Suchet meantime pushed his attacks vigorously against the only remaining defences of the city, aware that he had no time to lose, and that if preparations were made for defending the streets and houses, a war of that kind might detain him till efficient succours should arrive by sea. Sir Edward Pellew, who had just taken the command of the Mediterranean fleet, was hastening with all speed to assist the besieged; and when the enemy’s batteries for forming a breach were almost completed, a detachment of 2000 British troops under Colonel Skerret arrived from Cadiz in the bay. He landed with his engineers, and they perceived how ill the front which the French threatened was able to withstand such batteries as would presently be opened against it. There was but one point now at which a disembarkation could be effected, and that point was flanked by the enemy. The disembarkation would nevertheless have been made, and these troops would have saved Tarragona, or fallen in its defence, if Contreras had not recommended that they should co-operate with Campoverde from without: their presence, he thought, might goad that general on to action, and give reasonable hope of some decisive success in the field, from which alone he looked for deliverance. Besides, he said, the garrison was numerous enough; and as soon as the enemy should have opened their trenches, and begun to batter in breach, he had determined to abandon the place, thinking it of more importance to preserve 7000 fine troops, than to defend the ruins of Tarragona. Skerret, therefore, met Eroles, who came from Campoverde; and they agreed with Doyle and Codrington, that the best plan would be for a sally to be made from the town with 4000 men, and Skerret at the same time to land and join in it. But when they came to consult with Campoverde himself and with Sarsfield, doubts and difficulties were started; other schemes were proposed, discussed, and rejected, and at length a written project of Campoverde’s was assented to. He had just before required 3000 of the best troops from the garrison: Contreras said, he would not commit such an error as to send them: he sent, however, one of the regiments which had been specified. Meantime, precious hours were let pass unprofitably by the Spaniards, and the French the while were unremittingly active in their operations.

On the 28th a breach had been made between two bastions capable of only two, or, at the most, three men abreast. That afternoon there was a strong cannonade: it ceased, and a dispatch came off from Contreras to the squadron, saying that the British guns had silenced the enemy’s batteries, that very little harm had been done to the place, and that the breach was nothing; yet he said, knowing the city was not tenable, he had determined upon leaving it with the garrison next day. While the British officer was reading this dispatch, the enemy were seen from the ships storming the breach, and in half an hour the place was carried. The Spaniards, disheartened by all the previous events of the siege, ... betrayed by some, and by others deceived and disappointed, ... abandoned themselves now: they were seized with a sudden panic; ... and there is nothing to alleviate, nothing to mingle with and modify the horror wherewith the ensuing tragedy will be regarded as long as the history of these times shall be held in remembrance. The scene was shameful as well as shocking. Instead of maintaining the breach, as the people of Gerona had done when suffering under disease and famine; instead of attempting to cut their way through the enemy, which at one time had less wisely and less generously been intended, the soldiers fled. Without the satisfaction of selling their lives dearly, or the sense of duty to console them in death, they suffered themselves to be butchered without resistance. Some of the officers tried every means to rally their men, but such efforts were in vain; that moral discipline had been neglected by which Zaragoza and Gerona have rendered themselves for ever worthy of admiration. The governor of the place, Gonzalez, with a handful of brave men, defended himself till the last, and fell. Contreras was wounded, and taken prisoner. The last effort was made before the cathedral, whither a multitude of Spaniards had betaken themselves; some in the vain hope that the sanctity of the place might protect them, some that they might die before their altars, and some to avail themselves of the vantage ground afforded by the ascent, which is by a flight of threescore steps. The conquerors made their way up under a destructive fire; and their fury, according to Suchet, knew no bounds, till upon entering the cathedral they beheld nine hundred wounded lying on the ♦Mémoires, 2. 105.♦ pavement. Their bayonets, he says, respected them; and he commends what he calls this trait of humanity. Little was shown elsewhere; but the carnage was chiefly among the inhabitants. Many thousands who had got over the ramparts or through the embrasures, or through the gate of St. Antonio, fled along the beach. The French field artillery and the batteries opened a fire upon this mixed and flying multitude on one part; and on another the cavalry charged among them, sabring the women and children, and trampling them down.

