SECTION IV: CHAPTER IV

THE CONVENTION OF CINTRA

For only one single day did the incubus of Burrard rest upon the British army in Portugal, though that day was one on which he succeeded in changing a decisive victory, which might have laid a whole kingdom at his feet, into an ordinary successful defensive action. He had stopped Wellesley’s triumphant march at noon on August 21; early on the morning of the twenty-second Sir Hew Dalrymple appeared in Maceira Bay, disembarked, and took over the command. He naturally began his tenure of control by interviewing his two predecessors, whose divergent views as to the situation and its requirements were laid before him. He was an old man, and unpractised in the field: he had only seen war in the wretched Flanders campaign of 1793-4. His prejudice was in favour of caution, and he was not slow to let it be seen that he regarded Wellesley’s actions in the past, and still more his plans for the future, as rash and hazardous. ‘On the first interview that I had with Sir Hew Dalrymple,’ said Wellesley at the Court of Inquiry in the following winter, ‘I had reason to believe that I did not possess his confidence: nay more, that he was prejudiced against any opinions which I should give him[237].’ The veteran’s ill-concealed hostility was, we cannot doubt, mainly due to an unhappy inspiration of Castlereagh, who had sent him a letter bidding him ‘take Sir Arthur Wellesley into his particular confidence, as he had been, for a length of time past, in the closest habits of communication with His Majesty’s ministers with respect to the affairs of Spain.’ He was also directed ‘to make the most prominent use of him which the rules of the service would permit[238].’ Such a letter very naturally caused Dalrymple to look upon the young lieutenant-general as a sort of emissary from the Government, sent to overrule his plans and curb his full power of command. He was inclined, consciously or unconsciously, to entertain a strong[p. 264] prejudice against anything that Wellesley might recommend: and we cannot doubt that the latter, always stiff and haughty, was at this moment in a state of suppressed fury at the foiling of his plans by Burrard on the preceding day. Probably, in his own cold way, he let his indignation appear, and Dalrymple may have been glad of an excuse for repressing him.

The plan which Wellesley had drawn up for the conduct of the campaign, and which he now urged upon his chief, is detailed in the proceedings of the Court of Inquiry. He had hoped to get Sir John Moore’s division, whose arrival was just reported, sent to Santarem, to cut off any attempt of Junot to escape out of the Lisbon peninsula by following the road along the right bank of the Tagus: the Portuguese were to be brought up to assist. Meanwhile the army which had fought at Vimiero was to turn the position of Torres Vedras, on which the enemy had retired, by marching along the sea-coast by the route that leads to Mafra. If Junot let them march past him, he would infallibly lose Lisbon; for they could, by forcing the pace, arrive in the capital as soon as he. If he abandoned Torres Vedras, and fell back on Mafra or Montechique as soon as he saw them moving, he would have to fight a second battle on the twenty-third or twenty-fourth, with an army which had been gravely demoralized by the events of Roli?a and Vimiero, and which could not receive much succour from Lisbon: for the populace of that city, when apprised of the defeat of the French, would undoubtedly have burst into insurrection, and would have required for its repression every man of the 5,000[239] troops who had been left to hold it down. There was a third possibility, that Junot, on hearing that the English were marching past his flank, might have hastened from Torres Vedras to attack their line of march by one of the cross-roads (such as that from Torres Vedras to Puente de Roll), which cut down to the Atlantic coast. But Wellesley had convinced himself that this chance would not occur: he reckoned, very rightly, on the exhaustion of the enemy on the day after such a crushing blow as Vimiero. As a matter of fact, on the morning of the twenty-second, at the moment when the head of the British column, if it had marched, would have been outflanking their position, Junot[p. 265] and those of his generals who were not hors de combat were sitting in council of war at Torres Vedras, with despair in their souls, and resolving to ask for terms on which to evacuate Portugal. Kellermann was just about to ride in to the English lines to open negotiations[240]. The idea of an ‘offensive return’ by the French was in the head of the cautious Burrard[241]: but not in that of Wellesley, who had made up his mind ‘that they would act in Portugal as they did in Egypt: they tried their strength once in the field, and having failed they would have continued to retreat till they could have got into safety. I do not believe that any corps could have fallen on the flank of our march on the twenty-third.’ The only course open to the French, in his opinion, was to throw over any idea of holding the capital, withdraw its garrison, and cross the Tagus at Saccavem or Villafranca, or Santarem, by means of the ships which lay in the river, and the large fleet of barges which is always to be found in and near Lisbon. Having passed the Tagus they might cut their way through the insurgents of the Alemtejo, disperse the Spanish levies about Elvas and Badajoz, and press north through Estremadura to join Bessières[242]. This very idea did for a moment flash through the brains of some of Junot’s council of war at Torres Vedras: but there lay on their minds, like a nightmare, the remembrance of their awful march through the Estremaduran mountains in the preceding autumn. If, journeying unopposed from Ciudad Rodrigo to Lisbon, they had been nearly starved in that wilderness, what would be their fate if they had to cut their way through an insurrection, with the English army hanging on their heels? The most hopeful could only say that perhaps half the army might struggle through to Old Castile.

Wellesley’s arguments to Dalrymple had no further effect than to induce that general to make up his mind that the troops should march not on the twenty-second but on the twenty-third, and not on Mafra but on Torres Vedras. Sir John Moore’s division was to be brought down at once to Maceira Bay, to join the main army, and not to be sent (as Wellesley had urged) to Santarem. With[p. 266] the aid of this reinforcement Dalrymple hoped to be strong enough to force back Junot into Lisbon. The resolve meant fatal delay: Moore did not begin to disembark till August 25, and his last men did not get ashore till August 30. On that day only could Junot have been attacked seriously, and meanwhile he would have obtained nine days in which to fortify his positions and to place Lisbon in a thorough state of defence. The consequences entailed would have been a long siege, the probable devastation of the Portuguese capital, and the protraction of operations into November and December. Even then there would still have been Elvas and Almeida to be recaptured[243].

But things were not destined to take this course. Dalrymple was busy drafting his orders for the movement of the next day on Torres Vedras, when an alarm ran through the camp that the French were at hand, and the whole force flew to arms. This rumour was caused by the folly of a Portuguese cavalry officer, whose vedettes had seen French horsemen in the distance; he imagined an army on the move and reported its approach. What he had really seen was General Kellermann, with two squadrons of dragoons as his escort, bearing the white flag, and about to propose to the British commander-in-chief the evacuation of Portugal by the French army under a convention.

We have already mentioned the fact that on the early morning of the twenty-second, Junot had called together at Torres Vedras a council of war composed of all his surviving generals—Loison, Kellermann, Delaborde (who attended though suffering from two severe wounds), Thiébault, the chief of the staff, Taviel, the commander of the artillery, Col. Vincent, the chief engineer, and Trousset, the chief commissary at Lisbon. Junot’s spirits were very low: he began by explaining that he had only fought at Vimiero to save the honour of the French arms, not because he hoped for victory—a statement which will not bear investigation in the light of his previous dispatches and letters[244]. The British, he said, were expecting huge reinforcements from the sea: Freire was now moving on Obidos, another Portuguese corps on Santarem: the reports of the state of public opinion in Lisbon were most alarming. Under these circumstances, ought the army to try the fortune of battle a second time? And if it must, what plan[p. 267] should be adopted? If it could not, what alternative remained? When such was the spirit of the leader, it was easy to foresee the replies of his subordinates. The army, they soon resolved, had done its best in the most honourable fashion, but it was not ready for another fight. Indeed the stragglers had not yet finished pouring into Torres Vedras, and the wearied rearguard which covered them had only reached the defile in front of the town two hours after midnight[245]. The army, unmolested as it was, did not get into fighting trim again till two days after Vimiero. On the twenty-second it was still in a state of complete disorganization: if Dalrymple had marched on Mafra he would not have found a man in his path.

