MEMORANDUM for DISEMBARKATION.

29th July, 1808.

In the event of a landing being determined upon in Mondego Bay, a signal will be made to Captain Malcolm, when it will be settled at what period it may be proper to move the horse ships, and the ships having the ordnance on board, into the river.

The infantry will be directed to be landed from the transports in the roads, and to be rowed in the boats up the river, and landed on the south bank of it: General Fane's brigade first, excepting the Veteran battalion, which is to remain on board; then General Ferguson's; then General Craufurd's. In the mean time the following arrangements are to be made.

1st. The haversacks and canteens now in the regimental stores are to be given out to the men.

2nd. Tin camp kettles are to be issued from the Quarter Master General's stores to the regiments.

'3rd. The Commissary must issue to such of the Paymasters of regiments, on account of the Paymaster General, the sum of £1000 for each of the regiments, and in that proportion for the artillery, dragoons, and 95th companies, which he will receive from the Donegal. A month's pay may also be issued on the same account to the officers of the Staff.

4th. General Hill will inform the officer commanding the 20th light dragoons, that he is to receive a sufficient number of horses to mount all his men; that he will therefore be prepared to land the horse appointments of the men who have at present no horses.

5th. The following arrangement to be made respecting baggage. The men to land, each with one shirt and one pair of shoes, besides those on them, combs, razor, and a brush, which are to be packed up in their great coats. The knapsacks to be left in the transports, and the baggage of the officers, excepting such light articles as are necessary for them. A careful serjeant to be left in the head quarter ship of each regiment, and a careful private man in each of the other ships, in charge of the baggage; and each officer who shall leave any baggage in a transport, must take care to have his name marked on each package, and each numbered, and give a list of what he leaves

to the soldier in charge of the baggage, in order that he may

get what he may require.

6th. The men will land with three days' bread and two days' meat, cooked.

7th. The commanding officer of artillery is to land the three brigades of artillery, each with half the usual proportion of ammunition, the forge cart, &c. He will also land 500,000 rounds of musket ammunition for the use of the troops, for which carriage will be provided.

8th. Each soldier will have with him three good flints.

9th. Besides the bread above directed to be landed with the soldiers, three days' bread to be packed up in bags, containing one hundred pounds each, on board each of the transports for the number of soldiers who shall be disembarked from it.

10th. Mr. Commissary Pipon to be directed to attach a commissary and the necessary number of clerks, &c., to each brigade, to the cavalry and to the artillery. He will hereafter receive directions to take charge of the bread above directed to be prepared, and to make his arrangements for victualling the troops.

11th. Three days' oats to be landed with each of the horses. 6 12th. The horses of the Irish commissariat to be handed over, when landed, to the commanding officer of the artillery, who will allot the drivers to take charge of them; and then the officers and drivers belonging to the Irish commissariat to place themselves under the orders of Mr. Pipon.

13th. The officers commanding companies will make an arrangement for purchasing mules for the carriage of camp equipage, for which they have received an allowance in the embarkation money.

• SIR,

'ARTHUR Wellesley.'

Lieut. General the Hon. Sir A. Wellesley, K.B., to Admiral

Sir Charles Cotton.

H.M.S. Donegal, off Figueira, 30th July, 1808.

I arrived here this day, and have received dispatches from England dated the 15th instant, from which I learn that a reinforcement to the amount of 5000 men is likely to arrive here immediately.

I propose to disembark here the day after to-morrow, but I shall not move forward till I shall hear of my reinforcement from England, or of the arrival of General Spencer. I think it probable that he will now come here, for I understand that General Castaños defeated Dupont in an action fought on the 20th instant, and that Dupont surrendered on condition that he should be sent to France by sea. If this should be true, there can be nothing to detain General Spencer in that quarter.

I propose to look at Peniche as I shall march towards Lisbon, and if there should be any prospect of early success, I shall attack the place. But in order to be able to effect this object I must have 24 pounders; and the necessity that there may be to have this ordnance at Peniche, and the desire which I have to profit as long as possible by the assistance of Captain Bligh, induce me to ask you to allow the Alfred to remain with us as long as may be possible. I shall not ask to detain either that ship or the Donegal, as soon as the moment shall arrive at which you may have it in your power to attack the fleet.

If either the fleet having on board the ordnance stores, or General Spencer's corps, or the reinforcements from England, should go to the mouth of the Tagus, I shall be obliged to you if you will order them here, directing that they may keep in shore, in case we should have occasion to communicate with them.

