a powerful auxiliary to his military operations: wisely, therefore, and even magnanimously did he encourage the _Anti-Braganza_ party, drawing all the military benefit possible from it, and trusting to Napoleon’s sagacity and grandeur of soul for his justification. Nor was he mistaken in either. Yet I am ready to admit that all this must appear very strange to Quarterly Reviewers and parasites, whose knowledge of the human mind is confined to an accurate measure of the sentiments of patrons, rich and powerful, but equally with themselves incapable of true greatness and therefore always ready to ridicule it. The facts then stand thus. Heudelet’s expedition through the _Entre Minho e Douro_ took place between the 5th of April and the 27th of that month, and the country people being then in a state of exasperation opposed him vehemently; in my history the combats he sustained are mentioned, and it is said that previous to the _Anti-Braganza_ intrigue the horrible warfare of assassinations had been carried on with infinite activity. But the intrigue of the malcontents was not completed until the end of April, and the good effect of it on the military operations was not apparent until May, consequently could not have been felt by Heudelet in the beginning of April. In my history the difference of time in these two affairs is expressly marked, inasmuch as I say that in treating of the intrigue I have anticipated the chronological order of events. Truly if Mr. Lockhart has paid for this part of the Review as criticism Mr. Murray should disallow the unfair charge in his accounts. I shall now give two extracts from Soult’s general report, before quoted, in confimation of my statements:— ‘Marshal Soult was led by necessity to favour the party of the malcontents, which he found already formed in Portugal when he arrived. He encouraged them, and soon that party thought itself strong enough in the province of _Entre Minho e Douro_, to propose to the marshal to approve of the people declaring for the deposition of the house of Braganza, and that the emperor of the French should be asked to name a prince of his family to reign in Portugal. In a political view, marshal Soult could not without express authority, permit such a proceeding, and he could not ask for such authority having lost his own communication with France, and being without news of the operations of any of the other corps which were to aid him; but considered in a military point of view the proposition took another character. Marshal Soult there saw the means of escaping from his embarrassments, and he seized them eagerly, certain that whatever irregularity there was in his proceedings ultimate justice would be done to him.’