"
"You put it very bluntly," Forjas admitted.
"You will find Lord Wellington's own words even more blunt," said
O'Moy, with a grim smile, and turned to the dispatch he held. "Let
me read you exactly what he writes:
"'As for Principal Souza, I beg you to tell him from me that as I
have had no satisfaction in transacting the business of this country
since he has become a member of the Government, no power on earth
shall induce me to remain in the Peninsula if he is either to remain
a member of the Government or to continue in Lisbon. Either he must
quit the country, or I will do so, and this immediately after I have
obtained his Majesty's permission to resign my charge.'"
The adjutant put down the letter and looked expectantly at the
Secretary of State, who returned the look with one of utter dismay.
Never in all his career had the diplomat been so completely
dumbfounded as he was now by the simple directness of the man of
action. In himself Dom Miguel Forjas was both shrewd and honest.
He was shrewd enough to apprehend to the full the military genius
of the British Commander-in-Chief, fruits of which he had already
witnessed. He knew that the withdrawal of Junot's army from Lisbon
two years ago resulted mainly from the operations of Sir Arthur
Wellesley - as he was then - before his supersession in the supreme
command of that first expedition, and he more than suspected that but
for that supersession the defeat of the first French army of invasion
might have been even more signal.
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