Rough Leaves from a Journal Kept in Spain and Portugal, During the Years 1832, 1833 & 1834.

London, Richard Bentley, 1835.. First Edition. 8°, half calf (somewhat worn). Occasional very slight foxing. In very good condition. xi, 407 pp. *** FIRST EDITION. Macaulay called this work "one of the best accounts of the civil war; unlike the British officers in Dom Pedro's service, he had no personal grievances to embitter his style" (They Went to Portugal p. 330). It is well written, with a wealth of concrete detail about conditions in Portugal and Spain at that time. Badcock (1786-1861), who had served earlier in Montevideo, then in Spain and Portugal during the Peninsular Wars, was sent to Portugal as part of an English military mission dispatched to study the situation in Portugal at the beginning of the civil war between D. Pedro and D. Miguel. One of Badcock's duties was to learn the movements of Spanish troops on the Portuguese frontier and to determine, if possible, the intentions of the Spanish. His description of his travels in Spain covers pp. 19-131; most of the rest of the volume gives a detailed eyewitness account of the siege of Porto. In 1840 he assumed the surname Lovell; the DNB lists him under Lovell, Sir Benjamin Lovell Badcock. Eventually he attained the rank of Major General.*** Canto, Ensaio bibliographico … 1828 a 1834 (1892), 104. Robertson, Los curiosos impertinentes pp. 268-71: refers to the author as Sir Benjamin Badcock. Foulché-Delbosc 327. Not in Duarte de Sousa.