The French had been completely surprised. The very boldness of the attempt, for history has recorded no passage of the kind so bold, was its security; till they saw that it was accomplished they did not believe it would be attempted. A chef de bataillon told one of the generals that the English were passing, and his report was disregarded. Soult was assured by the French governor of the city that it was only some stragglers of their own people who had tarried behind till the bridge had been destroyed, and that the boatmen had gone to bring them across, but that he had forbidden the passage of boats on any pretext to the left bank. The Marshal was satisfied with this; and the report that the enemy were coming was not believed till General Foy, going upon the high ground opposite to the Convent, from whence Sir Arthur ♦Operations, &c. 245–7.♦ was directing the operations, saw the troops crossing, and Portugueze upon the walls making signals to them. In the confusion that ensued among the French General Foy was wounded, and narrowly escaped being taken, for the enemy thought only of retreating as fast as possible, when they saw troops on either side arriving to support General Hill. It was about five in the afternoon when the action was terminated by their flight. The British were too much fatigued to follow up their victory that evening, when they might have completed the destruction of an enemy not less thoroughly dispirited than discomfited. But in the last four days they had marched over fourscore miles of difficult country. So complete and signal a success against an equal enemy was perhaps never before obtained at so little cost; the loss at Porto consisted only of twenty-three men killed, ninety-six wounded, and two missing, and in the preceding affairs at Albergaria and Grijo of 102 in all. That of the enemy was very considerable; they left behind them five pieces of cannon, eight ammunition tumbrils, many prisoners, and about a thousand men in the hospitals.

Porto presented an extraordinary scene that night; every house was illuminated, while the gutters were still red with blood, and the streets strewn with dead bodies both of horses and men. There had been three hours’ fighting in the suburbs, and before night the French who had fallen were stripped and left naked where they lay; ... they had their plunder about them for removal, and they had provoked by the most intolerable wrongs a revengeful people. Sir Arthur the next morning issued a proclamation, requiring the inhabitants to comport themselves with humanity toward such of the French as might be made prisoners; they were entitled to his protection by the laws of war, he said, it was his duty to afford it, and it would be inconsistent with the magnanimity of the Portugueze nation to revenge the outrages which it had suffered upon unfortunate individuals. He prohibited any person from appearing armed in the city, unless he belonged to a military corps; and appointed Colonel Trant to be commandant, provided the nomination should be approved by the Portugueze government. D’Argenton16 escaped during the night, as much through the good-will of those who guarded him, as by the services of his fellow Philadelphes.

On the following morning Sir Arthur commenced the pursuit, the Hanoverian Legion, under Major-General Murray, moving to Val-longo, from whence the enemy had commenced their retreat during the night, in the direction for Amarante. But Beresford had moved with more celerity than even the British Commander had relied on; driving back the enemy’s posts at Villa Real and Mezam-frio, he followed up his success, and drove them from the left bank of the Tamega; and Loison, not venturing to defend the bridge that had been so gallantly defended against him, retired from Amarante under cover of the night, in some apprehension that Silveira or Beresford might have crossed the Douro, and that thus he might be prevented from rejoining Soult. The intelligence of the loss of Porto reached him about the same time that Soult was apprised of his retreat, and that the point which would have opened the surest way for escape was occupied by the allies. They met, however, within a few miles of Penafiel, and it was matter of congratulation that the junction had been effected. Soult’s determination was promptly taken. There were officers who were heard to say that the English treated their prisoners well, and that a passage to England in British transports was no great evil. Loison himself is said to have advised another convention like that of Cintra; but the Marshal well knew that the circumstances were widely different, and that nothing remained for them but flight, with the utmost speed, and by the most difficult road, abandoning every thing that might encumber them. As the treasure could not be transported, every one was allowed to take what he could of it; but there was too much haste and alarm for either officers or men to profit ♦Naylies, 123.
Operations, &c. 249–255.♦ largely by this licence; some chests which could not readily be forced open were abandoned by the soldiers, and the greater number were so placed as to be blown to pieces when the guns were burst.

