Having re-assembled the fugitives at Puebla de Senabria, on the borders of Leon, he repaired his losses by fresh levies, and was soon after joined by three thousand men from Castile, and thus, unknown to Ney, he had, as it were, gained the rear of the sixth corps. Villa Franca del Bierzo was, at this time, occupied by two weak French battalions, and their nearest support was at Lugo: Romana resolved to surprise them, and, dividing his forces, sent Mendizabel with one division by the valley of the Syl to take the French in rear, and marched himself by the route of Calcabellos. The French, thus surrounded in Villa Franca, after a short skirmish, in which the Spaniards lost about a hundred men, surrendered, and were sent into the Asturias.
Romana then detached a part of his forces to Orense and Ponte Vedra, to assist Morillo and the insurrection in the western parts of Gallicia, where, with the aid of the English ships of war, and notwithstanding the shameful neglect of the supreme central junta, the patriots were proceeding vigorously. The moveable columns of the sixth corps daily lost a number of men; some in open battle, but a still greater number by assassinations, which were rigorously visited upon the districts where they took place; and thus, in Gallicia, as in every other part of Spain, the war hourly assumed a more horrid character. Referring to this period, colonel Barios afterwards told Mr. Frere that, to repress the excesses of marshal Ney’s troops, Parl. Papers, 1810. he, himself, had, in cold blood, caused seven hundred French prisoners to be drowned in the Minho; an avowal recorded by Mr. Frere, without animadversion, but which, happily for the cause of humanity, there is good reason to believe was as false as it was disgraceful.
After the capture of Vigo, the Spanish force on the coast increased rapidly. Barios returned to Seville; Martin Carrera assumed the command of the troops near Orense, and the Conde Noroña of those near Vigo. General Maucune returned to St. Jago from Tuy, and Ney, apprized of the loss at Villa Franca, advanced to Lugo. Romana immediately abandoned Gallicia, and, entering the Asturias by the pass of Cienfuegos, marched along the line of the Gallician frontier, until he reached Navia de Suarna. Here he left Mahi, with the army, to observe Ney, but repaired, himself, to Oviedo, to redress the crying wrongs of the Asturians.
It is unnecessary to recapitulate the evil doings of the Asturian junta, which was notoriously corrupt and incapable. Romana, after a short inquiry, dismissed the members in virtue of his supreme authority, and appointed new men; but this act of justice gave great offence to Jovellanos and others. It appeared too close an approximation to Cuesta’s manner, in Leon, the year before; and as the central government, always selfish and jealous, abhorred any indication of vigour or probity in a general, Romana was soon afterwards deprived of his command. Meanwhile, he was resolutely reforming abuses, when his proceedings were suddenly arrested by an unexpected event.
As soon as Ney understood that the Spanish army was posted on the Gallician side of the Asturian frontier, and that Romana was likely to excite the energy of the Asturian people, he planned a combined movement, to surround and destroy, not only Romana and his army, but also the Asturian forces, which then amounted to about fifteen thousand men, including the partida of Porlier, commonly called the Marquisetto. This force, commanded by general Ballasteros and general Voster, occupied Infiesta, on the eastern side of Oviedo, and Castropol on the coast. Ney, with the consent of Joseph, arranged that Kellerman, who was at Astorga, with six guns and eight thousand seven hundred men, composed of detachments, drawn together from the different corps, should penetrate the Asturias from the south east by the pass of Pajares; that Bonnet, who always remained at the town of St. Andero, should break in, from the north east, by the coast road; and that the sixth corps should make an irruption by the Concejo de Ibias, a short but difficult route leading directly from Lugo.
When the period for these combined movements was determined, Ney, appointing general Marchand to command in Gallicia during his own absence, left three battalions under Maucune at St. Jago, three others in garrison at Coruña under general D’Armagnac, one at Ferrol, and three with a regiment of cavalry under Fournier at Lugo; and then marched himself, with twelve battalions of infantry and three regiments of cavalry, against Mahi. The latter immediately abandoned his position at Navia de Suarna, and drawing off by his left, without giving notice to Romana, returned to Gallicia and again entered the valley of the Syl. Ney, either thinking that the greatest force was near Oviedo, or that it was more important to capture Romana than to disperse Mahi’s troops, continued his route by the valley of the Nareca, and with such diligence that he reached Cornellana and Grado, one march from Oviedo, before Romana knew of his approach. The Spanish general, thus surprized, made a feeble and fruitless endeavour to check the French at the bridge of Peñaflor, after which, sending the single regiment he had with him to Infiesta, he embarked on board an English vessel at Gihon, and so escaped.
The 18th of May, Ney entered Oviedo, where he was joined by Kellerman, and the next day pursued Romana to Gihon. Bonnet, likewise, executed his part, but somewhat later; and thus Vorster, being unmolested by Ney, had time to collect his corps on the coast. Meanwhile Ballasteros, finding that Bonnet had passed between him and Vorster, boldly marched upon St. Andero and retook it, making the garrison and sick men (in all eleven hundred) prisoners. The Amelia and Statira, British frigates, arrived off the harbour at the same moment, and captured three French corvettes and two luggers, on board of which some staff-officers were endeavouring to escape.
Bonnet, however, followed hard upon Ballasteros, and, the 11th of June, routed him so completely that he, also, was forced to save himself on board an English vessel, and the French recovered all the prisoners, and, amongst them, the men taken at Villa Franca, by Romana. But, before this, Ney, uneasy for his posts in Gallicia, had returned to Coruña by the coast-road through Castropol, and Kellerman, after several trifling skirmishes with Vorster, had also retired to Valladolid. This expedition proved that Asturia was not calculated for defence, although, with the aid of English ships, it might become extremely troublesome to the French.
While Ney was in Asturia, Carrera, advancing from the side of Orense, appeared in front of St. Jago di Compostella at the moment that colonel D’Esmenard, a staff-officer sent by the marshal to give notice of his return to Coruña, arrived with an escort of dragoons in Maucune’s camp. This escort was magnified by the Spaniards into a reinforcement of eight hundred men; but Carrera, who had been joined by Morillo, commanded eight thousand, and, on the 23d, having attacked Maucune, at a place called “Campo de Estrella,” totally defeated him, with a loss of six hundred men and several guns. The Spaniards did not pursue, but the French retreated in confusion to Coruña. Nor was this the only check suffered by the 6th corps; for Mahi, having united a great body of peasants to his army, drove back Fournier’s outposts, and closely invested him in Lugo on the 19th.
Such was the state of affairs in Gallicia when Soult arrived at Orense; and as the inhabitants of that town, from whom he got intelligence of these S.
Journal of Operations MS. events, rather exaggerated the success of their countrymen, the French marshal immediately sent forward an advanced guard of his stoutest men to relieve Lugo, and followed himself, by the route of Monforte, with as much speed as the exhausted state of his troops would permit. The 22d, he reached Gutin, and, the same day, his van being descried on the mountains above Lugo, Mahi broke up his camp, and fell back to Mondenedo.