1 nothing without compulsion. You ought always, when you make a requisition, to threaten them with a halter, if your demands are not complied with in a given time. Pull out your watch, and put a rope round one of their necks, and I will pledge my existence you will never be disappointed; but, indeed, mi buen Amigo, your English Generals are too good-tempered: if they would only adopt the French mode of talking to them, you would not now be in absolute want of bread for your poor soldiers." I shall not stop to inquire whether the Benedictine's reasoning be well founded or not; all that I can assure you is, that their convent here is a very large fine building, containing sixty fellows as fat as Hampshire hogs, while the rest of the inhabitants are meagre, sallow devils, shivering in the cold, and starving on gaspacho. This difference arises from nothing but the dextrous employment of the same engine fear! If the French tyranny be the terror of the sabre and carabine, theirs is that of hell. LETTER XLVI. A CHRISTMAS EVENING AT VALDERAS.-EFFECTS OF A THAW ON THE ROAD FROM MAYORGA.-CAVALRY OF THE MADRID ARMY ARRIVES NEAR VILLALPANDO. ALARM OF THE SPANIARDS.-FRENCH PROCLAMATION RAPIDITY OF FRENCH MOVEMENTS.-PROBABLE EFFECT OF SIR JOHN MOORE'S, MARCH TO SAHAGUN. Valderas, 25th December, 1808. HERE we are in full retreat, spending a most melancholy Christmas evening. I wish I could transport myself from this miserable brasero to your comfortable blazing Devonshire fire: the dust and fumes of the charcoal are enough to suffocate one. But to return to my nar rative. Yesterday morning I was ordered to set off with the wounded English and French prisoners, who were placed in covered waggons, partly belonging to the waggon train, and partly to the people here. The eighty-first regiment and two medical officers were to escort them, and about one o'clock we proceeded towards Mayorga, which we reached late in the evening. In the course of yesterday it commenced thawing, and this morning the snow was almost gone. As the divisions of the army quitted Mayorga it began to rain mo s furiously, and it has continued to do so, without intermission, all day. We came hither by the right bank of the river, whereas, in advancing, we took the left. The country around consists of a deep loam, and the snow, and thaw, and rain, have already made the roads two feet deep in clay. Nothing can be worse for the poor men, not to mention the horses. Arriving here, soaked with rain, it was with the greatest difficulty that I could get into a house. At length, however, I succeeded. There are three gentlemen, besides myself, in the apartment in which I now write. The French are, it is said, close at our heels. Already the cavalry of the Madrid army have got near to Villalpando, which is only four leagues from hence. The people are in the greatest alarm. .i.. I have just seen a printed proclamation, addressed to the inhabitants of the villages, who are flying at the ap proach of the French. Every argument is used to calm their apprehensions. They are told, that if they remain quiet in their houses, or will return speedily, no harm shall befal them; but otherwise, their houses and goods will be confiscated, without any exception. Observe with how much art the French make use of the press here, They are come," they say, "to free Spain from a tyrannical aristocracy, and a fanatic priesthood." In short, they promise every thing-quite another golden age. You will remember what I told you of the Guadarama mountains. Notwithstanding all the nonsense which the Spaniards had told us, of the excessive depth of the snow there, and the impossibility of bringing an army across at this season, the French have accomplished it, and apparently with ease. This rapid and extraordinary movement confirms an observation made by Bonaparte to his troops, after the battle of Austerlitz: "Soldiers!" said he, "you have conquered the Austrians by your legs; when they believed you were still at Ulm, they found you under the walls of Vienna." I know not how far we are to retreat. Report, at present says only to the mountains behind Astorga. At any N N |