That General had advanced with a few hundred men to Obidos, with the intention of relieving the fort at Nazareth; but a reconnoitring party which he sent forward to Barquinha was driven back, four of his scouts were made prisoners and sent on board an English vessel, and a report that a considerable body of English had landed there to assist the insurgents deterred him from proceeding in time. The Portugueze themselves raised this report; in reality they had applied for aid to the English, who, some time before, had taken possession of the Berlengs; a few pieces of cannon were given them, but the garrison was so scanty that no men could be spared; and the short respite which they obtained by deceiving the enemy would have been better employed in providing for escape, than for a feeble and disorderly resistance. Nine days after their triumph Thomières proceeded against them ♦JULY 14.♦ with 3000 men, in the belief that some English had joined them. One column, under cover of the darkness, got under the ill-served guns of the insurgents before they were perceived; the Portugueze fired in haste without aim and without effect, and then took to flight. A few drunken fellows, who had undertaken to serve the guns, remained by them, with a woman and a few old men, and these were put to death. The town of Nazareth was sacked, and set on fire. The jewels which they took from the church of N. Senhora de Nazareth were estimated at more than £20,000; for of the innumerable and many-named idols of Our Lady in Portugal, this was the most celebrated. It is the very image which, according to the legend, St. Jerome sent from Bethlehem to St. Augustine, and St. Augustine to his monks at the Caulian monastery, from whence, at the destruction of the Goths, it was brought by King Roderick and Romano to this spot. It is said, that during the last century the idol has sometimes been visited by not less than 20,000 devotees on the day of its festival. The enemy then descending to the beach, burnt the lower town, consisting of some 300 houses, of which only four escaped the flames; they burnt also the nets and vessels, upon which the inhabitants, ♦NEVES, IV. 84–87.♦ being fishermen, depended for their subsistence: they then plundered Pederneira, and set it on fire, and returned with their booty to Alcobaça[19]. ♦A JUNTA ESTABLISHED AT BEJA.♦