Colonel Girod evacuated the forts, and his garrison proceeded to Lisbon, attended by the 52d regiment as an escort. The rival troops agreed very well together, striving to out-do each other by the vigour and the military order of their marches; but the Swiss and French soldiers did not accord, and many of the latter wished to desert. At Lisbon the whole were immediately embarked; but the transports being detained for some time in the river, major de Bosset, an officer of the Chasseurs Britanniques, contrived to persuade near a thousand of the men to desert, who were afterwards received into the British service. Girod de Novillard complained of this as a breach of the convention, and it must be confessed that it was an equivocal act, yet one common to all armies, and if done simply by persuasion, very excusable. The garrison of Almeida surrendered that fortress without any delay, and being marched to Oporto, were proceeding to embark, when the populace rose and would have slain them if great exertions had not been made by the British officers to prevent such a disgraceful breach of faith. The escort was weak, but resolute to sustain the honour of their nation, by firing upon the multitude if the circumstances became desperate. Nevertheless several of the French soldiers were assassinated, and in spite of every effort the baggage was landed, and the whole plundered; the excuse being that church plate was to be found amongst it, an accusation easily made, difficult to be disproved to the satisfaction of a violent mob, and likely enough to be true. This tumult gives scope for reflection upon the facility with which men adapt themselves to circumstances, and regulate their most furious passions, by the scale of self-interest. In Oporto, the suffering, in consequence of the invasion, was trifling compared to the misery endured in Lisbon; yet the inhabitants of the former were much more outrageous in their anger. In Lisbon, the very persons who had inflicted the worst evils upon the people were daily exposed, more or less, to violence, yet suffered none; while in Oporto it was with extreme difficulty that men, until that moment unseen of the multitude, were rescued from their frantic revenge. In both cases fear regulated the degree of hatred shown, and we may conclude from hence, that national insurrections however spontaneous and vehement, if the result of hatred only, will never successfully resist an organized force, unless the mechanical courage of discipline be grafted upon the first enthusiasm.