Sir Arthur Wellesley having, by this time, seen the intercepted letters himself, became convinced that Soult’s force was not overrated at thirty thousand; and the duke of Dalmatia, who had also intercepted some English letters, learned that, on the first of August, the allies were still at Talavera, and ill-informed of his march. Thus, the one general perceived his danger and the other his advantage at the same moment. Mortier was immediately ordered, by the duke of Dalmatia, to take a position with the fifth corps at Cazatejada, to seize the boat-bridge at Almaraz, if it was not destroyed, and to patrole towards Arzobispo. The second corps was, likewise, directed upon the same place; and the head of the sixth entered Plasencia. The further progress of the allies was thus barred in front; the Tagus was on their left; impassable mountains on their right; and it was certain that Cuesta’s retreat would immediately bring the king and Victor down upon their rear. The peril of this situation was apparent to every soldier in the British ranks, and produced a general inquietude. No man felt the slightest confidence in the Spaniards, and the recollection of the stern conflict at Talavera, aided by a sense of exhaustion from long abstinence, depressed the spirits of men and officers. The army was, indeed, ready to fight, but all persons felt that it must be for safety, not for glory. In this trying moment, sir Arthur Wellesley abated nothing of his usual calmness and fortitude. He knew not the full extent of the danger; but, assuming the enemy in his front to be thirty thousand men, and Victor to have twenty-five thousand others in his rear, he judged that to continue the offensive would be rash, because he must fight and beat those two marshals separately within three days, which, with starving and tired troops, inferior in number, was scarcely to be accomplished. But, to remain where he was on the defensive was equally unpromising, because the road from Talavera to Arzobispo led through Calera, in the rear of Oropesa; and thus Victor could intercept the only line of retreat, and a battle must then be fought, in an unfavourable position, against the united forces of the enemy, estimated, as we have seen, to be above fifty thousand men. One resource remained: to pass the bridge of Arzobispo immediately, and take up a line of defence behind that river, before the French could seize the Col de Mirabete, and so cut off the road to Truxillo and Merida--a hard alternative; but the long-cherished error relative to Soult’s weakness had dried up the springs of success, and left the campaign, like a withered stem, without fruit or foliage.