The first of these charges is the most important: I give it to the reader in the words of Sir John Moore:--'The French cavalry from Burgos, in small detachments, are over-running the province of LeÛn; raising contributions; to which the inhabitants submit without the least resistance.' Now here it cannot be meant that no efforts at resistance were made by individuals or small parties; because this would not only contradict the universal laws of human nature,--but would also be at utter variance with Sir J.M.'s repeated complaints that he could gain no information of what was passing in his neighbourhood. It is meant therefore that there was no regular organised resistance; no resistance such as might be made the subject of an official report. Now we all know that the Spaniards have every where suffered deplorably from a want of cavalry; and, in the absence of that, hear from a military man (Major-Gen. Brodrick) _why_ there was no resistance: '--At that time I was not aware how remarkably the plains of LeÛn and Castille differ from any other I have seen; nor how strongly the circumstances, which constitute that difference, enforce the opinion I venture to express.' (He means the necessity of cavalry reinforcements from England.) 'My road from Astorga lay through a vast open space, extending from 5 to 20 or more miles on every side; without a single accident of ground which could enable a body of infantry to check a pursuing enemy, or to cover its own retreat. In such ground, any corps of infantry might be insulted, to the very gates of the town it occupied, by cavalry far inferior in numbers; _contributions raised under their eyes_, and the whole neighbourhood exhausted of its resources, _without the possibility of their opposing any resistance to such incursions_.' The second charge is made on the retreat to Corunna: 'the Gallicians, though armed,' Sir J.M. says, 'made no attempt to stop the passage of the French through the mountains.' That they were armed--is a proof that they had an _intention_ to do so (as one of our journals observed): but what encouragement had they in that intention from the sight of a regular force--more than 30,000 strong--abandoning, without a struggle, passes where (as an English general asserts) 'a body of a thousand men might stop an army of twenty times the number?'