2º. It was consoling that a rich and flourishing town had not fallen into the power of the enemy; but at the same time a want of real nerve in the Spanish insurrection was visible. The kingdoms of Murcia and Valencia acted in concert, and contained two of the richest sea-port towns in the Peninsula; their united force amounted to thirty thousand organised troops, exclusive of the armed peasants in various districts; and the populace of Valencia were deeply committed by the massacre of the French residents. Here then, if in any place, a strenuous resistance was to be expected; nevertheless, marshal Moncey, whose whole force was at first only eight thousand French, and never exceeded ten thousand men, continued marching and fighting without cessation for a month, during which period he forced two of the strongest mountain passes in the world, crossed several large and difficult rivers, carried the war into the very streets of Valencia; and being disappointed of assistance from Catalonia, extricated his division from a difficult situation, after having defeated his opponents in five actions, killed and wounded a number of them, equal in amount to the whole of his own force, and made a circuit of above three hundred miles through a hostile and populous country, without having sustained any serious loss, without any desertion from the Spanish battalions incorporated with his own, and what was of more importance, having those battalions much increased by desertions from the enemy. In short, the great object of the expedition had been attained, the plan of relieving Zaragoza was entirely frustrated, and the organization of an efficient Spanish force retarded. 3º. Moncey could hardly have expected to succeed against the town of Valencia; for to use Napoleon’s words, “_a city, with eighty thousand inhabitants, barricadoed streets, and artillery placed at the gates, cannot be_ TAKEN BY THE COLLAR.” 4º. General Frere’s useless march to Requeña was very hurtful to the French; and the duke of Rovigo was rated by the emperor for his want of judgment upon the occasion; “it was a folly,” the latter writes, “to dream of reinforcing Moncey; because if that marshal failed in taking the city by a sudden assault, it became an affair of artillery; and twenty thousand men, more or less, would not enable him to succeed.” “Frere could do nothing at Valencia, but he could do a great deal at San Clemente; because from that post he could support either Madrid or general Dupont.”