116 MANIFEST SUPERIORITY OF BRITISH TROOPS. [A.D. with the loss of their brave leader. The British reserve had not been at this time brought forward, and Hill's brigade had not fired a shot, nor had Trant's column nor Ferguson's any other than very trifling casualties. Anstruther sent down, at this period of the action, to ask if he should bring up his brigade to the assistance of the Commander-in-Chief." No, sir," Sir Arthur replied, "I am not pressed, and I want no assistance. I am beating the French, and am able to beat them wherever I find them." Wellesley now desired to follow up the victory, for at 2 in the day Junot's retreat was in full operation, and an unquestionable fact. He desired to push forward his right and centre on Montachique by Torres Vedras, which road was now left uncovered, and this would have cut off completely the retreat of the French upon Lisbon, but Sir Harry Burrard, who had been absent at the beginning of the battle, had now arrived upon the ground, and assumed the command. That general had, with a gentlemanly forbearance, declined to take the command during the fight, but now deeming the further responsibility to be on his own shoulders, he issued his orders to the army to halt and pile arms, that they might remain in position for the momentarily expected arrival of Sir John Moore. Sir Arthur could not restrain the bitterness of his disappointment at this order, and, turning to the officers of his staff, said: "Gentlemen, nothing now remains to be done but to go and shoot red-legged partridges." The battle of Vimiero may be cited as the first instance in which the French became acquainted with the peculiar character and organisation of the British army in battle. The stolid firmness and resolute thrust of the infantry, and the wonderful skill and precision of the artillery, were not at all like the bearing of other opponents over whom they had obtained such easy victories, and the knowledge here obtained had considerable influence on the whole war. The Duke of Abrantes, whose gallantry in the field this day justified all his antecedents, profited by this unexpected cessation of hostilities to re-form his broken infantry, and he called his generals around him to consider the best course to be adopted under the circumstances of this defeat in the field and the consequent impossibility of holding Portugal. Their situation had indeed become perilous in the extreme. Their army had been defeated in two successive actions; 1,000 men were killed or missing, and another 1,000 wounded, and the only resource open was a retreat into Spain, through a hostile population. The generals therefore agreed that they were not in a condition either to give or receive a battle, and must, therefore, have recourse to some species of negotiation for the safety of the army. It was, therefore, resolved to despatch General Kellerman, the son of the hero of Valmy, and an officer of considerable merit of his own acquiring at Marengo and elsewhere, and of some experience in diplomatic affairs, to the British headquarters, on the morning of the 22nd. It may be noted, in passing, that the British loss in the two actions was 1,220, and that of the French was stated at 2,500. 1808.] SIR HEW DALRYMPLE IN COMMAND. 20. CONVENTION OF CINTRA. 117 Lieutenant-General Sir Hew Dalrymple had, however, arrived in the offing, with authority to assume the supreme command of the British army, and, on the evening of the 21st, sent his Aide-decamp to shore in order to learn the state of affairs. He was informed, about midnight, that Wellesley had fought a battle and obtained a victory, but that Burrard had subsequently arrived, and was in command. As there was now, therefore, no longer room for any delicacy in the matter, Sir Hew landed next day, and assumed the chief authority. With very considerable surprise he received General Kellerman with his missive from the Duke of Abrantes, and at once appointed Sir Arthur Wellesley and the Quarter-master General Murray to conduct the conference. The French historians pretend that the tact of the French negotiator was such, that he discovered much, from what they let fall in conversation, as to the unsatisfactory condition of affairs under so many generals, and that this encouraged him to advance his larger demands; but there was, in fact, no negotiation in which to show tact, for there was no hesitation in admitting an armistice for 48 hours, nor as to the line of demarcation between the armies. Though British officers may not, in general, be able diplomatists, and are bad deceivers at any time, yet they are not usually charged, by their animated and lively rivals, of being very talkative or communicative. The succession of three different Generals to the chief command was not likely to be productive of a vigorous resolve or a high tone in discussion; nevertheless, Kellerman returned to his chief on the 23rd, at Montachique, bearing the terms of a mere suspension of arms, to which Junot gladly put his seal, and, having placed his army into cantonments, the Marshal forthwith repaired himself, with an escort of grenadiers and dragoons, and all his sick and wounded, to Lisbon, to pack up his baggage, the river Lizandro having been declared to be the line