5. Explanatory Sketch of Soult’s and lord Wellington’s Passage of the Bidassoa. 6. Explanatory Sketch of the Battle of the Nivelle. 7. Explanatory Sketch of the Operations round Bayonne, and of the Battle. 8. Explanatory Sketch of the Battle of the Nive, and Battle of St. Pierre. 9. Explanatory Sketch of the Battle of Orthes, and the Retreat of Soult to Aire. 10. Explanatory Sketch of the Operations against Tarbes, and the Battle of Toulouse. _To follow Page 689._ NOTICE. This volume was nearly printed when my attention was called to a passage in an article upon the duke of Wellington’s despatches, published in the last number of the “British and Foreign Quarterly Review.” After describing colonel Gurwood’s proceedings to procure the publication of the despatches the reviewer says, “_We here distinctly state_, that no other person ever had access to _any_ documents of the duke, by his grace’s permission, for any historical or other purpose, and that all inferential pretensions to such privilege are not founded in fact.” This assertion, which if not wholly directed against my history certainly includes it with others, _I distinctly state to be untrue_. For firstly, the duke of Wellington gave me access to the original morning states of his army for the use of my history; he permitted me to take them into my possession, and I still have possession of them. Secondly. The duke of Wellington voluntarily directed me to apply to sir George Murray for the “_orders of movements_.” That is to say the orders of battle issued by him to the different generals previous to every great action. Sir George Murray thought proper, as the reader will see in the justificatory pieces of this volume, to deny all knowledge of these “_orders of movements_.” I have since obtained some of them from others, but the permission to get them all was given to me at Strathfieldsaye, in the presence of lord Fitzroy Somerset, who was at the same time directed to give me the morning states and he did do so. These were documents of no ordinary importance for a history of the war. Thirdly. Lord Fitzroy Somerset, with the consent of the duke of Wellington, put into my hands king Joseph’s portfolio, taken at Vittoria and containing that monarch’s correspondence with the emperor, with the French minister of war, and with the marshals and generals who at different periods were employed in the Peninsula. These also were documents of no slight importance for a history of the war, and they are still in my possession.