[237] See p. 27.

[238] The 3/27th, 2/9th, 29th, and some small details of artillery, &c.

[239] Not only Mackenzie’s brigade, but also Tilson’s brigade, the 2/87th and 1/88th, and the stronger battalions of H. Campbell, which had gone to Cadiz directly from England—the first battalions of the 2nd (Coldstream) and 3rd (Scots Fusilier) Guards.

[240] In a letter of March 20 to Mr. Villiers, Cradock makes the astounding statement that after scouring all Portugal for horses for three months, he was still unable to provide them for four out of his six batteries.

[241] Cradock’s controversial letters to Lord Londonderry, printed in the latter’s history (ii. 286-7), do no more than bear out Londonderry’s accusations of torpidity against Sir John.

[242] Cradock contended that before the arrival of Hill and Sherbrooke and the return of Mackenzie from Cadiz, he had only 10,225 men, and, deducting sick and garrisons for the Lisbon forts, could only have marched out with 5,221. [Letter to Londonderry on p. 302, vol. ii. of the latter’s work.] He had sent 3,500 men to Cadiz and Seville, on Sir George Smith’s unhappy inspiration, or his force would have been much larger. As to the resolution to march against Soult, which he afterwards claimed to have made, it is sufficient to say that Wellesley on his arrival wrote to Castlereagh that ‘Sir John Cradock does not appear to have entertained any decided intention of moving forward: on the contrary he appears (by his letters to Mr. Villiers) to have intended to go no further till he should hear of Victor’s movements.’ [Well. Corresp., Lisbon, April 24.]

[243] All authorities agree as to the inferior character and status of a great part of the Portuguese officers. Dumouriez remarks [1766] that ‘their pay does not enable them to live better than the common soldiers, whose comrades and relatives they often are. The subaltern ranks are filled from the inferior classes, and their hatred of foreigners prevents their association with, or receiving any improvement from, them: hence it is that they remain in such ignorance and wretchedness’ (p. 17). Halliday remarks (p. 106) that ‘even captains had not the rank of gentlemen.’ Compare with this Patterson’s curious note (vol. i. p. 250), ‘The familiarity that subsists between the native officers and their men renders ineffective all the authority of the former, at the same time defeating the object to be attained by discipline. They eat, gamble, and drink together. I have even seen them waltzing and figuring off in the contra-danza, captains with corporals, majors with drumboys—all Jack-fellows well met, and excellent boon companions. They will not of themselves do anything, their good qualities must be elicited by strangers. I know of nothing that stamps the character of Lord Beresford as a man of energy and perseverance, more than the way in which he has organized them, and from a miserable undisciplined rabble produced, in course of time, a fair body of fighting troops, who performed (encouraged by their English officers) some spirited service during the war.’

[244] Of these, twelve squadrons were originally cuirassiers (Dumouriez, p. 18), but their armament had been discarded before 1800, and one regiment only was light horse.

[245]

Halliday gives an even larger figure, 52,204.

[246] Except two Lisbon regiments, named Viera Tellez and Freire, from former colonels of distinction [Nos. 4 and 16].

[247] It was intended, however, to give each cavalry regiment an extra squadron.

[248] Parliamentary Papers, 1309. Return No. 5, p. 9.

[249] The 8th and 22nd, both Alemtejo regiments, were entirely drafted off, and were raised again afresh with recruits in the autumn.

[250] The 2nd and 3rd, both Alemtejo regiments, were never horsed during the whole war, and did foot-service in garrisons of the interior.

[251] In September the 3rd, 5th, 15th, 21st, and 24th had not raised their second battalions. Of these the 5th and 15th were Alemtejo regiments.

[252] Report of Baron Decken, Sept. 13, 1808 (Record Office).

[253] Return of the Portuguese army, Nov. 26 (Record Office).

[254] Beresford to Wellesley, Wellington Supplementary Dispatches, vi. p. 774.

