The allies broke up from the Caya the 21st of July, and they had received considerable reinforcements, especially in cavalry, but they were sickly and required a change of cantonments; hence when an intercepted despatch gave reason to believe that Ciudad Rodrigo was in want of provisions, Wellington suddenly crossed the Tagus at Vilha Velha, and marched in the beginning of August by Castello Branco and Penamacor towards Rodrigo, hoping to surprise it in a starving state, but giving out that his movement was for the sake of healthy quarters. His movement was unmolested save by some French dragoons, from the side of Placentia, who captured a convoy of seventy mules loaded with wine near Pedrogoa, and getting drunk with their booty attacked some Portuguese infantry, who repulsed them and recovered the mules; but there were other ostensible objects besides the obvious one of removing from the well-known pestilence of the Guadiana, which contributed to blind the French as to the secret motives of the English general. We have seen that Dorsenne was menacing Gallicia, and that Soult was in full operation against the Murcians; it was supposed that he intended to invade Murcia itself, and therefore the march of the allies had the double object, of saving Gallicia, by menacing the rear of the invading army; and of relieving Murcia by forcing Marmont to look after Ciudad Rodrigo, and thus draw him away from the support of Soult, who would not, it was supposed, then quit Andalusia. [Sidenote: General Walker’s Correspondence, MSS.] [Sidenote: Abadia’s ditto, MSS.] [Sidenote: Appendix, No. V. Section 1.] Gallicia was meanwhile in great danger, for the Partidas of the north had been vigorously repressed by Caffarelli and Reille, which enabled Dorsenne to collect about twenty thousand men on the Esla. Abadia, who had succeeded Santocildes, was posted with about seven thousand disciplined men behind this river, and he had a reserve of fifteen hundred at Foncebadon; but he could make no head, for to this number the Gallician army had again dwindled, and these were starving. The 25th the French, having passed the river in four columns, made a concentric march upon Astorga. Abadia, whose rear-guard sustained a sharp conflict near La Baneza, retreated, precisely by the same line as sir John Moore had done in 1809, and with about the same relative proportion of force; but as he only took the Foncebadon road and did not use the same diligence and skill as that general, the enemy forestalling him by Manzanal and Bembibre, cut him off from Villa Franca del Bierzo and from the road to Lugo, and on the 27th drove him into the Val des Orres. During this operation the division of the army of the north, which Bessieres had sent with the convoy to Ciudad Rodrigo, entered that place and returned to Salamanca. [Sidenote: Sir H. Douglas’s Correspondence, MSS.]