As soon as Sir Arthur was informed of the rapidity and success of Beresford’s movements, he directed that General upon Chaves, to intercept the enemy should they turn to the right. ♦May 14.♦ Beresford had anticipated this order, and had already dispatched Silveira to occupy the passes of Salamonde and Ruyvaens; but the French were flying too fast for this to be executed in time. Their flight, however, was conducted with great presence of mind and judgement. Marshal Soult, when all his divisions were collected, made a display of them near Lanhoso, not to the pursuers, but for the sake of his own men, that they might see their own numbers, and acquire some confidence in their strength. Dispirited as they were by the abandonment of their artillery and baggage and the loss of their plunder, this had a good effect; and the retreat would have been honourable to Marshal Soult if it had not been disgraced by such cruelties as leave an uneffaceable stigma upon the commander of any troops by whom they are perpetrated. Marshal Soult’s soldiers plundered and murdered the peasantry at their pleasure: many persons, when the English arrived, were found hanging from the trees by the way-side, who had been put to death for no other reason than that they were not friendly to their insolent invaders; and the line of their retreat might ♦Sir Arthur Wellesley’s dispatch, May 18.♦ every where be traced by the smoke of the villages which they burnt. They suffered for this as was to be expected: whatever stragglers fell into the hands of the peasantry before the advanced guard could come up to save them were put to death with as little humanity as they had shown. Some of them were thrown alive amid the flames of those houses which their comrades had set on fire.

On the evening of the 14th Sir Arthur thought it certain, by the enemy’s movements about Braga, that they intended to retreat either upon Chaves or Montalegre; and he sent orders to Beresford, in case they should take the latter direction, to push on for Monterrey, so as to stop them if they should pass by Villa del Rey. ♦May 16.♦ At Salamonde the pursuers came up with their rear-guard, and drove them out of the town, which they had destroyed. The pursuers slept on the ground that night, and dressed their food and dried their clothes by the fires which the enemy had lighted for their own use. The sufferings of the French during the retreat were only not so severe as those of Sir John Moore’s army, because it was in a milder season; ... but it was made under a fear of the pursuers which the British soldiers had never felt; the rain was heavy and incessant, and time enough for necessary rest was not allowed, ... their danger was so imminent. They who halted at ten at night were on the march again at three in the morning, and in the few intervening hours the cavalry had to seek both provisions and forage, and the infantry to provide for themselves as they could. The greater part of the men had nothing for eight days except parched maize; very many died of want and exhaustion, and not a few lay down by the way to take the chance of life or death, as they might fall into the hands of the British troops or of the peasantry. Their track was strewn with dead horses and mules, who had either been driven till they fell, or killed, or more barbarously hamstrung, when it was not possible by any goading to make them proceed farther.

A bridge over the Cavado had been occupied by the armed peasantry, but mistaking some Swiss troops who were clothed in red for British, they allowed them to pass; but many hurrying over in the darkness, fell into the torrent and were lost. A greater destruction took place at the Puente de Misarella, a bridge with a low parapet over a deep ravine, and so narrow as not to admit two horsemen abreast. The enemy had driven away the peasants who were attempting to destroy it, but a fire was kept up upon them by others from the crags of that wild and awful pass; and upon the report of some cannon fired by the advanced guard of the pursuers upon their rear, the French were seized with panic; many threw down their arms and ran; they struggled with each other to cross the bridge, losing all self-command; and the British advance, when they arrived at the spot, found the ravine on both sides choked with men and horses, who had been jostled over in ♦Naylies, 126.
Operations, &c. 262.♦ the frantic precipitancy of their flight. Here the papers of the army, and the little and more precious part of the baggage, which had hitherto been saved, were lost.

Marshal Soult was guided in this retreat by an itinerant Navarrese, who, in the exercise of one of the vilest callings (that of hangman alone excepted) in which a human creature can be employed, had acquired a thorough knowledge of the country. This man conducted him by cross roads and mountainous paths, where neither artillery nor commissariat could follow. ♦May 18.♦ Sir Arthur continued the pursuit as far as Montalegre, and then halted, finding that the enemy had gone through the mountains toward Orense by roads impracticable for carriages, and where it was impossible either to stop or overtake them. He estimated that Soult had lost all his artillery and equipments, and not less than a fourth of his men, since he was attacked upon the Vouga. “If,” said he, “an army throws away all its cannon, equipments, and baggage, and every thing that can strengthen it and enable it to act together as a body, and if it abandons all those who are entitled to its protection, but add to its weight and impede its progress, it must obviously be able to march through roads where it cannot be overtaken by an enemy who has not made the same sacrifices.”

