force until the 30th. In the meantime, overtures for an armistice were received from Junot, and ultimately resulted in the so-called "convention of Cintra," though it was first drafted at Torres Vedras and was ratified at Lisbon. Under this agreement the French army was to surrender Lisbon intact with other Portuguese fortresses, but was allowed to return to France with its arms and baggage at the expense of the British government. Having dissented from the military decision which had enabled Junot to negotiate, instead of capitulating, Wellesley also dissented from certain terms of the convention. He was, however, party to it as a whole, and afterwards justified its main conditions as securing the evacuation of Portugal at the price of reasonable concessions. This was not the feeling of the British public, which loudly resented the escape of the French army and insisted upon a court of inquiry. The verdict of this court saved the military honour of all three generals, but its members were so divided in opinion on the policy of the convention that no authoritative judgment was pronounced. Napoleon felt no such difficulty in condemning Junot for yielding too much, and the inhabitants of Lisbon were infuriated not only by the loss of their expected vengeance, but also by the shameless plunder of their public and private property by the departing French. Under a separate convention, the Russian fleet, long blockaded in the Tagus, was surrendered to the British admiral, but without its officers or crews.
The capitulation of Baylen paralysed for a time the aggressive movements of France in Spain. Catalonia remained unconquered, even Bessières retreated, and Joseph, as we have seen, abandoned Madrid. Happily for the French, the Spaniards proved quite incapable of following up their advantages, and though a "supreme junta" was assembled at Aranjuez, it wasted its time in vain wrangling, and did little or nothing for the organisation of national defence. Meanwhile, Napoleon was pouring veteran troops from Germany into the north of Spain, where they repulsed the Spanish levies in several minor engagements. On October 14 he left Erfurt, where he had renewed his alliance with the tsar, and reached Bayonne on November 3. His simple but masterly plan of campaign was already prepared, and was carried out with the utmost promptitude. On November 10-11, one of three Spanish armies was crushed at Espinosa; on the former day another was routed at Gamonal; on the 23rd the third was utterly dispersed at Tudela. Napoleon himself remained for some days at Burgos, awaiting the result of these operations; on December 4, after a feeble resistance, he entered Madrid in triumph, and stayed there seventeen days, which he employed with marvellous activity in maturing fresh designs, both civil and military, for securing his power in Spain.
ADVANCE OF SIR JOHN MOORE.
Already, on October 7, Sir John Moore had taken over the command of the British forces. He probably owed his appointment to George III., who seems on this occasion to have overruled his foreign and war ministers, Canning and Castlereagh. In spite of his unwillingness to offer the appointment to Moore, Castlereagh gave him the most loyal and efficient support during the whole campaign; and this loyalty to Moore was one of the reasons for Canning's desire to remove Castlereagh from the war office, which, as we have seen, led to the famous duel between those two statesmen. It was at first intended that Moore should co-operate with the Spanish armies which were then facing the French on the line of the Ebro. For this purpose he was to have the command of 21,000 troops already in Portugal and of about 12,000 who were being sent by sea to Coruña under Sir David Baird. Burrard was to remain in Portugal with another 10,000. Nothing had been done before Moore was appointed to the command to provide the troops with their necessary equipment or their commander with the necessary local information. The departure of the troops was therefore slow. By October 18 the greater part of the British troops in Portugal were in motion, but the whole army had not left Lisbon till the 29th. The main body travelled by fairly direct routes to Salamanca, where Moore arrived on November 13, but he was induced by information, which proved to be incorrect, to send his cavalry and guns with a column under Hope, by the more circuitous high road through Elvas and Talavera. When this route was adopted it was anticipated that the different divisions of the British army would be able to unite at, or near, Valladolid. But the advance of the French rendered this impossible, and Hope ultimately joined Moore at Salamanca on December 4.
