CAPTURE OF ALMEIDA. CONDUCT OF THE PORTUGUEZE GOVERNMENT. BATTLE OF BUSACO. RETREAT OF THE BRITISH AND PORTUGUEZE TO THE LINES OF TORRES VEDRAS. THE KING’S ILLNESS.

From Ciudad Rodrigo Massena addressed a proclamation to the Portugueze. “Inhabitants of Portugal,” he said, “the Emperor of the French has put under my orders an army of 110,000 men, to take possession of this kingdom, and to expel the English, your pretended friends. Against you he has no enmity: on the contrary, it is his highest wish to promote your happiness, and the first step for securing it is to dismiss from the country those locusts who consume your property, blast your harvests, and palsy your efforts. In opposing the Emperor, you oppose your true friend; a friend who has it in his power to render you the happiest people in the world. Were it not for the insidious counsels of England, you might now have enjoyed peace and tranquillity, and have been put in possession of that happiness. You have blindly rejected offers calculated only to promote your benefit, and have accepted proposals which will long be the curse of Portugal. His majesty has commissioned me to conjure you that you would awake to your true interests; that you would awake to those prospects which, with your consent, may be quickly realized; awake so as to distinguish between friends and enemies. The King of England is actuated by selfish and narrow purposes; the Emperor of the French is governed by principles of universal philanthropy. The English have put arms into your hands, arms which you know not how to use: I will instruct you. They are to be the instruments of annihilation to your foes: ... and who those foes are I have already shown. Use them as you ought, and they will become your salvation! Use them as you ought not, and they will prove your destruction! Resistance is vain. Can the feeble army of the British general expect to oppose the victorious legions of the Emperor? Already a force is collected, sufficient to overwhelm your country. Snatch the moment that mercy and generosity offer! As friends you may respect us, and be respected in return; as foes you must dread us, and in the conflict must be subdued. The choice is your own, either to meet the horrors of a bloody war, and see your country desolated, your villages in flames, your cities plundered; or to accept an honourable and happy peace, which will obtain for you every blessing that by resistance you would resign for ever.”

On the same day that Ciudad Rodrigo surrendered, the enemy’s cavalry appeared on the ♦The French invest Almeida.♦ plains of Almeida. Lord Wellington’s head-quarters at this time were at Alverca: his position was a defensive line, about thirty miles in extent, along the frontier mountains of Beira; but as the line formed a segment of a circle, the points were not distant from each other in proportion to its length. The infantry extended from Celorico to Guarda on the one side, and to Fort Conception, one of the outworks of Almeida, on the other. The cavalry were in advance near Fort Conception, and at Sabugal, and on the Coa. The enemy’s superiority in horse was very great, but the nature of the ground deprived them of the advantage which this must otherwise have given them. They now proceeded to invest Almeida. The operations of the siege were conducted by the second corps, under Marshal Ney. Junot, with the 8th, had his head-quarters at S. Felices, and his cavalry at Villar de Porco, Fuente Guinaldo, and Fuentes d’Onoro, ground which had not then been rendered memorable in military history. While this portion of the army covered the siege, Serras with a division of 7000 men at Benevente threatened Tras os Montes, and Bonnet with 8000 at Astorga was ready to enter Galicia and the province of Entre Douro e Minho.

Dumouriez, forgetting Elvas at the time, has called Almeida the strongest place in Portugal. It is perhaps more important from its situation, but very far inferior to it in strength. This town was founded by the Moors, and is said to have been one of those which Ferrando the Great won from them while the Cid served under him, in his first wars. When the tide of success was for a while turned by the entrance of the Almoravides into Spain, Talmayda, as it was then called, fell again into the hands of the misbelievers, from whom it was finally reconquered, in 1190, by King Sancho I. of Portugal. Payo Guterres distinguishing himself in the conquest, obtained from it the appellative of O Almeydam, the Almeydan, and transmitted to his descendants the surname of Almeyda, conspicuous in Portugueze and Indian history, but disgraced at this time by the representative of the family, who was then engaged in Massena’s army as a traitor. King Diniz, the ruins of whose magnificent works are to be seen in every part of Portugal, rebuilt the city, and is supposed to have removed it from a valley, a little way north of its present site. The castle was built by him, and repaired by King Emanuel. In the later wars between Spain and Portugal, Almeida has always been considered a place of great importance, being the bulwark of the latter country on its most accessible side; but, like other things of more essential consequence to the strength of a kingdom, it had long been neglected. In 1809 there were not a dozen gun-carriages fit for service, nor any wood in store for the construction of others; the embrazures were falling to decay, and the palisades of the covert-way had been mostly broken, or carried away for fire-wood. The works were originally ill constructed, and the place had the great disadvantage of being commanded on one side by a hill. Its population in 1747 was 2463; and Almeida is not one of the few places in Portugal which have been progressive since that time.

