The assertion of the reviewer that I have underrated Cuesta’s force, inasmuch as it was only 19,000 infantry and 1,500 cavalry, instead of 30,000 infantry and 6,000 cavalry, as I have stated it to be, and that consequently the greatest numbers could not be brought to bear on Victor, is one of those curious examples of elaborate misrepresentation in which this writer abounds. For first, admitting that Cuesta had only 20,000 men, sir Arthur would have brought 24,000 to aid him, and Victor had only 30,000. The allies would then have had double the number opposed to Soult. But the pith of the misrepresentation lies in this, that the reviewer has taken Cuesta’s account of his actual force on the 23d of April, and suppresses the facts, that reinforcements were continually pouring into him at that time, and that he actually did advance against Victor with rather greater numbers than those stated by me. PROOFS. _Sir Arthur to lord Castlereagh, April 24, 1809._ ‘Cuesta is at Llerena, collecting a force again, which it is said will soon be 25,000 infantry and 6,000 cavalry.’ _To general Mackenzie, May 1, 1809._ ‘They (Victor’s troops) have in their front a Spanish army with general Cuesta at Llerena, which army was defeated in the month of March, and has since been reinforced to the amount of _twenty thousand men_.’... ‘They will be attacked by Cuesta, who is _receiving reinforcements_.’ _Mr. Frere to sir Arthur Wellesley, Seville, May 4._ ‘We have here 3,000 cavalry, considered as part of the army of Estremadura (under Cuesta). Cuesta has with him 4,000 cavalry.’ _Sir Arthur Wellesley to lord Castlereagh, June 17, 1809._ ‘We had every reason to believe that the French army consisted of about 27,000, of which 7,000 were cavalry; and the combined British and Portuguese force which I was in hopes I should have enabled to march upon this expedition would have amounted to about 24,000 men.’ _To lord Wellesley, August 8, 1809._ ‘The army of Cuesta, which crossed the Tagus _thirty-six or thirty-eight thousand strong_, does not now consist of 30,000.’ _Extract from a Memoir by sir A. Wellesley, 1809._ ‘The Spanish army under General Cuesta had been _reinforced with cavalry and infantry, and had been refitted with extraordinary celerity after the action of Medellin_.’