neither this place not that part of the country were threatened, but because that position covers Valencia on the side of Aragon. There was neither unity in counsel nor in command; ... each of these three provinces had its own army, acting upon its own views, and of course all acting without effect. ♦MORTALITY IN TARRAGONA.♦ And yet St. Cyr had mistaken the character of the Spaniards when he supposed that the battle of Valls would convince them of their moral inferiority to the conquerors. Far from it; it had even raised the spirit of the Catalans; and the Central Junta spake of it in their proclamations as one of those defeats in which ill fortune brought with it no dishonour, but rather hope and confidence. It proved to the Spanish army far more disastrous in its consequences than in itself; they were crowded into Tarragona, and the French commander, by sending thither several thousand sick and wounded from the hospitals at Reus, increased or perhaps occasioned an infectious disease which broke out among them, and was aggravated by the uncleanliness arising from want of linen, the neglect of those precautions, and the destitution of all those means without which armies cannot be kept in health. We reconcile ourselves to the slaughter of a battle or a siege, because such destruction is the business of war, and the men engaged in it take their chance bravely for the evils which they are inflicting upon others; ... ♦1809. MARCH.♦ but there is somewhat at which the heart revolts in making a league with pestilence or famine, however much the system of war may require and justify it. St. Cyr knew that disease was doing his work in Tarragona; officers as well as men were dying in such numbers, that if he could have kept them thus shut up within the seat of the contagion, more would perish in a month than he could have hoped to destroy in four pitched battles. He determined therefore ♦ST. CYR, 133.♦ to remain in the plain of Tarragona as long as his army could be supplied with a quarter of a ration. ♦ST. CYR REMOVES TO THE PLAIN OF VICQ.♦