[242] Cradock contended that before the arrival of Hill and Sherbrooke and the return of Mackenzie from Cadiz, he had only 10,225 men, and, deducting sick and garrisons for the Lisbon forts, could only have marched out with 5,221. [Letter to Londonderry on p. 302, vol. ii. of the latter’s work.] He had sent 3,500 men to Cadiz and Seville, on Sir George Smith’s unhappy inspiration, or his force would have been much larger. As to the resolution to march against Soult, which he afterwards claimed to have made, it is sufficient to say that Wellesley on his arrival wrote to Castlereagh that ‘Sir John Cradock does not appear to have entertained any decided intention of moving forward: on the contrary he appears (by his letters to Mr. Villiers) to have intended to go no further till he should hear of Victor’s movements.’ [_Well. Corresp._, Lisbon, April 24.] SECTION XIII: CHAPTER III THE PORTUGUESE ARMY: ITS HISTORY AND ITS REORGANIZATION While the Regency was wasting much of its energy on the arming of the undisciplined masses of the _Ordenanza_, and while Cradock sat supine at Passo d’Arcos and at Saccavem, one useful piece of work at least was being taken in hand. This was the reorganization of the Portuguese regular army, a task which the Regency determined, though only so late as February, 1809, to hand over to a British general officer. To explain the chaotic condition of the force at the moment when Soult was just about to enter Portugal, a short account of its previous history is necessary. It had received its existing shape from a foreign hand, that of the well-known ‘Conde de La Lippe,’ i.e. the German Marshal, Frederick Count of Lippe-Bückeburg, who had been entrusted with its command during the short war with Spain in 1762. He it was who first gave Portugal an army of the modern type, modelled on the ordinary system of the eighteenth century, and showing many traces of adaptations from a Prussian original. The Marshal was a great organizer and a man of mark: his name is perhaps best remembered in connexion with the citadel of Elvas, which he rebuilt, and christened La Lippe after himself: under that designation we shall repeatedly have to mention it while describing the early years of the Peninsular War.