tuguese regiment, who, with the Officers destined to command the different parties composing the detachment, had been employed throughout the 8th and 9th in reconnaitring the breach and the different approaches to it.

'They advanced at about 9 at night, in the best order, though opposed by the same means, and with the same determination as had been opposed to the detachment which had made the attempt on the 6th.

Ensign Dyas again led the service, and the storming party arrived at the foot of the breach; but they found it. impossible to mount it, the enemy having again cleared the rubbish from the bottom of the escarp. The detachment suffered considerably, and Major M'Geechy, the Commanding Officer, was unfortunately killed, and others of the Officers fell; but the troops continued to maintain their station till Major General Houstoun ordered them to retire.

• When the reinforcements had arrived from the frontiers of Castille, after the battle of Albuera, I undertook the siege of Badajoz, entertaining a belief that the means of which I had the command would reduce the place before the end of the second week in June, at which time I expected that the reinforcement for the enemy's southern army, detached from Castille, would join Marshal Soult. I was unfortunately mistaken in my estimate of the quality of these means.

The ordnance belonging to the garrison of Elvas is very ancient and incomplete; unprovided with the improvements adopted by modern science to facilitate and render more certain the use of cannon; and although classed generally as 24 pounders, the guns were found to be of a calibre larger than the shot in the garrison of that weight. The fire from this ordnance was therefore very uncertain, and the carriages proved to be worse even than we supposed they were; and both guns and carriages were rendered useless so frequently by the effect of our own fire as to create delay, in consequence of the necessity which existed for exchanging both in the advanced batteries.

Those who are accustomed to observe the effect of the fire of artillery will be astonished to learn that fire was kept up from the 2d to the 10th instant from fourteen 24 pounders, upon the wall of the castle of Badajoz, constructed

To Captain General Don Joaquin Blake.

MONSIEUR LE GÉNÉRAL,

'Quinta de Granicha,

ce 12 Juin, 1811.

'J'ai reçu la lettre que votre Excellence m'a fait l'honneur de m'écrire le 11, et je conviens avec vous que vous ferez bien de porter les opérations du corps d'armée de votre Excellence dans le Condado de Niebla, en cas qu'il devienne nécessaire pour l'armée alliée Anglaise et Portugaise de se porter sur la Caya.

'Je vous envois une route par laquelle seule votre artillerie pourrait marcher, et vous verrez à la note la provision qu'on aura faite pour votre marche. J'ai donné ordre qu'on fasse provision pour 12,000 hommes et 1500 chevaux, et je vous prie de me faire savoir s'il vous en faut plus.

Le siége de Badajoz sera entièrement levé cette nuit.

'Je n'ai pas encore de nouvelles du mouvement du Maréchal Soult; mais je crois qu'il aura été joint par le corps de Drouet aujourd'hui, et probablement qu'il se mettra en mouvement demain. Son premier mouvement sera, il y a apparence, vers Hornachos, ou même plus à sa droite, pour éviter toute affaire avec nous, jusqu'à l'arrivée de l'armée de Portugal. Je suppose que votre premier mouvement sera sur Valverde pour attendre celui de l'ennemi. Celui de nos troupes en avant sera sur Albuera.

Les 3me et 4me divisions de l'armée de Portugal, sous les ordres du Général Regnier, sont arrivées à Plasencia le 9 de ce mois. C'est un jour plus tard que je n'ai compté, mais elles pourront toujours arriver à Merida le 16; et si elles font la jonction par le pont de Medellin, elles la feront le 15.

'Je vous prie, Monsieur le Général, de donner ordre qu'on conserve la discipline en passant par le royaume de Portugal.

'Je suis bien fâché que je n'ai pas eu le plaisir de faire la connaissance de votre Excellence; mais j'espère que l'occasion est seulement retardée pour le moment.

To Major General the Hon. W. Stewart.

'MY DEAR SIR,

'Quinta de Granicha, 12th June, 1811.

I have received your letter of the 9th.

I was allowed by the Commander in Chief to recommend for brevet promotion a certain number of Officers; and I was under the necessity of course of taking them from all parts of the army. I was also obliged to attend to the claims of seniority in instances in which the senior Officer had besides the claim of merit. Under these circumstances, although the light regiments had their proportion of this promotion, I was not enabled to recommend your brother, Captain J. Stewart, although I certainly wished it.

