vented the General from ascertaining the real strength and objects of the enemy's parties, and the Portuguese reports were notoriously contradictory and false. The 14th dragoons, seven hundred strong, commanded by Major-General Cotton, had been disembarked since the 22d of December, and were destined for the army in Spain. But the commissary doubted if he could forward that small body even by detachments, such was the penury of the country, or rather the difficulty of drawing forth its resources; many debts of Sir John Moore's army were also still unpaid, and a want of confidence prevented the country people from bringing in supplies upon credit.

In the midst of these difficulties rumors of reverses in Spain became rife, and acquired importance, when it became known that four thousand infantry and two thousand cavalry, the advanced guard of thirty thousand French troops, were actually at Merida, on the road to Badajos; the latter town being, not only in a state of anarchy, but destitute of provisions, arms, and ammunition. Had the Portuguese force been assembled at Alcantara, Sir John Cradock would have supported it with the Britsh brigades from Abrantes and Castello Branco, but not a man had been put in motion, and he, feeling no confidence either in the troops or promises of the Regency, resolved to concentrate his own army near Lisbon. General Stewart was, therefore, directed to destroy the bridges of Vilha Velha and Abrantes, and fall back to Sacavem. Meanwhile, the Lisbon populace, supposing that the English General designed to abandon them without necessity, were violently excited. The Regency, either from fear or folly, made no effort to preserve tranquillity, and the people proceeded from one excess to another, until it became evident that, in a forced embarkation, the British would have to fight their allies as well as their enemies. At this gloomy period, when ten marches would have brought the French to Lisbon, when a stamp of Napoleon's foot would have extinguished that spark of war which afterwards blazed over the Peninsula, Sir John Moore made his daring movement upon Sahagun, and Portugal, gasping as in a mortal agony, was instantly relieved.

CHAPTER II.

French retire from Merida-Send a force to Placentia-The direct intercourse between Portugal and Sir J. Moore's army interrupted-Military description of Portugal-Situation of the troops-Cradock again pressed, by Mr. Frere and others, to move into Spain-The ministers ignorant of the real state of affairs -Cradock hears of Moore's advance to Sahagun-Embarks two thousand men to reinforce him-Hears of the retreat to Coruña, and re-lands them-Admiral Berkeley arrives at Lisbon--Ministers more anxious to get possession of Cadiz than to defend Portugal-Five thousand men, under General Sherbrooke, embarked at Portsmouth-Sir George Smith reaches Cadiz-State of that city-He demands troops from Lisbon-General Mackenzie sails from thence, with troops-Negotiations with the Junta-Mr. Frere's weak proceedings-Tumult in Cadiz-The negotiation fails.

Ir was the advanced guard of the fourth corps that had approached Merida with the intention of proceeding to Badajos, and the Emperor was, as we have seen, preparing to follow; but, in the night of the 26th of December, an officer carrying the intelligence of Moore's movement reached Merida, and, next morning, the French marching hastily to the Tagus, crossed it, and rejoined their main body, from which another powerful detachment was immediately directed upon Placentia. This retrograde movement obviated the immediate danger, and Sir John Cradock endeavored to pacify the people of Lisbon. Ordering Stewart's brigade, which had been strengthened by two German battalions, to halt at Santarem, he explained his own motives to the Portuguse, and urged the Regency to a more frank and vigorous system than they had hitherto folfollowed; for, like the Spanish juntas, they promised everything, and performed nothing; neither would they, although consenting verbally to all the measures proposed, ever commit themselves by writing, having the despicable intention of afterwards disclaiming that which might prove disagreeable to the populace, or even to the French. Sir John Cradock, however, had no power beyond his own personal influence to enforce attention to his wishes; no successor to Sir Charles Cotton had yet arrived, and Mr. Villiers seems to have wanted the decision and judgment required to meet such a momentous crisis.

In the north, General Cameron, having sent the sick men and part of the stores from Almeida towards Oporto, gave up that fortress to Sir Robert Wilson, and on the 5th of January marched, with two British battalions and a detachment of convalescents, by the Tras os Montes, to join the army in Spain. On the 9th, hearing of Sir John Moore's retreat to Coruña, he would have returned to Almeida, but Lapisse, who had taken Zamora, threatened to ir

tercept his line of march, whereupon he made for Lamego, and advised Sir R. Wilson to retire to the same place. Colonel Blunt, with seven companies, escorting a convoy for Moore's army, was likewise forced to take the road to Oporto, and on that city all the British stores and detachments were now directed.

Notwithstanding the general dismay, Sir R. Wilson, who had been reinforced by some Spanish troops, Portuguese volunteers, and straggling convalescents of the British army, rejected Cameron's advice, and proceeded to practise all the arts of an able partisan-that is to say, enticing the French to desert, spreading false reports of his own numbers, and, by petty enterprises and great activity, arousing a spirit of resistance throughout the Ciudad Rodrigo country.

The continued influx of sick men and stores at Oporto, together with the prospect of General Cameron's arrival there, became a source of uneasiness to Sir John Cradock. Oporto, with a shifting bar and shoal water, is the worst possible harbor for vessels to clear out, and one of the most dangerous for vessels to lie off, at that season of the year; hence, if the enemy advanced in force, a great loss, both of men and stores, was to be anticipated. The departure of Sir Charles Cotton had diminished the naval means, and, for seventeen successive days, such was the state of the wind that no vessel could leave the Tagus; Captain Halket, however, contrived at last to send to Oporto tonnage for two thousand persons, and undertook to keep a sloop of war off that place.* Sir Samuel Hood also dispatched some vessels from Vigo, but the weather continued for a long time so unfavorable that these transports could not enter the harbor, and the encumbrances hourly increasing, at last produced the most serious embarrassments.

