The news from Algarve, spreading at the same time, elevated their spirits; and the state of the country soon became such, that the French couriers were every where intercepted. Colonel Maransin, with his troops, had now effected his retreat to Mertola, from whence, for the purpose of restoring a communication with Estremoz and with Lisbon, he sent a detachment of 100 foot and thirty dragoons to Beja. That city was originally a settlement of the Kelts, possessed next by the Carthaginians, afterwards the Pax Julia of the Romans, a Moorish corruption of which name has been euphonized to its present form. It was taken from the Moors by the first king of Portugal, restored from its ruins and fortified in the thirteenth century by Affonso III. and beautified by his son, King Diniz, with his characteristic magnificence, of which the walls with their forty towers, and the fine castle, bore testimony in their ruins. Here, as in all the other cities of Alem-Tejo, there was a melancholy air of decay, less owing to the long and destructive struggle with Spain, in which that province had been the great scene of action, than to the peculiar circumstances which depressed its agriculture, and that inhuman persecution of the New-Christians, by which the largest part of the commercial capital in Portugal had either been annihilated by confiscations, or driven out of the kingdom. Still, however, it contained some ten or twelve thousand inhabitants, and was a place of considerable importance in that thinly peopled province. It stood on the highest part of an elevated and extensive plain, conspicuous from a distance, and commanding a wide prospect on all sides, the heights of Palmella and even of Cintra being distinctly visible. The immediate country, where it is cultivated, is fertile, and the situation in high repute for its salubrity. Eventful as the history of Beja had been, it was now to undergo as severe a calamity as any with which it had been visited in the unhappiest ages of Spain. ♦JUNE 23. THE PEOPLE RISE AGAINST THEM.♦