The general’s hopes were, as usual, frustrated by the misconduct of those in whom he trusted, and by the ♦DEC. 26.♦ rapidity of Suchet’s movements. At daybreak the two bridges were completed, three divisions of infantry and the whole of the horse passed, and drove back the Spanish cavalry; and the French getting possession of the sluices, turned the waters of the canals into the river, and thus deprived Valencia of one means of defence on which she had relied. Another division crossed the river between Quarte and Mislata to occupy the Spaniards in front. Here Zayas again displayed that resolution, and that military skill, which made him more, perhaps, than any other man at this time the hope of the Spanish armies; but the troops on the left, where Mahy commanded, gave way, as they had done in the former action; they abandoned the intrenchments at S. Onofre, ... the vital points of the line, ... without even waiting for an attack, and retired from Manisses almost upon the first fire. Mahy, with about 5000 men, reached Alcira, abandoning the artillery; the rest of the division was unaccounted for; the loss in killed could have been little or none, and the French made no boast of the numbers which they had taken; they who were missing then must mostly have dispersed in their flight, the unavoidable consequence when men have lost all confidence in their leaders. The investment of Valencia was completed before the close of the day; and Suchet, again turning against the Spaniards those advantages of which they had so little availed themselves, secured himself everywhere by the canals and fosses with which the ground was intersected. Still the lines remained which the Valencians had for three years been employed in constructing; but after the labour, and the cost which had been expended upon them, when the hour of need came they were found, or thought to be, untenable. Blake, with the troops who were without the city, might still have effected a retreat; but he wished to save as much of the army as possible, and to prepare the people for a catastrophe which they had never looked on to, and to which he perceived they would not be induced to submit, till they felt the uttermost necessity. Such, indeed, was their disposition, that men like Santiago Sass, and D. Pedro Maria Ric, and such women as the Countess Burita, would have protected them better than Blake with his army and all his lines and defences. ♦THE ARMY ENDEAVOURS TO ESCAPE.♦