'Captain Malcolm will write to you about the marines, who shall be sent in the Blossom and Lively.

'Admiral Sir C. Cotton.

'Believe me, &c.

'ARTHUR WELLESLEY.

Lieut. General the Hon. Sir A. Wellesley, K.B.,
to Viscount Castlereagh.

* MY LORD,

'H.M.S. Donegal, off the Mondego River, 1st August, 1808.

'I have the honor to inform you, that when on my passage from the fleet to the mouth of the Tagus, I fell in with H.M.S. Plantagenet, on the 26th July, in which was embarked Captain Cooke, of the Coldstream Guards, who delivered to me the dispatches from General Spencer, of which I enclose copies, by which I was informed that that officer had landed at Puerto de Sta. Maria, and had determined to remain in the province of Andalusia. After consulting with Sir Charles Cotton upon

the situation of affairs in Portugal and Spain, I thought it proper to send General Spencer orders to re-embark his whole corps and to join me, unless he should be engaged in any active operation, the relinquishment of which he should deem detrimental to the cause of the Spaniards.

'As General Spencer in his letter, and more particularly in a verbal message by Captain Cooke, represented the great distress for money which was felt by the Junta of Seville, I desired him to draw upon England for £100,000, and to pay that sum to the person they should appoint to receive it.

'I have the honor to enclose copies of the letters which I have written to General Spencer upon this occasion, in which the reasons which induced me to give these orders are sufficiently detailed; and they will, I hope, justify me for having given them, without being under the necessity of troubling your Lordship with my reasons for thinking that it was probable that Dupont was not sufficiently strong for General Castaños; that General Spencer's corps was useless at Cadiz, while the operations of mine in Portugal were cramped for want of its assistance; that a junction of the two corps was necessary to enable either to perform any effectual service; and that in the general situation of affairs in Spain, as well as in Portugal, it was most important to drive the French out of Portugal.

The orders which I gave appeared to me to be entirely in conformity with the intentions and objects of his Majesty's Government, and to be consistent with those which your Lordship gave to the General in your letter of the 30th June; and although it appears by your Lordship's dispatch of the 15th July, which I received here from Lord Burghersh on the 30th, that it was his Majesty's intention to assist the Spanish nation with a body of his troops in Andalusia, I did not think it proper to recall those which I had sent to General Spencer on the 26th. The second orders would not have reached him till the 3rd or 4th of August, when he would have carried the first into execution, and would probably be far advanced on his passage; and I received accounts on my arrival here, on the same day, to which I gave credit, that General Castaños had defeated General Dupont on the 20th instant, and there was no longer any immediate necessity for the assistance of the British corps in that quarter of Spain. These accounts have

been still further confirmed by others arrived this day, from which it appears that General Dupont and all the French troops to the southward of the Sierra Morena had surrendered, on condition that they should be sent to France by sea.

"The information of the state of the enemy's force in Portugal, communicated to me by General Spencer, (which, however exaggerated the accounts he had received may be, deserve attention,) and the expectation held out by your Lordship that a reinforcement would arrive here at an early period, have necessarily induced me to delay the commencement of the operations of the troops under my command till the arrival of the corps from England, or of General Spencer. The General will have received my letter of the 26th I hope on the 28th, and I expect that he will be ready to sail by the 31st. The length of his passage to the Tagus, and to this place, must then depend upon the winds, which have blown from the southward since the 28th.

'The enemy's position in the neighbourhood of the Tagus appears so strong, that it is considered impracticable to make a landing in that quarter, without diverting the attention by an attack to the northward. The plans of attack on Cascaes Bay would fail, because it is stated to be impossible to approach the coast sufficiently with the large ships to silence the Fort of Cascaes, and the other works erected for the defence of the bay; and although the ships of war might be able to pass Fort St. Julien, the Fort Bugio, and the other works by which the entrance of the Tagus is defended, it is not imagined that these forts could be silenced by their fire, so as to enable the troops to land at Paço d'Arcos as was proposed. Between Cascaes and the Cape Roca, and to the northward of Cape Roca, there are small bays, in which small bodies of men could be disembarked in moderate weather. But the surf on the whole of the coast of Portugal is great, and the disembarkation in these bays of the last divisions of the troops, and of their necessary stores and provisions, would be precarious, even if a favorable moment should have been found for the disembarkation of the first. The vicinity of the enemy, and the want of resources in the country in the neighbourhood of the Rock of Lisbon, for the movement of the necessary stores and provisions for the army, would increase the embarrassment of a disembarkation in that quarter.