The supreme junta immediately repaired to Tarragona, declared Palacios their president, and created him commander-in-chief, subject, however, to the tutelar saint Narcissus, who was appointed generalissimo of the forces by sea and land, and the ensigns of authority, with due solemnity, placed on his coffin. The first object with Palacios was to re-establish the line of the Llobregat. To effect this, the count of Caldagues, with eighteen hundred men and four guns, marched from Tarragona in two columns, the one moving by the coast way to San Boy, and the other by the royal road, through Villafranca and Ordal. Caldagues, in passing by the bridge of Molino del Rey, established a post there, and then ascending the left bank, fixed his quarters at Martorel, where colonel Baget joined him with three thousand migueletes of the new levy. [Sidenote: Lord Collingwood’s despatches.] [Sidenote: St. Cyr.] The Llobregat runs within a few miles of Barcelona, but the right bank being much the steepest, the lateral communications easier, and the heights commanding a distinct view of every thing passing on the opposite side; the line taken by Caldagues was strong, and the country in his rear rough, full of defiles, and very fitting for a retreat after the loss of a battle. General Lechi, thus hemmed in on the west, was also hampered on the north, for the mountains filling all the space between the Llobregat and the Besos, approach in tongues as near as two and three miles from Barcelona; and the somatenes of the Manresa and Valls districts occupied them, and skirmished daily with the French outposts. Beyond the Besos, which bounds Barcelona on the eastward, a lofty continuous ridge extending to Hostalrich, runs parallel to, and at the distance of two or three miles from the sea coast, separating the main and the marine roads, and sending its shoots down to the water’s edge. This ridge also swarmed with somatenes, who cut off all communication with Duhesme, and lay in leaguer round the castle of Mongat, in which were eighty or ninety French. The Cambrian and the Imperieuse frigates blockaded the harbour of Barcelona; and, on the 31st of July, lord Cochrane having brought his vessel alongside of Mongat, landed his marines, and, in concert with the somatenes, took it, blew up the works, and rolled the rocks and ruins down in such a manner as to destroy the road. Thus, at the very moment that Duhesme commenced the siege of Gerona, he was cut off from his own base of operations, and the communication between Figueras and general Reille’s division, was equally insecure, for the latter’s convoys were attacked the 28th of July, the 3d of August, and so fiercely on the 6th, that a Neapolitan battalion was surrounded, and lost one hundred and fifty men.