batteries were without parapets, and the houses and trees which might afford cover to an enemy were not taken down. ♦ADVANCE OF THE FRENCH FROM CHAVES.♦ Soult meantime, as soon as he had entered Chaves, thought to cut off Silveira; but that general frustrated his intent by retiring first to the mountains of Oura and Reigaz, and then to Villa Pouca, where he took a position with the ♦MARCH 13.♦ determination of defending it. The French, however, did not think this little force of sufficient consequence to delay their march; and sending out parties in different directions, in the hope that the report of their entrance spreading on all sides, might reach the Generals who were to co-operate with them, but with whom they had no means of communicating, they proceeded by the Braga road. The resistance which they found evinced the brave spirit of the people, and the incapacity of those who commanded them. The villages were abandoned, stragglers were cut off, they were fired upon by the peasantry from the heights and the cover of crags or trees; any military attempt to impede them was conducted with so little skill or order, that it served only to confirm their contempt for the nation upon whom they had brought and were about to bring such unutterable miseries; but sometimes a handful of Portugueze stood their ground with a spirit like that of their ancestors; and sometimes an individual would rush upon certain death, so he could make sure of one ♦OPERATIONS DE M. SOULT, 128.♦ Frenchman, knowing that if his countrymen would act upon the same principle of life for life, the kingdom would soon be delivered from its unprovoked invaders. ♦TUMULTS AT BRAGA.♦