The officers who were not deceived had no confidence either in their own troops or in the government, nor were they themselves confided in or respected by their men. The latter were starved, were misused, ill-handled, and they possessed neither the compact strength of discipline nor the daring of enthusiasm. Under such a system, it was impossible that the peasantry could be rendered energetic soldiers; and they certainly were not active supporters of their country’s cause; but, with a wonderful constancy, they suffered for it, enduring fatigue and sickness, nakedness and famine, with patience, and displaying, in all their actions and in all their sentiments, a distinct and powerful national character. This constancy and the iniquity of the usurpation hallowed their efforts in despite of their ferocity, and merits respect, though the vices and folly of the juntas and the leading men rendered the effect of those efforts nugatory. Palacios, on the receipt of the orders above mentioned, advanced, with five thousand men, to Vilharta, in La Mancha, and the duke of Infantado, anticipating the instructions of the junta, was already in motion from Cuença. His army, reinforced by the divisions of Cartoajal and Lilli and by fresh levies, was about twenty thousand men, of which two thousand were cavalry. To check the incursions of the French horsemen, he had, a few days after the departure of Napoleon from Madrid, detached general Senra and general Venegas with eight thousand infantry and all the horse to scour the country round Tarancon and Aranjuez; the former halted at Horcajada, and the latter endeavoured to cut off a French detachment, but was himself surprised and beaten by a very inferior force. Marshal Victor, however, withdrew his advanced posts, and, concentrating Ruffin’s and Villatte’s divisions of infantry and Latour Maubourg’s cavalry, at Villa de Alorna, in the vicinity of Toledo, left Venegas in possession of Tarancon. But, among the Spanish generals, mutual recriminations succeeded this failure: the duke of Infantado possessed neither authority nor talents to repress their disputes, and in this untoward state of affairs receiving the orders of the junta, he immediately projected a movement on Toledo, intending to seize that place and Aranjuez, to break down the bridges, and to maintain the line of the Tagus. Quitting Cuença on the 10th, he reached Horcajada on the 12th, with ten thousand men, the remainder of the army, commanded by Venegas, being near Tarancon. The 13th, the duke having moved to Carascosa, a town somewhat in advance of Horcajada, met a crowd of fugitives, and heard, with equal surprise and consternation, that the corps under Venegas was already destroyed, and the pursuers close at hand. ROUT OF UCLES.