'SIR, To the Right Hon. Henry Wellesley. 'Quinta de St. João, 21st June, 1811. I have the honor to enclose a letter which I wrote on the 10th instant to General Castaños*, regarding the operations of the armies in consequence of raising the siege of Badajoz, with his reply, and that of General Blake; and the copy of a letter which I wrote to General Blake of the 12th instant, on his route, and his reply; and of one which I wrote to him on the 14th instant ; and the copy of a letter to General Blake of the 17th instant §, which I beg you to lay before the Spanish Government. 6 I have the honor to be, &c. 'The Right Hon. H. Wellesley. WELLINGTON. To the Right Hon. Henry Wellesley. MY DEAR HENRY, 'Quinta de St. João, 21st June, 1811. I enclose copies of my last dispatches, which contain all the intelligence I can give you. Matters are in a very critical state just now; but I think I shall carry them through. Ever yours most affectionately, The Right Hon. H. Wellesley. WELLINGTON. will order 'Ponte de Caya, 22d June, 1811, Quarter past 5 P.M. The enemy appear to be withdrawing, and I beg you to take up his ground in any convenient situation near Elvas, and that he will attend to the directions he before received from Sir Stapleton Cotton, to throw out small piquets of observations on the Caya and Guadiana. If he had had his whole brigade instead of a large piquet on the Caya, he could not have prevented the enemy from advancing, and the difficulty of retiring is increased in proportion to the numbers of which the body which is to retire consists. This principle is well known and understood in this army; and if it had not been acted upon invariably, we should have lost all our cavalry long ago in the way in which — lost the piquet of the ―th this morning. To crown all, I understand that these large *See vol. vii., p. 653. See this vol., p. 4. § Ibid. p. 28. piquets were not able to give sufficiently early intelligence of the enemy, and that the —th dragoons have lost their corn sacks. Let the piquets of -'s brigade communicate with those of General Madden, which they have not done yet, and with the piquet of the 28th regiment on the Atalaya, near the Ponte de Caya; and I repeat that they must be very small, being only of observation. They can always retire upon Elvas, and thence join their brigades. • Major General Sir W. Erskine, Bart. Believe me, &c. ⚫ WELLINGTON. 'P. S. Let Colonel Murray know where General —'s brigade will be, and desire General to apply to the Commissary General this evening for corn sacks for the -th dragoons: he is in Elvas. 'W.' To Major General Picton. 'MY DEAR GENERAL, 'Quinta de St. João, 23d June, 1811, Half past 11 A.M. I shall be very much obliged to you if you will send an intelligent Officer, with a glass, to Ouguela, and another to the Atalaya, between Ouguela and Campo Mayor, an hour or two before sunset this evening, in order to reconnaitre well the wood beyond the Gevora, and to see whether the enemy have in it any infantry, and let me know if they should observe any. Major General Picton." Believe me, &c. · WELLINGTON. To Marshal Sir W. C. Beresford, K.B. MY DEAR BERESFORD, 'Quinta de St. João, 23d June, 1811, Half past 11 P.M. I am just come in from Campo Mayor, where all is perfectly quiet. General Picton told me that the governor had informed him that he had sent to Elvas yesterday, by order of General Leite, forty bullocks, which had before been sent to Campo Mayor, as provision for the garrison. Believe me, &c. • Marshal Sir W. C. Beresford, K.B. • WELLINGTON. P. S. Mr. Kennedy tells me that the governor of Jurumenha has sent his bullocks back, saying that he had no money to pay anybody to take care of them! SIR, To Vice Admiral the Hon. George Berkeley. 'W.' 'Quinta de St. João, 23d June, 1811. I have had the honor of receiving your letter of the 20th instant, and I am much obliged to you for the arrange. ment which you have ordered respecting the flat boats in the river Tagus, for the conveyance of the sick, &c. down to Lisbon. 'Vice Admiral the Hon. G. Berkeley. ‹ SIR, To His Excellency Charles Stuart. 'Quinta de St. João, 23d June, 1811. I have had the honor of receiving your letter of the 19th instant, and I have again communicated to Sir William Beresford the desire of the Portuguese Government that he should recommend the detail of the measures to be adopted in respect to the commissariat. 