On the 7th Hill’s main body passed the Tormes, at Alba, and the bridge there was mined; the light division and Long’s cavalry remained on the right bank during the night but the next day the former also crossed the river. Wellington himself was in the position of San Christoval, and it is curious, that the king, even at this late period, was doubtful if Ballesteros’s troops had or had not joined the allied army at Avila. Wellington also was still uncertain of the real numbers of the enemy, but he was desirous to maintain the line of the Tormes permanently, and to give his troops repose. He had made a retreat of two hundred miles; Hill had made one of the same distance besides his march from Estremadura; Skerrit’s people had come from Cadiz, and the whole army required rest, for the soldiers, especially those who besieged Burgos, had been in the field, with scarcely an interval of repose, since January; they were bare-footed, and their equipments were spoiled, the cavalry were becoming weak, their horses were out of condition, and the discipline of all was failing. The excesses committed on the retreat from Burgos have already been touched upon, and during the first day’s march from the Tagus to Madrid, some of general Hill’s men had not behaved better. Five hundred of the rear-guard under Cole, chiefly of one regiment, finding the inhabitants had fled according to their custom whichever side was approaching, broke open the houses, plundered and got drunk. A multitude were left in the cellars of Valdemoro, and two hundred and fifty fell into the hands of the enemy. The rest of the retreat being unmolested, was made with more regularity, but the excesses still committed by some of the soldiers were glaring and furnished proof that the moral conduct of a general cannot be fairly judged by following in the wake of a retreating army. On this occasion there was no want of provisions, no hardships to exasperate the men, and yet I the author of this history, counted on the first day’s march from Madrid, seventeen bodies of murdered peasants; by whom killed, or for what, whether by English, or Germans, by Spaniards, or Portuguese, whether in dispute, in robbery, or in wanton villainy, I know not, but their bodies were in the ditches, and a shallow observer might thence have drawn the most foul and false conclusions against the English general and nation.