X.

July. July 5.

CHAP. able; the two barrels of powder were discovered; a Portugueze artilleryman escaped from the fort to join his countrymen, and 1808. direct their operations; and the French, finding themselves now in serious danger, capitulated to save their lives. The victorious students and their party were far advanced on their return to Neves, iv. Leiria, when they heard news of that miserable city, which rendered it necessary for them to strike into the pine forest, and conduct their prisoners by unfrequented ways to Figueira.

14-30.

Margaron approaches

Leiria.

General Margaron had been sent from Lisbon with between 4000 and 5000 men, to check the progress of the insurrection in Estremadura, and learn some intelligence of Loison, from whom nothing had been heard for a considerable time. Though the disposition of the people was every where the same, they were kept down by the presence or by the neighbourhood of the enemy, every where within reach of the capital; and he met with no opposition till he approached Leiria. That city, which is the most considerable place on the road to Coimbra, is built upon the little rivers Liz and Lena, in a beautiful country, an hundred miles from Lisbon. It is believed to have been built from the ruins of Colippo, a Lusitanian city which the Romans destroyed; and it has been asserted, that Sertorius planted a colony there whom he brought from Liria in Spain. Affonso Henriquez fortified it as a strong hold against the Moors, who then possessed Santarem, and recovered it after they had captured it. Some of his successors occasionally resided there, and its fine castle was enlarged and beautified by Queen St. Isabel, wife of the magnificent King Diniz. At the beginning of the last century it contained 900 houses and 2150 communicants. Its population had increased, and might at this time have been estimated at about 5000. The adjacent country has been made the scene of pastoral romance by Francisco Rodriguez Lobo,

for which it is precisely adapted by its wild yet beautiful and CHAP. peaceful character.

X.

July.

for defence.

The people of Leiria and the peasantry who had collected 1808. there had had little time for preparation when they heard that the French were approaching. They had paraded through their Preparation streets the banner of the city, bearing for its device a crow upon a pine tree; in memory of one which, when Affonso Henriquez attacked the city, perched there in the midst of his camp, and clapped its wings and croaked in a manner that was accepted as a good omen. They had proclaimed the Prince, restored and repainted the royal arms, and assisted at the performance of Te Deum in the cathedral; but school-boys in a rebellion could not have been more unprepared with any plan of defence, or unprovided with means for it. They were in an open city. They had not a single piece of cannon. Of some 800 men who were stationed at outposts and other points of danger, scarcely a fourth part were armed with muskets, and for these three or four round of cartridges were all that could be found. To persons unacquainted with the character and condition of the Portugueze it might appear almost incredible that resistance should have been attempted under circumstances thus absolutely hopeless. But the people were goaded by insult, and stung by the feeling of insupportable wrong. They had been wantonly invaded, . . grievously, inhumanly, and remorselessly oppressed. They knew that the nation was rising against its oppressors: they felt instinctively what the strength of a nation is; and were too much exasperated to consider, or too little informed to Neves, iv. understand, that without order and discipline numbers are of little avail, and even courage not to be relied on.

31-36.

The higher orders were perfectly sensible of their imminent The French danger, but they would have exposed themselves to certain de- city.

enter the

X.

July.

July 5.

CHAP. struction if they had attempted to reason with the infuriated multitude. The magistrates therefore, and the person who had 1808. been appointed to the command, withdrew secretly from the city during the night, and fled. In the morning five Frenchmen, who had been surprised upon a marauding party, were brought in prisoners. A short-lived and senseless exultation was excited at their appearance. At noon it was known that the enemy were close at hand; they sent forward a peasant who had fallen into their hands, and whom, contrary to their custom, they had spared, to offer pardon to the people if they would return to their obedience; that offer being refused, they attacked the insurgents. By their own account the resistance was so momentary, that there was no time for the artillery, nor for half the troops to take part in the action. The insurgents threw away their arms,. like terrified villagers imploring the clemency of an irritated conqueror. From 800 to 900 were left upon the field. The city was entered on all sides. But, by their own account, the moment 3d Bulletin. the action was over, General Margaron restrained the indignaPortuguez, tion of his troops, their moderation was equal to their valour, and victory was immediately followed by order. Margaron, in a proclamation to the inhabitants, dwelt upon his clemency. "A decree had been issued," he said, "commanding that every town where the French were fired upon should be burnt, and its inhabitants put to the sword. They had incurred that penalty, and his duty required him to inflict it. Nevertheless he had prevented the massacre and the conflagration; not a house, not a cottage had been burnt; he had protected their persons and their property, as far as was possible under such circumstances; and instead of seeking for the guilty, he repeated to them his offers of peace and union. He called upon them to learn who were their real friends, and lay aside their arms. "Leave," said he,

Observador

357.

