The regency instead of transmitting money and stores to supply their troops, endeavoured to throw off the burthen entirely by an ingenious device; for having always had a running account with the Spanish government, they now made a treaty, by which the Spaniards were to feed the Portuguese troops, and check off the expense on the national account which was then in favour of the Portuguese; that is, the soldiers were to starve under the sanction of this treaty, because the Spaniards could not feed their own men, and would not, if they could, have fed the Portuguese. Neither could the latter take provisions from the country, because Wellington demanded the resources of the valleys of the Duero and Pisuerga for the English soldiers, as a set-off against the money advanced by sir Henry Wellesley to the Spanish regency at Cadiz. Wherefore to force the Portuguese regency from this shameful expedient he stopped the payments of their subsidy from the chest of aids. Then the old discontents and disputes revived and acquired new force; the regency became more intractable than ever, and the whole military system of Portugal was like to fall to pieces. On the 4th the allies quitted Arevalo, the 6th they passed the Duero by the ford above Puente de Duero, the 7th they entered Valladolid, and meanwhile the Gallicians, who had returned to the Esla, when Foy retreated, were ordered to join the Anglo-Portuguese army. Clauzel abandoned Valladolid in the night of the 6th, and though closely followed by Ponsonby’s cavalry, crossed the Pisuerga and destroyed the bridge of Berecal on that river. The 8th the allies halted, for rest, and to await the arrival of Castaños; but seldom during this war did a Spanish general deviate into activity; and Wellington observed that in his whole intercourse with that people, from the beginning of the revolution to that moment, he had not met with an able Spaniard, while amongst the Portuguese he had found several. The Gallicians came not, and the French retreated slowly up the beautiful Pisuerga and Arlanzan valleys, which, in denial of the stories about French devastation, were carefully cultivated and filled to repletion with corn, wine, and oil.