Chapter X: Insurrection in Portugal (3)

By this time, however, the ardour of the people had so far cooled, that they no longer talked of sallying against the French, they contented themselves with keeping a tumultuous watch through the night; and when the morning dawned, and there appeared no enemy, they fancied themselves secure. The French commander had merely retired out of sight: his dispatches reached Mertola at eleven on the preceding night; at midnight Maransin, with 950 men, began his march, and at four the next evening the united force ♦JUNE 26.♦ arrived before Beja. They were opposed by a mere multitude without order, leader, or plan of defence, every man acting for himself as he thought best. Yet the victory was not gained without a brave resistance, and some loss to the assailants. According to the French account they lost eighty in killed and wounded, while 1200 of the Portugueze were slain in the action, and all who were taken in arms were put to ♦OBSERVADOR PORTUGUEZ, 341. NEVES, III. 327–332.♦ death. The worst excesses followed by which humanity can be disgraced and outraged, and the[15] city was sacked and set on fire.

In this whole merciless proceeding Maransin acted upon his own judgement, well knowing that such was the system which Napoleon had laid down, and which his generals felt no reluctance in executing. He proceeded to Evora, and Kellermann, approving of his conduct, held out the fate of Beja in a proclamation, as a warning ♦KELLERMANN’S PROCLAMATION TO THE PEOPLE OF ALEM-TEJO.♦ to the province. “Inhabitants of Alem-Tejo,” he said, “Beja had revolted, and Beja exists no longer. Its guilty inhabitants have been put to the edge of the sword, and its houses delivered up to pillage and to the flames. Thus shall all those be treated who listen to the counsels of a perfidious rebellion, and with a senseless hatred take arms against us. Thus shall those bands of smugglers and criminals be treated, who have collected in Badajoz, and put arms into the hands of the unhappy Lusitanians, but dare not themselves march against us. Who, indeed, can resist our invincible troops? Ye who have precipitated yourselves into rebellion, prevent, by prompt submission, the inevitable chastisement that awaits you! And ye who have hitherto been happy or prudent enough to continue in your duty, profit by this terrible example! Our general in chief has not told you in vain that ♦OBSERVADOR PORTUGUEZ, 347.♦ clouds of rebels shall be dispersed before us like the sands of the desert before the impetuous breath of the south wind.”

♦JUNOT’S PROCLAMATION TO THE PORTUGUEZE.♦

The bombastic sentence which Kellermann thus quoted, was from a proclamation that Junot had just sent forth, in that spirit of shameless falsehood and remorseless tyranny which characterised the intrusive government. He asked the Portugueze what madness possessed them? What reason they could have, after seven months of the most perfect tranquillity, of the best understanding, to take arms; ... and against whom? against an army which was to secure their independence and maintain the integrity of their country! Was it their wish, then, that ancient Lusitania should become a province of Spain? Could they regret a dynasty which had abandoned them, and under which they were no longer counted among the nations of Europe? What more could they desire than to be Portugueze, and independent? and this Napoleon had promised them. They had asked him for a king, who, under his all-powerful protection, might restore their country to its rank. At this moment their new monarch was expecting to approach them. “I hoped,” said Junot, “to place him in a peaceable and flourishing kingdom; am I to show him nothing but ruins and graves? Will he reign in a desert? assuredly not; and you will not be any thing but a wretched province of Spain. Your customs and laws have been maintained; your holy religion, which is ours also, has not suffered the least insult; it is you who violate it, suffering it to be influenced by heretics, who only wish for its destruction. Ask the unhappy Roman-catholics of Ireland under what oppression they are groaning! If these perfidious islanders invade your territory, leave me to fight them; ... your part is to remain peaceably in your fields.” He then attempted to soothe them, saying, that if any abuses in the administration still existed, every day’s experience would diminish them. The Emperor, satisfied with the reports which he had received of the public spirit, had graciously remitted half the contribution. He was fulfilling all their wishes. And would they let themselves be dragged on by the influence of a banditti, at the very moment when they should be happy? “Portugueze,” said he, “you have but one moment to implore the clemency of the Emperor and disarm his wrath. Already the armies of Spain touch your frontiers at every point; ... you are lost if you hesitate. Merit your pardon by quick submission, or behold the punishment that awaits you! Every village or town in which the people have taken arms, and fired upon my troops, shall be delivered up to pillage, and destroyed, and the inhabitants shall be put to the sword. Every individual ♦OBSERVADOR PORTUGUEZ, 317–320.♦ found in arms shall instantly be shot.”

