They were to take with them on service sixty rounds and three flints a man.

Six women per company to embark with their children.

On 28th April 1808, the 1st Battalion marched to Harwich. "They will march in old clothing and new bonnets and kilts, and carry new coats and trousers in the packs."

They embarked the same day with a strength of 3 field officers, 9 captains, 22 subalterns, 4 staff, 50 sergeants, 22 drummers, and 934 rank and file, and sailed on May 4th for Yarmouth, the place of rendezvous appointed for the troops destined to form the armament under Lieut.-General Sir John Moore, consisting of 10,000 men intended to assist Sweden in maintaining her independence, which was menaced by France and Russia. At Yarmouth the expedition was joined by Major-General the Hon. Sir John Hope (Colonel of the 92nd) as second in command.

On May 18th Mr Innes writes from Gottenburgh Roads:

We arrived here yesterday in great health and spirits after eight days from Yarmouth; we are to go up the Baltic to take possession of the islands of Zealand and Boresholm; we are in fine spirits and impatient for a landing. We have about 15,000 men, and will have 50,000 Swedes co-operating with us. Subs. can live better abroad than in England, and we have an allowance of wine. On our voyage we drove a Danish Indiaman ashore and captured some small craft.

June 2nd.-Lieut.-Colonel Murray, A.G., was sent with dispatches to the King at Stockholm, and on his return was ordered immediately to England. The Commander of the Forces and Staff have lodgings in Gottenburgh, and have landed their horses, but few officers are allowed to land.

During their stay the troops were exercised in disembarking and embarking in boats, and the men had plenty of fresh fish to vary the salt pork and biscuit.

Negotiations were carried on between Sir John Moore and the King of Sweden, for the purpose of concerting operations; but as it appeared that the views of the Swedish Monarch as to the disposal of the forces differed greatly from the intentions of the British Government, the expedition was

recalled, to be employed in the operations in the Spanish Peninsula.

The fleet accordingly sailed on July 3rd, with orders to rendezvous at Yarmouth, but were met by a dispatch vessel with orders which changed their destination to the Downs; where they arrived after a rough passage on July 20th, and proceeded to Spithead, where a draft of seventy rank and file of good appearance joined from the 2nd Battalion. Here they

took in provisions and water for six weeks; neither officers nor soldiers were allowed to land. They had been nearly three months at sea, generally on salt provisions and there were several cases of scurvy among the men, these being sent ashore to Gosport Hospital.

At this period political interest was centred in Spain and Portugal. In October 1807, France and Spain had agreed to divide Portugal between them; the Portuguese Royal Family had fled for refuge to Brazil, and a French army under Junot had entered Lisbon. No sooner was Napoleon in possession of that country, than he induced the weak Charles IV., King of Spain, to meet him at Bayonne, where he extorted from him, and from his son Ferdinand, a renunciation of the Spanish throne in his own favour.

It was declared that the Spanish Bourbons had ceased to reign. Joseph Bonaparte, who had been crowned King of Naples, was removed to Spain, whilst Napoleon's brother-inlaw, Murat, took his place at Naples.* A French army at once invaded Spain, and Joseph Bonaparte entered Madrid on July 20th, 1808. The Spaniards immediately rose against the French usurper, established a "supreme Junta of Spain and the Indies" at Seville, and proclaimed Ferdinand VII. as King. The news of the rising was received throughout Britain with joy; Whig and Tory agreed in the determination to support the Spaniards and Portuguese, and to strike a bold stroke to rescue the world from the power of Napoleon. plies in profusion were sent to the Spanish Loyalists, and a small army of about 10,000 men, under Sir Arthur Wellesley, was sent to the Peninsula. The first efforts of the patriots

Sup

* Napoleon had also made his brother Louis King of Holland, and a third brother, Jerome, became King of Westphalia.

were successful; in July a French force which had invaded Andalusia surrendered to the Spaniards at Baylen.* Joseph Bonaparte was driven out of his new capital, and had retired to Vittoria, when the British army, reinforced by General Spencer from Cadiz, and numbering about 14,000 men, landed near Figueras, in Mondego Bay, on the 1st of August. On the 15th, the first British blood which flowed in the Peninsular War was drawn in a skirmish at Obidos. Wellesley defeated Laborde in the combat of Rolica on the 17th, and in the battle. of Vimiera † on the 21st had forced Junot to retreat, and was about to follow up his success, when Sir Harry Burrard, who had left the fleet on which Sir John Moore's troops were embarked, and had arrived that morning, but had generously declined to take the command from Sir Arthur during the battle, gave orders for the army to halt and remain in position at Vimiera, till the reinforcements under Sir John Moore should arrive. On August 22nd Sir Hew Dalrymple arrived from Gibraltar and assumed the command of the army, so that in thirty hours a battle had been fought, and three generals had commanded the forces.

