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Transcription:
Coimbra 24 April, 1810
My Dear Sir,
I have to acknowledge your letter of the 14th Inst.
(this month) and by what you state relative to Mr. Forjas’s opinion, and
which was what I expected, on the forms of Courts Martial in this
Country, I can not expect that any representations of mine to the
government here can be of the slightest effect, as to it I have already
urged the subject with much earnestness, but unsuccessfully, and indeed
from experience I have
found the utmost repugnance to any change in former laws,
or even of forms, that are no essential Parts of the Law. Tho’ in the
courts either to Evade the Law or Judge in direct opposition to it is
very customary and rouses no feelings of indignation in any one, and
thus tho’ there is an alarm about correcting the forms to be more
correspondent to the necessities of the times, there is no sensation
felt that the Cases themselves are scarcely ever acted up to. The
arrangements since which have Effected the change in the state and
discipline of the Army, tho’ not opposed, were far from meeting the
hearty concurrence of
those who having requested a British General Officer, one would have
imagined would have almost implicitly confided in what he proposed,
that had only military regulations and objects in him, but in spite of
the strong desire on that quarter that the Army should be put into the
best possible state, yet besides perhaps a little
regret for lost Patronage & a little jealousy, there has existed an
alarm at striking at once at the Root of Evils, and even whilst the
Enemy was in the Kingdom, and that
we might have expected to be interrupted in our work by him, even then
when every moment was precious, as indeed it has been all along & still
continues so, it was urged to me not to proceed with haste but to reform
by degrees, and tho’ as I have stated there never has been any decided
opposition to my measures, yet the difficulties, the vexations & the
impediments I have had to encounter few can conceive; that however they
are in a great degree surmounted is very certain but not less so, that
to keep the machine going with correctness,
there is much yet to be done, or at least to be persevered in, and as
much of the Cause of my difficulties has been this idea, or fear, either
real or pretended, of wounding deep seated prejudices, until that
Principle is given up we can not expect to do all the good that can be
done. This Pretence if real is from fear, and I can assert that fear to
be totally groundless,
as far as regards the great body of the nation, with whom there is no
Prejudice in favour of the Legal forms of their country, they never
expected Justice thru’ that channel and were seldom disappointed.
The Forms & Mode of proceeding in Courts Martial are
peculiarly formed to exude Justice, and to Cause delay, and at all
events, as from this last is prevented, the immediate example, so
necessary in Military Cases,
the effects wished to be desired from punishments are lost, & those not
attained the infliction becomes a cruelty.
It is impossible to doubt that the forms of proceedings in courts
martial as now practiced are by no means adapted to times of trouble and
strong emergencies, so much the contrary that during the Common movement
of an Army it is totally impracticable to hold a court martial. Mr
Forjas it is certain may assure, apart, and reason to them there is no
necessity that so much delay should occur in the proceedings of courts
martial, for what can avail his arguments in the very front of
experience? And he would do much better if he would prove it by a matter
of fact, and point out any court martial that he ever recollects to have
finished in the course of one day.
I have now had more than 12 months experience and tho’ I have not been
sparing in the means of obliging the auditors & members of courts
martial to be more expeditious & have perhaps in some degree succeeded,
yet courts martial continue to last 6 weeks, two & even three months,
nay even six, and it is not unusual for the Proceedings on a Private
Soldier to be so voluminous as would take a single person probably a
Fortnight to Copy.
The Plea of deep rooted Prejudice is quite unfounded,
it can in the case in point exist but with the Law people, who are
certainly very prejudiced in favour of the Routine they have ever trod
in, and very averse to any change and particularly to one that
simplifies, but it is the greatest injustice to this nation to say it is
averse to a change in the mode of administering the Law, either Civil or
Military.