General Craufurd has since proposed to me a plan, under which I could have got him the rank of Major, if that plan had been practicable; but the Spaniards were to be concerned; and if the plan was practicable, so much time must elapse before they can be brought to consent to it, that it is useless to undertake it.

I assure you that it will give me great satisfaction to have it in my power to forward the views of your brother in the service, not only for his advantage, but for that of the public.

'Major General

the Hon. W. Stewart.

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Believe me, &c.

WELLINGTON.

To Colonel Gordon, Commissary in Chief.

MY DEAR COLONEL,

'Quinta de Granicha, 12th June, 1811.

I have received your letter of the 17th May, and I am much obliged to you for the desire you express to render your department useful to us in this country.

The Portuguese commissariat, and all the departments attached to that army, are in a miserably inefficient state from two causes: the want of authority to enforce obedience to order and regulation; the want of money to defray the necessary expenses.

The departments attached to the army are not liable to the military law; we therefore have no power to punish those guilty of any offence; and, as for expecting punishment from complaint to the Government or to the civil tribunals, it

would be just as reasonable to expect the coming of the Messiah, or the return of King Sebastian.

These unfortunate Governments in the Peninsula had been reduced to such a state of decrepitude, that I believe there was no authority existing within Spain or Portugal before the French invaded these countries. The French invasion did not improve this state of things; and since what is called in Spain the revolution, and in Portugal the restoration, no crime that I know of has been punished in either, excepting that of being a French partizan. Those malversations in office; those neglects of duty; the disobedience of orders; the inattention to regulation, which tend to defeat all plans for military operation, and ruin a state that is involved in war, more certainly than the plots of all the French partizans, are passed unnoticed; and notwithstanding the numerous complaints which Marshal Beresford and I have made, I do not know that one individual has yet been punished, or even dismissed from his office.

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The cause of this evil is the mistaken principle on which the Government have proceeded. They have imagined that the best foundation for their power was a low, vulgar popularity, of which the evidence is the shouts of the mob of Lisbon, and the regular attendance at their levees, and the bows and scrapes, of people in office, who ought to have other modes of spending their time; and to obtain this bubble the Government of Portugal, as well as the successive Governments in Spain, have neglected to perform those essential duties of all Governments, viz., to force those they are placed over to do their duty, by which, before this time, these countries would have been out of danger.

The other evil is connected very materially with the first. The Government will not regulate their finances, because it will interfere with some man's job. They will not lay on new taxes, because in all countries those who lay on taxes are not favorites with the mob. They have a general income tax called ten per cent,, and in some cases twenty per cent., which they have regulated in such a manner as that no individual, I believe, has paid a hundredth part of what he ought to have paid. Then, from want of money, they can pay nobody, and of course have not even the influence which they ought to have over the subordinate departments.

The hire of mules and carts, the food for the animals and drivers, are never paid; and of course the animals die, and the people desert the service.

The Commissaries have no money to purchase anything in the country. I will not allow the soldiers to pillage. The Government have no money to pay for the transport of provisions from the magazines on the coast to the army, and are bankrupt in credit, and are unwilling to execute their own law to force means of transport; and the result is that the troops get nothing, and every department and branch of the service is paralysed.

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The remedy which has been proposed from England has been that we should take the commissariat upon ourselves. I have already done as much as I could in this way; that is, under an arrangement which provides for the expense being subtracted from the subsidy. I have arranged that the Commissary General shall provide for those parts of the army serving with the British divisions. I know that we cannot do more without failure.

In addition to embarrassments of all descriptions surrounding us on all sides, I have to contend with an ancient enmity between these two nations, which is more like that of cat and dog than anything else, of which no sense of common danger, or common interest, or anything, can get the better, even in individuals.

Our transport, which is the great lever of the commissariat, is done principally, if not entirely, by Spanish muleteers; and, to oblige Mr. Kennedy, they would probably once or twice carry provisions to a Portuguese regiment, but they would prefer to quit us, and attend the French, to being obliged to perform this duty constantly.

When a Portuguese brigade is in a British division the muleteers do not inquire, and do not know, for whom they carry the supplies; and the Commissary with the division issues to the Portuguese Commissary what is required for the Portuguese troops, taking his receipt for the quantities, and a charge is made against the subsidy for the actual cost, including a certain sum for transport from the magazines.

There are but few Portuguese troops not serving in our divisions; but there is the militia, there are the forts, and other establishments, to be provided for, into which we could