These works, the most celebrated of their kind, were constructed

under the direction of Lieutenant-Colonel Fletcher, of the engineers,

assisted by Captain Chapman. Lieutenant-General Hill commanded on the

right, having his head-quarters at Alhandra; ... the great approach to

Lisbon is on this side, but the ground is strong; no means had been

neglected for strengthening it, and gun-boats from the Tagus could

assist in the defence. That river covered the right, the left was

closed by the heights above Sobral, and communicated there with the

corps of the centre. Major-General Picton commanded on the left; his

head-quarters were at Torres Vedras, a town which, being better known

than any other included within the works, became for ever memorable

in military history, by giving name to these formidable lines. The

weakest part of the whole position was between Torres Vedras and the

sea; but the artificial defences were proportionately strong, ... and

where it would otherwise have been most accessible, it was rendered

most secure by inundations extending some six miles along the Sizandro

to the sea. The centre extended from the heights of Sobral de Monte

Agraço to Torres Vedras: in the former little town Marshal Beresford

had his head-quarters; Lord Wellington’s were about two leagues from

the latter, at the Quinta de Pero Negro, near Enxara dos Cavalleiros.

The heights above Sobral formed the principal point of defence on

this part of the line; and the villages of Ordasqueyra and Runa,

which are upon the road between Sobral and Torres Vedras, were also

strongly fortified, because they commanded the only pass to the latter

town within Monte Junto. That mountain, which runs due north from

Runa for some fourteen miles, contributed mainly to the strength of

the position. It prevented all military communication between Sobral

and Torres Vedras, except by the line which the allies occupied in

strength. Lord Wellington might be attacked either from the east by

Sobral, or by Torres Vedras from the west; but he could bring his

troops from the one point to the other in a few hours, along a safe and

easy communication; whereas for the enemy to have communicated between

the same points would have required at least two days, for they must

have rounded the Serra at its northern point.

In the rear of this line, and nearly parallel to it, at a distance

of from six to eight miles, was a second fortified position,

extending from behind Alverca to Bucellas, thence along the Serras to

Montachique, by the park wall of Mafra to Gradil, and so along the

heights to the mouth of a little stream called S. Lorenzo. Strong works

covered the communication between these lines. And lest, contrary to

all probabilities and human foresight, a position so fortified and

occupied should be found untenable against the invaders, works were

constructed at the mouth of the Tagus, at St. Julian’s, which would

have secured the embarkation of the troops. The heights at Almada, on

the south of the Tagus, which command Lisbon and its anchorage, were

also fortified, in case Mortier should carry into effect a co-operation

on the side of Alentejo, which it was not doubted was part of the

French ♦WORKS AT ALMEIDA.♦ plan. Ten thousand men, consisting in part

of marines, were destined to serve in this quarter. The redoubts in the

position were manned by Portugueze militia, who, with a certain number

of regular troops, were quite equal to the duties which might be there

required. The troops of the line, British and Portugueze, were thus

disposable to act in moveable columns, and oppose the enemy wherever

they might attempt to penetrate. The allies were joined here by Romana

with 6000 Spaniards, from Extremadura; here they might be efficiently

employed, but in that quarter they could be of little service. ♦ROMANA

JOINS THE ALLIES AT LISBON.♦ Badajoz, which Romana had secured at

the critical time, had now by his exertions been well provided and

garrisoned, ... and this junction had been arranged as soon as it

became certain that the decisive stand must be made in the lines of

Torres Vedras.

The French had suffered severely from the weather during the latter

days of their march, so that both horses and men were greatly exhausted

when they arrived at the point where their advance was stopped. It was

no easy task to reconnoitre these lines, many of the most important

points being concealed behind the hills; but Massena, after a careful

inspection, saw enough to convince him, that if he attacked them a

repulse might be expected, more fatal in its results than that which

he had received at Busaco. And his hopes were not raised by the

intelligence which now reached him of the consequences which that

defeat had drawn after it. It was then perceived how great an error

had been committed in not pursuing Colonel Trant beyond the Vouga, and

dispersing the Portugueze militia under his command.

♦COLONEL TRANT SURPRISES THE FRENCH IN COIMBRA.♦

That officer, who well understood the weakness both of his forces and

of his position, ... for the Vouga was at that time fordable, ... had

retreated by a night march to Oliveira, not without apprehension that

the enemy would send a detachment against Porto, where they would have

found no other troops to defend it than the small and ill disciplined

body which he could have carried thither. When he had ascertained that

this was not their purpose, but that the whole army was advancing in

pursuit of Lord Wellington, and had left their wounded in Coimbra,

he lost no time, but immediately concerted means for surprising

them in that city. The Army of the North, as it was called, under

Lieutenant-General Bacellar, consisted of three divisions of militia,

... that of Tras os Montes, under Silveira, that of the Minho, under

Brigadier-General Miller, and that of Porto, under Trant. It had

also two regiments of Portugueze cavalry and three brigades of field

artillery, ... this constituted its whole force. When Trant was sent

round by Porto to Sardam, the other divisions were disposed so as to

close upon the enemy’s rear; and the advanced guard, under Colonel

John Wilson, followed them through Vizeu, and along the lower falls

of the Caramula, intercepting their communications and taking their

stragglers. This body was near enough to see from a distance the action

at Busaco; and when Massena, withdrawing from thence, concentrated

his army at Mortagoa, Colonel Wilson fell in with a detachment of his

rear-guard, and in an affair of nearly equal numbers captured thirty

mounted dragoons, and several infantry. As he proceeded he found

the villages laid waste, and filled with the enemy’s dead and dying;

and many of their wounded, falling into his hands, were committed to

the surgeon’s care, and saved from the death to which the invading

army in its haste had abandoned them. With this officer, and with

Brigadier-General Miller, Trant intended to combine his movements; and

having written to them, advanced from Oliveira to Mealhada, expecting

to join them there, ... but the country through which they came had

been completely wasted, so that the want of supplies, and the exhausted

state of the horses, rendered it impossible for them to advance so

rapidly as he had hoped. Delay would give the enemy leisure to prepare

for defence, whereas it was probable that at this time they had no

apprehension of an attack, and were ignorant that any troops were so

near them: Mealhada is scarcely twelve miles from Coimbra, and by a

rapid movement Trant thought he might be able with his own division

to effect what, if time were lost and the French on their guard, the

united bodies might find it difficult to accomplish. He determined,

therefore, to proceed. At a little distance from Os Fornos he fell in

with an enemy’s detachment, pushed on his cavalry so as to cut them

off from Coimbra, and made them all prisoners, except a few who fell

before the others surrendered. Then he ordered his horse to advance at

a gallop along the principal road, cross the bridge over the Mondego,

and take post on the Lisbon road, thus cutting off the communication

between Massena’s army and the garrison. While the cavalry were

crossing, an irregular fire was kept up upon them from St. Clara’s, a

nunnery on the south of the river which the enemy occupied: as soon

as the passage was effected, the French here proposed to capitulate;

but Trant would hear of no capitulation, ... they must surrender at

discretion, he said, and he would exert all his means to protect them

from the people. The infantry meantime entered the city; and after a

contest which continued about an hour, the French were made prisoners.

Six or seven hundred convalescents thought themselves strong enough to

defend the convent in which they were quartered, imprudently therefore

they refused to surrender: the building was presently stormed, and most

of them fell victims to Portugueze vengeance.

♦HE ESCORTS HIS PRISONERS TO PORTO.♦

Colonel Trant found more difficulty in protecting the French than

in taking them prisoners. The militia and armed peasantry under his

command were exasperated almost to madness by the conduct of an enemy

whose route from Pinhel might be traced by the smoke of burning

villages. Coimbra itself presented a spectacle sufficient to excite

the bitterest feelings of indignation. The French had ransacked every

house, and church, and public building; they had for pure wantonness

set fire to some of the houses, and they had heaped up promiscuously

in the streets all the provisions which the army could not carry

with it. Enough had been found in shops, and private houses, and in

the convents of that populous and flourishing city, to have supplied

the army for no inconsiderable time, if it had been collected in

magazines: but Massena relied upon having the resources of Lisbon at

his disposal; and the commissary-general, whom he had left as governor

in Coimbra, however well he understood the importance of preserving the

stores which had here fallen into his hands, was unable to restrain

a soldiery, who from the commencement of the war had been permitted

to indulge in licenses of every kind. About 800 of Trant’s men were

natives of Coimbra or its district; not a few of the inhabitants, upon

the recovery of the city, appeared from their hiding-places: the enemy

had been surprised and taken in the very act of havoc; and nothing but

the greatest exertions on the part of Trant, and the respect with which

he was regarded, could have saved the prisoners from the vengeance of

those who, in addition to their strong national feeling, were under the

sense of private and present injuries, and those of the deepest kind.

