At the moment when Napoleon was writing these lines, King Joseph retreated before the enemy, and abandoned his capital. Deprived of the succor that General Dupont was to have brought, the defenders of Madrid did not consider the concentration of troops sufficiently considerable to protect the Castiles against the ever-rising flood of the national insurrection. "The emperor could hold his own here," said Savary, "but what is possible to him is not so to the others." It was resolved to make a stand on the line of the Ebro; King Joseph quitted Madrid, abandoned by the intimate servants of his household, as well as by a certain number of his ministers. 2000 domestics of the palace had fled for fear of being forced to follow the royal retreat. Burgos not appearing to be a retreat sufficiently sure, the monarch and his little court soon established themselves at Vittoria. After a second assault, as sanguinary and without result as the first, General Verdier, recalled to the Ebro, found himself obliged to abandon the siege of Saragossa. Already the position of the French in Spain became defensive, and the fears of King Joseph increased. "I can only repeat, once for all, that nearly all the grand army is marching, and that between this and autumn Spain will be inundated with troops," wrote the emperor, on the 9th of August. "You must try to preserve the line of the Douro to maintain a communication with Portugal. The English are not much, they never have more than a quarter of the troops they announce. Lord Wellesley has not 4000 men. Besides, they are intended, I believe, for Portugal." It was in truth on Portugal that the efforts of England were directed at this moment, as she discerned clearly that there lay the true road to Spain. In Galicia, as well as Andalusia, the Spanish insurgents had refused the active intervention of the English. Sir Arthur Wellesley, who at first appeared before Corunna, contented himself by furnishing the suspicious Spaniards with ammunition and money, and on the 1st August he appeared at the mouth of the Mondego, in Portugal. His fleet carried 10,000 English troops. A reinforcement of 4000 men was shortly expected.