acquired just notions of Spanish affairs; for he was in close correspondence with men of candour, and discernment, who resided on the spot. Little was written by them of Spanish ardour and enthusiasm. Their letters, on the contrary, were filled with details of the weakness and tardiness of the Spanish Junta.

This assembly consisted of thirty-two persons, with equal powers. They were divided into four sections, or, as we would say in England, committees: one for the administration of the interior; a second for that of justice; a third for war; and a fourth for the marine. Their councils were distracted by self-interest, mutual jealousies, and discords. On the whole, they seemed to be less afraid of any foreign enemy, than of internal riots and revolution, which they set themselves by all means to obviate, and particularly by suppressing the liberty of the press. Thus they damped and chilled the spirits of the nation. Judging of what Buonaparte could do by what Spaniards were capable of, they thought it almost impossible for his army to traverse the Pyrennees in winter. Should the French have the temerity to effect such a passage, they would soon, it was believed, be famished. These notions were applicable to the resources formerly possessed by France. But the magnitude of the military preparations of their present enemy, and the celerity of his movements, confounded all their calculations.

Sir John Moore, by the close correspondence he carried on with Lord W. Bentinck, Mr. Stuart, Colonel Graham, and others, gra

dually penetrated the disguises in which the Spanish government enveloped their affairs. A judicious plan of a campaign can be formed only by reflecting on the actual state of things, and must necessarily be hollow, and pregnant with calamity, if founded on false intelligence: yet the Spanish Juntas exerted all their finesse to deceive, not their enemy, but their ally; and they succeeded so perfectly, as to lead them to execute a plan adapted to a state of things the reverse of their real condition. Their ardent proclamations, exaggerated numbers, invented victories, and vaunted enthusiasm, could not deceive him whom it would have been useful to deceive. Buonaparte found ample means of obtaining exact information. There were traitors even among the patriots loudest in the cause of their country, who enabled him to calculate, with perfect accuracy, the precise portion of patriotism scattered throughout the kingdom of Spain. Yet there are facts, as Moore observes, that would almost lead one to suspect, that the Spanish Juntas, from an excess of presumption and ignorance, and a heated imagination, were so blinded, as to have mis-, led the British cabinet unintentionally.

some

For it is a well known fact, that, at first, they considered Spain as more than a match for France. France. They applied to us for arms and money only; believing they could raise more soldiers than they required. How long they

continued in this infatuation is uncertain; but they appear to have acquiesced in the offer of British auxiliaries on the 26th of September.

OR

On the 13th of November, Sir John Moore entered Salamanca; where he had leisure and opportunity to appreciate justly the state of affairs. The evidence of striking and notorious facts was fast supplying the want of official information. Every day removed some part of the veil under which blind partizans, officious spies, and zealous declaimers, covered the Spanish cause; and each removal discovered some deplorable weakness, some fatal deficiency, in which the intelligent mind might read the bane of British valour, and Spanish freedom. Accordingly, Sir John Moore was soon able to state to Lord W. Bentinck, "That things were not in that flourishing state they were represented and believed to be in, in England." And his letters, from this time, are marked with a melancholy spirit of prophecy, which too clearly foresaw the downfal of the cause he was sent to maintain.

Letters from Sir David Baird reiterated complaints of the Junta of Corunna; whose cold, suspicious conduct, tardy assistance, and exorbitant extortions, exhibited rather the narrow spirit o. petty dealers, eager to make their market, and afraid of being overreached in their bargains, than the generous enthusiasm of gratitude to men who came to risk their lives in their defence.

Whatever energies might exist among the people, Sir John Moore had reason to complain, that no measures were taken by the government to call them forth into action.

Of the armies destined to cover the junction of the British forces, that of the centre, or Estremadura, under the young Count Belvidere, having rashly approached the French position at Burgos, had been routed and dispersed, as has been related in our last volume.* Both Blake and Castanos were marching from the point of assembling. The boasted army of the latter did not amount, on the 25th of October, to above onethird of what had been given out. It was no other than "a complete mass of miserable peasantry, without clothing, without organization, and with few officers that deserved the name. Such was the account transmitted from Calahorra by Captain Whittingham and Lord W. Bentinck.