These execrable conquerors kept up a heavy fire upon the landing-place, where women and children stood grouped together, crowding to the British boats; and they endeavoured to sink the boats that were employed in this service of humanity. Suchet stated in his official account that four thousand men were killed in the city, and a thousand sabred or drowned in endeavouring to make their escape, ... “a horrible massacre had been made,” he said, “with little loss on the side of the conquerors; the terrible example which he had foreseen had taken place, and would be long remembered in Spain!” From the Spaniards and from our own officers we learned what was the nature of this example, which, because it was threatened, must be believed to have been predetermined! More than 6000 unresisting persons were butchered; old and young, man and woman, mother and babe; and when the enemy had satiated their thirst for blood they turned to the perpetration of crimes more damnable than murder. In the streets and in the churches they violated women who had escaped their first fury, only to suffer now worse horrors before they died. Nuns and wives, and widows in the hour when they were widowed, girls and children, were seized on by these monsters, ... and, retaining their cruelty when rage and lust were palled, they threw many of these victims, and of the wounded Spaniards, into the burning houses.

There were officers in this accursed army whose hearts revolted at the wicked service in which they were engaged, and who at all times redeemed themselves as far as they could by acts of individual humanity. What little mercy was shown at Tarragona ... little indeed it was, ... was owing to such men. But General Suchet was of the school of terrorists29; his intention was to intimidate Catalonia and the whole of Spain by this terrible example; and on the following morning he ordered the Alcaldes and Corregidores from the surrounding country to be brought together and led through the streets of Tarragona, that they might see the bodies ♦Contreras, p. 72.♦ which were lying there, and report to their countrymen what they might expect if they dared attempt resistance to the French! If, indeed, at ♦Campoverde resolves to abandon Catalonia.♦ any time it were possible to intimidate such a people as the Catalans, who in all ages have shown the same invincible resolution, it would have been now, when the last bulwark of the province had fallen. By some strange imprudence the greater part of their ammunition had been deposited there, and very little remained in those parts of the country which were yet free. There still remained in the field the remains of an army which they had clothed and armed at their own cost, as well as raised among themselves; and which, often as it had been defeated, had nevertheless shown a braver countenance to the enemy, and inflicted upon him greater loss than any other in the Spanish ♦July 1.♦ service. The general, however, held a council of war at Cervera; the usual course when a commander wishes to shift from himself the ignominy of the measures which he is prepared to take. It was proposed to abandon the province, as if farther resistance were hopeless. Eroles was not present; and though Sarsfield, who was the first to give his opinion, declared that any one who should vote for such an abandonment would be a traitor to his country, and that he and his division would stand or fall with the principality, he received only a faint and false support from Campoverde, and was consequently outvoted; and an aid-de-camp of the general was sent to inform Captain Codrington that they were on their march to Arens, there to embark, leaving their horses on the beach. Codrington replied, that having brought the Valencians thither for a special service, he felt himself bound in duty to take their division on board, and return them to the general and kingdom by which they had been spared; but that he would not embark the army of Catalonia, and thus make himself a party concerned in the abandonment of a province which he was sent to protect. Upon receiving this answer, Campoverde determined upon marching into Aragon, ... not upon any brave attempt, but for the chance of making his way into some safer country; a determination which so dismayed the Valencians, that nearly 2000 of them dispersed, as well knowing how much better they could shift for themselves individually than they were likely to fare in such an undertaking. The commander now began to perceive that as the English would not take away his army by sea, neither would the troops follow him by land; and there was a general call that Eroles should take upon himself the command. ♦Eroles refuses to leave it.♦ But Eroles, who acted always from a worthier motive than ambition, replied to the Junta of generals who would have conferred it upon him in obedience to the voice of the people, that as long as any of those who were his superior officers remained in the principality, he must decline it; but that whenever, in pursuance of the resolution which had been taken, they should pass the boundaries, he would then, however unwillingly, take upon him that duty, rather than see his country thrown into the worse anarchy which must otherwise ensue.

