After an inactivity of five months before the lines of Torres Vedras, Massena commenced to evacuate Portugal. He had no siege artillery with which to attack the fortifications behind which his enemy was securely sheltered; and his supplies were becoming every day more difficult to obtain; he therefore had no other alternative. As he retired, he was closely followed by the English army, and many smart affairs took place between the advanced guards of the latter and the rear-guard of the French army, in which the Royal Horse Artillery did good service. The limits of the largest work and the patience of the most enduring reader would be exhausted were these minor actions given in detail. Suffice it to say, that the Artillery engaged on these occasions included the troops commanded by Captain Ross and Captain Bull,--that the names of the various actions are given in the first volume of this history at pages 396 and 401, and that the way in which they performed their duty may be gathered, in the first place, from Lord Wellington’s despatches, and, in the second, from the exhaustive narrative of Napier. In writing of the actions of the 11th, 12th, and 13th March, 1811, at Pombal, Redinha, and Cazal Nova, [Sidenote: To Lord Liverpool, dated 14 March, 1811.] Lord Wellington said that the troops of Horse Artillery under Captains Ross and Bull particularly distinguished themselves. At the affair of Foz d’Arouce, on the 15th March, he also wrote that the Horse Artillery, under Captains [Sidenote: Ibid. dated 16 March, 1811.] Ross and Bull, distinguished themselves. Later, in the affair which took place on the 7th April, during a reconnaissance, in which the English, under Sir W. Erskine, drove a division of the French army before them across the [Sidenote: Ibid. dated 9 April, 1811.] Turones and Dos Casas, Lord Wellington wrote that “Captain’s Bull’s troop of Horse Artillery did great execution on this occasion.” [Sidenote: Vol. ii. chap. ii.] At the celebrated engagement of Fuentes d’Onor,[24] the dashing affair mentioned in an early part of this work took place, in which Captain Norman Ramsay, of Bull’s troop, so greatly distinguished himself. On this occasion the losses of the Artillery were as follows:-- Royal Horse Artillery--1 rank and file and 3 horses killed: 1 rank and file, and 3 horses wounded. Royal Foot Artillery--1 sergeant, 4 rank and file, and 9 horses killed; 1 captain, 2 subalterns, 18 rank and file, and 21 horses wounded.