Thiebault,

143.

X.

"the noble task of protecting and defending you to the soldiers CHAP. of the great nation. Submit yourselves to the power which Heaven supports, and obey our holy church as I do,.. you in 1808. renouncing your projects of exterminating the French, I in forgiving all that you have done against them."

66

July. Thiebault, Pièces Justificatives,

of the pri

soners.

48.

the early

This is what the French relate of their conduct at Leiria. 0 Sepulchres of Leiria," exclaims the Portugueze historian of Massacre these events, "prove ye the falsehood with which these robbers, as cruel as they are perfidious, have deceived the world!" What Neves, iv. they have not related is now to be recorded. It is not dissembled by the Portugueze that the defence was as feeble and as momentary as the enemy describe it. They entered the city on all sides, and began an indiscriminate butchery; old and young, women and babes, were butchered, in the streets, in the houses, in the churches, in the fields. The most atrocious acts of cruelty were committed, and not by the common soldiers only. One of the superior officers related of himself, that a feeling of pity came over him when upon entering the town he met a woman with an Memoir of infant at her breast, but calling to mind that he was a soldier, he Campaigns pierced mother and child with one thrust! Free scope was given to every abominable passion; and in the general pillage the very graves were opened, upon the supposition that treasure might have been hidden there, as in a place where no plunderer would look to find it. When the slaughter in the streets had ceased, they began to hunt for prisoners, and all who were found were taken to an open space before the Chapel of S. Bartholomew, there to be put to death like the prisoners at Jaffa. The greater number of these poor wretches fell on their knees, some stretching their hands in unavailing agony toward their murderers for mercy; others, lifting them to heaven, directed their last prayers where mercy would be found. The murderers, as if they de- Neves, iv. lighted in the act of butchery, began their work with the sword

of the Duke

of Welling

ton, f. 8.

37-42.

CHAP. and bayonet and the but-end of the musket, and finished it by firing upon their * victims.

X.

1808.

July.

Loison's

up

On the same day actions of the same devilish character were committed by Loison's division on their way from Almeida. Leaving a garrison of 1250 men in that place, and having Almeida to blown Abrantes. the works at Fort Conception, he set out towards Lisbon, in pursuance to the orders which he had received, with between 3000 and 4000 troops. The next day he approached the city of Guarda; it happened to be Sunday, and also the annual festival of Queen St. Isabel, whose name, stripped of all fable and idolatrous observances, deserves always to be held in dear and respectful remembrance by the Portugueze. The assemblage of people was therefore much greater than at other times; but they were assembled to keep holyday, not to provide for their defence. A Junta had been constituted there two days before; and with that miscalculation of strength, or ignorance of the state of things, which prevailed so generally among their countrymen, they seem not to have considered themselves as in danger of an attack till Loison was within two miles of the city. An old iron gun, rusty and dismantled, and lying useless in the ruins of the castle, was their whole artillery ;.. a few peasants

* Two persons were left alive when the French thought their accursed work was done. One of them lingered three days before he was relieved by death. Feliz Lourenço, the surveyor of the high road, was the other. "He," says Neves, (writing in 1811,) "still lives.. but in what a condition! With his body and face disfigured by the marks of powder, and the scars of eight and twenty bayonet wounds;.. with his left eye struck out by a ball, the bones of his right shoulder broken, the tendons rendered useless, and the hand paralyzed. It is from himself that I have received the details of this frightful transaction, of which there exists no other witness, except the murderers themselves."

Historia Geral da Invasam dos Francezes em Portugal, t. iv. p. 42.