For only one single day did the incubus of Burrard rest upon the British army in Portugal, though that day was one on which he succeeded in changing a decisive victory, which might have laid a whole kingdom at his feet, into an ordinary successful defensive action. He had stopped Wellesley’s triumphant march at noon on August 21; early on the morning of the twenty-second Sir Hew Dalrymple appeared in Maceira Bay, disembarked, and took over the command. He naturally began his tenure of control by interviewing his two predecessors, whose divergent views as to the situation and its requirements were laid before him. He was an old man, and unpractised in the field: he had only seen war in the wretched Flanders campaign of 1793-4. His prejudice was in favour of caution, and he was not slow to let it be seen that he regarded Wellesley’s actions in the past, and still more his plans for the future, as rash and hazardous. ‘On the first interview that I had with Sir Hew Dalrymple,’ said Wellesley at the Court of Inquiry in the following winter, ‘I had reason to believe that I did not possess his confidence: nay more, that he was prejudiced against any opinions which I should give him[237].’ The veteran’s ill-concealed hostility was, we cannot doubt, mainly due to an unhappy inspiration of Castlereagh, who had sent him a letter bidding him ‘take Sir Arthur Wellesley into his particular confidence, as he had been, for a length of time past, in the closest habits of communication with His Majesty’s ministers with respect to the affairs of Spain.’ He was also directed ‘to make the most prominent use of him which the rules of the service would permit[238].’ Such a letter very naturally caused Dalrymple to look upon the young lieutenant-general as a sort of emissary from the Government, sent to overrule his plans and curb his full power of command. He was inclined, consciously or unconsciously, to entertain a strong prejudice against anything that Wellesley might recommend: and we cannot doubt that the latter, always stiff and haughty, was at this moment in a state of suppressed fury at the foiling of his plans by Burrard on the preceding day. Probably, in his own cold way, he let his indignation appear, and Dalrymple may have been glad of an excuse for repressing him. [237] Wellesley’s evidence at the Court of Inquiry (_Proceedings_, p. 81). [238] Castlereagh to Dalrymple, July 15 (_Well. Disp._, iv. 18).