“The arrears of the army are certainly getting to an alarming pitch, and if it is suffered to increase, we cannot go on: we have only here two brigades of infantry, fed by our own commissariat, and we are now reduced to one of them having barely bread for this day, and the commissary has not a farthing of money. I know not how we shall get on!” Such were Beresford’s words on the 8th of July, and on the 15th Wellington wrote even more forcibly. “I have never,” said he, “been in such distress as at present, and some serious misfortune must happen, if the government do not attend seriously to the subject, and supply us regularly with money. The arrears and distresses of the Portuguse government, are a joke to ours, and if our credit was not better than theirs, we should certainly starve. As it is, if we don’t find means to pay our bills for butcher’s meat there will be an end to the war at once.” Thus stript as it were to the skin, the English general thought once more to hide his nakedness in the mountains of Portugal, when Marmont, proud of his own unripened skill, and perhaps, from the experience of San Cristoval, undervaluing his adversary’s tactics, desirous also, it was said, to gain a victory without the presence of a king, Marmont, pushed on by fate, madly broke the chain which restrained his enemy’s strength. CHAPTER III. [Sidenote: 1812. July.] When Wellington found by the intercepted letters, that the king’s orders for Drouet to cross the Tagus, were reiterated, and imperative, he directed Hill to detach troops, in the same proportion. And as this reinforcement, coming by the way of Alcantara, could reach the Duero as soon as Drouet could reach Madrid, he hoped still to maintain the Tormes, if not the Duero, notwithstanding the king’s power; for some money, long expected from England, had at last arrived in Oporto, and he thought the Gallicians, maugre their inertness, must soon be felt by the enemy. Moreover the harvest on the ground, however abundant, could not long feed the French multitudes, if Drouet and the king should together join Marmont. Nevertheless, fearing the action of Joseph’s cavalry, he ordered D’Urban’s horsemen to join the army on the Duero. But to understand the remarkable movements which were now about to commence, the reader must bear in mind, that the French army, from its peculiar organization, could, while the ground harvest lasted, operate without any regard to lines of communication; it had supports on all sides and procured its food every where, for the troops were taught to reap the standing corn, and grind it themselves if their cavalry could not seize flour in the villages. This organization approaching the ancient Roman military perfection, gave them great advantages; in the field it baffled the irregular, and threw the regular force of the allies, entirely upon the defensive; because when the flanks were turned, a retreat only could save the communications, and the French