THE
PRIVATE JOURNAL
OF
JUDGE-ADVOCATE LARPENT,

ATTACHED TO THE HEAD-QUARTERS OF

LORD WELLINGTON DURING THE PENINSULAR WAR,

FROM 1812 TO ITS CLOSE.

EDITED

By SIR GEORGE LARPENT, Bart.

THIRD EDITION.

LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET,
Publisher in Ordinary to Her Majesty.

MDCCCLIV.

The Author and Publisher reserve to themselves the right of Translating this Work.

LONDON: W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.

PREFACE
TO THE SECOND EDITION.

It has been very gratifying to me to witness the flattering manner in which this Journal has been received by the Public, and, with one exception, by the several writers who have noticed it.

As my own part in the Work is so small, the risk I ran in publishing it was small in proportion; but I confess that I did feel anxious not to damage the fair fame of my late brother.

The exception to which I allude is that of the Reviewer in the “Athenæum,” a paper which (having been a subscriber to it for many years) I hold in high estimation.

The writer must pardon me for observing (whilst fully admitting his right to state his conscientious opinion of the work itself), that the sneers at Mr. Larpent’s having been Fifth Wrangler, and at his slow progress at the Bar, are strangely misplaced. Surely a person attached to literature cannot seriously deprecate academic honours, or deny their primâ facie evidence of ability. And as for the slow progress in the laborious pursuit of the law, the Reviewer must have been aware that such has been the fortune of many eminent Lawyers who have afterwards risen to the highest honours of the profession. Legal or political connexions, or a fortunate opportunity of displaying latent talents, are in truth the chief causes of rapid success at the Bar. None of these did my brother possess or obtain.

Is it not, therefore, somewhat severe to argue from this admission of mine, that he was a person not above mediocrity, and to represent him as merely a respectable sort of second-rate plodding official? The writer in the “Athenæum” may have had peculiar opportunities of judging, and it is not for me to contest the opinion he may have thus formed, but it certainly was not the opinion of my brother’s contemporaries. The observations of the writer in the “Athenæum” involve also charges of more importance than his remarks upon my brother’s abilities—

“We see,” he says, “in the sweeping and unqualified charges against the soldiers of England, Scotland, and Ireland, the censorious habits of one who filled the post of Judge-Advocate General, and the passage,” he adds, “comes with bad grace from one who narrates his own discomforts ad nauseam.”

I had allowed every passage to stand which expressed the opinion of the Author upon public matters, nor did I expunge those complaints of personal inconveniences which a man, for the first time placed in my brother’s situation, naturally feels, and as naturally describes in his letters to his family.

It has been too much the fashion to garble such Journals to suit the public taste; but my aim was to give the truth, and the whole truth, of all that my brother witnessed and described in his Journal.

This rather uncommon fidelity is, I believe, one of the chief merits of the work, and one of the chief causes of its success.

If my brother, in commenting upon the want of selfcontrol and irregular habits and propensities of the British soldiery (defects which the Duke’s own Despatches, his proclamation upon the retreat from Burgos, and the uniform testimony of the writers upon the Peninsular War unfortunately confirm), had omitted to notice their many redeeming qualities, he might have been partly open to the rebuke of the writer alluded to; but throughout his narrative Mr. Larpent bears the strongest testimony to the undaunted courage, the immoveable steadiness of the British soldiers under the severest fire, and the perfect reliance the Duke always placed upon the bravery of his army.

The truth is, that the conscription in France forced into the ranks of its army a more intelligent and more intellectual class of persons than those who volunteered into our service.

Thus the moral conduct of the French soldier was perhaps more correct; but the stubborn courage, the pluck, if I may use such an expression, of the British soldier, guided by officers taken from the élite of our gentry, and almost fastidiously alive to the sense of honour and of duty, enabled them in the Peninsula, at Waterloo, and wherever British troops have been called into action, to maintain a decided superiority over their opponents.

It has been remarked, that I have never mentioned the lady to whom these Letters were addressed.

She was my much honoured and loved mother; but I deprived myself of the pleasure of noticing her many excellent qualities, lest it should be thought that, in praising her, I sought to confer credit upon myself, or to gratify my own vanity.

She was the daughter of Sir James Porter, in his day a distinguished diplomatist, successively employed in the Netherlands and Germany, and for many years ambassador to the Ottoman Porte. She married my father when my brother was very young, and became a second mother to him. There never was the slightest distinction between him and her own children, and had we not been told that we were by different mothers, we should never have known the fact from her conduct. That she possessed my brother’s warmest affections, these letters would have abundantly shown, had I not thought it better to omit many passages, which, however gratifying to her to whom they were addressed, could be of no interest to the public.

George Larpent.

London, June, 1853.

PREFACE
TO THE FIRST EDITION.

The Letters now laid before the Public were addressed by my brother to Mrs. Larpent, his step-mother, and my mother.

They came into my possession as Executor to my mother, and being also the sole Executor to my brother, I consider myself at liberty to use my own discretion in publishing them. With the exception of some matters exclusively private, and connected with family affairs, the letters are published as they were written, and not one word has been added.

Until the lamented death of the Duke of Wellington I did not feel myself justified in making these letters public. Not that they contain anything in the slightest degree derogating from the exalted estimate so universally entertained of the character of that great man; for, on the contrary, they tend to confirm the unanimous opinion entertained of his admirable qualities; but motives of delicacy forbad my offering to the world, during his Grace’s lifetime, the many personal anecdotes and opinions with which they abound.

The reader will naturally expect to know who and what the Author was, and give credit accordingly to the statements and observations in his Letters.

Francis Seymour Larpent was the eldest son of John Larpent, Esq., of East Sheen, Surrey, by his first wife, Frances, daughter of Maximilian Western, Esq., of Cokethorpe Park, Oxfordshire. His father, from his earliest youth, was employed in the public service. In 1763 he was Secretary to the Duke of Bedford at the Peace of Paris, and subsequently Secretary to the first Marquess of Hertford, when Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. For many years he was in the office of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and at his death in 1824, at a very advanced age, held the appointments of Secretary to the Lord Privy Seal, and of Examiner of all Theatrical Entertainments.

Francis Seymour was born in 1776. He was educated at Cheam School, under the Rev. W. Gilpin, well known and esteemed as a scholar and man of letters. From school he went to St. John’s College, Cambridge, where he distinguished himself, and took his degree as Fifth Wrangler, and was elected Fellow of that College. After studying the law under an eminent special pleader, Mr. Bayley, he was called to the Bar, and went the Western Circuit. Here he formed friendships with several eminent persons, among others with Lord Gifford, the Right Hon. C. Manners Sutton, afterwards Lord Canterbury, Mr. W. Adam, son of Lord Commissioner Adam, and the lamented Francis Horner—friendships which were extinguished only by death. His success upon the Circuit was slow, but his character as an able man and a sound lawyer stood high.

In 1812 he was tempted by the Right Hon. C. Manners Sutton, then Judge-Advocate General, to leave his profession, and to accept the situation of Judge-Advocate General to the armies in Spain under the command of the late Duke of Wellington, to remain at head-quarters with his Grace, and to manage the Courts-martial throughout the army.

At the close of the war in 1814, Mr. Larpent returned home with the last detachment of the British army from Bordeaux.

Upon his arrival in England he was appointed Judge-Advocate at Gibraltar; and a new Charter of Justice for that dependency having been framed, various civil, admiralty, and judicial duties were annexed to the appointment of Judge-Advocate. Whilst the new Charter was preparing, Mr. Larpent was appointed to carry on the proceedings of the Court-martial on General Sir John Murray, at Winchester; and was subsequently joined with Mr. King, on behalf of the Government of the United States of America, in the inquiry into the unfortunate transactions which had taken place in the prison at Dartmoor.

These several proceedings having been satisfactorily terminated, Mr. Larpent in the spring of 1815 was, at the recommendation of Lord Commissioner Adam, selected by His Royal Highness the Prince Regent to undertake the delicate and confidential duty of inquiring into the allegations of improper conduct abroad, on the part of the then Princess of Wales, afterwards Queen Caroline. This confidential mission was accepted by Mr. Larpent, upon the express condition that his appointment should emanate directly from the Administration, and that his duties (to use his own words) “should consist not in acting a spy upon the actions of Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales, but in examining and sifting the facts of the case, as stated and discovered by others.”

On this understanding, and after interviews with Lords Liverpool, Castlereagh, and Bathurst, and also with the approval of Lord Chief Justice Ellenborough, Mr. Larpent proceeded ostensibly to his appointment at Gibraltar, but really overland by Vienna, to see and consult with Count Munster, to whom he was accredited by the British Government “as its regularly-authorized, though secret and confidential, agent.”

However strong might be his own persuasion of the worse than improper conduct of the Princess, he felt the extreme difficulty of obtaining respectable parties to come forward with such evidence as would satisfy an English Court of Justice; and he never hesitated to represent the danger of taking public proceedings against her. Having conducted his mission with such prudence and discretion that its object was never known except to his employers, he proceeded to Gibraltar, and there executed his arduous civil and judicial duties to the entire satisfaction of the Governor, Sir George Don, and of the Secretary of State for the Colonies.

In 1820, upon leaving Gibraltar, he was again employed by the Government professionally in Italy upon matters connected with the unfortunate trial of Queen Caroline; and he communicated direct with the late Lord Gifford, upon whom, as Attorney-General, the management of the proceedings against Her Majesty officially devolved.

In 1821 Mr. Larpent was appointed by Lord Liverpool, one of the Commissioners of the Board of Audit of the Public Accounts. In 1824 he was transferred to the Board of Customs; and, in 1826, was appointed to the situation of Chairman of the Audit Board, in which he remained until his retirement, in 1843, from ill health.

He enjoyed his release from active official duties only about two years, dying in May, 1845. He was twice married; first, to Catharine, daughter of the late Frederick Reeves, Esq., of the East India Company’s Civil Service; and, secondly, to Charlotte, daughter to George Arnold Arnold, Esq., of Halsted Park, Kent, who survived him, but he left no issue by either.

The favourable opinion entertained of Mr. Larpent’s public services will be evident from the following testimonials which he received when he applied to Her Majesty’s Government for his retirement, viz.:—

(Copy.) No. 1.

Treasury Chambers,
23rd March, 1843.

Sir,

I am commanded by the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty’s Treasury to acquaint you that, the First Lord of the Treasury having communicated to the Board your wish to retire from the Board of Audit, their Lordships have been pleased to accede thereto, and will give directions for placing you on a retired allowance of 900l. per annum, to be paid to you in the same manner as the retired allowances of the Audit Office are paid.

In thus acceding to your wishes, my Lords desire me to state, that they feel themselves called upon to express the high sense which they entertain of the integrity, zeal, and ability with which you have discharged the duties of the important situations which you have successively filled, and the deep regret which they feel for the cause which now compels you to retire from the Chair of the Board of Audit.

I am, Sir,
Your most obedient Servant,
(Signed) G. Clerk.

To F. S. Larpent, Esq.

(Extract.) No. 2.

Downing Street,
March 3rd, 1843.

My dear Sir,

I have learnt with great regret that we are about to lose your services in the Audit Board, over which you have so long presided, with equal advantage to the public and satisfaction to the Treasury. I only hope that you will reap in the improvement of your health a benefit equal to that which your retirement will deprive you of.

(Signed) Henry Goulburn.

To F. S. Larpent, Esq.

(Copy.) No. 3.

London, February 28th, 1843.

F. M. the Duke of Wellington presents his compliments to Mr. Larpent, and has received his letter, and sends him a copy of a letter he has received from Sir Robert Peel. The Duke regrets much to learn that the state of Mr. Larpent’s health compels him to resign the office which he holds. If referred to, he will state his opinion of the services performed by him, while under his command.

To F. S. Larpent, Esq.

Enclosure in the above Letter.

(Copy.)

Whitehall, February 27th, 1843.

My dear Duke of Wellington,

I return the enclosed letter addressed to you by Mr. Larpent.

I am sorry to hear that the state of Mr. Larpent’s health induced him to contemplate his retirement from the public service.

(Signed) Robert Peel.

To the Duke of Wellington,
&c. &c.

(Copy.) No. 4.

Whitehall, March 3rd, 1843.

Dear Sir,

From my high sense of your public services, I have heard with very sincere regret, on public as well as on private grounds, that the state of your health compels you to contemplate the immediate retirement from the important appointment which you hold, the duties of which you have discharged with great ability and integrity, and with unremitting zeal.

I have been so incessantly occupied by important public business, that I have been unable, since the receipt of your letter, to confer with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the subject to which the enclosure in your letter refers, but I will do so without delay, and with every desire to take as favourable a view of it as the state of the law and the usage in similar cases may permit,

I have the honour to be,
Dear Sir,
Your obedient and faithful Servant,
(Signed) Robert Peel.

To F. S. Larpent, Esq.

(Extract.) No. 5.

March 22nd, 1845.
60, Lower Belgrade Street.

I shall feel it due to Mr. Larpent to say at what rate I placed his services.

Never public servant deserved better his hard-earned retirement by honest, zealous, and able services.

(Signed) F. Baring.

I rejoice in having the opportunity afforded me by the publication of these Letters, of recording the public services of an affectionate brother, and of indulging in the remembrance of the many private virtues which were conspicuous in his upright and honourable career.

I have thought it objectionable to alter the language of the narrative, although aware of the many inaccuracies in letters written in the hurry of a campaign (a mode of life foreign to the writer’s habits), and not intended for publication.

I therefore determined to leave the Letters as I found them, thinking that the simplicity of the style and the minute details threw over the Journal a charm of truth and reality which a more studied composition would not have possessed. I have a confident reliance that my brother has related nothing that he did not himself believe to be true, for he was a man of scrupulous veracity, and one not given hastily to record what he had not at the time sufficient warranty to believe to be correct.

The Journal carries the reader, as it were, behind the scenes in the great drama of War. The sufferings of individuals, the hardships endured in a campaign, are scarcely ever recorded by the historian—they are lost in the blaze of glory which surrounds such narratives. In this Journal not only will be seen the miseries which are endured in the attainment of military glory by the soldier, but the still greater miseries of the unfortunate people whose country is the scene of military operations.

Such vivid paintings as are here exhibited must, it is to be hoped, make the most reckless politician and the most ambitious soldier aware of the deep responsibility incurred by all who encourage the passion for military glory, except when war becomes absolutely necessary for the defence of our country, its liberties, and institutions, and for the preservation of the independence of Europe.

It was for these objects that the two great wars in which the Duke of Wellington was so pre-eminent were carried on, and the results—the recovery of their national independence by Spain and Portugal, and a peace of thirty-eight years’ duration—fully warranted the sacrifices made by Great Britain, exalted her national character, and justified her admiration of the Commander, who, under Providence, was the great instrument of her success.

George Larpent.

London, December, 1852.

CONTENTS.

PRIVATE JOURNAL,
&c. &c.

CHAPTER I.

Departure from England—Exercises on Ship-board—Off the Coast—Arrival at Lisbon—Residence there—Journey to Head-quarters commenced—Abrantes—General features of the March—Salamanca.

H. M. S. Vautour, off Mondego Bay,
Sept. 14, 1812. Monday.

My dear M——,

It was very fortunate that I kept to my post at the George Inn, at Portsmouth; for at seven in the morning of Saturday the 5th I was called from my bed by the Admiral, who told me that, in consequence of the news from Madrid, he had received orders to send a ship of war after the Pylades, to endeavour to prevent her landing the money she had carried out to Oporto, and to direct her captain to take it on to Lisbon. He told me that, if I could get ready and on board immediately, I might accompany him. Accordingly, soon after nine o’clock I was on board His Majesty’s ship the Vauteur, or Vautour, or Vulture, a fast-sailing brig of sixteen guns—fourteen carronades, twenty-four pounders, and two long nines; the only remaining trophy in our Navy of the glorious expedition to the Scheldt! The Captain, a most open-hearted, friendly man, by name Lawless, is a native of the south of Ireland. The vessel is an excellent sailer, and the whole in good order, with a fine crew of a hundred and five men; but the accommodations are very small, as all is made for use, and nothing for convenience or ornament. The Captain’s cabin, about ten feet by twelve, he shared with me. One of us hung up a cot on each side at night, and we lived there when these cots were removed in the daytime; there was no opening but the hatches at top, no windows at all. I had, however, what was most material, a most friendly, kind reception, and shared every comfort the Captain was possessed of. This consisted of a joint daily, generally fresh, good wine and brandy, vegetables, and, up to this day, good bread, great attention, and a thorough welcome.

Friday the 11th.—At eleven o’clock precisely, as our timepieces and observations had indicated, we sighted Spain; and had the additional amusement of good charts, and maps, and telescopes, to examine the coasts, besides assisting in the observations on deck, and watching all that was going on. The scene was one of constant activity during the voyage, not a moment’s idleness; the sails were mended; the masts were repaired; the deck was caulked, and made water-tight for the winter; the winter rigging was made ready; the sides of the ship painted. All this, besides the usual routine duty of the ship, was done whenever there was smooth water. One fine calm evening the Captain amused me with a sham-fight, and put the men through their exercises; first at one set of the guns, then at the other; marines and all were at work. He showed me also the effect of a long shot and a grape shot from the carronades in the water. These occupations, with a little reading and writing, preparatory to my land journey, filled up the days until dark, when we took to our cots. We first made the land off Cape Adrian, half way between Cape Ortegal and Cape Finisterre, and got in close to the Sisarga Island, about one o’clock on Friday the 11th. We then coasted close in shore all the way to Cape Finisterre, which we reached at dark: the shore is very bold and fine, but with a barren aspect, and the appearance of an inhospitable and almost uninhabited land. The high tracts towards Corunna, and perhaps about Ferrol, were only just visible at first; but from Sisarga to Finisterre we saw them about as plainly as we should have done on shore.

