[730] Wellesley to Villiers, Aug. 12: ‘The French having been moving since the ninth towards Plasencia.... I can form no decided opinion respecting their intentions. I think, however, that if they meditated a serious attack on Portugal they would not have moved off in daylight, in full sight of our troops. I suspect these movements are intended only as a feint, to induce us to separate ourselves from the Spaniards, in order to cover Portugal.’
[731] These regiments were, Line infantry, nos. 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 18, 19, 23, all (save no. 15) two battalions strong, and the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 6th Cazadores, with no. 2 of the Lusitanian Legion, and the ‘Voluntarios Académicos’ of Coimbra.
[732] Viz. 2/5th, 2/11th, 2/28th, 2/34th, 2/42nd, 2/39th, 2/88th.
[733] See Wellesley to Beresford, Aug. 14.
[734] That this official did something, if not so much as Wellesley required, is shown by the letter to Cuesta of Aug. 11, in which it is said that ‘the British army has received no provisions since it was at Deleytosa, excepting some sent from Truxillo by Señor Lozano de Torres,’ while again on Aug. 8, Wellesley says that ‘we have had nothing since the third, save 4,000 lbs. of biscuit, and that was divided among 30,000 [say 23,000] mouths.’
[735] On Aug. 12, Wellesley writes from Jaraicejo to say that the dépôt at Abrantes is much too large, and that some of the flour ought to be sent back to Santarem, or even to Lisbon, till only 300,000 rations should be left.
[736] Wellesley to his brother Lord Wellesley, at Seville, Aug. 8.
[737] See Wellesley to Cuesta from Jaraicejo, Aug. 11.
[738] Lord Munster (p. 251) confesses that ‘so pressing were our wants that one of our commissaries took from them (the Spaniards) by force a hundred bullocks and a hundred mule loads of bread.’ Cuesta needs no further justification. But it is clear that his own men were doing things precisely similar.
[739] See the [above-quoted dispatch] to Cuesta of Aug. 11.