When the British Commander was commencing his operations from Coimbra, he received information from the Embassador at Seville that a French division of 15,000 men had certainly left Aragon, with the intent, it was believed, of joining either Ney or Soult. It became, therefore, a grave question for his consideration, whether to return, in pursuance of his plan of co-operating with Cuesta, when he should have driven the enemy out of the north of Portugal, ... or push with greater eagerness for the entire destruction of Soult’s army, instead of leaving him to retreat, unite with Ney, and become again formidable by the junction of this force from Aragon. Upon mature deliberation he determined not to vary from his first purpose, because, though the intelligence was announced as indubitable, no tidings of this division had been transmitted from Ciudad Rodrigo, Braganza, or Chaves, quarters where it might have been expected to be known, and because his instructions enjoined him to make the protection of Portugal his principal object. ♦Reasons for not continuing the pursuit.♦ If it were not necessary, therefore, to remain for that object in the northern provinces, he conceived that he should act in the best manner both for Portugal and Spain, by joining Cuesta with all speed, and commencing active operations against Victor. Thus he had determined before he advanced from Coimbra, and therefore he now desisted from the pursuit, satisfied with having done, if not all that he wished, all that was possible, and more than he had expected. Had the Portugueze at Chaves been active in obeying their instructions, and occupying the defiles near Salamonde, the French, who had abandoned their ammunition ♦Naylies, 128.♦ and their guns, must have been irretrievably lost; the very cartridges which the men carried, and which constituted their whole stock, were rendered useless by the rain, and they could no otherwise have escaped the fate they deserved from the hands of the Portugueze than by surrendering ♦Col. Jones, vol. i. 204–7.♦ to the British. As it was, they had lost not less than a fourth of their army since Sir Arthur attacked them on the Vouga.

If Sir Arthur had not made this previous determination, and if it had been possible for the commissariat, imperfect as it then was, to have kept up with a longer pursuit in a country which could supply neither food, nor carriages, nor beasts of draught, the tidings which he now received of Victor’s movements would probably have recalled him toward the south. That Marshal, having been joined by Lapisse, had at length made the movement which Soult had so long and anxiously expected; he had broken up from the Guadiana, and marched for the Tagus at Alcantara. Colonel Mayne occupied this important point with 600 of the Lusitanian Legion, 1100 Portugueze militia, and fifty Portugueze cavalry. With this far inferior force he withstood 10,000 infantry and 1000 horse for six hours, and then effected his retreat without losing a single gun, though not without a heavy loss in killed and wounded, the Legion alone losing 170 men. He had endeavoured to blow up the bridge; the attempt failed, and the enemy, being thus masters of the passage, advanced a little way into Portugal in the direction of Castello Branco. But no sooner had Victor learnt that Sir Arthur had recrossed the Douro, than he retired by the same course, evacuated Alcantara, and concentrated his army between the Tagus and the Guadiana, in the neighbourhood of Caceres.

When Soult’s army had re-entered Spain, and found that the pursuit was not continued, their hopes rose, and they rejoiced in the thought of communicating with the other corps of their countrymen. The red uniform of the Swiss again led to a serviceable mistake, ... they were ♦May 19.♦ taken for British soldiers at Allariz, and the inhabitants, under that delusion, hastened to bring them provisions and wine, blessing them as their deliverers. On the following day they reached Orense, and there learnt that the ♦Naylies, 132.♦ French in Lugo were at that time besieged, and that both Ney and Romana had marched into Asturias.