Saturday 12th.—This morning we found ourselves close off Cape Saliers, having passed Vigo Bay in the night. Thence we slowly crept along shore all that day in sight of the country, buildings, &c., until we arrived at dark within about twelve miles of Oporto, off Villa de Condé. The country is very beautiful and picturesque, nearly as bold as the former, but very much built over, dotted with many villages and detached houses, and verdant with much wood; all externally very loveable and delightful. Monte Santa Tecla, at the entrance of Minho, is an imposing object, and the whole coast interesting, especially from Viana to Oporto, and most of all about Villa de Condé and Oporto. Condé is a handsome-looking town, well situated, with several large good-looking houses, and an aqueduct, reaching nearly three miles I should think, parallel to the shore, through two villages to the hills. The hills were well wooded, and many houses, villas, &c., covered their sides: whether the aqueduct was still in use we could not discover; but I saw no breaks in it as I viewed it through the glass. We made signals to the pilots to come out from Oporto on Saturday evening, but were too far off to be observed; and from the fear of an accident, though within ten miles, were obliged to stand off all night, and try to keep our place.

Sunday the 13th.—Still abreast of Condé, and having no wind, the whole day getting near to Oporto. Several fishermen came on board from the boats around. They all agreed that the Pylades had not been at Oporto—tidings which delighted the Captain; but upon the Consul’s boat coming off at a signal, when we got near the bar in the evening, we found that the Pylades had been off the bar three nights before, just the time she sailed before us at Portsmouth, and had landed General Oswald, the medical men, and the money at nine o’clock at night, and had gone on; and that the money was on its way to the army. We, therefore, put right about again, and got about ten miles from the bar of Oporto, which we had heard roaring many miles off, before dark. Last night we were again becalmed, and at twelve to-day (the 14th) we were only in Mondego Bay, near the spot where the Apollo, and forty of her convoy, were lost in 1804. Here we met a wind right a-head, and have been beating out ever since. At three it shifted a little, and we are now returning, and hope to clear Mondego Point and get in sight of the Burlingas before dark to-night. From about ten miles below Oporto, near Aveiro, to the Mondego highlands, the coast is flat, and we have only seen in Mondego Bay sand-hills and a few huts, and have only heard the surf roaring at a distance of nearly ten miles. We are now about fifty miles from the Burlingas and about ninety from Lisbon, and hope to be there to-morrow.

Our officers are, the Captain, Lawless; first lieutenant, Soper; the second lieutenant, a fine, stout Irishman, who has amused me much, by recounting the escapes of his past life.

Tuesday 15th, 12 o’clock.—Still about twenty miles from Mondego Point. Marshal Beresford, who is lying at Oporto badly wounded, sent out to ask for a passage to Lisbon on board our vessel; and it was arranged that we were to fire two guns if we could accommodate him: but the Captain was not able to do so in his small cabin, even if we had both given up our berths, which we would cheerfully have done. It was fortunate, however, he did not come on board, as he would have passed three miserable nights if he had made trial of our scanty accommodation.

Lisbon, September 17th.—Two more nights out becalmed—one, off Mondego Bay; and another, off the rock of Lisbon. We got in here this morning at seven o’clock, and have been all the morning running about the town. The view at the entrance into the harbour is very beautiful. We anchored at dusk off Cascaes Fort last night. The General, Peacock, has given me quarters at the Marquis d’Abrantes’, and to-day I dine with the General. It is said that there is a great mortality in the army; the officers sickly, and a great want of money.

Lisbon, September 20th, 1812.—I have now been three days in this town, which resembles the description of certain ladies whom I have a right to suppose to be within your knowledge, for I think they are described in the Bible, and in other good books which you study—all outside show, except in the state apartments of a few individuals, which are certainly very magnificent. Streets very offensive, palaces by the side of ruins, and sometimes even the palaces in a state of partial decay, though in other parts stately and magnificent in their architectural proportions. Everywhere there is an aspect of extreme poverty side by side with some showy indications of wealth; and it is evident that among the lower classes impostors are as plentiful as mosquitos. The heat is extreme—worse than I found it at Paris in August 1802. The evenings, however, are cool, and near the water the breezes are refreshing. They congratulate me, indeed, on the comparative mildness of the season, which is favourable for my journey to head-quarters, which are at Dulmas, in advance of Valladolid.

On landing, I proceeded immediately to General Peacock, the commanding officer, who received me with great civility, and I dined with him that day. As to forwarding me to the army, it appears all that he can do is to give me a route, which will procure me at different stations (though at times two or three days distant from each other), rations for bread and forage, as there are depôts at intervals of from one to three days’ journey all the way. I shall have to purchase two mules and two horses. The price of horses is high; on an average, two hundred and twenty dollars each. Captain C——, of the staff here, has offered to go to the fair with me on Tuesday to buy cattle and all other necessaries for my journey. There is no route except by Ciudad Rodrigo, and, therefore, though it is said that head-quarters may be at Madrid before my arrival, I shall be compelled to go that way. Baron Quintilla was not in town. The Envoy asked me to dinner immediately to his country-house at Benefica, and was extremely civil to me, remarking that mine was not a common letter of introduction. He asked me again yesterday, but being unwell, I declined the flattering invitation. He also offered to carry me in his suite to a bull-fight, twelve miles off; but as this would detain me from Sunday to Tuesday, and interfere with my whole plan, I am obliged reluctantly to forego the amusement. I am not here for my pleasure. When I arrived at the Envoy’s he was absent, and I had a tête-à-tête with General Abadia, who is here on his way to Cadiz, where he is to take a high official position. He appeared a clever man, but I understand his loyalty to Ferdinand is doubtful, for a letter addressed to him by his wife, who is with the French, inquiring when he would fulfil his promise of joining their party, has been intercepted.

This may be all a trick, but there is something suspicious about it. He blamed us very much, charging us with having made two great blunders, in not seizing Santona, by troops from England, and securing that river communication and post to land all our men in, instead of Lisbon; and also in not allowing the Sicilian expedition to seize Tortosa, and maintain a post on that river, the most important and most annoying to Soult. He spoke in high terms of Lord Wellington, but seemed to think that the fate of Europe depends upon the conduct of Russia in this conjuncture.

The idea seems now to be, that Soult, Suchet, and Joseph have formed a junction. They have above sixty thousand effective men; and it is added, that the French now have their old position on the Ebro always in their power. General Carrier was brought in here a prisoner on Thursday, from Salamanca: he had five wounds, which are nearly healed, but he thought he should lose a finger. He came in to the General whilst I dined there. He seemed to be out of spirits, but said that Marmont was nearly well, and would resume his command. The French, I hear, are intrenched near Burgos.

I have obtained quarters at the casa of the Marquesa d’Abrantes, a good situation, and a lieutenant-colonel’s quarters. Her husband is a prisoner in France. I have a separate door, which leads away to four small rooms to the street; bare walls, painted with military trophies, and the whole kept as quarters. In these I have two tables, a dozen chairs, a bedstead, a mattress, a worked flounced quilt, some fine sheets, but, of course, no blankets. At first we had nothing else; but I have now got a silver basin and ewer, some knives and forks, and a supply of water. These apartments might easily be made very comfortable. The state rooms of this house, looking over about an acre of garden (which is open to the public), are very handsome. As the marquesa lost her mother last week, about twenty cabriolets a-day have brought visitors to pay respects, &c., and about a hundred and fifty beggars to receive their alms. By the way, the English have caused everything here to become very dear. The churches are gaudy, and in some respects not a little ridiculous, but still, to my mind, nothing like so trumpery, absurd, and indeed indecorous in every respect as those in Flanders, and in some parts of Switzerland and Piedmont. The Roman Catholics here certainly have the appearance of devotion, and seem more in earnest, much more so than in France, and more so than in any country I have seen.

Lisbon, September 23rd, 1812.—I was at the fair, in the heat of the sun, all yesterday, and have bought two small mules, one small horse, and have agreed for another, a small pony, to carry me. The fair has knocked me up as well as my man Henry. I have been all this day with Captain C——, almost my only friend here, at market, bargaining for travelling necessaries. Commissary P—— will lend me one public mule; so now I hope I am equipped as far as that goes. The General offers to send me with the next treasure, which goes nobody knows when; but refuses me two soldiers to go with me, though it is said that it is really dangerous to go without them.

Lisbon, September 26th, 1812, Saturday.—Though in a constant fever from fleas and mosquitos, we should have started yesterday with some treasure, but my servant Henry could not stir, and my Portuguese servant took himself off at eight in the morning. I have now got a German deserter as servant instead of the Portuguese; and trust he will not carry on the old game, and desert with my baggage. He is said to speak a little English and Portuguese, and know the country well.

Sunday.—For one day more I have postponed my journey, intending to start with some treasure and two officers on Tuesday. The Opera-house here is a dull, heavy building, about the size of the Haymarket Opera-house; but the dancing more like Sadler’s Wells than the Opera in England: great activity and force in the buffo style like comic masks—this appears to be the favourite style here. Macbeth was turned into a pantomine; the death and dagger scene very fine, but the whole effect marred by the mummery of fantastic dancing and skipping witches. I have not had time to see any thing except Lisbon, and the aqueduct: the latter work certainly fine, but not of an attractive shape. Round arches would have had a better effect, and the piers want evenness and regularity; nevertheless it is a work worthy of the Romans. I contrived to-day to go to Belem church, a very fine specimen of arabesque, the best thing I have seen here; in style it is between the Saxon and Antique, with a little Gothic intermixed, the ornaments beautiful and in high preservation.

Abrantes, October 6th, 1812.—A day’s halt here enables me to write to you. I left Lisbon on the 30th September, by two o’clock, with my sick party, and thence eight miles to Saccavem in about three hours. The road to Saccavem and nearly to Villa Franca is fine; and, except that there are no trees besides olive-trees, which appear like apple-trees at a distance, and no verdure, the river and country are picturesque.

On the second night we reached Villa Franca, sixteen miles; the third night, Agembiga twelve; the fourth, Santarem sixteen. The positions and accounts in our gazettes made this route interesting, but the road itself is dull and sandy. Suppose a few olive-trees and firs on Bagshot Heath, and you have the scene. Saccavem and Santarem are both fine positions for appearance, and the latter for defence. All the towns are half in ruins, as well as almost all the single houses on the road to this place. On the fifth day we reached Galegao, sixteen miles; on the sixth, Punhete, twelve miles; on the seventh, Abrantes, eight miles. I am now eighty-eight miles from Lisbon. From Galegao to Abrantes the road runs near the river, the verdure increases, there are a few chestnut, oranges, and larger firs, and in the spring the scenery must be very picturesque. Abrantes, on a commanding eminence, is in a very fine situation, and looks over much fine country. Finding my sick men unequal to the fatigue, I applied to the officer of the treasure, and got a soldier, a fine active Tyrolese, who does more work in an hour than my poor creatures in a day. He cleans down the animals, waters them, loads, &c., and as I carry his baggage for him, and give him rather better fare, he seems to be very well pleased with the post. He leads a mule on the road, walking at his ease: by this means I now get off about six o’clock every morning.

The treasure-party, finding the heat made the men ill, now start at five o’clock; still I am much better than I was when I started, and when on the march I go quicker than the treasure, as I have easy loads. Henry leads the first mule on horseback, the soldier walking by the side to keep everything right, whilst I bring up the rear myself, always on the watch, and thus have but few accidents. One of my mules is a nice fat round fellow, who eats so much they cannot keep the baggage from rolling off him without holding it on; another mule had a troublesome propensity of lying down with the baggage. My Tyrolese only speaks German, French, and a little Portuguese.

So many of the men of another treasure-party were ill, that they halted, and then went on with us; this crowded the road and made it more uncomfortable. Here at Abrantes we separate—they go to General Hill. On arriving at a place, the first thing is to hunt for the Juge de Fores, to procure quarters, but if there is an English commandant, he must first be beaten up for an order, then the quarters are to be found; sometimes those allotted are full; then another billet must be obtained: sometimes the stables are full of kicking mules, and other stables must be found elsewhere. At length we unload, all in one room with four walls, a table, and a chair. Then at every third place we have to go to the Commissary to draw rations, straw, and barley for the animals to eat—spirits, meat, and bread for ourselves, and wood for firing. These must sometimes be fetched from half a mile to a mile and a half off, and be procured from roguish Portuguese under-commissaries. Sometimes great pieces of green wood are allotted to us, which will not burn, and we have nothing to cut it with. This, which we often leave as not worth carriage, costs Government a large sum: a third of the quantity, if good, would serve better. As the wood and straw we cannot manage to take with us, we carry on barley, and buy a little straw, or Sadran corn straw, which is the best when fresh. At first the Portuguese were very civil at quarters, but we are now too numerous, and many behave ill from disgust and weariness. They are now very backward to supply anything, even when they have it, which often is not the case. They provide a room, a lamp, water, a basin, a towel by night, a table, a chair, and something to lie upon; some furnish very decent beds.

Two days ago the scene changed, and it has since rained almost incessantly. We got wet yesterday, halted to-day, and to-morrow I probably shall start, to be soaked to the very bones. My mode of living may interest you. I rise, then, at half-past four, take some bread, spirits and water, and a raw egg when I can get one, or sometimes a few grapes. When we stop to water, I eat some bread and cheese, a dear luxury on the road, a very little country wine and water, and now and then coffee or chocolate. In the evening, a stew (when we can get it) comes as a treat, and then we lie down on the floor at eight o’clock in hope of sleep—a hope more frequently fulfilled than it was at Lisbon. Stores are all now at double price, and will soon not be procurable at any cost.

The Commissary says we shall have six hours’ walk in the rain instead of the sun now; and after two or three days we shall find only deserted ruins where the French came, and we after them, last year. I hope this is exaggeration. Windows in this great town are not to be seen even in Colonels’ quarters, or in the best shops. This is an active, busy place—thoroughly military. The vintage was going on as we proceeded on the road, and we had abundance of grapes. The poor soldiers, having three days’ rations served out at once, consume all the drink on the first day, sell the meat to save carriage and the trouble of cooking it, and live upon bread and grapes and water, till their next supply comes to hand. At Santarem and here, hospitals are established as well as at Lisbon; many fine-looking fellows, reduced to skeletons, are in them. I have a new route to-morrow round about: first day, Garvao; second, Nisa; third, Villa Velha; fourth, Cernados; fifth, Castello Branco: sixteen miles, twenty miles, twelve miles, eight, and eighty.

Sunday, Castello Branco, October 11th, 1812.—Here am I thus far safe on my pilgrimage, and tolerably well considering all things, for I seldom get above two or three hours’ sleep, and many nights none at all, from noises, fleas, gnats, mosquitos, bad accommodation, and anxiety. From Abrantes I got safely to Garvao, which is finely situated, and the walk to it wildly beautiful. The next day I warned my people to rise by half-past four; we loaded in the dark, but started by daylight, and got in before the treasure to Niga. A good mattress and clean sheets, &c., on the floor, without fleas, are genuine luxuries. For the first time in Portugal I got six hours’ sleep. In the same manner I started again from Niga by five o’clock, and got through two treasure days’ journey in one to Cernados. Understanding that at Villa Velha there were only desolate ruins, scarcely supplying a dry cover, by starting again early yesterday from Cernados (which consists only of one house, half of it a ruin, with a nest of ruined cottages round it), I reached this place by ten yesterday, and thus had all the remainder of the day to rest, and this in addition (Sunday), for the treasure arrived only to-day.

I have thus avoided the common piggery of being all in one house at Cernados, and a bad night at Villa Velha. By calculating distances and time also, I have kept my men and myself dry. As the rains generally come on hitherto after twelve in the day, and in the night, we have only been caught in two English showers. It rained all the time we were at Abrantes, from twelve on the day we arrived, entirely through the following day, to about an hour before we started. All the rest of the day was fine, rain again all the evening—the same at Niga, and the same here also. And such rain! it would saturate anything in ten minutes. As it is now cooler, I walk half the way, which also saves my pony. I have here assigned to me the quarters of the Generals who pass through. These consist of the ruin of a fine house for quarters, and a large room with four great windows without glass, and four doors in it; gold frames around without their looking-glasses in them, fine chairs without bottoms, &c., &c. The house belongs to the Illustrissimo Signor Barao. I have a mattress on the floor with fleas innumerable. I have my route, and here it is: first day, Eschalas de Cimo; second, San Miguel; third, Menoa; fourth, Sabugal; fifth, perhaps a halt; sixth, Aldea da Ponte; seventh, Sturno; eighth, Ciudad Rodrigo. We are to carry provisions for four days with us, then provide for three, and start to-morrow or next day as the treasure mules are able; then go on to Fuentes de Castelegos, Forgadilla, Calçade de Don Diego, Salamanca. Few of these places are in Faden’s map. Nothing can be had on the road, it is said, not even dry stabling or a dry room; and much wet is expected. The place is finely situated on the east side of a hill which is crowned by an old Moorish castle and walls, and a modern monastery in ruins! It is one of the best towns we have seen, and there are the ruins of some good houses; provisions and necessaries are to be bought here, but at a high price. There is part of the fine episcopal palace (where a Portuguese General is quartered), with a garden in tolerable order, a good church, and several picturesque-looking ruined monasteries, with crosses at every step. I have taken a few sketches where we stop on the road, though too much occupied with business to think much of the picturesque. Niga is also picturesque.

