[314] Napier’s ‘Colonel Barrois.’ The Galicians had somewhat relaxed the blockade of Tuy in order to press that of Vigo, and on the very day when Chalot surrendered, General Lamartinière had sent out a flying column to endeavour to communicate with his colleague. It returned pursued by the Spaniards, to report to the governor that Vigo had fallen[315]. On its way back to Tuy it suffered a loss of seventy prisoners and nearly 200 killed and wounded. [315] Most of these details as to the fall of Vigo come from a contemporary account in Andrade’s collection, printed in _Los Guerrilleros Gallegos_, pp. 129-37. Le Noble asserts that only 794 men were captured, but Captain Mackinley says that he received nearly 1,300 prisoners, including 300 sick and many non-combatants. He had the best opportunities of knowing, and must be followed. Le Noble and the Spaniards do not give the French commander’s name, but I find that of Chalot as the senior officer among the prisoners in the list in the Record Office. Next to him is the paymaster-general Conscience. Toreno and Schepeler agree with Captain Mackinley in giving the number of the prisoners at over 1,200. Heudelet and Lamartinière had now some 7,000 men collected at Tuy, a force with which they could easily have routed the whole of the insurgents of the Minho, and forced them to retire into the mountains. But Soult’s orders to his lieutenants were to avoid operations in Galicia, and to concentrate towards Portugal. Tuy was evacuated, and its garrison transferred across the frontier-river to the Portuguese fortress of Valenza. Before the transference was completed, the French generals received an unexpected visit from some troops of the 6th Corps. Ney, disquieted as to the condition of Tuy and Vigo, had sent a brigade under Maucune to seek for news of their garrisons. This force, cutting its way through the insurgents, came into Tuy on April 12. Thus Heudelet was at last able to get news of the operations of Ney. The information received was not encouraging: the Duke of Elchingen was beset by the Galicians on every side: La Romana had cut off one of his outlying garrisons, that of Villafranca, and his communications with Leon were so completely cut off that he had no reports to give as to the progress of affairs in the rest of Spain. Finding that Vigo was lost, and the garrison of Tuy relieved, Maucune retraced his steps and returned to Santiago, harassed for the whole of his march by the insurgents of the coast-land.