The reviewers having asserted that I picked out of Foy’s history the charge against lord Melville of saying “the worst men made the best soldiers,” I replied that I drew for it on my own clear recollection of the fact. Since then a friend has sent me the report of lord Melville’s speech, extracted from the Annual Register (Baldwin’s) 1808, p. 112, and the following passage extracted from his lordship’s speech bears out my assertion and proves the effrontery with which the reviewers deny facts. “What was meant by a better sort of men? Was it that they should be taller or shorter, broader or thinner? This might be intelligible, but it was not the fact. The men that had hitherto formed the British armies were men of stout hearts and habits; men of spirit and courage; lovers of bold enterprize. These were the materials of which an army must be composed. Give him such men though not of the better description. _The worse men were the fittest for soldiers._ Keep the better sort at home.” HISTORY OF THE WAR IN THE PENINSULA. HISTORY OF THE PENINSULAR WAR. BOOK XXI. CHAPTER I. [Sidenote: 1813. June.] The fate of Spain was decided at Vittoria, but on the fields of Lutzen and Bautzen Napoleon’s genius restored the general balance, and the negociations which followed those victories affected the war in the Peninsula. Lord Wellington’s first intention was to reduce Pampeluna by force, and the sudden fall of the Pancorbo forts, which opened the great Madrid road was a favourable event; but Portugal being relinquished as a place of arms, a new base of operations was required, lest a change of fortune should force the allies to return to that country when all the great military establishments were broken up, when the opposition of the native government to British influence was become rancorous, and the public sentiment quite averse to English supremacy. The Western Pyrenees, in conjunction with the ocean, offered such a base, yet the harbours were few, and the English general desired to secure a convenient one, near the new positions of the army; wherefore to reduce San Sebastian was of more immediate importance than to reduce Pampeluna; and it was essential to effect this during the fine season because the coast was iron-bound and very dangerous in winter. [Sidenote: July.]