The Portugueze troops, of whom Loison spake as being engaged in the service of France, were the remainder of those whom Junot had hurried away from their own country. The men, Buonaparte was too wary to send back; but Massena brought with him a few nobles, who, having long preyed upon the country which they disgraced, completed their infamy by betraying it. To these traitors Loison appealed in his summons, saying, they could assure the governor of the honourable manner in which they had been treated. The Marquis of Alorna, D. Pedro de Almeida, was the most conspicuous among them; he and his accomplices used all their influence to persuade their countrymen to submission; but the Portugueze had already experienced the effects of non-resistance, and the inhabitants of Castello Mendo, and a few other villages on the borders of Beira, were the only persons who were unfortunate enough to be deceived. These poor people, instead of abandoning their habitations on the approach of the enemy, in obedience to the orders which had been issued, remained in them, fearing to encounter the evils of wandering in search of shelter, and hoping, that, as they submitted to the enemy without resistance, their property would be safe, their women preserved from violation, and their lives secured. But the French, conscious of the wickedness of the cause in which they were engaged, seemed, like the pirates of the last century, to have considered themselves in a state of reprobation, and to have committed crimes which make humanity shudder, as if for the purpose of manifesting their desperate defiance of God and man. “The inhabitants of these submissive villages suffered all the evils which a cruel enemy could inflict; their property was plundered; their houses burnt; their women atrociously violated; and those, whose age and sex did not provoke the brutal violence of the soldiers, fell victims to the confidence which they placed in promises made only to be broken.” In these words the enormities which the French committed were proclaimed by the Portugueze government, and by the British general. ♦THE PORTUGUEZE ORDERED TO RETIRE BEFORE THE ENEMY. AUG. 4.♦