Thus had Junot, in pursuance of his instructions, extended his authority over the whole of Portugal. He was, however, far from feeling secure in his usurpation. The temper of the people had shown itself; and if the English had landed a force to attack him, his men were but in ill condition to take the field; for they were sickly during the whole of the winter months. ♦JOURNAL DE COIMBRA, 2. 74.♦ ♦THE FLOWER OF THE PORTUGUEZE ARMY MARCHED INTO FRANCE.♦ For this reason he had disbanded the militia, and broken up so large a part of the native army; ... but the flower of that army was to be selected and sent into France, that they might be made agents in inflicting the same miseries upon other countries which their own endured. A great number of the soldiers who had been picked for this service deserted; and in consequence, the French code of martial law was declared to be applicable to the Portugueze army, and death became thereby the punishment for desertion. Six thousand infantry, and four regiments of cavalry, were marched off, under the Marquez d’Alorna. Gomes Freire d’Andrada, who had the highest military reputation of any officer in the army, was second in command. The Marquez de Valença, the Marquez de Ponte de Lima, the Counts Ega and Sabugal, and many other officers of rank and family, went in this ill-fated army; some by compulsion, others by choice, the leaders being devoted to Buonaparte. ♦DISCONTENT OF THE PEOPLE.♦ Though the French despised the Portugueze troops as heartily as they did the people, it was observed that they became more insufferable in their personal conduct after the army was disbanded. As a body they might safely despise them; but every individual was in some measure restrained by the apprehension of individual vengeance, and the certainty that if in any tumult the military, as was natural, should take part with the people, the contest, though the event was not doubtful, must be far more severe. When this restraint was removed, they gave way to that insolence which adds a sting to oppression, and rouses even those who have submitted to heavier wrongs. A peasant at Mafra, Jacinto Correia was his name, killed two of these robbers with a reaping-hook; and when he was put to death for it by military process, he gloried to his last breath in what he had done, and repeated that if all his countrymen were like him, there should not a single Frenchman remain alive among them. ♦OBSERVADOR PORTUGUEZ, 156.♦ The punishment was carefully made known in a proclamation, but the nature of the crime was as carefully suppressed, lest it should find imitation. It had, however, been determined to strike terror into the people by an execution, which should furnish in its example nothing but what was intimidating. ♦EXECUTIONS AT CALDAS.♦ Insignificant as the cause was, the circumstances of this insulated tragedy deserve to be stated, as a specimen of the spirit in which the military government of Portugal was conducted.