before his departure, promising to return in the course of six or eight days with an army, and make an effort, which was to be seconded by the garrison, for raising the siege. The new commander had no expectation that this promise would be performed; but the garrison and the inhabitants looked with confidence to its fulfilment, ... for the Spaniards are a hopeful people, and, all circumstances considered, they had on no former occasion had such reasonable ground for hope. They had lost about 3000 men during the siege, which they supposed to be a less loss than the French had sustained, and they could more easily be reinforced. If, indeed, the same means of defence had been resorted to here as in Zaragoza and Gerona, Tarragona, defective as its works were, must have been impregnable; it was secure against famine; it was in no danger of pestilence; and its numbers might always have been kept up. The enemy had broken the aqueduct, expecting to distress the besieged by reducing them to use the brackish water of their wells; but in this he was deceived, for no distress was occasioned by it. The very sight of the English squadron, and the constant communication with it, and its aid on all opportunities, contributed greatly to the confidence which was felt. Contreras did not partake that confidence; his measures, however, were such as might support it. He established a military police; he formed the inhabitants into companies; and he employed the women in such services as they were capable of performing. On their part, indeed, a spirit was manifested such as the time required; no danger deterred them from administering refreshments to the soldiers at their stations, nor from bearing away the wounded: it was sometimes necessary to restrain their ardour, but on no occasion did it need excitement. The military chest was almost exhausted; the commander replenished it by levying a contribution upon those merchants who had retired to Villa Nueva with their effects. He gave ear to no overtures from the enemy of whatever kind. When Suchet proposed a suspension of hostilities, that the dead might be interred who lay in heaps around Fort Olivo, in sight from the ramparts of the city, even that proposal was rejected; and in that hot season of the year, and on that rocky soil where graves could not be dug, the French, for their own sakes, were compelled as long as the siege continued to consume the slain by fire. ♦FORT FRANCOLI ABANDONED.♦