NOTE.--By far the best account of the Portuguese army and military system is to be found in Halliday’s _Present state of Portugal and the Portuguese Army_, an invaluable book of 1812. Something can be gleaned from Dumouriez’s _Essay on the military topography of Portugal_ [1766]. A little information comes from Foy, but many of his statements in his vol. ii. are inaccurate. The Wellington and Beresford dispatches in the Record Office are, of course, full of information, but would be very unintelligible but for Halliday’s explanatory memoir, as they presuppose knowledge of the details of organization, but do not generally describe them. For the Lusitanian Legion, see Mayne’s monograph on that corps, and the dispatches of Sir Robert Wilson. I have inserted in an appendix a table of the reorganized army as it stood in the autumn of 1809. [Illustration: _Portuguese Infantry a Private of the Lisbon Regiment and a man of the Algarve Ordenanza. From a drawing of 1809. Walker & Cockerell Ph. So._] SECTION XIII: CHAPTER IV COMBATS ABOUT CHAVES AND BRAGA: CAPTURE OF OPORTO (MARCH 10-29, 1809) When La Romana marched off to the east, and abandoned his Portuguese allies to their own resources, the duty of defending the frontier fell upon General Francisco Silveira, the military governor of the Tras-os-Montes. He had mobilized his forces at Chaves the moment that Soult’s departure from Orense became known, and had there gathered the whole levy of his province. The total amounted to two incomplete line regiments[266] four battalions of disorderly and ill-equipped militia[267], the skeletons of two cavalry regiments, with hardly 200 horses between them[268], and a mass of the local _Ordenanza_, armed with pikes, goads, scythes, and fowling-pieces. The whole mass may have numbered some 12,000 men, of whom not 6,000 possessed firearms of any kind[269]. Against them the French marshal was marching at the head of 22,000 veterans, who had already gained experience in the art of mountain-warfare from their recent campaign in Galicia. The result was not difficult to foresee. If the Portuguese dared to offer battle they would be scattered to the winds. [266] The 12th and 24th regiments--Chaves and Braganza. [267] Militia of Chaves, Villa Real, Miranda, and Braganza. [268] The 6th and 9th cavalry. [269] Brotherton to Castlereagh, March 13.