While Sir John Moore was brooding over these disappointments, an express from Pignotelli, captaingeneral of the province, informed him of the advance of the French to Valladolid, within twenty leagues of Salamanca. This was a moment of difficulty, and the most melancholy apprehensions. British general had with him only three brigades of infantry, with out a single gun. His reinforcements could not arrive in less than ten days. The Spanish armies seemed to have shrunk to the opposite extremities of Biscay and Arragon, as if to leave to their. enemies an open passage for the destruction of their allies.

Sir John Moore assembled the Junta of the place, and explained to them the probable necessity of a retreat on Ciudad Rodrigo. They heard him with the most provok

ing

ing tranquillity; and the people be held the approaches of the French and of the English with almost equal indifference. The apathy of the people proved the inactivity of their rulers. The peasantry and lower orders were well affected to the cause of their country. But the spirit of independence evaporated in ascending to the higher ranks.

It was fortunately discovered by Sir John Moore, that the fears of Pignotelli had magnified the danger. Only 1000 French cavalry had entered Valladolid, and then retreated to Palencia next morning. None of the French infantry had, at that time, advanced beyond Burgos. Sir John Moore delivered from his alarm, had now to wait quietly the arrival of the corps under the Generals Hope and Baird; whose opposite routes did not permit him to move a step towards the one, without retreat ing so much from, and hazarding the safety of the other. The junction he expected to take place towards the beginning of December. This interval of leisure was dedicated to a recapitulation of those deficiencies which had continued to clog all his operations; namely, the want of an able commissariat, and of a supply of money. The succours of the Spaniards were always tardy, and always inadequate to their object. Those of the British ministry were as little to be depended upon. If any changes were made in the commissariat, they were always from bad to worse: insomuch that Sir John Moore was frequently obliged to remonstrate against a remedy which robbed him of commissaries who had at least the experience of half

a campaign, to supply their place by such as had no experience at all. The fault was in the system, and to this the remedy was not adapted. To supply the want of money, Lord Castlereagh left Sir John Moore the unfettered use of his own exertions; excusing himself from interfering with them, by stating the scarcity of silver in England. To Mr. Frêre, the British general detailed his own situation; the desultory and feeble cooperation of the Spaniards, the apathy of the people, the languor and the incapacity of the government. Unfortunately, this minister had acquired his notions of Spanish politics in London, and at the feet of Mr. Canning; and his prejudices were not to be overcome by that evidence of facts, which was now accumulating from every quarter of the country. From the valley of Renedo de Caqueringa, in the mountains of St. Andero, General Leith wrote to Sir John Moore, that the army of Blake and Romana had been defeated in successive combats, since the 5th of November, and entirely dispersed. A straggling party of from 7 to 8000 alone had reached the valley of Renedo. The French occupied the country from Burgos to Reynosa.

Sir John Moore, in addition to the ruin of the British hopes in the Asturias, was mortified by seeing the fugitives from Blake's army passing without any fear of the resentment of their countrymen, who looked upon these betrayers of their country without anger, and even without emotion.

The defeat of the army of the north, rendered the situation of Sir David Baird alarming, if not immediately

mediately dangerous. The French patroles had pushed forward as far as Benevento. Sir David was at Astorga; and should the French follow up their successes by advancing through the Asturias, his rear might be endangered by the roads either of Montoredo or Lugo. The Marquis of Romana, (after the defeat of Blake, appointed captain-general of the Spanish armies) was indeed endeavouring to collect his scattered fugitives at Leon. But such assistance could not induce Sir David Baird to hazard an advance towards Salamanca, at a time when a retreat upon Portugal seemed the only measure left for the portion of the army then posted at that place. Sir David Baird, relying on intelligence received from General Blake, that the French were advancing in force from Rio Seco, had already determined on a retreat to Corunna, when Sir John Moore undeceived him in that particular, and sent him or ders immediately to effect his junc.

tion.

