&T. 33-] EARL GREY. 507 



wished, and Lord Wellington as having, from the be- 

 ginning of his retreat, resolved on fighting at Torres 

 Vedras. Ward adds that the battle is to be a grand 

 and decisive one, and that the accounts from Welling- 

 ton and his staff are such as to make every one very 

 sanguine. They have no fears of the Portuguese. 

 Massena has advanced without horses or guns (! !) ; 

 he has a barren country in his rear as far as Coimbra, 

 and Trant is there in force. The people at Lisbon, even 

 Cochrane Johnston, quite confident. Such is the 

 statement of this renowned witness, whom Lord 

 Lonsdale seemed to believe implicitly, forgetting, I 

 presume, Austerlitz, or supposing that a battle not 

 yet fought is more easy to describe correctly than 

 one already lost. 



"As for Trant's affair, it seems either an exaggera- 

 tion, or that he took what Massena meant to get rid 

 of. The latter seems playing a pretty brisk game, and 

 I own myself a little staggered by his movement. It 

 argues a great confidence of succeeding. As for the 

 affair of Buzaco, which we call a victory, it seems only 

 that the French, instead of surrounding and destroy- 

 ing our army, drove it back 70 miles, which was the 

 next best thing for them to do, and that for this suc- 

 cess they paid very dear. 



" A friend of mine just returned from Madras (a 

 colonel in the king's service), who has been here, tells 

 me very unpleasant things of the business in that 

 quarter. Lord Minto's conduct seems to have been 

 uniformly foolish, and to have dissatisfied all parties. 



