Heridia, that they might kill him also; but he was fortunate enough to elude their search. As soon as their fury was allayed, the instigators of these excesses secured themselves by flight; and the troops, who had been misled by them, perceived the consequences of their lawless conduct. If Sanjuan had indeed been a traitor, they felt that they ought to have delivered him up to the proper tribunal; by taking vengeance into their own hands, they had made themselves obnoxious to the laws. Whom too could they trust? whom were they to obey? instead, therefore, of forming a new army, as they had designed, at Talavera, they dispersed again, not having now any rallying place appointed, but each man going whither he thought best. Some took the road to Andalusia, some to Avila; the Estremadurans, who were the most numerous, went to their own homes: no punishment was ever inflicted on the assassins of Sanjuan.

The dispersion of the soldiers called forth a severe edict; pronouncing sentence of death against any officer who absented himself from his colours without permission, and confiscation of his property for the relief of the widows and orphans of soldiers in his parish. Soldiers were made liable to the same penalty; any person, who harboured a deserter, was to be punished by confiscation of his property; and the same penalty was denounced against all magistrates who suffered deserters to remain within their jurisdiction. But all who, within fifteen days, presented themselves to the nearest authority in order to rejoin the army, were exempted from the pains in this decree. Four days after the murder of Sanjuan and the dispersion of his army, two divisions of French cavalry, under Milhaud and Lasalle, entered Talavera; they found the body of the Spanish General still on the gibbet, and this murder furnished Buonaparte with a new subject of invective against the Spaniards. This was but a small part of the force which was destined to proceed in this direction. As soon as Morla had performed the whole of his iniquitous bargain with the Tyrant, Lefebvre was ordered to advance with his division from Valladolid towards Lisbon. First he advanced to Segovia, which he entered unresisted. In one place only, between Valladolid and the capital, did this part of the French army experience any opposition. The pass of Guadarama was open to them; General Hope had been stationed there, but was recalled by Sir John Moore, and there were no native troops to supply his place. But when the enemy descended upon the Escurial, and proceeded to take possession of that

palace, (the magnificent monument of a victory, which Spain had achieved over France in open, honorable war, and in a fair field,) they found the peasantry assembled to defend the seat and sepulchres of their kings. Undisciplined as they were, ill armed, and with none to direct their efforts, they stood their ground till they were overpowered by practised troops, superior in numbers as well as in arms; and the French, after the slaughter of these brave peasants before the gates, took up their quarters in the palace of the Philips.

Buona

Lefebvre entered Madrid on the 8th of December. parte reviewed his division in the Prado, and dispatched it to Toledo, while Sebastiani, with another division, marched for Talavera. In that. city, by the 19th, about 25,000 French were assembled. The wiser inhabitants fled before their arrival, preferring all the miseries of emigration to the insults and atrocities which these barbarians perpetrated wherever they went; for the exaction of heavy contributions, which reduced half the people to beggary, was the least evil which those towns endured which fell under the yoke of the French. The Spanish government exclaimed loudly against the enormities committed; their appeal could be of no avail against a tyrant, who, in the very origin of the war, had shown himself dead to all sense of justice, humanity, and even of honour, which sometimes supplies their place, or against generals and officers, who could serve him in such a cause. Such men could be taught humanity only by the severest retaliation, and unhappily this was not yet in the Spaniards' power. The language, which the government addressed to their own subjects, might be more effectual. It had been happy for Spain if the government had acted as wisely and energetically as it wrote; but it should be remembered, in justice to the Spaniards, that the dispersion of the troops was, in many instances, an act of self-preservation, so utterly were they left without supplies of food or clothing, by the inexperience or inattention of every military department.

