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LIV.

1808.

and dispirited soldiers to the standards of the enemy, CHAP. was a matter of little consequence to a sovereign who had seven hundred thousand disciplined men at his command; the loss of a whole kingdom, of a chain of strong fortresses, of an admirable harbour, of ten sail of the line to his ally, of the prestige of victory to himself, was a calamity of a 1Thieb. 172. very different description.1

3

79.

views on

2 Ante, ch.

3 Ante, ch.

Napoleon showed clearly in what light he viewed the acquisition of such advantages to the French arms, when, Napoleon's in the outset of his career, he stipulated only, in return that subfor his glorious successes in the Maritime Alps, the cession ject. of the Piedmontese fortresses from the cabinet of Turin;2 xx. § 67. and when, after the triumph of Marengo, he at once allowed the Austrian army, cut off from the Hereditary States and thrown back on Genoa, to retire unmolested to the Mincio, provided only they ceded Alessandria, Tortona, and the other strongholds in the west of Lombardy, as the reward of victory. On the present occa- xxxi. § 97. sion he felt quite as strongly the vast importance of the fortified basis for future operations, so advantageously situated on the edge of the sea, and on the flank of the Peninsular plains, which had thus, in the very outset of their career, been wrested from him by the British arms: had the advantage been gained by himself, he would have made Europe ring from side to side with the triumph which had been achieved. As it was, he manifested the utmost displeasure at the generals who were engaged in the Convention of Cintra; and Junot, in particular, never afterwards regained his confidence or esteem. "I was about," said he, "to send Junot to a council of war; but happily the English got the start of me by sending their Thieb. 472. generals to one, and thus saved me from the pain of 64, 102. punishing an old friend.”4*

He," says the Duchess of Abrantes, " to whom the whole life of Junot was devoted, alone viewed in a false light the Convention of Cintra. Everything which was not a triumph he regarded as a defeat; and, like Augustus, he never ceased to demand his legions from all those who had not succeeded in

D'Abr. xii.

LIV.

1808.

80.

revelations

which are made at

by all ranks

in the French

army.

Sept. 5.

CHAP. Many causes conspired to make the execution of the Convention of Cintra a matter of great difficulty to all the contracting parties. The French troops, from the Disgraceful time it was concluded, were constantly kept together in masses, encamped on the heights and forts, with cannon Lisbon of directed down the principal streets which led to their the plunder bivouacs. Notwithstanding these formidable preparations, and the proximity of the British forces, who, early in September, approached close to Lisbon, it was found to be impossible to prevent the indignation of the populace from finding vent in detached acts of aggression. Crowds of infuriated peasants incessantly thronged into the city, decorated with ribbons, vociferating shouts of triumph, and bearing on their hats the favourite motto, "Death to the French!" At night the discharge of fire-arms or explosion of petards was heard on all sides, occasioned by skirmishes between the enraged populace and the French advanced posts. Loison, whose unnecessary cruelty had rendered him in an especial manner the object of universal hatred, was menaced by a serious attack; while other generals, especially Travot, who had executed their orders with humanity, were not only unmolested, but traversed the streets alone in perfect safety: 231. Nevis, a fact, as Colonel Napier justly observes, extremely Thieb. 239, honourable to the Portuguese, and conclusive as to the misconduct of the obnoxious officers.1

1 Nap. i.

ii. 240.

But these difficulties, great as they were, soon sank into insignificance when compared with those which

conducting his young conscripts, hardly emerged from boyhood, to victory.”— D'ABRANTÈS, xii. 64, 102.

The Duke of Wellington's opinion on the expedience of the Convention of Cintra was equally clearly expressed. "If we had not negotiated," said he, 66 we could not have advanced before the 30th, as Sir John Moore's corps was not ready till that day. The French would by that time have fortified their positions near Lisbon, which, it is probable, we could not have been in a situation to attack till the end of the first week in September. Then, taking the chance of the bad weather depriving us of the communication with the fleet of transports and victuallers, and delaying and rendering more difficult and precarious our land operations, which after all could not have been effectual to cut

1

LIV.

1808.

81.

extent of

the French

officers en

arose from the discoveries made, in the course of the CHAP. preparations for the embarkation, of the extent to which public and private plunder had been carried by the French army. Sir John Hope, who had been appointed Enormous governor of Lisbon, took possession of the castle of Belem the plunder on the 10th September, and by his firm and vigorous superior conduct soon reduced the unruly multitude to some degree deavoured of order. But the complaints which daily arose as to the to carry off. enormous quantity of plunder which the French were about to carry off, under pretence of its being their private property, continually increased, and became the occasion of much more serious embarrassment. The museum, the treasury, the public libraries, the church plate, the arsenals of the state, equally with the houses of individuals, had been indiscriminately ransacked; most of the valuable articles left in the royal palace by the flying Regent were packed up and ready for embarkation. All the money in the public offices was laid hold of; even the sums lying in the Deposito Publico, a bank where they were placed to await the decision of the courts of law on matters of litigation, were appropriated by these insatiable hands. Junot went so far as to demand five vessels to take away his personal effects. Matters at length rose to such a height that the British commanders felt them- Nevis. ii. selves called upon to interfere; and the commissioners Foy, iv. 356, to whom the execution of the convention had been 239. intrusted, with much difficulty,' and after the most vio

