The situation to which this general succeeded was deplorable. The artillery had indeed been saved, and the pass of Buvierca most gallantly maintained; nevertheless the army had suffered during its retreat from all the accumulated evils of disorder, insubordination, nakedness, and cold, and hunger, and fatigue. Sometimes when the rear-guard had been on the point of taking food, the enemy came in sight, and the ready meal was abandoned to the pursuers; this, though it was the effect as much of panic in the soldiers as of any want of conduct in their commanders, gave new cause for dissatisfaction and distrust. The men themselves were ready to fly at sight of the French, because they suspected their leaders, yet they accused their leaders of treachery for not always turning and making head against the enemy, ... not reflecting, that the officers in like manner, though from a different motive, could place no confidence in their men. Many dropped on the way, overmarched, or foundered for want of shoes; others turned aside because they considered the army as entirely broken up: they were ready to die for their country, but it was folly, they thought, to squander their lives, and, under the present circumstances, their duty was to preserve themselves, and recover strength for future service. The loss at Buvierca, too, had been considerable. Before they reached Siguenza the four divisions had thus been wasted down to 8000 men. ♦THEY ARRIVE AT GUADALAXARA.♦ It was on the evening of the last day of November that they reached this point. Here message after message arrived, requiring them to hasten with all possible speed to Somosierra. They set forward again the following day, the infantry by Atienza and Jadraque, the horse and artillery by Guadalaxara, in order to avoid the bad roads, leaving the river Henares on their right. This plan was soon changed; advices reached them in the middle of the night at Jadraque, that the pass of Somosierra had been lost. It was now determined that the whole army should march for Guadalaxara, for the defence of Madrid; information of this movement was dispatched to the Marques de Castelar, in that city; and persons were sent, some to ascertain the position of the enemy, others to learn whither San Juan had retreated, in order that some operations might be concerted with him. ♦DEC. 2.♦ The next day, when the foremost troops entered Guadalaxara, they found some detached parties of the enemy in the town, whom they drove out: the first and fourth divisions, the horse and the artillery, arrived there that night; here the news was, that Madrid was attacked, and the continual firing which was heard confirmed it. Poor as the numbers were which they could carry to the capital, they were eager to be there; and if Madrid had been protected, as it might have been, by a British army, or defended as the inhabitants, had it not been for treachery, would have defended it, 8000 men, who stood by their colours under so many