The armies under Cartaojal and Cuesta were at this time in such a state that they deserved to have been better commanded, if the government had known where to look for better commanders. With all Cuesta’s good qualities, his popularity among the troops, his sure integrity, his courage, and the enterprising energy which in spite of age and infirmities he was capable of exerting, caprice, obstinacy, and a desperate rashness which no experience could correct, made him a most unfit man to be trusted with such a stake in such times. All his desire was to meet the enemy in fair battle, where he could draw out his men in full display; and if all his men had been as thoroughly brave as himself, the old man’s system would not have been erroneous. Cartaojal, on the contrary, was so convinced that discipline was every thing, and that the best thing which could be done with his troops was to drill them, that he let slip fair opportunities of exercising them in successful enterprise. It seems almost as if a fatality overruled the councils of the Spaniards, both in the cabinet and in the field; and that if these generals had merely been interchanged, Cartaojal’s caution might have saved the Extremaduran army, and Cuesta’s enterprise have seized the advantages which were presented to that of La Carolina. If severe measures could have restored discipline, they were not wanting; and they were used with such effect as for a time to stop desertion. ♦REFORMS IN THE SPANISH ARMY.♦ One essential reform was introduced. All the infantry officers were till this time mounted, and this practice occasioned a great consumption of forage when forage could hardly be obtained for the cavalry; it led also to these farther inconveniences, that the march of the columns was never conducted as it ought, for want of the immediate presence and attention of the officers; and that in case of retreat the mounted officer had a facility for expediting his escape which might operate as a dangerous temptation upon such officers in such times. No general could have ventured upon this needful reformation without drawing upon himself the ill-will of those whom it affected; the Junta, however, sent orders that no person in the infantry under the rank of major (except the adjutant) should be allowed a horse. This was done by British advice; and if there had been no more jealousy of the British in inferior agents than existed in the Central Junta, the cordial co-operation of the two nations would have met with no obstruction. ♦THE DUQUE DE ALBURQUERQUE.♦