Salvatierra, and, keeping the edge of the Minho, though galled by the fire of the Portuguese from the opposite bank, twice in the day broke the insurgent bands, and, in revenge for some previous excesses of the pea santry, burned the villages of Morentan and Cobreira; meanwhile the main body of the army, passing the Tea river, at Salvatierra and Puente d'Arcos, moved by successive divisions, along the main road from Tuy to Ribadavia.

Between Franquera and Canizar the route was cut by the streams of the Morenta and Noguera rivers, and, behind those torrents, eight hundred Gallicians, having barricadoed the bridges and repulsed the advanced parties of cavalry, stood upon their defence. The passage was forced on the 17th, at daybreak, by a brigade of Heudelet's division, which pursued the Spaniards briskly, but when within a short distance of Ribadavia, the latter suddenly rallied upon eight or ten thousand insurgents, arrayed in order of battle on a strong hill, covering the approaches to that town. At this sight the advanced guard halted until the remainder of the division and a brigade of cavalry came up, and then under the personal direction of Soult, the French assailed and drove the Gallicians, fighting, through the town and across the Avia. The loss of the vanquished was very considerable, and the bodies of twenty priests were found amongst the slain.

Whether from fear or patriotism, every inhabitant had quitted Ribadavia, and the 18th, a brigade of infantry, scouring the valley of the Avia, discovered and dispersed three or four thousand of the insurgents, who were disposed to make a second stand on that side; a second brigade, pushing on to Barbantes, seized a ferry-boat on the Minho, close to that place, and being joined the same evening by the infantry who had scoured the valley of the Avia, and by Franceschi's cavalry, entered Orense in time to prevent the bridge over the Minho from being cut. La Houssaye's dragoons then took post at Maside, while the remainder of the horse and Laborde's infantry united at Ribadavia; the artillery were however still between Tuy and Salvatierra, under the protection of Merle's and Mermet's divisions. Thus in three days the Duke of Dalmatia, with admirable celerity and vigour, extricated his army from a contracted unfavourable country, strangled a formidable insurrection in its birth, and at the same time opened a fresh line of communication with St. Jago, and an easy passage into Portugal.

The 20th, a regiment sent across the Minho by the ferries of Barbantes and Ribadavia, defeated the insurgents of the left bank, advanced to the Arroyo river, and took post on the heights of Merea, while the rest of the army with the exception of a division guarding the guns, was concentrated at Orense. But the efforts of the artillery had been baffled by the diffi culties of the road from Tuy to Ribadavia, and this circumstance, viewed in conjunction with the precarious state of the communication, a daily increasing sick-list, and the number of small detachments required to protect the rear, seemed to forbid the invasion of Portugal. A man of ordinary genius would have failed. The Duke of Dalmatia, with ready boldness, resolved to throw the greatest part of his artillery and the whole of his other encumbrances into Tuy, as a place of arms, and then relin. quishing all communication with Gallicia for the moment, to march in one mass directly upon Oporto; from whence, if successful, he proposed to reopen his communication with Tuy by the coast-line, and so recovering his artillery to re-establish a regular system of operations.

In pursuance of this resolution, sixteen of the lightest guns and six howitzers, with a proportion of ammunition-wagons, were, with infinite labour and difficulty, transported to Ribadavia; the remaining thirty-six pieces, and a vast park of carriages carrying ammunition, hospital, and commissariat stores, were put into Tuy, where General La Martinière was left with an establishment of artillery and engineer officers, a garrison of five hundred men fit to carry arms, and nine hundred sick. All the stragglers, convalescents, and detachments, coming from St. Jago, together with the military chest, which was still in the rear and guarded by six hundred infantry, were likewise directed upon Tuy, the gates were then shut, and La Martinière was abandoned to his own resources. *

The men in hospital at Ribadavia were now forwarded to Orense, and the marshal's quarters were established in that town the 24th; but other obstacles were to be vanquished before the army could commence the march into Portugal. The gun-carriages had been so shaken in the transit from Tuy to Ribadavia that three days were required to repair them; it was extremely difficult to obtain provisions, and numerous bands of the peasants were still in arms; nor were they quelled until combats had taken place at Gurzo, on the Monte Blanco, in the Val d'Ornes, and up the valley of the Avia. The French thus lost time and men, and expended ammunition that could not be replaced. Soult endeavoured to soften the people's feelings by kindness and soothing proclamations; and as he enforced a strict discipline among his troops, his humane and politic demeanour, joined to the activity of his moveable columns, abated the fierceness of the peasantry; the inhabitants of Ribadavia soon returned to their houses, those of Orense had never been very violent, and now becoming friendly, even lent assistance to procure provisions. It was not, however, an easy task to restrain the soldiers within the bounds of humanity; the frequent combats, the assassination, the torturing of isolated men, and the privations endured, had so exasperated the French troops, that the utmost exertions of their general's authority could not always control their revenge.

