The retreat of the French was conducted in what was now their usual manner. They are described by Romana as leaving every where marks of their atrocities, whole villages consumed by fire, victims of both sexes and all ages butchered, and committing enormities too dreadful to be recounted. The system had in reality been so wicked, that even some of the French themselves revolted at the course of crimes into which they had been led; and Marshal Soult, in a dispatch to the intrusive government, complained of what he called a moral debility in some of his generals. “In the kind of war which we carry on,” he said, “and with the sort of enemy whom we have to contend with, it is of great importance to the success of our operations that the chiefs who are at the head of the troops should be not only impassible, but that they possess a force of mind which places them in all circumstances above events even the most vexatious.” It was evident from this that there were officers who were shocked at the atrocities which they were called upon to order, and to witness, and to execute. The moral debility which was complained of meant a lingering of humanity, a return of honourable feeling, an emotion of conscience, a sense of the opprobrium that they were bringing upon their country, and of the guilt and infamy they were heaping upon themselves. For such a service officers were wanted who should be _impassible_, ... not merely unmoved at any effects, however horrible, of the system in which they were engaged, but incapable of any feeling whereby they could possibly be moved. ♦HE RECOMMENDS A PLAN FOR SECURING GALICIA.♦