Note 426 — SECTION XIV: CHAPTER II

Fantin des Odoards (p. 233) says that the French left 1,800 men in the hospitals. This is probably a little too high an estimate: there were only 2,150 French sick in Braga, Viana, and Oporto on May 10—five-sixths of them at Oporto. But many convalescents had marched with Mermet early on the eleventh. Wellington in his first dispatch merely says that he had taken 700 sick in the hospitals. But three days later, in a letter to Admiral Berkeley, he writes that he has 2,000 sick, wounded and captured French in his hands, and must send them to England at once (Wellington Dispatches, iv. 337). He therefore asks for shipping for them at the rate of two tons per man. Allowing for 300 unwounded prisoners at Oporto, and 100 at Grijon, there remain 1,500, or somewhat more, for the men in hospital.