1<J3 L O N 
in their caufe.” We rauli leave our readers to reconcile 
thefe two accounts as well as they can. 
The joy of victory was of fhort duration. The victorious 
quickly found itfelf in the fituation of a vanquifhed army. 
On the 2d of Augult intelligence was.received, that Soult, 
Key, and Mortier, having formed a junction, had advanced 
through Eltramadura to fall on the rear of the Britifh ; and 
that the French, in two columns, had already entered Pla¬ 
centia. As Victor, though repulfed at Talavera, would 
again advance again ft the allies as foon as he fhould hear of 
the junction and march juft mentioned, there was no time 
for doubt or delay. The allied army was now to be faved, 
in the words of fir Arthur Wellefley, only “ by great ce¬ 
lerity of movement.” On the 3d of Auguft, therefore, 
the Britifh army marched to Oropefa. In the evening of 
that day advice was received, that the French, ftated to 
be 30,000 ftrong, having advanced from Placentia, had 
got between the Britifh and the bridge of Almaraz ; and, 
nearly at the fame time, that general Cuefta was on the 
point of leaving Talavera, letting molt of the wounded 
and lick fall into the hands of the French, from the want 
of means of conveyance. On the other fide, there was 
reafon to expedl, as foon as general Cuelta’s march fhould 
be known, the advance of Victor’s corps, 25,000 ftrong, 
(after leaving 10,000 to watch Venegas,) to Talavera. 
Our army, if unfuccefsful in a conteft with either Victor, 
or Soult and Ney, would have been without retreat; and 
if Soult and Ney, avoiding an action, had retired before 
it, and waited the arrival of Victor, it wopld have been 
expofed to a general aCtion with at leaft 50,000 men, and 
equally without a retreat. Sir A. Wellefley, in thefe cir- 
cumllances, judged it advifeable to retire to the bridge of 
Arzo Bifpo, where he crofted the Tagus on the 4th of 
Augult; from whence he continued his route to Deley- 
tofa, and from thence to Badajoz. General Cuefta too 
retreated hy the bridge of Arzo Bifpo, where he crofted 
the river on the night of the 5th. About half the num¬ 
ber of the Tick and wounded were brought away from Ta¬ 
lavera ; the other half remained there, and were treated 
by the French with great humanity. 
A great majority of the fupreme and central junta was 
compofed of weak and feeble characters, chofen, not on 
account of their perfonal merit, but by the preponderat¬ 
ing influence of great families; and were very ill qualified 
to call forth, combine, and direCt, the energies of the 
country. The Englifh ininiftry were not infenflble how 
neceffary it was both to aroufe the exertions of the Spa¬ 
niards, and to give and urge, as far as could be done with¬ 
out offence, advice for their proper direction ; and for 
this purpol'e they made choice of marquis Wellefley, than 
■whom a fitter perfon indeed could not have been chofen. 
But this was not done in time. The appointment of the 
marquis as ambaffador extraordinary to Spain did not ap¬ 
pear in the London Gazette until the ill of May, nor did 
he arrive at Cadiz till the 31ft of July ; two months after 
the Britifh general had taken the field, and exaCtly at the 
moment when that general, for whom the Britifh ambaf¬ 
fador had come to concert a plan of operations, viflorious 
in battle, but defeated in the war, began his retreat on 
Portugal. This long delay between the appointment of 
the marquis and his arrival in Spain, did not arife from 
any inclemency of weather, or any other accident by land 
cr fea; for he arrived at Cadiz on the feventh day from 
his,embarkation at Portfmouth. It was occafioned by the 
private contentions of minifters about the great offices of 
ftate, to one of the molt important of which the marquis 
had an eye, and which he afterwards obtained. But, 
though marquis Wellefley did not arrive in Spain in time 
for influencing the iffue of the campaign of 1809, which 
was in faCl decided by the retreat of the Britifh army, 
he gave tjie tnoft important and excellent advice to the 
junta, which this council appeared to be difpofed to fol¬ 
low ; of which they gave earneft in the recal of that re- 
fraCiory and capricious man, Cuefia, from the command 
of the army, and by greater exertions to furnifh both to 
DON. 
the Britifh and their own armie3 provifions, ftores, and 
the means of tranfport. It appears from fotne of fir Ar¬ 
thur Wellefley’s letters in Auguft and September,-1 809, 
that, while Cuefta was in the habit of intercepting occa- 
fionally convoys of provifions defigned for the Englifh 
army, and applying them to the life of his own, he on fe- 
veral occafions refufed to the entreaties of the Britifh ge¬ 
neral the means of conveyance or tranfport, mules, carts, 
and cattle for drawing them. 
