In July the British force, in Cadiz, was increased to eight thousand five hundred men, and Sir Richard Keats arrived to take the command of the fleet. The enemy, intent upon completing his lines, and constructing flotillas at Chiclana, Santa Maria, and San Lucar de Barameda, made no attacks, and his works, have been much censured, as ostentatiously extended, and leading to nothing. This is however a rash criticism; for the Chiclana camp was necessary to blockade the Isla, and, as the true point for offensive operations, was at the Troccadero, the lines of Puerto Real and Santa Maria, were necessary to protect that position, to harass the fleet, to deprive the citizens of good water, which, in ordinary times, was fetched from Puerto Maria, and finally to enable the flotilla, constructing at San Lucar, to creep round the coast. The chances from storms, as experience proved, almost repaid the labour, and it is to be considered that Soult contemplated a serious attack upon Cadiz, not with a single corps, generally weaker than the blockaded troops, but, when time should ripen, with a powerful army. Events in other parts of the Peninsula first impeded, and finally frustrated this intention, yet the lines were, in this view, not unnecessary or ostentatious. Neither was it a slight political advantage, that the duke of Dalmatia should hold sway in Seville for the usurper’s government, while the National Cortes, and the Regency, were cooped up in a narrow corner of the province. Moreover the preparations at Matagorda constantly and seriously menaced Cadiz, and a British division was necessarily kept there, for the English generals were well assured, that otherwise, some fatal disaster would befall the Spaniards. Now if a single camp of observation at Chiclana had constituted all the French works, no mischief could have been apprehended, and Graham’s division, consisting of excellent soldiers would have been set free, instead of being cooped up, without any counterbalance in the number of French troops at the blockade; for the latter aided indirectly, and at times directly, in securing the submission of Andalusia, and if not at Cadiz, they must have been covering Seville as long as there was an army in the Isla. CHAPTER VI.