This reasoning was approved by Joseph; he dreaded the further fatigue and privations that would attend a continuance of the operations during the excessive heats, and in a wasted country; and he was strengthened in his opinion by the receipt of a despatch from the emperor, dated Schoenbrun, the 29th of July, in which any further offensive operations were forbad, until the reinforcements which the recent victory of Wagram enabled him to send should arrive in Spain. The second corps was, consequently, directed to take post at Plasencia. The fifth corps relieved the first at Talavera; and the English wounded being, by Victor, given over to marshal Mortier, the latter, with a chivalrous sense of honour, would not permit his own soldiers, although suffering severe privations themselves, to receive rations until the hospitals were first supplied. The sixth corps was now directed upon Valladolid, for Joseph was alarmed lest fresh insurrection, excited and supported by the duke del Parque, should spread over the whole of Leon and Castile. Ney marched, on the 11th, from Plasencia; but, to his surprise, found that sir Robert Wilson, with about four thousand men, part Spaniards, part Portuguese, was in possession of the pass of Baños. To explain this, it must be observed, that when the British army marched from Talavera, on the 3d, Wilson, being at Nombella, was put in communication with Cuesta. He had sent his artillery to the army on the 3d, and on the 4th, finding that the Spaniards had abandoned Talavera, he fell back with his infantry to Vellada, a few miles north of Talavera. He was then twenty-four miles from Arzobispo; and, as Cuesta did not quit Oropesa until the 5th, a junction with sir Arthur Wellesley might have been effected: but it was impossible to know this at the time; and Wilson, very prudently, crossing the Tietar, made for the mountains, trusting to his activity and local knowledge to escape the enemy. Villatte’s division pursued him, on the 5th, to Nombella; a detachment from the garrison of Avila was watching for him in the passes of Arenas and Monbeltran, and general Foy waited for him in the Vera de Plasencia. Nevertheless, he baffled his opponents, broke through their circle at Viandar, passed the Gredos at a ridge called the Sierra de Lanes, and, getting into the valley of the Tormes, reached Bejar: from thence, thinking to recover his communications with the army, he marched towards Plasencia, by the pass of Baños, and thus, on the morning of the 12th, met with Ney, returning to the Salamanca country.