[339] In common fairness to Moore, it is necessary to quote Wellesley’s own words on their fundamental difference of opinion as to the possibility of defending Portugal. ‘I have as much respect as any man can have for the opinion and judgement of Sir J. Moore, and I should mistrust my own (if opposed to his) in a case where he had an opportunity of knowing and considering. But he positively knew nothing of Portugal, and could know nothing of its existing state.’ Yet he says that ‘The greatest disadvantage under which I labour is that Sir John Moore gave an opinion that the country could not be defended by the army under his command.’ Wellington to Lord Liverpool, from Vizeu, April 2, 1810.

[340] The official notice is dated April 2 (Wellington Supplementary Dispatches, vi. p. 210), but several letters dated late in March show that the matter had been already settled.

[341] The troops from the abortive expedition to Cadiz, under Mackenzie, Sherbrooke and Tilson, turned up about the middle of March at Lisbon. But Hill, with the first body of the second batch of reinforcements, only appeared upon April 5.

[342] Of the first ten battalions to appear, seven were 2nd battalions—those of the 7th, 30th, 48th, 53rd, 66th, 83rd, 87th regiments. Some were very weak, with less than 750 bayonets, e.g. the 7th (628 men), 30th (698 men), 66th (740 men).

[343] This came from Beresford at Lisbon (see Wellington Supplementary Dispatches, vi. p. 219).

[344] Wellesley to the Duke of Richmond, April 14 (Supplementary Dispatches, vi. 227).

[345] Wellington Supplementary Dispatches, vi. 221-2. It is very creditable to Sir Arthur that, adverting to another possibility, viz. that Cradock may have plucked up courage to go out against the French, and have successfully beaten them off, he declares that ‘he could not reconcile it with his feelings’ to supersede a successful general. He remembered his own state of mind when supplanted by Burrard on the day of Vimiero.

[346] Castlereagh to Wellesley, Supplementary Dispatches, vi. 222 and 228.

[347] Memorandum of March 7, ‘As soon as the newspapers shall have announced the departure of officers for Portugal, the French armies in Spain will receive orders to make their movements towards Portugal, so as to anticipate our measures for its defence,’ &c.

[348] It is noteworthy that Wellesley, when he was placed in communication with Argenton three days later, considered that one of the few useful facts which he had got from the plotter was that Soult and his army had no knowledge of where Victor might be, or of what he was doing. This was a far more precious piece of information than any details as to the conspiracy, which Wellesley regarded from the first as doomed to failure: see Wellington Dispatches, iv. 274.

[349] Wellesley to Castlereagh, from Lisbon, April 24. I have ventured to substitute ‘before bringing’ in the last sentence for the unmeaning ‘and to bring’ which is clearly a lapsus calami.

[350] Wellesley (to Mr. Frere, at Seville) from Lisbon, April 24. In many sentences this dispatch is only a repetition of that to Castlereagh. But in others Sir Arthur makes his meaning more clear, by a more detailed explanation.

[351] Wellesley to Frere, Lisbon, April 24, 1809.

[352] Memorandum on the Defence of Portugal, of March 7.

[353] If to Masséna’s field army of 60,000 men we add the troops on his communications (viz. the 9th Corps and the garrisons of Rodrigo and Almeida) and also the force which Soult and Mortier brought up against Badajoz and Elvas—a force against which Wellesley had to provide, by making large detachments—the full number of 100,000 is reached.

[354] See, for example, the anecdote in Sir G. L’Estrange’s Reminiscences, p. 194. Picton was equally given to the use (or abuse) of mufti, and fought Quatre Bras in a tall hat!

[355] ‘Provided we brought our men into the field well appointed, and with sixty good rounds in their pouches, he never looked to see whether our trousers were black or blue or grey. Scarcely any two officers dressed alike. Some wore grey braided coats, others brown, some liked blue: many from choice or necessity stuck to the “old red rag.” We were never tormented with that greatest of bores on active service, uniformity of dress.’ Grattan’s With the 88th, p. 50.