The same causes which rendered it impossible for Lord Wellington to relieve Ciudad Rodrigo, made it necessary for him to leave Almeida to its own means of defence; but the works had been repaired, the garrison was strong, and Brigadier Cox, an English officer in the Portugueze service, was appointed to the command. With the example of Ciudad Rodrigo before it, there was no reason to doubt that Almeida would make a vigorous resistance, and probably hold out so long as materially to derange the plans of the enemy. Fort Conception was abandoned and blown up at the enemy’s approach. General Craufurd, however, continued to occupy a position near Almeida with 3200 British and 1100 Portugueze troops, eight squadrons of cavalry included. The chain of his cavalry outposts formed a semicircle in front of the town, their right flank resting on the Coa, near As Naves, about three miles above this fortress, and their left, in like manner, resting upon the same river, about three miles below it, near Cinco Villas. The centre was covered by a small stream, and on the right and centre, where it was expected that the enemy would advance, the cavalry posts were supported by piquets of infantry. There was but one road by which the artillery and cavalry could retreat, that leading from Almeida to the bridge, which is about a mile west of the town. The nature of the ground made it difficult for the enemy to approach this road on the left of the allies, and on the south the infantry were placed to cover it, having their right flank resting on the Coa above the bridge, their front covered by a deep rocky ravine, and their left in some enclosures near a windmill14, on the plain, about 800 yards south of the town.

On the morning of July 24th, the centre of the British line of piquets was attacked; they were supported by the 14th light dragoons and two guns, but were withdrawn when a considerable column of the enemy appeared with artillery, and began to form on the other side of the rivulet. The force which Marshal Ney, who directed these movements, brought into the field, consisted of 20,000 foot and between 3000 and 4000 horse, being in fact his whole corps. Fifteen squadrons of cavalry crossed the rivulet as soon as the piquets retired, and formed with artillery in front, and about 7000 infantry on their right; other troops meantime were advancing upon the right of the British position, the side on which they might best expect to cut off the retreat of the allies to the bridge. General Craufurd now perceived that it was impossible for him to prevent the investment of Almeida, and that he was on the wrong side of the Coa. The artillery and cavalry were therefore ordered to retreat along the only road which was practicable for them; the infantry from the left to move off in echelon; the right it was necessary to hold till the last, to prevent the enemy from approaching the bridge by a road coming from Junca, which runs in the bottom of the valley by the river side.

On the left, the men had to retreat through thick vineyards, intersected with deep trenches, and with walls six or seven feet high; they could not take advantage of this ground, for the enemy were in such force, that there was imminent danger of being overpowered, and cut off before they could reach the bridge. One of these walls General Craufurd had considered as a complete defence against cavalry; it enclosed a vineyard, in which some companies had been stationed, but there had been a heavy rain during the whole of the preceding night, and the troops had pulled down this wall in many places to make use of the stones for forming a shelter; through these openings the enemy’s horse entered, and here they made most of the prisoners who were taken in the action. To retire in order over such ground was impossible, but the retreat was made with characteristic coolness. On the other side the bridge, the ground was equally unfavourable for re-forming; the 43d and part of the 95th regiments were ordered to form in front of the bridge, and defend it as long as they could, while the rest of the troops should pass over and take a new position. They obeyed these orders so literally, that they defended it all day; three times the enemy attempted to force the passage, and each time they were repulsed at the point of the bayonet; at length, when night closed, and every thing had passed over, and the enemy had ceased to assail them, these brave men retreated from the post where so many of their comrades had fallen: the heaviest loss necessarily fell upon these gallant regiments; the total, in killed, wounded, and prisoners, amounted to 33015. Colonel Hall of the 43d, who was among the slain, had only joined from England the preceding day. The loss was to be regretted because there was no object to be gained by engaging the French at such disadvantage; but never did men behave more gallantly than those who were engaged that day, British and Portugueze alike. They effected their retreat under the most unfavourable circumstances, without losing a gun, a trophy, or a single article of field equipment; and they inflicted upon the enemy a loss, which, by his own account, was nearly equal to the sum of ours, and which in reality doubled its amount. After this the infantry were withdrawn to the neighbourhood of Celorico, leaving the outpost duty to be performed by cavalry alone.

