HISTORY OF EUROPE. 



205 



millet they roasted. But this sup- 

 ply of grain was soon exhausted, 

 or, at least, became so scarce, that 

 none of the common soldiers had 

 any of it : they lived on horned 

 cattle, dried grapes, and other 

 fruit. Flesh, for want of any 

 thing farinaceous, they ate immo- 

 derately ; and, what was a very 

 distressing privation, they had no 

 salt. Few cattle remained at the 

 end of October ; insomuch, that 

 French soldiers began in Novem- 

 ber to eat the flesh of horses and 

 mules. Although there was still 

 some wheatathead-quarters, there 

 was none at Alentqueer, where the 

 prisoners were kept. The soldiers 

 drove cattle, horses, and mules 



f>ell-mell into fields of green mil- 

 et.* They were not only in ex- 

 treme distress for want of provi- 

 sions. They were in great want 

 of shoes : some of them were 

 barefooted. The following pla- 

 card was stuck up in a conspicuous 

 place by a French soldier : — " A 

 French soldier should have the 

 heart of a lion, the stomach of a 

 mouse, and the humanity of a 

 brute." This account of the hard- 

 ships and difficulties that were to 

 be encountered by the French in 

 . Portugal, is not on the whole in- 

 congiuous with the statements of 

 the Moniteur of the 29th and 30th 

 of November, under the title of 

 Reflections on the official dis- 

 patches of lord Wellington of the 

 I'l'th of November ; though the 

 drift of those papers was to make 

 it appear that the French could 

 not be said to have suffered any 

 serious hardships. " From Al- 

 meida to Alentqueer the army did 



not meet with 2,000 Portuguese. 

 The towns and villages were de- 

 serted. Lord Wellington had or- 

 dered, on pain of death, the inha- 

 bitants of all places near which 

 our army passed, to carry along 

 with them what they could, and 

 to burn what they could not, or 

 throw it into the rivers or tanks. 

 We found the mills destroyed, the 

 wine running in the streets, the 

 grain burnt, the furniture of the 

 houses broken in pieces ; not a 

 horse, mule, ass, cow, or goat, to 

 be seen. The army subsisted on 

 biscuit, and the herds of cattle in 

 our train. The soldiers, in addi- 

 tion, supplied themselves with 

 maize, cabbages, French beans, 

 and raisins. Rice, maize, French 

 beans, and oil with fish, forming 

 the basis of the food of the Por- 

 tuguese, we found every where. 

 Beasts were brought from the 

 plains of Thomar, and the isles of 

 the Tagus. Towards the 20th of 

 October, hand-mills were distri- 

 buted among the regiments, and 

 the soldiers received their daily ra- 

 tions of bread. Magazines of grain 

 were formed, and biscuit baked at 

 Santarem.'' But we are not told 

 how long this competency lasted. 

 Not a fortnight, according to the 

 report of the Portuguese prisoners, 

 which was confirmed by the 

 French prisoners, and the desert- 

 ers that came over to the allies 

 almost every day. 



When the French approached 

 to Coimbra, some unfortunate fa- 

 milies, who had not time or the 

 resolution to take the road to Lis- 

 bon with the army, fled to the 

 nearest woods ; whither they were 



• Report by French prisoners exchanged in the middle of November. 