For though the greater part of the population had taken flight, in so

populous a city there had been many for whom flight was impossible, ...

age and sickness had detained some: others were bound by duty to the

sick and aged; and others again, under the fear of casting themselves

upon the world as wanderers, and the hope that by remaining with their

property they might preserve a part at least, had waited for the evil

under their own roofs, or hesitated whither to fly, till it had been

too late; and these unhappy persons had found no protection from the

established laws of war, or the common usages of humanity. Under these

circumstances there was no other means of preserving the prisoners

but by marching them to Porto. Brigadier Miller and Colonel Wilson,

who had formed a junction on the day that Trant’s dispatches reached

them, having pushed on with all speed to support him in his attempt,

arrived at Coimbra a few hours after him. Leaving them therefore in the

city with part of his brigade, with the other he convoyed 4000 of the

French, going himself to protect them, as well knowing that, unless he

were present, they would never reach Porto alive, ... for his men had

been raised in that country, which was the scene of Soult’s cruelties,

and some of them were from that village of Arrifana, where horrors had

been perpetrated of which ♦SEE VOL. III. P. 269.♦ the military murders

committed under General Thomieres’ orders were the least part.

♦DIFFICULTIES OF MASSENA’S SITUATION.♦

Above 150 officers and 5000 men were made prisoners by this well-timed

enterprise; 3500 muskets were taken, nearly the whole of which were

charged; and hence the number of effective men may be estimated.

A great number of kine and sheep were found, which the enemy had

collected; had they crossed the Vouga they might have carried off from

2000 to 3000 head of cattle in one or two days’ sweep of the country

between that river and the Douro. In the commissariat, as well as

in the hospital department, Massena suffered a loss here which was

severely felt; the capture of his wounded under such circumstances

was not more mortifying to him than the disappointment was painful

of those hopes which he had founded upon the possession of Coimbra.

Instead of having a garrison in that important quarter, occupied in

collecting for him the resources of a fertile country, and facilitating

his intercourse with Spain, his communications were now impeded; he

was cut off from Beira and the northern provinces; the Portugueze,

encouraged by success, were acting in his rear, and in front there was

a formidable force in a position, which he soon perceived it would be

hopeless to attack. He had no other means of subsistence for his army

than what might be procured by force, and any reinforcement must be

strong enough to fight its way from the very frontier of France, for a

small party could nowhere pass in safety. But the sea was open to the

allies; ... every day witnessed the arrival of supplies and stores in

the Tagus, and it was reasonably to be expected that Lord Wellington

would soon receive reinforcements enough for enabling him to act upon

the offensive. Massena felt now the difficulties of the situation in

which his own confidence and that of Buonaparte had placed him. But

he manifested no sense of weakness; and having well reconnoitred the

right of the lines, he placed his three corps separately in bivouac in

front of it, and determined, but with due caution, to make at least a

trial of that fortune which had never failed him till he was opposed to

British enemies.

♦HIS DEMONSTRATIONS IN FRONT OF THE LINES.♦

There was a redoubt in an important point of the position, at the foot

of the heights above Sobral; opposite to this, at a little distance,

the French established one, and Massena having strictly observed the

ground, gave orders for attacking the British redoubt, and took his

station on a hill to see the issue of this his first ♦EARLY CAMPAIGNS,

191.♦ operation. The Honourable Colonel Cadogan of the 73d commanded

there, and not only were the enemy repulsed, but their own redoubt was

attacked, carried, and maintained. Convinced by the trial how little

was to be hoped from any bolder measures, Massena ventured no farther.

To cover his own plans, he still however maintained his position,

and made such demonstrations, that the allies were daily under arms

before daylight, with their general-in-chief ready to direct their

operations, expecting and hoping that a general attack might be made,

and in full assurance that it could only end in the defeat ♦COLONEL

JONES’S ACCOUNT, I. 308.♦ and destruction of the enemy. But the French

commander was not now so confident in his own troops, nor so ignorant

of those to whom he was opposed, as to incur the danger of a defeat

which must have been irreparable. The demonstration was made for the

purpose of covering certain movements in his rear, and after a week of

anxious and eager hope, the allies were convinced that no attempt would

be made to force their inexpugnable position.

♦MONTBRUN SENT AGAINST ABRANTES.♦

Having consulted with Marshal Ney, Regnier, Junot, and Montbrun,

Massena determined upon sending to Buonaparte to request

reinforcements, and taking a position in the interior of Portugal

till they should arrive. As a preparatory measure, Montbrun was

sent with the advanced guard, and with Loison’s division to occupy

Abrantes. Meantime he established his head-quarters at Alenquer,

those of Regnier’s corps were at Villa Franca, of Junot’s opposite

to Sobral, and of Ney’s in front of Torres Vedras. Montbrun was

detained two days at Santarem by an inundation of the Tagus, which

covered the Campos de Golegam; as soon as the waters had retired, he

advanced to Barquinha; that place, like Santarem, was deserted, but

the inhabitants, relying too much upon protection from Abrantes, and

from the river, had collected large magazines there, which they had now

no time for removing. When he reached the Zezere, thinking to cross

at Punhete, he found that the bridge of boats had been destroyed, and

that a detachment from the garrison of Abrantes was entrenched in the

town, which stands on the left bank. The Zezere is at all times a

rapid and formidable stream; at that season it was nowhere fordable;

the banks are high and difficult, and after consulting with the other

generals, Montbrun determined to set the town on fire, that, under

cover of the conflagration, he might throw a bridge across, and effect

his passage: this resolution was taken at night; in the morning it was

found that the allies had withdrawn; the river was then bridged without

opposition, and the enemy advanced upon Abrantes. But that city was

well provided against any sudden attack; and the French, perceiving

that nothing was to be done there, retired to Punhete, and Barquinha,

and Golegam. Montbrun’s next orders were to take possession of Torres

Novas and Thomar. Colonel Wilson had been instructed to proceed with

his corps of militia towards these towns, for the purpose of confining

the enemy’s detachments on that side; but he, and Trant, and Miller,

were charged always to keep in view the necessity of preserving their

communication with the Lower Douro. Wilson, after the recapture of

Coimbra, had followed the enemy through Leiria, and afterwards occupied

the road from Ponte de Murcella to Thomar. But this town had been taken

possession of by Montbrun, and there and at Torres Novas stores were

found which relieved for a while the distress of the invaders, who

depended for their subsistence entirely upon what they could find.

♦THE FRENCH ARMY SUBSISTS BY PLUNDER.♦

It was because Massena was too strong in numbers to be beaten without

a greater expense of lives than Lord Wellington could then afford,

that the British commander trusted to famine, and to that worrying

system of national warfare which no army can withstand. Famine would

soon and surely have compelled the invaders to retreat if the orders

of the Regency had been duly observed, and the country completely

cleared of all stores before the enemy approached. But the local

magistrates had not taken effectual measures for enforcing these

orders; while the danger was at a distance, they had continued to

hope it might be averted, or at least that it would not reach their

particular districts; and in very many places the farmers had secreted

their stores, that they might not be constrained to sell them to the

commissioners at a low price and at long credit. The precautionary

measures of the government were so far carried into effect, that the

enemy were severely distressed, and finally found it necessary to

abandon their enterprise; but they were able to subsist some months

upon what they found, for nothing escaped their search. The French

soldiers had been so long accustomed to plunder, that they proceeded

in their researches for booty of every kind upon a regular system.

They were provided with tools for the work of pillage, and every piece

of furniture in which places of concealment could be constructed they

broke open from behind, so that no valuables could be hidden from

them by any contrivance of that kind. Having satisfied themselves

that nothing was secreted above ground, they proceeded to examine

whether there was any new masonry, or if any part of the cellar or

ground-floor had been disturbed: if it appeared uneven, they dug there:

where there was no such indication, they poured water, and if it were

absorbed in one place faster than another, there they broke the earth.

There were men who at the first glance could pronounce whether any

thing had been buried beneath the soil, and when they probed with an

iron rod, or, in default of it, with sword or bayonet, it was found

that they were seldom mistaken in their judgement. The habit of living

by prey called forth, as in beasts, a faculty of discovering it: there

was one soldier whose scent became so acute, that if he approached the

place where wine had been concealed, he would go unerringly to the spot.

♦DESERTERS FORM THEMSELVES INTO A CORPS OF PLUNDERERS.♦

But before supplies could be brought in by this marauding system, the

distress which was felt in the invading army occasioned a considerable

desertion. The more desperate deserters, instead of going over to

the British lines, collected in strong parties in the country about

Alcobaça, Nazaré, and As Caldas da Rainha, and at length formed

themselves into a regular army of robbers, calling themselves the

11th corps, under their officers and general. When they fell in with

a detachment of their countrymen, they compelled them to join with

them, and in a short time their numbers amounted to more than 1600.

The annoyance became at length more serious to Massena than to the

Portugueze; he sent two strong detachments against them, and it was

not till after an obstinate action that they surrendered to a superior

force, ... their leaders were then shot, and the men returned to a

course of duty which differed very little from their predatory life.

