During the siege of Tortoza, the concentration of the third and seventh corps exposed Aragon and Catalonia to desultory enterprises at a moment when the Partidas, rendered more numerous and powerful by the secret juntas, were also more ardent, from the assembly of the Cortez, by which the people’s importance in the struggle seemed at last to be acknowledged. Hence no better test of their real influence on the general operations can be found than their exploits during that period, when two French armies were fixed as it were to one spot, the supplies from France nearly cut off by natural difficulties, the district immediately around Tortoza completely sterile, Catalonia generally exhausted, and a project to create a fictitious scarcity in the fertile parts of Aragon diligently and in some sort successfully pursued by the secret juntas. The number of French foraging parties, and the distances to which they were sent were then greatly increased, and the facility of cutting them off proportionably augmented. Now the several operations of Villa Campa during the blockade have been already related, but, although sometimes successful, the results were mostly adverse to the Spaniards; and when that chief, after the siege was actually commenced, came down, on the 19th December 1810, towards the side of Daroca, his cavalry was surprised by colonel Kliski, who captured or killed one hundred and fifty in the village of Blancas. The Spanish chief then retired, but being soon after joined by the Empecinado from Cuença, he returned in January to the frontier of Aragon, and took post between Molina and Albaracin. At this period Tortoza had surrendered, and Musnier’s division was spread along the western part of Aragon, wherefore Suchet immediately detached general Paris with one column from Zaragoza, and general Abbé with another from Teruel, to chase these two Partidas. Paris fell in with the Empecinado near Molina, and the latter then joined Villa Campa, but the French general forced both from their mountain position near Frias, where he was joined by Abbé; and they continued the pursuit for several days, but finding that the fugitives took different routes, again separated; Paris followed Villa Campa, and Abbé pursued the Empecinado through Cuença, from whence Carbajal and the secret junta immediately fled. Paris failing to overtake Villa Campa, entered Beleta, Cobeta, and Paralejos, all three containing manufactories for arms, which he destroyed, and then returned; and the whole expedition lasted only twelve days, yet the smaller Partidas, in Aragon, had taken advantage of it to cut off a detachment of fifty men near Fuentes: and this was followed up on the side of Navarre by Mina, who entered the Cinco Villas in April, and cut to pieces one hundred and fifty _gens-d’armes_ near Sadava. However Chlopiski pursued him also so closely, that he obliged his band to disperse near Coseda in Navarre. [Sidenote: 1811. April.]