Meanwhile Wellington had occupied on the 4th Masséna’s old head quarters at Alfayates, and sent forward his cavalry to Albergaria, Alamedilla, and other villages, where they came in touch with the outposts of the 2nd and 8th Corps. The Light Division felt for any traces of the French at Val de Espinha and Quadraseis, and finding none pushed on to Alfayates. The 1st and 3rd Divisions came to that place also on the next day. By that evening (April 5) it was certain that Masséna was falling back to Ciudad Rodrigo, perhaps even further to the rear. The state of his army, of which Wellington had ample evidence from the capture of more sick, stragglers, and baggage during this and the two next days[253], rendered it extremely likely that the French would not be able to halt till they reached their magazines at Salamanca. The British general had no intention of following the enemy far into Spain; he had again outmarched his supplies, for the new base at Coimbra had only just been established, and convoys from it were coming in slowly and with great delays, since they had to be brought up over the wasted and depopulated region which the French had just evacuated. Till he had some magazines accumulated nearer the frontier, he could not dream of a serious offensive movement into Leon. His letters at this time are full of laments as to the state of the Portuguese troops, especially of the brigades which were fed by their own commissariat. They had dropped so many sick and stragglers in the advance, that on April 8th they were 2,500 short of the number with which they had started from the Lines of Torres Vedras: the brigade in the 5th Division had fallen to 1,061 rank and file from 1,400 with which it had set out--that in the 3rd Division to 1,190 from 1,319. Pack’s brigade had been left behind on the Mondego from sheer inability to march, and had not been able to join in the Guarda and Sabugal operations[254]. It was necessary to wait till the ranks were fuller--the men were not lost but left behind exhausted, and could be collected when a systematic supply of food was procurable. The allied army could not dream of entering Spain with the intention of living by plunder and requisitions, as the French habitually did. [253] In the Diary of Tomkinson of the 16th Light Dragoons there is a curious note as to the capture of a ‘caravan’ or large coach belonging to the head-quarter staff, and more especially to Masséna’s Portuguese adviser, the Marquis d’Alorna, on April 7th. Sixty-five infantry were captured by the regiment on the same day. [254] See letters to Beresford of April 6th and to Charles Stuart of April 8th, in _Dispatches_, vii. pp. 430-5.