Note 18 — Chapter X · (continued 2)

As another example of the arts used to impose upon the Portugueze people by the intrusive government, the following extract from the fifth bulletin of the army of Portugal may be read with feelings very different from what the detail in the text must excite. “On the 10th of July forty English disembarked at the foot of the village of the Costa, to take in water and provisions. That point was defended by only five carabineers of the thirty-first regiment of light infantry. Notwithstanding this disproportion of numbers, these five men, in sight of all the inhabitants, attacked the forty English, repulsed them, forced them to abandon upon the beach all that they had purchased, and pursued them to the sea.” Yet even this is outdone in the same bulletin. “Three conscript lads (it is farther said), of the sixty-sixth regiment, occupied a small post on the sea-shore, in front of Cascaes, when they saw a boat put off from the English squadron, and make towards them. Immediately these three lads placed themselves in ambush, to wait till the boat should draw near: as soon as it reached the shore they rose from their ambush, fired upon the boat, killed the pilot (who was the master of Admiral Cotton’s ship), obliged two English officers, and six seamen or soldiers, who were in the said boat, to come on shore, and lay down their arms upon the beach, and then conducted them as prisoners of war to the quarters-general of General Solignac at Cascaes. This fact discovers a presence of mind, a degree of intelligence, and a vigour, which do honour to the three lads.” To complete the story, it should have been added, that the three lads ate the eight Englishmen.