The French might impose upon the world by representing the dispersion of this tumultuous assemblage as a splendid victory; but they could not deceive themselves concerning the temper of the nation, when upon entering the city they found it deserted by all its inhabitants, and stripped of every thing which could be carried away. If their light vanity could be elated with the vaunt that in the course of eleven days they had won many battles, taken two towns, and forced the passage of a chain of mountains, there was enough to abate their pleasure, if not their pride, in the fact that empty houses were all that they had gained; that they were masters of no more country than their troops could cover, and only while they covered it; and in the ominous apprehension excited by knowing how deeply and how deservedly they were hated by the people whom they had invaded. They consoled themselves with the thought that the rich merchants of Porto would not abandon their property as the people of Braga had done their dwellings; and Marshal Soult was not sparing of professions, that it was with regret he had been compelled to employ force, when his only object in entering Portugal was to deliver that fine country from the ruinous yoke of the English, the eternal enemies of her prosperity. Some of the inhabitants were induced to return, and one was found timid or traitorous enough to take upon himself the office of Corregidor by Marshal Soult’s appointment. The most important business which this wretched instrument of the enemy was called upon to perform was to provide them with food; for which purpose he was instructed to assure his countrymen that if they did not bring in provisions, the French would take them; that in that case the officers could not control the men; it would therefore be for their own ♦Operations, &c. 146–8.♦ interest to act as they were required to do, and for all which they supplied they should receive receipts, payable in a manner afterwards to be explained.

After resting his army three days, and leaving 700 sick and wounded in the hospitals, Soult proceeded on his march. One division, which ♦March 24.♦ found the bridge over the Ave at Barca da Trofa broken down, and the ford guarded too well to be passed without loss and difficulty, succeeded in winning and repairing the Ponte de S. Justo over the same river, higher up. The Ponte de Ave also was forced by Colonel Lallemand in a second attempt; and the officers who defended it were murdered by their men, who, feeling in themselves no want of courage or of will, imputed every reverse to treachery in their leaders. Without farther opposition the enemy advanced upon Porto, and the Marshal sent in a summons ♦March 28.♦ to the Bishop, the magistrates, and the General, in the usual French style, protesting that the French came not as enemies to the Portugueze, but only to drive away the English; and that the rulers of the city would be responsible before God and man for the blood that would be shed, and the horrors which must ensue, if they attempted to oppose an army accustomed to victory. It was not without danger that the summons could be delivered; and General Foy, who either being deceived by the gestures of a party of soldiers, or mistaking them, advanced to receive their submission, was surrounded and carried into the city. A cry was set up that they had taken Loison; and Foy would have been torn to pieces, in vengeance for Loison’s ♦Operations, &c. 159–168.♦ crimes, if he had not possessed presence of mind enough to lift up both hands, and thus prove to the people that he was not their old one-armed enemy.

The persons in authority had sufficient influence to save his life, and put him in confinement for security; but they were unable to protect ♦Vol. ii. p. 64.♦ Luiz de Oliveira, who having been deservedly thrown into prison in June, had been left there as if forgotten, with that iniquitous neglect of justice which had long been usual in Portugal. He was murdered and dragged through the streets by the rabble; and a few other victims perished in this last explosion of popular fury. The Bishop, who appears to have been at that time in the battery of S. Francisco encouraging the troops, saw now what had been represented to him vainly, though in time, that the works were too extensive, as well as too weak. He had been advised to strengthen them by throwing up works en flèche, to place 1500 of the best troops in their rear, as a reserve for supporting the point which should be attacked, and to throw up a second line close under the suburb, and have the houses loop-holed, in preparation for that sort of defence which the inhabitants were in a temper to have maintained, had there been spirits to have directed them, as at Zaragoza. None of these things had been done; and the Bishop, sensible when too late of ♦The bishop leaves the city.♦ the errors which had been committed, and the value of the time which had been lost, and perceiving also too many proofs of that confusion which insubordination always produces, crossed to the left bank of the Douro during the night, leaving the ill-planned and ill-constructed works to be defended by an inadequate force and an inefficient general. All night the bells of all the churches were ringing the alarm; the churches were filled with supplicants, the streets with a multitude, who wasted in furious demonstrations that strength which should have been reserved for the defence of their streets, and houses, and chambers. At midnight a storm of wind and rain and thunder broke over the city, and while the lightnings flashed above, a useless discharge of cannon and musketry was kept up by the Portugueze along the line, at which the enemy gazed as at a spectacle, for not a shot could reach them. Soult had given orders that the works should be attacked at six on the ensuing morning, which was Good Friday. Napoleon and Glory was the word. The storm ceased ♦Operations, &c. 168–9.♦ about three, and the attack was postponed till seven, that the soil might have time to dry, so as not to impede the troops in their movements.

