day-break, on the 1st of December, the French began their attempt to turn the flanks of St. Juan: three battalions scattered themselves over the opposite sides of the defile, and a warm skirmishing fire had begun. At this moment Buonaparte came up. He rode into the mouth of the pass, surveyed the scene for an instant, perceived that his infantry were making no progress, and at once conceived the daring idea of causing his Polish lancers to charge right p the causeway in face of the battery. The smoke of the skirmishers on the hill sides mingled with the thick fogs and vapors of the morning, and under this veil the brave Krazinski led his troopers fearlessly up the ascent. The Spanish infantry fired as they passed them, threw down their arms, abandoned their intrenchments, and fled. The Poles speared the gunners, and took possession of the cannon. The Spaniards continued their flight in such disorder that they were at last fain to quit the road to Madrid, and escape in the direction, some of Segovia, others of Talaveyra. On the morning of the 2d, three divisions of French cavalry made their appearance on the high ground to the northwest of the capital.

During eight days the inhabitants had been preparing the means of resistance. A local and military junta had been invested with authority to conduct the defence. Six thousand

regular troops were in the town, and crowds of the citizens and of the peasantry of the adjoining country were in arms along with them. The pavement had been taken up, the streets barricadoed, the houses on the outskirts loopholed, and the Retiro, a large but weak edifice, occupied by a strong garrison. Terrible violence prevailed-many persons suspected of adhering to the side of the French were assassinated; the bells of churches and convents rung incessantly; ferocious bands paraded the streets day and night; and at the moment when the enemy's cavalry appeared, the universal uproar seemed to announce that he was about to find a new and a greater Zaragossa in Madrid.

The town was summoned at noon; and the officer employed would have been massacred by the mob but for the interference of the Spanish regulars. Napoleon waited until his infantry and artillery came up in the evening, and then the place was invested on one side. "The night was clear and bright," says Napier; "the French camp was silent and watchful; but the noise of tumult was heard from every quarter of the city, as if some mighty beast was struggling and howling in the toils." At midnight the city was again

summoned; and the answer being still defiance, the batteries began to open. In the course of the day the Retiro was stormed, and the immense palace of the dukes of Medina Celi, which commands one side of the town, seized also.-Terror now began to prevail within; and shortly after the city was summoned, for the third time, Don Thomas Morla, the governo, came out to demand a suspension of arms.Napoleon received him with anger, and rebuked him for the violation of the capitulation at Baylen. "Injustice and bad faith," said he "always recoil on those who are guilty of them."

Morla was a coward, and there is no doubt a traitor also On returning to the town he urged the necessity of instantly capitulating; and most of those in authority took a similar part, except Castellas, the commander of the regular troops. The peasantry and citizens kept firing on the French outposts during the night; but Castellas, perceiving that the civil rulers were all against further resistance, withdrew his troops and sixteen cannon in safety. At eight in the morning of the 4th, Madrid surrendered. The Spaniards were disarmed, and the town filled with the French army. Napoleon took up his residence at Chamartin, a country house four miles off. In a few days tranquility seemed completely re-established. The French soldiery observed excellent discipline: the shops were re-opened, and the theatres frequented as usual.

Napoleon now exercised all the rights of a conqueror. He issued edicts abolishing the inquisition, all feudal rights, and all particular jurisdictions; regulating the number of monks; increasing at the expense of the monastic establishments, the stipends of the parochial clergy; and proclaiming a general amnesty, with only ten exceptions. He received a deputation of the chief inhabitants, who came to signify their desire to see Joseph among them again. His answer was, that Spain was his own by right of conquest; that he could easily rule it by viceroys; but if they chose to assemble in their churches, priests and people, and swear allegiance to Joseph, he was not indisposed to listen to their request.

This was a secondary matter; meantime, the Emperor was making his dispositions for the completion of his conquest.His plan was to invade Andalusia, Valencia and Galicia, by his lieutenants, and to march in person to Lisbon. Nor was this vast plan beyond his means; for he had at that moment 255,000 men, 50,000 horses and 100 pieces of field artillery, actually ready for immediate service in Spain; while 80,000

men and 100 cannon, besides, were in reserve, all on the south side of the Pyrenees. To oppose this gigantic force there were a few poor defeated corps of Spaniards, widely separated from each other, and flying already before mere detachments; Seville, whose local junta had once more assumed the nominal sovereignty, and guarded in front by a feeble corps in the Sierra Morena; Valencia, without a regular garrison; Zaragossa, closely invested, and resisting once more with heroic determination; and the British army under Sir John Moore. The moment Napoleon was informed that Moore had advanced into Spain, he resolved to march in person and overwhelm him.

The English general had put his troops, 20,000 in number, into motion, and advanced in the direction of Salamanca; while a separate British corps of 13,000, under Sir David Baird, recently landed at Corunna, had orders to march through Galicia, and effect a junction with Moore either at Salamanca or Valladolid. The object of the British march was of course to support the Spanish armies of Blake and Belvedere in their defence; but owing to delays and blundering intelligence, these armies were in a hopeless condition before Sir John Moore's march begun.

