The Marshal had by the last week in January pushed Harispe’s division to Xativa, beyond the Xucar, and Habert’s to Gandia near the sea-coast. These 9,000 men were all his disposable force for a further advance: Valencia had to be garrisoned; Musnier’s division had gone north, to cover the high-road as far as Tortosa and the Ebro; some of the Italians were sent to besiege Peniscola. Suchet might, no doubt, have pushed Habert and Harispe further forward towards Alicante, but he had many reasons for not doing so. That fortress had been proved--by Montbrun’s raid--to be in a posture of defence: besides its garrison there were other Spanish troops in arms in the neighbourhood. To the forces of Freire, Obispo, Villacampa, and Bassecourt, there was added the newly-formed brigade of General Roche, an Irish officer lent by the British government to the Spaniards, who had been drilling and disciplining the cadres of the battalions handed over to him[78], till they were in a better condition than most of the other troops on this coast. The muster-rolls of the ‘united 2nd and 3rd armies,’ as these remnants were now officially styled, showed, on February 1, 1812, 14,000 men present, not including Villacampa’s division, which was moving off to its old haunts in Aragon. By March 1 this figure had risen to 18,000, many deserters who had gone home after the fall of Valencia having tardily rejoined the ranks of their battalions. Over 2,000 cavalry were included in the total--for nearly the whole of Blake’s squadrons had escaped (not too gloriously) after the disastrous combats on December 26, 1812. [78] These were Chinchilla, 2nd of Murcia, and a new locally raised battalion called 2nd of Alicante. He was in March handed over also Canarias, Burgos, and Ligero de Aragon, which had belonged to Freire till that date.