to be in greater strength than had been expected; the French on their part failed equally in endeavouring to recover Castro. Their moveable column had now been drawn by a feint to Santona; from thence it could not reach Guetaria in less than four days; another attempt therefore was made upon that place in concert with the Pastor, and with one of Mina’s battalions. The latter, after two days’ severe march, did not arrive till it was too late; for when the enemy’s guns on one side had been silenced, ♦JULY 19.♦ and a battery was ready to open upon them on the other, intelligence was received that a considerable body of French troops was hastening thither by forced marches. The Guerrillas maintained a brave action against them, till the superiority of the enemy’s numbers was ascertained, and made it necessary for them to retreat; but this action prevented the re-embarkation of the British in time, so that two guns were in consequence destroyed, and 32 men made prisoners. These operations of Sir Home Popham’s squadron were of service in many ways. Troops were thus occupied who would otherwise have joined Marmont before the battle of Salamanca; the corps which relieved Guetaria was recalled from that direction, and Caffarelli was prevented from sending the infantry who were to have assisted in driving the English into the Tagus. The ports which were liberated lost no time in conveying supplies to the free parts of the kingdom, and vessels from them arrived daily at Coruña laden with corn and wine. And the Guerrillas, as well as the regular troops of Spain, received a countenance and support which enabled them to hold towards the enemy the language of confident hope. Renovales, who was Commandant-General in Biscay, addressed a letter to the French Governor of Bilbao, General Roquet, remonstrating against the cruelties which General Mouton had committed with his column: “for the security of a fortress,” he said, “or to prevent an insurrection, the rules of military precaution might render it proper to put some few persons of respectability in confinement, but that cottages and private dwellings should be outraged, and that peaceable persons should be tortured by stripes, by the bayonet, and by fire, was what no laws of war could justify. The Spaniards were a people who might be softened by generosity though not subdued by it; but if this system of terror were persisted in towards them, ... if it were still to be war at the knife’s point, the Biscayans, instead of yielding a foot to him, would meet him half way in such warfare. Four and twenty officers were in his hands, and should suffer for the next act of cruelty on the part of the French. He concluded by assuring Roquet that the day was not far distant when Bilbao would be delivered, and that he, Renovales, would then, at the head of 10,000 Biscayans, fulfil his duty as he had hitherto done, and first of all towards himself. CHAPTER XLII.