I have once more to express my indebtedness to the owners of two great files of Peninsular War documents, who were good enough to place them at my disposition and to allow me to bring them to Oxford. The D’Urban papers, lent to me by Mr. W. S. M. D’Urban, of Newport House, near Exeter, the grandson of Sir Benjamin D’Urban, Beresford’s Chief-of-the-Staff, continue to be of immense value all through 1812. In the first half of the year Sir Benjamin was still at the Portuguese head-quarters, and his diary and correspondence give the views of those who had the best opportunity of knowing Wellington’s plans from the inside. In June he was appointed to another post, that of commanding the detached Portuguese cavalry brigade which covered Wellington’s left flank in the Salamanca campaign; his notes as to his operations are of extreme interest throughout June, July, and August; the narratives which he drew up concerning his own fortunes at the battle of Salamanca, and at the unfortunate combat of Majalahonda, have cleared up several obscure problems, which no published material could have enabled me to solve. The papers of Sir George Scovell, lent me by his great-nephew, Mr. G. Scovell, of Hove, had already begun to be of use to me in the chronicle of 1811. But in 1812 they are of far greater importance, since it was early in that year that Scovell was placed by Wellington in charge of the toilsome duty of studying and decoding all French captured dispatches written in cipher. The originals were left in his hands, and only the interpretations, written out in full, were made over to the Commander-in-Chief. These originals, often scraps of the smallest dimensions made to be concealed in secret places about the person of the bearer, are historical antiquities of the highest interest. Their importance is so great that I have thought it necessary to give in Appendix XV a detailed account of them, of the characteristics of the ‘Great Paris Cipher’--as Scovell called it--and of the contents of each document.