some miles to the rear, at Requeña, when he should have been present in full force at the bridge, ought now to have fallen back to cover Valencia, but in a moment of panic he fled across country to join the army at Almanza [June 21]. [105] Moncey induced a good many of these mercenaries to take service with him; but they deserted him when the time of trouble began. This disgraceful flight left the Valencian Junta almost destitute of troops for the defence of the still stronger defile of the Cabrillas, which Moncey had yet to force before he could descend into the plain. The Junta hurried up to it two regiments of recruits--one of which is said to have been first practised in the manual exercise the day before it went into action[106]. These, with 300 old soldiers, the wrecks of the combat at the Cabriel, and three guns, tried to hold the pass. Moncey turned both flanks of this very inadequate defending force, and then broke through its centre. Many of the Spaniards dispersed, 500 were slain or captured, and the rest fled down the pass to Valencia. After riding round the position, Moncey remarked that it was so strong that with 6,000 steady troops he would undertake to hold it against Napoleon himself and the Grand Army [June 24]. [106] Arteche, _Guerra de la Independencia_, ii. 150. Two days later, after a rapid march down the defile and across the fertile Valencian plain, Moncey presented himself before the gates of its capital, and demanded its surrender. But he found that there was still much fighting to be done: a small column of regulars had arrived in the city, though the main army from Almanza was still far distant. With three battalions of old troops and 7,000 Valencian levies, Don José Caro, a naval officer and brother of the celebrated Marquis of La Romana, had taken up a position four miles outside the city at San Onofre. He had covered his front with some irrigation canals, and barricaded the road. Moncey had to spend the twenty-seventh in beating back this force into Valencia, not without some sharp fighting.