10 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1809. 



wrote immediately to Sir David 

 Baird to retire upon Corunna, and 

 from thence to join him by sea at 

 Lisbon. General Hope, who had 

 advanced to the neighbourhood of 

 Madrid, received orders, accord- 

 ing to circumstances, either to re- 

 join the main body, or retire upon 

 Guadarama. 



Sir John Moore, then, assem- 

 bling his general officers, and com- 

 municating 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 immedi- 

 ately prepare for carrying it into 

 effect. 



This plan of retreating was af- 

 terwards 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 Casta- 

 nos was bringing the greater part 

 of his force from Calatuyd and 

 Siguenza to join him : that the 

 enem)' had only small foraging 

 parties in Castille ; and that Buo- 

 naparte was at Burgos. In addi- 

 tion to these statements, came 

 letters from Mr. Frere (to whose 

 representations the nommander-in- 

 chief had been directed to pay the 



greatest deference) all of them 

 deprecating a retreat upon Portu- 

 gal ; 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. Frere, that he listened 

 with fond credulity to the hack- 

 neyed stories of internal disturb- 

 ances in France. " There is, be- 

 sides (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 com- 

 posed an enormous force." — Un- 

 fortunately, Mr. Frere's means of 

 information did not enable him to 

 discover, that the French had 

 already in Spain an enormous 

 force. — "There arc, besides (Mr. 

 Frere 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 ex- 

 ertions of the Enghsh plenipoten- 

 tiary, nor even to the false state- 

 ments with which Don Morla had 

 abused that minister's understand- 

 ing in despite of his eyes, dis- 

 patched, no doubt at the sugges- 

 tion of the traitor Morla, Don 

 Bentua Escalante, captain-general 

 of the armies of Grenada, and 

 Brigadier-general Don Augus- 

 tin Bueno to Salamanca, under 

 pretence of concerting operations 



between 



In a letter to Sir John Moore, dated Nov. 30, 1809. 