♦STATE OF LISBON.♦

There was necessarily great distress meantime at Lisbon, because so

many families had taken refuge there in a state of destitution; but

that distress was alleviated by the care of the government, and by a

religion in which alms-giving ranks high in the scale of religious

works, and is enjoined as a regular compensation for sin. Thousands of

these poor fugitives were hutted in the open country; many were sent

across the river, and they who came from those parts of the country

which, by the recovery of Coimbra, were delivered from the French,

returned home. Provisions were dear, but there was neither danger nor

dread of famine. That country from which the capital receives all its

garden produce was within the British lines; on the other side the

river Alentejo and Algarve were free from the enemy; and the latter

fertile province, with that part of the former which is considered

as the granary of the south of Portugal, perfectly secure from them,

unless the subjugation of the kingdom were effected. The Barbary coast

was close at hand; ships from America and England were daily arriving,

and the supply of wheat was soon fully equal to the consumption of the

army and of the increased population.

But the opposition writers in England endeavoured to raise an

alarm, “that Lisbon, not Massena, was in danger of famine; he,” they

said, “could drive in upon our lines the population ♦OPINIONS OF THE

OPPOSITION IN ENGLAND.♦ of the surrounding country to increase our

difficulties, and to relieve his own could send his foraging parties

into an immense track of country as yet untouched. England, meantime,

must send out not merely regiment after regiment, but cargo after cargo

of grain throughout the winter; and what if the bar of the Tagus should

be locked up by adverse winds? Massena, we might be sure, with the

talents and prudence universally ascribed to him, did not act without

a confident prospect of success. It had been said in the Gazette, that

he possessed only the ground on which his army stood; this was an

_erratum_, where for Massena we ought to read Wellington. Our situation

in Portugal would become infinitely more disagreeable than his, even

if he did not, bringing his whole force to bear on one, two, or three

points, by his superior numbers thus concentrated, break the lines in

which Lord Wellington’s army was so much drawn out. He would have the

most productive part of the kingdom open to him; we should have only

Lisbon and its vicinity, with the whole Portugueze army to maintain,

as well as the British; nay, with the whole population of Lisbon,

increased by the fugitives who had taken asylum there, deprived of

their usual resources, and thrown upon us even for daily bread! What a

delicate and irksome part then would our troops have to support, if

they were to pass the winter upon those mountains, possessing no part

of Portugal but that in which they were posted, incessantly harassed

by the French in their front, with a Portugueze army double their own

number within their lines, and a starving metropolis in the rear? The

French had obviously the advantage; they could remain in their post as

long or as short a time as they pleased: they could retire and return

at their discretion. They might wait for the reinforcements which the

despot their master would draw to their aid from every quarter of

subjected Europe: they were likely to accumulate, while the British

must in the nature of things decrease. Massena was in truth master of

the game he had to play. The most disastrous thing that could happen

to us, next to positive defeat, would be the necessity of keeping our

position on these heights for the winter; and we trust,” said these

hopeful directors of public opinion, “we trust that we shall not have

to incur that calamity! Lord Wellington may reembark his troops without

much molestation; and rather than he should be driven to the necessity

of continuing in these positions for the winter, we confess, we wish

that he were re-embarked.”

♦GENERAL LA CROIX KILLED.♦

The people of Lisbon had not been without some apprehension that the

British government would withdraw, rather in hopelessness than in

weakness, from the contest. The merchants, therefore, had prepared to

take flight, some for Brazil, others for England. But when they saw

with what determination the lines were manned, this apprehension was

laid aside; the fullest confidence succeeded, and all persons relied

upon the skill of Lord Wellington, the strength of his position, and

the discipline and courage of the allied armies. Such was the security

which they felt behind his impregnable lines, that parties resorted to

Alhandra for the sake of seeing them, as idlers flock from London to

behold a review. A battalion of British seamen had been formed to serve

in defending that part of the position. Land service was a jubilee to

these men; they had the town of Alhandra to themselves, the inhabitants

having forsaken it, and there those who were off guard sat in large

armed chairs of embossed leather, two centuries old, smoking and

drinking in the open streets. In reconnoitring this part of the line

from the side of Villa Franca, General La Croix was killed by a shot

from the water. Frequent skirmishes took place on the right flank and

in the rear of the French encampment; but the piquets, by one of those

agreements which mutual convenience will sometimes produce between

enemies, did not fire upon each other, and this gave occasion for some

of the old humanities of war. Some of our men even went and drank

wine with the French, till an order was issued prohibiting a sort of

intercourse which could neither with propriety nor safety be permitted.

♦1810. NOVEMBER.

MASSENA RETREATS FROM THE LINES.♦

Certain movements of the enemy seemed at this time to indicate an

intention of crossing the Tagus. Laborde was sent to garrison Santarem.

He threatened to destroy the little town of Chamusca on the Alentejo

side (noted for its sweet wine), if the boats there were not sent

over for his use: upon which the inhabitants burnt them. A detachment

advanced toward Villa Velha, in hopes of winning the bridge there, but

it had been removed in time. Abrantes secured the passage against them

at one practicable point; and Major-General Fane was sent into Alentejo

to observe the enemy at Santarem, with a sufficient force to defeat any

attempt that might be made in that quarter. Meantime Massena’s apparent

inactivity was regarded with some wonder, and made the subject of

pasquinades in his own army. Sickness and desertion were daily reducing

his numbers; his only possibility of success depended upon effecting

a plan of co-operation with Soult; but time must elapse before that

could be attempted, and without reinforcements he could not maintain

his ground in Portugal the while. For these he had applied pressingly,

and having determined where to await them, and prepared accordingly,

after remaining a month in front of the British lines, he broke up from

his bivouac on the night of the 14th of November, for the purpose of

retiring into cantonments. The allies were immediately put in motion

to follow him, but the movement was so ably conducted, on the enemy’s

part, that not above 400 prisoners were taken during the retreat.

♦LORD WELLINGTON ADVANCES TO SANTAREM.♦

Lord Wellington, not knowing what might be Massena’s intention, could

not pursue him with his whole force; Picton’s division was retained

in its station, in case the enemy should move round Monte Junto for

the purpose of making an attack on that side; and Hill was sent across

the Tagus with his corps, to protect Alentejo, and communicate with

Abrantes, if that place should be attacked. With the remainder of

the army Lord Wellington followed the French, and came up with them

near Santarem, where they occupied a position strong in itself, and

rendered formidable by retrenchments and abbattis. It was where the

high road, which is in that place a raised causeway walled on either

side, crosses a wide morass, through which the Rio Mayor makes its

way to the Tagus. The approach was defended by breastworks and trees

cut down, and the causeway was commanded from a hill, close to its

termination on the Santarem side, by artillery, which would have swept

its whole length. Demonstrations for attacking them were made, rather

to ascertain whether a retreat from the country were intended, than

with any intent of assailing a position so well chosen and secured.

Had this indeed been seriously designed, the heavy rain which fell

during the night, and rendered the fords of the Rio Mayor impassable,

must have frustrated it. Perceiving that the enemy were in considerable

force there, instead of being, as had been at first supposed, only the

rear-guard, and having ascertained that Massena’s ♦BOTH ARMIES GO INTO

CANTONMENTS.♦ purpose was to canton his troops in the finest part of

that country, Lord Wellington retained only his light division in front

of Santarem, and cantoned the army at Cartaxo (where his head-quarters

were fixed), Azambuja, Alcoentre, Alenquer, and Villa Franca, from

whence they might at any time fall back within their lines, if

the enemy should receive such reinforcements as might render this

expedient. Massena’s head-quarters were first at Santarem, but he soon

removed them to Torres Novas: Regnier was left at Santarem with his

corps; Junot’s was cantoned at Pernes; Ney’s at Thomar, Torres Novas,

and Punhete; the companies of artificers at Barquinha, and a reserve

of cavalry at Ourem. In this state both armies prepared to pass the

winter, both expecting reinforcements, and each ready to take advantage

of any favourable opportunity that circumstances might present.

“If this,” said the despondents in England, “be termed the defence

of a country, the Portugueze or any other people may well exclaim,

God preserve us from such defenders!” “The campaign,” they predicted,

“would be renewed in February, with such an accumulation of force

on the part of the enemy, as must make the protection even of Lisbon

hopeless, much less the deliverance of the Peninsula.” “They knew how

galling it must be to the pride of the nation thus to be foiled, and

thus, in expedition after expedition, to see the treasures and the

blood of their countrymen squandered in vain; but if the public would

give confidence to men of shallow intellects, ... to men who, having no

real stake in the country, submitted to execute the projects, however

extravagant, of the Junta who had so long misguided us, ... they must

bear the calamity and disgrace of constant miscarriage. It was a most

erroneous view of British policy, to conceive that we could ever, with

our limited population and commercial habits, become a military people;

and it would be just as rational for the French to strive to cope with

us by sea, as for us to enter the lists with them by land. All that

they now prayed for was, that our eyes might be at length opened to the

true policy which we ought to pursue, that of retrieving our finances,

and employing our resources upon objects truly British.” This was the

language of the opposition, and it excited now for the first time the

fears of the English public, because circumstances as melancholy as

they were unforeseen seemed to render it probable that they would soon

have it in their power to act upon the principles which they professed.

