LIEUT.-GENERAL THOMAS DYNELEY, 0.B., B.A. 545 
LETTER XVII. 
(To His Sister Jans), 
San Paro, December 20th, 1812. 
Many thanks, my dear Jane, for your letters of November 25th and 
December 2nd, the latter of which I received on Sunday last. I have 
seen papers of December 4th, by which I find you have got his Lord- 
ship’s despatch from Ciudad Rodrigo of November 19th, and nicely he 
has run it over to be sure. Well, he is a lucky fellow to be able to gull 
John Bull so easily, and I cannot help wishing his noble brother had 
sent me his speech to read before he went down to the House, I should 
have made many alterations. I most certainly should not have allowed 
him to have said, “it is to his retreat that I would go for the proudest 
and most undoubted evidence of his ability,” and then again, “I con- 
fess before heaven, I would not select his victories, brilliant as they 
were, I would go down to the moments when difficulties pressed and 
crowded upon him,” etc., etc. Poor man, he does not seem to know 
much about the business, or rather, I suppose, did not choose to know. 
Iwill just give you a little order from the book which we received from 
the Harl of Dalhousie a few days after our return. “The Lieut.- 
General at present warns the officers that it is no usual observance of 
discipline or common attention that will effectually re-establish the 
disorganized state of every battalion without exception.” Now I 
should have read this to the noble Marquis and at the same time have 
told him that I did not suppose in the memory of man a more dis- 
organized, plundering rabble were ever got together, than those that 
were marched into Portugal on or about the 19th November, 1812. 
Stop a little until you have seen Soult’s despatches, he will tell you more 
about it ; he will tell you what he obliged us to destroy! and what he 
took from us, You ask me why his Lordship wrote so dolorous a 
despatch. Because, I suppose, it was evident to him and to every 
drummer in the army that we were in a most perilous situation, and 
he wished to prepare your minds for the worst. 
You say I speak but slightly of Reed’s loss, I can account for that 
too; for at the time I was writing to you I had just come out of his 
room, having said to him, “then V’ll be d——d if you may not go to 
the rear and stop there for what I care!” He had been very unwell 
for several days with ague and fever, and then off he set with the 
1 Apropos to this remark, the following will throw some light. Writing from Dublin, March 16th, 
1854, to Brigadier-Geueral Cator, R.A., with regard to the supply and conveyanee of small-arm am- 
munition for the campaign of 1854.and 1855, Mr. J. Butcher, Commissary of Ordnance, says, ** When 
the army moved from Burgos to the frontiers of Portugal it became important to take immediate and 
active steps for the removal of the depdt of ammunition at Valladolid to Salamanca, and I was 
charged with that duty, as well as afterwards for the further removal of the depét at Salamanca, in- 
creased asit was by the quantity removed from Valladolid. Atone time it was expected that a battle 
would then have been fought at Salamanca on the old ground, by which a great portion of the 
reserye ammunition then collected there would have been required to replace what would have 
been expended. The army, however, suddenly commenced its movement to Ciudad Rodrigo. 
The enemy was pressing the rear of our army and had crossed the river within 500 yards of my 
party, my means for getting away the ammunition had been used until it was exhausted, and I 
was left.to use my own discretion for disposing of what remained, about 300,000 rounds of ball 
cartridges, and I blew it up to prevent its being taken possession of by the enemy.”==From IS, in 
possession of General Sir John Adye, G.C.B., R.A. 
