The discipline of even the best regiments had become relaxed, and disorders equally fatal to the army and to the inhabitants had commenced. At a miserable little village where they were quartered after leaving Benevente, some of the Grenadier Company of the 92nd, either from carelessness or wanton mischief, set fire to a house, and the whole village was burnt down; but as the French were close upon them, there was no time to investigate and bring the perpetrators to punishment. On the battalion overtaking the troops in front of them, they found them engaged in destroying a quantity of stores; among the rest was a cask of rum. A young man named Bruce got drunk, fell into the cask and was dead before he could be extricated. Their next quarters were at Bembibre. Here in many of the houses there were Spanish soldiers dying or dead of a fever, which two of the regiment caught and died; but the great wine-vaults of this place proved more fatal to the army than either sword or sickness; drunkenness appeared in its most frightful colours, and when the rear guard arrived with unbroken ranks, they had to force their way through a crowd of British and Spanish soldiers, stragglers from many regiments, who reeled out of the houses, or lay on the roadside, an easy prey to the enemy's cavalry, who thundered in close pursuit. The inclemency of the weather and rapidity of the retreat had diminished the strength of the soldiers, while their spirit had been depressed by the thought of retiring before the enemy.

A 92nd pensioner used to relate that at one halt a man, overcome by wine and fatigue, went to sleep close to the fire and was fearfully burnt before his comrades noticed that he had rolled into it. However, he was put into a sick-cart and finally got safe home to Badenoch.

On the 1st January 1809, Napoleon took possession of Astorga. On that day, 70,000 French infantry, 10,000 cavalry, and 200 pieces of artillery were there united. The congrega

tion of this mighty force, while it showed the power and energy of the French monarch, attested also the genius of the British general, who with a handful of men found means to arrest the course of the conqueror, and to draw him with

* Alison,

the flower of his army to this remote part of the Peninsula, at the moment when Portugal and Spain were prostrate beneath the strength of his hand. "That Spain being in her extremity, Sir John Moore had succoured her, and in the hour of weakness intercepted the blow which was descending upon her, no man of candour can deny."

In ten days Napoleon had brought this great army from Madrid to Astorga, 200 miles over snowy mountains, and his action was the greatest compliment that he could pay to the prowess of the British troops, and demonstrated the importance of the stroke delivered by their commander. While Napoleon was riding with the advanced posts in the pursuit, he was overtaken by a courier. The dispatch brought him intelligence of the accession of Austria to the European confederacy. He at once handed over the pursuit of the British to Soult, and returned to France.

The Gordons spent New Year's Day 1809 in anything but a cheerful manner; marching towards Villafranca, their clothes worn to shreds, their shoes and hose worn out, officers and soldiers overrun with vermin, bearing alike the extremities of cold and hunger. At Villafranca they lay in the stables of an inn, and the straw and soil seemed to the tired soldiers so comfortable and warm, that it required all the authority of their officers to get the men to move. Sir John Moore was constantly with the rear guard, doing his best to arrest disorder and protect the retiring columns. At Villafranca a combat took place, in which the pursuers were repulsed with the loss of their general, Colbert, and several hundred men. Whenever the British soldiers found themselves before the foe they pulled themselves together, and the rear guard, being constantly in that position, retained their discipline. "The conduct of the soldiers generally had been good, but at Villafranca it became extremely bad, and in order to check outrages it became necessary to make an example. Three soldiers of the 7th Hussars had been detected in the act of breaking open a box and stealing wearing apparel of the inhabitants. These poor fellows drew lots, and one was shot; he had previously been a good soldier."†

* Napier.

Vivian's "Memoirs."

From Villafranca to Lugo is seventeen leagues (more than fifty miles), over an immense mountain. Hundreds of stragglers who were weakened by their excesses at Bembibre and Villafranca died or were taken or shot by the enemy; want of shoes caused many to fall behind or loiter in the villages, where they were taken; want of rest, want of food, wretched roads, and heavy rain or snow filled up the sum of their miseries. The rear guard found houses filled with stragglers of various regiments, who would not or could not come on. An officer telling them the enemy would certainly shoot or take them, they said, "You may shoot us, sir, or they may shoot us, but we cannot stir." Fine fellows, with bleeding feet, totally incapable of keeping up, others whose spirit was better than their strength striving to the last to join their battalions; women knee deep in mud crying piteously for help which could not be given.* Sergeant Robertson says that on the mountains they found the carriage of the paymaster-general, whose wife was with him, hopelessly stuck in the mud. The Highlanders had often envied this comfortable conveyance, drawn by good English horses, as they had to open out on the march to let it pass; now it was left on the road, and the lady and her husband had to tramp on as best they could. At Nogales they passed the military chest, which the oxen could drag no further, and rather than let it fall into the enemy's hands, the casks containing £25,000 worth of dollars had the heads knocked out and were rolled down the precipice into the wooded ravine below.† On the roadside a soldier's wife was lying newly delivered of a fine boy-the mother was dead. A woman of the 92nd took up the helpless little one. Several men of the regiment were made prisoners this day; the next day the weather and roads were both better, and they arrived at Lugo on the 4th January.

At Lugo the troops got two days' rest, and Sir John Moore

Vivian's "Memoirs."

+ Some contrived to pick up part of the money, and a woman, who had rolled a quantity in a cloth and tied it round her waist under her dress, was afterwards drowned; as she stepped on board ship at Corunna from a boat, she fell into the sea, and the weight of the gold sank her.

Sergeant Robertson.