The messengers from this unfortunate town had been joyfully received
at Badajoz; and Moretti, the officer who had performed the perilous
service of conferring with General Carraffa in Lisbon, was dispatched
with a corps of Portugueze refugees which had been formed under
protection of the Spanish fortress. They had arrived at Olivença on
their way, when Antonio Lobo arrived there also, escaping with about a
score companions from the carnage. Instead of returning with ill news,
as a man of ordinary spirit would have done, Moretti inquired whether
some useful enterprise might not be attempted; and they determined
upon getting possession of Jurumenha, knowing how important it was
that the Portugueze loyalists should possess a place within their own
border, which had the name of being fortified, when the French were in
no condition to attack it. It was occupied by a Portugueze garrison,
but the governor partook so little in the honourable feelings of his
nation, that he had that day seized some fugitives from Villa-Viçosa,
and sent them prisoners to Elvas, requesting at the same time a French
garrison for his security and that of the place. He understood the
temper of his own people; but Moretti and Lobo knew it also, and
calculated upon it. Sixteen Portugueze, concealing their arms, entered
as if upon ordinary business; eight proceeded to seize the governor,
the others took their station in the gates, and admitted their party
just in time to point the artillery of the place against the French,
who had been ordered from Elvas to occupy it without delay. Moretti now
obtained farther assistance from Badajoz, and discretionary powers: on
the other hand, Kellermann sent a second party to recover Jurumenha;
but supposing the force which defended it to be much stronger than in
reality it was, they returned without venturing to attack it. This
greatly encouraged the Portugueze, and more than counterbalanced the
effect of their slaughter at Villa-Viçosa. Emissaries and proclamations
were sent from hence throughout ♦NEVES, III. 316–320.♦ the province;
and the people, exaggerating the importance of the place, looked to it
with confidence as a strong point of support in their own country.
♦A FRENCH DETACHMENT SENT FROM MERTOLA TO BEJA.♦
The news from Algarve, spreading at the same time, elevated their
spirits; and the state of the country soon became such, that the
French couriers were every where intercepted. Colonel Maransin, with
his troops, had now effected his retreat to Mertola, from whence,
for the purpose of restoring a communication with Estremoz and with
Lisbon, he sent a detachment of 100 foot and thirty dragoons to Beja.
That city was originally a settlement of the Kelts, possessed next by
the Carthaginians, afterwards the Pax Julia of the Romans, a Moorish
corruption of which name has been euphonized to its present form.
It was taken from the Moors by the first king of Portugal, restored
from its ruins and fortified in the thirteenth century by Affonso
III. and beautified by his son, King Diniz, with his characteristic
magnificence, of which the walls with their forty towers, and the fine
castle, bore testimony in their ruins. Here, as in all the other cities
of Alem-Tejo, there was a melancholy air of decay, less owing to the
long and destructive struggle with Spain, in which that province had
been the great scene of action, than to the peculiar circumstances
which depressed its agriculture, and that inhuman persecution of the
New-Christians, by which the largest part of the commercial capital in
Portugal had either been annihilated by confiscations, or driven out of
the kingdom. Still, however, it contained some ten or twelve thousand
inhabitants, and was a place of considerable importance in that thinly
peopled province. It stood on the highest part of an elevated and
extensive plain, conspicuous from a distance, and commanding a wide
prospect on all sides, the heights of Palmella and even of Cintra being
distinctly visible. The immediate country, where it is cultivated, is
fertile, and the situation in high repute for its salubrity. Eventful
as the history of Beja had been, it was now to undergo as severe a
calamity as any with which it had been visited in the unhappiest ages
of Spain.
♦JUNE 23.
THE PEOPLE RISE AGAINST THEM.♦
The French detachment entered the city without opposition, passed the
night there, and on the next day ordered quarters and provisions to be
made ready for the whole body of troops in Mertola, who, they said,
were about to follow them. Their demand was received in such a manner
by the people of Beja, who were now acquainted not only with the state
of Spain, but with the nearer events in Algarve and at Jurumenha, that
the French deemed it prudent to march out, and take a position in the
open country, not far from the walls. This encouraged the populace;
and, like all mobs, becoming cruel as they felt themselves strong, they
murdered two soldiers whom the French indiscreetly sent into the city
for provisions. Ignorant of their fate, the commander supposed they
had been imprisoned, and threatened, if they were not immediately set
free, to release them by force. The people then riotously demanded
arms, that they might rush out and attack the enemy. The magistrates
remonstrated with them in vain, and on the following ♦JUNE 25.♦ morning
the Corregidor, finding that farther delay would only endanger his own
life, distributed among them such weapons as could be collected, and
taking the safest course for himself, set off to solicit aid from the
Junta of Ayamonte, the nearest authority by which it could be supplied.
The Provedor and the Juiz de Fora thought it their duty to avert, if
possible, the immediate danger: they went out to the French, entreated
them not to attack the town, and promised them supplies; the enemy
were easily entreated, because they were not strong enough in reality
for any such attempt: the magistrates then endeavoured to make the
people ratify what they had undertaken for them; all reasoning was in
vain, and to save their own lives they left the city. But here also
private malice availed itself of public troubles to effect its own
ends; a messenger recalled them, upon the plea that they were wanted
to give orders for collecting provisions, in fulfilment of their
agreement; for the Corregidor having departed, there was no person
to take upon himself that business. Deceived ♦NEVES, III. 323–327.♦
by this treacherous message, they returned, and were butchered by a
ferocious mob, who knew not that they were made the brutal instruments
of individual revenge.
♦BEJA SACKED BY THE FRENCH, AND SET ON FIRE.♦
By this time, however, the ardour of the people had so far cooled, that
they no longer talked of sallying against the French, they contented
themselves with keeping a tumultuous watch through the night; and
when the morning dawned, and there appeared no enemy, they fancied
themselves secure. The French commander had merely retired out of
sight: his dispatches reached Mertola at eleven on the preceding night;
at midnight Maransin, with 950 men, began his march, and at four the
next evening the united force ♦JUNE 26.♦ arrived before Beja. They were
opposed by a mere multitude without order, leader, or plan of defence,
every man acting for himself as he thought best. Yet the victory was
not gained without a brave resistance, and some loss to the assailants.
According to the French account they lost eighty in killed and wounded,
while 1200 of the Portugueze were slain in the action, and all who were
taken in arms were put to ♦OBSERVADOR PORTUGUEZ, 341. NEVES,
III. 327–332.♦ death. The worst excesses followed by which humanity can
be disgraced and outraged, and the[15] city was sacked and set on fire.
In this whole merciless proceeding Maransin acted upon his own
judgement, well knowing that such was the system which Napoleon had
laid down, and which his generals felt no reluctance in executing. He
proceeded to Evora, and Kellermann, approving of his conduct, held
out the fate of Beja in a proclamation, as a warning ♦KELLERMANN’S
PROCLAMATION TO THE PEOPLE OF ALEM-TEJO.♦ to the province. “Inhabitants
of Alem-Tejo,” he said, “Beja had revolted, and Beja exists no longer.
Its guilty inhabitants have been put to the edge of the sword, and its
houses delivered up to pillage and to the flames. Thus shall all those
be treated who listen to the counsels of a perfidious rebellion, and
with a senseless hatred take arms against us. Thus shall those bands
of smugglers and criminals be treated, who have collected in Badajoz,
and put arms into the hands of the unhappy Lusitanians, but dare not
themselves march against us. Who, indeed, can resist our invincible
troops? Ye who have precipitated yourselves into rebellion, prevent,
by prompt submission, the inevitable chastisement that awaits you! And
ye who have hitherto been happy or prudent enough to continue in your
duty, profit by this terrible example! Our general in chief has not
told you in vain that ♦OBSERVADOR PORTUGUEZ, 347.♦ clouds of rebels
shall be dispersed before us like the sands of the desert before the
impetuous breath of the south wind.”
♦JUNOT’S PROCLAMATION TO THE PORTUGUEZE.♦
The bombastic sentence which Kellermann thus quoted, was from a
proclamation that Junot had just sent forth, in that spirit of
shameless falsehood and remorseless tyranny which characterised the
intrusive government. He asked the Portugueze what madness possessed
them? What reason they could have, after seven months of the most
perfect tranquillity, of the best understanding, to take arms; ... and
against whom? against an army which was to secure their independence
and maintain the integrity of their country! Was it their wish, then,
that ancient Lusitania should become a province of Spain? Could they
regret a dynasty which had abandoned them, and under which they were no
longer counted among the nations of Europe? What more could they desire
than to be Portugueze, and independent? and this Napoleon had promised
them. They had asked him for a king, who, under his all-powerful
protection, might restore their country to its rank. At this moment
their new monarch was expecting to approach them. “I hoped,” said
Junot, “to place him in a peaceable and flourishing kingdom; am I to
show him nothing but ruins and graves? Will he reign in a desert?
assuredly not; and you will not be any thing but a wretched province
of Spain. Your customs and laws have been maintained; your holy
religion, which is ours also, has not suffered the least insult; it is
you who violate it, suffering it to be influenced by heretics, who only
wish for its destruction. Ask the unhappy Roman-catholics of Ireland
under what oppression they are groaning! If these perfidious islanders
invade your territory, leave me to fight them; ... your part is to
remain peaceably in your fields.” He then attempted to soothe them,
saying, that if any abuses in the administration still existed, every
day’s experience would diminish them. The Emperor, satisfied with the
reports which he had received of the public spirit, had graciously
remitted half the contribution. He was fulfilling all their wishes. And
would they let themselves be dragged on by the influence of a banditti,
at the very moment when they should be happy? “Portugueze,” said he,
“you have but one moment to implore the clemency of the Emperor and
disarm his wrath. Already the armies of Spain touch your frontiers
at every point; ... you are lost if you hesitate. Merit your pardon
by quick submission, or behold the punishment that awaits you! Every
village or town in which the people have taken arms, and fired upon
my troops, shall be delivered up to pillage, and destroyed, and the
inhabitants shall be put to the sword. Every individual ♦OBSERVADOR
PORTUGUEZ, 317–320.♦ found in arms shall instantly be shot.”
