at the same time with the new garrison, while a false attack was made in another quarter, and entered with them; others found their way through a dry aqueduct, which the Spaniards had neglected either to destroy or properly to secure, and Fort Olivo was thus taken, some 800 Spaniards being made prisoners, and more than as many slain. For the information which led to this carnage a price had been bargained, and the money[27] was paid. ♦GENERAL CONTRERAS.♦ At this time General Senen de Contreras arrived at Tarragona in a frigate from Cadiz. He had distinguished himself when a young man, by abridging the voluminous Military Reflections of the Marquis de Santa Cruz, and was thought to have studied his profession so well that he was sent by Charles III. on a travelling mission, to examine into the military institutions of other countries. On this service he was employed four years, visiting England, France, Prussia, Austria, and Russia, and in the campaign of 1788 he served against the Turks. In the war against revolutionary France he acted as aide-de-camp to General Urretia in the Pyrenees; and in the present contest had afforded a timely support to the Portugueze in Alemtejo and Algarve, ... had been in the retreat of the central army, gaining some partial successes in those disastrous days, ... and afterwards, in some critical situations and some important stations, supported the reputation which he had obtained. He landed now at Tarragona in an inauspicious hour, and had immediately a command entrusted to him at the gate opposite Fort Olivo, where he passed the first unhappy night after his arrival in receiving the fugitives. On the following morning Campoverde assembled his chief officers and the deputies of the superior Junta: it was agreed that an effort for raising the siege should be made in the field; and while the general in chief should be thus ♦CONTRERAS APPOINTED TO COMMAND IN THE CITY.♦ employed, Contreras was appointed to command in the city. The danger of the place, and the numerous defects of its incomplete works, were obvious to all military men; and to no one more clearly than to the general who now unwillingly took upon himself the charge of defending it. He represented ♦JUNE.♦ that he was neither acquainted with the troops and officers whom he was to command, nor with the civil authorities with whom he should have to act, nor with the people on whose energetic aid he must rely, nor with the place itself (of which not even a plan could be produced), having, in fact, none of that information which might be considered indispensable for such a command. With this responsibility, however, Contreras was left; and Campoverde ♦CAMPOVERDE GOES OUT TO ACT IN THE FIELD.♦ departed by sea with his staff, and so many officers (every man seeming to act at his own pleasure), that of the regiments in the garrison only two were left with their own colonels or proper commanders. He issued a proclamation