Sylveira, however, was too strong for both; and, on the 12th, advancing from Canavezes, obliged Loison, after a slight action, to take post behind the Souza. Meanwhile, Heudelet was hastening towards Tuy to recover the artillery and depôts, from which the army had now been separated forty days. The 6th of April, general Lorge, who had taken Villa de Conde and cleared the coast, joined Heudelet at Bacellos. The 7th they marched to Ponte de Lima; but the Portuguese resisted the passage vigourously, and it was not forced until the 8th. The 10th the French arrived in front of Valença, on the Minho; this fortress had been maltreated by the fire from Tuy, and the garrison, amounting to two hundred men, having only two days’ provisions, capitulated, on condition of being allowed to retire to their homes; but, before the French could take possession, the capitulating troops disbanded and the town was deserted. The garrison in Tuy, never having received the slightest intelligence of the army since the separation at Ribidavia, marvelled that the fire from Valença was discontinued; and their surprise was extreme when they beheld the French colours flying in that fort, and observed French videttes on the left bank of the Minho. La Martiniere’s garrison, by the arrival of stragglers and a battalion of detachments that followed the army from St. Jago, had been increased to three thousand four hundred men; but twelve hundred were in hospital, and two-thirds of the artillery-horses had been eaten in default of other food. The Portuguese had passed the Minho, and, in conjunction with the Spaniards, attacked the place on the 15th of March; but the French general, by frequent sallies, obliged them to keep up a distant blockade, and his fire mastered that from Valença. The 22d of March, the defeat at Braga being known, the Portuguese repassed the Minho, the Spaniards dispersed, and La Martiniere immediately sent three hundred men to bring off the garrison of Vigo; but it was too late, that place was taken, and the detachment with difficulty regained Tuy. The peasants on the Arosa Estuary had, as I have before noticed, risen, the 27th of February, while Soult was still at Orense; they were headed, at first, by general Silva and by the count de Mezeda, and, finally, a colonel Barrois, sent by the central junta, took the command. As their numbers were very considerable, Barrois with one part attacked Tuy; and Silva assisted by the Lively and Venus, British frigates on that station, invested Vigo.