The French had dealt largely in false promises; they were sincere in
their threats, and on the very day when this proclamation was issued
at Lisbon, that sincerity was proved at Beja. ♦NATIONAL FEELING OF
THE PORTUGUEZE.♦ But as the Portugueze had not been deceived, neither
were they now to be intimidated. Their character had been totally
mistaken by their insolent oppressors. They, like the Spaniards, had
a deep and ever-present remembrance of their former greatness. It
was sometimes expressed with a vanity which excited the contempt of
those who judge hastily upon that imperfect knowledge which is worse
than ignorance; more generally it produced a feeling of dignified and
melancholy pride. The kingdom had decayed, but the degeneracy of the
people was confined to the higher ranks, whom every possible cause,
physical and moral, combined to degrade. Generation after generation,
they had intermarried, not merely within the narrow circle of a few
privileged families, but oftentimes in their own; uncles with their
nieces, nephews with their aunts. The canonical law was dispensed
with for these alliances; but no dispensing power could set aside the
law of nature, which rendered degeneracy the sure consequence. Thus
was the breed deteriorated; and education completed the mischief.
The young fidalgo was never regarded as a boy: as soon as the robes,
or rather bandages of infancy were laid aside, he appeared in the
dress of manhood, was initiated in its forms and follies, and it was
rather his misfortune than his fault, if, at an early age, he became
familiar with its vices. When he arrived at manhood, no field for
exertion was open to him, even if he were qualified or disposed to
exert himself. The private concerns of embellishing and improving an
estate were as little known in Portugal as those public affairs in
which the nobility of Great Britain are so actively engaged: if not
in office, he was in idleness, and his idleness was passed in the
capital. A wasteful expenditure made him a bad landlord, and a bad
paymaster; a deficient education made him a bad statesman; and well
was it if the lax morality which the casuists had introduced into a
corrupt religion, did not make him a bad man. Exceptions there were,
because there are some dispositions so happily tempered, that their
original goodness can never be wholly depraved, however unpropitious
the circumstances in which they are placed; but men, for the most
part, are what circumstances make them, and these causes of degeneracy
were common to all of the higher class. On the other hand, the middle
classes were improved, and the peasantry uncorrupted. Their occupations
were the same as those of their forefathers; nor did they differ from
them in any respect, except what was a most important one at this time,
that a long interval of peace, and their frequent intercourse with the
Spaniards, had effaced the old enmity between the two nations, so that
along the border the languages were intermingled, and intermarriages
so common, as to have produced a natural and moral union. They were a
fine, hospitable, noble-minded race, respected most by those who knew
them best. The upper boughs were scathed, but the trunk and the root
were sound.
♦THEIR HATRED OF THE FRENCH.♦
Their ignorance as well as their superstition, contributed at this
time to excite and sustain a national resistance. They expected
miracles in their favour; the people of Coimbra actually believed
that a miracle had been wrought, because when the French fired upon
them from the windows of their quarters, no person was ♦NEVES, III.
210.♦ hurt. Of the relative strength of nations they knew nothing, nor
of the arrangements which are necessary for carrying on war, nor of
the resources by which it must be maintained. Spain filled a larger
space in their imagination than France, and Portugal than either; and
they were not erroneous in believing that Spain and Portugal together
possessed a strength which might defy the world. The threats of the
intrusive government therefore excited indignation instead of dismay;
such language addressed to minds in their state of exaltation, was like
water cast upon a fire intense enough to decompose it, and convert its
elements into fuel for the flames. The fate of Beja excited hatred and
the thirst of vengeance instead of fear, and the insurrection continued
to spread in the very province where the experiment had been made upon
so large a scale of putting an end to it by fire and sword.
♦THE JUIZ DE FORA AT MARVAM.♦
A Portugueze of the old stamp, by name Antonio Leite de Araujo
Ferreira Bravo, held the office of Juiz de Fora at Marvam, a small
town about eight miles from Portalegre, surrounded with old walls. Of
the many weak places upon that frontier it was the only one which, in
the short campaign of 1801, resisted the Spaniards in their unjust
and impolitic invasion, and was not taken by them; and this was in
great measure owing to his exertions. When the French usurped the
government, a verbal order came from the Marquez d’Alorna, at that time
general of the province, to admit either French or Spanish troops as
friends, and give them possession of the place. Antonio Leite protested
against this, maintaining that no governor ought to deliver up a
place intrusted to his keeping without a formal and authentic order:
proceedings were instituted against him for his opposition, and he was
severely reprehended, this being thought punishment enough at that
time, and in a town where no commotion was dreamt of. When the decree
arrived at Marvam, by which it was announced that the house of Braganza
had ceased to reign, Antonio Leite sent for the public notaries of the
town, and resigned his office, stating, in a formal instrument, that
he did this because he would not be compelled to render that obedience
to a foreign power which was due to his lawful and beloved Sovereign,
and to him alone. Then taking with him these witnesses to the church
of the Misericordia, he deposited his wand of office in the hands of
an image of N. Senhor dos Passos, and in the highest feeling of old
times called upon the sacred image to keep it till it should one day
be restored to its rightful possessor. He then returned to his house,
and put himself in deep mourning. The order arrived for taking down the
royal arms. He entreated the _Vereador_ not to execute it, upon the
plea that the escutcheon here was not that of the Braganza family, but
of the kingdom, put up in the reign of Emanuel, and distinguished by
his ♦NEVES, II. 109–122.♦ device; and when this plea was rejected, he
took the shield into his own keeping, and laid it carefully by, to be
preserved for better days.
♦HE FLIES THE TOWN.♦
The Juiz seems to have been a man who had read the chronicles of his
own country till he had thoroughly imbibed their spirit. These actions
were so little in accord with the feelings and manners of the present
age, that they were in all likelihood ascribed to insanity, and that
imputation saved him from the persecution which he would otherwise have
incurred. But when the national feeling began to manifest itself, such
madness was then considered dangerous, and the Corregidor of Portalegre
received orders from Lisbon to arrest him. Before these orders arrived
he had begun to stir for the deliverance of his country, and had sent a
confidential person with a letter to Galluzo, the Spanish commander at
Badajoz, requesting aid from thence to occupy Marvam; men could not be
spared; and the messenger returned with the unwelcome intelligence that
before he left Badajoz the business on which he went had transpired,
and was publicly talked of. Perceiving now that his life was in
danger, his first care was that no person might suffer but himself,
and therefore he laid upon his table a copy of the letter which he had
written, from which it might be seen that the invitation was his single
act and deed; having done this, he seemed rather to trust to Providence
than to take any means for securing himself. It was not long before,
looking out at the window, he saw the Corregedor with an adjutant of
Kellermann’s and a party of horse coming to his house. He had just
time to bid the servant say he was not within, and slip into the
street by a garden door. He had got some distance, when the Corregedor
saw him, and called after him, saying he wanted to settle with him
concerning the quartering of some troops. Antonio Leite knew what his
real business was too well to be thus deceived, and quickened his
pace. The town has two gates, one of which was fastened, because the
garrison was small: toward that however he ran, well knowing that if
he were not intercepted at the other, he should be pursued and surely
overtaken. Joaquim José de Matos, a Coimbra student, then at home for
the vacation, met him, and offered to conceal him in his house; but
the Juiz continued to run, seeing that the soldiers were in pursuit,
dropt from the wall, escaped with little hurt, and then scrambled down
the high and steep crag upon which it stands. Matos, thinking that he
had now involved himself, ran also, and being of diminutive stature,
squeezed himself through a hole in the gate; they then fled together
toward Valencia de Alcantara, and had ♦NEVES, III. 333–337.♦ the
satisfaction, at safe distance, of seeing a Swiss escort come round the
walls to the place where the Juiz had dropt.
♦HE RETURNS, AND SEIZES THE TOWN.♦
The Spanish frontier being so near, their escape was easy; but when
they had been a few days at Valencia de Alcantara, Matos determined
upon returning to his family, knowing that there was no previous charge
against him, and thinking that the act of having spoken to the Juiz
could not be punished as a crime. In this he was mistaken. The governor
of Marvam was a worthy instrument of the French. He not only arrested
Matos, but his father also, an old man who was dragged from his bed,
where he lay in a fit of the gout, to be thrown into a Portugueze
prison; and a physician, whom he suspected of being concerned in the
scheme of an insurrection. This news reached the Juiz; it was added,
that his own property had been sequestered, he himself outlawed, and
all persons forbidden to harbour him, and that a French escort had
arrived to carry the three prisoners to Elvas. He could not endure to
think that he should be, however innocently, the occasion of their
death, and therefore determined to attempt at least their deliverance
at any hazard. It was not difficult to find companions at a time when
all usual occupations were at a stand, and every man eager to be in
action against an odious enemy. With a few Spanish volunteers he
crossed the frontier, and there raised the peasantry, who knew and
respected him: with this force he proceeded to a point upon the road
between Marvam and Elvas; the escort had passed, ... but he had the
satisfaction to learn that it had not gone for the prisoners, only
to bring away the ammunition and spike the guns. This raised their
spirits; they directed their course to Marvam, climbed the walls during
the night, opened the prison, seized the governor, and without the
slightest opposition from two hundred Portugueze troops, whom he had
just obtained from Elvas to secure the place, and who, if they knew
what was passing, did not choose to notice it, the adventurers returned
to Valencia in triumph with their friends, and with the governor
prisoner. The Junta of Valencia did not now hesitate, in conformity to
an order from Badajoz, to give the Juiz regular ♦JUNE 26.♦ assistance;
he entered Marvam in triumph with this auxiliary force, and the Prince
Regent was proclaimed there by the rejoicing inhabitants, at the very
time when Beja was in flames. A few ♦INSURRECTION AT CAMPO-MAYOR.♦
days afterwards a Spanish detachment from Albuquerque entered
Campo-Mayor with the same ♦JULY 2.♦ facility. Some jealousies which
arose there, as well as at Marvam, from the inconsiderate conduct of
the Spanish officers in issuing orders as if they were in their own
territories, were put an end to by the formation of a Junta, of which
the Spanish commander at Campo-Mayor was made president. The example
of these places was immediately followed at Ouguela, Castello de
Vide, Arronches, and Portalegre; and the insurrection thus extended
throughout all that ♦NEVES, III. 337–360.♦ part of the province which
is to the north of Elvas.