The French had dealt largely in false promises; they were sincere in their threats, and on the very day when this proclamation was issued at Lisbon, that sincerity was proved at Beja. ♦NATIONAL FEELING OF THE PORTUGUEZE.♦ But as the Portugueze had not been deceived, neither were they now to be intimidated. Their character had been totally mistaken by their insolent oppressors. They, like the Spaniards, had a deep and ever-present remembrance of their former greatness. It was sometimes expressed with a vanity which excited the contempt of those who judge hastily upon that imperfect knowledge which is worse than ignorance; more generally it produced a feeling of dignified and melancholy pride. The kingdom had decayed, but the degeneracy of the people was confined to the higher ranks, whom every possible cause, physical and moral, combined to degrade. Generation after generation, they had intermarried, not merely within the narrow circle of a few privileged families, but oftentimes in their own; uncles with their nieces, nephews with their aunts. The canonical law was dispensed with for these alliances; but no dispensing power could set aside the law of nature, which rendered degeneracy the sure consequence. Thus was the breed deteriorated; and education completed the mischief. The young fidalgo was never regarded as a boy: as soon as the robes, or rather bandages of infancy were laid aside, he appeared in the dress of manhood, was initiated in its forms and follies, and it was rather his misfortune than his fault, if, at an early age, he became familiar with its vices. When he arrived at manhood, no field for exertion was open to him, even if he were qualified or disposed to exert himself. The private concerns of embellishing and improving an estate were as little known in Portugal as those public affairs in which the nobility of Great Britain are so actively engaged: if not in office, he was in idleness, and his idleness was passed in the capital. A wasteful expenditure made him a bad landlord, and a bad paymaster; a deficient education made him a bad statesman; and well was it if the lax morality which the casuists had introduced into a corrupt religion, did not make him a bad man. Exceptions there were, because there are some dispositions so happily tempered, that their original goodness can never be wholly depraved, however unpropitious the circumstances in which they are placed; but men, for the most part, are what circumstances make them, and these causes of degeneracy were common to all of the higher class. On the other hand, the middle classes were improved, and the peasantry uncorrupted. Their occupations were the same as those of their forefathers; nor did they differ from them in any respect, except what was a most important one at this time, that a long interval of peace, and their frequent intercourse with the Spaniards, had effaced the old enmity between the two nations, so that along the border the languages were intermingled, and intermarriages so common, as to have produced a natural and moral union. They were a fine, hospitable, noble-minded race, respected most by those who knew them best. The upper boughs were scathed, but the trunk and the root were sound.

♦THEIR HATRED OF THE FRENCH.♦

Their ignorance as well as their superstition, contributed at this time to excite and sustain a national resistance. They expected miracles in their favour; the people of Coimbra actually believed that a miracle had been wrought, because when the French fired upon them from the windows of their quarters, no person was ♦NEVES, III. 210.♦ hurt. Of the relative strength of nations they knew nothing, nor of the arrangements which are necessary for carrying on war, nor of the resources by which it must be maintained. Spain filled a larger space in their imagination than France, and Portugal than either; and they were not erroneous in believing that Spain and Portugal together possessed a strength which might defy the world. The threats of the intrusive government therefore excited indignation instead of dismay; such language addressed to minds in their state of exaltation, was like water cast upon a fire intense enough to decompose it, and convert its elements into fuel for the flames. The fate of Beja excited hatred and the thirst of vengeance instead of fear, and the insurrection continued to spread in the very province where the experiment had been made upon so large a scale of putting an end to it by fire and sword.

♦THE JUIZ DE FORA AT MARVAM.♦

A Portugueze of the old stamp, by name Antonio Leite de Araujo Ferreira Bravo, held the office of Juiz de Fora at Marvam, a small town about eight miles from Portalegre, surrounded with old walls. Of the many weak places upon that frontier it was the only one which, in the short campaign of 1801, resisted the Spaniards in their unjust and impolitic invasion, and was not taken by them; and this was in great measure owing to his exertions. When the French usurped the government, a verbal order came from the Marquez d’Alorna, at that time general of the province, to admit either French or Spanish troops as friends, and give them possession of the place. Antonio Leite protested against this, maintaining that no governor ought to deliver up a place intrusted to his keeping without a formal and authentic order: proceedings were instituted against him for his opposition, and he was severely reprehended, this being thought punishment enough at that time, and in a town where no commotion was dreamt of. When the decree arrived at Marvam, by which it was announced that the house of Braganza had ceased to reign, Antonio Leite sent for the public notaries of the town, and resigned his office, stating, in a formal instrument, that he did this because he would not be compelled to render that obedience to a foreign power which was due to his lawful and beloved Sovereign, and to him alone. Then taking with him these witnesses to the church of the Misericordia, he deposited his wand of office in the hands of an image of N. Senhor dos Passos, and in the highest feeling of old times called upon the sacred image to keep it till it should one day be restored to its rightful possessor. He then returned to his house, and put himself in deep mourning. The order arrived for taking down the royal arms. He entreated the _Vereador_ not to execute it, upon the plea that the escutcheon here was not that of the Braganza family, but of the kingdom, put up in the reign of Emanuel, and distinguished by his ♦NEVES, II. 109–122.♦ device; and when this plea was rejected, he took the shield into his own keeping, and laid it carefully by, to be preserved for better days.

