“I have been employed in constructing batteries, opposite the mouth of the Zezere, for twenty-five guns! though we have only one brigade of nine pounders to arm them.
“Thank God, for my own credit, I protested against these batteries from the first, in my reports which were sent to lord Wellington, and now I verily believe the marshal himself is ashamed of their construction. Punhete, you know, is situated precisely at the confluence of the Zezere with the Tagus, the enemy’s bridge is about half a mile from the mouth of the river, and one mile, by measurement, from the nearest of our heights, which we have crowned with an eight-gun battery.”
SECTION 2.
“I was truly sorry to hear that the Spaniards were so thoroughly routed near Badajos, but Mendizabel was an idiot. On the 18th February, the enemy threw a bridge over the Guadiana, above Badajos. Don Carlos España, an active officer, whom I know very well, reconnoitred the bridge, and made his report to Mendizabel, who was playing at cards. Very well, said the chief, we’ll go and look at it to-morrow! At day-break the Spanish army was surprised.”
SECTION 3.
“May 17, 1811. I reconnoitred the ground in front of Cristoval, and was pressed, by Colonel Fletcher, who was on the other side of the Guadiana, to commence our operations that evening. The soil was hard and rocky, and our tools infamous. I made, however, no difficulties, and we began our battery on the night of the 8th, the moon being at the full: our work was barely four hundred yards from Cristoval. In spite, however, of a most destructive fire of musketry, and shot, and shells, from various parts of the body of the place, we succeeded in completing our battery on the night of the 10th; and, on the morning of the 11th, at four, a. m. its fire was opened. The enemy’s fire was, however, very superior to our own; and, before sunset, the three guns and one howitzer were disabled, for against our little attack was the whole attention of the enemy directed. On the other side of the river the intended attack had not yet been begun, and we sustained the almost undivided fire of Badajos! I told the marshal, when I saw him on the 11th, that to continue to fight our battery was a positive sacrifice; he did not, however, order us to desist until our guns were silenced. If doubt and indecision had not governed all our operations, and had we begun even on the night of the 9th, I am satisfied that our plan of attack was excellent, and that we should have entered the place on the 15th. It is true that two distant batteries were erected, on the left bank of the river, against the place, but they scarcely excited the enemy’s attention; our little corps bore the brunt of the enemy’s exertions, which were great and spirited. Including those who fell in the sortie, our loss has been from six to seven hundred men. Both officers and men were exhausted, mind and body; they felt and saw that they were absurdly sacrificed.”
No. XI.
EXTRACT OF A LETTER FROM GENERAL CAMPBELL TO LORD LIVERPOOL.
“Gibraltar, October 23, 1810.