It was a gallant action, because it might reasonably have been expected that a tumultuous assemblage of half-armed peasants, collected on the instant, would have been dismayed at the sight of many boats filled with soldiers some pulling across, others landing under the protection of a heavy battery that thundered from the midst of a multitude of troops, clustering on the heights, and thronging to the edge of the opposite bank in eager expectation. It was an event of leading importance, inasmuch as it baffled an attempt that, being successful, would have ensured the fall of Oporto by the 21st of February, which was precisely the period when general Mackenzie’s division being at Cadiz, sir John Cradock’s troops were reduced to almost nothing; when the English ministers only waited for an excuse to abandon Portugal; when the people of that country were in the very extremity of disorder; when the Portuguese army was a nullity; and when the regency was evidently preparing to receive the French with submission. It was the period, also, when Soult was expected to be at Lisbon, following the Emperor’s orders, and, consequently, Lapisse and Victor could not have avoided to fulfil their part of the plan for the subjugation of Portugal. [Sidenote: See Plan 4.] The duke of Dalmatia’s situation was now, although not one of imminent danger, extremely embarrassing, and more than ordinary quickness and vigour were required to conduct the operations with success. Posted in a narrow, contracted position, he was hemmed in on the left by the Spanish insurgents, who had assembled immediately after La Houssaye passed Orense, and who, being possessed of a very rugged and difficult country, were, moreover, supported by the army of Romana, which was said to be at Orense and Ribidavia. In the French general’s front was the Minho, broad, raging, and at the moment impassable, while heavy rains forbad the hope that its waters would decrease. To collect sufficient means for forcing a passage would have required sixteen days, and, long before that period, the subsistence for the army would have entirely failed, and the Portuguese, being alarmed, would have greatly augmented their forces on the opposite bank. There remained then only to retrace his steps to St. Jago, or break through the Spanish insurgents, and, ascending the Minho, to open a way into Portugal by some other route.