Romana, after he had succeeded in surprising the enemy at Villa Franca, had received information that Ney was collecting a considerable force at Lugo for the purpose of attacking him. Upon this he turned into Asturias, crossing the mountains at the passes of Cienfuegos, and descending upon Navia de Suarna; there he left his army under the command of D. Nicolas Mahy, and went himself to Oviedo, in the hope of rendering the resources of the principality more efficient than they had hitherto been found. The Junta of that province had received larger assistance of every kind from England than any other provincial government, and were said to have made less use of it in the general cause. They were accused of looking only to the establishment of their own indefinite authority, their own interest and that of their followers, and the destruction of all who were not subservient to them. Complaints to this tenor had reached Romana in Galicia, and he found upon inquiry that the greater part of the supplies which they had received were consumed in the support of idle and ostentatious offices; and that the corps which were raised, and which he wished to serve as a nursery for his army, drafting volunteers from them to fill up his regiments from time to time, were rendered useless by the want of capacity or conduct in the officers, who either remained in their houses, or did not support with any firmness the points to which they were ordered. Abuses of every kind were complained of in the misapplication of money, the disposal of offices, the contempt of public orders, the neglect of the laws, and the interception not only of private correspondence but of official papers. Romana was persuaded that these accusations were well-founded; and by virtue of the authority of which he believed himself possessed, as Captain-General of ♦May 2.♦ that province, he dismissed the members of the Junta, as unworthy of their station, and nominated others in their place, among whom were the first deputies who had been sent to England, D. Andres Angel de la Vega, and the Visconde Materosa, now by the death of his father Conde de Toreno.

In consequence of this movement of Romana’s, a combined operation was concerted between the French generals Ney, Kellermann, and Bonnet, for the purpose of cutting off him and his army, and subjugating Asturias. Proclamations in French and Spanish were printed ♦May 8.♦ at Coruña, wherein Ney assured the Asturians that almost all Spain had now submitted, Zaragoza having surrendered after losing three-fourths of its inhabitants, Valencia having opened its gates without resistance, and the Central Junta having taken refuge in Cadiz, which could not long serve as an asylum. He bade them rely upon his word, that their persons and their property should be respected, and prayed Heaven to enlighten them, that he might not be under the necessity of putting in force against them the terrible rights of war. Having sent abroad these threats and falsehoods, he, who had collected about 12,000 men at Lugo, entered Asturias by the Concejo de Ibias, a traitorous priest guiding him by roads which were unsuspected because they were almost impassable. Bonnet at the same time advanced along the coast from the east, and Kellermann with some 6000 men entered by Pajares.

This was an occasion upon which the Spaniards acted with as much alertness as their enemies. Mahy was apprised in time of Ney’s approach, and effectually disappointed one part of his scheme by returning into Galicia, there to profit by his absence. When the Marshal reached Navia de Suarnia he found the troops had escaped him; but deeming the single person of Romana of more importance than his army, and learning that he was in Oviedo, he hastened toward that city with such celerity, and by such a route (the priest still guiding him), that the enemy were in Salas and Cornellana as soon as it was known in Oviedo that they were on the march. Not an hour was to be lost. Romana sent the single regiment which was with him to join Ballasteros at Infiesto, withdrew to Gijon, and there embarked for Galicia with his staff ♦May 19.♦ and the Bishop of St. Andero. Before he had embarked the French had entered Oviedo; having pillaged that city, they proceeded to Gijon, but too late for securing the prey of which they were most desirous.

But though Romana had been thus nearly surprised, the Asturians, under Generals Worster and Ballasteros, prevented the enemy from deriving any benefit from their transient success. Barcena, who commanded a division of the corps under Worster, by rapid marches upon Teberga and Grado, prevented the French from uniting their forces, and defeated them in three partial actions. Worster then collecting his whole army, advanced toward Oviedo; but Kellermann, perceiving that he could not maintain possession of the city, evacuated it in time, and retreated precipitately into Leon. Ballasteros meantime, who was on the eastern frontier of the principality, finding that Bonnet was between him and Worster, turned rapidly upon St. Andero, chiefly with a view of drawing Bonnet out of Asturias. He attacked the French garrison in that city, killed 800, made 600 prisoners, and won the place. The ill conduct of part of his army, which he had stationed in the passes near, deprived him of the fruits of his victory; they suffered themselves to be surprised by Bonnet’s whole force; the remainder of his men in consequence had no other alternative than to abandon the city and disperse, while he himself, like Romana, had just time to escape by sea. These movements on the part of the two Asturian commanders compelled Ney to hasten his return to Galicia, where indeed he rightly judged his presence was necessary. He retreated therefore along the sea-coast by Castropol, and found in that province intelligence of a nature which more than counterbalanced the temporary triumph he had obtained.

