oblige them to do so. When this matter was arranged, Wellington had still to dread that if his operations led him far into Spain, the subsistence of his army would be insecure; for there were many objects of absolute necessity, especially meat, which could not be procured except with ready money, and not only was he unfurnished of specie, but his hopes of obtaining it were nearly extinguished, by the sweep lord William Bentinck had made in the Mediterranean money-market: moreover the English ministers chose this period of difficulty to interfere, and in an ignorant and injurious manner, with his mode of issuing bills to supply his necessities. His resolution to advance could not be shaken, yet before crossing the Agueda, having described his plan of campaign to lord Liverpool, he finished in these remarkable words. “I am not insensible to losses and risks, nor am I blind to the disadvantages under which I undertake this operation. My friends in Castile, and I believe no officer ever had better, assure me that we shall not want provisions even before the harvest will be reaped; that there exist concealed granaries which shall be opened to us, and that if we can pay for a part, credit will be given to us for the remainder, and they have long given me hopes that we should be able to borrow money in Castile upon British securities. In case we should be able to maintain ourselves in Castile, the general action and its results being delayed by the enemy’s manœuvres, which I think not improbable, I have in contemplation other resources for drawing supplies from the country, and I shall have at all events our own magazines at Almeida and Ciudad Rodrigo. _But with all these prospects I cannot reflect without shuddering upon the probability that we shall be distressed; nor upon the consequences which may result from our wanting money in the interior of Spain._” In the contemplated operations lord Wellington did not fail to look both to his own and to his enemy’s flanks. His right was secured by the destruction of the forts, the stores, and boats at Almaraz; for the valley of the Tagus was exhausted of provisions, and full of cross rivers which required a pontoon train to pass if the French should menace Portugal seriously in that line: moreover he caused the fortress of Monte Santos, which covered the Portuguese frontier between the Tagus and Ciudad Rodrigo to be put into a state of defence, and the restoration of Alcantara gave Hill the power of quickly interfering. On the other side if Marmont, strengthened by Caffarelli’s division, should operate strongly against the allies’ left, a retreat was open either upon Ciudad Rodrigo, or across the mountains into the valley of the Tagus. Such were his arrangements for his own interior line of operations, and to menace his enemy’s flanks his measures embraced the whole Peninsula.