In the first conference held at Coruña, after sir Howard Douglas’s arrival, the junta, as the usual preliminary, demanded more money from England; but he advised, instead, a better management of their own resources, and pointed out the military measures requisite to render the army efficient. He recommended the adoption of the line of retreat upon Orense, rather than upon Lugo and Coruña; and he endeavoured to establish a permanent depôt in the island of Arosa, on the Vigo coast, as a secure resource in the event of defeat; he also furnished the soldiers with shoes and great-coats, the hospitals with blankets, and completed the firelocks of the army to twenty-five thousand. There were however abuses, which he could not remedy, and which would seem rather to belong to the army of an Asiatic despot, than to an European force fighting for independence. Innumerable baggage animals devoured all the forage, and the personal servants and cooks, who from custom never did duty, were above five thousand! a sixth part of the whole force! When the sick men were deducted, scarcely sixteen thousand infantry and three squadrons of cavalry remained for service. Then there was so little organization or arrangement that, although young, robust, patient, and docile to the greatest degree, the troops could scarcely be moved, even from one quarter to another, as a military body; and the generals, unable to feed them on the frontier, more than once, menaced, and in December did actually retire to Lugo, leaving the province open to invasion.