I know nothing of the orders which M. de Garay states were sent by the government to the different provincial juntas, to provide provisions and means of transport for the British army on its passage through the different towns in the provinces. If such orders were sent, it was obvious that the central junta, as a government, have no power or influence over the provincial juntas and magistrates, to whom their orders were addressed, as they produced no effect; and the supplies, such as they were, were procured only by the requisitions and exertions of the English commissaries. But it is obvious, from M. de Garay’s account of these orders, that the central junta had taken a very erroneous view of the operations to be carried on by the army, and of the provision to be made for the troops while engaged in those operations. The government provided, by their orders, for the troops only while on their passage through the towns; relying upon their immediate success, and making no provision for the collection of one body, of not less than fifty thousand men, even for one day. At the same time that they were guilty of this unpardonable omission, which paralyzed all our efforts, they rendered that success doubtful, by countermanding the orders given to general Venegas by general Cuesta, and thus exposing the combined armies to a general action with the enemy’s concentrated force. The effect of their orders will appear more fully in the following detail:-- As soon as the line of my operations in Spain was decided, I sent a commissary to Ciudad Rodrigo, to endeavour to procure mules to attend the army, in concert with don Lozano des Torres, that city and its neighbourhood being the places in which the army commanded by the late sir John Moore had been most largely supplied. M. de Garay expresses the astonishment of the government that the British army should have entered Spain unprovided with the means of transport, notwithstanding that a few paragraphs preceding this expression of astonishment, he informs your excellency, in the name of the government, that they had given orders to the provincial juntas of Badajos and Castile (at Ciudad Rodrigo) and the magistrates, to provide and supply us with the means which, of course, they must have been aware that we should require. No army can carry on its operations if unprovided with means of transport; and the British army was, from circumstances, particularly in want at that moment. The means of transport, commonly used in Portugal, are carts, drawn by bullocks, which are unable, without great distress, to move more than twelve miles in a day, a distance much shorter than that which the state of the country in which the army was to carry on operations in Spain, and the nature of the country, would oblige the army to march. The number of carts which we had been able to bring from Portugal was not sufficient to draw our ammunition, and there were none to carry provisions.