My adventures are all much alike. The only variety is an arrival wet through to the skin. No one can say where we shall go to at last. I suppose I must now proceed to Salamanca, and then something must be determined upon. Things do not go on well at Burgos, I fear; there is much delay, more than was expected. Lord Wellington is, it is said, not satisfied. At Cernados a cobbler was the Juge de Fores, and gave us our billets. On the walls was an excellent likeness in chalk of Lord George Lennox, done by the shadow, I suppose from the lamp which is allowed us. I hear of sickness everywhere; much at head-quarters. The general orders have many more on the list of absent from sickness, than on that of arrivals at the army. Soult is very strong. General Hill, I believe, is still at Toledo.

Near the mountains on the other side of the Tagus is an old castle or two, and some pleasant glimpses of fine valleys, and the deep banks of the river which is hidden from the view. The sandy commons like Bagshot, over which the road passes, are more bold, the hills higher, and covered almost entirely with the gum cistus, which has a sweet scent, but, being out of bloom in that state, is not so pleasing as our heaths with their various colours. There is a little heath like the Devonshire heath, and some parts of the road rather like Dartmoor. Near Niga are seen the mountains about Elvas, and in the line to Badajoz, and the Spanish mountains of Estremadura, The country proved to me the merit of some of Rubens’ Spanish views, which are, like his Flemish pictures, most correct in the character of the scenery. From Niga, after proceeding a league, you wind down a wild Devonshire or Welsh sort of road; first cross a small river, then the Tagus again, almost down steps—not so bad as some wild parts of Ireland, to be sure, though very bad for the loaded mules. Here is very little oak, underwood, some fir, but chiefly and perpetually the gum cistus, which grows to about four feet high. Villa Velha is a village in ruins, finely situated on the side of a hill looking over the river. It is now nearly deserted. The soldiers with baggage pitched a tent below the office in the cellar. From the hills above the river, before we crossed the Tagus, we saw Castello Branco standing high on the hill, and the Moorish ruins. Cernados is like a Welsh village of the worst sort: rocks for streets, ruined stone houses inhabited in part, and used for quarters. Their few architectural large buildings alone constitute the difference between these and the worst Welsh or Irish villages. From Cernados to this place we again crossed a country like a large Bagshot Heath, but by a very tolerable good road; adieu.

P.S.—The Captain has just sent me word we must start to-morrow instead of the day after; he says that the treasure is not safe without the serjeants. Our detachments are all foreigners; many are drunk, and have quarrelled with the inhabitants!

Salamanca, October, 1812.—The first day after leaving Castello Branco, we reached Eschalo de Cimo, a pretty, and once a thriving village, with a good church, not so much destroyed as damaged; one handsome large house in the vicinity belonging to the Squiress, Donna Joanna, the best rooms in which were gutted and used as quarters, the rest inhabited by two or three families of the better kind, with some smart misses among them. The other houses mostly in ruins, but still some of them occupied. In this place bread was not to be bought, nor even an onion! but we fared well, in good rooms, with good fires. On our road thither we kept Castello Branco in sight nearly all the way; we also saw the distant mountains in Spain and Portugal. The road was over a sort of Dartmoor, stones, rock, sand, with fern oak a foot high, and abundance of apples. The second day we reached San Miguel de Cima. The same sort of village as Eschalo de Cimo, one good house for quarters, the rest small, and generally, like the church, in ruins; but the inhabitants were fast returning to it. Here we obtained bread, onions, and some hay. The appearance on entering the village, with the trees about it, very pleasant. The third day’s route was to Memoa, five long leagues. At first a good road and picturesque country, with a very fine view of Monsanto, with its town and castle on the right, and of the other hills grouped with it in the distance. Pennamacor, which is almost destroyed, we left on our right, about a mile, with its castle, standing boldly on the side of a hill, with rock and wood around it, and a rich-looking valley below. This is a fine situation, backed, as we left it, by Monsanto. We also passed Pedrigoa, a large village, nearly destroyed and deserted, and at last, after passing over a hill by a horrible road, through an oak copse, where we had nearly lost our way, we arrived at the heap of ruins called Memoa. This was the worst place we had stopped at all the way. There was only one room in the town, that only water-tight, and there were no stables. I took the driest corner in a large common room, because there was a stable under it.

I could see and hear everything in the stables, for the floor was still less tight than the roof. The leg of a chair or a table, in spite of all possible care, went two or three times through it. I got a little hay, and slept behind a great chest, in my blanket. Three of the natives were in the room at night. The fourth day we had three leagues of fine road, though bad travelling, through a hilly wood of arbutuses in bearing, and Portugal laurels in flower, heath in bloom, a plant like the lignum vitæ, and broom. This day’s route brought us to Sabugal, where there is generally a halt, but this our captain declined. Sabugal stands on a hill, very finely situated, but commanded by other hills; the way is over a bridge and river, and with a winding road up to it. The situation is not unlike that of Ludlow; the town very inferior in size and beauty, but picturesque. The castle itself with its square Moorish towers, more so than Ludlow. The town is all in ruins; not even a weather-tight room in it. I got a large sort of barn, open in the roof in several places, with no doors, and two large windows, without even shutters, and four others half closed. On our road thither from Memoa we found half the body of a man, nearly a skeleton, but with flesh and nails on the toes. It was lying on the road, as if to scare travellers.

The market-place at Sabugal is, I think, very pretty, and everything in it very cheap: this, indeed, was the cheapest place through which we had passed. The fifth day we reached Aldea da Ponte, the last Portuguese village. The road was interesting, as we passed near Fuente Guinaldos, so long head-quarters, and Alfayetes, also head-quarters. We passed just under Alfayetes, and saw Lord Wellington’s house on the side of the hill, with the old castle. This place is now in ruins, like the rest. We then passed over the plain where our cavalry distinguished themselves in a sharp affair with the French. Aldea da Ponte is much cleaner than the other villages.

Here we saw more pots, pans, basins, &c., than usual; these the people desired us to make use of instead of hiding them from us, as was generally done in Portugal. On the sixth day, we came, after a short league, to a small village on the side of a hill, the first in Spain, then on to two or three more, and in less than six leagues we reached Ciudad Rodrigo. This town stands on a rise, in an undulating sort of rough Salisbury Plain. It is two-thirds in ruins, but the public buildings appear to have suffered comparatively little, and might, most of them, be restored. The entrance to the town is striking. We got an indifferent quarter in the suburbs, immediately opposite the place where the light battalions entered. The main breach was round the corner of our abode. The Spaniards had nearly restored these two breaches, but from ill luck or neglect both had entirely given way, and there must still be some months’ work before they can undo and clear enough away to begin to rebuild again. Everything was scarce in the town, and the people imposing and uncivil. On the seventh day we proceeded to Brondillo, where we were obliged to stop, as there were only two houses in Castel Legos, to which the route sent us. This was by far our worst day’s journey; the distance was seven leagues, that is, twenty-eight miles. It took us to accomplish this from six in the morning to past three, of which time it rained eight hours and a half, nearly all that time like a bad English thunder-shower of ten minutes’ duration. No coats could keep out the wet, and it was accompanied by a strong, cold November wind, for the weather for the last week has been as cold as an English November. We all suffered, and I have been chilly and aguish ever since. We then, for the first time, entered a Spanish cabin; and oh! how superior to those of Portugal! of Ireland! of Scotland! and if I did not consider these cottages as farms and not as cottages, I should say of England too! All neat and clean; with pots, dishes, boilers in abundance.

The people are proud, but if treated with civility, courteous and kind, though they are turned away from their own firesides by us and the Portuguese three or four nights in the seven. They made us a great fire, and did all they could for us. The women seem chatty and merry—the men, the handsomest and best-grown, with the finest countenances I ever saw, except perhaps in Switzerland. We met with the same sort of treatment and kindness at the next village. The house belonged to the priest, with whom, through the medium of some mongrel Latin and Spanish, I managed to converse a little. These quarters are some of the best I have had since leaving Lisbon; at Togadillo, where the route sent us, there was only one good house.

At Robedila, a place out of the road, where we got by accident, finding we had passed Togadillo without knowing it, all was comfort again. This place the French occupied for some time with ten thousand men. We arrived yesterday at Salamanca. After the first five leagues from Ciudad Rodrigo, which were as rough as Dartmoor, we have passed through a country like the neighbourhood of Salisbury Plain, only that the villages were much more numerous, though several only of three or four houses, now nearly all repaired. Not a single large, or, I believe, two-storied house, from Ciudad Rodrigo to this place. Much of the country now quite a fine green, but a very large part in cultivation. The land looked good; about midway it consisted of, for five or six leagues, clay, and knee-deep: in some places a light soil, or reddish sand; with water up to the mules’ bellies, from the heavy rain, though it had ceased twenty-four hours. The people have plenty of bread and straw, but there are no shops in the villages. They only sell to oblige each his own lodger for the night. Bread was threepence a pound—it had been fourpence. All along this country, from St. Martin de Rio hither, are abundance of acorns, almost as good as chestnuts; quite sweet. The muleteers and men halt to eat them. This also gives good fires everywhere. Horses and bones are strewed more or less along the whole way from Lisbon. In one place, about seven leagues from Salamanca, were thirteen heads arranged in a row, as stepping-blocks for passengers through the water. I believe there was a little cavalry brush there. Salamanca stands well, but in a sort of Salisbury Plain. The colleges are destroyed, but the church is most beautiful, and the entrances much finer than those of our cathedrals—the figures and heads very fine indeed.

The altered Roman bridge is striking. The town is so full, principally of sick, that I have got bad quarters, half a mile out of the town; my direction l’Ultima Casa.

Later, same day.—I have been again looking at the town. The great church is very fine, and not damaged, but there are many miserable ruins of noble colleges, some gutted, some nearly razed. The public library has a fair supply of books, but too exclusively of sacred, or rather ecclesiastical literature; there are, however, good classics, French, and modern learned works, mathematics, and others: it is about two-thirds of the size of Trinity College, Cambridge. I hope to proceed the day after to-morrow, to Valladolid, which it is proposed to reach in seven days. There are good shops here, and articles not dear. It is curious to see the same effect of ages and of tastes as in England. Below and behind the great altar of the church was some old English, or, as we should say, Saxon architecture, that is, a rude imitation of Greek. Then came a florid sample of Gothic, not in the best taste, but beautifully ornamented, with screens, &c., in the style of King Charles and King William; forced Grecian again, of two centuries back.

CHAPTER II.

Arrival at Head-quarters—Ciudad Rodrigo—The Retreat—Its Disasters—Capture of General Paget—Personal Anecdotes—Scarcity of Provisions—Courts-martial in the Army—Business of a Judge-Advocate—Wellington.

Head-quarters, Rueda, Nov. 5, 1812.

My dear M——,

At last I have arrived safely at head-quarters, as they have been kind enough to come half-way to meet me. From Salamanca, we proceeded on the first day to Alba de Tormes, a town in a fine situation on the Tormes, with the remains of a castle of various dates, extensive and picturesque; part of it, particularly the entrance staircase, very richly ornamented. The whole was striking, and the vicinity of the town was interesting, for here it was that the French so completely beat the unhappy Spaniards, and put them to death by thousands, almost in cold blood. We saw where General del Parques’ cavalry were posted, and the positions of the French. On our road near Salamanca we also observed at a distance, on the other side of the river, the hills where the battle of Salamanca was fought; and our route lay in that of the pursuit through Alba, then on to Peneranda, another good old town, and so, through villages, to Arevalo, where we arrived in four days, tracing men’s bones and bits of soldiers’ dress, as well as horse bones and carcasses, on the route thither.

This country resembles Salisbury Plain, in open cultivation of corn, and is covered very thick with neat villages, with a general appearance of comfort. Arevalo is a large place in ruins. There are many remains of fine richly-wooded brickwork, convents, churches, many good houses, and the town standing very finely on a hill, nearly surrounded by the river, which runs in a deep hollow round it, with four or five substantial and rather picturesque bridges. Our route was by Valladolid, where we should have been in three days, and which I regret much not to have seen, for I hear it is second only to Madrid, and very little damaged. Had I proceeded on the route I should have reached Valladolid the day before the French entered it. Hearing that the army was rapidly retiring, the road became unsafe. No one knew where head-quarters were to be; the treasure, and my mules with it, were consequently halted, and instructions were written for. For four days we remained at Arevalo. The treasure party were then ordered to Olmedo to deliver their cargo, and head-quarters were here at Rueda. I proceeded with them to Olmedo, rather a handsome and a large town, where I was housed in the good quarters which had been occupied by the Prince of Orange. When I arrived here, my beasts were kept standing loaded in the streets, and all of us without anything to eat until past six, before I could get a quarter. The people were civil, but I had to go to the Quarter-Master-general, Adjutant-general, to the billet-manager, to the Military Secretary, &c. One said, “go here;” another, “go there;” a third sent a serjeant to inquire, and then thought no more about it.

At last I procured an indifferent quarter vacated by a Commissary, only a shed, and holes through the floor into the cellar below. My animals, therefore, stood all night in the entrance of the passage.

This morning, 5th, I heard of a Spanish aide-de-camp of Castanos’, who is here, and who had three small stables close to me. I found him in bed at nine o’clock, but he could speak French, and I persuaded him to give me one of the stables for my four animals. Thus we are better off to-day, and, as a favour, I have got them something to eat. I was introduced to Lord Wellington this morning, and delivered my letters. He was very courteous. We conversed for half an hour, and I am to dine with him at six to-day, in full uniform. He is to send me fifty cases against officers, to examine, in order to ascertain whether any can be made out on evidence, which is the great difficulty. There is a caricature here of Johnny Newcome, who makes it out till sent to the rear rolled up in a blanket in an ox-car, creeping on at the rate of two miles an hour to Lisbon. We are in hourly expectation of moving. The bridges are repaired, and the French within three leagues, and able to cross if they choose. General Hill is expected here to-day. His forces are at Arevalo. Soult is in Madrid; whether they push on further is to be seen.

Few reinforcements have arrived; eighteen thousand Spaniards (such as they are) are with us. The lower classes of the people are a very fine race in person, talents, and feelings, and vastly superior to the Portuguese. It is very provoking that rank and prejudice render this of no avail. The inhabitants of the town seem half French. About six hundred French crossed over to us last night, but retired again. The cavalry were off in the middle of the night from head-quarters. I was alarmed for a moment, but all seems quiet this morning. The last five days have been very fine; cold dewy mornings, but clear sunny days, damp cold evenings, but for the time of the year here very fine. There are very queer-looking military figures here, some English, a few Portuguese, many more Spanish. The whole scene presents an odd medley.

Ciudad Rodrigo, November 19, 1812.—To continue my diary from Rueda. Two days afterwards, the 7th, an order to march at four in the morning came, as soon as Hill’s army was within reach. I then first saw what it was to put seventy thousand men in motion, about ten thousand public, and a greater number of private mules, horses, &c. At five we started, and about two that day I reached head-quarters. Torricello by four o’clock. At five next morning started again for Petueja. Here the head-quarters had only thirty houses for one hundred and fifty officers. Lord Wellington and the Prince of Orange had only one room each. I was ordered a league in advance, where I found Castanos, who had come in for better quarters. He sent me on another half-league, but when a mile on the road he passed me, as he had heard that the next was the best quarter. So I returned, and at three o’clock got a little hole and a stable. About five came in about three thousand Spanish troops. Half my house was down in a moment for firing, and nearly all the owner’s property, pans, dishes, straw, &c., stolen. I secured mine, which was attacked, by swallowing a mouthful and packing up and keeping guard. The remainder of the house was also saved; and, by the help of a Spanish officer, who took a fancy to the kitchen fire, the house was cleared with fist and foot. My animals were not safe, as my man heard one soldier say he would have one before morning. I saved them by putting them in a row in the passage close to me, where they stood for the night. Fires all round us; noises of all kinds; people breaking in. There were only about six civilians, English, in the village. At five next day off again, and at daylight joined the general train on the road to Salamanca. It was easily found, for it extended five or six miles.

The day before we again started three cases were laid before me on which to draw charges. Upon these I was to report to Lord Wellington next day. I drew them up, but he was too busy to receive them. When I went home and sent for a paper, the answer was, “All packed up;” and it seemed that I ought to be so too, as our position was turned, and we were all ordered to be loaded and ready to start. After much hurry, I was ready soon after twelve. My beasts stood loaded at the door till seven in the evening; then came orders to unload, but to be loaded by four next morning, and to start for a hill a league off, and there wait for orders. There was only one long bridge to pass the whole army, and it was near seven before we were all over.

It rained hard. We stood on the hill loaded and waiting for orders till one o’clock. Nearly the whole of our army was in sight round us, cooking their dinners in the rain, in their new position. The French were all around, about a league off, their fires visible in the woods, and the heads of their columns visible with a glass. They would not attack us, as they might, but manœuvred to turn our right wing. Had there been a battle we should have had a fine view of the beginning at least. At one o’clock we saw our whole army break up and put itself in motion; and orders came to us to march and keep with the second column. This we did, marching in the rain, in a fine confusion, till five o’clock, when Lord Wellington halted at a miserable place for head-quarters, and the men bivouacked on the swampy ground. I was ordered on a league further. Darkness soon came on, and the rain descended in torrents. Misdirected by some Spanish muleteers, I lost my way, and did not reach any village for three leagues, and not till nine at night, wet and starved, as the Salamanca people, in our confusion, stole my bread, &c.

