The hopes of the people, also, were high, for they could not believe that the French were a match for them; the preceding defeats were attributed each to its particular case of treason, and the murder of some innocent persons had followed as an expiation. No man but the bishop durst thwart the slightest caprice of the mob; and he was little disposed to do so, while Raymundo, and others of his stamp, fomented their fury, and directed it to gratify personal enmities. Thus, the defeat of Braga being known in Oporto, caused a tumult on the 22d; and Louis D’Olivera, a man of high rank, who had been cast into prison, was, with fourteen other persons, haled forth, and despatched with many stabs; the bodies were then mutilated, and dragged in triumph through the streets. [Sidenote: See Plan 5.] The entrenchments extending, as I have said, from the Douro to the coast, were complete, and armed with two hundred guns. They consisted of a number of forts of different sizes, placed on the top of a succession of rounded hills; and where the hills failed, the defences were continued by earthen ramparts, loop-holed houses, ditches, and felled trees. Oporto itself is built in a hollow; a bridge of boats, nearly three hundred yards in length, formed the only communication between the city and the suburb of Villa Nova; and this bridge was completely commanded by batteries, mounting fifty guns, planted on the bluff and craggy heights that overhang the river above Villa Nova, and overlooked, not only the city, but a great part of the entrenched camp beyond it. Within the lines, tents were pitched for even greater numbers than were assembled; and the people ran to arms, and quickly manned their works with great noise and tumult, when the French columns, gathering like heavy thunder clouds, settled in front of the camp. The duke of Dalmatia arrived on the 27th. While at Braga he had written to the bishop, calling on him to calm the popular effervescence; and now, beholding the extended works in his front, and reading their weakness even in the multitudes that guarded them, he renewed his call upon the prelate, to spare this great and commercial city the horrors of a storm. A prisoner, employed to carry the summons, would have been killed, but that it was pretended he came with an offer from Soult to surrender his army; and notwithstanding this ingenious device, and that the bishop commenced a negotiation, which was prolonged until evening, the firing from the entrenchments was constant and general during the whole of the 28th.