General Parreiras before the attack was made had lost all hope of opposing a successful resistance. Yet when the enemy attacked the Prelada, a quinta, or country-seat, about a mile from the city, where the lines formed an angle, they did not force it without a loss of 500 men, including two chefs de bataillon. Having forced it, they flanked the greater part of those troops who did their duty. The right and left were attacked also; a panic soon spread: in less than an hour after the commencement of the action, the General seeing that all was lost, had crossed the bridge, and the French were in the town. A tremendous carnage ensued; the cavalry charging through the streets, and slaughtering indiscriminately all whom they overtook: for an officer who accompanied General Foy the preceding day had been killed, having attempted to defend himself when the General surrendered, and the circumstance of his death was made a pretext for this butchery. But the greatest destruction took place in the passage of the river; the inhabitants rushed to the bridge of boats in such numbers, that the first pontoon sank under their weight; the crowd from behind still pressed on, forcing those who were foremost into the stream, and themselves in like manner precipitated in their turn; the French meantime keeping up a fire of grape-shot upon the affrighted and helpless fugitives. From three to four thousand persons are supposed to have perished thus; and not satisfied with this, the enemy kept up a fire from the most commanding points upon those who were endeavouring to cross in boats. Of the numbers who were thus killed a large proportion consisted of women and children. But in this miserable day neither sex, age, nor innocence could obtain mercy, nor manly and heroic courage command respect from the inhuman enemy. The men, and they were not few, who did their duty, singly or in small parties where a handful of brave Portugueze had got together, were put to the sword. About two hundred, whom the French praised in reality when they intended to depreciate them by calling them the most fanaticised, collected near the Cathedral, and fought till the last man was cut down. The scenes which ensued were more odious and more opprobrious to humanity than even the horrors of this carnage; the men, however, were not allowed to commit enormities of every kind till they were glutted, as they had been at ♦Col. Jones’s Acc. of the War, i. 195.♦ Evora. Marshal Soult exerted himself to check their7 excesses with an earnestness which, even if it proceeded from mere motives of policy, must be recorded to his honour. And he had some officers to second him with true good will in this good work; for though the miscreants were with him who had disgraced their country and their profession by the atrocities which they had perpetrated or permitted at Evora and Leiria, there were others who abhorred the iniquitous service in which they were engaged, and who were members of a secret society, the object of which was to throw off Buonaparte’s yoke, and restore peace to France and Europe.

Complete as his success had hitherto been, and little as it had cost him, Marshal Soult did not find it advisable to push on for Lisbon. He now knew what was the spirit of the nation, and he was without any intelligence from Lapisse and Victor, whose movements were to be combined with his. He applied himself therefore to securing what he had won, and endeavoured to conciliate the Portugueze, and raise a party among them in favour of the ambitious designs which, like Junot, he appears now to ♦1809.
April.♦ have formed. For this purpose a newspaper was published at Porto a week only after its capture, and the first number opened with a panegyric upon the conqueror because he had not totally destroyed the city. While the streets were yet stained with the blood of the carnage, and there was mourning in every house, and bodies were every day cast up by the river and along the sea-beach, ... while it was stated officially in the Madrid Gazette that the whole garrison had been put to the sword, ... Marshal Soult was panegyrized for clemency! The dreadful catastrophe which Porto had suffered, said his writers, might serve as a warning for all who undertook great enterprises without calculating the means, or looking on to the end. But amid the horror with which so severe an example affected every feeling heart, there was abundant matter of consolation for minds capable of weighing things in the balance of philosophy. Towns carried by assault had invariably, among the most civilized nations, paid with their total destruction the penalty of their contumacy. This was the fate which Porto had had to apprehend; and from this it had been spared by a hero who always listened to the voice of mercy, and in whose heart valour and humanity contended for the ascendance!