[255] These were the 1st, 4th, 7th, 10th, 13th, 16th, 19th of the line, and the 1st, 4th, and 7th cavalry. Of the foot the 1st, 4th, 10th, and 16th were Lisbon regiments, the 7th was named from and belonged to Setubal, the 13th to Peniche, the 19th to Cascaes.

[256] These were the 6th, 9th, 12th, 18th, 21st, and 24th. The 6th and 18th belonged to Oporto, the 9th to Viana, the 12th to Chaves, the 21st to Valenza, the 24th to Braganza.

[257] The same story is told of General Robert Craufurd and his cazadores, in Costello’s Memoirs.

[258] For notes on the difficulties and friction caused by clashing pretensions of British and Portuguese seniority in rank, see Wellington Dispatches, vol. iv. pp. 368-81, 394-5, and several other letters to Castlereagh and Beresford.

[259] Largely from the 1/3rd foot. See Wellington Dispatches, vol. iv. p. 463. Other regiments also contributed.

[260] A few British officers had arrived, such as Col. Patrick who commanded the 12th of the line in Silveira’s army.

[261] Some of the muskets sent by the British were in the hands of the Oporto troops, but none had reached the Tras-os-Montes regiments of Silveira’s army.

[262] All this is analysed from the Portuguese historian Da Luz Soriano.

[263] For the local organization and nomenclature of the militia regiments, the reader is referred to the table of the Portuguese army in Appendix II. It will be seen that there were theoretically sixteen regiments in the provinces invaded by Soult, beyond the Douro.

[264] See Mayne, History of the Loyal Lusitanian Legion, p. 231, and Wellington Dispatches, vol. iv. p. 350.

[265] Wellington Dispatches, vol. iv. pp. 389-90 and 478 [June, 1809].

[266] The 12th and 24th regiments—Chaves and Braganza.

[267] Militia of Chaves, Villa Real, Miranda, and Braganza.

[268] The 6th and 9th cavalry.

[269] Brotherton to Castlereagh, March 13.

[270] Entre-Douro-e-Minho had a population of 500,000 souls, Tras-os-Montes only 180,000.

[271] Of Lahoussaye’s division.

[272] Brotherton to Cradock, from Povoa de Aguiar, March 13.

[273] He was called Magelhaes Pizarro, but cannot be said to have shown either the endurance of the Portuguese seaman, or the reckless courage of the Spanish conquistador, whose historic names he bore.

[274] See Naylies, p. 81; St. Chamans, p. 120; Le Noble, p. 120; and Des Odoards, p. 213.

[275] Lorges’ other brigade, that of Fournier, had been (as it will be remembered) left behind in Galicia with Marshal Ney.

[276] Every French diarist of Soult’s army has tales of the stoic courage displayed by the Portuguese clergy. A story from Naylies of Lahoussaye’s dragoons may serve as an example. Near Braga he came on a cart escorted by a single priest with a gun on his shoulder. He was the chaplain of a convent, who was taking out of harm’s way a party of nuns. When he saw himself overtaken, he quietly waited in the middle of the road, shot the first dragoon dead, and was killed by the second as he was trying to reload his musket.

[277] St. Chamans, Mémoires, pp. 119-21.

[278] For combats waged by Lahoussaye’s dragoons, who were in the middle of the long column, see the journal of Naylies (pp. 83-4). For attacks on Mermet, in the rear column, see Fantin des Odoards (p. 214).

[279] I agree with General Arteche in thinking that Eben’s dispatch to Cradock, from which this narrative is mainly drawn, does him no credit. Indeed, it is easy to adopt the sinister view that Eben was aiming at getting the command, did nothing to discourage the mob, and was indirectly responsible for Freire’s murder. As Arteche remarks ‘with a little more resolution and a little less personal ambition, the Baron could probably have prevented the catastrophe’ (vol. v. p. 393). But Freire’s conduct had been so cowardly and incapable that the peasants were reasonably incensed with him. Why had he not defended the rugged defiles of Venda Nova and Salamonde, and what could excuse his absconding and abandoning his army?

[280] Eben’s dispatch is in the Record Office, in the miscellaneous volume at the end of the Portugal 1809 series.

