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the place where the bye-road passes that stream is nearer to Torres Vedras than to Vimeiro, and quite as accessible from the former as from the latter place. Colonel Napier says that the British army would have gained a start by the aid of his project. But, in the first place, taking the case as it actually was, of the French army being already in march to attack the British on the morning of the 21st, the start could only have occasioned the collision of the two armies to begin on the flank and rear, in place of on the front and flank of the British column of march; and, secondly, taking the suppositious case of the French not having moved from Torres Vedras, till they learnt from their patrols that the British army was in motion, they could either have attacked the column of march, or have reached the position of Maffra before the British, being much nearer it, and having a more direct and a better road to march by, and no incumbrances.* Believing that our readers must be by this time somewhat more than satiated with military speculations, we shall proceed to remark upon those parts of Colonel Napier's book which relate to the re-establishment of the Portuguese government. But as that topic will draw our attention particularly to the Bishop of Oporto, we have thought it better to reserve for this place also our notice of a charge brought against that prelate by Colonel Napier, in giving an account of the state of the British army at the time when Sir Hew Dalrymple assumed the command of it.

The Bishop of Oporto had failed in his promise of assisting the British troops with draught cattle, as indeed he did in all his promises.'-vol. i. p. 220.

We do not at all know upon what authorities Colonel Napier relies for the authenticity of these statements which he advances as if they were unquestionable. Neither do we know what Colonel Napier expected from our Portuguese or our Spanish allies. Surely all that there could be any right whatever to look for was, that the authorities should do their best to facilitate the purchase, or the hire, of whatever the country could produce, and the British army might stand in need of. An allied army has no claim to more than that in any country, and least of all could it expect more from nations whose governments had been wholly broken up, and whose territories had been overrun and themselves plundered by a rapacious invader. The charge brought by Colonel Napier against the bishop of Oporto would be a heavy charge

no portion of the banks of the Zizendra below Torres Vedras is otherwise than tame.'-Colonel Jones's Observations on the Lines covering Lisbon, ch. ii.

*General Foy says of the coast-road from Vimeiro to Maffra, that it is narrow and rocky, and passes through a succession of defiles; and adds that the English army, extended in a single column, would have been everywhere liable to attack in flank and rear, without finding anywhere a good position to form in order of battle.vol. iv. p. 324.

against

against any man, and it is still more so against a bishop. But where are the proofs to support the accusation? The best witness in this case, as in that of the charges brought by our author against the Junta of Gallicia,-is most certainly Sir Arthur Wellesley; to him the promises were made by the Bishop of Oporto, and he was the person most cognizant of, as well as most immediately interested in, their accomplishment. We find nowhere, however, a single word of complaint from Sir Arthur Wellesley respecting a breach of any promise made by the bishop, but, on the contrary, everywhere commendations of his conduct. But what was the promise made by the bishop? It was not to supply the wants of the British army out of his own pocket, nor out of the pockets of the people of Portugal, plundered and oppressed by the French. The British general asked for nothing more, could expect to obtain nothing more, than that facilities should be afforded for the purchase of what his army wanted and the country could produce. And accordingly evidence is furnished to that effect in a letter from Sir Arthur Wellesley to Colonel Brown,* dated at Lavaos, on the 4th of August, in which he speaks of 500 draught mules which he expected Mr. Walsh would have purchased for him, and adds, are there no draught mules left in the country?' This was probably the case, as we find Sir Arthur Wellesley highly commending Mr. Walsh for his exactness in fulfilling all his contracts, in a letter to Lieut.-Colonel Murray, of the 15th of September. And in writing to the bishop himself, on the 6th of September, respecting the omission which there had been in apprizing him of the Convention, Sir A. Wellesley uses the following words :

But as I consider myself, and the army I commanded, to be particularly obliged to your Lordship, such an omission would have been unpardonable in me.'-Gurwood, vol. iv. p. 135.