♦THE KING’S ILLNESS.♦

Toward the latter end of October the Princess Amelia died, after a

protracted and painful illness, which she had endured with exemplary

meekness and resignation. Aware of what must be its termination,

she had some of her hair set in a ring, and one day when her blind

father, making his daily visit, came to her bed-side, and held out his

hand to her, she put this sad memorial upon his finger silently. Her

dissolution occurred so soon afterwards, that she never knew the fatal

consequences. The King had suffered intense anxiety during her illness,

and when he felt this last indication of his daughter’s love, feeling

at the same time but too surely all that it implied, it affected him so

strongly as to bring on the recurrence of a malady which had rendered

the appointment of a regent necessary two-and-twenty years before.

There was, however, good reason for hope, because the disease of mind

was not constitutional and hereditary; they who had the best grounds

for forming an opinion believed that its foundation was laid by extreme

anxiety and consequent insomnolence during the latter years of the

American war. The physicians confidently expected that it would prove

of short continuance, and therefore parliament having met according

to summons, adjourned for a fortnight without a dissentient voice.

At the expiration of that term a second adjournment for a similar

time was proposed, upon the same grounds, and carried against a small

minority: that time also having elapsed, a report of the privy council

was laid before parliament, containing the examination of the King’s

physicians, all of whom declared it highly ♦1810. DECEMBER.♦ probable

that he would recover. Upon this report the house adjourned for a

third fortnight, but not without warm debate and a great increase

of numbers to the minority. At the end of this third adjournment

ministers informed parliament that although a considerable degree of

progressive amendment had taken place, and the same confident hopes of

ultimate recovery were still entertained, yet the immediate state of

his Majesty’s health was not such as could warrant them to propose a

farther adjournment. It became necessary, therefore, to deliberate in

what manner a regency should be formed.

♦PROCEEDINGS CONCERNING A REGENCY.♦

During the subsequent proceedings, ministers were accused in the most

vehement language of flagrant usurpation, and of grossly violating the

constitution. They were called a parcel of second-rate lawyers and

needy adventurers, who in their desperate ambition cared not for the

fate of the nation, so they could only contrive to keep their places

and retain the command of the public purse. Their proceedings, it was

said, were miserable shams and pretences, tending to inflict a mortal

stab upon the constitution of the country, and to vest the government

in an oligarchical House of Commons. Mr. Perceval would fain persuade

that house to make him governor of the country, and let him put the

crown in his pocket. Parliament, therefore, was exhorted to withdraw

from ministers as speedily as possible the power which they enjoyed,

for the day of their dismissal, it was said, would be the best day

England had ever seen. Among the evils which might be expected from

the suspension of the executive power, it was urged that no assistance

could be sent to Lord Wellington, no money drawn from the exchequer,

however indispensable a supply might be at this time. Lord Holland

dwelt upon this argument; to which Lord Liverpool replied, he was not

aware of any injury to the public service from any such delay, nor

that ministers had abstained from any acts, from which, under other

circumstances, they would not have advised his Majesty to abstain.

At whatever risk to themselves, he said, they would do that which

they deemed most conducive to the safety, honour, and interest of the

country, leaving it for the justice of parliament to consider of, and

decide upon, the grounds of their justification. This reply was not

received as it ought to have been. Lord Holland made answer, it was

highly proper that indemnity should follow statesman-like measures,

called for by necessity; but those who had assumed the functions of

the executive power could not be entitled to indemnity for measures

rendered necessary by a delay which they themselves had caused. And the

Duke of Norfolk observed in the same tone, that if no inconvenience had

resulted from the suspension of the executive power, then had ministers

in effect taken the sovereignty into their own hands.

♦MR. PERCEVAL.♦

Upon this subject Mr. Perceval spoke with characteristic manliness. “We

have not,” said he, “been blind to these things. If ministers should

find it necessary to take such steps, they would be justified under the

particular circumstances of the case; but they would act under a heavy

responsibility, and parliament would be bound in duty to examine their

conduct afterwards. I am deeply convinced, that I stand in a situation

of as deep responsibility as ever a minister stood in; a double

responsibility, a responsibility to the public, and a responsibility

to the King my master. I feel this to be our situation; and parliament

must have felt it so too, in suffering the delays that have already

taken place. Gentlemen opposite may put what construction they please

upon what I am about to say; but I do contend boldly before parliament,

and before my country, that if, under these circumstances, any measure,

in any of the public departments, required the sign manual, the officer

at the head of that department would act most culpably if he did not

issue the necessary orders to his inferior upon his responsibility.

This is the view I have of the situation and of the duties of his

Majesty’s ministers; and although gentlemen on the other side have

thought proper to insinuate that our measures have been influenced by

a desire of retaining our offices, I am sure the house will not be of

opinion that our situation is particularly enviable, or one that could

by any possibility be an object of choice. We feel ... we admit ...

all the inconvenience of the present state of things; but, considering

the duration to be but short, are they in any degree equal to the

inconvenience of appointing another person to execute the functions of

the sovereign; or, in other words, of appointing a regent, unless the

necessity of the case absolutely requires it? It is not from feelings

of delicacy only that his Majesty’s ministers have acted, but from the

conviction that the preserving to his Majesty the power of exercising

his authority immediately upon his recovery, without the interruption

of a regent, would be a great national advantage. The regent, when

appointed, would of course act as he thought best for the interests

of the state; and even admitting that the plans which he would adopt

would be better than those now pursued, yet I contend, that this

change from a bad to a better system, with the probability of again

shortly recurring to the old system, would be much more injurious to

the welfare of the public, than the inconveniences which have been so

strongly urged by the gentlemen on the other side of the house.

“The delay which has taken place has been no covert delay: it has been

perfectly open, and the reason why it was asked was fairly stated. We

have had no disguise, no subterfuge; our object was broadly and fairly

stated to parliament. Sir, I say again, that ministers feel deeply the

heavy responsibility of their situation: they know that their conduct

will necessarily be examined and scrutinized by parliament; they

know that they may have to request justice from parliament for their

conduct, at a time when those who are now censuring their conduct with

so much acrimony may possess a greater sway than they do at present. Is

such a situation, then, a desirable one? Is it an object of ambition?

Is it possible that any man, or set of men, can covet such a situation,

or wish to retain it, except from the imperious sense of the duty which

they owe to their sovereign and to their country? That duty I will

perform to the best of my humble abilities, and cheerfully submit my

conduct to the justice of parliament and of my country.

“It has been asked, whether, if under the present circumstances the

evacuation of Portugal were deemed necessary, any order could be sent

out to Lord Wellington for that purpose? And do gentlemen really

believe that any difficulty exists upon such a subject? Do they really

believe that Lord Wellington would refuse to obey an order transmitted

to him, by his Majesty’s secretary of state, for that purpose, merely

because he had heard of the King’s indisposition? Undoubtedly they do

not: the case they have put is then an imaginary one.... Sir, in the

office which I have the honour to hold, money must be taken out of the

Exchequer for the public service; it is the bounden duty of ministers

to see that service performed; and do the honourable gentlemen opposite

think that I would hesitate to draw the money for that purpose?”...

At this a loud cry of Hear! hear! was raised from the opposition

benches.... “Sir,” pursued Mr. Perceval, “I am unable to account for

the distinction which the gentlemen opposite appear to me to make

between the two cases which I have put. When I said that ministers

would not hesitate to give orders for the evacuation of Portugal, if

it were deemed necessary, they seemed, by their silence at least,

to acquiesce in what I said; but when I spoke of applying the money

voted for the public service to the public service, they affect great

astonishment, as if the principle of the two cases was not the same.

But do they think that where money has been voted by parliament, and

ordered by parliament to be applied to a particular service, that I

would hesitate to have that public service performed, for fear of the

responsibility that would attach to me? Do they think that I would

endanger the best interests of the country, from any consideration of

personal danger to myself? Do they think that I would risk a mutiny

in the army or the navy, rather than take upon me the responsibility

of issuing their pay? No, sir, if I could be guilty of such conduct,

I should be unfit indeed for the situation which I hold! I should be

guilty of a base dereliction of my duty to my sovereign and my country!”

♦TROOPS SENT TO PORTUGAL.♦

This was no empty language; and however the manly appeal might be

lost upon those persons to whom it was immediately addressed, it was

not lost upon the people of England. The ministers, with a spirit

which alone might be sufficient to atone for all their errors, and

entitle them to the lasting gratitude of these kingdoms, had ordered

off reinforcements to Lord Wellington, on their own responsibility,

at a crisis when they held their power by so precarious a tenure,

that it was not unlikely their successors’ orders for the evacuation

of Portugal might be upon the seas at the same time. For that this

was the policy which the opposition intended to pursue, if, as they

now fully expected, they were to be invested with power, ♦ISSUES OF

MONEY REQUIRED.♦ was what they themselves avowed. Issues of money also

became necessary for the army and navy: money had been appropriated

by parliament for these services; but the exchequer act requires that

the issue should be under the great seal, or under the privy seal, or

by authority of an act of parliament. Mr. Perceval thought that under

the existing circumstances it would be proper to use the privy seal:

the keeper of the privy seal was willing to take upon himself this

responsibility; but the signature of Mr. Larpent, clerk of the privy

seal, was likewise necessary, and that gentleman refused to affix it,

pleading scruples on account of his oath of office. Mr. Perceval upon

this issued an order from the Treasury to the Exchequer, deeming this

sufficient, and thinking also that it was better for the responsible

servants ♦1811. JANUARY.♦ of the crown to risk the censure, or wait

the indemnity of parliament, than to procrastinate public business, by

bringing such topics into discussion in the house from time to time.

♦JAN. 1. CONDUCT OF LORD GRENVILLE AS AUDITOR OF THE EXCHEQUER.♦ But

when these warrants were brought to Lord Grenville, in his capacity

of Auditor of the Exchequer, he returned an answer to Mr. Perceval,

requiring time “to consider the nature and extent of the duties which

this new and unexpected course of proceeding imposed upon him;” and

therefore requesting to know when it was necessary that the money

should be issued. He was informed, “that, according to the usual

course of supplying the weekly issues to the navy and army, it would

be necessary that sums should be issued for both services, beyond

the amount of the existing credit at the exchequer, either on the

morrow, or the next day at farthest; but if an actual issue could

be made within six days, no serious inconvenience was apprehended.”

Lord Grenville then desired that the opinions of the Attorney and

Solicitor General should be taken. These law officers pronounced,

that they “did not think the warrant of the Lords Commissioners of

the Treasury was in law a sufficient authority imperative upon the

Auditor, nor, consequently, a legal sanction for his proceeding to obey

the same; nor that any discretion was left to him by the law on this

occasion, for the exercise of which he would not be responsible.” The

Lords Commissioners of the Treasury transmitted this opinion to Lord

Grenville, informing him at the same time “that their sense of the

mischief to the public service, which would arise if any delay should

take place, appeared to render it indispensable that the warrants

should be forthwith complied with, and that they were consequently

ready to take upon themselves the responsibility of any act which

might be essential for that purpose.” Lord Grenville replied, that it

was matter of the deepest concern to him to be made the involuntary

cause of any, even the shortest delay, in an issue of his Majesty’s

treasury, stated to him from such high authority to be important to the

public service. “If,” said he, “I could be satisfied of the propriety

of my doing what is required, there is no personal responsibility

which I would not readily incur for the public interests; but I cannot

persuade myself, that I could obey those warrants, without a breach of

my official duty in that point, which is above all others peculiarly

obligatory on the person placed in the situation of Auditor of the

Exchequer; nor without a high and criminal violation both of a positive

statute, and also of the essential principles of our monarchical and

parliamentary constitution.

“I am told,” he continued, “that I must act on my own discretion, for

the exercise of which I must alone be responsible. This responsibility,

if it legally attaches upon me, I certainly cannot transfer to any

other persons, and least of all to your lordships, whatever willingness

you have expressed to take it on yourselves. My attempting to do so

would itself be criminal; tending to confound the official relations in

which I have the honour to stand towards your lordships, and to annul

those checks which the law has established for ensuring the faithful

discharge of our respective duties, and thereby the security of the

public treasure. But I beg leave humbly to submit to your lordships,

that the law has in truth invested me with no discretion on this

subject. The exigencies of the public service, which your lordships

have condescended to detail to me in these your warrants, are matters

of state, of which, as Auditor of the Exchequer, I have no knowledge,

and can take no cognizance; my official duty is strictly limited to

an observance of the accustomed forms of the exchequer, and of the

laws which have from time to time been passed for its regulation. To

these I am bound to adhere; and it is on the fullest consideration

which this pressure of time has permitted me to give them, that I am

compelled to decline, but with all due respect to your lordships, a

compliance with the requisition contained in those warrants, to which

this letter refers.” His lordship concluded, by recommending that the

difficulty should be submitted to the consideration of the two houses

of parliament, with whom rested the right and duty to provide the

means of removing it, and to whose pleasure he would defer with entire

submission.

♦JAN. 3.♦

Mr. Perceval immediately laid this correspondence before parliament,

saying, “that, though, if it had not been for the difficulty thus

unexpectedly started, he should not have thought it expedient to bring

the subject under their immediate notice, yet he had always anticipated

it as his duty to submit it to their consideration, not for the purpose

of obtaining a previous vote of indemnity, but, having incurred the

responsibility of action, with the view of calling on the house to

determine whether or not ministers had acted justifiably.” He now

moved a resolution, that the Lords of the Treasury should issue their

warrants for the payment of such sums as were necessary, and that the

Auditors and officers of the Exchequer should obey those warrants.

In the course of the debate he noticed the argument, that public

inconvenience was now proved to have arisen from the delay occasioned

by adjournments. “We have,” said he, “this marked, monstrous,

abominable, and aggravated case before us, ... and what is it? what

is this great public inconvenience? Why, that ministers have found it

necessary to come to parliament to authorize the issue of money, for

services for which that very money has been appointed!”

The resolution passed without a division; but, in the Upper House,

twenty Peers, among whom were all the Royal Dukes, protested against

it; because, they said, the principle on which it was founded would

justify the assumption of all the executive power of the crown by

the two houses of parliament, during any suspension of the personal

exercise of the royal authority. This business attracted more notice

than it otherwise would have done, because, upon Lord Grenville’s

accession to the first place in the ministry after the death of Mr.

Pitt, a bill had been passed, empowering him to hold at the same time

the offices of First Lord of the Treasury and Auditor of the Exchequer;

offices which, it was argued in support of the bill, might without

inconvenience be held by the same person. The imprudence of bringing

thus to recollection a measure, which at the time had called forth

strong animadversions, did not tend to lessen the unpopularity of Lord

Grenville and the coalition with which he acted.

♦STATE OF THE OPPOSITION.♦

That party fully expected their return to power. They were strong in

borough influence, while Mr. Perceval, owing to the course which he

pursued concerning the regency, lost the support of those members

of the royal family who had been most closely connected with their

father’s government. Their journalists were numerous and active, and

they depended upon the Prince’s favour. But though all the various

sects and subdivisions of opposition had united in one cry against

the king’s ministers, there were too many points of difference

between them to be easily accommodated. On the question of what is

insidiously termed catholic emancipation they were agreed; but only on

that question: the Grenvilles were at variance with all their allies

upon the subject of parliamentary reform, and the reformists were

at variance among themselves as to the nature and extent of their

purposed reformation. The war also was another ground of dissension.

One party would have sacrificed our allies, our interest, and our

honour, for the sake of obtaining vile popularity, by concluding a

nominal and deceitful peace. They saw no difficulty in accommodating

our differences with all our enemies; according to them, their country

was in the wrong upon every disputed point; we had therefore only to

concede every thing to America, and suffer Buonaparte, without farther

opposition, to govern Spain and Portugal in his own way: then we might

have illuminations for a definitive treaty, transparencies of Peace

and Plenty, and quartern loaves and pewter pots carried in jubilant

procession, in honour of the reduced prices of bread and porter. This

would have been the foreign policy of the radical reformers; that of

Lord Grenville and the despondents would have been equally ruinous;

believing it impossible that we could resist the military power

of France, and yet knowing that peace would be only a snare, they

would have carried on a timid defensive war, without the hope or the

possibility of bringing it to a glorious termination. Lord Holland, on

the contrary, would have acted with additional vigour in aid of Spain;

in this he would have been supported by Earl Moira and Mr. Sheridan,

and perhaps by the Marquis of Lansdowne and Mr. Ponsonby.

♦THEIR EXPECTATIONS.♦

The hopes, however, of the opposition were raised to the highest pitch,

and their partizans scarcely even attempted to conceal their joy at

an event, which, as they fully expected, was to restore them to their

places. The disposition of the Prince was well known to be favourable

to these hopes: he had a personal regard for some of the leaders of

the party, and it was believed that many of his political opinions had

been imbibed from Mr. Fox. It was therefore probable that a change of

ministry would take place; and all the opponents of government, however

greatly they differed among themselves as to their ultimate objects,

from the regular opposition, under Lords Grey and Grenville, down to

the very dregs of the revolutionary faction, vied with each other in

exulting over a falling enemy.

