Was it consistent with reason to march two hundred miles in search of a combat, which the very state of Oporto would render it almost impossible to gain, and for an object perhaps already lost? Suspicion was alive all over the country: if Oporto was already taken, the army must come back; that would be the signal for fresh tumults--for renewed cries that the country was to be abandoned; Lisbon would instantly be in a state of insurrection, and would be even more formidable to the British than the enemy; besides, it was impossible to reckon upon Cuesta’s aid in keeping Victor employed. He was personally inimical to the English, and his principal object was to gain time for the increase and discipline of his own force. Victor was apparently pursuing Cuesta, but his parties had already appeared in the neighbourhood of Badajos, and there was nothing but a weak Portuguese garrison in Elvas to impede his march through the Alemtejo. To cover Lisbon and the Tagus was the wisest plan: fixed in some favourable position, at a prudent distance from that capital, he could wait for the reinforcements he expected from England. He invited the Portuguese troops to unite with him; a short time would suffice to establish subordination, and then the certainty that the capital could not be approached, except in the face of a really-formidable army, would not only keep the enemy in check, but, by obliging him to collect in greater numbers for the attempt, would operate as a diversion in favour of Spain. The general soundness of this reasoning is apparent, and it must not be objected to sir John Cradock that he disregarded the value of a central position, which might enable him to be beforehand with the enemy in covering Lisbon, if the latter should march on his flank. The difficulty of obtaining true intelligence from the natives and his own want of cavalry rendered it utterly unsafe for him to divide his army, or to trust it any distance from the capital. Marshal Beresford’s plan, founded on the supposition that Cradock could engage Soult at Oporto, and yet quit him, and return at his pleasure to Lisbon, if Victor advanced, was certainly fallacious; the advantages rested on conjectural, the disadvantages on positive data: it was conjectural that they could relieve Oporto; it was positive that they would endanger Lisbon; the proposition was, however, not made upon partial views. But, at this period, other men, less qualified to advise, pestered sir John Cradock with projects of a different stamp, yet deserving of notice, as showing that the mania for grand operations, which I have before marked as the malady of the time, was still raging. [Sidenote: Cradock’s Correspondence, MSS.]