♦HE FLIES THE TOWN.♦

The Juiz seems to have been a man who had read the chronicles of his own country till he had thoroughly imbibed their spirit. These actions were so little in accord with the feelings and manners of the present age, that they were in all likelihood ascribed to insanity, and that imputation saved him from the persecution which he would otherwise have incurred. But when the national feeling began to manifest itself, such madness was then considered dangerous, and the Corregidor of Portalegre received orders from Lisbon to arrest him. Before these orders arrived he had begun to stir for the deliverance of his country, and had sent a confidential person with a letter to Galluzo, the Spanish commander at Badajoz, requesting aid from thence to occupy Marvam; men could not be spared; and the messenger returned with the unwelcome intelligence that before he left Badajoz the business on which he went had transpired, and was publicly talked of. Perceiving now that his life was in danger, his first care was that no person might suffer but himself, and therefore he laid upon his table a copy of the letter which he had written, from which it might be seen that the invitation was his single act and deed; having done this, he seemed rather to trust to Providence than to take any means for securing himself. It was not long before, looking out at the window, he saw the Corregedor with an adjutant of Kellermann’s and a party of horse coming to his house. He had just time to bid the servant say he was not within, and slip into the street by a garden door. He had got some distance, when the Corregedor saw him, and called after him, saying he wanted to settle with him concerning the quartering of some troops. Antonio Leite knew what his real business was too well to be thus deceived, and quickened his pace. The town has two gates, one of which was fastened, because the garrison was small: toward that however he ran, well knowing that if he were not intercepted at the other, he should be pursued and surely overtaken. Joaquim José de Matos, a Coimbra student, then at home for the vacation, met him, and offered to conceal him in his house; but the Juiz continued to run, seeing that the soldiers were in pursuit, dropt from the wall, escaped with little hurt, and then scrambled down the high and steep crag upon which it stands. Matos, thinking that he had now involved himself, ran also, and being of diminutive stature, squeezed himself through a hole in the gate; they then fled together toward Valencia de Alcantara, and had ♦NEVES, III. 333–337.♦ the satisfaction, at safe distance, of seeing a Swiss escort come round the walls to the place where the Juiz had dropt.

♦HE RETURNS, AND SEIZES THE TOWN.♦

The Spanish frontier being so near, their escape was easy; but when they had been a few days at Valencia de Alcantara, Matos determined upon returning to his family, knowing that there was no previous charge against him, and thinking that the act of having spoken to the Juiz could not be punished as a crime. In this he was mistaken. The governor of Marvam was a worthy instrument of the French. He not only arrested Matos, but his father also, an old man who was dragged from his bed, where he lay in a fit of the gout, to be thrown into a Portugueze prison; and a physician, whom he suspected of being concerned in the scheme of an insurrection. This news reached the Juiz; it was added, that his own property had been sequestered, he himself outlawed, and all persons forbidden to harbour him, and that a French escort had arrived to carry the three prisoners to Elvas. He could not endure to think that he should be, however innocently, the occasion of their death, and therefore determined to attempt at least their deliverance at any hazard. It was not difficult to find companions at a time when all usual occupations were at a stand, and every man eager to be in action against an odious enemy. With a few Spanish volunteers he crossed the frontier, and there raised the peasantry, who knew and respected him: with this force he proceeded to a point upon the road between Marvam and Elvas; the escort had passed, ... but he had the satisfaction to learn that it had not gone for the prisoners, only to bring away the ammunition and spike the guns. This raised their spirits; they directed their course to Marvam, climbed the walls during the night, opened the prison, seized the governor, and without the slightest opposition from two hundred Portugueze troops, whom he had just obtained from Elvas to secure the place, and who, if they knew what was passing, did not choose to notice it, the adventurers returned to Valencia in triumph with their friends, and with the governor prisoner. The Junta of Valencia did not now hesitate, in conformity to an order from Badajoz, to give the Juiz regular ♦JUNE 26.♦ assistance; he entered Marvam in triumph with this auxiliary force, and the Prince Regent was proclaimed there by the rejoicing inhabitants, at the very time when Beja was in flames. A few ♦INSURRECTION AT CAMPO-MAYOR.♦ days afterwards a Spanish detachment from Albuquerque entered Campo-Mayor with the same ♦JULY 2.♦ facility. Some jealousies which arose there, as well as at Marvam, from the inconsiderate conduct of the Spanish officers in issuing orders as if they were in their own territories, were put an end to by the formation of a Junta, of which the Spanish commander at Campo-Mayor was made president. The example of these places was immediately followed at Ouguela, Castello de Vide, Arronches, and Portalegre; and the insurrection thus extended throughout all that ♦NEVES, III. 337–360.♦ part of the province which is to the north of Elvas.

