[101] Their names, San Miguel, Loulé, Candido Xavier, and Manuel de Castro, are given by Fririon (Masséna’s aide-de-camp) in his diary. Major Leslie tells me that he cannot identify them in the Portuguese army-list of 1810, and thinks that two of them at least were only Ordenança officers. [102] For details as to all this see Wellington to Charles Stuart, February 10. (_Dispatches_, vii. 237-8.) Meanwhile Wellington regarded his position as secure for the moment. The Army of Portugal, even after Drouet’s arrival, was too weak to attack him. Soult’s movement from Andalusia at first caused him some uneasiness, for he had conceived a notion that the expedition from Andalusia, leaving Badajoz and Elvas on its left, and ignoring the Spanish Army of Estremadura, might be intending to march by Merida and Truxillo to Almaraz, and from thence to join Masséna by the circuitous route through Coria and Castello Branco[103]. He was reassured as to this possibility when the news came that Soult, unable to undertake anything bold so long as Gazan had not joined him, had sat down to besiege Olivenza on January 11th. If the Marshal intended to take all the Estremaduran fortresses before moving on, occupation could be found for him for many a week, and when La Romana’s two divisions had been sent to join Mendizabal on January 22, Wellington imagined that he might regard the situation on this side as secure. It will be remembered that he gave Mendizabal elaborate advice as to the course that he was to pursue, and he was justified in believing that if that advice was followed Badajoz would never fall, and Soult for the moment would become an almost negligible quantity. [103] This fear is expressed in a letter to Charles Stuart dated January 16 (_Dispatches_, vii. 147), on the news that Mortier’s cavalry had seized the bridge of Merida. ‘The passage of the Tagus by Mortier removes to a distant period the danger of Alemtejo; but it shows that we may be attacked at an early period in our positions. For Mortier, supposing him to march by Almaraz, can be on the Zezere in the first days of February, and I think it possible that the battle for the possession of this country, and probably the fate of the Peninsula, will be fought in less than a month from this time.’