On the same day, the Junta informed the people of Seville that the pass of Almaden had been forced; but the danger, they said, was not so great as terror might perhaps represent it. The division stationed there, having been far too weak for maintaining the post, was gone to join Alburquerque, who threatened the flank of the enemy; the Duke del Parque was advancing by rapid marches; their junction would form an army superior to the French force at Almaden, which would thus be checked in its career, or driven back; while Areizaga’s army occupied the other passes, and was ready to hasten to the defence of Seville, whither also the two dukes would repair in case of necessity. This, they said, was the true state of things, which the government had neither exaggerated nor dissembled. They had issued orders for marching off all the men in arms who could be collected to join the armies, and for supplying them; and they called upon the people of this capital to lay aside all terror, to suffer no confusion or tumult, but to display the same courage and calmness which they had so honourably manifested in times of greater danger. For the French, they said, depended more upon the distrust and disunion which they hoped to create than upon their own strength. ♦INSTRUCTIONS TO ALBURQUERQUE.♦ While the Junta thus admonished the people to be calm, they themselves were bewildered by the danger which pressed upon them. The series of their instructions to Alburquerque, from the time when they first clearly saw that Andalusia was seriously threatened, exhibits their incapacity and their wavering councils in the most extraordinary manner. A month before the attack was made, Alburquerque warned them that the pass of Almaden was threatened, and explaining in what manner such a movement on the part of the enemy would threaten his own position, observed how expedient it was to call his troops from Truxillo and the advanced posts upon the Tagus. Their answer was, that if the enemy made the movement which he apprehended, he must endeavour to prevent them, by taking a good position, where he might fight them to advantage; meantime the force at Truxillo must not be lessened, and he must not forget to leave a competent garrison in Badajoz. By another dispatch they enjoined him to act offensively and with energy, to destroy the plans of the French for penetrating by the road of La Plata. Another ordered him to hold himself ready for marching as soon as he should receive instructions; and had he been a man of less decision, it would thus have suspended his movements till those instructions arrived. His army was thus upon the Guadiana when the passes were forced, and the enemy moved a column along the road of La Plata, to occupy Guadalcanal, and thus prevent him from entering Andalusia. This purpose Alburquerque understood, and made his own movements so judiciously, that when they expected to take easy possession of Guadalcanal, they found him there with the main body of