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FORE:Junot had from sixteen to eighteen thousand men in Portugal, but a considerable number of them were scattered into different garrisons; his hope of reinforcements from Spain was likewise cut off by the surrender of Dupont, and by the fact of the Spaniards being in possession of Andalusia, Estremadura, and Galicia. Thus the numbers of the two armies which could be brought into the field against each other were pretty equal, except that Junot had a fine body of cavalry, of which arm the British were nearly destitute. On the 9th of August General Wellesley commenced his march southward, in the direction of Lisbon, to encounter Junot. On the 16th Wellesley came in contact with the van of Junot's army. On the landing of the British, Junot had called in his different garrisons, and concentrated his troops about Lisbon. He also dispatched General Laborde to check Wellesley's march, and ordered Loison to support him. But before Loison could reach Laborde, Wellesley was upon him, and drove in his outpost at the village of Obidos, and forced him back on Roli?a. At that place Laborde had a very strong position, and there he determined to stand. He was located on a range of rocky hills, the ravines between which were thickly grown with underwood and briars. Up these the British must force their way, if they attacked, and must suffer severely from the riflemen placed in the thickets and on the brows of the hills. But Wellesley knew that Loison with his detachment was hourly expected, and he determined to beat Laborde before he came up. He therefore placed his Portuguese division on his right to meet Laborde, and ordered his left to ascend the steep hills, and be prepared for the appearance of Loison's force, which was coming in that direction. His middle column had to make its way up the steepest heights, in front of Laborde's centre. All three columns executed their movements, however, with equal valour and spirit. The centre suffered most of all, both from the nature of the ground, and from a rifle ambuscade placed in a copse of myrtle and arbutus, which mowed our soldiers down in heaps, with their gallant colonel, the son of Lord Lake, of Indian fame, at their head. Notwithstanding all difficulties, our soldiers scaled the heights, formed there, and the centre charged Laborde's centre with the bayonet and drove them back. As the French had been taught that the British soldiers were of no account, and their general only a "Sepoy general," they returned several times to the attack, but on every occasion found themselves repulsed as by an immovable wall. Then, seeing the right and left wings bearing down upon them, they gave way, and ran for it. They were equally astonished at the terrible charges with the bayonet, at the rapidity and precision of the firing, and the general arrangement of the battle, and the exactitude with which it was carried out.On the 13th of September Charles James Fox died at Chiswick House, the residence of the Duke of Devonshire. He had been for a considerable time suffering from dropsy, and had got as far as Chiswick, in the hope of gathering strength enough to reach St. Anne's Hill, near Chertsey, his own house. But his days were numbered. He was only fifty-eight years of age. During his illness his colleagues and so-called friends, with that strange coldness and selfishness which always distinguished the Whigs, with very few exceptions, never went near him. Those honourable exceptions were the Duke of Devonshire, who had offered him his house, the Prince of Wales, his nephew, Lord Holland, his niece, Miss Fox, and his old friend, General Fitzpatrick. Still, Fox was not deserted by humbler and less known friends. Lords Grenville and Howick, his colleagues, rarely went near him, and all the Ministry were too busy anticipating and preparing for the changes which his decease must make. When this event took place there was a great shifting about, but only one new member of the Cabinet was admitted, Lord Holland, and only one resigned, the Earl Fitzwilliam. Lord Howick took Fox's department, that of Foreign Affairs; Lord Holland became Privy Seal; Grenville, First Lord of the Admiralty; and Tierney, President of the Board of Control. Sidmouth, afterwards so prominent in Tory Cabinets, still sat in this medley one as President of the Council, and Lord Minto[531] was gratified by the Governor-Generalship of India. As Parliament was not sitting at the time of Fox's death, Ministers ordered his interment in Westminster Abbey, and he was carried thither on the 10th of October, the twenty-sixth anniversary of his election for Westminster, and laid almost close to the monument of Chatham, and within a few inches of the grave of his old rival, Pitt.
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