seventy-nine on command, eighty-two prisoners-of-war. Staff-officers are notoriously troublesome people. One point more, and I have done. You accuse me of having placed sir A. Dickson in a position where he never was, and you give a letter from that officer to prove the fact. You also deny the correctness of sir Julius Hartman’s statement, and you observe that even were it accurate, he does not speak of an order to retreat, but an order to cover a retreat. Now to say that I place Dickson in a wrong position is scarcely fair, because I only use sir Julius Hartman’s words, and that in my Justification; whereas in my History, I have placed colonel Dickson’s guns exactly in the position where he himself says they were. If your lordship refers to my work you will see that it is so; and surely it is something akin to quibbling, to deny, that artillery posted to defend a bridge was not at the bridge because its long range enabled it to effect its object from a distance. You tell me also that I had your quarter-master general’s evidence to counteract sir Julius Hartman’s relative to this retreat. But sir Benjamin D’Urban had already misled me more than once; and why, my lord, did you garble sir A Dickson’s communication? I will answer for you. It contained positive evidence that _a retreat was ordered_. Your lordship may ask how I know this. I will tell you that also. Sir Alexander Dickson at my request sent me the substance of his communication to you at the same time. You are now I hope, convinced that it is not weakness which induces me to neglect a complete analysis of your work. I do assure you it is very weak in every part. My lord, you have mentioned several other letters which you have received from different officers, colonel Arbuthnot, colonel Colborne, &c. as confirming your statements, but you have not, as in the cases of sir James Douglas and general M‘Bean, where they were wholly on your own side, given these letters in full; wherefore, seeing the gloss you have put upon lord Stuart’s communication, and this garbling of sir A. Dickson’s letter, I have a right to suppose that the others do not bear up your case very strongly,—probably they contradict it on some points as sir Alexander Dickson’s does. I shall now give the latter entire.