While the Duke of Dalmatia was thus preparing for a formidable inroad, his adversaries were a prey to the most horrible anarchy. The bishop, always intent to increase his own power, had assembled little short of fifty thousand armed persons in Oporto, and commenced a gigantic line of intrenchment on the hills to the northward of that city. This worse than useless labour so completely occupied all persons, that the defence of the strong country lying between the Duero and the Minho was totally neglected, and when Soult appeared on the bank of the latter river the northern provinces were struck with terror; then it was that the people for the first time understood the extent of their danger; then it was that the bishop, aroused from his intrigues, became sensible that the French were more terrible enemies than the regency. Once impressed with this truth, he became clamorous for succour; he recalled Sir Robert Wilson from the Agueda, he hurried on the labour of the intrenchments, and he earnestly pressed Sir John Cradock for assistance, demanding arms, ammunition, and a re-enforcement of British soldiers. Sir Robert Wilson, as I have already related, disregarded his orders; but the British general, although he refused to furnish him with troops, supplied him + Appendix, No. XLII.

* S. Journal of Operations, MS.

with arms and very ample stores of powder,* and sent artillery and engineer officers to superintend the construction of the defensive works, and to aid in the arrangements for a reasonable system of operations.

The people were, however, become too headstrong and licentious to be controlled, or even advised, and the soldiers being drawn into the vortex of insubordination, universal and hopeless confusion prevailed. Don Bernardin Freire was the legal commander-in-chief of the Entre Minho e Duero, but all the generals claimed equal and independent authority, each over his own force; and this was perhaps a matter of self-preservation, for general and traitor were at that period almost synonymous; to obey the orders of a superior against the momentary wishes of the multitude was to incur instant death.† Nor were there men wanting who found it profitable to inflame the passions of the mob, and direct its blind vengeance against innocent persons adverse to the prelate's faction, which was not without opponents even in Oporto.

Such was the unhappy state of affairs, when the undisciplined gallantry of the peasants, baffling the efforts of the French to cross the Minho at Campo Saucos, obliged Soult to march by Orense. A part of the regular troops were immediately sent forward to the Cavado river, where they were joined by the ordenanças and the militia of the district; but all were in a state of fearful insubordination, and there was no arrangement made for the regular distribution of provisions, or any necessary supply. Among the troops despatched from Oporto was the second battalion of the Lusitanian legion, nine hundred strong, well armed, well equipped, and commanded by Baron Eben, a native of Prussia, who without any known services to recommend him had suddenly attained the rank of major in the British service. This man, destined to act a conspicuous part in Portuguese tragedy, had been left at Oporto when Sir Robert Wilson marched to Almeida, and his orders were to follow with the second battalion of the legion, when its clothing and equipment should be completed; but he retained the troops to push his own fortune under the prelate's auspices.

General Freire having reached the Cavado, was joined by fourteen or fifteen thousand militia and ordenanças, and fixed his head-quarters at Braga; from thence he sent detachments to occupy the posts of Salamonde and Ruivaens in his front, and, unfortunately for himself, endea voured to restrain his troops from wasting their ammunition by wanton firing, in the streets and on the roads. This exertion of command was heinously resented, for Freire was inclined to uphold the authority of the regency, and had been for some time obnoxious to the bishop's faction, who pointed to him as a suspected person, and rendered the multitude inimical towards him.

Meanwhile, General Sylveira, assuming the command of the Tras os Montes, advanced to Chaves, and put himself in communication with the Marquis of Romana, who having remained tranquil at Oimbra and Monterey since the 21st of January, had been joined by his dispersed troops, and was again at the head of nine or ten thousand men. Sylveira's force was about four thousand, half regulars, half militia, and he was accompanied by many of the ordenanças; but here, as elsewhere, all were licentious, insubordinate, and disdainful of their general; moreover the national enmity between them and the Spaniards having overcome their

* Appendix, No. XXXII., § vi.

+ Ibid., § i.

‡ Ibid., § vi.

sense of a common cause and common danger, the latter were evilly treated, and a deadly feud subsisted between the two armies.* The generals, indeed, agreed to act in concert, offensively and defensively, yet neither of them were the least acquainted with the numbers, intention, or even the position of their antagonists: and it is a proof of Romana's unfitness for command, that he, having the whole population at his disposal, was yet ignorant of every thing relating to his enemy that it behooved him to know. The whole of the French force in Gallicia at this period was about forty-five thousand men, Romana estimated it at twenty-one thousand; the number under Soult was above twenty-four thousand, Romana supposed it to be twelve thousand; and among these he included General Marchand's division of the sixth corps, which he always imagined to be a part of the Duke of Dalmatia's army.

