The force under his orders sailed from Cork in the beginning of July; Sir Arthur Wellesley himself proceeded in a single ship to Corunna. The state of things upon his arrival at that port was unfavourable to the Spaniards. The Gallician army under Blake, and that of Castile under Cuesta, had been defeated by a French corps commanded by Marshal Bessières, in the neighbourhood of Rio Seco; and there appeared no obstacle to the march of the enemy to Corunna. In this situation of affairs Sir Arthur Wellesley hinted to the Junta, that if a request to land his army for the protection of Gallicia should be made to him, he would not hesitate in acceding to it. The Junta, however, actuated by a feeling of pride and jealousy which has so often brought the affairs of Spain to the brink of ruin, neglected to make this proposal. Sir Arthur consequently proceeded to the coast of Portugal, and arrived in Mondego Bay on the 26th of July. Leaving there the expedition he commanded, he went to the mouth of the Tagus, to procure information, and to combine his operations with Admiral Sir C. Cotton. When these objects were accomplished, he returned to the Mondego, determining to land his troops as soon as the corps which he expected, either from Cadiz, under General Spencer, or from England, under General Ackland, should have arrived. The former joined on the 2d of August; and Sir Arthur Wellesley immediately disembarked his army. At this moment three-fourths of Portugal were in insurrection against the French. Junot, who had entered the country in the November preceding, had commanded a corps of 40,000 men, of which about 10,000 were Spaniards; Oporto was occupied by a part of the Spanish troops, the rest of them were at Lisbon. At the commencement of the revolution in Spain, Junot entertained so great a suspicion of the Spaniards in that capital, and in its neighbourhood, that, under pretence of sending them to other quarters, he succeeded in surrounding and disarming them, and afterwards in placing them as prisoners on board ships provided for that purpose in the Tagus. As soon as the intelligence of this event reached Oporto, the Spanish garrison seized the few French officers who were in the town; invited the inhabitants to follow the example of Spain, and resist the French; and themselves marched off to join their companions in Gallicia.