Sir Robert Wilson was at the head of about three thousand men; he had withdrawn the legion from Almeida, sent a detachment to Bejar, and remained himself on the Agueda, watching the advanced posts of Lapisse. A few Portuguese regiments were extended from Salvatierra and Idanha to Alcantara. There was a permanent bridge of boats over the Tagus at Abrantes, and there were small garrisons in that town and at Elvas. But all these forces united would not, with the exception of the British, have been capable of sustaining the shock of ten thousand French soldiers for half an hour; and the whole mass of the latter, then hanging on the frontier of Portugal, was above fifty thousand. Gathering like clouds on the horizon, they threatened many points, but gave no certain indication of where the storm would break. Soult, indeed, with about twenty thousand men, was endeavouring to pass the Minho; but Lapisse, although constantly menacing Ciudad Rodrigo, kept his principal masses at Salamanca and Ledesma; while Victor had concentrated his between the Alberche and the Tietar. Thus Lapisse might join either Soult or Victor; and the latter could march by Placentia against Ciudad Rodrigo, while Soult attacked Oporto; or he might draw Lapisse to him, and penetrate Portugal by Alcantara. He might pass the Tagus, attack Cuesta, and pursue him to Seville; or, after defeating him, he might turn short to the right, and enter the Alemtejo. In this uncertainty, sir John Cradock, keeping the British concentrated at Lumiar and Saccavem, waited for the enemy to develop his plans, and, in the mean time, endeavoured to procure the necessary equipments for an active campaign. He directed magazines to be formed at Coimbra and Abrantes; urged the regency to exertion; took measures to raise money, and despatched officers to Barbary to procure mules. But while thus engaged, intelligence arrived that Victor had suddenly forced the passage of the Tagus at Almaraz, and was in pursuit of Cuesta on the road to Merida; that Soult, having crossed the Minho, and defeated Romana and Sylveira, was within a few leagues of Oporto; and that Lapisse had made a demonstration of assaulting Ciudad Rodrigo. [Sidenote: Sir J. Cradock’s Correspondence, MSS.] The junta of Oporto now vehemently demanded aid from the regency, and the latter, although not much inclined to the bishop’s party, proposed that sir John Cradock should unite a part of the British forces to the Portuguese troops under marshal Beresford, and march to the succour of Oporto. Beresford was averse to trust the Portuguese under his immediate command, among the mutinous multitude in that city, but he thought the whole of the British army should move in a body to Leiria, and from thence either push on to Oporto, or return, according to the events that might occur in the latter town, and he endeavoured to persuade Cradock to follow this plan. [Sidenote: Appendix, No. 12, section 1.]