1. It appears to Marshal Beresford, as I confess it does to me, that these details have already been fully discussed and recommended by him as well as by me; by me in my private and public letters to you of the 26th of March and 8th of April, and by Sir William Beresford in his comments upon those letters. It is desirable, therefore, that Sir William Beresford should be informed upon what point the Government wish to have his opinion further in detail. I have not understood that the Commissary General required hay in Lower Beira, but I will inquire. 2. It always gives me much concern to make any observation on an assertion made by Dom Miguel Forjaz; but I must say that the assertion made that the magazines of Elvas supplied the British troops with provisions is without foundation, in the view in which it is made. It is true that, because the Government will not enforce their own regulations, means of transport could not be procured in Alentejo, and therefore at times the troops serving on that frontier, during the month of April and part of May, were not very regularly supplied with provisions. I beg to refer you to a letter which I wrote to you on this on the 31st March. The troops must have been withdrawn, as I stated they would, if they had not received occasional assistance from the garrison of Elvas; but the whole amount which they received was trifling, and could not have been the cause of the existing distress, as the whole was repaid. If assertions of this description are repeated I must be under the necessity of withholding all assistance from the Portuguese Government. I do everything in my power to assist them. At this moment I have provisioned all the forts on the frontier, and the return made is a reproach that our troops have been the cause of the deficiency. If I were to withhold this assistance our troops would never have occasion to ask for any, even the smallest supply, from any of the Portuguese establishments. I am apprehensive that the money received from Mr. Sampayo to be laid out in the purchase of cattle and wine pipes will interfere with the supplies for the military chest. 3. I do not know of any signal being made to prevent the transmission of 24 pound shot. I was informed by Marshal Sir William Beresford that there were no more at Lisbon, excepting 480, which the Admiral was about to send. 4. I have this day had the honor of receiving your letter of the 21st, containing a proposition from Dom Miguel Forjaz for the regulation of the boats on the Tagus. I concur in the propriety of the first two articles of the regulation, and will direct the Commissary General to attend to them. In respect to the 3d article, which regulates a division of the boats between the commissariat establishments of the two armies, I must beg leave to decline to have any concern in such a distribution. When the troops were on the Mondego such a distribution was agreed upon, and carried into effect; and the consequence was, that the boats delivered over by the Commissary General, and employed in the service of the Portuguese army, were never paid for, and the British army has since experienced the inconvenience resulting from this loss o credit. The owners of boats on the Mondego were u willing to engage to serve us, because they expected to be obliged to serve the Portuguese army without payment. I have the honor to be, &c. Je suis bien fâché que vous n'ayez pas reçu la réponse que je vous ai écrite à la lettre que vous m'avez fait l'honneur de m'écrire le 16 Mai, et j'ai l'honneur, à present, d'en envoyer à votre Excellence le duplicata. Je crois que Mons. Ville sur Ance a été depuis envoyé en Angleterre; mais si votre Excellence consent que Monsieur Gray reste ici, je manderai que Mons. Ville sur Ance soit tout de suite renvoyé en France. Si non, je renverrai Monsieur Gray aux avant postes de l'armée Française demain matin, ou aussitôt que je connaitrai les désirs de votre Excellence. 'Monsieur le Maréchal Duc de Raguse.' SIR, 'J'ai l'honneur d'être, &c. To Lieut. General Graham. · Wellington. 'Quinta de St. João, 24th June, 1811. I have the honor to enclose the copy of a letter which I have received from the Secretary of State, directing that you should join this army, leaving Major General Disney in the command at Cadiz, and authorizing me to draw from Cadiz such reinforcements as I might think proper. Adverting to the return of the troops at Cadiz of the 1st June, which is the last that I have received, I find that you have not at Cadiz nearly so many men as is supposed by the Secretary of State; and I learn from a private letter from Mr. Wellesley, your letter upon that subject not having reached me, that you have detached the 2d batt. 47th regiment; and it appears to me that the only troops that can be spared from Cadiz are one squadron, or the dismounted men of the 2d hussars, with the Major and a proportion of the Officers, and the detachment of the 3d batt. |