Massena asserted that one of our couriers had been taken with dispatches, which represented that the English had never been engaged in so brisk an affair; that they were in full rout; and that it was impossible to form an idea of their deplorable condition. Of the condition of that army, and the full rout to which he had driven them, it was not long before Massena obtained some correct personal knowledge; but it is probable that some desponding letters had fallen into his hands, and it is likely also that he expected to drive the British army before him full speed to Lisbon. Letters had been written from that army to Porto, in which the writers had delivered it as their opinion that our forces must inevitably retreat, Massena having such an overpowering superiority, that Portugal could not possibly be defended against him. These letters excited such alarm among the British merchants in that city, that the vice-consul applied to our admiral at Lisbon, requesting he would take into consideration the necessity of having a sufficient force off the Douro to protect the British subjects, who might be compelled to embark without the least delay. They were in the utmost consternation, he said. Admiral Berkeley thought it proper to send this requisition to Lord Wellington, who in consequence issued general orders upon the subject. “He would not make any inquiry,” he said, “to ascertain the authors of these letters, which had excited so much consternation in a place where it was most to be wished that none should exist. He had frequently lamented the ignorance displayed in letters from the army, and the indiscretion with which those letters were published. It was impossible that many officers could possess a sufficient knowledge of facts to be able to form a correct opinion of the probable events of the campaign, yet when their erroneous opinions were published, they could not but produce mischievous effects. He requested, therefore, that the officers, on account of their own reputation, would refrain from giving opinions upon matters, with regard to which they could not possibly possess the necessary knowledge for giving it with correctness; and if they communicated to their correspondents facts relating to the position of the army, its strength, the formation of its magazines, preparations for cutting down or blowing up bridges, &c., they would at least tell their correspondents not to publish these letters in newspapers, unless it was certain that the publication could not prove injurious to the army and to the public service.”

There was cause for this reproof. The effect of such agueish predictions in Portugal could only be to make the Portugueze believe we should forsake them, and thus dispose them for submission to the enemy; while, in England, they assisted the party of the despondents, whose journalists were labouring to strike their country with a dead palsy. “We had been lulled,” they said, “into the most dangerous confidence. Massena was only waiting for the advance of his flanks, that he might, with his whole combined army, either force our handful of men to a battle, or surround them: all that could be expected was, that the survivors might be enabled to retire to their ships with eclat.” By the next dispatches it appeared, that it was more easy for a journalist to imagine such a manœuvre, than for Massena to execute it; but this had no other effect than to make them change the note of alarm. “If Massena,” they then said, “did not destroy Lord Wellington’s army by fighting, it could only be because he meant to destroy it by not fighting; for Massena was the most consummate captain of all Buonaparte’s generals. And did ministers anticipate with complacency the continuance of our army in Portugal through the winter? The rainy season was approaching; might it not be the deep policy of this arch-statesman and conqueror to keep our army there? He would be content to devote Massena and his troops to destruction, if it would facilitate some ulterior plan; he might mean to ruin us by the expense of our forces there; and what should we say, if it were really a part of his policy to keep them there, while he, having possession of the Dutch, the Danish, and the Swedish fleets and ports, made a descent upon England or Ireland? They trusted ministers were upon their guard, and that they destined their troops at home for a service more imminent than the reinforcement of Lord Wellington.”

