Next day we embarked for Lisbon, and after landing there we proceeded some miles up the country to join Sir Arthur's army in Castello Branco, making up altogether about twenty thousand English and sixty or eighty thousand Allies.
We then advanced across a fine plain, which I should think was more famed for hares than anything else, for I never saw any place that swarmed so with that kind of game. They were running in all directions, and often even right into our lines, for they are stupid animals when frightened, as they then were by the noise our men made; and I managed to kill one with the muzzle of my musket, and sold it to the captain of my company for a dollar.
The bands played each before its own regiment as we crossed the plain, and Sir Arthur Wellesley took the opportunity of reviewing the Spanish troops as they passed. They looked a fine enough set of men, but they were fit for scarcely anything except to fall into disorder and confusion, as we had already found when we had taken the field against some of them at Monte Video, Colonia, and Buenos Ayres, the smell of powder often seeming to cause them to be missing when wanted, either from not having been properly disciplined, or else because they had not good officers to command them; this, of course, now bringing the brunt of most of the battles on us.
We often passed marks of the enemy's encampments, and even encamped at or near the same places ourselves, as close as possible to some river or large supply of water, a small quantity being of little use for the purposes of a large body of men like our army, accompanied as it was, too, by horses and wagons and such things. We never caught sight of the enemy, however, till we got to Talavera, where we came to an engagement with the French on the 27th and 28th of July, 1809. The whole of our line there extended for about two miles, and at times the whole of it was joining in the general engagement, which came more hot upon us for the reason before described; a great number of the Spaniards even throwing down their arms and fleeing, for which conduct their general, Cuesta, ordered them to be decimated; but eventually, on the entreaty of Sir Arthur Wellesley, only about forty of them were killed. General Cuesta, however, really wanted quite as much leading on as his men, as he was often very obstinate, and refused to fight when called upon by Sir Arthur Wellesley.