ment at seeing the glorious result which his talents had secured rifled from him by the ill-judged determination of his superior, turning to the officers of his staff, said, with an affected gaiety, "Gentlemen, we I have nothing more to do than go and shoot red-legged partridges."

On the next day-namely, August 22nd Sir Hew Dalrymple, arriving in a frigate from Gibraltar, landed at Maceira Bay, and superseded Sir Harry Burrard. Having consulted with Sir Arthur and Sir Harry, he determined to advance, on the 23rd, against the enemy, who was posted at Torres Vedras; but in the course of the 22nd, General Kellermann appeared with a flag of truce at the British outposts, with a proposal from Junot for a suspension of arms, with a view to the evacuation of Portugal by the French army. Among the terms proposed were, that the French army should be transported in English vessels to any of the ports between Rochefort and L'Orient, with its arms and baggage, and private property of every description; and, secondly, that the Russian fleet under Admiral Siniavin, then in the Tagus, should be considered as in a neutral harbour, and should not be pursued, when it left that harbour, without the gracetime or delay fixed by maritime law. The first condition was acceded to by all the English generals; but Sir Arthur Wellesley and Admiral Sir Charles Cotton, refusing to agree to the second one, a separate convention was subsequently concluded with the Russian admiral, by which it was stipulated that the Russian fleet should be conducted to England, and detained as a deposit till the conclusion of a general peace. On the 23rd the British army made a forward movement from Vimeira to Ramalhal, near Torres Vedras, but within the boundary stipulated by the terms of the armistice.

When Sir Hew received Sir Charles Cotton's answer that he declined to sanction the condition relative to the Russian fleet, he sent, on the 25th, the quartermaster-general, Lieutenant-colonel Murray, with a letter to Junot, apprising him of the British admiral's decision; but that if he waived the exception in favour of the Russian fleet, he was willing to conclude the condition on the terms specified in the accompanying memoranda, which had been drawn up by Sir Arthur Wellesley; and in which the British hero, with that frankness and sense of honour which were the peculiar characteristics of all his transactions, em

phatically said "Some mode must be devised to make the French generals disgorge the church plate which they have stolen."

Junot endeavouring to procrastinate the completion of the convention, Colonel Murray was sent to him on the morning of the 27th, with instructions drawn up by Sir Arthur, to break off the negotiations. This decisive measure, in conjunction with the arrival of the army under Sir John Moore in Maceira Bay, brought matters to a crisis; and, on the 29th, a draft of the proposed convention, signed by Kellermann, being brought to the British head-quarters, it was read, article by article, in the presence of Sir Hew Dalrymple, Sir Harry Burrard, Sir John Moore, generals Hope and Fraser, and Sir Arthur Wellesley, and the objections and proposed alterations minuted down by Sir Arthur; but that part of those objections and alterations made by himself, he afterwards complained were not attended to by those who concluded and ratified the treaty. On the same day, at the hour of noon, the term for the suspension of hostilities having expired, the British head-quarters were moved to Torres Vedras, from which Junot had withdrawn. On the 30th, Junot signed the definitive convention; and, on the following day, Sir Hew Dalrymple, having convened generals Moore, Hope, and Fraser, in their presence, and with their approbation, ratified it. Sir Arthur Wellesley was not present at the ratification of the convention, as he was then at Sobral with his division. In a letter addressed to Lord Castlereagh at this time, the future hero of the Peninsula expressed an earnest desire to be allowed to quit the army and return home. A copy of the convention accompanied Sir Hew Dalrymple's despatches to the British secretary of state, dated from Cintra, a village about thirteen miles from Torres Vedras, and twenty-five from Lisbon; and from that circumstance obtained the name of the "Convention of Cintra." In pursuance of the convention, the forts on the Tagus were taken possession of by the British troops on the 2nd of September; and, on the 8th and 9th, a British corps marched into Lisbon, to secure tranquillity and protect the embarkation of the enemy, who, before the end of the month, had entirely quitted the capital. On all the forts the flag of Braganza was hoisted, and a council of regency and a provisional government, in the name and on the behalf of the prince-regent of Portugal, was established. Sir John Hope was appointed governor of Lisbon.

affairs of the mother country, the central junta declared that the colonies in Asia and America should no longer be considered as dependent provinces, but should enjoy all the privileges of the Spanish nation.

