[1] The squadron, under the command of Captain Joaquín Zarauz, and made up of five frigates, two brigs, two schooners, four gunboats and fifteen troopships, plus a landing force of two thousand troops, sailed from La Coruña on 14 October 1810,[1] headed first for Gijón and then for Santoña.
Most of the British ships making up the joint squadron had already participated the previous July in a joint Anglo-Spanish operation led by Mends,[2] on board Arethusa, with Medusa, under Captain Bowles; Narcissus, under Captain Aylmer, who led the landing party on that occasion; HMS Dryad (1795); and Amazon, and which had consisted in transporting Brigadier-general Porlier's 500 Spanish troops to Santoña.
But the raid had not been useless; it had compelled Bonnet to evacuate many posts, distracted the garrisons of Santander and Biscay, and even induced Caffarelli to march down to the coast with his newly-arrived division, the 'Reserve of the Army of Spain.'
The raids along the northern coast had kept Bonnet and the troops in Santander and Biscay fully employed; they had distracted Seras, Caffarelli, and even the garrisons of the province of Burgos.
They had saved Mahy and Silveira from attack, and had lighted up a blaze of insurrection in the western hills of Cantabria which, thanks to the energy of Porlier and his colleague Longa, was never extinguished.