between the combined British and Spanish armies, and "accelerating their combined movements, and avoiding all delays, so contrary to the noble and important cause of the two nations." The two Spanish generals corroborated the flattering statements which the British commander had before received. They were rather surprized when Sir J. Moore introduced to them Colonel Graham, who had, the night before, supped with St. Juan in his way from Madrid; whom they had represented as in possession of the pass of Somo-Sierra. St. Juan's corps, had been charged by a body of French cavalry, and completely routed, as related in our last volume. And there was not a doubt, Colonel Graham stated, that the French army was in full march for Madrid. Such contradictory reports may well be supposed to have determined Sir J. Moore to revert to his first resolution, rather than to induce him to trust himself to allies whose defective information exhibited proofs, if not of their treachery, at least of ignorance scarcely less culpable. The letter which was brought by the Spanish officers from the Supreme Central Junta, as their credentials to Sir J. Moore, was dated at Aranjuez, 28th November. A few days thereafter, while Morla, who had begun to capitulate to the French, was employed in recommending to the inhabitants submission to the conqueror, who was at the gates of Madrid,* a dispatch, a dispatch, dated at Madrid, Dec. 2, 1808, and signed by the Prince of Castel Franco and Thomas Morla, was sent off to his Excellency Sir John Moore, Commander of the Army of his Britannic Majesty, professing to be "a true and just representation of affairs at that moment ;--General Castanos's army (it stated) amounting to about 35,000, was falling back upon Madrid in the greatest haste, to unite with its garrison. And the force which was at Somo-Sierra of 10,000, was also coming for the same purpose to that city, where nearly 40,000 men would join them. With this number of troops, the enemy's army, which had presented itself, was not to be feared. But the Junta still apprehending an increase of the enemy's force to unite with that at hand, hoped that his Excellency, if no force was immediately opposed to him, would be able to fall back to unite with their army, or to take the direction to fall on the rear of the enemy. And the Junta could not doubt that the rapidity of his Excellency's movements would be such as the interests of both countries required." While Sir J. Moore was employed in taking into consideration this paper, which was delivered to him Dec. 5,Col. Charmilly + arrived with HIST. EUROPE, p. 224. + Formerly a colonel in the French service; at present in the pay of this country. Through his means a great part of the French colony of St. Domingo, in 1793, had been delivered to the British army, without any fighting or extraordinary. expence. He has ever since manifested zeal in the cause of Britain. The suspicion of his having been in concert with Morla is entirely groundless. He never saw, or had any correspondence with Morla. dispatches dispatches from Mr. Frêre at Talavera, repeating in terms still more vchement the necessity of an advance upon Madrid, and resting the fate of Spain upon the decision of the British General. In the mean time the people of Madrid had risen in a species of phrenzy on the constituted Authorities, erected new powers, chosen for their general the Duke of Infantado, and declared their determination to die for their country. It was not to be expected but that such accounts from the Junta of Madrid, confirmed by the emissary of the British Minister, who had been himself an eyewitness of the popular spirit in Madrid, should make a deep impression on the mind of a British general desirous above all things of fulfilling the wishes of his country, and preserving untarnished the British name. Sir J. Moore accordingly determined on attempt ing a diversion in favour of the capital. For this purpose he ordered Sir David Baird to suspend his retreat, and advance to Benevento. And having General Hope's division within reach, he opened a communication with the Marquis Romana at Leon, and replied to the Spanish Authorities at Madrid with assurances of co-operation. The zeal of Mr. Frêre, however, would not trust entirely to the impressions which his statements, corroborated by those Don T. Morla and Colonel Charmilly might make upon the mind of the general. He resolved to force him into his views, by desiring, that in case Sir J. Moore persisted in his intention to retreat, "Colonel Charmilly might be examined before a council of war." The general, treating this ebullition of diplomatic authority with contempt, after dismissing Charmilly, wrote to Mr. Frêre an exposition. and defence of his conduct, (re. sulting from circumstances already explored) and without further noticing the insult, prepared to give effect to his intentions by dispatching Colonel Graham to Madrid for information. The Central Jun ta, part of which the colonel found at Salamanca, informed him, that on the 3d of December, Castel Franco and Morla had made some sort of agreement with the