In this manner affairs dragged on until the 28th of October; but then Macdonald (O’Donnel having meantime captured Swartz and raised the Ampurdan) returned to Gerona, whereby Suchet’s hopes of commencing the siege were again baffled. And, as it was at this moment that the assembling of the Cortez gave a new vigour to the resistance in Spain and the regency’s plan of sending secret juntas, to organize and regulate the proceedings of the partidas, was put in execution, the activity of those bands became proportioned to the hopes excited, and the supplies and promises thus conveyed to them. One of those secret juntas composed of clergy and military men having property or influence in Aragon, endeavoured to renew the insurrection formerly excited by Blake in that province, and for this purpose sent their emissaries into all quarters, and combined their operations with Mina. They, also, diligently followed a plan of secretly drawing off the provisions from Aragon, with a view to starve the French, and general Carbajal, one of the junta, joining Villa Campa, assumed the supreme command on that side; while captain Codrington, at the desire of Bassecour, carried a Valencian detachment by sea to Peniscola to fall on the left flank of Suchet, if he should attempt to penetrate by the coast-road to Valencia. Thus, at the moment when Macdonald returned to the Ampurdan, the Aragonese became unquiet, the partidas from Navarre and the district of Montalvan and Calatayud, closed in on Suchet’s communications, the Valencians came up on the one side, towards Uldecona, and on the other Garcia Navarro moving from Taragona with a division again assumed the position of Falcet. [Sidenote: 1810. Nov.] To check this tide of hostility the French general resolved first to crush the insurrection project, and for this purpose detached seven battalions and four hundred cavalry against Carbajal. Chlopiski, who commanded them, defeated the Spaniards the 31st at Alventoza on the route to Valencia, taking some guns and ammunition. Nevertheless Villa Campa rallied his men in a few days on the mountain of Fuente Santa, where he was joined by Carbajal, and having received fresh succours renewed the project of raising the Aragonese. But Chlopiski again defeated him the 12th of November, and the Spaniards fled in confusion towards the river Libras, where the bridge breaking many were drowned. The French lost more than a hundred men in this sharp attack, and Chlopiski then returned to the blockade, leaving Kliski with twelve hundred men to watch Villa Campa’s further movements.