To march directly to Barcelona was neither an easy nor an advantageous movement. That city could only be provisioned from France; and, until the road was cleared, by the taking of Gerona and Hostalrich, no convoys could pass except by sea, yet, to attack these places with prudence, it was essential to get possession of Rosas, not only to secure an intermediate port for French vessels passing with supplies to Barcelona, but to deprive the English of a secure harbour, and the Spaniards of a point from whence they could, in concert with their allies, intercept the communications of the French army: and even blockade Figueras, which, from the want of transport, could not be provisioned at this period. These considerations having determined St. Cyr to commence by the siege of Rosas, he repaired to Figueras, in person, the 6th of November; and, on the 7th, general Reille being charged to conduct the operation, after a sharp action, drove in the Spaniards before the place and completed the investment. SIEGE OF ROSAS. This town was but a narrow slip of houses built along the water’s edge, at the head of the gulph of the same name. The citadel, a large irregular pentagon, stood on one side of the town, and, on the other, the mountains that skirt the flat and swampy plain of the Ampurdan, rose, bluff and rocky, at the distance of half a mile. An old redoubt was built at the foot of these hills, and, from thence to the citadel, an entrenchment had been drawn to cover the houses. Hence, Rosas, looking towards the land, had the citadel on the left hand, the mountains on the right, and the front covered by this entrenchment. The roadstead permitted ships of the line to anchor within cannon-shot of the place; and, on the right hand coming up the gulph, a star fort, called the Trinity, crowned a rugged hill about a mile and a quarter distant from the citadel, the communication between it and the town being by a narrow road carried between the foot of the hills and the water’s edge. The garrison of Rosas consisted of nearly three thousand men, two bomb-vessels, and an English seventy-four (the Excellent), were anchored off the town, and captain West, the commodore, reinforced the garrisons of the Trinity and the citadel with marines and seamen from these vessels; but the damages sustained in a former siege had been only partially repaired; both places were ill-found in guns and stores, and the Trinity was commanded at the distance of pistol-shot from a point of the mountains called the Puig Rom.