Internal dissensions succeeded to external troubles. Palafox arrogantly censured Castaños, and a cabal, of which general Coupigny appears to have been the principal mover, was formed against the latter. The junta, exasperated that Castaños had not already driven the enemy beyond the frontier, encouraged his traducers, and circulated slanderous accusations themselves, as if his inaction alone enabled the French to remain in Spain. Don Francisco Palafox, brother of the captain-general, and a member of the supreme junta, was sent to head-quarters avowedly to facilitate, but really to interfere with, and control the military operations. He arrived at Alfaro on the 29th, accompanied by Coupigny and the conde de Montijo, a turbulent, factious man, shallow and vain, but designing and unprincipled. Castaños waited upon the representative of the government, and laid before him the denuded state of the army, and the captain-general, Palafox, coming up from Zaragoza, a council of war was held at Tudela on the 5th of November. The rough manner in which the troops were driven from the left bank of the Ebro was not sufficient to divert the attention of the Spanish generals from the grand project of gaining the rear of the French army. The council agreed to persevere, although certain advice was received that the enemy were strengthened by thirty thousand fresh men. Deeming it, however, fitting, that Blake should act the first, it was resolved to await his time, but, as an intermediate operation, it was agreed that the army of the centre, leaving six thousand men at Calahorra, and a garrison at Tudela, should cross the Ebro and attack Caparosa. French parties were, however, pushed as far as Voltierra, and in the skirmishes which ensued, the conduct of the Castillian battalions was discreditable. [Sidenote: Ibid.] Joseph Palafox returned to Zaragoza, and the deputy separated himself from Castaños. The loss sustained by desertion and the previous combats was considerable, but some Murcian levies, and a part of the first and third Andalusian divisions joined the army of the centre, which now mustered twenty-six thousand infantry, and nearly three thousand cavalry under arms, with fifty or sixty pieces of artillery. The positions of the army extended from Calahorra, by Haro, to Tudela. La-Peña held the first town with five thousand men; Grimarest and Caro commanded eight thousand at the second; and head-quarters, with thirteen thousand five hundred men, were fixed in the last. Cartoajal remained with eleven hundred in the Sierra de Nalda, and eight hundred were posted at Ansejo. [Sidenote: Graham’s Correspondence. MS.] [Sidenote: Castaños’ Vindication]. [Sidenote: Graham’s Correspondence. MS.]