Regnier joined the sixth corps at Rendo; for it had broken up from its position at Ruvina as soon as the firing began; they retreated to Alfayates, followed by our cavalry; that night they continued their retreat, and entered the Spanish frontier on the fourth. On the following day the advance of the allied army pushed on, and occupied Albergaria, the first village on the Spanish border. An inhabited village was what they had not seen before since their retreat in the autumn, those excepted which were within the lines of Torres Vedras. The villages in Spain had not been injured; it seemed as if the French wished to make the Spaniards on this frontier compare their own condition with that of the Portugueze, that they might become contented with subjection. Massena’s soldiers even paid here for bread; and arriving not only hungry, but with a longing desire for that which is to them the most necessary article of food, they paid any price for it: the peasants seeing that they were rich in plunder, and finding them in the paying mood, made their charges accordingly. This sudden transition from a devastated country to one which had been exempted from the ravages of war, where the villages were clean, and the cottages reminded Englishmen of those in their own land, was not less striking than was the passing at once from a wild mountainous region to a fine and well-wooded plain. Some hope was entertained that the appearance of Trant and Wilson’s force before Almeida might make the French apprehend a serious attack, and induce them to evacuate it. But throughout the war they never committed any error of this kind. It rarely happened in their service that any person was appointed to a situation for which he was not well qualified; and the commander of this fortress, General Brenier, was a man of more than common qualifications. The Coa, after these divisions crossed it at Cinco Villas, rose; and the governor concerted with General Regnier an attack upon them, which, their retreat being thus cut off, must have ended in their destruction, if Lord Wellington, apprehending the danger, had not pushed forward a small corps, which arrived just in time to divert the enemy’s attention, and save them. On the eighth the last of Massena’s army crossed the Agueda, not a ♦THE FRENCH CROSS THE FRONTIER.♦ Frenchman remaining in Portugal, except the garrison of Almeida, which Lord Wellington immediately prepared to blockade. The allies took up that position upon the Duas Casas, which General Craufurd had occupied with the advanced guard during the latter part of the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo, having their advanced posts upon Galegos and the Agueda. Thus terminated the invasion of Portugal, in which Massena, with 110,000 men, had boasted that he would drive the English into the sea. A general of the highest reputation, and of abilities no ways inferior to his celebrity, at the head of the largest force which France could send against that country, was thus