That anarchy began already to be felt. The superior Junta at Solsona were left to learn as they could the resolution that had been taken of withdrawing the army which they had raised and provided; and deserters were already collecting in bands and acting as guerrillas, or as banditti, as opportunity invited. But the Junta, when they laid their situation (dissembling nothing) before the British admiral, assured him that they would persevere in the contest, because they knew that the Catalans were more than ever unanimous in their abhorrence of the invaders. Tarragona had been betrayed, not conquered: the enemy might congratulate themselves upon their good fortune, not upon victories well contested and fairly won; ... this was the language of the people. At this crisis, General Luis Lacy arrived upon the coast to take the command: the Duque del Infantado had been talked of for it, and the Catalans wished for him; but the Duke was more in his place at Cadiz; and a fitter commander than Lacy could not at that time have been sent to a charge which might seem so hopeless. Eroles, after a fruitless endeavour to meet him, sent him full information of the state of affairs, and promised to support him in the command whereto he was regularly appointed with all the personal exertions of which he was capable, and all the ♦July 9.♦ influence that he possessed in this his native province. The French were just then endeavouring to cut off the Valencian division, and their movements made the communication difficult between the army and the coast. The remainder of that division, however (reduced to 2400, though not a man had fallen, for they had never faced the enemy), made their way to Arens de Mar, and were there embarked, Eroles detaining the enemy by a feint at Mataro. Lacy then assumed the command of an army which he said was non-existent: “Bad as I expected to find things,” said he, “they are infinitely worse; and my only consolation must be, that there is absolutely nothing left for me to lose.”

The fortified points which the Catalans still retained were Berga, Montserrate (for this had been made a military post), Figueras, Cardona, and the Seu d’Urgel. Berga was dismantled by Lacy, because he was unable to defend it, and it might have been a useful hold for the French. Orders arrived from Paris to demolish Tarragona, preserving only a redoubt there, to reduce Montserrate, and then prepare to march against the kingdom of Valencia. Suchet was at the same time created a marshal of the empire for his services; the massacre at Tarragona was considered as no reproach to him, or the army by which it had been perpetrated. By General Rogniat’s advice, the works which surrounded the upper town were preserved, because they might be defended by a thousand men: the other works were destroyed, and the greater part of the artillery removed to Tortosa. Montserrate was then attacked; ... its former peaceful inhabitants had removed to Majorca, and taken with them in time the treasures of their sanctuary. Great enterprise and activity were displayed in the attack; and the garrison, confiding too much in the natural strength of the mountain, suffered themselves to be surprised from its heights. This was a severe loss to the Catalans; for it was now their chief depôt, and they had counted upon its security. The ♦Fall of Figueras.♦ last calamity in this series of misfortunes was the fall of Figueras. When it had been blockaded between four and five months, and all the horses were eaten, the garrison sallied, and attempted to force their way through the besiegers. An aid-de-camp of the governor had deserted and given information of their purpose; the enemy therefore were prepared to receive them; nevertheless they made their way to the abattis, formed of trunks of trees, which they found impenetrable; ♦August 19.♦ and after three attempts in the course of one day, these gallant men were compelled to capitulate, three sacks of flour being all the provisions which were left. During two preceding days they had employed themselves in destroying whatever could be of use to the enemy. Honourable terms were obtained, and Martinez was made to say in his dispatch to his own Government that the garrison were treated by the French with the generosity which characterises that nation. That phrase would be rightly understood by ♦Base usage of the prisoners taken there.♦ the Spaniards. It had been stipulated that they should march out with their baggage, and deliver their arms on the glacis. But no sooner had they given up their arms than they were plundered; and they were marched into France in such a state of destitution, that they were indebted for needful covering to the humanity of the towns through which they passed. Eight hundred peasants were among these prisoners. Buonaparte sent them to the hulks at Brest and Rochefort, and there they were compelled to work with the convicts, being distinguished from them only by a dress of different colour, not by any difference in30 treatment.

