But all this was a precaution designed to face a very unlikely--if a possible--situation of affairs. It was much more probable that Masséna would try to pass the Tagus higher up, than that Soult would fight his way to its mouth across the Alemtejo, and every precaution was taken to give Masséna a hot reception if he should make the attempt. It was clear that his starting-point for such an enterprise must be Punhete and the mouth of the Zezere, for there were collected the ninety boats and the materials for the floating bridges which had been created by the energy of General Eblé. At Santarem, the other place where Masséna had boats, the stock of them was known to be too small for a passage in force. Beresford, it will be remembered, had already established batteries which commanded the mouth of the Zezere, and had several times stopped small explorations by the French boats. Only on one occasion did a few succeed in running past down-stream. On the whole it was considered unlikely that Masséna would attempt such a serious matter as the crossing of the Tagus opposite Punhete. D’Urban, Beresford’s chief of the staff, reported ‘It is altogether improbable that he will commit himself, unless in combination with the army arriving from the south. The stream is very rapid. The boats cannot return to the original point of embarkation for a second load of men, nor to the second point for a third load, but must cross at each time to a point lower down, owing to the current. This must and will occasion great disunion and scattering among the parts of the division who first pass, all the more because they will be vigorously opposed from the beginning. It appears to me that no attempt of the kind can succeed. The Zezere-mouth alone is their _place d’armes_, and leaves little else for us to watch: hence arises for them a difficulty of accomplishing this enterprise that would appear almost unsurmountable.’[106] It is most interesting to compare this judgement from the English side with the discussion of the problem by the French generals, which followed a few days later, and with which we shall presently have to deal[107]. [106] From a long note by D’Urban in his unpublished diary, dated January 22, 1811. [107] See pp. 77-9.