Tortosa was not quite so indispensable in reality as it looked on the map. For though it would have been a point of absolutely vital importance to the Spaniards, if they had been compelled to conduct all their operations by land, it must not be forgotten that the British command of the Mediterranean gave an alternative route for communication between north and south, which the French could never touch. Long after Tortosa had fallen, troops were repeatedly and easily transferred from Catalonia to Valencia, and vice versa, despite of the fact that Suchet had completely mastered all the land routes. Indeed it may be said that the sea passage from one to the other was always preferable to the route through Tortosa, for the country about both banks of the lower Ebro was rugged, barren, and thinly peopled, and Tortosa itself--a decayed city of 10,000 inhabitants--was the only place in this region which presented resources of any kind for an army on the march. It is, moreover, twenty miles from the sea, and not a port; strange to say, there is no decent harbour at the mouth of the Ebro. Though the river is intermittently navigable for a good many miles in its lower course, its estuary has never been a point through which trade discharges itself to the sea. The commerce of southern Catalonia goes to Tarragona, sixty miles to the north of the Ebro mouth, that of Northern Valencia to Peniscola, thirty miles to its south. Tortosa, indeed, was more important to the French than to the Spaniards, since Napoleon’s armies were tied down to land routes, and, if ever they were to make a lodgement in Valencia, would find the possession of that city and its bridge absolutely necessary, if they were to keep in touch with the troops left in Catalonia.