The Portugueze are not so light a people as to be thus easily deceived. They had seen the tender mercies of the French too recently to be duped by their professions, and not more than a sixth part of the inhabitants remained in Porto under their government. If this proof of their ♦Operations, &c. 183.♦ disposition augured ill for the French, it lessened the difficulty of providing for the city, which was an object of no small anxiety to the captors. They who had undertaken to supply the troops went into the country by night to make their bargains with persons whom they could trust, ♦Do. 206.♦ and the supplies were brought in darkness at a stated hour to a stated place; for if any person had been seen engaged in thus administering to the enemy, his life would have been the penalty of his treason. When the English property was put up to sale, not a person would bid for it: an individual at last ventured to offer about a third part of its value for certain goods, but before four-and-twenty hours had elapsed he absconded, either for the fear of being marked as one who had dealt with the French, or unable ♦Operations, &c. 205.♦ to bear the shame of having been the only Portugueze in Porto who had thus disgraced himself.

There were, however, in Portugal, as in every country, men who have no other principle than the determination of promoting their own interest by any means; and there were some few who entertained that abject and superstitious faith in Buonaparte’s fortune which his partizans and flatterers every where endeavoured to promote. Some also there were who, in their vehement abhorrence for the besotted despotism and the filthy superstition which degraded their country, had renounced their national feeling and their Christian faith. The scheme of Soult’s policy was to make such persons (whom he supposed more numerous than they were) stand forward as a party, engage them in the irremissible offence of swearing fidelity to Napoleon and obedience to his representative, and employ them in corrupting their countrymen, and in watching and subjugating those whom they could not seduce. For this purpose he had his emissaries in the capital and in the provinces to spread disaffection by representing the abuses and evils both of the civil and ecclesiastical system, ... abuses which it was hardly possible to exaggerate, and evils which in themselves and in their consequences were only more tolerable and less pernicious than the iron tyranny which Buonaparte would have substituted in ♦Campaign of 1809 in the Peninsula, 15. Do. Appendix A.♦ their place. Marshal Soult had also conceived the strange intention of making the Jews, whose number in Portugal he estimated at 200,000, avow their religion under the protection of France, and hold upon an appointed day a general feast for the success of the Emperor’s arms. It is probable that he overrated them as greatly as he mistook their character; but if they had been mad enough to act in conformity to his wishes, a general massacre would have been the certain consequence. For the old inhuman prejudice against this persecuted race, when yielding to wiser laws and the spirit of the age, had been revived by the manner in which Buonaparte courted them. It was observed by some of the Spanish journalists, that when the Turks were the terror of Christendom, they had derived their information from the Jews, who were their instruments every where; and the promise of Buonaparte to abolish the Inquisition provoked only from the Spaniards the remark that this measure must have been suggested by some Israelite of the Sanhedrim.

Among the Portugueze who, from the perversion of good feelings, or the original prevalence of base ones, were open to corruption, persons were found to forward the design which Soult had now formed of becoming King of Northern Lusitania. Buonaparte’s formation of new principalities and kingdoms for his brothers and favourites had made the generals of this new Alexander suppose that his conquests would be divided among them, and a petty kingdom under this title had been carved out in the secret treaty of Fontainebleau. A deputation of twelve principal inhabitants of Braga, as they were represented to be, waited upon the Marshal, and published in his gazette an account of their interview with him, and an address in consequence to the Portugueze people. They assured their countrymen that Marshal Soult had conversed with them at great length upon the produce, commerce, and interests of the province between the rivers, in a manner which formed a striking contrast to the conduct of their old government. That government, they said, had been indifferent about all things except the raising of its revenues. The flight of the Prince Regent amounted to a voluntary abdication of the throne, and a happy futurity might now be anticipated under a better dynasty. The House of Braganza, said these traitors, no longer exists. It is the will of Heaven that our destinies should pass into other hands; and it has been the peculiar favour of Divine Providence to send us a man exempt from passions, and devoted to true glory alone, who desires to employ the force entrusted to him by the great Napoleon only for our protection and deliverance from the monster of anarchy which threatened to devour us. Why do we delay to assemble round him, and proclaim him our father and deliverer? Why do we delay to express our anxiety to see him at the head of a nation, of whose affections he has made so rapid a conquest? The sovereign of France will lend a gracious ear to our supplications, and will rejoice to see that we desire one of his lieutenants for our King, who, in imitation of his example, knows how to conquer and to pardon.

