the subject, animadverting in a tone consistent with the nature of the complaint – a tone which, I trust, will meet with the approbation of H.M. Government.
“Notwithstanding assurance had been given to the British Consul by Don Pedro’s Government, that the earliest opportunity should be taken to deny, in the official gazette, the malicious fabrications which had been circulated, and are still increasing ia mischievous tendency to the prejudice of the British squadron in the Douro, not a single syllable has yet appeared; and it is my own unbiassed opinion, that many of the partizans of Don Pedro use every endeavour to create an anti-British feeling in the town of Oporto. To expatiate upon the want of courtesy, to say nothing of the ingratitude of the Duke of Braganza and his ministers, might appear incompatible with the tone which ever should characterize an official despatch; but when it is recollected that, through the medium of H.M. ships, all the hospital stores for the party in question have been conveyed, and moreover, that the surgeons and assistant-surgeons of the British squadron in the Douro have, at considerable risk of their lives, daily visited and attended on the wounded troops of Don Pedro, in the town, for a period of nearly three months, and not even the slightest acknowledgment made, or notice taken, by his Government for such medical aid, some notion may be conceived as to the extent of amity the Duke of Braganza and his ministers entertain for all British subjects who here preserve a strict and honorable neutrality.
“The base fabrications in question not having been officially reported to you, it may be necessary, Sir, to apprise you of their mischievous and malignant extent.
“It has been insidiously and industriously circulated throughout the town of Oporto, that the British squadron not only fired upon Don Pedro’s retreating troops, when crossing the river in their boats, but that the seamen had been seen, hatchet in hand, hewing down the already wounded, helpless, and unfortunate creatures who had been clinging to the cables of one or two of H.M. ships. Never, Sir, has the sanctity of truth been more grossly and basely violated; nor should such falsehoods, purporting to calumniate the character of the British naval service, be treated otherwise than with indignant contempt, were it not that the silence observed by official authorities seem as it were to lend something more than a semblance of sanction to the propagation of slanders unparalleled in atrocity.[1] I am happy to state, that the seaman- ↑ Don Pedro had the good taste, in reply to a spirited appeal from Lieutenant-Colonel H____, to remark, that “he was compelled to give credence to the statement of his own officers,” one of whom, a certain colonel, who had been the last to land and first to fly, was the inventor and chief propagator of the calumnies.
