CHAPTER II

By far the best English account of Roliça is that by Col. Leslie of the 29th, in his _Military Journal_, which was not printed till 1887 (at the Aberdeen University Press). He corrects Napier on several points. I have also found useful details in the letters (unpublished) of Major Gell, of the same regiment, which were placed at my disposition by Mr. P. Lyttelton Gell. Leslie and Gell agree that Colonel Lake led on his regiment too fast, contrary to Wellesley’s intentions. The narrative of Colonel Leach of the 2/95th is also valuable. The accounts of Landsheit of the 20th Light Dragoons, of Colonel Wilkie in Maxwell’s _Peninsular Sketches_ (vol. i), and the anonymous ‘T.S.’ of the 71st (Constable, Edinburgh, 1828) have some useful points. Foy and Thiébault, the French narrators of the fight, were not eye-witnesses, like the six above-named British writers.

SECTION IV: