A history of the Peninsular War, Vol. 2, Jan.-Sep. 1809 : $b From the battle of Corunna to the end of the Talavera campaignOman, Charles
History
A history of the Peninsular War, Vol. 2, Jan.-Sep. 1809 : $b From the battle of Corunna to the end of the Talavera campaign
Oman, Charles
Peninsular War, 1807-1814
Of his splendid services in
this direction we shall have much to tell. The unequipped portion of
the Legion, left behind at Oporto, was handed over to Baron Eben,
and became involved in the tumultuous and unhappy career of the
bishop[222].
[220] List of Arms sent to Portugal on p. 9 of _Parliamentary
Papers_ for 1809.
[221] The Portuguese volume for December 1808 and
January-February 1809 in the Record Office being mysteriously
lost, Cradock’s correspondence and that of the other British
officers in Portugal is no longer available. But Napier took
copious notes from it, while it was still forthcoming; they will
be found on pp. 425-31 of his vol. ii, and bear witness to a
complete state of anarchy in Oporto.
[222] The first battalion used to call the second ‘Baron Eben’s
runaways’ when they met again, as Mayne assures us in his
_History of the Loyal Lusitanian Legion_.
Meanwhile Lisbon was almost as disturbed as Oporto, and might
have lapsed into the same state of anarchy, if a British garrison
had not been on the spot. The mistaken policy of the Regency had
led to the formation of sixteen so-called ‘legions[223]’ in the
capital and suburbs. These tumultuary levies had few officers and
hardly any arms but pikes. They were under no sort of discipline,
and devoted themselves to the self-imposed duty of hunting for
spies and ‘_Afrancesados_.’ Led by demagogues of the streets, they
paraded up and down Lisbon to beat of drum, arresting persons whom
they considered suspicious, especially foreign residents of all
nationalities. The Regency having issued a decree prohibiting this
practice [January 29], the armed levies only assembled in greater
numbers next night, and engaged in a general chase after unpopular
citizens, policemen, and aliens of all kinds. Many fugitives were
only saved from death by taking refuge in the guard-houses and the
barracks where the garrison was quartered. Isolated British soldiers
were assaulted, some were wounded, and parties of ‘legionaries’
actually stopped aides-de-camp and orderlies carrying dispatches,
and stripped them of the documents they were bearing. The mob was
inclined, indeed, to be ill-disposed towards their allies, from the
suspicion that they were intending to evacuate Lisbon and to retire
from the Peninsula. They had seen the baggage and non-combatants
left behind by Moore put on ship-board; early in February they
beheld the troops told off for the occupation of Cadiz embark and
disappear. When they also noticed that the forts at the Tagus mouth
were being dismantled[224] they made up their minds that the British
were about to desert them, without making any attempt to defend
Portugal. Hence came the malevolent spirit which they displayed. It
died down when their suspicions were proved unfounded by the arrival
of Beresford and other British officers, at the beginning of March,
with resources for the reorganization of the Portuguese army, and
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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