Note 238 — SECTION XXIV: CHAPTER II
Reading edition
The 3rd Division arrived some time before the 6th and the Light were in actual touch with the enemy.
Picton writes about this: ‘Masséna with full 20,000 men was on the heights, and in the city of Guarda, when I made my appearance at 9 in the morning, with three British and two Portuguese regiments.... He ought immediately to have attacked me, but allowed me to remain within 400 yards of his main body for about two hours, before the other columns came up. But of course their movements were alarming him, and decided him not to hazard an attack, the failure of which would have probably brought on the total discomfiture of his army.’ Letter in Robinson’s Life of Picton, vol. ii. pp. 3, 4.