♦MEASURES OF THE FRENCH.♦

Junot meantime was in a state of great anxiety at Lisbon. It was not known what was become of Maransin and the troops in Algarve; there was no news of Loison; the insurrection in the north had reached Coimbra, and was spreading in Estremadura, and there was a report, probable enough to obtain credit, that an expedition of 10,000 English was off the bar. He called a ♦JUNE 28.♦ council, at which the generals of division, Comte de Laborde and Travot, were present, the chief of the staff, General Thiebault, Baron de Margaron, and other officers. The result of their conference was, that the army should be collected in and near Lisbon, leaving garrisons in only the three important places of Almeida, Elvas, and Peniche; that Setubal and the left bank of the Tagus should be maintained as long as possible; that when the English appeared they should occupy in succession three positions; one from Leiria to Ourem and Thomar; a second from ♦THIEBAULT, RELATION, 128.♦ Santarem to Rio-Mayor, Obidos, and Peniche; lastly, one from Saccavem to Cintra: finally, that they should defend Lisbon till the utmost extremity, and only leave it to retire upon Elvas, rest the troops there, and then force their way either to Madrid, Segovia, or Valladolid. In ♦1808. JULY.♦ pursuance of this resolution, Kellermann was summoned from Alem-Tejo, and courier after courier dispatched to recall Loison from Beira. Junot’s next measure was to put the church plate ♦OBSERVADOR PORTUGUEZ, 321.♦ which he had secured in a portable form, and for this purpose what there was no time for coining was melted into ingots. To counteract the rumours, true and false, by which the Portugueze were encouraged, it was affirmed that Napoleon had entered Spain, and that 20,000 men had reached the frontiers of Portugal to reinforce the French. Alarmed and harassed by contradictory rumours, and dreading from the temper of the people an insurrection, which would be punished by a massacre, many families removed from Lisbon; those who had country estates to their _Quintas_, the greater number to the different ♦OBSERVADOR PORTUGUEZ, 343. N.♦ places on the opposite side of the river, particularly ♦JULY 1.♦ Almada and Casilhas. They were however ordered to return; every head of a family who did not within four days obey this order was to be arrested, and all persons were prohibited from leaving Lisbon, unless they were provided with a passport from the police, ... an institution to which the Portugueze at this time applied the name of the Inquisition. It was of importance, the decree said, that good citizens should be secured against the ridiculous rumours which were promulgated, and that all notions of danger to the city of Lisbon should be put an end to; the French army would know how to maintain tranquillity there. This, however, was less a measure of policy than of extortion; those families who had retired were made to pay, in proportion to their means, for permission to remain where they were. They who had nothing to ♦OBSERVADOR PORTUGUEZ, 345.♦ give suffered the whole inconvenience of this oppressive law.

♦THEY ENDEAVOUR TO AVAIL THEMSELVES OF THE CLERGY’S INFLUENCE.♦

The French commander tried to suppress the national feeling by the influence of religion. In the village of Varatojo, near Torres Vedras, there was a famous seminary for itinerant preachers of the Franciscan order, instituted by Fr. Antonio das Chagas, a man remarkable alike for his genius, for the profligacy of his youth, and the active, austere, enthusiastic piety of his after life. Junot sent for the Guardian of this seminary, requiring his immediate attendance; the old man, in strict adherence to the rule of his order, which forbade him to travel by any other means, obeyed the summons on foot, and arrived four-and-twenty hours later than the time appointed. He was then ordered to dispatch some of his preachers, as men who possessed great authority over the people, to Leiria and into Alem-Tejo, to preach the duty of submission and tranquil obedience. The Guardian excused himself by representing that his brethren who were qualified for such a mission were already on their circuits, and that there were then in the seminary none but youths engaged in preparing for the ministry, and old men, who, being past all service, rested there ♦NEVES, IV. 61–63.♦ from their labours, in expectation of their release. ♦JULY 2.♦ The dignitaries of the patriarchal church could not so well evade his commands; a pastoral letter was obtained from them denouncing excommunication against all persons who should, directly or indirectly, either by writing, speaking, or acting, encourage the spirit of insurrection which had gone abroad. This was sent into the provinces, with a letter from the French intendant of police, Lagarde, in which the clergy ♦JULY 4.♦ and the heads of convents were informed, that wherever public tranquillity might be disturbed, they would be held responsible, because no disturbance would break out if they exerted themselves to prevent it, as the true spirit of religion required. The fate of Beja, he said, should be that of every city in Portugal which should have the guilty imprudence to revolt against the Emperor, now the sole sovereign of that country. And he asked the Portugueze, wherefore they would bring upon themselves the heavy weight of power at a moment when the Almighty authority (such was the blasphemous expression) thought only of putting in oblivion the rights of conquest, and of governing with mildness? Is it, said he, before a few handfuls of factious men ♦OBSERVADOR PORTUGUEZ, 348–353.♦ in Portugal that the star of the great Napoleon is to be obscured, or the arm of one of his most valiant and skilful captains to be deadened? Deeply as the baneful superstition of the Romish church has rooted itself in that country, the threat of excommunication excited nothing but contempt. The French could not derive any assistance from ecclesiastical interference while it was remembered that they had robbed the churches.

