Charles the Third, Viceroy of the Provinces of Rio de la Plata, and its Dependencies, &c. to the Loyal Inhabitauts of Buenos Ayres. Faithful and generous Neighbours and Inhabitants of Buenos Ayres. The abundant and sincere expressions of joy that you have manifested from the moment of my arrival in the august capital of the viceroy, afford me the most decisive proof of your invincible loyalty, and of the sentiments of honour by which you are animated. In these I discover the homage which you offer to the sovereign majesty which I represent, and the liveliest feelings of your tender regard for our monarch. It shows me, that if you possess this reverence for me, who am only his shadow, it is on account of your profound respect for the substance from which that shadow is projected, which veneration has always been in perfect consistency with your character and conduct. Finally, it gives me an authentic proof of the noble enthusiasm that reigns in your bosoms, of your firm adherence to the great cause in which the parent state is engaged, and of all the social virtues which adorn you in your respective sta tions. Such is the source, and such are the effects of these extraordinary demonstrations of joy which have exceeded all my expectations. I should be deficient in my duty, if under these circumstances I did not acknowledge the grateful sensibility and warm satisfaction which these affecting indications of your disposition have produced in my self. Nothing can ever efface from my memory the delight I expe rienced on the night of the 30th of June. What a magnificent spectacle to every man capable of appreciating the sentiments of the heart, to see a numerous people, composing all classes of society, impelled only by their fidelity, hastening to tender their voluntary services in terms the most affecting, and accompanied by every mark of loyalty, in the presence of the representative of their beloved sovereign! The tyrant, who oppresses us, can never enjoy such a scene of delight, with all his pomp and circumstances of splendor, his public entries and triumphs; because, by force and violence he can extort only cold and feeble applause, while yours is the natural result of the impassioned attachment, and ardent loyalty which you bestow on the memory of your august prince. Do not doubt it, this act of yours, simple as it appears under all its character of energy, has nothing to do with ostentation and vanity, but as being the ingenuous manifestation of your loyal sentiments, it is the impenetrable wall to be opposed to the assaults of the enemy. In vain will he endeavour to seduce you by his artifices, or to debilitate your strength by spreading the seeds of discord among you. The impotence of his authority, and the inefficiency of his malicious expedients will show to the world, that Buenos Ayres is not the country where perfidy can hold her residence. I assure you, with all the frankness which belongs to my character, that I have the most perfect confidence in your loyalty, and that I am firmly persuaded that I have nothing to apprehend from those vile agents which the enemy of our liberty distributes every where, where, for the malignant purpose of imposing upon the unsuspecting integrity of mankind. If his audacity should pretend to violate your happy soil with his offensive vermin, you will yourselves be vigilant to discover and to destroy it. To this gratifying reflection, which you so justly deserve, I may add another equally desirable. I am not less persuaded that the concord and unity of your sentiments will be the stable support of my government, than that your subordination to legitimate authority will give new vigour and new energy to the expedients of security circumstances require; and that all ranks among this generous people, animated with the same spirit, and full of the same enthusiasm, will swear with me to defend, to the last moment of their existence, the sacred rights of our beloved monarch, Ferdinand the VIIth. Live then tranquil and happy, and rely always upon my most sincere and cordial endeavours, by all the means in my power, to augment your felicity. (Signed) BALTASAR HIDALGO DE CISNEROS. Buenos Ayres, 2nd Aug. 1809. The following Dispatches have been received from the Earl of Chatham. Head-quarters, Middleburgh, My lord, nothing very material has occurred since my last dispatch of the 3rd inst. We have been unremittingly employed in bringing up the artillery of siege, ammunition, and stores, to the vicinity of Flushing; and the troops have been VOL. LI. occupied in the construction of the batteries, and in carrying on the several works before the place, but which have been necessarily interrupted by the very heavy rains which have fallen here. The enemy is active and enterprising, and the garrison has certainly received considerable reinforcement from the opposite coast; nor has it been in the power of the flotilla hitherto to prevent it. Under these circumstances it has been found necessary to land lieut.