Alhandra, the lines of Torres Vedras were being constructed under the
direction of Colonel Fletcher and this so secretly and with such careful
measures as to remain unknown to British and Portuguese alike. Even
those employed upon the works knew of nothing save the section upon
which they happened to be engaged, and had no conception of the
stupendous and impregnable whole that was preparing.

To these lines it was the British commander's plan to effect a slow
retreat before the French flood when it should sweep forward, thus
luring the enemy onward into a country which he had commanded should be
laid relentlessly waste, that there that enemy might fast be starved
and afterwards destroyed. To this end had his proclamations gone forth,
commanding that all the land lying between the rivers Tagus and Mondego,
in short, the whole of the country between Beira and Torres Vedras,
should be stripped naked, converted into a desert as stark and empty
as the Sahara. Not a head of cattle, not a grain of corn, not a skin of
vine, not a flask of oil, not a crumb of anything affording nourishment
should be left behind. The very mills were to be rendered useless,
bridges were to be broken down, the houses emptied of all property,
which the refugees were to carry away with them from the line of
invasion.

Such was his terrible demand upon the country for its own salvation. But
such, as we have seen, was not war as Principal Souza and some of his
adherents understood it. They had not the foresight to perceive the
inevitable result of this strategic plan if effectively and thoroughly
executed. They did not even realise that the devastation had better be
effected by the British in this defensive--and in its results at the
same time overwhelmingly offensive--manner than by the French in the
course of a conquering onslaught. They did not realise these things
partly because they did not enjoy Wellington's full confidence, and in a
greater measure because they were blinded by self-interest, because, as
O'Moy told Forjas, they placed private considerations above public
duty. The northern nobles whose lands must suffer opposed the measure
violently; they even opposed the withdrawal of labour from those lands
which the Militia Act had rendered necessary. And Antonio de Souza made
himself their champion until he was broken by Wellington's ultimatum to
the Council. For broken he was. The nation had come to a parting of the
ways. It had been broug