Many thanks Anthony, I for some time have imagined that as Napoleon tightened his grip on most of the countries previously trading with the British those wine merchants that had for some long time enjoyed a happy relationship with the producers particularly of the Douro Region would have tried manfully to interest whoever they could to 'protect-their-interests'.
British money alone while certainly attracting attention is never quite the same however as organising effective military resistance and especially against such as those French invaders coming at them from all angles in those first years of their war.
Professor Livermore in Paddy Griffith's Vol 1X enlarges on several fairly well know aspects of a rapidly expanding problem but in the end it must be said that once the Royal Family had embarked taking its treasures and the Army disbanded it was going to take a mighty effort to get back on an even keel.
A searching book on that chaotic period by a Portuguese writer might well reveal a better balanced view that could explain a few of the feelings in a country being violently invaded, especially for Englanders who have been spared that traumatic experience for centuries.

Ray Foster