To Lieut. General the Earl of Dalhousie, K.B.

MY DEAR LORD,

'London, 26th June, 1814. I beg that your Lordship will be so kind as to inform Sir Lowry Cole, and the General and other Officers ordered to attend the General Court Martial at Tarragona, that there is no occasion for carrying into execution that order, as the General Court Martial is hereafter to be assembled in London.

It is intended that the detachments of the three battalions of the 95th regiment, and the infantry and artillery of the King's German Legion, should come to England, as well as the troops already mentioned, and not to Ireland as ordered. I request you to give directions accordingly. The King's German Legion will have to break up from Bayonne and to march upon Bordeaux.

I enclose a letter from Colonel Arentschildt, and I shall be much obliged to you if you will desire Pakenham to put him in orders as Colonel on the Staff from the 26th of January last.

'Lieut. General

'Believe

me, &c.

WELLINGTON.

the Earl of Dalhousie, K.B.'

To Lieut. General Sir John Murray, Bart.

'MY DEAR GENERAL, 'London, 1st July, 1814. Upon my return to Bordeaux from Madrid, I found upon inquiry that nearly all the witnesses who had been summoned to attend your trial, indeed, all excepting the Spanish witnesses (who would not give evidence), Admiral Hallowell, and General Whittingham, had returned, or were on their return, to England, and that some of the members ordered for the General Court Martial had gone away; and having apprized Government of this circumstance, as well as of the novel circumstance that the President and all the members of the Court Martial were necessarily juniors to yourself, I recommended that the General Court Martial should be assembled in England.

I enclose Lord Bathurst's answer, which I have this day received; and I recommend to you to return home as soon as may be convenient to you.

'If you should pass by Paris, I shall be happy to see

SIR,

To J. C. Herries, Esq., Commissary in Chief.

'London, 4th July, 1814.

In justice to the gentlemen who are the subject of the enclosed letter, I think it proper to transmit for your information Mr. Assistant Commissary Booth's report of the conduct of Messrs. Jarmon and Fisher of the Account Department. I am aware that it may not be in your power to attend to the recommendation at this moment; but, as they have served for a considerable time with the army under my command, it is but just that their assiduity and attention to their duties should be made known to you.

'J. C. Herries, Esq.'

'I have the honor to be, &c.

< WELLINGTON.

To Sir Charles Stuart, K.B.

'MY DEAR SIR,

'London, 4th July, 1814. I enclose a letter which I shall be much obliged to you to give to Labrador.

I was in hopes that I should have heard from you regarding the Prince de Borghese's house, and I shall be very much obliged to you if you will let me know what you have heard upon that subject.

I beg you to have the enclosed letters put into the post for Madrid.

'Sir Charles Stuart, K.B.'

'Believe me, &c.

WELLINGTON.

To Major

Royal Horse Guards (Blue).

SIR, London, 6th July, 1814. 'I have received your letter of the 2nd, and I have no objection to lay before His Royal Highness the Commander in Chief your desire to sell your commission; but the statement must be confined to that desire, and the grounds you have for thinking your claim to sell a just one, without con

taining any thing against the former decisions of the Commander in Chief.

'Major

I have the honor to be, &c.

WELLINGTON.

To Major General

'SIR,

'London, 11th July, 1814. I received your letter of the 12th May, conveying a complaint of one written to you by Lieut. General the Earl of Dalhousie; and, having called upon his Lordship and received his explanation of the circumstances which had occurred, and had induced his Lordship to write that letter, I wished to omit taking any further notice of the transaction, and should now refrain from noticing it, if you had not again expressed an urgent desire that I should.

There is no doubt that the regular and usual channel for the conveyance of all orders from a Lieutenant General to the troops under his command, whether of general direction or of detail, is through the General Officer immediately in command of them; and that the orders for the march of the commanded by on the 2nd and 3rd May, ought, according to all the rules, to have been sent through you. It appears that the Lieutenant General was not unmindful, as he could not have been ignorant, of this the commonest rule of all services, as he did send you on the 1st May the order for the march of that battalion through the Assistant Adjutant General attached to him.

But, although this is the rule of the service, and it is generally observed, the convenience of the service occasionally requires a departure from it; and it frequently happens that a superior is under the necessity of sending his orders direct to the troops which are to execute them, without passing through the channel of the General Officer who immediately commands them.

The Lieutenant General and the Deputy Quarter Master General declare that they believed this was the case in the instance under consideration. The situation of your quarters was not exactly known to them, and they were supposed to be much more distant from the cantonments of battalion than they really were; and the desire that the order should reach the battalion in time to enable the men

-'s

to commence their march at an early hour on the 2nd was the real, and, in fact, a good reason for departing from the ordinary rule in that instance.

'I now come to consider your letter to the Lieutenant General of the 1st May, which drew from him that of which you complain.

It is evidently not written in that spirit of good temper and conciliation in which alone officers of high rank in particular can carry on His Majesty's service with advantage. It contains a complaint against the conduct of a Staff Officer, when, as I have above shown, there was no foundation for any; and I am sorry to observe that it states your intention to withhold your assistance and superintendence over the execution of an order which you could not doubt came from your superior, Lieut. General the Earl of Dalhousic, only because the order did not reach the Colonel who was to execute it through yourself.

I am not astonished that the Lieutenant General, who must have been accustomed to a very different mode of carrying on the public service, should have disapproved, and should have expressed his disapprobation, of your letter and of your conduct. It appears from the terms of his letter that it was written on the 2nd, before the troops arrived; and that his Lordship believed that, owing to the want of your superintendence, and by your refusal to "warrant the execution of his order, the troops had not marched as he had directed. To this conduct his Lordship applies the term "disobedience;" and, although it is not correctly applied, I cannot conceive that, considering all that passed, and that there is really matter for censure both in your letter and in your conduct, it is desirable to carry the matter farther.

'I have received your letter, and, although I should be very happy to be of use to you, I am afraid it is entirely out of my power, excepting by giving my opinion in your favor upon every occasion that offers.

'I cannot present your memorial to the Regent. It is not my business to speak to him on any naval concern; and those whose business it is would have reason to complain of me if I did.

I have received your letter of the 8th instant, in which you have desired that I should appoint your son to a situation in the Embassy to Paris.

There is no situation in the Embassy to Paris, excepting that of secretary, that is paid, that I am aware of; and under this circumstance you will probably think it proper to turn your attention to some other line for your son.

'I would likewise beg to observe to you that, at the same time that I entertain the highest respect for you, and do not doubt that your son has been educated for a situation such as you desire he should fill, it requires something more than the recommendation of a father, however respectable, to induce me to employ any gentleman confidentially in the public service.

I have the honor to be, &c.

• WELLINGTON.

To H. R. H. the Prince Regent of Portugal.

SIR, 'London, 11th July, 1814. I beg leave to draw the attention of your Royal Highness to the case of, one of your Royal Highness's subjects, who, in consequence of the state of affairs in the Peninsula, had been induced to enter into the service of the French as the aide de camp of General Pamplona, and is now in this country. In the month of September, 1811, one of my aides de camp being at Marshal Marmont's head quarters with a flag of truce, this gentleman offered his services to him, in consequence of which I wrote him a letter, in which I proposed and desired him to remain where he was, and to forward me intelligence of the state of affairs in the enemy's army.

This letter fell into the hands of Marshal Marmont, in