HISTORY OF EUROPE. 



19 



been provided with subsistence 

 had it remained united. 



General Crauford proceeded un- 

 disturbed to Vigo, while the other 

 columns pursued their march 

 through deep snows across the 

 dreary plains of Leon to Astorga : 

 where the British general found 

 the town filled, and the road en- 

 cumbered with the straggling ar- 

 my of Romana, who, having aban- 

 doned the position and bridge of 

 Mansilla without breaking it down, 

 according to his instructions, was 

 gone to Orense. — The Duke of 

 Dalmatia having crossed the Eslar 

 at Mansilla, quietly entered Leon. 

 His intention most probably was, 

 to occupy Astorga before the ar- 

 rival of the British. In this, how- 

 ever, if this was his intention, 

 he was disappointed, by the skill 

 and promptitude of Sir John 

 Moore. 



The British commander uniting 

 his army with the division of Sir 

 David Baird from Vulentia, pro- 

 ceeded on the 30lh of December, 

 on Villa Franca and Lugo. At 

 Astorga all the superfluous camp 

 equipage was destroyed, and all 

 the sumpter mules, horses, &c. 

 that could not keep up with the 

 columns, abandoned. On the 

 inarch from hence the military 

 chest was sacrificed. Barrels full 

 of dollars were staved and preci- 

 pitated over rocks, into ravines, 

 dens, and rivers. From Astorga 

 to Lugo the road lay for the most 

 part through bleak mountains co- 

 vered with snow, affording so scan- 

 ty a supply of provisions that the 



troops were sometimes 2 days with- 

 out tasting any food. During this 

 march the extremes of vice and mi- 

 sery seemed to meet. In some of the 

 villages the unburied dead bodies 

 of the inhabitants lay outstretched 

 before the doors of their own 

 houst-S, from which they had been 

 driven by the unrelenting soldier 

 urged by his own necessities, to pe- 

 rish with cold and hunger. In others 

 no traces of inhabitants were to be 

 found. Stragglers from different 

 corps plundered the dillerent ma- 

 gazines, commissariat stores, and 

 cellars, and afterwards lay intoxi- 

 cated by the way-side mixed with 

 the sick and those overcome with 

 fatigue, to be trampled under feet 

 or mangled by the sabres of the 

 enemy's cavalry.* Besides the 

 terrible example above noticed in 

 a letter from Sir John Moore to 

 the IMarquis of Romana, of a sol- 

 dier shot at Villa Franca, other 

 warnings were held up by the ge- 

 neral, not less impressive. Se- 

 veral stragglers who had been 

 hacked and hewed by the French 

 troopers, were led through their 

 respective corps as examples of 

 the consequences of drunkenness 

 and disobedience to orders. 



Buonaparte having been joined 

 by the Duke of Dalmatia at As- 

 torga, after reviev.'ing his troops 

 to the amount of 70,000 men, had 

 dispatched these divisions, under 

 three marshals, in pursuit of the 

 English army. Continual skir- 

 mishing took place between the 

 French advanced and the British 

 rear guard, commanded by Sir 



John 



" The child of a woman, who had died of hunger and fatigue, was found cling- 

 ing and trying to draw sustenance from the cold breasts of his lifeless mother —A 

 soldier of a Iligliland regiment look the infant, carried him cdong with him, and 

 now protects and calls lam his child. 



c 2 



