developement and recognition of his great talents. To his brother, the Marquis Wellesley's rank as Governor-General of India, he owed the opportunity of conducting our armies in the East at a time of life when, if of inferior birth, he could hardly have commanded a battalion; and the magnificent campaign of Assaye so established his reputation, that on his return to Europe he was entrusted without hesitation, first, with the conduct of the troops in the expedition to Copenhagen, and then with that of the armament assembled at Cork.

It was on the 8th of August, 1808-a day ever memorable in the history of Britain-that Sir Arthur Wellesley effected his debarkation in the bay of Mondego. He immediately commenced his march towards Lisbon, and on the 17th came up with the enemy under General Laborde, strongly posted on an eminence near Roriça. The French contested their ground gallantly, but were driven from it at the point of the bayonet, and compelled to retreat. The British General, having hardly any cavalry, was unable to pursue them so closely as he otherwise would have done: and Laborde succeeded in joining his shattered division to the rest of the French forces in Portugal. Junot (recently created Duke of Abrantes) now took the command in person; and finding himself at the head of full 24,000 troops, while the English army were greatly inferior in numbers, and miserably supplied with cavalry and artillery, he did not hesitate to assume the offensive. On the 21st of August he attacked Sir Arthur at Vimiero. In the language of the English General's despatch, a most desperate contest ensued;" and the result

66

was a signal defeat." Junot, having lost thirteen cannon and more than two thousand men, immediately fell back upon Lisbon, where his position was protected by the strong defile of the Torres Vedras.

This retreat would not have been accomplished without much more fighting, had Sir Arthur Wellesley been permitted to follow up his victory, according to the dictates of his own understanding, and the enthusiastic wishes of his army. But just as the battle was about to begin, Sir Harry Burrard, an old officer of superior rank, unfortunately entitled to assume the chief command, arrived on the field. Finding that Sir Arthur had made all his dispositions, General Burrard handsomely declined interfering until the fortune of the day should be decided; but he took the command as soon as the victory was won, and more cautiously than wisely, prevented the army from instantly advancing, as Sir Arthur Wellesley proposed, upon the coast road towards Mafra, and thus endeavouring to intercept the retreat of Junot upon Lisbon. Sir Harry, having made this unhappy use of his command, was, the very next day, superseded in his turn by Sir Hew Dalrymple, the Governor of Gibraltar; another veteran more disposed to imitate the prudence of Burrard than the daring of Wellesley.

Shortly after the third general had taken the command, Junot sent Kellerman to demand a truce, and propose a convention for the evacuation of Portugal by the troops under his orders. Dalrymple received Kellerman with more eagerness of civility than became the chief of a victorious

army, and forthwith granted the desired armistice. Junot offered to surrender his magazines, stores, and armed vessels, provided the British would disembark his soldiers, with their arms, at any French port between Rochefort and L'Orient, and permit them to take with them their private property; and Dalrymple did not hesitate to agree to these terms, although Sir John Moore arrived off the coast with a reinforcement of 10,000 men during the progress of the negotiation. The famous "Convention of Cintra" (most absurdly so named, as it was in fact concluded thirty miles from Cintra) was signed accordingly on the 30th of August; and the French army wholly evacuated Portugal in the manner provided for. The English people heard with indignation that the spoilers of Portugal had been suffered to escape on such terms; and the article concerning private property gave especial offence, as under that cover the French removed with them a large share of the plunder which they had amassed by merciless violence and rapacity during their occupation of the Portuguese territories. A parliamentary investigation was followed by a court-martial, which acquitted Sir Hew Dalrymple. In truth it seems now to be admitted, by competent judges, that after Sir H. Burrard had interfered so as to prevent Sir A. Wellesley from instantly following up the success of Vimiero, and so enabled Junot to re-occupy Lisbon and secure the pass of the Torres Vedras, it would have been imprudent to decline the terms proffered by a repelled, but still powerful, enemy, who could hardly fail to prolong the war, if driven to extremities, until Napoleon should

be able to send him additional forces from Spain. Meanwhile Portugal was free from the. presence of her enemies; England had obtained a permanent footing within the Peninsula: what was of still higher moment, the character of the British army was raised not only abroad, but at home; and had the two insurgent nations availed themselves, as they ought to have done, of the resources which England placed at their command, and conducted their own affairs with unity and strength of purpose, the deliverance of the whole peninsula might have been achieved years before that consummation actually took place.

The Portuguese, however, split into factions-under leaders whose primary objects were selfish, who rivalled each other in their absurd jealousy of England, afforded to her troops no such supplies and facilities as they had the best title to demand and expect, and wasted their time in petty political intrigues, instead of devoting every energy to the organization of an efficient army, and improving the defences of their naturally strong frontier. The Spaniards conducted themselves with even more signal imprudence. For months each provincial junta seemed to prefer the continuance of its own authority to the obvious necessity of merging all their powers in some central body, capable of controuling and directing the whole force of the nation; and after a supreme junta was at last established in Madrid, its orders were continually disputed and disobeyed-so that in effect there was no national government. Equally disgraceful jealousies among the generals prevented the armies from being placed under one supreme

chief, responsible for the combination of all their movements. In place of this it was with difficulty that the various independent generals could be prevailed on even to meet at Madrid, and agree to the outline of a joint campaign; and that outline seemed to have no recommendation except that its gross military defects held out to each member of the Council the prospect of being able to act without communication, for good or for evil, with any of the others. The consequences of these shameful follies were calamitous: and but for events which could not have been foreseen, must have proved fatal: for the gigantic resources of the common enemy were about to be set in motion by Napoleon himself; who, on hearing of the reverses of Dupont, Lefebre, and Junot, perceived too clearly that the affairs of the Peninsula demanded a keener eye and a firmer hand than his brother's.