Note 616 — SECTION VIII: CHAPTER III
Reading edition
Moore’s plans between Dec. 6 and 10, the day on which he got news of the fall of Madrid, must be gathered from his rather meagre dispatches to Castlereagh of midnight, Dec. 5, and of Dec. 8; from his much more explicit letters to Frere on Dec. 6 and 10; from that to La Romana on Dec. 8; and most of all from the very interesting and confidential letters to Baird on Dec. 6 and 8.
His doubts as to the permanence of the outburst of enthusiasm in Madrid are plainly expressed in nearly every one of these epistles. The terrible under-estimate of Napoleon’s disposable forces is to be found in that to Castlereagh on Dec. 12, where he writes that ‘the French force in Spain may fairly be set down at 80,000 men, besides what is in Catalonia.’ Acting upon this hypothesis, it is no wonder that he was convinced that Bonaparte could not both besiege Madrid and hunt the British army.