[5] On 25–26 March, his troops had an indecisive skirmish with one of Gazan's brigades,[5] after which Ballesteros withdrew back into the hills of the Condado de Niebla.

[6] On 2 March 1811, having re-entered Spain the previous month from Portugal, Ballasteros, at the head of 4,000 troops, defeated General Rémond by the Rio Tinto.

[6] A week later, on 9 March, Ballasteros surprised Remónd at La Palma, taking two guns, and driving the French force back into Seville.

[2] On 12 April 1811, Ballesteros's division, numbering some 3,500 troops, were beaten by Maransin's seven battalions of infantry at Fregenal, on the borders of Estremadura.

On 4 September 1811, he landed at Algeciras and was being hunted by several battalions of Soult's reserve; some 10,000 troops under Barrois, Semellé, and Godinot were being used against Ballesteros in October.

[7] The situation was such that, in the words of Oman, During the midwinter of 1811-12 Soult's main attention was taken up by a serious enterprise in the extreme south of his viceroyalty, which [...] rendered it impossible for him to take the offensive in any other direction.

)On 5 November, when the three French columns hunting him were forced, due to lack of provisions, to withdraw and to disperse, he attacked their rearguard,[7] defeating Semellé at the first battle of Bornos.

[1] On 24 October 1812,[1] unwilling to accept a foreigner (Wellington) as supreme commander of the Spanish Army,[note 4] Ballesteros mutinied and was dismissed on 12 December[2] and later imprisoned in Ceuta, on the North African coast.

[1] In the autumn of 1812 [Wellington's] retreat beyond the Douro need never have been made, if Ballasteros had obeyed orders, and moved up from Granada to threaten Soult's flank, instead of remaining torpid in his cantonments 200 miles from the theatre of war.