Although his previous attempts to negotiate with the Portuguese had not been very fortunate, the Marshal thought it worth while to send proposals for an accommodation to the Bishop. He warned him not to expose his city to the horrors of a sack, pointed out that the raw levies of the garrison must inevitably be beaten, and assured him that ‘the French came not as enemies, but as the deliverers of Portugal from the yoke of the English. It was for the benefit of these aliens alone that the Bishop would expose Oporto to the incalculable calamities attending a storm[291].’ The bearer of the Marshal’s letter was a Portuguese major taken prisoner at Braga, who would have been massacred at the outposts if he had not taken the precaution of explaining to his countrymen that Soult had sent him in to propose the surrender of the French army, which was appalled at the formidable series of defences to which it found itself opposed! The reply sent by the Bishop and his council of war was, of course, defiant, and bickering along the front of the lines immediately began. While the white flag was still flying General Foy, the most distinguished of Soult’s brigadiers, trespassed by some misconception within the Portuguese picquets and was made prisoner. While being conducted into the town he was nearly murdered, being mistaken for Loison, for whom the inhabitants of Oporto nourished a deep hatred[292].
[292] Some of the French writers say that Foy was taken prisoner while carrying a flag of truce and a second letter for the Bishop’s eye. But what really seems to have happened was that he conceived a notion that one of the Portuguese outposts wished to surrender, rode in amongst them, and began to urge them to lay down their arms. But they seized him and sent him to the rear; his companion, the _chef de bataillon_ Roger, drew his sword and tried to cut his way back to his men, whereupon he was bayonetted. One cannot blame the Portuguese, for officers, in time of truce, have no right to come within the enemy’s lines, still less to urge his troops to desertion. Foy proved that he was not Loison by holding up his two hands. Loison being one-handed (as his nickname _Maneta_ shows), the populace at once saw that they had made a mistake. I follow the narrative in Girod de l’Ain’s new life of Foy (p. 78), corroborated by Le Noble (p. 162). Napier (ii. p. 57), of course, gives a version unfavourable to the Portuguese.