[26] ‘Qu’il rouvre avec un gros corps les communications avec le prince d’Essling, mais que je compte, du reste, sur sa prudence de ne pas se laisser couper d’Almeida.’ Napoleon to Berthier, November 20.
[27] ‘Il est donc important qu’il ne fasse point de petits pacquets.’ Ibid.
[28] See vol. iii. p. 276.
[29] These dispositions are given in D’Urban’s unpublished diary.
[30] For Wilson’s movements I have his letters to Trant and D’Urban of January 3, 1811—the one in D’Urban’s correspondence, the other in the Trant papers lent me by Captain Chambers, R.N.
[31] Wellington to Hill, Dispatches, vii. p. 86, Dec. 30, 1810.
[32] Chaby, ii. p. 272, gives January 5th as the date of the combat of Villa da Ponte, but all the other authorities place it on the 11th.
[33] According to Thiébault, then commanding at Salamanca, Claparéde’s rather wild excursion was due to mere desire for plunder; he accuses him of having raised, and put into his private purse, great contributions at Moimento, Lamego, and other towns which he occupied for a few days. (Mémoires, iv. 422-3.)
[34] Date uncertain, perhaps January 22, as Wellington knew he was there on January 26.
[35] The Emperor to Berthier, September 29, no. 16,967 of the Correspondance de Napoléon.