♦LANGUAGE OF THE ANARCHISTS.♦

Two years before the King’s illness, one of their journalists had said,

that “of all monarchs, since the revolution, the successor of George

III. would have the finest opportunity of becoming nobly popular.”

This sentence, connected as it was with the anticipation of “a crowd

of blessings that might be bestowed upon the country, in the event of

a total change of system,” had unwisely been selected for prosecution

by Sir Vicary Gibbs, and the defendants were of course acquitted. Such

language was perfectly consistent in the Foxites; but in the mouths

of the anarchists, the flattery which was now used toward the Prince

appeared not a little extraordinary. “Never,” they said, “was there so

fair an opportunity for producing a great and salutary effect, as the

Prince now had. We want a change of the whole system, a radical and a

sweeping change of it; and it is because we hope that such a change

would be the consequence of giving full powers to the Prince, that we

wish to see full powers given to him. Is not the Prince of Wales as

likely to be able to judge of political systems as his father, ...

afflicted as the latter unhappily has been in more ways than one, and

bent down with age as he now is? Is not the Prince as likely to be

able to choose proper advisers as his father was, or ever can be? Why

then should powers, of any sort, belonging to the kingly office, be

withheld from him? I know it has been said, that we are _bidding_ for

the Prince; and who can bid above us? We have to offer him _hearts_,

and _sinews_, and _lives_, if he needs them, and we ask for nothing

but our well-known rights in return. We want to strip him of nothing.

We grudge him and his family nothing that the constitution awards

them, or that they could ever wish for, in the way of splendour. All

we have to beseech of him is, that he will resolve to be the ruler of

a free people, and not the leader of a faction.” ... “His succession

to power,” we were told by another of these journalists, “with such

opportunities before him, and at so momentous a time, appeared a lot so

enviable, that it might turn philosophy itself into ambition. Hitherto

he had been seated in that domestic privacy, which he had learnt how to

value and dignify. And so wonderfully had past circumstances held back

the cause of radical reform, and so favourable for it were the present,

that Fate seemed purposely to have reserved the amiable task for his

royal highness, that with one restoring breath he might melt away the

accumulated oppressions of half a century.”

The wishes of this party concerning the King’s resumption of authority

were sufficiently expressed. They told us, it was exposing the

government to the contempt of foreign powers, to have a person at the

head of affairs who had long been incapable of signing his name to a

document, without some one to guide his hand; a person long incapable

of receiving petitions, of even holding a levee, or discharging

the most ordinary functions of his office; and now, too, afflicted

with this mental malady! They cited cases to show how doubtful and

precarious were the appearances of recovery from mental derangement;

observed that persons having been so afflicted were easily hurried,

and inferred that a man subject to hurries was not fit to wield the

executive power. When they were charged by their opponents with thus

disclosing a determination, that if they acceded to power the King

should never resume his functions, the manner in which the charge was

repelled was such as confirmed it. “Every one,” they said, “expresses

regret that the King, or that any other human being, should be

afflicted with blindness. But old age is old age, and blindness is

blindness, in a King as well as in other men; and when blindness is

unhappily added to old age, and to both are added _mental derangement_,

is it unreasonable that people whose happiness or misery must, in a

great degree, depend upon their government, should be solicitous that

_great caution_ should be used in the resumption of the royal authority

by a person thus afflicted?”... “Throw him into a corner!” exclaimed a

ministerial writer, when he exposed with indignation the wishes of this

party; “tell him, this is the lot reserved for a king who has reigned

so long!” The reply to this was any thing rather than a confutation or

denial of the charge. “We have had nothing to do with the _lot_,” said

a mouthpiece of the anarchists; “we have had no hand in making the King

either old, or blind, or mentally deranged. The _lot_ has fallen upon

him. The first is the lot of every man, and is generally esteemed a

very fortunate lot; the second is nothing very rare, and it is by no

means an unfrequent companion of old age; and the third, and all three,

are the work of nature, and not of any of us. And as to the King’s

having reigned so long, there is neither merit nor demerit in that,

either in him or his people.”

♦MR. PERCEVAL POPULAR AT THIS TIME.♦

Whether the agitators and anarchists really believed that the Prince

could be so infatuated as to countenance their plans for a radical

and sweeping change, ... or whether they held out this hope to their

dupes and disciples, in order that their certain disappointment might

engender a deadlier disaffection, is best known to themselves; but if,

abstaining from their indecent attempts to show that the King ought

never to be permitted to resume his authority, they had talked of no

other reform than that of curtailing the power of what they called

the borough-mongering faction, there never was a time when the better

part of the people would have been so well inclined to listen to their

arguments. Mr. Perceval had never stood so high in public estimation as

at this moment. When first he came into power, the tide of popularity

was in favour of him and his colleagues: because any men would have

been popular who succeeded to the administration which was then

displaced; but a series of untoward events had for a time lessened his

hold upon the country, without in any degree diminishing the general

dislike with which his opponents were regarded. The unhappy expedition

to Walcheren drew after it a cry of grief and disappointment, against

which, perhaps, he could scarcely have borne up, if Sir Francis

Burdett, by a factious dispute with the House of Commons, had not,

most unintentionally, but most effectually, drawn off the public

attention at the very moment when the decision upon the inquiry came

on. It was always asserted by his enemies, that he held his situation,

not through any weight of influence in the country, nor of talents

in parliament, but through the confidence and especial favour of the

King; and that nothing could be more unfit than that the British prime

minister should be thus dependent upon, and literally, as it were,

the servant of the crown. They who argued thus against Mr. Perceval’s

administration did not perceive how strong an argument they supplied

against that system, to which they themselves owed their only power;

certain, however, it is, that Mr. Perceval was thought a weak minister,

because he wanted that influence; and a sense of this weakness seems

sometimes to have made him assent to measures which he would gladly

have prevented, if he had held his situation by a stronger tenure. But

when the prop upon which he really had leaned, and by which it was

believed that he was entirely supported, was suddenly taken away, then

it was that he felt his own resources, and the people saw him confident

in his motives and measures, and with the strength of integrity hold

on his steady course; not to be deterred from what he knew to be his

duty, either by the clamours and threats of the faction within doors,

and the demagogues without; nor by the expressed displeasure of the

Prince, in whose power it would presently be to dismiss him from

office. Then, perhaps, for the first time, he became conscious of his

own powers, and the dignity of his nature shone forth; it was seen that

the man, whose individual character was without a spot, carried the

pure principles of his privacy into public action, and possessed the

steadiness and intrepidity of a statesman in as eminent a degree as the

milder and most endearing virtues of domestic life. Mr. Perceval never

held so high a place in public opinion as the favoured minister of the

King, in full and secure possession of power, as now, when he was only

the faithful servant of a master who was no longer sensible of his

services, and no longer capable of supporting him.

♦SCHEMES FOR A NEW MINISTRY.♦

Accustomed as the various members of opposition were to coalitions, and

compromises, and concessions, it was no easy task to form a coherent

ministry out of such heterogeneous elements. At the very commencement

of the arrangements, Lords Grey and Grenville could not accord, and

the Earl left town in disgust; they found it, however, expedient to

agree, and he returned in time to give counsel when the Prince had

to answer the proposed restrictions sent to him by parliament. It is

said that the answer which these lords had advised was shown by the

Prince to Mr. Sheridan, and that Mr. Sheridan declared it would prove

of the most pernicious consequences, inasmuch as it could hardly

fail to involve the Prince in a dispute ♦1811. FEBRUARY.♦ with the

House of Commons. This opinion was followed, and the answer which

was delivered was composed according to Mr. Sheridan’s counsel. The

two leading opposition lords were offended at this, and intimated,

that as his Royal Highness had not deemed it proper to adopt their

advice, they could not be of any service to him in the intended

arrangement. The Prince upon this requested Lord Holland to form an

administration; but Lord Holland had no influence, and was utterly

unable to ensure majorities. The Prince, therefore, who now began to

feel the difficulties of government, was driven back to Lords Grey and

Grenville, and a temporary conciliation took place. The triumph of

the opposition seemed now to be complete; they thought the field was

their own, and that nothing remained but to distribute the spoils. This

distribution, however, excited claims and contentions, of which the

Prince heard more than he liked.

♦THE KING’S OPINION DURING AN INTERVAL OF AMENDMENT.♦

When the time of the regency drew near, Mr. Perceval waited on the King

at Windsor, and found him well enough to converse upon public affairs,

though not sufficiently recovered to bear the weight of business. He

inquired anxiously concerning the Prince’s conduct, and expressed

great joy at finding that he had not thrown himself entirely into the

hands of a party who were directly hostile to all the measures of his

father’s government; and he desired that the Queen would write to the

Prince, to signify this approbation, and to request that he might

not be harassed on his return to society by having to ♦THE PRINCE

REGENT ANNOUNCES HIS INTENTION OF MAKING NO CHANGE. FEB. 4.♦ change

an ephemeral administration. The Prince, it is said, was well pleased

to be thus relieved from the difficulties in which he found himself

involved by jarring opinions and contending claims. He made known his

determination of making no change to the opposition; and on the day

before the regency bill passed, he officially acquainted Mr. Perceval

that it was his intention not to remove from their stations those whom

he found there as the King’s official servants. “At the same time,”

said he, “the Prince owes it to the truth and sincerity of character,

which, he trusts, will appear in every action of his life, explicitly

to declare, that the impulse of filial duty and affection to his

beloved and afflicted father leads him to dread that any act of the

Regent might, in the smallest degree, have the effect of interfering

with the progress of his Sovereign’s recovery. This consideration

alone dictates the decision now communicated to Mr. Perceval. Having

thus performed an act of indispensable duty, from a just sense of

what is due to his own consistency and honour, the Prince has only to

add, that, among the many blessings to be derived from his Majesty’s

restoration to health, and to the personal exercise of his royal

functions, it will not, in the Prince’s estimation, be the least, that

that most fortunate event will at once rescue him from a situation of

unexampled embarrassment, and put an end to a state of affairs ill

calculated, he fears, to sustain the interests of the united kingdom in

this awful and perilous crisis, and most difficult to be reconciled to

the genuine principles of the British constitution.”

