Sir David Baird had formed a like opinion. The expedition under his command reached Coruña on the 13th of October; and such were the idle forms and the negligence of the Spanish authorities, that the troops were kept on ship-board till an order for their landing could be received from the Central Junta. This General had been accustomed to an Indian army, with its train of slaves and sutlers, elephants and palanquins; he had now to march through a country where it is not without difficulty that a party of travellers can obtain food, and which had already been drained by its own troops; and his commissaries were not only inexperienced in the business of their department, but ignorant of the language of the people. Dividing his army into small detachments, which followed each other at considerable distance, he arrived at Astorga, Nov. 19th, and there learning the defeat of Blake’s army, and anticipating that of Castaños’s, he consulted with his general officers, and informed Sir John Moore of their unanimous opinion, that he ought not to advance till his whole force was assembled there, which would not be before the 4th of December. Sir John Moore’s opinion of the hopelessness of affairs was thus confirmed by Sir David Baird. “I see my situation,” he said in his journal, “as clearly as any one, that nothing can be worse; yet I am determined to form the junction of the army, and to try our fortune. We have no business here as things are; but, being here, it would never do to abandon the Spaniards without a struggle.” ♦SIR JOHN MOORE RESOLVES TO RETREAT UPON PORTUGAL, AND EMBARK FROM LISBON.♦