[456] By no fault of his own, according to D’Urban. The orders for him to move were, by some delay at head-quarters, only forthcoming on June 8th. Only two of the four Tras-os-Montes militia regiments were then mobilized, and it took a long time to collect the rest and the transport needed for moving across the frontier.
[457] D’Urban’s manœuvres on both sides of the Douro are detailed at great length in his very interesting diary, and his official correspondence, both of which have been placed at my disposal. He worked on both sides of the Douro, but went definitely north of it after July 1.
[458] Two battalions of 23rd Léger and one of 1st Line from Thomières’s division.
[459] For the curious story of their ignorance of their own resources see Sir Howard Douglas’s Life, pp. 156-7.
[460] Dispatches, ix. p. 274.
[461] Ibid., ix. p. 276.
[462] An interesting dispatch from D’Urban to Beresford describes the information he had got on the 5th by a daring reconnaissance along Marmont’s rear: there was not that morning any French force west of Monte de Cubillos, six miles down-stream from Pollos.
[463] Ninety-four to be exact. See 28th Chasseurs in table of Marmont’s army in [Appendix].
[464] The 122nd Line had been in Mermet’s division, in January 1809, but they had been in reserve at Corunna, and had not fired a shot in that battle.
[465] Mémoires of Lemonnier-Delafosse of the 31st Léger, pp. 177-8.