perseverance, and in despite of whose errors, let posterity judge; for in that judgment only will impartiality and justice be found. CHAPTER III. The 20th of December, Napoleon became aware that sir John Moore (having relinquished his communication with Lisbon, and adopted a new one upon Coruña) was menacing the French line of operations on the side of Burgos. This intelligence obliged him to suspend all his designs against the south of Spain and Portugal, and to fix his whole attention upon THE OPERATIONS OF THE BRITISH ARMY. The reasons which induced the English general to divide his army, and to send general Hope with one column by the Tagus, while the other marched under his own personal command, by Almeida and Ciudad Rodrigo, have been already related; as likewise the arrangements which brought sir David Baird to Coruña, without having permission to land his troops, and without money to equip them, when they were at last suffered to disembark. The 8th of November, sir John Moore being at Almeida, on the frontier of Portugal, his artillery was at Truxillo, in Spanish Estremadura, and sir David Baird’s division was at Coruña. General Blake, pursued by fifty thousand enemies, was that day flying from Nava to Espinosa, and Castaños and Palafox were quarrelling at Tudela. The conde de Belvedere was at Burgos, with thirteen thousand bad troops. Napoleon was at Vittoria with a hundred and seventy thousand good troops. At this time the letters of lord William Bentinck and colonel Graham, exposing all the imprudence of the Spanish generals, being received, created uneasiness in the mind of sir John Moore; he already foresaw that his junction with the other divisions of his army might be impeded by the result of an action, which the Spaniards appeared to be courting, contrary to all sound policy; but as no misfortune had yet befallen them, he continued his march, hoping, “that all the bad which might happen, would not happen.” [Sidenote: Sir John Moore’s Journal, MSS.] The 11th he crossed the frontier of Spain, and marched to Ciudad Rodrigo; on that day Blake was completely discomfited at Espinosa, and the Estremaduran army beaten the day before at Gamonal, was utterly ruined and dispersed. The 13th, the head of the British columns entered Salamanca, at the moment when Blake’s fugitive force was finally disorganized at Reynosa, leaving the first, second, and fourth French corps, amounting to near seventy thousand men, free to act against any quarter. [Sidenote: Appendix, No. 14.]