When Figueras had been recovered from the enemy, it was asserted in the Government gazette, that in consequence of that event the French had abandoned Hostalrich and Gerona, and that the English had taken Rosas; so readily did the Spaniards listen even to the idlest rumours of success! The French in like manner believing, or professing to believe, what they wished, gave out upon their recapture of this fortress that the war in Catalonia was ended: so M. Macdonald affirmed in his dispatches; and the vain boast was repeated in the Barcelonan journal, though in that city undeniable proofs of its falsehoods were daily and hourly received. One of the most remarkable men whom these troubles had drawn from obscurity into active life was Jose ♦Manso.♦ Manso, who at the commencement of the struggle followed the humble occupation of a miller upon a small patrimony of his own, near Barcelona; some French officers, by their outrageous conduct towards him, roused in him a spirit which under happier circumstances might never have been awakened, and he began his honourable warfare against the invaders with only three comrades. By a series of exploits skilfully planned and bravely executed, he had gained for himself a high reputation, which was in no slight degree enhanced by his moral worth; for it might truly be said of him that he was without fear and without reproach. When Manso entered upon this new course of life he was about two or three and twenty years of age, and was so uneducated that he could neither write nor read; but every portion of time that could now be spared from his military duties was devoted to self-improvement, and his progress in this kept full pace with his fortune. At this time he held the rank of lieutenant-colonel in the Catalan army; and when Suchet, soon after the fall of Tarragona, was on his way to the capital of the province, he, at the head of a detachment, harassed his march, and succeeded in cutting off some fifty of the enemy and taking six, between Ordal and Molins de Rey; but twelve of his soldiers were taken in these skirmishes, and the French commander ordered some of them to be shot, some to be hanged, and some to be burnt, though they claimed the protection to which they were entitled by the laws of war, and though they threw themselves at his feet and entreated mercy. His orders were executed; some thirty peasants of St. Vincente, Molins de Rey, and Palleja, who were working in the fields, were murdered in like manner; and every woman who fell into the hands of these inhuman troops became their victim. Manso issued a proclamation denouncing these crimes before God and man; and declaring that the right of reprisals which till then he had from humanity forborne to exercise should instantly be enforced; he hung his six prisoners in the immediate vicinity of Barcelona; and gave notice, that every Frenchman who from that hour fell into his hands should be put to death, till the enemy should have learnt to treat as prisoners of war brave men who were fighting for their country, which had been perfidiously invaded, their religion, which was insolently outraged, and their king, who had been treacherously decoyed into captivity.

The French asserted also in their journals, that the Junta of Catalonia had fled to Majorca, giving up the principality in despair. The Spanish frigates had indeed run for that island, contrary to orders, carrying with them the archives, and the money, stores, ammunition, and medicines intended for the inland fortresses, and at that time especially needed by them. But the Junta were at their post when Catalonia was left to stand or fall by its own strength, and when without their presence there could have been none to call forth or direct it. In many parts of Spain the provincial Juntas disregarded sometimes, and sometimes counteracted, the orders of the Government; but here the duties of Government devolved upon the Junta. From Solsona they now issued some of those proclamations which contributed so greatly to support the national cause, calling upon their countrymen in the language of hope and heroism and indignation, and exhorting them to rely upon their good cause and their own right arms, and the justice of the Almighty. The Barcelonan journal said that Lacy had fled with the Junta. If they who made this assertion believed it themselves, they ♦Lacy’s proclamation.♦ were speedily undeceived. That general declared in a proclamation, that if his well-founded hope of soon seeing better days should be disappointed, he would die with the last soldier rather than abandon his post: eight days he allowed the dispersed troops for rejoining their colours at the places fixed upon; those who should not then have rejoined were to be pursued as deserters by the civil and military authorities. “Catalans,” said he, “the country is in danger, and now more than ever stands in need of your exertions. The Junta and your general are bound to explain to you your situation, because true courage consists not in being ignorant of danger, but in overcoming it. The fall of Tarragona has made that situation critical in the extreme, not desperate. There yet remain to us inextinguishable hatred of oppression and ardent love of independence; ... there yet remain to us strong-holds and mountains; ... there remain to us the arms of our numerous and valiant youth for recovering what is lost, and for making the enemy know that the attempt to conquer us is vain. With fewer resources did Pelayo from the mountains of Covadonga begin the deliverance of Spain: and there are not wanting to us chiefs who are determined to follow his glorious example. Great efforts are necessary: let our efforts then be united, and for those who have not spirit to follow this resolution, let them abandon us and join the enemy, that we may know whom to treat as enemies, and whom as friends. The priest, the religioner, the father of a family, every one has wrongs to avenge, every one has much to lose, and our country calls upon all. In all parts the alarm-bell is heard, and wherever there are enemies, there should be Catalans to fight them. War and vengeance must be our only business; and, like our forefathers, let us leave to the women the care of our houses and families!”