♦MEASURES OF THE FRENCH.♦
Junot meantime was in a state of great anxiety at Lisbon. It was not
known what was become of Maransin and the troops in Algarve; there was
no news of Loison; the insurrection in the north had reached Coimbra,
and was spreading in Estremadura, and there was a report, probable
enough to obtain credit, that an expedition of 10,000 English was
off the bar. He called a ♦JUNE 28.♦ council, at which the generals
of division, Comte de Laborde and Travot, were present, the chief of
the staff, General Thiebault, Baron de Margaron, and other officers.
The result of their conference was, that the army should be collected
in and near Lisbon, leaving garrisons in only the three important
places of Almeida, Elvas, and Peniche; that Setubal and the left bank
of the Tagus should be maintained as long as possible; that when the
English appeared they should occupy in succession three positions; one
from Leiria to Ourem and Thomar; a second from ♦THIEBAULT, RELATION,
128.♦ Santarem to Rio-Mayor, Obidos, and Peniche; lastly, one from
Saccavem to Cintra: finally, that they should defend Lisbon till the
utmost extremity, and only leave it to retire upon Elvas, rest the
troops there, and then force their way either to Madrid, Segovia, or
Valladolid. In ♦1808. JULY.♦ pursuance of this resolution, Kellermann
was summoned from Alem-Tejo, and courier after courier dispatched to
recall Loison from Beira. Junot’s next measure was to put the church
plate ♦OBSERVADOR PORTUGUEZ, 321.♦ which he had secured in a portable
form, and for this purpose what there was no time for coining was
melted into ingots. To counteract the rumours, true and false, by
which the Portugueze were encouraged, it was affirmed that Napoleon
had entered Spain, and that 20,000 men had reached the frontiers of
Portugal to reinforce the French. Alarmed and harassed by contradictory
rumours, and dreading from the temper of the people an insurrection,
which would be punished by a massacre, many families removed from
Lisbon; those who had country estates to their _Quintas_, the greater
number to the different ♦OBSERVADOR PORTUGUEZ, 343. N.♦ places on the
opposite side of the river, particularly ♦JULY 1.♦ Almada and Casilhas.
They were however ordered to return; every head of a family who did not
within four days obey this order was to be arrested, and all persons
were prohibited from leaving Lisbon, unless they were provided with a
passport from the police, ... an institution to which the Portugueze at
this time applied the name of the Inquisition. It was of importance,
the decree said, that good citizens should be secured against the
ridiculous rumours which were promulgated, and that all notions of
danger to the city of Lisbon should be put an end to; the French army
would know how to maintain tranquillity there. This, however, was less
a measure of policy than of extortion; those families who had retired
were made to pay, in proportion to their means, for permission to
remain where they were. They who had nothing to ♦OBSERVADOR PORTUGUEZ,
345.♦ give suffered the whole inconvenience of this oppressive law.
♦THEY ENDEAVOUR TO AVAIL THEMSELVES OF THE CLERGY’S INFLUENCE.♦
The French commander tried to suppress the national feeling by the
influence of religion. In the village of Varatojo, near Torres Vedras,
there was a famous seminary for itinerant preachers of the Franciscan
order, instituted by Fr. Antonio das Chagas, a man remarkable alike for
his genius, for the profligacy of his youth, and the active, austere,
enthusiastic piety of his after life. Junot sent for the Guardian
of this seminary, requiring his immediate attendance; the old man,
in strict adherence to the rule of his order, which forbade him to
travel by any other means, obeyed the summons on foot, and arrived
four-and-twenty hours later than the time appointed. He was then
ordered to dispatch some of his preachers, as men who possessed great
authority over the people, to Leiria and into Alem-Tejo, to preach
the duty of submission and tranquil obedience. The Guardian excused
himself by representing that his brethren who were qualified for such
a mission were already on their circuits, and that there were then in
the seminary none but youths engaged in preparing for the ministry,
and old men, who, being past all service, rested there ♦NEVES, IV.
61–63.♦ from their labours, in expectation of their release. ♦JULY 2.♦
The dignitaries of the patriarchal church could not so well evade
his commands; a pastoral letter was obtained from them denouncing
excommunication against all persons who should, directly or indirectly,
either by writing, speaking, or acting, encourage the spirit of
insurrection which had gone abroad. This was sent into the provinces,
with a letter from the French intendant of police, Lagarde, in which
the clergy ♦JULY 4.♦ and the heads of convents were informed, that
wherever public tranquillity might be disturbed, they would be held
responsible, because no disturbance would break out if they exerted
themselves to prevent it, as the true spirit of religion required.
The fate of Beja, he said, should be that of every city in Portugal
which should have the guilty imprudence to revolt against the Emperor,
now the sole sovereign of that country. And he asked the Portugueze,
wherefore they would bring upon themselves the heavy weight of power
at a moment when the Almighty authority (such was the blasphemous
expression) thought only of putting in oblivion the rights of conquest,
and of governing with mildness? Is it, said he, before a few handfuls
of factious men ♦OBSERVADOR PORTUGUEZ, 348–353.♦ in Portugal that the
star of the great Napoleon is to be obscured, or the arm of one of his
most valiant and skilful captains to be deadened? Deeply as the baneful
superstition of the Romish church has rooted itself in that country,
the threat of excommunication excited nothing but contempt. The French
could not derive any assistance from ecclesiastical interference while
it was remembered that they had robbed the churches.
♦INSURRECTION AT THOMAR.♦
It is not extraordinary that the intrusive government should have
failed to deceive the people by its addresses; but that it should have
attempted so to do; that it should have talked of benefits intended
and conferred upon a nation on whom it had brought such wide and
general misery, and inflicted injuries as unprovoked as they were
enormous, indicated indeed an effrontery of which none but the agents
of Buonaparte were capable. Their insolent language exasperated the
Portugueze. One of these papers was lying upon a tradesman’s counter
in Thomar, and one of their very few partizans vindicated the manner
in which the Prince was there spoken of, saying, that the country was
now rid of him and of the Inquisition. A Franciscan who was present
immediately took a knife from his sleeve, and struck it through the
paper into the board, saying, that in that manner he would serve any
one who dared speak against his Prince and his religion: and producing
a pistol, he was only withheld by force from giving murderous proof
of his sincerity. An information was laid against him, and a party of
Portugueze soldiers sent from Abrantes to arrest him: he absconded in
time, and the Guardian of the convent, who was suspected of favouring
his escape, was taken in his stead. Before they could carry him out of
the ♦NEVES, IV. 3–8.♦ town, the people rose and rescued him, and the
restoration of the legitimate government was proclaimed with the same
ceremonies as in other places.
♦INSURRECTION AT LEIRIA.♦
About the same time a handful of students from Coimbra, collecting
volunteers as they went, spread the insurrection at Condeixa, Ega, and
Pombal, and approached Leiria, from which city a small party of the
French retired before them. This place was within easy reach of the
enemy, and troops, arms, and ammunition were wanting to defend it. The
people sent to Coimbra for all, as if Coimbra could supply either: the
Bishop exerted himself to forward the preparations; and the people
mustered tumultuously with that confidence which an ignorant multitude
always feels of its own untried strength. The French had some small
garrisons upon the coast, about twenty miles off, in the little forts
of Nazareth, S. Giam, and S. Martinho, which communicated with each
other by telegraphs, and drew rations every day from the adjoining
country. The Juiz of Pederneira was compelled to furnish these; in
this time of alarm he was called upon to store them with a convenient
stock beforehand, and because this was not, and could not be done in a
few hours, they began to pillage the neighbourhood. Provoked at this,
the fishermen fell upon a ♦SUCCESS OF THE INSURGENTS AT NAZARETH.♦
Frenchman, who was going with dispatches from S. Martinho to Nazareth,
and murdered him, crying, Down with the French! The sentinel at the
signal-post had the same fate ... the signal-post was broken, and
the country round about was presently in insurrection. The enemy
withdrew from S. Giam and S. Martinho, having hastily spiked two guns
at the former place, and buried two barrels of powder. They fell back
upon a detachment under General Thomieres, which watched the country
between the Caldas, Obidos, and Peniche. Nazareth was blockaded by
the insurgents; the report was, that a considerable Spanish army had
arrived at Leiria, and incredible as this was, it was believed, and
gave full confidence to these ignorant and zealous people. They sent
thither for assistance, and the Coimbra students came with a party of
peasants, those who could muster the best arms. The cannon were brought
from S. Giam, and rendered serviceable; the two barrels of powder were
discovered; a Portugueze artilleryman escaped from the fort to join
his countrymen, and direct their operations; and the French, finding
themselves now in serious danger, capitulated ♦JULY 5.♦ to save their
lives. The victorious students and their party were far advanced on
their ♦NEVES, IV. 14–30.♦ return to Leiria, when they heard news of
that miserable city, which rendered it necessary for them to strike
into the pine forest, and conduct their prisoners by unfrequented ways
to Figueira.
♦MARGARON APPROACHES LEIRIA.♦
General Margaron had been sent from Lisbon with between 4000 and 5000
men, to check the progress of the insurrection in Estremadura, and
learn some intelligence of Loison, from whom nothing had been heard
for a considerable time. Though the disposition of the people was
every where the same, they were kept down by the presence or by the
neighbourhood of the enemy, every where within reach of the capital;
and he met with no opposition till he approached Leiria. That city,
which is the most considerable place on the road to Coimbra, is built
upon the little rivers Liz and Lena, in a beautiful country, an hundred
miles from Lisbon. It is believed to have been built from the ruins of
Colippo, a Lusitanian city which the Romans destroyed; and it has been
asserted, that Sertorius planted a colony there whom he brought from
Liria in Spain. Affonso Henriquez fortified it as a strong hold against
the Moors, who then possessed Santarem, and recovered it after they had
captured it. Some of his successors occasionally resided there, and
its fine castle was enlarged and beautified by Queen St. Isabel, wife
of the magnificent King Diniz. At the beginning of the last century
it contained 900 houses and 2150 communicants. Its population had
increased, and might at this time have been estimated at about 5000.
The adjacent country has been made the scene of pastoral romance by
Francisco Rodriguez Lobo, for which it is precisely adapted by its wild
yet beautiful and peaceful character.
