But a number of isolated brigades and battalions suddenly thrown together do not form an army, and though Castlereagh had provided a large force for the projected expedition to the Peninsula, it was destitute of any proper organization. With the expedition that sailed from Cork there was only half a regiment of cavalry, and the brigades from Harwich, Ramsgate, and Gibraltar had not a single horseman with them, so that there were actually 18,000 foot to 390 horse among the contingents that first disembarked to contend with Junot’s army. Transport was almost equally neglected: only the troops from Cork had any military train with them, and that they were provided with horses and vehicles was only due to the prescience of their commander, who had at the last moment procured leave from London to enlist for foreign service and take with him two troops of the ‘Royal Irish Corps of Wagoners.’ ‘I declare,’ wrote Wellesley, ‘that I do not understand the principles on which our military establishments are formed, if, when large corps are sent out to perform important and difficult services, they are not to have with them those means of equipment which they require, such as horses to draw artillery, and drivers attached to the commissariat[180].’ Without this wise inspiration, he would have found himself unable to move when he arrived in the Peninsula: as it was, he had to leave behind, when he landed, some of his guns and half his small force of cavalry, because the authorities had chosen to believe that both draft and saddle horses could readily be procured in Portugal. Such little _contretemps_ were common in the days when Frederick Duke of York, with the occasional assistance of Mrs. Mary Ann Clark, managed the British army. [180] Wellesley to Castlereagh, June 29, 1808 (_Well. Suppl. Disp._, vi. 87).