4º. The same officer, at a later period, miscalculating the enemy’s numbers at thirty thousand men, and the allies at more than seventy thousand regulars, proposed that Beresford should cross the Tagus at Azingha, behind the Almonda, and march upon Golegao, while lord Wellington, concentrating at Rio Mayor, pushed upon Torres Novas. It was no common head that conceived this project, by which seventy thousand men would, in a single march, have been placed in the midst of the enemy’s extended quarters; but the hand of Napoleon could scarcely have launched such a thunder-bolt. Massena had still fifty thousand fighting-men; the boats from Abrantes must have been brought down, to pass the Tagus; the concentration of troops at Rio Mayor could scarcely have escaped the enemy’s notice; exact concert, in point of time, was essential, yet the eighth corps could have held the allies in check on the Alviella, while Reynier, from Santarem, and Ney, from Thomar, crushed Beresford between the Almonda and the Tagus: moreover the roads about Tremes were nearly impassable from rain during December; in January, Soult, of whose operations I shall speak in the next book, was menacing the Alemtejo, and a disaster happening to the allies would have relieved the enemy’s difficulties, when nothing else could. A campaign is like other works of art; accessaries, however splendid, must be rejected when not conducive to the main object. That judgement, which duly classes the value of every feasible operation, is the best quality of a general, and lord Wellington possessed it in a remarkable degree; to it, his genius and his courage were both subservient; without it he might have performed many brilliant exploits in the Peninsula, but could never have conducted the war to a successful end. BOOK XII. CHAPTER I. In the preceding book, Spanish affairs have been little noticed, although lord Wellington’s combinations were deeply affected by them. The general position of the allies, extending from Coruña to Cadiz, presented a great crescent, in the convex of which the French armies were operating, and it was clear that, when checked at Lisbon, the most important point, their wings, could reinforce the centre, unless the allied forces, at the horns of the crescent, acted vigorously on a system which the harbours and fortresses, at either extremity, pointed out as suitable to those who possessed the absolute command of the sea. A British army and fleet were therefore established at Cadiz, and a squadron of frigates at Coruña; and how far this warfare relieved the pressure on lord Wellington I shall now show.