[281] Eben, in his report, says that at the moment of the French assault one of his guns in the battery commanding the high-road burst, and killed many of those standing about, and that the rout commenced with the stampede caused by this explosion.

[282] Naylies [of the 19th Dragoons], p. 87.

[283] Even while flying through the streets of Braga, some of the routed horde found time to pay a visit to the town gaol, and to murder the corregidor and the other prisoners who had been placed there on the eighteenth.

[284] Fantin des Odoards, p. 216.

[285] Eben, in his report to Cradock at the Record Office, says 1,000 only, of whom more than 200 belonged to the Lusitanian Legion.

[286] Le Noble, p. 142. St. Chamans, p. 121. Naylies and Fantin des Odoards, though both mentioning the slaughter in which they took part, do not give this justification for it. The latter says that the French gave no quarter save to men in uniform.

[287] Fantin des Odoards, p. 216.

[288] Le Noble (pp. 157-8), and Napier following him, say that the Portuguese murdered their commander, Brigadier-General Vallongo, when the bridges were forced, tore him in pieces, and buried his scattered members in a dunghill. It is a relief to know from Da Luz Soriano, the Portuguese historian, that nothing of the kind occurred, and that there was no officer of the name of Vallongo in the Portuguese army.

[289] Apparently the regiments of Oporto, Baltar, Feira, and Villa de Conde.

[290] I draw these deductions from Beresford’s and Eben’s reports in the Record Office. Beresford (writing to Castlereagh on March 29, the day of the storm) complains that he can get no proper ‘morning states’ out of the officers at Oporto, but says that the Bishop has there nos. 6 and 18 of the line, Vittoria’s two battalions and the wrecks of the 2nd Lusitanian Legion. He speaks of two or three militia regiments, 9,000 armed citizens, and an indefinite number of Ordenanza. Eben gives some details concerning his own doings. Da Luz Soriano mentions Champlemond and his battalion of the 21st of the line. As to the Ordenanza, 9,000 seems a high estimate for the local Oporto horde, for that town with 70,000 souls had already supplied two regiments of the line, two battalions of the Lusitanian Legion, and a militia regiment, 6,500 men in all.

[291] Le Noble, p. 161.

[292] Some of the French writers say that Foy was taken prisoner while carrying a flag of truce and a second letter for the Bishop’s eye. But what really seems to have happened was that he conceived a notion that one of the Portuguese outposts wished to surrender, rode in amongst them, and began to urge them to lay down their arms. But they seized him and sent him to the rear; his companion, the chef de bataillon Roger, drew his sword and tried to cut his way back to his men, whereupon he was bayonetted. One cannot blame the Portuguese, for officers, in time of truce, have no right to come within the enemy’s lines, still less to urge his troops to desertion. Foy proved that he was not Loison by holding up his two hands. Loison being one-handed (as his nickname Maneta shows), the populace at once saw that they had made a mistake. I follow the narrative in Girod de l’Ain’s new life of Foy (p. 78), corroborated by Le Noble (p. 162). Napier (ii. p. 57), of course, gives a version unfavourable to the Portuguese.

[293] Le Noble, and Napier following him, state that the breach in the bridge was caused merely by some of the central pontoons sinking under the weight of the passing multitude. Hennegan, who was present in Oporto that day, says the same. But it seems safer to follow Da Luz Soriano and other Portuguese witnesses, who state that no such accident occurred, but that the early fugitives pulled up the drawbridge in order to stay the pursuit, reckless as to the fate of those who were behind them. Historians telling a story to the discredit of their own party may generally be trusted.

[294] E.g. the 21st of the line had even in September, nearly six months after the storm, only 193 men under arms.

[295] Fantin des Odoards, Journal, April 28, p. 226.

[296] See p. 175.

[297] On Feb. 1 the force was, présents sous les armes, 7,692 infantry, about 1,000 cavalry, and 200 gunners.

[298] Wellington, e.g., writes to him on August 5, 1809, ‘It is difficult for me to instruct you, when every letter that I receive from you informs me that you have gone further off, and are executing some plan of your own.’

