In May the French prisoners, cutting the cables of two hulks, drifted in a heavy gale to the French side of the bay; and the boats sent against them being beat off, by throwing cold shot from the decks, above fifteen hundred men saved themselves, in despite of the fire from the allied fleet, and from Puntales, which was continued after the vessels had grounded, although the miserable creatures, thus struggling for life, had been treated with horrible cruelty, and, being all of Dupont’s or Vedel’s corps, were prisoners only by a dishonourable breach of faith. Meanwhile, in Cadiz, disorder was daily increasing. The Regency having recalled Cuesta to their military councils, he published an attack on the deposed Central Junta, and was answered so as to convince the world, that the course of all parties had been equally detrimental to the state. Thus fresh troubles were excited. The English general was hampered by the perverse spirit of the authorities, and the Spanish troops were daily getting more inefficient from neglect, when the departure of Albuquerque enabled Blake to take the chief command in the Isla, and his presence produced some amelioration in the condition and discipline of the troops. At his instance, also, the Municipal Junta consented, although reluctantly, that the British engineers should commence a regular system of redoubts for the defence of the Isla. [Sidenote: General Graham’s Despatches. MSS.] English reinforcements continued to arrive, and four thousand Spaniards, from Murcia, joined the garrison, or, rather, army now within the lines; but such was the state of the native troops, and the difficulty of arranging plans, that hitherto the taking of Matagorda had been the only check given to the enemy’s works. It was, however, necessary to do something; and, after some ill-judged plans of the Regency had been rejected by Graham, general Lacy was embarked, with three thousand infantry and two hundred cavalry, to aid the armed peasants, or Serranos, of the Ronda. These people had been excited to arms, and their operations successfully directed by captain Cowley and Mr. Mitchel, two British artillery-officers, sent from Gibraltar, and general Campbell offered to reinforce Lacy, from Gibraltar, if he would attack Malaga, where there were twenty thousand males fit to carry arms. The French were only two thousand, and cooped in the citadel, a Moorish castle, containing but twelve guns, and dependent for water on the town, which was itself only supplied by aqueducts from without. Lacy rejected this enterprise, but demanded that eight hundred men, from Gibraltar, should make a diversion to the eastward, while he, landing at Algesiras, moved on Ronda; and, this being assented to, the English armament sailed under the command of general Bowes. Lacy made good his movement upon Ronda the 18th of June; but the French, having fortified it, were too strong at that point, or, rather, Lacy, a man of no