The expense, at a low estimation, was about two hundred thousand pounds a month, and, with the most strenuous exertions, a hundred and sixty thousand pounds only had been procured in the two months of May and June; and of this, thirteen thousand had been obtained as a temporary loan in Oporto. The rate of exchange in Lisbon was high, and, notwithstanding the increased value given to the government paper by the successes on the Douro, this rate was daily rising. The Spanish dollar was at five shillings, while Spanish gold sunk so much in value that the commissary-general sent all that he received from England, or could collect in Lisbon, to Cadiz, and other parts, to truck for dollars; but, in all places of commerce, the exchange was rising against England, a natural consequence of her enormous and increasing issues of paper. Those issues, the extravagant succours given to Spain, together with subsidies to Austria, made it impossible to supply the army in Portugal with specie, otherwise than by raising cash, in every quarter of the globe, on treasury-bills, and at a most enormous loss; an evil great in itself, opening a wide door to fraud and villany, and rendered the war between France and England not so much a glorious contest of arms as a struggle between public credit and military force, in which even victory was sure to be fatal to the former. The want of money, sickness, Cuesta’s impracticable temper, and a variety of minor difficulties, too tedious to mention, kept the army in a state of inactivity until the end of June; but, at that period, the retreat of the first corps from Torremocha, and the consequent advance of Cuesta, removed one obstacle to offensive operations, and sir Arthur, having the certainty that eight thousand additional troops were off the rock of Lisbon, then commenced his march into Spain by the northern banks of the Tagus, meaning to unite with Cuesta on the Tietar, and to arrange, if possible, a plan of operations against Madrid. But, before I embark on the full and broad stream into which the surges and eddies of the complicated warfare that succeeded Napoleon’s departure from the Peninsula settled, I must give a general view of the state of affairs, that the reader, comprehending exactly what strength each party brought to the encounter, may judge more truly of the result. FRENCH POWER.