During this time the Valencians had been plunged in disputes, Bassecour was displaced, and Coupigny appointed in his stead. The notables, indeed, raised a sum of money for recruits, but Coupigny would not take the command, because the Murcian army was not also given to him; and that army, although numerous, was in a very neglected state, and unable to undertake any service. However, when Tortoza fell, the Valencians were frightened, and set about their own defence. They repaired and garrisoned the fort of Oropesa, and some smaller posts on the coast, along which runs the only artillery-road to their capital: they commenced fortifying Murviedro, or rather the rock of Saguntum overhanging it, and they sent fifteen hundred men into the hills about Cantavieja. These last were dispersed on the 5th of April by a column from Teruel; and on the 11th another body having attempted to surprise Uldecona, which was weakly guarded, were also defeated and sabred by the French cavalry. These different events, especially the destruction of the gun-manufactories, repressed the activity of the partizans, and Suchet was enabled to go to Lerida, in the latter end of March, to receive the soldiers to be drafted from the seventh corps: Macdonald himself could not, however, regain Barcelona without an escort, and hence seven thousand men marched with him on the 29th of the month, not by Igualada, which was occupied in force by Sarsfield, but by the circuitous way of Manresa; for neither Macdonald nor Suchet wished to engage in desultory actions with the forces destined for the siege. Nevertheless Sarsfield, getting intelligence of the march, passed by Calaf with his own and Eroles’ troops, and waited on Macdonald’s flanks and rear near the Cardenera river, while a detachment, barricading the bridge of Manresa, opposed him in front. This bridge was indeed carried, but the town being abandoned, the Italian soldiers wantonly set fire to it in the night; an act which was immediately revenged, for the flames being seen to a great distance, so enraged the Catalans, that in the morning all the armed men in the district, whether regulars, Miguelettes, or Somatenes, were assembled on the neighbouring hills, and fell with infinite fury upon Macdonald’s rear, as it passed out from the ruins of the burning city. The head of the French column was then pushing for the bridge of Villamara, over the Llobregat, which was two leagues distant; and as the country between the rivers was one vast mountain, Sarsfield, seeing that the French rear stood firm to receive the attack of the Somatenes, while the front still advanced, thought to place his division between, by moving along the heights which skirted the road. Macdonald, however, concentrated his troops, gained the second bridge, and passed the Llobregat, but with great difficulty and with the loss of four hundred men, for his march was continually under Sarsfield’s fire, and some of his troops were even cut off from the