7º. Lord Wellington was within four hours march of either end of the defile, through which the French army was moving. He might have sent the first division and the cavalry (forming with Portuguese regular troops, and Trant’s militia, a mass of twelve or fourteen thousand men) to Sardao, to head the French in the defile; while the second, third, fourth, fifth, and light divisions, advancing by Martagao, assailed their rear. That he did not do so, is to be attributed to his political position. War is full of mischances, and the loss of a single brigade might have caused the English government to abandon the contest altogether. Nevertheless, his retreat was more critically dangerous than such an attack would have been, and in a military view the battle of Busaco should not have been fought: it was extraneous to his original plan, it was forced upon him by events, and was in fine a political battle. 8º. Massena’s march, being unopposed, was successful. The allied army could not cope with him in the open country between Busaco and the sea, where his cavalry would have had a fair field; hence lord Wellington, reverting to his original plan, retreated by the Coimbra and Espinhal roads. But the prince of Esling was at Avelans de Cima and Milheada on the 30th, the allied cavalry and the light division being still on the right bank of the Mondego, which was fordable in many places below Coimbra. Had the French general, directing his march through Tentugal, crossed at those fords, and pushed rapidly on to Leiria, by the route sir Arthur Wellesley followed, in 1808, against Junot, the communication with Lisbon would have been cut: terror and confusion would then have raged in the capital, the patriarch’s faction would have triumphed, and a dangerous battle must have been risked before the Lines could be reached. 9º. When the allies had gained Leiria, and secured their line of retreat, the fate of Portugal was still in the French general’s hands. If he had established a fresh base at Coimbra, employed the ninth corps to seize Oporto, secured his line of communication with that city and with Almeida by fortified posts, and afterwards, extending his position by the left, attacked Abrantes, and given his hand to a corps sent by Soult from the south; not only would the campaign have been so far a successful one, but in no other manner could he have so effectually frustrated his adversary’s political and military projects. Lord Wellington dreaded such a proceeding, and hailed the renewed advance of the French army, as the rising of a heavy cloud discovering a clear sky in the horizon beneath. [Sidenote: Appendix, No. VII. Sect. 2.]