Massena’s flank movement occasions Wellington to retire from Busaco.--Proclamation to the Portuguese.--It meets with general obedience.--Beautiful order of the retreat.--Trant captures the French hospitals at Coimbra.--Massena’s supposed ignorance of the lines.--Position of Torres Vedras. Massena had suffered too heavily in his attempt on the British position, to think of attacking the Sierra de Busaco a second time. Early on the 28th he commenced quietly retiring his advanced brigades, and in the evening, was reported to be marching with all his divisions on the Malhada road, after having set fire to the woods to conceal his movements, which was evidently intended to turn the British left. Orders were instantly given by Lord Wellington to abandon the Sierra; and at night-fall, Hill’s division was again thrown across the river-- the remainder of the brigades, defiling to their left, moved by the shorter road on Coimbra, and resumed the line of the Mondego on the 30th. The celebrated proclamation to the Portuguese nation was issued by Lord Wellington previous to the commencement of his retreat. Determined to destroy any hope the French might have entertained of subsisting their armies on the resources of the country, the people were emphatically desired, on the approach of the enemy, to abandon their dwellings, drive off their cattle, destroy provisions and forage, and leave the villages and towns deserted of inhabitants, and devastated of everything which could be serviceable to the invaders. Generally, these orders were obeyed with a devotion that seems remarkable. Property was wasted or concealed[118]--and the shrine and cottage alike abandoned by their occupants--the peasant deserting the hearth where he had been nursed, and the monk the altar where he had worshipped from his boyhood. The fugitives accompanied the army on its march,--and when it halted in the lines, one portion of the wanderers proceeded to Lisbon, while the greater number crossed the Tagus, to seek on its southern shores a temporary retreat from those who had obliged them to sacrifice their possessions, and fly from the dwellings of their fathers.[119] Nothing could surpass the fine attitude maintained by the British in their retreat on Torres Vedras, and every march was leisurely executed, as if no enemy were in the rear. By the great roads of Leiria and Espinal the receding movement was effected; and, with the exception of some affairs of cavalry, and a temporary embarrassment in passing through Condeixa, occasioned by a false alarm and narrow streets, a retreat of nearly two hundred miles was effected with as little confusion as attends an ordinary march. No portion of the field equipage--no baggage whatever, was captured--and still more strange, a greater number of prisoners were taken from the pursuers than lost by the pursued--a fact, in the history of retreats, without a parallel.