Having resolved that the army was not ready for another battle, the council of war had three alternatives before it: to fall back to cover Lisbon on the positions of Mafra and Montechique; to evacuate Lisbon, cross the Tagus, and make for Elvas; or to try to negotiate with the British. The decision was soon made in favour of the third: Lisbon, without regular fortifications, and swarming with a discontented populace, would be a mere snare for the army. The retreat via Elvas on Old Castile would mean the slow but certain destruction of the whole corps[246]. For it was now known that Joseph Bonaparte had evacuated Madrid, and that Burgos was probably the nearest point where a French force was to be found. Not one of the officers present had the heart to make a serious proposal for such a retreat. It only remained to try whether Dalrymple was open to receive an offer: if he could be tempted by the prospect of receiving Lisbon with all its magazines and riches intact, he might allow the French army to return under safe conduct to their own land. Kellermann, who could understand English, more or less, and was considered a skilful diplomatist, was charged with the negotiations. He rode out of Torres Vedras between ten and eleven in the morning with his escort, charged with ample powers to treat. As he passed the rearguard in the pass, four miles outside the town, he told the officer in command that he was going to visit the English ‘to see if he could get the army out of the mousetrap[247].’

[p. 268]

By two o’clock Kellermann was conferring with the English commander—he was astonished to find that it was Dalrymple and not Wellesley. The reception that he met was an agreeable surprise to him. Dalrymple showed his pleasure at the broaching of the idea of a convention in the most undisguised fashion. The fact was that he was very glad to avoid the possible dangers of an immediate advance and a second fight. He called in Burrard and Wellesley to the interview, and from his unguarded ‘asides’ to them, Kellermann soon learnt that Moore had not yet landed, and that till he was ashore Dalrymple did not feel safe. This gave the Frenchman a confidence which he had not at first possessed, and he at once assumed an air of self-reliance which he had been far from showing when he rode out of Torres Vedras. Instead of merely trying to save the army at all costs, he began to haggle about details, and to speak about the possibility of resuming hostilities—the last thing in the world that he really desired[248].

There was no doubt that a convention by which Portugal and all its fortresses could be recovered without the necessity of firing another shot was an eminently desirable thing. Wellesley did not hesitate a moment in advising his superiors to take the offer. Burrard had given away the certainty of recapturing Lisbon yesterday: Dalrymple, by delaying his advance, had on this very morning sacrificed the second chance (a much less brilliant one, it must be confessed) of ending the campaign by a single blow. If Junot’s proposals were rejected and hostilities were resumed, there lay before the British army either a siege of Lisbon, which could not fail to ruin the city, or a long stern-chase after the French, if they should resolve to cross the Tagus and march off through the Alemtejo. No doubt it would sound better in the ears of the British public if the surrender or destruction of Junot’s army could be reported. But as a matter of practical expediency, the recovery of Lisbon and all its wealth unharmed was worth far more than the capture of a French army at the cost of much time, many lives, and the ruin of the Portuguese capital. The loss of 25,000 soldiers would be nothing to Napoleon, who disposed of more than half a million men: the blow to his pride would be almost as great if he lost Portugal by a convention as if he lost it by a capitulation. As a matter of fact he was much incensed at Junot, and would have dealt hardly with him if Dupont had not[p. 269] drawn off his wrath by failing in an even more disastrous fashion[249].

After hearing what Kellermann had to say, the three English generals withdrew into an inner room, and after a very short discussion agreed to treat. They told their visitor that he might have a forty-eight hours’ suspension of hostilities at once, and that they would open negotiations on the general base that Junot and his army should be allowed to evacuate Portugal by sea without any of the forms of capitulation, and be returned to their own country on British ships. The details would take much discussion: meanwhile they invited Kellermann to dine with them and to settle the main lines of the Convention before he returned to his commander. There was a long post-prandial debate, which showed that on two points there was likely to be trouble; one was the way in which Siniavin’s Russian fleet in the Tagus was to be treated: the other was how much the French should be allowed to carry away with them from Portugal. Kellermann said that he asked for no more than their ‘military baggage and equipments,’ but he seemed to have a large idea of what came under these headings[250].

