Part 2

Sir Arthur Wellesley remonstrated on the field against the order to halt, but it was of no avail; the decision was not to be changed or modified; the enemy retired at his leisure; our light troops even were not ordered to attend his movements, and a part of the rear-guard remained upon a hill within a short distance of our position till the following morning.

Without wishing to cast any reflection upon the conduct of Sir Harry Burrard, admitting that (called upon to take the command of an army already considerably advanced in the operations it had undertaken, and so nearly in contact with the collected force of the enemy as to make an action inevitable), he was placed in a situation of great difficulty; yet it is impossible not to regret that the person, in whose mind the plan of the campaign originally was formed, was not allowed to execute it throughout.

The system which Sir Arthur Wellesley had laid down had now been altered in three most essential points. First, the not proceeding on the morning of the 21st to turn the left of the enemy, by the movement he had ordered upon Mafra; thereby changing the operations of the army from the offensive to the defensive. Secondly, the not pursuing the enemy after the victory of Vimiera; and, lastly, the having changed the direction of Lieutenant General Sir John Moore’s corps, from its march upon Santarem to its junction with the army of Sir Arthur Wellesley.

It may not be uninteresting to trace the probable effects which these movements would have produced.

General Junot had taken the command of the whole disposable force under his orders in Portugal (amounting to 14,000 men), at Torres Vedras on the 20th; and presuming upon the boasted superiority of French troops to those of any other nation, he had resolved to attack the left of the British army, thereby leaving it no retreat if defeated, but to the sea-shore, and to its transports, if it could effect its embarkation. With this intention he marched on the night of the 20th by a road leading through a most difficult defile, which brought him to the eastward of Vimiera, near which place he arrived soon after nine o’clock on the 21st. The order which had been issued the day before for the British army was to march at five o’clock, by the road to the Ponte de Roll, and from thence direct upon Mafra. This road was separated about two leagues from that upon which the French army was advancing, and leading in a totally different direction; divided also from it by a woody and almost impervious tract of country; so that if the movement had been executed, the British army would have been considerably advanced towards Mafra, before the enemy had arrived at Vimiera.

If indeed this march had been discovered by the French patroles, it would still have been impossible to arrest our progress, from the difficulty of getting to us; and in all probability, the enemy would have had no other resource than to have returned to Torres Vedras (where the whole of his baggage had remained), and from thence tried to attack us at Mafra, which would have been attempted under many disadvantages; or to have marched in the greatest haste by the Cabeça de Montachique to have covered Lisbon. To those who are acquainted with the country I am speaking of, the difficulty of such movements (with an army which had already been marching since the morning of the 20th), will be duly appreciated: if the attempt to cover the capital had been made, the confusion and hurry with which a position must have been taken up would have bid fair for the success of our attack upon it, which could not have been delayed beyond the 23d; the proximity of Lisbon, which was ripe for insurrection, must have added to the difficulties of the enemy; and upon a review of all the circumstances of the case, together with the great talents which Sir Arthur Wellesley has since displayed, we may be warranted in believing that complete success would have attended his operation; and that the possession of Lisbon would have been effected with a smaller loss, with greater advantages, and at a much earlier period, than it was obtained by the system which was adopted.

The next point to be considered is the effect which would have been produced by following up the enemy after the victory of Vimiera. General Junot had advanced from Torres Vedras by a circuitous road to Vimiera; and after his defeat the corps under Major General Hill, which had taken no part in the action, was in possession of the direct road to that place. The ground about Torres Vedras is extremely strong; and it is the only good pass by which the French army could have retired to Lisbon. Sir Arthur Wellesley was convinced that Major General Hill might have occupied the town before the enemy could have reached it; and that he might have defended the positions about it, till the army which was to have followed the French should have been able to communicate with him.

The great objection that was raised to this project was, that the British army was almost destitute of cavalry, whilst the French had of that arm a force of at least 1,200 men; but Sir Arthur Wellesley relied upon his own genius to provide a remedy to this objection; our infantry was in the best order, and it has too often since been tried in presence of a superior cavalry, to leave doubt in the mind of any British officer, that (if judiciously managed and supported with artillery), it is competent to advance in the face of cavalry. If, therefore, Sir Arthur Wellesley’s intentions had been carried into effect, the probability is, that General Hill would have taken the enemy’s baggage at Torres Vedras; that pursued by the British army, General Junot would have been unable to force the positions about that town; that he must, consequently, have retired by some other road, and his army have been subjected to considerable loss.