of demarcation between the armies, and an interval of 48 hours being required to denounce the armistice on either side. It was, however, understood that the British ultimatum was, that the French should quit Portugal, and that all the strong places should be restored to the Portuguese authorities. To the treaty with this object, prepared by the French, Wellesley introduced the name of Admiral Sir Charles Cotton as a ratifying party, because of the requirements introduced by Junot in respect to the Russian fleet, at this time lying in the Tagus, under the command of Admiral Siniavin; but Cotton at once refused to be a party to any treaty with the French, in respect to a Russian fleet, and accordingly declined to go to Lisbon, or to have anything to do with the definite convention. Kellerman, therefore, and Murray met together to discuss the military details, without reference to the Russian fleet. But difficulties soon arose as to the meaning of the preliminary terms, and, in consequence, the British General denounced the armistice on the 28th. In the meantime, 118 PUBLIC DISAPPROVAL OF THE CONVENTION. [A.D. Moore, with 11,000 men, disembarked at Maceira, and Beresford, with the 52nd regiment, at the mouth of the Tagus. The Portuguese army under Freire advanced to Mafra, and others of their troops came flocking up to the capital on both sides of the Tagus. Junot, therefore, seeing himself thus outnumbered, conceded the point in dispute, and the Convention, as definitively agreed upon, was, on the 30th, signed by Murray and Kellerman, and carried to Sir Hew Dalrymple at Cintra, who ratified it on the 31st. The French army set sail from Lisbon during the first days of September, and were, according to agreement, landed on the coast of Brittany, whence they were at once marched away to enter the Peninsula again, by way of the Pyrenees. The garrisons of Elvas and Almeida, however, did not arrive in time to accompany them. On the former fortress being summoned by the Spanish General Galluzo, the French Commandant, Girod de Novilais, refused to listen to his proposal to yield up the place, and it was not till the arrival of a British regiment, under Hope, that it was surrendered. This division was not, therefore, put on board transports at Aldea Gallega until the 7th of October. The garrison of Almeida had injudiciously determined to keep the fête Napoléon on the 15th of August, by a sally and butchery of some Portuguese militia, in their immediate front, and to retaliate, the peasants, under the direction of a monk who styled himself Jose de la Madre de Dios, poisoned the fountains, by which many of the garrison were destroyed, and so many of their cattle, that they fell into great want of provisions. Accordingly, they were but too glad to give up the place to the English, who were sent to demand it, and the unfortunate garrison, amounting to 1,400 men, were conducted to embark at Oporto; but on the road they were only saved from being decimated and destroyed by the intervention of the British Colonel Sir Robert Wilson with the corps, which that active and enterprising officer had raised in the country, and which he had styled the Lusitanian Legion. With respect to the Russian squadron, a separate convention was drawn up between the Admirals Sir Charles Cotton and Siniavin, and signed on the 3rd of September, by which the Russian fleet, consisting of 9 sail of the line and a frigate, was placed in the hands of His Britannic Majesty, as a deposit, until six months after a treaty of peace between Russia and Great Britain; and in the meanwhile the officers and crews were to be sent home to their own country, at England's expense. The indignation of the British nation at the Convention of Cintra was unbounded, and an enquiry into the conduct of the three Generals who contracted the engagement was so loudly demanded, that it took place under the presidency of General Sir David Dundas, but their report, on the 22nd of December, exonerated all the generals from direct blame. This was too much for endurance, and, accordingly, it was thought expedient, in order to satisfy the public voice, that the King should make an official declaration conveying a rebuke on Sir Hew Dalrymple. The Con 1808.] THE CONVENTION A POLITIC MEASURE. 119 vention was also loudly disapproved of by the Portuguese General Freire, and the stirring faction of which the Bishop of Oporto was the head, who could not be persuaded that it was a purely military arrangement between the British and French armies. When the latter looted the kingdom every edifice in Portugal, civil or religious, had been despoiled of all that was valuable and portable. Junot, who had entered the kingdom with scarcely a change of linen, demanded five ships to remove what he called his personal effects; and the plunder of all was in proportion to that of the chief. It was not, therefore, without immense difficulty that the two British commissioners appointed to carry out the Convention could resist the unblushing pertinacity with which the French officers endeavoured to claim public plunder as private baggage. The differences at length rose to such a height, that Lisbon became in a fearful state of bitterness against the French, and of reproach