It is quite impossible to make arrangements for company officers who may be taken ill, and obliged to go to the hospital stations in the rear. A company in the field is what must be kept in view in any plan of this kind. The medical department, with the means I have yet to propose to place at its disposal, would have to look to such casualties. I must, however, here observe, that in Portugal especially, we had often far too many officers at such stations--for instance at Lisbon, or rather Belem, Coimbra, &c. where it was well known many of them staid so long, that Lord Wellington had often to give them very broad hints, that it was high time they should remember that their regiments were in presence of the enemy. Some of these gentlemen, when absent from their corps, had well supplied their wants, and returned at last to their divisions, nicely mounted on a horse, probably purchased in Lisbon, attended by a soldier, and perhaps a Portuguese boy, leading a mule or two heavily loaded with the good things of this world. Thus the baggage and animals with the army were always increasing. The mule or horse had very likely soon to be sold, from want of food and people to look after them, so that the good things brought up being consumed, the temporary campaigner again fell so sick, that it became indispensable for him to revisit an hospital station, to recruit his health and replenish his supplies. This is by no means an over-drawn picture; and when it was sometimes asked by those with the army, what had become of so and so, the common answer was, that he had taken up a strong position near Lisbon, his right upon the Tagus, and his left at Belem; or that he was teaching the good people of Lisbon to cross the river in cork boats,--for these gentlemen were not without their amusements. It however strikes me at this moment, that as many of these frequenters of hospital stations were really seriously ill, it would be desirable, that when young gentlemen presented themselves to be examined for commissions, it should not only be ascertained that they had been educated, but also that they were fit for service. But I must proceed with other matters. The large bell tents now in general use for soldiers in the field, accommodate certainly a great many of them at night, when well packed with their feet to the poles; but they are much too heavy to be carried on the backs of animals when wet, or when they must be struck before sunrise, saturated with heavy dew. The baggage mules were often knocked up by them in this state. It is a bad plan that of carrying the large iron camp kettles upon animals for the use of companies; the light tin ones carried in turn by the soldiers themselves, in a bag made for the purpose, are greatly to be preferred, as they are always at hand.