There remains only for us to consider the effects produced, by bringing the corps under the orders of Sir John Moore to Marceira Bay, instead of allowing it to proceed to Santarem.

Sir Arthur Wellesley had from the first conceived, that the corps under his immediate command was as considerable as could conveniently be employed upon the advance to Lisbon, and was of sufficient force to secure the success of that operation; but he foresaw that it would be impossible for him to prevent the French army from retiring through the Alemtejo, to Elvas, unless he could bring a separate corps to intercept it; with that view he had recommended the march of Sir John Moore upon Santarem, and that excellent officer, upon his arrival in Mondego Bay, disembarked a considerable portion of his troops with the view of executing that movement.

From the moment Sir Arthur Wellesley was apprized of the determination of Sir Harry Burrard to prevent that operation, and found himself arrested in his pursuit of the enemy after the battle of Vimiera, he gave up all hope of enclosing the French in Lisbon, or of preventing their protracting the campaign (if they thought fit to do so) by a movement into the southern provinces of Portugal.

We must now proceed to the relation of the events which took place after the battle of Vimiera.

Sir Arthur Wellesley employed himself, in the evening of the 21st, in getting stores and provisions landed for the troops, and strenuously urged an advance on the 22d; but on the morning of that day, he was informed that Sir Hew Dalrymple was arrived in Marceira Bay, and was landing, to take the command. This officer soon afterwards reached Vimiera; he gave directions for the advance of the army on the next day; but about three o’clock in the afternoon, General Kellerman arrived at the advanced posts, and requested a conference with the English commander-in-chief. Some officers were directed to conduct him to head-quarters, with the persons who formed his suite; and soon afterwards he proposed the terms to Sir Hew Dalrymple, upon which General Junot was prepared to conclude an armistice, with a view to his total evacuation of Portugal.

General Kellerman insisted much upon the still remaining strength of the French army; that 10,000 Russians were prepared to land from the squadron which was in the port of Lisbon, and to assist in the defence of Portugal; that General Junot (in possession of the fortresses, and with his movements upon Elvas undisturbed) was not in a situation to be dictated to, as to the terms upon which he was willing to evacuate the country; that although a part of the French army had been repulsed from the position of the British, it still possessed considerable resources; that it had the opportunity of occupying, undisturbed, the positions which had been marked out for the defence of Lisbon; it therefore commanded respect; but that General Junot was willing to surrender the entire kingdom, with the ports and fortresses, upon condition that the French army should be sent, with its whole military baggage, and at the expense of England, to its own country.

Sir Arthur Wellesley had conceived from the first, that the policy of Great Britain was, to bring as early as possible to the assistance of the Spaniards, who were now upon the Ebro, the British army that was occupied in Portugal.

The plan upon which he had commenced the campaign was formed with that intention; the hope of seeing it accomplished, by force of arms, was now nearly at an end. The march of the French Emperor into Spain was already talked of; and there seemed to be no hope, if the French were determined to protract the campaign in Portugal, that a British army, after having beaten them in the field, and besieged the fortresses they occupied in the country, could arrive in time to be of any assistance to the Spaniards. If, on the contrary, the terms proposed for the evacuation of Portugal were, agreed to, the embarkation of the enemy might be immediately effected, and the British army might in a short time be marched to the assistance of the Spaniards.

With this view of the various circumstances of the moment, Sir Arthur Wellesley gave his voice in favour of the principle of the armistice proposed; the minor details of it were objected to by him, particularly the wording of the article which related to the baggage, and which might be construed into a permission to carry off the plunder of Portugal; but it was thought, (after an understanding with General Kellerman, that it included only the baggage “_purement militaire_,”) that the most proper moment for its correction, would be, in the arrangement of the convention.

With this explanation Sir Arthur Wellesley, in pursuance of Sir Hew Dalrymple’s directions, signed the Armistice.