♦INSURRECTION AT THOMAR.♦

It is not extraordinary that the intrusive government should have failed to deceive the people by its addresses; but that it should have attempted so to do; that it should have talked of benefits intended and conferred upon a nation on whom it had brought such wide and general misery, and inflicted injuries as unprovoked as they were enormous, indicated indeed an effrontery of which none but the agents of Buonaparte were capable. Their insolent language exasperated the Portugueze. One of these papers was lying upon a tradesman’s counter in Thomar, and one of their very few partizans vindicated the manner in which the Prince was there spoken of, saying, that the country was now rid of him and of the Inquisition. A Franciscan who was present immediately took a knife from his sleeve, and struck it through the paper into the board, saying, that in that manner he would serve any one who dared speak against his Prince and his religion: and producing a pistol, he was only withheld by force from giving murderous proof of his sincerity. An information was laid against him, and a party of Portugueze soldiers sent from Abrantes to arrest him: he absconded in time, and the Guardian of the convent, who was suspected of favouring his escape, was taken in his stead. Before they could carry him out of the ♦NEVES, IV. 3–8.♦ town, the people rose and rescued him, and the restoration of the legitimate government was proclaimed with the same ceremonies as in other places.

♦INSURRECTION AT LEIRIA.♦

About the same time a handful of students from Coimbra, collecting volunteers as they went, spread the insurrection at Condeixa, Ega, and Pombal, and approached Leiria, from which city a small party of the French retired before them. This place was within easy reach of the enemy, and troops, arms, and ammunition were wanting to defend it. The people sent to Coimbra for all, as if Coimbra could supply either: the Bishop exerted himself to forward the preparations; and the people mustered tumultuously with that confidence which an ignorant multitude always feels of its own untried strength. The French had some small garrisons upon the coast, about twenty miles off, in the little forts of Nazareth, S. Giam, and S. Martinho, which communicated with each other by telegraphs, and drew rations every day from the adjoining country. The Juiz of Pederneira was compelled to furnish these; in this time of alarm he was called upon to store them with a convenient stock beforehand, and because this was not, and could not be done in a few hours, they began to pillage the neighbourhood. Provoked at this, the fishermen fell upon a ♦SUCCESS OF THE INSURGENTS AT NAZARETH.♦ Frenchman, who was going with dispatches from S. Martinho to Nazareth, and murdered him, crying, Down with the French! The sentinel at the signal-post had the same fate ... the signal-post was broken, and the country round about was presently in insurrection. The enemy withdrew from S. Giam and S. Martinho, having hastily spiked two guns at the former place, and buried two barrels of powder. They fell back upon a detachment under General Thomieres, which watched the country between the Caldas, Obidos, and Peniche. Nazareth was blockaded by the insurgents; the report was, that a considerable Spanish army had arrived at Leiria, and incredible as this was, it was believed, and gave full confidence to these ignorant and zealous people. They sent thither for assistance, and the Coimbra students came with a party of peasants, those who could muster the best arms. The cannon were brought from S. Giam, and rendered serviceable; the two barrels of powder were discovered; a Portugueze artilleryman escaped from the fort to join his countrymen, and direct their operations; and the French, finding themselves now in serious danger, capitulated ♦JULY 5.♦ to save their lives. The victorious students and their party were far advanced on their ♦NEVES, IV. 14–30.♦ return to 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.

♦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 peaceful character.

♦PREPARATION FOR DEFENCE.♦

The people of Leiria and the peasantry who had collected there had had little time for preparation when they heard that the French were approaching. They had paraded through their 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 ♦NEVES, IV. 31–36.♦ much exasperated to consider, or too little informed to understand, that without order and discipline numbers are of little avail, and even courage not to be relied on.

♦THE FRENCH ENTER THE CITY.♦

The higher orders were perfectly sensible of their imminent danger, but they would have exposed themselves to certain destruction if they had attempted to reason with the infuriated multitude. The magistrates therefore, and the person who had 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 ♦JULY 5.♦ 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 ♦3d BULLETIN. OBSERVADOR PORTUGUEZ, 357. THIEBAULT, 143.♦ entered on all sides. But, by their own account, the moment the action was over, General Margaron restrained the indignation 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 ♦THIEBAULT, PIÈCES JUSTIFICATIVES, NO. 10.♦ lay aside their arms. “Leave,” said he, “the noble task of protecting and defending you to the soldiers of the great nation. Submit yourselves to the power which Heaven supports, and obey our holy church as I do, ... you in renouncing your projects of exterminating the French, I in forgiving all that you have done against them.”

