At Toro sir John Moore ascertained that Romana, although aware of the advance of the British, and engaged to support them, was retiring into Gallicia. That nobleman, nominally commander-in-chief of the Spanish armies, was at the head of a few thousand miserable soldiers; for the Spaniards, with great ingenuity, contrived to have no general when they had an army, and no army when they had a general. After the dispersion of Blake’s people at Reynosa, Romana rallied about five thousand men at Renedo, in the valley of Cabernigo, and endeavoured to make a stand on the borders of the Asturias, but without any success, for the vile conduct of the Asturian junta, joined to the terror created by the French victories, had completely subdued the spirit of the peasantry, and ruined the resources of that province. Romana complained that, when checked for misconduct, his soldiers quitted their standards; indeed that any should have been found to join their colours is to be admired; for among the sores of Spain there were none more cankered, more disgusting, than the venality, the injustice, the profligate corruption of the Asturian authorities, who, without a blush, openly divided the English subsidies, and defrauded, not only the soldiers of their pay and equipments, but the miserable peasants of their hire, doubling the wretchedness of poverty, and deriding the misery they occasioned by pompous declarations of their own virtue. From the Asturias the marquis led the remnants of Blake’s force to Leon about the period of sir John Moore’s arrival at Salamanca; like others, he had been deceived as to the real state of the country, and at this time repented that he had returned to Spain. Romana was a person of talent, quickness, and information, but disqualified by nature for military command; a lively principle of error pervaded all his notions of war; no man ever bore the title of a general who was less capable of directing an army, neither was he exempt from the prevailing weakness of his countrymen. At this moment, when he had not the strength to stand upright, his letters were teeming with gigantic offensive projects, and although he had before approved of the intention to retreat, he was now as ready to urge a forward movement, promising to co-operate with twenty thousand soldiers when he could scarcely muster a third of that number of men, who, half armed, were hardly capable of distinguishing their own standards; and at the very time he made the promise, he was retiring into Gallicia; not that he meant to deceive, for he was as ready to advance as to retreat, but this species of boasting is inherent in his nation, and Romana was a true Spaniard.