Yet while Lacy held this language, and used at the same time every exertion for collecting the dispersed troops, he was obliged to dismiss a body of cavalry, from utter inability to support them, or even to feed the horses. Brigadier D. Gervasio Gasca commanded this division, which contained twelve superior and 112 subaltern officers, 922 men, and about 500 horses, the remains of the regiment of Alcantara, the Numancian dragoons, Spanish hussars, cazadores of Valencia, and hussars of Granada. They had to make their way through Aragon, into a free province, and incorporate themselves with the first army they could find. The details of their march show the skill with which the enemy had chosen his positions, so as to give him military command of the country; for near as Valencia was, Gasca was six weeks on the way, and travelled between 700 and 800 miles before he could effect his junction with a Spanish army. He began this perilous retreat on the 25th of July, with his horses in miserable condition for want of food, and without money; getting provisions and information as he could find them; and having no means of procuring either, except such as chance or charity might bestow. At Graus, a small party of the enemy were found, whom they kept in check with a part of their force, while the rest forded the Esera by Barazona. Making long marches, so as to outrun the intelligence of the enemy, they succeeded in passing the rivers Cinca and Gallego without opposition; but when they were in the district of Las Cinco Villas de Aragon, knowing that the French from Barbastro and Huesca were about to collect and cut them off, they made yet longer marches, taking a more devious direction, and moving by night. Notwithstanding these precautions, they were attacked at midnight near the village of Luesia, by what force they knew not, but the fire came from the village, and from a height which commanded the ground over which they were passing. Gasca could not prevent his men from making a precipitate retreat; he had only time to name a place of rendezvous; and while the enemy, who consisted of 1000 foot, and from two to three hundred horse, under the Polish general Chlopiski, hastened to cut them off from the pass of the Gallego, Gasca avoided them by entering Navarre, where he rested three days at Eybar, expecting help from Espoz y Mina to effect the perilous passage of the Ebro. Three parties of that distinguished leader’s cavalry came to assist and guide him: their knowledge of the country was of essential service; they made a rapid and unexpected march to one of the fords of the river; its waters were swoln, and they were obliged in some places to swim: the passage, however, was effected, and immediately Gasca marched from four in the afternoon of one day till eight on the following morning, that he might get out of reach of the garrisons of Tafalla, Caparroso, and Tudela. The danger was now less imminent, though still sufficiently great; they made shorter marches, varying their direction, according to the intelligence they procured of the enemy; and thus, after six weeks of such hardships as few people, except the Spaniards, could have sustained, they joined the army in Murcia by the circuitous way of Guadalaxara and Cuenca, having lost upon the road four officers, 153 men, and 213 horses: the greater part of these men had been dispersed in the night route at Luesia; the horses had mostly died upon the march.

But the Catalans, in circumstances under which almost any other people would have despaired, never lost hope; their saying was, that now, when the fortified places were lost, the war was only begun. And indeed, deplorable as the state of things was for the natives, it was far more so for the invaders: they were masters of almost every fortress, but their dominion did not extend beyond the walls. They levied contributions upon the villages near, and this was all; ... they could only move in large detachments, and wherever they moved they were harassed by the armed peasantry and the Somatenes. The daily and hourly cost of life at which they kept their ground was such, that the enemy, who avowed their determination of extirpating half the inhabitants in order to intimidate the rest, must have exhausted the resources, if not the patience, of France, before such a determination could be executed. In the preceding year Suchet had dispersed a proclamation, declaring that Great Britain and her Spanish allies had made peace with France, and acknowledged Joseph Buonaparte as king of Spain. The French now circulated a report that negotiations were going on, and with such probability of success, that Talleyrand had been sent to London, and the Emperor himself had gone to the coast for the purpose of expediting the business. But these artifices availed them nothing, for Doyle contradicted their falsehood in addresses which were carried everywhere, and eagerly received, ... and British ships were still upon the coast, to act wherever opportunity might offer.

