History of the Peninsular War, Volume 1 (of 6)Southey, Robert
History
History of the Peninsular War, Volume 1 (of 6)
Southey, Robert
Peninsular War, 1807-1814
The next measure was an edict for confiscating English goods, ordering
all persons who had any British property in their possession to
deliver an account of it within three days, on pain of being fined in
a sum ten times the amount of the property concealed, and of corporal
punishment also, if it should be thought proper to inflict it. On the
same day the use of fire-arms in sporting was prohibited throughout
the whole kingdom: all persons detected in carrying fowling-pieces or
pistols without a license from General Laborde, the French commandant
of Lisbon, were to be considered as vagabonds and highway-murderers,
carried before a military commission, and punished accordingly.
♦USE OF ARMS PROHIBITED.♦ The next day the use of all kind of arms
was prohibited; and the wine sellers were ordered to turn out all
Portugueze, French, or other soldiers, at seven in the evening, on
pain of a heavy fine, and of death for the third offence. More troops
came daily in; they were quartered in the convents, and their women
with them, ... a fresh outrage to the religious feelings of the
people. Complaints were made that the officers required those persons
upon whom they were billeted to keep a table for them: an order was
issued, in which Junot expressed his displeasure at this, saying,
that the French officers in Portugal were to consider themselves as
in garrison, and had no right to demand any thing more than their
lodging, fire, and lights. He reminded them also that the Emperor had
placed them on the same footing as the grand army, in consequence of
which they would regularly receive extraordinary pay sufficient to
defray all their expenses. This was intended for publication in foreign
newspapers, as a proof of the good order which the French observed;
... while the superior officers not merely compelled those upon whom
they had quartered themselves to furnish a table, but every kind of
provision also for the entertainments which they thought proper to
give. Many persons abandoned their houses to these imperious guests,
and retired into the country; still they were required to support the
establishment, and answer all the demands which the intruders chose to
make.
♦DEC. 8.
PASTORAL LETTER OF THE CARDINAL PATRIARCH.♦
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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