This terminated the first series of operations in the fourth epoch of the war; operations which, in three weeks, had put the French in possession of Andalusia and Southern Estremadura, with the exception of Gibraltar and Cadiz in the one, and of Badajos, Olivenza, and Albuquerque in the other province. Yet, great as were the results of this memorable irruption, more might have been obtained; and the capture of Cadiz would have been a fatal blow to the Peninsula. From Andujar to Seville is only a hundred miles, yet the French took ten days to traverse that space; a tardiness for which there appears no adequate cause. The king, apparently elated at the acclamations and seeming cordiality with which the towns, and even villages, greeted him, moved slowly. He imagined that Seville would open her gates at once; and thinking that the possession of that town, would produce the greatest moral effect, in Andalusia, and all over Spain, changed the first judicious plan of campaign, and marched thither in preference to Cadiz. The moral influence of Seville, was however transferred, along with the government, to Cadiz; and Joseph was deceived in his expectations of entering the former city as he had entered Cordoba. When he discovered his error there was still time to repair it by a rapid pursuit of Albuquerque, but he feared to leave a city with a hundred thousand people in a state of excitement upon his flank; and resolving first to reduce Seville, he met indeed with no formidable resistance, yet so much of opposition, as left him only the alternative of storming the town or entering by negotiation. The first his humanity forbad; the latter cost him time, which was worth his crown, for Albuquerque’s proceedings were only secondary: the ephemeral resistance of Seville was the primary cause of the safety of Cadiz. The march by which the Spanish duke secured the Isla de Leon, is only to be reckoned from Carmona. Previous to his arrival there, his movements, although judicious, were more the result of necessity than of skill. After the battle of Ocaña, he expected that Andalusia would be invaded; yet, either fettered by his orders or ill-informed of the enemy’s movements, his march upon Agudo was too late, and his after-march upon Guadalcanal, was the forced result of his position; he could only do that, or abandon Andalusia and retire to Badajos.