Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Portugal, Kingdom, Royal Volunteers Decoration for Montevideo 1815-17, for Officers, seven pointed star, 44mm., gold, obverse: head of King John VI of Portugal facing right, enclosed by the legend, ‘voluntarios reaes d’el rey’ and wreath of laurels; reverse: ‘montevideo’, within a wreath of laurels, unmarked, with gold straight bar suspension and ornate slip bar on ribbon, nearly extremely fine and excessively rare £1000-1200

See Colour Plate VII.

This rare award is listed in Memoria das Medalhas e Condecoraceos Portuguesas e das Estrangeiras com relacao a Portugal by Manuel Bernardo Lopes Fernandes, Item No. 95. Unlisted in Gillingham’s South American Decorations and War Medals nor in Medalhas Militares Brasileiras by Francisco Marques dos Santos.

The Royal Volunteers were raised from Peninsula War veterans in Portugal by the then Prince Regent. Numbering 5,000 men they were despatched in the summer of 1815 to Brazil under the command of Lieutenant-General Carlos Frederic Lecor. They were sent to augment the local forces in countering the forces of Jose Gervasio Artigas who had seized Uruguay (more correctly: ‘Banda Oriental del Uruguay’ - literally ‘the east bank of the river Uruguay) and a large swathe of Argentina. Ostensibly to assist the Argentine forces opposed to Artigas but also to gain the long coveted territory for Portugal, the Portuguese-Brazilian forces advanced into Uruguay and in 1817 took Montevideo. The operations in Uruguay (referred to a ‘Cisplatina’ by the Brazilians) continued on into 1822 in which year Brazil declared its independence from Portugal under Pedro I. Lecor, commanding in Uruguay, then changed his allegiance to Pedro I, who gaining Cisplatina, rewarded Lecor with the title of Visconde da Laguna. In 1823 the remaining ‘Royal Volunteers’ returned to Portugal. Uruguay gained its independence from Brazil in 1828.