against the English for protecting them, so that at length the English Commander-in-Chief found himself obliged to declare martial law, without recognising the authority of the Juntas at all, but he finally re-established the Regency as appointed by the Prince Regent at his departure for the Brazils. The Convention of Cintra was, notwithstanding all the obloquy that had been thrown upon it, a measure both politic and advantageous to the British under the circumstances. It delivered Portugal altogether from the French, and gave possession of fortresses, the acquisition of which would have cost much time and blood. The British army was at the moment in a very unorganised state-its horses were out of condition, and few in number; the siege train was still on board ship; the mouth of the Tagus was held by a Russian fleet; and Lisbon, saved from destruction, became an excellent place d'armes, the possession of which, by sea and land, secured the future operations against the enemy. 21. DE LA ROMAGNA ARRIVES IN SPAIN FROM DENMARK. It will be remembered that part of the policy of Napoleon, in anticipation of the designs he was meditating against the Spanish kingdom, was to remove its military force from its defence. So far back as the battle of Eylau, a division of Spanish soldiers, under the command of the Marquis de la Romagna, was directed upon Hamburg, and, traversing France with that object, reached its destination just about the period of the seizure of Copenhagen by the British. It was at this time placed under the superior command of Marshal Bernadotte. When matters became matured for the French possession of the Peninsula, Napoleon advised the Prince of Ponte-Corvo to keep an eye upon this corps, consisting of about 20,000 men. The French authorities contrived to keep De la Romagna in complete ignorance of all that was occurring in Spain, but at length the British Government found a medium through which it could communicate with the Marquis. A Swedish clergyman, in whose honour and enterprise they could confide, contrived to gain access to the Spanish General by jostling him advisedly in 120 WAR IN SCANDINAVIA. [A.D the street, and apologising for the misadventure in Latin. A conversation thence ensued in that language, in which De la Romagna became informed of what had happened, and of the readiness of the British authorities to assist him in the rescue of himself and his troops from French trammels. The Spaniards in Zeeland no sooner learned the atrocious aggression under which their native land was suffering than they cordially responded to their General's appeal, and he opened a communication with the British RearAdmiral Keats, who was in the Baltic with a squadron of three 74-gun ships, and five or six other smaller vessels. Accordingly, they took possession of the fort and town of Nyborg, in the Isle of Fünen, on the 9th of August, with 6,000 men. The Danish authorities, displeased at such a proceeding, moored a man-of-war brig, the "Fama," and the cutter, "Salornan," 12, in front of the harbour, and would not listen to any remonstrances addressed to them by the British and Spanish Commanders. The boats and small vessels of the British squadron were therefore placed under the command of Captain Macnamara, of the " Edgar," who attacked and captured both the brig and cutter the same night. It was now of first consequence to embark the Spanish army with all haste, and, accordingly, the Admiral, shifting his flag to the Hound," bomb-vessel, directed Macnamara to man 57 sloops or doggers found in the ports with the seamen of the squadron, and in the course of the following day a great part of the artillery, baggage, and stores belonging to the Spanish troops was carried on board, and removed to the port of Sleypsham, where on the 11th the troops were all embarked without an accident. About 1,000 more men joined the anchorage off the island of Sproe, in Jutland, and another 1,000 from Langeland; but two regiments quartered in the island of Zeeland were disarmed and made prisoners, after firing on the French General Frision, and killing one of his Aide-de-camps. Altogether about 10,000 men were carried off, and, with the gallant Marquis, safely landed at Corunna on the 30th of September. 22. WAR IN SCANDINAVIA. 66 On the 9th of February, a Russian army 20,000 strong, under General Buxhowden, disregarding the rigours of a winter of unusual severity, entered Finland, heralded by a proclamation or Imperial ukase from the Czar, which bore " that we unite Finland for ever to our Empire, and command its inhabitants to take the oath of allegiance to our throne." The King of Sweden had made no preparations for the defence of Finland, and the few troops in that province, unable to make head against so formidable a force, were obliged to retreat. The important fortress of Helsingfors, and ultimately the capital city of the province, Abo, fell into the hands of the Russians. Sveaborg, the Gibraltar of the North, is situated on seven rocks separated from the mainland, flanking each other, casemated for the protection of their garrisons, and impervious to the attack of any land force. It was at this period strongly fortified with 700 pieces of cannon, and in the roads, which might |