not exceed 26,000 men.’  Such a force, after the defeat of the advanced armies,—­he was sure—­could effect nothing; the best result he could anticipate was an inglorious retreat.  That he should be in this situation at the very opening of the campaign, he saw, would declare to all Europe that somewhere there must be blame:  but where? with himself he knew that there was none:  the English Government (with whom he must have seen that at least a part of the blame lay—­for sending him so late, and with a force so lamentably incommensurate to the demands of the service) it was not for him—­holding the situation that he did—­openly to accuse (though, by implication, he often does accuse them); and therefore it became his business to look to the Spaniards; and, in their conduct, to search for palliations of that inefficiency on his part—­which else the persons, to whom he was writing, would understand as charged upon themselves.  Writing with such a purpose—­and under a double fettering of his faculties; first from anxious forebodings of calamity or dishonour; and secondly from the pain he must have felt at not being free to censure those with whom he could not but be aware that the embarrassments of his situation had, at least in part, originated—­we might expect that it would not be difficult for him to find, in the early events of the campaign, all which he sought; and to deceive himself into a belief, that, in stating these events without any commentary or even hints as to the relative circumstances under which they took place (which only could give to the naked facts their value and due meaning), he was making no misrepresentations,—­and doing the Spaniards no injustice.

These suggestions are made with the greater earnestness, as it is probable that the honourable death of Sir John Moore will have given so much more weight to his opinion on any subject—­as, if these suggestions be warranted, it is entitled on this subject to less weight—­than the opinion of any other individual equally intelligent, and not liable (from high office and perplexity of situation) to the same influences of disgust or prejudice.

That these letters were written under some such influences, is plain throughout:  we find, in them, reports of the four first events in the campaign; and, in justice to the Spaniards, it must be said that all are virtually mis-statements.  Take two instances: 

1.  The main strength and efforts of the French were, at the opening of the campaign, directed against the army of Gen. Blake.  The issue is thus given by Sir J.M.:—­’Gen. Blake’s army in Biscay has been defeated—­dispersed; and its officers and men are flying in every direction.’  Could it be supposed that the army, whose matchless exertions and endurances are all merged in this over-charged (and almost insulting) statement of their result, was, ‘mere peasantry’ (Sir J.M.’s own words) and opposed to greatly superior numbers of veteran troops?  Confront with this account