the 10th and 16th of March, but got off seventeen on the last-named day. Some of these are very important, as showing that he regarded the crisis as over, and the ultimate evacuation of Portugal by the French as certain. The most notable are two orders to Beresford[198], making over to him once more the 4th Division and De Grey’s heavy dragoons for the expedition into Estremadura, which now had as its object not the relief of Badajoz (whose capitulation was known) but the holding back of Soult from Campo Mayor and Elvas. [196] See _Dispatches_, vii. p. 366. [197] There is a bitter letter from Pack of March 21st in his _Memoirs_ concerning the ‘bad commissariat and worse medical establishment of an inefficient and penniless government which no officer can serve with pleasure or advantage,’ which quite bears out Wellington, _Dispatches_, vii. p. 371. [198] Wellington had called Beresford up to him on May 9th, and the latter was present at Pombal and Redinha. He rode hastily back to pick up his forces, which were to form the Army of Estremadura, on the 16th and reached Thomar on the 17th March. It will be remembered that the 2nd Division and Hamilton’s Portuguese had been left behind near Abrantes when Wellington determined, on March 9th, not to send an expedition against Soult, till he could make it up to a force sufficient to cope with the army that was beleaguering Badajoz. They were not to commit themselves to any offensive operations, or to cross the Portuguese frontier, till the reinforcements arrived, but were to move a stage on their way toward the south. Accordingly the head quarters of the 2nd Division were at Tramagal on the 14th, with its attached cavalry (the 13th Light Dragoons) at Crato in advance, while the Portuguese horse of Otway had been sent to watch the roads to Elvas by Portalegre and Estremos. Here there was a halt for a week, Beresford being absent with Wellington for five days, and it was not till the 17th that the movement towards Estremadura began again, on his return. Meanwhile Masséna, oddly enough, knowing of the existence of a considerable allied force at Abrantes, and not feeling it on his own flank, formed a theory that it must have been sent in a long sweep up by the Zezere, to drop into the upper Mondego valley and cut him off from Spain. Nervousness as to this imaginary movement had no small effect on his main operations[199].