Castaños, by the help of the succours received from England, had assembled fifteen thousand men at Ponteferada, under the command of Santocildes, but he pretended that he had no battering guns until sir Howard Douglas actually pointed them out in the arsenal of Ferrol, and shewed him how to convey them to the frontier. Then Santocildes moved, though slowly, and when Bonet’s retreat from the Asturias was known, eleven thousand men invested Astorga, and four thousand others marched to Benavente, but not until Marmont had called his detachment in from that place. The Spanish battering train only reached Villa Franca del Bierzo on the 1st of July. However the Guerilla chief, Marquinez, appeared about Palencia, and the other Partidas of Castile acting on a line from Leon to Segovia, intercepted Marmont’s correspondence with the king. Thus the immense tract called the _Campo de Tierras_ was secured for the subsistence of the Gallician army; and to the surprise of the allies, who had so often heard of the enemy’s terrible devastations that they expected to find Castile a desert, those vast plains, and undulating hills, were covered with ripe corn or fruitful vines, and the villages bore few marks of the ravages of war. [Sidenote: King’s papers captured at Vittoria, MSS.] [Sidenote: Wellington’s despatches, MSS.] While the main body of the Gallicians was still at Ponte Ferrada, a separate division had passed along the coast road into the Asturias, and in concert with part of the seventh army had harassed Bonet’s retreat from that kingdom; the French general indeed forced his way by the eastern passes, and taking post the 30th of June at Reynosa and Aguilar del Campo, chased the neighbouring bands away, but this movement was one of the great errors of the campaign. Napoleon and Wellington felt alike the importance of holding the Asturias at this period. The one had ordered that they should be retained, the other had calculated that such would be the case, and the judgment of both was quickly made manifest. For the Gallicians, who would not have dared to quit the Bierzo if Bonet had menaced their province by Lugo, or by the shore line, invested Astorga the moment he quitted the Asturias. And the Partidas of the north, who had been completely depressed by Mina’s defeat, recovering courage, now moved towards the coast, where Popham’s expedition, which had sailed on the 18th of June from Coruña, soon appeared, a formidable spectacle, for there were five sail of the line, with many frigates and brigs, in all twenty ships of war.