Since Lapisse, then, had moved off far to the south, and thrown in his lot with his old comrades of the 1st Corps, it was in vain that Soult sought for news of him on the Douro after the fall of Oporto. When Loison set out to cross the Tamega and to enter the Tras-os-Montes, in order that he might obtain information of the movements of the division at Salamanca, that division was making ready for its march to Alcantara; a fortnight later it had disappeared from the northern theatre of operations altogether, and Soult’s last chance of obtaining external help for his invasion of Portugal was gone. This section, in short, of Napoleon’s great plan for the march on Lisbon had been foiled, and foiled almost entirely by Sir Robert Wilson’s happy audacity and resourceful generalship. But for him, the timidity of Cradock, the impotence of the Spaniards, and the disorganization of the Portuguese army might have brought about the fall of Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida, at the same moment that Soult was entering Portugal on its northern frontier. His services have never received their proper meed of praise, either from the government which he served so well, or from the historians who have told the annals of the Peninsular War. We must now return to the details of the Duke of Dalmatia’s operations. His movements were clearly dependent on the results of the two expeditions under Heudelet and Loison, which he had sent out to the north and the east after his victory of March 29. Heudelet, after discharging on to Oporto the sick and wounded and the stores which he had been guarding at Braga, started out northward on April 6, with the 4,000 infantry of his own division and Lorges’ dragoons, whom the Marshal had ordered up to his aid from Villa de Conde. Heudelet was ordered to disperse the insurgents in the valleys of the Lima and Minho, and to relieve Tuy and Vigo, where the French garrisons were known to be in a state of siege. To reach them it was necessary to pierce through the screen of militia and _Ordenanza_ under General Botilho, which had cut off all communication between Galicia and the army of Portugal since the month of February. On April 7 the French general neared the line of the Lima, only to find the bridges barricaded and Botilho’s horde entrenched behind them. After some preliminary skirmishing, fords were discovered, which Heudelet’s infantry passed upon the following morning, sending the unfortunate Portuguese flying in every direction and capturing the three guns which formed their sole artillery. On the tenth the frontier fortress of Valenza was reached: it was found to be in a dilapidated condition, and garrisoned by only 200 men, who surrendered at the first summons. Tuy, where General Lamartinière had been shut up for the last seven weeks, faces Valenza across the broad estuary of the Minho, so that Heudelet was now in full communication with it.