The movement of the second corps, after quitting Monforte, being along the edge of the Portuguese frontier, and constantly threatening the northern provinces, drew marshal Beresford, as I have before stated, from Castello Branco; and all the regular Portuguese forces capable of taking the field were immediately collected by him round Almeida. The duke del Parque was at Ciudad Rodrigo; and as that part of Romana’s force, which had been cut off by Soult’s movement upon Gudina, fell back upon Ciudad Rodrigo, not less than twenty-five thousand men, Portuguese and Spaniards, were assembled, or assembling, round those two fortresses: and the change of situation thus brought about in the armies on the northern line was rendered more important by the events which were simultaneously taking place in other parts, especially in Aragon, where general Blake, whose army had been augmented to more than twenty thousand men, inflated with his success at Alcanitz, advanced to Ixar and Samper. Suchet, himself, remained close to Zaragoza, but kept a detachment, under general Faber, at Longares and Villa Muel, near the mountains on the side of Daroca. Blake, hoping to cut off this detachment, marched, himself, through Carineña, and sent general Arisaga, with a column, to Bottorita; the latter captured a convoy of provisions on the Huerba; but Faber retired to Plasencia, on the Xalon. The 14th of June, the advanced guards skirmished at Bottorita; and Blake, endeavouring to surround the enemy, pushed a detachment to Maria, in the plain of Zaragoza. The excitement produced in that city, and in Aragon generally, by this march, was so great, that Suchet doubted if he should not abandon Zaragoza, and return towards Navarre. The peasantry had assembled on many points in the mountains around, and it required great vigilance to keep down the spirit of insurrection in the city itself. The importance of that place, however, made him resolve to fight a battle, for which the near approach of Blake, who came on in the full confidence that the French general would retreat, furnished an opportunity which was not neglected. BATTLE OF MARIA. The 14th, after some skirmishing, the Spanish army was concentrated at Bottorita. [Sidenote: Suchet’s Memoirs.]