Sir John Moore having now relinquished his communications with Portugal, Sir John Cradock had to consider how, relying on his own resources, he could best fulfil his instructions and maintain his hold of that country, without risking the utter destruction of the troops intrusted to his care. For an inferior army Portugal has no defencible frontier. The rivers generally running east and west, are fordable in most places, subject to sudden rises and falls, offering but weak lines of resistance, and, with the exception of the Zezere, presenting no obstacles to the advance of an enemy penetrating by the eastern frontier. The mountains, indeed, afford many fine and some impregnable positions, but such is the length of the frontier line and the difficulty of lateral communications, that a general who should attempt to defend it against superior forces would risk to be cut off from the capital if he concentrated * Sir J. Cradock's Correspondence, MS.

his troops; and if he extended them his line would be immediately broken. The possession of Lisbon constitutes, in fact, the possession of Portugal, south of the Duero, and an inferior army can only protect Lisbon by keeping close to the capital.

Sensible of this truth, Sir John Cradock adopted the French Colonel Vincente's views for the defence of Lisbon, and proceeded, on the 4th of January, with seventeen hundred men, to occupy the heights behind the creek of Sacavem, leaving, however, three thousand men in the forts and batteries of Lisbon. At the earnest request of the Regency, who in return promised to assemble the native troops at Thomar, Abrantes, and Vilha Velha, he ordered General Stewart's brigade, two thousand seven hundred strong, to halt at Santarem; but the men had been marching for a month under incessant rain, their clothes were worn out, their equipments ruined, and, in common with the rest of the army, they wanted shoes.*

Cameron being now on the Douro, Kemmis, with the 40th regiment at Elvas, and the main body under Cradock between Santarem and Lisbon, this army not exceeding ten thousand men, but with the encumbrances of an army of forty thousand, was placed on the three points of a triangle, the shortest side of which was above a hundred and fifty miles. The general commanding could not bring into the field above five thousand men, nor could that number be assembled in a condition for service at any one point of the frontier, under three weeks or a month; moreover, the uncertainty of remaining in the country at all, rendered it difficult to feed the troops, for the commissioners, being unable to make large contracts for a fixed time, were forced to carry on, as it were, a retail system of supply.

At this moment of extreme weakness, Mr. Frere, with indefatigable folly, was urging Sir John Cradock to make a diversion in Spain, by the line of the Tagus, and Mr. Villiers was as earnest that he should send a force by sea to Vigo. His own instructions prescribed the preservation of Lisbon, Elvas, and Almeida, the assembling, in concert with the native government, of an AngloPortuguese army on the frontier, and the sending of succors to Sir John Moore. Cradock's means were so scanty that the attainment of any one of those objects was scarcely possible, yet Mr. Canning, writing officially to Mr. Villiers, at this epoch, as if a mighty and well furnished army was in Portugal, enforced the necessity of continuing to maintain possession of Portugal as long as could be done with the force intrusted to Sir John Cradock's command, remembering always that not the defence of Portugal alone, but the employment of the enemy's military force, and the diver* Sir John Cradock's Correspondence, MS.

66

sion which would be thus created in favor of the south of Spain, were objects not to be abandoned, except in case of the most extreme necessity." The enemy's military force! It was three hundred thousand men, and this despatch was a pompous absurdity. The ministers and their agents, eternally haunted by the phantoms of Spanish and Portuguese armies, were incapable of perceiving the palpable bulk and substance of the French hosts; the whole system of the Cabinet was one of shifts and expedients; every week produced a fresh project, and minister and agent alike followed his own views, without reference to any fixed principle; the generals were the only persons not empowered to arrange military operations.

The number of officers employed to discover the French movements enabled Cradock, although his direct communications were interrupted, to obtain intelligence of Moore's advance toward Sahagun; wherefore, he again endeavored to send a reinforcement into Spain by the way of Almeida. The difficulty of getting supplies, however, finally induced him to accede to Mr. Villiers' wishes, and on the 12th of January he shipped six hundred cavalry and thirteen hundred infantry, meaning to send them to Vigo; but while they were still in the Tagus, intelligence of the retreat upon Coruña was received, and the troops were disembarked.*

The 14th of January the Conqueror line-of-battle-ship, having Admiral Berkeley on board, reached Lisbon; and for the first time since Sir John Cradock took the command of the troops in Portugal, he received a communication from the ministers in England.† It now appeared that their thoughts were less intently fixed upon the defence of Portugal than upon getting possession of Cadiz. Their anxiety upon this subject had somewhat subsided after the battle of Vimiero, but it revived with greater vigor when Sir John Moore, contemplating a movement in the south, suggested the propriety of securing Cadiz as a place of arms; and in January an expedition was prepared to sail for that town, with the design of establishing a new base of operations for the English army. This project failed, but the following particulars of the transaction afford ample proof of the perplexed, unstable nature of the minister's policy.

NEGOTIATION FOR THE OCCUPATION OF CADIZ.

While it was still unknown in England that the Supreme Junta had fled from Aranjuez, Sir George Smith, who had conducted Spencer's negotiation in 1808, was again sent to Cadiz to prepare * Sir John Cradock's Correspondence, MS.

+ Cradock's Papers, MS.