which the men carried, and which constituted their whole stock, were rendered useless by the rain, and they could no otherwise have escaped the fate they deserved from the hands of the Portugueze than by surrendering ♦COL. JONES, VOL. I. 204–7.♦ to the British. As it was, they had lost not less than a fourth of their army since Sir Arthur attacked them on the Vouga. ♦VICTOR ENTERS PORTUGAL BY WAY OF ALCANTARA, AND SPEEDILY RETREATS.♦ If Sir Arthur had not made this previous determination, and if it had been possible for the commissariat, imperfect as it then was, to have kept up with a longer pursuit in a country which could supply neither food, nor carriages, nor beasts of draught, the tidings which he now received of Victor’s movements would probably have recalled him toward the south. That Marshal, having been joined by Lapisse, had at length made the movement which Soult had so long and anxiously expected; he had broken up from the Guadiana, and marched for the Tagus at Alcantara. Colonel Mayne occupied this important point with 600 of the Lusitanian Legion, 1100 Portugueze militia, and fifty Portugueze cavalry. With this far inferior force he withstood 10,000 infantry and 1000 horse for six hours, and then effected his retreat without losing a single gun, though not without a heavy loss in killed and wounded, the Legion alone losing 170 men. He had endeavoured to blow up the bridge; the attempt failed, and the enemy, being thus masters of the passage, advanced a little way into Portugal in the direction of Castello Branco. But no sooner had Victor learnt that Sir Arthur had recrossed the Douro, than he retired by the same course, evacuated Alcantara, and concentrated his army between the Tagus and the Guadiana, in the neighbourhood of Caceres. ♦SOULT REACHES ORENSE.♦ When Soult’s army had re-entered Spain, and found that the pursuit was not continued, their hopes rose, and they rejoiced in the thought of communicating with the other corps of their countrymen. The red uniform of the Swiss again led to a serviceable mistake, ... they were ♦MAY 19.♦ taken for British soldiers at Allariz, and the inhabitants, under that delusion, hastened to bring them provisions and wine, blessing them as their deliverers. On the following day they reached Orense, and there learnt that the ♦NAYLIES, 132.♦ French in Lugo were at that time besieged, and that both Ney and Romana had marched into Asturias. ♦ROMANA ENTERS ASTURIAS, AND DISPLACES THE JUNTA.♦