wounded; but stating, that he could not answer upon the other demands contained in my letter, having been obliged to refer them to the commander in chief.

Since the receipt of this letter, Mr. Dillon, the assistant commissary, has arrived from Talavera, having been taken prisoner near Cevolla on the 27th of July, previous to the action, and having been allowed to come away. He reports that the British officers and soldiers, who are wounded, are doing remarkably well, and are well fed and taken care of; indeed, he says, preferably to the French troops.

I propose to send Colonel Walters with another flag of truce, tomorrow morning, and a letter to the commander in chief of the French army, requesting that a sum of money which I shall send may be given to the officers; and I shall endeavour to establish a cartel of exchange, as soon as possible. I have the honour to be, &c.

Arthur WELLESLEY. Lord Viscount Castlereagh, &c. &c.

Truxillo, August 21, 1809. My lord-When I marched from Talavera on the 3d inst., with a view to oppose the French corps which we had heard had passed through the Puerto de Banos, and had arrived at Placeucia, Sir Robert Wilson was detached upon the left of the army, towards Escaloua; and before I marched on that morning, I put him in communication with the Spanish general Cuesta, who it had been settled was to remain at Talavera. I understood that General Cuesta put Sir Robert in communication with his

advanced guard, which retired from Talavera on the night of the 4th.

Sir Robert Wilson, however, did not arrive at Valada till the night of the 4th, having made a long march through the mountains; and as he was then six leagues from the bridge of Arzo Bispo, and had to cross the high road from Oropesa to Talavera, of which the enemy was in possession, he conceived that he was too late to retire to Arzo Bispo, and he determined to move by Venta St. Julien and Centinello towards the Tietar, and across that river towards the mountains which separate Castille from Estramadura.

Some of Sir Robert Wilson's dispatches having missed me, I am not aware by which of the passes he went through the mountains, but I believe by Tornavacas. He arrived, however, at Banos on the 11th, and on the 12th was attacked and defeated by the French corps of Marshal Ney, which, with that of Soult, returned to Placencia on the 9th, 10th, and 11th, that of Ney having since gone on towards Salamanca.

I enclose Sir Robert Wilson's account of the action. He has been very active, intelligent, and useful, in the command of the Portuguese and Spanish corps with which he was detached from this army.

Before the battle of the 28th of July, he had pushed his parties almost to the gates of Madrid, with which city he was in communication; and he would have been in Madrid, if I had not thought proper to call him in, in expectation of that general action which took place on the 28th of July. He afterwards alarmed the enemy on the

at six o'clock in the evening, three columns of the enemy mounted the height on our left, gained it, and poured such a fire on the troops below, that longer defence was impracticable, and the whole was obliged to retire on the mountains on our left, leaving open the main road, along which aconsiderable column of cavalry immediately poured.

The battalion of Seville had been left at Bejar with orders to follow me next day, but when I was obliged to return, and the action commenced, I ordered it to Puerto Banos, to watch the Monte Major road, and the heights in the rear of our left.

When the enemy's cavalry came near, an officer and some dragoons called out to the commanding officer to surrender, but a volley killed him and his party, and then the battalion proceeded to mount the heights, in which movement it was attacked and surrounded by a column of cavalry and a column of infantry, but cut its way and cleared itself, killing a great many of the enemy, especially of his cavalry.

The enemy is now passing to Salamanca with great expedition; I lament that I could no longer arrest his progress, but, when the enormous superiority of the enemy's force is considered, and that we had no artillery, and that the Puerto de Banos on the Estremaduran side, is not a pass of such strength as on the side of Castille, especially without guns, I hope that a resistance for nine hours, which must have cost the enemy a great many men, will not be deemed inadequate to

our means.

I have to acknowledge the services rendered me on this occasion

by Colonel Grant, Major Reiman, Don Fermen Marquis, adjutantmajor of the dragoons of Pavia, Captain Charles and Mr. Bolman; and to express the greatest approbation of two companies of the Merida battalions advanced in front, and of the Commanding officer and soldiery of the battalions of Seville, and the Portuguese brigade. I have already noticed the distinguished conduct of Don Carlos, and his battalion merits the highest encomiums.

I have not yet been able to collect the returns of our loss. From the nature of mountain warfare, many men are missing who cannot join for a day or two, but I believe the enemy will only have to boast that he has achieved his passage, and his killed and wounded will be a great diminution of his victory. I have the honour to be, ROBERT WILSON.

&c.

Sir A. Wellesley, &c. &c.

Truxillo, Aug. 21, 1809. General Cuesta moved his headquarters from the neighbourhood of the bridge of Arzo Bispo on the night of the 7th instant, to Peraleca de Garbin, leaving an advanced-guard, consisting of two divisious of infantry, and the Duke D'Alberquerque's division of ca. valry, for the defence of the passage of the Tagus at this point.

The French cavalry passed the Tagus at a ford immediately above the bridge, at half-past one in the afternoon of the 8th, and surprised this advanced-guard, which retired, leaving behind them all their canon, as well as those in the batteries constructed for the defence of the bridge.

The

state, from lieutenant-general the earl of Chatham, dated Head-quarters, Ratz, Aug. 29, 1809.

My Lord-Major Bradford delivered to me your lordship's dispatch of the 21st instant, signifying to me his majesty's commands that I should convey to lieutenant-general sir Eyre Coote, the general and other officers and troops employed before Flushing, and particularly to those of the artillery and engineer departments, his majesty's most gracious approbation of their conduct; and which I have obeyed with the most entire satisfaction.

I had the honour in my last dispatch of acquainting your lordship with my intention of proceeding to this place, and I should have been most happy to have been enabled to have announced to your lordship the further progress of this army. Unfortunately, however, it becomes my duty to state to your lordship that, from the concurrent testimony from so many quarters, as to leave no doubt of the truth of the information, the enemy appears to have collected so formidable a force, as to convince me that the period was arrived, at which my instructions would have directed me to withdraw the army under my command, even if engaged in actual operation. I had certainly understood on my arrival at Walcheren, that the enemy were assembling in considerable force on all points; but I was unwilling to give too much credit to these reports, and I was determined to persevere until I was satisfied, upon the fullest information, that all further attempts would be unavailable.

From all our intelligence it appears, that the force of the enemy

the environs of Bergen-op-Zoom, Breda. Lillo, and Antwerp, and cantoned on the opposite coast, is not less than thirty-five thousand men, and by some statements is estimated higher. Though a landing on the continent might, I have no doubt, have been forced, yet as the siege of Antwerp, the possession of which could alone have secured to us any of the ulterior objects of the expedition, was by this state of things rendered utterly impracticable, such a measure, if successful, could have led to no solid advantage; and the retreat of the army, which must at an early period have been inevitable, would have been exposed to much hazard.

The utmost force (and that daily decreasing) that I could have brought into the field, after providing for the occupation of Walcheren and South Beveland, would have amounted to about twenty-three thousand infantry, and two thousand cavalry. Your lordship must at once see, even if the enemy's force had been less numerous than represented, after the necessary detachments to observe the garrisons of Bergen-op-Zoom and Breda, and securing our communications, how very inadequate a force must have remained for operations against Lillo and Liefkenshoeik, and ultimately against Antwerp; which town, so far from being in the state which had been reported, is, from very correct accounts, represented to be in a complete state of defence; and the enemy's ships had been brought up aud placed in security, under the guns of the citadel.

Under these circumstances, however mortifying to me to see the progress arrested of an army, from

whose