Such consequences, however, humiliating as they were, were inevitable in a retreat so conducted. But Sir John Moore’s dispatch contained a more startling avowal, for it was then first made known that he had been advised to propose terms to the enemy, that he might be permitted to embark quietly. It was indeed an unexpected shock to learn that there were officers, and of such rank as to offer advice to the General, who were for asking leave of the French to embark, and purchasing by such dishonour that safety which the army, broken-hearted as it was, without horse, and almost without artillery, won gloriously for itself. From this incalculable evil, this inexpiable disgrace, Sir John Moore had saved us. But who were the men who had so little confidence in British valour, that they would not have fought the battle of Coruña? Who were they who, instead of relying upon their own hearts and hands, would have proposed terms to Marshal Soult, and set the Spaniards an example to which every traitor or every coward among them might have appealed as a precedent for any baseness? This question was not asked in Parliament; nor was any pledge required from Government, or given, that these men should never on any future occasion be trusted with command. Not a single remark was made in either House by either party upon this subject, nor upon any of the information contained in a dispatch which had been loudly called for as of such great importance. It furnished no matter of reproach against the ministry, and therefore it was not the kind of information which their opponents wanted. And ministers themselves could make no use of it in their own justification, for, having it in their hands, they had passed a vote of thanks to the officers and men of whose previous misconduct they possessed these proofs; and instead of defending their own measures by arguing that the campaign might probably have turned out well, and beyond all doubt less disastrously, if the Commander had acted with more vigour and more discretion, they had asserted that every thing had been ably executed, as well as wisely planned. ♦MR. FRERE’S CORRESPONDENCE WITH SIR JOHN MOORE.♦