For the service of the siege Wellington could dispose of about 300 British and 560 Portuguese artillerymen, a much larger force than had been available at the two unlucky leaguers of 1811. Colonel Framingham was the senior officer in this arm present, but Wellington had directed that Alexander Dickson should take charge of the whole service of the siege, just as he had been entrusted with all the preparations for it. There were fifteen British, five German Legion, and seventeen Portuguese artillery officers under his command. The Portuguese gunners mostly came from the 3rd or Elvas regiment, the British were drawn from the companies of Holcombe, Gardiner, Glubb, and Rettberg.[252] Under Colonel Fletcher, senior engineer officer, there were 115 men of the Royal Military Artificers present at the commencement of the siege, and an additional party came up from Cadiz during its last days. But though this was an improvement over the state of things in 1811, the numbers were still far too small; there were no trained miners whatever, and the volunteers from the line acting as sappers, who were instructed by the Artificers, were for the most part unskilful--only 120 men of the 3rd Division who had been at work during the leaguer of Ciudad Rodrigo were comparatively efficient. The engineer arm was the weak point in the siege, as Wellington complained in a letter which will have to be dealt with in its proper place. He had already been urging on Lord Liverpool the absolute necessity for the creation of permanent units of men trained in the technicalities of siege-work. Soon after Rodrigo fell he wrote, ‘I would beg to suggest to your lordship the expediency of adding to the Engineer establishment a corps of sappers and miners. It is inconceivable with what disadvantage we undertake a siege, for want of assistance of this description. There is no French _corps d’armée_ which has not a battalion of sappers and a company of miners. We are obliged to depend for assistance of this sort upon the regiments of the line; and, although the men are brave and willing, they want the knowledge and training which are necessary. Many casualties occur, and much valuable time is lost at the most critical period of the siege[253],’ [252] For details see Duncan’s _History of the Royal Artillery_, ii. pp. 318-19. [253] Wellington, _Dispatches_, viii. p. 601.