[356] To find a humorous contrast to Wellington’s staff, the reader might consult Lejeune’s account of that of Berthier, who had allowed him to design a special and gorgeous uniform, all fur feathers and braid, for his aides-de-camp. Lejeune dwells with the enthusiasm of a tailor on his efforts and their glorious effect on parade [Lejeune, i. p. 95].

[357] Lord Roberts, in his Rise of Wellington, only slightly overstates his case when he observes that the more we study Wellesley’s life in detail, the more we respect him as a general and the less we like him as a man. If we come upon much that is hard and unsympathetic, there are too many redeeming traits to justify the statement in its entirety.

[358] The reader curious in such things may find as much as he desires of this sort of stuff in Thiébault, Marbot, Le Noble and Lemonnier Delafosse.

[359] These phrases are preserved in the notes of Soult’s aide-de-camp Baudus.

[360] Cantillon was the assassin who fired on Wellington in Paris on Sept. 10, 1818.

[361] Wellington to Castlereagh, Zambujal, Sept. 5, 1808, and London, March 7, 1809.

[362] The Fifth Division was not completed till Oct. 8, 1810, the Sixth and Seventh on March 8, 1811.

[363] Though even then the superiority, such as it was, consisted entirely of Spanish troops of doubtful quality.

[364] See pp. 114-22 of vol. i.

[365] The same idea is well marked in a conversation reported by Croker, which took place in London, on the eve of Wellesley’s departure to assume command of the troops at Cork with whom he was about to sail for the Peninsula. After a long reverie, he was asked the subject of his thoughts. ‘To say the truth,’ he replied, ‘I am thinking of the French I am going to fight. I have not seen them since the campaign in Flanders [1794-5] when they were capital soldiers, and a dozen years of victory under Buonaparte must have made them better still. They have besides a new system of strategy, which has outmanœuvred and overwhelmed all the armies of Europe. ’Tis enough to make one thoughtful; but no matter, the die is cast: they may overwhelm me, but I don’t think they will outmanœuvre me. First, because I am not afraid of them, as everybody else seems to be; and secondly, because, if all I hear of their system be true, I think it a false one against steady troops. I suspect all the continental armies are half beaten before the battle begins. I, at least, will not be frightened beforehand.’ Croker’s Diary and Correspondence, vol. i. p. 13, under the date June 14, 1808.

[366] See vol. i. p. 119.

[367] See Kincaid, chap. v, May 3, 1811.

[368] The feelings, expressed more or less clearly in a hundred memoirs, may be summed up in a paragraph by Wm. Grattan of the 88th. ‘In his parting General Order to the Peninsular army he told us that he would never cease to feel the warmest interest for our welfare and honour. How this promise was kept every one knows. That the Duke of Wellington is one of the most remarkable (perhaps the greatest) man of the present age, few will deny. But that he neglected the interests and feelings of his Peninsular army, as a body, is beyond all question. And were he in his grave to-morrow, hundreds of voices that now are silent would echo what I write’ (p. 332).

[369] Conversations with the Duke of Wellington, p. 14. [Nov. 4, 1831.]

[370] It is often forgotten that there was a strong religious element in the rank and file of the Peninsular army. In a letter from Cartaxo [Feb. 3, 1811], Wellington mentions, with no great pleasure, the fact that there were three separate Methodist meetings in the Guards’ brigade alone, and that in many other regiments there were officers who were accustomed to preach and pray with their men. For the spiritual experiences of a sergeant in the agonies of conversion, the reader may consult the diary of Surtees of the 95th during the year 1812.

[371] Robert Craufurd and Hill were perhaps the only exceptions.