♦MR. PERCEVAL’S REPLY.♦

Mr. Perceval replied, that, in the expression of the Prince’s anxiety

for the speedy restoration of his father’s health, he and his

colleagues could see nothing but additional motives for their most

anxious exertions to give satisfaction to his Royal Highness, in the

only manner in which it could be given, by endeavouring to promote his

views for the security and happiness of the country. “Mr. Perceval,”

he continued, “has never failed to regret the impression of your Royal

Highness with regard to the provisions of the regency bill, which his

Majesty’s servants felt it to be their duty to recommend to parliament.

But he ventures to submit to your Royal Highness, that, whatever

difficulties the present awful crisis of the country and the world may

create in the administration of the executive government, your Royal

Highness will not find them in any degree increased by the temporary

suspension of the exercise of those branches of the royal prerogative

which has been introduced by parliament, in conformity to what was

intended on a former similar occasion; and that whatever ministers

your Royal Highness might think proper to employ, would find in that

full support and countenance, which, as long as they were honoured

with your Royal Highness’s commands, they would feel confident they

would continue to enjoy, ample and sufficient means for enabling

your Royal Highness effectually to maintain the great and important

interests of the united kingdom. And Mr. Perceval humbly trusts, that,

whatever doubts your Royal Highness may entertain with respect to the

constitutional propriety of the measures which have been adopted,

your Royal Highness will feel assured, that they could not have been

recommended by his Majesty’s servants, nor sanctioned by parliament,

but upon the sincere, though possibly erroneous, conviction, that

they in no degree trenched upon the true principles and spirit of the

constitution.”

The opposition had made so sure of coming into power, that they let

the list of their intended arrangement get abroad; “an arrangement,”

they told us, “of one united, compact body of men, all holding

the same principles, and all animated by the same views; and an

administration,” they added, “of more internal strength, by the ties of

mutual friendship, ... of more public influence, by talents, integrity,

and stake in the country, never had been submitted to any Prince.” A

meeting of the common council was called by their city partizans, to

prepare an address of congratulation to the Regent upon the change

of men and measures which he was about to make. Their disappointment

was in proportion to their hopes; they affirmed, however, that the

Prince’s determination would be received with real satisfaction by the

friends of Lords Grey and Grenville, who must all feel that nothing

but a sense of imperious duty could have induced them to undertake the

irksome and arduous task of office in such times. “Three months,” they

said, “had already elapsed under a total suspension of the functions

of government, ... three months the most important, perhaps, that

had ever occurred in our history; another month must have been added

to the delay, if the Prince had yielded to his patriotic sentiments,

and recurred all at once to the principles upon which he thought the

administration would be most beneficially conducted. Thus much time

must have been required for the re-election of those who would have

vacated their seats, and for the re-establishment of the routine of

office; but this delay might certainly, in a moment of such emergency,

be productive of the most serious evil.” But while the Whigs thus

affected the language of resignation, the radical journalists declared,

“that a ministry formed by the two joint opposition lords would have

excluded almost all the Prince’s friends; that from those lords the

people could have expected nothing; but that they would have hoped for

something from an arrangement that should have placed Lord Holland

at the head of affairs, to the great mortification of those less

popular and less liberal leaders. It was as well to retain Perceval

and Liverpool, as to supersede them by Grey and Grenville.” Whigs and

anarchists, however, both agreed in asserting, that the Prince had

no confidence whatever in his ministers. “He signs papers,” said one

of these journalists, “receives addresses, expresses his opinions

respecting courts marshal and criminal, and has ten or a dozen people

to walk before him; but with regard to the nation, he can only wish its

prosperity, and has no more to do with its government than a keeper of

geese.”

But the great and quiet majority of the nation regarded the Prince

Regent’s determination with grateful joy: they anticipated, from the

wisdom and feeling which dictated it, a perseverance in the true

course of policy and honour, and in that anticipation looked on to

a triumphant issue of the war, with a hope which from thenceforward

suffered no abatement.

END OF VOL IV.

G. Woodfall, Printer, Angel Court, Skinner Street, London.

FOOTNOTES

[1] _Non est memoriæ ... quod in castro vel civitate aliquâ tales

fuerint defensores._ Gesta Comitum Barcinonensium, Marca Hispanica, 568.

[2] This would naturally be deemed miraculous, and the miracle was

ascribed to St. Narcissus and other saints, whose graves the French had

disturbed, and scattered their remains about. One statement is, that

the flies proceeded from St. Narcissus’s tomb. _Muscæ istæ partim erant

lividæ, partim virides, in quâdam sui parte colorem rubeum denotantes._

(Gesta Com. Barcin. 569, ut supra.) _Ceterum, qui locorum periti sunt

quæ circum Gerundam visuntur_, says the Archbishop Pierre de Marca, _ii

testantur haud procul eâ urbe videri rupes ex quibus vulgò oriuntur

etiamnum muscæ quales e scpulchro Sancti Narcissi prodiisse fabulantur.

Quod si ita est, non ultra inquirendum est in earum originem quæ

Gallico tum exercitui insultârunt, quas manifestum est ortas esse ex

rupibus illis._ Marca Hispanica, 468.

The flies are described differently in the _Acta Sanctorum_ (Mart. t.

ii. 624), where the miracles of St. Narcissus are given _ex hispanico

Ant. Vincentii Domenecci. Ex ipso sancti præsulis sepulchro exierunt

innumera examina muscarum, cœruleo partim, partim viridi colore

tinctarum, rubrisque striis dispunctarum; quæ virorum equorumque

subingressæ nares, non priùs deserebant occupatos, quàm spiritum

vitamque abstulissent, concidentibus humi mortuis. Tanti enim erat

veneni efficacia, ut seu virum seu equum momordissent, morsum continuò

mors sequeretur._ These authorities are given because they relate to

a curious fact in natural history, ... if there be any truth in the

story; and that there was a plague of insects can hardly be doubted.

That their bite was so deadly, and that they proceeded from the tomb,

I should have hesitated as little as the reader to disbelieve, if

some other accounts had not seemed to show that both these apparent

improbabilities may be possible. It is said that one part of Louisiana

is infested by a fly whose bite is fatal to horses. And about twenty

years ago, at Lewes, when a leaden coffin, which had been interred

about threescore years, was opened, the legs and thighbones of the

skeleton were found to be “covered with myriads of flies, of a species,

perhaps, totally unknown to the naturalist. The wings were white,

and the spectators gave it the name of the coffin-fly. The lead was

perfectly sound, and presented not the least chink or crevice for the

admission of air”: and the flies which were thus released are described

as being active and strong on the wing.

If, however, some long lost species had reappeared from the tomb, and

multiplied so as to become a plague, it would have continued in the

country. But if Pierre de Marca was rightly informed that a fly which

corresponds in appearance to the description is still found there, it

certainly possesses none of the tremendous powers which the legend

ascribes to it.

[3] Marshal St. Cyr has the following remark upon this carnage, after

observing that it proved useful as an example to other towns: _La

gloire de defendre ses foyers domestiques, menacés par l’étranger, est

grande, la plus grande de toutes, peut-être: mais la vertu qui y fait

prétendre, ne serait point la première des vertus, si elle pouvait

être pratiquée sans peril._ It must cost the heart something to reason

thus even in a just war. Marshal St. Cyr tells us, indeed, that _le

soldat devient naturellement cruel à la longue_: ... the more careful,

therefore, should he be not to sear his feelings and his conscience by

such reflections as this.

[4] An instance of heroism worthy of record was displayed by Luciano

Aucio, a drummer belonging to the artillery, who was stationed to give

the alarm whenever a shell was thrown: a ball struck off his leg at the

knee; but when the women came to remove him, he cried out, “No, no;

my arms are left, and I can still beat the drum to give my comrades

warning in time for them to save themselves!” This brave lad was the

only person during the siege who recovered after an amputation of the

thigh.

[5] Two singular cases of contusion of the brain were observed at this

time in the hospitals: one man did nothing but count with a loud and

deliberate voice from forty to seventy, always beginning at one number

and ending at the other, and this incessantly through the whole night.

