Frere, notwithstanding the superior Spanish force which his imagination had conjured up, was, with the junta, flying in all haste from those very central provinces: France remaining, meanwhile, strong, and free from internal dissension. This rambling letter was not despatched when the general’s intention to fall back upon Portugal was made known to Mr. Frere; but the latter thought it so admirably calculated to prevent a retreat, that he forwarded it, accompanied by a short explanatory note, which was offensive in style, and indicative of a petulant disposition. [Sidenote: Moore’s Papers.] At this time, don Augustin Bueno and don Ventura Escalente arrived at head-quarters. These two generals were deputed by the junta to remonstrate against sir John Moore’s intended retreat; and they justified the choice of their employers, being in folly and presumptuous ignorance the very types of the government they represented. They began by asserting, that St. Juan, with twenty thousand men under his command, had so fortified the pass of the Somosierra, that it could not be forced by any number of enemies, and then affirming that reinforcements were daily joining him, they were proceeding to create immense Spanish armies, when the general stopped their garrulity by introducing colonel Graham, who had been a witness of the dispersion of Castaños’s army, and had just left the unfortunate St. Juan at Talavera, surrounded by the villanous runagates, who murdered him the next day. It may be easily supposed, that such representations and from such men could have no weight with the commander of an army; in fact, the necessity of retreating was rendered more imperious by these glaring proofs that the junta and the English plenipotentiary were totally ignorant of what was passing around them. But Napoleon was now in full career; he had raised a hurricane of war, and directing its fury as he pleased, his adversaries were obliged to conform their movements to his, and as the circumstances varied from hour to hour, the determination of one moment was rendered useless in the next. The appearance of the French cavalry in the plains of Madrid sent the junta and Mr. Frere headlong to Badajos; but the people of Madrid, as we have seen, shut their gates, and displayed the outward signs of a resolution to imitate Zaragoza. The neighbouring peasants flocked in to aid the citizens, and a military junta (composed of the duke of Infantado, the prince of Castel Franco, the marquis of Castellar, and don Thomas Morla) was appointed to manage the defence. Morla now resolved to make a final effort to involve the British army in the destruction of his own country, and as the duke of Infantado was easily persuaded to quit Madrid on a mission to the army of the centre, the traitor was left sole master of the town, because the duke and himself only had any influence with that armed mob, which had murdered the marquis of Perales, and filled the city with tumult.