The first vexatious interference of the Souza faction had been checked, but the loss of Almeida furnished a favourable opportunity to renew their clamorous hostility to the military proceedings. Falsely asserting, that the provisions of that fortress had been carried away by the English commissaries; and as falsely pretending that lord Wellington had promised to raise the siege, this party hypocritically assumed, that his expressions of sorrow for its fall were indications of an intention to remove by a splendid victory the public despondency. They vehemently insisted, also, on a defence of the frontier, inveighed against the destruction of the mills, and endeavoured to force their own friends of the fidalgo faction even on to the staff of marshal Beresford, that they might the more readily embarrass the operations. Meanwhile, neglecting or delaying the measures agreed upon for laying waste the country, they protected the minor authorities when disobedient, refrained from punishing delinquents, and took every occasion to mislead the public mind at the very moment when the enemy commenced the invasion. Nor was there wanting either accident or indiscretion to encrease the growing confusion. When Almeida fell, an officer of the guards writing to a friend at Oporto, indiscreetly asserted, that Massena was advancing in front with a hundred thousand French, and that eighty thousand more were moving in rear of the allies upon Lisbon. This letter being immediately made public, created such a panic amongst the English merchants, that one and all applied for ships to carry their families and property away, and there arose such a tumult that Trant was obliged to quit his command for the purpose of suppressing the commotion. To dry this source of mischief lord Wellington issued proclamations; and, in the orders of the day, declared that he would not seek to ascertain the author of this and similar letters, being assured that the feelings and sense of the officers would prevent any repetition. To the regency he addressed himself in a more peremptory and severe manner, reproving them for the false colouring given to his communications, and informing them that he would never “_permit public clamour and panic to induce him to change, in the smallest degree, a system and plan of operation which he had adopted after mature consideration, and which daily experience proved to be the only one likely to produce a good end_.” But this remonstrance only increased the virulence of his opponents; and such was their conduct, that, before lord Wellington reached Busaco, he was obliged to tell them, “_their miserable intrigues must cease or he would advise his own government to withdraw the British army_.”