The Sun.
London, England, 1808-12-15 00:00:00

,tv rate 'the celotity with which thgv mit;ht
ire hl‘(: crossed the Tagus, would have. been di-
Had the other road been blocked by the
the Trench must have fought another battle,
d, eaten, as hewas- convinced they would have
)cen, they blight have been closely 'followed by a
m; t, it not by the whole of our army. The position
Santarem, in particular, appeared to him to be at
with very tittle danger, and with very great
:advantage. With respeCt to the mode of supplying
•',llre corps there with provisions, that he had fully
ci:icuSsed• in the letters which he had written to Sir
H. Burrard on the subje6t. He %visited to state
't more particularly the strength or.the corps. Which he
-rhad under his ,command. On the loth of August

'they-amounted t0t3,000 men, and he had a promise
of 6000 Portuguese troop, which did not join him.
On Ibe !gilt he heard-of the arrival of General An-
-1; stoulter's brigade on the o4tst, and on the 20th that
General reached ivlac.ira Roads. On the Ist the
British Army consisted of 17,0-00 British troops (ex-
elusive of 1600 Portuguese,) successful, in high
spirits, well 'equipped, and,amply provisioned. •ft
,
was not lair to estimate the enemy's force at above
.20,000 men, from which number was to be. de-
ducted the garrisons of Almaida, Elvas, Peniche,
and the forts on the
,Tagus, leaving only a force of
1 5 AK) 0 men. for their operations in tlfe field. On
the. 20th he had considered it adviseable to advance.
On the 21st,the enemy being completely defeated
at ail points, he had repeate,ily proposed to Sir.FLlrry
Bustard to advance in pursuance of his original pilni
of opt rations. His lemons for Thi:ll:ing that to ad-
'4,Jvatice would be beneficial were before the Court,
and it would 4e for the Court to decide upon them,
d, and on the evi(ience.t hat had been adduced in their

• I support. Re-UlliSt, however, take the-.opportunity .1
to •obServe, that although he. Was decidedly of opi-
nion that the Inost It-11pm taut advantageS would •
have resulted from allowing him to pursue the %lc-
ttry gained over the enemy on the 21st of August,
yet it by no means followed, that to allow the eva-
cuation of P,,rttigal on the 22d, was an impolitic pro-
ceeding. On the 21st the enemy were,in contusion.
On the 22d they were no longer in confusio,o. They
had reiurned their positions. The relative situations of
the I,Aoarmies were materially changed in that short
time; .and that of-the French was greatly improved
by our having negletled promptly to follow up the
- blow that had been struck the preceding day. The
, battle of the 21st might be considerod as atrial of
between the two armies; and he was per-
suaded.that had the vanquished been instantly pur-
sued, they would not have risked another battle.
They were not. however ; and on the 22d,the Bri-
tish had no means to prevent them from crossing.
tae Tagus, but by entering into a Convention for the
evacuation. of the country.
- Question by Sir H. BuititAnb.—Had not the
British army the same means of advancing by' Mafra
on the morning of the 23d, when Sir H. Dalrymple
, ordered it.. to march, as it had Cgr' the 20•:11, when,
-Sir A. Wellesley intended it should have marched ?
Sir A. WELLESLEY.—I do not think that the
army could ha‘.-e marched with as much facility by
Matra on the 23d as I thought it might, on the
20th. There was thisdifference--on the 23J, I be-
lieve, Matra was occupied by a French corps; on
• the 20th it was not.

Po answer to questions from the President, Lord
and Gen. Nicholls, Sir A. WELLESLE'Y
stated, :hat the occupation of .Torres Vedras would
have plated. the British on the shortest road front the
position of the two armies to Cabasa. The French
had. retrsated from all pciuts of the attack to the
Northward, elipareiktly with the intenion of ifalling
into the road Ir-ow -Torres Vedras to Lunyar, by •
wh,cit they had advanced to the- attack. He con-.
ceked that the righ.:ot the British arri:y was neater
to Torres Vedras that the enemy
,Were, and there-
fore he thought that our right might have: readied
Torres Vedras beleire the enemy could have effected
their retreat to it. He COUlti Dot S:ty that he ob-
served. the procedings of the French corps,. describ-
ed in the e‘idence given, on the preceding day by
Major- General Spencer. According to Geo. Spen-
cer's description, he saw it formed about an. dour
after the enemy had been defeated, on the left of the
• British, and to ;he Northward on the road toTorres
Vedras. By, that accurate description of the position
of this Fiduch r orps, it must have been about the
same distance from 'forces Vedras as our right, and
Le conceived that d must have been on the ground,
or at no very great 'distance from the ground on
which General Spencer saw it, about the time that
he proposed to Sir tl. Burrard to pursue the enemy.
The right of the British army (properly so called)
was not attacked on ihe ts,. ; the attack was made
on the right of the centre ; and all the French troops
which attacked General nine's and Gen. Austro-
tiler's brigades tetired to the Northward, with the
exceptiou possibly of some sonill detachments, of,
which however he had seen mone.