[372] Take, for example, his behaviour to Sir James MacGrigor, perhaps the most successful of his chiefs of departments. MacGrigor, being at Salamanca, while Wellesley was at Madrid [Aug. 1812], ordered on his own authority the bringing up of stores for the mass of wounded left behind there after the battle. He then came to bring his report to Madrid. ‘Lord Wellington was sitting to a Spanish painter [Goya] for his portrait when I arrived, and asked me to sit down and give him a detail as to the state of the wounded at Salamanca. When I came to inform him that for their relief I had ordered up purveying and commissariat officers, he started up, and in a violent manner reprobated what I had done. His Lordship was in a passion, and the Spanish artist, ignorant of the English language, looked aghast, and at a loss to know what I had done to enrage him so much. “I shall be glad to know,” he asked, “who is to command the army, I or you? I establish one route, one line of communications for the army; you establish another, and order up supplies by it. As long as you live, sir, never do that again; never do anything without my orders.” I pleaded that there was no time to consult him, and that I had to save lives. He peremptorily desired me “never again to act without his orders.” ... A month later I was able to say to him, “My Lord, recollect how you blamed me at Madrid for the steps which I took on coming up to the army, when I could not consult your Lordship, and acted for myself. Now, if I had not, what would the consequences have been?” He answered, “It is all right as has turned out; but I recommend you still to have my orders for what you do.” This was a singular feature in the character of Lord Wellington.’ MacGrigor’s Autobiography, pp. 302-3 and 311.

[373] Salisbury MSS., 1835. Quoted in Sir Herbert Maxwell’s Wellington, ii. 194.

[374] Take, as a rare instance of recognition of this fact, his remark in 1828 that ‘When the Duke of Newcastle addressed to me a letter on the subject of forming an Administration, I treated him with contempt. No man likes to be treated with contempt. I was wrong.’ Ibid. ii. 213.

[375] For a record of such an interview by an eye-witness see Gronow’s Reminiscences, p. 66.

[376] Sir James MacGrigor’s Memoirs, pp. 304-5.

[377] He honourably mentioned Murray in his Oporto dispatch, and Tripp in his Waterloo dispatch! Both had behaved abominably.

[378] Take, for example, the case of Baring of the K. G. L. at Waterloo. In a dispatch, not written immediately after the battle (when accurate information might have been difficult to procure), but two months later, Wellesley says that La Haye Sainte was taken at two o’clock, ‘through the negligence of the officer who commanded the post.’ Yet if anything is certain, it is that Baring held out till six o’clock, that his nine companies of the K. G. L. kept back two whole French divisions, and that when he was driven out, the sole cause was that his ammunition was exhausted, and that no more could be sent him because the enemy had completely surrounded the post. If Wellington had taken any trouble about the ascertaining of the facts, he could not have failed to learn the truth.

[379] See especially his charming letters to his niece, Lady Burghersh, lately published.

[380] His relations with the other sex were numerous and unedifying. From his loveless and unwise marriage, made on a point of duty where affection had long vanished, down to his tedious ‘correspondence with Miss J.,’ there is nothing profitable to be discovered. See Greville’s Diaries [2nd Series], iii. 476.

[381] When we read Wellington’s interminable controversies with the Portuguese Regency and the Spanish Junta, we soon come to understand not merely the way in which they provoked him by their tortuous shuffling and their helpless procrastination, but still more the way in which he irritated them by his unveiled scorn, and his outspoken exposure of all their meannesses. A little more diplomatic language would have secured less friction, and probably better service.

[382] Monro to Beresford, April 15, and MacKinley’s inclosure from Vigo of April 16, 1809.

[383] Excluding troops that arrived at Lisbon just after Wellesley’s arrival.

[384] The 3rd Dragoon Guards, 4th Dragoons, 14th and 16th Light Dragoons, with one squadron of the 3rd Light Dragoons of the K. G. L., and two of the 20th Light Dragoons.

[385] The 2/9th, 1/45th, 29th, 5/60th and 97th.

[386] Of Wellesley’s twenty-one British battalions, ten were 2nd battalions, [of the 7th, 9th, 24th, 30th, 31st, 48th, 53rd, 66th, 83rd, 87th], two were single-battalion regiments [the 29th and 97th], three first battalions [of the 3rd, 45th and 88th], two Guards’ battalions [1st Coldstreams and 1st Scots Fusiliers], two ‘battalions of detachments,’ one a 3rd battalion (27th), one a 5th battalion [60th].

