
1º. The junta informed sir Arthur Wellesley, that Bessieres had twenty thousand men in the battle, whereas he had but fifteen thousand.
2º. That Cuesta lost only two guns, whereas he lost eighteen.
3º. That Bessieres lost seven thousand men and six guns, whereas he lost only three hundred and fifty men, and no guns.
4º. That the Spanish army had retired to Benevente as if it still preserved its consistence, whereas Blake and Cuesta had quarrelled and separated, all the magazines of the latter had been captured and the whole country was at the mercy of the French. This was glossing it over in the Spanish manner.
Again the junta pretended that they desired the deliverance of Portugal to enable them to unite with the southern provinces in a general effort; but Mr. Stuart’s letters prove that they would never unite at all with any other province, and that their aim was to separate from Spain altogether and join Portugal. Their wish to avoid personal inconvenience was notorious, it was the cause of their refusal to let sir David Baird’s troops disembark, it was apparent to all who had to deal with them, and it belongs to the national character. Then their eagerness to obtain money, and their unpatriotic use of it when obtained, has been so amply set forth in various parts of my history that I need not do more than refer to that, and to my quoted authorities, especially in the second chapters of the 3d and 14th Books. Moreover the reviewer’s quotations belie his comments, and like the slow-worm defined by Johnson “a blind worm, a large viper, venomous, not mortal,” he is at once dull and malignant.
The junta told sir Arthur Wellesley that ten thousand Portuguese troops were at Oporto, and that two thousand Spaniards, who had marched the 15th, would be there on the 25th of July; yet when sir Arthur arrived at Oporto, on the 25th, he found only fifteen hundred Portuguese and three hundred Spaniards; the two thousand men said to be in march had never moved and were not expected. Here then instead of twelve thousand men, there were only eighteen hundred! At Coimbra indeed eighty miles from Oporto, there were five thousand militia and regulars, one-third of which were unarmed, and according to colonel Browne’s letter, as given in the folio edition of the inquiry upon the Cintra convention, there were also twelve hundred armed peasants which the reviewer has magnified into twelve thousand. Thus without dwelling on the difference of place, the difference between the true numbers and the statements of the Gallician junta, was four thousand; nor will it mend the matter if we admit the armed peasants to be twelve thousand, for that would make a greater difference on the other side.
The junta estimated the French at fifteen thousand men, but the embarkation returns of the number shipped after the convention gave twenty-five thousand seven hundred and sixty, making a difference of more than ten thousand men, exclusive of those who had fallen or been captured in the battles of Vimiero and Roliça, and of those who had died in hospital! Have I not a right to treat these as inaccurate statements; and the reviewer’s remark as an impertinence?