Mahy, when he turned back from Asturias, hastened toward Lugo, where the greater part of the French then in Galicia had been left. At first the enemy despised his ill-provided numbers, and relying upon their artillery and discipline, went out against him; but having been baffled in two skirmishes, and suffered considerable loss at Puente-nuovo, where many ♦May 19.♦ of the Germans deserted, they were glad to take shelter within the walls of Lugo, which, old as they were, were an effectual defence against men who had neither scaling ladders nor cannon. There, however, he blockaded them; and the French must soon have been compelled to surrender, if Soult had not arrived to their relief. That commander, knowing their danger, allowed his troops only one day’s rest at Orense, and hastened for Lugo, sending a detachment forward to reconnoitre the besiegers, and assure the garrison of speedy support. Mahy then, in pursuance of Romana’s system, withdrew; but the appearance of the French was such, after the sufferings which they had endured, that the garrison suspected a stratagem, and could not be persuaded that any French troops could appear in so miserable a state of clothing and equipments, till some of the officers were personally recognized.

The force with Mahy consisted of about 10,000 men. Knowing that the troops before whom he retired had been driven from Portugal, he counted with reason upon the speedy deliverance of the province, and withdrew toward Mondoñedo, to receive supplies and reinforcements, and be ready for acting as opportunity might offer, against Coruña or Ferrol. The remainder of the regular forces then in Galicia consisted of 8000 men at Vigo under Brigadier D. Martin de la Carrera, to whom Barrios had ♦May 21.♦ given up the command. That officer, as soon as he received advices of Soult’s arrival on the frontier with the intent of joining Ney, took the field in the hope of intercepting him and preventing the junction. But finding when he reached Pontevedra that Soult had hastened on toward Lugo, and was two or three days’ march distant, he perceived that pursuit must be unavailing; and resolving to profit by the time, he advanced upon Santiago to strike a blow against the French in that city, prevent them from joining their countrymen, and distract the attention of the enemy.

The garrison consisted of about 1900 men and 200 cavalry. Aware of the approach of the Spaniards, and despising them as usual, they advanced to meet them on the Campo de ♦May 23.♦ Estrella. The Spanish vanguard, under D. Ambrosio de la Quadra, withstood them, till Morillo arrived to charge their right flank; the reserve came to the support of the van; Carrera advanced against them in front; they were twice driven from the positions where they attempted to make a stand; and a reinforcement of 800 men arrived in time only to share their defeat. They were driven into the city, and through it, and pursued more than a league beyond it, till night came on: the loss of the Spaniards was 130 in killed and wounded; the French had more than 400 killed, ... they left only thirty-eight prisoners, of whom the most part were wounded; but very many wounded were carried to Coruña. The conquerors did not fail to remark, that this success had been obtained on the day of Santiago’s apparition, and on the field where his body had been discovered by the star which rested on his grave.

This was the intelligence which Marshal Ney found when he reached Lugo on his return from Asturias; and though Lugo itself had been saved by the unexpected arrival of the army from Portugal, the appearance of that army, and the recital of its adventures, were alike discouraging. ♦Combined operations of Marshals Ney and Soult in Galicia.♦ The two Marshals had not parted upon good terms, they met upon worse, and the ill feeling that existed between them extended to their troops. Ney’s soldiers talked of the Portugueze campaign in terms which provoked resentment, and quarrels arose, in which the officers ♦Naylies, 134.♦ took part. This, however, was no time for reproaches and bickerings; all fear of pursuit from the English being over, a plan was concerted for destroying Romana’s army, and recovering what had been lost in Galicia. For this purpose Ney was to act against Carrera and Morillo, and having defeated them, and retaken Vigo, to send a column upon Orense; while Soult was to pursue Romana’s army in the valley of the Sil, and disperse it, after which he was to march upon the Puebla de Sanabria, and there observe the Portugueze frontier, threatening to re-enter it, and keeping up a communication with Ney by Orense, and with the corps under Mortier by Zamora. In pursuance of this plan Ney hastened to Coruña; and Soult, having been supplied from that fortress with field-pieces and stores, commenced a pursuit ♦Opérations de M. Soult, 276.♦ little resembling that from which he had so recently escaped.

