History of the war in the Peninsula and in the south of France from the year 1807 to the year 1814, vol. 6

by William Francis Patrick Napier

CHAPTER VI.

Political state of Portugal. In this country the1813. national jealousy which had been compressed by the force of invasion expanded again with violence as danger receded, and the influence of England sunk precisely in the measure that her army assured the safety of Portugal. When Wellington crossed the Ebro, the Souza faction, always opposed in the council to the British policy, became elate; and those members of the government who had hitherto cherished the British ascendancy because it sustained them against the Brazilian court intrigues, now sought popularity by taking an opposite direction. Each person of the regency had his own line of opposition marked out. Noguera vexatiously resisted or suspended commercial and financial operations; the Principal Souza wrangled more fiercely and insolently at the council-board; the Patriarch fomented ill-will atMr. Stuart’s Correspondence, MSS. Lisbon and in the northern provinces; Forjas, ambitious to command the national troops, became the organ of discontent upon military matters. The return of the prince-regent, the treaty of commerce, the Oporto company, the privileges of the British factory merchants, the mode of paying the subsidy, the means of military transport, the convention with Spain relative to the supply of the Portuguese troops in that country, the recruiting, the organization, the command of the national army, and the honours due to it, all furnished occasions for factious proceedings, which were conducted with the ignoble subtlety that invariably characterizes the politics of the Peninsula. Moreover the expenditure of the British army had been immense, the trade and commerce dependent upon it, now removed to the Spanish ports, enormous. Portugal had lived upon England. Her internal taxes carelessly or partially enforced were vexatious to the people without being profitable to the government. Nine-tenths of the revenue accrued from duties upon British trade, and the sudden cessation of markets and of employment, the absence of ready money, the loss of profit, public and private, occasioned by the departure of the army while the contributions and other exactions remained the same, galled all classes, and the whole nation was ready to shake off the burthen of gratitude.

In this state of feeling emissaries were employed to promulgate in various directions tales, some true some false, of the disorders perpetrated by the military detachments on the lines of communication, adding that they were the result of secret orders from Wellington to satisfy his personal hatred of Portugal! At the same time discourses and writings against the British influence abounded in Lisbon and at Rio Janeiro, and were re-echoed or surpassed by the London newspapers, whose statements overflowing of falsehood could be traced to the Portuguese embassy in that capital. It was asserted that England intending to retain her power in Portugal opposed the return of the prince-regent; that the war itself being removed to the frontier of France was become wholly a Spanish cause; that it was not for Portugal to levy troops, and exhaust her resources to help a nation whose aggressions she must be called upon sooner or later to resist.

Mr. Stuart’s diplomatic intercourse with the government always difficult was now a continual remonstrance and dispute; his complaints were met with insolence or subterfuge, and illegal violence against the persons and property of British subjects was pushed so far, that Mr. Sloane, an English gentleman upon whom no suspicion rested, was cast into prison for three months because he had come to Lisbon without a passport. The rights of the English factory were invaded, and the Oporto company which had been established as its rival in violation of treaty was openly cherished. Irresponsible and rapacious, this pernicious company robbed every body, and the prince-regent promising either to reform or totally abolish it ordered a preparatory investigation, but to use the words of Mr. Stuart, the regency acted on the occasion no less unfairly by their sovereign than unjustly by their ally.

Especial privileges claimed by the factory merchants were another cause of disquiet. They pretended to exemption from certain taxes, and from billets, and that a fixed number of their clerks domestics and cattle should be exonerated of military service. These pretensions were disputed. The one touching servants and cattle, doubtful at best, had been grossly abused, and that relating to billets unfounded; but the taxes were justly resisted, and the merchants offered a voluntary contribution to the same amount. The government rudely refused this offer, seized their property, imprisoned their persons, impressed their cattle to transport supplies that never reached the troops, and made soldiers of their clerks and servants without any intention of reinforcing the army. Mr. Stuart immediately deducted from the subsidy the amount of the property thus forcibly taken, and repaid the sufferers. The regency then commenced a dispute upon the fourth article of the treaty of commerce, and the prince, though he openly ordered it to be executed, secretly permitted count Funchal, his prime minister, to remain in London as ambassador until the disputes arising upon this treaty generally were arranged. Funchal who disliked to quit London took care to interpose many obstacles to a final decision, always advising delay under pretence of rendering ultimate concession of value in other negociations then depending.

