self. He did not assist the invasion of Portugal, he did not maintain Estramadura, he did not take Seville, nor even prevent Cuesta from twice renewing the offensive; yet he remained in an unhealthy situation until he lost more men, by sickness, than would have furnished three such battles as Medellin. Two months so unprofitably wasted by a general, at the head of thirty thousand good troops, can scarcely be cited. The duke of Belluno's reputation has been too hardly earned to attribute this inactivity to want of talent. That he was averse to aid the operations of marshal Soult is evident, and, most happily for Portugal, it was so; but, whether this aversion arose from personal jealousy, from indisposition to obey the king, or from a mistaken view of affairs, I have no means of judging.

CUESTA.

1o.-Cuesta's peculiar unfitness for the lead of an army has been remarked more than once. It remains to show that his proceedings, on this occasion, continued to justify those remarks.

To defend a river, on a long line, is generally hopeless, and especially when the defenders have not the means of passing freely, in several places, to the opposite bank. Alexander, Hannibal, Cæsar, Gustavus, Turenne, Napoleon, Wellington, and hundreds of others, have shown how the passage of rivers may he won. Eumenes, who prevented Antigonus from passing the Coprates, is, perhaps, the only example of a general baffling the efforts of a skilful and enterprising enemy in such an attempt.

2o. The defence of rivers having nearly always proved fruitless, it follows that no general should calculate upon success, and that he should exert the greatest energy, activity, and vigilance to avoid a heavy disaster; that all his lines of retreat should be kept free and open, and be concentric, and that to bring his magazines and dépôts close up to the army, in such a situation, is rashness itself. Now Cuesta was inactive, and, disregarding the maxim which forbids the establishment of magazines in the first line of defence, brought up the whole of his to Deleytosa and Truxillo. His combinations were ill-arranged, he abandoned Mirabele without an effort, his dépôts fell into the hands of the enemy: his retreat was confused, and eccentric inasmuch as part of his army retired into the Guadalupe while others went to Merida and he himself to Medellin,

3o.-The line of retreat upon Medellin and Campanarios, instead of Badajoz, being determined by the necessity of uniting with Albuquerque, cannot be blamed; the immediate return to Medellin was bold and worthy of praise; but its merit consisted in recovering the offensive immediately after a defeat, wherefore Cuesta should not have halted at Medellin, thus giving the lead again to the French general; he should have con

tinued to advance, and falling upon the scattered divisions of the French army, endeavoured to beat them in detail, and rally his own detachments in the Sierra de Guadalupe. The errour of stopping short at Medellin would have been apparent, if Victor, placing a rear-guard to amuse the Spanish general, had taken the road to Seville by Almendralejos and Zafra. 4°.-Cuesta's general design for the battle of Medellin was wel imagined; that is, it was right to hide his army behind the ridge, and to defer the attack until the enemy had developed his force and order of battle in the plain; but the execution was on the lowest scale. If, instead of advancing in one long and weak line without a reserve, Cuesta had held the greatest part of his troops in solid columns, and thrust them between La Salle and Latour Maubourg's divisions, which were pushed out like horns from the main body of the French, those generals would have been cut off, and the battle commenced by dividing the French army into three unconnected masses, while the Spaniards would have been compact, well in hand, and masters of the general movements. Nothing could then have saved Victor, except hard fighting, whereas Cuesta's dispositions rendered it impossible for the Spaniards to win the battle by courage, or to escape the pursuit by swiftness.

5o. — It is remarkable that the Spanish general seems never to have thought of putting Truxillo, Guadalupe, Merida, Estrella, or Medellin in a state of defence, although most if not all of those places had some eastle or walls capable of resisting a sudden assault. There was time to do it, for Cuesta remained unmolested, on the Tagus, from January to the middle of March, and every additional point of support thus obtained for an undisciplined army would have diminished the advantages derived by the French from their superior facility of movement; the places themselves might have been garrisoned by the citizens and peasantry, and a week's, a day's, nay, even an hour's delay was of importance to a force like Cuesta's, which from its inexperience must have always. been liable to confusion.

SOULT.

1.-The march of this general in one column, upon Tuy, was made under the impression that resistance would not be offered; otherwise, it is probable that a division of infantry and a brigade of cavalry would have been sent from St. Jago or Mellid direct upon Orense, to ensure the passage of the Minho; it seems to have been also an errour in Ney, arising probably from the same cause, not to have kept Marchand's division of the sixth corps at Orense until the second corps had effected an entrance into Portugal.

2o.-Soult's resolution to place the artillery and stores in Tuy, and march into Portugal, trusting to victory for reopening the communi

cation, would increase the reputation of any general. Three times before he reached Oporto he was obliged to halt, in order to fabricate cartridges for the infantry from the powder taken in battle, and his whole progress from Tuy to that city was energetic and able in the extreme. 3o. The military proceedings, after the taking of Oporto, do not all bear the same stamp. The administration of the civil affairs appears to have engrossed the marshal's attention, and his absence from the immediate scene of action sensibly affected the operations. Franceschi showed too much respect for Trant's corps; Loison's movements were timid and slow; even Laborde's genius seems to have been asleep. The importance of crushing Sylveira was obvious, and there is nothing more necessary in war than to strike with all the force you can at once; but here Caulincourt was first sent, and being too weak, Loison re-enforced him, Laborde re-enforced Loison, and all were scarcely sufficient at last to do that which half would have done at first. But the whole of these transactions are obscure. The great delay that took place before the bridge of Amarante, and the hesitation and frequent recurrence for orders to the marshal, indicate want of zeal, or a desire to procrastinate, in opposition to Soult's wishes. Judging from Mr. Noble's history of the campaign, this must be traced to a conspiracy in the French army, which shall be touched upon hereafter.