♦PREPARATION FOR DEFENCE.♦
The people of Leiria and the peasantry who had collected there had
had little time for preparation when they heard that the French were
approaching. They had paraded through their streets the banner of the
city, bearing for its device a crow upon a pine tree; in memory of one
which, when Affonso Henriquez attacked the city, perched there in the
midst of his camp, and clapped its wings and croaked in a manner that
was accepted as a good omen. They had proclaimed the Prince, restored
and repainted the royal arms, and assisted at the performance of _Te
Deum_ in the cathedral; but school-boys in a rebellion could not have
been more unprepared with any plan of defence, or unprovided with
means for it. They were in an open city. They had not a single piece
of cannon. Of some 800 men who were stationed at outposts and other
points of danger, scarcely a fourth part were armed with muskets, and
for these three or four round of cartridges were all that could be
found. To persons unacquainted with the character and condition of the
Portugueze it might appear almost incredible that resistance should
have been attempted under circumstances thus absolutely hopeless.
But the people were goaded by insult, and stung by the feeling of
insupportable wrong. They had been wantonly invaded, ... grievously,
inhumanly, and remorselessly oppressed. They knew that the nation
was rising against its oppressors: they felt instinctively what
the strength of a nation is; and were too ♦NEVES, IV. 31–36.♦ much
exasperated to consider, or too little informed to understand, that
without order and discipline numbers are of little avail, and even
courage not to be relied on.
♦THE FRENCH ENTER THE CITY.♦
The higher orders were perfectly sensible of their imminent danger,
but they would have exposed themselves to certain destruction if
they had attempted to reason with the infuriated multitude. The
magistrates therefore, and the person who had been appointed to the
command, withdrew secretly from the city during the night, and fled.
In the morning five Frenchmen, who had been surprised upon a marauding
party, were ♦JULY 5.♦ brought in prisoners. A short-lived and senseless
exultation was excited at their appearance. At noon it was known that
the enemy were close at hand; they sent forward a peasant who had
fallen into their hands, and whom, contrary to their custom, they had
spared, to offer pardon to the people if they would return to their
obedience; that offer being refused, they attacked the insurgents. By
their own account the resistance was so momentary, that there was no
time for the artillery, nor for half the troops to take part in the
action. The insurgents threw away their arms, like terrified villagers,
imploring the clemency of an irritated conqueror. From 800 to 900 were
left upon the field. The city was ♦3d BULLETIN. OBSERVADOR PORTUGUEZ,
357. THIEBAULT, 143.♦ entered on all sides. But, by their own
account, the moment the action was over, General Margaron restrained
the indignation of his troops; their moderation was equal to their
valour, and victory was immediately followed by order. Margaron, in a
proclamation to the inhabitants, dwelt upon his clemency. “A decree had
been issued,” he said, “commanding that every town where the French
were fired upon should be burnt, and its inhabitants put to the sword.”
They had incurred that penalty, and his duty required him to inflict
it. Nevertheless he had prevented the massacre and the conflagration;
not a house, not a cottage had been burnt; he had protected their
persons and their property, as far as was possible under such
circumstances; and instead of seeking for the guilty, he repeated
to them his offers of peace and union. He called upon them to learn
who were their real friends, and ♦THIEBAULT, PIÈCES JUSTIFICATIVES,
NO. 10.♦ lay aside their arms. “Leave,” said he, “the noble task of
protecting and defending you to the soldiers of the great nation.
Submit yourselves to the power which Heaven supports, and obey our holy
church as I do, ... you in renouncing your projects of exterminating
the French, I in forgiving all that you have done against them.”
♦MASSACRE OF THE PRISONERS.♦
♦NEVES, IV. 48.♦
This is what the French relate of their conduct at Leiria. “Sepulchres
of Leiria,” exclaims the Portugueze historian of these events, “prove
ye the falsehood with which these robbers, as cruel as they are
perfidious, have deceived the world!” What they have not related is now
to be recorded. It is not dissembled by the Portugueze that the defence
was as feeble and as momentary as the enemy describe it. They entered
the city on all sides, and began an indiscriminate butchery; old and
young, women and babes, were butchered, in the streets, in the houses,
in the churches, in the fields. The most atrocious acts of cruelty were
committed, and not by the common soldiers only. One of the superior
officers related of himself, that a feeling of pity came over him when
upon entering the town he met a woman with an infant at her breast,
but calling to mind that he was a soldier, he pierced mother and child
with one thrust! Free scope was given to every ♦MEMOIR OF THE EARLY
CAMPAIGNS OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON, P. 8.♦ abominable passion; and in
the general pillage the very graves were opened, upon the supposition
that treasure might have been hidden there, as in a place where no
plunderer would look to find it. When the slaughter in the streets had
ceased, they began to hunt for prisoners, and all who were found were
taken to an open space before the Chapel of S. Bartholomew, there to
be put to death like the prisoners at Jaffa. The greater number of
these poor wretches fell on their knees, some stretching their hands
in unavailing agony toward their murderers for mercy; others, lifting
them to heaven, directed their last prayers where mercy would be found.
The murderers, ♦NEVES, IV. 37–42.♦ as if they delighted in the act of
butchery, began their work with the sword and bayonet and the but-end
of the musket, and finished it by firing upon their [16]victims.
♦LOISON’S MARCH FROM ALMEIDA TO ABRANTES.♦
On the same day actions of the same devilish character were committed
by Loison’s division on their way from Almeida. Leaving a garrison
of 1250 men in that place, and having blown up the works of Fort
Conception, he set out towards Lisbon, in pursuance to the orders
which he had received, with between 3000 and 4000 troops. The next
day he approached the city of Guarda; it happened to be Sunday, and
also the annual festival of Queen St. Isabel, whose name, stripped
of all fable and idolatrous observances, deserves always to be held
in dear and respectful remembrance by the Portugueze. The assemblage
of people was therefore much greater than at other times; but they
were assembled to keep holyday, not to provide for their defence.
A Junta had been constituted there two days before; and with that
miscalculation of strength, or ignorance of the state of things, which
prevailed so generally among their countrymen, they seem not to have
considered themselves as in danger of an attack till Loison was within
two miles of the city. An old iron gun, rusty and dismantled, and lying
useless in the ruins of the castle, was their whole artillery; ... a
few peasants mounted it upon a cart, and so carried it to a rising
ground near the road, as if the sight of it would deter the French from
advancing. According to the ♦BULLETIN 4. OBSERVADOR PORTUGUEZ,
366.♦ French official account, the rebels, as they insolently styled
the Portugueze, drew up in two ♦THIEBAULT, 153.♦ lines, having their
flanks well supported, and two pieces of cannon to protect their
centre; their lines were forced at all points, their guns taken,
themselves surrounded as well as routed; the disorder was general, the
slaughter dreadful; more than a thousand dead were left upon the field,
and Loison in pursuit of the fugitives entered the city. The truth is,
that a disorderly multitude fled as soon as they were attacked; and
that, as all who could not escape were cut down, the number of the
slain has not perhaps been much exaggerated. A night of licentiousness
and pillage followed, and Loison then proceeded. The ancient and
flourishing town of Covilham escaped a similar visitation, because
it lay somewhat out of the line of his march, and he had no time to
spare. Alpedrinha, a place containing between two and three thousand
inhabitants, was not so fortunate. On the same day that Margaron
entered Leiria, and with as little resistance, General Charlot entered
this ♦JULY 5.♦ unhappy town; that General was one of the few commanders
who had hitherto obtained a character for honour and humanity, ...
here, however, all horrible crimes and cruelties were committed; one
inoffensive old man was taken out of the town, and burnt alive within
sight and hearing of the fugitives upon the mountains; and the French,
having carried off every thing ♦NEVES, IV. 77.♦ that was portable,
set the place on fire. They proceeded, plundering as they went, by
Sarzedas, Cortiçada, and Sardoal to Abrantes.
♦LANGUAGE OF THE FRENCH BULLETINS.♦
The French stated in their bulletin that they had lost upon their
march twenty killed, and from thirty to forty wounded, whereas the
rebels had left at least three thousand upon the different fields
of battle[17]. The character of the intrusive government would be
imperfectly understood hereafter, if its language as well as its
acts were not faithfully recorded. The bulletin which announced this
statement to the Portugueze, and to that great portion of the civilized
world in which the events of the war were anxiously observed, proceeded
to say, “this is the mournful result of a frenzy which nothing can
justify, which nothing can excuse, and which obliges us to multiply
the number of victims who excite sorrow and compassion, but upon
whom a terrible necessity compels us to inflict the strokes of just
vengeance. Thus it is that the Portugueze people, blind instruments
of the unfeeling calculations of the British cabinet, destroy with
their own hands the happiness which we with all our power were
endeavouring to make them enjoy! Thus it is that from the bosom of
tranquillity, of good order, and of repose, they draw upon themselves
the destructive scourge of war, and bring devastation even upon the
very fields where God had given abundance! Thus it is that deluded
men, ungrateful children as well as guilty citizens, change all the
claims which they had to the benevolence and protection of government,
for deserved misfortune and wretchedness, ruin their families, carry
desolation, flames, and death, into their dwellings, transform
flourishing cities into heaps of ashes and vast tombs, and by their
fatal union draw upon the whole country the calamities which they
provoke, which they deserve, and from which (weak victims as they are)
they cannot escape, covering themselves with shame, and completing her
destruction. Thus it is that no other resource remains to them than
the clemency of those whom they sought to assassinate, ... a clemency
which they do not implore in vain, when, acknowledging their crime,
they ask pardon from the French, who, incapable of belying their
noble character, are ♦BULLETIN 4. OBSERVADOR PORTUGUEZ, 368.♦
always as full of generosity as of valour.” This was the [18]language
of Buonaparte’s governor in Portugal! “To be the victim,” says Mr.
