Note 36 — Chapter XIII

Sir R. D. Henegan writes thus of Col. Skerrett, in describing the defence of Tarifa: “The commanding-officer of this expedition, although unimpeachable in the courageous bearing of a soldier, was wanting in the bold decision which, in military practice, must often take the lead of science and established rules.”—Henegan’s Seven Years’ Campaigning (1846), vol. i. p. 234. Colonel T. Bunbury, Reminiscences of a Veteran, i. p. 116, gives a similar account: “Skerrett as an individual was brave to rashness; but I should have doubted it had I not so frequently witnessed proofs of his cool intrepidity and contempt of danger. At the head of troops, he was the most undecided, timid, and vacillating creature I ever met with.”