World's Best Histories — Volume 7: FranceGuizot, François
History
World's Best Histories — Volume 7: France
Guizot, François
France -- History
General Junot had comprehended better than his adversary the danger which
threatened him; he felt the impossibility of maintaining himself in a
country suddenly become hostile, in face of an English army already
superior to his own, and soon to be reinforced by excellent troops.
General Kellermann was charged to treat, at first for an armistice, then
for the convention bearing the name of Cintra, which provided honorably
for the evacuation of Portugal by the French generals. The conditions
accorded were so favorable that public opinion in England accused the
negotiators of it as a crime, of which the obloquy weighed some time on
Sir Arthur Wellesley. He had not, however, been too favorable to it. "Ten
days after the battle of the 21st," he wrote to Lord Castlereagh, "we are
less advanced than we might and ought to have been on the evening of the
battle." The Emperor Napoleon had, for his part, manifested some
discontent at the convention, which brought back to France all his troops
free from engagement, and possessing their arms. "I was going to send
Junot before a council of war," said he; "but, happily, the English have
been before me in sending their generals, and have thus spared me the
mortification of punishing an old friend." The confidence of Napoleon
remained, however, shaken with respect to his officer. "Everything which
was not a triumph he looked upon as a defeat," said the Duchess of
Abrantes in her memoirs.
It often happened to Napoleon to judge unjustly of men and things, because
he appreciated them exclusively from a personal and selfish point of view.
Thus, he accused of treason the Marquis de la Romana and his brave
companions. After the battle of Friedland, the Spanish battalions wrung in
1807 from the shameful terror of the Prince de la Paix, were sent by
Napoleon to regions which would appear the most fatal to the temperament
and habits of southern people. They had been confided to the King of
Denmark, and charged to protect from the English his little kingdom,
hitherto so cruelly oppressed by them. The health of the troops was,
however, excellent when the news came to them of the general rising which
had taken place in Spain, and the unforeseen success of the national
resistance. They immediately conceived the thought of returning to their
country, to join their efforts to those of their countrymen. An English
squadron, under the orders of Admiral Keith, appeared suddenly on the
coasts of Jutland, at the entrance to Niborg, in the island of Funen.
Immediately the Marquis de la Romana, with difficulty warned by secret
advices, seized the fishing-boats, which were numerous on the coast; then,
making himself master of the citadel and port of Niborg, and crossing two
arms of the sea, he assembled around him all those of his companions-in-
arms who were within reach. He arrived at the English fleet, and sailed
towards Gothenburg, from which place he put to sea for Spain. Several
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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