Wordsworth, commenting upon these things and words at the time, in
that strain of profoundest feeling and philosophy by which his higher
compositions are so eminently distinguished, “to be the victim of such
bloody-mindedness, is a doleful lot for a nation; and the anguish must
have been rendered still more poignant by the scoffs and insults,
and by that heinous contempt of the most awful truths, with which
the perpetrator of those cruelties has proclaimed them. Merciless
ferocity is an evil familiar to our thoughts; but these combinations
of malevolence historians have not yet been called upon to record;
and writers of fiction, if they have ever ventured to create passions
resembling them, have confined, out of reverence for the acknowledged
constitution of human nature, those passions to reprobate spirits. Such
tyranny is, in the strictest sense, intolerable; not because it aims at
the extinction of life, but of every thing which gives life its value,
... of virtue, of reason, of repose in God, or in truth.”
♦LOISON ORDERED TOWARDS COIMBRA.♦
Loison, for the sake of intimidating the country, and thereby
preventing the danger of such resistance as he had experienced in Tras
os Montes, had sent before him a report that he had been reinforced
by 16,000 men from the army of Marshal Bessieres; and this news was
officially transmitted to Junot by the Corregedor of Abrantes. At
first the French received the tidings with entire belief, and with a
joy proportionate to the danger from which they now thought themselves
delivered. A comparison of dates and distances occasioned some
uncomfortable doubts, and the next day advices came that Loison had
arrived at Abrantes with no other force than his own. But even this was
of no inconsiderable importance: it relieved them from their anxiety
concerning him, it brought the whole of their disposable force within
reach and within command, for Kellermann had now arrived with the
troops from Alem-Tejo; and Junot determined upon striking a great blow
before the English should appear. Kellermann had been sent to Alcobaça,
where the troops under General Thomières, who covered Peniche, and
those of Margaron (who had received the submission of the people of
Thomar, and exacted from them ♦NEVES, IV. 64.♦ 20,000 cruzados) were
to be under his orders. Loison was now instructed to form a junction
with them and take the command; crush the insurgents in that part of
the country, march against Coimbra, subdue and chastise that city, thus
quenching one great furnace of the insurrection, ♦THIEBAULT, 146.♦ and
return to Lisbon. Before he reached Alcobaça part of these instructions
had been fulfilled by Thomières.
♦NAZARETH SACKED AND BURNT BY THE FRENCH.♦
That General had advanced with a few hundred men to Obidos, with the
intention of relieving the fort at Nazareth; but a reconnoitring
party which he sent forward to Barquinha was driven back, four of his
scouts were made prisoners and sent on board an English vessel, and a
report that a considerable body of English had landed there to assist
the insurgents deterred him from proceeding in time. The Portugueze
themselves raised this report; in reality they had applied for aid
to the English, who, some time before, had taken possession of the
Berlengs; a few pieces of cannon were given them, but the garrison was
so scanty that no men could be spared; and the short respite which
they obtained by deceiving the enemy would have been better employed
in providing for escape, than for a feeble and disorderly resistance.
Nine days after their triumph Thomières proceeded against them ♦JULY
14.♦ with 3000 men, in the belief that some English had joined them.
One column, under cover of the darkness, got under the ill-served guns
of the insurgents before they were perceived; the Portugueze fired
in haste without aim and without effect, and then took to flight. A
few drunken fellows, who had undertaken to serve the guns, remained
by them, with a woman and a few old men, and these were put to death.
The town of Nazareth was sacked, and set on fire. The jewels which
they took from the church of N. Senhora de Nazareth were estimated at
more than £20,000; for of the innumerable and many-named idols of Our
Lady in Portugal, this was the most celebrated. It is the very image
which, according to the legend, St. Jerome sent from Bethlehem to St.
Augustine, and St. Augustine to his monks at the Caulian monastery,
from whence, at the destruction of the Goths, it was brought by King
Roderick and Romano to this spot. It is said, that during the last
century the idol has sometimes been visited by not less than 20,000
devotees on the day of its festival. The enemy then descending to the
beach, burnt the lower town, consisting of some 300 houses, of which
only four escaped the flames; they burnt also the nets and vessels,
upon which the inhabitants, ♦NEVES, IV. 84–87.♦ being fishermen,
depended for their subsistence: they then plundered Pederneira, and set
it on fire, and returned with their booty to Alcobaça[19].
♦A JUNTA ESTABLISHED AT BEJA.♦
Loison having taken the command, proceeded, in pursuance of his
instructions, towards Coimbra; but he had hardly got beyond Leiria when
he was recalled, in consequence of an alteration in Junot’s plans,
which the events in Alem-Tejo had rendered necessary. In the north of
that province the insurrection was spreading far and wide, while Beja
was in flames; and when Kellermann marched for Lisbon, leaving only a
garrison in Elvas, it spread with equal rapidity in the south. Beja
had not been destroyed by the fire; houses with little furniture and
little wood-work are not easily burnt. The Corregedor returned there
from Ayamonte with a supply of arms; a Junta was formed, which assumed
great authority, and acted with unusual promptitude and vigour. Men
were raised, the regular taxes claimed in the name of the rightful
government, and a detachment under Sebastiam Martins Mestre, who had
taken an active part in Algarve, was sent to guard against the French
at Setubal, by forming a cordon to guard the river Sadam. Having raised
a few men for this purpose in the districts of Grandolo and Santiago
de Cacem, he proceeded to Alcacer do Sal, established a Junta there,
and brought four iron guns from Melides for the defence of this town,
a point of great importance to the province while there was an enemy’s
force ♦NEVES, IV. 92–95.♦ at Setubal: Setubal and Palmella were the
only places which they now occupied on that side the Tagus.
♦JUNTA OF ESTREMOZ.♦
Lobo meantime, leaving Moretti in Jurumenha, formed Juntas at Borba
and at Villa-Viçosa, where he placed the palace and park upon their
former establishment. These Juntas readily acknowledged the supremacy
of Estremoz, where one was at this time formed, which endeavoured
to make its authority recognized as supreme in Alem-Tejo, and was
supported in its pretensions by the Spanish government at Badajoz.
The claim was admitted by all the smaller places in the surrounding
country, but not at Beja nor at Campo-Mayor, in which latter place
considerable activity had been displayed. Instead of doubling the
soldiers’ pay, which had been rashly done at Porto, the officers who
assembled at Campo-Mayor resolved that those whose means rendered
it possible should serve for half-pay, or without pay; they raised
loans and donatives, levied a third of the rent upon the entailed
estates, and took from the property of the church contributions in
kind; and having thus acquired considerable funds, they undertook, and
for a time sustained, the improvident expense of paying their Spanish
allies. The ready obedience shown to its authority, when these imposts
were demanded, and the power which it derived from the distribution
of the money thus raised, gave the Junta of Campo-Mayor exaggerated
notions of its own importance, and when tidings arrived that a Junta
of higher or equal pretensions had been formed at Estremoz, that of
Campo-Mayor sent to propose a reciprocal alliance, as if one sovereign
power were treating with another. But in reply a paper in the form of a
decree was sent, declaring, that the primacy of the Junta of Estremoz
should be acknowledged by all others in the province, because of the
position of that place, and because it was a fortified town; that the
members of that Junta should have the title of Highness, because they
represented the august person of the Sovereign; and that there should
be a subordinate Junta in every town, and one deputy from each sent as
a representative to assist in the Supreme Junta of Estremoz. Obedience
♦NEVES, IV. 92–116.♦ to this decree was required from Campo-Mayor, till
a Supreme Junta should be established, as it was about to be, at Evora,
whither head-quarters were to be removed.
The transfer of the supreme provincial authority to Evora was
concerted by Moretti and by the Portugueze General Francisco de
Paula Leite, who had refused to concur in the first hasty tumult at
Villa-Viçosa, but who now, when the insurrection had become general
throughout the province, felt himself bound to resume the charge
with which the Prince Regent had intrusted ♦A SUPREME JUNTA FORMED
AT EVORA.♦ him. The object of this transfer seems to have been a
persuasion, that as Evora was the most populous city in the province,
and the seat of the Archbishop, its authority would at once be
acknowledged, and all disputes for precedency, which might otherwise
prove so prejudicial to the common cause, would thus be terminated.
This object was effected: in other respects the measure was incautious,
and contrary to the judgement of the most judicious inhabitants; for
when Moretti had by letter proposed it to them, they replied, that the
richest city of Alem-Tejo, lying as it did so near Elvas, ought not to
declare itself, unless it could reckon upon a force of 8000 men for its
defence. It was not that the will was wanting; this General Leite knew;
and without farther demur, he and Moretti and Lobo, with ♦JULY 20.♦
200 foot soldiers and 100 cavalry, entered Evora. They were received
with enthusiasm; a Junta was formed under two presidents, Leite being
one, and the Archbishop, D. Fr. Manoel do Cenaculo Villas Boas, the
other, a man then in extreme old age, distinguished for his erudition
and his exemplary virtues. Circular letters were dispatched to all the
other Juntas in Alem-Tejo, requiring a recognition, and the troops
which had been embodied were ordered to Evora. Before the new machine
of government could be ♦NEVES, IV. 118–126.♦ put in motion, Loison had
crossed the Tagus on his way to destroy it.
♦LOISON SENT INTO ALEM-TEJO.♦
Notwithstanding the contempt with which the French government, and its
agents in Portugal, regarded the Portugueze, Junot knew how easily
brave men might be made good soldiers, under due instruction; and he
seems to have apprehended, that better officers would be found to train
and command them than either Portugal or Spain at that time could
supply. He apprehended that the force in Alem-Tejo would soon become
strong enough not only to seize Setubal, but to occupy the heights
of Almada, and render useless all the batteries on the left bank of
the Tagus; while at the same time another division of their troops,
acting higher up the river, would co-operate with the insurgents from
Coimbra. To prevent this combination, he resolved to attack the weaker
and nearer body first. For this purpose Loison had been recalled from
Leiria, Solignac and Margaron were placed under his command, with
5000 men, and it was thought, that after quelling the insurgents
in Alem-Tejo, he might send a supply of food to Lisbon, especially
of meat, ... victual Elvas, strike a blow against the Spaniards at
Badajoz, and then, recrossing the Tagus at Santarem or Abrantes,
proceed against Coimbra; operations from which, at any time, in case
of need, he could speedily turn back to join the main body of the
French at Lisbon. There was, in fact, so little combination ♦THIEBAULT,
156.♦ among the Portugueze at this time, that the insurgents in the
northern provinces, and those in Alem-Tejo, knew nothing whatever of
each other’s proceedings, and the first news which reached the latter
of the insurrection at Porto was communicated to the people of Sines by
an English frigate.
