My plan, as it is invidiously and falsely called, was simply a reasoning upon the advantages of sir Arthur Wellesley’s plan, and the calculation of days by the reviewer is mere mysticism. Sir Arthur wished sir John Moore to go to Santarem, and if sir Arthur’s recommendation had been followed, sir John Moore, who, instead of taking five days as this writer would have him do, actually disembarked the greatest part of his troops in the Mondego in half a day, that is before one o’clock on the 22d, might have been at Santarem the 27th even according to the reviewer’s scale of march, ten miles a day! Was he to remain idle there, if the enemy did not abandon Lisbon and the strong positions covering that city? If he could stop Junot’s retreat either at Santarem or in the Alemtejo, a cavalry country, he could surely as safely operate towards Saccavem, a strong country. What was sir A. Wellesley’s observation on that head? “If the march to Mafra had been made as I had ordered it on the 21st of August in the morning, the position of Torres Vedras would have been turned, and there was no position in the enemy’s possession, excepting that in our front at Cabeça de Montechique and those in rear of it. And I must observe to the court that if sir John Moore’s corps had gone to Santarem as proposed as soon as it disembarked in the Mondego, there would have been no great safety in those positions, if it was, as it turned out to be, in our power to beat the French.” Lo! then, my plan is not at variance with sir Arthur Wellesley’s object. But the whole of the reviewer’s sophistry is directed, both as to this march and that to Mafra, not against me, but through me against the duke of Wellington whom the writer dare not attack openly; witness his cunning defence of that “_wet-blanket_” counsel which stopped sir Arthur Wellesley’s pursuit of Junot from the field of Vimiero. Officer of rank! Aye, it sounds grandly! but it was a shrewd thing of Agesilaus when any one was strongly recommended to him to ask “who will vouch for the voucher?” Passing now from the officer of rank, I affirm, notwithstanding Mr. Southey’s “magnificent chapters” and sir Charles Vaughan’s “brief and elegant work,” that the statement about Palafox and Zaragoza is correct. My authority is well known to sir Charles Vaughan, and is such as he is not likely to dispute; that gentleman will not, I feel well assured, now guarantee the accuracy of the tales he was told at Zaragoza. But my real offence is not the disparagement of Palafox, it is the having spoiled some magnificent romances, present or to come; for I remembered the Roman saying about the “Lying Greek fable,” and endeavoured so to record the glorious feats of my countrymen, that even our enemies should admit the facts. And they have hitherto done so, with a magnanimity becoming brave men who are conscious of merit in misfortune, thus putting to shame the grovelling spirit that would make calumny and vituperation the test of patriotism.