I write you that I can do without it; in which sum I include £40,000 a month for the Portuguese government, to pay for twenty thousand men. If the Portuguese government are to receive a larger sum from Great Britain, the sum to be sent to Portugal must be proportionably increased. Besides this, money must be sent to pay the Portuguese debt and our debts in Portugal. There are, besides, debts of sir John Moore’s army still due in Spain, which I am called upon to pay. In short, we must have £125,000, and £200,000 a month, reckoning from the beginning of May, &c. &c. (Signed) “ARTHUR WELLESLEY.” * * * * * No. XVII. LETTER FROM LORD WELLINGTON TO THE MARQUIS WELLESLEY. _Badajos, October 30, 1809._ MY LORD, I have had the honour of receiving your excellency’s despatch, (marked 1.) of the 17th instant, containing a copy of your note to M. de Garay, of the 8th of September, and a copy of his note, in answer to your excellency, of the 3d of October. I am not surprised that M. de Garay should endeavour to attribute to the irregularities of the English commissariat the deficiencies of supplies and means of transport experienced by the British army in its late service in Spain; I am not disposed to justify the English commissariat where they deserve blame; but I must think it but justice to them to declare that the British army is indebted to their exertions for the scanty supplies it received. From some of the statements contained in M. de Garay’s note it would appear that the British army had suffered no distress during the late service; others have a tendency to prove that great distress was suffered, at a very early period, by both armies; particularly the quotation of a letter from general Cuesta, of the 1st of August, in answer to a complaint which I am supposed to have made, that the Spanish troops and _their prisoners_ were better supplied than the British army. The answer to all these statements is a reference to the fact that the army suffered great distress for want of provisions, forage, and means of equipment; and, although that distress might have been aggravated, it could not have been occasioned by the inexperience or irregularity of the English commissariat.