It was a memorable epoch in the military history of Britain, when, early in the second week of February, 1813, I found myself in the cantonments of the fourth division on the banks of the Agueda. Like all sublunary affairs, war has its season of repose; and those mighty masses of armed men, who but a few months before had stood in threatening array in presence of each other, were separated by mutual consent to recover their losses and fatigues, and prepare for renewed exertions. Each had selected that portion of the country best adapted for obtaining supplies and reinforcements. The allied infantry were cantoned generally on the Agueda and Douro--with their cavalry in the valley of the Moudego, and round Moncorbo. One Spanish corps passed the winter in Gallicia, a second in Estremadura, and a third garrisoned Ciudad Rodrigo. Of the French armies, the head quarters of the northern was at Valladolid; the southern at Toledo; and those of the centre, including King Joseph and his guards, were established at Segovia. In military circumstances, the rival armies found themselves, at the end of the preceding autumn, in a position similar to that of men who have fought a battle in which neither have come off conqueror. Both had sustained enormous losses without countervailing advantages; and each required its casualties to be replaced, and its discipline restored. At the opening of the campaign, fortune went as heavily against the enemy, as it did against the allies at the close. From the 18th of July, when the French passed the Douro, until they recrossed it on the 30th, their loss might have been set down at fifteen thousand men, and the allies at about a third of that number. While, from the time when Lord Wellington broke ground before Burgos, until he halted on the banks of the Huebra, in retreat, chiefly from drunkenness and military irregularity, eight thousand of the allies were rendered _hors de combat_. No wonder therefore that to both armies, winter presented a seasonable period of repose, and that both willingly accepted it. Nearly one third of his army were in hospital, and hence Lord Wellington deemed that rest for it was indispensable. Nor could his opponents avail themselves of this weakness, and continue active operations, for the French supplies were insecure, and their bases of operation disturbed by Partida bands, which were every where swarming on their flanks and in their rear. Indeed each army dreaded that the other would resume hostilities; and when a report prevailed that Soult, who was upon the Upper Tonnes, meditated an invasion of Portugal by the valley of the Tagus, and Wellington had, accordingly, removed the boat bridges at Almarez and Arzobispo, the French, equally afraid that the allies might cross the river, destroyed all means of passage at other points which the English general had overlooked as unnecessary.