The circumstances of Sir John Moore’s retreat, and the return of his army, were matter of triumph to the journalists of this shameless faction. “The dismal news,” they said, “was at last arrived! the truth of the bulletins was established to its utmost latitude! the pledge of throwing the English into the sea was almost to its literal meaning fulfilled! The Spanish Junta and their allies, after six months’ trifling, blundering, and vapouring, were now finally defeated! the spirit of patriotism, both in Spain and Portugal, was extinct! the majority of the Spaniards had all along been indifferent respecting the dynasty by which they were to be governed; yea, many were more attached to the Buonapartes than the Bourbons. The triumphs of France, the defeat and dispersion of the Spanish armies, wherever they were attacked, the retreat and discomfiture of the British forces, ... these were the melancholy events which concluded the fatal campaign of 1808, the fifth year of the war, ... this most unjust and unnecessary war, into which England, in violation of its own treaty with France, had rushed with equal eagerness and frenzy, and which she was now carrying on with the professed object of the preservation of the most corrupt branch of the Romish church!” Such was the language, not of the revolutionary propagandists alone, but of political faction and puritanical bigotry; while the condition in which the troops arrived, and the tale which they related, excited the feelings of the people, ♦RETURN OF THE ARMY FROM CORUÑA.♦ and rendered it easy to mislead them. Never had such a scene of confusion and distress been witnessed at Plymouth as on the arrival of this miserable fleet. Above 900 women were landed, all ignorant whether their husbands were dead or living; they were searching through the transports, and officers and men in like manner looking after their wives, children, and friends. Of the wounded there were some whose wounds had never been dressed: many were brought on shore dead: some died in the streets, on their way to the hospitals. They who had escaped from any farther evil, having lost all their baggage, were, even the officers, covered with filth and vermin. Letters were written from the Medical Transport Board to all the surgical lecturers in London, requesting that their pupils would repair to the ports, and assist during the immediate emergency. The form of having passed the Hall was dispensed with, and nothing more required than a certificate from the lecturer whom they had attended. The people of Plymouth behaved on this occasion with the characteristic activity and beneficence of the English nation. A committee of gentlemen was immediately appointed, who sat night and day, providing food, clothing, and assistance. The ladies of the place attended the sick and wounded, and assisted in dressing the wounds: thus supplying the want of a sufficient number of medical men. Many a woman gave her only second garment to her who had none.