In this scattered state the French on the Vouga were surprised and driven fighting upon the Douro, which they crossed in the night of the 11th and destroyed the boat bridge. Soult, who had discovered the conspiracy on the 9th, was thus suddenly beset with perils. Treason in his army which he could not probe, a powerful enemy suddenly springing up in front, an active insurrection on his rear; his troops parcelled from the Vouga to the Lima and Tamega, and under officers necessarily suspected while the extent of the conspiracy was unknown! He did not quail. Directing Lorge to abandon the Lima and make for the Tamega, he ordered Loison to hold Amarante on that river, as the only means of concentration and safety for the army; he sent his stores and most of the heavy guns towards that place on the 10th and night of the 11th; and when the troops from the Vouga came pouring in, the remaining heavy guns and the baggage were also put in movement, Mermet’s division following them as far as Vallonga, with orders to secure the boats on the Douro and vigilantly patrol up the bank. All the craft from Oporto to the mouth of the river was then drawn to the right bank, guards were set, and Soult, thinking his position secure, decided to hold Oporto another day, to give Lorge’s dragoons and other detachments time to reach Amarante: he was however curiously misled. In the recent operations, an English column, moving in boats up the Lake of Ovar, which runs parallel with the coast, had disembarked on Mermet’s flank, who thought it had landed from the ocean; hence Soult, expecting the empty vessels would enter the Douro to effect a passage, directed his attention entirely to the lower river, while on the upper his orders were neglected and false reports made of their execution, for the conspirators were many and busy. PASSAGE OF THE DOURO. (May, 1809.) Before eight o’clock on the morning of the 12th the British army was secretly concentrated behind a rocky height, on which stood a convent immediately facing Oporto. The Douro rolled in front, and the French on the other side could with two marches gain the Tamega, secure their retreat, and defeat Beresford in passing; for that general had been sent over the Douro, above the confluence of the Tamega, merely to infest Soult’s line of march towards the Salamanca country, and thus induce him to take the rugged Chaves road leading to Gallicia, and that could not be risked unless the main army under Sir Arthur was closely pressing the French rear; hence his safety, and the forcing Soult into Gallicia, alike called for an immediate passage of the Douro. Yet how pass a river, deep, swift, more than three hundred yards wide, and in the face of ten thousand veterans guarding the opposite bank? The Macedonian hero might have turned from it without shame.