2º. It has been observed, that Massena, in the first week might have easily passed the Tagus, secured the resources of the Alemtejo, and sent the British fleet out of the port. This was not so practicable as it might at first sight appear. The rains were heavy; the fords impassable; the French had not boats sufficient for a bridge; a weak detachment would have been useless, a strong detachment would have been dangerous: to collect boats, cast a bridge, and raise the entrenchments necessary to defend it, in the face of the allied forces, would have been neither a safe nor certain operation; moreover, Massena would then have relinquished the certain aid of the ninth for the uncertain assistance of the fifth corps. 3º. Lord Wellington conjecturing the French to be in full retreat, had like to have received a severe check at Santarem; he recovered himself in time, and with this exception, it would be difficult to support essential objections to his operations: yet, many have been urged, as that, he might have straightened the enemy’s quarters more effectually at Santarem; and that Hill’s corps, passing through Abrantes, could have destroyed the bridges at Punhete, and lining the Zezere cut off Massena’s reinforcements, and obliged him to abandon his positions or even to capitulate. This last idea, advanced at the time by colonel Squires, an engineer of great zeal and ability, perfectly acquainted with the localities, merits examination. As a simple operation it was feasible, but the results were not so certain; the Lines of Almada being unfinished, the rashness of leaving the Tagus unguarded, before an enemy who possessed eighty large boats, exclusive of those forming the bridges on the Zezere, is apparent; Hill’s corps must then have been replaced, and the army before Santarem would have been so weak as to invite a concentrated attack, to the great danger of the Torres Vedras Lines. Nor was the forcing of the French works at Punhete a matter of certainty; the ground was strong, there were two bridges over the Zezere, and the sixth corps, being within a short march, might, by passing at Martinchel, have taken Hill in flank.