While these writers, in the pure spirit of faction, were thus advising a diversion in favour of the enemy, Ney, who conducted the siege of Almeida, directed Loison to summon the governor. This general, who was peculiarly odious in that country for his cruelty and rapacity, addressed ♦July 24.♦ the governor as a Portugueze, admonishing him not to hazard the interests of his nation for a vain point of honour. “None,” said he, “knows better than you do, that the French come to deliver you from the yoke of the English. There is not a Portugueze who is ignorant of the little consideration which his country enjoys among that people. Have they not given abundant proofs of the little attention which they pay to a nation worthy of esteem, and for a long time the ally of France? Their occupation of all the civil and military posts proves to demonstration, that the intention of the English government is to consider Portugal as one of her colonies. The conduct which the English have held with regard to the Spaniards, whom they promised to defend, but abandoned, should open your eyes, and convince you that they will do the same with regard to Portugal. Sir Governor, his excellency has charged me to offer you the most honourable capitulation, by which you may retain the government of your fortress, and your garrison be admitted into the number of those Portugueze troops that have remained faithful to the interests of their country. In your hands therefore, is placed the fate of Almeida, and of your companions in arms. If you refuse to accede to this proposal, you will become responsible for all the blood shed unavailingly, in a cause which is foreign to the Portugueze nation.” Brigadier Cox happened to be in the covered-way, close to the barrier gate, when the flag of truce arrived with this summons. Without permitting the French officer to enter, he returned a verbal answer, that the fortress would be defended to the last extremity.

The Portugueze troops, of whom Loison spake as being engaged in the service of France, were the remainder of those whom Junot had hurried away from their own country. The men, Buonaparte was too wary to send back; but Massena brought with him a few nobles, who, having long preyed upon the country which they disgraced, completed their infamy by betraying it. To these traitors Loison appealed in his summons, saying, they could assure the governor of the honourable manner in which they had been treated. The Marquis of Alorna, D. Pedro de Almeida, was the most conspicuous among them; he and his accomplices used all their influence to persuade their countrymen to submission; but the Portugueze had already experienced the effects of non-resistance, and the inhabitants of Castello Mendo, and a few other villages on the borders of Beira, were the only persons who were unfortunate enough to be deceived. These poor people, instead of abandoning their habitations on the approach of the enemy, in obedience to the orders which had been issued, remained in them, fearing to encounter the evils of wandering in search of shelter, and hoping, that, as they submitted to the enemy without resistance, their property would be safe, their women preserved from violation, and their lives secured. But the French, conscious of the wickedness of the cause in which they were engaged, seemed, like the pirates of the last century, to have considered themselves in a state of reprobation, and to have committed crimes which make humanity shudder, as if for the purpose of manifesting their desperate defiance of God and man. “The inhabitants of these submissive villages suffered all the evils which a cruel enemy could inflict; their property was plundered; their houses burnt; their women atrociously violated; and those, whose age and sex did not provoke the brutal violence of the soldiers, fell victims to the confidence which they placed in promises made only to be broken.” In these words the enormities which the French committed were proclaimed by the Portugueze government, and by the British general.

That general addressed a proclamation to the Portugueze upon the occasion, telling them they now saw what they had to expect from the French. They now saw that no means remained for avoiding the evils with which they were threatened, but a determined and vigorous resistance, and a firm resolution to obstruct as much as possible the advance of the enemy, by removing out of his reach all such things as might contribute to his subsistence, or facilitate his progress. “The army under my command,” said he, “will protect as large a portion of the country as is possible; but it is obvious that the people alone can deliver themselves by a vigorous resistance, and preserve their goods by removing them out of the reach of the enemy. The duties, therefore, that bind me to his Royal Highness the Prince Regent of Portugal, and to the Portugueze nation, oblige me to make use of the power and authority with which I am furnished, for compelling the careless and indolent to make the necessary efforts to preserve themselves from the dangers which threaten them, and to save their country. In conformity with this, I make known and declare, that all magistrates and persons in authority who shall remain in the villages or towns, after having received orders from the military officer to remove, and all persons, of whatever class they may be, who shall maintain the least communication with, or aid and assist in any manner the enemy, shall be considered as traitors to the state, and tried, and punished as such an enormous crime requires.” The manner in which Lord Wellington assumed this power, in the name of the Prince Regent of Portugal, and of the Portugueze nation, was as wise as the assumption itself was necessary in such circumstances. The Portugueze people also were fully sensible that their duty and their interest were the same, and never did any people act with more determined zeal in defence of their country.