♦HE ADVANCES AGAINST EVORA.♦
The first tidings of Loison’s movement which reached Evora were, that
he had crossed the Tagus, and was in full march towards that city. No
time was lost in transmitting this from Aldea Gallega; any previous
intelligence had been rendered impossible by the secrecy with which
the French prepared their measures. Moretti applied for reinforcements
to Badajoz; orders were sent for the forces from Campo-Mayor and the
other places in the north of the province, to hasten to Evora, and
General Galluzo was requested to occupy the posts which would be left
unprotected by their absence; but no assistance came from Badajoz, and
Galluzo, instead of acting as was expected, forbade the Portugueze to
leave Campo-Mayor. An advanced guard of 700 men had been stationed at
Montemor o Novo, twenty miles from the city. General Leite ordered 400
men to reinforce this post. They met the corps which they had been sent
to support in full retreat, the commander, not knowing that succours
were on the way to him, having thought himself too weak to await[20]
an attack. Instead of deriving confidence or hope from the meeting,
they hastened to Evora, and entered the city in alarm, exclaiming that
they were betrayed. That cry, in such miserable times, is sure to be
eagerly taken up. The people had been assured that the French who were
coming against them did not exceed 800 men; this had been said either
in a most erroneous policy, to keep up the spirits of the inhabitants,
by deceiving them as to the extent of their danger; or more probably in
good faith, all ranks being credulous in believing what they wished;
the natural effect, when the truth now became known, was to give the
populace apparent ground for believing the vague charge of treason;
their tumultuous movements were with difficulty suppressed, and the
Corregedor found himself so marked an object of suspicion, that,
in the hope of securing himself, he secretly left the city. Order
being in some degree restored, piquets of cavalry and patroles were
stationed for the night. In the morning a company of Miquelets arrived
from Villa-Viçosa (that term having been borrowed from the Catalans),
and the legion of Foreign Volunteers in the Spanish service, under
Sargento-Mor D. Antonio Maria Gallego: both came by forced marches;
the latter had left Jurumenha the preceding evening, a distance of
four-and-forty miles. With these succours the whole force collected
then amounted to 1770 ♦NEVES, IV. 126–131.♦ men, of whom about half
were regular troops, the others being volunteers newly-raised and
undisciplined.
♦EVORA.♦
The city of Evora is so ancient, that fabulous history has laid its
foundation more than two thousand years before the Christian era.
Certain it is, that it was a flourishing city in the days of Viriatus.
Sertorius chose it for his residence; some of the buildings with which
he adorned it are still remaining, and the inhabitants are still
supplied with water by his aqueduct, which Joam III. repaired. Cæsar
made it a municipal town, and from him it was called Liberalitas Julia.
Under the Visigoths it continued to flourish, and Sisebut coined
money there. It was recovered from the Moors in the reign of Affonso
Henriquez, the first king, by the romantic enterprise of Giraldo
the Fearless, then an outlaw. King Fernando rebuilt or repaired its
walls; and Cardinal Henrique founded an university and established an
Inquisition there; but the university had been suppressed. In the war
of the Restoration it was besieged and taken by D. Juan de Austria,
but it was soon recovered, and the Spaniards in retreating toward
their own frontier suffered one of the most signal defeats which they
sustained during that long contest. Its population, once amounting
to 40,000, had declined to about half that number at the beginning
of the eighteenth century; since which time it had varied so little,
that there had neither been any apparent diminution nor increase. The
city was populous enough to have defeated the force which was now
marching against it, if it had been prepared for a Zaragozan defence.
There is courage enough for any thing in the Portugueze character; but
that individual and commanding genius was wanting by which alone the
inhabitants of a large city can be made to act steadily with one will,
and thereby capable of heroic valour. They prepared for a military
defence in the field, which was exposing peasantry and half-disciplined
troops to certain defeat.
♦ACTION BEFORE THE CITY.
JULY 29.♦
About seven in the morning the vedettes announced that the enemy were
in sight, and the Portugueze took their ground in better order than
might have been expected, considering the alarm and insubordination
which had lately prevailed, and the real inequality of the contest.
Their right rested upon the Mill of S. Bento, about a mile from the
city, the centre was posted upon the hill of S. Caetano, the left
rested upon the Quinta dos Cucos. Having reconnoitred this position,
Loison directed General Solignac to attack the enemy’s right, and
Margaron to break the centre with one part of his brigade, while the
other attacked the left; they were to unite behind the city, occupy
the roads to Arrayolos and Estremoz, and thus cut off the fugitives
from all retreat, the cavalry being ready for pursuit upon the right
and left, ... so sure and easy a victory was anticipated. The action
began about eleven. The Portugueze had four four-pounders in their
right wing, one three-pounder in the centre, and two howitzers in
the left; there was no want of artillerymen, and if the other troops
had understood their business and performed their duty like these,
the event might have been doubtful; but the cavalry could not by any
exertion of their commanders be brought into action; they hung back
and retired, while the infantry stood their ground. When the latter
were defeated, instead of flying, as the French had expected, in all
directions, they retreated into the town. The defeat, however, was
thought so irreparable, that General Leite and his staff made the best
of their way to Olivença, and Moretti hastened to the Archbishop, to
bid him provide for saving his own life without delay, in the imminent
danger which threatened it. The venerable prelate calmly told him
in reply, to think of preserving his own, which might yet be useful
and honourable to his country; for himself, he said, the remainder
of his days, few and useless as they needs must be, did not deserve
a thought. The city had five gates, three of which had been walled
up; the breaches which time had made in the walls had also been
closed, but the walls were old and ruinous, and the French forced
their entrance at many points, and then most of the defendants took
flight: ... Moretti and the ♦NEVES, IV. 132–138. OBSERVADOR PORTUGUEZ
382–387. THIEBAULT, 158–165.♦ Spaniards to Jurumenha, the company
from Villa-Viçosa to their own town; others dispersed; time was gained
for them by the resistance which Lieutenant-Colonel Franco made at one
of the gates, and the brave conduct of the foreign volunteers under
[21]Gallego, who fought desperately in the streets, and suffered great
loss.
♦THE CITY TAKEN.♦
The horrors which ensued will be remembered in Portugal while any
record of past times shall be preserved there. Though even a military
pretext was wanting for delivering up the city and the inhabitants
to the will of the soldiers, the whole proceedings of the Portugueze
and their Spanish allies having been those of regular war, to them it
was abandoned. A resolution had been taken in the Junta that those
persons who feared the event should provide for their safety by
retiring in time; ... from some unexplained cause, most probably from
a well-grounded fear that any persons who attempted to remove would
be regarded as traitors by the furious populace, few or none availed
themselves of this ominous warning; when it was too late great numbers
got over the walls, but the French horse surrounded the city, and
showed as little mercy to the fugitives without, as the infantry did
to the ♦INHUMANITY OF THE CONQUERORS.♦ inhabitants within. The convents
and churches afforded no asylum; not those who had borne arms alone,
but children and old men, were massacred, and women were violated and
slaughtered. The lowest computation makes the number of these victims
amount to 900. The clergy and religioners were especial objects of
vengeance: they were literally hunted from their hiding-places like
wild beasts: eight-and-thirty were butchered; among them was the Bishop
of Maranham. The Archbishop’s intercession with Loison obtained only a
promise that a stop should be put to these enormities; no attempt was
made to restrain them that day, nor during the whole night, nor till
eleven on the following morning, and then by an order of the General,
what he called the lawful pillage was declared to be at an end; but
he contented himself with ♦OBSERVADOR PORTUGUEZ, 387. NEVES, IV.
138–142.♦ issuing the order; no means for enforcing it were taken, and
the soldiers continued their abominations till every place had been
ransacked, and their worst passions had been[22] glutted.
♦ALARM AT ESTREMOZ.♦
According to the statement of the French, 8000 of the allies were
killed or wounded in the battle and in the capture of the city, and
4000 made prisoners, the latter being chiefly peasants. Their own loss
they stated at 90 killed, and more than 200 wounded. The intimidation
of that part of the country which was within the immediate reach of
the victors was such as might be expected after such a blow. At the
first rumour that reached Estremoz, the populace became ungovernable;
their first impulse was that of rage, which would willingly have
found any victim on which to sate itself. An officer had just arrived
from Portalegre; they fancied that he had prevented the coming of
some regular troops, which they had looked for; an attempt was made
to murder him in the hall of the Junta, whither he fled for refuge,
and in the presence of the members; and there was no other means of
saving him but by concealing him from the ferocious rabble. Presently
a dispatch came, announcing the total defeat at Evora, the capture
of the city, and the loss of every thing. Such was the temper of the
people, that it was a service of the utmost danger to communicate
this news; and the member who attempted to read the dispatch to them
from a varanda found his life in danger, and drew back. But it was
not possible either to conceal the fatal intelligence or to delay it.
Estremoz would assuredly be the next object of the enemy, and Evora
was only six leagues distant; if they had hitherto dreamt of defending
the town, the fate of Evora was now before their eyes: they knew that
even the unreasonable multitude would feel this near and imminent
danger, though they would not endure to be told of it; and the members
of the Junta determined to take measures for immediate submission. The
melancholy manner with which they passed through the crowd confirmed
the worst apprehensions of the people; and as they went along they
spake each to those persons on whose prudence he could rely, telling
them what had occurred, and what must now of necessity be done; thus
they thought the news might pass from one to another with the least
danger, and every one take such measures for himself as he deemed best.
There was a cry of treason at first, when it was seen that of the three
guns which had been mounted to defend the walls, one was cast into the
ditch, and the other two sent off to Olivença. The Juiz de Fora became
the object of suspicion, and could he have been found at that moment,
would have been murdered; ... so fickle is popular feeling, that this
very man was presently sought for as the ♦NEVES, IV. 145–149.♦ fittest
person to give counsel. A meeting was held, and a messenger deputed to
solicit Loison’s clemency.
