The Portuguese had, however, before this time, raised the standard of their prince. The Bishop of Oporto assumed the government of the northern provinces of Portugal; and General Frere and other persons took the lead in the insurrection in the other parts of that country. The old soldiers, who had been disbanded by the French, were called to arms; and in a short time three armies were formed; one at Oporto, another at Coimbra, and the third at Viseu. Officers had already been despatched from England to ascertain the state of the Oporto and Coimbra corps; and Sir Arthur Wellesley sent an officer to Viseu to report to him the state of the force assembled there under General Barcellar. It is needless to observe, that an army formed as the Portuguese had been, could not be very effective; such as it was, however, it was hearty in the cause of its country, and most anxious for an opportunity of revenging the wrongs which had been inflicted upon the nation. The corps of Oporto was joined to that of Coimbra, and was destined to act with Sir Arthur Wellesley. The corps of Viseu was sent to Guarda; whence, in conjunction with some Spaniards under the orders of the Marquis of Valadares, it was directed to march upon Abrantes, and from thence co-operate in the meditated attack on Lisbon. There was also a corps of Spaniards of some force collected at Badajos under General Galluzzo, which it was hoped might have given some assistance to these combinations, by a simultaneous operation in the Alemtejo. Such was the state of the allied force when Sir Arthur Wellesley first landed his army on the banks of the Mondego. The French were in possession of Lisbon, and the country north of it as far as Leyria, which had been recaptured from the Portuguese by a force under the orders of General Margaron. On the entry of the French into this town, they committed the most atrocious acts of cruelty[1]. As an instance of the brutality of a superior officer, the —— of —— related of himself, that upon entering the town, he met a woman with a child at her breast, that the appearance of the infant excited his pity, but “_se rapellant qu’il était soldat_,” he pierced the two bodies with a single thrust of his sword. When the English advanced guard arrived there, it found in one of the convents the dead bodies of several Monks, who had been killed by the French soldiers; some of whom had dipped their hands in the blood of their unfortunate victims, and had daubed with it the walls of the convent. Footnote 1: