“In Catalonia, every thing seems to have gone wrong since the fall of Rosas. The Spaniards are in considerable force, yet are dispersed and panic-struck whenever the enemy appears.”--“The applications for supplies are unlimited; they want money, arms, and ammunition, of which no use appears to be made when they get them.”--“In the English papers, I see accounts of successes, and convoys cut off, and waggons destroyed, which are not true. What has been done in that way has been by the boats of our frigates, which have, in two or three instances, landed men and attacked the enemy with great gallantry. The Somatenes range the hills in a disorderly way, and fire at a distance, but retire on being approached.”--“The multitudes of men do not make a force.” Add to this the Spanish historian Cabane’s statements that the Migueletes were always insubordinate, detested the service of the line, and were many of them armed only with staves, and we have the full measure of the Catalans’ resistance. 11º.--It was not the vigour of the Catalans, but of the English, that in this province, as in every part of the Peninsula, retarded the progress of the French. Would St. Cyr have wasted a month before Rosas? Would he have been hampered in his movements by his fears for the safety of Barcelona? Would he have failed to besiege and take Tarragona and Tortosa, if a French fleet had attended his progress by the coast, or if it could even have made two runs in safety? To lord Collingwood, who, like the Roman Bibulus, perished of sickness on his decks rather than relax in his watching,--to his keen judgement, his unceasing vigilance, the resistance made by the Catalans was due. His fleet it was that interdicted the coast-line to the French, protected the transport of the Spanish supplies from Valencia, assisted in the defence of the towns, aided the retreat of the beaten armies; in short, did that which the Spanish fleets in Cadiz and Carthagena should have done. But the supreme junta, equally disregarding the remonstrances of lord Collingwood, the good of their own country, and the treaty with England, by which they were bound to prevent their ships from falling into the hands of the enemy, left their fleets to rot in harbour, although money was advanced, and the assistance of the British seamen offered, to fit them out for sea. Having now related the principal operations that took place in the eastern and central provinces of Spain, which were so suddenly overrun by the French emperor; having shown that, however restless the Spaniards were under the yoke imposed upon them, they were unable to throw it off; I shall turn to Portugal, where the tide of invasion still flowing onward, although with diminished volume, was first stayed, and finally overpowered and forced back, by a counter flood of mightier strength. BOOK VI. CHAPTER I. TRANSACTIONS IN PORTUGAL. [Sidenote: Appendix, No. 3, section 1.]