Meanwhile Marmont was concentrating his army in the Salamanca country, and it was rumoured that he meant to attack Ciudad Rodrigo. Lord Wellington was somewhat disturbed by this information; he knew indeed that the flooding of the rivers in the north, would prevent a blockade, and he was also assured that Marmont had not yet obtained a battering train. But the Spanish generals and engineers had neglected the new works and repairs of Ciudad Rodrigo; even the provisions at St. Joa de Pesquiera had not been brought up; the fortress had only thirty days’ supply, Almeida was in as bad a state, and the grand project of invading Andalusia was likely to be baulked by these embarrassments. On the 30th Soult’s advance from Cordova being decided, the fifth division was brought over the Guadiana as a reserve to the covering army; but Power’s Portuguese brigade, with some cavalry, of the same nation, still maintained the investment on the right bank, the siege was urged forward very rapidly, forty-eight pieces of artillery were in constant play, and the sap against St. Roque advanced. The enemy was equally active, his fire was very destructive, and his progress in raising the ravelin and counter-guard of the front attacked was very visible. [Sidenote: 1812. April.] The 1st of April the sap was pushed close to the San Roque, the Trinidad bastion crumbled under the stroke of the bullet, and the flank of the Santa Maria, which was casemated and had hitherto resisted the batteries, also began to yield. The 2d the face of the Trinidad was very much broken, but at the Santa Maria the casemates being laid open, the bullets were lost in their cavities, and the garrison commenced a retrenchment to cut off the whole of the attacked front, from the town. In the night a new battery against the San Roque was armed, and two officers with some sappers gliding behind that outwork, gagged the sentinel, placed powder-barrels and a match against the dam of the inundation, and retired undiscovered, but the explosion did not destroy the dam, and the inundation remained. Nor did the sap make progress, because of the French musketeers; for though the marksmen set against them slew many they were reinforced by means of a raft with parapets, which crossed the inundation, and men also passed by the cloth communication from the Trinidad gate.