All the reviewer’s remarks about Cuesta’s numbers, and about the unfordable nature of the Tagus, are a reproduction of misrepresentations and objections before exposed and refuted by me in my controversy with marshal Beresford; but as it is now attempted to support them by garbled extracts from better authorities, I will again and completely expose and crush them. This will however be more conveniently done farther on. Meanwhile I repeat, that the Tagus is only unfordable during the winter, and not then if there is a few days dry weather; that six months of the year it is always fordable in many places, and as low down as Salvaterra near Lisbon; finally, that my expression, ‘_a river fordable at almost every season_,’ is strictly correct, and is indeed not mine but lord Wellington’s expression. To proceed with the rest:— Without offering any proof beyond his own assertion, the reviewer charges me with having _exaggerated the importance of D’Argenton’s conspiracy for the sole purpose of excusing Soult’s remissness in guarding the Douro_. But my account of that conspiracy was compiled from the duke of Wellington’s letters—some public, some private addressed to me; and from a narrative of the conspiracy written expressly for my guidance by major-general sir James Douglas, who was the officer employed to meet and conduct D’Argenton to and from the English army;—from Soult’s own official report; from Le Noble’s history; and from secret information which I received from a French officer who was himself one of the principal movers—not of that particular conspiracy—but of a general one of which the one at Oporto was but a branch. Again, the reviewer denies that I am correct in saying, that Soult thought Hill’s division had been disembarked from the ocean; that he expected the vessels would come to the mouth of the Douro; and that considering that river secure above the town his personal attention was directed to the line below Oporto. Let Soult and Le Noble answer this. _Extract from Soult’s General Report._ ‘In the night of the 9th and 10th the enemy made a _considerable disembarkation at Aveiro, and another at Ovar_. The 10th, at daybreak, they attacked the right flank of general Franceschi, while the _column coming from Lisbon by Coimbra_ attacked him in front.’ _Extract from Le Noble._ ‘The house occupied by the general-in-chief was situated beyond the town on the road to the sea. The site was very high, and from thence he could observe the left bank of the Douro from the convent to the sea. His orders, given on the 8th, to scour the left bank of the river, those which he had expedited in the morning, and the position of his troops, rendered him confident that no passage would take place above Oporto; _he believed that the enemy, master of the sea, would try a disembarkation near the mouth of the Douro_.’