“The division had to _file_ across a very narrow bridge to the attack under a fire from the castle and the troops in the covered way. It was ordered to commence at ten o’clock, but by means of fire-balls the formation of our troops at the head of the trench was discovered by the French, who opened a heavy fire on them, and the attack was commenced _from necessity_ nearly half an hour before the time ordered. I was severely wounded in the foot on the glacis after passing the Rivillas almost at the commencement of the attack _in the trenches_, and met Picton coming to the front on my being carried to the rear. If the attack had not commenced till the hour ordered, he, I have no doubt, would have been on the spot to direct in person the commencement of the operations. I have no _personal_ knowledge of what took place afterwards, but I was informed that after surmounting the most formidable difficulties, the escalade was effected by means of _two_ ladders only in the first instance in the middle of the night, and there can be no question that Picton was present in the assault. In giving an account of this operation, pray bear in mind that _he_ commanded the division, and to _him_ and the enthusiastic valour and determination of the troops ought its success alone to be attributed. “Yours, &c. “JAMES KEMPT.” “_Colonel Napier, &c._” The other point to which I would allude is the battle of Salamanca. Mr. Robinson, with his baton of military criticism, belabours the unfortunate Marmont unmercifully, and with an unhappy minuteness of detail, first places general Foy’s troops on the _left_ of the French army and then destroys them by the bayonets of the third division, although the poor man and his unlucky soldiers were all the time on the _right_ of the French army, and were never engaged with the third division at all. This is however but a slight blemish for Mr. Robinson’s book, and his competence to criticise Marmont’s movements is no whit impaired thereby. I wish however to assure him that the expression put into the mouth of the late sir Edward Pakenham is “_né vero né ben trovato_.” Vulgar swaggering was no part of that amiable man’s character, which was composed of as much gentleness, as much generosity, as much frankness, and as much spirit as ever commingled in a noble mind. Alas! that he should have fallen so soon and so sadly!! His answer to lord Wellington, when the latter ordered him to attack, was not, “I will, my lord, by God!” With the bearing of a gallant gentleman who had resolved to win or perish, he replied, “Yes, if you will give me one grasp of that conquering right hand.” But these finer lines do not suit Mr. Robinson’s carving of a hero; his manner is more after the coarse menacing idols of the South-Sea Islands, than the delicate gracious forms of Greece.