Every success at this time was of great importance in its moral effect. Men are usually alive to hope in proportion as their natures are generous; and the same cause, which throughout the war rendered it impossible to depress the Spaniards, made them easily elated. Of the patriotic journals which were published in every part of Spain, scarcely a number appeared that did not contain details of some skirmish, some guerrilla attack, some successful enterprise, or hair-breadth escape, ... more animating than success in the recital. These things, more even than signal victories, tended to excite a military spirit, when no other advantage accrued from them. But of the advantages which the Catalans at this time obtained, one was of considerable importance. An expedition of Spaniards and English, who in all were but a handful ♦Sept. 1.♦ of men, recovered the isles of Las Medas, which had been betrayed to the enemy the preceding year. Colonel Green, the British commissioner, and Baron de Eroles, commanded in this well-planned and well-executed attempt; and the crew of the Undaunted frigate, Captain Thomas, displayed that zeal and those resources in dragging guns up the rocks, by which British seamen have often made themselves dreaded upon their enemies’ shores. They found in the fort four guns and provisions for three months. Both officers perceived how important it was to retain possession of a place which at little expense might be rendered a second Gibraltar, ... for little was necessary to render it impregnable: here was a post where they could receive supplies, and here a depôt might be securely established. Eroles, therefore, dispatched orders for 500 men to come and garrison it. The French were equally aware of the advantage which the possession of this point would give their enemies. They brought down a considerable force to Estardit, a village on the opposite shore, and opened batteries against the island, which was within reach of shells. The succours which Eroles had gone to expedite did not appear; the force upon the island consisted only of 146 men, exhausted with the fatigues they had undergone; and Colonel Green reluctantly yielding to the representations of the officer ♦Sept. 4.♦ of the Undaunted, abandoned the works which he had begun, and with them the hopes which he had formed, and blew up the fort. The opportunity, however, was happily retrieved. Lacy, who felt the want of such a point to look to, embarked with 200 men from Arens de Mar in the Undaunted; and taking ♦Sept. 13.♦ with him labourers, tools, and stores in some transports, re-occupied the islands, giving them the names of the Isles of Restoration, because, he said, this might be considered as the first step to the recovery of the principality. Water was discovered there, a sufficient garrison established, and the fortifications commenced and carried on in sight of the enemy on the opposite shore, and in defiance of their batteries. Bomb-proofs for men and stores were soon made in a situation favourable for such works. The chief battery was named Lacy by the governor; but that general said he would not permit himself to receive this honour, it should be called Montardit, in honour of the last Catalan whom the French, having taken in arms, had put to death, in violation of the laws of war.

General Lacy, being unable to undertake any considerable attempt against the enemy, determined, in the right spirit of a soldier, to make activity and enterprise supply the want of numbers, and cut up the invaders in ♦Successful enterprise of Lacy and Eroles.♦ detail. They had formed a chain of fortified posts from Barcelona to Lerida. These he resolved to attack, and began by a rapid march upon Igualada, where the enemy had fortified a Capuchine convent. Four hundred men with two guns were to have joined him from Cardona; but he was disappointed of this aid, for no means of moving the guns, nor for making the road practicable for them, could be procured in time; all that could be done was to surprise the town, and cut off as many of the French as possible before they could take refuge in their fort. At three in ♦Oct. 4.♦ the morning the sentinels were put to the sword, the enemy surprised in their quarters, twenty-five prisoners were taken, and about 150 killed; the rest escaped into the convent, as they got out of their beds; and Lacy, seeing at daybreak that succours were coming to them from Monserrate and Casa-Masana, retired to Col de Gusem, satisfied with his success, and thence to Manresa. This made them suppose that he had desisted from offensive operations; and a convoy which, in fear of his movements, had been for some days detained at Cervera, ventured to move toward Igualada. Eroles with half the Catalan force got before it, and the commander-in-chief with the other half cut off its retreat. A column with artillery sallied from Igualada to its assistance, but came only to share in the defeat; ♦Oct. 7.♦ 200 were wounded and made prisoners, the killed were in proportion, and the whole convoy was taken.

