Marshal Suchet had not been more successful in machinations of another kind. Before the battle of Castalla, an Italian regiment in the Anglo-Sicilian army had been corrupted, and would have betrayed its post in an attack concerted with that view, if a timely discovery had not been made. A scheme also had been formed for delivering Alicante into his hands; but this also was detected, and three of his emissaries suffered death for it at Alcoy. Frey Assensio Nebot, known as a Guerrilla chief, by the name of _El Frayle_, the Friar, had more than any other partizan annoyed the French in Valencia. His party was well organized, and provided with a regularity which was seldom to be found in the regular Spanish armies: so rigorous were the measures employed against him, that women were put to death for supplying him with means and intelligence; and at length it was affirmed, that three criminals who had been condemned to capital punishment obtained their lives, and the promise of a good reward, on condition of presenting themselves to the Friar as volunteers, and taking an opportunity to assassinate him. Mr. Tupper, who had been the British consul at Valencia, and whose zealous services were never wanting to the common cause, obtained information of this villany, and the Friar was thus put upon his guard. ♦LORD WELLINGTON OPENS THE CAMPAIGN.♦ Lord Wellington was now prepared to open the campaign, and, for the first time, with such means as enabled him to act in full confidence of success. If the Anglo-Sicilian army should not achieve any signal service, he was yet assured that it would give sufficient employment to Suchet, so that the Intruder could look for no support from that side. The British force under his command consisted of 48,000 effective men; the Portugueze of about 28,000; the Galician of 18,000. The enemy were not inferior in number, and could more surely rely upon the whole of ♦MAY.♦ their troops; but the change in their Emperor’s fortune and in their own had been such, that they looked only to a defensive campaign, and trusted to their strong position on the Douro. In the middle of May Lord Wellington put his troops in motion. The cavalry which had wintered in the neighbourhood of Coimbra began their movement at the end of April: they went by the way of Porto to Braga, where they rested some days, and proceeding to Braganza, reached that place, which was the point of union for the left of the army, on the 22d of May. The left of the army under Sir Thomas Graham crossed the Douro in Portugal, between Lamego and the frontier. The siege of Ciudad Rodrigo in the preceding year could not have been undertaken unless that river had been rendered navigable far above the point to which the Portugueze barks formerly ascended: it had now been opened as high as to the mouth of the Agueda; and boats had been quietly collected at different points, without exciting any suspicion that they were ♦THE LEFT OF THE