I was the only English officer there, and got the best quarter at the parish priest’s, the best house there. Here I procured a loaf of bread, fire, and a bed, which were no small comforts. I got, however, but little sleep, not knowing how to proceed next day, and being aware that the French were close at hand. By my map I found that I was in the nearest road to Ciudad Rodrigo, and, taking a retreat to be the object, I determined to wait till eight or nine o’clock next day, and observe whether any one passed. By that time half the army was on the road through the village, and Sir Edward Paget took my quarter for the last night’s rest he had before he was taken prisoner. I then had a short march in the rain again this day to Aldea Quella and to Boleado. In two hours’ time I got a quarter through Colonel Campbell’s influence; and because the stables would not hold a large horse, all the mules, half the servants, all the soldiers, and most of the officers, were out in the wet. Three Spanish officers burst into my quarters at night, and the people were hammering at the door every moment for straw, shelter, &c., sick and all sorts. In spite of my vigilance, either the Spanish officers or the people of the house stole my pistols out of my room, and finished by purloining the bread and rum of my men. Honesty is not a Spanish virtue. We all of us lose things daily. At two next day we loaded, and at three started for this place, twenty miles, four hours before daylight. Luckily we had some moon. I stuck to Lord Wellington’s carriage and baggage, thinking the people in charge of them would be best informed, though my own inquiries elicited other intelligence than theirs.

I was told the rivers that way were not passable, and we found the whole road almost under water for miles, ankle, and even knee deep, and three rivers to pass. Many mules were upset or stuck fast, and much baggage damaged or lost. I had only one load overset, and that at the edge, and we saved all, and not much damage done. By daylight there was a general halt; no one knew the ford or the road. At last we passed the river a mile above; but then, finding the French had been in the village three miles off the last night, we all turned off by a by-road six miles round, and at last arrived here at Ciudad Rodrigo, miserably cold, with animals knocked up, sore backs, &c., about two o’clock. In the confusion here, at last I got a bad quarter in the same house with Colonel Gordon, Lord Wellington’s aide-de-camp. But I have a place for my animals, and hundreds have no room for animals, or even for themselves. We halt to-day, whether for a longer time I know not. The army is mostly passing the river to-day. We lost many men in the retreat, but a very little money is missing. The sick are numerous. Two officers have died of fatigue on the road, in which dead mules are to be met with in plenty, and some men. To-day we are relating our adventures. We get but little barley for our horses, no hay or straw. The cavalry have been without it for some days; but this is considered a very orderly retreat. Sir Edward Paget accidentally fell into the enemy’s hands near his own division, within six hundred yards of it, between that and another. The French are said to have ninety thousand men, with nine thousand cavalry. They pressed hard until yesterday; they then relaxed when they might have done us most mischief. The roads and weather, I suppose, and the want of food and forage, impeded them. I hope they will now leave us quiet. I am very sorry for Sir Edward Paget on the public account and on my own, as I found him most friendly, civil, and good-natured. This capture is also a triumph to the French.

Malliarda de Sorda, November 26th, 1812.—We are now in our winter quarters, and fill all the villages and places for twenty miles round on the Portugal side of Ciudad Rodrigo, the works of which are still quite out of repair where our trenches were made, as the Spanish new work has all fallen in. Wellington’s head-quarters are at Frenada, an old station; the doctors are all at Castello Bom; and the other civil departments, in which I am included, all at this place, Malliarda de Sorda. We are distant four miles of most infamous rocky road from Frenada, and eight from Castello Bom. This I fear must shut me off from nearly all society, as it would be paying most dear for a dinner at Frenada or Castello Bom, to return in the dark, along roads compared with which those of Ireland or Cornwall are bowling-greens. We are in three wretched villages, in a country like Dartmoor, but more wood near, all rocks around, and stone-wall enclosures, and rocky roads; then woods, with open wastes for twenty miles round. I have a room opening to the street, without ceiling, only open loose pantiles, with holes to let out the smoke of a fireplace without a chimney; a window tinned up by last year’s occupier, except four small panes, two of which are broken; there is a hole in the floor to look through at my five animals and three servants, who all sleep on the straw below me.

The weather for the last three days has been a complete English December, cutting easterly winds; and on the 23rd I will vouch for ice three-quarters of an inch thick. All the Sierras are white with snow. I found Lord Wellington’s secretaries sitting with candles at twelve o’clock in the day, in order to stop their holes and windows with curtains, and burning charcoal fires. We have had every variety of weather here in six weeks: I never remember it colder in England for the time of the year. Here are no books, no women but ladies of a certain description; and as to living, you would be surprised what good living is here, except at Lord Wellington’s table, and about two more, and even at those no port wine, only thin claret, and the country wines and brandy.

At Ciudad Rodrigo there was starvation: no corn, no hay, no straw, no bread, no rum, for three days, only beef and biscuit; at last we got some mouldy biscuit for the animals, which I mixed with carrot, cabbage, and potatoes; everything was devoured. Tea, 22s. and 25s. a pound; butter, 4s.; bread, 1s. 6d. a pound, above 6s. the loaf; no wine or brandy; gin, 12s. the bottle; straw, a dollar for a small bundle, and all sold in a scramble. The truth was, the troops, poor fellows! came through the town quite starving; during the retreat supplies had been mismanaged—regiments were three and four days without rations, and numbers died of absolute starvation, besides the sick. Lord Wellington is, I hear, very angry. Till I saw B—’s mess, &c., I had no notion of the loss in this retreat, and the great suffering of the men and horses. From what I hear, not merely were about one thousand made prisoners, but five or six thousand put for some time hors de combat, by sickness, starvation, and want of horses, &c. The cavalry were too weak to act, mainly from want of food. A great many animals were killed. A treasure-party had a narrow escape: the French were in sight while they were loading, and much baggage was lost. Lord Dalhousie lost almost all; five horses and thirteen loaded mules, with his name at full length upon his baggage—another French triumph! Colonel Delancey lost three horses, taken at Salamanca; and the men suffered shockingly from the wet. The whole was so unlucky; as had the three days’ rain begun at Salamanca, in all probability the French would not have crossed the Tormes and turned our position, and we might still have been there; and had they come three days later, we should have saved our three or four thousand sick. We should, moreover, have had good roads and dry nights, no floods and torrents to wade through by day, nor swamps to sleep on by night; in fact, we should only have lost drunken stragglers. The distress at Madrid, after all the joy and gaiety, was dreadful. When we left the town sixty thousand poor were contending for the remains of our stores—the worst objects had the preference given them. King Joseph’s Palace was left by him entirely furnished; and as Lord Wellington made a point that he should find it again the same, nothing was touched by our army.

The 26th.—To-day is a cheerful, frosty, Christmas-day, and within an English farm-house the whole would do very well: but I go, like others, to bed at seven o’clock, to keep myself warm. General Castanos and his troops are gone back to Gallicia, which is one grievance removed at least. Ballasteros is in disgrace at Ceuta, for disobedience. I fear, upon the whole, the Spanish cause has suffered much by our advance to Madrid and Burgos. The people find we cannot support them, and will be very shy in future; and the misery of the peasantry and townspeople all the time is extreme. There are few deceptions in England like that about the life in Spain.

Frenada, Head-Quarters, December 8th, 1812.—I will now tell you one day’s adventure and how I came here. Two days after writing from Malliarda de Sorda, where I was lonely and heard nothing, I determined to walk over to see how things went on here, and put my papers into my pocket in case I should be able to see Lord Wellington. On my arrival I met the Quarter-Master who managed quarters: he told me he had kept a miserable hole for me, if I chose to move; it was much worse than even my old one, but I instantly said “Yes.” The next person I met was Lord Wellington, and I asked him when he wished to see me, and whether he had any objection to my moving here? He said I might take my choice and take the best of the bad. He then asked whether I had my papers about me? I said, “All.” “Come up,” said he then; and in ten minutes he looked over my papers, which consisted of four sets of charges against officers. These were all settled with a few judicious alterations, in which I entirely agreed. I then came out and wrote them fair in the Adjutant-general’s office, and two were sent off to Lisbon that day.

On my way home I found a Portuguese half drunk, killing his wife. He had bruised her, and laid her head open with a large stone; this occurred on the open road. As I was not in full strength from the effects of a recent accident, I could only gently interfere, and the brute persisted in his cruelty. A servant then came by on horseback who struck him with a good stout stick; but the fellow turned on him, and hit him with a great stone on the head. Thereupon two dragoons, who saw the whole affair, came up, and were going to cut the Portuguese down, when I begged them only to use the backs of their sabres, which they did sharply, and brought him into the village.

I have dined again with Lord Wellington, and at Castello Bom with Dr. Macgregor, whence I walked home with Colonel Colin Campbell at ten at night with a lantern, over rocks and streams. I have also seen Lord Wellington again, twice, about charges; but I understand I am not to go over to some Courts-martial which he has just fixed to take place in ten days, at two divisions, about forty miles from hence, but to stay here. He is shortly, as general report says, going to Cadiz or somewhere. At Lord Wellington’s we had a curious conversation, about himself, Canning and his speeches, and Vetus’s letters in the Times.[1] He joined in and indeed led the conversation, as if talking of persons and things he was not connected with, but seemed not satisfied with the Ministry, though he did not favour the opposition. He said he took in the Courier to know what government meant to do, &c., and as a decent paper to show General Castanos.

It has not lately been very cold; indeed, we had four or five charming days, but the rain has now begun again; but want of all books and society is the worst. The little conversation here beyond the topics of the day is of a review a year old, or a pamphlet. The dress here is a cap made of velvet, cloth, and fur, with a peak over the eyes (that is a foraging cap); the handsomest are all of fur, dark or grey fur, the former the best, with a broad gold band and tassel on the top. With this is worn a dress great coat, or plain, with military buttons, grey pantaloons; this is the costume for dinners. Morning dress—overalls, boots, and white or more generally fancy waistcoats; in winter blue and black velvet, or cloth, with fancy buttons of gold, and narrow stripes of gold as an edging. There are four suttlers here, who sell everything, and we are, all things considered, well supplied. We have one little Exeter-Change shop, but all very dear; pepper and mustard dear, a small sauce bottle 7s., tea three dollars a pound, cheese 4s. a pound, porter 5s. a bottle, gin and brandy 7s. 6d., port wine 6s. 6d., milk 1s. a quart, salt-butter 3s. a pound, sugar 1s. 8d., pork (no other meat) 1s. 8d. a pound, oil 5s. a quart. These are the prices here at head-quarters. Remember that distinction; not the national prices.

Head-Quarters, Frenada, December 31st, 1812.—For the last month I have really been too busy to write. During the last week, before Lord Wellington went away, he kept me hard at work, and left directions to endeavour to get rid of all the cases pending for Courts-martial. About thirty-two cases were made over to me, some of nearly two years’ standing. We have now a Court sitting at Lisbon, one in the second division at Coria, one in the seventh at Govea, and another here which I attend myself four miles off at Fuentes d’Onore. I have sent six to Lisbon, five to the seventh division, five to the second, and intended taking seven myself to Fuentes d’Onore; the rest have in some way been arranged. Hitherto we have made little progress from the sickness, which keeps back witnesses. I have only myself tried one, and hope to finish to-morrow. One charge is of that of a mad Commissary, whose trial was put off last week, on account of his being raving. He wrote to the Adjutant-general a mad letter, amongst other things telling him that he had ten thousand men, that he might drive all head-quarters to “Nebuchadnezzar’s fiery furnace, where,” he added, “Lord Wellington and you may sit at the head of the table.” I served him myself with his notice of trial; he appeared very wild, and I have great doubts how he will behave.

I have had long instructions to write to the three other Judge-Advocates and summonses for witnesses to send to every regiment and to the Commandants about here, and that over and over again. As fast as one prisoner or witness got well, another became sick, and half the cases are now pending in this way. Then comes a long case to abstract for Lord Wellington; then an opinion for the Adjutant-general by return of post. For these three weeks I have been writing nearly seven hours a day, circulating copies of the charges to prisoners, to the Courts, and to the prosecutors, and much of my labour is thrown away by the sickness of the prisoners and witnesses. I have nine here in the Provost’s hands for trial, and five are in the hospital—one just dead. There is one comfort, the reflection that such a press of business is never likely to recur. The Gazette and newspapers you sent me afforded me considerable amusement and comfort. Since Lord Wellington has been absent, Colonel Colin Campbell remains to do the honours and invite at the great house. I spent Christmas-day there, and have dined several times. Besides a good dinner and the best society, I there hear the latest news and get honour. The party is now very small.

After ten days of horrible damp, cold, rainy weather, we have now a thoroughly good genuine English frost, with an east wind, quite like an old friend in England; but the sun has some power, so that it is like our frosts in February rather than Christmas. We see here very few of the officers. Just before Lord Wellington went he was angry at all the applications for leave of absence, observing, “A pretty army I have here! They all want to go home: but no more shall go except the sick.” As the sick are now fast recovering, I may mention what I did not like to do a month ago, that the returns of the sick were then between nineteen and twenty thousand! You would have no idea of this. I have dined here with Major and Mrs. Scobell, the only lady here. I have also dined with Lord Aylmer, the acting Adjutant-general here, who is very civil. The Commissary, Mr. H——, keeps a good table, and often asks me. Dr. H—— is our doctor now at head-quarters—a sensible man. Lord March has lent me two volumes of Goldsmith’s works.

Castanos’ army went back in an orderly manner. Our Commissary reports well of them, and of the country, where, he says (that is, in the Tras os Montes), there is an abundance of bread, poultry, turkeys, &c., and of many things we have no notion of here. They have procured two turkeys at head-quarters this Christmas, and have had mince-meat in tins by the post from Lisbon.

We send to the woods for firing, and bring it home on the mules, and send out from four to six leagues, that is, from sixteen to twenty-four miles, for hay or straw. Ten pounds of straw a-day is the allowance for the animals, but I fear it will not hold out, as the villages are now nearly all emptied. We shall soon have to get little bundles of dry grass, which are already brought to our splendid market for sale. The Lamego wine is the only wine which I can drink with comfort,—it is a sort of port. The Sierra di Francia is the next best,—a much lighter wine, from the Sierras towards Madrid, from hence between thirty and forty miles off.

Lord Wellington, whom I saw every day for the last three or four days before he went, I like much in business affairs. He is very ready, and decisive, and civil, though some complain a little of him at times, and are much afraid of him. Going up with my charges and papers for instructions, I feel something like a boy going to school. I expect to have a long report to make on his return.

I hear a good account of Ballasteros’s army: that it is better equipped than that of Castanos’. I wish it had done more. The French are supposed still to have about a hundred and eighty thousand men in the Peninsula. I do not believe their force in this neighbourhood has increased or diminished. Some have receded to Vittoria, but have been traced by the spies (of whom we have one constantly at Burgos) no further, nor have many supplies of men to any amount been discovered, I believe. We have some difficulty in getting fed; bread in the markets is about 9d. a pound; barley for the horses very scarce: we often go without for two days. A commissary-agent is now in Salamanca buying bread. The villages between Rodrigo and Salamanca, described in my journey, are, it is said, quite destroyed. We did much, the French the rest. Pork is the only thing abundant, about 1s. 6d. per pound, very rich but too fat, and the fat not firm; the flesh sweeter and richer than that of our pork, from the acorns on which the swine feed, and which are like chestnuts.

I was a little nervous at the first Court-martial, but it went off pretty well, and I got the whole over and brought away eight sides of notes in three hours. To-morrow I take my fair copy to be signed, &c. In my way to this Court-martial, Henry and I were puzzled by a river which seemed to be over our necks,—a deep hole off a rock. At last I made out a way zigzag, only about three feet deep; there was no one near or on either side; I should have had a swim, I am told, as people are sometimes drowned there. A ducking the first time of my appearance in public would have been awkward.

Two cases have just been brought in to me; they are for shooting natives, one an alcalde. Adieu.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] It was generally supposed that these celebrated letters, often compared to those of Junius, were written by Lord Wellesley.

CHAPTER III.

Arrival of the Gazette—More Courts-martial—The Mad Commissary—Intentions of Lord Wellington—Social Amusements—Sporting—Wellington’s Fox-hounds—His Stud—A Dinner at the Commander-in-Chief’s—Number of Courts-martial—Anecdotes of Wellington.

Head-quarters, Frenada, Jan. 3, 1813.

My dear M——,

In hopes of giving you letters every week, I must seize every odd half-hour to write in, and you must not be nice as to my writing, &c., as my hand is quite tired of the regular official style, and my fingers cold, for we still have fine, clear, frosty weather; but in the middle of the day it is very pleasant.

Pray thank John very much for his parcel of newspapers, and especially for that of the 17th December, with the Gazette, &c., and the glorious news. I was the only person here with a paper of the 17th. Head-quarters had only that of the evening of the 16th with the Gazette; and though this was, in fact, much the same, this was an event—and I sent mine up to Colonel Campbell, by his desire, for his dinner-party at head-quarters. It has been in constant request ever since.

All the Guerilla party reports here state, that a body of French cavalry has left Spain for France, for some purpose. They say that from three to four thousand men are gone; this agrees with your story; but our Portuguese Quarter-Master, from his spies, reports otherwise. The forces in this neighbourhood are now but small; about four hundred men in Salamanca, which, by-the-by, has been much plundered; and the English dollars, which they extorted from the hungry troops by their high prices, pretty well squeezed out of them. At Segovia there are only one thousand men, more at Valladolid, and a force at Madrid, and thus dispersed about; but as to their being starved, their country is much better, I believe, than ours; and as I have already told you, our Commissary goes to Salamanca for bread. The light division near this place, and troop of Horse Artillery, have had scarcely any corn for their horses for the three last weeks, and the cavalry will not be fit to act much before April and May.