If we do not hear spoken loudly, we hear whispered very
generally the approbation of this action to every energetic and firm
measure when consonant to Justice and the great object of saving the
nation from the grip of the Enemy, and
the People consider very little if the measure was or not conformable to
former Rules, they only look to see if it has been administered with the
same measure to the Hidalgos & the remaining orders in the nation,
when whatever it is, it is certain of making general approbation and
that the assertion of deep rooted prejudices being averse to change is
quite without any foundation will be sufficiently evident by the past,
that
where English Officers are in Command of Provinces or wherever they
command all is quiet, obedient, and satisfied, and perhaps this may
prove that Prejudices lean the direct opposite way to what is stated.
It is certain that in Lisbon, much of what is calculated Prejudice must
and does exist, because there is the great gathering of the People of
the Law, and the entire Junta of the Nobility and
High Hidalgos and the latter will never willingly submit that they are
to have for themselves & for their dependents, but the bare protection
of the Law and equal with the other subjects of the state,
and it is by these latter mentioned orders that the conduct of the
government is very much directed, and the feelings, desires or
prejudices of the great body of the nation is but very little taken into
consideration and
I regret very much to state that the Protection of any of the
considerable Families of the Kingdom, has much more influence than
public opinion.
You are fully acquainted with my sentiments of the
excellent intention of the Government & of Mr Forjas, for the success of
the General Cause. They have themselves many difficulties to struggle
with and if former habits & ways of thinking intrigues and prejudices
are taken into consideration, the support I have with, will be rather a
subject for admiration and approbation, than for complaint, and the
obstructions I have met with will have
proceeded from timidity on the part of Mr Forjas or the Government, but
the cause of this timidity is not praise worthy, as it has never
certainly been from any dread of offending the great body of the nation,
it has originated in the dread of offending or hurting the pride and
prejudices of the Hidalgos.
To return to the subject of courts martial, and what
brought me to the consideration of that subject, the intention of the
Government to adopt and proclaim military law in case of an Invasion, I
must repeat that I can see no possible use in it whilst the present
forms in courts martial exist, and tho’ whatever is entrusted to me for
the Public Good I will do my utmost to effect, yet it is not less a
justice to the Common Cause than to myself to declare whilst there is
time for a remedy, that the adoption of Military Law will be a nugatory
measure under the actual forms & modes of proceeding under that Law; and
it will be unnecessary to give to military law /which only a case of
necessity & a good to be desired from it can warrant/ what will just as
well be executed by the Civil, as the consideration of crimes must in
either case be postponed ‘till a period of tranquility when the Civil
Courts may assume their jurisdiction, and I have before communicated to
you that during any active operations it is impossible to bring even our
own Common Military Crimes to be judged by a courts martial.
I am going tomorrow to Vizeu and shall speak on this subject to Lord
Wellington who however I scarcely suppose will meddle in such a subject.
I shall return again in three or four days & shall be glad to hear there
will be a prospect of seeing you here. Believe me very truly yours.
W. C. Beresford
To His Excellency
Chas Stuart
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Biographical Note
MARSHAL
GENERAL WILLIAM CARR
BERESFORD, VISCOUNT BERESFORD, BARON OF ALBUERA, COUNT OF TRANSCOSO,
MARQUIS OF CAMPO MAJOR, GCB GCH
(1768-1854)
British general and Portuguese marshal, illegitimate son of the first
Marquess of Waterford, was born on the 2nd of October 1768. He entered
the British army in 1785, and while in Nova Scotia with his regiment in
the following year lost the sight of one eye by a shooting accident. He
first distinguished himself at Toulon in 1793, receiving two years later
the command of the 88th regiment (Connaught Rangers). In 1799 his
regiment was ordered to India, and a few months later Beresford left
with Sir David Baird's expedition for Egypt, and was placed in command
of the first brigade which led the march from Kosseir across the desert.
When, on the evacuation of Egypt in 1803, he returned home, his
reputation was established. In 1805 he accompanied Sir David Baird to
South Africa, and was present at the capture of Cape Town and the
surrender of the colony. From South Africa he was despatched to South
America. He had little difficulty in capturing Buenos Aires with only a
couple of regiments. But this force was wholly insufficient to hold the
colony. Under the leadership of a French ex-patriot in Spanish service,
the chevalier Jacques de Liniers, the colonists attacked Beresford, and
at the end of three days' hard fighting he was compelled to capitulate.