[299] It is most unfortunate that while Wilson wrote and published admirable narratives of his doings in Prussia and Poland in 1806-7, and of his Russian and German campaign of 1812-3, he has left nothing on record concerning Portugal in 1808-9. Moreover the life, by his son-in-law, breaks off in 1807, and was never finished. My narrative is constructed from his dispatches in the Record Office, the correspondence of Wellesley and Beresford, and Mayne and Lillie’s Loyal Lusitanian Legion.

[300] It will he remembered that it was only the first division of the Legion that marched. The second, which could not go forward for want of uniforms and arms, was left behind in charge of Baron Eben. That officer had strict orders to move out to Almeida the moment that he should receive the muskets, &c. that were on their way from England. Eben, however, disregarded his instructions, became one of the Bishop’s clique, and involved his men in the campaign against Soult, thereby marring Wilson’s plans and depriving him of half his proper force.

[301] It consisted of the 45th and 97th regiments.

[302] Napier, who is very friendly to Cradock, makes no mention of this extraordinary dispatch. But it is fully substantiated by Mayne and Lillie, who were both present at Wilson’s council of war, and heard the matter discussed. See their History of the Lusitanian Legion, p. 43.

[303] See the Lusitanian Legion, p. 47.

[304] This fact comes from a letter of Ramon Blanco, governor of Ciudad Rodrigo, dated Jan. 13, which Frere sent home to Castlereagh, and which is therefore now in the Record Office. Blanco complains that he is absolutely without trained artillerymen of any sort.

[305] Carlos d’España, whose name we shall so frequently meet during the succeeding years, was no Spaniard, but a French émigré officer of the name of D’Espagne. Englishmen, on account of his name, sometimes took him for a prince of the Spanish royal family.

[306] Sir Robert Wilson to Frere, dated Jan. 29, in the Record Office. The regiment sent by Pignatelli was called ‘Volunteers of Avila.’

[307] Victor to King Joseph, from Toledo, Feb. 3, 1809.

[308] This is shown by a letter of March 23 from Solignac, one of Lapisse’s brigadiers, which was intercepted by guerrillas. The general writes to his friend Raguerie that the march on Abrantes is certain, and that letters for him had better be readdressed to Lisbon [Record Office].

[309] Jourdan’s Mémoires, p. 189, show that he and Joseph authorized the move, at Victor’s instance, and prove that it was not made on Lapisse’s own responsibility, as Napier supposes [ii. 72], but in obedience to superior orders.

[310] This narrative is from Mayne and Lillie, supplemented by Jourdan and other French sources. Wilson thought that he had foiled a real attack on Rodrigo, but was mistaken: Lapisse was only feinting.

[311] It is impossible to make out why Alcantara was treated so much worse than other places taken by storm, but the facts are well vouched for. The report of the local authorities to Cuesta says that not only all peasants taken with arms in their hands, but more than forty non-combatants were butchered, and that not a woman who had remained in the place escaped rape. Lillie, the historian of the Lusitanian Legion, who was with the force that pursued Lapisse from Rodrigo, says that he saw the traces of ‘acts of barbarity that would disgrace the most savage and uncivilized of mankind’—corpses deliberately mutilated and laid out to roast on piles of burning furniture, with the bodies of domestic animals, such as pigs and dogs, placed on the top of the pile as if in jest [Lusitanian Legion, pp. 66-7]. The German historian Schepeler gives very similar details, adding the note about the dragging up of bones and coffins from the churches.

[312] All Napier’s criticism (ii. 85-6) on Lapisse’s movement to Alcantara is vitiated by his ignorance of the fact that Jourdan and the King, at Victor’s instance, had sent him orders to go there. But nothing can excuse his previous inaction in February and March. He ought to have attacked Rodrigo before the end of January, when it was still almost without a garrison, and in a state of great disrepair.

[313] See p. 188.

[314] Napier’s ‘Colonel Barrois.’

