Among the persons who became most eminent for their exploits in this desultory warfare, D. Julian Sanchez began at this time to be distinguished. He raised a company of lancers in ♦1809. OCTOBER.♦ the district of Ciudad Rodrigo, and acted with such effect against the enemy in the plains of Castille, that General Marchand, who commanded the sixth corps at Salamanca, threatened to execute the vengeance which the guerillas at once eluded and defied, upon those whom he suspected of favouring them. Specifying, therefore, eight of the principal sheep-owners in that part of the country, he declared that they should be kept under a military guard in their own houses, and the severest measures be enforced against their persons and property, if the bands of robbers, as he called them, did not totally disappear within eight days after the date of his proclamation. He declared also that the priests, _alcaldes_, lawyers, and surgeons of every village, should be responsible with their lives for any disorders committed by the guerillas within their respective parishes; adding, that every village and every house which the inhabitants might abandon on the approach of the French should be burnt. This served only to call forth an indignant reply from Sanchez, containing some of those incontrovertible truths which made the better part of the French themselves detest the service in which they were employed. Ney’s corps was at this time in Salamanca, under General Marchand, occupying also Ledesma and Alba de Tormes. Soult’s head-quarters were at Plasencia; he occupied Coria, Galesteo, and the banks of the Tietar and the Tagus, as far as the Puente del Arzobispo; Mortier’s corps was at Talavera, Oropesa, La Calzada de Oropesa, and Naval Moral; Victor’s advanced posts were at Daymiel, his head-quarters at Toledo; Sebastiani was at Fuenlebrada, and his corps extended from Aranjuez to Alcala. On the side of La Mancha or Extremadura, they could not hope to open a way to Seville, unless the government by an act of suicidal madness should encounter the certain consequences ♦THE FRENCH REPULSED FROM ASTORGA.♦ of a general action. Remaining, therefore, on the defensive here, they prepared for offensive operations on the side of Salamanca, with a view to the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo, and a third invasion of Portugal. Sir Robert Wilson’s representations respecting the importance of that point had not been neglected by the government; the force which the Duque del Parque commanded there was now respectable in numbers, and had acquired some experience as well as confidence in that desultory warfare which Sir Robert had begun, and which D. Julian Sanchez had so well continued. Preparatory to their movements on this quarter, the French attempted to carry Astorga by a sudden attack, for which purpose, with a force of 2600 men, they advanced from the Ezla, and endeavoured to force the Bishop’s Gate. D. Jose Maria de Santocildes, who commanded