Massena opened his trenches on the night of August 15. While a false attack was made against the north of the town, 2000 men dug the first parallel to a depth of three feet; and on Sunday the 26th, at five in the morning, eleven batteries, mounted with sixty-five pieces of cannon, opened their fire. The garrison consisted of 5000 men, of whose spirit no doubt was entertained; the fortress was well provided, and its works had been placed in so respectable a state, that Lord Wellington had reason to think it might delay the enemy till late in the season, even if he should be unable to find an opportunity of relieving it. These well-founded expectations were frustrated by one of those chances which sometimes disconcert the wisest plans, and disappoint the surest hopes of man. On the night after the batteries opened, the large powder magazine in the citadel, with two smaller ones contiguous to it, blew up. More than half the artillerymen, a great number of the garrison, and many of the inhabitants, perished in this dreadful explosion; many of the guns were dismounted, and the works were rendered no longer defensible, even if means of defence had been left; but, except a few cartridges for immediate use, and thirty-nine barrels of powder in the laboratory, the whole of the ammunition was destroyed.

Great as the calamity was, the evil would have been far more alarming had it proceeded, as was at first supposed, from treason; but, according to the best information which could be collected, it was altogether accidental: the magazine was bomb-proof; and they were taking ammunition from it, when a shell fell upon one of the carts. The lieutenant-governor had behaved well till the batteries opened; he was then so terrified, that he shut himself up in the bomb-proofs. Having thus proved himself a coward, mere shame made him a traitor: and after the explosion he took advantage of the confusion to counteract the governor’s attempt at holding out longer. Another traitor was found in the major of artillery. He had behaved well during the siege; but when he was sent out to propose terms of capitulation, for the purpose of gaining favour with the enemy he communicated to him the whole extent of the disaster; so that Massena, knowing the place was at his mercy, was enabled to dictate what terms he pleased. The garrison were made prisoners of war, with this exception, that the militia, having deposited their arms, should return to their homes, and not serve during the war. It was ten at night when the capitulation was concluded; in the course of half an hour the French recommenced their fire upon the town, and kept it up till morning, when the Portugueze were assured in reply to their remonstrances, that it had been owing to a mistake on the part of the artillery officers: undoubtedly it had been so; but the commander is chargeable with something worse ♦Compilaçam das Ordens do Dia, 1810, p. 168.♦ than error, for having suffered it to continue through the night without thinking it worth while to send an order which would instantly have stopped it.

The terms were broken by the French with their wonted perfidy. They tried persuasions first, and employed Alorna and the other traitors who were with him to seduce their countrymen. Accordingly, when the Portugueze laid down their arms upon the esplanade, they were invited to volunteer into the French service; but not a man was found base enough to come forward and accept the invitation. On the following day, when the troops of the line and the militia had been separated, they were tried separately. The troops were told, that unless they accepted the alternative which was offered them, they must immediately be marched into France; the hardships which they would suffer on their march, and the treatment to which they would be exposed afterwards, were represented to them in strong terms; and officers and men, with an unanimity which might well have been suspected, agreed then to enlist in the enemy’s service. They found means of informing Marshal Beresford that they did this only for the sake of remaining within reach of their own country, and making their escape as soon as possible; and the truth of this declaration was proved by the numbers who soon rejoined the allied army. Upon this occasion Marshal Beresford acted in a manner becoming the British ♦Condemnation of their conduct.♦ character. He expressed in general orders his strong disapprobation of such conduct; for the soldiers, he said, some allowance was to be made; they were excusable on the score of their want of education, their undoubted good intention, and their feeling that the enemy with whom they had to deal scrupled at no means, however unworthy, for the attainment of his ends. Yet even in them it was to be discommended, and he doubted not that henceforth those whom the fortune of war might throw into the enemy’s ♦1810.
September.♦ hands would take their lot patiently, and suffer any thing rather than bring a stain upon the national honour. Nothing could excuse the officers for conduct so base, so abominable, and so unworthy of the Portugueze name. They had sinned against knowledge, and thereby rendered themselves false and infamous; they had contracted a voluntary engagement with the determination of not keeping it, placing themselves in a miserable predicament, which rendered it only less infamous to break their faith than to observe it. He should therefore report them to their prince, that they might be dismissed with ignominy from the service, and answer for their conduct according to the laws. At the same time he published the names of five officers who, under a proper sense of duty, had withstood the contagion of ill example.

