told me another anecdote I had never heard before. During
the retreat from Burgos, on this very day twenty-six years ago,
when the weather was dreadful and the roads were nearly
impassable, the Duke _lost his army_ for several hours. They had
to cross a river near a place called Rodrigo, and the Duke had
ordered the army to march in three columns, of which one,
composed of the Spaniards, was to cross by the only bridge there
was, and the other two by fords and by another route. He had
assigned the easiest line to the Spaniards because they were
likely to have more stragglers than the British. Arthur Upton,
the Quartermaster-General of one of the divisions, had dined at
head-quarters the night before, and the Duke had sent by him
written orders for the march. The next morning at two o'clock the
Duke was on the high road on purpose to see the troops pass by.
Cavalry came, but no infantry, and to the enquiries the Duke
made, they all replied that they had not seen anything of the
infantry. Presently the Duke galloped off, and Fitzroy having
missed him soon after, set off to see if he could discover what
was become of the infantry. It was not till several hours after
that he joined the Duke, who had at last found out the cause of
the non-appearance of his infantry. The three Generals commanding
the divisions, Clinton, Stewart, and Lord Dalhousie, had thought
fit to disobey his orders, and as a great deal of rain had fallen
in the night, they had settled that it would be better to direct
the whole of the infantry on the bridge instead of moving them by
the roads prescribed by the Duke, and though they knew he was
only seven or eight miles off, they never advised him of their
having made this change in the movements he had ordered. The
enemy did not discover what had occurred; if they had, the
consequences might have been very serious, and a great loss have
ensued. Fitzroy asked the Duke what he had said to them, and he
replied, 'Oh, by G--, it was too serious to say anything.' It was
too late then to restore the original order of march, and the
whole army crossed by the bridge. No further allusion was made to
what had occurred.

December 2nd, 1838 {p.137}

Went from Wolbeding to the Grange, last Friday week--Henry Taylor
and George Cornewall Lewis there--and came to town on Sunday. The
Grange is a beautiful specimen of Grecian architecture, bought by
Lord Ashburton of that extraordinary man Henry Drummond, a man so
ab