A soldier thinks of nothing that has passed by; it is only the present time that concerns him; he is a careless and thoughtless being. I wish I could say he was a little more prepared for a speedy exit into a future state. I will now endeavour to give you a slight sketch of the present state of affairs. Our men are exceedingly unhealthy, and the hospitals are crowded. Several officers of other regiments have died suddenly, and numbers of men also have died from the effects of fatigue in our march from Talavera. The French, from the best reports I can learn, have 30,000 men at and near Almaraz and Puente del Arzobispo. Another French force of 100,000 men are concentrating and collecting near Madrid. The whole of our army is not more than 25,000 men, so some day shortly we shall have hard fighting and hard running. We laugh heartily at the bombast which you are gagged with, and seem to swallow, relating to the brave Spaniards. John Bull will soon be in another way of thinking. The Spaniards are as much afraid of the French as a child is of the rod. If you refer back to a paper giving an account of our unforeseen retreat over (using the words expressed in a French bulletin) an impassable mountain, you will see in how dastardly a manner the grand and illustrious Spaniards set off and left us no other resource than the above retreat. Otherwise we were in the highest spirits in expectation of breakfasting in a day or two with Marshal Soult at Plasencia. You can well conceive the consternation at the sight of General Cuesta's army. Our gallant commander, Lord Wellington, I am sorry to perceive, has already enemies at home; they are illiberal rascals that can think only of puffing forth such falsities. The old adage, "Great men have many enemies." I may confidently say that every soldier entertains the highest opinion of his Lordship, and if we face the French, where there is any possibility for a general to lead on his army with credit to himself, he certainly is the man to perform it.