In such ground, any corps of infantry might be insulted, to the very gates of the town it occupied, by cavalry far inferior in numbers; _contributions raised under their eyes_, and the whole neighbourhood exhausted of its resources, _without the possibility of their opposing any resistance to such incursions_.' The second charge is made on the retreat to Corunna: 'the Gallicians, though armed,' Sir J.M.says, 'made no attempt to stop the passage of the French through the mountains.' That they were armed--is a proof that they had an _intention_ to do so (as one of our journals observed): but what encouragement had they in that intention from the sight of a regular force--more than 30,000 strong--abandoning, without a struggle, passes where (as an English general asserts) 'a body of a thousand men might stop an army of twenty times the number ?' The third charge relates to the same Province: it is a complaint that 'the people run away; the villages are deserted;' and again, in his last letter,--'They abandoned their dwellings at our approach; drove away their carts, oxen, and every thing which could be of the smallest aid to the army.' To this charge, in so far as it may be thought to criminate the Spaniards, a full answer is furnished by their accuser himself in the following memorable sentence in another part of the very same letter:--'I am sorry to say that the army, whose conduct I had such reason to extol in its march through Portugal and on its arrival in Spain, has totally changed its character since it began to retreat.' What do we collect from this passage?
Assuredly that the army ill-treated the Gallicians; for there is no other way in which an army, as a body, can offend--excepting by an indisposition to fight; and that interpretation (besides that we are all sure that no English army could _so_ offend) Sir J.Moore expressly guards against in the next sentence.
The English army then treated its Ally as an enemy: and,--though there are alleviations of its conduct in its great sufferings,--yet it must be remembered that these sufferings were due--not to the Gallicians--but to circumstances over which they had no controul--to the precipitancy of the retreat, the inclemency of the weather, and the poverty of the country; and that (knowing this) they must have had a double sense of injustice in any outrages of an English army, from, contrasting them with the professed objects of that army in entering Spain .-- It is to be observed that the answer to the second charge would singly have been some answer to this; and, reciprocally, that the answer to this is a full answer to the second.
Having thus shewn that, in Sir J.Moore's very inaccurate statements of facts, we have some further reasons for a previous distrust of any opinion which is supported by those statements,--it is now time to make the reader acquainted with the real terms and extent of that opinion.
For it is far less to be feared that, from his just respect for him who gave it, he should allow it an undue weight in his judgment--than that, reposing on the faithfulness of the abstracts and reports of these letters, he should really be still ignorant of its exact tenor.
The whole amount then of what Sir John Moore has alleged against the Spaniards, in any place but one, is comprised in this sentence:--'The enthusiasm, of which we have heard so much, no where appears; whatever good-will there is (and I believe amongst the lower orders there is a great deal) is taken no advantage of.' It is true that, in that one place (viz.

in his last letter written at Corunna), he charges the Spaniards with 'apathy and indifference:' but, as this cannot be reconciled with his concession of _a great deal of good-will_, we are bound to take that as his real and deliberate opinion which he gave under circumstances that allowed him most coolness and freedom of judgment .-- The Spaniards then were wanting in enthusiasm.

Now what is meant by enthusiasm?
Does it mean want of ardour and zeal in battle?
This Sir J.Moore no where asserts; and, even without a direct acknowledgement of their good conduct in the field (of which he had indeed no better means of judging than we in England), there is involved in his statement of the relative numbers of the French and Spaniards--combined with our knowledge of the time during which they maintained their struggle--a sufficient testimony to that; even if the events of the first campaign had not made it superfluous.

Does it mean then a want of good-will to the cause?
So far from this, we have seen that Sir J.M.admits that there was, in that class where it was most wanted, 'a great deal' of good-will.

And, in the present condition of Spain, let it be recollected what it is that this implies.