Seville the base of his movements, and the storehouse of his army, was fortified with temporary citadels, which, the people being generally submissive, were tenable against desultory attacks. From this point he maintained his line of communication, with the army of Portugal, through Estremadura, and with Madrid through La Mancha; and from this point he sustained the most diversified operations on all parts of a circle, which embraced the Condado de Niebla, Cadiz, Grenada, Cordoba, and Estremadura. The Niebla, which furnished large supplies, was the most vulnerable point, because from thence the allies might intercept the navigation of the river Guadalquivir, and so raise the blockade of Cadiz; and the frontier of Portugal would cover the assembly of the troops until the moment of attack. Moreover, expeditions from Cadiz to the mouth of the Guadiana were as we have seen frequent. Nevertheless, when Blake and Ballesteros had been driven from Ayamonte, in July and August, the French were masters of the Condado with the exception of the castle of Paymago, wherefore Soult, dreading the autumnal pestilence, did not keep more than twelve hundred men on that side. The blockade of the Isla was always maintained by Victor, whose position formed an irregular crescent, extending from San Lucar de Barameda on the right, to Conil on the left, and running through Xeres, Arcos, Medina, Sidonia, and Chiclana. But that marshal while thus posted was in a manner blockaded himself. In the Isla, including the Anglo-Portuguese division, there were never less than sixteen thousand troops, who, having the command of the sea, could at any moment land on the flanks of the French. The Partidas, although neither numerous nor powerful, often impeded the intercourse with Seville; the Serranos of the Ronda and the regular forces at Algeziras issuing, as it were, from the fortress of Gibraltar, cut the communication with Grenada; and as Tarifa was still held by the allies, for general Campbell would never relinquish that important point, the fresh supplies of cattle, drawn from the great plain called the Campiña de Tarifa, were straitened. Meanwhile the expeditions to Estremadura and Murcia, the battles of Barosa and Albuera, and the rout of Baza, had employed all the disposable part of the army of the south; hence Victor’s corps, scarcely strong enough to preserve its own fortified position, could make no progress in the attack of the Isla. This weakness of the French army being well known in Cadiz, the safety of that city was no longer doubtful, a part of the British garrison therefore joined lord Wellington’s army, and Blake as we have seen carried his Albuera soldiers to Valencia.