No measure could have had the effect of inspiring the Portugueze people with so much confidence, as this public distribution of seed corn, and tools, and cattle. They who had been most apprehensive of another invasion, were convinced that Great Britain would not have conferred such a gift, if what was now bestowed upon them were likely to be wrested from them by the enemy; and under that conviction they resumed in hope those labours, from which despair might otherwise have deterred them. But it was far from Lord Wellington’s intention to deceive them into any fallacious opinion of their own security; on the contrary, his first thought, after he had driven the French beyond the frontier, was to warn the Portugueze that the danger might yet be renewed. “Their nation,” he said, “had still riches left, which the tyrant would endeavour to plunder: they were happy under a beneficent sovereign, and this alone would make him exert himself to destroy their happiness: they had successfully resisted him, and therefore he would leave no possible means unemployed for bringing them under his iron yoke.” He appealed to all who had witnessed the successive invasions of Junot, Soult, and Massena, whether the system of the French had not been to confiscate, to plunder, and to commit every outrage which their atrocious dispositions could devise? and whether from the general, to the lowest soldier, they had not delighted in the practice of such excesses? “The Portugueze,” he said, “ought not to relax their preparations for resistance. Every man capable of bearing arms ought to learn the use of them: those who, by their age or sex, were not capable of taking the field, should beforehand look out for places of safety where they might retire in time of need: they should bury their most valuable effects, every one in secret, not trusting the knowledge of the place to those who had no interest in concealing it: and they should take means for effectually concealing, or destroying the food, which, in case of necessity, could not be removed. If,” said Lord Wellington, “these measures are adopted, however superior in number the force may be which the desire of plunder and of vengeance may induce the tyrant to send again for the invasion of this country, the issue will be certain, and the independence of Portugal will be finally established, to the eternal honour of the present generation.” Having issued this proclamation, and made arrangements for the blockade of Almeida, Lord Wellington, leaving his army under Sir Brent Spencer, took advantage of the temporary inaction of the enemy to go into Alentejo.