name upon your own anonymous statements, thus making five testimonies out of two. The answer is simple and plain. When I took sir Benjamin D’Urban as a guide he led me wrong; and you instead of visiting his error upon his own head visit it upon mine, and require me and your readers to follow him implicitly upon all points while to do so avails for your defence, but not when they contradict it. From sir B. D’Urban I took the _calibre_ of the allies’ guns employed in the battle of Albuera, and he was wrong! From him, if I had not possessed sir A. Dickson’s official return, I should also have taken the _number_ of guns, and I should have been wrong, because he calls them thirty-four instead of thirty-eight. He also (see page 26 of the Appendix to your Further Strictures) says that the Spaniards had six guns, whereas Dickson says, they had but four; and if his six guns were reckoned there would have been forty pieces of artillery, which he however reduced to thirty-four by another error, namely, leaving out a whole brigade of German artillery. On sir Benjamin’s authority I called major Dickson the commander of the artillery, and this also was wrong. From sir Benjamin D’Urban’s Memoir, I took the statement that the fourth division arrived on the field of battle at _six o’clock in the morning_, and yet I am assured that they did not arrive until nine o’clock, and after the action had commenced. And this last is a very serious error because it gives the appearance of skill to your lordship’s combinations for battle and to sir Benjamin’s arrangements for the execution, which they do not merit, if, as I now believe, that division arrived at nine o’clock. But the latter hour would be quite in keeping with the story of the cavalry going to forage, and both together would confirm another report very current, namely, that your lordship did not anticipate any battle on the 16th of May. Setting this however aside, I know not why, in the face of all these glaring errors and a multitude of smaller ones, I am to take sir Benjamin D’Urban’s authority upon any disputed point. I will now, my lord, admit one complete triumph which you have attained in your dissertation upon the numbers of the troops. I did say that from the 20th of March to the 16th of May, was only twenty days, and though the oversight is so palpably one that could not be meant to deceive, I will not deny your right to ridicule and to laugh at it. I have laughed at so many of your lordship’s oversights that it would be unfair to deny you this opportunity for retaliation, which I also admit you have used moderately.