The gross numbers of the second corps amounted to forty-seven thousand, but general Bonnet’s division remained always at St. Ander, in observation of the eastern Asturian frontier; eight thousand were detached for the service of the general communications, and the remainder had, since the 9th of November, been fighting and marching incessantly among barren and snowy mountains; hence, stragglers were numerous, and twelve thousand men were in hospital. The force, actually under arms, did not exceed twenty-five thousand men, worn down with fatigue, barefooted, and without ammunition. They had outstripped their commissariat, the military chest was not come up, the draft animals were reduced in number, and extenuated by fatigue, the gun-carriages were shaken by continual usage, and the artillery parc was still in the rear; and as the sixth corps had not yet passed Lugo, two divisions of the second were required to hold Coruña and Ferrol. Literally to obey the emperor’s orders was consequently impossible, and Soult fixing his head-quarters at St. Jago di Compostella, proceeded to re-organize his army. Ammunition was fabricated from the loose powder found in Coruña; shoes were obtained partly by requisition, partly from the Spanish magazines, filled as they were with stores supplied by England. The artillery was soon refitted, and, the greatest part of the stragglers being rallied, in six days, the marshal thought himself in a condition to obey his orders, and, although his troops were still suffering from fatigue and privation, he marched, on the 1st of February, with nineteen thousand infantry, four thousand cavalry, and fifty-eight pieces of artillery. But, before I narrate his operations, it is necessary to give some account of the state of Gallicia at this period, and to trace the movements of the marquis de Romana. [Sidenote: Appendix, No. 6.] When the Spanish army, on the 2d of January, crossed the line of sir John Moore’s march, it was already in a state of disorganization. Romana, with the cavalry, plunged at once into the deep valleys of the Syl and the Minho; but the artillery and a part of his infantry were overtaken and cut up by Franceschi’s cavalry. The remainder wandered in bands from one place to another, or dispersed to seek food and shelter among the villages in the mountains. General Mendizabel, with a small body, halted in the Val des Orres, and, placing guards at the Puente de Bibey, a point of singular strength for defence, proposed to cover the approaches to Orense on that side; but Romana himself, after wandering for a time, collected two or three thousand men, and took post, on the 15th, at Toabado, a village about twenty miles from Lugo.