When Tortoza fell, that general’s moveable columns traversing the borders of Castile, the eastern districts of Valencia, a portion of Navarre, and all the lower province of Catalonia, protected the collection of supplies, and suppressed the smaller bands which swarmed in those parts; hence, when the siege of Taragona was confided to the third corps, the magazines, at Lerida and Mora, were already full; and a battering train was formed at Tortoza, to which place the tools, platforms, and other materials, fabricated at Zaragosa were conveyed. Fifteen hundred draft horses, the greatest part of the artillery-men and engineers, and ten battalions of infantry were also collected in that town, and from thence shot and shells were continually forwarded to San Felippe de Balaguer. This was a fine application of Cæsar’s maxim, that war should maintain itself, for all the money, the guns, provisions, and materials, collected for this siege, were the fruits of former victories; nothing was derived from France but the men. It is curious, however, that Suchet so little understood the nature and effects of the English system of finance, that he observes, in his memoirs, upon the ability with which the ministers, made Spain pay the expense of this war by never permitting English gold to go to the Peninsula; he was ignorant, that the paper money system had left them no English gold to send. The want of forage in the district of Tortoza, and the advantage of the carriage-road by the Col de Balaguer, induced the French general to direct his artillery that way; but his provisions, and other stores, passed from Mora by Falcet and Momblanch to Reus, in which latter town he proposed to establish his stores for the siege, while Mora, the chief magazine, was supplied from Zaragoza, Caspe, and Mequinenza. Divers other arrangements, of which I shall now give the outline, contributed to the security of the communications, and enabled the army of Aragon to undertake the great enterprize for which it was destined. 1º. Detachments of gens-d’armes and of the frontier guards of France, descending the high valleys of Aragon, helped to maintain tranquillity on the left bank of the Ebro, and occupied the castles of Venasque and Jaca, which had been taken by Suchet in his previous campaign. 2º. The line of correspondence from France, instead of running as before through Guipuscoa and Navarre, by Pampeluna, was now directed by Pau, Oleron, and Jaca to Zaragoza; and in the latter city, and in the towns around it, four or five battalions, and a proportion of horsemen and artillery, were disposed, to watch the Partidas from Navarre and the Moncayo mountains. 3º. Four battalions with cavalry and guns, were posted at Daroca under general Paris, whose command extended from thence to the fort of Molina, which was armed and garrisoned.