[315] Most of these details as to the fall of Vigo come from a contemporary account in Andrade’s collection, printed in Los Guerrilleros Gallegos, pp. 129-37. Le Noble asserts that only 794 men were captured, but Captain Mackinley says that he received nearly 1,300 prisoners, including 300 sick and many non-combatants. He had the best opportunities of knowing, and must be followed. Le Noble and the Spaniards do not give the French commander’s name, but I find that of Chalot as the senior officer among the prisoners in the list in the Record Office. Next to him is the paymaster-general Conscience. Toreno and Schepeler agree with Captain Mackinley in giving the number of the prisoners at over 1,200.

[316] Le Noble, though he mentions the formation of the legion (p. 120), omits to state that it was left at Chaves. But St. Chamans establishes this fact (p. 120); he calls the corps ‘les Espagnols et Portugais qui se disaient de notre parti.’ Des Odoards (p. 212) also speaks of the ‘legion,’ as does Naylies (p. 81). Its existence explains both the feebleness of Messager’s defence, and the large number of prisoners whom Silveira captured. The fighting force of the garrison was only the one company, plus some hundreds of convalescents, who in the fortnight since Soult’s departure had been able to resume their arms.

[317] Silveira to Beresford (Record Office). Cf. Foy’s dispatch to Loison (April 19), in which he owns that he failed to hold the convent, and retired with a loss of ninety-one men of the 17th regiment.

[318] Napier, ii. pp. 80-1, consistently mis-calls him Brochard.

[319] Either of these might easily have been fired by a casual shot, during the long cannonading which had been in progress. The Portuguese, therefore, avoided them.

[320] See Le Noble (Soult’s partisan and official vindicator), p. 207, and Fantin des Odoards, p. 227.

[321] See his conversation with his aide-de-camp, St. Chamans, in the latter’s Mémoires, p. 139. The Marshal said that he was in a hazardous military position and that ‘je ne puis m’en tirer qu’en divisant les Portugais entre eux, et j’emploie pour cela le meilleur moyen politique qui soit en mon pouvoir.’ Compare Fantin des Odoards, p. 227.

[322] Fantin des Odoards, writing at Oporto under the date May 5, says that he had just read this proclamation on the walls, and was astounded at it, for the great bulk of the population was so hostile that the project seemed absolutely insane.

[323] St. Chamans, aide-de-camp to Soult, speaks of the crowds assembled by Veloso and others (p. 134): Bigarré says that General Ricard threw money to the crowd for seven days running from the Marshal’s balcony, and then stopped because the harvest of vivas was not large enough (p. 245).

[324] See Fantin des Odoards, p. 229, and Jourdan, p. 218.

[325] This strange document will be found printed in the Appendix.

[326] See Chamans, pp. 134 and 140. He ends with observing that Soult ‘aurait voulu se faire demander pour roi de Portugal par les habitants, qu’alors, le premier pas fait, il aurait sollicité les suffrages de l’armée, ils auraient été consignés sur des registres pour chaque corps, et il aurait mis toutes ces pièces sous les yeux de l’Empereur, en lui demandant son approbation.’

[327] Napoleon to Soult from Schönbrunn, Sept. 26, Nap. Corresp., 15,871.

[328] Napier’s conclusions as to Soult’s conduct are wholly warped by his strong predilection for the Marshal—which dated back to the time when the latter dealt kindly with his wounded brother on the day after Corunna. He understates Soult’s encouragement of the movement, and will have us believe that it was purely the work of the Portuguese. He omits all mention of Ricard’s circular, and finally suppresses all mention of Napoleon’s angry upbraidings except the following (ii. p. 75): ‘The Emperor wrote to Soult that the rumour had reached him, adding, with a delicate allusion to the Marshal’s previous services, “I remember nothing but Austerlitz.”’ Now it was not a rumour which had reached Schönbrunn, but a copy of Ricard’s circular, which the Emperor quotes verbatim. Therefore Napoleon was writing with tangible evidence, not with camp reports, to guide him. How far Napier’s sentence above gives a fair impression of the tone of the dispatch which I have reproduced, I leave the reader to judge. It was a surprise to myself when I put the two together. Once and for all, it must be remembered that Napier can never be trusted when Soult is in question—the Marshal’s intrigues, his greed, his shameful plundering of Andalusian churches, are all concealed.