off the retreat of the French across the Tagus into Alentejo, I was clearly of opinion, that the best thing to do was to consent to a convention, and allow them to evacuate Portugal. The details of the Convention, and the agreement to suspend hostilities, is a different matter; to both of them I have very serious objections. I do not know what Sir Hew Dalrymple proposes to do, or is instructed to do; but, if I were in his situation, I would be in Madrid with 20,000 men in less than a month from this time."-SIR A. WELLESLEY to CHARLES STUART, ESQ., 1st September 1808; GURWOOD, iv. 121. Here is the clearest evidence of the advantageous results of obtaining so early in the campaign the great fortified base of Portugal for the British operations. Sir Arthur in a month proposed to have had twenty thousand men in Madrid! He is a bold man, who, on such a subject, dissents from the concurring opinions of Napoleon and the Duke of Wellington.

1

232, 234.

240, 249.

360. Thiéb.

CHAP. lent altercation, succeeded in putting a stop to the disgraceful spoliation.

LIV.

1808. 82.

of the plun

French.

Sept. 12.

These high functionaries, General Beresford and Lord Great part Proby, acted with such firmness, that not only was the der is wrest- progress of the plunderers arrested, and much which had ed from the been seized from the public offices restored, but a general order was extorted from the French commander, enjoining the immediate restitution of all the property which had been taken from public or private establishments within twenty-four hours. Yet so inveterate was the habit of spoliation in all ranks of the French army, from the highest to the lowest, that within a few hours after this order was issued, Colonel Delambis, Junot's chief aidede-camp, carried off the Prince Regent's horses; a valuable collection of private pictures was seized on by Junot himself; and two carriages belonging to the Duke of Sussex were appropriated, which were only got back by the threat of detaining the marshal himself as a hostage. At length, however, after vehement discussion, and a complete revelation of that extraordinary system of public and private plunder which had been so long and disgracefully the characteristic of the French army, the greater part of this ill-gotten spoil was wrested from the invaders. On the 15th, the first division of the fleet sailed from the Tagus; by the 30th the whole were embarked: shortly after, Elvas and Almeida were given up in terms of the capitulation; and before the middle of October, not a French soldier remained on the soil of Portugal. 232, 234. Twenty-two thousand men were disembarked on the coasts of France; thirty thousand had been placed, from first to last, by Napoleon under the orders of Junot; the remainder had perished of fatigue, disease, fallen in the Thieb. 239. field, or voluntarily enlisted in the British army.

Sept. 15.

Sept. 30.

1 Nap. i.

South. i. 240, 249. Nevis, ii. 230, 249. Foy, iv. 356, 364.

The

convention,* though loudly disapproved of by the British

* "That same public opinion, under the influence of a free constitution, which condemned the Convention of Cintra, enjoined to its government its faithful execution. In so far as depended on the English government, the convention was executed with honourable fidelity."-Foy, iv. 356.

LIV.

people, was, on the admission of the French themselves, CHAP. carried into execution with scrupulous good faith by the government.

1808.

83.

troops are

the com

John Moore

The subordinate arrangements consequent on the decisive events which had in this manner liberated Portugal The British were soon concluded. Such was the violence of the placed under groundless clamour which arose in England on the subject mand of Sir of the convention, that all the generals engaged in it, Sir Hew Dalrymple, Sir Harry Burrard, and Sir Arthur Wellesley, were obliged to return to Great Britain; where, as already mentioned, their conduct in relation to it became the subject of deliberation to a court of inquiry, which, after a long and impartial investigation, returned a report, distinguished by little ability, which, in substance, found that no blame could be attached to any of these officers. Meanwhile the army, deprived in this way for a time of the guidance of the brave leader who had in so glorious a manner led it to victory, was placed under the command of SIR JOHN MOORE,* an officer whose gallant conduct in Egypt, as well as his admirable skill in the training and disciplining of his troops, had already rendered him distinguished among all his brethren in arms.

His division had landed and joined the other troops at Lisbon; while another corps, fifteen thousand

John Moore was born at Glasgow, on the 13th November 1761. He was the eldest son of Dr John Moore, the author of Zeluco and other celebrated works. Young Moore was educated at the public school and university of that city, and was abroad for five years in company with his father, who was travelling tutor to the Duke of Hamilton, by which means he saw much of the world, gained a knowledge of modern languages, and acquired that suavity and elegance of manner for which he was remarkable through life. In 1776, he obtained an ensigncy in the 51st regiment, then lying at Minorca, and soon after a lieutenancy in the 82d, with which he served through all the campaigns of the American war. At the commencement of the Revolutionary contest, he was lieutenant-colonel of his old regiment, the 51st, at the head of which he was employed in 1794 in the reduction of Corsica. Subsequently he was engaged in the reduction of Demerara, Essequibo, and Berbice, in the West Indies, in which services he distinguished himself so much that Sir Ralph Abercromby, in his public despatches, characterised his conduct as the "admiration of the whole army." During the rebellion in Ireland, in 1798, he was again called into active service; and the victory gained over the rebels in that year, at Wexford, was mainly owing to his talents and arrangements. In 1799 VOL. VIII. 2 M

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