(Signed) “Arthur Wellesley.”
No. XVII.
LETTER FROM LORD WELLINGTON TO THE MARQUIS WELLESLEY.
Badajos, October 30, 1809.
MY LORD,
I have had the honour of receiving your excellency’s despatch, (marked 1.) of the 17th instant, containing a copy of your note to M. de Garay, of the 8th of September, and a copy of his note, in answer to your excellency, of the 3d of October.
I am not surprised that M. de Garay should endeavour to attribute to the irregularities of the English commissariat the deficiencies of supplies and means of transport experienced by the British army in its late service in Spain; I am not disposed to justify the English commissariat where they deserve blame; but I must think it but justice to them to declare that the British army is indebted to their exertions for the scanty supplies it received.
From some of the statements contained in M. de Garay’s note it would appear that the British army had suffered no distress during the late service; others have a tendency to prove that great distress was suffered, at a very early period, by both armies; particularly the quotation of a letter from general Cuesta, of the 1st of August, in answer to a complaint which I am supposed to have made, that the Spanish troops and their prisoners were better supplied than the British army. The answer to all these statements is a reference to the fact that the army suffered great distress for want of provisions, forage, and means of equipment; and, although that distress might have been aggravated, it could not have been occasioned by the inexperience or irregularity of the English commissariat.
I know nothing of the orders which M. de Garay states were sent by the government to the different provincial juntas, to provide provisions and means of transport for the British army on its passage through the different towns in the provinces. If such orders were sent, it was obvious that the central junta, as a government, have no power or influence over the provincial juntas and magistrates, to whom their orders were addressed, as they produced no effect; and the supplies, such as they were, were procured only by the requisitions and exertions of the English commissaries. But it is obvious, from M. de Garay’s account of these orders, that the central junta had taken a very erroneous view of the operations to be carried on by the army, and of the provision to be made for the troops while engaged in those operations. The government provided, by their orders, for the troops only while on their passage through the towns; relying upon their immediate success, and making no provision for the collection of one body, of not less than fifty thousand men, even for one day. At the same time that they were guilty of this unpardonable omission, which paralyzed all our efforts, they rendered that success doubtful, by countermanding the orders given to general Venegas by general Cuesta, and thus exposing the combined armies to a general action with the enemy’s concentrated force. The effect of their orders will appear more fully in the following detail:—