4º. General Abbé was placed at Teruel with five battalions, three hundred cuirassiers, and two pieces of artillery, to watch Villa Campa, and the Valencian army which was again in the field. 5º. Alcanitz and Morella were occupied by fourteen hundred men, whereby that short passage through the mountains from Aragon to Valencia was secured; and from thence the line to Caspe, and down the Ebro from Mequinenza to Tortoza, was protected by twelve hundred men; Tortoza itself was garrisoned by two battalions, the forts at the mouth of the Ebro were occupied, and four hundred men were placed in Rapita. This line of defence from right to left was fourteen days march, but the number of fortified posts enabled the troops to move from point to point, without much danger; and thus the army of the great and rich province of Valencia, the division of Villa Campa, the Partidas of New Castile and Navarre, including Mina and the Empecinado, the most powerful of those independent chiefs, were all set at nought by twelve thousand French, although the latter had to defend a line of one hundred and fifty miles. Under cover of this feeble chain of defence, Suchet besieged a strong city which had a powerful garrison, an open harbour, a commanding squadron of ships, and a free communication, by sea, with Cadiz, Valencia, Gibraltar, and the Balearic islands. It is true that detachments from the army of the centre, acting on a large circuit round Madrid, sometimes dispersed, and chased the Partidas that threatened Suchet’s line of defence, but at this period, from circumstances to be hereafter mentioned, that army was in a manner paralysed. While the French general’s posts were being established, he turned his attention to the arrangements for a permanent supply of food. The difficulty of procuring meat was become great, because he wisely refrained from using up the sheep and cattle of Aragon, lest the future supply of his army should be anticipated, and the minds of the people of that province alienated by the destruction of their breeding flocks; to avoid this, he engaged contractors to furnish him from France, and so completely had he pacified the Aragonese, through whose territories the flocks were brought, and with whose money they were paid for, that none of his contracts failed. But as these resources were not immediately available, the troops on the right bank of the Ebro made incursions after cattle beyond the frontiers of Aragon; and when Harispe returned from Barcelona, eight battalions marched upon a like service up the higher valleys of the Pyrenees.