Never did men suffer more patiently, never did men fight more bravely, than Blake's army. There was no want of courage at Tudela; and of the remains of the army, which fought there, a large proportion was, at this very time, defending Zaragoza, with a heroism unexampled in modern times, upon any other soil. Wherever, indeed, a new army was to be collected, soldiers were not wanted. After Sanjuan's death, Don Josef Galluzo was ap

pointed to the command; he took his post at the bridge of Almarez to defend the left bank of the Tagus, and in a few days had collected about 8000 soldiers, many of them without arms, most of them barefooted, and now unhappily accustomed to flight and desertion. Nevertheless they assembled, for every man felt individually brave; and it was only the discipline, which, by preventing them from feeling confidence collectively, made panic contagious in the mo ment of danger. The province of Estremadura immediately provided money for those troops; this province, though the least populous in the Peninsula, had particularly distinguished itself by its exertions; it had raised and equipped, wholly at its own expence, 24,000 men, and had supplied ammunition and arms of every kind from Badajoz to the other provinces. There are four bridges between Talavera and the confluence of the Tietar with the Tagus; the Puente del Arzobispo on the Archbishops, the Puente del Conde on the Counts, the bridge of Almarez, and the Puente del Cardinal on the Cardinals. With his present feeble and inefficient force, Galluzo had no other means of protecting Estremadura, than by breaking down, or defending these bridges; if he could effect this, the province would be secure from an attack on the side of Talavera; Almarez was the most important of these points; here he planted ten pieces of cannon and two mortars, and stationed 5000 men. The more surely to prevent the enemy from winning the passage, he ruined the bridge; but so firmly had this noble pile been built, that when the mine was fired, the explosion only served to injure it, without rendering it impassable. Don Francisco Trias was sent with 850 men to the Puente del Arzobispo; on his way he met the engineer, who had previously been dispatched to break it down, but who had been prevented from attempting it by the enemy; so that this bridge was already in their power. Trias, therefore, took his position with a view of curbing the incursions of the French on this side, and ordered Don Antonio Puig, with such assistants as he could procure from the magistrates of Talavera la Vieja, to destroy the Puente del Conde; and provide for the defence of that point, and of three fords upon the same part of the river. When this officer arrived, he had neither a single soldier under his command, nor arms for his peasantry; this latter want was soon supplied; the peasantry were zealous, and some of the stragglers joined him. The bridge of the Cardinal was assigned to the keeping of a battalion of Walloon Guards, and a squadron of the volunteers of Estremadura, under Brigadier Don Francisca Duras

miel. Galluzo also stationed his reserve at Jaraicejo, under Brigadier Don Josef Vlasquez Somosa, and sent another Field Officer to Truxillo to collect and organize all the stragglers who might either voluntarily join him, or be detained by the patroles. While the General made these dispositions for the defence of the province, the Junta of Badajoz made the greatest exertions to supply the wants of this army, and its efforts were well seconded by the Estramadura people. Half a million of reales was raised in loans and free gifts within a week; all the cloth of Torremocha and of other clothing towns was applied to the use of the army; no other work was carried on in the monastery of Guadaloupe than that of making earthen vessels for their cooking, and Commissaries were sent to the sixteen villages nearest Almarez to see that rations of bread for 5000 men were daily delivered there. These measures were so effectual, that the troops were soon comfortably clothed, and after the first day they had no want of any thing. It was, however, scarcely to be hoped that so small and ill-compacted a force could maintain its ground in a country, which offered them no advantages for defence against such an army as the French had assembled in Talavera. After some skirmishes with the advanced-guard at Almarez, and some slight attacks upon the Puente del Conde, which were designed chiefly to keep the Spaniards on the alarm, and divert their attention from the side where the real attack was intended, Sebastiani crossed the Puente del Arzobispo on the 24th of December, and attacked Trias in front on his right flank with very superior numbers. The patriots did not yield to this superiority till after a vigorous resistance; being overpowered, they retreated, taking the road by the Sierra to Castenar de Ibor. On the same day, about two hours after noon, the Puenta del Conte was attacked, and the fords. The bridge was bravely defended by Don Pablo Murillo, who now made those talents known by which he afterwards signalized himself so conspicuously in Galicia. Puig guarded the fords, and they repelled the enemy every where till night, when, being informed of the defeat of Frias, and that Sebastiani had proceeded by Peralena de Garbin and Bohonar towards Almarez, Puig perceived that he must inevitably be taken in the rear, if he continued in his present position; he retreated to Pera. lena de Garbin, behind the French, and from thence to Castanar de lbor.

The news of these disasters reached Galluzo, about ten at night. Immediately he apprehended that the object of the enemy, who