the generals Blake and Castanos, did the soldiers display, to use an expression of Sir John Moore's, common obstinacy. They fled on the first fire, and then claimed merit for having effected their escape. It ought to be observed, in favour, though it is not a complete defence of the Spanish generals who so imprudently hazarded these engagements, that they had cautiously abstained from risking any offensive operations against the French, till they were propelled by the treachery of Morla. They have been repeatedly blamed by the ignorant for their inactivity during the autumn: whereas their greatest praise is, to have been sensible of their own weakness and inferiority, and to have shaped for themselves a course of conduct suitable to their circumstances. They were justified by the event. By the ruin of the armies under Blake, Castanos, and the young Count Belvedere, the road was cleared, and Buonaparte moved from Burgos upon the capital.

The several divisions of the French army were every where in pursuit of the flying Spaniards, when Buonaparte received information that the British army had not retreated upon Portugal, as he, (judging no doube from what would have been his own conduct in Sir John Moore's situation,) but was threatening the Duke of Dalmatia's position behind the Carrion. The advance of the French into the southern provinces of Spain was suspended.

Orders were immediately sent to the Duke of Dalmatia if attacked, to give way, and to decoy the British to Burgos, or as far eastward as possible; and at the same time

to push on a corps towards Leon, on their left flank. And, should they attempt to retreat, he was ordered to impede this by every means in his power. But from the 22d to the 29th of Dec., Soult received strong re-inforcements: so that his army alone was much superior to the British. It was posted behind the River Carrion, between Carrion and Saldannah. Junot, the Duke of Abrantes, who had advanced from Burgos to Palentia, threatened the right flank of the British. The corps under Le Fêfre, Duke of Dantzick, which had advanced to Talavera de La Reyna in its way to Badajoz, was directed to march backward on Salamanca. Buonaparte himself, in person, on the 18th of Dec., marched from Madrid with an army consisting of 32,000 infantry and 8000 ca valry: even the division under Mortier, called the Duke of Treviso, which was on its march to Saragossa, was stopped. In a word, the whole disposable force of the French army, forming an irregular crescent, was marching in radii to environ the British. To accomplish this favourite object, Buona. parte interrupted his victorious ca reer to the south, where there was nothing capable of resisting him, Lisbon and Cadiz, at that time, would have yielded as easily as Madrid. The bold measures that had been adopted by Sir John Moore, prevented the immediate subjugation of the peninsula. It remains to be seen, what was the plan he adopted for the extrication of his own army from its present most perilous situation.

The advanced guard of the French cavalry that Buonaparte had brought from Madrid, passed though

through Tordesillas on the 24th of December, on the same day the van of the British army left Sahagun: and both moved towards the same point, which was Benevento. The retreat of the British army began by the passage of the river Eslar. The Marquis of Romana was left in possession of the bridge of Mansilla, and the road to Leon. Sir David Baird crossed the Eslar by the ferry of Valentia, where he took post to cover the magazines at Benevento and Zamora. Sir John Moore with the remainder of the army passed by the bridge of Castro Gonsalo. These movements were masked by the cavalry under Lord Paget, who, advancing close to the positions of the enemy, fell in with, and defeated several detachments of cavalry which Buonaparte had pushed forward forward from Tordesillas.

At Benevento Sir John Moore for the first time since the commencement of the retreat, judged it necessary to publish general orders reflecting in the severest terms on the conduct of both of ficers and soldiers. The subjects of the censures were chiefly the marauding and drunkenness of the soldiers, the extreme relaxation of discipline, which appeared in various ways, and the free criticisms in which a number of officers had indiscreetly indulged their fancies and humours on military operations. "The qualities" (required by the arduous posture of affairs), said the general," are not bravery alone, but patience and constancy under fatigue and hardship, obedience to command, sobriety, firmness, and resolution in every different situation in which they may VOL. LI.

