the inspection and care of his arms, ammunition, accoutrements, necessaries, and field equipments, and his horse and horse appointments; for the receipt and issue and care of his provisions; and the regulation of all that belongs to his food, and the forage for his horse, must be strictly attended to, by the officers of his company or troop, if it is intended that an army, a British army in particular, shall be brought into the field of battle in a state of efficiency to meet the enemy on the day of trial. These are the points, then, to which I most earnestly intreat you to turn your attention, and the attention of the officers of the regiments under your command, Portuguese as well as English, during the period in which it may be in my power to leave the troops in their cantonments. The commanding officers of regiments must enforce the orders of the army, regarding the constant inspection and superintendance of the officers over the conduct of the men of their companies, in their cantonments; and they must endeavour to inspire the non-commissioned officers with a sense of their situation and authority; and the non-commissioned officers must be forced to do their duty, by being constantly under the view and superintendance of the officers. By these means the frequent and discreditable recourse to the authority of the Provost, and to punishments by the sentence of courtsmartial, will be prevented; and the soldiers will not dare to commit the offences and outrages, of which there are too many complaints, when they know that their officers and their non-commissioned officers have their eyes and their attention turned towards them.

“The commanding officers of regiments must likewise enforce the orders of the army, regarding the constant real inspection of the soldiers' arms, ammunition, accoutrements, and necessaries; in order to prevent, at all times, the shameful waste of ammunition, and the sale of that article, and of the soldiers' necessaries. With this view, both should be inspected daily. In regard to the food of soldiers, I have frequently observed and lamented, in the late campaign, the facility and celerity with which the French soldiers cooked, in comparison with our army. The cause of this disadvantage is the same with that of every other description-the want of attention of the officers to the

orders of the army, and to the conduct of their men; and their consequent want of authority over their conduct. Certain men of each company should be appointed to cut and bring in wood, others to fetch water, and others to get the meat, &c. to be cooked; and it would soon be found; if this practice was daily enforced, and a particular hour for seeing the dinner, and for the men dining, named, as it ought to be, equally as for the parade, that cooking would no longer require the inconvenient length of time it has lately been found to take, and that the soldiers would not be exposed to the privation of their food, at the moment at which the army may be engaged in operations with the enemy. You will of course give your attention to the field exercise and discipline of the troops: it is very desirable that the soldiers should not lose the habit of marching; and the division should march ten or twelve miles twice in each week, if the weather should permit, and the roads in the neighbourhood of the cantonments of the divisions should be dry. But I repeat that the great object of the attention of the general and field officers must be, to get the captains and subalterns of the regi ments to understand, and to perform the duties required from them, as the only mode by which the discipline and efficiency of the army can be restored and maintained during the next campaign. "I have, &c.

"WELLINGTON."

The opening of the campaign of 1813, was delayed by the British General from the necessity of waiting the recovery of the numerous sick, and reinforcements from England, till May, on the 26th of which month the Marquess of Wellington arrived at Salamanca. The war in Germany had obliged the French to withdraw considerable bodies of their veterans from Spain, and whose places were but ill supplied by conscripts. The British continued to advance by Zamora to Toro; beyond which latter place, on June 2d, the advanced guard of English hussars fell in with a considerable body of the enemy's cavalry, which they overthrew. On the 7th the Marquess crossed the Carrion, and on the three subsequent days followed the enemy across the Pisuergo: on the 12th he moved forward his right, under Lieutenant-General Hill, to reconnoitre the enemy's position

and numbers near Burgos. They were found strongly posted on the heights; but their right being turned by the allied army, and their left threatened, they began a retreat across the Arlanzon, which they conducted in such order as to sustain little loss. In the night they retired with their whole force through Burgos, having destroyed, as far as they were able, the defences of the castle, and marched towards the Ebro, on the road to Miranda. On the 14th and 15th the Marquess crossed the Ebro with his army, and continued his march towards Vittoria.

On the night of the 19th of June, the French army, commanded by Joseph Buonaparte, having Marshal Jourdan as his Major-General, and consisting of the whole of the armies of the south and centre, of four divisions and all the cavalry of the army of Portugal, and some troops of the army of the north, took up a position in the front of Vittoria; its left resting on the heights which terminate at Puebla d'Arlanson, and extending from thence across the valley of Zadora, its centre occupying a height which commanded the valley of Zadora, and its right stationed near Vittoria, for the purpose of defending the passages of the river Zadora, near that city.

Lord Wellington halted the allied army on the 20th, in order to close up its columns; and on that day his Lordship recon noitred the enemy's position, preparatory to an attack on the

morrow.

