[309] There is a good account of all this in the admirable diary of Tomlinson of the 16th, which I so often have had to cite. He has an interesting note that the 16th in their charge found a stone wall in their way, and that the whole regiment took it in their stride, and continued their advance in perfect order (p. 150).
[310] Soult only acknowledges a loss of three officers and about 110 men in his dispatch of April 21 to Berthier, adding the ridiculous statement that the British had 100 killed and many more wounded, and that the 5th Dragoon Guards had been practically destroyed. Martinien’s tables show four French officers wounded and one killed, but (of course) take no account of unwounded prisoners. The British lost two missing, men who had ridden ahead in the pursuit into the French infantry.
[311] This was the brigade formerly under Barbaçena, 4th and 10th regiments.
[312] Mes dispositions étant faites pour une marche de quinze jours sur l’Agueda, déjà commencée, je continue ce mouvement, sans cependant (je le répète) avoir une très grande confiance dans les résultats qu’il doit donner.’ Marmont to Berthier, March 27.
[313] Wellington to V. Alten, April 18, ‘You were desired “not to be in a hurry,” to give them (España and General Baccelar) your countenance so far as might be in your power, and to tell them that you were left in the front for a particular object.... I beg you to observe that if you had assembled the 1st Hussars at Pastores on March 30 and April 1, the Agueda being then scarcely fordable for cavalry, you could have kept open the communications between Almeida and Ciudad Rodrigo.... You wrote on the seventh from Castello Branco that you knew nothing about the enemy! and instead of receiving from you (as I had expected) a daily account of their operations, you knew nothing, and, from the way in which you made your march, all those were driven off the road who might have given me intelligence, and were destined to keep up the communication between me and Carlos de España.’
[314] For complaints by Le Mesurier as to the defects of the place when he took over charge of it on March 18, see his letter of the 28th of the same month, to Wellington, in the Appendix to Napier, iv. pp. 450-1.
[315] The observation comes from D’Urban’s unpublished Journal.
[316] Wellington to Alten, Dispatches, ix. p. 69. ‘You were positively ordered by your instructions to go to Castello Branco and no farther. The reason for this instruction was obvious. First the militia of Lower Beira would be there in the case supposed [that of Marmont’s making an invasion south of the Douro], and they were there. Secondly, as soon as I should be informed of the enemy’s approach to the Coa, it would be necessary for me to assemble a force at Castello Branco—of which the foundation would be the 1st Hussars K.G.L. Yet notwithstanding my orders you marched from Castello Branco on the 8th, and crossed the Tagus on the 9th. Till I received your letter I did not conceive it possible that you could so far disregard your instructions.’
[317] I cannot resist quoting here, as an example of Trant’s over-daring and reckless temperament, his letter to Wilson, urging him to co-operate in the raid, which was lent me by Wilson’s representative of to-day:—
Guarda, 11th April, 1812.