[440] Viz. the brigades of Mackinnon and Champlemond of the 3rd Division: the 1st, 9th, 38th, British, and the 8th Portuguese of Leith, Craufurd’s five battalions, Pack’s five battalions, three battalions of Coleman—total 14,000 men. See Tables in [Appendix].
[441] As a matter of fact, the modern railway from Coimbra and Pampilhosa to the upper Mondego does not use the pass of Bussaco, but goes north of it, round the left flank of Wellington’s position, by Luso, far south of the Boialvo road to Mortagoa.
[442] The firing commenced soon after 12 noon. See Tomkinson, p. 44.
[443] This was imagined to be the case by some observers, who overrated Masséna’s loss, and thought he had 10,000 casualties on the 27th.
[444] See, for example, Fririon, pp. 55-6, Toreno, ii. 164. Thiers, and even Napier, iii. 32-3.
[445] Dispatches, vi. 460. Had he proposed to blast away sections, so as to make it impassable for wheel traffic, as he did with the Estrada Nova?
[446] Dispatches, vii. pp. 306-7.
[447] See Tomkinson, p. 44, and von Linsingen’s Diary, in Beamish, i. 292. Fririon and the other French narratives speak of the difficulties of transporting the wounded, but do not mention that any were abandoned.
[448] Unless some of Reynier’s rearguard cavalry may have looked in at Bussaco on the 30th, when Craufurd had gone. This is possible. Trant’s Portuguese were back in the place on Oct. 4.
[449] This seems proved by the ‘Table of Damages committed by the French Army in 1810-11,’ published by the Coimbra authorities in 1812, which gives the number of houses burnt and persons killed in each rural-deanery (arcyprestado) of the bishopric of Coimbra. Omitting the rural-deaneries south of the Mondego, where the damages were mainly done during the retreat of the French in March 1811, and taking only those north of the river, where no hostile column appeared after October 1810—the district having been protected by Trant and Wilson during Masséna’s return march,—we find the following statistics:—