In the mean time, Frere, who had quitted San Clemente upon the 26th, made his way to Requeña; there he received intelligence of Caulaincourt’s success, and that Moncey had passed the Xucar; whereupon, retracing his steps, he returned to San Clemente, his troops being wearied, sickly, and exhausted by these long and useless marches in the heats of summer. Moncey now re-organized his forces, and prepared artillery and other means for a second attempt against Valencia; but he was interrupted by Savary, who, alarmed at the advance of Cuesta and Blake, recalled Frere towards Madrid, and Moncey, justly offended that Savary, inflated with momentary power, should treat him with so little ceremony, broke up from San Clemente, and likewise returned by the way of Ocaña to the capital. OBSERVATIONS. [Sidenote: Appendix, No. 7.] 1º. The result of marshal Moncey’s campaign being published by the Spaniards as a great and decisive failure, produced extravagant hopes of final success; a happy illusion if the chiefs had not partaken of it, and pursued their wild course of mutual flattery and exaggeration, without reflecting that in truth there was nothing very satisfactory in the prospect of affairs. Moncey’s operation was in the nature of a moveable column; the object of which was to prevent the junction of the Valencian army with the Aragonese. The attempt upon the town of Valencia was a simple experiment, which, if successful, would have produced great effects, but having failed, the evil resulting was but trifling in a military point of view. Valencia was not the essential object of the expedition, and the fate of the general campaign depended upon the armies in Old Castile.