had proposed that whenever different corps of the allied armies should be united to give battle, the general who was possessed of the highest military rank, and of the longest standing, should take the command of the whole. This would have given it to Castaños; but he, with that wise and disinterested spirit which always distinguished him, proposed, as a more equitable arrangement, that the general who had the greatest force under his orders should have the chief command, and that the others should be considered as auxiliaries. Lord Wellington perfectly approved of the alteration. “It was my duty,” said he, “in a point so delicate as that of the allied troops acting in concert, to submit a proposition so reasonable in itself as to obtain universal assent; but it was becoming the manly understanding, candour, and knowledge of existing circumstances which characterise your excellency to make an alteration in it, substituting another proposal better calculated to please those of the allies who have most to lose in the battle, for which we must prepare ourselves.” ♦REASONS FOR GIVING BATTLE TO THE FRENCH.♦ Lord Wellington had left it at Beresford’s discretion to fight a battle or retire, if circumstances should render one or other alternative necessary. But the effect of a retreat would, as he saw, have been most disastrous: it would have deprived the Spaniards of all hope for any efficient exertion on the part of Great Britain; it would have exposed Blake and Castaños to destruction: the British army would have suffered a second time in reputation; the Portugueze troops would have lost their confidence in their allies and in themselves; and in the retreat itself, ... with an army so dispirited, through an exhausted country, and before such troops as the French under such a commander, ... the numerical loss might have been greater than in a well-fought though unsuccessful engagement, and the consequences worse. ♦THE ALLIES ASSEMBLE AT ALBUHERA.♦