When Portugal rose against the invader, the local juntas endeavoured to call back to arms all the dispersed officers and men, to serve as a nucleus for the insurrectionary hosts. The system of recruiting which La Lippe had introduced made this comparatively easy: he had instituted regimental districts in a very complete form. Each corps was named after a particular town or region[246], drew its conscripts from that locality, and was usually quartered in it. When Junot disbanded the old army, the men naturally returned to their homes. It resulted that when, for example, the Oporto Junta summoned out to service the late members of the 6th and 18th regiments of the line, the two units belonging to the Oporto district, it could be certain of finding the greater part of the rank and file without much difficulty. To reconstitute in a hurry the corps of officers was a much harder matter: a disproportionate number of the more competent holders of commissions had been drafted into the contingent sent to France: comparatively few resided in their proper regimental districts, many in Lisbon, which was still in Junot’s hands. Hence the battalions which fought under Leite at Evora, or accompanied Wellesley to Vimiero, bore their old names indeed, but were not merely ill-equipped and low in numbers, but lacked a due supply of officers. Considering the inefficiency of the regiments even before they were destroyed by Junot, they might now be described as no more than ‘the shadow of a shade.’ [246] Except two Lisbon regiments, named Viera Tellez and Freire, from former colonels of distinction [Nos. 4 and 16]. When the French had been driven out of Portugal, and the Junta of Regency took in hand the reconstruction and enlargement of the army, the problem of organization seemed almost insoluble. The government decreed that the regiments of infantry of the line should be raised to their full establishment of 1,500, a figure which they had never really attained in the old days. It was also decided to create six new battalions of riflemen (Cazadores), a class of infantry of which D’Alorna’s ‘Experimental Legion’ had hitherto been the sole representatives in Portugal. As to the cavalry and artillery, it was an obvious fact that the dearth of horses in the kingdom made it impossible to enlarge the number of units. The twelve old regiments of horse[247], the thirty-two old batteries of artillery were to be reconstructed, but no new ones were to be created. [247] It was intended, however, to give each cavalry regiment an extra squadron.