After six months' imprisonment he escaped, and reached England in 1807,
and at the end of that year he was sent to Madeira, occupying the island
in the name of the king of Portugal. After six months in Madeira as
governor and commander-in-chief, during which he learnt Portuguese and
obtained an insight into the Portuguese character, he was ordered to
join Sir Arthur Wellesley's army in Portugal. He was first employed as
commandant in Lisbon, but accompanied Sir John Moore on the advance into
Spain, and took a conspicuous part in the battle of Corunna. In February
1809 Beresford was given the task of reorganizing the Portuguese army.
In this task, by systematic weeding-out of inefficient officers and men,
he succeeded beyond expectation. By the summer of 1810 he had so far
improved the moral and discipline of the force that Wellington brigaded
some of the Portuguese regiments with English ones, and at Busaco
Portuguese and English fought side by side. Beresford's services in this
battle were rewarded by the British government with a knighthood of the
Bath (GCB) and the Portuguese with a peerage, Conde de Trancoso (Count
of Trancoso).
In the spring of 1811 Wellington was compelled to
detach Beresford from the Portuguese service. The latter was next in
seniority to General (Lord) Hill who had gone home on sick leave, and on
him, therefore, the command of Hill's corps now devolved. He commanded
at Campo Mayor and invested Badajoz but with insufficient forces, and on
the advance of Soult, was compelled to raise the siege and offer battle
at Albuera where his personal courage was even more than usually
conspicuous. In this notable action Beresford held an independent
command of a combined Anglo-Portuguese and Spanish army under his
command as a Portuguese Field-Marshal. He intercepted the relieving
French Army commanded by Marshal Nicolas Soult who had been ordered by
Marshal Auguste Marmont to move to protect Badajoz. After the bloody
Battle of Albuera the French were forced to retreat.
Beresford then went back to his work of reorganizing
the Portuguese army. He was present at the battle of Salamanca, where he
was severely wounded (1812). In 1813 he was present at the battle of
Vitoria, and at the battles of the Pyrenees, while at the battle of the
Nivelle, the Nive and Orthez he commanded the British centre, and later
he led a corps at the battle of Toulouse. At the close of the Peninsular
War he was created Baron Beresford of Albuera and Cappoquin, with a
pension of £2000 a year by the British and Marquis of Campo Major by
the Portuguese. He continued as the Marshal General of the Portuguese
Army until 1819 and then returned home. On arriving in England he turned
his attention to politics, and strongly supported the Duke of Wellington
in the House of Lords. In 1823 his Barony was made a Viscounty, and when
the Duke of Wellington formed his first cabinet in 1828 he gave
Beresford the office of Master-General of the Ordnance. In 1830
Beresford retired from politics, and for some time subsequently he was
occupied in a heated controversy with William Napier, the historian of
the Peninsular War, who had severely criticized his tactics at Albuera.
On this subject Wellington's opinion of Beresford is to the point. The
duke went so far as to declare, during the Peninsular War, that, in the
event of his own death, he would recommend Beresford to succeed him. The
last years of Beresford's life were spent at Bedgebury, Kent, where he
had purchased a country estate. He died on the 8th of January 1854. He
was the last titular Governor of Jersey; since his death the Crown has
been represented in Jersey by the Lieutenant Governor of Jersey.
[excerpts from 1911 Encylopaedia Britannica,
Glover's The Peninsular War,
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AN
EXEMPLARY AND ELEGANT EXPOSITION OF THE CASE OF A BRITISH GENERAL
OFFICER CALLED TO LEAD A FOREIGN ARMY AND AN IMPORTANT BERESFORD LETTER
AS HE WRESTLES WITH JUSTICE, PREJUDICE, POLITICS AND "TO KEEP THE
MACHINE GOING WITH CORRECTNESS"
