HISTORY OF EUROPE, 



On the 13th of November, Sir 

 John Moore entered Salamanca; 

 where he had leisure and opportu- 

 nity to appreciate justly the state 

 of affairs. The evidence of strik- 

 ing and notorious facts was fast 

 supplying the want of official in- 

 formation. 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 weak- 

 ness, some fatal deficiency, in 

 which the intelligent mind might 

 read the bane of British valour, 

 and Spanish freedom. Accord- 

 ingly, Sir John Moore was soon 

 able to state to Lord W. Bentinck, 

 " That things were not in that 

 flourishing state they were repre- 

 sented and believed to be in, in 

 England.'' And his letters, from 

 this time, are marked with a me- 

 lancholy spirit of prophecy, which 

 too clearly foresaw the downfal of 

 the cause he was sent to main- 

 tain. 



Letters from Sir David Baird 

 reiterated complaints of the Junta 

 of Corunna; whose cold, suspi- 

 cious conduct, tardy assistance, 

 and exorbitant extortions, exhi- 

 bited rather the narrow spirit of 

 petty dealers, eager to make their 

 market, and afraid of being over- 

 reached in their bargains, than 

 the generous enthusiasm of grati- 

 tude 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 go- 

 vernment to call them forth into 

 action. 



• VoL L. Hist. Eur. p. 232. 



Of the armies destined to cover 

 the junction of the British forces, 

 that of the centre, or Estrema- 

 dura, under the young Count 

 Belvidere, having rashly approach- 

 ed the French position at Burgos, 

 had been routed and dispersed, 

 as has been related in our last vo- 

 lume.* 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 one- 

 third of what had been given out- 

 It was no other than " a complete 

 mass of miserable peasantry, with- 

 out 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 wasbrood- 

 ingover these disappointments, an 

 express from Pignotelli, captain- 

 general of the province, informed 

 him of the advance of the French 

 to Valladolid within twenty leagues 

 ef Salamanca. This was a mo- 

 ment of difficulty, and the most 

 melancholy apprehensions. The 

 British general had with him only 

 three brigades of infantry, with- 

 out a single gun. His reinforce- 

 ments could not arrive in less than 

 ten days. The Spanish armies 

 seemed to have shrunk to the op- 

 posite 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 



