HISTORY OF EUROPE. 



199 



Coimbra, after having blown up 

 all iiis ammuniiion, and burnt his 

 magazines." The letter of Mas- 

 sena to the prince of Neufchatel, 

 dated Coimbra, October 4, from 

 which this is an extract, was not 

 published in the French journals, 

 but iniercepted in Portugal. So 

 fair a statement of so important an 

 event, was never given in any 

 French gazette since the revolu- 

 tion. The loss of the French in 

 killed and wounded is stated by 

 Massena to have been ?,000, in- 

 cluding a very great number of 

 office!-, many of them severely, 

 and some, rmong "vhom general 

 Simon, dangerously.* Gen.Giain- 

 dorge had died of his wounds. — 

 Perhaps even this great numLct is 

 short of the truth — an'? perhaps 

 rot much, as we find Massena, 

 from the first to the last of this 

 campaign, constantly soliciting re- 

 inforcenients. But if it be exte- 

 nuated, it is not extenuated in the 

 usual proportion. It is about as 

 great as the loss acknowledged 

 by the French gazette, at the 

 battle of Austerliiz. 



While the French, having turn- 

 ed the English position at Buzaco, 

 were on their march by a round- 

 about way to Coimbra, lord Wel- 

 liiigton, by a more direct road, got 

 there before them, which he did 

 on the 30ih of September. But as 



Coimbra was not a position in 

 which the superior foice of the 

 enemy could be opposed with ad- 

 vantage, he sent his advanced 

 guard to the left bank of the Mon- 

 dego on that day, and continued 

 his retreat in the best or^'.er the 

 next day by Poaibal, Leyria, and 

 Alcobaca, to his strongly-fortified 

 positionsnearTorresVedras, where 

 he arrived on the 9th of October. 

 This march, therefore, from Coim- 

 bra, was performed in eight days, 

 without a halt, being an average 

 of fifteen miles per day. The stay 

 of the allies at Coimbra was short ; 

 but there was time for destroying 

 the magazines there. Those, how- 

 ever, at Figueras, at the mouth of 

 the Mon(lego, which were of 

 greater value, fell into the iiands 

 of the enemy. When lord Wel- 

 lington moved rapidly to the left 

 of the Mondego, he left some 

 corps of cavalry on the right bank, 

 to give more leisure for evacuating 

 Coimbra. The inhabitants of Co- 

 imbra, and of all tlie other places 

 through which the allied army 

 passed, accompanied them in their 

 retreat, carrying along with thena 

 their most precious effects. As 

 much as possible of what might 

 be of use to the invaders was de- 

 stroyed. The inhabitants of Co- 

 imbra, after removing every thing 

 they could carry off, requested our 



♦ General Simon was brought prisoner to England in the Apollo fri£?ate, which 

 was only four days on its passage from Lisbon to Portsmouth, on the 19th of Octo- 

 ber. He was sent to Odiham, a market town in Hampshire, on Lis parole of ho- 

 nour ; which he broke, and tried to hide himself in London, with the view of 

 making his escape from the island. It was discovered by a per'='on belonging to the 

 Board of Transport, that a correspondence had been established between general 

 Simon, together with a French &urgeon and the French goveinment, for tiie pur- 

 pose of liberating F'-ench prisoners in Englaiiu. The general and the doctor were 

 found on the 15th of January 1812, in the back kitchen of a Inuse in Pratt-street, 

 Camden Town, kept by a French woman. A number of other fugitive prisoners 

 were also discovered, and sent, some of them to Bridewell, others to a hulk at 

 Chatham. Simon was bent to the castle of Dumbarton, in Scotland. 



