Note 121 — RETREAT TO TORRES VEDRAS.

After driving the allied rear-guard from Sobral, “the French were pursuing their advantage,” says Doctor Southey, “when a peasant fell into their hands, who, unlike his countrymen, answered without hesitation all the interrogatories which were put to him; he told the commander that they were close upon the British lines, and pointed out to him where the batteries were, in constructing which he had himself laboured. Had it not been for this warning,” &c.—[Surely works that extended nearly thirty miles, for which fifty thousand trees had been allotted—on which three thousand artillerymen and engineers, and seven thousand peasants, had laboured—and on whose armament three hundred and nineteen heavy guns had been employed; works like these could not have been involved in all this mystery, and their very locality kept a secret from an officer like Massena, who commanded the most unbounded sources of information!]—M.