No province had as yet suffered so little as Valencia; the people were proud of the spirit and signal success with which they had repelled Marshal Moncey from the walls of their capital; their country was the most fertile and most populous part of Spain; men were in abundance, wealth was not wanting, and there were more appearances of activity and preparation than were any where else to be seen. In every town and village militia and guerilla bands were formed; about 50,000 were thus embodied, the greater part armed with fire-arms; and besides these there were 11,000 troops of the line; but with this force nothing was undertaken. Good service might have been rendered on one side by harassing the enemy’s communications in La Mancha; and scenes of more important action were open both in Arragon and Catalonia, ... even on their own borders; but the will, courage, and means were inefficient, for want of capacity in their leaders. They waited for the enemy upon their own ground, in hope and in confidence, but without foresight or system. General Doyle endeavoured to convince the provincial government that no time should be lost in fortifying the important points of Morella, Oropesa, and Murviedro. He inferred from some of Suchet’s movements an intention to establish himself in the latter place, which would have cut off the communication between Catalonia and the rest of Spain, and have given him command of the Huerta de Valencia, and of the whole country to the very gates of Tortosa. But in the confidence and confusion which prevailed alike in the people and in the officers and the rulers, nothing was done; and so far were they from storing Tarragona, and forming a depôt at Peñiscola, as the importance of the crisis required, that Tortosa itself had not at this time provisions for a week’s consumption. They relied upon the defence of their frontier, upon their own numbers and resources, upon fortune and Providence; for themselves, they were ready to meet the danger manfully whenever it should come, ... but as for any system of defence, to fortune and Providence that seemed to be left. ♦THE FORCE ON THE VALENCIAN FRONTIER DISPERSED.♦