Such an address could not have been published in a journal which was under French superintendence unless it had been in unison with Soult’s designs. On another occasion, when he gave audience to a second deputation from Braga, and to the civil, religious, and military authorities of Porto, the obsequious traitors requested that till the supreme intentions of the Emperor should be ascertained they might be allowed to swear fidelity to his most worthy representative, who had so many claims upon the love, respect, and gratitude of the Portugueze. The Marshal expatiated as usual in reply upon the felicities which were about to be showered upon Portugal under a French master: “As to what concerns myself,” he added, “I feel obliged by the frank expressions which you have used relating to my person; but it does not depend upon me to answer them.” He had, however, depended so much upon realizing this dream of ambition, that proclamations were prepared, announcing him as King. It was fortunate for the parties concerned that they went no farther; for one of his staff, who was supposed to be a principal agent in the scheme, was recalled to Paris, and Buonaparte, addressing him by name at a grand levee, said to him, “Take care how ♦Col. Jones’s Hist. of the War, i. 199, note.♦ you draw up proclamations! My empire is not yet sufficiently extended for my generals to become independent. One step farther, and I would have had you shot.”

Expecting no such impediment to his hopes, the “worthy representative” of Buonaparte proceeded, as his master had done in Egypt, to show his attachment to the religion of the people whom he came to govern. There is a famous crucifix, known by the name of Nosso Senhor de Bouças, in the little town of Matosinhos, upon the coast, about a league from Porto. According to tradition it is the oldest image in Portugal, being the work of Nicodemus; and though the workman neither attempted to represent muscle nor vein, it is affirmed that there cannot be a more perfect and excellent crucifix. Antiquaries discovered another merit in it, for there has been a controversy concerning the number8 of nails used in the crucifixion, and in this image four are represented, agreeing with the opinion of St. Gregory of Tours, and the ♦D. Rodrigo da Cunha, Cat. dos Bispos do Porto, pp. 393, 4.♦ revelation made to the Swedish St. Bridget. The sea cast it up, and its miraculous virtue was soon attested by innumerable proofs. One of the arms was wanting when it was found; the best sculptors were employed to supply this deficiency; but in spite of all their skill not one of them could produce an arm which would fit the place for which it was designed. One day a poor but pious woman, as she was gathering shell-fish and drift-wood for fuel, picked up upon the beach a wooden arm, which she, supposing that it had belonged to some ordinary and profane image, laid upon the fire. The reader will be at no loss to imagine that it sprung out of the flames, ... that the neighbours collected at the vociferations of the woman, ... that the priests were ready to carry it in procession to the church of N. Senhor; and that the moment it was applied to the stump whereto it belonged, a miraculous junction was effected. Our Lord of Bouças became from that time one of the most famous idols in Portugal; and on ♦Corografia Portugueza, t. i. 361.♦ the day of his festival five-and-twenty thousand persons have sometimes been assembled at his church, coming thither in pilgrimage from all parts.

To this idol Marshal Soult thought proper to offer his devotions. He and his staff visited the church, and prostrating themselves before the altar, paid, says his journal, that tribute of respect and reverence which religion requires from those who are animated with the true spirit of Christianity. “There cannot,” continued the hypocritical traitor who recorded this mummery, ... “there cannot be a more affecting and interesting spectacle, than to see a Great Man humbling himself in the presence of the King of kings and Sovereign Disposer of empires. All the inhabitants of Matosinhos who were present at this religious solemnity were wrapt in ecstasy!” The French Marshal testified his great concern at hearing that the plate and jewels and ornaments of the church had been carried off; and he promised the rector that he would offer two large silver candlesticks to Nosso Senhor, and dedicate a silver lamp to him, and assign funds to keep it burning night and day, and, moreover, that he would double the stipend of the rector and the sacristan. “Let this fact,” said his penman, “be contrasted with what we have been told respecting the irreligion of the French troops and their leaders! It is time to open our eyes, and to acknowledge the hand of Providence in the events which have befallen us. How fortunate are we that Heaven has destined us to be governed by a hero who possesses a heart disposed to be deeply and warmly impressed with the majesty of our holy religion, and who aspires only to make it shine forth with new and never-fading splendour! Let the calumniators be confounded, and the timid be tranquil! Our hopes ought to be re-animated now that they have obtained a support, which, resting on religion, and lifting its head above the storms, promises them entire realization.”