When the battle of Vittoria became known, the regency proposed to entreat the return of the prince from the Brazils, hoping thereby to excite the opposition of Mr. Stuart; but when he, contrary to their expectations, approved of the proposal they deferred the execution. The British cabinet which had long neglected Wellington’s suggestions on this head, then pressed the matter at Rio Janeiro, and Funchal who had been at first averse now urged it warmly, fearing that if the prince remained he could no longer defer going to the Brazils. However few of the Portuguese nobles desired the return of the royal family, and when the thing was proposed to the regent he discovered no inclination for the voyage.

But the most important subject of discord was the army. The absence of the sovereign and the intrigues which ruled the court of Rio Janeiro had virtually rendered the government at Lisbon an oligarchy without a leader, in other words, a government formed for mischief. The whole course of this history has shewn that all Wellington’s energy and ability, aided by the sagacity and firmness of Mr. Stuart and by the influence of England’s power and riches, were scarcely sufficient to meet the evils flowing from this foul source. Even while the French armies were menacing the capital the regency was split into factions, the financial resources were neglected or wasted, the public servants were insolent incapable and corrupt, the poorer people oppressed, and the military force for want of sustenance was at the end of 1812 on the point of dissolving together. The strenuous interference of the English general and envoy, seconded by the extraordinary exertions of the British officers in the Portuguese service, restored indeed the efficiency of the army, and in the campaign of 1813 the spirit of the troops was surpassing. Even the militia-men, who had been deprived of their colours and drafted into the line to punish their bad conduct at Guarda under general Trant in 1812, nobly regained their standards on the Pyrenees.

But this state of affairs acting upon the naturally sanguine temperament and vanity of the Portuguese, created a very exaggerated notion of their military prowess and importance, and withal aMr. Stuart’s Correspondence, MSS. morbid sensitiveness to praise or neglect. General Picton had thrown some slur upon the conduct of a regiment at Vittoria, and marshal Beresford complained that full justice had not been done to their merits. The eulogiums passed in the English parliament and in the despatches upon the conduct of the British and Spanish troops, but not extended to the Portuguese, galled the whole nation, and the remarks and omissions of the London newspapers were as wormwood.

Meanwhile the regency, under pretext of a dispute with Spain relative to a breach of the military convention of supply, neglected the subsistence of the army altogether; and at the same time so many obstacles to the recruiting were raised, that the depôts, which ought to have furnished twelve thousand men to replace the losses sustained in the campaign, only contained four thousand, who were also without the means of taking the field. This matter became so serious that Beresford quitting the army in October came to Lisbon, to propose a new regulation which should disregard the exemptions claimed by the nobles the clergy and the English merchants for their servants and followers. On his arrival Forjas urged the public discontent at the political position of the Portuguese troops. They were, he said, generally incorporated with the British divisions, commanded by British officers, and having no distinct recognized existence their services were unnoticed and the glory of the country suffered. The world at large knew not how many men Portugal furnished for the war. It was known indeed that there were Portuguese soldiers, as it was known that there were Brunswickers and Hanoverians, but as a national army nothing was known of them; their exertions, their courage, only went to swell the general triumph of England, while the Spaniards, inferior in numbers, and far inferior in all military qualities, were flattered, praised, thanked in the public despatches, in the English newspapers, and in the discourses and votes of the British parliament. He proposed therefore to have the Portuguese formed into a distinct army acting under lord Wellington.