You asserted that no officer, save sir John Murray, objected at the first moment to your sudden elevation of rank. In answer I published sir John Sherbroke’s letter to sir J. Cradock complaining of it.
You said the stores (which the Cabildo of Ciudad Rodrigo refused to let you have in 1809) had not been formed by lord Wellington. In reply I published lord Wellington’s declaration that they had been formed by him.
You denied that you had ever written a letter to the junta of Badajos, and this not doubtfully or hastily, but positively and accompanied with much scorn and ridicule of my assertion to that effect. You harped upon the new and surprising information I had obtained relative to your actions, and were, in truth, very facetious upon the subject. In answer I published your own letter to that junta! So much for your first Strictures.
In your second publication (page 42) you asserted that colonel Colborne was not near the scene of action at Campo Mayor; and now in your third publication (page 48) you show very clearly that he took an active part in those operations.
You called the distance from Campo Mayor to Merida two marches, and now you say it is four marches.
Again, in your first “Strictures,” you declared that the extent of the intrigues against you in Portugal were exaggerated by me; and you were very indignant that I should have supposed you either needed, or had the support and protection of the duke of Wellington while in command of the Portuguese army. In my third and fourth volumes, published since, I have shown what the extent of those intrigues was: and I have still something in reserve to add when time shall be fitting. Meanwhile I will stay your lordship’s appetite by two extracts bearing upon this subject, and upon the support which you derived from the duke of Wellington.
1º. Mr. Stuart, writing to lord Wellesley, in 1810, after noticing the violence of the Souza faction relative to the fall of Almeida, says,—“I could have borne all this with patience if not accompanied by a direct proposal that the fleet and transports should quit the Tagus, and that the regency should send an order to marshal Beresford to dismiss his quarter-master-general and military secretary; followed by reflections on the persons composing the family of that officer, and by hints to the same purport respecting the Portuguese who are attached to lord Wellington.”
2º. Extract from a letter written at Moimenta de Beira by marshal Beresford, and dated 6th September, 1810.—“However, as I mentioned, I have no great desire to hold my situation beyond the period lord Wellington retains his situation, or after active operations have ceased in this country, even should things turn out favourably, of which I really at this instant have better hopes than I ever had though I have been usually sanguine. But in regard to myself, though I do not pretend to say the situation I hold is not at all times desirable to hold, yet I am fully persuaded that if tranquillity is ever restored to this country under its legal government, that I should be too much vexed and thwarted by intrigues of all sorts to reconcile either my temper or my conscience to what would then be my situation.”
For the further exposition of the other numerous errors and failures of your two first publications, I must refer the reader to my “Reply” and “Justification,” but the points above noticed it was necessary to fix attention upon, because they give me the right to call upon the public to disregard your present work. And this right I cannot relinquish. I happened fortunately to have the means of repelling your reckless assaults in the instances above mentioned, but I cannot always be provided with your own letters to disprove your own assertions. The combat is not equal my lord, I cannot contend with such odds and must therefore, although reluctantly, use the advantages which by the detection of such errors I have already obtained.