XIV 
MEMOIR OF GENERAL SIR WILLIAM 
to his duties, together with Colonel Duncan, both lost their lives shortly after, 
owing to the explosion of a powder mill. 
Military operations becoming stagnant, the little army of the Isla employed itself 
in establishing such sports and pastimes as the nature of the place would permit of; 
indeed Captain Cator, went much further, for notwithstanding the circumscribed 
and marshy nature of the island, his favourite passion could not rest, and he managed 
to procure some hounds from England, and soon established a pack which he 
hunted himself. 
These hounds were afterwards sent to Gibraltar, and there helped to form what 
was afterwards so well known as the “ Calpe’ Hunt.’ 1 
The great difficulty of finding game however soon discovered itself, and Cator 
resorted to many expedients for making up the deficiency. 
He imported foxes from Barbary; but this plan not succeeding, some savage 
Spanish dogs were procured, which when required for sport had their paws rubbed 
with anise-seed, and thus often afforded the members of the Hunt a good run of 
fifteen or twenty minutes, when reynard’s representative was bagged for another 
day. 
In the following August, however, soon after he had got his pack of hounds into 
form, Captain Cator was summoned to more active service, being ordered to proceed 
into Andalusia to purchase horses for the batteries at Cadiz. By great exertions 
and tact, he succeeded in procuring 100 horses and sent them into Gibraltar, 
whence they were shipped for Cadiz. 
Without this seasonable supply the artillery would not have been able to take 
the field as it did, when orders were received for it to join the main army previous 
to the march on Torres Yedras. 
Captain Cator accompanied the main army when it retired into Portugal, and 
was present during the masterly occupation of the celebrated lines of Torres Yedras 
on the 8th October, 1810. -He was also engaged at Santorem later in the same 
year, after which he returned to Cadiz. 
Major-General Stewart had meanwhile been relieved of the command of the 
brigade stationed there by Major-General Graham, whom Cator found was just the 
man to second his efforts for the encouragement of field sports. With the 
assistance of the latter racing was introduced; and by this and many other expedients 
Cator managed to draw together all classes, English and Spaniards in common 
amusements and friendships. 
But this state of happiness, existing almost within sight of the enemy as it did, 
could not remain long undisturbed. 
An opportunity offered itself, and Graham was not the man to lose it. 
He immediatety set to work to devise a plan of operations for raising the siege, 
in conjunction with the Spanish Commander Don Manuel de la Pena, who had at 
his disposal some ten or twelve thousand men. 
In February 1811, the whole of the British force, together with a portion of 
the Spaniards, embarked on board the English fleet, intending to effect a landing 
at Tarifa or Algesiras, and thus cut off Yictor (who had succeeded Soult) from his 
base of operations, and whom they were to attack simultaneously with a Spanish 
force which was to advance from Cadiz by land. 
On the march, the British force which did not consist of more than 4000 men 
and ten or twelve guns (and was called the reserve), owing partly to the difficult 
nature of the country, became separated from the Spaniards (to which force it was 
acting as a rear guard) ; and on the night of the 5th March, found itself occupying 
the heights of Barrosa. The men were about to refresh themselves after their 
long night’s march, when they were suddenly attacked by the French. No time 
was lost in encountering the enemy. (Napier’s History of the War represents 
Graham, “ A daring old man, and of a ready temper for battle ”). 
