Note 103 — SECTION XXIII: CHAPTER III

This fear is expressed in a letter to Charles Stuart dated January 16 (Dispatches, vii. 147), on the news that Mortier’s cavalry had seized the bridge of Merida. ‘The passage of the Tagus by Mortier removes to a distant period the danger of Alemtejo; but it shows that we may be attacked at an early period in our positions. For Mortier, supposing him to march by Almaraz, can be on the Zezere in the first days of February, and I think it possible that the battle for the possession of this country, and probably the fate of the Peninsula, will be fought in less than a month from this time.’