There are two routes leading from Merida and Badajos to Seville: 1º. The Royal Causeway, which passes the Morena by Zafra, Los Santos, Monasterio, and Ronquillo. 2º. A shorter, but more difficult, road, which, running westward of the causeway, passes the mountains by Xeres de los Cavalleros, Fregenal, and Araceña. These parallel routes, have no cross communications in the Morena, but on the Estremaduran side, a road runs from Xeres de los Cavalleros to Zafra, and on the Andalusian side, from Araceña to Ronquillo. When, therefore, Mortier retired, Ballasteros marched from Olivenza to Xeres de los Cavalleros, and being joined by Contreras, their united corps, amounting to ten thousand men, gained the Royal Causeway by Zafra, and, on the evening of the 29th of March, came up with Gazan, and fought an undecided action; but the next day, the Spaniards being repulsed, Ballasteros retired to Araceña and Contreras to the high mountains above Ronquillo. From Araceña, Ballasteros marched to Huerva, within a few leagues of Seville, but Gerard’s division drove him back to Araceña, and defeated him there; yet again entering the Condado de Neibla, he established himself at Zalamea de Real on the Tinto river. [Sidenote: Mr. Stuart’s Correspondence. MSS.] Meanwhile, Romana detached a force to seize Merida, and cut the communication of the fifth corps with Reynier, but that general, marching with eight thousand men from Torremocha, passed through to Medellin before the Spaniards arrived, and pushed troops, the 2d of April, into the Morena, intending to take Contreras in rear, while Gazan attacked him in front; and this would have happened, but that O’Donnel, immediately threatened Merida, and so drew Reynier back. Nevertheless, Contreras was attacked by Gazan, at Pedroche, and so completely defeated, that he regained Zafra in the night of the 14th, with only two thousand men, and Ballasteros also, assailed by a detachment from Seville, retired to Araceña. The 20th, Reynier marched to Montijo, and O’Donnel retired from Caceres, but his rear guard was defeated at La Rocca the 21st, and his division would have been lost, if Mendizabel and Hill also had not come to his aid, when Reynier declining a general action, retired to Merida. The insurrection in the Alpuxaras was now quelled, the Valencians remained inactive, Joseph re-entered Madrid, Soult assumed the government of Andalusia, and Mortier returned to Estremadura. While on the Spanish side, Contreras was displaced, and Imas, his successor, advanced to Ronquillo, in Mortier’s rear; Ballasteros remained at Aroche; Hill returned to Portalegre; and Romana encamped, with fourteen thousand men, near Bajados, where a Spanish plot was formed to assassinate him. It was discovered, but the villain who was to have executed the atrocious deed escaped.