THREE:Hastings embarked on the 8th of February, 1785, and arrived in England in June, 1786. He had sent home before him his wife, whose health had begun to suffer from the climate of India, and she had been most graciously received by King George and Queen Charlotte. He had been accompanied to his ship, on leaving Calcutta, by all the authorities, and by all people of distinction; he had received the most enthusiastic addresses of regret and of admiration as the saviour of India. In London, not only at Court, but in Leadenhall Street, he met with the same gratifying honour. He spent the autumn at Cheltenham with his wife, where he was courted and fted in a manner to warrant his writing to a friend, "I find myself everywhere and universally treated with evidences, apparent even to my own observation, that I possess the good opinion of my country." He was busy trying to purchase Daylesford, the, old family estate, and anticipating a peerage.
THREE:
THREE:The interval of repose now obtained continued through the winter, and late into the spring of 1813. It was greatly required by the British army. Lord Wellington stated that the long campaign, commencing in January, had completely tired down man and horse; that they both required thorough rest and good food, and that the discipline of the army, as was always the case after a long campaign, needed restoration; and he set himself about to insure these ends, not only in the troops immediately under his own eye, but in those under Maitland and his successors in the south. He had, even during his own retreat, written to Maitland, encouraging him to have confidence in his men, assuring him that they would repay it by corresponding confidence in themselves. Lord William Bentinck, however, ordered Maitland to return to Sicily with his army in October; Lord Wellington decidedly forbade it. Maitland therefore resigned, and was succeeded by General Clinton, who found himself completely thwarted in his movements by the governor of Alicante, who treated the allies much more like enemies, and would not allow the British to have possession of a single gate of the town, keeping them more like prisoners than free agents. At the beginning of December a fresh reinforcement of four thousand men, under General Campbell, arrived from Sicily, and Campbell took the chief command; but he did not venture to take any decisive movement against the French, but waited for Lord William Bentinck himself, who now determined to come over, but did not arrive till July, 1813. Whilst Campbell remained inactive from this cause, his motley foreign troops continued to desert, and many of them went and enlisted with Suchet.
TWO: