On the day of that failure, the enemy were joined at Breviesca by the army of observation from Alava, and the remainder of the army of the north. This force considerably outnumbered that which Lord Wellington could bring against them, and in cavalry they were greatly superior. They made a show of coming on in front; and in consequence, the covering army moved up near Quintana-palla, and was joined by most of the besieging corps. On the 20th they advanced in force, drove in the pickets, and obtained possession of Quintana-palla; but Sir Edward Paget drove them back, and recovered the place, and they then desisted from their offensive movements. Intelligence which Lord Wellington had reason to expect arrived on the following day, that the united forces of the enemy in the south were in motion. Ballasteros, who had hitherto, if with little success and no great ♦BALLASTEROS REFUSES TO ACT UNDER THE BRITISH COMMANDER.♦ skill, displayed the most indefatigable activity, had in a mood of sullen resentment at the appointment of Lord Wellington to the chief command, ceased to molest the enemy. He had hung upon the flanks of Soult’s army, and harassed it as far as Granada, with more effect than in any of his former enterprises, because the enemy were dispirited and on their retreat; but upon receiving instructions to obey Lord Wellington’s orders, he took no farther measures for annoying the French, refused to act in concert with Sir Rowland Hill, according to the plan which the British Commander had laid down, and remained obstinately inactive at the most critical time. At length he published a letter to the minister at war, saying, that from the time when the French treacherously seized the four fortresses, he had spared no efforts for raising the nation, and that no person had contributed more to the event of the second of May than himself, without which events, Spain would not have been in its present state. From that time he had never laid aside his arms, and had resisted all solicitations which the foreigners had made him to the prejudice of his country, ... inexorable in being a Spaniard and nothing but a Spaniard, and that his countrymen should be so, like him: this having been his principle, without any regard to his own fortune, he had always found the nation ready to support it in every sense. “And now he was surprised,” he said, “to see that the English General, Lord Wellington, was by a resolution of the Cortes appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Spanish armies; those armies, thousands upon thousands of whose companions in arms were in the grave, having fallen in defending the reputation of their country, were observing what would be his conduct on this occasion; and he should not consider himself worthy of being an Aragonese, if he did not represent to the government, that he could not condescend to a determination which disparaged the Spanish name.” He spoke of the English as a nation to