little property they possessed, and the empty streets and desolated houses sent back a thousand echoes to the clatter of our horses' hoofs. My companions proceeded for miles in sad silence. The night was unusually dark. Our pale fires lent, at intervals, a dubious light, as we groped along. our melancholy route. After some hours, we arrived at a bridge over a deep branch of the Minho, which a party of the staff corps were preparing to demolish. Two miles from thence, we threw ourselves down on some straw for three or four hours, in an old hovel, the beams and floors of which were so rotten, that it rocked like a cradle in the wind.

On the morning of the 9th, amid a storm of wind, sleet, and rain, more severe than I can recollect ever to have experienced, we proceeded to Guitterez. Our poor soldiers, drenched to the skin, and covered with mud, lengthened out their line of march. As the cold drops. beat against me, impelled by the gusts of a south-west wind, I felt as if scalding drops of lead pelted my face. It was with the greatest difficulty I could keep my seat on horseback. Every human being had fled, "the fenceless villages were all forsaken." Our soldiers absolutely lay down and died in the ditches without a struggle. Few women were now to be seen, the greater part had perished, or fallen behind between Villa Franca and Lugo.

At Guittirez I halted for half an hour in the rain, but was so stiff, that, on attempting to remount, I fell down, and could with difficulty get on my legs. Here the troops had some salt beef and rum issued. Not having any fires to cook the beef, much of it was thrown away; but the rum was drunk greedily, and the powers of their stomachs being almost gone, I saw many fall down, after drinking it, in a comatose state. Death, I have no doubt, followed in an hour or two.

On the morning of the 10th I reached Betanzos, completely worn out with fatigue of every kind. The march from Guittirez proved more fatal to our troops than all the former. Hundreds of men and officers came into Betanzos barefooted, their feet swelled and frost-bitten, and the flesh torn and bleeding by the granite and quartz pebbles. The languid stragglers came up constantly during the day. Many of these, five hundred it is said, had been left at the other side of the Minho, when the bridge was blown up. Collecting in a body by the side of the river, they drew up in line, and placing themselves under the command of a serjeant, saluted the advance of the French with a loud cheer and three volleys, when they were forced to surrender.

Ruminating as I went along on the distressing scenes

to which I have been a witness, I fancied the feelings which were likely to arise in the breasts of many of these brave unfortunate men. With a pencil I caught the ideas:

The shadows of night on the mountains fell fast,

The huge chesnuts shook to the hoarse-sounding blast ;-
Mid rocks the swoln torrents were dashing around,
While the glens and dark caverns re-echo'd each sound..
The trooper benighted, still urg'd on his way,,
And deplor'd the deep roads and the short wint'ry day;
Yet still as the sleet fell his dark locks among

He sooth'd his poor charger, and sigh'd while he sung :.

"Ill-fated the day when to succour proud Spain,
The transports of Britain set sail o'er the main;
More luckless the hour when approaching its strand,
The cannon's loud roar gave the signal to land.
Regardless of danger we dash'd through the wave,
And at length touch'd that soil which we panted to save;
But more fleet than the hind were their legions in flight,
And extinct was the flame which we came to excite.

Betray'd by the slaves whom we strove to set free,
Indignant we trace back our steps to the sea;
And sinking beneath every horror of war,
Oft seek the lone taper that glimmers afar :
Pale, shiv'ring, and hungry, we knock at the door,
And some food, or a lodging, perhaps we implore;.
No! dead are their bosoms to pity's soft tie,

And the poor houseless trooper must lie down and die!

Now harsh be your lot, ye false Patriots of Spain,
Long and much may ye suffer beneath the French chain;

May your children; as conscripts from home torn away,.

Starve, and perish like us, to misfortunes a prey ;

Then some pangs of regret your stern bosoms may smite,
And the tears of remorse be your portion by night."

He ceas'd.Far more loud, and more keen blew the blast,
The rain fell in torrents, as onward he past;

Despairing and reckless!-oft through the grim night
The ghosts of his comrades appear'd to his sight.
He rode-but, alas! ere the dawning of morn,
Cold and lifeless the trooper lay under a thorn !

LETTER LII.

ARMY QUITS BETANZOS.-BRIDGE OVER THE RIO MANDEA DESTROYED. FEELINGS EXCITED BY THE VIEW OF THE OCEAN.-BRIDGE OF BURGO SUBURBS OF CORUNNA.DESCRIPTION OF THAT PORT.EXPLOSIONS OF THE POWDER MAGAZINES.—ZEAL AND FRIENDSHIP OF THE INHABITANTS OF CORUNNA.-LOSS OF BAGGAGE AND HORSES. -STATE OF PUBLIC OPINIONS.

Corunna, January, 1809.

I SHALL now give you my journal from the morning of the 11th, when the army finally quitted Betanzos.

That town, distant three leagues from Corunna, stands on a peninsula, formed by the junction of two streams. Over one of these, the Rio Mandea, we crossed by a bridge of twelve or fourteen arches. A mine was in readiness to be sprung whenever the troops should have passed, and we had got about a league on this side, near a village called Inas, when we heard the explosion.

The weather was fine, the road good, and the troops got