By very great efforts the boats of the fleet transported the whole remaining force across the lake, until, on the morning of December 25, all were concentrated at the Villeré plantation. With them arrived Major-General Sir Edward Pakenham, and took command. Hitherto the frequent British disasters at Plattsburg, Sackett’s Harbor, Fort Erie, and the Moravian towns had been attributed to their generals. Sir George Prevost, Major-Generals Drummond and Riall, and Major-General Proctor were not officers of Wellington’s army. The British government, in appointing Sir Edward Pakenham to command at New Orleans, meant to send the ablest officer at their disposal. Pakenham was not only one of Wellington’s best generals, but stood in the close relation of his brother-in-law, Pakenham’s sister being Wellington’s wife. In every military respect Sir Edward Pakenham might consider himself the superior of Andrew Jackson. He was in the prime of life and strength, thirty-eight years of age, while Jackson, nearly ten years older, was broken in health and weak in strength. Pakenham had learned the art of war from Wellington, in the best school in Europe. He was supported by an efficient staff and a military system as perfect as experience and expenditure could make it, and he commanded as fine an army as England could produce, consisting largely of Peninsula veterans. Their precise number, according to British authority, was five thousand and forty rank-and-file, on Christmas Day, when Pakenham took command.[526] Afterward many more arrived, until January 6, when ten regiments were in camp at Villeré’s plantation,--Royal Artillery; Fourteenth Light Dragoons; Fourth, Seventh, Twenty-first, Forty-third, Forty-fourth, Eighty-fifth, Ninety-third, and Ninety-fifth Infantry,--numbering, with sappers and miners and staff-corps, five thousand nine hundred and thirteen rank-and-file; or with a moderate allowance of officers, an aggregate of at least sixty-five hundred Europeans. Two West India regiments of black troops accompanied the expedition, numbering ten hundred and forty-three rank-and-file. The navy provided about twelve hundred marines and seamen, perhaps the most efficient corps in the whole body. Deducting eight hundred men for camp-duty, Pakenham, according to British official reports, could put in the field a force of eight thousand disciplined troops, well-officered, well-equipped, and confident both in themselves and in their commander. More were on their way. The Duke of Wellington believed such a force fully competent to capture New Orleans, or to rout any American army he ever heard of; and his confidence would have been, if possible, still stronger, had he known his opponent’s resources, which were no greater and not very much better than those so easily overcome by Ross at Bladensburg. The principal difference was that Jackson commanded.