CHAPTER XX.
THE RETREAT OF THE FRENCH.
It is not my intention, were I even adequate to the task, to trace with anything like accuracy the events of the war at this period.

In fact, to those who, like myself, were performing a mere subaltern character, the daily movements of our own troops, not to speak of the continual changes of the enemy, were perfectly unknown, and an English newspaper was more ardently longed for in the Peninsula than by the most eager crowd of a London coffee-room; nay, the results of the very engagements we were ourselves concerned in, more than once, first reached us through the press of our own country.

It is easy enough to understand this.

The officer in command of the regiment, and how much more, the captain of a troop, or the subaltern under him, knows nothing beyond the sphere of his own immediate duty; by the success or failure of his own party his knowledge is bounded, but how far he or his may influence the fortune, of the day, or of what is taking place elsewhere, he is totally ignorant; and an old Fourteenth man did not badly explain, his ideas on the matter, who described Busaco as "a great noise and a great smoke, booming artillery and rattling small-arms, infernal confusion, and to all seeming, incessant blundering, orders and counter-orders, ending with a crushing charge; when, not being hurt himself, nor having hurt anybody, he felt much pleased to learn that they had gained a victory." It is then sufficient for all the purposes of my narrative, when I mention that Massena continued his retreat by Santarem and Thomar, followed by the allied army, who, however desirous of pressing upon the rear of their enemy, were still obliged to maintain their communication with the lines, and also to watch the movement of the large armies which, under Ney and Soult, threatened at any unguarded moment to attack them in flank.
The position which Massena occupied at Santarem, naturally one of great strength, and further improved by intrenchments, defied any attack on the part of Lord Wellington, until the arrival of the long-expected reinforcements from England.

These had sailed in the early part of January, but delayed by adverse winds, only reached Lisbon on the 2d of March; and so correctly was the French marshal apprised of the circumstance, and so accurately did he anticipate the probable result, that on the fourth he broke up his encampment, and recommenced his retrograde movement, with an army now reduced to forty thousand fighting men, and with two thousand sick, destroying all his baggage and guns that could not be horsed.