This comparison furnishes the proof of Wellington’s sagacity, when he determined not to fight except at great advantage. The French army, although surprised in the midst of an evolution and instantly swept from the field, killed and wounded six thousand of the allies; the eleventh and sixty-first regiments of the sixth division had not together more than one hundred and sixty men and officers left standing at the end of the battle; twice six thousand then would have fallen in a more equal contest, the blow would have been less decisive, and as Chauvel’s cavalry and the king’s army were both at hand, a retreat into Portugal would probably have followed a less perfect victory. Wherefore this battle ought not, and would not have been fought, but for Marmont’s false movement on the 22d. Yet it is certain that if Wellington had retired without fighting, the murmurs of his army, already louder than was seemly, would have been heard in England, and if an accidental shot had terminated his career all would have terminated. The cortez, ripe for a change, would have accepted the intrusive king, and the American war, just declared against England, would have rendered the complicated affairs of Portugal so extremely embarrassed that no new man could have continued the contest. Then the cries of disappointed politicians would have been raised. Wellington, it would have been said, Wellington, desponding, and distrusting his brave troops, dared not venture a battle on even terms, hence these misfortunes! His name would have been made, as sir John Moore’s was, a butt for the malice and falsehood of faction, and his military genius would have been measured by the ignorance of his detractors. [Sidenote: Appendix, Nos. 19, 20.] 8º. In the battle Marmont had about forty-two thousand sabres and bayonets; Wellington who had received some detachments on the 19th had above forty-six thousand, but the excess was principally Spanish. The French had seventy-four guns, the allies, including a Spanish battery, had only sixty pieces. Thus, Marmont, over-matched in cavalry and infantry, was superior in artillery, and the fight would have been most bloody, if the generals had been equal, for courage and strength were in even balance until Wellington’s genius struck the beam. Scarcely can a fault be detected in his conduct. It might indeed be asked why the cavalry reserves were not, after Le Marchant’s charge, brought up closer to sustain the fourth, fifth, and sixth divisions and to keep off Boyer’s dragoons, but it would seem ill to cavil at an action which was described at the time by a French officer, as the “_beating of forty thousand men in forty minutes_.”