20 Port anD the Douro
war anD unrest
For the first half of the nineteenth century, Oporto was shaken by invasion and rebellion.
In November 1807, the French marched into Lisbon under Marshal Junot, reaching
Oporto under the command of Marshal Soult two years later. The British, sworn enemies
of the French, packed their bags and returned home, leaving their firms in the custody of
the Portuguese. Soult wasn’t to remain in Oporto for long. Less than three months after
taking control he was surprised by an attack from Sir Arthur Wellesley (later the Duke
of Wellington), who approached the city from the Serra de Pilar convent in Vila Nova de
Gaia. So swift was the recapture of Oporto that Wellesley apparently ate the meal that had
been prepared for Soult in the Palácio das Carrancas (now the Museu Soares dos Reis) a few
hours earlier.
eleven courses on 11 november
during their occupation of oporto, the French had taken over the Factory house and
leased it as a coffee shop. the premises were returned to the British in 1811 devoid of
most of the contents. a celebratory ball was held on 4 June for which chandeliers,
cutlery and chairs were hired, followed later in the year by a dinner attended by eleven
members of the Factory house; this took place on 11 november. the ‘Factory’ itself
had ceased to exist as an official entity following a treaty between George iii and João
(subsequently João Vi), Prince Regent from 1799 to 1816, who had left Portugal for Brazil
when the French invaded. in 1812 the Factory house became the home of a new body,
the British club. the name was changed two years later to the ‘British association’, the
preserve of British Port shippers who form the membership of the Factory house today.
two hundred years later, on 11 november 2011, the members of the Factory house sat
down to a lunch of eleven courses and eleven wines.Although Oporto had been recaptured for the Portuguese in May 1809, the Peninsular
War continued to rage in Portugal until May 1811 with a long stand-off north of Lisbon
around the town of Torres Vedras. Wellington’s officers drank the local wine. Lt. General Sir
William Warre, who had a short career in the family’s Port firm (see page 242), took part in
nearly every major battle of the war and kept Wellington well supplied with vintage Port. In
the years that followed the war, Portuguese wines like Bucelas, Carcavelos, Lisbon and Port
became popular in Britain. The shipping firm of Sandeman, established in Jerez and Oporto
in 1790, set up cellars at Cabo Ruivo near Lisbon, and new firms were established, among
them Cockburn (1814) and Graham (1820).
In the power vacuum that followed the Peninsular War, Oporto became a ferment of
radical politics. In 1820, inspired by Masonic Lodges and Portuguese Jacobinism, a revolt
broke out in the city to persuade João VI (enjoying a self-imposed exile in Brazil) to return
to Portugal. This was accompanied by a demand for an assembly or cortes and a liberal