No. XVI.
LETTER FROM SIR ARTHUR WELLESLEY TO LORD CASTLEREAGH.
Abrantes, June 22, 1809.
MY LORD,
When I wrote to you last I was in hopes that I should have marched before this time, but the money is not yet arrived. Things are in their progress as they were when I wrote on the 17th. The French are continuing their retreat. Sebastiani has also fallen back towards Toledo, and Venegas has advanced, and Cuesta had his head-quarters at Truxillo, on the 19th. I am apprehensive that you will think I have delayed my march unnecessarily since my arrival upon the Tagus. But it was, and is, quite impossible to move without money. Not only were the officers and soldiers in the greatest distress, and the want of money the cause of many of the disorders of which I have had occasion to complain; but we can no longer obtain the supplies of the country, or command its resources for the transport of our own supplies either by land or by water. Besides this, the army required rest, after their expedition to the frontiers of Gallicia, and shoes, and to be furbished up in different ways; and I was well aware that, if necessity had not obliged me to halt at the present moment, I should have been compelled to make a longer halt some time hence. To all this add, that, for some time after I came here, I believed that the French were retiring, (as appears by my letters to your lordship,) and that I should have no opportunity of striking a blow against them, even if I could have marched. I hope that you will attend to my requisitions for money; not only am I in want, but the Portuguese government, to whom Mr. Villiers says that we owe £125,000. I repeat, that we must have £200,000 a month, from England, till I write you that I can do without it; in which sum I include £40,000 a month for the Portuguese government, to pay for twenty thousand men. If the Portuguese government are to receive a larger sum from Great Britain, the sum to be sent to Portugal must be proportionably increased. Besides this, money must be sent to pay the Portuguese debt and our debts in Portugal. There are, besides, debts of sir John Moore’s army still due in Spain, which I am called upon to pay. In short, we must have £125,000, and £200,000 a month, reckoning from the beginning of May, &c. &c.
(Signed) “Arthur Wellesley.”