[387] These regiments were the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 7th, 10th, 13th, 15th, 16th, 19th, raised respectively at Lisbon (1st, 4th, 10th, 16th), Estremoz (3rd), Setubal (7th), Peniche (13th), Villa Viciosa (15th), Cascaes (19th), Campomayor (20th), the 1st, 4th and 5th Cazadores, and 1st, 4th and 7th Cavalry.

[388] It is fair to the Portuguese to note that other witnesses of May 1809 speak much more favourably of them. Londonderry (i. p. 305) writes that ‘they had applied of late so much ardour to their military education that some were already fit to take the field, and it only required a little experience to put them on a level with the best troops in Europe. There was one brigade under General Campbell (the 4th and 10th regiments), which struck me as being in the finest possible order: it went through a variety of evolutions with a precision and correctness which would have done no discredit to our own army.’

[389] Wellington Dispatches, iv. 273-5, 276. To Castlereagh. Wellesley says that the plot will probably fail, and that even if the 2nd Corps mutinied, they would not carry away the other French armies, as Argenton hoped. He had therefore refused to commit himself to anything.

[390] Wellington Dispatches, ii. 306.

[391] The regiments were, giving their force present with the colours from the return of May 5:—

[392] The Portuguese regiments were:—1st Foot [La Lippe] one batt., 3rd and 15th Foot [1st and 2nd of Olivenza] each one batt., 4th Foot [Freire] and 13th Foot [Peniche] two batts. each. 1st, 4th and 5th Cazadores, one batt. each. Five squadrons of the 4th and 7th cavalry. Total, 6,000 foot, 700 horse, and three field-batteries, about 7,100 men.

[393] Viz. 2/87th, 669 bayonets, 1/88th, 608 bayonets, five companies of the 5/60th, 306 bayonets.

[394] Two battalions each of the regiments nos. 7 (Setubal), 19 (Cascaes), and one of no. 1 (La Lippe), as far as I can ascertain, composed this force.

[Erratum from p. xii: I found in Lisbon that the regiments which marched with Beresford to Lamego were not (as I had supposed) nos. 7 and 19, but nos. 2 and 14, with the 4th cazadores. Those which joined from the direction of Almeida were two battalions of no. 11 (1st of Almeida) and one of no. 9.]

[395] Regiment, no. 1.

[396] Wilson had been removed by Beresford from his own Lusitanian Legion, and told to take up the command of the Brigade at Almeida: it was, apparently, with two battalions drawn from the garrison of that fortress that he now joined Beresford.

[397] Wellesley to Beresford, Coimbra, May 7. Wellington Dispatches, iv. 309.

[398] Ibid. iv. 320.

[399] Wellington Dispatches, iv. pp. 270, 281, 305.

[400] The whole force consisted of the following, present with the colours:—

With Lawson’s battery of 3-pounders, and Lane’s, Heyse’s, and Rettberg’s of 6-pounders. Allowing 600 each for the Portuguese battalions, the total comes to 16,213 infantry, 1,504 cavalry, and 550 gunners, also sixty-four men of the wagon train, and thirty-nine engineers. Total, 18,370.

[401] Wellington to Beresford, from Coimbra, May 7, 1809.

[402] He told Wellesley that the general was ‘a man of weak intellect,’ and that he thought that he had won him over to the plot from the way in which he received the news of it. Wellesley to Castlereagh, May 15, from Oporto.

[403] This may be perhaps inferred from Soult’s letter to King Joseph, written after the retreat, in which he says that he had intended to pack off Lahoussaye and Mermet from the front: ‘À cette époque j’ai voulu faire partir ces généraux, qui n’ont pas toujours fait ce qui était de leur pouvoir pour le succès des opérations; mais j’ai preféré attendre d’être arrivé à Zamora, afin de ne pas accréditer les bruits d’intrigues et de conspirations qui eurent lieu à Oporto, auxquels ils n’ont pas certainement pris aucune part.’ [Intercepted letter in Record Office.]

