Blake, in the orders which he issued on the following day, said that he was dissatisfied with certain corps, and with some individuals, and that as soon as their cowardice was juridically proved, he would punish them with all the rigour of national justice. But in general he declared, that the conduct both of officers and men, and especially that of the division under Zayas, had been satisfactory. “For himself,” he said, “he was sufficiently accustomed to the vicissitudes of war, not to be surprised at the ill success of the action, and he was not the less confident of being able to repel the invasion of the enemy.” But Blake did not feel the confidence which he affected. He confessed afterwards, that after the fall of Tarragona, the loss of Valencia was to be apprehended; but that the brilliant manner in which the defence of Murviedro was begun, the forces which its defence gave time for assembling, and the spirit of the officers and troops, had given well-founded and flattering hopes, which continued till this battle extinguished them. From that moment, he said, nothing but what was gloomy presented itself; only some political revolution, or other extraordinary event, which should deprive Suchet of his expected reinforcements, could save Valencia; and his plan was to defend the lines which had been formed for its protection as long as possible, without entirely compromising the safety of his army. ♦VALENCIA.♦ Valencia stands in an open plain, upon the right bank of the Guadalaviar, about two miles from the sea. Its old ramparts were at this time in good preservation; but works of antiquity are of little use against the implements of modern war. They were thick walls of brick-work, flanked with round towers at equal distances, and without moats. The river flows at the foot of the walls the whole extent of the eastern side, separating the city from its suburbs; the suburbs, being of later date than the town, are more open and commodiously built, and contain a larger population; including them, the number of inhabitants is estimated at 82,000. The adjoining country is in the highest state of cultivation; and the city, from its history, its remains of antiquity, and the customs of the people, is one of the most interesting and curious in the whole Peninsula. In no part of Spain, nor perhaps of Christendom, were there so many religious puppet-shows exhibited; nowhere were the people more sunk in all the superstitions of Romish idolatry, and, if the reproaches of even the Spaniards themselves may be credited, there was as little purity of morals as of faith. It is a proverbial saying, that in Valencia the meat is grass, the grass water, the men women, and the women[32] nothing. But if the Valencians were, as a censurer has said of them, light equally in mind and body, the cause has been wrongly imputed to their genial and delicious climate; the state of ignorance to which a double despotism