The operations commenced with the occupation of the enemy's post on the heights of La Puebla, by Sir Rowland Hill, who first detached a Spanish brigade under General Morillo on this service. The enemy, aware of the importance of this post, sent strong reinforcements for maintaining it; and on the other hand, successive detachments of British troops were or dered to the attack, and a severe contest took place at this point, which ended in the possession of the heights by the allies. Under cover of this position, Sir Rowland Hill passed the Zadora, and the defile beyond it, and gained possession of a village in front of the enemy's line. The difficulties of the country retarded for some time the advance of the other columns to their stations; they, however, at length crossed the Zadora at different points, and the divisions forming the centre of the allies moved to the attack of the heights in the enemy's centre. The

line of the latter, however, had been so much weakened by the detachments sent to strengthen the post in the hills, that he abandoned his position as soon as he saw the disposition for attacking it, and commenced his retreat in good order to Vittoria. The allies continued to advance over the broken ground, keeping admirable order; and in the mean time Sir T. Graham, now Lord Lynedock, commanding the left wing, moved on Vittoria, by the high road from Bilboa. A part of his troops turned the enemy's right, and gained some strong heights covering the village of Gamarra Major. This village was carried by storm at the bayonet's point, under a heavy fire of artillery and musketry, and every effort of the enemy to recover it was repulsed. Another village was also carried; and the possession of these villages intercepted the enemy's retreat by the high road to France, and obliged them to take that of Pamplona. Still they had two divisions in reserve on the heights to the left of the Zadora, and it was impossible to cross by the bridges, till the troops from the centre and left had driven the enemy from Vittoria this was effected, and the pursuit, in which all joined, was continued till after it was dark. The retreat of the enemy was so rapid, that they were unable to draw off their baggage and artillery: the whole of which, therefore, fell into the hands of Lord Welling

ton.

:

His Lordship in his dispatches spoke with high encomium of the conduct of all parts of the allied army, but, with his usual modesty and candor, gave no estimate of the loss of the enemy, which was severe, and only stated, that there were taken from them 151 pieces of cannon, 415 waggons of ammunition, all their baggage, provisions, cattle, and treasure, and a considerable number of prisoners. Among the trophies was the bâton of Marshal Jourdan. The loss of the allies was 700 killed, and 4,000 wounded, of whom the greatest share were British.

The Prince Regent, immediately upon receiving the official account of the Battle of Vittoria, wrote the following gratifying. letter to the illustrious conqueror.

"My dear Lord, "Carlton House, 3d July, 1813. "Your glorious conduct is beyond all human praise, and far above my reward. I know no language the world affords wor

thy to express it; I feel I have nothing left to say, but devoutly to offer up my prayers of gratitude to Providence, that it has in its omnipotent bounty blessed my country and myself with such a general. You have sent me, among the trophies of your unrivalled fame, the staff of a French marshal, and I send you in return that of England.

"The British army will hail it with enthusiasm; while the whole universe will acknowledge 'those valorous efforts which have so imperiously called for it.

“That uninterrupted health, and still encreasing laurels, may continue to crown you through a glorious and long career of life, are the never ceasing and most ardent wishes of, my dear Lord, your very sincere and faithful friend, G. P. R.

"The Marquess of Wellington."

On the prorogation of Parliament, 22d July, 1815, the Speaker of the House of Commons, in his speech at the bar of the House of Lords, alluded to the battle of Vittoria in the most elegant and emphatic manner. He observed, "But, Sir, whatever doubts may cloud the rest of our views and hopes, it is to the Peninsula that we look with sentiments of unquestionable delight and triumph: there the world has seen two gallant and independent nations rescued from the mortal grasp of fraud and tyranny by British counsels and British valor; and within the space of five short years from the dawn of our successes, at Roleia and Vimiera, the same illustrious commander has received the tribute of our gratitude for the brilliant passage of the Douro, the hard-fought battle of Talavera, the day of Busaco, the deliverance of Portugal, the mural crown won at Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajos, the splendid victory of Salamanca, and the decisive overthrow of the armies of France, in their total rout at Vittoria ;-deeds which have covered the British name with a blaze of unrivalled glory."

Lord Wellington continued his pursuit of the enemy, whose rear on the 24th reached Pamplona. On the 22d, General Clausel, with part of the army of the north, and one division of that of Portugal, had approached Vittoria, but learning the events that had passed, he retired upon La Guardia, and afterwards to Logrona. On the 25th the French army retreated from the