The 1st Battalion 92nd, along with the troops under Sir John Moore, after a calm and slow passage, arrived at Mondego Bay on the 21st of August, and were to land there on Sunday the 22nd, when an express from Sir Arthur Wellesley arrived, and the transports proceeded to Maceira Bay, where the 1st Battalion landed on the 27th, with great difficulty, owing to the swell on the rocky coast; several boats were upset, but none of the regiment were drowned. They at once marched inland, and pitched their tents close to the battlefield of Vimiera, which exhibited a horrible spectacle, strewn as it was with dead bodies, which the inhabitants were burning, according to the custom of the country. They were told that very large sums of money were found in the knapsacks of the French soldiers, who had pillaged the country in all directions.

The bravery and steadiness of the veteran Swiss and Walloon Guards in the Spanish service conduced greatly to the defeat of the French.

+ It was at Vimiera that Clarke, a piper in the 71st, severely wounded in the leg, and unable to walk, continued to play, saying, "Deil hae me au' the lads want music." A monument was afterwards erected by his regiment over Clarke's grave at Fort-George. Ensign Hector Innes.

Next day they marched twelve miles to Ramelli, “halfroasted" by the sun, and in the night were "half-drowned by torrents of rain;" their route lay through a country of bleak hills and fertile valleys, where the superabundance of fruit sent some to the sick list. They were at a small village near Torres Vedras on 30th August, on which day the famous Convention of Cintra was signed, by which it was arranged that the French should evacuate the whole kingdom of Portugal, and be conveyed to France with their field artillery, and sixty rounds of ammunition for each gun, all other artillery and ammunition to be delivered up to the British; they were to carry with them cavalry horses and private property; their sick and wounded to be taken care of till fit to be sent to France, and the fortresses of Elvas, Almeida, Peniche, and Palmela to be delivered up as soon as British detachments could take possession of them. Also the Russian fleet in Lisbon Harbour, which had been blockaded by Admiral Sir Charles Cotton, to be conveyed to Britain with all its stores, and to remain in deposit till six months after a general peace, but their officers and crews to be returned at once to Russia; also the Spanish troops in custody of the French armies to be liberated.*

This convention was received with indignation both in the Peninsula and in the British Islands. The Portuguese, who had been in no hurry to confront the invader in the field, were loud in their complaints of an arrangement by which they were freed from his presence. The Spaniards complained that the liberated Frenchmen would reappear on their frontier, and it was said, with some truth, that the clause allowing private property to be removed would enable the French to carry off the spoils which formed their ill-gotten gains; while in Britain the people had been raised to the highest pitch of enthusiasm by the decisive victories of Rolica and Vimiera, and expected nothing less than to see Marshal Junot and 20,000 French soldiers arrive as prisoners at Spithead. So general was the condemnation that the Government consented to a Court of Inquiry. Sir Hew Dalrymple, Sir Harry Burrard, and Sir Arthur Wellesley were ordered home and appeared before the Court, which, after full investigation, arrived at the conclusion

* Alison.

that, considering the extraordinary manner in which three general officers had been successively invested with the direction of the army, it was not surprising that the victory of Vimiera had not been more vigorously followed up; and that unquestionable zeal and firmness had been exhibited by all three generals. But, notwithstanding this acquittal, neither Sir Hew Dalrymple nor Sir Harry Burrard were again employed in any important command, and it required all the family influence, and all the early celebrity of the hero of Assaye and Vimiera * to save the future conqueror of Napoleon from being cut short on the threshold of his career, for no fault whatever of his own, by the very people upon whom he had conferred an inestimable benefit.†

The 1st Battalion 92nd marched from Torres Vedras to Lisbon, where they remained till the French troops were embarked, when they were moved ten miles to Campo Sancta, and encamped there, being brigaded with the 36th and 71st Regiments in the Division of Sir John Hope (colonel of the regiment).

Alison's "History." Wellesley had been thanked by both Houses of Parliament for the victory of Vimiera.

+ Napoleon was no better pleased with the Convention of Cintra. "I was about," said he, "to send Junot to a Court-martial, but happily the English got the start of me by sending their generals to one, and thus saved me from the pain of punishing an old friend."-Alison.