And in writing subsequently to General Beresford, on the 19th of September, Sir A. Wellesley says, when recommending Senhor Fernandez Thomas, that he had received more assistance and service from that gentleman, than from all the other subjects of the Portuguese Crown, with the exception only of the Bishop of Oporto.-Gurwood, vol. iv. p. 146.

General Foy also speaks of the Bishop of Oporto in very dif ferent terms from those used by Colonel Napier, and esteems it an evidence of the Junta of Oporto having acted with wisdom in the beginning that they had chosen such a man to be their president. But a bishop has no quarter to expect from Colonel Napier, whether in Spain or in Portugal.

*Gurwood, vol. iv. p. 49.

+ Ibid., vol. iv. p. 140.

We come now to the accusations brought against the Bishop and others, in the business of the formation of the Regency.

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The Bishop of Oporto,' (says Colonel Napier,) a meddling and ambitious priest, had early conceived the project of placing himself at the head of the insurrectional authorities, and transferring the seat of government from Lisbon to Oporto.'-vol. i. p. 237.

After stating that the English general was convinced that the bishop and his coadjutors, however incapable of conducting great affairs, were experienced plotters,' Colonel Napier pro

ceeds:

It would appear that the bishop had other than Portuguese coadjutors. The Baron Von Decken, a Hanoverian officer, was appointed one of the military agents at Oporto; he was subject to Sir Hew Dalrymple's orders, but, as his mission was of a detached nature, he was also to communicate directly with the Secretary of State in England. Von Decken arrived at Oporto upon the 17th of August, and the same evening, in concert with the bishop, concocted a project admirably adapted to forward the views of the latter; they agreed that the prelate was the fittest person to be at the head of the government, and that as he could not, or pretended he could not, quit Oporto, the seat of government ought to be transferred to that city.-vol. i. p. 240.

'On the 3rd of September Sir Hew Dalrymple received instructions from home relative to the formation of a new Regency, which were completely at variance with the plan arranged between the bishop and General Von Decken, yet no difficulty attended the execution; and here we are arrested by the singularity of the transaction. General Charles Stewart, brother of Lord Castlereagh, was the bearer of Von Decken's first letter; he would not knowingly have lent himself to an intrigue subversive of his brother's views, as explained in the official instructions sent to Sir Hew; neither is it likely that Von Decken should plunge into such a delicate and important affair in one hour after his arrival at Oporto, if he had not been secretly authorised by some member of the English cabinet. Are we, then, to seek for a clue to these mysteries in that shameful Machiavelian policy that soon afterwards forced Lord Castlereagh to defend his public measures by a duel?'-vol. i. p. 242.

We do not think Colonel Napier has shown much good taste by forcing, very unnecessarily, into the above passage, an allusion to the quarrel between Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Canning, which manifested itself a year after the time of which he is treating. Colonel Napier's observations seem intended to convey an impression that General Decken had received, in an underhand manner, from one of Lord Castlereagh's colleagues, instructions of a different nature from those which had been officially communicated to him by his lordship; and the insinuation is pointed against Mr. Canning. Fortunately, however, there is a circumstance men

tioned in Sir Hew Dalrymple's Memoir which affords, as our trans-Atlantic friends would say, a pretty considerable refutation of this charitable theory. The circumstance to which we allude is, that General Decken and General Sontag embarked on the 11th of August at Plymouth for the Asturias, but on the same day received notice from Lord Castlereagh that their destination was changed, and that they were to proceed to Oporto, where they arrived on the 17th." This does not tally very well with Colonel Napier's insinuation of underhand instructions being given to Decken by another minister, respecting an intrigue to be carried on with the bishop of Oporto. The truth is, that no one, in the slightest degree acquainted with Baron Decken's character, will need any other clue to the labyrinth of the Oporto intrigue. General Decken, like some others of his countrymen, was a recluse speculator. The minds of such men are continually brooding over some scheme or other, and the less the scheme follows that direct and even road of common sense which men of plain understandings seek to adhere to, the more captivating it appears always to their imaginations. The Oporto intrigue, we are therefore quite satisfied, was the child of Baron Decken's brain, but, unlike the child of Jupiter's brain, it had none of the attributes of wisdom.† General Decken thus describes his first interview with the bishop in a letter to Sir Hew Dalrymple, of the 18th of August:

