The magistrates were obstinate, and the appeal was forwarded to England. On the 12th November intimation was sent to Major Dixon, in Walcheren, now in command of the Artillery, that the decision was unfavourable to the claims [Sidenote: Dated Doctors’ Commons, 26 October, 1809.] of the Corps. The following extract from the decision, addressed by Sir Charles Robinson to the Earl of Liverpool, explains the grounds on which it was based. “With respect to the bells of the church, the demands of the Artillery are, I conceive, altogether unsustainable. It is apparently not supported on the part of the Prize Commissioners, since they do not advert to this claim in their letter of the 4th of October. Anciently, there prevailed a law of pillage, which assigned to different corps and to different individuals a privileged claim to particular articles. Whether this was a privilege of the Artillery under the ancient custom of England, as described in the Petition, I am not informed; but in the modern usage of respecting property and public edifices, and more particularly those set apart for divine worship, such a demand cannot, I conceive, be sustained. What the custom may be,--whether deserving of any compensation in the division of what is properly _prize_, or from any other quarter,--may be a subject of consideration according to circumstances. But I am of opinion that the demand ought not to be enforced against the town.” From subsequent correspondence which is extant, and which passed between General Macleod and Sir Anthony Farrington, it is evident that the former felt much regret that an old Regimental privilege should have disappeared during operations in which he had occupied so prominent a place; but the reader will admit that no one could have conducted the cause of the Corps in a more unselfish, chivalrous, and yet resolute manner. N.B.--The comments of an officer of the sister corps, on the conduct of the Artillery at the siege of Flushing, were very favourable. Two extracts from Sir J. Jones’s work may be given. “The guns of the batteries on the right of the attack were more particularly directed to enfilade and take _en écharpe_ the rampart of the western sea-line, in order to silence the fire of its artillery on the fleet, now preparing to force the passage of the Scheldt. This they accomplished very effectually, by disabling or very severely wounding many of the traversing platforms and their carriages, and much injuring the guns themselves.” Again: “Discharges of carcasses and shells from the mortar batteries, with powerful flights of rockets intermixed, were kept up throughout the night on the devoted town, and frequently large portions of it burned with fury.”--JONES’S ‘Sieges,’ vol. ii. pp. 269-271. CHAPTER XV. PENINSULAR WAR RESUMED.--PASSAGE OF THE DOURO, AND TALAVERA.