large body of men as would be required for the holding of its extensive enceinte. The actual course of affairs in Estremadura followed logically from Wellington’s orders to Beresford on the 9th and the 15th of March. On the 8th, as it will be remembered, Beresford had been directed to march to the relief of Badajoz with the 2nd and 4th Divisions and Hamilton’s Portuguese, some 18,000 men. On the 9th these orders had been countermanded, on a false report that Masséna had concentrated and was offering battle behind Thomar. The 4th Division and one brigade (Hoghton’s) of the 2nd were called off, and marched to join Wellington’s main body. The rest of the 2nd Division and Hamilton’s Portuguese stood halted, in or near Abrantes, till the intentions of the French should be discovered. It was not till March 12th that Wellington, reassured as to his adversaries’ intentions, thought it possible once more to take the relief of Badajoz in hand[307]. The troops about Abrantes were ordered to prepare to march for the Guadiana in successive brigades; the absent brigade of the 2nd Division, which had reached Thomar, was directed to retrace its steps and join the main body of that unit. But the 4th Division had gone on much further; it was well on its way towards Coimbra, and was engaged in the Pombal-Redinha operations. It was not till the 15th that Wellington thought himself able to dispatch it, along with De Grey’s brigade of dragoons, to cross the Tagus in the wake of the 2nd Division. Beresford himself, who had joined the main army for a few days by Wellington’s own orders, was not given his final instructions and sent off to the south till the following morning. [307] Nothing could be done in Estremadura without the 2nd Division, and D’Urban’s diary shows that the orders for the 2nd Division to march into the Alemtejo were only given on the 12th. Beresford’s chief of the staff notes on that day, ‘Orders to General Stewart [commanding 2nd Division] to fix his head quarters at Tramagal, to move the 13th to Crato or Carragueira [both in the Alemtejo south from Abrantes], and to let the troops remain as at present--unless it should become necessary to concentrate for the protection of the Bridge of Tancos.’ This shows that Wellington’s statement to Lord Liverpool on March 14th (_Dispatches_, vii. 360) that ‘troops had marched from Thomar on the 9th, and that part of Sir William Beresford’s division, which had not passed the Tagus, was put in motion, and that their head had arrived within three marches of Elvas,’ can apply at most to Hamilton’s Portuguese.