trusting that all will follow my example.” Wherever in Spain a Governor was found willing to set such an example, the resolution to follow it was not wanting. Coruña is a regular fortress, and might long have held out against any means which Marshal Soult could have brought against it. But when an English army with the sea open to them for succours did not think of maintaining it, it is not surprising that the inhabitants should have despaired of making a successful resistance. Their Governor was prepared to play the traitor; he had still however honour enough left not to propose a capitulation till the last transport was beyond the enemy’s power. Terms were then easily agreed on, the one party asking ♦JAN. 19.♦ only what the other would have imposed. Alcedo stipulated for a general amnesty; that all persons in office should retain their appointments on taking an oath to the Intruder; and that the military who took that oath might either continue in the service or receive their dismissal at their own option, such as refused the oath becoming prisoners of war. He himself set the example of swearing allegiance to Joseph Buonaparte; and soon in his own person properly experienced with what fidelity the French kept their engagements, for they presently dismissed him from his government and sent him into France. ♦SITUATION AND STRENGTH OF FERROL.♦ Coruña and Ferrol are situated on the opposite sides of a spacious bay which receives in four deep inlets the rivers Mero, Mandeu, Eume and Juvia. Ferrol is placed in the deepest and most capacious of these inlets, and nothing which skill and expense could effect had been spared during the last half century for improving the natural advantages of the harbour, and rendering it impregnable. It had thus been rendered one of the strongest naval establishments in the world, being also one of the most commodious. To force the passage is impossible, ships having for the distance of a league to file one by one along a shore defended by forts. Equal care had been taken to protect it on the land side. There were at this time eight ships of the line in the harbour, of which three were of the largest size, ... three frigates, and a considerable number of smaller vessels. From Betanzos to Ferrol was but a march of fourteen miles farther than from Betanzos to Coruña; and it was a topic of exultation for the French, that the English in the precipitance of their flight had not marched upon Ferrol instead of Coruña, where they might have occupied a fortress strong enough to be called impregnable, and have secured the squadron. It was still fresh in remembrance that when Sir James Pulteney had landed on the coast there with a part of that army by which the French were afterwards expelled from Egypt, he deemed it more prudent to re-embark his troops without attempting any thing, than to hazard an attack against so formidable a place. It is indeed almost impossible to lay