4°. The resistance made by the Portuguese peasantry was infinitely creditable to their courage; but there cannot be a stronger proof of the inefficacy of a like defence, when unsupported by good troops. No country is more favourable to such a warfare than the northern provinces of Portugal: the people were brave, they had the assistance of the organized forces under Romana, Sylveira, Eben, and the bishop; yet Soult, in the very worst season of the year, overcoming all resistance, penetrated to Oporto, without an actual loss, in killed, wounded, and prisoners, of more than two thousand five hundred men, including the twelve hundred sick, captured at Chaves.

ROMANA.

1o.- Romana remained at Oimbra and Monterey, unmolested, from the 21st of January to the 6th of March; he had therefore time to reorganize his forces, and he had, in fact, ten thousand regular troops in tolerable order. He knew on the 11th or 12th that Soult was preparing to pass the Minho, between Tuy and Guardia. He knew also that the people of Ribadavia and Orense were in arms; that those on the Arosa were preparing to rise; and that consequently the French must, were it only from want of food, break out of the contracted position they occupied either by Ribadavia and Orense, or by crossing the Minho, or by retreating to St. Jago. With these guides, the path of the Spanish ge

neral was as plain as the writing on the wall: he was at the head of ten thousand regular troops, and two marches would have brought him to Ribadavia; in front of that town he might have occupied a position close on the left flank of the French, rallied all the insurgents about him, and organized a formidable warfare. The French dared not have attempted the passage of the Minho while he was in front of Ribadavia, and if they turned against him, the place was favourable for battle, the retreat open by Orense and Monterey; and the difficulty of bringing up artillery would have hampered the pursuit. On the other hand, if Soult had retreated, that alone would have been tantamount to a victory, and Romana would have been well placed to follow, connecting himself with the English vessels of war upon that coast as he advanced.

2o. So far from contemplating operations of this nature, Romana did not even concentrate his force; but keeping it extended, in small parties, along fifteen miles of country, indulged himself in speculations about his enemy's weakness, and the prospect of their retreating altogether from the Peninsula. He was only roused from his reveries, by finding his divisions beaten in detail, and himself forced either to join the Portuguese with whom he was quarrelling, or to break his promises to Sylveira and fly by cross roads over the mountain on his right : he adopted the latter, thus proving, that whatever might be his resources for raising an insurrection, he could not direct one, and that he was, although brave and active, totally destitute of military talent. At a later period of the war, the duke of Wellington, after a long and fruitless military discussion, drily observed, that either Romana or himself had mistaken their profession!

SYLVEIRA.

1o. This Portuguese general's first operations were as ill conducted as Romana's; his posts were too extended, he made no attempt to repair the works of Chaves, none to aid the important insurrection of Ribadavia; but these errours cannot be fairly charged upon him, as his officers were so unruly, that they held a council of war perforce, where thirty voted for fighting at Chaves, and twenty-nine against it; the casting voice being given by the voter calling on the troops to follow him. The after-movement, by which Chaves was recaptured, whether devised by Sylveira himself, or directed by marshal Beresford, was bold and skilful; but the advance to Peñafiel, while La Houssaye and Heudelet could from Braga pass by Guimaraens, and cut him off from Amarante, was as rash as his subsequent flight was disgraceful: yet, thanks to the heroic courage of colonel Patrick, Sylveira's reputation as a general was established among his countrymen, by the very action which should have ruined him in their estimation.

BOOK VII.

CHAPTER I.

Anarchy in Portugal-Sir John Cradock quits the command-Sir Arthur Wellesley arrives at Lisbon-Happy effect of his presence-Nominated captain-general-His military position described-Resolves to march against Soult-Reaches Coimbra -Conspiracy in the French army-D'Argenton's proceedings-Sir Arthur Wellesley's situation compared with that of sir John Cradock.

Ir will be remembered that the narrative of sir John Cradock's proceedings was discontinued, at the moment when that general, nothing shaken by the importunities of the regency, the representations of marshal Beresford or the advice of Mr. Frere, resolved to await at Lumiar for the arrival of the promised re-enforcements from England. While in this position, he made every exertion to obtain transport for the supplies, remounts for the cavalry, and draught animals for the artillery; but the Portuguese government gave him no assistance, and an attempt to procure horses and mules in Morocco proving unsuccessful, the army was so scantily furnished that, other reasons failing, this alone would have prevented any advance towards the frontier.'

The singular inactivity of Victor surprised Cradock, but did not alter his resolution; yet, being continually importuned to advance, he, when assured that five thousand men of the promised re-enforcements were actually off the rock of Lisbon, held a council of war on the subject. All the generals were averse to marching on Oporto except Beresford, and he admitted that its propriety depended on Victor's movements meanwhile, that marshal approached Badajoz, Lapisse came down upon the Agueda, and Soult, after storming Oporto, pushed his advanced posts to the Vouga. A cry of treason was instantly heard throughout Portugal, and both the people and the soldiers evinced a spirit truly alarming. The latter, disregarding the authority of Beresford, and menacing their own officers, declared that it was necessary to slay a thousand traitors in Lisbon; and the regiments in Abrantes even

1 Appendix, No. XXXIV. a Sir John Cradock's correspondence, MS.