[199] According to the figures given by the Portuguese historian of the war, Da Luz Soriano, they stood as follows:--
Cavalry of the 6th, 11th, and 12th Regiments 258 sabres. 6th battalion of Cazadores 562 bayonets. 12th, 21st, and 24th line battalions 1,514 ”
A few troopers of the Lisbon Police Guard, forty-one in all, according to Soriano, deserted Junot and joined the army before Vimiero. Landsheit of the 20th Light Dragoons mentions their arrival, and says that they were put in company with his regiment. This would give 2,375 as the total of the Portuguese whom Trant commanded.
[200] _Well. Disp._ (iv. 78) says 1,400, but in his narrative of Roliça Sir Arthur accounts for 1,600, 1,200 in his right and 400 in his centre column. As a middle figure between Wellesley and Soriano, 2,000 would probably be safe.
[201] Their allies did not think much of their looks. Col. Leslie describes them thus: ‘The poor fellows had little or no uniform, but were merely in white jackets, and large broad-brimmed hats turned up at one side, some having feathers and others none, so that they cut rather a grotesque appearance’ (p. 40).
Turning once more into the road that skirts the coast, Wellesley marched on the thirteenth from Leiria, and reached Alcobaça on the fourteenth. Here he got his first news of the French: a brigade under Thomières had occupied the village till the previous day, and he learnt that General Delaborde, with a weak division, was somewhere in his front, in the direction of Obidos and Roliça.
Junot had received prompt information of the landing of the British in Mondego Bay; on the very day after it had commenced he was able to send orders to Loison to abandon his post in front of Badajoz and to march at once to join the main army. Meanwhile Delaborde was sent out from Lisbon on August 6 to observe and, if possible, contain Wellesley, till Junot should have concentrated his whole field-army and be ready to fight. He was told to expect Loison from the direction of Thomar and Santarem, and to join him as soon as was possible. For his rather hazardous task he was given no more than five battalions of infantry and a single regiment of _chasseurs à cheval_, with five guns[202]--not much more than 5,000 men.