The day on which Carrera drove the enemy from Santiago Romana17 landed at Ribadeo, and joined his army at Mondoñedo. Here he was informed of Soult’s arrival at Lugo, and apprehending immediately that an effort would be made by the two Marshals to enclose him, he marched by the Valle de Neyra to Orense, and there took up a defensive position, covered by the Minho and the Sil. The Conde de Noroña, D. Gaspar Maria da Nava, had just at this time arrived in Galicia, with the appointment of second military and political chief, and had taken the command at Santiago: him he directed to withdraw from that city and retire upon Pontevedra, and he applied to Silveira for assistance; but the Portugueze general could not move without orders from Marshal Beresford. It was believed by the Galician army, that if the Portugueze had continued the pursuit two days longer, even without the British, Soult’s men were in so helpless and miserable a state, that they would gladly have surrendered, Lugo must have fallen, and the remainder of the enemy have been shut up in Coruña. If the event was less advantageous to the common cause, it was more honourable to the Galicians.

Soult had remained eight days at Lugo, and had sent off for France 1100 men, who were completely broken down by the sufferings of the campaign. Still his troops were in such a state that when he reached Monforte it was found necessary to give them some days more of rest. They were in one of the finest parts of Galicia, and in the most delightful season of the year; but there was the dreadful feeling for those whose hearts were not completely hardened, that every inhabitant of that country was their mortal foe. Into whatever town or village they entered, not a living soul was to be found, except those who from infirmity were unable to follow their countrymen. They who had arms were gone to join the army; the others, with the women and children, had taken refuge in the wild parts of that wild region, and were on the watch for every opportunity of weakening their invaders by putting a straggler to death. During the five days that they halted, the French suffered considerable loss; and when they attempted to cross the Sil, they found it not so practicable for them to effect a passage in the face of an enemy, as it had been for the English at Porto. That sort of war was kept up which, under the circumstances of Spain, tended to the sure destruction of the invaders. The Spaniards never exposed themselves, and never lost an opportunity of harassing the enemy. They availed themselves of their perfect knowledge of the country to profit by every spot that afforded cover to their marksmen; and leaving their fields to be ravaged, their property to be plundered, and their houses to be destroyed, they applied themselves, with a brave recklessness of every thing except their duty, to the great object of ridding the country of its invaders. Wherever the French bivouacked, the scene was such as might rather have been looked for in a camp of predatory Tartars than in that of a civilized people. Food, and forage, and skins of wine, and clothes and church vestments, books and guitars, and all the bulkier articles of wasteful spoil, were heaped together in their huts with the planks and doors of the habitations which they had demolished. Some of the men, retaining amid this brutal service the characteristic activity and cleverness of their nation, fitted up their huts with hangings from their last scene of pillage, with a regard to comfort ♦Naylies, 147.♦ hardly to have been expected in their situation, and a love of gaiety only to be found in Frenchmen. The idlers were contented with a tub, and if the tub were large enough, three or four would stow themselves in it.

The utmost efforts of the French were ineffectual against the spirit which had now been raised in Galicia. It was in vain that detachments were sent wherever the Spaniards appeared in a body: accustomed as the invaders were to the work of destruction, they were baffled by a people who dispersed before a superior force could reach them, and assembled again as easily as they had separated. The task of burning villages, erecting gibbets, and executing, as if in justice, such Spaniards as fell into his hands, was assigned to Loison, who discharged it to the utmost of his power with characteristic remorselessness. But it is not upon Loison, however willing and apt an agent of such wickedness, and however much of the guilt he may have made his own, that the infamy of these measures must be charged; it was the system of the French government, and the French Marshals had consented to act upon it; and that they were as ready to have acted upon it toward the British army, if fortune had enabled them, as toward those whom they called the Spanish insurgents, was evinced by their putting to death ♦See vol. ii. p. 451.♦ a handful of stragglers near Talavera, and by the manner in which the bulletins announced an act as disgraceful to the army which permitted it, as it was repugnant to all the laws and usages of war.