The British commander seems to have been influenced on this occasion, partly by the accounts he had received of the march of the French towards Castanos; a movement which delivered him from all apprehensions for the immediate safety of his own army; but more especially by the extreme repugnance he had always felt to the idea of disappointing the hopes

of his country, in abandoning the Spaniards without a struggle. The pressing instances of Mr. Frère, deprecating, in the name of the Junta, all retreat upon Portugal, and that minister's mistatements as to the amount of the French force in the neighbourhood of Madrid, (whom he calculated at no more than 11,000 men) determined him to leave no possibility untried, in a case where a concurrence of adverse circumstances left nothing but possibilities to build on. By taking a line of positions on the Duero, new exertions might be awakened in the yet unsubdued provinces of the south, time would be afforded to call the dormant energies of the people into action, and to give reality and substance to the boasted, but yet unembodied levies of the Junta.

A new disaster frustrated this plan also. On the 28th of November Sir John Moore received intelligence from Mr. Stuart at Madrid, of the total defeat of General Castanos at Tudela, on the 22d. The question with the British army was no longer how it might serve the Spaniards, but how provide for its own safety. It was whether 29,000 British troops should be opposed to the undivided attack of 100,000 French, or whether by retiring upon their resources at Lisbon, they should preserve themselves for more fortunate times. Sir John Moore was not a moment undecided. He

other.

wrote

wrote immediately to Sir David Baird to retire upon Corunna, and from thance to join him by sea at Lisbon. General Hope, who had advanced to the neighbourhood of Madrid, received orders, according to circumstances, either to rejoin the main body, or retire upon Guadarama.

Sir John Moore, then, assembling his general officers, and communicating both the intelligence he had received, and the plan he had, in consequence, adopted, told them, "that he had not called them together to request their counsel, or to commit themselves by giving any opinion on the sub ject. He took the responsibility entirely upon himself; and he only required that they should immediately prepare for carrying it into effect."

This plan of retreating was afterwards abandoned by Sir John Moore, for the following reasons. Within a very few days after the news of Castanos's defeat, and the total dispersion of his army, Sir John received a letter from Mr. Stuart at Madrid, stating, on the authority of Don Thomas Morla, the agent and chief ruler of the Junta, that General St. Juan, with 20,000 men, had twice repulsed the enemy at Sepulveda: that Castanos was bringing the greater part of his force from Calatuyd and Siguenza, to join him: that the enemy had only small foraging parties in Castille; and that Buonaparte was at Burgos. In addition to these statements, came letters from Mr. Frêre (to whose representations the commander-inchief had been directed to pay the

greatest deference) all of them deprecating a retreat upon Portugal; all magnifying the resources of the Spaniards; extenuating their losses; extolling their enthu siasm; and holding out the energy of the provinces as yet unassailed, as a counterbalancing consolation for the loss of those that had yielded. Such was the blind zeal of Mr. Frêre, that he listened with fond credulity to the hackneyed stories of internal disturbances in France. "There is, besides, (he writes)* a great delay in the arrival of the reinforcements which were promised the French; and which, if they had been sent, would, by this time, have composed an enormous force."-Unfortunately, Mr. Frêre's means of information did not enable him to discover, that the French had already in Spain an enormous force." There are, besides,) Mr. Frêre continues) reports that the resistance to the conscription has been much more obstinate than usual. And the pastoral letter of the Bishop of Carcassone seems to imply, that such reports cannot be wholly groundless."

The Supreme Junta, however, not trusting to the devoted exertions of the English plenipotentiary, nor eten to the false statements with which Don Morla had abused that minister's understanding in despite of his eyes, dispatched, no doubt at the suggestion of the traitor Morla, Don' Bentua Escalante, captain-general of the armies of Grenada, and Brigadier-general Don Augustin Bueno, to Salamanca, under pretence of concerting operations

between