withstand there the progress of the enemy, still this act would be productive of the most beneficial consequences; the posterity of the inhabitants of Portugal would remember with gratitude the aid afforded to their ancestors in the hour of their distress, and would hail the British character with a corresponding admiration. For these reasons, the address should have his hearty concurrence."

Mr Ponsonby in like manner, when the vote was moved in the Commons, declared, "that it was not less due to the spirit of Portugal, than to the magnanimity and generosity of Great Britain; that it was as consistent with our interest, as it was material to our honour. The only regret," said he, "with which it is accompanied on my part, proceeds from the reflection, that the vast expenditure of this country should render it necessary to limit the vote to so small a sum.' The most notorious writer of the anarchist faction touched upon this subject in his journal, in a strain of ridicule as felicitous as his predictions concerning the result of the campaign had proved. He sneered at the unanimity of the grant, and at its amount," a hundred thousand pounds! when it was not above a shilling a head for the poor creatures, not enough to get them a single quartern loaf each! There can be no doubt," said he, "that if it had not been for us, the poor creatures would not have had their country ravaged in the manner that they have. To be sure, what we have done, and are doing, is all for their good; but, still, they ought to be compensated for their losses, because, as to individuals, at any rate, there is no satisfactory proof that they invited us to their country. We went to Portugal without being actually sent for by the people at large, and, therefore I am decidedly for their being compensated for their losses and sufferings by us.

But then I am for leaving the honour of relieving the Portugueze to those who were for the war in Portugal. To them belongs the merit of making and abetting the war, and I would by no means deprive them of the pleasure of paying the expences of it."

Then, calling in the same tone of ridicule for meetings and contributions, he said, "it was time to begin, for the next dispatches might tell us that the Lord Marshal was again at his old work of drawing Massena after him, and it would be very convenient for the Portugueze to hear of our charitable movements before that took place." Thus this journalist addressed himself as usual to the ignorant and the vulgar, perverting their judgement, poisoning their feelings, and hardening their hearts. He doubtless expected such meetings to be held as little as he hoped it. But the liberality of the British people was never more conspicuously displayed, than in the subscriptions which were made on this occasion. About 80,000 was subscribed. The public grant was to be measured, not by the necessities of the Portugueze sufferers, but by the means of the British government; and the Prince of Brazil called it a most ample donation, entirely corresponding with the generosity with which a great nation and its government had assisted Portugal. The individual proofs of beneficence were acknowledged in the most honourable manner; the prince issued an order, that the list of subscribers should be printed at the Royal Printing-office, copies sent to the chambers of each of the suffering districts, where, having been publicly read after mass, they should be laid up in the Cartorios, or archives of the respective districts; the original list was to be deposited among the royal archives in the Torre do Tonibo at Lisbon, "that the humanity of the one nation," said the prince, "and the gra

titude of the other may be attested to future generations."

Thousands, who must otherwise have perished, lived to bless the British for their preservation, while the curses of the whole country were imprecated upon Buonaparte, and the army which, in obsequience to his crimes, had entailed infamy upon the name of France. The cruelties which that atrocious army had perpetrated upon its retreat, formed but a little part of the evils which they inflicted upon Portugal; and of the inhabitants of the devastated district, they who perished under the hands of these murderers were more fortunate than many of those who survived. Massena had maintained his position as long as any food could be for ced from the starving inhabitants, and multitudes were dying of hunger before he broke up. This ruffian had formerly declared, that if he could land with an army in England, he would not pledge himself to conquer it, but he would reduce it to a desart: in Portugal, it was proved, that out of the wickedness of his heart his lips had spoken, and, in perfect conformity with the disposition of his master, he, by every possible means, increased the horrors of war and the mass of human suffering. The famine which he had wilfully produced, by destroying every thing in the course of his retreat, and within the reach of his power, continued to depopulate the country long after it was delivered from its enemies. Epidemic diseases were produced by want of food and of clothes, by exposure and by wretchedness: and the hospitals with which Portugal abounds had shared the general destruction. Many had been burnt, others had been gutted, the resources of all were destroyed: and those of the clergy, and of the convents, to which they would otherwise have looked for aid, and from which they would have found it, were in like manner totally dilapidated. The

income of the Bishop of Leyria from forty thousand crowns was reduced to forty, and others had suffered in a like degree. In some parts of the country, a fourth of the inhabitants disappeared; in others the depopulation amount. ed to a third. Whole families were found dead together. The most shocking sight was that of the children whose parents had been butchered, and who were perishing for hunger. Opposite the house in which Massena had taken up his quarters, near Santarem, were the ruins of a church, into which a number of these miserable orphans had fled, that they might lie down and die. They were found by the British troops stretched upon straw and rubbish, the dead and the dying together, reduced to skeletons before they died! When the officer who describes this dreadful scene in his journal saw them, large pieces of bread, which our soldiers had given these poor innocents, were lying before many who were incapable of eating, and some who had breathed their last.

