Chapter XXXV · AFFAIRS OF PORTUGAL. ROMANA’S DEATH. BADAJOZ TAKEN BY THE FRENCH. MASSENA’S RETREAT. (continued 2)

Regnier joined the sixth corps at Rendo; for it had broken up from its position at Ruvina as soon as the firing began; they retreated to Alfayates, followed by our cavalry; that night they continued their retreat, and entered the Spanish frontier on the fourth. On the following day the advance of the allied army pushed on, and occupied Albergaria, the first village on the Spanish border. An inhabited village was what they had not seen before since their retreat in the autumn, those excepted which were within the lines of Torres Vedras. The villages in Spain had not been injured; it seemed as if the French wished to make the Spaniards on this frontier compare their own condition with that of the Portugueze, that they might become contented with subjection. Massena’s soldiers even paid here for bread; and arriving not only hungry, but with a longing desire for that which is to them the most necessary article of food, they paid any price for it: the peasants seeing that they were rich in plunder, and finding them in the paying mood, made their charges accordingly. This sudden transition from a devastated country to one which had been exempted from the ravages of war, where the villages were clean, and the cottages reminded Englishmen of those in their own land, was not less striking than was the passing at once from a wild mountainous region to a fine and well-wooded plain.

Some hope was entertained that the appearance of Trant and Wilson’s force before Almeida might make the French apprehend a serious attack, and induce them to evacuate it. But throughout the war they never committed any error of this kind. It rarely happened in their service that any person was appointed to a situation for which he was not well qualified; and the commander of this fortress, General Brenier, was a man of more than common qualifications. The Coa, after these divisions crossed it at Cinco Villas, rose; and the governor concerted with General Regnier an attack upon them, which, their retreat being thus cut off, must have ended in their destruction, if Lord Wellington, apprehending the danger, had not pushed forward a small corps, which arrived just in time to divert the enemy’s attention, and save them. On the eighth the last of Massena’s army crossed the Agueda, not a ♦The French cross the frontier.♦ Frenchman remaining in Portugal, except the garrison of Almeida, which Lord Wellington immediately prepared to blockade. The allies took up that position upon the Duas Casas, which General Craufurd had occupied with the advanced guard during the latter part of the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo, having their advanced posts upon Galegos and the Agueda. Thus terminated the invasion of Portugal, in which Massena, with 110,000 men, had boasted that he would drive the English into the sea. A general of the highest reputation, and of abilities no ways inferior to his celebrity, at the head of the largest force which France could send against that country, was thus in all his plans baffled by a British general, and in every engagement beaten by British troops. An enemy the most presumptuous and insolent that ever disgraced the profession of arms, the most cruel that ever outraged human nature, had been humbled and exposed in the face of Europe; ... it was in vain for the French Government to call their retreat a change of position, ... however they might disguise and misrepresent the transactions in Portugal, however they might claim victories where they had sustained defeats, the map discovered here their undeniable discomfiture; and the smallest kingdom in Europe, a kingdom too which long misgovernment had reduced to the most deplorable state of disorganization, had, by the help of England and the spirit of its inhabitants, defied and defeated that tyrant before whom the whole continent was humbled. Russia had been so foiled in arms and dressed in negociation so as to become the ally of France, to co-operate in her barbarous warfare against commerce, and to recognise her extravagant usurpations. Prussia had been beaten and reduced to vassalage. Austria was still farther degraded by being compelled to give a daughter of its emperor in marriage to one whose crimes that emperor himself had proclaimed to the world. Poles and Italians, Dutch and Germans, from every part of divided and subjected Germany, filled up the armies of this barbarian; and the Portugueze, ... the poor, degraded, and despised Portugueze, ... the vilified, the injured, the insulted Portugueze, ... were the first people who drove this formidable enemy out of their country, and delivered themselves from the yoke.

♦March 18. Opinions of the Whigs at this time.♦

While Massena was retreating, and before the intelligence arrived in England, a debate took place in both houses, upon a motion, that two millions should be granted for the Portugueze troops in British pay. The opposition did not let pass this opportunity of repeating their opinions and their ♦Mr. Ponsonby.♦ prophecies, ... in happy hour! Mr. Ponsonby said, that our success consisted in having lost almost the whole of Portugal, and having our army hemmed in between Lisbon and Cartaxo; except that intermediate space, we had abandoned all Portugal. ♦Mr. Freemantle.♦ Mr. Freemantle, after a panegyric upon Sir John Moore’s retreat, said that the present campaign left Lord Wellington incapable of quitting his intrenchments, and only waiting the result of such movements as the enemy might be disposed to make. “It rests with the enemy,” said he, “to choose his day, to make his own dispositions, to wait for his reinforcements, to choose whether he will continue to blockade you, or whether he will give you a fair opportunity of contending with him in the field. If we are to judge by the publications in France, he will decide upon the former; and in this he will judge wisely. The result of all your victories, of all your expenditure in men and money, of all your exertions, and of all your waste of the military resources of this country, is ... the position of your army at Lisbon, insulated and incapable of acting, but at the discretion of the enemy: your allies in every other part of the peninsula overwhelmed, and only manifesting partial and unavailable hostility; your own resources exhausted, and your hopes of ultimate success, to every mind which is not blinded by enthusiasm, completely annihilated! Such is the result of a system founded upon the principle of attempting to subdue Buonaparte by the force of your armies on the continent! Will any man say that this has been a wise system? Will any man, who is not determined, under any circumstances, to support the measures of a weak and misguided government, contend that it has been successful? that it has answered either the promises to your allies, or the hopes to your country? that it has either contributed to their security, or to your own benefit?”

♦General Tarleton.♦

General Tarleton also delivered it as his opinion, that we had lost the whole of the peninsula, except the spot between Cartaxo and Lisbon; that the Portugueze troops had never been of any actual service; that we could not maintain ourselves in the country, for the fatal truth must at length be told; and that when our army was to get out of it, he was afraid it would be ♦Lord Grenville.♦ found a difficult matter. Lord Grenville, in the Upper House, spoke to the same purport, affirming that the British army in Portugal did not possess more of the country than the ground which it actually occupied, and that while we were vainly draining our own resources, and hazarding our best means, we did not essentially contribute to help Portugal, or to save it. It was, he added, because he had the cause of Spain and Portugal sincerely and warmly at heart, that he felt anxious we should pause in this wild and mad career of thoughtless prodigality, look our own situation in the face, and learn the necessity of economising our resources, that we might be able, at a period more favourable than the present, to lend to the cause of the nations of the Peninsula, or to that of any other country similarly situated, that support and those exertions which, when made under all the circumstances of our present situation, must be found not only wholly unavailing to our allies, but highly injurious to ourselves.

Two days after these opinions were delivered, the telegraph announced the news of Massena’s retreat.