Note 15 — Chapter X · (continued 2)

Baron Thiebault represents this as a great exploit on the part of his fellow-soldiers. He says, Le Colonel Maransin auroit pu éviter Beja, mais il crut devoir ramener, par un grand exemple, ce pays à l’obeissance. Il forme ses colonnes en marchant, et sans artillerie attaque cette ville, enceinte de hautes murailles, dont toutes les portes étoient barricadées, dont les murs, les tours, étoient défendus par des forces quintuples des siennes, et par des hommes qui, dans leur fureur, defioient nos bataillons. Who would suppose, from this description, that these high walls and towers were in ruins, and that they were defended by a mob of three or four thousand men, not a third part of whom were armed with firelocks! After killing 1200 men in action, and all who were found in arms after it, sacking the city, and setting it on fire, it seems difficult to understand what the mercy was which the surviving inhabitants are said to have sent to Lisbon to solicit. According to Baron Thiebault, un brave religieux, after the assault, moved all his auditors to tears, by representing to them how much they had provoked their own misfortunes: he was consequently deputed unanimously to implore Junot’s clemency. Junot received him graciously, and rewarded him with a canonry; LA RECONNOISSANCE FUT EXTREME, ... et Beja n’en reprit pas moins les armes peu de jours après. In the bulletin published at Lisbon upon this occasion, and signed by this same General Thiebault, it is said, the inhabitants expressed their contrition by their deputy, acknowledged that they had been justly punished, and confessed that they had been seduced by the English!