This practically gave us a cause for interference, and for again joining issue with our ancient enemy. We were rarely so well prepared. We had under arms about 300,000 men, with 80,000 in India, 108,380 militia, and 200,000 volunteers. An army, not large, for it numbered but 30,000 men in all, but of excellent material, was equipped and placed under the command of Sir Hew Dalrymple, with Burrard as second in command, and the two divisional leaders were Sir Arthur Wellesley and Sir John Moore. The force comprised the 3rd, 18th, and 20th, with, later on, the 10th and 15th Light Dragoons. The line regiments were the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th, the 1-9th, 2-20th, 1-28th, 1-29th, 32nd, 36th, 38th, 40th, 43rd, 45th, 52nd, 60th, 71st, 79th, 82nd, 91st, 92nd, 97th, with some light battalions, the King’s German Legion, and a full proportion of guns. It is somewhat difficult to group the operations that continued from this date to 1814; but it may be convenient to deal with them generally in two groups. 1. From Roliça and Vimiera to Torres Vedras. 2. From Portugal to France, or from Busaco to Toulouse. A glance at the map will show that there are only two good roads by which Spain can be approached from France. The western pass is the Bidassoa, by which the Bayonne road reaches Madrid; the eastern, that of De Pertus, carrying the Perpignan road by Saragossa to Madrid. Furthermore, the great central plateau is traversed by a series of more or less parallel mountain ridges running east and west; so that while movement laterally is comparatively easy, that from north to south is difficult. Such was the terrain which was to see so much hard fighting; a land held by a keenly patriotic and high-spirited people, possessed of great tenacity of purpose, and especially qualified for that guerilla warfare for which such a land was peculiarly suitable. Throughout, the contest, as far as the French and their immediate opponents, the Spanish and Portuguese, are concerned, was accompanied by circumstances of the greatest barbarity. French orders to shoot patriots and destroy villages in which risings against the foreign rule had occurred, tended largely to the formation of those bands of guerillas and partisans, in the minds of every member of which was but one thought--revenge. Not unfrequently these bands degenerated from patriotic _francs-tireurs_ into mere hordes of banditti, a terror indiscriminately to the armies of both the combatants and the civil population. This, then, broadly speaking, was the state of affairs when Great Britain determined on siding actively with the enemies of France, and up to this time, at least, matters had not improved, as the hostilities became more and more prolonged. One decisive success only, that of the defeat and capitulation of Dupont at Baylen, had hitherto attended the Spanish arm, and at this battle England was represented by one English officer, Captain Whittingham, as military attaché.