Yesterday a great event occurred here—the arrival of a Guerilla chief, who was formerly a sort of smuggler or robber. This man, whose name, I believe, is Sumeil, attacked a French party, carrying despatches from King Joseph to France, at a village near Valladolid, at twelve o’clock at night. He came in upon the French by surprise, and the plan succeeded. The despatches were seized, some of them on the person of the courier, but the most material in a secret place in the pummel of a saddle. A little spring in the buckle of the brass ornament discovered a keyhole, and in the saddle was the pocket to conceal the papers. They are principally in cipher, but some have been made out, and are, I understand, important. I have heard the contents of only one letter from King Joseph to the family in France, full of complaints of want of money and much distress; he states that he cannot get a dollar. From eighty to a hundred prisoners were taken by the party. These prisoners were French, and two English officers were released. The French were much irritated, and sent eleven squadrons of cavalry after the Guerilla chief, but he got off with most of his prisoners, booty, despatches, and party. Only one or two of the officers, and a few of the Guerilla privates, have yet arrived here, but more, with the prisoners, are expected shortly. Sumeil expects to be made a General for this. He was at first very shy of suffering the aide-de-camp and Colonel Campbell to look at his despatches, desiring to show them to Lord Wellington in person; nor could he consent to give up the most important, until General O’Lalor, who was at Ciudad Rodrigo, was sent for, and explained matters to him. I was to have met them at head-quarters at dinner the day of their arrival, but they were busily engaged at cards when sent for; and said they were tired, and declined going out to dinner. I was very sorry for this, as it would have been curious to see their manners at a formal dinner.

I have sent out my mules and Portuguese to forage. They now are obliged to go so far for it that they cannot get home by night, and soon, I fear, must stay out some days. I must get another horse; Colonel C—— has a handsome Spanish horse to sell, strong, showy, and, considering the price of horses here, not very dear, two hundred and fifty dollars; it is a sort of a Rubens, sleek, black, manège horse, with a fine, thick, curved, sleek, black neck.

I take my morning walk daily, from eight till nine, to secure some exercise, whilst Henry lights my fire and gets breakfast ready. Instead of the gravel walk at Sheen or in Lincoln’s Inn gardens, it is a stroll over the rocks, down towards the Coa river, which is almost two miles from hence, and in parts is wild and picturesque; large masses of rock, rounded by the weather, stunted trees, stone-wall enclosures, a succession of ravines, and ruined fortified villages on the hills at a distance; for Castello Bom, Castello Mendas, Castello Rodrigues, and Almeyda, which, as well as Guarda, are in sight from the rocky hill, half a mile from hence. Behind the whole, the sierras of Portugal and Spain, now generally covered with snow. By these means, and with a hasty ride or walk now and then in the middle of the day, my health is certainly better. The work, except on account of health, I have no sort of objection to: I only lament the delay in the proceedings, on account of the sickness of the prisoners and witnesses. However, I may have been of some use in law lecturing, and helping the other Deputy Judge-Advocates; and no trouble has been spared by me in facilitating matters.

If the news from Russia be good to the extent supposed, it is thought here that the French will withdraw from hence this spring, at least behind the Ebro. This, however, I much doubt; though it seems agreed that, at any rate, we are not in a state to follow, without very great disadvantage, and almost destruction to our cavalry.

January the 4th.—There are strong reports, as I have said, that the French are retiring; but General O’Lalor, whom I have just seen, tells me his accounts are otherwise, and that no French have left, or are leaving Spain; on the contrary, he assured me that the intercepted letters from Soult state that the contest will, in the next campaign, be between the Douro and the Tagus. D’Aranda de Duero is therefore to be fortified, and made a good depôt, until the Emperor can send reinforcements enough to enable them to enter Portugal. The French head-quarters are at Madrid, nor does it appear that there is any intention at present to give it up, though the Spaniards thought otherwise from some letters of Soult, who ordered some of his men, detachments of his corps, and letters, to be sent to him from Valencia, but this seems to be only to complete his own corps. General O’Lalor told me that a muleteer of Paget’s had just arrived from Bayonne, with a pass, which he showed me, for him to return to Portugal as Sir Edward Paget’s muleteer. This man says the French on the frontiers were told that our retreat was a rout, our loss immense, and that sixteen thousand prisoners had been taken, who were said to be on the road; he added that many were fools enough to go several leagues to see them, and found they were about two thousand five hundred; they also reported that the Commander-in-Chief, Lord Paget, was taken.[2]

We are trying to send French gazettes of the Russian business to the French army, to give some of them a better notion of affairs in that quarter, as it seems the armies hear little or nothing from France, and at long intervals.

January the 6th.—I am just setting out for Fuentes to try my mad Commissary, and from the fear of not having time before post on my return, I must now close my letter.

Head-Quarters, Frenada, January 16th, 1813.—I was so much occupied last week that I could not find time to give you one of my usual scrawls before the post-day. The business of the mad Commissary’s was finished in two long days last week, but I have had a long job in copying it fair, as he put in a half-mad defence of five sheets in folio. He is now off for Lisbon. I have bought Colonel C——’s horse for two hundred and fifty dollars.

Our last accounts from Lord Wellington are Cadiz, the 8th. He was going to Lisbon on the 9th or 10th. He has taken the command of the Spaniards; and is expected here on the 23rd. Lord Fitzroy Somerset seems much pleased with Cadiz; I do not know whether Lord Wellington is. The Prince of Orange is not yet returned from Oporto. He has been very much fêted and entertained; there is dancing every night, and he is much pleased. Lord March is just returned from thence; Colonel G—— from Seville; so we all begin to reassemble here. I have just been making out on a large sheet the states of the Courts-martial for Lord Wellington. They are thirty-one in number, which are now going on, just finished, or which are to proceed when witnesses can be collected. At present my place is no sinecure.

The French, they say, have been for some time in motion here, but I believe only to forage, &c.; their last movements are southward of Madrid and towards Seville again, but this is thought to be either a feint or to be for the sake of supplies.

Doctor M’Gregor has been a tour to visit the sick; of whom I am sorry to say many have died; more than I was aware of. He has been as far as Oporto.

I have gone on very smoothly with my Courts-martial. General V—— is the President, and has been very civil. They are all light infantry, and have been very attentive, orderly, and obedient.

January 17th.—The house which I now occupy belongs to the Portuguese lad who is in my service, and who is about eighteen. It is a droll circumstance to live in the house of your own servant, who receives six dollars a month, and is a tolerable groom. These reverses are here very frequent in the fortunes of this class of people. He owns three houses here, such as they are—stone barns; and his family had sheep, goats, and land.

There is plenty of game about, and we now get woodcocks frequently, shot by the officers, very good hares, better, I think, than in England, a few good snipes and plovers, and a very few partridges; the latter are very wild. We have had, off and on, frost for this month and more, and some very fine days, others like a London November fog, a little snow, and now and then a day’s rain; but in eight hours again, from a sudden change of wind, all dry and frost. The sun, when out, makes the mid-day very pleasant; and though the winds are very cold, and produce very hard ground and thick ice for the time in a very short period, yet the ice does not continue, as in England, and accumulate. It never gets much thicker than it is in one night with a cold wind, and in the daytime the ground is soft; the cold, therefore, though for a time very sharp, certainly cannot be near so intense in reality as in England. We go to bed sometimes with the ground entirely wet at eleven o’clock, and at six in the morning find there has been a very hard frost, which is then going off again.

The population here is very considerably thinned, and there is much less land in cultivation than formerly; the people remaining have generally lost their flocks and their animals for agriculture. Few have now means of ploughing and manuring. The vineyards are generally in a very neglected state also; not manured or in any way attended to, and eaten close down by our hungry animals. Yet the labour required is so moderate, and the light soil seems so productive, that the country might very soon recover itself; but we take the oxen over the whole country, buy up, and eat up everything. Out of our reach, in the Tras os Montes, are plenty of poultry, sheep, turkeys, &c. The Portuguese, naturally lazy, never repair the damages of war, never rebuild, clean out, or set to work to bring things round. They despair, and only just work to supply our market with onions, 4d. each; eggs, 3d. each; potatoes alone rather cheap at 2d. the pound; pork, 1s. 6d. the pound, and good. The Spaniards, on the contrary, begin, very soon after the armies go, to restore; they put on their tiles, rebuild their walls, and especially whitewash the inside of their houses; they collect their cooking-vessels, and get to work on their farms. The peasantry recover themselves much more and much faster than the Portuguese, but yet they have not in any one place suffered so much and so often as this part of Portugal has; and in this town they are pretty much as lazy as the other.

The 20th.—A very interesting case of a poor deserter whom we tried yesterday at Fuentes, I must copy out fair to carry over to the general president for his signature to-morrow. The deserter, poor fellow! deserted for love to the Spaniards, with a Spanish girl from the neighbourhood of Madrid whom he had brought away with him. She had been most honest and faithful in very trying scenes during the retreat. On being ordered to send her off by his Captain, he appeared to have had no intention of going over to the French. I was not aware of the merit of his story till I copied the whole out fairly. It was translated in broken bits, by a not very skilful interpreter. Three deserters came in here yesterday; they are Flemings. They report that part of the French cavalry are gone to France, and that all the cars round Salamanca have been put in requisition to carry off the sick from the hospital there. But this does not prove much, as it would at any rate be an unsafe place, and out of their line of defence next campaign. They state that the sick have been very numerous, and Salamanca well plundered.

I have been one morning over to Almeyda to breakfast with the governor and see the town. At breakfast I met a sawny Spanish signora, with a crying, poor-looking child: she breakfasted on beefsteaks, onions, partridges, and wine, and did nothing all day. Almeyda is twelve miles off. I rode thither on my new horse. He is just such a horse as you would admire, prancing, showy, sleek, like a Flemish picture of a horse, rather clumsy and heavy; but he went well and quietly. Almeyda is in ruins; a mere heap of rubbish! The works are being repaired, and much is already done; but there is yet a great deal to do, and the workmen, though well watched, seem very lazy. There are very good shops among the ruins for the materials of all articles of wearing apparel; these from Oporto, and not dear; cloth and baize of all sorts, linen, stockings, but not a cup and saucer to be had, or a drinking-glass. Most of the new work at Almeyda is at present only earth—slanting so that you might run up in a storm, I think; but the masonry is going on, and it would cost some men to storm it, if we defend it. At present there is only a Portuguese garrison.

Head-Quarters, Frenada, January 23rd, 1813.—I do not quite feel as I did in England, nor can I make out that others do either. There is a languor and laziness which seem in some degree catching from the natives, as they have it in such perfection. We have had almost constant frost or cold, fog and sleet, but in general clear cold days ever since Christmas. It seems that we are likely to have some snow, which hitherto we have only on the sierras and hills (where it lies almost constantly), except a very few storms of snow which melted as it fell; and then rain in February; then some warm days in March and in April, with very cold mornings and nights, and some very cold days again, even so late as in May at times. By-the-by, our English post from all the different parts of the army, to each other, and to Lisbon, is now in general in very good order, which saves me much trouble in my extensive correspondence relative to the Courts-martial. I have now also got through the great worry of the number of cases which came upon me at once, and, though fully employed, business comes more regularly. I have persevered in being civil and useful as far as I could to every one, never objecting to anything, answering all queries, and taking everything upon myself. I endeavour to model the whole as it was arranged in England, before the Adjutant-general’s offices did two-thirds of the business of Judge-Advocate. As I have no clerk, and am not allowed a soldier, this at times presses me hard, but the greatest stress is now over, though new cases come in regularly. I yesterday sent in one against a Lieutenant-colonel, with six charges and thirty-seven witnesses. I have another Commissary just come in here as a prisoner, for purposely burning down a house, a mischievous freak, when drunk.

I now dine out about three or four times in the week, generally once or twice at head-quarters—and occasionally with Major and Mrs. Scobell, who give very pleasant little dinners, and tender meat, and a loo party afterwards. He is a clever man, in the Quarter-Master-general’s department, and has the command of the corps of guides, and the arrangement of the English post through the country.

The report current now is, that next campaign is to be in camp, and not in towns and villages, as Lord Wellington wants to keep the army more together than he can do in quarters; and unless he goes into camp, the other Generals also leave their divisions and come into the towns. At any rate, it will not be as it was last year, when the men went into camp in February and March, as, from general rumour, the army will not be in a state to move much before the end of April; nearly one-third are still sick, and this state of things mends now but slowly; this I observe from the general daily state of the whole army made for Lord Wellington, which is kept most perfectly. The horses will not be ready till they have had a month’s green food in March and April; straw, bad hay, and a little Indian corn do not suit them for very active service.

I want a neat lantern sent out, to go out after dark in these horrible villages, where if you go only a hundred yards in the dark you step from a rock half up your legs in mud.

There is a shocking set of servants at head-quarters; idle, drunken English servants and soldiers, almost all bad, and the Portuguese are every day running off with something or other from their masters and others. There has been no chaplain here for these last eight or nine months, or any notice taken in any manner of Sunday! It used to be, I hear, a very regular and imposing thing to attend divine service performed out of doors with hats off, but the people must now think we have no religion at all, as almost every public business goes on nearly the same as on ordinary days. The English soldiers, however, keep it as a holiday, though the Portuguese will many of them work, particularly after three o’clock. We have had a glee or two with the aides-de-camp of the Prince of Orange and some others. There is also a Spanish Commissary who sings and plays the guitar very well. I wish my violoncello were more portable, and, with a flute or two, we should have a little music now and then here, in the evenings. They have asked me to send for a collection of glees.

People here are all very sore about the Americans and our taken frigates. I think we deserve it a little. Our contempt for our old descendants and half brothers has always rather disgusted me, and with some English is carried so far as not to be bearable. This reverse may set matters right. The Americans have faults enough; we should allow them their merits. Our sailors all thought the Americans would not dare to look them in the face. I think the army rather rejoice, and laugh aside at all this falling on the navy, as they bullied so much before. I will not write to you of northern or English news, for it would be absurd; you would, if I did, receive comments and observations on what was nearly forgotten, or entirely altered, by the time my letter reached you. I keep this paper under my business heap, and take it out and scribble when anything occurs. Lord Wellington is to arrive to-day; and I must get up my lesson for to-morrow, so adieu!

Tuesday.—Lord Wellington arrived last night at six o’clock. I saw him with the rest who happened to be in the market-place when he came. He was looking well.

There is a great quantity of game around us, and the sportsmen supply their tables. It is not mere sport here, but more like the case of Robinson Crusoe, a matter of necessity. Nearly all our luxuries are thus obtained. Commissary H——, two days since, went across the Coa for about five hours, and brought home five hares, four couple of cocks, three snipes, one partridge, and a rabbit. All these animals are remarkably good here, except the partridges, which are nothing in comparison to ours, and I think not so good as the French. Lord Wellington, except presents now and then, buys up all we can get—gives 8s. for a hare, and so on. Turkeys are only to be had thirty miles off: the price, which has been 25s., is now 14s. Powder and shot are very scarce, only a little to be had now and then at Almeyda. This you will think at the head-quarters of sixty thousand men rather strange, but the same stuff which kills men will not bring down birds. We have three odd sorts of packs of hounds here, and the men hunt desperately: firstly, Lord Wellington’s, or, as he is called here, the Peer’s; these are fox-hounds, about sixteen couple; they have only killed one fox this year, and that was what is called mobbed. These hounds, for want of a huntsman, straggle about and run very ill, and the foxes run off to their holes in the rocks on the Coa. Captain W—— goes out, stops the holes over-night, halloos, and rides away violently. The ground is a light gravel and rock all over the country. From a hard rock sometimes the horse gets up to his belly in wet gravelly sand; thus we have many horses lamed, and some bad falls. The next set of hounds are numerous,—greyhounds. The Commissary-general, Sir R. Kennedy, is a great man in this way, and several others. And thirdly, the Capitan Mor here, that is the principal man of the place, has an old poacher in his establishment, with a dozen terriers, mongrels, and ferrets, and he goes out with the officers to get rabbits. Lord Wellington has a good stud of about eight hunters; he rides hard, and only wants a good gallop, but I understand knows nothing of the sport, though very fond of it in his own way. There will soon, I hear, be good trout-fishing in the Coa and in the streams in the ravines near it.

Wednesday, January 27th.—It has happened just as I expected; I have no time to add more, for I have three new cases to draw charges in, and most troublesome ones too: one of four fellows, old commissariat clerks I suppose turned off, who have been about the country living by their wits, extorting provisions, forage, &c., from the Spaniards, by frauds, false passports, &c., under pretence of acting for the English and Portuguese Commissariat. There are thirty-seven enclosures sent to me, papers taken upon them, all in Spanish, in general badly written, and no translation. The case, it is to be feared, will never be proved. I have got General O’Lalor to help me in this case. In short, my hands are full again; and my report of the old stories not made out. We occupy from Coria, Guinaldo, Vizeu, Covilhaon, and even almost to Coimbra; hospitals at Celerico, Vizu, Coimbra a few, Abrantes, and Santarem. I fear my Court-martial will be moved farther off. Some additional attached Spaniards are to have their head-quarters at Fuentes d’Onore to be about his Excellency, now that he takes the command of the whole generals, &c., and General Vandeleur and the famous Caçadores are to move from thence in consequence; the arrangements, however, are not yet completed.

