of it; but there was too much haste and alarm for either officers or men to profit ♦NAYLIES, 123. OPERATIONS, &C. 249–255.♦ largely by this licence; some chests which could not readily be forced open were abandoned by the soldiers, and the greater number were so placed as to be blown to pieces when the guns were burst. ♦SIR ARTHUR PURSUES THE FRENCH.♦ As soon as Sir Arthur was informed of the rapidity and success of Beresford’s movements, he directed that General upon Chaves, to intercept the enemy should they turn to the right. ♦MAY 14.♦ Beresford had anticipated this order, and had already dispatched Silveira to occupy the passes of Salamonde and Ruyvaens; but the French were flying too fast for this to be executed in time. Their flight, however, was conducted with great presence of mind and judgement. Marshal Soult, when all his divisions were collected, made a display of them near Lanhoso, not to the pursuers, but for the sake of his own men, that they might see their own numbers, and acquire some confidence in their strength. Dispirited as they were by the abandonment of their artillery and baggage and the loss of their plunder, this had a good effect; and the retreat would have been honourable to Marshal Soult if it had not been disgraced by such cruelties as leave an uneffaceable stigma upon the commander of any troops by whom they are perpetrated. Marshal Soult’s soldiers plundered and murdered the peasantry at their pleasure: many persons, when the English arrived, were found hanging from the trees by the way-side, who had been put to death for no other reason than that they were not friendly to their insolent invaders; and the line of their retreat might ♦SIR ARTHUR WELLESLEY’S DISPATCH, MAY 18.♦ every where be traced by the smoke of the villages which they burnt. They suffered for this as was to be expected: whatever stragglers fell into the hands of the peasantry before the advanced guard could come up to save them were put to death with as little humanity as they had shown. Some of them were thrown alive amid the flames of those houses which their comrades had set on fire. ♦SUFFERINGS OF THE ENEMY IN THEIR FLIGHT.♦