Had the Catalans been equally successful at Barcelona, all their losses would have been more than compensated; the success which they had gained excited the greatest exultation, not only in Catalonia, but throughout the whole of Spain. Te Deum was sung at Tarragona, and the town was illuminated three successive nights. In Madrid the Spaniards could scarcely dissemble their joy. In the Cortes the news was welcomed as the happiest which had been received since the battle of Baylen; and the Regency called upon the people for fresh contributions and fresh efforts to improve this unexpected success, the first of its kind which had been obtained during the war. The army which had achieved it, they said, was in want of every thing; and the two Regents who were in Cadiz (Blake being absent) set the example themselves by contributing each a month’s salary. It was, indeed, a success which, if the Spaniards had been able, or their allies alert enough to have improved it, might have been a far more momentous advantage than the victories of Barrossa and Albuhera. The first report appeared incredible to the French generals; when it was confirmed, ♦SUCHET REFUSES TO SEND THE TROOPS WHICH MACDONALD REQUIRED FROM HIM.♦ Macdonald called upon Suchet to send him by forced marches that part of the army of Catalonia which he had placed under his command; unless this were done, he said, Upper Catalonia was lost: for neither Rosas, Gerona, nor Hostalrich, were provisioned, and the consequences of this cruel event were incalculable; and Maurice Mathieu, who commanded in Barcelona, instructed the governor of Lerida to be ready with provisions for these troops upon their way, not doubting but that Suchet would see the necessity of the measure in which he was called upon to concur. But when that general had recovered from the first grief and astonishment which the news excited, he considered that part of these troops being employed in an expedition among the mountains, and the others along the Ebro to protect its navigation, from twenty to five and twenty days must elapse before they could receive orders from Zaragoza, assemble at Lerida, and march from thence by Barcelona to Figueras; during which interval the Spaniards would have done all they could do for storing and garrisoning the place. All the French could do was to blockade it with the troops which were nearest at hand: those from a distance would arrive too late, and there would then be the difficulty of supporting them in a part of the country stripped of its resources. If the Spaniards should fail in endeavouring to throw sufficient supplies into the fortress which they had surprised, the unexpected success with which they were now so greatly elated would in the end be little to their advantage: it would even facilitate his operations against Tarragona, for Campoverde would doubtless move his army towards the Ampurdan, instead of endeavouring to interrupt the investment of