While the British general was preparing for his advance into Spain, he received, in his communications with the central junta and the Spanish generals, intelligence that the French, weak in numbers and organisation, were lying behind the Ebro, menaced by superior Spanish armies capable of preventing any advance of the enemy; whereas, the truth was, they were on the left side of that river, and the boasted suc cessful armies of the patriots had been scattered as the dust before the wind. These reverses occurred as follows:

Agreeably to the plan of operations which had been sanctioned by the central junta, Castanos crossed the Ebro. He was suffered by his wily enemy to push forward detachments, and take possession of Lerin, Viana, Capporoso, and other French posts on the left bank of that river, the French offering no other opposition to his onward march than was necessary to conceal their own plan of operations. Marshal Moncey was directed to advance with the left wing of the French army along the banks of the Alagon and Ebro, and instead of opposing the passage of the patriot army, to decoy Castanos across the latter river, by presenting to him a weak front. The stratagem having completely succeeded, Ney with his corps passed the Ebro, and dashing forward with great celerity, seized the Spanish posts at Logrono and Calahorra, and cut off the communication between Blake's army and that under Castanos.

In a series of actions from the 31st of October, Blake's army had been driven from post to post-from Durango to Guenas, from Guenas to Valmaseda, from Valma

* Blake's army had received an important augmentation. About 10,000 men of the 16,000 which Napoleon had cajoled the Prince of Peace to forward to the shores of the Baltic, to aid him in the contest in the north of Europe, had escaped from Jutland, in the British fleet commanded by Admiral Keats. These men, under the command of the Marquis Romana, were forwarded in English transports to the coast of Galicia. As the horses (1,100 in number) of these men could not be embarked, they

Again, at Reynosa, the patriots had been obliged to consult their safety by so precipitate a flight as to abandon their artillery and throw away their arms and colours. Blake took refuge with the remains of his broken army in the Asturias. In the meantime, the Estremaduran army, under Count Belvidere, was, by a stratagem similar to that which had drawn Castanos to the left bank of the Ebro, allowed, without opposition, to advance to Burgos, of which the count took possession, having been abandoned by the enemy. Here the French attacked his army, and almost annihilated it. Belvidere, with the remnant of his broken forces, fled to Lerma and thence to Aranda. Thus two of the greatest armies with which Sir John Moore had been ordered to co-operate, were no more.

The armies of the north of Spain and Estremadura having been thus annihilated, the French directed their attention to the central army under Castanos. A battle ensued at Tudela, on November 23rd, which fixed the fate of the campaign, and laid the road open to Madrid. At break of day, Marshal Lannes attacked the patriot army, consisting of 45,000 men, and by nine o'clock they abandoned the field of battle and all their artillery. Four thousand Spaniards were killed, and 5,000 taken prisoners in the pursuit. On the 29th of November, a division of the enemy, under Victor, advanced on the pass of the Sierra Morena, called Puerto, or the Guadarama gate. It was defended by 13,000 men of the army of reserve, under General San Juan. The Puerto, a narrow neck of land forming the pass, was intersected by a trench, fortified by sixteen pieces of cannon. While a part of the French forces advanced to the Puerto by the road, other columns gained the heights on the left. A discharge of musketry and cannon having been mainand abandoning their artillery and colours. Advanced portions of the French cavalry appeared on the 1st of December before Madrid. In the course of the next day an assault was made on the town, but though the enemy was beaten back several times from some of the gates, they at last succeeded in obtaining possession of the Alcala gate and the Retiro. The junta then hoisted the white flag, and on the 4th surrendered the city.

With his usual celerity, setting out from Rambouillet on October 30th, he arrived at Bayonne on the 3rd of November; and on the 8th, accompanied by 12,000 men, he reached his brother's head-quarters in the city of Vittoria, and immediately took the entire direction of the Spanish campaign. On the 2nd of December he was present with the French forces before Madrid, and

on the 4th received the surrender of that city and the submission of the Spanish nobility. The central junta having taken to

On his appointment to the chief command, Sir John Moore assiduously directed his attention to equipping the troops for immediate motion, and examining the state of the country, whether it would admit of the whole force moving forward in one direction. Obtaining information that the entire army could not find subsistence on the great eastern road to Elvas, no magazines having been formed in that direction for so large a body of troops, and that the road by Almeida was not practicable for artillery, he detached 6,000 men, consisting of five brigades of artillery, and, for their protection, four regiments of infantry and the whole of the cavalry, under Lieutenant-general Hope, to march by Elvas on the Madrid road, to Badajos and Espinosa. On account of the defective state of the magazines, and the poverty of the military chest, the main body of the army could not be put into motion until the 18th of October. On that day, two brigades, under General Paget, moved by Elvas and Alcantara. Two brigades, under General Beresford, marched

• During the conferences at Erfurt, the two emperors indited a joint letter to the King of England, with an offer of peace. As the overture was designed to lull the British government into a neglect or delay in furnishing assistance to the Spanish patriots, it was not accepted.

