take command of the French army in Portugal Marmont on assuming the
command found the troops in a deplorable state. The difficulty of
procuring provisions was extreme, and the means he was compelled to
employ for that purpose greatly heightened the evil, at the same time
insubordination and want of discipline prevailed to such an alarming
degree that it would be as difficult as painful to depict the situation
of our army at this period, Marmont, by his steady conduct, fortunately
succeeded in correcting the disorders which prevailed, and very soon
found himself at the head of a well-organised army, amounting to 30,000
infantry, with forty pieces of artillery, but he had only a very small
body of cavalry, and those ill-mounted.

Affairs in Spain at the commencement of 1811 exhibited an aspect not very
different from those of Portugal. At first we were uniformly successful,
but our advantages were so dearly purchased that the ultimate issue of
this struggle might easily have been foreseen, because when a people
fight for their homes and their liberties the invading army must
gradually diminish, while at the same time the armed population,
emboldened by success, increases in a still more marked progression.
Insurrection was now regarded by the Spaniards as a holy and sacred duty,
to which the recent meetings of the Cortes in the Isle of Leon had given,
as it were, a legitimate character, since Spain found again, in the
remembrance of her ancient privileges, at least the shadow of a
Government--a centre around which the defenders of the soil of the
Peninsula could rally.

--[Lord Wellington gave Massena a beating at Fuentes d'Onore on the
5th of May 1811. It was soon after this battle that Napoleon sent
Marmont to succeed Massena. Advancing on the southern frontier of
Portugal the skillful Soult contrived to take Badajoz from a