French, who, on the day before, had got possession of the Buen Reteiro, and Prado of Madrid: that these officers were suspected of treachery in having refused admittance to the troops of St. Juan and Here ida: that the captain-general Castellar, and other military officers of rank, had refused to ratify the agreement, and had left the town: that the inhabitants still kept their arms; and that the French, to the amount of 20 or 30,000, remained in the Reteiro: that Castanos's army of 30,000 men, was at Guadelexera: and that St. Juan's Mr. James Moore, on this subject, makes the following natural, and to those concerned, piercing observation:-"It could never enter into the conception of Sir J. M. that the two chiefs of the Junta had conspired to betray the capital of their own country, to entice the army of their allies into the power of the enemy, nor was it imaginable that the British minister could be so grossly deceived, as to send for his instruction intelligence the reverse of truth, or to require of him in so positive a manner to succour, a city which had actually surrendered." Narrut. P. 146. army, army, amounting to 12,000 men, had murdered their commander, and taken post at the bridge of Almaraz. They stated also, that the whole French army in Spain, did not exceed 70 or 80,000, and denied that any reinforcements were on their way. A part of this army, they said, was employed be fore Saragossa. This representation of affairs (it is observed by Mr. Moore) is a just exemplification of the manner in which the Spanish Junta endeavoured to cover their calamities from the sight of their allies. Not being able absolutely to deny the capitulation, they softened it into a kind of agreement; adding, that the indignant inhabitants had refused to deliver up their arms, and that the French had not ventured to enter the city. They also sunk down the numbers of Buonaparte's army far below the truth, and exaggerated those of their own in the same proportion; completely disguising from the Britith general the relative strength of both. They seem to have placed unbounded confidence in the sole efforts of the British army, and to think the cause of Spain secure, at least not desperate, so long as it remained in the country. But they were afraid lest this army, if the real state of affairs should be known, would abandon them to themselves. It was also a part of their policy to rouze the spirit with the hopes of one province, by false or greatly exaggerated accounts of the enthusiasm and the exertions of another. This hollow, and really puerile policy, was utterly incompatible with the liberty of the press, and for this and other rea sons equally unjustifiable, it was one of their first acts to suppress it. Sir John Moore neither wholly crediting nor wholly disbelieving the statement made by the members of the Junta, whom Colonel Graham had found at Salamanca, while it afforded him but small grounds for cherishing his opinion, as to the final issue of the contest, was not of a nature to induce him wholly to discontinue, or even to relax his efforts. On the one hand, Madrid after so much boasting and bustle, had made little or no resistance; suspicions of treachery were general in the armies, and among the people. These suspicions the armies seemed but too willing to use as a cloak for their own cowardice: repeated defeats had proved the defects of their soldiers; repeated mis-information, the ignorance or the treachery of the Spanish government. Yet, on the other hand, the people of Madrid (as Sir J. M. was taught to suppose) were still in arms; part of the French force was engaged in their reduction; part was occupied before Saragossa. diversion might cover these two places, threaten the enemy's communications, give time to the scattered armies to re-assemble, and to the provinces of the South, to put forth in the common cause their best energies. At any rate a movement towards Valladolid and Baynos would cover Sir David Baird while assembling at Astorga and Benevento; and the British army would be as safe at Zamora as Salamanca. By these considerations Sir John Moore was determined; when an intercepted dispatch from Marshal Ber A thier to the Duke of Dalmatia, prevented him, for the first time since he had been in Spain, with a correct and unvarnished statement of affairs. General Belliard had entered Madrid on the 4th of December. The news of Don Morla and Mr. Frêre had been delivered to the British general on the 5th. It was now the 14th, and Sir John Moore had received no intelligence of the eventual surrender of Madrid; which the Junta, at Talavera, on the 8th, had declared to Colonel Graham to be still in arms, nay, so late as December 13. The Junta wrote from Merida in Estremadura, that the people still held out at Madrid, that the French had been beaten back, and gone to Saragossa, and that all things went on very well in Catalonia. That they should have told this story to their own general after they themselves had been chased by the French army from Talavera, which is 60 miles beyond Madrid, can be credited only by comparing it with the folly of their