There were three militia regiments in Almeida, those of Trancoso, Guarda, and Arganil. Neither man nor officer of these could be induced to serve against his country, nor self-seduced to tamper with his own conscience. But instead of dismissing them according to the terms, Massena said, that if they would not serve by fair means, they should by force; and gave orders for forming a corps of pioneers, by detaining 200 men and seven officers from each regiment. Marshal Beresford observed upon this, after honourably contrasting the conduct of the militia with that of the regular troops, that the Portugueze, to their misfortune, were too well acquainted with French morality for this iniquity to surprise them: it was but one injury the more which that outraged nation had to revenge, ... and his army would revenge it. “Never,” said he, “even though Almeida is lost, never since the beginning of the war has this kingdom been in so good a state for resisting the enemy. Soldiers of the Portugueze army, if you remember that we have the English army to co-operate with us, which has beaten the enemy whenever it encountered them, ... if you call to mind who is the commander of that army, and that he is yours also, ... if you have confidence in him and in yourselves, the invaders never can conquer Portugal. Your general has full confidence in the result, because he confides in the inherent loyalty and valour of the nation, and in its determination of sacrificing every thing to its fidelity, its liberty, and its independence!”

Massena asserted that the Porto regiment hated the English, and therefore he should retain it in his service; but he belied his own assertion by adding that he should keep a watchful eye on the men, and not place them in important posts. If he judged in any degree of the Portugueze people by the few traitorous nobles and fidalgos with whom he was conversant, he was speedily undeceived. A night had not elapsed before great part both of the officers and men were missing, and in less than a fortnight nearly the whole escaped. The men, instead of taking the opportunity of deserting, rejoined their countrymen in arms; and the officers, unconscious of having done any thing unworthy, presented themselves to the commander of the first detachment they could reach, in a condition which pleaded for them, exhausted with fatigue and hunger. They protested, when they found it necessary to excuse themselves, that they had taken no oath of fidelity to the French, and that to avoid it when it was to be tendered, they had fled at all hazards, not waiting for safer opportunities. A representation in their favour was made by Silveira; and Marshal Beresford in consequence mitigated his former censure. It would, he said, be the greatest satisfaction to him if he should find it confirmed that these officers had not pledged themselves to the enemy; but what he wished to enforce upon them was, that an officer ought to consider not merely the end at which he aims, but the means also by which to bring it about, that both may be alike honourable. He referred their conduct therefore to a council of inquiry, under Silveira.

The Portugueze regency now declared Alorna a traitor, and offered a reward of a thousand moidores for bringing him in alive or dead. The Marquis of Ponte de Lima, the Marquis of Loule, the Count of St. Miguel, the Count of Ega, Gomes Friere de Andrade, and D. José Carcome Lobo, were also declared traitors, and their property declared to be confiscated: but they had powerful friends in the state; and it is said that, notwithstanding the decree, their property remained untouched, in the hands of persons in whom they could confide. A change had lately taken place in the Portugueze regency. The Marquez das Minas resigned, in consequence of an illness which soon proved fatal. The other two members were, the Bishop of Porto, who was Patriarch elect, and the Marquis Monteiro Mor. Four new members were now added; the Principal Sousa, brother to the Conde de Linhares, who was minister in Brazil, and to the Portugueze ambassador in England; the Conde de Redondo; Ricardo Raymundo Nogueira, who had been law professor at Coimbra; and the English ambassador, Mr. Stuart. Admiral Berkeley was at the same time appointed by the Prince of Brazil commander-in-chief of the naval, as Lord Wellington had been of the military force of Portugal. There are few things in the annals of Great Britain more honourable to the national character than the perfect confidence reposed in the English nation by its old ally, and the manner in which that confidence was requited. While the enemies of both countries were endeavouring to incense the Portugueze against the English, by telling them that the British government designed to usurp Portugal; and while the enemies of administration were traducing and insulting the Portugueze people, crying out that they would not defend themselves and could not be defended by us, and therefore that we ought not to attempt to defend them, the English army and the Portugueze people were acting with the most perfect unanimity, for the common interests and common safety of Great Britain and Portugal.

