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It had been brought to the necessity of choosing, and however much the Principal, voicing the outcry of his party, might argue that the British plan was as detestable and ruinous as a French invasion, the nation preferred to place its confidence in the conqueror of Vimeiro and the Douro. Souza quitted the Government and the capital as had been demanded.
But General Junot still occupied Lisbon; his forces were unfortunately diminished by the garrisons left in the forts, and by a corps of observation that had been detached under the orders of General Delaborde. After a courageous resistance, this vanguard of the French army had been already beaten when the English advanced on Vimeiro.
He declared voluntarily before the Court of Inquiry that, though he still differed in opinion with Sir Harry as to the not advancing after the battle of Vimeiro, his opinion was, that Sir H. Burrard "had decided upon fair military grounds, in the manner which appeared to him to be the most conducive to the interests of the country;" and his belief, "that Sir Harry had no motive for his decision which could be supposed personal to him, or which as an officer he could not avow."
Fortune in this was on his side; and he had not been many days in Portugal before he was enabled to defeat the French at the pass of Roliça, and, on the 21st of August, to gain the battle of Vimeiro. While this battle was at its height, Sir Harry Burrard arrived, but would not interfere with Sir Arthur's dispositions.
The action of Vimeiro is the only one I have ever been in , in which everything passed as was directed, and no mistake was made by any of the officers charged with its conduct. Dispatch, Aug. 22, 1806. Distinction between Civil and Military Responsibility. There is a great distinction of duty between military and civil inferior situations.
Pending the inquiry, instituted in England on the convention, he returned thither, and his evidence was satisfactory alike to the court and to the public. On the 27th January, 1809, Sir Arthur received the thanks of parliament for the battle of Vimeiro. The speaker, in delivering the thanks of the House of Commons, said:
There was the work he had done as Irish Secretary, and there was the calculating genius he had displayed at Vimeiro, at Oporto, at Talavera. And then, observing her husband to be in distress, Lady O'Moy put down her fashion plate and brought up her heavy artillery to relieve him. "Sylvia, dear," she interpolated, "I wonder that you will for ever be arguing about things you don't understand."
Only, by looking at a map, it is observable that Vimeiro is a mortal long way from Toulouse, where, at the end of certain years of victories, we somehow find the honest Marshal. And what then? he went to Toulouse for the purpose of beating the English there, to be sure; a known fact, on which comment would be superfluous.
It frequently happens that the people who do commit outrages and disturbances have some reason to complain; but he who breaks the law must be considered in the wrong, whatever may have been, the nature of the provocation which he has received. Ibid, July 7, 1808. The Battle of Vimeiro.
This accumulation of misfortunes defeat before Valencia, defeat before Saragossa, disaster and surrender at Baylen, disaster and disgrace at Vimeiro, retreat from Madrid, desertion of the Duero as a line of defense, exchange of the offensive for a weak defensive, and loss of the whole Iberian peninsula except the strip behind the Ebro all this was shameful and hard to bear.
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