the description given by an eye-witness (Major-Gen. Leith) of their constancy and the trials of their constancy; remembering that, for ten successive days, they were engaged (under the pressure of similar hardships, with the addition of one not mentioned here, viz.—­a want of clothing) in continued actions with the French:—­’Here I shall take occasion to state another instance of the patience (and, I will add, the chearfulness) of the Spanish soldiers under the greatest privations.—­After the action of Soronosa on the 31st ult., it was deemed expedient by Gen. Blake, for the purpose of forming a junction with the second division and the army of Asturias, that the army should make long, rapid, and continued marches through a country at any time incapable of feeding so numerous an army, and at present almost totally drained of provisions.  From the 30th of October to the present day (Nov. 6), with the exception of a small and partial issue of bread at Bilboa on the morning of the 1st of November, this army has been totally destitute of bread, wine, or spirits; and has literally lived on the scanty supply of beef and sheep which those mountains afford.  Yet never was there a symptom of complaint or murmur; the soldiers’ minds appearing to be entirely occupied with the idea of being led against the enemy at Bilboa.’—­’It is impossible for me to do justice to the gallantry and energy of the divisions engaged this day.  The army are loud in expressing their desires to be led against the enemy at Bilboa; the universal exclamation is—­The bayonet! the bayonet! lead us back to Soronosa.’

2.  On the 10th of November the Estramaduran advanced guard, of about 12,000 men, was defeated at Burgos by a division of the French army selected for the service—­and having a vast superiority in cavalry and artillery.  This event, with the same neglect of circumstances as in the former instance, Sir J.M. thus reports:—­’The French, after beating the army of Estramadura, are advanced at Burgos.’  Now surely to any unprejudiced mind the bare fact of 12,000 men (chiefly raw levies) having gone forward to meet and to find out the main French army—­under all the oppression which, to the ignorant of the upper and lower classes throughout Europe, there is in the name of Bonaparte—­must appear, under any issue, a title to the highest admiration, such as would have made this slight and incidental mention of it impossible.

The two next events—­viz. the forcing of the pass at Somosierra by the Polish horse, and the partial defeat of Castanos—­are, as might be shewn even from the French bulletins, no less misrepresented.  With respect to the first,—­Sir J. Moore, over-looking the whole drama of that noble defence, gives only the catastrophe; and his account of the second will appear, from any report, to be an exaggeration.