After this Grant reached England and obtained permission to choose a French officer of equal rank with himself, to send to France, that no doubt might remain about the propriety of his escape; and great was his astonishment to find, in the first prison he visited, the old fisherman and his real son, who had meanwhile been captured notwithstanding a protection given to them for their services. Grant, whose generosity and benevolence were as remarkable as the qualities of his understanding, soon obtained their release, and having sent them with a sum of money to France returned himself to the Peninsula, and within four months from the date of his first capture was again on the Tormes, watching Marmont’s army! Other strange incidents of his life I could mention, were it not more fitting to quit a digression, already too wide; yet I was unwilling to pass an occasion of noticing one adventure of this generous and spirited, and yet gentle-minded man, who having served his country nobly and ably in every climate, died, not long since, exhausted by the continual hardships he had endured. Having now shewn the prudence of lord Wellington with respect to the campaign generally, it remains to consider the siege of Badajos, which has so often been adduced in evidence, that not skill but fortune plumed his ambitious wing; a proceeding indeed most consonant to the nature of man; for it is hard to avow inferiority, by attributing an action so stupendous to superior genius alone. A critical scientific examination would be misplaced in a general history, but to notice some of the leading points which involve the general conception will not be irrelevant. The choice of the line of attack has been justified by the English engineers, as that requiring least expenditure of means and time; but this has by the French engineer been denied. Colonel Lamarre affirms that the front next the castle was the one least susceptible of defence; because it had neither ravelin nor ditch to protect it, had fewer flanks, and offered no facility of retrenching behind it; a view which is confirmed by Phillipon, who being the best judge of his own weak points, did for many days imagine that this front was the true object of the allies’ approaches. But Lamarre advances a far more interesting question, when he affirms that the English general might have carried Badajos by escalade and storm, on the first night of the siege, with less difficulty than he experienced on the 7th of April. On that night, he says, the defences were not so complete, that the garrison was less prepared, and the surprise would have availed somewhat; whereas at the second period the breaches were the strongest part of the town, and as no other advantage had been gained by the besiegers, the chances were in favour of the first period.