As the French advanced, the Spaniards abandoned their positions in succession, spiked the guns in the dilapidated works of Monterey, and after a slight skirmish at Verim, took the road to Puebla de Senabria; but Franceschi followed close, and overtaking two or three thousand as they were passing a rugged mountain, he assailed their rear with a battalion of infantry, and at the same time leading his horsemen round both flanks, headed the column, and obliged it to halt. The Spaniards, trusting to the rough ground, drew up in one large square and awaited the charge. Franceschi had four regiments of cavalry; each regiment settled itself against the face of a square, and then the whole, with loud cries, bore down swiftly upon their opponents; the latter unsteady and dismayed, shrunk together from the fierce assault, and were instantly trampled down in heaps. Those who escaped the horses’ hoofs and the edge of the sword became prisoners, but twelve hundred bodies were stretched lifeless on the field of battle, and Franceschi continued his movements on La Gudina. [Sidenote: Appendix, No. 6, section 3.] Romana was at Semadems, several miles in the rear of Verim, when his vanguard was attacked, and there was nothing to prevent him from falling back to Chaves with his main body, according to a plan before agreed upon between him and Sylveira, but either from fear or indignation at the treatment his soldiers had received at the hands of the Portuguese, he left Sylveira to his fate, and made off with six or seven thousand men towards Bragança; from thence passing by Puebla de Senabria, he regained the valley of the Syl. Meanwhile, two thousand Portuguese infantry, with some guns, issuing from the side of Villaza, cut the French line of march at the moment when Franceschi and Heudelet having passed Monterey, Laborde was approaching that place. In the slight combat that ensued the Portuguese lost their guns and were driven, fighting, down the valley of the Tamega as far as the village of Outeiro, within their own frontier. [Sidenote: S. Journal of Operations MSS.] The defeat and flight of Romana had such an effect upon the surrounding districts that the Spanish insurgents returned in crowds to their habitations and delivered up their arms. Some of the clergy, also, changing their opinions, exhorted the people to peace, and the prisoners taken on the 6th, being dissatisfied with Romana’s conduct, and moved by their hatred of the Portuguese, entered the French service. These affairs occupied Soult until the 9th, during which period his outposts were pushed towards Chaves, Montalegre, and La Gudina, but the main body remained at Verim to cover the arrival of the sick, at Monterey. [Sidenote: Appendix, No. 6, section 3.]