April 4 he wrote to Drouet that he was about to give out that he was Marmont’s advanced guard, and to march, with 3,000 men only, on that point, leaving the rest of his division in garrison at Talavera and Almaraz; he would be at Truxillo on the 9th[263]. If he had started a week earlier, he would have fallen into the hands of Hill, who was waiting for him at Merida with four times his force. But the news of the fall of Badajoz on the 6th reached him in time to prevent him from running into the lion’s mouth. Otherwise, considering Hill’s enterprise and Foy’s complete lack of cavalry, there might probably have been something like a repetition of the surprise of Arroyo dos Molinos. [263] The letter may be found in King Joseph’s _Correspondance_, viii. pp. 345-6. See also Girod de l’Ain’s _Vie militaire du Général Foy_, pp. 368-9. So much for the covering armies--it now remains to be seen how Wellington dealt with Badajoz, in the three weeks during which Graham and Hill were keeping the peace for him in southern and eastern Estremadura. On surveying the fortress upon March 16th the British engineers found that it had been considerably strengthened since the last siege in June 1811. Fort San Cristobal had been vastly improved--its glacis and counterscarp had been raised, and a strong redoubt (called by the French the Lunette Werlé, after the general killed at Albuera) had been thrown up on the rising slope where Beresford’s breaching batteries had stood, so that this ground would have to be won before it could be again utilized. On the southern side of the Guadiana the Castle had been provided with many more guns, and some parts of the precipitous mound on which it stood had been scarped. The breach of 1811 had been most solidly built up. No danger was feared in this quarter--it was regarded as the strongest part of the defences. The approach toward the much more accessible bastions just below the Castle had been made difficult, by damming the Rivillas stream: its bridge near the San Roque gate had been built up, and the accumulated water made a broad pool which lay under the bastions of San Pedro and La Trinidad; its overflow had been turned into the ditch in front of San Pedro, and, by cutting a _cunette_ or channel, a deep but narrow water obstruction had been formed in front of the Trinidad also--the broad dry ditch having a narrow wet ditch sunk in its bottom just below the counterscarp. This inundation was destined to give great trouble to the besiegers. The Pardaleras fort had been connected with the city by a well-protected trench between high earthen banks. Finally the three bastions on the south side next the river, San Vincente, San José, and Santiago, had been strengthened by demi-lunes, which they had hitherto lacked, and also by driving a system of mines from their counterscarps under the glacis: these were to be exploded if the besiegers should push up their trenches and breaching batteries close to the walls on this side,