The whole division reached Mataro on the 10th, Pineda on the following day; from thence a party under the Colonel of Engineers, D. Honorato de Fleyres, was dispatched to take post at the _Ermida_ of S. Grau, while O’Donell proceeded to Tordera. Before he left Pineda he received intelligence that the squadron had commenced its operations auspiciously. Doyle had landed at Bagur, taken forty-two prisoners there, and with the assistance of the Cambrian’s boats destroyed the battery and carried off the guns. Being now about to leave the garrison of Hostalrich in his rear, O’Donell sent off a detachment towards that fort, and another toward Gerona, that they might lead the French in both places to suppose he was reconnoitring with a view to invest them. On the 13th he reached the village of Vidreras, falling in on the way thither with an howitzer and a field-piece which had been landed for him at Calella. At Vidreras the two last detachments which he had sent off rejoined him, having performed their service with great success, the one party bringing off nine prisoners from the suburbs of Hostalrich, whom they had taken in the houses there, the other eleven from under the walls of Gerona. This long movement had been undertaken in the hope of cutting off the French who occupied S. Feliu de Guixols, Palamos, and La Bisbal. The larger force was at La Bisbal under General Schwartz; and that he might have no opportunity to reinforce the two weaker points, it was O’Donell’s intention to attack him there, at the same time that Fleyres, dividing his detachment, should attack both the other garrisons. From Vidreras to La Bisbal is a distance which in that country, where distances are measured by time, is computed at eight hours, the foot-pace of an able-bodied man averaging usually four miles in the hour; but at this time much depended on celerity. At daybreak on the 14th he renewed his march with the cavalry regiment of Numancia, sixty hussars, and an hundred volunteer infantry, who thought themselves capable of keeping up with the horse. The regiment of Iliberia followed at a less exhausting pace; and the rest of the division, under Campoverde, went by way of Llagostera to post itself in the valley of Aro, as a body of reserve, and cut off the enemy in case they should retire from the points which they occupied. O’Donell proceeded so rapidly that he performed the usual journey of eight hours in little more than four, the infantry keeping up with the horse at a brisk trot the whole time. As soon as they reached La Bisbal, Brigadier Sanjuan, with the cavalry, occupied all the avenues of the town, to prevent the enemy, who upon their appearance had retired into an old castle, from escaping; some cuirassiers who were patrolling were made prisoners; the Spanish infantry took possession of the houses near the castle, and from thence and from the church tower fired upon it. They rung the Somaten, and the peasants who were within hearing came to join them.