Note 480 — Chapter I

Carrol gives an excellent account of the French invasion in a long dispatch written from Vigo on June 3. He says that the Marquis only heard of Ney’s approach by the peasants flying from Cangas de Tineo on the morning of May 17. He himself was sent out to verify the incredible information, and came on the French as they were crossing the Navia, only thirty miles from Oviedo. He rode back in haste, and met one Asturian battalion coming up, and afterwards the regiment of La Princesa. Romana had no other troops, and only a few hundred half-armed peasantry joined in the defence of the bridge of Gallegos.