Early in October artillery officers had been directed to collect boats for crossing both the Tagus and the Zezere. Montbrun’s cavalry, stretching along the right bank of the former, gathered provisions, and stored them at Santarem, and both there and at Barquiña (a creek in the Tagus, below the mouth of the Zezere), rafts were formed and boats constructed with wheels, to move from one place to another; but, from the extreme paucity of materials and tools, the progress was necessarily slow. Meanwhile Fane, reinforced by some infantry, watched them closely from the left bank; Carlos d’España came down from Castello Branco to Abrantes; Trant acted sharply on the side of Ourem, and Wilson’s Portuguese militia so infested the country from Espinhal to the Zezere, that Loison’s division was detached upon Thomar to hold him in check. Towards the end of October, however, all the hospitals, stores, and other incumbrances of the French army were removed to Santarem, and, on the 31st, two thousand men forded the Zezere above Punhete to cover the construction of a bridge. From this body, four hundred infantry and two hundred dragoons, under general Foy, moved against Abrantes, and, after skirmishing with the garrison, made towards Sobreira Formosa. The allies’ bridge of Villa Velha was foolishly burnt, but Foy, with a smaller escort, pushed for Pena Macor, and the 8th had gained Ciudad Rodrigo, on his way to France, having undertaken to carry information of the state of affairs to Napoleon; a task which he performed with singular rapidity, courage, and address. The remainder of his escort retiring down the Zezere, were attacked by Wilson, and suffered some loss. The bridge on the Zezere was destroyed by floods, the 6th; but the enemy having entrenched the height over Punhete, not only restored it, but cast a second at Martinchel, higher up the river. Massena then commenced his retrograde march, but with great caution, because his position was overlooked from the Monte Agraça, and the defile of Alemquer being in the rear of the eighth corps, it was an operation of some danger to withdraw from before the Lines. To cover the movement from the knowledge of the Partizans in the rear, Montbrun’s cavalry marched upon Leiria and his detachments scoured the roads to Pombal, on the one side, and towards the Zezere, on the other. Meanwhile the sixth corps marched from Otta and Alemquer to Thomar, and Loison removed to Golegao with his division, reinforced by a brigade of dragoons. These dispositions being made, general Clausel withdrew from Sobral during the night of the 14th, and the whole of the eighth corps passed the defile in the morning of the 15th, under the protection of some cavalry left in front of Aruda, and of a strong rear-guard on the height covering Alemquer. The second corps then retreated from Alhandra by the royal causeway upon Santarem, while the eighth corps marched by Alcoentre upon Alcanhede and Torres Novas.