Claparede meantime had moved in the direction of Lamego. Silveira, giving him the opportunity which he sought, attacked his advanced guard at Ponte d’Abbade, and was repulsed: having thus exposed the comparative weakness of his force and his own ♦RASH OPERATIONS OF SILVEIRA.♦ want of skill, he was in his turn attacked at Villar de Ponte, and made a precipitate retreat upon Lamego: the enemy pursued him closely; and the Portuguese, with an honourable feeling, when they evacuated the city, carried with them 140 soldiers from the hospital, on their backs; for they had no other means of transport. Silveira then crossed the Douro. Lamego was thus left to the invaders’ mercy, and Upper Beira open to their inroads. In consequence of this rashness on Silveira’s part, Miller and Wilson were ordered toward the Doura by General Bacellar. Silveira, however, had retreated with such precipitation, that neither time nor opportunity was afforded for co-operating with him; but Bacellar took a position on the Payva, on the enemy’s left flank, and Wilson at Castrodayre, on their rear. Claparede would willingly have pursued Silveira beyond the Doura, that he might obtain the resources of a province which had not been exhausted; but these divisions were closing upon him, and menacing his communication with Almeida. He returned, therefore, to his position at Guarda. ♦CONDUCT OF DROUET’S CORPS.♦ But the country which Wilson had previously occupied and protected was thus left open to Drouet’s marauding parties; and no sooner was his removal ascertained, than they were let loose, and carried desolation along the banks of the Alva and to the very heart of the Estella. No part of the country suffered at this time more dreadfully than that which was exposed to this corps: it was in vain that the miserable inhabitants sought to conceal themselves in the depths of the great pine forest which extends over so large a portion of that sandy region; no recesses escaped the search of men who were impelled by hunger, by cruelty which seemed to have become in them a craving and insatiable desire, and by a brutal appetite which rendered them even more dreadful and more devilish than their thirst for blood. The number of inhabitants who perished in the diocese of Leyria (one of the smallest in the kingdom) during the four months that the French retained possession there, was ascertained by official inquiries to be not less than 20,000: and a great proportion of these were butchered in the _Pinhal_, or died there of famine, and disease, and wretchedness. ♦1811. THE FRENCH ARMY LEFT TO SUBSIST UPON THE COUNTRY.♦