If I were Sir John Moore I
would send up a division to Oporto, hang the bishop and every member of
the Junta, shoot Friere and a dozen of his principal officers, and if the
people of Oporto gave them the chance clear the streets with grape-shot.
Why, if it hadn't been for a small guard of our fellows with the French
garrisons that were marched down there to embark, the Portuguese would
have murdered every man-jack of them. They did murder a good many, and
robbed them all of their baggage; and if it had not been that our men
loaded and would have fired on them if they had gone further, not a
Frenchman would have got off alive. If this had been done in Lisbon, where
the French had been masters, there might have been some sort of excuse for
it; but they had never been near Oporto at all, and therefore the people
there had no scores to settle with them."
"I am afraid, O'Flaherty, that an army worked on your principles would
never get far from the coast, for we should have the whole country against
us."
"So much the better if we never got far from the coast. How much help have
we had from them? There is not a single horse or waggon for transport
except those we have hired at exorbitant prices; not a single ounce of
food. They would not even divide with us the magazines at Leirya, which
they had no share in capturing.
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