II. 1808. BOOK probated, and endeavours were fruitlessly made to turn the tide of indignation even against the English, as abettors of the invaders. The judge of the people, an energetic, but turbulent fellow, issued an inflammatory address calling for a suspension of the treaty, and designating the French as robbers and as insulters of religion. The Monteiro Mor, who commanded a rabble of peasantry which he dignified with the title of an army, had taken possession of the south bank of the Tagus, and from his quarters issued a protest against the convention, the execution of which he had the audacity to call upon sir Charles Cotton to interrupt. The latter sent his communications to sir Hew Dalrymple, who treated them with the contemptuous indignation they merited. Sir John Hope being appointed the English commandant of Lisbon, took possession of the castle of Belem on the 10th, and of the citadel on the 12th, and, by his firm and vigorous conduct, soon reduced the effervescence of the public mind, and repressed the disorders which had arisen to a height that gave opportunity for the commission of any villany. The duke of Abrantes, with his staff, embarked the 13th. The first division of his army sailed the 15th, it was followed by the second and third divisions, and on the 30th all the French, except the garrisons of Elvas and Almeida, were out of Portugal. The execution of the convention had not been carried on thus far without much trouble and contestation. Lord Proby, the English commissioner appointed to carry the articles of the treaty into effect, was joined by major-general Beresford on the 5th, and their united labours were scarcely sufficient to meet the exigencies of a task in the prosecution of which disputes hourly arose. Anger, the cupidity of individuals, and op V. 1808. portunity, combined to push the French beyond the CHAP. bounds of honour and decency, and several gross attempts were made to appropriate property which no interpretation of the stipulations could give a colour to; amongst the most odious were the abstraction of manuscripts and rare specimens of natural history from the national museum, and the invasion of the deposito publico, or funds of money awaiting legal decision for their final appropriation. Those dishonest attempts were met and checked with a strong hand, and at last a committee, consisting of an individual of each of the three nations, was appointed by the commissioners on both sides. Their office was to receive reclamations, to investigate them, and to do justice by seizing upon all contraband baggage embarked by the French. This measure was attended with excellent effect. It must, however, be observed, that the loud complaints and violence of the Portuguese, and the machinations of the bishop of Oporto, seem to have excited the suspicions of the British, and influenced their actions more than the real facts warranted; for the national character of the Portuguese was not then understood, nor the extent to which they supplied the place of true reports, by the fabrication of false ones, generally known. Writers have not been wanting to exaggerate the grounds of complaint. The English have imputed fraud, and evasions of the most dishonourable kind to the French, and the latter have retorted by accusations of gratuitous insult and breach of faith, asserting that their soldiers when on board the British ships were treated with cruelty in order to induce them to desert. It would be too much to affirm that all the error was on one side, but it does appear reasonable and consonant to justice to decide, that as the French were originally II. 1808. BOOK aggressors and acting for their own interest, and that the British were interfering for the protection of the Portuguese, any indecorous zeal upon the part of the latter, if not commendable, was certainly more excusable than in their opponents. Upon the ground of its being evidently impossible for him to know what was doing in his name, the British commissioners acquitted Junot of any personal impropriety of conduct, and his public orders, which denounced severe punishments for such malpractices, corroborated Sir H. Dal- this testimony; yet Kellerman, in his communicaNarrative. tions with sir Hew Dalrymple, did not scruple to in rymple's Court of Inquiry. sinuate matter to the duke's disadvantage. But, amidst all these conflicting accusations, the British commander's personal good faith and scrupulous adherence to justice has never been called in question. To define the exact extent to which each party should have pushed their claims is not an easy task; but an impartial investigator would begin by carefully separating the original rights of the French from those rights which they acquired by the convention. Much of the subsequent clamour in England against the authors of that treaty sprung from the error of confounding these essentially distinct grounds of argument. Conquest being the sole foundation of the first, defeat, if complete, extinguished them, if incomplete, nullified a part only. Now the issue of the appeal to arms not having been answerable to the justice of the cause, an agreement ensued, by which a part was sacrificed for the sake of the remainder, and upon the terms of that agreement the whole question of right hinges. If the French were not prisoners of war, it follows that they had not forfeited their claims founded on the right of conquest, but they were willing to exchange an insecure tenure V. 1808. of the whole for a secure tenure of a part. The dif- CHAP. ficulty consisted in defining exactly what was conceded, and what should be recovered from them. With respect to the latter, the restitution of plunder acquired anterior to the convention was clearly out of the question: if officially made, it was part of the rights bargained for, and if individually, to what tribunal could the innumerable claims which would follow such an article be referred? Abstract notions of right in such matters are misplaced. If an army surrenders at discretion, the victors may say with Brennus, "Woe to the vanquished;" but a convention implies some weakness, and must be weighed in the scales of prudence, not in those of justice. BOOK 1808. CHAPTER VI. THE interview that took place at Vimiero between don Bernardim Freire d'Andrada and sir Hew Dalrymple has been already noticed as the commencement of an intrigue of some consequence. The Portuguese general objected at the time to the armistice just concluded with Kellerman, ostensibly upon general grounds, but really, as it appeared, to sir Hew, because the bishop and junta of Oporto were not named in the instrument. At the desire of Freire, one Ayres Pinto de Souza was received at the English head-quarters as the protector of Portuguese interests during the subsequent negotiation. He was soon apprised that a treaty for a definitive convention was on foot, and both himself and his general were invited to state their views and wishes before any further steps were taken. Neither of them took any notice of this invitation, but when the treaty was concluded clamoured loudly against it. The British army was, they said, an auxiliary force, and should only act as such; nevertheless it had assumed the right of treating with the French for Portuguese interests. A convention had been concluded which protected the enemy from the punishment due to his rapine and cruelty. It was more favourable than the strength of the relative parties warranted; no notice had been taken of the Portuguese government, or of the native army in the Alemtejo. Men who were obnoxious to their countrymen for having aided the invaders were protected from a just vengeance, and finally the fortresses were bargained for, |