[404] Soult so far managed to forget the whole business that he, two years later, sent the younger Lafitte to present to the Emperor the English flags captured at Albuera! [See St. Chamans, p. 133.]

[405] Most of this comes from Argenton’s confession to Wellesley on May 13. See Wellington Dispatches, iv. p. 339. He said that he slipped away from the gendarmes at the advice of Lafitte, who told him that his friends would come to no harm if the chief witness against them vanished.

[406] The extraordinary clemency shown to the conspirators by Soult, the providential escape of Argenton, the favours which the Marshal afterwards lavished on Lafitte, and the trouble which he took to hush up the whole matter, led many of his enemies to suspect that he himself had been in the plot, and had intended to combine his scheme for Portuguese kingship with a rising against Bonaparte at the head of his corps d’armée: Argenton’s confession made this impossible.

[407] For further details on Argenton’s fate, see the Appendix.

[408] 1st Hussars, 8th Dragoons, 22nd Chasseurs and Hanoverian Chevaux-légers.

[409] For details of this fatiguing night march and its gropings in the dark see Tomkinson’s (16th Dragoons) Diary, pp. 4-5, and Hawker’s (14th Light Dragoons) Journal, p. 47.

[410] The Light Dragoons, says Hawker (Journal, p. 48), ‘finding ourselves opposed by a heavy column of cavalry, retired a little.’ Their total loss was one officer and two men wounded, and one man missing. On this slender foundation Le Noble founds the following romance (p. 240). ‘Le général Franceschi charge à la tête de sa division ceux qui l’attaquent en front, renverse la première ligne, et tandis qu’elle se rétablit, se retire, et fond avec 6 pièces et deux régiments sur la colonne qui le tournait par sa droite. L’ennemi est culbuté, la colonne recule, et le général se retire sur Oliveira avec quelques prisonniers.’ All this fuss produced four casualties in the two English regiments. See official report of casualties for May 10, 1809.

[411] Hawker, pp. 49-50. Tomkinson has words to much the same effect, ‘it was more like a field-day than an affair with the enemy: all the shots went over our heads, and no accident appeared to happen to any one’ (p. 6).

[412] The best account of this little skirmish is in the Journal of Fantin des Odoards of the 31st Léger (p. 230). Napier does not mention that the reason why Hill did not move in the afternoon was simply that he was already ‘contained,’ and engaged with a force of French infantry of nearly his own strength.

[413] Wellesley to Mackenzie [the latter had written that he dared not trust his Portuguese battalions], Wellington Dispatches, iv. p. 350.

[414] See Fantin des Odoards. Le Noble (incorrect as always) says that the 47th brought up the rear.

[415] There are two excellent accounts of this charge in the diaries of Tomkinson of the 16th Light Dragoons and Fantin des Odoards of the 31st Léger. The former (pp. 9-11) holds that the charge was indefensible, and blames Charles Stewart for ordering it, and Major Blake for carrying it out. A different impression is received from the French diarist, who speaks of it as a complete rout of his regiment and very disastrous. ‘Assaillis en détail nous avons été facilement mis en désordre, attendu notre morcellement et la confusion que des charges audacieuses de cavalerie mettaient dans nos rangs. Les trois bataillons ont lâché pied et se sont enfuis à vau de route. Si le pays n’avait pas offert des murs, des fossés et des haies, ils auraient été entièrement sabrés.... Peu à peu les débris du régiment se sont ralliés a la division, qui était en position à une lieue de Porto. Notre perte a été considérable, mais notre aigle, qui a couru de grands dangers dans cette bagarre, a fort heureusement été sauvée.... Les dragons étaient acharnés a nous poursuivre, et mal a pris ceux qui au lieu de gagner les collines out suivi le vallon et la grande route’ (p. 231). It seems probable (a thing extremely rare in military history) that Tomkinson and Des Odoards, the two best narrators of the fight, actually met each other. The former mentions that he chased an isolated French infantry man, fired his pistol at his head, but missed, and that he was at once shot in the shoulder by another Frenchman and disabled. Then turning back, he was again fired at by several men and brought down. Des Odoards says that he was chased by a single English dragoon, who got up to him, fired at him point blank and missed, whereupon a corporal of his company, who had turned back to help him, shot the dragoon, who dropped his smoking pistol at Des Odoards’ feet, and rolled off his horse. The narratives seem to tally perfectly.

