After the victory at Amarante, Laborde was recalled to Oporto, but a brigade of cavalry and a regiment of infantry were left to keep up the communication with Loison; and as the insurgent general Bonthielo had reappeared on the Lima, general Lorge’s dragoons were directed on that side. Mermet’s division was then pushed towards the Vouga, and thus the French army was extended by detachments from that river to the Tamega; and the wings separated by the Douro and occupying two sides of a triangle, were without communication, except by the boat-bridge of Oporto. It required three days, therefore, to unite the army on its centre, and five days to concentrate it on either extremity. The situation of the allies was very different;--sir Arthur Wellesley having, unknown to Soult, assembled the bulk of the troops at Coimbra, commanded the choice of two lines of operation; the one through Viseu and Lamego, by which, in four or five marches, he could turn the French left, and cut them off from Tras os Montes; the other by the roads leading upon Oporto, by which, in two marches, he could throw himself unexpectedly, and in very superior numbers, upon the enemy’s right, with a fair prospect of crushing it between the Vouga and the Douro. In taking the first of these two lines, which were separated by the lofty ridges of the Sierra de Caramula, the march could be covered by Wilson’s corps, at Viseu, and by Sylveira’s, near Lamego. Along the second the movement could be screened by Trant’s corps on the Vouga. [Sidenote: S. Journal of Operations MSS.] The duke of Dalmatia’s dispositions were made in ignorance of sir Arthur Wellesley’s position, numbers, and intentions. He was not even aware of the vicinity of such an antagonist, but sensible that to advance directly upon Lisbon was beyond his own strength, he already meditated to cross the Tamega, and then covered by that river and the Douro, to follow the great route of Bragança, and so enter the Salamanca country. It was in this view that Loison had been directed to get possession of Mezamfrio and Pezo de Ragoa, and the march of Mermet was only intended to support Franceschi’s retreat, when the army should commence its movement towards the Tamega. The 9th of May, D’Argenton was arrested; the film fell from Soult’s eyes, and all the perils of his position broke at once upon his view. Treason in his camp, which he could not probe, a powerful enemy close in his front, the insurgents again active in his rear, and the French troops scattered from the Vouga to the Tamega, and from the Douro to the Lima, and commanded by officers, whose fidelity was necessarily suspected, while the extent of the conspiracy was unknown.