Head-Quarters, Frenada, February 2nd, 1813.—Lord Wellington is returned in high spirits and great good-humour with every one; and, in spite of the number of deaths here, which are very formidable (between four and five hundred every week for the last six), declares that he shall take the field this year with nearly forty thousand British, and, on the whole, with a hundred and fifty thousand of one sort or other.

General Vandeleur is to go to Fuente Guinaldo, and the Courts-martial will in future be there. It is about twenty-four miles off. I must sleep out always, and shall thus lose one or two days’ post; this will be inconvenient to me, and just now to the service, but it cannot be avoided. The General is very good-humoured, and we are very good friends; he has offered me a quarter, and a dinner, if I will bring my bed. At present our weather is colder than ever, but generally clear frost; the wind is excessively sharp. The ice yesterday on the road would bear my horse; and the thermometer, at seven in the evening, was four degrees below the freezing point; at night sometimes it is much colder.

Two packets have just arrived; the last brought Lord Wellington the last good news from Wilna. I have dined once at head-quarters since Lord Wellington’s return, with Sumeil the Guerilla chief, looking like a dirty German private dragoon, in a smart new cavalry jacket, on one side of me, and Dr. Curtis, the Catholic head of the Salamanca college (who has been sent off from Salamanca very lately), opposite to me. The Spanish General O’Lalor treated Sumeil like a child, told him what to do and eat; but he had, I conclude, dined long before, for he ate little or nothing. Dr. Curtis seemed to be a clever, sensible, gentleman-like priest. He said the French knew immediately of Lord Wellington’s absence, but were not clear about it, and very anxious in their inquiries to ascertain the fact. General Hill’s corps, who did not share in the early siege of Rodrigo last year in January, nor the wet bad work at Badajoz, are by far the most healthy part of the army, and, next to them, the light division here. The fifth and seventh, near Lamego, are the worst, and the Guards (the new comers) very bad. General Hill has only about fourteen hundred in the hospital, and about seven thousand fit for service. I suppose we shall have an active campaign next year, if the whole be not put an end to by peace, which is not improbable, if the Allies are not too unreasonable in consequence of their successes. If Austria will join in dictating the terms with Russia, Prussia, and Great Britain, they should be very good for Europe; but if the devil Bonaparte be driven hard, he will rouse himself, appeal to the vanity of the French, and recoil upon us stronger than ever. The Gil Blas set of swindlers who went about Spain with false papers and passes, raising the wind under pretence of getting supplies for the British and Portuguese commissariat service (one was a German, two Spaniards, and the fourth a Portuguese), I much fear it will not be easy to convict.

February the 3rd.—You must excuse my writing, for it is done at all odd moments, as a relaxation from all my formal letters of business, which require a good deal of method and order in a small compass not to get into scrapes, such as sending witnesses to wrong places, &c. As I have Courts sitting here at Fuente Guinaldo in the light division; at Lamego, in the fifth; at Maimento, in the seventh; at Alter de Chaon; at Coria, in the second division; at Maimento de Biera, in the third; and at Lisbon; letters coming at all hours of the day about each, a witness wanted here, a difficulty arising there, and so on; I can only get on by keeping a book, in which I instantly put down the exact state of everything, and keep copies of all my letters till the business is over; and I make it a rule, if possible, to answer every letter by return of post, as the only way not to get in arrear. I am very glad that I persuaded my Court at Fuentes d’Onore to have patience, and let me take down all the long love story I told you of, of the deserter Prang Neigabauer. It was quite a pretty story. Lord Wellington pardoned him, from the good character of his regiment, and that which the Colonel gave him. The Prince of Orange is returned, and we are all here again assembled in this magnificent town!

5 o’clock.—I have been sent for twice to-day by Lord Wellington, besides twice last night, and have so much on my hands about Spaniards, Portuguese, and English, that I cannot add more.

Head-Quarters, Frenada, February 7th, 1813.—There never were known so many Courts-martial in this army as at the present moment, and as I have the whole direction of them all, I really scarcely know where to turn, and my fingers are quite fatigued, as well as my brains, with the arrangements and difficulties as to witnesses, &c. I sent out seventeen letters yesterday, and to-day I have one case of thirteen prisoners who have been committing every sort of outrage on their march here. Lord Wellington is now much more easy with me, and seems to trust to me more. Yesterday I was pleased when he said, “If your friends knew what was going on here, they would think you had no sinecure. And how do you suppose I was plagued when I had to do it nearly all myself?”

He seemed to feel relieved, and of course I could not but feel gratified. I can assure you, however, that we have none of us much idle time. Dr. M’Gregor has seven hundred medical men to look after. The Quarter-Master-general, all the arrangement of the troops, clothing, &c. The Adjutant-general, daily returns of the whole, constantly checked by an eye which finds out even a wrong casting-up of numbers in the totals. Lord Wellington reads and looks into everything. He hunts almost every other day, and then makes up for it by great diligence and instant decision on the intermediate days. He works until about four o’clock, and then, for an hour or two, parades with any one whom he wants to talk to, up and down the little square of Frenada (amidst all the chattering Portuguese) in his grey great coat.

General Alava, whom I have seen lately much more about Spanish business, is a very gentleman-like, and appears to me to be a clever man.

We have had constant frost hitherto; but I fear the rain is going now to begin. Some of the days lately have been delightful, like the frosty days in England at times at the end of February, with a fine clear warm sun in the daytime.

I have just heard of five German deserters, brought in to the Provost here; and shall, I suppose, have to try them. They were taken on the other side of Rodrigo by the Spaniards; they are just come out to us from England. Don Julian’s cavalry are very useful in this way, and very active. The Cortes want to encourage farming in the country, and will give land to any wounded soldiers of the allied armies, English as well as natives, on condition of building and living on the spot.

General Wimpfen, one of the Chief’s new Spanish staff, is arrived, and will be stationed with us.

At Ciudad Rodrigo they are going to set up a Spanish newspaper, which is to come out once in a week: I mean to take it in. My new black horse goes on hitherto very well; I like him much; but use him little. Whenever I can, I get a gallop and a trot for an hour on the common just close by, and return home to write again.

Excuse this stupid letter. I am very tired and must to bed.

On Thursday, the 11th, I go to Fuente Guinaldo, and shall probably sleep there, at General Vandeleur’s.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] Meaning Lieut.-General Sir Edward Paget, second in command, who was taken prisoner in the retreat. Lord Paget, afterwards Earl of Uxbridge, now Marquis of Anglesea, was not in the Peninsula at this time.

CHAPTER IV.

More Courts-martial—Bal Masqué—Anecdotes of Wellington—Songs in his praise—Spanish Banditti—Excesses of the Army—Carnival—More Anecdotes of the Duke—The Staff—Grand Entertainment at Head-quarters—Wellington’s opinion on Affairs at Home—Murder of an Officer—General Craufurd.

Frenada, February 12, 1813.
8 o’clock, Friday night.

My dear M——,

On my return from Fuente Guinaldo I found instructions for two new Courts-martial in Lord Wellington’s rough pencil notes,—a broad scroll in pencil in one corner, “Refer all this to the Judge Advocate,” meaning me to draw charges, &c. I must now tell you of my expedition to Fuente Guinaldo. We were to have tried the Commissary for burning a house down, but by my advice he offered to pay all the damage done to General Alava, the Spanish agent here, and in consequence to be forgiven if it was paid in time. This was the best for the Spaniards, the owners, and a tolerably sharp punishment for a man whose only lawful pay is 7s. 6d. a-day, the damage being near fifteen hundred dollars. The night before the trial he had not raised the money. I went to Lord Wellington to know what I should do, as the witnesses were all ready. He told me to give him till Monday next, and have all the witnesses rationed and kept till that time at Guinaldo. Suspecting that this would be my instruction, I had got another case ready for the Court there.

About seven o’clock, after a crust of bread and a glass of rum and milk for breakfast, off we went, Henry and I, for Fuente Guinaldo, and at the same time I sent one of my Portuguese men with my mattress and blankets, coverings, corn and hay for my horses, to meet us there, Henry carrying my papers, Mutiny Act, testaments, and all writing implements, &c., for my Court-martial. The morning threatened much, as the frost is just broken up; but we got there dry and in time, and I found my way without any blunder, which, as the road was entirely across open downs, or through woods without inhabitants, and full of cross tracks, was some merit; I had, however, applied to Captain Wood, the hunter, who knows all the country well, for instructions.

We arrived at Guinaldo in two hours, finished a case and tried a man for shooting a Portuguese, acquitted him of murder, but found him guilty of very disorderly conduct, and sentenced him to receive eight hundred lashes. I then walked round the town, looked into the church, and came back; wrote the whole out fair on six sides of folio paper; dined with the president at six, had a hospitable reception; and in the evening went to a sort of frolicsome masked ball, given extra on account of the Courts-martial. As the General went, I accompanied him. There were all the equivoque belles of Guinaldo, and all the light infantry officers, many in disguise and masquerade; some as females, and one as a Spanish farmer, the regular dress. We were all struck with the becoming appearance and picturesque style of the costume. One or two of the ladies were dressed as officers, and so on. The ball went on very well for some time, but the two ladies who were the leading beauties of the evening quarrelled, and the harmony was disturbed. At ten I went home, and left the party half tipsy and rather riotous, so that it was time for Generals and Judges to retire. The Court-room was my quarter. This morning before breakfast I read over my fair copy of the evidence, &c., with the General. He signed it, gave me some breakfast, and I set off home, on a very threatening day which was as good as it promised; my cloak, however, kept me nearly dry.

Fuente Guinaldo is nearer the Sierra de Gutta, and several degrees colder than we are here at Frenada, though we are many, many degrees colder than Lisbon. The Spanish staff are now all arrived, but scarcely a Spaniard amongst them—all foreigners. General Wimpfen, a Swiss; General O’Donoghue, Irish; and so of others. They all dined two days ago at Lord Wellington’s.

Tell John, in answer to his inquiry, that with regard to the campaign and the siege of Burgos, it is a question much argued and discussed. Some say we should never have lost time by going to Madrid, and that was the mistake; some that if we had taken Burgos, as we should have done but for the very bad weather, all would have gone right. General O’Lalor, however, told me he thought that would have made no difference, but that if the French chose to give up the South, and unite against us ninety thousand strong, we must have been off just the same even though Burgos had been taken.

My quarter at Fuente Guinaldo, having no window, is rather cool, but being in Spain, is clean. The church is a fine building, and the town not quite broken up; I suppose we shall move there next. To-night is a play-night in the gay light division at Galegos, and Lord Wellington was to have gone there, but the perpetual rain will probably prevent him. He meant to ride there, a distance of ten miles, at night. Had it been very fine I might have been almost tempted to take my mattress round that way, and go once to the theatre, which all say is very tolerable in regard to acting, scenery, &c., the whole carried on by the light division in a chapel at Galegos. I was not a little surprised to see common country dances very tolerably performed last night at Guinaldo, and even Sir Roger de Coverley.

Two or three days ago I was somewhat puzzled, when, upon my pointing out the sentence of a Court-martial as illegal, Lord Wellington said, “Well, do write a letter for me to the president, and I will sign it, and it shall be sent back for revision.” I did not know his style, but my letter was fortunately approved of. I had yesterday a visit from Colonel ——, of the Engineers, begging for a favourable report upon the case of a complaint against a Captain of artillery; I suppose people think I have some weight in Lord Wellington’s decisions, but that is by no means the case. He thinks and acts quite for himself; with me, if he thinks I am right, but not otherwise. I have not, however, found what Captain —— told me I should find, that Lord Wellington immediately determines against anything that is suggested to him. On the contrary, I think he is reasonable enough, only often a little hasty in ordering trials, when an acquittal must be the consequence. This, in my opinion, does harm, as I would have the law punish almost always when it is put in force.

Wednesday, 17th.—I have heard no news at all: still strong reports that the French cavalry are partly gone from hence to France; but I cannot ascertain that they are actually removed beyond Vittoria, and that may be only for forage, as our cavalry are wide apart and dispersed. The first division, under General Bock, is at and below Coimbra, near the sea, where I have just fixed a Court-martial to try a set of men of the 9th and 87th for most outrageous conduct on the march to join the army. Lord Wellington has had the whole complaints against this party along the road written out, to send home, with an official copy of his letter, as he finds that an account of the matter has travelled home, and is quoted as a specimen of the conduct of our army on the march. The first division of cavalry is, on the other hand, at Alter de Chaon, towards Castello Branco, and is all much dispersed; General Hill, with the second division, Coria; sixth division, Cea; fifth, Lamego; third, Maimento de Beira; seventh, Maimento; light, Fuente Guinaldo. These are the head-quarters of the troops. Marshal Beresford is better, and his wound nearly healed; he talks of soon joining; his head-quarters will be Villa Formosa. I now see Lord Wellington almost daily on business; he one day fell into a passion about the Courts-martial for not doing their duty, by acquitting and recommending to mercy, &c., and also about officers commanding parties not being attentive. He has always been civil to me, though at times quick and hasty in business. I nearly got into a scrape by saying a good word for Captain ——, merely from his good character, as I did not personally know him. However, Lord Wellington so far acquiesced, that he said I need not draw the charge as yet; but he should send him word that if the village in question were not satisfied for their forage and bullocks in a week, he should either have him tried or sent home.

I have just got a letter of reprimand to send out, according to a written memorandum from Lord Wellington; a little slap at a deputy of mine, and greater at the Court-martial, with directions how they should act. Adieu.

Monday Evening, Head-Quarters, Frenada, February 22nd, 1813.—On getting up in the morning yesterday, I said to myself for the first time these two months, “Well, I do think I have no business to-day, and will write to M——.” In two hours’ time, however, before I had finished my breakfast, and read one of Vetus’s letters, in came three new cases, and old General O’Lalor to tell me he had sent me a case to try at Guinaldo—a man charged with shooting a Spanish girl through the door, because she would not give him some chestnuts! The wanton outrages of our people are quite extraordinary. There are four poor fellows to be hung this week in the second division; one for desertion, and three for a burglary near Coria about a fortnight since. For the sake of immediate example I hastened the case, by giving full instructions to the Deputy Judge-Advocate there. The men were tried immediately, and three are to be hung to-morrow. The Commissary charged with burning the house was at last let off for a large sum of money. I was very glad when it was settled, for I had more trouble about it than if he had been tried and hung ten times over. An overwhelming heap of Spanish proceedings has just reached me about the man for shooting the poor girl; and yet I have very little doubt, when the Court meets, I shall have much difficulty in proving that the man shot her, and that she is dead. I go over for that purpose the day after to-morrow.

During the last two or three days the weather has been delightful—quite a mild south-west breeze, with a clear sun; but this was, I heard, too unusual to last. I like “Vetus” much, and agree with him in most things; but his style is not by a good deal to be compared with Junius. In parts there are considerable blunders, and often confusion and want of clearness; but there are some curious stolen cuts, if facts. I have just heard from General O’Lalor that we have been attacked at Bejar by a party of French, and have beaten them back. It was the second division, General Hill’s corps, who were concerned, and I believe the 50th regiment principally. I am told no great loss, but know no particulars. You will hear more of it from the papers than I can tell you. It is still said that we are to encamp and bivouac this next campaign. We are now consuming our last stock of hay—two great stacks, which have been saved by Lord Wellington’s orders at Almeyda. After that we must buy reaping-hooks, and try to cut grass before the green corn forage comes in; and though I can see a plain difference already in the colour of the hills, and the young green corn and spring grass are here and there making a show, there is very little to be got to eat yet in that way.

We have still many sick, and the doctors do not take better care of themselves than of their patients, for no less than five medical men have died at Ciudad Rodrigo since we have been in quarters here. The French have got all about the part of the country near General Hill, near Nava, Morguende, Mentrida, &c., and are moving; but I do not expect anything important for some time. Some say the French will begin this campaign; and I rather hope they may. The 10th Dragoons have arrived, I hear from every one, in the highest style and in excellent order. This is very good news.

We have three Spanish songs in honour of Wellington, one rather gone by now: “The Retreat of Marmont,” “Ahe Marmont, onde vai, Marmont,” a very pretty air; the other was composed at Cadiz lately when Lord Wellington was there. I suppose you have them in England. Moretti of Cadiz is the composer. One of them is good, and the other very well. Lord Wellington sits and hears his own praises in Spanish with considerable coolness, and calls for it himself at times.

February 23rd, Tuesday Morning.—Just a few lines more, and but a few, as I have just been with Lord Wellington, and, having got rid of one batch of papers, have returned with another. I hear the affair at Bejar, or Banos, in the sierras north of Placencia, was not much. We had six taken and a few wounded. It is supposed to have been a French party for provisions and plunder, as they wander about for these purposes, and to have been no serious movement. Our men got a position first, which the French tried to get, at Bejar. We had no cavalry, or an attempt might have succeeded to turn the French party; but without this assistance the 56th drove back the French, and saved Bejar and that country. The 71st were also there, and concerned.

Lord March is just returned from a flag-of-truce excursion to the French. He fell in with their pickets half a league from Ledesma, where the French seemed in force. They were very civil. He dined with a General Goutier, or some such name, and stayed about four or five hours. Their men and cavalry looked well, and clothing very fair; accoutrements, &c., bad and slovenly; horses in good condition; but he concludes that he saw the best, for he found they knew of his approach five leagues off. They kept away all the Spaniards, who were getting round him, and were particularly violent against the canaille, the Guerillas. The latter were close upon the French. He passed them very near the town. They abused Sumeil; said he would rob even the English, and would not believe he dined at Lord Wellington’s table. They hoped to see the English in a month, they said. His five hussars and his trumpeter were surrounded by eighty men in a trice, and all communication cut off, and a thousand questions asked of course, but little given in answer. The French officer and escort of five dragoons, who escorted Lord March on his departure, would not go above half a league, for fear of the Guerillas, and was half inclined to accept Lord March’s offer to let his trumpeter and some men see him back, with a party of the Guerillas; but at last he said he had a good horse, and galloped back. I do not know what Lord March went about; some say on Sir Edward Paget’s affairs.

