[81] D’Urban (Beresford’s chief of the staff) has in his diary under March 8th: ‘At 3 o’clock the Marshal crossed the river (Tagus) at Torres Novas and had an interview with Lord Wellington. The immediate relief of Badajoz, whose danger becomes imminent, has been judged desirable, this to be done with the 2nd and 4th Divisions. The Marshal returned at 8. Orders sent to Punhete to throw the bridge of boats over the Tagus at Tancos for the re-passage of General Stewart (2nd Division) and the passage of General Cole (4th Division). The troops still on the south bank of the Tagus are thrown into march upon Portalegre [near Elvas]. Orders to Mr. Ogilvie, the commissary, to take measures for supplies southward. General Menacho’s last sally, in which he is unfortunately killed, has probably saved the place by gaining of time, even if but for a few additional days.’ On the evening of the 9th March the movement was stopped, on a false rumour that Masséna was offering battle near Thomar, but news of it had been sent to General Leite at Elvas, who passed it by semaphore from Fort La Lippe to San Cristobal, which safely received it. It was not till the 12th that the 2nd Division was ordered to Crato in the Alemtejo, and Beresford reached Portalegre only on the 20th, nine days after Badajoz fell. Wellington says (_Dispatches_, vii. 360-1) ‘the Governor surrendered on the day after he received my assurances that he should be relieved, and my entreaty to hold out till the last moment.’ Cf. ibid., 367. After making some foolish hagglings for eighteenth-century ceremonial of honour--the garrison was to march out by the breach, drums beating, with two cannons at its head, with lighted matches, &c.--Imaz surrendered at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, and the lofty San Cristobal and the bridge-head fort were occupied by the French before dusk. Next day the troops came forth, not by the breach, because it was found impossible to scramble down it, but by the Trinidad gate, and laid down their arms[82]. They numbered 7,880 men, and there were 1,100 sick and wounded in the hospitals; the total loss in the town during the siege had been 1,851 casualties, almost the same as that of the French, which came to just under 2,000. But the 800 killed and wounded, and 4,000 prisoners of the Gebora must, of course, be added to the balance. [82] Arteche (ix. 229) says that they used the breach, but La Mare, an eye-witness, says that the Trinidad gate was the point of exit. Soriano da Luz, using some Portuguese source unknown to me, says that only some Spanish sappers came down the breach slope, and they with difficulty.