Another continually uttered the most extraordinary blasphemies and

curses, exhausting the whole vocabulary of malediction, without any

apparent emotion of anger: this case did not prove fatal, but the man

was left in a state of helpless idiocy.

[6] A man deposed that he had seen the body when it was buried hastily,

by night; the face, he said, was swollen, and the eyes forced out of

their sockets. Supposing this testimony were true, the appearance would

denote strangulation rather than poison; but that Alvarez should have

been privately murdered is altogether improbable.

[7] Burnet says of the wars in the reign of William III. “The late king

told me that in these campaigns the Spaniards were both so ignorant and

so backward, so proud and yet so weak, that they would never own their

feebleness or their wants to him. They pretended they had stores when

they had none; and thousands when they scarce had hundreds. He had in

their councils often desired that they would give him only a true state

of their garrisons and magazines; but they always gave it false; so

that for some campaigns all was lost, merely because they deceived him

in the strength they pretended they had. At last he believed nothing

they said, but sent his own officers to examine every thing.” Vol. ii.

p. 7.

[8] Memoria de Azanza y O’Farrell, § 193, pp. 169, 170. They plead this

in justification or excuse for themselves.

[9] The account of Kolli’s examination had in one part been palpably

falsified. He was represented as saying that it was the Duke of Kent’s

wish to send Ferdinand to Gibraltar; but that he would not have

assisted in this plan, because it would have been in fact sending

him to prison! The whole of these documents are printed in Louis

Goldsmith’s Recueil de Decrets, Ordonnances, &c. t. iv. pp. 302–14; and

by Llorente, in his Mémoires pour servir à l’Histoire de la Revolution

d’Espagne, t. ii. pp. 306–342. This unworthy Spaniard expresses there a

decided opinion that Kolli himself was the person who went to Valençay,

as the official report stated. The Baron, however, has published his

own story, and it is confirmed by the declarations of Richard and

Fouché, authentically made after the restoration of the Bourbons.

One curious fact appears in the Baron de Kolli’s Memoirs. Diamonds to

the amount of 200,000 francs were taken from him by the police when he

was seized. After the restoration he reclaimed them. The result of his

application was a royal ordonnance, in which the King decided, that

the other effects belonging to the claimant should be restored to him,

but that the diamonds seized at Paris are, and remain, confiscated, as

having been given to the Sieur de Kolli by a government then at war

with France. And his renewed applications were answered by a repetition

of this ordonnance!

[10] Notwithstanding the facility with which, in many instances, Louis

was deluded by his brother, and the curious simplicity of character

which he exhibits, it is impossible to peruse his _Documens Historiques

et Reflexions sur le Gouvernement de la Hollande_, without feeling

great respect for him. His conduct was irreproachable, his views

benevolent even when erroneous, his intentions uniformly good; and

excellent indeed must that disposition have been, which in such trying

circumstances always preserved its natural rectitude.

It appears by these documents that the throne of Spain was offered to

him before Joseph was thought of, and that he rejected the proposal

as at once impolitic and iniquitous. But it is curious to see how

completely he had been deceived concerning the course of events in the

Peninsula, and still more extraordinary that in the year 1820 (when his

book was published) he appears to have obtained no better information

upon that subject than was communicated in the Moniteur during his

brother’s reign.

[11] The prejudice against mercury prevailed so strongly among the

native practitioners, that the commander-in-chief, at a time when

syphilitic diseases were thinning the ranks, found it necessary to

enforce its use in the army and in all the military hospitals.

[12] Some days after the storm the boats of the Triumph picked up

about thirty tons of quicksilver, in leathern bags of fifty pounds

each, which were cast on shore from the wreck. They were stowed below

in the storerooms and after-hold, and the bags having been thoroughly

soaked in the sea, decayed and burst before the danger was perceived.

As much of the quicksilver as possible was collected, but it insinuated

itself every where, and not less than ten tons weight was supposed to

have got between the timbers, which could only be cleared by docking

the ship and removing a plank at the lowest part near the keel. The

provisions were spoilt; two or three hundred of the crew were so

severely affected, that it was necessary to remove them immediately,

many of them being in a state which left little chance of recovery; and

the ship was sent to Gibraltar to have all her stores taken out, and

undergo a thorough clearance.

[13] A minute and interesting account of this escape was published at

Lausanne, 1817, with this title, _Relation du Séjour des Prisonniers de

Guerre Français et Suisses sur le Ponton la Castille, dans la Baie de

Cadix, et de leur Evasion le 15 May, 1810. Par L. Chapuis, de Lausanne,

Chirurgien major_.

[14] Upon this windmill the governor intended to mount a gun, and the

gun was lying in it, but not as yet mounted, and consequently useless;

another dismounted gun was lying near the mill. These guns of course

could be of no use in the action which ensued, but they figured in

Marshal Massena’s account of it.

[15] Massena’s official statement of this action was a masterpiece of

impudent falsehood. He asserted that General Craufurd’s force consisted

of 2000 horse and 8000 foot, and that they were all posted under the

guns of the fortress; that they gave way before the French, our cavalry

not daring to meet them with the sabre, and the infantry pursued at a

running step; that we lost sixty officers, of whom twenty-four were

buried in the field of battle; 400 killed, 700 wounded, 400 prisoners,

one stand of colours, and two pieces of cannon, while the loss of

the conquerors did not amount to 300. He took no colours, and the

two pieces of cannon were the dismounted guns at the windmill. In a

subsequent dispatch Massena assured the war-minister that all his

troops were burning with impatience to teach the English army what they

had already taught Craufurd’s division. Our own gazette had already

shown the veracity of this boaster’s account; but this new insult

called forth a counter-statement from General Craufurd, from which this

detail has chiefly been drawn, and to the truth of which the whole

British army were witnesses.

[16] The author of _Der Feldzug von Portugal in den Jahren 1811 und

1812_ (_Stutgard und Tubingen_, 1816) is mistaken in calling it the

burial-place of the kings of Portugal.

[17] Some of the Portugueze charging a superior force got so wedged in

among the French, that they had not room to use their bayonets; they

turned up the butt ends of their muskets, and plied them with such

vigour, that they presently cleared the way.

[18] Ten ensigns’ commissions were sent out after this action by the

commander-in-chief to Lord Wellington, as rewards for the same number

of non-commissioned officers who had distinguished themselves.

[19] The Portugueze officer who was with Massena, and whose journal is

printed in the _Investigador Portuguez_, states the number of killed

and wounded whom the French left on the ground at 4600.

[20] There are in fact three passes over this Serra, all of them

practicable for cavalry.

[21] Cardoso says, that to the east the Serra de Castello Rodrigo may

be distinguished, which is thirty leagues off, the Serra de Minde to

the south, and that of Grijo to the north, fifteen leagues distant.

Westward is the mouth of the Mondego and the coast.

[22] A loss which was magnified to 500 in Massena’s dispatches.

[23] The under-gardener of the Botanical Garden at Coimbra, with

his family, consisting of his wife (a young woman of eighteen, with

an infant at the breast) and her mother, having tarried too long to

accompany the army, was overtaken in the little town of Soure by some

stragglers from the enemy’s advanced guard, who were in search of

plunder. These miscreants secured the husband by fastening his hands

behind him: they tied the mother in the same manner; the villain then,

to whom the wife was allotted, either by agreement among them, or by

virtue of his authority, endeavoured to tear the infant from her arms,

that he might proceed to violate her in presence of her mother and

her husband. Failing in this, and enraged at a resistance which he

had not expected, he drew back a few yards, presented his musket, and

swore he would fire at her if she did not yield. “Fire, devil!” was

her immediate reply, and at the word she and her infant fell by the

same shot. The ruffians stripped her body, and compelled the husband

to carry the clothes on his back to Thomar, whither they carried him

prisoner. During his detention there he pointed out the murderer to

a Portugueze nobleman then serving with Massena; but whatever this

traitor may have felt at the crime, he did not venture to report it

to the French commander, and demand justice upon the criminal: the

hopes of co-operation on the part of the Portugueze people which he

had held out had been proved so utterly false, that Massena treated

him with contemptuous dislike, and moreover every thing was permitted

to their soldiers by the French generals in that atrocious campaign.

The gardener effected his escape to Coimbra, where a subscription was

raised for him, but he soon died, broken-hearted. The man himself

related this tragedy to the British officer, from whom I received it.

It is recorded here as an example of the spirit which the invaders

frequently found in those Portugueze women who were unfortunate enough

to fall into their hands.

Transcriber’s Notes

Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant

preference was found in this book. Simple typographical errors were

corrected and some unbalanced quotation marks were remedied. Other

errors of these types were not changed because the corrections were not

obvious to the Transcriber.

Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained; occurrences

of inconsistent hyphenation have been changed only when there was a

predominant preference throughout the book.

The source book used many Sidenotes, printed in italics. Most match

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Page 201: “not to be outdone” was missing the “to”; restored by

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