usual conduct. Sir John Moore's head-quarters were now at Alajos, where he had received a letter from the Marquis of Romana at Leon, with whom he was in communication, approving the reasons of retreat he had before intended. From Alajos it had been projected to move on Valladolid. But the situation of Marshal Soult, with two divisions at Saldannah, and Junot at Burgos, exposed Sir D. Baird, who attacked in forming his junction. Sir John Moore accordingly, in order to unite as soon as possible with Sir David Baird, returned to Toro; from whence it might still be possible, should Marshal Soult afford the opportunity, to strike a blow under cover of the relief expressed in the French dispatches, that the force and movements of the. French upon Talavera and Badajoz, must have forced back the English army upon Lisbon. At Toro, Sir J. Moore received accounts of the disorganized and feeble state of the Marquis of Romana's army, with which he was meditating a junction for adding vigour to his intended attack on Marshal Soult. From Toro too, Sir John Moore dispatched an account to Mr. Frere, of the intelligence he had received by the intercepted dispatches: and here he was again assailed by the harassing entreaties of the Junta, and the insulting representations of the Minister Plenipotentiary. The general, firm in his designs, and above the petty resentments of a weak mind, continued his march on Villapardo and Valderos. On the 20th of December he reached Majorca, and there, by completing his junction with Sir David Baird, united the whole British army, which now amounted to 23,000 infantry and 2000 some hundred cavalry. On the 21st of December Sir John advanced to Sahagun, from which place Lord Paget, at the head of 400 horse, had the morning before dislodged and defeated 700 French cavalry, taking 157 prisoners with two lieutenantcolonels. It was here that Sir John Moore concerted with General Romana the plan of attack on Marshal Soult, whose forces, to the number of 18,000, were concentrated behind the River Carrion; 7000 were posted at Saldannah, dannah, and 5000 at the town of Carrion below Saldannah. The British were collected between Sahagun, Grahal, and Villado. It was the intention of the British general to march from Sahagun upon Carrion, and thence to Saldannah by night, while Romana proceeded to the same point by Mansilla. The marquis prepared, in the best manner the defective state of his troops would permit, to co-operate in the design for which purpose he arrived at Mansilla on the 23d, at three o'clock in the afternoon, and from thence announced his arrival to Sir John, who was to march from Sahagun the same evening. The expectations of the army werewound up to the highest pitch. The dispositions were already made for combat, and the generals had received their instructions, when Sir John Moore received information that considerable re-inforcements had arrived to the French from Palentia. A courier from Los Santos told of the halt of the French at Talavera, and several messengers reported their advance from Madrid. The latter part of this intelligence was confirmed by an express from the Marquis of Romana.-The purport of these movements was easily frustrated by the British commander. He countermanded the advance of his troops, and determined on a retreat. From this time to the end of the campaign, Spanish armies no more appear upon the stage; they had every were vanished from the sight of friends and foes. It could not, nor we presume did it, excite any degree of surprise in any human breast, that such armies, and such a govern ment, as those of Spain, were found altogether unequally opposed to the strength and genius of Buonaparte. If 45, or 50,000 were able, without annoyance, to maintain their positions for several months against the whole strength of the kingdom, the same strength must be utterly insufficient to resist the offensive operations of nearly 200,000. It is not easy to calculate the exact amount of the forces brought by the French emperor, after his return from the conferences at Erfurth, against the Spaniards. According to an intercepted letter from the governor of Bayonne, 78,000 were to enter Spain between the 16th of October and the 16th of November. About the same period, 15,000, chiefly from Italy, entered Catalonia; and 30,000 under Junot entered Spain in the beginning of December. The forces stationed behind the Ebro, together with the force in Barcelona and the other garrisons, amounted to 65,000, making a total of 182,000. This at least. But the French prisoners agreed in making the total of the French army in Spain, at the end of 1808, and beginning of 1809, 200,000. The right wing of this army, it will be recollected by the readers of our annual labours, under the command of Marshal Soult, penetrating by Bilboa, scattered the army of Blake in successive combats from Valma-Seda to Regnosa. The French light troops decided this contest. Marshal Bessieres, descending by the Ebro, defeated and dispersed the army of Castanos, drawn up between Tudela and Tarragona. In neither armies, respectively under the command of the |