Baird suffered from even more vexatious delays. Though the greater part of his convoy had arrived at Coruña on October 13, the local junta would not permit them to land without express orders from the central junta at Aranjuez. Consequently the disembarkation did not begin till the 26th and was only finished on November 4. Transport and equipment were difficult to obtain, and on November 22 Baird was still only at Astorga. There exaggerated reports of the French advance induced him to halt, but by Moore's orders he continued his march. On the 28th the news of the defeat of Castaños at Tudela reached Moore at Salamanca. Co-operation with a Spanish army now appeared impossible, and even a junction with Baird seemed too hazardous to attempt. Moore therefore, ordered Baird to retire on Coruña and to proceed to Lisbon by sea, and, while waiting himself at Salamanca for Hope, made preparations for a retreat to Portugal. On December 5, the day after his junction with Hope, Moore determined to continue his advance. He had received news of the enthusiastic preparations for the defence of Madrid but did not know of its fall, and he considered that the Spanish enthusiasm justified some risk on the part of the British troops. He accordingly recalled Baird, whose infantry had retired to Villafranca, though his cavalry were still at Astorga. On the 9th came the news of the fall of Madrid, but Moore believed that an attack on the French lines of communication might still prove useful, and on the 11th the advance was renewed. Moore himself left Salamanca on the 13th. On the 12th he learned for the first time from some prisoners the true strength of the French army, 250,000 of all arms, and also discovered that the enemy were in complete ignorance of the position of his own army. Next day an intercepted despatch showed him that he might possibly be able to cut off Soult in an isolated position at Saldaña. Having at last effected a junction with Baird's corps on the 19th he reached Sahagun on the 21st, and was on the point of delivering his attack under favourable conditions, though his triumph must have been short-lived.
His real success was of another order. He had anticipated that Napoleon would postpone everything to the opportunity of crushing a British army, and the ultimate object of his march to Sahagun was to draw the French away from Lisbon and Andalusia. He was not disappointed. Napoleon at last divined that Moore was not flying in a south-westerly direction, but carrying out a bold manœuvre in a north-easterly direction. He instantly pushed division after division from various quarters by forced marches upon Moore's reported track, while he himself followed with desperate efforts across the snow-clad mountains between Madrid and the Douro. Apprised of his swift advance, and conscious of his own vast inferiority in numbers, Moore had no choice but to retreat without a moment's delay upon Benevente and Astorga. He was now sufficiently far north to prefer to retire upon Galicia rather than upon Portugal. The retreat began on the 24th and was executed with such rapidity that on January 1, 1809, Napoleon gave up the pursuit at Astorga, leaving it to be continued by Soult. Whether he was influenced by intelligence of fresh armaments on the Danube, or of dangerous plots in Paris, must remain uncertain, but it is highly probable that he saw little honour to be won in a laborious chase of a foe who might prove formidable if brought to bay.
Moore's army, disheartened as it was by the loss of a brilliant chance, and demoralised as it became under the fatigues and hardships of a most harassing retreat, never failed to repel attacks on its rear, where Paget handled the cavalry of the rear-guard with signal ability, especially in a spirited action near Benevente. In spite of some excesses, tolerable order was maintained until the British force, still 25,000 strong, reached Astorga, and was joined by some 10,000 Spaniards under Romaña. Thenceforward, all sense of discipline was abandoned by so many regiments that Moore described the conduct of his whole army as "infamous beyond belief," though it is certain that some regiments, and notably those of the reserve, should be excepted from this sweeping condemnation. Drunkenness, marauding, and other military crimes grew more and more general as the main body marched "in a drove" through Villafranca to Lugo, where Moore vainly offered battle, and onwards to Betanzos on the sea-coast. There a marvellous rally was effected, stragglers rejoined the ranks in unexpected numbers, the moral of the soldiery was restored as the fearful strain of physical misery was relaxed, and by January 12, 1809, all the divisions of Moore's army were safely posted in or around Coruña. Bad weather had delayed the fleet of transports ordered round from
