II. 1808. BOOK followed by the generals entrusted with the conduct of it. A variety of causes combined to prevent the execution. The catastrophe of Baylen marred all the great combinations of the French emperor; fortune drew the scattered divisions of the English army together, and the decisive vigour of sir Arthur Wellesley sweeping away these cobweb projects, obtained all the success that the bad arrangements of the ministers would permit. In the next chapter, resuming the thread of the history, I shall relate the proceedings of the first British campaign in the Peninsula; but I judged it necessary first to make an exposition of the previous preparations and plans of the cabinet, lest the reader's attention not being fully awakened to the difficulties cast in the way of the English generals by the incapacity of the government, should, with hasty censure, or niggard praise, do the former injustice; for, as a noble forest hides many noisome swamps and evil things, so the duke of Wellington's laurels have covered the innumerable errors of the ministers. CHAPTER IV. IV. 1808. Court of Inquiry. A FEW days after sailing from Cork, sir Arthur CHAP. Wellesley quitting the fleet, repaired in a frigate to Coruña, where he arrived the 20th of July, and immediately held a conference with the members of the Gallician junta, by whom he was informed of the Sir A. Wellesley's battle of Rio Seco; but the account was glossed over Narrative. in the Spanish manner, and the issue of that contest had caused no change in their policy, if policy that may be called, which was but a desire to obtain money and to avoid personal inconvenience; they rejected all succour in men, but earnestly pressed for arms and gold; and even while the conference went on, the last was supplied, for an English frigate entered the harbour with two hundred thousand pounds for their use. Whereupon, the junta recommended that the British troops should be employed in the north of Portugal, and promising to aid them by sending a Spanish division to Oporto, supported their recommendation by an incorrect statement of the number of men, Spanish and Portuguese, who, they asserted, were in arms near that city, and by a still more inaccurate estimate of the forces under Junot; and in this manner persuaded sir Arthur not to land in their province. Yet, at the moment they were rejecting the assistance of the British troops, the whole kingdom of Gallicia was lying at the mercy of marshal Bessieres, and there were neither men nor means to impede the progress of his victorious army. BOOK II. 1808. Mr. Charles Stuart, appointed to reside as British envoy near the junta, landed at Coruña, and sir Arthur Wellesley proceeded to Oporto, where he found colonel Browne, an active and intelligent officer, who had been sent there a short time before to collect intelligence, and to distribute supplies. From his information it appeared, that no Spanish troops were in the north of Portugal, and that all the Portuguese force was upon the Mondego, to the south of which river the insurrection had spread. A French division of eight thousand men was supposed to be in their front, and some great disaster was expected, for, to use colonel Browne's words, "with every good will in the people, their exertions were so short lived, and Parliament- with so little combination, that there was no hope of ary Papers, 1809. their being able to resist the advance of the enemy;" in fact, only five thousand regulars and militia, half armed, and associated with ten or twelve thousand peasants without any arms, were in the field at all. A large army was, however, made out upon paper by the bishop of Oporto, who, having assembled his civil and military coadjutors in council, proposed vaWellesley's Narrative. rious plans of operation for the allied forces, none of Inquiry. which sir Arthur was inclined to adopt; but after some discussion it was finally arranged that the prelate and the paper army should look to the defence of the Tras os Montes against Bessieres, and that the five thousand soldiers on the Mondego should cooperate with the British forces. Sir A. Court of This being settled, sir Arthur Wellesley hastened to consult with sir Charles Cotton relative to the descent at the mouth of the Tagus, which had so long haunted the imaginations of the ministers. The strength of the French, the bar of the river, the disposition of the forts, and the difficulty of land IV. 1808. Narrative. rymple's Colling ing in the immediate neighbourhood, occasioned by CHAP. the heavy surf playing upon all the undefended creeks and bays, convinced him that such an enterprise was Sir A. unadvisable, if not impracticable. There remained Wellesley's the alternative of landing to the north of Lisbon at Court of Inquiry. such a distance as to avoid the danger of a disputed disembarkation, or of proceeding to the southward to join general Spencer, and commence operations in that quarter against Dupont. Sir Arthur Wellelley decided against the latter, which promised no good result while Junot held Portugal, and Bessieres hung on the northern frontier. He foresaw that the jealousy Sir H. Dalof the Spaniards, evinced by their frequent refusal to and lord admit English troops into Cadiz, would assuredly bring wood's Coron a tedious negotiation, and waste the season of action respondbefore the army could obtain a place of arms, or that the campaign must be commenced without any secure base of operations. Nothing was then known of the Spanish troops, except that they were inexperienced; but without good aid from them it would have been idle with fourteen thousand men to take the field against twenty thousand strongly posted in the Sierra Morena and communicating freely with the main body of the French army. A momentary advance was useless; and if the campaign was protracted, the line of operations running nearly parallel to the frontier of Portugal, would have required a covering army on the Guadiana to watch the movements of Junot. The double line of operations, proposed by lord Castlereagh, was contrary to all military principle, and as Spencer's despatches announced that his division was at St. Mary's, near Cadiz, and disengaged from any connexion with the Spaniards (a fortunate circumstance scarcely to have been expected), sir Arthur sent him orders to sail to the mouth of the Mon ence. II. 1808. BOOK dego, whither he himself also repaired, and joined the fleet having his own army on board. Off the Mondego he received the despatches announcing sir Hew Dalrymple's appointment and the sailing of sir John Moore's troops. Sir A. Wellesley's This mortifying intelligence did not relax his activity; he directed fast sailing vessels to look out for Anstruther's armament, and to conduct it to the Mondego, and having heard of Dupont's capitulation, resolved, without waiting for general Spencer's arrival, to disembark his own troops and commence the campaign a determination that marked the cool decisive vigour of his character; for, although sure that (in consequence of Dupont's defeat) Bessieres would not enter Portugal, his information led him to estimate Narrative. Junot's own force at sixteen to eighteen thousand men, a number, indeed, below the truth, yet sufficient to make the hardiest general pause before he disembarked with only nine thousand men, and without any certainty that his fleet could remain even for a day in that dangerous offing, at a moment also when another man was coming to profit from any success that might be obtained, and when a failure would have ruined his own reputation in the estimation of the English public, always ready to deride the skill of an Indian general. Court of It was difficult to find a good point of disembarkation, for the coast of Portugal from the Minho to the Tagus, presents, with few exceptions, a rugged and dangerous shore; all the harbours formed by the rivers have bars, that render most of them difficult of access even for boats, and with the slightest breeze from the seaboard a terrible surf breaks along the whole line of coast and forbids all approach, and when the south wind, which commonly prevails from August to |