suffered it to continue through the night without thinking it worth while to send an order which would instantly have stopped it. ♦THE PORTUGUEZE PRISONERS ENLIST AND DESERT.♦ The terms were broken by the French with their wonted perfidy. They tried persuasions first, and employed Alorna and the other traitors who were with him to seduce their countrymen. Accordingly, when the Portugueze laid down their arms upon the esplanade, they were invited to volunteer into the French service; but not a man was found base enough to come forward and accept the invitation. On the following day, when the troops of the line and the militia had been separated, they were tried separately. The troops were told, that unless they accepted the alternative which was offered them, they must immediately be marched into France; the hardships which they would suffer on their march, and the treatment to which they would be exposed afterwards, were represented to them in strong terms; and officers and men, with an unanimity which might well have been suspected, agreed then to enlist in the enemy’s service. They found means of informing Marshal Beresford that they did this only for the sake of remaining within reach of their own country, and making their escape as soon as possible; and the truth of this declaration was proved by the numbers who soon rejoined the allied army. Upon this occasion Marshal Beresford acted in a manner becoming the British ♦CONDEMNATION OF THEIR CONDUCT.♦ character. He expressed in general orders his strong disapprobation of such conduct; for the soldiers, he said, some allowance was to be made; they were excusable on the score of their want of education, their undoubted good intention, and their feeling that the enemy with whom they had to deal scrupled at no means, however unworthy, for the attainment of his ends. Yet even in them it was to be discommended, and he doubted not that henceforth those whom the fortune of war might throw into the enemy’s ♦1810. SEPTEMBER.♦ hands would take their lot patiently, and suffer any thing rather than bring a stain upon the national honour. Nothing could excuse the officers for conduct so base, so abominable, and so unworthy of the Portugueze name. They had sinned against knowledge, and thereby rendered themselves false and infamous; they had contracted a voluntary engagement with the determination of not keeping it, placing themselves in a miserable predicament, which rendered it only less infamous to break their faith than to observe it. He should therefore report them to their prince, that they might be dismissed with ignominy from the service, and answer for their conduct according to the laws. At the same time he published the names of five officers who, under a proper sense of duty, had withstood the contagion of ill example. ♦MILITIA FORCED INTO THE FRENCH SERVICE.♦