Rencontres of this sort had their value, as they served to curb the audacity of the enemy, and furnished a seasonable sample of what might be expected in the event of a general battle. Meantime the tide of superior force, against whose overpowering number it was physically impossible to present an effective check, came rolling on in waves of gathering might. Napoleon had arrived at Valderas, Ney at Villator, and Lapisse at Touro. The French troops were worn down with fatigue, yet the emperor still urged them forward. He flattered himself, and wished to persuade others, that he should intercept the retreat of the English at Astorga; but the destruction of the bridge of Castro Gonzalo had been so complete, that twenty-four hours were required to repair it, and the fords were now impassable. After all, the emperor, with whom it was never safe to trifle, was near the accomplishment of his 54design; for scarcely had the rear of the British army quitted Astorga, when advanced parties of French soldiery appeared in view. Upon the 1st of January, 1809, the Emperor Napoleon took possession of Astorga. On that day seventy thousand French infantry, ten thousand cavalry, and two hundred pieces of artillery, after many days of incessant marching, were thus united. The assemblage of this mighty force, while it evinced the energy of the French monarch attested also the genius of the English general, who, with a handful of men, had found means to arrest the course of the conqueror, and to draw him, with the flower of his army, to this remote and unimportant part of the Peninsula, at the moment when Portugal, and the fairest provinces of Spain, were prostrate before him. That Sir John Moore intercepted the blow which was then descending on Spain no man of honesty can deny; for what troops were there in the south to have resisted even for an instant the progress of a man, who in ten days, and in the depth of winter, crossing the snowy ridge of the Carpentinos, had traversed two hundred miles of hostile country, and transported fifty thousand men from Madrid to Astorga in a shorter time than a Spanish diligence would have taken to travel the same distance? This stupendous march was rendered fruitless by the quickness of the adversary; but Napoleon, though he had failed to destroy the English army, resolved nevertheless to drive it from the Peninsula; and being himself recalled to France by tidings that the Austrian storm was ready to burst, he fixed upon the Duke of Dalmatia to continue the pursuit, adding, for this purpose, three divisions of cavalry and three of infantry to his command. This formidable pursuing force was separated into three divisions, and entrusted to the command of Laborde, Heudelet, and Loison; so that after leaving a considerable corps in reserve in the Montagna de St. Andre, nearly sixty thousand 55men and ninety-one guns were put on the track of the English army.