Not a word of restoring the spoils of the church had been said by Marshal Soult; ... his promise of the lamp and the funds for the oil, and the increase of salaries, was confirmed by a decree in which he dedicated the lamp, assigned a revenue of sixteen milreas for its support, and doubled the incomes; as far as the decree went he performed his promise ... and no farther. His situation, indeed, was becoming too perilous to allow him time for the farce of superstition. On one hand the events in Galicia alarmed him, ... on the other he learnt that the English, instead of evacuating Lisbon, were expecting a fresh army there; and that General Beresford was already arrived, with the title of Field-marshal conferred upon him by the Prince of Brazil, to take the command of the Portugueze ♦1809.
March.♦ army, and reorganize it. He had experienced the courage and the patriotism of the Portugueze, and knew that discipline was all they wanted to make them as formidable in the field as their forefathers. From the centre of Spain he could expect little assistance, so rapidly had the Spaniards re-formed their armies; ... and from France itself no reinforcements were to be looked for, for Buonaparte was even obliged to withdraw troops from the Peninsula, that he might march against the Austrians.

The first ill news which reached him was from Chaves. Bernardim Freire had directed Silveira, as soon as the enemy should enter Portugal, to retire by the passes of Salamonde and Ruyvaens, and so join the main force assembled for the defence of Portugal. The spirit of insubordination which broke out at Chaves seems to have frustrated this purpose. Silveira waited till the last in the vicinity of that place, hoping to bring off the garrison when they should feel that it was untenable: failing in that hope, he found it necessary to fall back before the French in a different direction to Villa Pouca. The enemy, believing that his little army was what they called demoralized, had contented themselves with making a strong reconnoissance there under General Lorges, for the double motive of deceiving the Portugueze with regard to their intended march, and intimidating the country; then pursued their way, holding the force which they left behind them in as much contempt as that which they advanced to attack. But no sooner had Silveira ascertained their movements than he returned to his position at S. Barbara; and when the last party of the enemy’s cavalry had withdrawn from observing him to follow the main body, he ♦March 20.♦ entered Chaves, easily overcoming the little resistance which the garrison were able to make. Messager, the commandant, withdrew into the fort, where the Portugueze, having no artillery, blockaded him for four days: on the fifth they prepared to take it by escalade; the French then proposed to capitulate, on condition of marching out with arms and baggage to join Marshal Soult. Five minutes were allowed them to determine whether they would surrender prisoners at war, and they were glad to secure their lives by submitting to that condition. About 1300 men were thus taken, and 114 Spaniards whom Soult had left there as prisoners were restored to liberty. Silveira then followed the steps of the enemy. Hearing that they had entered Braga, his intention was to cut off their garrison there, as he had done at Chaves; but while he was arranging measures for this, he learned the fate of Porto, and marched in consequence toward Villa Real. On the way he was informed that the enemy intended to enter Tras os Montes by way either of Canavezes or of a little town known by the awkward name of Entre ambos os rios, from its position near the point where the Tamega falls into the Douro. Immediately he occupied both places, repulsed the French in two attempts upon the former, and reaching Amarante himself just as a party of the enemy, having burnt the villages of Villa Meam, Manhufe, and Pildre, were advancing ♦Diario Official. Corr. Braz. iii. 113, 115.♦ to take possession of it, he made them retire to Penafiel, and entered that city the next day on their withdrawing from it.

Silveira’s activity raised the hopes of the Portugueze: it was said in Porto that he would soon take his coffee in that city, and this was repeated to Soult, who desired Silveira might be assured that he would provide him with sugar for it. The jest is said to have kept up ♦Operations, &c. p. 199.♦ the spirits of those Portugueze who had consented to serve the French interest. But the cup which they had prepared for themselves was one which, drug it as they might, nothing could sweeten. Every sacrifice and every success on the part of their countrymen, every act of heroism and virtue, every manifestation of the old national spirit, was a reproach to them; and tidings which would have elated and rejoiced their hearts if they had not fallen from their duty, brought to them feelings only of fear, and shame, and self-condemnation. The Portugueze were so persuaded of their own strength, and the experience even of the preceding year had so little abated that persuasion, that they had considered it impossible for the French to enter Porto, or had expected at least that the city would have made a long and glorious resistance. And yet the tidings of its capture, with all the shameful and all the dreadful circumstances that attended it, occasioned no consternation. That miserable event was known at Coimbra on the following day; it was known also that no means had been taken for removing the boats and destroying the bridge; that the part which had been broken by the crowd of fugitives had speedily been repaired by the enemy, and that their advanced parties had proceeded as far as Grijo. It was considered certain that they would lose no time in occupying so important a city as Coimbra and the intermediate country, one of the finest and most fertile parts of the kingdom. Colonel Trant, who commanded there, knew how inadequate his means were to prevent this; but he knew that efficient aid might soon be expected from England, that much might sometimes be done by mere display, and by the judicious use of a scanty force, and that if the evil could be but for a little while delayed, it might ultimately be averted.