The first thought of Lord Welling. ton, after he had delivered Portugal from this formidable invasion, was to warn the Portugueze, that the danger might yet April 10. be renewed.

"Their na

tion," he said, "had still riches left, which the tyrant would endeavour to plunder: they were happy undera beneficent sovereign, and that alone would make the tyrant exert himself to destroy their happiness: they had suc cessfully resisted him, and therefore he would leave no possible means unemployed for bringing them under his iron yoke." Lord Wellington appealed to all those who had witnessed the three successive invasions of Junot, Soult, and Massena, whether the system of the French army had not been to confiscate, to plunder, and to commit every outrage, which their barbarous and atrocious dispositions could

devise, and whether from the general, to the lowest soldier, they had not delighted in the practice of such excesses. "The Portugueze," he said, "ought not to relax their preparations for decided resistance. Every man capable of bearing arms ought to learn the use of them those who, by their age or sex, were not capable of taking the field, should before hand look out for places of safety where they might retire in time of need: they should bury their most valuable effects, every one in secret, not trusting the knowledge of the place to those who had no interest in concealing it: and they should take means for effectually concealing, or destroying the food, which, in case of necessity, could not be removed. If," said Lord Wellington," these measures are adopted, however superior in number the force may be which the desire of plunder and of vengeance may induce the tyrant to send again for the invasion of this country, the issue will be certain, and the independence of Portugal, and the happiness of the inhabitants, will be finally established, to the eternal honour of the present generation." Having issued this proclamation, and made arrangements for the blockade of Almeida, Lord Wellington, leaving his army under Sir Brent Spencer, took advantage of the temporary inaction of the enemy to go into Extremadura, where he had previously detached a considerable part of his force under Marshal Beresford, to repair the mischief which the incapacity of Mendizabal and the misconduct of Imaz had occasioned.

Mortier, meantime, not failing to pursue to the utmost the advantage which that misconduct had given him, advanced upon Valencia de Alcantara, Alburquerque, and Campo Mayor, in order that the troops which he knew would be sent against him from Lisbon might be deprived of these points of support. The first of these

places had long ceased to be of any importance as a fortress; it was taken by surprise, and seven brass guns, being the whole of its artillery, were destroyed for want of carriages. Latour Maubourg went against Alburquerque; its fortress, a century ago, had been called impregnable; and might now have made some defence, relief being so near at hand; but, according to the French account, the appearance of an enemy and a few cannon-shot sufficed to terrify the garrison; they surrendered without resistance, and were sent prisoners to Badajoz with 17 brass guns of large calibre. The French then razed the works. While these detachments were thus successfully employed, Mortier himself opened the trenches before Campo Mayor: this fortress resisted better than its Castilian neighbours had done; a battalion of militia incurred some disgrace by their conduct, but the spirit of the inhabitants and the go- March 21. vernor was excellent, and the place held out eleven days.

The fall of this place was regretted, more for the sake of its gallant defenders than for any advantage which could accrue to the enemy from their conquest. Marshal Beresford, moving from the neighbourhood of Abrantes, had been joined at Portalegre and Arronches by General Cole's division; and having rested his troops after their long march, moved forward on the 25th toward Campo Mayor. The main body of the French army had by this time returned to the Caya, and the whole of their besieging train had re-entered Badajoz. Latour Maubourg was left, with four regiments of cavalry, three battalions of infantry, and some horse artillery, at Campo Mayor, to observe the movements of the allies. This force they found drawn up on the outside of the town. Brigadier-General Long was sent to turn their right, and he ordered a charge to be made by two squadrons

of the 13th light dragoons, under Lieutenant-Colonel Head, and two squadrons of the 7th Portugueze dragoons, under Colonel Elder, supported by the remainder of the cavalry. From Campo Mayor to Badajoz is an open plain, without tree or bush of any kind; over this ground the French retreated as rapidly as they could, skirmishing the whole way. This was a fine display of military skill and individual courage and dexterity. The French maneuvred admirably; their infantry formed a square, and sustained three charges without breaking; but in the individual conflict of the horsemen, the superiority of our horses, and the swordmanship of our men, gave the allies a decided advantage. A corporal of the 13th was attacked by Colonel Chamorin, a very distinguished officer, who sallied out to revenge one of his men whom the corporal had cut down. Each was a master of his horse and his weapon, and both displayed their skill; but at length the corporal, striking off his helmet with one blow, cleft his head down to the nose with another. The loss of the enemy was between five and six hundred; and the success would have been achieved almost without any loss on the side of the allies, if the four squadrons, who began the attack and led the pursuit, could have restrained their ardour. They pushed on several miles before the infantry, and followed up the enemy with such eagerness as to give them the superiority of numbers; some of them pushed on to the very gate of Badajoz, and were made prisoners on the bridge. The loss of the allies, owing almost wholly to their imprudence, was 24 killed, 70 wounded, and 77 prisoners. The next morning a French captain of dragoons came with a trumpet, demanding permission to search the field for his colonel. Several of our officers went out with him. The peaants had stript the dead during the

It was

night; more than six hundred naked bodies were lying on the ground, mostly slain with sabre wounds long before they could find Chamorin, lying on ais face in his clotted blood; as soon as the body was turned up, the French captain gave a sort of scream, sprung off his horse, threw off his brazen helmet, and kneeling by the body, took the lifeless hand, and kissed it repeatedly with a passionate grief which affected all the beholders.

