Upon the 1st of January the emperor took possession of Astorga. On that day seventy thousand French infantry, ten thousand cavalry, and two hundred pieces of artillery, after many days of incessant marching, were there united. The congregation of this mighty force, while it evinced the power and energy of the French monarch, attested also the genius of the English general, who, with a handful of men, had found the means to arrest the course of the conqueror, and to draw him, with the flower of his army, to this remote and unimportant part of the Peninsula, at the moment when Portugal, and the fairest provinces of Spain, were prostrate beneath the strength of his hand. That Spain, being in her extremity, sir John Moore succoured her, and in the hour of weakness intercepted the blow which was descending to crush her, no man of candour and honesty can deny. For what troops, what preparations, what courage, what capacity, was there in the south to have resisted, even for an instant, the progress of a man, who, in ten days, and in the depth of winter, crossing the snowy ridge of the Carpentinos, had traversed two hundred miles of hostile country, and transported fifty thousand men from Madrid to Astorga in a shorter time than a Spanish diligence would have taken to travel the same distance? [Sidenote: S. Journal of Operations. MS.] This stupendous march was rendered fruitless by the quickness of his adversary; but Napoleon, though he had failed to destroy the English army, resolved, nevertheless, to cast it forth of the Peninsula, and being himself recalled to France by tidings that the Austrian storm was ready to burst, he fixed upon the duke of Dalmatia to continue the pursuit, adding for this purpose three divisions of cavalry, and three of infantry to his former command; but of these last, the two commanded by generals Loison and Heudelet, were several marches in the rear, and general Bonnet’s remained always in the Montagna de St. Ander; hence the whole number bearing arms, which the duke led immediately to the pursuit, was about twenty-five thousand men, of which four thousand two hundred were cavalry[22]. The guns were fifty-four. Loison’s and Heudelet’s divisions, however, followed him by forced marches, and he was supported by marshal Ney with the sixth corps, wanting its third division; but mustering above sixteen thousand men under arms, (the flower of the French army), together with thirty-seven pieces of artillery. Thus including Laborde, Heudelet, and Loison’s division, nearly sixty thousand men and ninety-one guns were put on the track of the English army.