[FROM THE MEMOIRS OF MANUEL, OR MANUS, MacNEILL, AN AGENT IN THE SECRET SERVICE OF GREAT BRITAIN DURING THE PENINSULAR CAMPAIGNS OF 1808-13.] I have not the precise date in 1811 when Fuentes and I set out for Salamanca, but it must have been either in the third or fourth week of July. In Portugal just then Lord Wellington was fencing, so to speak, with the points of three French armies at once. On the south he had Soult, on the north Dorsenne, and between them Marmont's troops were scattered along the valley of the Tagus, with Madrid as their far base. Being solidly concentrated, by short and rapid movements he could keep these three armies impotent for offence; but _en revanche_, he could make no overmastering attack upon any one of them. If he advanced far against Soult or against Dorsenne he must bring Marmont down on his flank, left or right; while, if he reached out and struck for the Tagus Valley, Marmont could borrow from right and left without absolutely crippling his colleagues, and roll up seventy thousand men to bar the road on Madrid. In short, the opposing armies stood at a deadlock, and there were rumours that Napoleon, who was pouring troops into Spain from the north, meant to follow and take the war into his own hands. Now, the strength and the weakness of the whole position lay with Marmont; while the key of it, curiously enough, was Ciudad Rodrigo, garrisoned by Dorsenne--as in due time appeared. For the present, Wellington, groping for the vital spot, was learning all that could be learnt about Marmont's strength, its disposition, and (a matter of first importance) its victualling, Spain being a country where large armies starve. How many men were being drafted down from the north? How was Marmont scattering his cantonments to feed them? What was the state of the harvest? What provisions did Salamanca contain? And what stores were accumulating at Madrid, Valladolid, Burgos? I had just arrived at Lisbon in a _chassemarée_ of San Sebastian, bringing a report of the French troops, which for a month past had been pouring across the bridge of Irun: and how I had learnt this is worth telling. There was a cobbler, Martinez by name--a little man with a green shade over his eyes--who plied his trade in a wooden hutch at the end of the famous bridge. While he worked he counted every man, horse, standard, wagon, or gun that passed, and forwarded the numbers without help of speech or writing (for he could not even write his own name). He managed it all with his hammer, tapping out a code known to our fellows who roamed the shore below on the pretence of hunting for shellfish, but were prevented by the French cordon from getting within sight of the bridge. As for Martinez, the French Generals themselves gossipped around his hutch while he cobbled industriously at the soldiers' shoes.