While Soult was thus employed in the interior of the province, laying it waste with fire and sword, always in pursuit, but always baffled, and harassed always by a people whom his cruelty served only to exasperate, Ney proceeded to execute his part of their concerted operations, with a force of 8000 foot and 2500 horse. Upon his approach the Conde de Noroña retreated from Pontevedra to the Bridge of S. Payo, where, immediately after the recovery of Vigo, Morillo had broken down two of the arches, and thrown up works for defending the passage. In this position, which had thus in ♦1809.
June.♦ good time been strengthened, Noroña resolved to make a stand for covering Vigo, from whence the Spaniards now received their stores. Boats were procured from Vigo and Redondela to form a bridge for the passage of the troops; enough could not be found to construct one in the usual form, and it was necessary to moor them broadside to the stream, fasten them together head and stern, and then lay planks along, torn from the neighbouring houses. The narrowness of this bridge considerably lengthened the time employed in passing, nevertheless the passage was effected before the enemy appeared. The troops were formed on the southern bank; they were now increased to between 6000 and 7000 men, besides 3000 who were without fire-arms; they had 120 horse, and nine field-pieces, and a battery of two eighteen-pounders planted on a height above the bridge. Captain M’Kinley, who was still in the port of Vigo, was informed of this on the evening of the 6th of June. Very early the following morning he went up in his barge to S. Payo, and while he was conferring with Carrera, the French appeared on the opposite bank. The Galician troops had undergone great fatigue, having been constantly exposed to continued and heavy rain: nothing, however, could exceed their spirit; it required all the efforts of their officers to prevent them from pushing across and attacking an enemy whom they had such cause to hate. Ney posted his troops in the houses on the right bank and in a wood a little below, and kept up his attack the whole day. During the night he erected a battery; some of his men also laid ladders upon the first breach, and got upon the brink of the second; but when daylight appeared they were soon driven back.

Captain M’Kinley passing safely within gunshot of the enemy’s field-pieces, returned to Vigo as soon as the action commenced: with the assistance of Colonel Carol, he provided for the security of that place, and the Spanish commodore sent up three gun-boats to assist in the defence. One of these Captain Wynter manned under charge of Lieutenant Jefferson. A Spanish schooner and a Portugueze one went also upon this service. At daybreak the French battery opened both upon the troops and the boats; but the latter, taking advantage of the tide, got near, and destroyed the battery. When the tide fell, the enemy made two desperate attempts with horse and foot to cross above the bridge; the Spaniards steadily resisted, and both times drove them back with great slaughter. Baffled here, a detachment went up the river, thinking to cross at the ford of Sotomayor; Morillo was sent to oppose them, and after they had vainly persevered in their attempt for an hour and half, compelled them to retire. They made another attack under cover of a thick fog; this also was as unsuccessful as the former, and Ney being thus defeated by a new-raised army of inferior numbers, nearly half of whom were unarmed, retreated during the night, leaving some of his wounded, and 600 dead.

Marshal Ney had acted upon the same infamous system of cruelty as his brother Marshals. The peasantry from the beginning repaid their inhumanities: and although it was long before the Spanish officers could resolve upon resorting to the dreadful principle of retaliation, they also were at length compelled to it. It was not to be supposed that they could see their countrymen murdered without using those means of prevention and punishment which were in their hands. At Lourizon thirty religioners and forty-nine of the principal inhabitants had been hung by the French, who then set the place on fire: in return for this barbarity 130 prisoners taken at the Bridge of S. Payo were put to death. Barrios, while he commanded, had repeatedly remonstrated with Ney upon the atrocious system of warfare which he pursued; his representations were treated with contempt, and at length he executed the threats with which he had vainly endeavoured to enforce them, and threw at one time 700 Frenchmen into the Minho.