Meanwhile the terms of the suspension of hostilities were successfully drafted; the line of the Zizandre river was to be fixed as that of demarcation between the two hosts. Neither of them was to occupy Torres Vedras: Dalrymple undertook to get the armistice recognized by Freire and the other Portuguese generals in the field. They were not to advance beyond Leiria and Thomar. The garrisons at Elvas, Almeida, Peniche, and elsewhere were to be included in the Convention, unless it should turn out that any of them had surrendered before August 25—which as a matter of fact they had not. The Russian fleet in the Tagus was to be treated as if in a neutral port. This last clause was much objected to by Wellesley, who found also several minor points in the agreement of which he could not approve. But by the directions of[p. 270] Dalrymple he signed the suspension of arms after a protest; his superior had told him that it was ‘useless to drive the French to the wall upon points of form[251].’

The subsequent negotiations for a definite convention occupied seven days, from August 23 to 30. On the first-named day Junot evacuated Torres Vedras, according to the stipulations of the agreement made by Kellermann. He retired to the line of hills behind him, establishing Loison’s division at Mafra and Delaborde’s at Montechique. Dalrymple, on the other hand, moved his head quarters forward to Ramalhal, a position just north of Torres Vedras, and only nine miles from Vimiero. In this respect he profited less than the French from the suspension of hostilities: it is true that he got leisure to disembark Moore’s troops, but Junot gained the much more important advantage of a safe retreat to a good position, and of leisure to strengthen himself in it. It must not be supposed, however, that he was in a comfortable situation; Lisbon was seething with suppressed rebellion. The news of French victories, which had been published to quiet the people, had soon been discovered to be nothing more than an impudent fiction. At any moment an insurrection might have broken out: the garrison and the mob were alike in a state of extreme nervous tension, which took shape on the one side in assassinations, and on the other in wanton firing at every person who approached a sentinel, or refused to stand when challenged by a patrol.

The negotiations for a definitive convention suffered several checks. At one moment it seemed likely that the Portuguese army might give trouble. General Freire arrived at Ramalhal in a state of high wrath, to protest that he ought to have been made a party to the suspension of hostilities. There was, as Napier remarks, more plausibility than real foundation in his objection[252], for his motley army had taken no part whatever in the operations that had brought Junot to his knees. But he could make a distinct point when he asked by what authority Dalrymple had given promises as to his neutrality in the agreement with Kellermann, or laid down lines which he was not to pass. Freire was all the bolder because his levies were now being strengthened by the forces from Oporto which the Bishop had lately raised, while a small Spanish brigade under the Marquis of Valladares, lent by[p. 271] the Galician Junta, had come down as far as Guarda. But he contented himself with protests, without committing any definite act that might have rendered the Convention impossible.

A more dangerous source of possible rupture was the view of the situation taken by Sir Charles Cotton, the admiral in command of the British blockading squadron off the mouth of the Tagus. As Wellesley had foreseen, the naval men were determined to secure the possession of the Russian ships of Siniavin. Cotton refused to entertain the proposal that such a force should be allowed a free departure from Lisbon, as if from a neutral port, and should be given a long start before being pursued. He had held the Russians under blockade for many a weary month, and was not going to abandon his hold upon them. Why should the French evacuation of Portugal place Siniavin in a better position than he had ever occupied before? The admiral declared that he saw no reason why the Russians should be included in the Convention at all. If there was going to be any agreement made with them, he should conduct it himself, treating directly with Siniavin instead of through a French intermediary.