Buonaparte, hearing on the 20th of December of the advance of Moore, instantly put himself at the head of 50,000 men, and marched with incredible rapidity, with the view of intercepting his communications with Portugal, and in short hemming him in between himself and Soult. Moore no sooner heard that Napoleon was approaching, than he perceived the necessity of an immediate retreat; and he commenced accordingly a most calamitous one through the naked mountains of Galicia, in which his troops maintained their character for bravery, rallying with zeal whenever the French threatened their rear, but displayed a lamentable want of discipline in all other parts of their conduct. The weather was tempestuous; the roads miserable; the comnissariat utterly defective; and the very notion of retreat broke the high spirits of the soldiery. They ill-treated the inhabitants, drank whatever strong liquors they could obtain, straggled from their ranks, and in short lost the appearance of an army except when the trumpet warned them that they might expect the French charge. Clarke, in his History of the War, gives a heart-rending account of the horrors of this retreat:" the mountains" he observes, were now covered with snow-there was neither provision to sustain nature,

nor shelter from the rain and snow, nor fuel for fire to keep the vital heat from total extinction, nor place where the weary and foot-sore could rest for a single hour in safety.All that had hitherto been suffered was but the prelude to this consummate scene of horrors. It was still attempted to carry forward some of the sick and wounded: the beasts which drew them failed at every step, and they were left in the waggons, to perish amid the snows. "I looked around,' says an officer, "when we had hardly gained the highest point of those slippery precipices, and saw the rear of the army winding along the narrow road. I saw their way marked by the wretched people who lay on all sides expiring from fatigue and the severity of the cold:-their bodies reddened in spots, the white surface of the ground." The men were now desperate; excessive fatigue, and the feeling of the disgrace attending the retreat; or, as they expressed it, running away from the enemy, excited a spirit almost mutinous; the delay of a few hours was unanimously desired, that an opportunity might be obtained of facing the French, the chance of an honorable and speedy death, the certainty of sweetening their sufferings by taking vengeance upon their pursuers. A Portuguese bullock-driver, who had faithfully served the English from the first day of their march, was seen on his knees amid the snow, with his hands clasped, dying in the attitude and act of prayer. He had at least the hopes, the actual consolation and comfort of religion in his passing hour. The soldiers, who threw themselves down to perish by the way-side, gave utterance to far different feelings with their dying breath: shame and anger were their last sentiments, and their groans were mingled with imprecations upon the Spaniards, by whom "they fancied themselves betrayed; and the generals, who rather let them die like beasts than take their chance in the field of battle." That no horror might be wanting, women and children accompanied this wretched army :-some were frozen to death in the baggage waggons, which were broken down or left upon the road for want of cattle; some died of fatigue and cold, while their infants were pulling at the empty breast. One woman was taken in labor upon the mountain; she lay down at the turning of an angle rather more sheltered than the rest of the way from the icy sleet which drifted along;-there she was found dead, and two babes which she had brought forth, struggling in the snow;-a blanket was thrown over her to hide her from sight,-the only burial that could be afforded,

and the infants were given in charge to a woman who came up in one of the bullock carts,-little likely as it was that they could survive through such a journey."

Soult hung close on their rear until they reached Corunna; and Moore perceived that it would be impossible to embark without either a convention or a battle. He chose the latter. The attack was made by the French on the 16th of January in heavy columns with their usual vivacity, but it was sustained and repelled by the British and they were permitted to embark without further molestation. Sir John Moore fell in the action, mortally wounded by a cannon shot. He was one of the best and bravest officers in the British army. His body was wrapped in his military cloak, instead of the usual vestments of the tomb, and deposited in a grave hastily dug on the ramparts of the citadel of Corunna.

"No useless coffin enclosed his breast,

Nor in sheet nor in shroud we wound him,
But he lay like a warrior taking his rest,
With his martial cloak around him.

Slowly and sadly we laid him down,

From the field of his fame fresh and gory;
We carved not a line, and raised not a stone,
But left him alone with his glory."

The French, with a feeling of respect for the valor of their fallen foe, erected a monument over his remains.

Napoleon came up with the troops in pursuit of Moore at Benevente, on the 29th of December, and enjoyed for a moment the spectacle of the English army in full retreat.He saw that Moore was no longer worthy of his own attention, and intrusted the consummation of his ruin to Soult.— It excited universal surprise that the Emperor did not immediately return from Benevente to Madrid, to complete and consolidate his Spanish conquest. He, however, proceeded, not towards Madrid, but Paris; and this with his utmost speed-riding on post-horses, on one occasion, not less than eventy-five English miles in five hours and a half. The cause of this sudden change of purpose, and extraordinary haste, was a sufficient one, and it ere long transpired.