Note 119 — RETREAT TO TORRES VEDRAS.

“Fifty thousand of these fugitives found support and consolation in the hospitality and kindness of the citizens of Lisbon; but an equal number, who fled to the left bank of the Tagus, long remained exposed to the weather; and a large proportion miserably perished from hunger and disease before relief could be administered. Hard as was their lot, it was far more happy than that of the villagers in the rear, and on the skirts of the enemy’s cantonments, whose habitations, plundered of everything, and occasionally occupied by detachments of French, afforded their owners no supplies, and only a precarious shelter. Many of these wretched creatures passed the whole season of winter exposed to its inclemencies in the neighbouring woods or mountains, subsisting merely on roots and herbs; and on the advance of the allies returned to their homes, their bodies emaciated from abstinence, and their intellects impaired by long-continued apprehension; amongst them were girls of sixteen, who, become idiots, resembled in person women of fifty. Numbers of children of either sex, who’d survived the severe trial, flocked to the road-side as the army approached to demand relief; appearing so thin, pale, and haggard, that many a hardened veteran was observed to turn from the sight with disgust, as he compassionately bestowed on them a portion of the biscuit intended as his next day’s support.”—Jones’s Account of the War.