Sir Hew Dalrymple was forced to report to the French commander these objections of the admiral. It seemed possible for a moment that the difficulty would not be got over, and that war must recommence. Wellesley strongly advised his chief to try the game of bluff—to announce to Junot that operations would be resumed at the end of the stipulated forty-eight hours, as Sir Charles Cotton had objected to the terms of the armistice, but that he was prepared to take into consideration any new proposals which might be made to him before the interval of two days expired[253]. Such a firm policy, he thought, would induce the French to yield the point—all the more because Junot and Siniavin were known to be on very bad terms. But Dalrymple would not accept this plan. He merely reported the admiral’s proposals to Junot, without any intimation that the resumption of hostilities must result from their rejection. This move placed the power of playing the game of brag in the Frenchman’s hands. Seeing that Dalrymple did not seem to desire to break off negotiations, he assumed an indignant tone, and began to talk of his determination not to concede an inch, and of the harm that he could do if he were forced to fight. ‘The English might take away the half-drafted convention: he[p. 272] would have none of it. He would defend Lisbon street by street: he would burn as much of it as he could not hold, and it should cost them dear to take from him what remained[254].’ At the same time he made a final proposal to Siniavin, that he should put ashore his 6,000 seamen and marines, to take part in the defence of Lisbon on the land side. This was only part of the game of bluff, and intended for the benefit of the English rather than of Siniavin, for Junot knew perfectly well, from the latter’s previous conduct, that he was bent on playing his own hand, and would not fire a single shot to help the French.

All Junot’s desperate language was, in fact, no more than a device to squeeze better terms out of Dalrymple. The actual point on which the argument grew hot was a mere pretext, for the Russian admiral utterly refused to assist the French, and intimated that he should prefer to conclude a separate convention of his own with Sir Charles Cotton. Clearly it was not worth while for the Duke of Abrantes to risk anything on behalf of such a torpid ally.

Accordingly the Convention was reduced to a definitive form between August 27 and 30. Colonel George Murray, the quartermaster-general, acted as the British negotiator, while Kellermann continued to represent Junot. The details were settled in Lisbon, where Murray took up his residence, sending back frequent reports to his superior officer at Ramalhal. Dalrymple and Cotton carried their point in that no allusion whatever was made to the Russians in the document. Junot found a salve for his injured pride by remembering that he had slipped a mention of Napoleon as ‘Emperor of the French,’ into the text of the suspension of hostilities[255]: in this he thought that he had won a great success, for the British Government had hitherto refused to recognize any such title, and had constantly irritated its adversaries by alluding to the master of the Continent as ‘General Bonaparte,’ or the ‘actual head of the French executive.’

The terms of the Convention need close study[256]: it comprised twenty-two articles and three supplementary paragraphs of addenda. The first article provided that the French should surrender Lisbon[p. 273] and the Portuguese fortresses in their existing condition, without harming or dismantling them. The second and third granted the army of Junot a safe departure by sea in English vessels: they were not to be considered prisoners of war, might take their arms and baggage, and were to be landed at any port between Rochefort and L’Orient. The fourth, fifth, and sixth articles attempted to define the property which the French might take away—their horses, their guns of French calibre (but not any that they might have found in the Portuguese arsenals), with sixty rounds for each piece, their wagons, their military chest, in short, ‘all their equipment, and all that is comprehended under the name of property of the army.’ It was found, later on, that these paragraphs had been too loosely worded, and gave much endless occasion for disputes. The next six articles settled the manner in which the departing army was to embark, and the order in which each of the strongholds that it evacuated was to be given up to the British. The thirteenth and fourteenth articles arranged for the appointment of commissaries by each side, to deal with disputed points in the Convention, and added the curious clause that ‘where a doubt arose as to the meaning of any article, it should be explained favourably to the French army.’

But the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth articles were the most objectionable part of the Convention. It was true that they secured that no more taxes or contributions were to be raised by Junot, and that undischarged fines which he had laid on the Portuguese should be regarded as cancelled. But they also provided that French civilians in Portugal might either depart with the army, or, if they preferred it, might be allowed to remain behind unmolested, and have a year in which to dispose of their property. This might perhaps pass: not so, however, the ensuing clause, which provided that Portuguese subjects should not be rendered accountable for their political conduct during the French occupation: all who had taken service with the usurping government were to be placed under the protection of the British, and to suffer no injury in person or property. They were also to be granted liberty to depart with the French army if they chose.

The five remaining articles were unimportant. The eighteenth secured the release of Caraffa and the rest of Junot’s Spanish prisoners, and provided that in return the few French officers of the army of Portugal, whom the Spaniards had captured at Oporto and Elvas, should be liberated. The twenty-first permitted Junot[p. 274] to send one of his aides-de-camp directly to France to carry the news of the Convention, so that preparations might be made for the reception of the troops[257].

Three unimportant supplementary articles were added below the signatures of Murray and Kellermann: one stipulated that French civilian prisoners in the hands of the English and Portuguese should be released, another that Junot’s army should subsist on its own magazines till it embarked, a third that the British should permit the entry of provisions into Lisbon, now that the Convention had been concluded.

Such was the celebrated agreement which was destined to gain a most unhappy notoriety in England under the name of the ‘Convention of Cintra,’ a designation which it is hard to understand, for it was first sketched at Torres Vedras, and was discussed and ratified at Lisbon. The only connexion which it had with Cintra was that Dalrymple’s dispatch to the British Government, enclosing the document in its latest form, was dated from that pleasant spot in the environs of Lisbon. But it would perhaps be pedantic to give any other name to such a well-known document, than that under which it has been known for the last ninety-three years.

After a careful investigation of the details of this famous agreement, the conclusion at which the impartial student will probably arrive is that while on the military side it was justifiable, it presented grave political faults. In order to recover Lisbon with its arsenals, its forts and its shipping, all intact, Dalrymple might without serious blame have granted even more to the French. By the Convention he saved, not only the wealth of the capital, and the lives of the troops who must have fallen in storming it, but, most important of all, time. If he had but known the value of that commodity, he might have been in Madrid at the head of all his British troops by October 1, or even earlier. ‘I do not know what Sir Hew proposes to do,’ wrote Wellesley the morning after the Convention was signed, ‘but if I were in his situation I would have 20,000 men in Madrid in less than a month from this day[258]’ But the importance of time was never realized by the old commander-in-chief: he was superseded long before his army had[p. 275] even moved up to the Portuguese frontier. Looking, therefore, at the Convention in the broadest aspect, we hold that its military advantages entirely outweighed those which might have been secured by a prolongation of hostilities. But this conclusion does not mean that there were not points in the military part of the agreement that might have been modified with advantage.

It is when we turn to the political section of the Convention that we light upon grave faults and mistakes on the part of Dalrymple. The first and foremost was that he signed the document without previously submitting certain portions of it to the Portuguese government. In the sixteenth and seventeenth articles the British general took upon himself to grant certain favours both to French civilians resident in Portugal, and to Portuguese subjects who had taken service under Junot, which he had no authority to concede. These were points which concerned not the British army but the Portuguese civil administration, and should not have been decided without a consultation with our allies, and a permission from them to make terms on their behalf. The sixteenth article allowed Frenchmen resident in Lisbon to remain there for a year after the Convention, if they did not chose to leave the country with Junot and his troops. To permit subjects of the hostile power to remain in Lisbon for so long was, of course, most distasteful to the Portuguese government, which was naturally desirous of expelling at once, according to the ordinary customs of war, a body of persons many of whom had made themselves the partners and instruments of Junot’s peculations, and who for the next twelve months would serve as spies and purveyors of intelligence to the French Emperor. Nothing more than the leave to quit Lisbon in Junot’s wake should have been secured to them, unless the Junta of Regency gave its consent. The seventeenth article is even more objectionable: a considerable portion of the bureaucracy of Portugal had been weak and criminal enough to acquiesce in the French usurpation, and to make themselves the tools of the Duke of Abrantes. It was natural that their countrymen should feel deeply indignant with them; and their lot was likely to be so hard that it was but rational and humane to give them leave to quit the kingdom. But considering that they had deserved very ill of the state, it was surely wrong for the British general to promise to take them under his special protection, and to guarantee them against injury to their persons or property. He had no power to grant them an amnesty for their[p. 276] past ill-doing; that could be given only by the Portuguese government. When the latter resumed its ordinary functions at Lisbon, it was absurd that it should be prevented, by the Convention, from taking into consideration the cases of such of these unpatriotic persons as it might wish to deal with. When, therefore, Kellermann broached to Dalrymple the sixteenth and seventeenth articles, the latter should have refused to accept them without a reference to the Junta at Oporto. He might have granted both the French and the Portuguese satellites of Junot a free passage out of Portugal, with such of their goods as they could carry, but more than this he could not rationally concede on his own authority.

It was fortunate, therefore, that the practical harm done did not turn out to be very great. Both the aliens and the natives covered by these two clauses were so perfectly aware of their own unpopularity in Lisbon, that they absconded almost en masse. The populace of the capital had given them fair warning of what they might expect, for not only were they threatened and insulted in the streets whenever they were out of sight of a French sentry, but unknown hands posted on the walls lists of houses to be sacked and individuals to be hung as soon as Junot’s army should have sailed. The watchwords, ‘Death to the French’ and ‘Death to the traitors,’ were muttered even under the muzzles of the cannon, which had been trained on all the main streets, to keep down the insurrection for the few days which had to elapse before the embarkation. The invaders, therefore, had to take away with them a very large body of civilian dependants, headed by the Comte de Novion, a French émigré, who, after being hospitably entertained in Lisbon for many years, had shown his gratitude by accepting the post of head of Junot’s police—a capacity in which he had much odd business to transact.

But besides Articles XVI and XVII of the Convention there were other clauses to which Dalrymple should not have given his assent without consulting the representatives of his allies. Almeida was being blockaded by a mass of Portuguese militia, and Elvas, a few days after the treaty had been signed, was attacked by a Spanish force sent out from Badajoz by Galluzzo, the Captain-General of Estremadura. No British soldier had yet been seen within a hundred miles of either fortress. What was to be done if the generals of the besieging troops refused to abide by an agreement which they had not been asked to sign, and which had[p. 277] not even been laid before their respective governments ere it was definitively ratified? A grave crisis, as we shall find, was created by Dalrymple’s neglect to foresee this difficulty. His conduct all through the days of negotiation was very strange; not only did he make no proper attempt to communicate with the Portuguese authorities, but he actually left his own government uninformed of his proceedings for a fortnight. He failed to send them any dispatch to announce the armistice of August 22, and only forwarded that detailing the Convention of August 30 on the fourth day of the succeeding month.

Dalrymple’s main reason for leaving the Portuguese out of the negotiations was that the Junta at Oporto had not yet been formally recognized as the legitimate government of Portugal[259]. Wellesley, no doubt, had conferred with the Bishop, given him arms and munitions, procured from him food and draught animals, and asked his advice, but the British ministry had not yet acknowledged the existence of any regular executive in Portugal. This being so, Dalrymple thought himself justified in acting as if there were none in being; and it cannot be denied that thereby he saved himself much present trouble, at the cost of future friction. All, therefore, that he did was to inform the Junta’s agent at the British head quarters, one Pinto da Souza, that he was negotiating with Junot for the evacuation of Lisbon, and that he was open to receive any observations which the Junta might make. The same announcement was made to Bernardino Freire, who had ridden over to Ramalhal[260] to complain that he and his army were not mentioned in the armistice of August 22. Both Freire and the Junta were treated as persons whose opinions it was useful to obtain, not as constituted authorities whose consent to the definitive convention was necessary in order to make it binding. Dalrymple tried to cover himself during the subsequent inquiry by maintaining that the Convention was purely military, and concerned the French and English armies alone: but this plea cannot seriously be put forward in face of Articles XV, XVI, and XVII, all of which are concerned with problems of civil government, which would arise after the French army should have embarked. Each[p. 278] of these articles clearly required the ratification of some proper Portuguese authority to make it valid.

Both the Bishop of Oporto and General Freire were deeply wounded by the way in which Dalrymple ignored their status—the prelate more justly than the soldier, for he had done his best to assist the British army, while Freire by his captious and impracticable behaviour had been more of a hindrance than a help. The Bishop charged the representative of the Supreme Junta in London to complain to the British Government as to the behaviour of their generals, denouncing not only their neglect to make the Junta a party to the Convention, but also the terms of that document, which were stated to be far too favourable to Junot. Owing to Dalrymple’s extraordinary delay in apprising the ministry of the details of the treaty, the Bishop’s excited denunciations of the agreement had currency for nearly a fortnight, before any one in England knew what exactly had been granted to Junot, or how far the Junta was justified in its wrath.