Lord Wellington had long felt the want of artillery and had sent a memoir upon the subject, to the British government, in the beginning of the year, yet his ordnance establishment had not been augmented, hence his difficulties during the siege; and in the field, instead of ninety British and Portuguese cannon, which was the just complement for his army, he had now only fifty serviceable pieces, of which twenty-four were with general Hill; and all were British, for the Portuguese artillery had from the abuses and the poverty of their government entirely melted away. Now the French had, as I have before stated, forty-four thousand men, of which nearly five thousand were cavalry, and they had more than sixty guns, a matter of no small importance; for besides the actual power of artillery in an action, soldiers are excited when the noise is greatest on their side. Wellington stood, therefore, at disadvantage in numbers, composition, and real strength. In his rear was the castle, and the river Arlanzan, the fords and bridges of which were commanded by the guns of the fortress; his generals of division, Paget excepted, were not of any marked ability, his troops were somewhat desponding, and deteriorated in discipline. His situation was therefore dangerous, and critical; a victory could scarcely be expected, and a defeat would have been destructive; he should not have provoked a battle, nor would he have done so had he known that Caffarelli’s troops were united to Souham’s. [Sidenote: Appendix, No. 8. A.] On the other hand, Souham should by all means have forced on an action, because his ground was strong, his retreat open, his army powerful and compact, his soldiers full of confidence, his lieutenants Clauzel, Maucune, and Foy, men of distinguished talents, able to second, and able to succeed him in the chief command. The chances of victory and the profit to be derived were great, the chances of defeat, and the dangers to be incurred comparatively small. And it was thus indeed that he judged the matter himself, for Maucune’s advance was intended to be the prelude to a great battle, and the English general, as we have seen, was willing to stand the trial. But generals are not absolute masters of events, and as the extraneous influence which restrained both sides, on this occasion, came from afar, it was fitting to show how, in war, movements, distant, and apparently unconnected with those immediately under a general’s eye, will break his measures, and make him appear undecided or foolish when in truth he is both wise and firm.