I found the following letter in the Public Record Office recently, a letter from Wellington to C. Stuart Esq, a diplomat in Lisbon. I looked in Gurwood's despatches to see if he had included it but it was not there! Stress is not a 20th century phenomenon. Wellington had many pressures on him such as the machinations of Massena, Marmont, Soult; the Portuguese Regency, and the Spanish juntas. Not only these but he had representatives from ten London organisations on his staff who were not answerable to him, but to their masters in London, ranging from representatives of the Treasury, Chaplains, to the Medics. He could not even reward Alexander Dickson for his amazing work in organising to get the siege train from Lisbon to Ciudad Rodrigo: this could only be done by the Master General of the Ordnance in Horse Guards! The letter runs: Villa Formosa, May 15th 1811 C Stuart Esq Sir: I have the honor to inform you that the enemy blew up a part of the works of Almeida on the night of the 10th instant when the Army had retired and crossed the Agueda. I inclose [sic] a report of a British engineer stating the extent of the damage done to the works of the place, which, in my opinion can be repaired at no great expense. The first measure to be adopted would be to render the place tenable as a military post against a coup de main. This would be very desirable and the expense would be the cost of 300 men for less than a month according to the Report of Lt. French. The government would then have had time to receive the orders of His Royal Highness the Prince Regent whether he will incur the larger expense of repairing the place entirely which I conceive can hardly be completed as long as the war will last upon this frontier. I beg to have forthwith the decision of the government whether they will or not put this place in repair in the manner first pointed out. If they should determine to do so, it will be necessary that they should collect 3 or 500 men with tools to perform the work; and officers to superintend them, and that they should have on the spot means of feeding them. I expect to have an answer upon this subject in two Posts after you will receive this letter; and that measures should be in progress to commence the work in one fortnight from this time, or I will blow up the fort entirely, and withdraw from it all the Allied troops. I have the honor to be etc (signed) Wellington Happily for the lovely city of Almeida and its inhabitants, and Anglo-Portuguese relations, the words "Not sent" appear in the margin of this letter! Back to Table of Contents -- First Empire #36 Back to First Empire List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1997 by First Empire. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com