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The bishop told me he had taken the government of Portugal in his hands, to satisfy the wish of the people, but with the intention to re-establish the government of his lawful sovereign, and he hoped that his Majesty the King of Great Britain had no other point of view in sending troops to this country. After having given him all possible assurances on that head, the bishop continued, that as the Prince Regent, on leaving Portugal, had established a regency for the government of this country during his absence, he considered it his duty to resign the government into the hands of that regency as soon as possible. My answer was, that I had no instructions from my government on that head, but that I begged him to consider whether the cause of his sovereign would not be hurt in resigning the government into the hands of a regency, which, from its having acted under the influence of the French, had lost the confidence of the nation; and whether it would not be more advisable for him to keep the government until the pleasure of the Prince Regent was known.'

* See Sir Hew Dalrymple's Memoir, page 87; and likewise Lord Castlereagh's Letter to Brigadiers-General Decken and Sontag, dated August, 1808, in papers presented to Parliament, 1809.

+ Colonel Napier himself (page 319, vol. i.) says that Germans, 'regular and plodding even to a proverb in their actions, possess the most extravagant imaginations of any people on the face of the earth.'

Sir Hew Dalrymple's Memoir, page 285, and following pages.

Here

Here is a very explicit avowal, under General Decken's own hand, that the scheme of the government being retained by the bishop, and the arguments in support of that scheme, proceeded entirely from Baron Decken himself, and without any instructions on the subject from home. In his next letter, dated on the 22nd, Baron Decken says to Sir Hew Dalrymple

The Bishop has this day desired me to make your Excellency aware, in case it might be wished that he should keep the government in his hands, until the pleasure of the Prince Regent may be known, that he could not leave Oporto, and the seat of government must, in that case, necessarily remain in this town. His Excellency, the Bishop, thinks it his duty to inform you of this circumstance as soon as possible, as he foresees that the city of Lisbon will be preferred for the seat of government as soon as the British army have got possession of it.'*

Here the bishop very properly desires that the British Commander-in-Chief may be made aware of the objections which would arise to transferring the seat of government to Oporto. Again General Decken writes to Sir Hew Dalrymple, on the 28th of August,

'The bishop is convinced that the inhabitants of Lisbon will refuse to submit to the temporary government of Oporto, in which they will be strongly supported by the members of the former regency established by the Prince Regent, who, of course, will be very anxious to resume their former power. The bishop, on assuming the temporary government, complied only with the wishes of the people; he was sure that it was the only means of saving the country; but having had no interests of his own in view, he is willing to resign the authority which he has accepted with reluctance, as soon as he is convinced that it can be done without hurting the cause of his sovereign, and throwing the country into confusion.'*

In all these letters we find Baron Decken urging his unauthorized schemes upon the bishop of Oporto. No sooner, however, does the Baron learn, on the 31st of August, by Sir Hew Dalrymple's reply to his letter of the 18th, that his schemes were not relished at head-quarters, than he immediately imputes, in his letter of the 1st of September, the whole affair to the Bishop and the Bishop's secretary. But to ascertain the real value of this imputation cast by General Decken upon the Bishop, we must call in other witnesses besides the Baron himself. In the first place, General Anstruther, in his journal on the 5th of September, after noticing Sir Hew Dalrymple's having received on the 3rd instructions from home about the reconstruction of a Portuguese government, proceeds thus:

* Sir Hew Dalrymple's Memoir, p. 285, and following pages.

• Received

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