But the Spaniards were not idle. The Somatenes were once more in force and in activity; and the left of the Catalan army, which had not been engaged in the defeat, harassed the enemy on their right and in the rear. When Reding had formed his unfortunate plan of operation, 10,000 Miquelets and Somatenes, under Wimpffen, had been sent beyond the Llobregat to take advantage of any insurrection that might be attempted in Barcelona. These irregular troops, when they had no longer to depend upon the combinations of the Commander-in-chief, but were left to themselves to carry on their own kind of warfare in their own way, began again to acquire that superiority which such warfare assured them; Chabran’s division, harassed by repeated assaults, fell back successively from Igualada upon Llacuna, S. Quinto, and Villa Franca; and the Spaniards in that quarter, full of hope as ever, resumed the blockade of Barcelona. For a time they cut off St. Cyr’s communication with that city, and their position excited no trifling uneasiness in Duhesme and Lechi, who well knew the disposition of the inhabitants. But the English squadron, the sight of which always afforded hope to the Barcelonans, was compelled by a heavy gale to stand out to sea: and Chabran’s division, recovering the ground and the reputation which it had lost, once more broke up the irregular blockade. St. Cyr meantime maintained his position as long as it was possible to feed his army there; he then determined upon moving it into the little plain of Vicq, where he expected to find corn, and to remain till the harvest should be ripe in the environs of Gerona, where he foresaw that in the course of the siege his army must be established. The battle of Valls had not given that army the confidence which their General was so desirous they should possess; there was in fact an impression upon them which they had never felt in any other service; they knew that they were not the objects of mere military hostility, in which there is neither enmity nor ill will between man and man, but that they had the hatred and the curses of the whole country. Their removal now they looked upon as a retreat, and they knew what were the dangers of a retrograde movement in Catalonia. St. Cyr better understood how little able Reding was to take advantage of such a movement at that time; and for the purpose of showing his men that he could defy the Spaniards, while at the same time he was careful not to wound the feelings of a General whom he respected, he sent an officer to Tarragona with a flag of truce, and a letter stating that, as circumstances rendered it necessary for him to draw nearer the French frontier, he should depart from Valls the following day at noon, and if General Reding would send a detachment thither at that time, the hospital which had been formed in that town, and which it was of such consequence for him to preserve, considering the number of his sick, should be consigned to him as it stood. It