Blake replied, “Yesterday, perhaps before noon, I might have consented to change the position of the army, and evacuate the city, for the sake of saving its inhabitants from the horrors of a bombardment; but the first twenty-four hours which your excellency has employed in setting it on fire have taught me how much I may depend upon the constancy of the people, and their resignation to every sacrifice which may be necessary, in order that the army may maintain the honour of the Spanish name. Your excellency may consequently continue your operations; and as to the responsibility before God and man, for all the misfortunes which the defence of the place occasions, and all those which war brings with it, it cannot attach to me.” This ♦SUCHET EXPECTS A DESPERATE RESISTANCE.♦ reply led Suchet to apprehend he should have to encounter a Zaragozan resistance. “The general,” said he in his dispatches, “is no longer the master; he is obliged to obey the decisions of a fanatical Junta, composed of seven persons, five of whom are Franciscan monks, and the other two butchers of Valencia; the same who, about three years ago, directed the massacre of 400 French families that were ordered out of the country. I therefore continue my operations with vigour against the place, which at this present moment counts a population of 200,000 souls. Five of the principal chiefs of the insurgents are now within its walls, with all their property, and whatever fanatics or madmen are yet left in Spain. The engineers will open their works under the walls. The artillery raises formidable batteries; and notwithstanding the rains, it will in a few days be able to make a breach in the last enclosure. The army is waiting with impatience for the attack, and if we should have to make a war of houses, as at Zaragoza, it will be rendered of short continuance, by the ability and rapidity of our miners.”