698 



BRITAIN. 



Britain. 



1808. 



>ir David 

 Baird ar- 

 rives at 

 Corunnn. 



Mr Frere 

 urges Sir 

 John 

 Moore to 

 advance to 

 Madrid. 



advanced to Valladolid, within twenty leagues of him. 

 Thus, instead of finding, as he had been taught to 

 expect, his entry into Spain covered by 60,000 Spa- 

 niards, he found the enemy within three marches of 

 him, and not a Spanish picquet in his front. He 

 saw, also, that the advance of the French had produ- 

 ced no sensation in the country. The people were 

 all tranquil, and employed about their ordinary oc- 

 cupations, knowing and caring little about public 

 matters. Four days after his coming to Salaman- 

 ca, the British general received the news of Blake's 

 total defeat, in a letter from Mr Stuart, our re- 

 sident at Madrid, who described the imbecility of 

 the Spanish junta, and justly inferred from it, that 

 there was room for the most desponding views. 

 The accounts of the other armies already stated, 

 prepared him to hear of the most disastrous events. 

 In the mean time, Sir David Baird had arrived at 

 Curuima (October 13.) In his march from that 

 pUice, an alarm, communicated to him by Blake, that 

 the French \v-ie penetrating by Rio Seco, made 

 him prepare to retreat back to Coruima ; but the 

 alarm was discovered by Sir John Moore to be false, 

 and he received orders to continue his advance. Eve- 

 ry day, however, brought intelligence of new disas- 

 ters, and more clearly disclosed the dangers of the 

 British army in front. Yet was it, at this timj, that 

 General Moore received from Mr Frere, our ambas- 

 sador at Madrid, the most pressing solicitations to 

 advance, and push forward to the Spanish capital 

 under any circumstances. This was also the opinion 

 of the traitor Morla, who recommended that he should 

 hasten with a part of his army, if he could not bring 

 forward the whole of it. But the intelligence of Cas- 

 tanos' defeat, and the utter dispersion of all Spanish 

 force in the north, made it doubtful whether he 

 might be able to effect a junction with either Sir Da- 

 vid Baird, or with General Hope, who commanded 

 that division of his army which had come from Por- 

 tugal by a different route, and which had not yet 

 joined him. Even the united army was totally in- 

 adequate to meet the French. The general there- 

 fore determined to retreat deliberately to Portugal ; 

 to order Sir David Baird back to Conimia ; and to 

 join General Hope. 



. A large reinforcement of more than 30,000 French 

 were, to Sir John Moore's certain knowledge, on 

 their march through Biscay, which, independent of 

 other sources of reinforcement, could be instantly 

 augmented from the victorious army which had rout- 

 ed Castanos at Tudela. The whole force destined 

 to act under General Moore, did not exceed 28,000, 

 now divided into three bodies, whose rejunction was 

 endangered by the advance of the main body, and 

 whose continued strength, even after a junction, was 

 utterly unfit to turn the scale against at least an hun- 

 dred and fifty thousand disciplined French, driving 

 the remnants of Spanish armies before them. Mr 

 Frere, however, had arrived at Madrid with fresh in- 

 structions from the British cabinet. Ke was not 

 empowered; it is true, to dictate orders to Sir John 

 Moore ; but the general was directed by the British 

 minister to receive requisitions or representations 

 from Mr Frere, or from the Spanish government, 

 upon all occasions, with the utmost deference and 

 ;; fpect : if a Spanish commander in chief was ap- 



pointed, Sir John Moore was to obey h:m implicitly. 

 Already Sir John Moore had discovered what was 

 to be expected from Spanish co-operation. He 

 knew thnt tlirre was no Spanish army to support 

 him, only Romana, who was assembling the fugi- 

 tives of Blake's army in Leon. He had distinctly 

 stated, nearly a month before, that four times his 

 force would !)> numbered and beaten, unless the mass 

 of the Spanish people could resist the enemy them- 

 selves. He saw that there was no energy in their 

 government ; and whatever accounts had reached 

 England of the general enthusiasm of the nation, he 

 saw no appearance of it in the provinces which were 

 now to be the scene of action. 



Mr Frere, however, had brought from England 

 those exaggerated ideas of Spanish armies and Spa- 

 nish success, which the false statements of the juntas 

 had first inspired. He described the delays and dif- 

 ficulties likely to attend the reinforcements of the 

 French ; he informed Sir John Moore of a Spanish 

 army 20,000 strong in New Castile, on which Cao- 

 tanos was falling back ; he exhorted him to ad- 

 vance to Madrid ; and added, this step, he was con- 

 vinced, would be approved of by the British govern- 

 ment ; whilst he ventured even to menace the gene- 

 ral with the indignation of his country and govern- 

 ment, if he refused to adopt his frantic scheme of 

 de-coling the British army to the defence of Ma 

 drid. A second communication reached the general, 

 together witli two Spanish generals, whom the junta 

 had sent to exhort him to inarch to Madrid. They 

 declared, tlr.it the Spanish general St Juan had forti- 

 fied the passes to Madrid against the French, with 

 20,000 men. General Graham, however, arrived 

 with intelligence that St Juan's corps had been ut- 

 terly routed. General Moore still persevered in his 

 resolution to retreat, until the 5th of December, 

 when the strong representations of the junta ; the 

 resolution which he was told the people of Madrid 

 had adopted of defending the capital to the last ; 

 the reported weakness of the French ; and the duty 

 which he conceived his country exacted from him, of 

 rather hazarding considerable danger, than saving his 

 army by retreat, induced him to. change his resolu- 

 tion. In the mean time Madrid surrendered, but it 

 did not shake the purpose of the British commander 

 to attempt a diversion which might favour the rally- 

 ing of the discom'Hed Spanish armies. Having been 

 joined by General Hope, he continued to take mea- 

 sures from the 5th to the 14th of December, for 

 collecting his whole force at Valladolid for the pur- 

 pose of effecting a diversion in favour of the south- 

 ern patriots. He would thus have General Baird in 

 his rear. But his troops had only proceeded a single 

 march, when it was known that Bonaparte was ad- 

 vancing towards Lisbon, on the natural supposition 

 that the British would retreat from Salamanca, and 

 that Soult was at Saldanna with a corps of 18,000 

 men. The general instantly perceived an opening, of 

 which advantage might be taken. With a view to 

 attack Soult before he should be reinforced, he mov- 

 ed, not to Valladolid, but to the left, and joining- 

 General Baird, advanced rapidly to the Carrion. An 

 affair between the advanced posts of the two armies, 

 gave marks of the superior valour of the British ca- 

 valry, but the attack of the main Kody was suspend- 



lirituia. 



1808. 



Mr Frere 

 continues 

 to urge 

 Sir John 

 Moore \ 

 advance. 



Sir John 

 Moore ac 

 vanccs to- 

 wards Ma 

 drid. 