It would be needless to relate here the terms of a document, which gave rise afterwards to so much discussion in England, and which must consequently be in the recollection of every Englishman. The period of the armistice was two days, with twenty-four hours’ notice of its rupture, and it precluded the British army from advancing beyond the line of the Zizandra. To give an opinion upon its merits would be presumption; but if the opportunity which it afforded of preparing the British army for its advance into Spain, had been properly made use of, and if the execution of this object had not been so considerably delayed, by the tardiness of the embarkation of the French, it is probable that greater advantages would have resulted from it, than have generally been brought into consideration, in the discussions which it has occasioned.

The morning after the signature of the armistice, the British army advanced to Ramalhal. Colonel Murray was sent into the French head-quarters, to discuss the terms of the convention, and the French retired from Torres Vedras, to their positions in the vicinity of Lisbon. After the lapse of some days, the corps of Sir John Moore arrived in Marceira bay, and was landed near Vimiera. The following days it was advanced, and the whole army moved into Torres Vedras. The second day from its entrance into that place, Sir Arthur Wellesley was directed to proceed with the corps with which he originally landed, to the town of Sobral, which commanded one of the great passes to Lisbon; on his march to that place he received a message from Sir Hew Dalrymple, informing him that Colonel Murray had arrived with the convention which he had signed, and that Sir Hew was prepared to ratify it.

The feeling of the army which had fought the battle of Vimiera, was at this time most hostile to the armistice which had been agreed upon.

The expression of a private in one of the regiments which had most gallantly asserted the superiority of the British arms, deserves to be recorded: whilst marching in his column to Sobral, he appeared to be looking for something which he had lost; and upon being asked what he was in search of, replied, _ten days_, which he believed he should never find again.

Sir Arthur Wellesley took up the ground about Sobral, with the corps which he commanded; a patrole of French fired upon one of his piquets, but upon its being returned, retired. The second day, Sir Arthur Wellesley moved on to Bucellas, where a line of demarcation was drawn between the British and French posts.

The corps under the orders of Sir John Moore marched from Torres Vedras to Mafra. The leading division, under Major General the Honourable Edward Paget, had nearly reached that place, when a French officer, who commanded a piquet in the town, desired that the English army would not advance, as he had no orders to retire; the circumstance was reported to Sir Hew Dalrymple, who attempted to persuade the French officer to evacuate, but finding his efforts ineffectual, and being desirous to avoid engaging in any fresh hostilities, he ordered his troops to bivouaque, for the night, on the ground they occupied. The next morning the French officer sent word, that he had received orders to retire with his 100 men, and that the British army was at liberty to enter the town. This story was the occasion of much witticism among the soldiers.

From Mafra, Sir Hew Dalrymple removed his head-quarters to Cintra; from thence to the village of Acyras, near Fort St. Julian’s; and from thence to Aquinto, between Paço d’Aquas and Lisbon, where he remained till the embarkation of the French army had been completed.

After the signature of the convention by Sir Hew Dalrymple, at Torres Vedras, and not at Cintra, as has generally been supposed, two officers, Major General Beresford and Lord Proby, were sent into Lisbon to superintend its execution. The history of their disputes with the French would hardly be believed. It would be interesting to record them, as instances from which the characters of many of the individuals belonging to the French army might be collected, and the value of their point of honour appreciated.

The first object to which the attention of the British commissioners for the execution of the convention was drawn, was to enforce the spirit of that instrument, by preventing the French from carrying off the plunder of Portugal. With this view General Junot, after much opposition on his part, was constrained to issue an order to his army, requiring it to deliver up, into the hands of the commissioners appointed for that purpose, every species of plundered property which it retained in its possession. Within a few hours, however, of the issuing of this order, information was brought to Major General Beresford, that Colonel Cambyse, aide-de-camp to General Junot, had seized upon the Prince Regent’s horses, had carried them from the royal stables, and was embarking them as the property of General Junot.

The statement, upon being inquired into, was found to be correct, and General Kellerman was applied to, to prevent this robbery; he immediately attacked Colonel Cambyse with great severity of language, and ordered the horses to be restored.

