speedy success were indulged in by the English Government at this time, and it was confidently expected that Moore's junction with the Spanish armies would be the prelude to the passage of the Pyrenees by the combined forces and the conquest of France. We have already indicated the position of these Spanish armies in this month of October, 1808. At the close of the month Moore was well on his march into Spain. Napoleon was still in Paris; but all was now ready for the swoop. Early in November he passed the Pyrenees, struck right and left with resistless force upon the Spanish armies on his flanks—first annihilating Blake and Romana at Gamoual and Espinosa, then destroying Palafox and Castanos at Tudela; and finally, breaking with his cavalry the Spanish centre, he forced the gorges of the Somo Sierra, and appeared before the gates of Madrid before the English army had time to concentrate at Salamanca. Never was victory so complete. To fall back upon Lisbon was now the duty and the desire of Sir John Moore, but he was not permitted to follow this course which was so clearly the right one. Yielding to the importunities of Mr. Frere, the English minister to the Junta, Moore abandoned his communications with Lisbon, and directed his march to the north with the intention of attacking the right of the French army now in Leon. It was Christmas when Napoleon heard in Madrid of this unexpected movement of the English army almost across his front. Divining at once the object of the English general, he quitted Madrid, crossed with his guard and a chosen corps the snow-choked passes of the Guadarrama, and, descending into Leon, was in the rear of the English army before Moore had even heard of the movement. It was no wonder that Napoleon should have been almost the bearer of the tidings of his own march; for in ten days, in the depth of winter and in a season of terrific snow and storm, he had marched two hundred miles, through some of the worst mountain roads in Spain. The bird that would forestall the eagle in his flight must be quick of wing. Then began the race from Sahagun, first to Benevente and then to the sea at Corunna. No space now to dwell upon that terrible march—more terrible in its loss of discipline and failure of the subordinate officers to hold their men in command than in stress of fatigue or severity of weather. What would have been its fate if Napoleon had continued to direct the pursuit can scarcely admit of sober doubt; but other and more pressing needs than the pursuit of the English army had called him away to distant and vaster fields of war.