TWO:The next morning, by daybreak, the French were in full retreat over the river Alberche, and Sir Arthur employed the two following days in getting his wounded into hospital in Talavera, and in procuring provisions for his victorious but starving army. Sir Arthur complains that, though he had thus repulsed the French for them, neither the Spanish authorities nor the Spanish people did anything to assist him in this respect. They were very willing that the British should fight their battles, but they must provide for themselves, or starve. The state of our own Commissariat aggravated this evil. It had long been a Department of the most corrupt kind, the duties of which were neglected, and little was thought of by its officers but the enriching of themselves at the expense of our Government and our soldiers. These swindlers, long after this, continued to pay the contractors and muleteers in notes payable at Lisbon, or at headquarters; these the receivers[578] had often to get changed into coin at a monstrous discount, and Jews and jobbers flocked after the army for this purpose. To add to the mischief, some of these villains introduced loads of counterfeit dollars, merely copper-plated, so that, after losing enormously on the exchange of the paper, the receivers found themselves utterly defrauded of their payment. It was no wonder that the trading part of the Spanish population should feel shy of supplying us, more especially as Sir John Moorefrom the money which should have been in his chest having been, by Mr. Frere, carelessly handed over to the Spanish Juntahad had to pay in paper which the British Government had not yet redeemed. The reform of such abuses as these was one of the great things which Wellesley did for the British army, but at present he was suffering the extremest difficulties from them. He wrote sternly to Mr. Frere, who had not yet been superseded by the arrival of Lord Wellesley, that he (Sir Arthur) was blamed by the Junta for not doing more, whilst they were allowing his army, which had beaten twice their own number in the service of Spain, to starve. "It is positively a fact," he wrote, "that during the last seven days the British army have not received one-third of their provisions; that, at this moment, there are nearly four thousand wounded soldiers dying in the hospitals in this town from want of common assistance and necessaries, which any other country in the world would have given even to its enemies; and that I can get no assistance of any description from this country. I cannot prevail on them to even bury the dead carcases in the neighbourhood, the stench of which will destroy themselves as well as us." All this while, he added, Don Martin de Garay was urging him to push on, and drive the French over the Pyrenees; "but," added Sir Arthur, "I positively will not move; nay, more, I will disperse my army till I am supplied with provisions and means of transport as I ought to be."
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TWO:
