ous region, in appearance the most defensible, is in reality often in the end the most indefensible of all districts, against a superior and enterprising enemy, led by a skilful general. Sir John Moore was constantly with the rear-guard, doing his utmost to arrest the disorders and protect the retiring columns; and at Villa-Franca a sharp skirmish ensued with the foremost of the pursuers, in which, though the French cavalry were at first successful, they were ultimately repulsed by a heavy fire from the British light troops, with the loss of several hundred men, including General Colbert, who fell while gallantly leading on the vanguard. In other quarters, however, the same discipline was not preserved. Disorders went on accumulating with frightful rapidity along the whole line; and such was the general wreck of presence of mind or foresight, that at Nogales the military chest of the army, containing £25,000 in dollars, having stuck fast in the mud, the treasure was rolled in the cask in which it was contained over a precipitous descent, and became the prey of the peasantry, who picked it up at the bottom. All order or subordination was now at an end; the soldiers, exhausted by fatigue, or depressed by suffering, sank down in numbers on the wayside, and breathed their last, some with prayers, others with curses, on their lips. At last the army, in frightful disorder, reached Lugo, late on the evening of the 6th January.

50. Here, however, Sir John Moore halted, and in a proclamation issued next day, severely rebuked the insubordination of the troops, and announced his intention of offering battle to the enemy. The army, accordingly, was drawn up in a strong position, extending along a ridge of low hills, flanked on either side by precipitous rocks, from the mountains to the bed of the Minho; and it then speedily appeared that the preceding disorders of the march had at least not been owing to want of courage. Instantly, as if by enchantment, the confusion ceased; joyfully the men fell into their places, the stragglers came up from the rear; arms

were cleaned, faces brightened, confidence was restored; and before the morning of the 8th nineteen thousand men stood in battle array, impatiently awaiting the attack of the enemy. Soult, however, declined the combat, though on that day he had seventeen thousand infantry, four thousand cavalry, and fifty pieces of artillery in line; and Moore, having gained his object of recruiting his troops, and having little food remaining in the stores of Lugo, broke up in the following night, and retired towards Corunna.

51. The night was cold and tempestuous; a severe storm of wind and rain, mixed with sleet, burst upon the troops; and in the confusion of a nocturnal retreat, two divisions lost their way, and complete disorganisation ensued, insomuch that a large part of the army became little better than a mass of stragglers, who were only prevented from becoming the prey of the pursuers by the fortunate circumstance of none of his cavalry appearing in sight. Order having, at daylight, been in some degree restored, Sir John Moore collected the army into a solid mass, and the retreat to Corunna was effected without further molestation from the enemy, the nightmarch from Lugo having gained to the British twelve hours' start of their pursuers, which they were never afterwards able to regain. But notwithstanding this, it was nearly as disorderly and harassing as the preceding part had been. As the troops successively arrived at the heights from whence the sea was visible, and Corunna, with its white citadel and towers, rose upon the view, all eyes were anxiously directed to the bay, in hopes that the joyful sight of a friendly fleet of transports might be seen; but the wide expanse was deserted, and a few coasters and fishing-boats alone were visible on the dreary main. Deeply did every one then lament that a battle had not been fought long before; and as the officers cast their eyes on the low sand-hills in front of the ramparts of the town, on which they well knew the contest for their embarkation must be sustained, they thought

52. The brigades, as they successively arrived, were passed on into the town, and all the means which circumstances would admit of were taken to strengthen the land defences, which, though regular, were very weak. The inhabitants cheerfully and honourably joined in the toil, though they well knew, from the preparations which were going forward, that an embarkation was intended. On the day following, two powder-magazines, at a short distance without the walls, containing four thousand barrels of powder, the gift of England, were blown up, with an explosion so terrific, that nothing in the whole course of the war approached to it. The scene resembled the sudden explosion of a volcano ; the city was shaken to its foundations, the rocks torn from their bases, the sea was tossed as in a tempest, the earth shook for leagues around; while slowly arose in the air a huge black cloud, shooting forth dazzling light, from whence, at a great height, stones burst forth with a prodigious sound, and fell with a sharp rattle in all directions. A stillness yet more awful ensued, broken only by the hoarse and sullen lashing of the still agitated waves on the shore.* On the following day, the transports from Vigo hove in sight, and soon after stood in to the bay. Preparations were immediately made for the embarkation of the sick and wounded; the cavalry horses were almost all destroyed, and the greater * It is from Colonel Napier, an eyewitness, that this description is taken. Whoever has had the good fortune to see that most sublime of spectacles, an eruption of Vesuvius, will have no difficulty in giving implicit credit to the graphic truth of the picture. The author witnessed one in 1818, and the act of transcribing these lines, recalls, in all its vividness, the thrilling recollection of the

matchless scene.