Guinaldo, February 24th, 1813.—From the blunder of General O——, here I am, after a wet ride, with no Court-martial to-day, and nothing to do. The consequence is, I must stay to-morrow also, when I really hope to get this business over, for I have plenty to do at home. Marshal Marmont had the quarter I occupy when he was here, as well as Lord Wellington. The former shut the whole up, and used candles all day. The latter got on as well as he could in the dark, and used the General’s bedroom, which is rather a better room, as his dining-room. The owner was once a man rich in flocks, herds, and lands and houses, and has another good house at Ciudad Rodrigo. At present I take it his worldly goods are not sufficient to make him think too much of this world. Between Pago and Coria there are banditti and robbers; and two or three murders have been committed there by armed men, Spaniards, I believe, and Portuguese, five or six together. What a state this poor country is in!

Frenada, March 1st.—Several of these banditti I hear are deserters from our army, and Lord Wellington has sent out after them. On the Thursday I tried the man at Guinaldo for murdering a poor Spanish girl. We had some difficulty in coming to an understanding. The witnesses were all Spaniards, principally the relations of the deceased; the only interpreter was Portuguese; the prisoner a German, but he spoke bad French. At last, as I had looked into all the Spanish proceedings, we got on, as most of the Court understood Spanish as well as the interpreter, and nearly all understood French. The prisoner’s defence was in French. I then read it in English to the Court as he went on, and took it down. He had a very narrow escape for his life; I thought it murder, and the Court were long in doubt; at last they only found him guilty of a most disorderly outrage and killing the poor girl, and gave him a thousand lashes.

I wrote it fair, got it signed, dined again with the General, and came over here on a beautiful day. We have now again fine clear, frosty mornings, beautiful, but really almost too warm days and too cold evenings. I wish this would last; and yet it is trying to the constitution, for there must, I think, be thirty degrees difference between the temperature at three and at six o’clock.

On my return here I found that no less than nine Courts-martial had arrived and plenty of newspapers. One Court-martial had met thirty-eight days, and another sixteen: thus I had plenty to read and report upon. I saw Lord Wellington, in consequence, two days running, for nearly two hours, as I thought four of the cases ought to go back for revision, and one only to be confirmed, as it was half illegal—eight hundred lashes and transportation for life—which latter is not a legal sentence for mutiny. In truth, the men should have been shot.

The Courts will not do their duty: Lord Wellington was quite angry. He swore, and said that his whole table was covered with details of robbery and mutiny, and complaints from all quarters, in all languages, and that he should be nothing but a General of Courts-martial. He has given some broad hints to the Courts in general orders. I sent out three new cases yesterday, and have about fifteen deserters just in hand now—in general Poles from the second King’s German Legion light infantry battalion.

I made it a rule, whenever possible, to clear off everything as I go, and answer every letter by return of post, which is the only way; and I am glad to see my pile of papers done with now larger than that in hand. Whilst I was with Lord Wellington, the Commissariat returns came in, and were very confused. That added to his ill-humour; but he was very civil to me, and gets more easy, as I do with him. He sent orders for fifteen thousand complete black accoutrements to be sent round to Corunna, so I hope the Gallician army is to be increased; some of their regiments got home much more entire than any of ours during the retreat, but upon the whole they diminished very much by desertion when they first got away from home.

The people of Guinaldo, whilst I was there, were almost mad—nothing but dancing and noise in all quarters. They told me it was a particular day, when the women were to rule the Dios de Madre; but it seems to me they are always in this gay state. The people agree there very well with the English, particularly with the 52nd, which is now there, a fine light battalion, seven hundred strong, and in high order. The ladies go about, and tie strings to the coats of the officers, and even of the General; dance about, sup, and drink with them, and are all alive both with them and the men.

The 52nd and 43rd lost part of their baggage in the retreat, and one on the Court-martial told me an anecdote as to his baggage. A French officer and a few men overtook his bâtman with the canteens, &c. “Where’s the key?” he said; “come, quick! break it open; out with the tea and sugar, I have had none these three months:” and in this manner he took all worth having, the best horse and mule, and left the bâtman frightened to death.

There is one regiment of the Caçadores that is the constant astonishment of the English. Badly paid, no new clothes for the last two years, almost in rags this winter, and yet scarcely a man has been sick. I wish this was the case with them all. Our men are getting their clothes much better than last year, but still many are sick. Of two hundred men, a reinforcement to the 43rd light regiment Walcheren men, ninety have died; and the Guards have suffered terribly, but still all are in spirits; though the verses I enclose to you (and which are printed at the Adjutant-general’s portable press, used for printing the army orders, &c.) give a very fair description of the life in Portugal.

I have taken a ride to Malliarda de Sorda, and found the Deputy Paymaster-General H—— very unwell, with an attack of fever. One must not think of these things: that is the best way, I believe, if possible. Sir W. Erskine, who threw himself out of the window here in a delirium, came to his senses after his fall, and said he never thought he could have been guilty of such an act, and that he did not intend it. This was very melancholy; but I am told he had been two years confined, and that he should not have been here as chief officer of the cavalry—it was too great a risk.

We have a report here of a revolution in France; but I do not credit it yet, though not unlikely. It seems to me Bonaparte is a man to run that hazard by his conscription and immense levies, and that there will be either a revolution, or he will soon be again formidable; and much is yet to be done. I hope we shall make a good end of it here this year.

Wednesday.—I dined yesterday at head-quarters, and sat next to Baron Wimpfen, the new Quarter-Master-general attached to Lord Wellington. He is a very gentleman-like man, and talks French well. We had much conversation together, in which Lord Wellington, who sat next to the General, often took part. He gave us the whole history of the battle of Fuentes d’Onore, which was fought some time since near here, in which the French were three to one, and in which Lord Wellington said he committed a fault, by extending his right too much to Poço de Velho; and that, if the French had taken advantage of it, there might have been bad consequences, but that they permitted him to recover himself and change his front before their face.

Another new comer at dinner yesterday was a Monsieur Saudri, an agent for the Portuguese, a sort of interpreter. He gave an account of the state of the Portuguese provinces. Some are recovering fast, it seems, Coimbra particularly, but many are still in great distress.

Yesterday was the last day of a sort of carnival here. We had fools, and pantaloons, and straw bulls, &c., and masks walking about the streets—much noise but no great magnificence. I saw poor pantaloon fall in earnest when throwing his sword after a soldier, and he could scarcely get up again.

A general order has just been issued for all the officers to apply for tents for the next campaign. I must do the same, I suppose, and try that sort of life, which in dry weather may be well enough, but bad work if as it was last year, when the little bed-legs sunk in mud up to the mattress, and the blankets got quite muddy!

Head-Quarters, Frenada, March 6th, 1813.—A man arrived here two days ago from Madrid in five days, for payment of a Commissariat bill due to him. He states that the French are in small force at Madrid, and that Joseph was packing up. But I believe this is only because he individually is going away; for I understand that the French are still in force below Madrid, and that the only notion entertained as genuine here as to their troops going homewards is that ten men picked from each squadron and battalion, or as some say from each company, are to be sent home to make good the Imperial Guards. I do not think myself they will withdraw at all now. They keep the country to support themselves till we are ready to move, and then I think they will collect and risk an early action with us, as their difficulty is to keep together long. If they beat us, they will remain as they were, and I think that is all, unless we are quite routed; if we beat them, then they will go behind the Ebro. The conjecture is, as far as I can understand from the probabilities, a late opening of the campaign on account of the Spaniards not being ready, and then an early action when it does begin.

Some say that the Spaniards will not be ready to move before the harvest in July, or not much before. The French have nearly ninety thousand men in their extended positions, with their right on and near the Douro and the left on or along the Tagus. We shall have, when we begin, about forty-four or forty-five thousand British, about twenty or twenty-two thousand Portuguese, and how many Spaniards no one can tell, or what they will do. So do not expect to hear of a march to France—to the Ebro, or very possibly up to Burgos again. The opportunity for effecting this must be by obliging the French to assemble, and then by rousing up all the Guerillas to starve them. Having heard Lord Wellington give his account of the battle of Fuentes d’Onore to General Wimpfen, the Spanish Inspector-General, I rode there yesterday with Lord Aylmer (who was present in the action) over the whole field of battle, saw all the field-works, the positions of the different divisions, and the plan of the whole. I perfectly understood Lord Wellington’s blunder, and the risk he had run, and could form a very good notion of the strength of the position, and the nature of it as protected by the ravines of the Coa, &c. Lord Aylmer gave me two striking instances of Lord Wellington’s coolness: one when, as he was pursuing the French, in a fog in the morning, he found a division of our men under Sir William Erskine much exposed in advance, and nearly separated from the rest of the army, and the French in a village within a mile of where he was standing, he could see nothing; but, on some prisoners being brought in, and asked what French division and how many men were in the village, they, to the dismay of every one except Wellington, stated that the whole French army were there; all he said was, quite coolly, “Oh! they are all there, are they? Well, we must mind a little what we are about then.” Another time, soon after the battle of Fuentes d’Onore, and when we were waiting in our position near them to risk an attack, in order to protect the siege of Almeyda, early one morning Lord Aylmer came suddenly in to him whilst he was shaving, to tell him that “the French were all off, and the last cavalry mounting to be gone;” the consequence of which movement was to relieve him entirely, to give him Almeyda, and preserve Portugal. He merely took the razor off for one moment, and said, “Ay, I thought they meant to be off; very well;” and then another shave just as before, without another word till he was dressed. I find, however, it is said he magnifies the French now and then—sees double as to the number of blue uniforms, and cannot see all the scarlet; but I believe most men in his situation do this more or less. I must now proceed to summon some witnesses: so, for the present, adieu.

Monday, 4 o’clock.—You ask me what my house is like, and what Frenada is? Frenada is a village much in decay, very dirty; in the streets are immense masses of stones, and holes, and dung all about, houses like a farm kitchen, with this difference that there are the stables underneath. My last lodging was like a part of a Welsh farm-house, boarded off at one end from the common room, with a hole through the wall and one pane of glass let in. I am now in a distinct building like a granary, with the stables below, in an English farm-yard, in which are my animals of all sorts, servants and all. The kitchen is a miserable shed, not water-tight, where the woman of the house and three children live quite separate. The building I occupy has one opening with a wooden door besides the entrance-door, and the end, about eight feet wide by sixteen long, was boarded off by an officer last year. In this I sleep, eat, drink, write, &c., and live altogether, as it has a fireplace in the corner built by the same officer. The fireplace is so contrived, however, as to let more smoke into the room than up the chimney, and of course my eyes suffer, and all I have looks yellow and smells of smoke.

It is said that Lord Wellington and the Court here are to go to Ciudad Rodrigo, to a fête, to install the new Knight of the Bath, General Cole. I shall not go unless especially invited, and I have enough to do here, for except, probably, the Adjutant-general, the Quarter-Master-general, and perhaps the Commissary-general, I have more correspondents than any one here.

I take it in the army that the officers in the lower branches of the staff are sharp-set, hungry, and anxious to get on, and make the most of everything, and have a view even in their civilities. I have tried not to notice much that I could not help seeing, and which gave me a moderate opinion of the profession, which has not the independence to be seen in all the most respectable at the bar. There is much obsequious, time-serving conduct to any one who is in office, or is thought to have a word to say to his lordship.

Lord Wellington gets angry about the Courts-martial, the difficulty as to getting witnesses, the inconvenience, and then at last the great lenity of the Courts. “How can you expect,” he remarked to me, “a Court to find an officer guilty of neglect of duty, when it is composed of members who are all more or less guilty of the same?” He does not like the tribunal. We have, however, hung six men within this month, broken several officers (at least their cases are gone home with that sentence), and flogged about sixteen or eighteen (pretty well, this), and we are still at work. I have now twenty-two cases left on hand, about thirty-six tried, about two or three new cases every week, yet I hope we are getting on better now. I am glad to be made of such importance as you say I am in England; my reputation increases here a little, several Courts-martial having been sent back for revision: for this I get in a degree the credit, and in some instances justly. I am thought a formidable person to whom it is as well to be civil, and who can often be of service to others.

The Princess of Wales’s letter is good; and I think, and have always thought, that if she could once dare inquiry, her case would be unanswerable, and the Prince in a complete dilemma. We have heard here that Brougham wrote the Princess’s letter: is there such a story in England?

Wednesday, 10th March.—No more news, and no more mails, and no more time. I am to be asked, it is said, to Rodrigo to the fête there on Saturday. Lord Wellington wants to be very magnificent in his own city, and has said that he wished to give a supper to a hundred and fifty, but is told that it is quite out of the question, as the town and head-quarters would not supply dishes and plates, &c. There is, however, to be a small dinner first before the ball. But this arrangement may be a little disturbed by an event I have this moment heard from General O’Lalor. A Spanish dragoon is come in, with news that the French are moving in the Sierra di Francia; their object, I think likely enough, to rout us up before we are ready. I know no more; General O’Lalor went to Lord Wellington to tell him the news. N.B.—Orders have just come in to prepare charges against nine Polish deserters.

Head-Quarters, Frenada, March 15th, 1813, 9 o’clock at night.—As to Sir Isaac Heard’s coming over here to invest the Marquis with the Garter, doubtless the old Garter king would like it; and at this time of the year, while quiet here, and neither hot nor wet, no mosquitoes, and without baggage, he might do it tolerably well. If you travel without baggage, as Lord Wellington did when he went to Cadiz, with good horses, you get on thirty, forty, and even fifty miles in a day; avoid all the bad places, only stop in towns, get the best accommodation, and only rest where there are English Commissaries, &c. Lord Wellington came from Lisbon here in five days, with relays of horses; the last day he rode fifty miles between breakfast and dinner.

The movements of the French I mentioned in my last came to little or nothing—it was a mere alarm.

I have had a long letter from Sutton in answer to several queries. He agrees with me in every point which I have had to decide; and I am particularly glad to be right in the great one on which Lord Wellington differed with me, and directed me to send home his reasons. Still Lord Wellington is hardly satisfied, but desires me to wait till I hear officially from Sutton about it.

The day before yesterday we had a hard day’s work in the shape of gaiety and amusement. Lord Wellington desired to invest General Cole with the Order of the Bath, in a suitable manner; and as he had never done anything at Ciudad Rodrigo, of which he is Duke, he determined upon this opportunity to give a grand fête in the midst of the ruins—a grand dinner, ball, and supper. All heads of departments, generals, public authorities, Spaniards and English, were invited to dinner, to the amount of sixty-five. In the evening, ladies about forty, and men about a hundred and fifty, came to a ball and supper. The dinner and supper were half cooked at Frenada, and carried over in military waggons and on mules. All the plate at head-quarters was put in requisition, and there was enough to afford a change of silver at dinner. Plenty of claret, champagne, and Lamego, i. e., port, was sent over. A caravan of glass and crockery arrived from the governor of Almeyda, and from a shop just opened there. Almeyda is twenty-five miles from Rodrigo. The whole went off very well, except that it was excessively cold, as a few balls during the siege had knocked in several yards of the roof of the ball-room, and it was a hard frost at the time.

Lord Wellington was the most active man of the party—he prides himself on this; but yet I hear from those about him that he is a little broken down by it. He stayed on business at Frenada until half-past three, and then rode full seventeen miles to Rodrigo in two hours to dinner, dressed in all his orders, &c., was in high glee, danced, stayed supper, and at half-past three in the morning went back to Frenada by moonlight, and arrived here before daybreak at six; so that by twelve he was ready again for business, and I saw him amongst others upon a Court-martial on my return at two the next day. Campbell and General O’Lalor managed the fête. I made cards for every place at dinner, with corresponding ones for each person, with his name, table, and number of his plate, and so there was no bowing and scraping, or pushing for the first table. We got quarters in the ruins. Stables there were none scarcely, and we took over hay and barley for the horses for the night, and our beds to lie down for an hour or two. Several ladies, refugees from Salamanca, were there, and the band of the 52nd.

The house at which the entertainment was given was the best in the town, with some very good rooms; but it had suffered a little by the siege, and had, moreover; only bare walls. Luckily, however, the General O’Lalor discovered that the Intendente of the Palace of St. Ildefonso had brought away the hangings of five or six of the best rooms to save them from the French, and had deposited them at Rodrigo. These were obtained, and the bare walls of the ball-room were hung all over with yellow damask satin with a silver border, with openings at each end in festoons, like a tent, and looked very well. The other supper-rooms were hung with crimson satin and gold from the same palace, and in tolerable condition.

The whole was laid out so as to astonish the inhabitants, and the defects were concealed almost entirely. Near one hole in the floor a man was placed to take care that no one got a leg in, and a mat was put over the whole. The ladies were not very handsome, but two or three good-looking, and several very lady-like in their manners.