♦MASSACRE OF THE PRISONERS.♦

♦NEVES, IV. 48.♦

This is what the French relate of their conduct at Leiria. “Sepulchres of Leiria,” exclaims the Portugueze historian of these events, “prove ye the falsehood with which these robbers, as cruel as they are perfidious, have deceived the world!” What 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 infant at her breast, but calling to mind that he was a soldier, he pierced mother and child with one thrust! Free scope was given to every ♦MEMOIR OF THE EARLY CAMPAIGNS OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON, P. 8.♦ 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, ♦NEVES, IV. 37–42.♦ as if they delighted in the act of butchery, began their work with the sword and bayonet and the but-end of the musket, and finished it by firing upon their [16]victims.

♦LOISON’S MARCH FROM ALMEIDA TO ABRANTES.♦

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 blown up the works of 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 mounted it upon a cart, and so carried it to a rising ground near the road, as if the sight of it would deter the French from advancing. According to the ♦BULLETIN 4. OBSERVADOR PORTUGUEZ, 366.♦ French official account, the rebels, as they insolently styled the Portugueze, drew up in two ♦THIEBAULT, 153.♦ lines, having their flanks well supported, and two pieces of cannon to protect their centre; their lines were forced at all points, their guns taken, themselves surrounded as well as routed; the disorder was general, the slaughter dreadful; more than a thousand dead were left upon the field, and Loison in pursuit of the fugitives entered the city. The truth is, that a disorderly multitude fled as soon as they were attacked; and that, as all who could not escape were cut down, the number of the slain has not perhaps been much exaggerated. A night of licentiousness and pillage followed, and Loison then proceeded. The ancient and flourishing town of Covilham escaped a similar visitation, because it lay somewhat out of the line of his march, and he had no time to spare. Alpedrinha, a place containing between two and three thousand inhabitants, was not so fortunate. On the same day that Margaron entered Leiria, and with as little resistance, General Charlot entered this ♦JULY 5.♦ unhappy town; that General was one of the few commanders who had hitherto obtained a character for honour and humanity, ... here, however, all horrible crimes and cruelties were committed; one inoffensive old man was taken out of the town, and burnt alive within sight and hearing of the fugitives upon the mountains; and the French, having carried off every thing ♦NEVES, IV. 77.♦ that was portable, set the place on fire. They proceeded, plundering as they went, by Sarzedas, Cortiçada, and Sardoal to Abrantes.

♦LANGUAGE OF THE FRENCH BULLETINS.♦

The French stated in their bulletin that they had lost upon their march twenty killed, and from thirty to forty wounded, whereas the rebels had left at least three thousand upon the different fields of battle[17]. The character of the intrusive government would be imperfectly understood hereafter, if its language as well as its acts were not faithfully recorded. The bulletin which announced this statement to the Portugueze, and to that great portion of the civilized world in which the events of the war were anxiously observed, proceeded to say, “this is the mournful result of a frenzy which nothing can justify, which nothing can excuse, and which obliges us to multiply the number of victims who excite sorrow and compassion, but upon whom a terrible necessity compels us to inflict the strokes of just vengeance. Thus it is that the Portugueze people, blind instruments of the unfeeling calculations of the British cabinet, destroy with their own hands the happiness which we with all our power were endeavouring to make them enjoy! Thus it is that from the bosom of tranquillity, of good order, and of repose, they draw upon themselves the destructive scourge of war, and bring devastation even upon the very fields where God had given abundance! Thus it is that deluded men, ungrateful children as well as guilty citizens, change all the claims which they had to the benevolence and protection of government, for deserved misfortune and wretchedness, ruin their families, carry desolation, flames, and death, into their dwellings, transform flourishing cities into heaps of ashes and vast tombs, and by their fatal union draw upon the whole country the calamities which they provoke, which they deserve, and from which (weak victims as they are) they cannot escape, covering themselves with shame, and completing her destruction. Thus it is that no other resource remains to them than the clemency of those whom they sought to assassinate, ... a clemency which they do not implore in vain, when, acknowledging their crime, they ask pardon from the French, who, incapable of belying their noble character, are ♦BULLETIN 4. OBSERVADOR PORTUGUEZ, 368.♦ always as full of generosity as of valour.” This was the [18]language of Buonaparte’s governor in Portugal! “To be the victim,” says Mr. Wordsworth, commenting upon these things and words at the time, in that strain of profoundest feeling and philosophy by which his higher compositions are so eminently distinguished, “to be the victim of such bloody-mindedness, is a doleful lot for a nation; and the anguish must have been rendered still more poignant by the scoffs and insults, and by that heinous contempt of the most awful truths, with which the perpetrator of those cruelties has proclaimed them. Merciless ferocity is an evil familiar to our thoughts; but these combinations of malevolence historians have not yet been called upon to record; and writers of fiction, if they have ever ventured to create passions resembling them, have confined, out of reverence for the acknowledged constitution of human nature, those passions to reprobate spirits. Such tyranny is, in the strictest sense, intolerable; not because it aims at the extinction of life, but of every thing which gives life its value, ... of virtue, of reason, of repose in God, or in truth.”