† It seems necessary to state here, that at the time the patriotic outbreak took place in Spain, Mr

by Coimbra and Almeida; and three brigades, under General Fraser, by Abrantes and Almeida. The last-mentioned five brigades were accompanied by a brigade of light artillery, under Captain Wilmot. For the purpose of facilitating the march, the different regiments of each division followed one another in succession. The several divisions having marched off, Sir John left Lisbon on the 27th of October,† and joined that part of the army under his immediate command. On the 5th of November he reached Atalaia, where he discovered that the roads were practicable for artillery, instead of being impassable, as had been represented by the Portuguese authorities. General Baird, with his division, cast anchor in Corunna harbour on the 13th of October, but the provisional junta refused to allow the troops to land until they received orders to that effect from the central junta, which orders did not reach Corunna till the 27th of the month. Though the weather was very unfavourable, incessant rain falling during the whole march, the troops reached Charles Stuart was the British chargé d'affaires at the court of Madrid; but, for some inexplicable reasons, he had been superseded prior to Sir John Moore's campaign by Mr. Hookham Frere, as minister plenipotentiary, a gentleman better adapted for the bower of literary leisure than the busy scenes of political affairs. Many of the disasters which overtook the army may be traced to this appointment.

rivulet which divides Spain from Portugal, and marched to Ciudad Rodrigo. On the 13th of that month, Sir John and the advanced guard arrived at Salamanca, whither all the troops coming from Portugal and Sir David Baird's division from Corunna, were directed to assemble. Moore had not been more than a few days there before he received an express from General Pignotelli, the governor of the province, apprising him that the French army had advanced to Valladolid on the 13th of November, which is only twenty-seven leagues distance from Salamanca. At the time of receiving this report, by which he ascertained that the enemy was only three marches distant from him, he had only three brigades of infantry, and not a single gun, the rest of the troops being in long line of march to join him, and many of them not having yet passed the frontiers of Portugal-a course of movement rendered unavoidable on account of the scantiness of subsistence on the line of march, and the apathy of the Portuguese government and their officials to provide the necessary supplies. Orders were now forwarded forthwith to generals Baird and Hope, to concentrate their divisions, and advance with all speed to Salamanca.

The state of affairs in Spain was now hourly becoming more and more critical. The Spanish tumultuary armies in the north of Spain had been scattered and almost annihilated; and the victorious French were received throughout all the extent of the conquered country as friends, and lived in free quarters on the wretched inhabitants. At this time General Hope, with his division, reached Madrid, from which city he wrote a letter, dated November 20th, to Sir John Moore, furnishing some hints as to the treacherous conduct which Morla, the ruler of the junta, subsequently adopted; but five days afterwards, the British general received a letter from Mr. Frere, giving a favourable account of the state of Madrid, and its capabilities of resisting the enemy; though Napoleon was rapidly advancing on that city with 80,000 men, and that that fact was known to the central junta. To further the projects of Morla and his fellow-conspirators for the capture and destruction of the British army, by placing it in the power of Napoleon, Sir John Moore received from Mr. Frere a letter, addressed to that gentleman by Martin

or Madrid, to arrange with the junta some points of dispute subsisting between him and the Spanish generals; but sir John penetrating the design, declined to accept the invitation, and leave the troops at Salamanca in the present threatening posture of affairs. Sir John having now determined to retreat upon the frontier of Portugal, transmitted orders to Baird's division in Galicia, and that of Hope's in Leon, to meet him on the Tagus, for the purpose of the concentration of the British army. The idea of retreat being generally disapproved by the army at Salamanca, Sir John assembled the general officers, showed them the intelligence which he had received, and told them that he had not called them together to request their counsel, or to induce them to commit themselves by giving any opinion on the subject - that he took the responsibility entirely on himself; and only requested that they would immediately prepare for carrying it into effect.

While Sir John was putting into execution his measures for retreat from Salamanca, two Spanish generals-namely, Don Bentua Escalenti, the captain-general of the armies of Granada, and Brigadier Don Augustin de Bueno, arrived at his headquarters with a letter from Martin Garay, the secretary of the supreme junta, containing a very flattering account of the state and strength of the Spanish armies, and asserting that General San Juan, with 20,000 veteran troops, was in possession of the pass of Somo-sierra, which he had fortified so strongly, as to render the approach to Madrid impracticable. At the same moment the British general received the most flattering account of the Spanish armies in a letter from Mr. Frere, dated November 30th. In order to prove the falseness of their statements, Sir John Moore, at this interview, introduced to the Spanish generals Colonel Graham, who had just returned from Madrid, and had been informed by San Juan himself of the complete discomfiture of his force, and the possession by the enemy of the Somo-sierra pass. This completely disconcerted the Spaniards, and satisfied them that the design of leading Sir John and his army into a trap, which had been concerted between Morla and Napoleon, was frustrated. No doubt, Mr. Frere had been induced to write his latter fallacious account of the