Marshal Beresford was several days before he could complete his bridges over the Guadiana: he crost it on the sixth of April. Mortier, meantime, had retired toward Llerena, leaving a competent garrison in Badajoz ; and about five hundred men in Olivença, where the Spaniards had so preposter. ously sacrificed thousands. Beres ford left General Cole to reduce this place, while he advanced to drive the enemy out of Extremadura, before he should commence his operations against Badajoz, and also to afford protection to Ballesteros, who was closely pressed by a French division under General Marencin, and had been obliged to retire from Frexinal successively upon Xeres de los Caballeros and Salvatierra. The enemy lost 160 prisoners in 'an affair of cavalry at Los Santos, and then retired to Guadancanał: Maransin's

corps also repassed the Sierra, and Beresford, then returning to prepare for the siege of Badajoz, met Lord Wellington at Elvas. Olivença meantime had fallen, but the accidents of war were still in favour of the enemy; the bridge which Marshal Beresford had constructed with great difficulty over the Guadiana by Juramenha was carried away by the floods, and from the same cause the river was no longer fordable; the operations of the siege were therefore necessarily delayed till the bridge could be re-constructed, or till the waters should have fallen; and during the delay, Lord Wellington

was recalled to the north by tidings that Massena, having recruited and reinforced his army, was beginning to act upon the offensive.

Massena had been able to maintain himself so long in Portugal, to feel himself in safety as soon as he got out of it, to rest the remains of his army, and draw reinforcements from Castille, which enabled him to resume offensive operations, because no assistance had been derived fron the active and hardy population of Galicia. D. Nicolas Mahy commanded in that important province; a man who, by every species of misconduct and of insolent oppression, aggrieved the country, while he suffered Massena's depots in Old Castille and Leon to be protected by from five to six thousand men dispersed between Burgos and Ciudad Rodrigo. Massena received great annoyance from D. Julian Sanchez, and other Guerilla parties, but none from the nominal army in Galicia; the people cried out against their unworthy commander, who, when he had filled the prisons with his own countrymen, seemed to think no other operations were necessary; and Mahy, in consequence of their complaints, was displaced. But though his misconduct in this command had been so flagrant as to occasion a strong suspicion that it had proceeded from something worse than incapacity, the Spanish government continued to employ him with a blind confidence or culpable indulgence, of which, before the close of the year, they had good reason to repent.

An army in Galicia would have prevented the invasion of Portugal, or rendered the escape of the invaders impossible; but they relied upon the misgovernment of this populous and important province, and received no annoyance whatever from that quarter. Massena therefore, having collected without interruption a very large force at Ciudad Rodrigo, made preparations for relieving Almeida; our picquets on

VOL. IV. PART I

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the little river Azava were attacked on the 23d of April, fifteen days only after the last of the enemy had effected their retreat into Spain, with such celerity are the operations of the French conducted, and so rapidly do they supply their armies with equipments and reinforcements. Upon the first intelligence of these movements, Lord Wellington returned to the expected scene of action. His army was cantoned along the Duas Casas, and on the sources of the Azava, two mountain streams which run parallel to each other, and fall into the Agueda; the light division was at Gallegos and Espeja. At day-break on the 2d of May, the main body of the French corps crossed the Agueda at Ciudad Rodrigo, and past the Azavà that evening, our troops falling back as they advanced, because the enemy was very superior in cavalry, and our horses, from hard service and wretched fodder, were in miserable condition. The light division and the horse fell back upon the little village of Fuentes d'Onora, on the Duas Casas; the 1st, 3d, and 7th divisions were collected there: Major-General Campbell with the 6th observed the bridge over the Duas Pontes at Almeida, and Sir W. Erskine with the 5th the passages of the same stream at Fort Conception and Aldea do Bispo. BrigadierGeneral Pack meantime with his brigade, and the queen's regiment from the 6th division, kept the blockade of Almeida, and that able and active chief D. Julian Sanchez, ready on all occasions to co-operate with the allies of Spain, occupied Navedeaver with his party of horse and foot,-men more experienced in desultory warfare than in regular battles, but of tried courage and patriotism.

The British position formed a line behind the brook of Onoro, on a hill whose left was supported by Fort Conception, and on that side was difficult of access; the right, which was more ac

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