The next day an attempt of the same sort, by the same officer, was made upon one of the carriages belonging to the Duke of Sussex, which was actually embarked; Major General Beresford, upon being made acquainted with it, sent his aide-de-camp to Colonel Cambyse, to remonstrate with him (in terms not very agreeable) upon the repetition of a conduct so disgraceful to the character of an officer. This lecture was, however, of but little avail, for during the time that Major General Beresford’s aide-de-camp was speaking, the second carriage belonging to the Duke of Sussex was removed to the river, for the same purpose of embarkation; both carriages were afterwards recovered, and Colonel Cambyse threatened with a voyage to England as a prisoner, if he continued a line of conduct such as he had till then pursued. Various other traits might be related of this officer, but an act of General J——’s will be more interesting, and more worthy of record: he had carried off a considerable number of pictures, and embarked them on board his own vessel, from the house of the Marchioness of Anjija; upon being required to give them up, he answered, that they had been given to him. This having been found to be incorrect, he denied all knowledge of the transaction, and impeached a relation of his who was on board the ship with him, but who immediately proceeded to one of the transports, where he hoped to remain concealed. A threat of preventing the General from sailing, till the pictures were disgorged, soon brought this gentleman back to the frigate, and Captain Percy directed him to go on shore to give an account of the transaction; he refused, however, to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the commissioners, and declared his determination not to land. The bayonets of the marines were called for, to persuade him; they proved effectual, the gentleman was landed, and soon after, the pictures were returned. Another general officer, on the day of his embarkation, carried off, from the office of the commissioners, all the papers and documents which he was able to collect, in a short visit he made to it while the commissioners were absent; and if he had not been driven back to Lisbon by contrary winds, (when he was forced to return them) would have involved their proceedings in complete confusion.

On the 10th of September the French garrison evacuated Lisbon, and General Hope was appointed Governor.

The joy of the inhabitants, when the national flag was hoisted, is beyond any description; an universal shout re-echoed through the town; innumerable banners, emblems of a new life of liberty, were displayed from every corner of the capital. The ships in the river, decorated with the proud symbols of national independence, proclaimed the triumph of the day, by repeated discharges of artillery; and for nine nights the town was universally illuminated, in token of the joy of the inhabitants at their deliverance, and of hatred to the oppressors, who still witnessed from their transports the detestation which was manifested of them.

Thus was ended the campaign in Portugal. Parts of it are to be regretted, but the great object for which it was undertaken was accomplished. Portugal was freed from the enemy by the genius of Sir Arthur Wellesley, and the bravery of British troops. Those means have preserved it independent, and have since accomplished the deliverance of the Peninsula. The succession of general officers to the command of an army considerably advanced in the operations of a campaign, will rarely be attended with advantage; to cast any blame upon those who succeeded in this instance to the command of the British army in Portugal, would be unjust; but we may be permitted to observe, that the genius of a great commander was marked in the first operations of the campaign; whilst a cold calculating policy conducted it to its final issue. Sir Arthur Wellesley soon after embarked for England; Sir Hew Dalrymple and Sir Harry Burrard were recalled; and the British army was intrusted to the command of Sir John Moore.

The events of the campaign in Spain had been various, during the period of which we have been speaking.

When the revolution first broke out in that country, when the massacre of the 2d of May had roused every patriot to revenge the murder of his countrymen, the force of the French in Spain was unprepared to repress so universal an insurrection. A corps of 20,000 men was, however, soon despatched, under the orders of General Dupont, to relieve the French fleet at Cadiz, and to seize upon that important post. General Dupont was too late; the Governor Solano, suspected of some attachment to the French, was murdered by the people, and the revolution was organized throughout Andalusia. General Castanos was appointed Captain-General, and was invested with the command of all the troops in the south of Spain.

He had a considerable number of veteran regiments, besides the volunteers who had at that time hastened to enrol themselves under the banners of their country. With an army so composed, General Castanos marched to oppose the progress of General Dupont. This officer was waiting, at Cordova and Andujar, the junction of a corps under General Wedel, which was marching to his assistance from Madrid; for although General Dupont had not as yet been opposed by any regular force, yet the universal hostility he had met with from the peasants, as well as the loss he had sustained by their desultory warfare, made it dangerous for him to attempt a further advance into the country.