[191] D’Urban to Wilson, and Trant to Wilson, after two unfortunate incidents in 1812, when the militia had been more or less under arms for two whole years. The former are in D’Urban’s, the latter in Wilson’s correspondence. Over and above the regular army and the militia, the Portuguese military system contemplated the utilization of the whole _levée en masse_ of the nation under the name of the Ordenança. This was no foreshadowing of the modern idea of universal service, but a survival of the mediaeval practice which, in Portugal as in England, made every freeman liable to be called out in time of extremity, at his own cost and with his own weapons. Every peasant between sixteen and sixty was theoretically supposed to be enrolled in one of the companies of 250 which each group of villages was supposed to possess. The organization had been effective enough in the old mediaeval wars with Castile: it had even proved serviceable in the ‘War of Independence’ that followed the successful rising of 1640. But against modern regular armies it was comparatively useless; when called out in the war of 1762 the Ordenança had not justified its old reputation. Little could be expected of mobs armed with pikes and fowling-pieces, save that they should cut off a few convoys and stragglers, or occasionally obstruct a defile. A French officer who deeply studied this forgotten campaign wrote that, ‘whatever the Spaniards may say to the contrary, this war of the peasantry is by no means important, except against ignorant and undisciplined troops[192].’ [192] Dumouriez, _State of Portugal_, page 22. There was, however, one notable combat at Villa Pouca in the Tras-os-Montes where a whole Spanish column of 3,000 men was defeated by the Ordenança.