[416] The officers killed were Captain Detmering of the 1st K. G. L., and a Portuguese ensign of the I/16th. Those wounded were Captain Ovens and Lieutenant Woodgate of the 1st Battalion of Detachments, Lieutenants Lodders and Lahngren of the K. G. L., Cornet Tomkinson of the 16th Light Dragoons, and a Portuguese lieutenant of the 1/16th. It would seem that some of the fourteen ‘missing’ were infantry killed in the woods, whose bodies were never found, but several belonged to the maltreated dragoon squadrons, and were taken from having pursued too fast and far.

[417] 1st and 2nd Line battalions of the K.G.L., also a detached company of rifles of the K.G.L.

[418] Lane’s and Lawson’s British guns, and one K.G.L., battery.

[419] Soult’s doings on this day are best told by his aide-de-camp St. Chamans, who was with him all the morning. No attention need be paid to the narrative of his panegyrist Le Noble, who tells a foolish story to the effect that a commandant Salel came at six o’clock (more than four hours before the Buffs began to pass), and assured some of Soult’s staff that the English were already crossing the river. ‘On hearing this,’ says Le Noble, ‘the Marshal sent for Quesnel, the governor of Oporto, and asked if there was any truth in the rumour. The latter denied it and Soult was reassured. If only Salel had been believed, all the English who had then passed might have been killed or captured,’ and a disaster avoided. As a matter of fact Quesnel was right, and not a British soldier had yet crossed [Campagne de Galice, p. 247].

[420] This interesting fact I owe to the diary of Captain Lane, still in manuscript, of which a copy has been sent me by Col. Whinyates, R. A., a specialist on the history of the British artillery in the Peninsula.

[421] Viz. 1/3rd, fifty men, 2/48th, seventeen men, 2/66th, ten men, killed and wounded. The French 17th alone lost 177 [Foy’s Dispatch].

[422] All this is well described by Leslie of the 29th (p. 113), Stothert of the Scots Fusilier Guards (p. 41), and Cooper of the 2/7th, who crossed later.

[423] Leslie, ibid.

[424] So Hawker of that regiment, who took part in the charge, and describes it well. In Wellesley’s dispatch, two squadrons are wrongly named.

[425] The best account of this charge is the diary of Hawker; it runs as follows: ‘After going at full speed, enveloped in a cloud of dust for nearly two miles, we cleared our infantry, and that of the French appeared. A strong body was drawn up in close column, with bayonets ready to receive us on their front. On each side of the road was a stone wall, bordered outwardly with trees. On our left, in particular, numbers of the French were posted with their pieces resting on the wall, which flanked the road, ready to give us a running fire as we passed. This could not but be effectual, as our men (in threes) were close to the muzzles of their muskets, and barely out of the reach of a coup de sabre. In a few seconds the ground was covered with our men and horses. Notwithstanding this we penetrated the battalion in the road, the men of which, relying on their bayonets, did not give way till we were close upon them, when they fled in confusion. For some time the contest was kept up hand to hand. After many efforts we succeeded in cutting off 300, of whom most were secured as prisoners. But our loss was very considerable. Of fifty-two men in the leading troop ten were killed, and eleven severely wounded (besides others slightly), and six taken prisoners.’ (Of the last all save one succeeded in slipping off and got back.) Out of four officers engaged three were wounded: Hervey, the major in command, lost an arm. Foy called the attack ‘une charge incroyable.’