♦LOISON PROCEEDS TO ELVAS.♦
Loison received the messenger well, thinking that severity enough had
been shown to secure the submission of Alem-Tejo. He constituted a
provisional government in Evora, at the head of which the Archbishop
was compelled to act, and he set off for Estremoz on the fourth day
♦AUGUST 2.♦ after the action. He raised no contributions there,
permitted no pillage, and paid for every thing which the troops
consumed; he also set at liberty some of his prisoners. But when
he proceeded to Elvas he ordered two Swiss prisoners to be shot,
condemned four others to work in chains for five years, threw the
Spanish commander Gallego into a dungeon, and condemned the Portugueze
Lieut.-Colonel Franco to death, for bearing arms against the French.
The Bishop of Elvas interceded earnestly for this officer, and finding
all intercession vain, concluded by saying, if this favour were refused
him, he had still one to ask, which was, that the General would
sentence him to the same fate, seeing life would be hateful to him if
he could not save his countryman under such circumstances. Loison was
♦1808. AUGUST. NEVES, IV. 149, 156–158. OBSERVADOR PORTUGUEZ, 397.♦
touched at this, and revoked the order for execution. That General
has left a name in Portugal which will be execrated to the latest
generations; here, however, is an instance which evinces some sense of
generosity, as if his heart had not been naturally bad; but it was the
tendency of the Revolution, and of Buonaparte’s system, to make men
wicked whom it did not find so.
♦LOISON ENTERS PORTALEGRE.♦
The less portable part of the plunder of Evora was sold at Elvas, a
sort of fair being held for the purpose; and many persons purchased
church vessels for the sake of restoring them to the altars from whence
they had been taken. Loison made a movement upon Badajoz, and believing
that the troops in that city had been called off to the Spanish armies,
and that his recent success had occasioned great consternation there,
endeavoured to introduce officers under a flag of truce, for the
purpose of observing the state of the place; but they were refused
admittance. The commandant of Elvas, Colonel Miquel, had made himself
odious in that city, especially for executing a German as an emissary
of the Spaniards, the main proof against him being some thirty pieces
of gold which were found in his possession. Some fugitives from
Elvas, with a few comrades from Campo-Mayor, waylaid this commandant
as he went from the city, intending to sleep in Fort La Lippe, for
greater security; they fired upon him and an officer in his company;
the officer escaped, but Miquel lay all night upon the ground, the
soldiers not venturing to seek him in the darkness, and being removed
to Lisbon, he died there of his wounds. ♦HE IS RECALLED TO THE
NEIGHBOURHOOD OF LISBON.♦ This was some days before Loison’s arrival.
That General appointed M. Girod de Novilard of the engineers to succeed
him, and marched upon Portalegre. The Spaniards had already retired
from thence, and the Bishop, with most of the principal persons,
withdrew also in time. The city was plundered, and a contribution of
100,000 cruzados demanded from the district; about 40,000 were raised,
and six persons were carried away as pledges for the remainder. He
then ♦NEVES, IV. 156–164. THIEBAULT, 168–172.♦ marched for Abrantes,
having received dispatches which ordered him to hasten his return
toward Lisbon by that route, it being now certain that an expedition
from England was off the coast.
♦INSUBORDINATION OF THE PEOPLE AT PORTO.♦
Those provinces, meantime, which had not felt the vengeance of the
French were in a state of anarchy. The temporary dissolution of order,
even though no revolutionary opinions were at work, produced evils
little less alarming than the actual presence of the enemy. The cry
of an inflamed multitude is always for blood. The Intendant of Police
at Porto addressed a manly proclamation to the people, reproving them
for eagerly demanding the death of a few suspected persons, who were
already in the hands of justice, and from whom they had nothing to
fear. In the processes against them, he said, there ought to be nothing
precipitate, nothing that could be accused of inhumanity; he must
see that all the proofs of their guilt were brought forward, that
his own honour might suffer no stain. If they were dissatisfied with
him, he would gladly lay down an office which he had never solicited;
more willingly would he accompany his son to the army, than occupy a
station for which, even in quiet times, he should have thought himself
unqualified; and though life was dear to him, he would rather lose
it in the service of his country than in a tumult. But mobs are as
seldom capable of reason as of compunction. It was necessary, for
the sake of preventing wider evils, to accelerate the processes, and
to promise blood. No person, however innocent of any connexion with
the French, however distinguished for his exertions against them,
was safe from suspicion; no place, however sacred, was secure from
search. Upon a report that a suspected person had concealed himself in
a burial-vault, it was proposed to open all the vaults in the church
till he was found. Upon another rumour that he was concealed in a nun’s
habit in a Carmelite nunnery, the mob proposed to break in and examine
the sisterhood. Raymundo exerted himself to prevent this scandalous
outrage. Some one charged him also with treason, and his life was for a
moment in danger. But Raymundo, who knew how little in such times any
popularity, however deserved, was to be trusted, had provided himself
with a crucifix in case of need. He displayed ♦NEVES, IV. 209–224.♦ it
in this emergency, and by an exclamation according with the display,
induced the rabble to join with him in a shout of loyalty, and
succeeded in dissuading them from entering the convent.
♦DESIGN OF A MILITARY USURPATION IN THAT CITY.♦
Even in this early stage of popular commotions a military usurpation is
said to have been projected by Luiz Candido Cordeiro Pinheiro Furtado,
in conjunction with Joam Manoel de Mariz. Both were esteemed good
officers; the latter was a member of the Junta, the former offended
that he had not been nominated, and still more so that another person
had been made commander-in-chief. They designed to erect a military
Junta under their own direction, and they proposed to raise a corps
under the name of the Loyal Porto Legion, of which Candido was to have
the command; the officers were named, the uniform designed, and worn by
Candido with some of his associates; he took to himself also a guard of
honour, which, from a small beginning, was gradually increased, till at
length the armed attendance with which he always appeared in public was
such as to excite reasonable apprehension. The city was in this state
when Bernardim Freire arrived from Coimbra to take upon himself the
command. He was received with great joy by the people; but Luiz Candido
was evidently displeased at his coming, and Bernardim was soon apprised
that a conspiracy was formed against him and against the Junta. He was
careful therefore to keep Candido and Mariz as much about his person as
possible. Among other precautions for preserving tranquillity in the
city, he ordered the guns to be unloaded; persons were not wanting to
represent this as being done with a treacherous design; and a priest,
notorious for irregularities, at the head of a mob seized his bridle,
and exclaimed that the people would have no such General. A dangerous
stir had already begun, when some men of better mind came resolutely
forward; one of them felled the priest to the ground; Bernardim spake
to the crowd in a manner which conciliated their good ♦NEVES, IV.
225–229.♦ will, the priest was thrown into prison, and the day was
closed with an illumination in honour of the General.
♦THE CONSPIRATORS ARE SEIZED.♦
Upon the arrival of D. Miguel Pereira Forjaz to assist his
brother-in-law Bernardim, an attempt was made to establish a military
Junta, in aid of the provisional government, and as a check upon
the designs of Candido and his associates. This, however, proved
ineffectual; and they proceeded so rapidly in organizing an armed
party, that it was deemed necessary to secure Candido and Mariz without
delay, lest the city should become a scene of bloodshed. They were
accordingly summoned to a consultation at the Bishop’s palace, and
there arrested. Their escort, which, as usual, had accompanied them,
began to express displeasure at this; and three of the men entering the
palace, demanded insolently that their commander should be delivered to
them; if he were innocent, they said, they would set him at liberty; if
he were a traitor, they would blow him to pieces from the mouth of a
cannon. These men were secured, and Raymundo, with some other officers
to whom this service had been assigned, disarmed their fellows. The
agitation, however, continued the whole day, though this was at an
early hour; and it was not till after midnight that the prisoners
could be conducted without danger of a rescue to the jail. They were
immediately proceeded against according to the forms of Portugueze law,
and the evidence against them appeared so conclusive, that Candido was
condemned to death, and Mariz to be degraded to Angola. The gallows
accordingly was erected, Candido was led into the oratory to perform
the last religious duties, the brethren of the Misericordia went out
to attend the execution, and the crowd collected to witness it; when,
after a while, it was announced that the two prisoners were removed
to the fortress of S. Joam da Foz, to be embarked for Brazil, and
there placed at the Prince’s disposal. So fickle is a multitude, that
the crowd, which a few days before had almost mutinied because of the
arrest of this man, became riotous now because he was not put to death.
They were pacified by the personal exertions of the Bishop and two of
his dignitaries, and by an official notification that the Junta having
pronounced sentence of death against Luiz Candido upon full proof of a
most ♦NEVES, IV. 229–237.♦ atrocious crime, had thought it proper to
lay the proceedings before the Prince, and remit the criminal to his
mercy.
♦1808. JULY.♦
The populace at Porto were kept in some degree of submission by
the vigorous measures of the provisional government, the respect
which was paid to the episcopal character, and by the influence
which men of property possess in a ♦DISTURBANCES AT BRAGANZA.♦
flourishing commercial town. In remoter parts the local authorities
were weaker, and tumults of the most disgraceful nature occurred.
After the provinces beyond the mountains and between the rivers had
been delivered from their first danger, by the failure of Loison’s
expedition from Almeida, they were more seriously alarmed from the
side of Castille and Leon; and indeed had it not been for the success
of the Spaniards in Andalusia, Junot would probably have received
powerful reinforcements from Marshal Bessieres after the battle of Rio
Seco. The first disturbances arose at Braganza upon a rumour that this
army was approaching. The people gathered together tumultuously, and
when they learnt that no enemies were near, directed their vengeance
against all whom they suspected; and in such times it is in the power
of any wretch, however vile and worthless, to throw suspicion upon
the object of his envy or resentment. The Junta, in hope of appeasing
them, convoked a popular meeting, ... the readiest means of showing
them their power, and teaching them how to abuse it; and the result
was, that most of the members of the Junta were turned out, and such
as the mob thought fit elected in their places. A shoemaker, and the
keeper of a wine-house, who, because he was maimed in one arm, called
himself _o Loison Portuguez_, were the kings of the rabble. The latter
took upon himself the office of general, and was actually obeyed by the
troops. Their chief vengeance was directed against the New-Christians,
for Pombal’s law (the redeeming act of that tyrannical statesman) had
not even in half a century produced a feeling of toleration in the
populace. Any accusation, however preposterous, was believed; they
gutted the house of one man, and threw him into prison, upon a charge
of witchcraft, for having, it was said, made an image of General
Sepulveda, and placed it over the fire in a frying-pan. When the city
had thus continued three days under mob-rule, the magistrates took
courage from despair, arrested the ruling demagogues during the night,
and sent them prisoners to Chaves. Troops came from Villa Real, where
Sepulveda at that time was, and tranquillity was restored; but it was
necessary to gratify the people by making useless preparations for
defence; and the popular opinion was, that nothing but what was right
had been done, that the persons whose property had been destroyed, and
their lives endangered, ♦NEVES, IV. 238–245.♦ deserved the usage they
had suffered, and that the magistrates were bribed by the Jews.
