The attempt to pass the river had been baffled on the 15th of February; on the 16th the army was in full march towards Ribidavia, upon a new line of operations, and this promptitude of decision was supported by an equally prompt execution. La Houssaye, with his dragoons, quitted Salvatierra, and, keeping the edge of the Minho, was galled by the fire of the Portuguese from the opposite bank; but, before evening, he twice broke the insurgent bands, and, in revenge for some previous excesses of the peasantry, burnt the villages of Morentan and Cobreira. Meanwhile the main body of the army, passing the Tea river, at Salvatierra and Puente d’Arcos, marched, by successive divisions, along the main road from Tuy to Ribidavia.
Between Franquera and Canizar the route was cut by the streams of the Morenta and Noguera rivers; and, behind those torrents, eight hundred Gallicians, having barricadoed the bridges and repulsed the advanced parties of cavalry, stood upon their defence. The 17th, at daybreak, the leading brigade of Heudelet’s division forced the passage, and pursued the Spaniards briskly; but, when within a short distance of Ribidavia, the latter rallied upon eight or ten thousand insurgents, arrayed in order of battle, on a strong hill, covering the approaches to that town.
At this sight the advanced guard halted until the remainder of the division and a brigade of cavalry were come up, and then, under the personal direction of Soult, the French assailed, and drove the Gallicians, fighting, through the town and across the Avia. The loss of the vanquished was very considerable, and the bodies of twenty priests were found amongst the slain; but, either from fear or patriotism, every inhabitant had quitted Ribidavia.
The 18th one brigade of infantry scoured the valley of the Avia, and dispersed three or four thousand of the insurgents, who were disposed to make a second stand on that side. A second brigade, pushing on to Barbantes, seized a ferry-boat on the Minho, close to that place; they were joined, the same evening, by the infantry who had scoured the valley of the Avia the day before, and by Franceschi’s cavalry, and, on the 19th, they entered Orense in time to prevent the bridge over the Minho from being cut. La Houssaye’s dragoons then took post at Maside, and the same day the remainder of the horse and Laborde’s infantry were united at Ribidavia; but the artillery were still between Tuy and Salvatierra, under the protection of Merle’s and Mermet’s divisions. Thus, in three days, the duke of Dalmatia had, with an admirable celerity and vigour, extricated his army from a contracted unfavourable country, strangled a formidable insurrection in its birth, and at the same time opened a fresh line of communication with St. Jago, and an easy passage into Portugal.
The 20th a regiment being sent across the Minho, by the ferries of Barbantes and Ribidavia, defeated the insurgents of the left bank, advanced to the Arroyo river, and took post on the heights of Merea. The army, with the exception of the division guarding the guns, was the same day concentrated at Orense. But the utmost efforts of the artillery-officers had been baffled by the difficulties of the road between Tuy and Ribidavia; and this circumstance, together with the precarious state of the communications, the daily increasing sick-list, and the number of petty detachments necessary to protect the rear of the army, seemed to render the immediate invasion of Portugal hopeless.
To men of an ordinary stamp it would have been so; but the duke of Dalmatia, with a ready boldness, resolved to throw the greatest part of his artillery and the whole of his other incumbrances into Tuy, as a place of arms, and then relinquishing all communication with Gallicia, for the moment, to march in one mass directly upon Oporto; from whence, if successful, he proposed to re-open his communication with Tuy, by the line of the coast, and then, recovering his artillery and parcs, to re-establish a regular system of operations.
In pursuance of this resolution, sixteen of the lightest guns and six howitzers, together with a proportion of ammunition-waggons, were, with infinite labour and difficulty, transported to Ribidavia, but the remaining thirty-six pieces and a vast parc of carriages, carrying ammunition and hospital and S.
Journal of Operations MSS. commissariat stores, were put into Tuy. General La Martiniere was left there with an establishment of artillery and engineer officers, a garrison of five hundred men fit to carry arms, and nine hundred sick. All the stragglers, convalescents, and detachments, coming from St. Jago, and the military chest, which was still in the rear, guarded by six hundred infantry, were directed upon Tuy, and the gates being then shut, La Martiniere was abandoned to his own resources.
The men in hospital at Ribidavia were now forwarded to Orense, and the marshal’s quarters were established at the latter town on the 24th; but many obstacles were yet to be vanquished before the army could commence the march into Portugal. The gun-carriages had been so shaken in the transit from Tuy to Ribidavia that three days were required to repair them. It was extremely difficult to obtain provisions, and numerous bands of the peasants were still in arms; nor were they quelled until combats had taken place at Gurzo, on the Monte Blanco, in the Val d’Ornes, and up the valley of Avia, by which the French wasted time, lost men, and expended ammunition that could not be replaced.
Marshal Soult endeavoured to soften the people’s feelings by kindness and soothing proclamations; [Appendix, No. 13]. and as he enforced a strict discipline among his troops, his humane and politic demeanour joined to the activity of his moveable columns, soon abated the fierceness of the peasantry. The inhabitants of Ribidavia returned to their houses; those of Orense had never been very violent, and now became even friendly, and lent assistance to procure provisions. It was not, however, an easy task to restrain the soldiers within the bounds of humanity: the frequent combats, the assassination and torturing of isolated men, and the privations endured, had so exasperated the French troops, that the utmost exertions of their general’s authority could not always control their revenge.
While the duke of Dalmatia was thus preparing for a formidable inroad, his adversaries were a prey to the most horrible anarchy. The bishop, always intent to increase his own power, had assembled little short of fifty thousand armed persons in Oporto; and he had also commenced a gigantic line of entrenchments on the hills to the northward of that city. This worse than useless labour so completely occupied all persons, that the defence of the strong country lying between the Duero and the Minho was totally neglected; and when the second corps appeared on the bank of the latter river, the northern provinces were struck with terror. Then it was that the people, for the first time, understood the extent of their danger; and that the bishop, aroused from his intrigues, became sensible that the French were more terrible enemies than the regency. Once impressed with this truth, he became clamorous for succour. He recalled sir Robert Wilson from the Agueda; he hurried on the labours of the entrenchments; and he earnestly pressed sir John Cradock for assistance, demanding arms, ammunition, and a reinforcement of British soldiers.