this brave garrison; “if we are successful, the detail will give hope, and confidence, and joy to every true patriot; if we are unfortunate, it will excite a different feeling, but it will never produce shame or dismay.” ♦1810. MARCH.♦ Verdier, who now commanded the besieging force, addressed a new summons to the governor at the time of O’Donnell’s retreat to Tarragona, representing that movement as the consequence of a total defeat. “The wreck of the Spanish army,” he said, “was seeking a moment’s shelter in Tarragona and Tortosa, vigorously pursued by Augereau in person, who would immediately commence the siege of both places. The siege of Lerida was already far advanced, and its fall inevitable. Hostalrich was a fort of no other use than as it interrupted the communication between Gerona and Barcelona; and this purpose it no longer effected, the French having made a new road, and communicating freely between those cities. The object, therefore, for defending it, no longer existed; and longer resistance, instead of adding to the governor’s glory, would be called a vain obstinacy, draw upon him the reproaches of posterity, and make him responsible for the blood which should be shed.” Considering these circumstances, the French general summoned him to surrender, and offered him the honours of war. The Marshal Duke of Castiglione, Augereau, he added, revoking his former declaration, had authorized him to propose these terms. “You will do well, sir,” he continued, “to accept them with glory; if you delay, they will without doubt be refused to you; and you will then be obliged to suffer conditions, which, however rigorous they may appear, are dictated by justice, seeing that a protracted resistance is neither justified by honour nor by reason.” Estrada replied, by simply referring him to his former determination, and to the conduct of the garrison.