_Charge of the nineteenth Portuguese._ Your lordship has here gained an advantage; I cannot indeed understand some of general M‘Bean’s expressions, but it is impossible for me to doubt his positive statement; I believe therefore that he was in front of the convent wall and that he charged some body of the enemy. It is however necessary to restore the question at issue between your lordship and myself to its true bearing. You accused me of a desire to damage the reputation of the Portuguese army, and you asked why I did not speak of a particular charge made by the nineteenth Portuguese regiment at Busaco. This charge you described as being against one of _Ney’s attacking columns_, which had, you said, _gained the ascent of the position, and then forming advanced on the plain above_ before it was charged by the nineteenth regiment. As this description was certainly wrong I treated the whole as a magniloquent allusion to an advance which I had observed to have been made by a Portuguese regiment posted on the mountain to the right. (General M‘Bean is mistaken when he quotes me as saying that his line was never nearer to the enemy’s lines than a hundred yards. I spoke of _a Portuguese regiment, which might possibly be the nineteenth_.) I never denied that any charge had been made, but that a charge _such as described by you_ had taken place, and in fact general M‘Bean’s letter while it confirms the truth of your general description, by implication denies the accuracy of the particulars. Certainly Ney’s columns never passed the front of the light division nor advanced on the plain behind it.