show that we had commenced, in downright earnest, a most calamitous retreat. Lord Wellington wished for a battle, if he could fight one on advantageous terms, before his army became disorganised; but this was not to the interest of the French army; and the Duke of Dalmatia, who could at any time make choice of his own field from his vast superiority in horsemen, was too experienced a tactician to be led into so fatal an error as that of fighting. Experience had shown him that a retreat, such as the one I am describing, would cost him little trouble to inflict as great a loss upon our army as if he gained the advantage in a battle, and that it would be a bloodless victory to him; whereas, if a general action took place, and the entire of the two armies were thrown into the fight, he could not expect to get off with a loss of less than six or eight thousand men, with the chance, perhaps the probability, of being defeated. No Marshal in the French army knew the good and the bad qualities of the soldiers he now followed better, few so well, as Soult. He had pursued them to Corunna, and fought them at Albuera. Knowing then, as he did, their imperfection in retreat, and their superlative perfection in a pitched battle, it would have been strange had he risked by a battle, what it was as clear as the noon-day he would gain without one, namely, the loss to us of several thousand men and horses, who, if they did not fall into his hands, or die on the retreat, were sure to be lost to our ranks in consequence of its effects. The game was in his hands, and if he lost it by bad play, the fault would be his, and his only. He did not do so, but played a safe game, and when battle was offered him near Salamanca, he _reneged_. He finessed well, and though he did not drive us before him at the point of the bayonet, his flank movement on the Rodrigo line, by a side wipe, effected his purpose just as well for him.