When the troops of the seventh corps were incorporated with the army of Aragon, the preparations for the siege of Taragona, were pushed forward with Suchet’s usual activity; but previous to touching upon that subject it is necessary to notice the guerilla warfare, which Villa Campa, and others, had carried on against Aragon during the siege of Tortoza. This warfare was stimulated by the appointment of the secret juntas, and by the supplies which England furnished, especially along the northern coast, from Coruña to Bilbao, where experience had also produced a better application of them than heretofore. The movements of the English squadrons, in that sea, being from the same cause better combined with the operations of the Partidas, rendered the latter more formidable, and they became more harassing to the enemy as they acquired something of the consistency of regular troops in their organization, although irregular in their mode of operations: for it must not be supposed, that because the guerilla system was in itself unequal to the deliverance of the country, and was necessarily accompanied with great evils, that as an auxiliary it was altogether useless. The interruption of the French correspondence was, as I have already said, tantamount to a diminution on their side of thirty thousand regular troops, without reckoning those who were necessarily employed to watch and pursue the Partidas; this estimate may even be considered too low, and it is certain that the moral effect produced over Europe by the struggle thus maintained, was very considerable. [Sidenote: Appendix, No. I. Section 2.]