Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: BOOK III. COMBATS ON THE COA AND AGUEDA. " / haw fished in many troubled waters, but Spanish troubled waters, I will never try again." Thus said Sir A. Wellesley after the campaign of Tala- vera, by which he had acquired the title of Viscount Wellington and a thorough knowledge of the Spanish character. Looking then to Portugal as his base for future operations, he conceived and commenced the gigantic lines of Torres Vedras as a depository for the independence of the Peninsula—a grand project conceived and enforced with all the might of genius. But while preparing this stronghold he did not resign the frontier, and when Massena, Prince of Esling, menaced Portugal in 1810 with sixty-five thousand fighting men in line, besides garrisons and reserves, he found a mingled British and Portuguese army ready to oppose him. This defensive force was disposed in two distinct masses. One under General Hill opposed invasion by the line of the Tagus, the other under Lord Wellington opposed it by the line of the Mondego ; they were however separated by the great Estrella mountain and its offshoots ; wherefore, when Massena took Ciudad Rodrigo he could concentrate his whole army on either line, moving in front of the Estrella by a shorter and easier road than the English general could concentrate his troops behind that mountain. Lord Wellington opened indeed a military road which shortened the lineof co-operation with Hill; yet this was only an alleviation, the advantage remained with the French, and Wellington had to trust his own quickness and the strength of intermediate positions for uniting his army in the lines of Torres Vedras. He would not however yield any ground without force, and previous to the fall of Ciudad Rodrigo detached General Robert Craufurd with the light division...