JET. 29.] MISSION TO PORTUGAL. 359 



pletely the plan of intelligence is likely to succeed. 

 Pimentel, I believe, will prove a very excellent sub- 

 ject. My people are all in Bayonne, or very near it, 

 by this time. I have a letter from the last of them, 

 dated 7th October, in Spain. 



" The accounts of Spanish preparations induced me 

 to make two persons take the route of Astorga and 

 Pampeluna. I daily expect their reports. 



" The correspondence through various channels is 

 likely to be regular and full. I every post receive 

 notices of this kind ; but as they are hitherto all of 

 a negative kind, or, at the utmost, only allude to 

 rumours from other quarters, chiefly Madrid, I need 

 not trouble you with them. Mr Hunter whose 

 letters are very meagre, and who plainly shows by 

 his own statements that he might have learned more 

 writes repeatedly that an expedition against Por- 

 tugal is in preparation at Madrid. He has given us 

 the names of the generals, of whom the P. del In- 

 fantado is one. But in another letter he says that 

 the king said lately to his generals, ' We must all 

 get ready to march either to Portugal or the Pyre- 

 nees/ He admits that no Spanish troops are moving 

 that Bayonne is deserted by the soldiers moving 

 northwards and that Perpignan has not a man in it. 



" Our friend at Badajos writes (date 3d) that the 

 rumours of a war with Portugal continue ; and that 

 a confidential friend of his at Madrid gives him 

 notice of Massena's defeat in Calabria. 



" I have taken the proper steps for increasing our 