[329] Fantin des Odoards, p. 220.

[330] So writes Naylies, of Lahoussaye’s dragoons, who, being absent at Amarante and elsewhere, never saw the doings in Oporto: ‘Il s’est répandu dans l’armée qu’il aspirait à la souveraineté du pays: on en conçut d’abord quelques inquiétudes, qui furent bientôt dissipées’ (p. 119).

[331] Charles Nodier’s Histoire des conspirations militaires sous l’Empire is unfortunately quite untrustworthy. He was never among the Philadelphes, and writes as a credulous and ill-informed outsider. Nevertheless there is a basis of fact underlying his work.

[332] The names of Argenton, Lafitte, and Donadieu are public property. Napier gives them, as does Bigarré. The names of ‘Dupont’ and ‘Garis’ are in suppressed paragraphs of the Wellington Dispatches which Gurwood chose to omit, and are also found in the minutes of Argenton’s trial at Paris.

[333] The reader may trace this feeling in Foy’s diaries, and Naylies (p. 67).

[334] Napier and Le Noble both hint that Loison was in the plot, and perhaps Delaborde, though they do not actually name these officers. But I think that their innocence is proved by Argenton’s declaration to Wellesley (Wellesley to Castlereagh, May 7, Record Office), that Loison was attached to Bonaparte, and would certainly seize Soult if he proclaimed himself king for ‘ambitious abuse of his authority and disobedience to his master.’

[335] This, at the time, was Wellesley’s eminently sensible conclusion. He wrote to Castlereagh on April 27, ‘I doubt whether it will be quite so easy as their emissary thinks to carry their intentions into execution: I also doubt whether it follows that the successful revolt of this one corps would be followed by that of others, and I am convinced that the method proposed by M. D’Argenton would not answer that purpose.’ Wellington Dispatches, iv. 276.

[336] These are the names omitted in the printed version of the Wellington Dispatches: that of Moreau does not occur there, but is to be found in the confession which Argenton made to Soult: see Le Noble, p. 236.

[337] It must be remembered that the whole plot was far advanced, and that Argenton had placed himself in treasonable communication with the British, before Wellesley landed. Sir Arthur came ashore on the night of April 22. On the morning of the twenty-fifth, he received a visit from Beresford, who came down from Coimbra to tell him that a French officer, bearing the message of the conspirators, had come within the Portuguese lines on the Vouga on the twenty-first. Argenton arrived at Lisbon the same night, and had his first interview with the new commander-in-chief, whom he found in charge of the British army, and not (as he had expected) Sir John Cradock. The three requests made were (1) that Wellesley would ‘press upon Soult’s Corps’—the seizure of Villa Real being suggested, (2) that he would give passports to Argenton and two others to go to France, (3) that he would stir up the Portuguese to flatter and deceive Soult into taking overt steps of treason. Cf. Wellington Dispatches, iv. 274 [Lisbon, April 27] and 308 [Coimbra, May 7].

[338] It is to these days, and probably to some date about May 4-7, that belongs General Bigarré’s curious story about the conspirators (see his Mémoires, p. 235, and Le Noble, p. 238; the latter printed the story in 1821 without names, the former’s version was only given to the light a few years ago; they agree in every point). The story is too good to be omitted. Bigarré says that, walking the quay of Oporto on a moonlight night, he came on Lafitte and Donadieu, muffled in their cloaks and vehemently discussing something in a dark corner. He stole up to them unnoticed, slapped his friend Donadieu on the back, and suddenly shouted in their ears ‘Ah! je vous y prends, Messieurs les conspirateurs.’ Lafitte whipped out a pistol, and had nearly shot the practical joker, before Donadieu could reassure him that this was only a boisterous piece of fun and that Bigarré knew nothing. It was not till much later that the latter found out what had been brewing.