Meanwhile Villa Campa, whose division had been re-equipped from the supplies given by captain Codrington, concerted his operations with the partida chiefs Duran and Campillo; and their combined forces being eight thousand strong, having advanced from different quarters on the right bank of the Ebro, invested Calatayud, and sought to carry off grain, which was now very scarce. This delayed the invasion of Valencia, for Suchet would not undertake it until he had again secured the frontier of Aragon, and many of his battalions were then escorting the prisoners to France. But when they returned, he directed numerous columns against the partidas, and at the same time troops belonging to the army of the centre came down by the way of Medina Celi; whereupon the Spaniards retired to their fastnesses in the mountains of Soria on one side, and in those of Albaracin on the other. Four thousand of the Valencian army had meanwhile marched against Rapita and Amposta, for the former post was re-established after the fall of Taragona, but although Habert, marching out of Tortoza with seven or eight hundred men, defeated them with a considerable loss, the embarrassments of the third corps were not removed; for while these successes were obtained on the right of the Ebro the Catalans began to harass the posts between Lerida and Montserrat. On the 9th of August the Somatenes fell on some Italians placed in Monistrol, and were with difficulty repulsed; and a few days after, a convoy coming from Igualada to Montserrat, was attacked by fifteen hundred insurgents, and was unable to proceed until Palombini arrived with a battalion and dislodged the Catalans, but he lost more than a hundred of his own men in the action. Suchet finding from these events that he could not safely withdraw his main body from Catalonia until the fall of Figueras should let loose the army of the upper province, sent fresh troops to Montserrat, and ordered Palombini to move with his garrison to aid Macdonald in the blockade; that place had, however, surrendered before Palombini had passed Barcelona.