53. Meanwhile the bulk of the army, still fourteen thousand strong, was drawn up with great care by Sir John Moore, on a range of heights, or rather of swelling knolls, which formed a sort of amphitheatre around the village of Elvina, at the distance of rather more than a mile from CORUNNA. Hope's division was on the left, its flank covered by the muddy stream of the Mero, commanding the road to Lugo; Baird's next, directly behind Elvina; then the rifles and Fraser's division, which watched the coast-road to St Jago, and was prepared to support any menaced point; General Paget, half a mile in the rear, with the reserve, at the village of Airis. The French, full twenty thousand strong, were posted on a higher semicircular ridge, sweeping round the lesser one occupied by the British at the distance of about a mile. Laborde's division was on the right, Merle's in the centre, Mermet's on the left; their light fieldpieces were distributed along the front of the line; the dragoons, under Lahoussaye and Franceschi, to which the English had nothing to oppose, clustered to the left of the infantry, and menaced the British right flank, with a detachment under Lorges to the right; while a great battery of twelve heavy guns, advantageously posted on a steep eminence between their foot and horse, not twelve hundred yards from Baird's division, was prepared to carry devastation along the whole line. From the inactivity of the French army during the two preceding days, Sir John Moore had been led to imagine that they had no serious intention of disquieting his retreat; and preparations, on the 16th, were making for withdrawing the troops into the town as soon as the darkness would admit of its being done without observation. But, about noon, a general movement was seen along their whole line; and

54. Their onset, as at Vimeira, and in all the subsequent actions of the war, was extremely impetuous. A cloud of skirmishers led the way, who drove in the English advanced posts with great vigour, and, in the confusion of their retreat, made themselves masters of Elvina, directly in front of the centre. As they drew near to the British position they deployed into line, and it soon appeared that they extended greatly beyond its extreme right; but the 4th regiment, which was there stationed, noways discouraged by this alarming circumstance, threw back its right wing; and, presenting a front in two directions, in which attitude it advanced, was soon warmly engaged with the enemy. Highly delighted with this display of presence of mind, and deeming the right secure when intrusted to such intrepid defenders, Sir John Moore rode up to Baird's division in the centre, which had now come to blows with their opponents there, who, having carried Elvina, were bursting through the enclosures which lay between its houses and the British with loud cries and all the exultation of victory.

55. The action now became extremely warm along the whole line. The French and English centres advanced to within pistol-shot of each other; and after exchanging a few volleys, the 50th and 42d charged with the bayonet, and drove the enemy opposed to them in the most gallant style back again through Elvina, and a considerable way up the slope on the other side. But this furious onset being carried too far, and not adequately

The victorious troops, when broken by the enclosures and stone-walls on the other side of the village, were assailed in their turn by fresh French regiments, and driven back a second time through its streets, Major Napier, who commanded the 50th, being wounded and made prisoner. But Moore was at hand to repair the disorder. Instantly addressing the 42d regiment with the animating words, "Highlanders, remember Egypt!" and bringing up a battalion of the Guards to its support, he again led them forward to the charge. The shock was irresistible: borne back at the point of the bayonet, the enemy were again driven into Elvina, from whence, after a desperate struggle, they were finally expelled with great slaughter. In this decisive contest, however, Sir John Moore received a mortal wound from a cannonshot; and Sir David Baird, struck down at the head of his men, had been shortly before carried from the field in a senseless condition.

56. Foiled in this attempt to pierce the centre, Soult renewed his attacks with Laborde's division on the left; while a heavy column endeavoured to steal unperceived round the British right, where they so greatly outflanked their opponents. But the ground on the left being in favour of the English, all his efforts were defeated with comparative ease; and General Hope, who commanded there, pressing forward in pursuit of the repulsed columns, carried the village of Palavio Abaxo, close under the enemy's original position, which remained in his hands at nightfall. At the same time, on the right, General Paget, with the reserve, not only at once perceived and advanced to meet the column which was endeavouring to turn his flank, but assailed it with such vigour, that it was thrown back upon Lahoussaye's dragoons, and the whole were driven in disorder to the foot of the hill on which the great battery was placed. When night, arriving in that wintry season at an early hour, separated the combatants, the enemy was not only repulsed at all points, but the British line was con