Major Pedro Ferreira is the secondary antagonist of the Bernard Cornwell novel Sharpe's Escape. He is a Portuguese officer in 1810.
Biography[]
Pedro A. Ferreira was born into a wealthy family. He was close to his older brother Luis, better known as Ferragus, even though their parents sent Ferragus away to join the navy. He inherited the family's wealth but had no head for business, relying on Ferragus' skills as a merchant. He and his wife Beatriz had two young children, Tomas and Maria, and employed an English governess, Sarah Fry. He insisted on keeping a room for Ferragus at his home in Coimbra.
Ferreira became an exploring officer in the Portuguese army, taking advantage of the fact he had friends among the Portuguese officers who had joined the French, and was acquainted with British intelligence officer Major Hogan. Eager to preserve his wealth in the face of the French invasion, Ferreira made contact with Colonel Barreto, a Portuguese officer who had become the aide to French Marshal Massena. In contravention of Lord Wellington's orders to leave no supplies for the invading French, Ferreira and Ferragus arranged to supply the French with flour but the cache was found by Captain Richard Sharpe and his company, who destroyed it.
Having sent his wife and children to safety in Lisbon, Ferreira went back to Barreto and offered to sell the French the contents of Ferragus' warehouse in return for protection from looting when the French captured Coimbra, saying the supplies would be destroyed if they didn't agree. Despite the Anglo-Portuguese army temporarily halting the French advance at the Battle of Bussaco, Ferreira believed the British had only constructed small fortifications to cover their retreat and intended to evacuate from a new port south of Lisbon. He returned to Coimbra and learned Sharpe had requisitioned his house as a billet for his battalion, the South Essex. Ferreira conspired with Ferragus to lure Sharpe, together with Sarah and Sharpe's friends Sergeant Patrick Harper and Captain Jorge Vicente, to the warehouse for an ambush. Ferreira guarded the door during the ambush, turning away a Portuguese patrol who heard gunfire. Sharpe and his group took refuge in the cellar, so Ferragus locked them in there, intending to finish them off later.
However, Sharpe and the others not only escaped but set fire to the warehouse, destroying the supplies. Ferreira quickly realised the French would believe they had cheated them, taking the money and then setting fire to the warehouse themselves. He decided that he, Ferragus and three other men would travel to reach the army in Lisbon and claim to have done just that. Given that there was a worry of Sharpe giving his side of the story, Ferreira told the Portuguese partisans that Sharpe and the others were traitors and to kill them if they tried to come through the mountains.
Ferreira and his companions stumbled across the Lines of Torres Vedras and Ferreira began to suspect he would be better off with the allies. Caught up in a French advance, they took refuge in a farm house that was already occupied by Sharpe's company, temporarily led by Lieutenant Jack Bullan. Ferreira tried to order Bullan to surrender to the French and negotiate for him and his companions to be allowed to cross to the allied lines, with Ferreira pretending to be a civilian, claiming he had important intelligence. Sharpe arrived with his friends and took charge of the situation, knocking Ferreira out with a rifle butt and placing him under arrest. With Ferragus having been killed by French snipers, Sharpe managed to get the company to the rest of the battalion with Ferreira as a prisoner. He recommended that Vicente take Ferreira to headquarters and explain the situation to Wellington.
