with a loss of 1800 killed and 3000 wounded-among them the Generals Foy and Merle. It was the first time the Portuguese troops had stood victoriously beside the British against the French, and the moral effect on their conduct was most important. Wellington, with the foresight and caution which are as necessary to success in a general as gallantry and activity, had, during the previous twelve months, employed the British engineers in forming the lines of Torres Vedras ; he now retired his army to this stronghold, which the advanced guard reached on the 8th of October, and by the 15th the whole army was collected within the lines, now completed and armed with 600 guns.

This was the state of affairs when the 1st Battalion 92nd, commanded by Major Archibald MacDonald, landed at Lisbon on the 8th October 1810. They had been held ready for embarkation by District Orders, Canterbury, September 9th, and embarked at Deal, 21st September, on board the ships Audacious, Apollo, and Vestal.*

The officers who landed at Lisbon on October 8th, when the Gordon Highlanders entered on this memorable and romantic campaign, were:—

* Embarkation Return of 1st Battalion 92nd Regiment of Foot at Deal, 21st September 1810:-Colonel, 0; lieut.-colonel, 0; majors, 2; captains, 7; lieutenants, 14; ensigns, 5; paymaster, 0; adjutant, 1; quartermaster, 1; surgeon, 1; assistant-surgeons, 2; sergeants, 48; drummers, 17; rank and file, 821; women, 16; children, 4.

Colonel the Hon. Sir John Hope, Lieut.-General.
Lieut.-Colonel Cameron, on the way to join.*

Captain J. Seton, duty at Canterbury.

Ewen MacPherson, duty in Portugal.

Dougald Campbell, not joined from 2nd Battalion.

Lieutenant Angus Fraser, duty in Portugal.

W. Baillie, sick at Inverness.

Dougald McPherson, sick at Laggan, Kingussie.

Ronald M'Donell,

Thomas Hobbs,

Ensign John Mackie, not joined from 2nd Battalion.
Luke Higgins, absent without leave.

Paymaster James Gordon, on the way to join.

The celebrated lines of Torres Vedras, having the sea on their left, the great river Tagus on the right, and the city and harbour of Lisbon in the rear, consisted of three ranges of defence. The first, extending from Alhandra on the Tagus to the sea at the mouth of the Zizandre, was twenty-nine miles long; the second stretched from Quintella on the Tagus to the sea at the mouth of the St Lorenza, at a distance varying

* Lieut.-Colonel Cameron had gone on his long-deferred leave, and was grouse shooting at Cluny in Badenoch when he heard of the battalion being ordered for service, and at once started to join. The following extract from a letter from him on arrival in London shows the difficulty and expense of travelling in 1810:-"I arrived here at five o'clock this morning. I had an outside and inside place on the mail, and by changing with Ewen (Ewen M'Millan, his soldier servant) stage by stage, we made it out without stopping at York. Guess my travelling expenses, without including one other iota, from Cluny to London, Ewen and I, £36. Ewen is in bed all day; but I have not been in bed since we left Edinburgh, having been at all the offices during the day." (In 1810 the time occupied by the mail between Inverness and London was six days. -Hay's Post Office Recollections.) After all, he was too late for the battalion, but joined with "Ewen" on the 20th October at Torres Vedras.

from six to eight miles in rear of the first; the third, intended to cover a forced embarkation, extended from Passo d'Arcos on the Tagus to the Tower of Junquera on the coast. Here an outer line, constructed on an opening of 3000 yards, enclosed an entrenched camp, designed to cover the embarkation with fewer troops, should the operation be delayed by weather; and within this second camp, Fort St Julian's, whose high ramparts and deep ditches defied an escalade, was armed to enable a rear guard to protect the army. The nearest part of the second line was twenty-four miles from Passo d'Arcos, and some parts of the first line were two long marches distant; the principal routes led through Lisbon. The second line was the strongest, and it was there that Wellington had originally intended to make his stand; the first being meant rather to retard the enemy's advance, and to enable the army to take up its ground on the second.

But Massena had delayed so long in reducing Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida, that the British engineers had time to render the first line so capable of defence, that Wellington resolved to abide his opponent there. It consisted of thirty redoubts placed on a ridge of heights, on which were mounted 140 guns; the great fort on Monte Agraca in the centre was perched on an eminence that overlooked the town of Sobral and the exterior lines, and from it signal posts communicated over their whole extent. A road ran along the front of the position from Torres Vedras by Runa, Sobral, and Aruda to Alhandra, and the five highways leading through the barrier were all palisadoed; the left, from the sea to the town of Torres Vedras, was defended by the river Zizandre, which was unfordable; the redoubts were armed with chevaux-de-frise; while the intervening spaces which were not fortified (except where a scarp was executed along the brow of the ridge) were formed into encampments for the troops, under shelter of the guns of one or other of the works. On the whole fifty miles of fortifications, no less than 600 pieces of artillery were mounted on 150 forts. "Neither the Romans in ancient, nor Napoleon in modern times have left such a proof of their power and perseverance; and they will remain in indestructible majesty to the end of the world, an enduring monument

of the grandeur of conception in the chief who could design, and the nation which could execute, such a stupendous undertaking."*

Alison. Yet at this time, Members of Parliament, backed by a considerable part of the British public, entirely without experience of war, and ignorant of the special difficulties he had to contend with, were clamouring against Wellington because he had not followed up his success at Talavera.

GIRL OF GUARDA, ARMED PEASANT, OFFICER OF INFANTRY, PEASANT OF TORRES VEDRAS.

(From "Sketches in Portugal," by the Rev. Mr Bradford, Chaplain to the Forces, 1809.)

ON landing, the battalion found Lisbon in the greatest confusion, and thronged with country people flying with their goods from the horrors of war. Here they had ammunition served out and camp equipment, such as blankets, camp kettles, bill-hooks, spades, pick-axes and felling axes, medicine panniers, etc., with fifteen mules for the battalion with a Portuguese muleteer. The officers had also thirteen private mules. They marched from Lisbon on the 10th, halting on the 12th at Sobral, where they met that part of the army under the immediate command of Lord Wellington, who arrived at this time, and fixed his headquarters at Peronegro, a short distance in rear of Sobral, a telegraph being erected on a high rock, so that he could communicate with every part of the lines.

Several skirmishes took place, especially near Sobral on the 14th, when, on attempting to dislodge the 71st * from a field-work, the French troops were repulsed and pursued to their entrenchments. In these affairs the Allies lost about 150 killed and wounded, among them General Harvey; but it does not appear that any of them belonged to the 92nd. loss of the enemy was greater.

The

The weather was wet and they had no tents, and several men suffered from a return of the Walcheren ague; for the first few days, also, they had cause to curse the commissariat, but afterwards the rations were good and regular, and quantities of luscious grapes in the deserted vineyards were to be had for the picking. On the 15th October they were quartered in some dilapidated houses at Crozendera, and were brigaded with the 50th and 71st Regiments and a company of the 5th Battalion 60th Rifles, under Major-General Howard, whose brigade was attached to the First Division of the army, which, with the Fourth and Sixth Divisions, was composed of troops

*

The 71st had left Canterbury at the same time as the 92nd.