The spirit of the people, without which all other means of defence must have been ineffectual, was what England could neither give nor take away; but for the measures by which that spirit was so directed as to secure its end, Portugal was indebted to British councils. Military and financial resources, of which the nation had not supposed itself capable, were called forth; and the Portugueze were addressed by their rulers in language to which they had long been unaccustomed, ... the language of hope and confidence, and of conscious rectitude as well as conscious strength. Like the Supreme Junta, the regents reminded the Portugueze of their heroic ancestors; they spake of the wickedness of the enemy, the inexpressible miseries which would accompany their yoke, and the certainty of glorious success, if those exertions and sacrifices were made which the emergency required; but the Portugueze regency did not, like the Spaniards, speak to the people of the causes which had rendered this invasion possible, and produced the decay of Portugal; nor did they hold out the promise of the restoration of their rights, the redress of their grievances, and the due execution of their laws. Such promises were not necessary as excitement; a people who were literally defending their hearths and altars, and fighting to save their wives and daughters from violation and butchery, or to revenge them, needed no additional feeling to goad them on: ... as pledges they were not held out; because the government had not the prudence to think of reforming itself. In providing for the defence of the country, it acted providently and bravely, with wisdom and with vigour; but in other things, the old leaven discovered itself, and made it apparent that the pleasure of the minister was still the law of Portugal. A decree was published, assigning to the widows, children, or dependent brethren of those who had fallen at Almeida, the full pay of the deceased, and half pay to the families of those who were made prisoners. “The Prince,” it said, “would not believe that any of his faithful vassals could have entered the service of the enemy; and if any had been compelled to do so, he trusted they had only yielded to compulsion, with the purpose of effecting their escape. He suspended, therefore, his justice; but if a month elapsed before such persons acquitted themselves by appearing, they would be considered as traitors.” Now, the treason of the lieutenant-governor and the major of artillery was open and undoubted: Lord Wellington had stated it in his dispatches to the minister at war; their names were given in those dispatches here in England, but suppressed in Portugal, out of favour to their connexions.

In another respect the conduct of the Portugueze regency was more inexcusable. Eight-and-forty persons, of all ranks and professions, and many of them unacquainted with each other, were seized in the night; ten of them were sent to the tower of St. Julian, and the rest to the Limoeiro, the common prison of the city. The most alarming rumours were scattered abroad. A formidable and extensive conspiracy, it was said, had been discovered, which had nothing less for its object than a general massacre of the British, for the purpose of delivering up the country to the French. These reports reached England, and received their first contradiction from the Portugueze government themselves, who found it expedient to declare, that neither Lord Wellington nor Mr. Stuart had any part in their proceedings upon this occasion; that the stories of the conspiracy, and of the arms which had been discovered, were false; and that the individuals who had been arrested had been sent out of the kingdom, only because it was the opinion of the police that their residence in it might be prejudicial to the public tranquillity. Some of these individuals were permitted to come to England, others were sent to the Azores, after they had suffered every kind of inconvenience, privation, and indignity, to the alarm and distress of the families of all, and the ruin of some; ... there was neither proof nor accusation against them; the whole, as a public act, was one of those acts which mark the unheeding and unfeeling folly of an ignorant and obstinate despotism, but of which the secret springs are to be found in private malice or cupidity.

The manner in which the Portugueze government declared, that neither Marshal General Lord Wellington, nor the minister plenipotentiary of his Britannic Majesty, nor any individual of the British nation, had any part in these proceedings, nor any previous knowledge of them, make it apparent that the British general and the British minister disapproved of an act of tyranny which was thus in reality disclaimed on their part. They could not prevent that of which they were not apprised before it was done, nor after it was done could they express their disapprobation better than by requiring to have it thus distinctly stated, that the regency had neither acted upon their advice, nor received their sanction. It was the more to be regretted, because the other measures of the government entitled them to respect and gratitude. They had restored order in the country, and brought its resources into action, and their public acts and declarations corresponded to the spirit of the people. The ringleaders of the mutiny, which, in its consequences, had given Soult possession of Porto, were brought to trial and condign punishment; and after the most impartial examination of his conduct, General Bernardim Freire de Andrada, who had been murdered at Braga, was declared to have served his country faithfully and well, and the memory of those unfortunate men who perished in the same tumult was cleared of all imputation. An army more numerous than Portugal had ever before possessed was formed, equipped, and disciplined; and the government, when it reminded the people of their strength, did not fear to tell them of their danger. It announced the loss of Almeida, ... “a loss,” said the regents, “greatly to be lamented for the death of part of its defenders, and the unhappiness of others, who have thus fallen into captivity, but of little importance to the great cause of the salvation of the country. Wellington at the head of the allied armies; Beresford directing our troops, who are indebted to him for their organization and their discipline; brave soldiers, and a faithful people, who have sworn to defend their prince and their native land to the last extremity; these are the bulwarks which defend us; and these an army of slaves, who are continually wasting away by want and desertion, will never be able to beat down.”