The force at his disposal consisted of the Coimbra militia and a detachment of volunteers who had enlisted for the army, in all 500 men; but to these an academical corps of 300 was immediately added, the students offering themselves with that alacrity, and displaying that promptitude and intelligence, which belong to youth in their station. The people began to recover confidence when they knew that one party from this little force took the road to Aveiro and another that to Sardam, the two directions in which Coimbra might be approached from Porto. Report magnified the designs of Colonel Trant and the means which he possessed; and the double good was produced of encouraging the Portugueze and delaying the progress of the French, who, if they advanced to Coimbra, would have commanded the resources of a fertile country, have approached nearer to the armies with which their operations were to be combined for effecting the conquest of the kingdom; and moreover, in case of failure, would have had an easier retreat open through Beira. A most timely supply was obtained from the magistrates of Aveiro, who having consulted the Camara of Coimbra, placed the public money which had been collected in their city at Colonel Trant’s disposal, and also a considerable magazine of maize and other grain, ... both being thus secured from the enemy, into whose hands they must otherwise have fallen, if even a slight detachment had been sent thither. The fugitives from Porto and from that part of the country which the invaders occupied found in Coimbra all the assistance that could be afforded, and were thus prevented from carrying the panic farther; and the soldiers who had escaped the butchery were refitted and re-embodied as they came in. Colonel Trant offered the command to Baron d’Eben; but the Baron knew by experience what it was to command a hasty and tumultuous force, and chose rather to employ himself in re-collecting his battalion of the Lusitanian Legion. It was offered also to the Portugueze Brigadier Antonio Marcellino da Victoria; but he had witnessed the fate of Freire, and desired to accompany Trant as a simple volunteer. In addition to the force which was thus augmenting, two squadrons of regular troops unexpectedly arrived in Coimbra, with their commander, the Visconde de Barbacena: they had been ordered in a different direction; but being mostly natives of the Campo de Coimbra, they had insisted upon going to defend their own immediate country, and the Viscount deemed it better to obey their inclinations than withstand a spirit of insubordination to which he might too probably have fallen a sacrifice. Colonel Trant removed them as soon as possible out of the city, and separating them from the other troops, stationed them in advance at Mealhada. The Commander-in-chief being duly apprized of what had occurred, gave orders that these troops should remain under his command; and the men, whose intentions had been good when their conduct was most irregular, were thus brought again into the line of duty.

With this motley force, a week after the capture of Porto had been known, Colonel Trant set forth. Taking the students’ corps under his ♦April 6.♦ own command, he advanced toward Aveiro, and effected the important purpose of securing the boats and provisions in that port. The right ♦1809.
April.♦ column, under Lieutenant-Colonel Campbell (who had escaped from the carnage at Porto), he sent to the bridge of Vouga. That river (the Vacca of the ancients) rises in the Serra de Alcoba, and having received the Portugueze Agueda, which brings an equal volume of waters, enters the Lake of Aveiro, and forms a harbour there not less beautiful than singular: it is separated from the sea by two long wings of sand, and if the entrance were but good, would be perhaps the most commodious and capacious in Europe. A party of the enemy had crossed by the bridge of Vouga, and recrossed by that of Marnel, leaving in all the intermediate places the accustomed marks of their sacrilegious barbarity. They were part of a considerable cavalry force, under General Franceschi. For having taken Porto, and being masters of the Douro, the French, accustomed to consider military posts and the course of rivers as every thing, and the people as nothing in the scale, held that the country as far as the Mondego was already theirs by right of conquest; and Franceschi’s division would have advanced to occupy Coimbra if he had not thought that the force opposed to him was respectable both in numbers and quality. Its number, which the enemy supposed to be from ten to twelve thousand, did not in reality exceed 2000, even after two companies of grenadiers had joined them from Guarda. They had been stationed there under Camp-Marshal Manoel Pinto Bacellar’s command; but choosing to act upon their own judgement in those days of general insubordination, they compelled their officers to conduct them to the Vouga, as the place where they might soonest be enabled to act against the invaders of their country. With regard to the quality of this little force, the French supposed that there were English troops with it, and a great proportion of English officers. A panic seized Campbell’s men; they fled towards Coimbra; some of the fugitives joined Trant, and added in no slight degree to the anxieties of his situation by the alarm which they communicated. The academical corps indeed, under his immediate command, was one in which he placed just confidence; but the fatal consequence of exposing the flower of a nobility and gentry like ordinary lives had been severely felt in England during the great rebellion; and the Portugueze remembered an example still more ruinous of the same prodigality, when with their King Sebastian they lost every thing except their honour. He addressed them therefore on this occasion; told them they would have to contend against superior numbers, and hinted at the reproaches which he might bring upon himself if he should lead so large a portion of the illustrious youth of Portugal to destruction. The address produced the animating effect for which it was intended, and they answered him with a general exclamation of Moriamur pro Rege nostro.

