It was high time for the brigade to leave this part of the
country. The soldiers were disgusted with the sluggish people around
them, keen and active only in their efforts to make money out of their
protectors. The Portuguese were exasperated at the insolence of their
allies, their frequent depredations and occasional acts of violence,
many of which went unpunished; for the English officers, always
professing the utmost readiness to punish the offences of their men,
were singularly scrupulous and exacting as to the conclusiveness of
the proofs of guilt.

Lord Strathern's lax discipline may have aggravated, but had not
caused the evil, which was felt throughout Portugal. The Regency,
while proving itself unable to govern the country, or reform a single
abuse, had shown its ability to harass their allies and embarrass the
general charged with the conduct of the war. "A narrow jealousy had
long ruled their conduct, and the spirit of captious discontent had
now reached the inferior magistracy, who endeavored to excite the
people against the military generally. Complaints came in from all
quarters, of outrages on the part of the troops, some too true, but
many of them false or frivolous; and when Wellington ordered
courts-martial for the trial of the accused, the magistrates refused
to attend as witnesses, because Portuguese custom rendered such
attendance degrading, and by Portuguese law a magistrate's written
testimony was efficient in courts-martial. Wellington in vain assured
them that English law would not suffer him to punish men on such
testimony; in vain he pointed out the mischief which must infallibly
overwhelm the country, if the soldiers discovered that they might thus
do evil with impunity. He offered to send, in each case, lists of
Portuguese witnesses required, that they might be summoned by the