a few hundred yards from the column, with patient persistence. [110] For details of this see the Diary of Tomkinson of the 16th Light Dragoons. His own regiment alone brought in 82 prisoners between January 19 and February 23. There were some very fine feats of arms on a small scale in this outpost fighting, notably a capture made by Lieutenant Bishop on January 19th, when with six men he charged twenty chasseurs, and took eight with twelve horses. After waiting for a fortnight after the arrival of Foy and the imperial dispatches, and learning nothing of any approach of the long-promised troops of Mortier, Masséna assembled the corps leaders and certain other generals at Golegão on February 19th, at a meeting which he carefully refrained from calling a council of war. That he should do so was in itself a sign of flagging confidence; he had shown himself very autocratic hitherto, and had asked the advice of none of his lieutenants. Now he regarded the situation as so desperate that he thought that he must either give up the game and retreat from the Tagus, or risk an attack on the allied forces south of that river, with the object of crossing into the Alemtejo and going off to join Soult. His own mind was practically made up in favour of the former alternative; but he knew that if he took it without consulting his lieutenants, they would probably report him to the Emperor as having despaired before all was lost. The council of war was really called for the purpose of arguing them down, and committing them to the policy of retreat[111], so that they should not be able to protest against it at a later date. [111] The best account of this council of war is Foy’s (in his _Vie Militaire_, pp. 129-32), which is contemporary. It differs largely from Koch’s narrative in his _Vie de Masséna_. It is quite convincing when compared with Masséna’s explanatory dispatch to Berthier of March 6th, which sets forth his own arguments for the retreat. They are the same which Foy attributes to him in the précis of the meeting of February 18th.