Monzon was at this time stored for seven months, Mequinenza for eighteen, and Lerida for two years. By the recovery of these places, 40,000 inhabitants were saved from the miseries of a siege, and 6000 Spanish troops were rendered disposable for other service. The navigation of the Ebro, the Cinca, and the Segre was restored, and the most fertile part of Catalonia delivered, Aragon secured, and a direct communication opened with Lord Wellington’s army. The next business was to secure the garrisons who had been thus deceived, amounting to more than 2300 men. As soon as Eroles had taken measures for preserving order in Lerida, which, under such circumstances, required extraordinary care, he set out with two battalions of infantry and 200 horse in the rear of the French, Colonel Don Josef Carlos having gone before them with an equal force. The intention was to intercept them in the defiles of Igualada; but they made a forced march, and frustrated this part of the plan. Upon this, lest they should succeed in effecting a junction with the troops in Barcelona, part of the blockading army was sent for; and when they arrived at Martorell, they found themselves surrounded there. General Lamarque was then informed that he had been deceived by a stratagem of war; and that nothing remained for him but to lay down his arms, give up the public treasure, and to submit to fortune. Eroles expressed his personal esteem for the General, and his sorrow that the misadventure should have fallen upon him; he promised that the officers should be sent to Tarragona, and receive every attention which could alleviate their imprisonment; and he observed, that the General himself could not but in his heart approve a stratagem by which so much bloodshed and misery was prevented, as must have attended the reduction of these places, whether by siege or by blockade. Lamarque upon this asked if Van Halen was a Spaniard; and Bourgeois remarked upon the answer, that in truth he had rendered a great service to his country. The former said he had been dreaming for the last five days, and hardly knew if he were yet awake.[7]