In the later wars between Spain and Portugal, the three cities where the Spaniards used to collect their armies before they invaded the enemy’s country were Tuy, Ciudad Rodrigo, and Badajoz. Of these fortresses, Tuy, like Valença on the opposite frontier, is now of little strength or importance, Badajoz a strong place, Ciudad Rodrigo hardly to be ranked in the third order of fortresses. It was built some centuries ago, when the site was sufficiently convenient for a fortified town; but the situation is bad; the works were old and imperfect, and it had other local disadvantages. It is commanded from many points; and one height, within 500 toises of the city, exceeds by about fifty yards the highest of its buildings. There were no bomb-proofs; and the suburbs, in which there were four convents, and the number of gardens without the walls, materially assisted the operations of a besieging army. The population of the city had been estimated at about 10,000; but it appears not much to have exceeded half that number. The garrison amounted to 4950, including 600 townsmen; the greater part of the others being volunteers, or men newly raised. Camp Marshal D. Andres Perez de Herrasti was governor, an old man, who had been the friend and comrade of Mariano Alvarez.
On the 25th of April 6000 French appeared before the place, and encamped in the _Termino_ of Pedro Toro, a league to the eastward. On the 30th, the second division, consisting of from 4000 to 5000, arrived and encamped in the _Termino_ of Valde Carros, a league to the north. Five days afterwards another encampment was formed between the two. On May 15th, another division, of about 7000 men, encamped to the westward, upon Monte de Ibanrey. So large a force was necessary, because the English were near at hand. By the 4th of June the city was completely invested. This was not effected without repeated skirmishes, in which the enemy suffered considerable loss. In these ♦1810. MAY.♦ affairs, D. Antonio Camargo, commandant of the volunteers of Avila, greatly distinguished himself; but the individual who, above all others, annoyed the enemy by his incessant enterprise, ♦D. JULIAN SANCHEZ.♦ was D. Julian Sanchez, the son of a farmer, near the banks of the Guebra. Till the invasion of his country, he had cultivated his father’s lands; but when his father, mother, and sister had been murdered by the French, he made a vow of vengeance, and, at the head of one of those bands which the Spaniards call _guerrillas_, well performed it. On one occasion he surprised, in his father’s house, a French colonel, infamous for his atrocities, and put him to death, first telling him who it was that inflicted his merited punishment in this world, and sent him to render account for his crimes in the next.