I was most pleased with the bolero and fandango dances, which were executed by two Spanish ladies, Chanoinesses as they were called, nieces of two Chanoines, and two Spaniards, one of whom danced very well. The best was the old fellow who was sent for to play on his ornamented paper square tambourine, or rather flat drum, who sang the airs and accompanied himself with great humour, and afterwards gave us a dance in the true style. The enthusiasm of the Spaniards was also amusing, and their eager applause. All the other dances were English country dances, which the ladies execute very well and exactly like ours, except that they waltz the poussets, and generally, therefore, dance waltz tunes, and have that figure. They are also a little more twisted about and handled than our fair ones would like at first; but upon the whole, perhaps our country dances are improved by the change. We had much drinking and toasts given on both sides, at the expense of the French: “Ferdinand the Seventh,” “The next campaign,” “Death to all Frenchmen,” &c. In short, several Spaniards as well as English got very drunk by five o’clock in the morning, and they chaired the Prince of Orange, General Vandeleur, whom they let fall, and several others, as soon as the ladies were gone, and there was nothing else to do. The Spaniards at first began with “vivas,” but soon learnt “hip, hip, hip, hurra!”

With great care a few silver spoons and knives and forks only were missing, and it is said one plate. Henry tells me the servants saw one Spanish officer with a turkey’s leg sticking out of his pocket; but, like our aldermen, they are given to pocket even at Madrid, and have some excuse, for they are paid little, and find everything very dear. Probably a turkey had not been seen there for months: they were, I believe, all brought from thirty or forty miles down the Douro, near Lamego. Besides the Spanish military authorities, there were some civilians of rank, as the Marquis d’Espeja and a few others. Colonel Gordon was the only officer who would return with Lord Wellington; and though he has the best horses here next to those of the chief, he borrowed another horse which had come over earlier, to ride back upon with Lord Wellington, and left his own, which he had ridden on in the morning with his lordship, to come back later in the day.

The repairs of the walls of Ciudad Rodrigo are going on better, and they are now nearly cleared of rubbish, so as to be ready to begin to rebuild the new work, which all fell down last autumn. I sat at the grand dinner directly opposite to E——, who introduced himself to me afterwards in the ball-room. Colonel Fisher, of the Artillery, was next, a very pleasant man, a great artist, connoisseur, traveller, &c. Except at a grand fête, and the few great men who come to head-quarters, or when crossing a division on the march, which we always avoid if possible, we seldom see any regimental officers.

Tuesday Night (16th).—We have flogged and hung people into better order here, I think, but have now got into a little squabble with the Portuguese Government, who will become bold by success. By the Portuguese law a magistrate is only to give evidence in writing by deposition, which our Courts, if it be a fact in his own knowledge, and where he is wanted as a witness, ought not to receive. I fear the Bill proposed at home will be unpopular, and yet inefficient in a great measure.

The Guards, who joined nearly when I did, have suffered most of all by the campaign. They came out a noble battalion of fine men, twelve hundred strong; four hundred are dead, and not above five hundred are now fit for duty. This is very shocking.

The division on Grattan’s motion in the House is stronger than I expected it would be after all the outcry on the subject. I had a long conversation while walking up and down the market-place with Lord Wellington here, a few days since, upon that and the Indian question. He has, from what he saw in Ireland, taken up a strong notion that independence is what the Irish really aim at, and he is, therefore, for giving no more, but proceeding upon King William’s plan to keep them down by main force, for he thinks that they have too much power already, and will only use more to obtain more, and at length separation. He said he thought his brother and Canning had just taken up the Catholic question when the tide of popularity was turning against it. I hope this is not so; and though I agree with him that the party for separation is strong, his plan would drive them to extremities, and is now too late; the only chance is, to get the higher orders of Roman Catholics and the priests, if possible, by pay or otherwise, and by looking for pay and patronage, to be dependent on the Crown and on England more than they are, and at the same time not to be a degraded class.

Did I tell you the size of Frenada, about which you asked? It is about as large as Ashted, without the three gentlemen’s houses in it. Lord Wellington’s house is, however, better known than the inn there (the Leg of Mutton and Cauliflower), and more ornamented, though it does not contain more room or as much comfort. This is as good a description as I can give you, only that all the houses are more roomy than in our villages—more like barns—for the straw, corn, and all are left under the same roof.

As Sutton only answers my letters indirectly, and not officially upon the point on which we differed, Lord Wellington says he will not act until he has an official answer. He does not like to be wrong, and yet I am very glad he is so.

Head-Quarters, Frenada, March 19th, 1813.—The day before yesterday we had a most extraordinary arrival here in General Murray, the Quarter-Master-general of the army. He left Plymouth late on the 10th instant, and was here at Frenada on the 18th, in the morning, in about seven days and a half. He got to Oporto from Plymouth in less than five days, and here in three, travelling post on horses, ponies, mules, and anything he could get: he brought London papers of the 8th. His baggage went round by Lisbon. He was to have come out with General Graham and General Stewart, but was sent off here express with despatches in a sloop of war. No one knows what the important news is which made it advisable to send out a Quarter-Master-general as a messenger.

I hear of no movement yet in the army, and as part of the cavalry are down below Coimbra, and part still below Abrantes, near Cabeça de Vide, Aunde Chad, and Monforte, it will be necessary to give some notice of anything like a serious movement in good time. Perhaps head-quarters may move to Guinaldo in a month—I think not sooner, for there is no grass there yet, and the cold is not gone, nor the rain come, though the sky has threatened much for the last day or two. I have now to send above thirty miles for bad hay or straw for my animals, and that I hear is nearly exhausted. We have been obliged to send fifteen miles for some time past, which is hard work for the poor mules during what should be their resting-time.

You ask about our religious duties. There are four or five or more clergymen in Portugal, but no one now at head-quarters. The clergyman stationed there went away ill about a twelvemonth since, I hear.

Sunday, 21st.—The remains of the battalion of Guards which lost so many men, and was so sickly, is going down towards the coast and towards Coimbra, to recruit with sea-air.

I must now away to answer letters. I have only read four of the newspapers out of the last fifteen; you may therefore conclude how much I am employed. I get through one at breakfast-time, and when at home two of an evening; nor have I yet read half through one review. Lord Wellington is as bad; he borrowed my “Vetus” nearly three weeks since, and has not read it.

Wednesday, 4 o’clock, Post-day.—Having got all my proceedings written out fair by half-past six yesterday, I dined with the General. Early again this morning I breakfasted with him; compared the two, got the fair one signed; picked you up botanical specimens of the flowers in the fields in my ride back, and here I am.

Since Rodrigo has been taken, the inhabitants about Guinaldo feel more confidence, and more land is this year in cultivation. They are tempted also by the high price of everything; and near Guinaldo I saw a new enclosure going on, and trees being grubbed up to a considerable extent. The old lady where General Vandeleur is quartered, is doing this to an extent of several thousand acres. To give you a proof of the lightness of their ploughs, I met a man walking off a mile or two to work from Guinaldo with a complete plough on his shoulder, the whole plough fit for use, iron share, &c.; he was walking three or four miles an hour, quite upright. I hear that the inhabitants of Bejar, rather an opulent Spanish town, and where there is a cloth trade, have been so well satisfied with the 50th regiment for having driven away the French and saved their town, that they have given them all round a pair of pantaloons each, and several days’ double rations of spirits, and some other presents. The place is now strengthened considerably as a post, it is said, for the French seem to be making some stir, though no one seems to know what they mean to be about.

Head-Quarters, Frenada, March 27th, 1813. Saturday.—The statement of Courts-martial, which I shall present to Lord Wellington to-morrow, satisfies me that we are mending, and that we have not tried fifty cases, hung eight, transported eight or ten, flogged about sixty severely, and broke several officers—for nothing. I have now only eighteen left in hand, and three of these very old cases. We had one very melancholy piece of business here last week: a young corporal, Mac Morran, a Scotchman in the 42nd, was reprimanded mildly by his officer, Lieutenant Dickenson, for neglect of duty; he answered rather impertinently, and was then told to consider himself a prisoner, and to follow. Having walked a few yards, Lieutenant Dickenson looked round, and the corporal, having (no one knows how) loaded his musket, levelled it at him, and shot him dead through the heart. The corporal has been tried, and is to be hung to-morrow. They were both under twenty years of age, I hear, and the most promising young men in their respective stations. The officer was a man of mild, humane character. The corporal made no defence: it seemed an excess of Scotch pride. It is altogether a very painful business.

We have still very cold north-east winds, and to-day a little fall of sleet, hail, and stormy, windy, black sky. Lord Wellington is gone hunting, which gives me a little time.

I hear the French are moving; two divisions of Soult’s army are said to be retiring behind the Douro, near Valladolid: and I am told they are engaged in fortifying all the fords and bridges near the Douro, at Toro, Tordesillas, Aranda de Douro, &c. Probably they will make a grand stand on that river; where, from what I saw, they have great advantages, for the banks on our side are low and flat, and on their side, towards France (the right bank) high and commanding, and the position on that side also strong. It is thought the slight movement in advance of one of our divisions, the fourth, from St. Jean de Piscara, merely for convenience of supplies and change of air, caused this movement on the part of the French, who only stay down about Toledo, probably, for food.

Accounts have just come in from one of our look-out officers, who live close to the French, and act as spies, and have correspondence with them—a Captain ——, who was here a fortnight since. He says that the French are all moving, and apparently towards the other side of the Douro. Joseph has left Madrid. His informers state that the French are going at once behind the Ebro; but he himself thinks not, as they would not willingly give up the fine country between the Douro and Ebro for nothing, and have fortified, report says, the passes. So we stand. Conjectures are made, that our advance will not be the same as last year, through Salamanca, as we have no great depôt being made yet this way at Rodrigo, and should have to force these passes on the Douro; whereas some depôts are being formed in Portugal near the Douro, more in the north of Portugal; and we could in that direction cross the Douro without opposition, turn all these French works on that river, and join the Spanish army in Gallicia, but the roads in that case will be much worse. I hope we may go that road, and thus see a new country, and in part, I believe, a fine one. There is one fine pass in the Agava, only five leagues hence, at Barba del Puerto, which I have never yet had time to visit, but shall do so, if possible, after the rain, provided we remain here.

Lord Wellington, in conversation the other day, told me that some Spaniards of rank had talked to him about educating their children at a Roman Catholic school in England, if there were such. I knew of one or two good girls’ schools, but could not remember any good Roman Catholic boys’ school.

We have a most furious Portuguese lady now here, the wife of a hidalgo of Portugal, whose daughter was run away with by an English officer. Lord Wellington told her that he would give him up to the laws of Portugal; but as he has now married her, Lord Wellington says he will not interfere at all. The woman swears that she will get the priest who married them transported for life by their law, as well as the officer, and has moreover declared she will kill the daughter if she meets her!

As to Mr. R——, concerning whom you inquire, I know nothing about him: we have a ci-devant major of that name just arrived here. He is full of travellers’ stories; has been long a prisoner in France: had a prefect’s wife for his chère amie; escaped with wonderful risks; joined the Guerillas, got to the coast, and off, I believe, to Cadiz. I am told that he is to be an officer in a new horse-police staff corps about to be established.

30th March, Tuesday, 4 o’clock.—I have presented four Courts-martial to Lord Wellington, and sent one back for revision as illegal, and confirmed three, two against one man—together, two thousand lashes. This is absurd, he will bear six or seven hundred, and there it will end. The sentence, however, is legal, which it was not before, when transportation was the punishment. Lord Wellington now addresses me with the familiar “How are you?” So we go on more easily, and I made a sort of proposal to him to insert a passage in general orders now, to be read to the men every day until we march, to let them know that a new police corps was established to catch them, and to tell them that seven officers would be sufficient now to hang them, and that Courts would be held always ready in every division. He said he would think about it, and thought it would be of use.

Dr. M’Gregor told me yesterday, that his sick-list was improving daily, and that if Lord Wellington would give him another month he thought he should bring the greater part into the field. King Joseph, I have just heard, arrived at Valladolid from Madrid on the 23rd instant; Lord Fitzroy Somerset just read it out of a Spanish private letter.

Head-Quarters, Frenada, Sunday, April 4th, 1813.—You will observe that I do know when Sunday comes, although that is certainly nearly all. We, however, have a church and a bell, which goes on tolling for hours in a most unattractive manner. We have a church, too, which is made use of for various purposes, civil as well as ecclesiastical; for instance, one night about one hundred and fifty Spaniards and their mules, officers and all, slept in it. The building is large, considering the size of the village, the floor covered with straw like a stable, but the end where the altar is, is all gold and glitter up to the ceiling. The decorations must originally have been very expensive, for, besides the great expenditure of gold-leaf and foil, and carving, all the ceiling, which is coved and circular, and divided into squares, has a picture of a saint, or a father, a founder, a hermit, or some great divinity hero, in every square. Masses, the funeral service, weddings, and christenings, are also performed there. I just look in now and then, for it is awkward to stand there, when all are on their knees on the floor. There is also a little chapel belonging to the owner of Lord Wellington’s house; which is fitted up by Colonel G—— for his quarters. He has hung it with red baize, fitted up the altar as his dressing-table, put up an iron stove, and made it one of the best quarters here.

Lord Wellington looks forward very coolly to another winter here. He said yesterday he should have twenty-five couples of fox-hounds next season. The other day the Commissary-general told him that we had eaten nearly all the oxen in the country, that the cultivation of the lands in Portugal could not go on for want of them, and that he scarcely knew where to turn for a supply of beef, as there was this year no reserve store near Lisbon. Lord Wellington said, “Well, then, we must now set about eating all the sheep, and when they are gone I suppose we must go.” And General M—— added, “Historians will say that the British army came and carried on war in Spain and Portugal until they had eaten all the beef and mutton in the country, and were then compelled to withdraw.” Without joking, I fear our Commissariat may have great difficulties next year. Talking on this subject, I must add that the Portuguese agent here, a sly, money-making man, who has realized about 25,000l. during the war, said the news was so good, that he now hoped to get a peace, and that the Portuguese would get rid of the “beefs,” meaning the English. Communication as to necessary articles and others is so difficult with Lisbon, that one of Lord Wellington’s aides-de-camp has been six months getting two bridles up, and C. Campbell four months in getting up a great coat.

Lord Wellington yesterday, talking of his soldiers and English notions, observed that his men were now all so round-shouldered and slouching in their gait, that he was sure, if his regiment here was in its present state to pass in review at Wimbledon Common, the whole would be sent to drill immediately, and declared quite unfit for service. Indeed, he added, that the men had now got into such a way of doing everything in the easiest manner, that he was often quite ashamed of the sentries before his own quarter. He did not mention this by way of complaint, but as showing how ideas here and at home differed. He also laughed at our notions in England about the supply of the army, saying that some corporate body or society in England had once made him an offer of twenty bullocks for the army, which would last head-quarters only about a week. General M—— said it must have been a mistake—the offer must have been for his table only; not for the army.

Orders, it is said, are gone round for the Alicant army to be re-embarked and landed in the rear of Suchet, to compel him to quit Valencia if possible; this will be the first step I conclude. You say you are all looking to us, and want us to move. Our black clouds have all rolled away, and to-day we have again a clear north wind and hot sun, and not a blade of grass growing; without the latter we cannot stir. If the rains will but come soon and bring grass, we may, perhaps, move in the first week of May, but not before: that is, no important move can take place. Our cavalry, though down below Coimbra, are very much distressed for food, and complaints come up without number from the Portuguese that our people will feed their horses with the young corn, which is now great waste; but what is to be done? When we have finished the oxen we may go, as Lord Wellington says, to the sheep, but what are horses to do when hay is all gone, and straw, and there is no grass come? How little you know in England about the real state of things here, and the requisites for moving in a campaign! You forget our ten or fifteen thousand animals for baggage and for food, besides the cavalry and artillery, &c. The Portuguese agent here repeats that another campaign in Portugal will be impossible, for there will be neither animals to eat, nor for transport, unless we bring all with us. I hope, however, not to pass another winter at Frenada; but so hoped those who were here last year.

Did I ever mention to you Lord Wellington’s saying how anxious the Prince Regent was that he should correspond with him, and how much hurt he was that he had never done so. “But,” observed Lord Wellington, “I wrote to his ministers, and that was enough. What had I to do with him? However, his late favour was a reason for my writing, and I have had a most gracious answer, evidently courting further correspondence;” but which he intimated he should not comply with.

I understand the famous Guerillas are much more dreaded by their own countrymen in the north of Spain than the French, and I fear with some reason, as they are (many of them, at least) very much like banditti. The French, however, suffered so much by them, that they have adopted the same plan, and have their counter Guerillas; some with French officers to conduct them, and some headed by Guerilla chiefs, who have quarrelled and separated from their companions in the good cause. I was sorry to hear this. The French continue moving about, and their force towards the Tagus diminishes.

You have my news as I hear it: we are now getting ready ammunition, &c., to the front, to prepare for an advance when possible; so, perhaps, we may pass Rodrigo, and cross the Douro to the left of Salamanca, if the French stand on that river, as we have now this year pontoons, which we had not last year. We have also a new and more portable battering-train, come out from England, which has arrived as far as Abrantes, where it only waits for means of transport to come on here. That which we had here last year, I am told, was excessively clumsy.

April 7th.—I have heard a number of anecdotes of General Craufurd. All admit that he was very clever and knowing in his profession, and led on his division on the day of his death in the most gallant style; but Lord Wellington never knew what he would do. He constantly acted in his own way, contrary to orders: and as he commanded the advanced division, at times perplexed Lord Wellington considerably, who never could be sure where he was. On one occasion, near Guinaldo, he remained across a river by himself; that is, with his own division only, nearly a whole day after he was called in by Lord Wellington. He said he knew that he could defend his position. Lord Wellington, when he came back, only said, “I am glad to see you safe, Craufurd.” To which the latter replied, “Oh, I was in no danger, I assure you.” “But I was, from your conduct,” said Lord Wellington. Upon which Craufurd observed, “He is d—— crusty to-day.”