when he wrote in his journal that between the 15th and 31st of March the Army of Portugal left behind only twenty prisoners and fifty men lost while marauding[211]. [207] Tomkinson’s diary, p. 87. [208] _Dispatches_, vii. p. 375. [209] Simmons’s diary, p. 148. [210] Masséna to Berthier, from Maceira, March 19th. [211] Fririon’s _Campagne de Portugal_, p. 176. [Illustration: THE LOWER MONDEGO. To illustrate the First Stage of Masséna’s Retreat.] On the morning of the 20th March Wellington’s army was all across the Alva, but only the cavalry and the Light, 3rd, and 6th Divisions continued the pursuit. The small convoy received on the 17th was exhausted, and what little food remained was made over to the three divisions named above, while the 1st, 5th, and Pack’s and Ashworth’s Portuguese halted for five days at Moita and the neighbouring villages, till the first train of provisions sent up from Coimbra should arrive. Of the troops which could still be fed, the Light Division pushed on as far as Galliges that night, the 3rd and 6th were behind them. The French, thanks to their desperate night march, were already a long way ahead, and it was late on the 20th before the cavalry overtook, near Cea, their extreme rearguard, two battalions of Heudelet’s division and a hussar regiment. General Slade, whose brigade was leading, refused to attack them until infantry and guns came up to his aid, and the French slipped away before Elder’s Caçadores and Bull’s battery reached him[212]. ‘This was the second day without bread, and the third without corn for the horses, and we had marched nearly five leagues,’ explains a cavalry diarist[213]. The pursuers were as harassed as the pursued, and could go no further, but Slade was thought to have shown weakness. He picked up a good many stragglers and sick, and found the road strewn with broken vehicles and dying mules. [212] According to Fririon’s diary the H.A. guns arrived in time to shell the rear battalion and kill one officer. [213] Tomkinson, p. 87: ‘Every one talked loudly of Slade’s conduct through the day.’