Fortunately the enemy gave him time; they were delayed by the expectation of Victor’s advance, by Silveira’s movements, and by ill news from Galicia; and Trant profited by their inactivity to guard the bridges, remove the boats, and bring over the flocks and herds of that pastoral country from the northern bank, the owners assisting in this the more readily when they saw some of their cattle seized by the French. Whether it were that Marshal Soult despaired of conciliating the people whom he came to invade and enslave, or if the system of severity was more congenial to his own temper as well as to that of the tyrant whom he served, he endeavoured at this time to intimidate them by measures as atrocious as those which his predecessor Junot had pursued. Such Portugueze as he suspected of communicating either with Trant or Silveira were hung from the trees along the road side, with or without proof, and their bodies left to putrefy there, all persons being forbidden to bury them. Deep as was the detestation of such enemies which this conduct excited, there were other actions at this time which excited, if possible, a stronger feeling of indignant abhorrence. A party of disbanded militia, with a Portugueze Lieutenant-Colonel at their head, surprised a chef d’escadron near the village of Arrifana, and killed him and three dragoons of his escort. He was one of the Lameth family, so noted in the first stage of the French revolution; and having been Soult’s aide-de-camp, had served in the Peninsula with a zeal which could never have been employed in a worse cause. Having been a favourite with the commander and his staff, it was determined to take vengeance for his death; it had taken place in a part of the country of which they had military possession, and they thought proper therefore to consider it as an ♦See vol. i. p. 161, and vol. ii. p. 134.
Operations, &c. p. 196.♦ action not conformable to the laws of war. General Thomieres, who had been accustomed to such services, was sent to inflict what the French called an exemplary and imposing chastisement, ... not upon the individuals concerned, for they were doing their duty elsewhere in defence of their country, but upon the people of Arrifana indiscriminately. A French detachment accordingly entered the village at daybreak, ♦April 17.♦ seized twenty-four of the inhabitants, marched them into a field, and, having tied them in couples back to back, fired upon them till they were all killed. The rest of the villagers, ... brethren and sisters, parents, wives, and children, were compelled to be spectators of this butchery; the village was then set on fire, and many of the women and girls carried into an Ermida or chapel, and there9 violated.

Satisfied with keeping the country north of the Vouga in subjection, and believing that Trant’s corps consisted of ten or twelve thousand men, the enemy made no attempt to pass that river; Franceschi, who commanded the cavalry, having his head-quarters at Albergaria Nova, and Thomieres at Villa de Feira, where, and at Ovar and Oliveira d’Azemeis, the infantry were stationed. Trant, cautious of exposing his real weakness, advanced only his scanty cavalry to the Vouga; the foot were quartered in Sardam and Agueda, flourishing and industrious villages, which are separated only by the Agueda, a small but navigable stream. The road from thence toward Porto passes through a pine forest, and there, profiting by the broken ground, he had fortified a position, where the enemy could have derived no advantage from their cavalry if they should pass the Vouga. From hence he communicated with Silveira, and even with Porto itself, where there were some citizens ready to expose themselves to any hazard in the hope of serving the national cause.