♦THE NEW-CHRISTIANS PLUNDERED AT VILLA NOVA DE FOZ-COA.♦
More serious disturbances occurred at Villa Nova de Foz-Coa, arising
from the same popular intolerance and love of rapine. That town, one of
the most flourishing in Beira Alta, owed in great part its prosperity
to its position at the confluence of the Coa with the Douro. A
considerable trade in silk, and in rice, salt-fish, and other articles
of foreign importation, brought thither by the river from Porto, was
carried on with the adjacent country, and with the Spaniards of the
border. This trade was mostly in the hands of persons who, because they
were of Jewish extraction, were believed by the vulgar to be still
attached in heart to the Mosaic law. The cry of Down with the French,
was coupled here with Kill the Jews; ... their houses were attacked,
their goods plundered, their persons abused, their lives threatened and
seriously endangered, and more than twenty of the wealthiest families
in that country reduced to utter ruin by the complete destruction of
their property. Some of these unhappy persons effected their escape
to Moncorvo; and, because they were protected there, and the Junta
of that town endeavoured to restore order at Villa Nova, hostilities
ensued between the two townships. The evil spread; and if the Junta of
Moncorvo had not arrested during the night some movers of sedition in
their town, and seized also some of the ringleaders from Villa Nova,
who had crossed the Douro, the province of Tras os Montes would soon
have suffered all the evils of civil war, exasperated by a spirit of
fanaticism, such as existed in the worst ages of superstition and
ignorance. The New-Christians were accused of assisting the French
with money, blaspheming God, cursing the Prince, ♦NEVES, IV. 245–263.♦
defiling the crucifix, and finally, of Manicheism! When a judicial
inquiry was afterwards instituted concerning the riots, depositions to
this effect were made against them upon oath!
♦TROUBLES AT VISEU.♦
The troubles at Viseu, though less destructive in their consequences,
assumed a more revolutionary character. The mob insisted upon having
a Juiz do Povo, and elected a demagogue to that office, which had
not before been known among them, which in quiet times is useless,
and in turbulent ones dangerous. Florencio José Correa de Mello, the
general of the province, and the Bishop, a good but timid man, instead
of refusing to acknowledge this tumultuous and illegal appointment,
ratified it by administering an oath to the chosen favourite of the
mob, who from that moment became a person of more authority than either
Bishop or General. The latter offended the military by refusing to
double their pay, as had been so imprudently done at Porto; on this
account they became mutinous, and a riot broke out in the city upon an
absurd report that Loison was come to visit him. The demagogue, who was
lord of the day, obtained from the intimidated Bishop an order for his
arrest, his house was sacked, and he and the Juiz de Fora were thrown
into prison amid the insults of a multitude who knew not what they
did. A meeting of the people was then held, at which the magistrates
were deposed, new ones ♦NEVES, IV. 263–273.♦ appointed, and the Bishop
was declared Generalissimo, with Silveira, who happened to be passing
through Viseu, for his adjutant-general.
Proceedings equally outrageous, and of more perilous tendency,
occurred in the town of Arcos de Val de Vez. The bells in that town
and in the surrounding villages rung the alarm upon a report that
20,000 French had landed at Espozende, and were entering Ponte de Lima.
♦RIOTOUS PROCEEDINGS AT ARCOS DE VAL DE VEZ.♦ A disorderly multitude
collected, and set out in search of the enemy; their courage was easily
roused, and soon spent; for when they had ascertained that the report
was without foundation, and were returning home, they learnt that
a body of men from the north were in possession of their town, and
instead of hastening thither to protect their property, and restore
order, they took to flight, each seeking a place of refuge where he
thought best. The people in fear of whom they fled were peasantry, who,
like themselves, had set out to fight the French, in utter disorder;
hurrying along in scattered parties, some with a soldier for their
leader, some with an abbot, provided neither with ammunition nor bread,
increasing their numbers as they went along, and expecting that the
magistrates were to issue orders for supplying them wherever they
came. The _Vereadores_ exerted themselves to feed this rabble, and be
rid of them; the Juiz de Fora, dismayed at such a visitation, and in
despair of satisfying such visitors, absconded, and his disappearance
was imputed to a consciousness of treason. While they were seeking him
every where, an unlucky messenger entered the town with dispatches
from the Corregedor of Barcellos, and as he happened to have lost an
arm, the senseless multitude took him for Loison; and even when they
had examined his papers were still so possessed with this preposterous
notion, that they placed him in confinement. Another messenger with
letters fell into their hands, and was seized in like manner; and they
were demanding a warrant for the apprehension of the Juiz de Fora,
when he was brought in from the country, by an inhuman rabble, in a
condition which would have excited pity in the poor unthinking wretches
themselves who were his tormentors, if they had beheld him separately,
and if men did not seem to be divested of all compassion when they
act in mobs. With great difficulty they were prevailed upon not to
finish killing him, but to lodge him in prison. Presently the thirst
for blood returned, and they ordered a young priest to go and prepare
him for death. The priest objected that he had not yet received that
order in the church which empowered him to officiate in the sacrament
of confession; upon which they replied, that they ♦NEVES, IV. 279–287.♦
conferred the order. The young man then entered the prison, and with
great presence of mind advised the Juiz to feign himself dead; then
going out, he asked the mob, with a tone of anger, why they had sent
him to confess a man whom they had already killed? They made no farther
inquiry; ... the bells tolled for his death, and by this artifice his
life was saved.
♦THE RABBLE ENACT LAWS.♦
The rabble now took upon themselves to reform the state; they began
by turning out the members of the Camara, throwing the chairs out
of window, demolishing the seat of the Judge, and burning the public
papers. They displaced officers, deposed two or three abbots, and
nominated a Capuchin friar to be their General. They appointed a Junta,
and made laws whereby they abolished the recruiting system, fixed the
prices of milk, meat, and wine, prohibited the exportation of bread,
forbade all processes for debt, suspended all law-suits during the war,
abolished the fees of the parochial priests, and were hardly persuaded
to spare the tithes, and, finally, exempted all tenants from payment
of manorial rights; and these laws were enacted not for their own
district alone, but for the whole kingdom. This was the only indication
of a revolutionary disposition which manifested itself during these
unhappy times. By good hap the persons whom they had chosen to form
their Junta were prudent and well-intentioned men, who temporized
with them, and accepted an illegal authority in the hope of restoring
order. The anniversary of a religious procession occurred at this
time, and they took advantage of it. The Host was borne through the
streets, a sermon adapted to the circumstances was preached with good
effect, and the reformers, tired of their work, and willing to secure
what they had gained by pillage, broke up, and returned to their own
part of the country. The people of the land then enrolled themselves,
established patroles, and subjected themselves to ♦NEVES, IV. 287–293.♦
good discipline; so that when a second visit of the same kind was
attempted, they seized the ringleaders. Troops at length came from
Viana, and many of the criminals were apprehended and sent prisoners to
Porto.
♦COMMUNICATION BETWEEN ALEM-TEJO AND THE NORTHERN PROVINCES.♦
The authority of the provisional government at Porto would not
have been generally acknowledged, and with so little reluctance,
throughout these provinces, if that city had not been looked to as a
capital, because of its great commercial importance. But so little
intercourse was there between the north and south of Portugal, that
both had been in insurrection against the French more than a month,
before it was known in one part that any resistance had commenced in
the other. Vague reports indeed were in circulation, which could be
traced to no authentic source; but no intelligence upon which any
reliance was placed arrived in Alem-Tejo, till a student from Coimbra,
who had enlisted in the academic corps, came to Campo-Mayor on his
own concerns, and gave a clear account of the transactions in which
♦JULY 18.♦ he had borne a part. The news was immediately dispatched
to Badajoz; tidings of the battle of Baylen reached that city at the
same time; and messengers, accredited by the governors of Badajoz
and Campo-Mayor, were sent to Coimbra, to communicate the joyful
accounts from Spain. They were received not merely with transports of
exultation, but with as much surprise, says the Portugueze historian
of these events, as if they had come from another world, ... in such
utter ignorance were the people of Beira of what had been going on
in Alem-Tejo, though the two provinces, along an extent of some forty
miles, are only separated by the Tagus. The messengers on their part
with equal surprise learnt that the legitimate government was restored
in Tras os Montes, and Entre Douro e Minho. Being thus referred to
Porto, thither they proceeded; and returned from thence with letters
from the Bishop and the General to the Archbishop of Evora and the
Junta of Badajoz, recommending the establishment of a provisional
government under the Archbishop, similar to that at Porto, that the
same system might be pursued in the south as in the north. When they
reached Coimbra on their way, they learnt the fate of Evora, that
news having been circulated by the French without delay. Proceeding
on their journey, when they drew near Castello-Branco they found the
roads full of fugitives, removing with their children and families, and
such goods as they could carry away, in fear of Loison, so far had the
terror of his name extended. It was not then known that he had marched
toward Abrantes; and the messengers, to avoid the ♦NEVES, IV. 197–205.♦
danger of falling in with his troops, entered Spain by Zebreira, and so
proceeded to Badajoz and Campo-Mayor.
Things were in this state when a British expedition arrived upon the
north coast. General Leite was collecting at Olivença the troops which
had escaped from Evora. The Conde de Castro-Marim was raising and
embodying forces in Algarve; and the Junta of Porto were hardly less
perplexed by the perilous spirit of insubordination which prevailed
both in the city and in the remoter parts of the provinces, than by the
deficiency of money and means for the men who willingly came forward to
serve against the invaders. There were numbers, and courage, and good
will, but every thing else was wanting.