While a front of battle was thus presented, the rear was cleared of all the hospitals and heavy baggage; workmen were day and night employed to restore the fortifications of the strong places, and guns, ammunition, and provisions were brought up from Abrantes, by means of the animals and carts before employed in the siege of Badajos. Until all this was effected Portugal was on the brink of perdition, but the true peninsular character was now displayed, and in a manner that proclaims most forcibly the difficulties overcome by the English general, difficulties which have been little appreciated in his own country. The danger of Elvas had aroused all the bustle of the Portuguese government, and the regency were at first frightened at the consequences of their own conduct; but when they found their own tardy efforts were forestalled by the diligence of lord Wellington, they with prodigious effrontery asserted, that he had exhausted Elvas for the supply of the British troops, and that they had replenished it! His imperturbable firmness at this crisis was wonderful, and the more admirable, because Mr. Perceval’s policy, prevailing in the cabinet, had left him without a halfpenny in the military chest, and almost without a hope of support in his own country: yet his daring was not a wild cast of the net for fortune; it was supported by great circumspection, and a penetration and activity that let no advantages escape. He had thrown a wide glance over the Peninsula, knew his true situation, had pointed out to the Spaniards how to push their war to advantage, while the French were thus concentrated in Estremadura, and at this period had a right to expect assistance from them; for Soult and Marmont were united at Badajos, the army of the north and the army of the centre were paralysed by the flight of the king, and this was the moment, when Figueras having been surprised by Rovira, and Taragona besieged by Suchet, the French armies of Catalonia and Aragon were entirely occupied with those places. Thus, nearly the whole of the Peninsula was open to the enterprizes of the Spaniards. They could have collected, of Murcians and Valencians only, above forty thousand regulars, besides partizans, with which they might have marched against Madrid, while the Gallicians operated in Castile, and the Asturian army supported the enterprizes of the northern partidas. [Sidenote: See Book XIII. Chap. I.]