October 1809, Wellington told Beresford that the solution he had adopted with regard to officers in the British army going home was to oblige them to declare the nature of their business, fix the date of return and if they did not return by the due date court martial them for being absent without leave.37
Beresford was to prove equally intransigent, and when Brigadier General Miller sought leave to return to Ireland two weeks after his appointment as Governor of Minho in mid November 1809, Beresford responded that public service demanded sacrifice; stating that had he made the application prior to his appointment it might have been possible but that the Portuguese government needed the British officers. Beresford concluded, ‘I don’t doubt you will cheerfully occupy your post until a more favourable occasion.’ All this despite the fact that Miller had said he understood that if he went he could not expect to retain the position of the Governor of Minho, and furthermore that if he was not in Ireland to sign some deeds for the sale of a property by 1 January, he feared foreclosure on a mortgage.38 Miller chose to stay in Portugal, rendering valuable service there in the years ahead.
British officers who entered the Portuguese service but proved unsatisfactory were sent home, if this could be done without causing a political storm. One such was Brigadier General Robert MacLeroth, who only served in Portugal for a few months in 1809. Wellington was clearly of the view that MacLeroth should be sent home, but advised Beresford in October 1809 to proceed with caution by preparing the ground at Horse Guards before taking action to remove him. MacLeroth disappeared from Portugal shortly thereafter.39 Of course, there were other officers that Wellington and Beresford would like to have sent away from Portugal, and later Spain, but it proved impolitic to attempt their removal.
It was Forjaz who implemented a recruitment policy which in turn enabled Beresford to put a well trained and disciplined army into the field. The efforts made by Forjaz to recruit in late 1808 and early 1809 have already been referred to, and Forjaz’s own background and experience showed that he understood what was required. The arrival of Beresford and the allocation of British officers to train troops effectively gave Forjaz the impetus to introduce a more intensive and persistent system of recruitment. In doing so he broke with tradition and came into conflict with both the Regency and the magistrates at local level, but pushed by the determination and demands of Beresford, Forjaz proved a reliable colleague in this respect.40
The recruiting system in place at the beginning of 1809 involved the Superintendent of Police sending notices relating to recruitment to those responsible for recruiting in the individual provinces; the capitães-mores. There was a real problem in that initially so many privileges or exemptions from the obligation to serve were made, that it led to confrontation and delay in implementing decrees. The capitães-mores complained of the difficulties they encountered in recruiting, including emigration, concealment and the reception they received when recruiting. In response, the Superintendent directed the proper enforcement of the laws which included seizure of property and the sale of the goods of those avoiding recruitment and very severe penalties for those hiding a fugitive from recruitment.41
Insufficient numbers of recruits led to Forjaz taking further action. At his instigation the Regency issued decrees on 14 and 15 December 1809 providing the structure for increased recruitment. Recruiting was to be on a provincial basis with the responsibility for a determined number of recruits to be raised placed on the capitão-mor of the province in question. Within the provinces there were recruiting districts. Each district was required to raise one regiment of infantry and two regiments of militia. Two districts combined were required to produce a regiment of cavalry, while artillery recruits were drawn from all the districts. The number of recruiting districts in a province depended on population density.42
Single men between eighteen and thirty-five, with certain exemptions, were initially liable. The classes exempted were quite wide. Some of them are easily understandable, for they included certain agricultural workers and those involved in maritime commerce. Other groups exempted, such as students and those involved in the arts, are less comprehensible. In physical terms, men over 4-foot 10½-inches (1.49 m) were drafted, though this height requirement had to be reduced by an inch later.43 Penalties were introduced for draft evaders, including loss of citizenship and possessions for those who left the country. When the age bracket for those liable for military service failed to produce sufficient recruits it was extended to the age of sixty. A system of provincial training depots was introduced with specific regiments allocated to particular depots. Peniche, Tomar and Viseu emerged as three of the most important training depots in the course of the war.
The effectiveness of this recruiting system depended on the commitment of the capitães-mores and the willingness of judges to enforce the rules in the case of evasion. The degree of commitment varied from province to province, but the end result was that in the spring of 1810 there were still insufficient recruits coming into the army. Beresford and Forjaz tackled the problem aggressively, devising a system which punished those harbouring fugitives and removing those capitães-mores who failed to recruit adequate numbers.
At Beresford’s insistence, the filling up and training of the army rather than the militia was prioritised, and within the army the priority was the infantry, not least because of a shortage of horses to mount the cavalry regiments. Raising the cavalry component of the army to a state of full efficiency remained problematic throughout the war, despite some fine performances by individual units under leaders such as D’Urban and Madden. In March 1809, Beresford could at best field five of the notional twelve cavalry regiments. As one Portuguese author has pointed out, the number of horses reportedly existing in the different districts of the realm in 1808 was virtually the same number required to equip all the cavalry regiments, so inevitably mounting the cavalry was going to be a hard task.44
After the summer campaign Forjaz, at Beresford’s request, ordered the military governors of the various provinces to provide 100 mares each for the 2nd Cavalry regiment but success was limited and on 12 December 1809 a decree was issued which restricted the ownership and use of horses for non-military purposes with a provision for swingeing fines to be imposed on transgressors.45 Seizures were made, with hundreds of horses thus being acquired, though unsuitability as cavalry mounts, together with sickness and deaths of animals, meant the supply of horses remained a continuing struggle. Alongside appropriation Forjaz sought to obtain horses from the Barbary coast and suggested Beresford might do so from England. Wellington also issued an order to prevent British army officers buying Portuguese horses of the size required for the cavalry. When an allegation was made in 1810 that such a horse had been purchased, Wellington wrote to tell Beresford that while he thought this might be a false report, if proven the horse would be given up.46 Despite all these difficulties, Beresford did manage to increase the numbers of cavalry in 1810, though the figure was to slip backwards a year later.47
The four regiments of artillery under the command of Dickson appear to have been well organised from an early date. Their problem, which they shared with the cavalry, frequently centred on a lack of feed for their animals.48 Beresford did bring in a number of reforms in respect of the artillery, including the creation of a dedicated battalion of artificers in 1812. In the same year he created a battalion of dedicated artillery drivers. While Beresford appreciated the importance of the militia, their training was for him secondary to that of the army, though he did allocate regular army officers to assist with the training of officers of the militia.
So how successful was the enforcement of the Portuguese recruitment regulations? Certainly considerable numbers were recruited to the ranks and many of the regiments filled up from time to time, but losses, whether caused by injury, sickness or desertion, meant that regiments were rarely able to put their full complement in the field. When Forjaz reported to Beresford that between May 1809 and October 1810 29,796 men had been raised giving a total count of 56,217 men in the army, he also noted that losses over the same period amounted to 16,571 including 10,224 deserters. Beresford was not hugely impressed with the net increase of 13,221 men, clearly feeling that a nation of over three million people should have produced more than 29,000 recruits in eighteen months.49
On his arrival in Portugal, Beresford had written to Charles Stewart telling him the Portuguese army was no better than a mob with a dangerous proclivity towards mutiny.50 He had immediately set to work with his original allocation of British officers training a number of Portuguese regiments,