The peasants of the northern provinces of Portugal, unlike the squalid miserable population of Lisbon and Oporto, are robust, handsome, and exceedingly brave. Their natural disposition is open and obliging; and they are, when rightly handled as soldiers, docile, intelligent, and hardy. They are, however, vehement in their anger; and being now excited by the exhortations and personal example of their priests, they came rushing down the sides of the hills; and many of them, like men deprived of reason, broke furiously into the French battalions, and were there killed. The others, finding their efforts unavailing, fled, and were pursued a league up the mountain by some battalions sent out against them, but they were not yet abashed; for, making a circuit behind the hills, they fell upon the rear of the line of march, killed fifty of the stragglers, and plundered the baggage; and, thus galled, the French slowly, and with much trouble, passing the long defiles of Venda Nova, Ruivaens, and Salamonde, gathered by degrees in front of Freire’s position. [Sidenote: Eben’s Report, MSS. Sir J. Cradock’s Paper.] That general was no more; and his troops, reeking from the slaughter of their commander, were raging, like savage beasts, at one moment congregating near the prisons to murder some wretch within, at another rushing tumultuously to the outposts, with a design to engage the enemy. The _ordenanzas_ of the distant districts also came pouring into the camp, dragging with them suspected persons, and adding to the general distraction. It appears that the unfortunate Friere, unable to establish order in his army, had resolved to retreat; and, in pursuance of that design, recalled Eben on the 14th, and gave directions to the officers at the different outposts in front of Braga to retire at the approach of the enemy. This, and his endeavour to prevent the waste of ammunition, gave effect to a plan which had been long prepared by the bishop’s faction for his destruction. In passing through Braga, he was openly reviled in the streets by some of the _ordenanzas_; and, as the latter plainly discovered their murderous intention, he left the army; but he was seized on the 17th, at a village behind Braga, and brought back: what followed is thus described by baron Eben, in his official report to sir John Cradock:--