The attempt to pass the river had been baffled on the 15th of February; on the 16th the army was in full march towards Ribidavia, upon a new line of operations, and this promptitude of decision was supported by an equally prompt execution. La Houssaye, with his dragoons, quitted Salvatierra, and, keeping the edge of the Minho, was galled by the fire of the Portuguese from the opposite bank; but, before evening, he twice broke the insurgent bands, and, in revenge for some previous excesses of the peasantry, burnt the villages of Morentan and Cobreira. Meanwhile the main body of the army, passing the Tea river, at Salvatierra and Puente d’Arcos, marched, by successive divisions, along the main road from Tuy to Ribidavia. Between Franquera and Canizar the route was cut by the streams of the Morenta and Noguera rivers; and, behind those torrents, eight hundred Gallicians, having barricadoed the bridges and repulsed the advanced parties of cavalry, stood upon their defence. The 17th, at daybreak, the leading brigade of Heudelet’s division forced the passage, and pursued the Spaniards briskly; but, when within a short distance of Ribidavia, the latter rallied upon eight or ten thousand insurgents, arrayed in order of battle, on a strong hill, covering the approaches to that town. At this sight the advanced guard halted until the remainder of the division and a brigade of cavalry were come up, and then, under the personal direction of Soult, the French assailed, and drove the Gallicians, fighting, through the town and across the Avia. The loss of the vanquished was very considerable, and the bodies of twenty priests were found amongst the slain; but, either from fear or patriotism, every inhabitant had quitted Ribidavia. The 18th one brigade of infantry scoured the valley of the Avia, and dispersed three or four thousand of the insurgents, who were disposed to make a second stand on that side. A second brigade, pushing on to Barbantes, seized a ferry-boat on the Minho, close to that place; they were joined, the same evening, by the infantry who had scoured the valley of the Avia the day before, and by Franceschi’s cavalry, and, on the 19th, they entered Orense in time to prevent the bridge over the Minho from being cut. La Houssaye’s dragoons then took post at Maside, and the same day the remainder of the horse and Laborde’s infantry were united at Ribidavia; but the artillery were still between Tuy and Salvatierra, under the protection of Merle’s and Mermet’s divisions. Thus, in three days, the duke of Dalmatia had, with an admirable celerity and vigour, extricated his army from a contracted unfavourable country, strangled a formidable insurrection in its birth, and at the same time opened a fresh line of communication with St. Jago, and an easy passage into Portugal.