Of fights between cavalry and cavalry, where the two sides were present in such equal numbers as to make the struggle a fair test of their relative efficiency, there were but few in the Peninsular War. In the early years of the struggle Wellington was very scantily provided with horsemen, and never could afford to engage in a cavalry battle on a large scale. Later on, when he was more happily situated in this respect, he showed such a marked reluctance to risk great cavalry combats that the old saying that he was ‘pre-eminently an infantry general’ seems justified. That he could use his horsemen vigorously enough, when he saw his opportunity, he showed at Assaye, long before he had made his name known in Europe. Yet the only one of his great battles in Spain where his dragoons took a prominent part in the victory was Salamanca, where Le Marchant’s brigade struck such a smashing blow on the flank of the French army. We have his own authority[94] for the fact that he hesitated to mass great bodies of horse, because he doubted the tactical skill of his officers, and the power of the regiments to manœuvre. ‘I considered our cavalry,’ he wrote ten years after the war was over, ‘so inferior to the French from want of order, that although I considered one squadron a match for two French, I did not like to see four British opposed to four French: and as the numbers increased and order, of course, became more necessary, I was the more unwilling to risk our men without having a superiority in numbers. They could gallop, but could not preserve their order.’ [94] Letter to Lord William Russell, July 31, 1826.