This was a truly important day, the most critical in the whole campaign, since at its end Coimbra was safe, and the whole French army had been turned on to the road towards Spain. Wellington was satisfied, and had no reason to be otherwise. The accusation made against him by many critics of over-caution, which is said to have prevented him from destroying Loison’s and Montbrun’s detachments, seems unjustifiable. The cardinal fact that he was not superior in numerical strength to the army that he was pursuing is too often forgotten; indeed, the French writers from Masséna down to to-day have nearly always credited him with 50,000 or 60,000 men, whereas he had barely 45,000, of whom only 32,000 were British, and the Portuguese were still in great part untried troops; for though those of them who had passed the test of battle (Pack’s and Power’s[183] brigades, the Caçadores in the Light Division, and the artillery) had done admirably hitherto, there were still four whole brigades which had never been in serious action since they were reorganized in 1809[184]. Nothing was to be risked, and partial attacks by unsupported vanguards were to be eschewed, when (as Wellington remarked in his dispatch of March 14) ‘the whole country affords advantageous positions to a retreating army, of which the enemy has shown that he knows how to avail himself. They are leaving the country, as they entered it, in one solid mass, covering their rear on every march by one (or sometimes two) _corps d’armée_, in the successive positions which the country affords, which _corps d’armée_ are closely supported by the rest.’ A general action against equal or superior numbers ranged on a strong hill-position was clearly inadvisable, and the plan of manœuvring the enemy out of each line that he took up by a short flanking movement was infinitely preferable. Flanking movements take time, and unless the enemy is very slow or very rash, have effective rather than brilliant results. But Wellington never ‘played to the gallery’; he was no vendor of bulletins; he had a small army which it was difficult to reinforce, and he could not afford to waste his precious men in hazardous combats. It would have been of little profit to him if he had destroyed a division or two of the enemy, and had then arrived on the Spanish frontier with an army diminished by 10,000 men. The enemy had unlimited supports behind him; he had practically none. For when he had taken out his field army, and had detached Beresford to Estremadura, there were no regular troops left in Portugal save the newly formed 7th Division, which was coming up from Lisbon to join the main body. [183] Late Champlemond’s, heavily engaged against Reynier at Bussaco. [184] viz. Ashworth’s (late A. Campbell’s), Spry’s, Madden’s (late Eben’s), and Harvey’s, of which the third had only one regiment engaged at Bussaco, and the others had been on parts of the line not attacked by the French. [Illustration: CASAL NOVO]