In the Portuguese army, since the month of April, the deaths had been four thousand, the disbanded four thousand, the deserters ten thousand, the recruits thirty thousand; the numbers were therefore increased, but the efficiency for grand evolutions rather decreased. The Spanish auxilliaries also, ill-governed and turbulent, were at open discord with the Portuguese, and their general was neither able in war himself nor amenable to those who were. While the heights of Almada were naked, the left bank of the Tagus could not be watched with less than twelve thousand men; and as from Alcanhete the march to Torres Vedras was shorter than from Cartaxo, two British divisions were employed to protect the Lines; during the attack upon Pernes, Reynier also might break out from Santarem, and ten thousand men were required to hold him in check: thus, the disposable troops would have fallen short of forty-five thousand, comprehending soldiers of three nations and many recruits. Lord Wellington’s experience in the movement of great armies was not at this period equal to his adversary’s, and the attack was to be made in a difficult country, with deep roads, where the Alviella, the Almonda, and other rivers, greatly swelled by incessant rain, furnished a succession of defensive lines to the enemy, and the means of carrying off two-thirds of his army. Victory might crown the attempt, but the stakes were unequal. If Massena lost even a third of his force, the ninth corps could have replaced it. If lord Wellington failed, the Lines were gone, and with them the whole Peninsula. He judged it best to remain on the defensive; to strengthen the Lines; and to get the works at Almada sufficiently forward; meanwhile, quieting the troubles occasioned by the Patriarch, to perfect the discipline of the Portuguese troops, and improve the organization of the militia in rear of the enemy. In this view, the light division, supported by a brigade of cavalry, occupied Valle and the heights overlooking the marsh and inundation; the bridge at the English end of the causeway was mined; a sugar-loaf hill, looking straight down the approach, was crowned with embrasures for artillery and laced in front with a zigzag covered way, capable of containing five hundred infantry: thus the causeway being blocked, the French could not, while the inundation kept up, make any sudden irruption from Santarem.