3º.--The passage of the Tagus being, however, effected, Victor not only permitted Cuesta to escape, but actually lost all traces of his army, an evident fault not to be excused by pleading the impediments arising from the swelling of the river, the necessity of securing the communications, &c. If Cuesta’s power was despised before the passage of the river, when his army was whole and his position strong, there could be no reason for such great circumspection after his defeat, a circumspection, too, not supported by skill, as the dispersed state of the French army, the evening before the battle of Medellin, proves. 4º.--That Victor was enabled to fight Cuesta, on the morning of the 28th, with any prospect of success, must be attributed rather to fortune than to talent. It was a fault to permit the Spaniards to retake the offensive after the defeat on the Tagus; nor can the first movement of the duke of Belluno in the action be praised. He should have marched into the plain in a compact order of battle. The danger of sending Lassalle and Latour Maubourg to such a distance from the main body I shall have occasion to show in my observations on Cuesta’s operations; but, the after-movements of the French in this battle were well and rapidly combined and vigorously executed, and the success was proportionate to the ability displayed. 5º.--The battles of Medellin and Ciudad Real, which utterly destroyed the Spanish armies and laid Seville and Badajos open; those battles, in which blood was spilt like water, produced no result to the victors, for the French generals, as if they had struck a torpedo, never stretched forth their hands a second time. Sebastiani, indeed, wished to penetrate the Sierra Morena; but the king, fearful of the Valencians, restrained him. On the other hand, Joseph urged Victor to invade the Alemtejo, yet the latter would not obey, even when reinforced by Lapisse’s division. This was the great and fatal error of the whole campaign, for nearly all the disposable British and Portuguese troops were thus enabled to move against the duke of Dalmatia, while the duke of Belluno contrived neither to fulfil the instructions of Napoleon, nor the orders of the king, nor yet to perform any useful achievement himself.