Sir Arthur Wellefley was created Baron Duero and 
Vifcount Wellington of Talavera; which title, on ac¬ 
count of the hafty retreat that followed the battle, did 
not pafs without notice in the Moniteur. It was, how¬ 
ever, very eafy to juftify his retreat from the interior of 
Spain ; not fo eafy to vindicate the propriety of his ad¬ 
vancing thither, without having any idea of the force op- 
pofed to him, and at the rifle of being ftarved out of it. 
The corps of Soult, Ney, and Mortier, which lord Wel¬ 
lington eftimated, at firtt, at 10 or 12,000 men ; and after¬ 
wards, when he determined to crofs the Tagus at the 
bridge of Arzo Bifpo, at 30,000 men ; were found after¬ 
wards to have amounted to not lefs than 70,000. 
In the beginning of Auguft, while fo great a part of 
the French forces in Spain was drawn down the valley of 
the Tagus in purfuit of the allied army, general Venegas, 
with not fewer, it was faid by the French gazettes, than 
30,000 men, deicending from the Sierra Morena, took up, 
on the 10th of Auguft, a ftrong pofition on certain 
heights amidft broken ground near Almanacid, a town in 
Old Caltile, three leagues fouth-eaft from Toledo, where 
he was attacked on the 21ft by a corps of French under 
Sebaftiani. Being driven from polt to poll, he drew up 
his troops on a plain, extending Ins line on either hand, 
with a view of turning the flanks of the enemy, to as 
great a length as poflible. This line was penetrated in 
different places by fome fquadrons of French cavalry. 
The Spaniards, throwing down their arms, and abandon¬ 
ing their artillery, ammunition, and baggage, fled, every 
one by himfelf or in fmall parties, becoming ftill fmaller 
and fmaller as they proceeded in their flight, in a variety 
of directions towards the mountains. They were pur¬ 
ified by the French for about two leagues ; but fo com¬ 
pletely were they dif'perfed, that the French cavalry, not 
being able to let their eyes on any other than handfuls of 
men in one place not worth purfuing, gave over the pur¬ 
fuit. 
In the command of the army of La Mancha, general 
Venegas was fuperfeded by the marquis of Ariezaga. It 
was llrongly reinforced, and abundantly provided with 
artillery, ftores, provifions, and the means of carriage. 
In numbers it amounted to 50,000 men, infantry, and ca¬ 
valry. Ariezaga conceived the bold deiign of quitting 
his ftrong ground in the Sierra Morena, marching on Ma¬ 
drid, and bringing on a general engagement with the 
French, the iffue of which might reduce them to the ne- 
ceflity of quitting that city. The French army, confid¬ 
ing of three corps headed by king Jofeph, waited for the 
Spaniards in a ftrong pofition near Toledo. The Spa¬ 
niards, on finding this, prudently repafi'ed the Tagus : liie 
French followed them. The Spaniards concentrated their 
force near Ocana, a city of La Mancha, fituated on an 
eminenceat the entrance of the vail plain of Melada Ocana. 
About nine o’clock in the morning of the 19th of Novem¬ 
ber, the advanced parties of the French came in light of 
the Spanifh army. At eleven o’clock the action com¬ 
menced, and in two hours it was decided in favour of the 
French. The lofs of the Spaniards was terribly great, and 
the victory complete. The French newfpapers allowed 
that the Spaniards, encouraged by the funeriority of their 
numbers, made a vigorous refiftance. The Spanifh newl- 
papers ftated, that for a confiderable time victory was ex¬ 
pected by the patriots, and that acclamations of triumph 
were heard from the ranks, when one difgraceful incident 
turned the tide of fortune in favour of the enemy. A 
Angle regiment of cavalry, which in an advantageous po- 
3 - fltion 
