Two years later, at the battle of Vitoria, the justice of Wellington’s views about the soldier’s uniform received apt illustration. Wellington on that day kept the Light Division and 4th Division under his immediate command. The 3rd and 7th Divisions, under Picton and Lord Dalhousie, were to join him in order to complete the centre of the line, but they had difficult ground to traverse, and were late. The Zadora flowed swift and deep in front of the French position. A countryman having informed Wellington that the bridge of Tres Puentes was unguarded, Kempt’s riflemen were sent forward to seize it, which they did, and went so far up the heights on the farther side that they were able to establish themselves in shelter of a crest well in rear of a French advanced post. There they lay, until Wellington’s line was completed by the arrival of ‘old Picton, riding at the head of the 3rd Division, dressed in a blue coat and a round hat, swearing as loudly all the way as if he wore two cocked ones.’[6] The 7th Division came up at the same time, and while they were deploying the enemy opened fire upon them. Kempt immediately drew his riflemen from their shelter and took the French batteries in flank, thereby enabling the 3rd Division to cross the bridge of Mendoza without loss. But the dark uniforms of the Rifles deceived the British on the other side of the river into the belief that they were French. A battery opened upon them and continued pounding them with round shot and shrapnel till the advance of Picton’s Division revealed the blunder. Wellington’s warning against copying the uniforms of other nations received little attention. After 1815, when he was in command of the Army of Occupation in Paris, it was decided to arm four regiments of cavalry with lances, a most effective weapon which had not been carried by British troops since the seventeenth century. One would have supposed that the lance might be wielded as effectively by a man dressed as a light dragoon or a hussar as in any other rig; but the Prince Regent hailed the innovation as an opportunity for an entirely new costume. Consequently the 9th, 12th, 16th and 23rd Light Dragoons were put into a Polish dress, modified in such manner as to agree with his Royal Highness’s sartorial taste. ‘An officer of rank commanding one of the Lancer regiments was ordered to attend the Prince Regent to fit the new jacket on him. The tailor, with a pair of scissors, was ordered to cut smooth every wrinkle and fine-draw the seams. The consequence was that the coats of the private soldiers, as well as those of the officers, were made so tight they could hardly get into them; the freedom of action was so restricted that the infantry with difficulty handled their muskets, and the cavalry could scarcely do the sword exercise.’