-gen. Grosvenor's division; and the two light battalions of the King's German legion have been also for the present brought on shore. Immediately on the fall of Ramakins, I determined, as soon as the necessary arrangements were made, to pass the infantry of lieut.general the earl of Rosslyn's corps, together with the marquis of Huntley's division, and the light brigades of artillery, into South Beveland, to form a junction with the reserve under lieutenant-gen. Sir J. Hope; and that the cavalry and ordnance ships, together with the transports for lieut.-gen. Grosvenor's division, the moment their services could be spared from before Flushing, should be brought through the slow passage, and proceed up the west Scheldt; but of course this latter operation cannot take place until a sufficient naval force shall have been enabled to enter the river, and to proceed in advance; but the very severe blowing weather we have constantly experienced, added to the great difficulty of the navigation, has hitherto baffled all their efforts. By letters from lieut.-gen. Sir J. Hope, I find that the enemy had on the 5th inst. come down with about 28 gun-vessels before Bathz, on which place they kept 21 up up a smart cannonade for some hours, but were forced to retire by the guns from the fort; and every thing has since remained quiet in that quarter. CHATHAM. Middleburgh, Aug. 8. My lord; Since closing my dispatch of yesterday's date, the enemy, towards five o'clock in the evening, in considerable force, made a vigorous sortie upon the right of our line occupied by major-general Graham's division. The attack was principally directed upon our advanced piquets, which were supported by the 3rd battalion of the royals, the 5th and 35th regiments under col. Hay. These corps, together with detachments of the royal artillery, the 95th, and light battalions of the King's German legion, received the enemy with their accustomed intrepidity; and, after a sharp contest of some duration, forced him to retire with very considerable loss in killed, wounded, and prisoners. In this affair the enemy has had another opportunity of witnessing the superior gallantry of British troops; in no instance has he succeeded in making the least impression throughout our line; and on this occasion, so far from profiting by his attempts, he has been obliged to relinquish some very advantageous ground where our advanced posts are now established. I cannot too strongly express my sense of the unremitting vigilance and ability manifested by maj.-gen. Graham, in securing and maintaining his post against the repeated attempts of the enemy to dislodge him; and I have great satisfaction in acquainting your lordship, that the major-general mentions, in terms of the warmest approbation, the distinguished con duct and gallantry of the officers and troops engaged on this occasion. CHATHAM. [Here follows an abstract return of ordnance, ammunition, and stores, taken from the enemy.] From the London Gazette, September 2.A Dispatch of which the following is a copy, was, on the 30th ult., received at the office of Lord Viscount Castlereagh, one of his Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State, from Lieutenant-General Lord Viscount Wellington, dated Deleytosa, 8th August, 1809. Deleytosa, Aug. 8, 1809. My lord; I apprized your lordship, on the 1st instant, of the advance of a French corps towards the Puerto de Banos, and of the probable embarrassments to the operations of the army, which its arrival at Placentia would occasion; and these embarrassments having since existed to a degree so considerable as to oblige us to fall back and to take up a defensive position on the Tagus, I am induced to duced to trouble you more at length with an account of what has passed upon this subject. When I entered Spain, I had a communication with general Cuesta, through Sir Robert Wilson and colonel Roche, respecting the occupation of the Puerto de Banos, and the Puerto de Perales, the former of which it was at last settled should be held by a corps to be formed under the marquis de la Reyna, to consist of two battalions from general Cuesta's army, and two from Bejar; and that the Puerto de Perales was to be taken care of by the Duque del Parque, by by detachments from the garrison of Ciudad Rodrigo. I doubted of the capacity of the garrison of Ciudad Rodrigo to make the detachment to the latter, but so little of the effectual occupation of the former, that in writing to marshal Beresford on the 17th July, I desired him to look to the Puerto de Perales, but that I considered Banos as secure, as appears by the extract of my letter which I inclose. On the 30th intelligence was received at Talavera, that 12,000 rations had been ordered at Fuente Duenos for the 28th, and 24,000 at Los Santos for the same day, for a French corps, which it was believed was on its march towards the Puerto de Banos. General Cuesta expressed some anxiety respecting this post, and sent me a message, to propose that Sir Robert Wilson should be sent there with his corps. Sir Robert was on that day at Talavera, but his corps was in the mountains towards Escalona; and as he had already made himself very useful in that quarter, and had been near Madrid, with which city he had had a communication, which I was desirous of keeping up, I proposed that a Spanish corps should be sent to Banos without loss of time. I could not prevail with general Cuesta, although he certainly admitted the necessity of a reinforce ment when he proposed that Sir Robert should be sent to Banos, and he was equally sensible with myself, of the benefit to be derived to the cause, from sending Sir Robert back to Escalona. At this time we had no further intelligence of the enemy's advance than that the rations were ordered; and I had hopes that the enemy might be deterred from advancing, by the intelligence of our success on the 28th, and that the troops in the Puerto might make some defence; and that under these circumstances, it was not desirable to divert Sir Robert Wilson from Escalona. On the 30th, however, I renewed my application to general Cuesta, to send there a Spanish division of sufficient strength, in a letter to gen. O'Donoghue, of which I inclose a copy, but without effect; and he did not detach general Bassecourt till the morning of the 2nd, after we had heard that the enemy had entered Bejar, and it was obvious that the troops in the Puerto would make no defence. On the 2nd we received accounts, that the enemy had entered Pla centia in two columns. The marquis de la Reyna, whose two battalions consisted of only 600 men, with only 20 rounds of ammunition each man, retired from the Puerto and from Placentia, without firing a shot, and went to the bridge of Almaraz, which he declared that he intended to remove; the battalions of Bejar dispersed without making any resistance. The general called upon me on that day, and proposed that half of the army should march to the rear to oppose the enemy, while the other half should maintain the post at Talavera. My answer was, that if by half the army, he meant half of each army, I could only answer that I was ready either to go or to stay with the whole British army, but that I could not separate it. He then desired me to chuse whether I would go or stay, and I preferred to go, from thinking that the British troops were most likely to do the business effectually, and without contest; and from being of opinion that to open the communication through Placentia, although very important to them, was more important to us than to the Spanish army. With this decision, general Cuesta appeared perfectly satisfied. The movements of the enemy in our front since the first, had induced me to be of opinion, that despairing of forcing us at Talavera, they intended to force a passage by Escalona, and thus to open a communication with the French corps com. ing from Placentia. This suspicion was confirmed on the night of the 2nd, byletters received from Sir Robert Wilson, of which Iinclose copies; and before I quitted Talavera on the 3rd, I waited upon general O'Donoghue and conversed with him upon the whole of our situation, and pointed out to him the possibility that in the case of the enemy coming through Escalona, gen. Cuesta might find himself obliged to quit Talavera, before I should be able to return to him; and I urged him to collect all the carts that could be got, in order to remove our hospital. At his desire I put the purport of this conversation in writing, and sent him a letter to be laid before general Cuesta, of which I inclose a copy. The British army marched on the 3rd to Oropesa, general Bassecourt's Spanish corps being at Centinello, where I desired that it might halt the next day, in order that I might be nearer it. About five o'clock in the evening, I heard that the French had arrived from Placentia at Navalmoral, whereby they were between us and the bridge of Almaraz. About an hour afterwards, I received from gen. O'Donoghue the letter and its inclosures, of which I inclose copies, announcing to me the intention of general Cuesta to march from Talavera in the evening and to leave there my hospital, excepting such men as could be moved by the means he already had, on the ground of his apprehension that I was not strong enough for the corps coming from Placentia, and that the enemy was moving upon his flank, and had returned to Santa Olalla in his front. I acknowledge that these reasons did not appear to me sufficient for giving up so important a post as Talavera, for exposing the combined armies to an attack in front and rear at the same time, and for abandoning my hospital; and I wrote the letter of which I inclose a copy. This unfortunately reached the general after he had marched, and he arrived at Oropesa shortly after daylight, on the morning of the 4th. The question what was to be done, was then to be considered.— The enemy, stated to be thirty thousand strong, but at all events consisting of the corps of Soult and Ney, either united, or not very distant from each other, and supposed by marshal Jourdan and Joseph Buonaparté to be sufficiently strong to attack the British army, stated to be twenty-five thousand strong, were on one side, in possession of the high road to the passage of the Tagus at Almaraz, the bridge at which place we knew had been removed, although the boats still necessarily remained in the river. On the other side, we had reason to expect the advance of Victor's corps |