♦LOISON ORDERED TOWARDS COIMBRA.♦

Loison, for the sake of intimidating the country, and thereby preventing the danger of such resistance as he had experienced in Tras os Montes, had sent before him a report that he had been reinforced by 16,000 men from the army of Marshal Bessieres; and this news was officially transmitted to Junot by the Corregedor of Abrantes. At first the French received the tidings with entire belief, and with a joy proportionate to the danger from which they now thought themselves delivered. A comparison of dates and distances occasioned some uncomfortable doubts, and the next day advices came that Loison had arrived at Abrantes with no other force than his own. But even this was of no inconsiderable importance: it relieved them from their anxiety concerning him, it brought the whole of their disposable force within reach and within command, for Kellermann had now arrived with the troops from Alem-Tejo; and Junot determined upon striking a great blow before the English should appear. Kellermann had been sent to Alcobaça, where the troops under General Thomières, who covered Peniche, and those of Margaron (who had received the submission of the people of Thomar, and exacted from them ♦NEVES, IV. 64.♦ 20,000 cruzados) were to be under his orders. Loison was now instructed to form a junction with them and take the command; crush the insurgents in that part of the country, march against Coimbra, subdue and chastise that city, thus quenching one great furnace of the insurrection, ♦THIEBAULT, 146.♦ and return to Lisbon. Before he reached Alcobaça part of these instructions had been fulfilled by Thomières.

♦NAZARETH SACKED AND BURNT BY THE FRENCH.♦

That General had advanced with a few hundred men to Obidos, with the intention of relieving the fort at Nazareth; but a reconnoitring party which he sent forward to Barquinha was driven back, four of his scouts were made prisoners and sent on board an English vessel, and a report that a considerable body of English had landed there to assist the insurgents deterred him from proceeding in time. The Portugueze themselves raised this report; in reality they had applied for aid to the English, who, some time before, had taken possession of the Berlengs; a few pieces of cannon were given them, but the garrison was so scanty that no men could be spared; and the short respite which they obtained by deceiving the enemy would have been better employed in providing for escape, than for a feeble and disorderly resistance. Nine days after their triumph Thomières proceeded against them ♦JULY 14.♦ with 3000 men, in the belief that some English had joined them. One column, under cover of the darkness, got under the ill-served guns of the insurgents before they were perceived; the Portugueze fired in haste without aim and without effect, and then took to flight. A few drunken fellows, who had undertaken to serve the guns, remained by them, with a woman and a few old men, and these were put to death. The town of Nazareth was sacked, and set on fire. The jewels which they took from the church of N. Senhora de Nazareth were estimated at more than £20,000; for of the innumerable and many-named idols of Our Lady in Portugal, this was the most celebrated. It is the very image which, according to the legend, St. Jerome sent from Bethlehem to St. Augustine, and St. Augustine to his monks at the Caulian monastery, from whence, at the destruction of the Goths, it was brought by King Roderick and Romano to this spot. It is said, that during the last century the idol has sometimes been visited by not less than 20,000 devotees on the day of its festival. The enemy then descending to the beach, burnt the lower town, consisting of some 300 houses, of which only four escaped the flames; they burnt also the nets and vessels, upon which the inhabitants, ♦NEVES, IV. 84–87.♦ being fishermen, depended for their subsistence: they then plundered Pederneira, and set it on fire, and returned with their booty to Alcobaça[19].

♦A JUNTA ESTABLISHED AT BEJA.♦

Loison having taken the command, proceeded, in pursuance of his instructions, towards Coimbra; but he had hardly got beyond Leiria when he was recalled, in consequence of an alteration in Junot’s plans, which the events in Alem-Tejo had rendered necessary. In the north of that province the insurrection was spreading far and wide, while Beja was in flames; and when Kellermann marched for Lisbon, leaving only a garrison in Elvas, it spread with equal rapidity in the south. Beja had not been destroyed by the fire; houses with little furniture and little wood-work are not easily burnt. The Corregedor returned there from Ayamonte with a supply of arms; a Junta was formed, which assumed great authority, and acted with unusual promptitude and vigour. Men were raised, the regular taxes claimed in the name of the rightful government, and a detachment under Sebastiam Martins Mestre, who had taken an active part in Algarve, was sent to guard against the French at Setubal, by forming a cordon to guard the river Sadam. Having raised a few men for this purpose in the districts of Grandolo and Santiago de Cacem, he proceeded to Alcacer do Sal, established a Junta there, and brought four iron guns from Melides for the defence of this town, a point of great importance to the province while there was an enemy’s force ♦NEVES, IV. 92–95.♦ at Setubal: Setubal and Palmella were the only places which they now occupied on that side the Tagus.

♦JUNTA OF ESTREMOZ.♦

Lobo meantime, leaving Moretti in Jurumenha, formed Juntas at Borba and at Villa-Viçosa, where he placed the palace and park upon their former establishment. These Juntas readily acknowledged the supremacy of Estremoz, where one was at this time formed, which endeavoured to make its authority recognized as supreme in Alem-Tejo, and was supported in its pretensions by the Spanish government at Badajoz. The claim was admitted by all the smaller places in the surrounding country, but not at Beja nor at Campo-Mayor, in which latter place considerable activity had been displayed. Instead of doubling the soldiers’ pay, which had been rashly done at Porto, the officers who assembled at Campo-Mayor resolved that those whose means rendered it possible should serve for half-pay, or without pay; they raised loans and donatives, levied a third of the rent upon the entailed estates, and took from the property of the church contributions in kind; and having thus acquired considerable funds, they undertook, and for a time sustained, the improvident expense of paying their Spanish allies. The ready obedience shown to its authority, when these imposts were demanded, and the power which it derived from the distribution of the money thus raised, gave the Junta of Campo-Mayor exaggerated notions of its own importance, and when tidings arrived that a Junta of higher or equal pretensions had been formed at Estremoz, that of Campo-Mayor sent to propose a reciprocal alliance, as if one sovereign power were treating with another. But in reply a paper in the form of a decree was sent, declaring, that the primacy of the Junta of Estremoz should be acknowledged by all others in the province, because of the position of that place, and because it was a fortified town; that the members of that Junta should have the title of Highness, because they represented the august person of the Sovereign; and that there should be a subordinate Junta in every town, and one deputy from each sent as a representative to assist in the Supreme Junta of Estremoz. Obedience ♦NEVES, IV. 92–116.♦ to this decree was required from Campo-Mayor, till a Supreme Junta should be established, as it was about to be, at Evora, whither head-quarters were to be removed.

The transfer of the supreme provincial authority to Evora was concerted by Moretti and by the Portugueze General Francisco de Paula Leite, who had refused to concur in the first hasty tumult at Villa-Viçosa, but who now, when the insurrection had become general throughout the province, felt himself bound to resume the charge with which the Prince Regent had intrusted ♦A SUPREME JUNTA FORMED AT EVORA.♦ him. The object of this transfer seems to have been a persuasion, that as Evora was the most populous city in the province, and the seat of the Archbishop, its authority would at once be acknowledged, and all disputes for precedency, which might otherwise prove so prejudicial to the common cause, would thus be terminated. This object was effected: in other respects the measure was incautious, and contrary to the judgement of the most judicious inhabitants; for when Moretti had by letter proposed it to them, they replied, that the richest city of Alem-Tejo, lying as it did so near Elvas, ought not to declare itself, unless it could reckon upon a force of 8000 men for its defence. It was not that the will was wanting; this General Leite knew; and without farther demur, he and Moretti and Lobo, with ♦JULY 20.♦ 200 foot soldiers and 100 cavalry, entered Evora. They were received with enthusiasm; a Junta was formed under two presidents, Leite being one, and the Archbishop, D. Fr. Manoel do Cenaculo Villas Boas, the other, a man then in extreme old age, distinguished for his erudition and his exemplary virtues. Circular letters were dispatched to all the other Juntas in Alem-Tejo, requiring a recognition, and the troops which had been embodied were ordered to Evora. Before the new machine of government could be ♦NEVES, IV. 118–126.♦ put in motion, Loison had crossed the Tagus on his way to destroy it.

♦LOISON SENT INTO ALEM-TEJO.♦

Notwithstanding the contempt with which the French government, and its agents in Portugal, regarded the Portugueze, Junot knew how easily brave men might be made good soldiers, under due instruction; and he seems to have apprehended, that better officers would be found to train and command them than either Portugal or Spain at that time could supply. He apprehended that the force in Alem-Tejo would soon become strong enough not only to seize Setubal, but to occupy the heights of Almada, and render useless all the batteries on the left bank of the Tagus; while at the same time another division of their troops, acting higher up the river, would co-operate with the insurgents from Coimbra. To prevent this combination, he resolved to attack the weaker and nearer body first. For this purpose Loison had been recalled from Leiria, Solignac and Margaron were placed under his command, with 5000 men, and it was thought, that after quelling the insurgents in Alem-Tejo, he might send a supply of food to Lisbon, especially of meat, ... victual Elvas, strike a blow against the Spaniards at Badajoz, and then, recrossing the Tagus at Santarem or Abrantes, proceed against Coimbra; operations from which, at any time, in case of need, he could speedily turn back to join the main body of the French at Lisbon. There was, in fact, so little combination ♦THIEBAULT, 156.♦ among the Portugueze at this time, that the insurgents in the northern provinces, and those in Alem-Tejo, knew nothing whatever of each other’s proceedings, and the first news which reached the latter of the insurrection at Porto was communicated to the people of Sines by an English frigate.

♦HE ADVANCES AGAINST EVORA.♦