These terrible examples were not lost upon the enemy: if they did not make them abate of their barbarities, they made them eager to get out of a province where the people were able and determined to take such vengeance as their invaders had provoked. Marshal Ney indeed would have endeavoured yet to make a stand, if Soult would have continued to co-operate with him; but even if there had been no18 ill will between them, views of more extensive measures, and necessity also, would have induced that General to form a different determination. He had received neither succours of any kind, nor instructions, nor even intelligence from Madrid for five months, so well had the Spaniards and Portugueze cut off all communication. There was not a place in Galicia where he could rest and supply his troops, or leave his sick in security, except the two great ports; and there he well knew they would be shut up between the Galician force and the English ships. He therefore refused to concur in any further movements, and began his retreat from Val de Orras and Viana by the Portillas de la Cauda and Requejo to the Puebla de Sanabria. Ney, finding he was thus left to his own resources, immediately ♦Ferrol and Coruña evacuated by the French.♦ prepared to evacuate Coruña and Ferrol. He destroyed the magazines and stores of every kind, and the defences on the land side, spiked the guns, and completely disarmed both the place and the people. Ferrol was evacuated by the last division of the enemy on the 21st, Coruña on the following day, and Ney retreated through Lugo, Villafranca, and Astorga. He had formed an encampment between Betanzos and Lugo; and this, before his final retreat was known, kept the persons whom he had established in authority in fear or hope of his return, so that no communication was suffered with the British ships, except by flag of truce. The batteries and lines on the sea-side having been left uninjured, Captain Hotham of the Defiance, impatient of this conduct, landed a party of seamen and marines, and dismounted all the guns which bore upon the anchorage. When Noroña arrived a few days afterwards, he expressed some displeasure at this; but the propriety of the measure was so evident when the circumstances which occasioned it were explained, that this ♦June 26.♦ feeling was only momentary. Captain Hotham having thus opened a communication with Coruña, sent Captain Parker to Ferrol, where the joy of the people, at seeing an English officer in their streets, was manifested by the loudest acclamations, and by every possible mark of attachment. The Castle of S. Felipe was still held by a traitor whom Ney had appointed to the command. He had under him a legion which the French had raised while they were in possession of the two towns, and over these men he retained his authority as long as the real state of affairs could be concealed. This traitor gave orders to fire upon any English ships or boats that might attempt to pass: Captain Hotham, upon this, stood over to Ferrol in the Defiance, and landed the marines of that ship and of the Amazon, with a party of armed seamen under Captain Parker, who proceeded to attack the castle. But though the men who garrisoned it had been weak enough to suffer themselves to be enrolled in the Intruder’s service, they refused to obey their commander, now that it was in their power to deliver themselves, and joyfully welcomed the English, who entered preceded by the Spanish colours.

The retreat of the French was conducted in what was now their usual manner. They are described by Romana as leaving every where marks of their atrocities, whole villages consumed by fire, victims of both sexes and all ages butchered, and committing enormities too dreadful to be recounted. The system had in reality been so wicked, that even some of the French themselves revolted at the course of crimes into which they had been led; and Marshal Soult, in a dispatch to the intrusive government, complained of what he called a moral debility in some of his generals. “In the kind of war which we carry on,” he said, “and with the sort of enemy whom we have to contend with, it is of great importance to the success of our operations that the chiefs who are at the head of the troops should be not only impassible, but that they possess a force of mind which places them in all circumstances above events even the most vexatious.” It was evident from this that there were officers who were shocked at the atrocities which they were called upon to order, and to witness, and to execute. The moral debility which was complained of meant a lingering of humanity, a return of honourable feeling, an emotion of conscience, a sense of the opprobrium that they were bringing upon their country, and of the guilt and infamy they were heaping upon themselves. For such a service officers were wanted who should be impassible, ... not merely unmoved at any effects, however horrible, of the system in which they were engaged, but incapable of any feeling whereby they could possibly be moved.

The dispatch in which this memorable avowal was contained was intercepted by one of those guerilla parties which now began to show themselves in different parts of Spain. It was written from Sanabria, at a time when Soult was not acquainted with Marshal Ney’s intention to evacuate Galicia. The war in that province, he said, was become very murderous, and infinitely disagreeable, and its termination was far distant. The only means of bringing it to a good conclusion would be to fortify seven or eight important posts, each capable of containing a garrison of 500 or 600 men, an hospital, and provisions for four months; by this means the people might be kept in check, the principal passes closed, and points of support provided for the columns acting in the province, in whatever direction they moved, where they might receive assistance and deposit their sick. This, he said, was a very powerful consideration; for it was not to be concealed that the present circumstances had a great effect upon the minds of the soldiers, knowing as they did, that if they were wounded or seized with fever at a distance from a place of safety, they were liable to perish for want of assistance, or to be put to death by the peasantry. A million of French money would suffice to put Galicia in this state of defence, and no money could be employed to better purpose, especially as a smaller number of troops would then suffice to occupy it. Lugo should be fortified, three block-houses erected on the line of Villafranca in the Bierzo, and the fortifications of Tuy, Monforte, Monterey, Viana, and the Puebla de Sanabria restored, which might easily be done. A few other posts might be added if needful.