Blake being thus disposed of, the fourth French corps, after a halt of a few days to refresh the troops, took the road of Carrion and Valladolid; but Soult recalling his detachments, concentrated the second corps at Reynosa, seized St. Ander, and captured a quantity of English stores; leaving a division there under general Bonnet, he then spread his columns over the whole of the Montagna, pursuing, attacking, and dispersing every body of Spaniards that yet held together, capturing their baggage, and filling all places with alarm. After some partial actions with unconnected parties, every thing military belonging to the patriots was driven over the snowy barrier of the Asturian hills; and Soult having left a detachment at St. Vincent de Barqueira, scoured the banks of the Deba, took the town of Potes, and overrun Leon with his cavalry as far as Sahagun and Saldaña. Meanwhile the duke of Belluno quitting Espinosa, joined the emperor, whose head-quarters were fixed at Burgos, after the defeat of Belvedere. The battles of Espinosa and Gamonal, and the subsequent operations of marshal Soult, laid the north of Spain prostrate, and secured the whole coast from St. Sebastian to the frontier of the Asturias. By a judicious arrangement of small garrisons, and moveable columns, the provinces of Guipuscoa, Navarre, Biscay, and the Baston de Laredo were fettered; the communication of the army with France could no longer be endangered by insurrections in the rear; and the wide and fertile plains of Old Castille and Leon were thrown open to the French, and forbidden to the separated divisions of the British army. These great advantages, the result of Napoleon’s admirable combinations, the fruits of ten days of active exertion, obtained so easily, and yet so decisive of the fate of the campaign, prove the weakness of the system upon which the Spanish and British governments were at this time acting; if that can be called a system where no one general knew what another had done--was doing--or intended to do. [Sidenote: Sir John Moore’s Papers.]