The general finding now that his presence was necessary in the Junta, to forward the formation and organization of the army, left Eroles, his second in command, to complete the plan, which had already so far succeeded that the French, dreading a second attack, and weakened by this last loss, retired precipitately from Igualada, Monserrate, and Casa-Masana, to Barcelona. Eroles no sooner knew that Igualada had been evacuated ♦OCT. 10.♦ than he marched against Cervera. The French, when they saw him approaching, withdrew from the city into the university, which they had fortified; and a body of 500 foot and thirty horse, which had just arrived from Lerida to their support, turned back to provide for its own safety. D. Luis de Creeft and D. Jose Casas were sent to pursue them, while Eroles with one ten-pounder prepared to attack buildings which had been designed by their founders for far other purposes than those of war. This single gun threw down part of the house in which it was planted; but Eroles turned the accident to advantage; for while he affected to be replacing it, in order to deceive the enemy, the gun was moved to another situation, from whence it opened its fire, anew, and its carriage was rattled along so as to make them believe that more artillery was about to be brought to bear. Their commandant soon hung out the white flag, and 630 men were made prisoners of war, at an expense to the Catalans of only ten in killed and wounded. ♦CORREGIDOR OF CERVERA TAKEN AND PUNISHED.♦ This conquest set free a considerable territory, which, ever since the loss of Tarragona, had been at the enemy’s mercy. Creeft, meantime, with a force inferior to that he was pursuing, followed the column which was retreating to Lerida, and which on its way was joined by the garrison of Tarrega, another post abandoned by the French in their alarm. In this pursuit the corregidor of Cervera was taken attempting to escape with the enemy; a man who had joined the French, and, with the malevolence of a traitor, persecuted his own countrymen. He had invented a cage in which to imprison those who did not pay their contributions, or were in any way obnoxious to him: it was so constructed as to confine the whole body, leaving the head exposed to be buffeted and spit upon; and sometimes this devilish villain anointed the face of his victim with honey to attract the flies and wasps. “Tomorrow,” said Eroles in his dispatches, “the señor corregidor will go out to parade the streets in this same cage, where the persons who have suffered this grievous torment may behold him: _Discite justitiam moniti, et non temnere Divos!_” The capture of this man was worth as much, in the feelings of the people, as all the preceding success. ♦EROLES ENTERS FRANCE AND LEVIES CONTRIBUTIONS.♦