A report of Loison’s sudden approach had occasioned the order for recalling Zagalo. General Count Loison had been sent in the latter end of May, with 4000 troops, to Almeida, in pursuance of positive and repeated instructions from Murat when exercising the command in Madrid. He was to concert his movements with Bessieres, and, if necessary, to join him; he was to observe Salamanca, and secure Ciudad Rodrigo, if that were practicable. But the Spaniards were too much awakened to be again deceived or surprised by the French; and Loison having remained at Almeida from the 5th of June till the 16th, received orders from Junot to march upon Porto, take the command in that city, and keep the northern provinces in subjection. He had previously got possession of Fort Conceiçam. Each party seems at this time to have been strangely ignorant of the movements and means of the other: Loison apprehended that an enemy’s force might render it impossible for the French to maintain this fort; he therefore directed General Charlot, whom he left with the command at Almeida, to remove thither the guns from Conceiçam, keep it as long as he could, and destroy the works if he should be forced to evacuate ♦JUNE 17.♦ it. He then began his march with two regiments of light infantry, fifty dragoons, and six pieces of ♦THIEBAULT, 148–150.♦ artillery. A battalion of light infantry was to set out from Torres Vedras, and reach Porto at the same time. On the fourth day he reached Lamego without the slightest resistance, and on the following morning crossed the Douro by the ferry at Regoa, and reached Mezam-frio, meaning to sleep there. ♦HE TURNS BACK FROM MEZAM-FRIO.♦ His advanced guard was on the way to Amarante, which is only forty miles from Porto, when news was brought him while he was at dinner that the mountaineers were defending the pass at Os Padroens da Teixeira; and presently a second ill messenger arrived with intelligence that his baggage was attacked at Regoa. These operations had been ably planned by Silveira, and were well executed. In so strong a country he deemed it better to turn back than to proceed at the risk of being surrounded by an armed population. An ambuscade among the vineyards at Santinho annoyed him greatly on his way toward the Douro, and he himself was slightly hurt. The Portugueze, when they were dislodged, retreated to the heights; the French took up a position for the night, and in the morning sacked the villages of Pezo and Regoa, where neither age, nor infirmity, nor sex, nor childhood, were spared by them; for Loison was one of those men after Buonaparte’s own heart, who, being equally devoid of honour and humanity, carried on war in the worst spirit of the worst ages, plundering and massacring without shame and without remorse. He now understood that Porto, which he had expected to find discontented indeed, but passive and in subjection, had thrown off the yoke; that a Portugueze officer, with