Junot had advanced from Salamanca by forced marches; he reached Alcantara in five days, the distance being forty leagues, by mountainous and unfrequented roads and in a bad season. No preparations had been made for the French on the way; even at Ciudad Rodrigo the governor had received no intimation of their coming. The Spanish forces, which according to the secret convention of Fontainebleau were to be under the French general’s orders, had been instructed to join him at Valladolid and Salamanca; by his directions however they waited for him at Alcantara; scarce half a ration could be procured there for the half-starved and exhausted troops, and this the Spanish general Carraffa took up upon his own credit. ♦JUNOT’S PROCLAMATION FROM ALCANTARA. NOV. 17.♦ From thence Junot issued a proclamation to the Portugueze people, in which among his other titles he enumerated that of Grand Cross of the Order of Christ, an order conferred upon him by that very Prince whom he was hastening to entrap and depose. “Inhabitants of the kingdom of Portugal,” it said, “a French army is about to enter your country; it comes to emancipate you from English dominion, and makes forced marches that it may save your beautiful city of Lisbon from the fate of Copenhagen. But for this time the hopes of the perfidious English government will be deceived. Napoleon, who fixes his eyes upon the fate of the Continent, saw what the tyrant of the seas was devouring in his heart, and will not suffer that it should fall into his power. Your Prince declares war against England; we make therefore common cause. Peaceable inhabitants of the country, fear nothing! my army is as well disciplined as it is brave. I will answer on my honour for its good conduct. Let it find the welcome which is due to the soldiers of the Great Napoleon; let it find, as it has a right to expect, the provisions which are needful.” The proclamation proceeded to denounce summary justice against every French soldier who should be found plundering, but its severest threats were against the Portugueze themselves. Every Portugueze, not being a soldier of the line, who should be found making part of an armed assembly, was to be shot, as well as every individual exciting the people to take arms against the French; wherever an individual belonging to the French army should be killed, the district was to be fined in not less than thrice the amount of its yearly rents, the four principal inhabitants being taken as hostages; and the first city, town or village in which this might happen, should be burnt and rased to the ground. “But,” said Junot, “I willingly persuade myself that the Portugueze will understand their own true interest; that aiding the pacific views of their Prince they will receive us as friends; and especially that the beautiful city of Lisbon will with pleasure see me enter its walls at the head of an army which alone can preserve it from becoming a prey to the eternal enemies of the Continent.”