To gain time in this quarter while a British force was soon and surely expected, was to gain every thing: and Marshal Soult was not in a situation to turn his undivided attention in that direction. Tidings for which he was little prepared, even after what he had experienced of the Galician spirit, came upon him from Galicia. The news of Romana’s defeat before Monterrey had been circulated over that province with such exaggerations as were deemed likely to intimidate the people. The French affirmed that Romana himself had been taken ♦1809.
March.♦ prisoner; they fired salutes and made rejoicings for their victory, and proceeded even to the mockery of offering thanksgiving in the churches. Romana meantime collected and rested his harassed troops at La Puebla de Sanabria: in spite of all the enemy’s artifices his real situation was soon known to the Spaniards, and deputations from some town or village came every day to this faithful General, assuring him that the Galicians were and would continue true to their country. Some 3000 new levies from Castille joined him there, and finding himself more secure and more hopeful than at any time since he had taken the command, he resolved upon striking a blow against the enemy upon the line of posts which they occupied from Astorga to Villafranca. The walls of the former city, ancient as they were, were not to be won without artillery; but Villafranca had no other fortress than the old castle or palace of the Marqueza de Astorga, which the French had occupied; and there he determined to attack them, moving first upon Ponferrada, where he made some prisoners, and recovered a good quantity of corn, several four-pounders, and one dismounted twelve-pounder, part of his own stores and artillery. Having remounted the larger gun, Romana dispatched his Camp-marshal D. Gabriel de Mendizabal to attack the garrison at Villafranca. That officer’s first care was to get between them and Galicia, while the commander-in-chief intercepted their retreat towards Astorga: for this purpose he proceeded to Cacabelos, ♦March 17.♦ and sent one detachment round by the right to occupy the bridge at the other end of the town, while another filed round by the left to join it there; every horseman taking up a foot soldier behind him to ford the Valcarce, and the smaller river which falls into it. Mendizabal, with the remainder of the troops, advanced along the road. His advanced parties drove in the French at all points, till they retired to the castle. The twelve-pounder was brought up; but the Spaniards found that the French fired securely from the old fortification while they themselves were exposed; upon this they entered, and, with fixed bayonets, advanced to storm the castle. Mendizabal was at their head; a ball passed through his clothes without wounding him. He summoned the enemy to surrender, and upon their hesitating what answer to return, repeated the summons with a threat, that if they refused, every man should be put to the sword. The white flag was then hoisted, and a negotiation begun, which the French were conducting with a view to gain time, till the Spanish commander cut it short, by allowing them a quarter of an hour to surrender at discretion. Upon this they submitted; Mendizabal then, as an act of free grace, permitted the officers to keep their horses and portmanteaus, and the men their knapsacks; and the colonel-commandant of the French, in returning thanks for this generosity, complimented him upon his good fortune in having captured the finest regiment in the Emperor Napoleon’s service. The prisoners were about 800. The Spaniards lost two officers and thirty men, eighty-two wounded. The result of the success was, that the Bierzo was cleared of the French, who fell back from the neighbouring part of Asturias upon Lugo, there to make a stand, supported by their main force, which was divided between Santiago, Coruña, and Ferrol.

Marshal Ney had still a predominant force in Galicia after Soult’s army was departed; there were garrisons in every town which was sufficiently important, either for its size or situation, to require one, and the French had military possession of the province. But they had yet to subdue the spirit of the people; and the Galicians, who had no longer an example of panic and disorder before their eyes, carried on the war in their own way. Captain M’Kinley in the Lively frigate, with the Plover sloop under his command, arrived off the coast to assist them. He discovered none of that apathy for their own country, none of that contented indifference who was to be their master, none of that sullen and ungrateful dislike of the English, of which the retreating army had complained so loudly; he heard from them only expressions of gratitude to the British government and praise of the British nation; he perceived in them the true feelings of loyalty and patriotism, and saw in all their actions honest, enthusiastic ardour, regulated by a cool and determined courage. The invaders attempted, by the most unrelenting severity, to keep them down. On the 7th of March a party of French entered the little towns of Carril and Villa Garcia, murdered some old men and women in the streets, set fire to the houses of those persons whom they suspected of being hostile to them, and then retreated to Padron. To lay waste villages with fire, abandon the women to the soldiery, and put to death every man whom they took in arms, was the system upon which the French under Marshals Ney and Soult proceeded. Such a system, if it failed to intimidate, necessarily recoiled upon their own heads; and the thirst of vengeance gave a character of desperation to the courage of the Galicians. About an hundred French were pillaging a convent, when Don Bernardo Gonzalez, with two-and-thirty Spaniards, fell upon them, and did such execution while the enemy were in disorder and encumbered with their plunder, that only sixteen escaped. During three days the French attempted to destroy the peasants of Deza and Trasdira; the men of Baños and Tabieros came to aid their countrymen, and the invaders at length retreated with the loss of 114 ♦March 9.♦ men. A party from Pontevedra entered Marin: here the Lively and the Plover opened their fire upon them, and as they fled from the English ships, their officers fell into the hands of the peasantry. In this kind of perpetual war the French were wasted; a malignant fever broke out among them, which raged particularly at their head-quarters in Santiago, and many who had no disease died of the fatigue which they endured from being incessantly harassed, and kept night and day on the alarm.