The miserable retreat of our army to Corunna, and the account given of it by some of those who had returned, often lowered my too sanguine anticipations; but nothing could permanently keep down my ever active imagination. In this state of mind, I felt a relief from the melancholy I had previously sunk into; but still I was far from being contented; something was continually occurring which made me draw comparisons between my present way of living, and that which I had enjoyed at home. There were few of those with whom I could associate, that had an idea beyond the situation they were in:[4] those who had were afraid to show they possessed any more knowledge than their comrades, for fear of being laughed at by fellows who, in other circumstances, they would have despised. If a man ventured to speak in a style more refined than the herd around him, he was told that ‘Every one did not read the dictionar’ like him;’ or, ’ Dinna be gi’en us ony o’ your grammar words na.’ If a man, when accused by his superiors of something of which he was not guilty, ventured to speak in his own defence, he was called a _lawyer_, and desired to give no reply. If he said that he thought it was hard that he should be condemned without a hearing, the answer was, ‘Be silent, sir! _you have no right to think_; there are people paid for thinking for you—do what you are ordered, sir, right or wrong,’ If he did not join with his neighbours in their ribald obscenity and nonsense, he was a Methodist,—if he did not curse and swear, he was a Quaker—and if he did not drink the most of his pay, he was called a miser, a mean scrub, and the generality of his comrades would join in execrating him. In such society, it was a hard matter for a man of any superior information or intellect to keep his ground; for he had few to converse with on those subjects which were most congenial to his mind, and to try to inform his comrades was a vain, and by them considered a presumptuous attempt. Thus, many men of ability and information were, I may say, forced from the intellectual height which they had attained, down to the level of those with whom they were obliged to associate; and everything conspired to sink them to that point where they became best fitted for _tractable beasts of burden_. Blackguardism was fashionable, and even the youngest were led into scenes of low debauchery and drunkenness, by men advanced in years. Many of the officers, who, at least, _ought_ to have been men of superior talents and education, seemed to be little better, if we were allowed to judge from the abominable oaths and scurrility which they used to those under their command, and the vexatious and overbearing tyranny of their conduct, which was too often imitated by those beneath them. It redounds much to the honour of those who superintend the discipline of the army at present, that the situation of the soldier has been much ameliorated since that period.