The French seem now for the first time to have comprehended Lord Wellington’s plan, and found themselves out-manœuvred by an enemy to whom they had hitherto allowed no credit for any thing except courage, and that only because they had been so often beaten by them that it was no longer for their own credit to deny it. No sooner were they menaced by the advance of the columns than they destroyed the bridge at Zamora, and retired from that city and from Toro. Both cities were entered by the allies; and at daybreak on the first of June the hussar brigade under Colonel Grant came up near Toro with the enemy’s rear-guard, who retired rapidly to the village of Morales, in the direction of Tordesillas. After having been cannonaded by two guns, which were all that could be brought up in time through the deep sandy roads, the French formed behind the village. The hussars passed on both sides of the village, and instantly charged them; upon which they made off with all speed for a little bridge across a marshy bottom, faced about there, being supported by some guns belonging to their infantry, and stood a charge. They were worsted in it, but passed the bridge; part of the 10th hussars pursued, and Captain Lloyd advancing with great spirit, but few followers, was taken: they were again pressed, and retired hastily on the infantry, losing more than 200 prisoners in these affairs, and so many in killed and wounded, that the 16th regiment of dragoons was almost destroyed. Captain Lloyd was ill-treated by his captors; they beat him and rifled him, but left him in their retreat. Though the fighting was almost in the street of Morales, the Spaniards were now so accustomed to sights of war, that within ten minutes after the firing had ceased the women were spinning at their doors, and the little children at play as if nothing had happened.
Lord Wellington halted at Toro, that the light division and the troops under Sir Rowland might cross the Douro by the bridge there, that his rear-guard might come up, and that the Galician army should unite itself with his left. The whole of the allied force was now on the right side of the Douro: leaving then half the reserve-ammunition near Zamora to spare the horses (which were already suffering), he proceeded: the French, whose force was distributed between Valladolid, Tordesillas, and Medina, retiring as he advanced, their rear crossing at the Puente de Duero, on the same day that the allies accomplished their first object in the campaign, by uniting on the right side of that river. The enemy now concentrated their force behind the Pisuerga: there also there was strong ground for defence; but abandoning that also when Lord Wellington manœuvred on their right, they withdrew behind the Carrion. The Intruder quitted Palencia on the 6th, and the greater part of his troops early on the following morning, after a night passed in the fear of close pursuit. When Lord Wellington entered that city, flowers were thrown upon him from the windows, and a shower of roses from the upper gratings of a nunnery. The enemy had not left a morsel of bread, nor a drop of wine in that city: and when they hastily retired from a bivouac near Tordesillas, leaving it to be occupied by a part of Sir Rowland’s corps, the fuel which the troops found collected there consisted of doors, window-frames, tables, and drawers, from the houses in the neighbourhood.