W J B Owen and Richard Gravil, William Wordsworth: Concerning The Convention of Cintra

Price per licence: £12.00

ISBN 978-1-84760-063-9
Pdf document; 304 pages
Print and commenting enabled; copying disabled.

Sample Files

You can download and read these sample pages (482.9 KB) now:

A bicentennial electronic edition of Wordsworth's impassioned 'pamphlet' on The Convention of Cintra

For other formats see below.

In 1808 Sir Arthur Wellesley (later the Duke of Wellington) inflicted a major defeat on Napoleon's forces at the battle of Vimiero, but promptly signed an armistice and convention (negotiated by Sir Hew Dalrymple with General Junot). The Convention permitted the evacuation of the latter's defeated army from Portugal to Bayonne - along with its equipment and its plunder. The event was regarded by the people of Britain (government ministers excepted) as a betrayal of Britain's allies, Portugal and Spain. Some of the troops repatriated under this agreement fought against Sir John Moore's expeditionary force the following year, forcing his evacuation from northern Spain.

Lord Byron wrote: "Here Folly dash'd to earth the victor's plume, / And Policy regain'd what arms had lost" (the Policy being General Junot's, and the Folly General Dalrymple's).

Wordsworth's book-length 'pamphlet' on the betrayal of the Iberian patriots by Britain's officer class is one of the most remarkable political documents produced by a Romantic poet. Here W J B Owen's 1968 edition is republished for the bicentennial, with a critical symposium by Simon Bainbridge, David Bromwich, Timothy Michael and Patrick Vincent and an introduction by Richard Gravil.