This was a cutting reflection. But though the loss of that city led to consequences grievously injurious to the allies, and to a dreadful cost of lives, it did not produce all the evil which Riesco apprehended; and that its evil effects did not extend thus far, was owing to the spirit of the Portugueze people, who, unlike General Imaz and his companions in infamy, had discharged their duty to the utmost. Treachery, which had done much for France in other countries, had not been found in Portugal; and popular feeling, which had done more, was there directed with all the vehemence of vindictive justice against the most unprovoked, the most perfidious, ♦SKILL AND BARBARITY OF THE FRENCH IN THEIR RETREAT.♦ and the most inhuman of invaders. But Massena’s military talents had never been more eminently shown, and nothing could exceed the skill which was now manifested in all his dispositions. His columns moved by angular lines converging to a point, upon gaining which they formed in mass, and then continued their retreat, Ney with the flower of the army covering the rear, while Massena so directed the march of the main body, as to be always ready to protect the rear guard, which whenever it was hardly pressed fell back, and brought its pursuers with it upon the main army, waiting in the most favourable position to receive them. This praise is due to M. Massena and his generals, and the troops which they commanded: but never did any general or any army insure such everlasting infamy to themselves by their outrages and abominations, committed during the whole of their tarriance in Portugal, and continued during their retreat. Lord Wellington said, their conduct was marked by a barbarity seldom equalled, and never surpassed: all circumstances considered, he might have said it had never been paralleled. For these things were not done in dark ages, nor in uncivilised countries, nor by barbarous hordes, like the armies of Timour or Nadir Shah; it was in Europe, and in the nineteenth century, that these atrocities were committed by the soldiers of the most cultivated and most enlightened part of Europe, mostly French, but in no small proportion Germans and Netherlanders. Nor was the French army, like our own, raised and recruited from the worst members of society, who enter the service in an hour of drunkenness, or of necessity, or despair: the conscription brought into its ranks men of a better description, both as to their parentage, their breeding, and their prospects in life; insomuch, that the great majority are truly described as sober, orderly, intelligent, and more or less educated. Nor is it to be believed, that, although they acted like monsters of wickedness in this campaign, they were in any degree worse than other men by nature: on the contrary, the national character of the French, Germans, and Netherlanders, authorises a presumption that they were inclined to be, and would have been good and useful members of society, if the service in which they were compulsorily engaged had not made them children of perdition. How nefarious, then, must have been the system of that Government which deliberately placed its armies in circumstances where this depravation was inevitably produced!... how deserving of everlasting infamy the individual by whose absolute will that Government was directed!... and how deep the guilt of those who were the willing and active agents of such a Government, ... the devoted servants of such a ruler! No equitable reader will suppose that any national reproach is intended in thus dwelling upon the crimes which were committed throughout the Peninsular war by the French and their allies: Englishmen under like circumstances would have been equally depraved: the reproach is not upon a brave and noble nation; it rests upon those alone on whom the guilt abides; and as we tender the welfare and improvement of the human race, let us hope that it may be perpetual!