4, 
of Portugal. For this purpose he deemed it necessary and possible, in the 
first place, to gain the goodwill of the Portuguese. The population of the 
towns, especially so in the case of the wealthy commercial city of Oporto, 
was half composed of Jews, who, by reason of their wealth and industry, 
had acquired a preponderating influence amongst their fellow citizens, and 
these men regarded Englishmen, with their commercial tendencies, in the light of 
natural rivals. ‘The Marshal therefore now began to look closely into the admin- 
istration of the country with a view to the protection of local interests ; he tried 
to introduce order and security into business matters ; and sought to establish 
cordial relations between his soldiers and the inhabitants of the country. Ac- 
cordingly at this time one of those extraordinary developments in which the 
Peninsular war is so rich began to show itself. The French army took to 
political intrigue. And three principal parties grew gradually into existence 
both among officers and men. ‘The first, and: the Marshal and his staff can 
scarcely be described as hostile to it, wanted to turn North Portugal into 
an independant state, and would have crowned Soult himself King of North 
Lusitania. The second faction regarded such objects as damnable treason against 
the Emperor, and was prepared to resist them by every means in its power. Its 
members were even determined to rise in open revolt and arrest and imprison the 
Marshal rather than let him stretch out a hand towards a kingly crown. Yet a 
third party, and one more numerous too than either of the others, consisted prin- 
cipally of men secretly of royalistic sympathies, and was ready to go further even 
than the first. Its members were ready also to break into mutiny, but theirs would 
be revolt not so much against Soult as against the Emperor. What they had in 
view was to enter into an alliance with the English, to join their army onits march 
to France, there to oust Napoleon from the throne, and once more establish the 
dynasty of the Bourbons in his place. It was this party which sent an agent, 
Captain Argenton by name, to Lisbon, where he was to see Wellington and open 
up negotiations with him. 
While all this was going on the war party had gained an ascendancy in England, 
where, as we have said, the government had been on the very point of leaving the 
Peninsula altogether; and had succeeded in getting Wellington entrusted with the 
chief command. 
“The Lord” ! landed on the 22nd of April at Lisbon and received the agent a 
few days later. One can imagine the astonishment of the British general when 
the French officer unfolded his project to him. Such a wild scheme scarcely 
commended itself to the sober, prudent, and practical minded Wellesley, and he 
regarded it as too fanciful an one for him to enter into. But it showed him the 
possibility of accounting for Soult’s army divided, as he now saw it was, by strifes 
and factions. Should he succeed in doing so, the offensive movement he had in 
view against Madrid would be prepared for in the best possible way, as the English 
army would then have no anxiety as to the safety of its left wing. Wellesley there- 
fore made a show of entertaining the overtures of the agent, moved his head-quarters 
to Coimbra, and collected there an English and Portuguese army of some 30,000 
men. 
On his way back from Coimbra to Oporto Captain Argenton stumbled on the 
outposts of General Lefebure-Desnouettes to the south of the Douro. He had 
formerly served under the command of this officer and was beholden to him for 
some acts of kindness. The General was totally unaware of the proximity of the 
English army and of the danger which threatened him. Both in order to save 
him, and also if possible to draw him into the conspiracy which was being 
1 This term of the author’s sounds oddly. As readers of the Swabey Diary may have noticed, 
Wellington was nicknamed “the peer” during the Peninsular War, but not, I think, till later, 
for he was not raised to the peerage until after Talayera.—E.S.M. 
