To occupy fifty miles of fortification, to man one hundred and fifty forts, and to work six hundred pieces of artillery, required a number of men; but a great fleet in the Tagus, a superb body of marines sent out from England, the civic guards of Lisbon, the Portuguese heavy artillery corps, the militia and the ordenança of Estremadura furnished, altogether, a powerful reserve. The native artillery and the militia supplied all the garrisons of the forts on the second, and most of those on the first line. The British marines occupied the third line: the navy manned the gun-boats on the river, and aided, in various ways, the operation in the field. The recruits from the depôts, and all the men on furlough, being called in, rendered the Portuguese army stronger than it had yet been; and the British army, reinforced, as I have said, both from Cadiz and England, and remarkably healthy, presented such a front as a general would desire to see in a dangerous crisis. [Illustration: _Vol. 3, Plate 8._ LINES of _Torres Vedras_ 1810. _Published by T. & W. Boone 1830._] It was, however, necessary not only to have strength, but the appearance of strength; and lord Wellington had so dealt with Romana that, without much attention to the wishes of his own government, the latter agreed to join the allies with two divisions. The first, under his own command, crossed the Tagus at Aldea Gallega on the 19th of October, reached head-quarters the 24th, and was posted at Enxara de los Cavalleros, just behind the Monte Agraça; the other followed in a few days: and thus, before the end of October, not less than one hundred and thirty thousand fighting men received rations within the Lines; more than seventy thousand being regular troops, completely disposable and unfettered by the works. Meanwhile, Mendizabel, with the remainder of the Spanish army, reinforced by Madden’s Portuguese dragoons, advanced towards Zafra. Ballasteros, at the same time, moved upon Araceña; and Mortier, ignorant of Romana’s absence, retired across the Morena on the 8th, for Soult was then seriously menacing Cadiz. Thus fortune combined, with the dispositions of the English general, to widen the distance, and to diversify the objects of the French armies, at the moment when the allies were concentrating the greatest force on the most important point.