The Spanish general having thus lost his line of communication with Lugo, and the few stores he possessed at Villa Franca, took post at Domingo Flores in the Val des Orres, where he entered a strong country, and, under the worst circumstances, could retire upon Portugal and save his troops if not his province. But his army which was in the utmost distress before, for shoes and clothing, was now ready to disband from misery, and the consternation in Gallicia was excessive. That province torn by faction, stood helpless before the invader, who could, and would, have taken both Coruña and Ferrol, but for the sudden arrival of the allies on the Coa, which obliged him, for his own safety, to return to the plains. Souham, also, who was coming from Burgos, by forced marches, to support Dorsenne, halted at Rio Seco, and Abadia did not fail to ascribe all this to the loss he had inflicted, but his vanity was laughed at. To have thus saved Gallicia was a great thing. That kingdom was the base of all the operations against the line of communication with France; from thence went forth, those British squadrons which nourished the guerilla warfare in Biscay, in the Montaña, in Navarre, in the Rioja, and the Asturias; it was the chief resource for the supply of cattle to the allied army, it was the outwork of Portugal, and honestly and vigorously governed, would have been more important than Catalonia. But like the rest of Spain it was always weak from disorders, and, if the allies had remained in Alemtejo, there was nothing to prevent Dorsenne from conquering it; for though he should not have taken Ferrol and Coruña, the points of St. Jago, Lugo, Villa Franca, and Orense would have given him an entire command of the interior, and the Spaniards holding the ports only would not have been able to dislodge him. [Sidenote: 1811. August.] Lord Wellington arrived upon the Coa about the 8th of August, intending, as I have said, first a close blockade of Ciudad Rodrigo, and finally a siege; it was however soon known that the French had on the 6th supplied the place for two months, and the first part of the design was therefore relinquished. The troops were then quartered near the sources of the Coa and Agueda, close to the line of communication between Marmont and Dorsenne, and in a country where there was still some corn. If the enemy advanced in superior numbers, the army could retire through a strong country to a position of battle near Sabugal, whence the communication with Hill was direct. Nor was the rest of Beira left unprotected, because the French would have exposed their left flank, by any advance in the direction of Almeida, and the allies could, by Guarda, send detachments to the valley of the Mondego in time to secure the magazines at Celerico. The line of supply from Lamego along which the battering-train was now moving, was however rather exposed.