The Portugueze, and those especially who were intrusted with the government of their country, cannot be extolled above their merits, for the spirit which they displayed at this crisis, the most momentous, and to ordinary minds the most appalling of the whole war. Their merit is the greater because there was not that vigour in the British cabinet which the emergency required; and because with all their confidence in British fidelity, they could not have been without some apprehension of seeing the defence of Portugal abandoned by Great Britain. The enemy had exultingly proclaimed that the English would fly to their ships, and some colour for the boast was afforded by the fact that a fleet large enough to receive the troops was lying in the Tagus, and evidently detained there for such a service. The heavy baggage of the army was actually kept on board; and Lord Wellington was at that time acting under instructions of a character to excite in him any thing rather than confidence or hope. They were to this effect, that his majesty would be better pleased if the army were withdrawn too soon, than that its embarkation should be endangered by the least delay. Such instructions must inevitably have drawn on the disgrace and ruin which they anticipated, if they had been addressed to a man of inferior capacity, or meaner mind. A want of courage and of generosity was implied in them which is but too characteristic of British ministries. Instead of assuring the commander of support, whatever might be the issue, if nothing on his part were left undone, he was made to understand that any risk which he incurred must be upon his own responsibility, and that any disaster which he might sustain would be imputed to his decision. But Providence was with us, and directed the course of events to a glorious and happy issue, notwithstanding our repeated errors.

Lord Wellington had the farther mortification of knowing that the army, satisfied as he was with its conduct in all respects, partook that despondency which the pestilent activity of a faction at home was continually labouring to produce, and which the events of the campaign had hitherto tended to confirm. His plans had been long meditated and wisely formed; but the reasonable expectations which he founded upon them were disappointed by the accident that drew after it the fall of Almeida. That place might easily have held out till the autumnal rains should have rendered it impossible for the French to advance, and scarcely practicable for them to have subsisted their army upon that frontier. To gain time at this juncture was for him to gain every thing: here he thought to have wintered in the sure expectation that every day would render the Portugueze troops more efficient, and with the reasonable hope that, through Marquis Wellesley’s influence in the cabinet, he should receive such reinforcements as would enable him to act upon the offensive. Accident had frustrated this intent; the enemy were enabled to advance, elated with their fortune, and relying upon it as the only divinity in which they were encouraged to trust; and Massena, whose plans had hitherto succeeded beyond his calculations, and even to the extent of his hopes, had the advantage of relying upon the disposition as well as the efficiency of his army, and the full support of a government which placed ample means at his command, crippled him with no restrictions, and threatened him with no responsibility.

Upon the fall of Almeida Lord Wellington’s head-quarters were removed to Gouvea, and the whole of his infantry retired to the rear of Celorico, the outposts continuing in advance of that town. Massena waited till he had been joined by Regnier’s corps, consisting of 17,000 men, which, having acted with little success against Romana in Extremadura, had crossed the Tagus at Barca de Alconete, early in July. According to the plan which Buonaparte had laid down for the conquest of Portugal, this corps was to have moved by the right bank of the Tagus upon Abrantes; but this design having been altered when the allied army was found more numerous and efficient than the French cabinet had supposed, Regnier had moved upon Zarzamayor, Penamacor, and Monsanto, in the hope of striking a blow against Lieutenant-General Hill, who had advanced with 13,000 men from Abrantes to Portalegre, for the purpose of supporting Romana. The French hoped either that he would expose himself to an attack, or that Lord Wellington might be tempted to make a movement against Regnier, of which Massena was prepared to take advantage; but the British generals were not thus to be circumvented: and Massena as well as Lord Wellington, directing his attention to a single object, Regnier joined the invading force, while Hill was stationed at Sarzedas, to cover the road upon Abrantes to Lisbon, or move to Ponte de Murcella, and unite with the main body on the line of its retreat: in either case Major-General Leith’s division, which was kept at Thomar in reserve to support him, was to take the same direction.