be placed.-It is impossible for the general to explain to his army the motive of the movement he directs. The commander of the forces, however, can assure the army that he has made none since he left Salamanca, which he did not foresee, and was not prepared for: and, as far as he is a judge, they have answered the purposes for which they were intended. When it is proper to fight a battle, he will do it, and he will chuse the time and place he thinks most fit. In the mean time, he begs the officers and soldiers of the army to attend diligently to the discharge of their parts, and to leave to him and the general officers the decision of measures which belong to them alone. The army may rest assured, that there is nothing he has more at heart than their honour, and that of their country." The spirit of insubordination and disorder that prevailed in his own army was a subject of not less disquietude and anxiety to the general, than the rapid movements of the enemy. We find him again issuing general orders at Lugo, 6th January, 1809, "Generals and commanding officers of the corps must be as sensible as the commander of the forces of the complete disorganization of the army. The commander of the forces is tired of giving orders which are never attended to: he therefore appeals to the honour and feelings of the army he commands, and if these are not sufficient to induce them to do their duty, he must despair of succeeding by any other means. He was forced to order one soldier to be shot at Villa Franca, and he will order all others to be execut

ters and

upon

ed who are guilty of similar enor mities. But he considers that there would be no need of proceeding to such extremities, if the officers did their duty as it is chiefly from their negligence, and the want of proper regulations in the regiments, that crimes and irregularities are committed in quarthe march." It was not, it may be fairly presumed, any ordinary degree of irregularity and excess that drew from the commander in chief such heavy and repeated censures.-Sir John, in a letter dated at Benevento, 27th December, 1808, tells the Marquis of Romana, that " The people of that part of Spain seemed to be less well-disposed than those he had hitherto met with. Some of the corregidors and alcaids had of late run away from the towns, which had been the unavoidable cause of irregularities having been committed by the troops, for, says Sir John, when the magistrates are not present to give regularly, the soldier must take, and this produces a mischievous habit." From the time that our army turned from Sahagun, their footsteps were marked with robbery and insolence to the inhabitants: which was aggravated by the want of both parties understanding each others' language.

Our soldiers detested and despised the Spaniards for refusing to open their doors to the allies and defenders of their beloved Ferdinand. They were disappointed and soured at retreating from the approach of the enemy: and this they attributed to the cowardly conduct of the Spaniards, by whom they considered themselves to have been betrayed. The Spanish peasantry

and villagers, again, poor, and destitute of every thing beyond mere necessaries, were but ill disposed to share their pittance with men whom they hated, and even ab horred as heretics, whom they dreaded as guests, and whom they now conceived to be abandoning them to all the fury of an enraged enemy. Such wants and sentiments on either side, engendered all the bitterness which marked the intercourse of the two nations during the remainder of the campaign.

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Before Sir John Moore quitted Benevento, about 5 or of Buonaparte's imperial cavalry crossed a ford below the town, and attacked the English pickets, who immediately assembled to the amount of 220 men under brigadier general Stewart, retired slowly, disputing every inch of ground, and repeatedly charging through the enemy's squadrons, till the arrival of Lord Paget with the 10th hussars; who, together with the pickets, drove the enemy into the river, killing or wounding 55, and taking 70 prisoners: among whom was the young general Le Fêbre, commander of Buonaparte's imperial guard. Buonaparte is said to have viewed the action from a lofty hill, about a league from Bene

been provided with subsistence had it remained united.

General Crauford proceeded undisturbed to Vigo, while the other columns pursued their march through deep snows across the dreary plains of Leon to Astorga: where the British general found the town filled, and the road encumbered with the straggling army of Romana, who, having abandoned the position and bridge of Mansilla without breaking it down, according to his instructions, was going to Orense.-The Duke of Dalmatia having crossed the Eslar at Mansilla, quietly entered Leon. His intention most probably was, to occupy Astorga before the arrival of the British. In this, however, if this was his intention, he was disappointed, by the skill and promptitude of Sir John Moore.

The British commander uniting his army with the division of Sir David Baird from Valentia, proceeded on the 30th of December, on Villa Franca and Lugo. At Astorga all the superfluous camp epuipage was destroyed, and all the sumpter mules, horses, &c. that could not keep up with the columns, abandoned. On the march from hence the military chest was sacrificed. Barrels full of dollars were staved and precipitated over rocks, into ravines, dens, and rivers. From Astorga to Lugo the road lay for the most part through bleak mountains covered with snow, affording so scanty a supply of provisions that the

troops were sometimes 2 days without tasting any food. During this march the extremes of vice and misery seemed to meet. In some of the villages the unburied dead bodies of the inhabitants lay outstretched before the doors of their own houses, from which they had been driven by the unrelenting soldier urged by his own necessities, to perish with cold and hunger. In others no traces of inhabitants were to be found. Stragglers from different corps plundered the different magazines, commissariat stores, and cellars, and afterwards lay intoxicated by the way-side mixed with the sick and those overcome with fatigue, to be trampled under feet or mangled by the sabres of the enemy's cavalry.* Besides the terrible example above noticed in a letter from Sir John. Moore to the Marquis of Romana, of a soldier shot at Villa Franca, other warnings were held up by the general, not less impressive. Several stragglers who had been hacked and hewed by the French troopers, were led through their respective corps as examples of the consequences of drunkenness and disobedience to orders.

Buonaparte having been joined by the Duke of Dalmatia at Astorga, after reviewing his troops to the amount of 70,000 men, had dispatched these divisions, under three marshals, in pursuit of the English army. Continual skir mishing took place between the French advanced and the British rear guard, commanded by Sir

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John

John Moore in person, who took his measures so well as always to repel his assailants.

Sir John Moore offered battle to Soult, Duke of Dalmatia, before Lugo. This the duke did not think fit to accept, conceiving, probably, that he was playing a surer game by endeavouring to envelope and destroy the British on their march.

While Sir John Moore was resting his troops at Betanzos, he received a letter from Mr. Frêre, dated at Seville, the 28th of December, informing him of his endeavours "to persuade the government to take some steps for securing the great towns, instead of relying upon the defence of military positions with peasants dressed in uniform." He added, "that in La Mancha, there seemed to be a beginning of something like enterprize; and that orders had been sent for putting Ciudad Rodrigo, Salamanca, Zamora, Toro, and Astorga, into a state of temporary defence." But what a falling off is here, from a nation glowing with loyalty and enthusiasm to "a beginning of something like enterprize;" and orders to defend a few towns, all of which, soon afterwards, opened their gates to the first patroles of the enemy. This scheme of fortifying the great towns had been mentioned in a letter from Mr. Frêre, dated the 14th of December. He there suggests this, as a means of opposing a thousand barriers to a "deluge of panic," of which, he was once afraid, he saw the beginning in Spain. The same gentleman, in answer to a letter of Sir John Moore's, insinuating the advantage to the

British government of possessing Cadiz, states that, though still sanguine as to the issue of the contest, he had himself thoughts of thus preparing for the worst ; though he deemed it dangerous to suggest to the Junta any other idea than that of living or dying on Spanish ground: a plain proof that his official dispatches were not always consonant with his own cool judgment; and that his reports, instead of being a faithful statement of facts, were only a statement of his own wishes, or those of the English cabinet.

On the 11th of January, the British army marched from Betanzos to Corunna; having now traversed two hundred and fifty miles of mountaineous and difficult country, in the face of an enemy immensely superior in numbers: very often without food or shelter, drenched with rain, and worn out with cold and fatigue: Yet still unbroken, presenting every where an undaunted front to, the enemy, who had not to boast of having won a single trophy. As yet, however, they were not in safety; very few transports having arrived from Vigo, owing to contrary winds. The position of Corunna was bad; and the enemy were assembling on the heights which surround it. There were not wanting generals who advised Sir John Moore to offer terms to the Duke of Dalmatia, for the purpose of being allowed to embark in safety. But the British general was determined not to accept of any terms, which (to use his own expression) would be in the least dishonourable to the army or to the country.

There were three ports at which

the