54

HISTORY OF

[GENERAL REMARKS.

Officers to receive them, according to the orders and rules upon that subject.I send the Lists accordingly. One of the rules is, that an Officer shall receivea Medal only for a particular Action, in which the corps to which he belongshas been engaged with musketry. This was not the case with the cavalry atBusaco, nor with much of the infantry; and the Action not having been ageneral one, only those of the infantry are in the List whose corps were engagedwith musketry.

“ It would be impossible, as long as the order remains as it is, and the orderbeing for the battle of Busaco, to return the cavalry for the battle of Busaco,however meritorious their conduct might have been, both before and afterwards.In the same manner, the Badajoz Medal is for those engaged in the siege andstorm of that place; and in obeying the orders of Government, I could notreturn the cavalry for their conduct at Llorena, however meritorious ; nor anyof the covering army. So far for the Medals to which you advert. In regardto the other points, viz. the grant of a Medal for the services of the Cavalry in1810 and 1812, I will forward your letter, if you think proper, to the Secretaryof State; but I confess I do not think that it will be successful in attainingyour object; and it will rest with you to determine whether you wish the letterto go. In no one instance has it ever occurred to me to apply for a Medal forany service by the troops. I report the services which they perform, in what Ithink the clearest and the fairest manner to all concerned; and it rests withGovernment, and not with me, to notice them as they may think proper.

“ If you will advert to the Lists for the Battle of Fuentes de Onoro, youwill find those only returned who were engaged with musketry. In that battlethere was a very heavy cannonade upon the troops, in which many were lost;but the Officers of no corps were returned in the List for Medals whose corpshad not been engaged with musketry with the Enemy. That is the rule, andI cannot depart from it.” 1

Alluding to the Medals for Vittoria, the Duke of Wellington observed, in aLetter to Colonel Torrens, on the 1st of April 1814:

“ I have received your letter of the 16th March, regarding the recommen-dations for the Medals for the Battle of Yittoria. I make a distinction betweena general Action in which we pursue the Enemy from the ground, and one

1 Dispatches of the Duke of Wellington, vol. XI. p. 295.