696 



BRITAIN. 



Britain. 



Operations 

 f Sir Ar. 

 thur Wel- 

 lesley. 



Battle of 

 Vimeira, 



ilst Aug. 



Conven- 

 tion of 

 t'imra. 



dish monarch is said to have haughtily told Sir John 

 Moore, that he would command him to undertake 

 any enttrprize wliich he might think proper. Sir 

 John- Moore asked, by what authority he should do 

 so. " By authority from your own sovereign," re- 

 plied Gustavus. Sir John begged to be shewn the 

 document ; a reply which was felt by the monarch 

 as an implied doubt of his royal word ; and for daring 

 to disbelieve a false assertion, he ordered the British 

 commander to be put under arrest. Sir John escaped, 

 however, from Stockholm in disguise, and, conform- 

 ably to his instructions, brought back his troops to 

 England. 



Strengthened by the assurances of speedy rein- 

 forcements, Sir Arthur Wellesley determined to dis- 

 embark in Mondego Bay, a situation in which he 

 could be supported by a Portuguese army, which 

 had advanced to Coimbra. On the 9th of August, 

 the advanced guard marched forward on the road to 

 Lisbon, and on the loth had a slight action with 

 the French at Obidos. Next day they halted, and 

 on the day after an attack was made upon a large 

 force of the er.emy, under General Laborde.at Role:a. 

 Their force amounted to 6000 men ; but there was 

 some reason to believe that it would be joined by 

 another body of equal force, under General Loison, 

 who had gone to quell an insurrection in the south 

 of Portugal, but was expected to return in the course 

 of the night. The French were defeated, but re- 

 treated in good order. By this success the road was 

 cleared to Lisbon. On the day after this affair, the 

 British army moved to Lourinha, to facilitate the 

 junction, and protect the landing of the troops un- 

 der General Anstruther, after which they resumed 

 their march. But Junot was determined to attack 

 the British army before its reinforcements should ar- 

 rive. Leaving Lisbon with the greater part of his 

 forces, he came up with Sir Arthur Wtllesley on the 

 21st of August, and attacked him in his position at Vi- 

 meira. The French renewed their onset in different 

 columns, with the utmost impetuosity. They were 

 repulsed at all points, after repeated charges with the 

 bayonet, and at last retreated with the loss of about 

 3000 in killed, wounded, and prisoners, leaving be- 

 hind them 13 pieces of cannon and 23 ammunition 

 waggons. After' the dispositions for the battle of 

 Vimeira had been made, and the action already com- 

 menced, Sir Henry Biirrard, who was superior in 

 command to Sir Arthur Wellesley, arrived at the 

 scene of action ; but declined to deprive Sir Arthur 

 of the honour of obtaining a victory, which appeared 

 so probable. 



On the 22d, Sir Hew Dalrymple, the lieutenant- 

 governor of Gibraltar, arrived to take the command 

 over both at Cintra, the place to which the British 

 had moved after the battle. When intelligence was 

 raceived in England, in the words of Sir A. Wellesley, 

 that the whole of the French army in Portugal, un- 

 der the command of the Duke of Abrantes in person, 

 had sustained a signal defeat, the public hope was na- 

 turally sanguine that the victory would be followed 

 up by important advantages. The arrival of the 

 next dispatches was celebrated by the firing of the 

 Park and Tower guns, at a late and unprecedented 

 hour of the evening. With astonishment it was learnt 

 in the morning, that this ceremony had been perform- 

 ed for a convention, which had been signed at Cintra, 



Britain 



1S08. 



Report o 



between the respective generals of the British and 

 French armies ; a convention founded on the basis of * 

 an armistice, agreed upon the day after the battle ( 

 of Vimeira. It was stipulated, among other articles, 

 that the English government should be at the ex- 

 pence of transporting the whole of the French army 

 to any of the ports between Rochetort and L'Orient. 

 When the army arrived in France, it was to be at li- 

 berty to serve again immediately, and the property of 

 the French was to be sacred and untouched. It 

 might either be carried off into France, or sold in 

 Portugal. By the seventh article of the preliminary 

 treaty, it had been even stipulated, that the Russian 

 fleet should be allowed either to remain unmolested 

 in the Tagus, or to return home. But this was in- 

 dignantly refused by Sir Charles Cotton, our admi- 

 ral off the Tagus, who obtained the surrender of the 

 Russian ships, on condition of their being restored by 

 his Britannic majesty, in the event of a treaty being 

 concluded with Russia, and of Admiral Siniavian and 

 his crews being conveyed to their own shores by our. 

 ships. 



The general regret and indignation of the country 

 at this convention of Cintra, was expressed in peti- 

 tions to the throne, for an inquiry into the whole 

 transaction. An inquiry was set on foot. The re- 

 port of the military board stated, in defence of the the milit; 

 convention, that, from the want of cavalry in the rybi.ardi 

 British army, it was not possible to have followed up s 5 on " 

 the victory of Vimeira by an immediate and fresh 

 blow. When the suspension of arms was agreed 

 upon, the army under the command of Sir John 

 Moore had not arrived, and doubts were entertained 

 whether so large a body of men could be landed on 

 an open and dangerous beach. The landing was in- 

 deed accomplished, but it was still doubtful whether 

 tlity could be supplied with provisions from their 

 ships, on a coast so impracticable. The convention, 

 it was added in the report, released 4000 Spanish 

 soldiers, and also 2000 Portuguese. The enemy, if 

 driven to extremity, might have been joined by 6000 

 Russians. They were masters of the Tagus and of 

 the strong fort of Alentejo, and might have detained 

 our army during the remainder of the year. Our 

 army was immediately left at liberty to march into 

 the heart of Spain by a direct route, while the enemy, 

 who were liberated by the convention, took acircuitous 

 route by sea. From this approbation of the conven- 

 tion, however, Lord Moira made a spirited dissent, 

 with reasons which sufficiently overpowered the fal- 

 lacious arguments which have been stated. And in 

 spite of the favourable report of the board, his ma- 

 jesty signified his disapprobation of the terms. 



Bonaparte concealed the necessity which obliged 

 him to recal his troops from the Oder to the Ebro, 

 by making the withdrawing of them appear an act of 

 favour to the Prussians, at the intercession of Russia. 

 Having met the Emperor Alexander with a splendid 

 ostentation of friendship at Erfurth, he strengthen- 

 ed the ascendency which he had gained over that 

 monarch by the conferences at Tilsit, and he indu- 

 ced him to join him in an offer of peace to the British. 

 As the Spaniards were denominated Insurgents in the 

 first reply which he made to the proposition of ad- 

 mitting the government of that country to an inde- 

 pendent share in the negotiation, his Britannic majesty 

 closed the negotiation, by a dignified declaration 



