As early as the middle of August the enemy had blown up the Castle of Niebla, and retired from the whole county of that name; and on the very day that they broke up from before Cadiz, Camp Marshal D. Juan de la Cruz Mourgeon, in concert with Colonel Skerrett, judged it advisable to make a forward movement on Seville, and for this purpose to force the corps of observation at San Lucar la Mayor, consisting of 350 cavalry and 200 foot. Brigadier-General Downie was second in command of the Spanish force. This officer was born in Stirlingshire, and commenced his military career by accompanying Miranda in his first expedition to Venezuela, an adventure for which those foreigners who were taken in it paid the forfeit of their lives. He joined Sir J. Moore’s army as Assistant Commissary-General, was with Sir Arthur Wellesley in the campaign of 1809, and in the ensuing year, having entered the Spanish service, raised, with the approbation of his own government, the loyal legion of Extremadura and was appointed Colonel-Commandant thereof. The legion was armed and clothed by the British Government, and he revived in it the old Spanish costume, ... or something resembling it; and several of the young nobility are said to have entered it on that account. By this and by his character, which in some respects resembled their own, he made himself popular among the Spaniards; insomuch that the Marquesa de Conquista, the representative of the Pizarros, presented him with the sword of her ancestor, the famous, or infamous, conqueror of Peru.