The succours he expected to receive at Alcantara were not furnished, and the repugnance of the Spanish authorities to aid him, was the cause of so much embarrassment, that his chief officers doubted the propriety of continuing operations under the accumulating difficulties of his situation; but Junot’s firmness was unabated. He knew that no English force had landed at Lisbon, and the cowardice of the Portuguese court was notorious. Encouraged by these considerations, he undertook one of those hardy enterprises which astound the mind by their success, and leave the historian in doubt if he should praise the happy daring, or stigmatise the rashness of the deed. [Sidenote: Thiebault.] Without money, without transport, without ammunition sufficient for a general action, with an auxiliary force of Spaniards by no means well disposed to aid him, Junot, at the head of a raw army, penetrated the mountains of Portugal on the most dangerous and difficult line by which that country can be invaded. He was ignorant of what was passing in the interior; he knew not if he was to be opposed, nor what means were prepared to resist him; but trusting to the inertness of the Portuguese government, to the rapidity of his own movements, and to the renown of the French arms, he made his way through Lower Beira, and suddenly appeared in the town of Abrantes, a fearful and unexpected guest. There he obtained the first information of the true state of affairs. Lisbon was tranquil, and the Portuguese fleet was ready to sail, but the court still remained on shore. On hearing this, Junot, animated by the prospect of seizing the prince regent, pressed forward, and reached Lisbon in time to see the fleet, having the royal family on board, clearing the mouth of the Tagus. One vessel dragged astern within reach of a battery, the French general himself fired a gun at her; and on his return to Lisbon, meeting some Portuguese troops, he resolutely commanded them to form an escort for his person, and thus attended, passed through the streets of the capital. Nature alone had opposed his progress; yet such were the hardships his army had endured, that of a column which had numbered twenty-five thousand in its ranks, two thousand tired grenadiers only entered Lisbon with their general; fatigue, and want, and tempests, had scattered the remainder along two hundred miles of rugged mountains, inhabited by a warlike and ferocious peasantry, well acquainted with the strength of their fastnesses, and proud of many successful defences made by their fore-fathers against former invaders. Lisbon itself contained three hundred thousand inhabitants, and fourteen thousand regular troops were collected there. A powerful British fleet was at the mouth of the harbour; the commander, sir Sydney Smith, had urged the court to resist, and offered to land his seamen and marines to aid in the defence of the town; but his offers were declined; and the people, disgusted