Cuesta was a singular medley of opposite qualities. He was exceedingly brave--had some daring--overweening pride--and a most asinine obstinacy. Finding it desirable for the prosperity of the common cause to submit to the old man’s folly, Sir Arthur Wellesley acted with singular forbearance. It had been arranged that Victor should be attacked on the 23rd--and when the British general reached his confederate’s quarters to arrange the necessary details on the evening of the 22nd, Cuesta was asleep, and no one dared to waken him. At dawn, the British divisions were under arms, but Cuesta could not be disturbed till seven! At last an interview did take place--and then the weak old man positively declined to fight, because the day was _Sunday_. Victor had but twenty thousand men with him at the moment. The Alberche was fordable--the right and centre assailable: Cuesta’s army numbered forty-seven thousand, and Wellesley’s about twenty-one. Was ever such an opportunity lost?--and all, too, through the stupid bigotry of a sleepy-headed Spaniard.[86] Meanwhile the great scarcity of provisions obliged the British to halt for a day or two, and Wellesley, to obtain supplies, took a position behind the Alberche. TALAVERA. Cuesta attacked by Victor--Saved by the division of British Guards.--Position selected by Lord Wellington.--Battle of Talavera.--Light regiments join the army by a forced march. While Sir Arthur halted at Talavera, having two divisions across the river at Casa Leguas, Cuesta followed the French, who as he persuaded himself were retreating--but Sebastiani had marched from Toledo and joined Victor, while Joseph Buonaparte, having united his corps to Jourdan’s, was hastening to a common centre. The whole united at Torrijos, forming a _corps d’armée_ of nearly fifty thousand men. Cuesta, with all his Spanish obstinacy, would still insist that the French were not concentrating, but retreating,--but the delusion was short. Victor suddenly attacked him--and as his retreat was most disorderly, nothing but prompt assistance from Sherbrooke’s division could have saved the stupid old man from destruction. When this was effected, the Guards crossed the river, leaving Mackenzie’s division in possession of the wood and convent on the right bank of the Alberche. A recent deliverance seemed to have had no effect upon Spanish obstinacy. Though certain of being attacked, Cuesta lay loosely on the Alberche, into which, had his army been defeated, it must have been driven pell-mell. Happily, Sir Arthur, in reconnoitring the ground in the neighbourhood, discovered an extensive line on which both armies might be placed to their mutual advantage. “He took his measures with such promptitude, and issued his orders with such coolness and perspicuity, that every battalion, Spanish as well as English, stepped into the very spot which his admirable foresight had marked out for it.”[87]