So elated was the Spanish general at the spirit of the peasants about Ribadavia, that he anticipated nothing but victory; he knew also that on the Arosa, an estuary running up towards St. Jago de Compostella, the inhabitants of Villa Garcia had risen and, being joined by all the neighbouring districts, were preparing to attack Vigo and Tuy; hence, partly from his Spanish temperament, partly from his extreme ignorance of war, he was convinced that the French only thought of making their escape out of Gallicia, and that even in that they would be disappointed.† To effect their destruction more certainly, he also, as we have seen, pestered Sir John Cradock for succours in money and ammunition, and desired that the insurgents on the Arosa might be assisted with a thousand British soldiers; and Cradock anxious to support the cause, although he refused the troops, sent ammunition, and five thousand pounds in money, but before it arrived Romana was beaten and in flight.

The combined Spanish and Portuguese forces, amounting to sixteen thousand regulars and militia, beside ordenanças, were posted in a strag gling unconnected manner along the valley of Tamega, extending from Monterey, Verim, and Villaza, to near Chaves, a distance of more than fifteen miles. This was the first line of defence for Portugal. Freire and Eben, with fourteen guns and twenty-five thousand men, were at Braga, in second line, their outposts being on the Cavado, and at the strong passes of Ruivaens and Venda Nova; but of these twenty-five thousand only six thousand were armed with muskets: and it is to be observed that militia and troops of the line differed from the armed peasantry only in name, save that their faulty discipline and mutinous disposition rendered them less active and intelligent as skirmishers, without making them fitter for battle. The bishop, with his disorderly and furious rabble, formed the third line, occupying the intrenchments that covered Oporto. Such was the state of affairs, and such were the dispositions made to resist the Duke of Dalmatia; but his army, although galled and wearied by continual toil, and when halted, disturbed and vexed by the multitude of insurrections, was when in motion, of a power to overthrow and disperse these numerous bands, even as a great ship feeling the wind, breaks through and scatters the gun-boats that have gathered round her in the calm.

*

*Appendix, No. XXXV. § iii.

+ Ibid.

+ Cradock's Correspondence, MS.

CHAPTER V.

Soult enters Portugal-Action at Monterey-Franceschi makes great slaughter of the Spaniards-Portuguese retreat upon Chaves-Romana flies to Puebla de Senabria-Portuguese mutiny-Three thousand throw themselves into Chaves-Soult takes that townMarches upon Braga-Forces the defiles of Ruivaens and Venda Nova-Tumults and disorders in the Portuguese camp at Braga-Murder of General Freire and others-Battle of Braga-Soult marches against Oporto-Disturbed state of that town-Sylveira retakes Chaves The French force the passage of the Ave-The Portuguese murder their General Vallonga-French appear in front of Oporto-Negotiate with the bishop-Violence of the people-General Foy taken-Battle of Oporto-The city stormed with great slaughter.

SECOND INVASION OF PORTUGAL.

THE Entre Minho e Duero and the Tras os Montes, lying together, form the northern part of Portugal, and the extreme breadth of either, when measured from the frontier to the Duero, does not exceed seventy miles. The river Tamega, running north and south, and discharging itself into the Duero, forms the boundary line between them; but there is, to the west of this river, a succession of rugged mountain ridges, which, under the names of Sierra de Gerez, Sierra de Cabrera, and Sierra de Santa Catalina, form a second barrier nearly parallel to the Tamega, and across some part of these ridges, an invader coming from the eastward must pass to arrive at Oporto.

Other sierras, running also in a parallel direction with the Tamega, cut the Tras os Montes in such a manner that all the considerable rivers flowing north and south tumble into the Duero. But as the western ramifications of the Sierras de Gerez and Cabrera shoot down towards the sea, the rivers of the Entre Duero e Minho discharge their waters into the ocean, and consequently flow at right angles to those of the Tras os Montes. Hence it follows, that an enemy penetrating to Oporto, from the north, would have to pass the Lima, the Cavado, and the Ave, to reach Oporto; and if, coming from the east, he invaded the Tras os Montes, all the rivers and intervening ridges of that province must be crossed before the Entre Minho e Duero could be reached.

The Duke of Dalmatia was however now in such a position, near the sources of the Lima and the Tamega rivers, that he could choose whether to penetrate by the valley of the first into the Entre Minho e Duero, or by the valley of the second into the Tras os Montes; and there was also a third road leading between those rivers through Montalegre upon Braga; but this latter route, passing over the Sierra de Gerez, was impracticable for artillery.

The French general had, therefore, to consider

1°. If, following the course of the Lima, he should disperse the insurgents between that river and the Minho, and then recovering his artillery from Tuy, proceed against Oporto by the main road leading along the sea-coast;

2o. If he should descend the Tamega, take Chaves, and then continuing his route to Villa Real, near the Duero, assail the defences of the Tras os Montes in reverse; or turning to the right, cross the Sierra de Cabrera by the pass of Ruivaens, enter Braga and so go against Oporto.

The first project was irregular, and hazardous, inasmuch as Romana