Junot being informed of this event, perceived that no time was to be lost in disarming the Spanish regiments quartered in the neighbourhood of Lisbon; but this was not an easy operation. Carraffa’s division was above six thousand men, and without employing the garrisons of the citadel and forts of Lisbon, it was difficult to collect an equal force of French. The suspicions of the Spanish regiments had been already excited, they were reluctant to obey the French generals, and one quartered at Alcacer de Sal had actually resisted the orders of the general-in-chief himself. To avoid a tumult was the great object, because in Lisbon fifteen thousand Gallicians were ordinarily engaged as porters and water-carriers, and if a popular movement had been excited, these men would naturally have assisted their countrymen. Notwithstanding these difficulties, Junot, in the night of that day upon which he received the information of Bellesta’s defection, arranged all his measures; and the next day the Spanish troops being, under various pretexts, assembled in such numbers, and in such places, that resistance became impossible, they yielded to necessity, and were disarmed, and placed on board the hulks in the Tagus: eight hundred of the regiment of Murcia and three hundred of that of Valencia only escaping. Thus Junot in the course of twenty-four hours, and with very little bloodshed, succeeded, by his promptness and dexterity, in averting a very serious danger. The decision and success of this stroke against the Spanish division produced considerable effect, but not sufficient to prevent the insurrection from becoming general; all couriers, and officers carrying orders or commanding small posts of communications, were suddenly cut off, and Junot, reduced by a single blow from fifty to twenty-eight thousand men, found himself isolated, and dependent upon his individual resources, and the courage of his soldiers, for the maintenance of his conquest, and even for the preservation of his army. The Russian squadron indeed contained six thousand seamen and marines, but, while they consumed a great quantity of provisions, it was evident, from certain symptoms, that they could not be depended upon as useful allies, except in the case of an English fleet attempting to force the entrance of the river. In this situation the duke of Abrantes at first thought of seizing Badajos, with a view to secure still more effectually the best line of retreat into Spain, but the Spanish army of Estremadura had assembled there, under the command of general Galuzzo, and frustrated that scheme. [Sidenote: Thiebault.]