The general finding now that his presence was necessary in the Junta, to forward the formation and organization of the army, left Eroles, his second in command, to complete the plan, which had already so far succeeded that the French, dreading a second attack, and weakened by this last loss, retired precipitately from Igualada, Monserrate, and Casa-Masana, to Barcelona. Eroles no sooner knew that Igualada had been evacuated ♦Oct. 10.♦ than he marched against Cervera. The French, when they saw him approaching, withdrew from the city into the university, which they had fortified; and a body of 500 foot and thirty horse, which had just arrived from Lerida to their support, turned back to provide for its own safety. D. Luis de Creeft and D. Jose Casas were sent to pursue them, while Eroles with one ten-pounder prepared to attack buildings which had been designed by their founders for far other purposes than those of war. This single gun threw down part of the house in which it was planted; but Eroles turned the accident to advantage; for while he affected to be replacing it, in order to deceive the enemy, the gun was moved to another situation, from whence it opened its fire, anew, and its carriage was rattled along so as to make them believe that more artillery was about to be brought to bear. Their commandant soon hung out the white flag, and 630 men were made prisoners of war, at an expense to the Catalans of only ten in killed and wounded.

This conquest set free a considerable territory, which, ever since the loss of Tarragona, had been at the enemy’s mercy. Creeft, meantime, with a force inferior to that he was pursuing, followed the column which was retreating to Lerida, and which on its way was joined by the garrison of Tarrega, another post abandoned by the French in their alarm. In this pursuit the corregidor of Cervera was taken attempting to escape with the enemy; a man who had joined the French, and, with the malevolence of a traitor, persecuted his own countrymen. He had invented a cage in which to imprison those who did not pay their contributions, or were in any way obnoxious to him: it was so constructed as to confine the whole body, leaving the head exposed to be buffeted and spit upon; and sometimes this devilish villain anointed the face of his victim with honey to attract the flies and wasps. “Tomorrow,” said Eroles in his dispatches, “the señor corregidor will go out to parade the streets in this same cage, where the persons who have suffered this grievous torment may behold him: Discite justitiam moniti, et non temnere Divos!” The capture of this man was worth as much, in the feelings of the people, as all the preceding success.

Eroles, with the rest of his division, now hastened to Bellpuig, where Creeft had blockaded about 400 French in the old palace of the Dukes of Sesa, a castle of the fifteenth century, which they had fortified, and which commanded the town. The besiegers had only one ten-pounder, and the walls were more than seven feet thick. They had no time to lose, for Latour, with the troops who had escaped from Igualada, and the garrisons of the other evacuated posts, was preparing, in concert with the enemies from Lerida and Balaguer, to march against them. Unused as they were to such operations, and, as Eroles said, without any other engineers than ingenuity and strong desire, they made three mines which reduced ♦Oct. 14.♦ the castle almost to a heap of ruins: 184 prisoners were taken, the rest of the garrison perished. This success completed Lacy’s plan, and set free the whole of the country between Lerida and Barcelona. Eroles then, by a movement as judicious as it was unexpected, while the French commanders were concerting plans against him, marched by the Seu de Urgel to Puigcerda, where he routed all the force that the enemy could bring against him: then having occupied the pass of the Valle de Luerol, he entered France, and levied contributions in Languedoc. It was the earnest wish of Baron de Eroles that his troops in this expedition should be as much distinguished by their good order, moderation, and humanity, as the French in Spain were for their crimes. In every place, except one, this object was effected; but in the little town of Marens, the only place where resistance was made by the inhabitants and an armed force, a soldier, in violation of his orders, set fire to one of the houses: the wind was high, the flames spread, notwithstanding the efforts which were made to stop them, and the whole place was burnt. Villamil, governor of Seu de Urgel, who commanded this division of Eroles’ army, expressed his regret for what had happened; “But, perhaps,” he said, “the furious hand which committed the evil had been impelled by divine justice, that France might behold an image of Manresa.” Every where else the orders of the commander were rigidly observed; and the French, admiring the humanity of an enemy who had been so grievously wronged, in many places where they paid the required contribution, acknowledged the justice of this retaliation. Some thousand sheep and corn, and specie to the amount of 50,000 dollars, were the fruits of this first inroad of the Spaniards into France.