LIEUT.-GENERAL THOMAS DYNELEY, C.F, R.A. 405 
The scene changes now to the War in the Peninsular in 1811. 
Letters II., III., IV., V., VI., and VIL. deal with the Sieges of Ciudad 
Rodrigo and 3rd of Badajos, with the movements of the covering 
armies for those operations, and the return of the army to Portugal the 
beginning of 1812.—EHd. 
LETTER II. 
(To Mrs. Dyne.ey.) 
Lisson, September 26th, 1811. 
This is really too bad, my dearest Mother. 
A packet arrived yesterday, making the fifth since I left England 
and only one letter from your party, not a single line from that lazy 
fellow Robert.1 He would of course tell you that I had been 
unwell and obliged to be left behind when the troop marched. 
Perhaps it was quite as well that I was, for they must have had a ter- 
rible time of it, the heat is beyond allimagination. I have already got 
back ten of the troop who have fallen sick upon the road, and are 
obliged to come into hospital. Notwithstanding the healthy accounts 
the papers give, the sickness in the army has been dreadful. In this 
hospital alone we have 220 men of the artillery, and are daily expecting 
more, who are on the road. [heard a medical man say yesterday that, 
at this moment, the army had at least 19,000 sick, but as the cool 
weather will very shortly set in we may expect a great part of them to 
be very soon fit for duty.* As for myself, I feel I am completely 
recovered, but Fitzpatrick, who knows me better than I do myself, 
(having attended me in the whole of my sickness in Sicily), says I had 
better wait a little longer until the cool weather setsin. But, though 
I take his advice, my remaining here keeps mein perpetual hot water, 
for Iam in hourly expectation of an order to remain altogether, and 
such an order would certainly drive me mad if the troop were to be 
engaged and I not there. ‘The letters received from the army this 
morning (September 26th) are of the 18th, they say that by the 
manceuvres of the enemy it is thought he will either give us battle in 
1 His brother. 
2 Tord Wellington writing from Fuente Guinaldo, August 27th, 1811, says: “ We have a great 
many officers and men sick, but none very seriously so. It is astonishing how easily the officers and 
soldiers of our army are affected by sickness, and the little care they take of themselves. In some 
situations also the effects of climate are terrible. Very recently the officer commanding a brigade 
of artillery encamped them in one of the most unwholesome situations, and every man of them is 
sick. However, the weather will soon become cool in this part of the country, and I hope there 
will be an end of the sickness.” 
And again from Feueda, November 8th, 1811; ‘‘I believe we had at one time more 
than 17,000 sick and wounded, but 7000 or 8000 were wounded. I never saw any army 
so unhealthy. Every man that came out from England went to the hospital immediately after, 
if not before he joined the army, and several of the old Walcheren cases appeared again. We have 
lost but very few, and they are now recovering, but we haye still 14,000 in the hospitals. 
