"Hill's corps has marched upon Almaraz, to destroy the bridge across the Tagus. The object, it may be conjectured, is to prevent Marmont or anybody else crossing. I venture not to speculate further. What our lord is about I know not. Guinaldo is his headquarters. I suppose he is planning something great and glorious. Touching ourselves--the 7th Division--no talk of moves; an unusually long respite from toil, and much in favour of boots, shoes, and horseflesh. Our assizes have been going on since our arrival, and likely to continue. Much business on hand. I am on the jury. We generally hang or shoot half a dozen fellows, notwithstanding every soldier is a gentleman and a man of honour, and receives votes of thanks from both Houses of Parliament, which he does not value so much as a pot of Whitbread's Entire." From the latter part of this letter it is evident that Wellington had taken the opportunity of some leisure time to overhaul the discipline of his army, and his methods were drastic in the extreme. Even before he had witnessed the outrages committed by his men at Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz, he had been appalled by the indiscipline of his troops in disregarding orders concerning marauding. The British army was operating in a friendly country, and it was therefore all the more important that the inhabitants and their property should be treated with due respect. The French, on the other hand, were at war with Spain, and if, therefore, they pillaged and laid waste as they went along, it was perhaps no more than the inhabitants expected, though it is only fair to the French generals to state that, as a rule, they did all in their power to suppress marauding and pillage. It must be admitted that it was most difficult to impress upon the British soldiers, marching on the heels of the French through a country already pillaged, that it was a sin to take the goods of the people, and doubtless at an early stage of the war the men got into the habit of taking from the inhabitants of the villages any food or provisions of which they were in want. As time passed matters went from bad to worse, and the men did not stop at food, but began to plunder the inhabitants of their money and valuables. Wine-cellars were discovered and entered, with the result that drunkenness and outrages of every description became common. Wellington, alive to the gravity of the situation, issued stringent orders which, had they been carried out, would have put an end to these evils; but there were no means of carrying them out, and all this he represented from time to time to the home authorities. He pointed out that under existing circumstances it was impossible to bring home to the offenders the offences which they had committed, and he recommended wider powers to courts-martial and the formation of military police. He did not complain of the discipline of regiments as a whole, but he wrote in